The End Times - Orthodox Vs Evangelical Protestant Teachings - Presentation 1

hello my name is father john brown i'm a priest at holy transfiguration greek orthodox church in marietta georgia and welcome to the first of which should be a series of classes i'd like to teach in this venue and the topic is the end times both uh comparing and contrasting the orthodox view on this subject versus the evangelical view on this subject and so uh the class will be in this format you'll see my face here uh but most of the time you'll be looking at a series of slides that i've prepared uh to talk about this subject first a little background as to uh why now and why this subject actually this began in the month of march it is now uh august 13th and so it was lent was coming up and three priests at our church normally during great lent on wednesdays of great lent we have our usual liturgy of the sanctified then afterwards we had a community meal and then we have a class of about hour hour and a half on spiritual topics as taught by the priests and so uh from my two assigned wednesdays my plan was to teach this class a class on the end times from both an orthodox well for the orthodox perspective and compare and contrast it to the evangelical view the most common evangelical view and uh so it started then then just before lent began suddenly the covet hit everything got uh locked down our services went into a stream live stream only and we haven't had too much in the way of educational classes for people and so but it may have been providential because since that time certainly during the coronavirus uh for many people uh this is kind of a time of anxiety this is kind of time of trial and so i am sure that there are many people out there thinking is this the end times is this what the bible was talking about should we uh is is this the apocalypse is this the end of end of times and what do i do to prepare for that and so perhaps this postponement of this class by three months actually makes it more uh timely than it probably would have otherwise been and so this class will i'm not sure exactly how long this class will take i'm thinking about three or four uh maybe five sessions this will be the first session and um so i welcome you to this class and let's go ahead and get started again this class is entitled the end times according to evangelicalism and orthodoxy now the topic of the end times is considered by most people most of the time at some point nearly everyone wonders about the end of time this class will explore the studies of the end times sometimes also called eschatology by theologians and it's focusing on the views of orthodox and evangelicals it will help orthodox christians understand the significant differences between orthodoxy and evangelicalism on this subject and give us a better understanding of our own beliefs i have we are holy transfiguration is in the bible belt and greek orthodoxy orthodoxy in general is not a very big part of the religious landscape of this part of the country it is in other parts of the country but less so in this part of the country and conversely evangelicalism is a major force by far the largest form of christianity in this part of the country so there's plenty of interaction between orthodox christians and evangelical christians on all manner of topics they carpool together they have their kids over for school together and so is common interaction but sometimes i have had orthodox christians in my parish come up to me and ask questions like this uh father i was talking to my my uh evangelical friend and she asked me about the rapture what i believed about the rapture what is the rapture i've never heard of this term or sometimes i've had other people come up to me and say father i have a question for you um there's some activity going on in the middle east there's fighting breaking out between israel and some of israel's neighbors so my friends all say that this is part of bible prophecy that this is this is a sign of the end of the world is this true please explain this to me so this interaction between orthodox and evangelical christians on the end times uh points out two things one is that we orthodox for whatever reason don't talk about the subject of the end times very often it's just not uh we have our beliefs certainly uh but it's not something that we highlight either in our too many of our sermons or in our christian education classes at every level uh conversely our evangelical friends sometimes come from uh specific backgrounds whereas discussion of the end times is a major part of their faith many sermons on the subject many classes and uh that talk about the end times so this is uh this subject of the end times is something where evangelicals usually have very specific and strong views and the orthodox really uh have kind of a blank slate in that regard so the purpose of this class is actually uh by my primary focus audience is for orthodox christians and uh help them understand and and give them a better understanding of what it is that orthodoxy believes about the end times and and be aware of the differences between how orthodox view the end times versus our evangelical friends uh if you are evangelical and and we'll see more specifically refine that to to dispensationalist evangelicals and you're watching this um my you're welcome to this class i apprecia appreciate your presence uh some of this stuff when i'm describing dispensational uh theology would be very familiar to you but it would be completely new uh material for most orthodox christians and there will be times where we i highlight our agreements and there will be times where i highlight our differences and so my purpose is to be respectful and not to um try to convince evangelicals to stop being dispensationalist in their views of the end times if you're an evangelical and you firmly believe in the dispensational approach to the end times my purpose here is not necessarily to convince you to change your mind on the subject but my primary purpose is to teach orthodox like compare and contrast uh where we are similar and where we are very different and so uh that is uh the focus of this class now we start with the earliest days of the church the early christians firmly believed that they were living in the end times we see plenty of biblical evidence for this and our lord said in in this case john