History of End Times Teachings

So today, we're going to study the history of End Times teachings. This slide we looked at last week, and it's a timeline which shows the different issues or doctrines that the Church has been concerned with. I don't have the laser pointer today, so I can't point out that.

You see, the canon of the New Testament was one of the first things that they focused on. I believe over 200 different councils met, trying to discover which books were inspired of God. The doctrine of Godhead, the deity of Christ, the doctrine of man was also debated, and much study was done in relation to those biblical teachings. Then, around the Reformation time, the basis of authority was confirmed to be the Word of God alone. And that was a major step.

Before that, Church tradition was seen as authoritative as Scripture. In fact, the Roman Catholic Church's mode of interpretation dictated your method of interpretation. of interpreting the Scriptures. So you just couldn't pick up the Bible and read it. You had to follow their hermeneutical principles.

That being established, then the Reformers could determine that salvation is by grace through faith alone. Some improvements were made So, a return to biblical truth was made, state it that way, in relation to the church as well. Of course, they didn't recognize the Pope anymore, and even some churches started to return to elder rule. And last week we looked at spiritual growth teachings, which really didn't flourish until after the Reformation, until after justification by grace through faith was established. After people understood that their salvation was by God's grace, not by their own merit, then they could start to look at the Bible and try to determine what it says about spiritual growth.

So for the past couple centuries, that's been a big topic. And also, last thing, eschatology. Teaching concerning the end times is more recent. And I wanted to read a quotation by Pentecost. He says, it should be observed that each era of Church history has been occupied with a particular doctrinal controversy, which has become the object of discussion, revision, and formulation until there was general acceptance of what Scripture taught. One exception may be the medieval Church period. The entire field of theology was thus formulated through the ages. It was not until the last century that the field of eschatology became a matter to which the mind of the Church was turned.

In a minute we're going to visit each different period of Church history, but as an introduction, human tendencies to want to make the future known or to be understood in the present have brought The tendency to read biblical prophecies into the people and events of the past, which is Preterism, or the present, which is Historicism. The tendency to make predictions regarding specific dates, events, and people on the near-term horizon. And then what they would also do, then, is allegorize Scripture to fit these other tendencies.

Now we'll look at a couple different charts which are going to show the main views of end times. The first view, the pre-millennial view, millennial is the Latin word for thousand years, and the key to this view is that Christ's second coming occurs before the millennium, pre-millennium. So you see there the black arrow indicating Christ's Second Coming, which occurs before the thousand-year reign of Christ, which is what the Millennium refers to.

The people that adhere to this view acknowledge that judgments and resurrections of different groups occur at different times before or after the Second Coming. Different people believe the rapture takes place at different times if they believe in a rapture at all.

What you see is that the premillennial view is actually very broad and can incorporate covenant theologians. It can include covenant theologians as well as dispensationalists. So that's why this next slide is going to show the dispensational premillennial view. Now, even some dispensationalists disagree as to the time of the rapture. Will it occur before the seven-year tribulation or after? We teach, obviously, before the tribulation.

One of the other main differences between dispensational premillennialism and just general premillennialism is that this view believes that the Church does not replace Israel. The other group would believe that The Church today has replaced Israel. In other words, God does not have a program anymore for the people of Israel. But the dispensational premillennial view acknowledges that all those Old Testament prophecies concerning Israel are going to be fulfilled. So God does not hate the Jews, God is not done with the Jewish people, but He will keep His Word and fulfill those Old Testament promises in relation to them. Then, on the other side, we also acknowledge that the Church is the Bride of Christ, has this unique position at the Father's right hand in Christ, which Israel does not have.

Also, there is the Amillennial view, and Amillennial is a combination of Greek and Latin, A meaning no or not, millennial, again, thousand years. You basically believe that there is no millennium. There is no literal millennium. They teach that we may be in a spiritual form of a millennium now, but there is no literal thousand-year reign of Christ on Earth.

