Any form of literal Millennialism, regardless of the suffix one attaches to it, and regardless of whether, in the case of Pre-Millennialism, whether it be “Historical” or “Dispensational”, carries the same DNA as “pure” Dispensationalism.
The idea that God will save all the Jews “one day”, bar those who are already dead, is absurd.
The context of Romans 11 is only exclusively and singularly ethnic if you ignore a host of passages throughout Scripture, including John 4 (especially v.21 ), John 18: 36, Galatians 4, and virtually all of Hebrews, to name but a fraction of them, which irrefutably point to the paramount importance of the HEAVENLY City, of which earthly Jerusalem was but a foreshadowing - and one which has been wholly, utterly, definitively obsolete since God judged physical Isrsel with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, complete with the razing to the ground of its idolized, PHYSICAL, made WITH [man’s] hands Temple by the Roman Prince and son of Emperor Vespasian, Titus.
I understand your position. Given that it was the de facto position of the church fathers, including the very disciples of the disciples, it's a bad habit for me to break :)
And, if it helps, and just so you know: I did not inherit it, per se; I came round to it slowly after many years mired in Futurist eschatology.
I some respects I am grateful for that, as becoming un-mired has forced me to wrestle with Scripture and history to a degree I could never have anticipated.
as you know, Jessica, I tend to agree with you on this. Actually, it’s probably stronger than that. I think I really agree with you on this.
I’m sure that makes you wonder why I don’t get into it with JD on the show.
I definitely want to get deeper into this discussion with J.D. but obviously we had a completely different fish to fry on this particular episode, and J.D. was already worked up. 😁
Absolutely - I wholly understand, and felt as insulted on JD’s behalf as he rightly felt. I have great respect for him, and, knowing something of his sincerity, labour, and his passion for the Gospel, I am in no doubt that, once he has had the chance to dive all the way to the ocean floor on the subject of Millennialism, he will take a flying leap over the proverbial fence and stand firmly with the Amillennial full-on Historicists (not to be confused with Praeterists, despite some overlap).
I am so grateful to him and Jeremy for getting together as a sturdy ox team in this battle, despite their few differences, motivated as they both rightly are by horror at the appalling bloodshed that adherence to Dispensationalism, whether overt or covert, has caused as it has been used to harness the Zionist secular Luciferian agenda.
Romans 11:26? I actually think that is ethnic, it’s just not saying at some point in the far future God will save a nation of Jews.
I am certainly not anticipating any kind of “end time ingathering of the jews”. As you said, this idea is not taught anywhere in the NT, and if Paul believed it, he would surely have said something in Galatians after chapters 3&4.
The fascination with Israel and EndTimes™️ is pretty much an Americanism, it doesn’t hold that much sway in Europe, and even less in the rest of the world.
In truth I don’t think they were even God’s chosen people, not in the sense that The Church is. That might sound wild, but when someone says they are “chosen”, the obvious question is “chosen for what?” - not for eternal life - read the Mosaic law, nothing about eternal life (that’s why the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection).
Remember that Jacob two wives; Leah (the first) and Rachel (the second). He loved Rachel and did not love Leah in the same way.
Are you both aware of just what a total fake “Christian” Amir Tsarfati is? He should not even come anywhere near your radar as an even remotely trustworthy, qualified, authority.
I had several friends who remain so obsessed with Tsarfati that they become extremely defensive when his authenticity was challenged; and one has even resorted to accusing me of being under the influence of “the Antichrist” for daring to call out her idolatry of him.
"Below is an historically recorded letter of 1489 in response to Chemor a Jewish Rabbi of Arles in Provence, who wrote to the Grand Sanhedrin, which had its seat in Constantinople, for advice, as the people of Arles were threatening the synagogues. What should the Jews do? This was the reply" (down near the bottom of the document):
I think this shows something the devil uses perhaps as a main strategy, and that is something like; keep your friends close, your enemies closer.
I really wish those that seem to overlook things like the geocide happening in Gaza, the Ukraine war, the corruption in our government, etc., that is directly linked to Israel, and those connected with it, would not overlook the following;
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40 ESV
Jesus did not qualify those commandments for only certain people, and those commandments supersede all others. To me, to think otherwise is heresy, and proclaim a different Jesus. Not the Jesus of the bible, but instead one that conveniently fits a "system" of theology that helps us "go with the flow" and be "blessed", even when we don't stand up for what Jesus taught in those verses.
I put a lot of blame on preachers and institutions for going with the flow, not rocking the boat, etc., on this modern state of Israel topic and related issues. It has made me so sad that I get depressed going to church these days, seeing the apathy and watered-down messaging of what it means to carry the cross for the Jesus of the bible. For context, I live in Pensacola, FL, and yes, I used to go to Bible Baptist church here.
BTW JD, if I don't already come off as someone on the fringes, maybe this will help that further along. The wall art you have behind you, is not something I'm a fan of, for your sake. Having gone down the rabbit hole of spiritual warfare a bit, that is not something I would put on my wall, especially behind me when doing videos like this. It's just too close to Baal imagery to me.
Thank you, JD and Jeremy, for fighting the good fight against dispensationalism or it's covert labeling, for all of those made in God's image. I hope you are well very soon, JD.
Aside from my convictions against all forms of literal Millennialism, I absolutely agree that these two physically obese “Hammer” show hosts (and that title sends shivers of horror down this female spine) display an embarrassing lack of plain old bog standard education.
There. I said it - and resonate with you, JD, calling out their sheer ignorance. They have exactly as much right to be lecturing their one single listener on matters theological, as did C.I. Scofield to be pontificating about “Israel” in his decidedly unoriginal and highly derivative (from the Darby - Lacunza - Ben / Ibn Ezra Judaizing line) Reference Notes as blasphemously published right alongside the Scripture text to which they provided his Talmud-style commentary.,
well, I'm glad you let this episode ride. unfortunately I am not in a position to support anyone financially and I certainly would and it's not necessarily about money. But you guys are great together. just good smart talking about the Bible. thank you.
MacArthur took tens of millions from illicit sources. He was recruited as a young man to subvert evangelical conservatives that until then had been hard t to get at. You would not believe what his financial sources were/are. This is how he got his empire. Before Nathan, his sermon writers consistently produced an excellent product, the best on the radio.
The reason for his continuing to preach Christian doctrine was to use it as a springboard (or alibi) to dish out the anti-gospel of Dispensationalism and also pull down other major ministries of evangelical conservatives. It all was political. The "bubble" of dispensationalism you perceive is the product of possibly billions of dollars.
Read between the lines. Dispensationalism is about the materialist millennium on earth in opposition to Christ's eternal rule above. That is political. Do you recognize what secular ideology it lines up with? Do you think maybe that they share a common ultimate goal, led by the same people?