chapter 14 3 and if i go and prepare a place for you i will come again and receive you to myself that where i am there you may be also so this is one of many occasions where our lord told his followers told his disciples and then apostles that he would return and so that has been a a very important part of the christian faith ever since the ascension and ever since pentecost now the early christian view of end time continues in other passages that certainly teach us that the earliest christians for the first few decades of christianity they firmly expected christ to come back during their lifetime uh sometimes theologically they call that the imminent return or the the or uh more commonly the any day now approach to when christ will come back so here's some verses that point out this this understanding of christ possibly coming in our lifetime therefore be be patient brethren until the coming of the lord see how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain you also be patient establish your hearts for the coming of the lord is at hand do not grumble against one another brethren lest you be condemned behold the judge is standing at the door so this this for the coming of the lord is at hand and the judge standing at the door certainly uh tells us that james expected the return of christ to come at any time peter in his uh earlier days of his ministry certainly had the exact same understanding he writes at the end of all things is at hand therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers and so peter also having that understanding of the imminent return of christ and also in the first epistle of john and now little children abide in him that when he appears we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming and so this continues more verses about this imminent return of christ romans the apostle paul writing and do this knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of our sleep for now our salvation is nearer than we first believed the night is far spent the day is at hand peter again in his first epistle and when the chief priest appears you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away hebrews and let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some but exhorting one another and so much more as you see the day approaching obviously the writing of the hebrews said you will see implying that most of you will see that day approaching of the returning of christ titus we should live soberly righteously and godly in the present age looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great god and savior jesus christ so over and over again we see this understanding this belief amongst the earliest christians that christ could come as soon as their lifetimes before they left this earth but uh with the passage of several decades after christ's ascension and after pentecost the early christians came to understand that the return of christ may happen after their lifetimes in fact peter later on in his life as he sees his own uh end approaching he writes the following yes i think it is right as long as i am in this tent to stir you up by reminding you knowing that shortly i must put off my tent just as our lord jesus christ showed me moreover i will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease so now he sees his deceased coming and now he's he's stressing the importance of the remembering what he witnessed what he saw and what he is recording for all time that is enshrined in the scriptures paul says the same thing in approaching the end of his earthly sojourn for i am already being poured out as a drink offering and the time of my departure is at hand i have fought the good fight i finished the race i have kept the faith so paul again preparing for his death realize that christ may return after his death this is a subtle shift from a few decades earlier as they begin their apostolates now what is it that the orthodox church believes about the end times this would be a common question uh from our evangelical friends i'm sure we're very puzzling to them because we don't talk enough about the end times and what we believe if uh if you are orthodox or non-orthodox here is a summary of our belief in the end times and he will come in glory again with glory to judge the living and the dead whose kingdom shall have no end now we believe more than this but this is a summation of our beliefs it's one of the lines in our nicene creed that we recite every sunday and sunday and sometimes at our other uh non-day non-sunday services as well so we do believe that christ will return we also definitely do believe that he will raise the dead when he returns and we also understand that he will establish a kingdom of his own under his authority in heaven and on earth and that kingdom shall never pass away so this is something that uh is in our faith and so we orthodox i think uh could could improve uh a little bit on our focusing upon these things and being aware of this part of the creed that we recite uh every sunday now this straight simple straightforward belief about the end times and which we have as orthodox have held since the fourth century since the uh codifying of our faith the summary of our faith and the nicene creed is largely shared by the catholic west uh if you were to ask if if you were to compare the orthodox to you in the catholic view uh on the end times it's pretty much the same might be some differences here and there uh but yet it is uh our our common heritage uh with the west shows the fact that uh there's fairly little disagreement between orthodox and and catholics on the end times as far as this goes and uh it might be of surprise to some people that this this faith that the rather simple straightforward understanding of christ returning raising the dead judging all and then beginning his eternal reign forever uh it was was largely shared also by the protestant reformers of the 16th century and so up until fairly recently in history there has been not that much debate i mean protestants and orthodox can have debated over many things over the centuries but up until the 18th century or 19th century excuse me uh there was not that much disagreement and the broad strokes of what would what uh the the form reformers believed would happen in the end times as compared to the orthodox however a new and very different set of beliefs about the end