Also, they teach that the Church has replaced Israel. There is no literal seven-year Tribulation period, as mentioned in Revelation, for example. Instead, they take the passages that speak of the Tribulation, and they say those verses describe Church Age events. Instead of saying the Tribulation passage describes the future seven-year Tribulation period, which will actually happen, They say it's happening now. There's not one, correct.

And, thanks for reminding me, all the judgments and resurrections occur at the Second Coming. So there's no difference between a rapture and the Second Coming of Christ. Another view is the post-millennial view. And again, looking at the key word there, post-millennial, they believe and teach that Christ's Second Coming occurs after the millennium, post-millennial. And they also believe that all the biblical judgments and resurrections, and there are various ones mentioned in Scripture, they believe that all those occur at the Second Coming of Christ. Again, they do not teach a literal tribulation. They also teach the church replaces Israel.

And the main thrust of their teaching is that... Tom? Okay, maybe not. If not, bring it up. The main thrust of their teaching is that things are going to get better and better here on earth in preparation for Christ's coming, His second coming. In other words, they try to make this earth so good that Christ can't help but come back.

And they do that, there are different branches of post-millennialism. There is a liberal group and a more conservative group. The more conservative post-millennialists, they try to reform mankind by the gospel, by missions, by being involved in world missions, to try to convert people so that they can be part of this present kingdom age. The more liberal post-millennial group, they try to reform the earth through more social work, less preaching the gospel, more social improvement.

One's God-centered, one's man-centered. You cannot arrive at either one from a literal interpretation of the Scriptures, which we'll talk about in a minute. Some post-millennialists do teach that there is actually going to be The thousand-year reign, of course, it's through the Church. Christ isn't going to be here or in Jerusalem physically. He'll reign through the Church.

Others do not teach that the Millennium lasts a thousand years, but rather that it's just a long time. We'll actually talk more about this view at the end of the class, if we have time, because there's some contemporary post-millennialists that are pretty radical. Now, here's a different group that usually falls within post-millennialism, the Preterist group. They also can be amillennialists, but I believe most of them are post-millennial. What they teach is that they do not teach...

I'm sorry. In 70 AD, when Rome attacked Jerusalem by Titus, They believe that Christ came there figuratively in judgment against the Jews. And so they view most, if not all, of the Bible's prophecies as being fulfilled in 70 A.D. by Rome, by Titus. There are different degrees of preterism. There's mild, moderate, and extreme, or consistent, preterists. And let me read you a short description of each one of those groups.

The mild preterist teaches that the Book of Revelation was fulfilled during the first three centuries as God waged war on the two early enemies of the Church, Israel and Rome. The first half of Revelation teaches that Israel was defeated in A.D. 70, while the last half of Revelation is about God's conquest of Rome in the 4th century, when Constantine declared the Roman Empire Christian. Thus, this earliest form of preterism teaches that revelation was fulfilled in the first 300 years of the Church's history. The moderate preterists believe that almost all prophecy was fulfilled in the A.D. destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.

They do believe that a few passages still teach a yet future Second Coming and the resurrection of believers at Christ's bodily return. And then you can imagine what the extreme preterists teach. Or consistent preterists, as they prefer to be known, they hold that all future Bible prophecy was fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, If there is a future Second Coming, they say, the Bible does not talk about it. Extreme preterists believe that there is no future bodily resurrection which placed them outside the realm of Christian orthodoxy. Okay, so, in the extreme group, there is no Second Coming, period.

This timeline shows the It shows the duration of all the different views we just talked about. The premillennial view, which can be more general, has existed from the time of the Church through today. Dispensational premillennialism obviously is in the New Testament, and there are fragments of it that have been found throughout all the centuries. Not all the centuries, but throughout the centuries. And then it was in the 1800s that it was formulated as a systematic teaching by John Darby. The Amillennial view started with Origen, and then Constantine and Augustine, and has been carried on through today. The Postmillennial view is more recent, beginning in the 17th century.