From ample experience, I would guess and suggest that John's meeting with you was to manipulate you into researching ministries of targeted conservatives—and to gather detailed information about you so as to set you up for your own unpleasantness. I am certain of it.
The man who recruited MacArthur is the basis of Jason Bateman's character in the Ozark series. The series depicts that character's career from his own grandiose point of view, but without his main employers in the PLA, and without any single MacArthur character, either. But it gives you an idea of who the recruiter was.
This information is for context and credibility. It includes many details, some of which you may independently verify. If instead you wish less information on a more specific issue or aspect, please let me know.
In the 1960s and early 70s, there was a man in the old SBC offices at Jeff City, Missouri, who quietly claimed responsibility for those churches becoming the fastest growing denomination in history and the largest in the USA. He did it by providing the latest demographic research, then unused by churches, on how to successfully site businesses, and he was the first to adapt to church missions (plants). After the war, in the 50s and 60s, the old American downtowns were falling into ruin, and there was a thing called urban flight; the man's research on each area provided detailed, practical instructions and support to churches on how to give up their old beloved buildings downtown and build in the new suburbs. Let us call him "Big Swede" (not his real name).
Pastor Swede provided access to the program only if the participating church's doctrinal statements evinced at least four out of five points of Tulip; absence of or less emphasis on Dispensationalism was a plus. The man claimed that God blessed the doctrinal faithfulness with the fantastic results.
Swede worked alone in the basement with a staff of one. He was protected and assisted in convention politics by friends he had made in his earlier career as a pastor of churches in the Midwest. The convention had agreed to his program by vote. However, although he did everything he could to remain anonymous, the anti-christian Left began investigating how on earth did Southern Baptist membership begin exploding. According to Swede, the Left had successfully subverted all the major denominations, centrally organized as they were; but the Baptists, being congregational with only a weak convention, were tough nuts to crack. Further, leadership of seminaries had already been successfully targeted, but seminary students routinely ignored the liberal faithlessness after they were ordained. That left evangelicalism as the last frontier of American conservative social institutions to control and destroy.
Eventually, the Left's own networks discovered Swede and put him on top of their target list. This particular layer of the Left is associated with an Asian power, and it based its operations in California, the gateway to the Far East. The particular layer relevant here recruited a young man to insert into Swede's life. He married into the family and will appear later in the story.
It turns out that Big Swede had gone to seminary at Eastern Baptist with a friend whom he faithfully visited every other summer out west, which was noticed by the Leftist networks monitoring prominent Christian ministries on the West Coast. That man was Jack MacArthur, whose radio ministry Voice of Calvary was number one in Southern California and whose son sang in the Voice of Calvary Quartet, also on the radio.
The son, a college student just a little younger than the young man above, was John MacArthur. The two were slated to meet, the older one with anonymous donations from the Leftist networks ready in hand...
More to follow, unless you specifically ask I do not.
I had not known that about MacArthur, but I had always been troubled by the very worldly size and wealth of his empire.
In keeping with his untenable position on “Israel”, he also preached the inferiority of women.
We ladies, it would seem, got a second-rate version of Christ’s blood - one that wasn’t quite capable of effecting our complete salvation -; and so, in order to plug the gap, we have to contort the Gospel in order to legitimize a form of Salvation - by - Submission that has absolutely nothing to do with New Covenant relationships, and by which “ the freedom for which Christ has set you free” is cheapened by many into non-existence.
In the same way, the implication is that the gentile Christians, as a body (male and female), must, according to Millennialist teaching, view themselves as second-class citizens of Heaven, the Jews as a whole as more worthy of Salvation, and converted Jewry, as a body, as taking pride of place in the “Kingdom”.
Whichever way you slice it, Christ’s work on the cross is belittled, chiselled away at until nothing remains but to replace it altogether with the full-blown earthly counterfeit which, according to Paul when he wrote his epistles to the Thessalonians, was already manifested in the mid-first Century A.D., and has only increased in power and deception since the :
“For the mystery of iniquity DOTH ALREADY WORK” (my emphasis).
(2 Thess. 2: 7)
Satan, the Devil - who, “knowing that he hath but a short time”, and having therefore “great wroth” (Rev.12:12) - is powerfully working “signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
And for this cause God shall send them string delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”
(2 Thess. 2: 9-12)
Verse 15: “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which he have been taught, whether by word or our epistle”, echoes not only Ephesians 6: 10 - 18, but also Galatians 1: 6:
“But though we, or an Angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached, let him be accursed.”
Your well-chosen description of a “materialist millennium on earth IN OPPOSITION [my added caps] to Christ’s [PRESENT, ONGOING, ALREADY -SEATED -AT -THE - RIGHT - HAND - OF - GOD] rule above”, nails the lie right through its stony heart.
“Now the serpent was more SUBTIL than any beast of the field which the Lord had made.”
So now there is a coherent narrative about the road to fame and wealth, some of which can be independently verified.
Pebble’s funding came with conditions. Pebble’s employers had identified Reformed Christianity as the leading branch of American religion. Moreover, they had concluded that Reagan could not have been President without support of evangelical Christians, also predominantly Reformed in theology. However, Presbyterian churches, having been built upon theology and doctrine took longer to subvert. Baptist congregations posed even greater difficulties by needing in some sense to be subverted church by church. But where the mainline Protestant denominations quickly fell owing to centralized organization, evangelical congregations, who depended on funds they raised themselves, could be bought off, just as formerly independent public schools are now dependent on outside funding and the ideological strings attached today.
In the 1960s and 70s, efforts to buy off congregations were stymied by the SBC’s church-planting program in the old Missions office. So they identified the man responsible, and sent in one of their own infiltrate and subvert his own family, Pebbles. Although the Missions’ coordinator had retired before the worst damage was done, the infiltrator benefited from the connections his employers forged for him in the related processes.
So the subversion of evangelicals would be effected through “donations” to ministries which would be created to influence American religion from coast to coast. Take for example Creationism. In the 1970s, it had few resources, and its productions were amateurish and laughable. So the networks in which Pebbles was a bridge agent (as opposed to the more visible “access” agent), would support Creationism, although the networks were committed to atheism and materialism, denying consciousness as an independent reality, and “spirit” as a crutch for the masses. Creationists were given the bargain for Creationism to grow beyond Creationists’ wildest dreams—on certain conditions.
For them the conditions were simple: stop teaching against Communism and global tyranny, which was common material in evangelical churches. Instead, add to Creationist thought the Communist idea that there is only one race. Such doctrine is naturally amenable to global rule—one race, one world, one government—with no room for the independent, sovereign nations that fills Biblical histories. If a rogue insisted on talking race anyhow, allow him to tell the old lore that Noah’s three sons could somehow explain all ten of the world’s races that anthropologists have identified. He would sound ridiculous. Ideologically this was permissible under dialectical materialism, with one race, one world, one government as the thesis and the discreditable antithesis of the curse of Ham as racist invective, to confirm the thesis.