times appeared in the 19th century and that a new set of beliefs or system of beliefs as some have called it uh has since become the dominant doctrine among particularly among evangelical protestants today and that new doctrine about the end times is called dispensationalism and this doesn't mean that all evangelicals are dispensationalists that is not true i'm not implying that uh however those who believe in dispensationalism are overwhelmingly evangelical christians so i will uh i will refer to dispensationalists and dispensationalism pretty much from here on out without understanding now what is dispensationalism so this will be this would be an education i think to most orthodox uh for most evangelical slash dispensationalists this would be a very familiar territory so what is dispensationalism dispensationalism is a series of very specific beliefs about the end times its most defining characteristics include first a strictly literal interpretation of all scripture second it holds to sola scriptura the belief that each christian can correctly interpret the bible on their own third it divides all all of human history between creation and the last judgment into a series of dispensations just there they use the term dispensationalist dispensations from what as the english translation of the greek word economy which means the order of a household next uh dispensationalists vary somewhat but on this question but the number of dispensations that dispensationalists believe in varies a little bit uh it's usually some falls between seven and eight and it sort of depends on which dispensationalist theologian or writer or teacher uh you are talking about but uh these are the the most common defining characteristics there are a few more which we'll talk about now according to their literature you know i'm i it's not my purpose here to put straw men in anybody i don't want to uh misquote or misrepresent dispensationalists in any way about what they believe so i quote a few of their own uh authorities on this subject so according to dispensationalist literature and in this case from the or the scofield study bible it says the following each dispensation is a period of time during which man is tested in respect of obedience to some specific revelation of the will of god seven such dispensation dispensations are distinguished in scripture one can define dispensationalism as god's distinctive method of governing mankind or a group of men during a period of human history marked by a crucial event test failure and judgment from the divine standpoint it is a stewardship a rule of life or a responsibility for managing god's affairs in his house from the historical standpoint it is a stage in the progress of revelation this is from the scofield scofield biblical institute now what does this all mean hopefully these graphs now dispensationalists love graphs because it puts their beliefs into an understandable visual way so this is a graph that i took copied and pasted from a dispensational list website so it should be a fair representation excuse me according to dispensationalism there are seven or eight dispensations the chart below is from a dispensational uh so as you see it begins with creation ends with eternity so the first dispensation according to dispensationalists uh basically ran from creation to the fall of man uh which they this place is at about 4000 bc uh that's the age of innocence and then came the dispensation of the conscience that's from the fall of man to the flood then from the flood to the call of abraham was the era of human government and as you can see from this chart the the dispensation of human government continues all the way up to the present day as sort of an underlying of everything else as you can see as described by this chart then beginning with the call of abraham and lastly until the law of moses we have the dispensation of promise and then from the handing down of the law to moses from mount sinai and given and followed by the old testament people of god the israelites that began the dispensation of the law uh the next great shift came depending on who you were talking to uh the dispensation of the law uh ended some time after the crucifixion and resurrection of christ and the coming of the holy spirit so some people put that at that day some as you can see whoever put this chart together uh says that the dispensation of the law slowly faded out and the dispensation of grace uh filtered back filtered in and that happened sometime according to this chart between uh the life of the apostle paul and the destruction of the temple in jerusalem and 70 a.d that you might see differences in between uh various dispensationalists so then since the temple and including where we according to dispensationalists where we are today is in that uh dark purple there which is the dispensation of grace so that's according to the dispensationalist that's where we are right now that's our present status and that will continue until uh uh the next event that will change the nick bring in the next dispensation is with the dispensationalists call the rapture we'll talk a lot more about that later and then after the rapture there will be seven years uh what they call the just the great dispen the great tribulation and that will be seven years then that dispensation will give way to the next dispensation which will be the the what's usually called the millennium in this chart is called the kingdom and that will be from when christ returns until a later great white throne which will begin eternity so those are your dispensations i see one two three four five six seven so that's the eight dispensations uh that that dispensationalists talk about now the scofield bible institute continues what what constitutes a dispensation what makes that up according to the scofield bible institute each dispensation has been provided as a responsibility to god in each dispensation first they are given a test from god in each dispensation man fails the test and the next aspect of it is for each dispensation god has provided a judgment and then the fourth and final aspect of every dispensation god has provided a measure of grace for each dispensation so for example to see how that works in this dispensational understanding of how the system works so the first dispensation was innocence and in this dispensation uh the god started with