Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope-Episode 72
Gary responds to a dispensationalist pastor who takes issue with something said by John Rich on a recent podcast with Tucker Carlson.
Dispensationalists will point to Jeremiah 31:35-37 as prime evidence that there is a holdout for the future fulfillment of a national establishment of Israel.
“Thus says the Lord, Who gives the sun for light by day
And the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar;
The Lord of hosts is His name:
‘If this fixed order departs
From before Me,’ declares the Lord,
‘Then the offspring of Israel also will cease
From being a nation before Me forever.
Thus says the Lord,
‘If the heavens above can be measured
And the foundations of the earth searched out below, Then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel
For all that they have done,’ declares the Lord.”
Verse 36 is the key: “‘If this fixed order departs from before Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘Then the offspring of Israel also will cease from being a nation before Me forever.’” But Israel did cease from being a nation when the Romans sacked the city of Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and scattered those Jews who stayed to fight the invading armies and survived the slaughter. Dispensationalists have made a point of declaring that Israel becoming a nation again in 1948 was a fulfillment of Bible prophecy. So from A.D. 70 to 1948 Israel was not a nation. How does this square with Jeremiah 31:36? Claiming that the so-called church age postponed this promise does not work.
Dispensationalist Lewis Sperry Chafer contended, since he wrote before 1948, that the Jews were in their “third dispersion” since AD 70. This is a direct contradiction to what God says in Jeremiah 31:36! God does not say, “When Israel becomes a nation again for the final time, they will remain a nation forever.” Jeremiah is prophesying a restoration after the Babylonian captivity, a point made by Daniel’s reading of Jeremiah’s prophecy (Dan. 9:1-2; 2 Chron. 36:21; Ezra 1:1; Jer. 25:11, 12; 29:10-14). Others argue that there will be “one more forced exile from the land in the middle of the Great Tribulation, the one spoken of in Matthew 24:15-28 and Revelation 12:6-14. After the second coming, Israel will experience her final restoration. For some, this would be called the fourth, while for others it would be the completion of the third.”[1] Either way, like Chafer’s third-restoration interpretation, it’s a contradiction of what Jeremiah 31:36 makes very clear. Israel’s fortunes were restored after its seventy-year captivity, therefore, the promise that the offspring of Israel will never cease from being a nation should have continued from that point in time and beyond. The forced exile that took place in A.D. 70 and the next one that some dispensationalists claim is going to happen are contrary to what Jeremiah was promised by God.
So either the Bible is in error or the dispensationalists are in error. Could the fulfillment be in what Jesus states in Matt. 21:43?: “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation [ethnei], producing the fruit of it” (also see Acts 2:5; 10:22, 35; Rom. 10:19; 1 Pet. 2:4-12; Rev. 5:9; 7:9; 13:7; 14:6). Further evidence of a fulfillment is found in the book of Hebrews 11:
By faith [Abraham] lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God…. All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth…. And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them (vv. 9-10, 13, 15-16).
Ten Popular Prophecy Myths Exposed and Answered
Gary DeMar has taken on the task of exposing some of the popular myths foisted upon the public by prophetic speculators. 10 Popular Prophecy Myths Exposed and Answered might rattle your beliefs and shake you to the core. Hopefully, it will drive to the Bible to be a Berean and “see if these things are so” (Acts 17:11). In the end, you will be a better student of God’s Word, and isn’t that what it’s really all about?
Buy NowGary responds to a dispensationalist pastor who takes issue with something said by John Rich on a recent podcast with Tucker Carlson. The pastor claims that what Rich was saying was not only misleading, but flat-out false about what Dispensationalism and Christian Zionism teach regarding Israel’s future. Gary points out that this pastor doesn’t understand his own position clearly enough.
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[1] Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, Israelology: The Missing Link in Systematic Theology (Tustin, CA: Ariel Ministries, 1994), 418.