Pebbles was given the following conditions for MacArthur to agree to exchange for money for himself and his empire and for Pebbles to launder for his employers. Here are those conditions which Pebbles claims he gave MacArthur.
1. Continue preaching Reformed theology to attract sincere Christians and establish yourself as an angel of light for conservatives; water it down over time.
2. No sermons against Communism or globalism; avoid mentioning race.
3. Teach eschatology as the final stage of history—the millennial rule of the earth by God’s earthly people.
4. Teach modern Israel as the true chosen people of God, but aim to teach from the New Testament alone.
5. If you must talk about American nationality or history, suggest that Independence was rebellion against the lawful authorities.
6. Teach total submission to human authority; package authority in ways that sound conservative, such as against feminism as if women like to rebel against their husbands and never should anyone believe them when they witness evil.
7. Teach submission in a way that fosters total control over individuals, denying personal rights as rebellious.
8. Spread discord among evangelicals; attack other prominent ministries when there is an opportunity (like that of Driscoll).
9. Stack your staff with sociopaths, according to tips on identifying them; sociopaths will do whatever gets them money and connections for their livelihoods.
10. Ruthlessly isolate anyone who may have witnessed too much, saying, “It’s none of your business!”
11. Create a network, a virtual denomination, under the control of you and your staff.
12. Keep tabs on people with the highest character using the basic surveillance techniques provided, and you might be able to create problems you can tailor to their schedules and known whereabouts; for example, privately call their employers with slander, they will never understand what happened or why.
13. Partner with the Church of Spiritual Practices (Scientology) for detailed, personal information on individuals, keeping it private; on those occasions the partnership may become known, do it under the guise of a joint prison ministry with CrimAnon or connecting with respected people like Tom Cruise for advice on publicity, etc. (both of those actually happened).
Of course, repressive activity like that included the man formerly of Pulpit and Pen. With him, they used their common tactics of sending out their mafia, hounding him up and down social media. The internet was filled with MacArthur’s people attacking him ruthlessly, so when he says he had a private meeting with MacArthur who said he writes well, the meeting was ostensibly to profile him, gather personal information to use against him, manipulate him into silence, and put ideas into his head that would either help the ministry empire or get him into more trouble. That is just what I speculate might possibly have been some goals.
The SBC Missions director’s daughter wed Pebbles at nineteen.
When the court martial was to take place, she certified they had married and that he had recovered from his predilections. She sent the military pictures of her and their daughter. But the marriage did not work out. Things did not go well in the National Guard either, and he was sent home for mental problems. He was held indefinitely at a mental hospital at Camarillo, California, where he was diagnosed as a sociopath with strong psychopathic identifiers.
At some point, it was decided that he had passed his other, special program. His treators told him he was "enlightened" now, and that threshold being passed, he could fully participate in the group running the show—the People's Liberation Army of the Chinese Communist Party operating in the United States.
Pebbles had been the stats man in high school for the baseball team and was good at numbers and writing things down. He had been studying for the CPA exam, and after the second time he did not pass it, the PLA arranged a passing score by giving his identity documents to a practicing accountant they hired. Now Pebbles was an accountant, too.
The PLA got him a job as a credit union auditor, and then promoted him to work numbers with the new Sinaloa cartel. By then, he was attending Bel Air Presbyterian church, and for about a decade he documented the patterns of Ronald Reagan's personal security teams. Later, Pebbles would claim his information was given to Hinkley to make sure he was at the right place at the right time and understood the patterns of the security personnel.
While that progressed, he was given enough money to set up an expensive accountancy corporation to process and disguise Sinaloa's transactions.
By 1989, a big caper was ready for him. This is important to understand how MacArthur’s ministry empire has been getting their anonymous “donations.”
The caper involves the very things that Gary Webb, the investigative journalist ,thoroughly documented regarding the FBI using CIA methods to fund themselves from the international, illegal drug trade. But Webb did not have access to everything.
Now Ronald Reagan had dedicated his life as a genuine Christian to bringing down Communism by focusing on the Soviet Union, which before China’s rise to global power (China’s finances now exceed those of the United States), was the center of international Communism and the principal architect of active subversion in the United States. One of the tools developed was the creation of means to fund the CIA off book in order to fight Communism. That was the Iran-Contra Affair. Together with other difficult efforts, the whole Soviet Union suddenly collapsed, surprising everyone and elating anti-Communists. China soon took over the Soviet subversive activities under their own brand.
Iran-Contra was successful in showing how intelligence could run itself without taxes or civilian oversight. Although the Soviet Union was defeated, the program’s success was bad news to freedom in the United States. So the program was shut down by 1988.
But this was an irresistible temptation to federal agencies which, like the CIA, recruited people with sociopathic “tendencies.”
So the techniques were shared with the FBI to counter “terrorism” inside the United States. China would be allowed to launder money for the cartels it had put together, and the FBI would monitor them at a distance while collecting its share. It is the ideal situation of no American government to control FBI funding, and no American government to supervise how they spent their off-book funds. And while they monitored their business partner’s subversion of the Unites States and repression of American citizens, they could claim to counter terrorism. Any governmental oversight or lawsuit or media attention is stopped without any comment other than “It’s national security.”
The opportunity—the big caper—came in 1989.
You may read online about the Sylmar Drug Raid of September 1989. Sylmar is about a ten to fifteen-minute drive on surface streets to MacArthur’s church, not that MacArthur was there or even knew about it at the time. It was the largest in history. Estimates vary, but missing cash was valued at about $18 billion dollars. But its effective worth over time is greater, as will be explained. The money was invested in US Treasury’s marketable securities from tranches created earlier in the 1980s at astronomical interest rates. If they were never cashed before their time, all things considered, the total interest-accrued sum could reach between $200 billion and $3 trillion today, more than all Musk’s holdings in his companies.
How it was done. The FBI conducted a background investigation on Pebble’s one remaining relative who was straight, under the guise of hiring him for another agency. They called the relative “The Boyscout.” He first came to the attention of the other agency when he was the first to solve a difficult and esoteric formula in a technical department of a major university. Before he could accept offers for government work, he was sent home to take that agency’s employment examinations. He did famously well, and now was eligible for clearance. He was told he would have one job to do, but would not be on the payroll. Then the FBI stepped in and claimed control of his files.
The one job turned out to be the following: to call in the Sylmar cocaine stash, receive legal custody of all the funds, and to buy the marketable securities in his own name. The funds, along with a minimal alteration of his identity, and the clearance attached to him, were then given to Pebbles as a synthetic identity. The Boyscout never got his identity back. Now the funny thing, is that if the funds were returned to him as their legal owner, the foreign espionage and transnational repression by China and its network (ultimately under the Mossad’s supervision) would stop. But what would the FBI have to do any more?
