Dispensationalism and CT 2

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All right, well, we are in our second week of looking at a comparison of covenant theology and Dispensationalism You'll remember last week I sort of went over the basics of covenant theology and dispensationalism and we read the description from our book Which describes both of them and today we're going to go to the second point and that's where it says God's people So if you're looking at the sheet Here for you as I see that you don't have them here my dear You'll see where it says God's people.
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This is really the dividing line If you wanted to say, you know, what truly divides? The covenant theologian from the dispensationalist is how you understand the people of God Historically and how you understand the people of God today Under Covenant theology, you'll see that it says God has one people Represented by the Saints of the Old Testament era and the Saints of the New Testament era But under dispensationalism, it says God has two people Israel and the church Israel is an earthly people and the church his heavenly people this is a huge point of contention and You can understand why? Because when you want to ask the question, well, who are God's people that that that is a that's not really a secondary issue Even though we can say that a dispensationalist and a covenant theologian can disagree and both still be Christians this is still this is a primary this is of primary importance who are God's people and What do we mean when we say God's people? because oftentimes I think that even that phrase is Confused we talk about God's people You'll hear someone say and I know that you've probably heard this many of you ever said this well, we're all God's children, right and the reality is We're not all God's children in the way of most people mean it Most people mean we're all God's children ie we're all in a relationship with God as our father That is not the case You can go to John chapter 1 and it says very clearly Jesus came unto his own his own received him not but to as many as received him to them He gave the power to become what? Children of God, you know So so so children of God is not something you are by nature children of God is something you are by a work of God He makes you his child by the work of Christ Through the power of regeneration the work of the Spirit in your heart and and and and and through adoption you become Part of the family of God.
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So so the idea that well, we're all children of God.
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In fact, there is a there's a very famous Statement What is it? Goodness The universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man, that's a that's a I don't know if you ever heard that but it's a pretty popular statement universal fatherhood of God and universal brotherhood of man Neither one of those is really true because the universal fatherhood of God Is well God created everyone in that sense God is the father of all people in a creative sense, but the relationship of God his father Comes only when we're adopted into his family by grace through faith in Christ And the brotherhood of man, well, we're all brothers in the sense that we're all sons and daughters of Adam But the true brotherhood of the relational familial family of God Comes from being a part of the body of Christ.
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So There's no universal fatherhood.
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There's no universal brotherhood.
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It's it's something that we're born again Into you know, you're born into the family of humanity.
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You're born again into the body of Christ So the question again with dispensationalism covenant theology is well, who are God's people? and Covenant theology would say well in the Old Testament you had the Saints We'll say Old Testament Saints and in the New Testament you have those who are also identified as Saints now interestingly enough Would we all agree that in the Old Covenant Dispensation and I said now I'm mixing language in the Old Covenant Wouldn't we say that? Not every Jew Was a saint because what is a saint we talked to I talked about this last week in my sermon What is who are who are the Saints? Yes Saints are those who are saved right they are called Hagiasmos in the Greek means the holy ones, right? The Saints are the ones who've been made holy I want to ask you a question was Korah a saint? We say probably we don't know for certain but we know that he was swallowed up The earth opened up and because of his rebellion against Moses and ultimately against God The earth opened up and swallowed him and his family so we have this person in the Old Testament who was not considered to be a believer now move on past the time of Moses past the wilderness wanderings and in the time of David are There not those in Israel who were not of the faith Well, yes there there's a description of those who were who were Israelites by blood but not by faith think about during the time of Who is it? Elijah Where he said, you know, I alone am left and God said no I have what I have kept 7,000 Who have not bowed the knee to Baal right and what Was God's saying there They're saints, but he said he's saying that there is always a remnant Chosen by grace There's always a remnant chosen by grace.
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It has never been in the history of God's people that Everyone of a familial line is part of that group All the children of Abraham are not all the children of Abraham That sounds like I'm misspeaking.
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But what did Jesus say? You say you're sons of Abraham, but if you were children of Abraham, you would believe in me but You are not children of Abraham you're of your father the Devil, right? So even though they had the physical lineage of being children of Abraham They were not children of Abraham By faith.
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Yes by nature.