the cycle the first step the test god placed adam and eve in the garden of eden and gave them all the fruit to eat except the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil that's the test then came the failure the failure was adam and eve disobeyed god and ate the forbidden fruit then it comes the third part of every dispensation the judgment in this case god drove adam and eve out of the garden and into a fallen world and then fourth is god's grace and that is in this case god provided a way for them to return to paradise now here's another example of how dispensationalism works as seen through the fifth dispensation uh fifth dispensation was as they describe it the law the test was god's giving moses the law which god required the israelites to obey second came the failure and that is the the israelites disobey god's law and their disobedience culminated in their rejection of christ as their messiah then comes the judgment the judgment of god in this dispensation is god creating a new people of god the church and then finally uh in this dispensation of the law the grace is god provides a way for his old testament people to return to him so hopefully this gives you as a series of seven or eight dispensationalism and all go through this cycle of of test failure judgment and then renewed grace in some form now to really understand for our orthodox uh people for whom this is all brand new material a very important feature of dispensationalism that you gotta bear in mind at all times and that is this that a defining characteristic of dispensationalism is their belief that god has two separate people israel and the church the two are entirely separate certain bible verses and passages refer to israel while other others refer to the church and it is up to the leading dispensationalist teachers and writers and theologians to understand the difference so this this distinction between israel and the church between the jewish person and the gentile is absolutely essential to understanding dispensationalist dispensationalism uh for orthodox we'll talk a lot more about that as well now lewis barry chaffer was one of the early theologians and leading in theologians of dispensationalism and he puts it this way this this church versus israel duality he writes the dispensationalist believes that throughout the ages god is pursuing two distinct purposes one to the earth with earthly people and earthly objectives involved which is judaism while the other is related to heaven with heavenly people and heavenly objectives involved which is christianity so they're right from the very beginning you see this this duality between judaism or israel israel and the church so this is my chart that i put together to try to make this easy for orthodox christians who are unfamiliar with all this to understand uh how this works so the duality of the church in israel is shown in the following dispensational chart so you have the same seven dispensations as in the previous chart but above it you see the timeline you see where creation falls in you see abraham and moses and christ where we are now uh what evangel what dispensation let's call the rapture and then the second coming uh so you see that the first three dispensations there wasn't there wasn't in israel yet it was before abraham who was the father of israel and so from the first three dispensations god is basically doing dealing with all humanity basically with gentiles i.e not jews and then the next two dispensations promise and law god's work god's people are israel the the physical descendants of abraham and then the next dispensation the one of grace where we are now uh israel has been put on the back burner so to speak and now the church has been inserted uh to at least temporarily replace israel as god's uh god's primary people but then after what the dispensationalists call the rapture which will be their next event on their calendar uh then the church will be raptured the church will be in a moment removed from earth leaving israel and so instead of being sort of side by side in a way the church has now been raptured so israel returns to its former place as god's earthly people and so you see that is the church is kind of sandwiched in between two periods of history uh both of which are where god's primary people are israel and in fact the dispensationalist theologians uh recognize this and so they call the church some of them call the church a parenthesis meaning god had israel didn't work out inserted now into the church and the church will run its course and then the church will be removed and then there will be the closed parenthesis and then things will return back to israel as being god's uh chosen people as it was in old testament times and then finally we have the millennium and that's the last dispensation and even there israel and the church are kept separate uh israel or is god's earthly people as we saw from lewis very chafer and the church is god's heavenly people and they might disagree as to how that all works out but that's the general scheme of how jew and gentile israel and the church kind of interact over the course of all these these dispensations now uh how does that relate to orthodoxy along with the dispensationalists orthodoxy also believes in progressive revelation we also believe as orthodox that god reveals himself gradually over time but in contrast to dispensationalists who divide all of human history into seven or eight dispensations and they're they place a great emphasis on that that's why they call themselves dispensationalists is because they are very focused on the these seven dispensationalists that dispensations the orthodox church believes really when it go com finally comes down to it the orthodox church believes in only two dispensations one would be the old testament and the other would be the new testament now dispensationalists play great emphasis on the differences between their seven or eight dispensations that's why they chose the name by contrast orthodox great place great emphasis on the unity of the old testament and the new testament to us orthodox the purpose of the old testament is to prepare for the coming of christ and the purpose of the new testament is to point back to the coming of christ christ's of his cons conception his birth his life his crucifixion his resurrection his ascension uh and what i guess we should