Now back to Pebbles who was already transmitting funds where he was instructed. Pebbles was connected to Soros to improve his techniques. Pebbles became a regular employee at Epstein’s Zorro Ranch outside Albuquerque, where one of his homes was. Pebbles went to the island. All of them taught him how, working for China, churches, especially large ones with attached ministry empires are great ways to launder money, untraceable and tax-exempt, possibly even better than casinos, although a greater volume flows through the slot-machine computers. Pebbles and the team the team he headed use both. For Pebble’s affiliations among evangelicals, Pebble filled a valuable niche.
This shows who Pebbles is and what he does. MacArthur’s empire would later benefit directly from Sylmar, but in the meantime, there was enough to go around for laundering from the cartels.
Pebbles is an atheist who makes fun of Christians habitually. He attended MacArthur’s opening two-hour sermon, and still makes fun of MacArthur as a bungler who simply read out aloud what others had written. But Pebbles did his job. His elderly parents’ founding membership at the church gave him inside access, so as early as the 1970s, Pebbles was taking credit for the whirlwind success of Grace’s cassette-tape ministry. Pebbles always insisted that cassette-tapes never made anyone money; it was just how he laundered money for his own employers through the church, and how he bought MacArthur for political uses among evangelical conservatives.
Everything was brokered at lavish parties hosted on the highest hills overlooking the San Fernando Valley and the church. One day, he brokered MacArthur a new home of his own on the highest hill overlooking the neighboring Santa Clarita Valley.
The brokering came with a rider of specific conditions and instructions for the ministry empire to fulfill, which is what this all is about.
The young man whom the Left recruited to infiltrate the family of the pastor behind the SBC's fantastically successful missions campaign in the 1960s and early 70s, after the urban collapse following World War II was ordered to recruit John MacArthur as captain of the flagship for evangelical conservatives. He was recruited in an interesting way. He wears thick glasses and has a clumsy, nerdy way about him. Let us call him Pebbles (not his real name).
Pebbles was recruited as a potential asset to work on the American evangelical movement. As noted earlier, the Left had successfully subverted the mainline Protestant denominations and many parts of the church of Rome. Evangelicals proved a harder nut to crack in that they were largely Baptists, who governed themselves congregation by congregation, not unlike Jefferson's democracies or the old US Constitution where the States held equal rights with each other. Pebble's aging parents, married in the Lutheran church had been converted after a family tragedy in the harsh deserts of southeastern California when it was still the wild west. They became members of the Missionary Baptist Church and in 1959, they became founding members of Grace Community Church ten years before MacArthur was brought on.
Pebbles was a child of their later middle age, and grew up largely alone and unwatched. He had a problem with homosexuality and some neurological issues, all of which made him vulnerable to recruitment by the nefarious. Sometime in his twenties, he was invited to participate in an experimental study to treat him, using tapes played when he was asleep and other mind control methods. Also around that time, Vietnam was arising on the horizon, his treators urged him to join the National Guard. Soon, he faced court martial when he had relations with three young soldiers he met at a Bible study, two of whom were but seventeen.
Pebble's treatment progressed. Initially, he was told he was being assisted by Scientology, but as he went on in the program, it seemed that another group ran Scientology, who began paying him stipends. Now Pebbles did not have any diplomas or degrees, so his independent employment prospects were bleak. His handlers said he did not need a high school diploma to attend classes at a Christian college they had chosen for him, where he was given spending money and training in social skills to woo a specific co-ed, a member of the college choir, orchestra, star of the theater department, and quite the thing to behold.
She was also the daughter of the Pastor who had set up the SBC's new, sensational missions program—and the best friend of Jack MacArthur (senior).
Both major heresies M and C are dualist, just as Dispensationalism is dualist and has nothing to do with seven or eight "dispensations of eternal salvation," but two.
JD, I comment here with great respect and love for you and your work. I attended a dispensational seminary and I attend a dispensational church, but I’ve been convinced from my own reading of Scripture of the historic pre-millennial position. So, you’re a voice of reason and a great source of doctrinal information to me!
I also think you’re one of the great biblical theologians of our time, and I’ll always defend your instinct for truth. You are much more learned and well studied than I am. But there’s one question that I've stumbled upon that helps me understand this entire topic of Dispensationalism a little bit better. And I believe that understanding this question could greatly help the church in understanding this entire ecclesiastical debate a little better as well. Here's the question:
Are “the Jews” the same thing as “the Israelites?”
Are all Jews Israelites? Are all Israelites Jews? Or is there a difference between the two? Are there instances in Scripture where both parties are mentioned as two distinct entities? Why?
Moses wasn't a Jew. He was an Israelite from the tribe of Levi. Paul called himself a Jew only because he was a Judean of the tribe of Benjamin, which was part of the nation of Judah.
Do we wrongly conflate these terms? Seems to me this is what leads to so much confusion on this entire topic of dispensationalism versus covenant theology.
To say that all Israelites are Jews is equivalent to stating that all Americans are Kansans. All Kansans ARE Americans, but not all Americans are Kansans. It's category confusion. Not all Israelites were from the tribe of Judah. What would you call an Israelite from the tribe of Reuben? Would they be a Jew? What about anyone from one of the 10 northern tribes that were lost to history after 722 BC?
So what is the basis of the word “Jew”? Where does it come from? Hint: “From Judea.”
What's the history of the Judeans? How are they (the two tribes that comprised the nation of Judah) different from the 10 northern tribes that were scattered among the nations in 722 BC? When you say “the Jews” everyone thinks it means “all Israel.” I think that if you dedicated yourself to a deep dive on this question you might find it a fascinating area of discovery.
Jeremy, please bully me to finish tidying up the Dutch-English translation of the sermon series on Millennialism which I have mentioned in comments at least twice before.
And let us not forget that Spurgeon, in his “historic Premillennialism” - which, even if it is not overtly Dispensationalist per se, still requires the “Restoration”, the “Gathering”, of a redeemed PHYSICAL nation of Israel on this still FALLEN earth BEFORE the EARTHLY “Millennial reign” of Christ on this still FALLEN earth -, may have something to do with the fact that, sadly, and much as we love him, he was a Freemason and therefore subject to that hidden form of earth-bound Judaistic thinking that centres it’s hope - like the Roman Catholic priesthood - in bringing Christ DOWN to reign on this earth.
Any form of literal Millennialism, regardless of the suffix one attaches to it, and regardless of whether, in the case of Pre-Millennialism, whether it be “Historical” or “Dispensational”, carries the same DNA as “pure” Dispensationalism.
The idea that God will save all the Jews “one day”, bar those who are already dead, is absurd.
The context of Romans 11 is only exclusively and singularly ethnic if you ignore a host of passages throughout Scripture, including John 4 (especially v.21 ), John 18: 36, Galatians 4, and virtually all of Hebrews, to name but a fraction of them, which irrefutably point to the paramount importance of the HEAVENLY City, of which earthly Jerusalem was but a foreshadowing - and one which has been wholly, utterly, definitively obsolete since God judged physical Isrsel with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, complete with the razing to the ground of its idolized, PHYSICAL, made WITH [man’s] hands Temple by the Roman Prince and son of Emperor Vespasian, Titus.
