As opposed to Dispensationalism -"What is Reformed Theology?"

The history of the Reformed Church in America can be traced back to the early 1500s when groups of Christians separated themselves from the Roman Catholic church on the ground that biblical authority supercedes ecclesiastical (church and tradition) authority. When Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the door of the Church in Wittenburg Germany in 1517, the beginning of one the most dramatic shifts in the history of Christianity began. The Reformation spread across northern and central Europe and then across the ocean into the New World. Protestant churches such as Lutheran, Reformed, Presbyterian, and Congregationalist emerged as each sought a more biblical approach to worship and community. The Pilgrims were Reformed Christians who came to the New World looking for freedom to practice a more biblical Christian faith. The first Reformed Dutch Church was established to serve the people of a small community located at the mouth of the Hudson River in 1620 called the New Netherlands. The Reformed Church in America (then called the Reformed Dutch Church) was formed as a denomination in the early 1700s to bring unity to scattered churches founded among fledgling settlements in the 1620s. The RCA is one of the oldest denominations in North America.

Why is the Reformed Church in America called "reformed"?
The churches were seeking to reform themselves back to Biblical teaching, and away from influences that corrupted the Gospel. To be ever-reforming means to be ever-adjusting, always refining the church back toward God's purposes. Reforming according to worldy influences, false teachings, and the whims of individuals are not the criteria for reformation, rather, are we being true to the Word of God? A reformed church is a church that ought to be faithful to the truth as revealed in Scripture.

Reformed theology is a systematic study of God’s special revelation given to us in the Bible. Because the Bible is God’s inspired Word, it is meant to be interpreted without the influence of man-made rules or traditions, and is therefore our only reliable source of truth and authority in all matters of faith and life. Reformed theology is centered on God, and therefore is dependent on God’s Word alone. This principle is called “sola Scriptura” or “Scripture alone”, and is one of the five “solas” of Reformation theology.

The main theme of God’s relationship with mankind is that of redemption. As people born in sin, we suffer from the effects of the curse God sanctioned upon all humanity and creation as a consequence of the disobedience (sin) of Adam and Eve. This sin nature became part of natural humanity, and has so deeply affected our minds, hearts, and wills that we refuse even to acknowledge this without the help of God! God deals with our sin by providing a way of escape in the person and work of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus’ life was unusual in every way you can possibly imagine. His life brought such a change to the course of history that we even divide time according to His time on earth (BC and AD). But more than any other aspect of His life, His life of perfect obedience to the will of God and holy righteousness set Him apart as a very unique human being. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of virgin woman named Mary. He was fully divine and fully human. The divine and human natures were not separate, nor blended, but are as much a mystery of the Being of Jesus Christ, as in the Trinitarian nature of God Himself. And so, Jesus was the first Man since Adam that was born with no sin nature!

We, however, live lives of disobedience and unrighteousness continually. We can do no else. It’s who we are. It’s all we know. This sin nature is as real and significant as if we had been in the Garden of Eden and committed the first act of disobedience ourselves. We cannot save ourselves. We cannot overcome the sin that indwells our nature no matter how hard we try, no matter how “good” we think we are, or how many good things we try to do.

How then do we find justification? How can we be acquitted of this crime against our Creator? Just as Adam and Eve’s sin cursed us, Jesus’ righteousness justifies us, but this is accomplished only through faith. Jesus was condemned to die a criminal’s death by the cruelest, most agonizing death that Rome could execute, crucifixion. He received the divine punishment that we deserved.

In theology, this is called double imputation: our sin is imputed to Jesus, and His righteousness is imputed to us.

Our ability to “do well” is not biblically correct! All of our attempts to be good people cannot save us from eternal damnation. Without faith, the bible says, all our righteousness is as filthy rags. We must be able to admit that we are helplessly stuck in sin, then recognize our need for God’s help to save us, and finally come to Jesus Christ for salvation. This is the Gospel, the Good News.

Prior to the Reformation, the preaching of the Gospel had undergone serious corruption. Rather than believing that humanity is utterly helpless without the complete and continual saving work of the triune God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), people were taught that they could earn their way to heaven by doing good deeds or even by purchasing indulgences which freed souls from purgatory in exchange for monetary gifts to the Church. In order to clearly define the biblical message of the Gospel, the Reformers outlined five principles known as the five “solas” of the Reformation. The first of these was already mentioned as “sola scriptura” or Scripture alone. After establishing Scripture as the sole authority, the Gospel was clearly understood from Scripture to be accomplished solely through grace (sola gratia), by faith alone (sola fide), and in Christ alone (soli Christo) for the glory of God alone (soli deo Gloria). To this day, disagreement over the Gospel as pertaining to the five Solas remains the point of division between the Protestant and Roman Catholic Church, even if many people are theologically ignorant of this fact. As long as sinful man refuses to acknowledge God’s Word as holy, inerrant, and completely authoritative, corruption of the Gospel will continue to occur, even in Protestant churches, where post-modern influences and liberal theology have supplanted Biblical integrity.