Okay. So, as you're familiar with, there are two primary approaches to interpreting Scripture, the literal and the allegorical. The literal method teaches that the text is to be interpreted literally, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It also gives due consideration to the elements of language, like figures of speech, history, and culture. The allegorical method is quite different. It teaches that the text has a primary meaning that's literal, but the spiritual meaning, and actually the intended message of the passage, is derived from the text through allegory and analogy. Quite different. How are we going to approach the Scriptures? Literally or allegorically? And they yield different results, which is why there are so many different views of and times. Here's an example of how Bible prophecy can be interpreted, literally or allegorically.

The literal example says Christ's Second Coming will take place literally, when Christ comes to Earth to reign for a thousand years. And that can be found in the following passages. Those that hold to allegorical interpretations teach that Christ's Second Coming refers to His coming into the hearts and minds of those in the Church, or it speaks of Christ reigning through the Church, spiritually or figuratively. And then, as we mentioned a moment ago, the Preterists would teach that Christ came already in 70 AD.

He came in judgment against the Jews. Christians, looking at the exact same Bible verses, come to different conclusions because of their method of interpretation. This chart was actually given out in the fourth class, and it's very helpful. It's showing a timeline of the interpretation of Scripture, the different methods of interpretation.

And the top half of that timeline shows the literal interpretation of Scripture. The Old Testament authors, Ezra and the scribes, Christ and the apostles, the churches in Syria and Asia Minor, the Jews, Orthodox Jews, Through the Middle Ages, the Orthodox Jews continued to hold to that literal method of interpretation of the Hebrew portion of the Scriptures. A few Roman Catholics and oppressed churches as well. And then today, some Protestants and still some Orthodox Jews believe that the Bible or the Old Testament is to be interpreted literally. On the bottom half of this screen, it shows the allegorical interpretation of Scripture.

Where did it come from? And what you see is that Plato and other Greek skeptics approached Greek literature, like Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. They took those Greek documents, not biblical, and interpreted them allegorically. Before, the Greeks had interpreted those writings literally. Plato and others started to interpret them allegorically. Philo, the next guy mentioned there, he was a Jew living in Egypt. in Alexandria, Egypt, and this form of allegorical interpretation was common there, he started to interpret the Jewish scriptures allegorically. He also had a love for Greek literature. Origen was also from Alexandria, and he was a Christian. And what he did, he was one of the first ones, not the first, but one of the first ones, to take the Bible and interpret it allegorically. That was passed on to Augustine and the Roman Catholic Church, and today it's prevalent in these different denominations on the right. Okay.

What we're going to do, we haven't even started yet. We haven't even started to step through the different periods of Church history. But as we do that, we're going to mention, in each period, a quotation that teaches the Pre-Tribulation Rapture. Okay? And the reason we're going to do this is because a charge that's often brought against the pre-tribulation rapture position and dispensationalism is that there's no evidence of it before John Nelson Darby in 1830.

And so what we're going to do is show that there is a lot of evidence for it. Not only does the Bible teach it, but people did believe it throughout the centuries. I'll briefly mention that there is some evidence of editing or eliminating premillennial writings during the Middle Ages, because that view was considered heretical. The writings were destroyed, the people were usually killed if they were caught. And I'll give you just a couple examples of that.

Irenaeus lived during the 3rd century. He wrote a large treatise on interpreting prophecy literally. And that document that he wrote has survived. In the 4th century, Eusebius, who was an amillennialist, mentioned that Irenaeus was a premillennialist. But, in later centuries, Irenaeus' writings reflect the amillennial viewpoint and appear to have been edited. Lactantius is another example of that. Papias was a premillennialist, but none of his writings survived. Others write about Papias, but we don't have any of his writings today.

And then a later example which shows the successful Roman Catholic attempts to eliminate any heretical documents and persons is the case of William Pindale in the 16th century. He was killed by Roman Catholic authorities in 1536, and he translated the New Testament into English. He wanted the common English person to have the privilege of reading the Bible for himself. Well, he was killed, and out of the 18,000 copies of his New Testament, only one or two survived. So they were quite thorough in destroying those documents. Before we... as we step through the New Testament teaching on prophecy, it's important to note that Jesus and the Apostles interpreted the prophetic scripture literally.