I understand your position. Given that it was the de facto position of the church fathers, including the very disciples of the disciples, it's a bad habit for me to break :)
And, if it helps, and just so you know: I did not inherit it, per se; I came round to it slowly after many years mired in Futurist eschatology.
I some respects I am grateful for that, as becoming un-mired has forced me to wrestle with Scripture and history to a degree I could never have anticipated.
as you know, Jessica, I tend to agree with you on this. Actually, it’s probably stronger than that. I think I really agree with you on this.
I’m sure that makes you wonder why I don’t get into it with JD on the show.
I definitely want to get deeper into this discussion with J.D. but obviously we had a completely different fish to fry on this particular episode, and J.D. was already worked up. 😁
Absolutely - I wholly understand, and felt as insulted on JD’s behalf as he rightly felt. I have great respect for him, and, knowing something of his sincerity, labour, and his passion for the Gospel, I am in no doubt that, once he has had the chance to dive all the way to the ocean floor on the subject of Millennialism, he will take a flying leap over the proverbial fence and stand firmly with the Amillennial full-on Historicists (not to be confused with Praeterists, despite some overlap).
I am so grateful to him and Jeremy for getting together as a sturdy ox team in this battle, despite their few differences, motivated as they both rightly are by horror at the appalling bloodshed that adherence to Dispensationalism, whether overt or covert, has caused as it has been used to harness the Zionist secular Luciferian agenda.
Romans 11:26? I actually think that is ethnic, it’s just not saying at some point in the far future God will save a nation of Jews.
I am certainly not anticipating any kind of “end time ingathering of the jews”. As you said, this idea is not taught anywhere in the NT, and if Paul believed it, he would surely have said something in Galatians after chapters 3&4.
The fascination with Israel and EndTimes™️ is pretty much an Americanism, it doesn’t hold that much sway in Europe, and even less in the rest of the world.
In truth I don’t think they were even God’s chosen people, not in the sense that The Church is. That might sound wild, but when someone says they are “chosen”, the obvious question is “chosen for what?” - not for eternal life - read the Mosaic law, nothing about eternal life (that’s why the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection).
Remember that Jacob two wives; Leah (the first) and Rachel (the second). He loved Rachel and did not love Leah in the same way.
Are you both aware of just what a total fake “Christian” Amir Tsarfati is? He should not even come anywhere near your radar as an even remotely trustworthy, qualified, authority.
I had several friends who remain so obsessed with Tsarfati that they become extremely defensive when his authenticity was challenged; and one has even resorted to accusing me of being under the influence of “the Antichrist” for daring to call out her idolatry of him.
I don’t think either one of us trust him in the least.
Good. I guess I was confused by JD’s reported correspondence with him. All good.
Never heard of her.
‘She’ is actually a he. I must have misheard you when I thought you reported having had a discussion with Tsarfati on another platform.
"Below is an historically recorded letter of 1489 in response to Chemor a Jewish Rabbi of Arles in Provence, who wrote to the Grand Sanhedrin, which had its seat in Constantinople, for advice, as the people of Arles were threatening the synagogues. What should the Jews do? This was the reply" (down near the bottom of the document):
https://share.google/Ee7mZCK9jH3BziAw2
I think this shows something the devil uses perhaps as a main strategy, and that is something like; keep your friends close, your enemies closer.
I really wish those that seem to overlook things like the geocide happening in Gaza, the Ukraine war, the corruption in our government, etc., that is directly linked to Israel, and those connected with it, would not overlook the following;
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40 ESV
Jesus did not qualify those commandments for only certain people, and those commandments supersede all others. To me, to think otherwise is heresy, and proclaim a different Jesus. Not the Jesus of the bible, but instead one that conveniently fits a "system" of theology that helps us "go with the flow" and be "blessed", even when we don't stand up for what Jesus taught in those verses.
I put a lot of blame on preachers and institutions for going with the flow, not rocking the boat, etc., on this modern state of Israel topic and related issues. It has made me so sad that I get depressed going to church these days, seeing the apathy and watered-down messaging of what it means to carry the cross for the Jesus of the bible. For context, I live in Pensacola, FL, and yes, I used to go to Bible Baptist church here.
BTW JD, if I don't already come off as someone on the fringes, maybe this will help that further along. The wall art you have behind you, is not something I'm a fan of, for your sake. Having gone down the rabbit hole of spiritual warfare a bit, that is not something I would put on my wall, especially behind me when doing videos like this. It's just too close to Baal imagery to me.
Thank you, JD and Jeremy, for fighting the good fight against dispensationalism or it's covert labeling, for all of those made in God's image. I hope you are well very soon, JD.
Thanks, brother.
Aside from my convictions against all forms of literal Millennialism, I absolutely agree that these two physically obese “Hammer” show hosts (and that title sends shivers of horror down this female spine) display an embarrassing lack of plain old bog standard education.
There. I said it - and resonate with you, JD, calling out their sheer ignorance. They have exactly as much right to be lecturing their one single listener on matters theological, as did C.I. Scofield to be pontificating about “Israel” in his decidedly unoriginal and highly derivative (from the Darby - Lacunza - Ben / Ibn Ezra Judaizing line) Reference Notes as blasphemously published right alongside the Scripture text to which they provided his Talmud-style commentary.,
Amen!
well, I'm glad you let this episode ride. unfortunately I am not in a position to support anyone financially and I certainly would and it's not necessarily about money. But you guys are great together. just good smart talking about the Bible. thank you.
How are you commenting if you're not premium? I have no idea how Substack works apparently. Either way, you're welcome, premium or not. Bless you.
Thank you.
MacArthur took tens of millions from illicit sources. He was recruited as a young man to subvert evangelical conservatives that until then had been hard t to get at. You would not believe what his financial sources were/are. This is how he got his empire. Before Nathan, his sermon writers consistently produced an excellent product, the best on the radio.
The reason for his continuing to preach Christian doctrine was to use it as a springboard (or alibi) to dish out the anti-gospel of Dispensationalism and also pull down other major ministries of evangelical conservatives. It all was political. The "bubble" of dispensationalism you perceive is the product of possibly billions of dollars.
Read between the lines. Dispensationalism is about the materialist millennium on earth in opposition to Christ's eternal rule above. That is political. Do you recognize what secular ideology it lines up with? Do you think maybe that they share a common ultimate goal, led by the same people?
From ample experience, I would guess and suggest that John's meeting with you was to manipulate you into researching ministries of targeted conservatives—and to gather detailed information about you so as to set you up for your own unpleasantness. I am certain of it.
Call it insider's knowledge.