Reformed theology is sometimes called covenant theology because of the covenantal structure found throughout the biblical record. This structure was commonly used in treaties between kings and their subjects in ancient near east nations, and is similar to the covenants made between God and His people, Israel. Recognition and understanding of this covenantal structure leads to a better interpretation of Scripture than other frameworks such as Dispensationalism, which instead divides the biblical record into seven testing periods. The three main covenants in reformed theology are the covenant of redemption, the covenant of works, and the covenant of grace.

The Covenant of Redemption was agreed upon in eternity by God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. This covenant assured that mankind would be redeemed by the cooperative work of the triune God. Before creation and before the fall of man, God had already designed the plan that demonstrates the harmony and the unity of purpose between the triune God and His creation.

The Covenant of Works was made between God and Adam. Adam and Eve were created in the image of God, and as such were meant to reflect God’s holy character. The covenant, therefore stipulated that mankind was required to obey God. The sanction attached to this contract was death. When God told Adam not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, He was clear: “when you eat of it, you will surely die.” Adam and Eve had the ability to obey God, but made the decision not to. Human beings born after the fall of Adam and Eve are utterly incapable of obedience. Humanity was thus no longer able to fulfill the covenant of works.

The Covenant of Grace is made between God and sinners. Because Adam and Eve disobeyed God, mankind has suffered the consequences of disobedience ever since. Although God mercifully allowed Adam and Eve to remain physically alive, they experienced spiritual death. No human being since then (except One) has ever been born with the ability to respond positively to God. The Bible tells us we are dead in our trespasses and sin (Ephesians 2:1-3). God, however, sent Jesus as the second Adam who was able to respond to the will of the Father. This second Adam fulfilled the agreements of the first and second covenants. This second Adam was God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ: fully God and fully man.

C.S. Lewis described the need for this God-Man (the second Adam) in his book, Mere Christianity, in this way:

“Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you are the more you need it and the less you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person ---and he would not need it.”

“But supposing God became a man — suppose our human nature which can suffer and die was amalgamated with God’s nature in one person — then that person could help us. He could surrender His will, and suffer and die, because He was man; and He could do it perfectly because He was God.”

The doctrines of grace are also commonly known as the five points of Calvinism. We are careful to emphasize that John Calvin did not invent these doctrines although they were outlined by Calvin in his work, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. The doctrines of grace have stood the test of time ever since the apostle Paul first explained them in his epistles and on through the course of church history from Augustine to Luther to Calvin to the present day. Modern-day evangelical churches have departed from these doctrines for the most part and tended instead to embrace Arminian theology and dispensationalism.

The five points of Calvinism are easily remembered with the well-known acrostic TULIP:

T - stands for “Total depravity” (humanity’s radical corruption),

U - stands for “Unconditional election” (God’s sovereign choice),

L - stands for “Limited atonement” (Christ’s purposeful atonement),

I - stands for “Irresistible grace” (the Spirit’s effective call), and

P - stands for the “Perseverance of the saints” (God’s preservation of the saints).

These five points address the problem of sin, its impact on the relationship of human beings to God, and how God has ensured that humanity would not be utterly lost. These five points are essential to an understanding of the Gospel because they teach us about the sovereignty and power of a holy God and the helplessness and complete dependence of human beings upon God for life.

[This information was obtained and summarized from the book “Grace Unknown: The Heart of Reformed Theology” by R.C. Sproul.]

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical and thoroughly evil.

Israel ex-spy warns against "messianic" war on Iran

By Dan Williams
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A former Israeli spymaster has branded the country's leaders as "messianic" and unfit to tackle the Iranian nuclear program, in the strongest criticism from a security veteran of threats to launch a pre-emptive war.

Other retired officials have also criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister, but the censure from Yuval Diskin, who stepped down as head of the Shin Bet domestic intelligence service last year, was especially harsh.

He was also unusual in using the language of religious fervor that Israelis associate with their Islamist foes.

"I have no faith in the prime minister, nor in the defence minister," Diskin said in the remarks broadcast by Israeli media on Saturday. "I really don't have faith in a leadership that makes decisions out of messianic feelings."

Government officials rebuked Diskin and questioned his motives, implying that he had his eye on a political career or was settling scores after Netanyahu denied him a promotion.

The catastrophic terms with which Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak describe the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran have stirred concern in Israel and abroad of a possible strike against its uranium enrichment program.

Iran says the project is entirely peaceful and has promised wide-ranging reprisals for any attack.

World powers, sharing Israeli suspicions that Iran has a covert bomb-making plan, are trying to curb it through sanctions and negotiations. Those talks resume in Baghdad on May 23, but Barak on Thursday rated their chance of succeeding as low.

Although Israel has long threatened a pre-emptive strike if diplomacy fails, some experts believe that could be a bluff to keep up pressure on the Iranians, making it harder to interpret the swirl of comments from the security establishment.

FALSE IMPRESSION

Commenting on Diskin's remarks, Amos Harel of the liberal Haaretz newspaper said the temperature was rising in anticipation of the nuclear talks.

"Nothing has been determined in the Iranian story, and the spring is about to boil over into another summer of tension," said Harel.

Diskin spoke days after Israel's top military commander, Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz, told Haaretz he viewed Iran as "very rational" and unlikely to build a bomb, comments that apparently undermined the case for a strike.