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They were children of wrath.
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So even in the Old Testament Testament The remnant was chosen by grace in the New Testament.
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The Saints are also chosen by grace right, so God's people are Always Those who have received the gracious choosing of God So we could say God's people in the Old Testament are those who were chosen by grace God's people in the New Testament are those who are chosen by grace In the Old Testament God did his work primarily among one nation not absolutely, but primarily Because if you say he did it, absolutely Then why is the Moabite Ruth? Included or why are the people of Nineveh during the time of Jonah? Included I mean you go on and on right you go down the lineage of Jesus.
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You'll see several people that were not Jews by birth All right, so one nation primarily, but not exclusively Exactly, and she's in the list Yeah, primarily, but not exclusively Right one nation primarily, but not exclusively you go over here to the New Testament and what's the New Testament? all nations right every Tribe tongue and nation So that's a big change If you want to talk about what's new about the New Covenant Well, what the primary newness of the New Covenant is that you've gone from the primary focus being upon the new or being upon the singular nation of Israel with some exceptions To now moving out to every tribe tongue a nation and what does Paul say there is now neither Jew nor Greek We've moved away from that that was the old covenant distinction Jew and Greek and even in the Old Covenant and you have to be honest about this even under the Old Covenant if somebody wanted to become Well if somebody wanted to become one of God's chosen people part of that meant becoming a Jew Right it was that was part of how you were made part of the covenant family was you be you went through the process of Becoming a Jew even though you weren't by birth.
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You could become a Jew by Proselytization or by by you going through that process of if you're a man you're circumcised and those things Well, that's a good point the Ninevites who obviously we don't have any record of them being Circumcised or being brought into the family and yet they repented and yet we would say they were brought into God under the umbrella of God's people so this is where if you're looking at it from a dispensational perspective the dispensationalist would say God still has two people and The two people are still Jews and Greeks or Jews and Gentiles so the dispensationalist says okay, you still have two people there's still Jew and Gentile But this is where the distinction is made for the for the dispensationalist he says the Gentile Which well we could say the Christian because that can include Jews too because they're Jews who have become Christians, right? but they would say that the two people are the Jews and the Christians essentially the Christians are the heavenly people in that they will receive the blessing of Eternal life and the new heavens and the new earth But that God has not stopped His promises to his earthly people so this becomes the earth Earthly people and Here is the biggest issue that the Dispensationalists hold to as the reason why they they're committed to this position They say God made promises to the Jews that were absolutely unbreakable Because God made them and if God makes a promise.
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He doesn't back off of that promise He doesn't give up that promise if God did that how can you be confident in your eternal life because he promised it to you? He could he just take that promise back and and is he that type of God who speaks out of one side of his mouth? And then out of the other and because God has made promises to the Jewish people He will he is honor-bound by his own integrity to maintain that Consistent promise forever and there are promises that the Old Testament says are forever So this is where the dispensationalist has his Strongest argument he says God has made promises and unless you want to make God a liar you have to believe that God has maintained certain Aspects of his covenant with the Jews to this day All right, that's their argument.
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I'm not saying I agree or disagree.
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I'm just saying that's the position you've got two people Covenant theology says there's one people.
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It's the Saints whether they're the old covenant saying to the New Covenant Saints It's a remnant chosen by grace In the Old Testament it was primarily out of one nation, but not exclusively in the New Testament it is reaching out to every tribe tongue and nation the Dispensationalists would say in the Old Testament the primary focus with the Jews and the New Testament the primary focus is the Gentiles But the Jews have their own going their ongoing Promise from God that they're getting and so what you have in dispensationalism is sort of like a set of train tracks Okay Imagine a set of train tracks At one point in history this track was closed Okay, and we'll call this the Gentiles All right, but this track has always been open the track of the Jews right, so you've got this track which always has been open and This track was closed until the cross when the cross comes in now This track has opened up the the doors open to the Gentiles now, right? So now you have two parallel tracks Where you've got the Gentiles who have their thing and you've got the Jews whose thing didn't stop You understand this this the Jews thing just keeps on Keeps on going Yeah, yeah.
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Yeah, this is the dispensation.
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This is I'm sorry.
