The Jewish interpretation of history refers to the "first Temple period," which was the period of time before the destruction of Jerusalem in 600 BC. The temple was destroyed and the Jews were uprooted out of the land for their apostasy and idolatry, they had blended Babylonian witchcraft and sorcery into their religion. They were carried away, eventually a remnant returned during the "second Temple period" when they rebuilt the temple during the times of Ezra and Nehemiah. The second Temple period lasted until the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

According to the Jews there is an ongoing restoration where they are being restored back with God in the promised land, known as the Zionist restoration. They look forward to the Kingdom, the time when they will rule the world. Every Gentile will be their slave. They believe the Bible teaches this, the rabbis teach the same in their Talmud and Kabbalah.

Our Dispensational brethren today believe it much the same way. They see history in that very same pattern, but the only difference is they believe the Church is kind of a side show. The Church, a parenthesis, with all the action to take place among the Jews. The Dispensationalist believe there will be a pre-tribulation rapture that will swish them out of here while God turns back to his true love: the Zionist Restoration of the Jews. The purpose of the tribulation is supposedly to correct the many errors of the Jews these long years they have rejected God. They are to get straightened out during the tribulation, God, preparing them to rule the world during the millennium. Then, Jesus will be their king, and, they in turn will rule the rest of the world. The Dispensationalist doctrine is also the Pre-Trib doctrine.

I want to take a few minutes to drive home a very important point. Many don't seem to realize that when the rapture takes place is only one part of this. People are coming to the realization that there is not a pre-trib rapture. There’s not even a mid-trib rapture, but the Lord in fact comes after the Tribulation, and they feel like they have conquered all the End-Time issues. But that is only part of this truth. In fact pre-trib theory is actually but a subset of Dispensationalism. Dispensational doctrine is built and based upon how you view the church and how you view the Jew.

In the non-Dispensational belief of history and eschatology, indeed there was the "first temple" time period, and indeed the Jews did come back to Palestine. And there was a restoration. Where the non-Dispensationalist differ is this: Dispensational folks teach the restoration period is taking place right now, when in fact it has already happened. The Restoration mentioned in the many scriptures which the dispensational folks say is ongoing right now in the Middle East actually was fulfilled when the Jews were restored back to the land during pre-Christian times. The restoration to the land of Israel, however, was only the beginning, the Messiah was to complete it. The ultimate purpose in being brought back to the land was spiritual. See Ezekiel 37.

When Jesus came, there was more than just a restoration of the land, he dealt with the spiritual. Jesus Christ came to this earth on a spiritual mission. When Nicodemos dropped by, Jesus didn’t tell him anything about building some political KINGDOM and ruling the Jewish world. .He told him that unless he was born again he could not even see the KINGDOM OF GOD. The Jews belief about the kingdom of God today is the same as what they believed back then. Political, not spiritual.

They thought their Messiah would come and they would have political sovereignty over the world and they would rule the world through their Messiah, but when Jesus came he brought them nothing of the kind. He told Nicodemus in so many words, "You don’t even know what the Kingdom of God is, and except you’re born again you can’t even see it". Then he went a little bit further and expounded upon it and told him about the need to be baptized and filled with the Holy Ghost. No matter what else we might say about eschatology you must understand what the overriding theme really is.

The dispensationalist doctrine teaches that the Lord is going to rapture the church out and then the Jews, in the tribulation, will have a different form of doctrine and salvation. Gentiles?  Well, their salvation is getting their heads cut off and all kinds of other theories. No, I want you to know that what Jesus said will stand and will continue to stand. "Except a man is born of the water and of the spirit he, cannot see the kingdom of God." Whether he is as Nicodemus, a Jew, Chinese or whatever he is, he’s got to be born into the Kingdom of God. The pre-trib theory has no bearing on it. There is only one plan of salvation and no one, Jew or Gentile, will be saved any other way.

`Jesus came to bring about a spiritual restoration. He brought the New Covenant into the world in his blood (Matt. 26:28). Through Jesus Christ, the Apostolic church is the new Israel of God. Jesus Christ himself was the true Israel. He was everything that Israel was supposed to be, but never was. They never lived up to what they were supposed to be, until Jesus came, and, he, as the promised seed of Abraham, was the true Israel. One of the metaphors the Jews used for their people was the vine (Jeremiah 2:21), but I want you to know when Jesus Christ came he made it clear that HE was the vine  (John 15). He said, in effect, "I am the vine. Ye are the branches, I am the true Israel, the Israel of God." It doesn’t stop there, because the church is his body, he is the head of it. The church is therefore, also the Israel of God. It is the true Israel, the chosen people.

Jews and Dispensationalists use the term "chosen people" so loosely. Does anybody ever stop to think what Jews were chosen for? They were chosen to be a holy people - in the midst of a wicked, perverted and pagan world. They were chosen to be the witnesses of the One God in the midst of a world that believed in numerous gods. That’s what they were chosen for. They were chosen to bring forth the Messiah into the world. Now the church, the true church, has become the chosen people because we stand for these things (or should) - holiness and the oneness of God. Hear O, ISRAEL, hear O, Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. The church is the new Israel, the true Israel of God.

These are some of the basic points of the pre-trib, dispensational theory. You need to really understand these basics. A lot of folks think that when you deal with prophecy, you have to get in there and start talking about horns and heads, and thunders. All that is not important until you understand who the church really is. If you get that right then you begin to interpret things in the book of Revelation right. Otherwise you’re going to come up with the wrong answers. The church is the true Israel of God. 