Welp. That's about the most fascinating thing I've read. Tell me more.
The man who recruited MacArthur is the basis of Jason Bateman's character in the Ozark series. The series depicts that character's career from his own grandiose point of view, but without his main employers in the PLA, and without any single MacArthur character, either. But it gives you an idea of who the recruiter was.
Preface to John's Recruitment
This information is for context and credibility. It includes many details, some of which you may independently verify. If instead you wish less information on a more specific issue or aspect, please let me know.
In the 1960s and early 70s, there was a man in the old SBC offices at Jeff City, Missouri, who quietly claimed responsibility for those churches becoming the fastest growing denomination in history and the largest in the USA. He did it by providing the latest demographic research, then unused by churches, on how to successfully site businesses, and he was the first to adapt to church missions (plants). After the war, in the 50s and 60s, the old American downtowns were falling into ruin, and there was a thing called urban flight; the man's research on each area provided detailed, practical instructions and support to churches on how to give up their old beloved buildings downtown and build in the new suburbs. Let us call him "Big Swede" (not his real name).
Pastor Swede provided access to the program only if the participating church's doctrinal statements evinced at least four out of five points of Tulip; absence of or less emphasis on Dispensationalism was a plus. The man claimed that God blessed the doctrinal faithfulness with the fantastic results.
Swede worked alone in the basement with a staff of one. He was protected and assisted in convention politics by friends he had made in his earlier career as a pastor of churches in the Midwest. The convention had agreed to his program by vote. However, although he did everything he could to remain anonymous, the anti-christian Left began investigating how on earth did Southern Baptist membership begin exploding. According to Swede, the Left had successfully subverted all the major denominations, centrally organized as they were; but the Baptists, being congregational with only a weak convention, were tough nuts to crack. Further, leadership of seminaries had already been successfully targeted, but seminary students routinely ignored the liberal faithlessness after they were ordained. That left evangelicalism as the last frontier of American conservative social institutions to control and destroy.
Eventually, the Left's own networks discovered Swede and put him on top of their target list. This particular layer of the Left is associated with an Asian power, and it based its operations in California, the gateway to the Far East. The particular layer relevant here recruited a young man to insert into Swede's life. He married into the family and will appear later in the story.
It turns out that Big Swede had gone to seminary at Eastern Baptist with a friend whom he faithfully visited every other summer out west, which was noticed by the Leftist networks monitoring prominent Christian ministries on the West Coast. That man was Jack MacArthur, whose radio ministry Voice of Calvary was number one in Southern California and whose son sang in the Voice of Calvary Quartet, also on the radio.
The son, a college student just a little younger than the young man above, was John MacArthur. The two were slated to meet, the older one with anonymous donations from the Leftist networks ready in hand...
More to follow, unless you specifically ask I do not.
Uh. Yes please. Also, who are you? Freaking intel central, imho.
I added the replies. I cannot tell you who I am. Maybe we can talk by phone one day.
Are you my friend who helped me network one time?
Unlikely and I am not Asian.
I had not known that about MacArthur, but I had always been troubled by the very worldly size and wealth of his empire.
In keeping with his untenable position on “Israel”, he also preached the inferiority of women.
We ladies, it would seem, got a second-rate version of Christ’s blood - one that wasn’t quite capable of effecting our complete salvation -; and so, in order to plug the gap, we have to contort the Gospel in order to legitimize a form of Salvation - by - Submission that has absolutely nothing to do with New Covenant relationships, and by which “ the freedom for which Christ has set you free” is cheapened by many into non-existence.
In the same way, the implication is that the gentile Christians, as a body (male and female), must, according to Millennialist teaching, view themselves as second-class citizens of Heaven, the Jews as a whole as more worthy of Salvation, and converted Jewry, as a body, as taking pride of place in the “Kingdom”.
Whichever way you slice it, Christ’s work on the cross is belittled, chiselled away at until nothing remains but to replace it altogether with the full-blown earthly counterfeit which, according to Paul when he wrote his epistles to the Thessalonians, was already manifested in the mid-first Century A.D., and has only increased in power and deception since the :
“For the mystery of iniquity DOTH ALREADY WORK” (my emphasis).
(2 Thess. 2: 7)
Satan, the Devil - who, “knowing that he hath but a short time”, and having therefore “great wroth” (Rev.12:12) - is powerfully working “signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
And for this cause God shall send them string delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”
(2 Thess. 2: 9-12)
Verse 15: “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which he have been taught, whether by word or our epistle”, echoes not only Ephesians 6: 10 - 18, but also Galatians 1: 6:
“But though we, or an Angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached, let him be accursed.”
Your well-chosen description of a “materialist millennium on earth IN OPPOSITION [my added caps] to Christ’s [PRESENT, ONGOING, ALREADY -SEATED -AT -THE - RIGHT - HAND - OF - GOD] rule above”, nails the lie right through its stony heart.
“Now the serpent was more SUBTIL than any beast of the field which the Lord had made.”
(Genesis 3: 1; my emphasis)
Part 4. The Rider
So now there is a coherent narrative about the road to fame and wealth, some of which can be independently verified.
Pebble’s funding came with conditions. Pebble’s employers had identified Reformed Christianity as the leading branch of American religion. Moreover, they had concluded that Reagan could not have been President without support of evangelical Christians, also predominantly Reformed in theology. However, Presbyterian churches, having been built upon theology and doctrine took longer to subvert. Baptist congregations posed even greater difficulties by needing in some sense to be subverted church by church. But where the mainline Protestant denominations quickly fell owing to centralized organization, evangelical congregations, who depended on funds they raised themselves, could be bought off, just as formerly independent public schools are now dependent on outside funding and the ideological strings attached today.
In the 1960s and 70s, efforts to buy off congregations were stymied by the SBC’s church-planting program in the old Missions office. So they identified the man responsible, and sent in one of their own infiltrate and subvert his own family, Pebbles. Although the Missions’ coordinator had retired before the worst damage was done, the infiltrator benefited from the connections his employers forged for him in the related processes.
So the subversion of evangelicals would be effected through “donations” to ministries which would be created to influence American religion from coast to coast. Take for example Creationism. In the 1970s, it had few resources, and its productions were amateurish and laughable. So the networks in which Pebbles was a bridge agent (as opposed to the more visible “access” agent), would support Creationism, although the networks were committed to atheism and materialism, denying consciousness as an independent reality, and “spirit” as a crutch for the masses. Creationists were given the bargain for Creationism to grow beyond Creationists’ wildest dreams—on certain conditions.
For them the conditions were simple: stop teaching against Communism and global tyranny, which was common material in evangelical churches. Instead, add to Creationist thought the Communist idea that there is only one race. Such doctrine is naturally amenable to global rule—one race, one world, one government—with no room for the independent, sovereign nations that fills Biblical histories. If a rogue insisted on talking race anyhow, allow him to tell the old lore that Noah’s three sons could somehow explain all ten of the world’s races that anthropologists have identified. He would sound ridiculous. Ideologically this was permissible under dialectical materialism, with one race, one world, one government as the thesis and the discreditable antithesis of the curse of Ham as racist invective, to confirm the thesis.