The former Shin Bet chief was specifically damning of Netanyahu and Barak, who have often crafted strategy alone and whose rapport dates back four decades to when they served together in a top-secret commando unit.

"They're creating a false impression about the Iranian issue," Diskin told a private gathering on Friday, where the comments were recorded. "They're appealing to the stupid public, if you'll pardon me for the phrasing, and telling them that if Israel acts, there won't be an (Iranian) nuclear bomb."

Diskin said he was not necessarily opposed to an attack on Iran, though he cited experts who argue this risked backfiring by accelerating its nuclear program.

Netanyahu's former Mossad foreign intelligence director, Meir Dagan, last year also ridiculed the Israeli war option.

Diskin went a step further by saying that Netanyahu and Barak were not up to the job of opening an unprecedented front with Iran and, potentially, with its allies on Israel's borders.

Netanyahu is a second-term premier with solid public approval ratings and a broad conservative coalition. Barak, a former prime minister, is Israel's most decorated soldier. But they are both technically subject to security vetting by the Shin Bet, which added punch to their panning at Diskin's hands.

"I have seen them up close," he said. "They are not messiahs, the two of them, and they are not people who I personally, at least, trust to be able to lead Israel into an event on such a scale, and to extricate it."

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman dismissed Diskin's alarm as irresponsible speculation, telling Israel's Channel Two TV that such big decisions would be made at cabinet level rather than by the prime minister and defence minister exclusively.

Lieberman said Diskin, who was considered as a potential Dagan successor but was passed over, might be angry. One Barak confidant sarcastically wished Diskin "welcome to political life," implying he was angling for a slot in an opposition party ahead of an Israeli national election scheduled for next year.

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical and thoroughly evil.

The United Nations has failed to maintain peace in the world - it is not the World Government mentioned in the Bible Prophecies.

The United Nations is an outdated, corrupt institution fast losing its legitimacy as a peacemaker. Soon it will become defunct—to be replaced by a New World Order lead by the Antichrist. World War i was to have been the war to end all wars. The League of Nations was established at its close to ensure continuing peace. It failed.

Twenty-one years later, a worse global conflict ensued. At the close of World War ii, the United Nations was established to keep the peace. For 58 years, the primary purpose of the U.N., as stated in its charter, has been to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind.” Yet more than 250 local and regional armed conflicts have occurred since, and no world peace is remotely in sight. Instead, a new threat to peace exists—global terrorism.

“The United Nations is on the verge of demonstrating finally and fatally its moral bankruptcy and its strategic irrelevance,” wrote the Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer. “Having proved itself impotent in the Balkan crisis and now again in the Iraq crisis, the United Nations will sink once again into irrelevance. This time it will not recover”

Why has the United Nations so utterly failed?

All Bark, No Bite

The problem is that, akin to all of the great treaties, pacts and institutions created throughout mankind’s history with the noble intention of institutionalizing world peace, the U.N. contained within it, from its very beginning, the seeds of its own destruction.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the U.N. back in October 1995, Time magazine passed comment. “Never again would one country bulldoze a path of conquest over a neighbor. Never again would the great powers lock in a titanic death struggle ravaging the continents. More than that, the causes of war would be extinguished. Tyranny, injustice and deprivation would never again blot out the light of the world. Governments of good faith would band together under the universal benevolence of something called the United Nations.

“How beautiful. How brave. How naive” (Oct. 23, 1995).

How naive indeed! President John F. Kennedy, addressing the U.N. in September 1961, pragmatically recognized that if the U.N. vision failed to materialize, mankind would face dire consequences. “Mankind must put an end to war—or war will put an end to mankind. … Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. … The mere existence of modern weapons—10 million times more powerful than any that the world has ever seen, and only minutes away from any target on Earth—is a source of horror, and discord and distrust. … _Together we shall save our planet—or together we shall perish in its flames!”

Sir Anthony Parsons, British ambassador to the U.N. from 1974 to 1982, realistically appraised the organization thus: “The U.N. has been a disastrous failure …. It set the standards and adopted conventions on everything you can think of—torture, women, children, civil rights—but does nothing to enforce them” (Time, op. cit.).

And there is the central core of the U.N.’s failure. It simply lacks the vision, the motivation, the will and the power to enforce its decisions! Thus it has progressed not one inch, since its inception, toward its primary purpose of “[saving] succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” In fact, in certain instances, it has been cynically used as a platform upon which to further the prospects of that scourge.

No Justice

The impotence of United Nations leaders to enforce U.N. resolutions has led to the organization becoming a sounding board for the selfish goals of petty demagogues and tin-pot nations that realize they can hold the chief human benefactors of mankind, the English-speaking peoples, to ransom and work overtly for the destruction of their individual and collective power.

The cruel cynicism of European nations working in concert with Third World nations has ousted Anglo-Americans from key U.N. posts and committees. In 2002, the U.N. decided that the U.S. was unfit to serve on the Human Rights Commission, replacing it with Sudan! A brief look at Sudan’s record on human rights reveals it as one of the world’s prime offenders in this arena. Then this year, the U.N. managed to vote 33 to 3 in favor of electing the terrorist-subsidizing nation of Libya to chair its Human Rights Commission!