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I didn't write it up here, but this is more covenant This is the dispensational passage So the perspective is you get the Jews who's who've had their thing and their thing continues the Gentiles didn't have a thing The only way the Gentiles had a thing was to become a Jew All right.
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Well now that's not necessary anymore because of the cross you can remain a Gentile and be saved So you've got this track is the track of the Gentiles this track here is the track of the Jews The two do not coincide.
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In fact, this is where you get the the whole argument about what happens during the tribulation Because the idea of what happens during the tribulation is that this part stops again and it becomes focused on the Jews Where God was focused on the Jews here He's focused on the Gentiles here But there will come a day when he stops being focused on the Gentiles anymore And he starts focusing on the Jews again, and they say that's during the tribulation That's why there's 144,000 saved out of the 12 tribes of Israel.
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You all heard that argument from Revelation All right, so that he was focused on the Jews here and he's going to be focused on the Jews again But now he's focused on the Gentiles And it sort of becomes a back-and-forth Situation here.
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That's again.
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If you've ever grown up around dispensationalism you heard all this you heard, you know because they'll go to the they'll go to Romans where it talks about the times of the Gentiles being fulfilled and they'll say see there's coming a time where the times of Gentiles Be fulfilled and then the Gentile time will be over and God will go back to dealing with the Jews But he's he's left him hanging for a while 2,000 years are quite a while, but he's left him hanging for a while But here's where the question comes up if the Israelites who are Israelites by birth Are God's people by necessity of their birthright? number one Where are we today? When you have people who are no longer Jews thoroughbred Yeah, there when you talk about thoroughbred you understand what I mean people who are absolutely Jewish people today are of various lineages people can be Jews and yet still have various types of Backgrounds, you know because somebody married outside of the Jewish family.
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Maybe they would have Yeah Disappeared completely.
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I mean they just intermarried right then and so now their descendants are 2,500 years No, you're right, yeah, and so there's there is no ten other tribes actually an actuality by genetically.
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Yeah speaking.
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Yeah Yeah, yeah Well that and that's why I say this this is this this tries to solve some problems.
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How do you make God's promises? true well Do you they interpret it this way, huh? Exactly and and that again this whole thing is fraught with issues because here's my question and this is I think this is an important question If the Jews are God's earthly people Meaning that they're the recipients of his promises here on earth He is in a covenant relationship with them simply based on their genetic makeup are they saved from their sins And you get two answers you do Most dispensationalists would say no, they're not saved because Jesus is required for salvation if they don't believe in Jesus They're not saved from their sin, but they still get the promises of God here And I say well what value is that If all you have is maybe 80 years of promise from God here, but you're still going to hell How can you be called God's people? How can you be identified as the people of God if God has given you over to wrath? 144,000 during the tribulation Yes, yes, and and and that's the that this is why they would say well they're coming to Christ I said, but what about all the Jews who've died the last 2,000 years? Well, well But you understand what I'm saying You're telling me I had to sit for a minute my knees hurt.
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You're telling me that a person can be God's Person or God's people and that people Still go to hell You have a much different interpretation of what it means to be God's people than I do Because I believe if you're God's people that means you're in a covenant relationship with God whereby your sins Have been atoned for if you have not had the atonement of sins You are not in a relationship with God that is Eternal Exactly Well, I've heard the argument that there will be sacrifices which begin again in the temple, but still I'm I'm concerned And I and I have to ask this question We've got 2,000 years of Jewish people and a lot of that 2,000 years.
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There've been a lot of anti-semitism There's been a lot of times where Jews have been treated poorly Look at the Nazi regime and even before that there were things that happened Opposing the Jewish people there've been a lot of negatives for the for yeah for for for for the Jewish people You know, so they have suffered a lot Yeah, you know and somebody says well God's promises to them is this land Okay.
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Well, they were out of the land for a long time.
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They do they came back what in the 40s.
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Yeah Yeah, so they were out of the land for a long time.
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So you're basing your promise on the last generation See a lot of people aren't They don't think much historically.
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They don't go back and look at how long they were out of the land you know and Again this all boils down to the question.