They taught that Israel had a separate identity and future from the Church. They taught that the Church would be raptured, taken out, before the seven-year Tribulation period. And they also taught a literal 1,000-year reign of Christ. In the 2nd century, 100-200 AD, most of the Church believed in a literal 1,000-year reign of the Messiah, beginning at His Second Coming, These people were called Kiliasts, Kilia being Greek for a thousand, I believe. But, Justin Martyr, who said that anyone who did not believe in a literal 1,000 year reign of Christ as a heretic, also said that the Church had replaced Israel.

And you can see that allegorical interpretation was slipping in already, because if you equate Israel and the Church, it won't be very long before you start to view other things allegorically. This chart also was given out a couple of weeks ago, and it shows that those who were direct or second generation disciples of the Apostle John most often expressed a view of believing in a future literal 1000 year reign of Christ. And some of those guys were Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Papias, although they didn't all have direct contact with John the Apostle. It was close. Polycarp did, for certain. This is a quotation from Philip Schaff, who is not a premillennialist.

The most striking point in the eschatology of the Anti-Nicene Age is the prominent Kiliasm, or Millenarianism, a widely current opinion of distinguished teachers such as Barnabas, Papia, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Methodius, and Lactantius. Then we already mentioned Origen this morning.

He was discipled by Clement of Alexandria, He taught him allegorical interpretation. Origen extended allegorical interpretation and propounded it well. He systematized it. He had a school where he taught it. And the Church accepted it as the valid approach to Scripture. Since we're talking about end times and biblical prophecy, it's important to note that Origen questioned the authenticity of the Book of Revelation. and, of course, interpreted it allegorically.

Let's look at some of his views. We'll take Matthew 24-30 for an example. This is not his view, by the way, but this verse teaches that this is where Christ comes Himself through the clouds to establish His Second Coming. I'm sorry, to establish His Kingdom.

What did Origen say about this verse? He said that this passage referred to the Second Coming of Christ and to the souls of those of the open-hearted when they accept the truths of Scripture. He said that verses on the Second Coming of Christ referred to the mature believer seeing Christ in the hidden allegorical meanings of Scripture. How convenient!

When he wrote about the Tribulation, he said, the Tribulation period judgments described in Revelation 6-19 were not literally, literal events yet to take place, but rather they were a description of the struggles a person must come through on the way to union with Christ.

So you can see how the literal meaning of the Scriptures is lost. Hey Tom, go ahead. All the way from 2nd grade, you can't take the Holy Spirit with you all the time yet, because it's sold without warning. Really? Another example is Matthew 24, 40. This is where there are two men laboring in the field, one's taken and one's left. Origin taught that this represents the good and bad influences on a person's will. And again, any passage not allegorized was considered immature and not yet spiritual. Here is a quotation that reflects the pre-tribulation rapture view.

The document is called The Shepherd of Hermas. written in around 110 AD, and there's a quote in there which says, you have escaped from great tribulation on account of your faith. Another document by Victorinus, it's in his commentary on the Book of Revelation, he makes reference to the Church being taken away, or having gone out of the midst. As we look at that next period of Church history, the Imperial Church period. With Christianity having gained the political and military support of the Roman Empire, the Church was becoming much more comfortable in the world, viewing the Kingdom as already present in the form of the ruling reigning Church. Therefore, pre-millennial and literal views of the Bible became increasingly under official suppression. because those views stood in opposition to the amillennial view, which taught that the established Church was the Kingdom.

Here's another quotation, reflecting the pre-tribulation rapture, by Ephraim, the Syrian. He did not live 300 years there. The range of dates is put because some people question whether he really wrote this document or not. Either way, it's still an old document, written within that time frame, reflecting this view. Which says, "...for all the saints and elect of God are gathered prior to the tribulation that is to come, and are taken to the Lord, lest they see the confusion that is to overwhelm the world because of our sins." This chart is in your handout with a couple other pictures. And it basically just shows the different barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire. From all sides, Rome began to be inundated with these barbarians. And we'll talk about the importance of this in relation to this church history class in a moment. We'll go ahead and look at this next church history period.