Such actions by this pretentious world body do not just render it an abject failure, but leave it a sad laughingstock to anyone with common sense.

To add to its sins, at a time when (despite all the liberal-socialist media and political comment to the contrary) the cia, mi5 (UK intelligence agency) and bnd (German secret service) all possess ample proof of Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of biological warfare and mass destruction, the U.N. has elected Iraq to chair its disarmament committee!

But why worry? What does it matter? If all the U.N. is capable of is passing ineffective resolutions with no intent whatever of backing up their implementation, what does it matter whether it be Iraq, Saudi Arabia or outer Mongolia chairing these committees? After all, the U.N. has passed 17 resolutions over the past 12 years demanding the disarmament of Iraq, and had the current U.S. president not had the courage to step out and quell Saddam’s crazy cruelty, who knows where it all may have ended.

What is more, there exists no world body to hold the U.N. to account. So this toothless tiger, this moribund mass of self-congratulatory, cynical fat cats representing the world’s aspirations for peace, continues on as not more than a gravy train for the world’s diplomatic corps, fiddling away while the world burns in the brushfires of local wars that soon will join in the greatest of conflagrations ever witnessed by man!

A Providence Journal-Bulletin (Providence, R.I.) editorial that described the U.N. Security Council as a “hypocritical and ineffectual debating society,” commented, “We hope that some way might be found to make the United Nations … much more effective in dealing with its original core mission—protecting world security …. If such repairs aren’t made, the United Nations will go the way of the League of Nations, whose failure to deal seriously with fascist aggression paved the way for World War ii” (March 18).

That’s a scary statement. Scary—but real, oh so real! And this is not just an isolated view.

Here is international security affairs analyst Stephen Blank’s view: “[T]he U.N.’s role (or lack of a role) in the Korean crisis indicates its essential uselessness at keeping the peace either there or in Iraq. …

“Thus the U.N. validates Winston Churchill’s observation that each of the appeasers of the 1930s sought to appease Adolf Hitler and the other dictators in the hope that others would be eaten before their turn came up. …

“If appeasement of those who would rip apart international security continues, something will indeed turn up, but it will not be peace” (Asia Times, Feb. 14).

This astute critic compares the time we are in now to the great time of appeasement in the 1930s that led to the world’s greatest war. Like its old progenitor, the failed League of Nations, the U.N. has been constantly tested and challenged by petty tyrants, with the same results. In respect of Iraq and North Korea, Blank comments, “Certainly it is obvious to any unbiased observer that the U.N. is utterly unwilling and unable to confront either of these aggressors of its own accord so it is a useless reed insofar as the defense of peace is concerned” (ibid.).

 

World’s Last Chance

“I attended the San Francisco Conference in 1945, where world leaders attempted to form a world organization of nations. They called it ‘The United Nations.’ There I heard chiefs of state ring out the warning that this was the world’s last chance.

“But it has failed. The United Nations has no power over the nations. It has no power to settle disputes, stop wars or prevent wars. The so-called United Nations are not united. This effort has degenerated into a sounding board for Communist propaganda. Man has failed his last chance!

“Now God must step in—or we perish!”

Such was the summation of renowned religious leader Herbert Armstrong when reflecting on mankind’s best efforts to obtain world peace. In the final year of his life, Mr. Armstrong, an unofficial ambassador for world peace who visited more world leaders in the decades of the 1970s and ’80s than any other person, was present at the 40th anniversary celebrations of the United Nations. He was one of the only four in attendance on that occasion who had personally witnessed the founding of the U.N. in San Francisco in June 1945. This wise, articulate and visionary apostle of God looked beyond the inevitability of the failure of the U.N. to a far better age: “This 40th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations may trigger events to bring on the world’s last colossal world violence and trouble, and usher in at last, after 6,000 years of human trial and error and woes and sufferings, a united one world, and world peace at last—a world truly to be built by the Lord Eternal” (Plain Truth, October 1985).

We are 17 years on beyond that 40th anniversary of the U.N. It has passed its 50th anniversary. Looking back, we would have to admit that the intervening time has witnessed some of the most dramatic of U.N. failures.

 

“Except the Lord Build the House”

In the north garden area of the United Nations building in New York City rests a sculpture by Russian artist Evgeniy Vuchetich called “Let Us Beat Swords Into Plowshares,” a gift from the then-Soviet Union presented in 1959. The bronze statue, based on the age-old message of Isaiah 2:4, depicts a man forging a sword into a plowshare, representing mankind’s desire to utilize the materials and energy once used for war for the purpose of benefiting all men.

Worldly governments have constructed a towering building to house a world organization to produce and preserve peace. But there is an underlying reason why this structure can never succeed.

Christ said, “Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up” (Matt. 15:13).

Think about it: God did not build the U.N. These world leaders have not sought His guidance. Their meetings are not opened by prayer to Almighty God, but by a moment of silence. (Prayer might offend some of the atheistic members.) God has not planted this organization. It shall, therefore, be rooted up. All human efforts to prevent World War iii, apart from God, will prove futile.