also add pentecost the coming of the holy spirit these are the defining events of salvation history this the old the best and highest function of the old testament is the point towards that and the best and highest purposes of the new testament is to point back to that while recognizing some of the differences in god's dealings with mankind over time orthodoxy orthodox considers any such difference to be a fairly little consequence by comparison to the unity of the testaments now again we do believe in progressive revelation certainly we would readily and have people to be happy to believe for example that when moses descended from the mountain uh having met god and receiving the ten commandments and when he gave that to the people of god that was a big difference that was a big change that that was a major event that was was to uh affect everything in terms of god's old testament people so we do believe happily uh enthusiastically with progressive revelation but yet from the orthodox perspective uh the main event is the unity of salvation history focusing upon christ uh the other differences while real are for us not particularly uh as important as the coming death resurrection and ascension of christ so to put it in a graph here so you see the seven dispensations uh in or in red and so the same ones that we've been working with thus far and uh the timeline starting with creation ending with what the uh what they call the second coming and in the middle we both believe in the virgin birth crucifixion and resurrection of christ and as well as followed up by pentecost but you can see here's the difference that i as i would graphically put it everything before christ is more or less variations of the most important thing christ is coming and then everything in the new testament uh you see from the orthodox gold perspective in in gold to us the most important thing the is christ has come christ has died christ has risen as our uh some of our west western friends say in catholicism and so the this this is the difference this is the first difference is the whether the emphasis is on unity of of the olden new testament the unity of god's revelation to man or whether we are going to have to or whether it's divided up into uh seven um separate events so that's i would say one of the major differences between orthodoxy and christianity so where did dispensationalism come from uh the next uh few minutes we'll talk about uh where it came from a very brief summarized history of dispensationalism and then we'll talk a little bit more about that uh compare that also with orthodoxy now uh dispensationalism began in the late 1800s and its founder was a man named john darby uh darby well you can see his dates there on this slide he was an anglo-irish bible teacher and founder of the plymouth brethren denomination he is also considered to be the father of dispensationalism and by dispensation uh and through dispensationalism also this modern uh protest evangelical protestant interest in the end times that uh certainly very powerful uh to this day a couple of uh interesting things my grandfather was from the same part of ireland uh northern ireland that john darby was my father my grandfather uh was a a preacher in very much in the footsteps i i know he didn't meet darby because darby died the year my grandfather was born amazingly uh but uh so this this has family history for me also also the uh darby was the founder of a a protestant um group called the plymouth brethren um i was raised in the plymouth brother this is so this is my my spiritual formation began in the plymouth brethren and so this is because i grew up in the plymouth brethren and the teachings of dispensation and john nelson darby were so strong in the plymouth brother and that's why i have certain amount of background more more than you you would see in most uh orthodox clergy so uh darby's similar contemporaries it's important to understand one thing about dispensationalism is it was actually part of a broader movement interestingly at that time in history there were a lot of groups that were also springing up all over the western world uh not orthodox but certainly in the protestant west uh we're suddenly very fascinated with and uh with the end times and we're coming up with uh their their own take on what will happen and so darby's dispensationalism uh came out of of this broader society-wide movement derby was not the only religious leader from the late 18th late 19th century to found a new protestant movement with a profound interest in the end times several other religious leaders also founded sects preaching new and novel doctrines about the future at about the same time as darby so let's look at some of these one of this uh which is some surprising and that right about the same time darby was was was coming up with some uh eschatological or some specific and fairly new uh understandings of the end times uh that he was doing that in ireland in here in the united states at the same time uh this new religion called mormonism uh was doing something very similar there's a lot of similarities here joseph smith and brigham young were the credited as being two of the the founders of mormonism also in the late 1800s uh mormons believe that christ will return and will be seen by all he will raise all the dead and judge humanity the evil will go into outer darkness the most righteous mormons will inherit what they call the celestial kingdom uh it goes on to say my the source says that brigham young herbert c kimball joseph fielding smith and all associated becoming like our heavenly father with the creation of worlds and the population of these worlds with spirit children i won't go into great detail about mormonism and what they believe about the end times but i do see a similarity between that they have sort of an earthly an earthly people and a heavenly people and so that that that distinction and that doctrine of having uh two different people one heavenly and one earthly does remind me a little bit of some of the things that the darby was saying to go on a little bit more about what mormonism says about the end times the partially righteous will stay on earth in the terrestrial kingdom this includes people who did not accept the mormon faith but did after death the least righteous those who did not accept mormon mormonism either in life or death but were