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Does a Jew go to heaven? simply because of genetics and Some people believe they do I remember I told you this last week Pat Robertson sat across the table from the guy And the guy says well do I need to believe in Jesus and he goes? Well, you're a Jew and the Bible says all Israel will be saved.
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So you don't have anything to worry about Yeah, absolutely, I remember watching it going Yikes.
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Hey, what are you talking about? You know Pat Robertson's office? Rocker anyway, but but on that particular issue.
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I thought to myself that's hyper dispensationalism That's taking Dispensationalism to the extreme Degree yeah, the obsolete nature of the Old Covenant in Hebrews Again they would say it's not obsolete for them.
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It's very Yeah Well, let's Yeah, I I want to be careful I don't necessarily compare them to Mormons, but I understand what you're saying Well, let's look at the plan for his people in the plan of salvation because here's the two points I think that we really need to understand the plan for his people Under Covenant theology.
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God has one people the church for whom he has one plan and all ages since Adam To call out this people into one body in both the Old and New Testament ages that is one thing that you have to understand about the Covenant theologian the Covenant theologian will call Israel the church and will call the church Israel that and That that's a that's a language thing that a lot of people have difficulty with Talking about the church in the Old Covenant well the word church in the Greek simply means the assembly and So you can talk about the assembly of the faithful in the Old Testament or the assembly of faithful in New Testament But that word church and dispensationalism becomes a new More specific word which talks about an age in dispensationalism There's the church age and it's the time that comes after Christ and it's talking about the body of Christ Which to them is the church.
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So the word assembly is less effective than church So church is very specifically used.
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So in the Covenant theology They'll talk about the church here all of God's people the church here all of God's people and if you think the word church bothers you if Used the word assembly the assembly of God's people here the assembly of God's people here.
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You understand there's Yeah, the called-out ones a Ecclesia those have been called out yep But under dispensationalism God has two separate peoples Israel in the church and also has two separate plans for these two distinct peoples He plans an earthly kingdom for Israel The kingdom has been postponed until Christ's coming in power since Israel rejected it at his first coming During the church age.
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God is calling out of heavenly people dispensationalists disagree over whether the two peoples will remain distinct in the eternal state See, there are some people who believe I remember this specifically from one of my seminary classes because I had a very strong dispensational teacher and he talked about Christ There and I don't remember the passage.
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I have to look it up There's a passage that talks about an unknown group or something and during the marriage supper of the Lamb And he said that's the Jews.
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He said they're they're the Jews.
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They they they didn't receive Christ but They're still there and I was like, wow, okay, that's it That's actually what Jesus said that's a different passage, but I know the passage you're talking Jesus is talking I think they're about the Gentiles because I have sheep who are not of this fold I think he's talking about the fact that there are sheep that are not of the not of Israel and But but so that's that's sort of the opposite.
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But yeah, I It's there's something about the marriage supper of the Lamb and there's a group there and my professor would always say that's the Jews That's that's what he's talking about here So again dispensationalists don't all agree and again the Millennium becomes the issue Because in the Millennium the Jews reign, you know, they're there they have their Sacrifice.
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Well, we reign with Christ and the Jews have their sacrifice and things that are going on during the Millennium according to the dispensational plan of what's going to happen in the future, but Here's the here's the big one this salvation issue Under covenant theology God has one plan of salvation for his people since the time of Adam The plan is one of grace being an outworking of the eternal covenant of grace and comes to faith in Jesus Christ He said well, how did Abraham have faith in Jesus Christ? Well, he believed the promise of the gospel which was given to him in Genesis chapter 12 that all the nation of the world be blessed through his seed his seed was Christ and though he probably could not Articulate all that was going to happen in regard to who Christ was what the cross was and what was going to happen on the Cross he had the faith that God was going to do this promise and his faith in the promise of God was the faith in The gospel and so that's what the covenant theologian would say this group is saved by Christ This group is saved by Christ.