A little over 4,000 years ago, men organized to build a high tower to coordinate world domination. God intervened and broke up their building (Gen. 10:8-11; 11:1-9). At the end of this “last hour” of human rule on Earth, God will have to intervene, with force, to save man from the horrifying end to which his failed attempts at world government would ultimately bring him (Matt. 24:21-22).

The U.N. was doomed from its genesis because it left God out of its plans.

This is the bottom line: No man or organization built by man can ultimately bring about peace. Only man’s Creator can and will! That is the reason the U.N. is sinking into “irrelevance.”

The good news is that following the ultimate disintegration of the United Nations—which has failed dramatically to guarantee global peace—the united family of God is destined to impose, under the King of kings, Jesus Christ, a NEW WORLD GOVERNMENT AND PEACE AT LAST.

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical and thoroughly evil.

Israel's Netanyahu is an extremely brutal man - and the Polls now indicate that if he were to have an early election he would win - unfortunate but true.

(Reuters) - Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would win an election were it held now, an opinion poll showed on Monday, as he weighs his strategy towards Iran's nuclear program and speculation grows that he will seek a renewed public mandate.

The next parliamentary election in Israel is not due until October 2013, but Netanyahu signaled on Sunday he was considering moving up the ballot.

On Saturday, a former Israeli spymaster branded the country's leaders as "messianic", in the strongest criticism yet from a security veteran of threats to launch a pre-emptive war.

But an opinion poll conducted on Sunday night and published in the popular Yedioth Ahronoth daily showed Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party winning 30 of 120 parliamentary seats if a poll were held now, up from the 27 it currently holds.

A slew of commentators, citing cracks in the governing coalition over formulating a new law that could force ultra-Orthodox Jews to serve in the conscript military, said Netanyahu may opt to set the election date as early as August or September.

Such a result would make him the leader of the largest faction and the likely candidate to form the next government.

According to the poll, Israel's main opposition Kadima party, currently the largest in parliament, would drop from 28 seats to 11. Kadima, a centrist party, recently replaced its leader, former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, with ex-defence chief Shaul Mofaz.

The survey showed the Labour Party, widely expected to gain strength from a wave of social protests that swept Israeli cities last summer, taking 18 seats, a steep rise from its current 8, and becoming the second largest faction.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's party Yisrael Beitenu, Netanyahu's biggest coalition partner, would capture 13 seats, down from its current 15, the poll showed. The poll surveyed 500 people and has a margin of error of 4.5 percent.

In an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth's website, Ynet, Lieberman described an early election as a done deal. "It's now just a matter of (setting) dates," he said.

Lieberman has been a leading advocate of imposing military service on ultra-Orthodox Jews - most Jewish men and women are subject to the draft at the age of 18 - and requiring Israeli Arabs to perform national service outside the armed forces.

Ultra-Orthodox parties in the coalition have said they would fight such a move. The current conscription law expires in August and the government has to decide the issue soon.

Netanyahu has also been under pressure from pro-settler coalition partners and some outspoken Likud party members who have questioned his commitment to Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, where Palestinians seek a state.

Netanyahu's government has pledged to evict or raze numerous settlement outposts put up without official sanction, drawing warnings from some political allies that his coalition could collapse as a result.

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical and thoroughly evil.

Here is more trash from the Christian Zionists - denigrating a man after his passing is an Unforgivable Sin matter how bad they allege He was in life.

Chuck Colson – death of a deceiver and a man to whom the Word of God meant nothing.

By J. Prasch.

In this article our friend J.P. exposes the myths surrounding Chuck Colson, a man with no regard for Scripture although publicly accepted as a crusading Christian. That description is thrown about too easily. If you love the Lord you love His Word. Colson acted against the Gospel of Jesus Christ at every opportunity. He has now gone to his reward…….AF

In John's Gospel Jesus spoke of those who persecuted Jewish believers but who thought they were serving God while doing evil (John 16:2 -3). They so acted because they did not know Jesus or His Father. Chuck Colson, however, was a man who did evil, claimed to know Jesus and to be "Born Again", which was the title of his book about his claimed regeneration.

Colson was the lead author of the Evangelicals and Catholics Together agreement signed by Pat Robertson, Calvinistic author J. I. Packer, John Kent of The Church of The Nazarene and the late Bill Bright. The document accepted Catholicism as scripturally Christian without reference to the fact that while the true gospel teaches that the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin, in Roman Catholicism one atones for one’s own sin in purgatory and salvation is not by a second birth regeneration but by 'ex oper operato' sacramental rituals.

The idolatry of graven images and worshipping bread and wine as a transubstantiated reincarnation of Jesus Christ, killing him again in the mass and eating Him in an act of religious cannibalism meant nothing to Colson. The false Christ of the Eucharist, the necromancy of prayers to the dead, and the vampire-like consumption of blood - condemned by the apostles in The Book of Acts chapter 15 - were of no more consequence to Colson than was Rome's false gospel.

Colson just did not care. The Word of God meant nothing to Chuck Colson. His actions were in open defiance of it. If it did mean anything to him he would likely not have received the Templeton prize for religion. Neither would he have turned his prison ministry over to a Roman Catholic.