Pebbles was given the following conditions for MacArthur to agree to exchange for money for himself and his empire and for Pebbles to launder for his employers. Here are those conditions which Pebbles claims he gave MacArthur.
1. Continue preaching Reformed theology to attract sincere Christians and establish yourself as an angel of light for conservatives; water it down over time.
2. No sermons against Communism or globalism; avoid mentioning race.
3. Teach eschatology as the final stage of history—the millennial rule of the earth by God’s earthly people.
4. Teach modern Israel as the true chosen people of God, but aim to teach from the New Testament alone.
5. If you must talk about American nationality or history, suggest that Independence was rebellion against the lawful authorities.
6. Teach total submission to human authority; package authority in ways that sound conservative, such as against feminism as if women like to rebel against their husbands and never should anyone believe them when they witness evil.
7. Teach submission in a way that fosters total control over individuals, denying personal rights as rebellious.
8. Spread discord among evangelicals; attack other prominent ministries when there is an opportunity (like that of Driscoll).
9. Stack your staff with sociopaths, according to tips on identifying them; sociopaths will do whatever gets them money and connections for their livelihoods.
10. Ruthlessly isolate anyone who may have witnessed too much, saying, “It’s none of your business!”
11. Create a network, a virtual denomination, under the control of you and your staff.
12. Keep tabs on people with the highest character using the basic surveillance techniques provided, and you might be able to create problems you can tailor to their schedules and known whereabouts; for example, privately call their employers with slander, they will never understand what happened or why.
13. Partner with the Church of Spiritual Practices (Scientology) for detailed, personal information on individuals, keeping it private; on those occasions the partnership may become known, do it under the guise of a joint prison ministry with CrimAnon or connecting with respected people like Tom Cruise for advice on publicity, etc. (both of those actually happened).
Of course, repressive activity like that included the man formerly of Pulpit and Pen. With him, they used their common tactics of sending out their mafia, hounding him up and down social media. The internet was filled with MacArthur’s people attacking him ruthlessly, so when he says he had a private meeting with MacArthur who said he writes well, the meeting was ostensibly to profile him, gather personal information to use against him, manipulate him into silence, and put ideas into his head that would either help the ministry empire or get him into more trouble. That is just what I speculate might possibly have been some goals.
Part 3. Up to the Recruitment B
The SBC Missions director’s daughter wed Pebbles at nineteen.
When the court martial was to take place, she certified they had married and that he had recovered from his predilections. She sent the military pictures of her and their daughter. But the marriage did not work out. Things did not go well in the National Guard either, and he was sent home for mental problems. He was held indefinitely at a mental hospital at Camarillo, California, where he was diagnosed as a sociopath with strong psychopathic identifiers.
At some point, it was decided that he had passed his other, special program. His treators told him he was "enlightened" now, and that threshold being passed, he could fully participate in the group running the show—the People's Liberation Army of the Chinese Communist Party operating in the United States.
Pebbles had been the stats man in high school for the baseball team and was good at numbers and writing things down. He had been studying for the CPA exam, and after the second time he did not pass it, the PLA arranged a passing score by giving his identity documents to a practicing accountant they hired. Now Pebbles was an accountant, too.
The PLA got him a job as a credit union auditor, and then promoted him to work numbers with the new Sinaloa cartel. By then, he was attending Bel Air Presbyterian church, and for about a decade he documented the patterns of Ronald Reagan's personal security teams. Later, Pebbles would claim his information was given to Hinkley to make sure he was at the right place at the right time and understood the patterns of the security personnel.
While that progressed, he was given enough money to set up an expensive accountancy corporation to process and disguise Sinaloa's transactions.
By 1989, a big caper was ready for him. This is important to understand how MacArthur’s ministry empire has been getting their anonymous “donations.”
The caper involves the very things that Gary Webb, the investigative journalist ,thoroughly documented regarding the FBI using CIA methods to fund themselves from the international, illegal drug trade. But Webb did not have access to everything.
Now Ronald Reagan had dedicated his life as a genuine Christian to bringing down Communism by focusing on the Soviet Union, which before China’s rise to global power (China’s finances now exceed those of the United States), was the center of international Communism and the principal architect of active subversion in the United States. One of the tools developed was the creation of means to fund the CIA off book in order to fight Communism. That was the Iran-Contra Affair. Together with other difficult efforts, the whole Soviet Union suddenly collapsed, surprising everyone and elating anti-Communists. China soon took over the Soviet subversive activities under their own brand.
Iran-Contra was successful in showing how intelligence could run itself without taxes or civilian oversight. Although the Soviet Union was defeated, the program’s success was bad news to freedom in the United States. So the program was shut down by 1988.
But this was an irresistible temptation to federal agencies which, like the CIA, recruited people with sociopathic “tendencies.”
So the techniques were shared with the FBI to counter “terrorism” inside the United States. China would be allowed to launder money for the cartels it had put together, and the FBI would monitor them at a distance while collecting its share. It is the ideal situation of no American government to control FBI funding, and no American government to supervise how they spent their off-book funds. And while they monitored their business partner’s subversion of the Unites States and repression of American citizens, they could claim to counter terrorism. Any governmental oversight or lawsuit or media attention is stopped without any comment other than “It’s national security.”
The opportunity—the big caper—came in 1989.
You may read online about the Sylmar Drug Raid of September 1989. Sylmar is about a ten to fifteen-minute drive on surface streets to MacArthur’s church, not that MacArthur was there or even knew about it at the time. It was the largest in history. Estimates vary, but missing cash was valued at about $18 billion dollars. But its effective worth over time is greater, as will be explained. The money was invested in US Treasury’s marketable securities from tranches created earlier in the 1980s at astronomical interest rates. If they were never cashed before their time, all things considered, the total interest-accrued sum could reach between $200 billion and $3 trillion today, more than all Musk’s holdings in his companies.
How it was done. The FBI conducted a background investigation on Pebble’s one remaining relative who was straight, under the guise of hiring him for another agency. They called the relative “The Boyscout.” He first came to the attention of the other agency when he was the first to solve a difficult and esoteric formula in a technical department of a major university. Before he could accept offers for government work, he was sent home to take that agency’s employment examinations. He did famously well, and now was eligible for clearance. He was told he would have one job to do, but would not be on the payroll. Then the FBI stepped in and claimed control of his files.
The one job turned out to be the following: to call in the Sylmar cocaine stash, receive legal custody of all the funds, and to buy the marketable securities in his own name. The funds, along with a minimal alteration of his identity, and the clearance attached to him, were then given to Pebbles as a synthetic identity. The Boyscout never got his identity back. Now the funny thing, is that if the funds were returned to him as their legal owner, the foreign espionage and transnational repression by China and its network (ultimately under the Mossad’s supervision) would stop. But what would the FBI have to do any more?