By 732, 100 years after the death of Muhammad, the Muslim advance was finally turned back towards France. And you can see that now the Muslims really ravaged that whole area of the East there. And they still are in control of a lot of that area today.

A little later, There were Viking raids which attacked Europe for several centuries. You see from the 8th century all the way through the 12th century these different Vikings just kind of attacked the people that lived in Europe and the former Roman Empire.

So why do we mention those events? The late Imperial and Medieval Church taught that the Church replaces Israel they taught that the Church was the earthly kingdom, and they taught that the events of Revelation 6-19 were taking place during the Church Age, and they reinforced all those points through allegorical interpretation. So you can see, with the Viking raids, the barbarian invasions, and the Muslim attacks, it confirmed their allegorical view of the Tribulation. It's happening now, you know, we're being attacked, we're in the Tribulation, figuratively, and being judged by God. Also, they included the Black Plague epidemics as judgments of God against the sins of the people.

We'll mention the Franciscans, founded by Francis of Assisi. This group, which was part of the Roman Catholic Church, taught that the Pope had become the great Antichrist. They were apparently the first ones, and the reason we mention this is because they were the first ones to call the Pope the Antichrist. I believe that's true. And I mention that because a lot of contemporary and even former dispensationalists teach that when the Bible is talking about the Antichrist, it's speaking of the Pope. Well, these Roman Catholics were the first ones that started that view.

They also taught that Revelation chapters 2 and 3 present successive periods in Church history. Something also taught by some dispensationalists. Let me mention it. Then here is another pre-tribulation rapture quotation from a book called The History of Brother Dulcino. It's attributed to him what seems to be a pre-tribulation rapture position.

He was one of the Italian group called the Apostolic Brethren. Brother Dolcino was put to death by hot pinchers and burning in June of 1307. But this was likely not entirely for his position on future things, since he had also declared his Apostolic Brethren group independent of the established Church. So that was enough to kill them and snuff them out, because they claimed independence from the Roman Catholic Church.

As we step into the Reformation period, we see that the Reformers did a lot of really good things. And we mentioned that last week and in previous weeks. They re-established the basis of authority, which is the Word of God. The basis of salvation is faith, by grace through faith. And they emphasized the importance of personal Bible study and interpretation.

But they left some things unchanged. They continued to ally themselves politically and militarily, and they continued to interpret Scripture allegorically, but not all Scripture. They did return to a literal hermeneutic in most areas, but in prophecy, specifically, they continued to interpret things allegorically. Why? I don't know. It doesn't make sense.

Dispensationalists are charged with having presuppositions as they come to the Word of God. For example, the charges brought that before you even come to the Word of God, you've already made up your mind that the Church and Israel are different. But actually, it's not true, because if you approach the Bible objectively, it's very clear that the Church and Israel are separate groups. But there really is not a basis. for approaching the Bible both literally and allegorically. That doesn't make sense. And that was done, and it's still done today.

This little red box just shows the time of the Reformation period in relation to all the different views and times. Okay. As we step into the present church history period, we'll look at another quotation, speaking of a pre-tribulation rapture. This document is written by Morgan Edwards, and it's a book he wrote on the Millennium.

I think you have this handout, I'm not sure. It says that the S indicates that you have a special So you can maybe take a look at that and read his quotation there. When you do, notice that most of the F's are actually S's. If you don't recognize that, you'll have a hard time getting through that one.

He speaks of the millennium, we'll read it there. He speaks of the millennium and says, as we shall see hereafter, the millennium. But will he and they abide in the air all that time? No, they will ascend to paradise, or to some one of those many mansions in the Father's house, and so disappear during the foresaid period of time. The design of this retreat and disappearing will be to judge the risen and changed saints, for now the time has come that judgment must begin, and that will be at the house of God. Then these other guys listed here, I won't attempt to pronounce some of their names, but they also reflected the pre-tribulation rapture view.