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This was saved by what Christ was going to do This group is saved by what Christ is has already done And if you think about it in eternity past it was already done in the mind of God because he's the lamb slain from The foundation of the world so both are saved what Christ has done, but this is looking forward This is looking back to what Christ did okay, whereas the dispensational Will say this God has only one plan of salvation though This has often been misunderstood because of the in exactness in some dispensational writings Some have wrongly taught or understood that Old Testament believers were saved by works and sacrifices however Most of believe that salvation has always been by grace through faith But that the content of the faith may vary until the full revelation of God in Christ So here's the point I have to say this is why I don't condemn dispensational I don't disagree with them, but I don't condemn them either for the most part Dispensationalist will say yes salvation has always been by grace through faith And just like I said earlier the faith has always been A faith and whatever God has revealed at the time in regard to his promise And and I would say that I don't think Abraham knew specifically what Christ was going to do and how Christ was going to affect It perfectly he knew God had made a promise about his seed and the promise that can promise continued And it's always those who had faith in the promise of God Who were his people throughout the Old Covenant and then when Christ came it was the fulfillment of those promises and that faith continued So my point in this is to simply say Dispensationalists for the most part Believe pretty much the right way in regard to how people are saved They're saved by grace through faith where the issue becomes is well what does God then do with the Jews who aren't in Christ and That's where the Sort of the vacillating comes what does God do with the Jews who aren't in Christ some people would say well They get saved by virtue of their Jewish Jewishness some people would say they're not And there there is the big distinction, but as it says in this notes There is an exactness in the writings meaning.
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There's there's they haven't really nailed it down in a lot of areas, so That's the And if we look just very quickly in the next part and we're gonna finish this next week But just very quickly the place of eternal destiny for God's people because this is what really matters, right? I mean if you have 80 years of really good and then an eternity of bad 80 years are really good ain't that good? Because it's just storing up wrath for yourself, so what is the eternal destiny? Well covenant theology says God has But one place for his people since he has but one people one plan and one plan of salvation His people will be in his presence for eternity under dispensationalism.
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There is a Disagreement, and this is where I think the biggest issues stand.
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There's a disagreement among dispensationalists dispensationalists Regarding the future state of Israel in the church many believe that the church will sit with Christ on his throne in the New Jerusalem during the Millennium as he rules over the nations while Israel will be the head of Nations on the earth what I said earlier, we're gonna rule with Christ, and they'll they'll they'll have a position of authority again the issue becomes Why is it that these Jews are participating in the kingdom of God when they have not come to the king who is Christ I think that's a major question, and if somebody says well, it's because of the promises of God I Believe all the promises of God are fulfilled in Christ.
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I Believe all of the promises of God Are had their fullness in Christ's work and what he did and so somebody says well.
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Do you believe that God lied no? But I do believe that we've misunderstood some of his promises, and how they are fulfilled in Christ I believe that if we look at what Christ has done and that we will Experience the New Jerusalem and we will experience a promised land beyond any measure of any earthly promised land that has ever been given and We will experience a place where the lion will lay down with the lamb And there will be eternal peace and eternal joy and eternal Milk and honey that that time is coming that promise is still yet to be fully fulfilled because the new heaven and new earth is Not here yet but I believe that that promise that God gave to Israel is the promise for all of God's people and that it's something that we're Looking forward to even as of yet, so the argument that well God hasn't fulfilled his promises Well, maybe not all of them yet But to say that he's limiting those promises just to the Jewish people and just a one geographic piece of land over in Israel I Think is to is to limit the scripture beyond what Christ did and beyond what the Apostle Paul did so Yeah, and I would say From what I understand and of course, I'm willing to be corrected if somebody wants to correct me but from what I understand it was John Nelson Darby who was who was influential and Sort of producing the ideas particularly pre-tribulation rapture and the Millennium and all that And then it was CI Schofield whose notes were added into the study Bible and the Schofield reference Bible became sort of the It was the Bible for so many people and it was so influential on so many people and I would say Schofield has had some of the most influential Or some of the most influence on modern Dispensationalists and then of course you have Charles Ryrie and others Dallas Theological Seminary is is very Dispensational John MacArthur as a dispensationalist, so there's still guys today who would hold these views and And they're big are God's not done with Israel.
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God's not done with Israel.
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Okay? Is there coming a time where God may grant a revival to people of? Jewish ethnicity, I hope so.
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That would be a wonderful blessing to see a revival among any people Is that what Romans 11 is promising? You know Paul did give it.