Now back to Pebbles who was already transmitting funds where he was instructed. Pebbles was connected to Soros to improve his techniques. Pebbles became a regular employee at Epstein’s Zorro Ranch outside Albuquerque, where one of his homes was. Pebbles went to the island. All of them taught him how, working for China, churches, especially large ones with attached ministry empires are great ways to launder money, untraceable and tax-exempt, possibly even better than casinos, although a greater volume flows through the slot-machine computers. Pebbles and the team the team he headed use both. For Pebble’s affiliations among evangelicals, Pebble filled a valuable niche.
This shows who Pebbles is and what he does. MacArthur’s empire would later benefit directly from Sylmar, but in the meantime, there was enough to go around for laundering from the cartels.
Pebbles is an atheist who makes fun of Christians habitually. He attended MacArthur’s opening two-hour sermon, and still makes fun of MacArthur as a bungler who simply read out aloud what others had written. But Pebbles did his job. His elderly parents’ founding membership at the church gave him inside access, so as early as the 1970s, Pebbles was taking credit for the whirlwind success of Grace’s cassette-tape ministry. Pebbles always insisted that cassette-tapes never made anyone money; it was just how he laundered money for his own employers through the church, and how he bought MacArthur for political uses among evangelical conservatives.
Everything was brokered at lavish parties hosted on the highest hills overlooking the San Fernando Valley and the church. One day, he brokered MacArthur a new home of his own on the highest hill overlooking the neighboring Santa Clarita Valley.
The brokering came with a rider of specific conditions and instructions for the ministry empire to fulfill, which is what this all is about.
Part 3. Up to the Recruitment A
The young man whom the Left recruited to infiltrate the family of the pastor behind the SBC's fantastically successful missions campaign in the 1960s and early 70s, after the urban collapse following World War II was ordered to recruit John MacArthur as captain of the flagship for evangelical conservatives. He was recruited in an interesting way. He wears thick glasses and has a clumsy, nerdy way about him. Let us call him Pebbles (not his real name).
Pebbles was recruited as a potential asset to work on the American evangelical movement. As noted earlier, the Left had successfully subverted the mainline Protestant denominations and many parts of the church of Rome. Evangelicals proved a harder nut to crack in that they were largely Baptists, who governed themselves congregation by congregation, not unlike Jefferson's democracies or the old US Constitution where the States held equal rights with each other. Pebble's aging parents, married in the Lutheran church had been converted after a family tragedy in the harsh deserts of southeastern California when it was still the wild west. They became members of the Missionary Baptist Church and in 1959, they became founding members of Grace Community Church ten years before MacArthur was brought on.
Pebbles was a child of their later middle age, and grew up largely alone and unwatched. He had a problem with homosexuality and some neurological issues, all of which made him vulnerable to recruitment by the nefarious. Sometime in his twenties, he was invited to participate in an experimental study to treat him, using tapes played when he was asleep and other mind control methods. Also around that time, Vietnam was arising on the horizon, his treators urged him to join the National Guard. Soon, he faced court martial when he had relations with three young soldiers he met at a Bible study, two of whom were but seventeen.
Pebble's treatment progressed. Initially, he was told he was being assisted by Scientology, but as he went on in the program, it seemed that another group ran Scientology, who began paying him stipends. Now Pebbles did not have any diplomas or degrees, so his independent employment prospects were bleak. His handlers said he did not need a high school diploma to attend classes at a Christian college they had chosen for him, where he was given spending money and training in social skills to woo a specific co-ed, a member of the college choir, orchestra, star of the theater department, and quite the thing to behold.
She was also the daughter of the Pastor who had set up the SBC's new, sensational missions program—and the best friend of Jack MacArthur (senior).
Dispensationalism = Marcionism + Cerinthianism.
Both major heresies M and C are dualist, just as Dispensationalism is dualist and has nothing to do with seven or eight "dispensations of eternal salvation," but two.
Modern Israel—
1. Is not natural Israel.
2. Is not covenant Israel.
3. Are the multiethnic Huns of both history (they are the literal heirs), and the present.
the fat hammer dudes aren't aware of the downgrade controversy.
JD, I comment here with great respect and love for you and your work. I attended a dispensational seminary and I attend a dispensational church, but I’ve been convinced from my own reading of Scripture of the historic pre-millennial position. So, you’re a voice of reason and a great source of doctrinal information to me!
I also think you’re one of the great biblical theologians of our time, and I’ll always defend your instinct for truth. You are much more learned and well studied than I am. But there’s one question that I've stumbled upon that helps me understand this entire topic of Dispensationalism a little bit better. And I believe that understanding this question could greatly help the church in understanding this entire ecclesiastical debate a little better as well. Here's the question:
Are “the Jews” the same thing as “the Israelites?”
Are all Jews Israelites? Are all Israelites Jews? Or is there a difference between the two? Are there instances in Scripture where both parties are mentioned as two distinct entities? Why?
Moses wasn't a Jew. He was an Israelite from the tribe of Levi. Paul called himself a Jew only because he was a Judean of the tribe of Benjamin, which was part of the nation of Judah.
Do we wrongly conflate these terms? Seems to me this is what leads to so much confusion on this entire topic of dispensationalism versus covenant theology.
To say that all Israelites are Jews is equivalent to stating that all Americans are Kansans. All Kansans ARE Americans, but not all Americans are Kansans. It's category confusion. Not all Israelites were from the tribe of Judah. What would you call an Israelite from the tribe of Reuben? Would they be a Jew? What about anyone from one of the 10 northern tribes that were lost to history after 722 BC?
So what is the basis of the word “Jew”? Where does it come from? Hint: “From Judea.”
What's the history of the Judeans? How are they (the two tribes that comprised the nation of Judah) different from the 10 northern tribes that were scattered among the nations in 722 BC? When you say “the Jews” everyone thinks it means “all Israel.” I think that if you dedicated yourself to a deep dive on this question you might find it a fascinating area of discovery.
Jeremy, please bully me to finish tidying up the Dutch-English translation of the sermon series on Millennialism which I have mentioned in comments at least twice before.
And let us not forget that Spurgeon, in his “historic Premillennialism” - which, even if it is not overtly Dispensationalist per se, still requires the “Restoration”, the “Gathering”, of a redeemed PHYSICAL nation of Israel on this still FALLEN earth BEFORE the EARTHLY “Millennial reign” of Christ on this still FALLEN earth -, may have something to do with the fact that, sadly, and much as we love him, he was a Freemason and therefore subject to that hidden form of earth-bound Judaistic thinking that centres it’s hope - like the Roman Catholic priesthood - in bringing Christ DOWN to reign on this earth.