In AD 70 the destruction of Jerusalem happened as Jesus prophesied it would, as Daniel's 70 weeks prophecy said that it would. The middle ages came and went, with all it’s confusion and darkness. Yet we are in the Apostolic church today and the church is still the true Israel of God. There will be a "catching away of the saints", but it will take place after the tribulation. The church is predestined from before the foundation of the world to play the chief role of the end times. We should feel awed because we have been selected to be part of the chosen people.

In the Millennium, the 1000 year period after the tribulation, the church replaces the synagogue just as the church replaced the law, along with the rest of their system, including their animal sacrifices. When Jesus Christ came, he terminated and abrogated the law. The church has replaced the old covenant. Let me say that again - the church has replaced the old covenant. 

It is false doctrine to teach that perhaps there’s a possibility the Jews can make it some other way. There is only one valid covenant, and it works, and the Bible doesn’t tell us about any other covenant to be given before the coming of the Lord. Any other suggestion is false doctrine. Red heifers and turtle doves won’t do it. The old covenant is done away with. It has been replaced. You will spend a lot of time at the Christian book store looking at the prophecy shelf before you will find anything about what I’m teaching. This pre-trib, dispensational stuff is what they are all promoting.

Unless you are grounded in the truth you will be deceived by all the rhetoric and fluff. I want you to know there is only ONE hope, ONE body, ONE spirit (Eph. 4:4). We are looking for that one blessed hope. That one "appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works" (Titus 2:13, 14).

That’s the hope, the one hope, the only hope. There is no such thing as a different hope for the Jews. Hear me now, there is ONE body, that’s the church. Do you know what’s in that ONE body? Jews and Gentiles. In one body. I’m not against the Jews, I’m for them. I want them to get in the Kingdom of God - and be saved the one and only way.

As long as we teach there is a possibility they can be saved some other way, we’re not really their friends. When you read their secret material, you’ll find if there is any thing they are against it’s the "replacement" idea. They don’t care if we get the Holy Ghost or any other belief we may have, but if you believe that the church has replaced their covenant, friend, they really don’t like that. But, it's still the truth, nonetheless. 

Let’s examine 3 major tenants of true eschatology (end times).

1. It should be based on Apostolic interpretation. Old testament prophecy is understood through the filter of the New Testament. Eschatology is based on the New Testament, not the Old. So many make the error of going back to read the prophecy of the Old Testament and bypass the New. Dispensational theory is based chiefly on the Old Testament, not what the apostles had to say.

2. Jesus Christ and the gospel have fulfilled and replaced the Abrahamic covenant. The Abrahamic covenant is no more unconditional than the New Covenant is. Obedience and faith has always been God’s condition. There has never been any such thing as unconditional security. Adam and Eve found that out when the devil came along with his once saved always saved, unconditional security doctrine. He lied to them and they believed it. Dispensationalism is built on the lie of the devil. The devil himself found out he didn’t have eternal security when God kicked him out of heaven. But folks come along and teach that the Jews, because of what Abraham did, have unconditional security.
Page after page of the prophecy of Jeremiah tells us that God did not let their theory stand. Jeremiah said God was going to uproot them. They never thought it could happen to them. But, they found out otherwise because of their apostasy.

3. Jesus Christ and the gospel fulfilled the prophesied Davidic covenant and kingdom, both now and in the future. The kingdom of God is not race, but grace. That’s really what this is all about. Did you ever stop to think how contrary to the mind of God, that just because you happen to be of a certain blood line, or think you are, somehow that makes you God’s favorite child. That’s what Jews believe, and the dispensationalists believe it. Those who teach a pre-tribulation rapture believe it.

John 1:11-13                                                                                                                                                       (11) He came unto his own, and his own received him not. (12) But as many as received him, (his own didn’t receive him, but as many as received him did) to them gave he power to become the sons of God, [even] to them that believe on his name: (13) Which were born, not of blood (race or bloodline), nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Even to them which believe on his name. 

Whether you’re Red, Black, Yellow, White, or Brown, whatever you are, it’s not blood line. It’s not race. The law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by what? Jesus Christ (John 1:17). We are talking about TRUTH. Real truth did not arrive on the scene until Jesus came. The dispensationalists have failed to realize that the Holy Ghost is the key.

Romans 14:17 For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.

That’s what the kingdom of God is and they haven’t seen that. You would think that our Apostolic brethren would not be following along after the Dispensationalists, we should know better. Don’t you believe that you must have the Holy Ghost? The kingdom of God is not "postponed," the kingdom of God is the church, ruled over by Jesus Christ. The Dispensationalists believe that the kingdom of God was postponed, the church is kind of an accident in history. 

The modern state, the nation of Israel, is an impostor kingdom. Modern day Talmudic, Kabbalist, Judaism is not the same as Old Testament Judaism. Not so, neither by genealogy or by ideology. They’re not even true blood line descendants. It would take a while to prove that, but they are really not. Neither is their doctrine the same as what Moses taught and the Old Testament people of God believed. Their ideology is Kabbalist. Occult and pagan. Here you have one of the most unknown facts around, and if the Dispensationalist were to know what the Kabbalah has to say they would know the Jew's ideology HAS to be terribly wrong. Truth is, the ideology of modern day Judaism has more to do with satanic doctrine than it does the Old Testament. Jesus called it "the synagogue of Satan," Rev. 2:9, 3:9. Their anticipated kingdom will be the kingdom of antichrist.

K. Kirkland, Pastor - This article is Copyright © 1999, All rights reserved.