It was Colson whom Satan ordained to persuade Evangelicals to refrain from evangelizing Roman Catholics. As one with a Roman Catholic mother on her way to eternal hell, trusting in scapulars and the traditions of men instead of in the true gospel of Jesus for her salvation, I loathe the legacy of this deceiver who was mislead by the devil and inspired by Satan to mislead others. There have been few agents of hell more destructive to the cause of Christ than Chuck Colson. Roman Catholics need salvation and should be given the true gospel. I suggest those foolishly supportive of Colson ask former Catholics who have been saved.

Although a convicted criminal sent to prison for political corruption , Colson was an activist who tried to identify the Republican Party with Evangelical Christianity in his radio messages. Ronald Reagan's Hollywood divorce and remarriage, Nancy Reagan's advice to her husband acquired from the fortune tellers such as Jean Dixon she consulted, and George Bush placing a Koran which states that God has no Son, (a mark of antichrist according to 1 John) in the White House were irrelevant to Colson.

That President Eisenhower's Earl Warren-led Republican Supreme Court ordered God out of the classroom, that Nixon's Warren Berger Republican Supreme Court ordered God out of the maternity ward with Roe vs Wade, and that Reagan's pro-abortion Supreme court appointee Sandra Day O'Connor ordered God and the 10 Commandments out of the courtroom and judicial building cut no ice with Colson. Neither did O’Connor writing the court’s decision, based on foreign precedent, to outlaw the Texas anti-sodomy law which opened the door for the national surge to same sex marriage: it all evaded Colson's criticism. To Colson, religion was about politics. He had been a liar for a corrupt Nixon White House and was transformed into a liar for a corrupt, pedophile-protecting Vatican.

Colson also endorsed the book Ecumenical Jihad by ex- Evangelical Peter Kreeft which urges ecumenical union with Islam to morally redeem society. Colson had an antichrist spirit and he served Satan powerfully. We shall all appear before the judgment seat of Christ and it is not for me to judge Chuck Colon. It is, however, for all of us to judge his doctrines and his ventures on the basis of God's Word. In doing so it is evident that the deeds and doctrines of Chuck Colson emanated straight from the pit of hell.

Without doubt there will be a chorus of ignorant religious cranks taking offense at these remarks concerning Chuck Colson, oblivious to the fact that everything I have written concerning Colson is irrefutably true. My only response to their silly religious rhetoric is to deal with the established facts - or don't deal at all.

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical and thoroughly evil.

The Great Trojan Horse of Zionism has infiltrated Christian Churches

I have just taken a very brief walk through the website of Christian Zionist J. Prasch and if there is, nothing else that he seems to delight in more than anything else is to attack and denigrate those that he does not see in the most favourable of lights.

I know there are going to be those who would say that we need to know what the calibre of certain alleged Christian ministries, and that is the supposed reasoning behind some of the attacks he has chosen to launch against others. However, Psarch is choosing bring others down to the ground so that others may think well of him as being a great man of God who is exposing the corruption of the end times representative by certain alleged corrupt ministries; however, there is nothing that is really further from the truth. He is achieving nothing of the kind and all that he is really doing is revealing to the whole world what type of man he is himself, and what I am seeing from this angle I don't like the look of one little bit.

At the end of the day, there is really no one at all that I am aware of who cares one little bit about the comings and goings of some of these alleged Christian ministries.

I for one, learnt a long time ago to avoid the majority of them like the plague, and instead of regular church attendance have chosen home fellowship groups as the healthier alternative that it is. I have learnt to avoid the Occultist Zionist Movement that has crept into the modern day churches, corrupting and twisting the word of God to make out that it is saying something that is not there to begin with.

There are regular church attendees those who really do believe they are Heaven bound, when instead they have been so heavily deceived by the Zionists that they are instead Hell bound.

For over 150 years, Satan has carefully built up his earthly beast kingdom. Its centrepiece is Zionism, and the physical Judaic nation-state of Israel is the very eye of the beast, spiritually located in its forehead, which the Hindus call the “ajna.” This Judaic nation-state has its political and economic apparatus in Tel Aviv, London, Washington, D.C., and New York. Its spiritual capital is, however, earthly Jerusalem, with religious offshoots in Rome (the Vatican), New York (Judaism), Nashville (evangelical Zionists), San Francisco (Wicca and New Age), and Salt Lake City (Mormons). Then, will be rolled into position. From its bowels will come the black plague of Satanic Judaism: Mormons, Jews, and Masons, hand-in-hand, ready to fulfill their Master’s desires.

For those who are not yet aware of just what is going on, the Great Trojan Horse of Zionism has infiltrated Christian Churches and without even knowing it, the Christians are being prepared to accept and in turn worship the Antichrist when he arrives within a very short space of time.

God help them as those concerned are going to need all of the help they can muster when that time arrives shortly.

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical and thoroughly evil.

The EU is Set to Create a New ‘Super-President’ - the Antichrist?

Another idea from the ‘Berlin Club’

A group of EU foreign ministers discussed the idea of merging the European Union’s top jobs into one on April 19, the EU Observer reports, coining the term “super-president” to describe the new top job.