With the exception of Thomas Collier, he actually wrote against the view, but in doing so, it proves that there was a view in existence, right? And again, why are we showing these? Besides it's interesting, let me read you a quotation by Dale Moody. He wrote a book called The Word of Truth in 1981. And he does not hold to this pre-tribulation rapture view. But look what he says about this view in dispensationalism. He says, pre-millennialism is as old as Christianity, but dispensationalism, with the modern form of seven dispensations, eight covenants, and a pre-tribulation rapture, is a deviation that has not been traced beyond 1830. that quotation is when you correct it.

We will be fair to Dale Moody, who again wrote that book in 1981, because it hasn't been until the last couple decades that there's been a focus on studying pre-tribulation documents and older documents throughout church history. No, sorry, Dale Moody. Dale, D-A-L-E. Thanks for clarifying that.

For example, in 1992, Tommy Ice and Tim LaHaye co-founded the Pre-Trib Study Group. And there's actually a pre-TRIB research center where, I guess, guys just sit around all day and go through old historical documents to try to find indications of these views in church history. Now, Larry Crutchfield also has written a book called The Origins of Dissensationalism where he does the same thing. He traces through church history in each different period and notes where this view of the Word of God has been taught.

So there's John Darby. Darby formulated a defined, dispensational and rapture teaching in combination with recognizing that the Church's future and identity is distinct from Israel's future and identity. And he and some of the other Plymouth brethren spent a lot of their time writing about these truths in the Word of God. And again, Darby didn't make it up.

It's the result of a literal approach to the Word of God, and it also did not originate with John Darby. It's been in existence through the history of the Church. Do you guys have any comments? teaching one on the pre-church thing, and we didn't have anything to apply to pre-church rapture.

Which one was it there? Well, it was Romans 5, 9. First that's 1, 10, then 1, 13, 2, 18, and I don't even know if I got to 5, 9. And then Revelation 3, 10. And I want to make sure we're dashing everything. But it didn't seem to be exclusively applicable for the seven-year tribulation. Okay. Alright. Maybe we can take a look at those specifically later or something like that. That would be cool. Yeah. Anything else? Yeah.

It seems like from what I'm understanding, a lot of times when people do not understand literally what's going on, they tend to fall back to the allegorical. And Calvin didn't even write a commentary on Revelation. And also, I think what you're saying, I think that is actually a tenet of their The literal interpretation is fine until it doesn't make sense, and then you can allegorize. I don't know. And why weren't they snuffed out immediately? But they weren't. That's unusual. I don't know the specifics of that story, though. But they were under the umbrella of the Roman Catholic Church.

And in mentioning these different views, we still have some more things to talk about. But in mentioning these different views of end times, I'm not purposefully... I don't want to be haughty or cocky. It's actually very humbly that we all need to approach the Word of God, but the point is that when we do so, let's do it with a consistent hermeneutic. Literally, let's look at what it has to say. And in doing so, when you approach Bible prophecy that way, you will come up with such views as are held by dispensationalists. Let's talk about a few different things in the 20th century.

And the first one we'll mention is the Schofield Reference Bible. I brought a copy that I've beat up over the years. It was first published in 1909 and then another edition was released in 1917. And I'll read you a quotation about the Schofield Reference Bible. Until 1909, and the publication of the Schofield Reference Bible, laymen were not laymen. were not encouraged to study the Bible efficiently and effectively.

Theology was left to the clergy, but with the publication of the Schofield Reference Bible, this all changed. It became an overnight phenomenon, because for the first time, the average layperson in the pew had in his own hands a tool that helped him to understand the various divisions of the Bible, along with critical doctrinal issues such as inerrancy, inspiration of Scripture, the rapture, and the return of the Lord. Because of this, a pool of believers soon developed which cut across denominational lines. In a short period of time, this pool became a broad consensus made up of believers who understood the Bible and its teachings better than any other group of believers in any other time in Church history." So that's why we mention the Schofield Reference Bible as we study Church history. because it was actually very influential for the common folk, us, to understand what God's Word actually says.

The next thing we'll mention is World War I and World War II. These wars dashed the optimism of post-millennialism, causing a shift to amillennial or dispensational views. And most of the post-millennialists would switch over to amillennialism, because it's a much bigger step to go over to literal interpretation of the Scripture. And you can see why that was the case. Postmillennialism was actually very popular in the 19th century, but when World War I occurred, and then especially World War II, it went against their teaching.

They were teaching that the world's getting better and better, And people believed it, but then once the world entered war, and then entered war for a second time, people told them, Phooey, what you're teaching us can't be true, because look at things.

Dallas Theological Seminary was founded in 1924. There were other Bible colleges and seminaries that were founded before or after that. that also taught people how to interpret the Scriptures literally. Another key book that was handed out about that time was a book called Dispensational Truth by Clarence Larkin, published in 1918. Then this bigger version was published in 1920, and it's just full of dispensational charts. And this book actually was helped people understand what the Bible was teaching about God's dealings with different people in different times. Israel became a nation on May 14th, 1948.

We mention that because you and I do not believe in dispensationalism, if you do, because of that. But we understand, maybe, what's going on. Israel is a nation. Is that surprising to us? No, it's not surprising, because we understand that, at some point, God is going to, again, fulfill these promises that He's given in relation to the Jews. We're not setting times, we're not date setting, like some have done, but we just note that things are being set up. It looks like it'll be soon. But again, the Lord's told us, as far back as in the New Testament is written, to expect His return at any moment. So we continue to look for the Lord's return. But it is not surprising to the dispensationalists that Israel became a nation.

After World War II, especially in the last 30 years, post-millennialism has become popular again. And there's a present-day group called the Theonomists, and they're just present-day post-millennialists that are trying to win the world for Christ, but by doing so, their method of Christianizing the world is by applying the law to people. And I'll read you just a couple, we're about out of time, but I'll read you just a couple quotations from them. They say, "...the kingdom must be established all through the world, and the time is now. The thing that distinguishes the biblical postmillennialist from amillennialism and premillennialism is his belief that Scripture teaches the success of the Great Commission in this age of the Church. The post-millennial theonomists have an optimistic confidence that the nations of the world will become disciples of Christ, and that the Church will grow to fill the earth, and that Christianity will become the dominant principle. The Gospel shall convert the vast majority of the world to Christ and bring widespread obedience to His Kingdom rule."

So that's an example of their teaching. Also, beginning in the 1980s, there was a sad compromise between Classic Dispensationalism and Amillennial or Postmillennialism, and it's called Progressive Dispensationalism. And actually, a lot of the Dallas theologians teach this view. Progressive Dispensationalism blurs the Biblical distinction between Israel and the Church.

They also teach that Christ is now reigning from David's throne in Heaven. They teach that the Kingdom is already, but not yet. That is, the Kingdom is already here, but is also awaiting a future fulfillment as well. Progressive Dispensationalists teach that the mysteries of the New Testament have been the mysteries of the New Testament have been revealed to some degree in the Old Testament. They teach a present and partial fulfillment of the covenants, of the Old Testament covenants, and there's other tenets to their view.

And lastly, we'll mention Open Theism is becoming very popular. If you're not familiar with what Open Theism teaches, This view is also called the open view of God, the openness or the openness of God view. The terminology is intended to convey the idea that God is open to the possibilities of the future.

Biblical prophecy, according to this group, is God's best guess. He doesn't know for sure what's going to happen, but He's a good guesser, because He understands man very well. Now, that's funny, but in 2001, at the annual Evangelical Theological Society meeting, 30% voted to accept that view as orthodox. So, that's shocking.

Next week we're going to talk about the history of missions throughout church history. And the bell rang, so let's pray. Dear Lord, thanks again for letting us all get together and study and fellowship and encourage each other in Yourself. And please do teach us and please do perfect us and equip us. And I pray we would all glorify You by Your grace through faith. Amen.