The jobs of European Council president, currently held by Herman Van Rompuy, and European Commission president, currently held by José Manuel Barroso, may be merged. “The new super-president would also chair General Affairs Councils (gacs)—monthly meetings of foreign ministers which discuss internal Union affairs,” writes the EU Observer. Its source reports that experts believe this can be done without a treaty change.

The idea emerged from a meeting of 10 EU foreign ministers organized by German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle to discuss closer European integration. Sometimes called the “Berlin Club,” the group usually has 11 members: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Spain. The French foreign minister, however, was not able to attend this last meeting.

These ministers see that for Europe to become better integrated it needs a strong central leader. As the euro crisis pushes those nations that are committed to remaining in the euro closer together, watch for this idea to become more popular. Europe knows it needs a strong central leader to respond to the dangers of today’s world.

in light of the reality of a Super EU president being created there are a couple of possibilities that readily come to the fore.

Sarkozy looks like he has just about lost the French elections so that may put him in line for the presidency of the EU?

President-elect Vladimir Putin tried to distance himself from the fraud-tainted ruling United Russia party on Tuesday, announcing he was stepping down as its chairperson and calling on it to be more competitive. Accordingly, that then may also place him in line as the first Super President of the EU.

However, whoever fulfils that role is none other than the Antichrist himself. Those are only suggestions and as that is the case, then I am not suggesting that either one of them is the Antichrist as there may as yet be someone we have never heard of that is going to come to the fore to take on the role of the Antichrist, he being the Son of Satan. 

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical and thoroughly evil.

Here we have another one of those irrelevant statements from another one of the less than moderate Christian Zionists prophecy websites!

The Elephant of Jew Hatred

By Caroline B. Glick 

Hatred of Jews is the central animating feature of the political and strategic reality of the Middle East. It is hatred of Jews that dictates the legal regimes, foreign policies, military aspirations, cultural mores, educational themes and even public health policies of our neighbours from Ramallah to Tehran.

Despite the centrality of Jew-hatred in all aspects of public life in the Arab and Muslim world, our neighbors' unrelenting and irrational abhorrence for Israel and the Jewish people remains a dirty secret that you aren't supposed to mention in polite company. From Washington to Brussels, talk of the policy implications of Arab and Muslim Jew-hatred is prohibited.

Omar Abu-Sneina, a convicted terrorist murderer, is one of the thousand Palestinian terrorists that Israel released from prison in order to secure the release of Israeli hostage IDF Sgt.- Maj. Gilad Schalit. Originally from Hebron, Abu-Sneina was released to Hamas-controlled Gaza.

This week the IDF announced that since his release Abu-Sneina has returned to the terror business. The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) intercepted a computer memory card he sent his family in Hebron with instructions for how his fellow terrorists should go about kidnapping and holding IDF soldiers hostage. The instructions demonstrate how for Abu-Sneina, Israelis don't even deserve to be treated like animals.

Among other things, he discussed how to hide a hostage. As he put it, "Avoid hiding [the captive soldier] in desolate places, tunnels or forests, unless the aforementioned [captive] is a corpse or a severed head. If the aforementioned is a live human, that must be visited at least once a week and provided with food and drink, it is best to hide him in a house, an agricultural farm, a workplace, etc."

Abu-Sneina's coldblooded cruelty and rejection of the inherent value of the lives of Israelis is not simply a function of the fact that he is a terrorist. It is a reflection of the values of Palestinian society. Those values are continuously expressed and reinforced by Fatah- and Hamas-controlled media outlets, cultural and educational institutions and religious authorities. The ubiquitousness of Jew-hatred in the daily lives of Palestinians is so overwhelming it is difficult to imagine any facet of Palestinian life that isn't inundated by it.

Take grammar lessons. According to a translation provided by Palestinian Media Watch, the Palestinian Authority's Arabic language matriculation examinations for high school students include questions such as "Punctuate the underlined phrase: Do not view the occupier as human." And "Punctuate the underlined phrase: We shall die in order that our land may live."

This week, a Palestinian court sentenced Muhammad Abu Shahala to death for selling a home in Hebron near the Cave of the Patriarchs to Jews. Shahala was arrested shortly after several Jewish families moved into the house last month. He was reportedly tortured and quickly tried and sentenced to die by a PA court.

 The PA was established in May 1994. The first law it adopted defined selling land to Jews as a capital offense. Shortly thereafter scores of Arab land sellers began turning up dead in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria in both judicial and extrajudicial killings.

Leaders of the Jewish community of Hebron wrote a letter to international leaders this week asking them to intervene with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and demand that he cancel Shahala's sentence. They addressed the letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy, the director-general of the International Red Cross, Yves Daccord, as well as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres. In it they wrote, "It is appalling to think that property sales should be defined as a 'capital crime' punishable by death.

"The very fact that such a 'law' exists within the framework of the PA legal system points to a barbaric and perverse type of justice, reminiscent of practices implemented during the dark ages."

They went on to make the reasonable comparison between the PA's law prohibiting land sales to Jews to Nazi Germany's Nuremberg laws that constrained and finally outlawed trade between Jews and Germans. The letter concluded with the question, "Is the Palestinian Authority a reincarnation of the Third Reich?"

The Palestinians of course are far from unique in their obsession with hating Jews. Their hemorrhage of hatred, their obsessive need to reject any move towards peaceful coexistence with Israel, or what the renowned late Palestinian poet Yousuf Al Khatib referred to picturesquely as "the Jewish filth of Europe," is matched in every Arab land. And of course, it is the primary obsession of the Iranian regime.

The parallels between Nazi laws and the laws of the PA and the Arab states that outlaw all cooperation with Israel and make such cooperation a capital offense are obvious and straightforward. Yet generally speaking, anyone who points out this fact is automatically dismissed as an alarmist or an extremist. Given the PA's relative military weakness when compared with Israel and the Arab world's current lack of interest in waging active war against Israel, noting their inarguable ideological affinity with the Nazis is considered socially and even intellectually unacceptable. The fact that they lack the ability to implement their ideology renders it improper to mention it.

The social prohibition on drawing parallels between the threats facing Israel today and those that faced the Jewish people 70 years ago is not limited to the discourse on the Arab world's conflict with Israel. It also extends to polite society's discourse on Iran's nuclear program, which the Iranian regime has repeatedly made clear is aimed at destroying Israel.

In his address to the nation at the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at Yad Vashem on Wednesday evening, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu took aim at that taboo when he attacked those who accuse him of belittling the Holocaust by comparing the annihilation of European Jewry to the threat posed by Iran's nuclear weapons program.

Netanyahu said,

"I know there are also those who believe that the unique evil of the Holocaust should never be invoked in discussing other threats facing the Jewish people. To do so, they argue, is to belittle the Holocaust and to offend its victims.

"I totally disagree. On the contrary. To cower from speaking the uncomfortable truth—that today like then, there are those who want to destroy millions of Jewish people—that is to belittle the Holocaust, that is to offend its victims and that is to ignore the lessons.

"Not only does the prime minister of Israel have the right, when speaking of these existential dangers, to invoke the memory of a third of our nation which was annihilated. It is his duty."

Netanyahu is right, of course. Unfortunately for Israel, raising the Holocaust in the context of a discussion about contemporary threats to the Jewish people is the rhetorical equivalent of dropping a nuclear bomb. Just as no one is allowed to use a nuclear bomb, no one is allowed to mention the Holocaust. And that means that there is ultimately no way to speak about the violent hatred that animates our enemies in every aspect of their policy making. From the seemingly anodyne issue of property sales to the existential issue of nuclear weapons programs, the Jew-hatred that lies at the foundation of their actions is out of bounds for discussion.

Actually, the situation is both better and worse than that. Netanyahu's rhetorical boldness in drawing the parallel between Iran and the Nazis is arguably the only reason that the EU and the Obama administration have taken any actions against Iran. No, as their feckless negotiations with the mullahs, their foot-dragging in implementing economic sanctions, and their outspoken opposition to military action against Iran make clear, they do not really mind the prospect of Iran acquiring the ability to wipe out the Jewish state. The only reason they have adopted sanctions at all is because Netanyahu's Holocaust rhetoric made them fear that Israel would attack Iran's nuclear installations if they didn't.

On the other hand, when it comes to their direct dealings with Jew-haters, Westerners not only fail to confront them about their prejudice. They enable it. For instance, at a townhall meeting during her visit to Tunisia last month, Hillary Clinton was asked how US leaders can be trusted when during elections, "most of the candidates from both sides run towards the Zionist lobbies to get their support."

Rather than reject the anti-Jewish premise of the question—that Jews exert inordinate control over US politics or that there is something wrong with candidates expressing support for Israel—Clinton treated the question as legitimate.

She said, "A lot of things are said in political campaigns that should not bear a lot of attention."

Clinton even congratulated her anti-Jewish questioner, saying, "I think it's a fair question because I... sometimes am a little surprised that people around the world pay more attention to what is said in our political campaigns than most Americans."

Similarly, a report on the behind the scenes goings on at last weekend's nuclear negotiations with Iran published by Al-Monitor described the friendly discussion that took place at a dinner Friday night between EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Iranian chief negotiator Saeed Jalili. According to a European diplomat, the conversation was aimed at breaking the ice. And it included a discussion of "political party funding in the US."

 It is hard to imagine that such a discussion involved anything other than a group tongue-clucking session directed against the inordinate impact of "Jewish money" on US electoral politics. That is, it is all but impossible to imagine that the discussion involved anything other than Ashton attempting to build a rapport with her Iranian counterpart based on shared hatred or contempt for Jews.

The fact that the West refuses to consider the policy implications of the most powerful force in Arab and Iranian policy-making and political life does not mean that Israeli policy-makers should necessarily expand their discussion of the topic—although it would probably not hurt for them to do so. What it means is that the general policy debate in the West about the nature of Middle Eastern politics is completely divorced from reality.

Because the Americans and the Europeans refuse to acknowledge the elephant of Jew-hatred in the middle of the room, they cannot be trusted to make reasoned or rational policy decisions. And since they cannot be trusted to act rationally, Israel cannot rely on the Americans or the Europeans as allies or partners when it confronts threats from its Jew-obsessed neighbours.

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical and thoroughly evil.