not deserving of the outer darkness are sent to this terrestrial kingdom so you see that heavenly versus terrestrial uh duality in mormonism as well as you see it in dispensationalism um to continue mormonism teaches a millennium a literal 1000 year period after christ returns when christ rules over all the earth and it is an age of near perfection like the garden of eden and satan will be bound so that is very very close to what dispensationalism teaches the thousand-year literal reign of christ over earth a time of almost returning to the garden of eden eden and will us when satan will be bound after the millennium according to mormonism there will be one last angelic and human rebellion christ will crush the rebellion resurrect the earthly dead and judge all earthly humanity and eternity will begin that's very close to what dispensationalism uh as as formulated by darby says uh that there's another group that came about also about the same time mainly in the late 1800s and that is the jehovah's witnesses the jehovah's witnesses believe that jesus christ has been ruling in heaven as king since 1914 a date they believe was prophesied in scripture and after that time a great period of cleansing occurred resulting in god's selection of bible students associated with charles tays russell russell to be his people in 1919. there were some predictions of the future though jehovah's witnesses particularly in those days were also very interested and fascinated by the end times and made what they felt was predictions based on their understanding of scripture as what was going to happen next so in 1911 russell wrote that the october that october 1914 would witness the full end of babylon or nominal christianity utterly destroyed as a system he wrote that the coming of armagedd culmination of armageddon would occur in 1914 preceded by the gathering of all the saints both resurrected and living to heaven he also predicted the destruction of governments in 1920 he also included new predictions for 1925 including the resurrection of the biblical patriarchs abraham isaac jacob and other old testament personages during the 1960s and early 1970s witnesses were instructed by means of articles in their literature and at their assemblies then armageddon and christ's thousand-year millennial reign could could begin by 1975. so again uh theory that this was an era of intense interest in the end times and a lot of formulation of hypotheses uh see the same thing mary baker eddy and christian science late 1800s christian science was developed in the in 19th century new england by mary baker eddie who argued in her 1875 book self science and health that sickness is an illusion that can be corrected by prayer alone the book became christian sciences central text along with the bible and by 2001 had sold over 9 million copies so here's some christian science beliefs about the end times and these are quoted from their website and you can say this fascination of the of the role of christian science in apocalypse and the end of time and what the prophetic literatures mean literature means they quote revelation 12 1 here now a great sign appeared in heaven a woman clothed with the sun with a moon under her feet and on her head a garland of 12 stars in revelation they see the finality of prophecy to their understanding the woman of the apocalypse apocalypse stands in tight for the female of god's creation spoken of in genesis we that is jehovah's witnesses believe mary baker eddy represents the second coming of christ another group also about this same time uh beginning uh in the late 1800s uh began with william miller and who was the founder of the seventh-day adventists william miller proclaimed that jesus christ would return to earth by 1844 in what he called the advent his study of the of the book of daniel a chapter 8 prophecy led him to the conclusion that daniel's cleansing of the sanctuary was cleansing of the world from sin when christ would come on october 22 1844 he and his many followers prepared but today came and went it has been since known by the seventh-day adventists as the great disappointment so that is a brief summary we'll we'll talk a little bit more about the more modern um the some things that have happened more close to our time since the late 1800s but you can see that the broader uh intense interest across certainly the european and american west uh as a that seeing and interpreting the bible for all kinds of uh interpretations that he that now back to dispensationalism what happened after the the beginning of dispensationalism as it was taught by uh john darby and his followers as one of several 19th century futuristic movements preaching new doctrines about the rapture tribulation israel armageddon in the millennium dispensationalism was originally a rather small movement however dispensationalism went mainstream within protestantism by the publication of the scofield study bible what is this schofield study bible uh if you are a dispensationalist you know all about the scofield study bible uh if you're orthodox you've probably never heard of it this first scofield study bible was edited and published by cyrus i schofield it first appeared in 1909 and was revised by the author in 1917 it was the first bible where the editor's commentary on each verse or passage was footnoted at the bottom of the page it was a new and powerful innovation it placed the editor's dispensational commentary so close to the biblical text that the two seem began to seem indistinguishable to the reader and so this was a this innovation and very powerful one then another development in dispensationalism since darby uh was in the 1920s and that was uh by louis louis barry chaffer as as i have already described talked a little bit about him quoted him he was a leading theologian of the early dispensational movement he founded dallas theological seminary in 1924 to produce dispensational pastors theologians and writers it remains the theological headquarters of dispensationalism and has inspired many similar schools another personal note uh i attended dallas theological seminary uh for two years so uh that was very much uh in keeping with my plymouth brethren and very dispensationalist upbringing so when you say dallas theological seminary i remember it quite well as a student next thing that came along now we're up to the 1970s in 1970 uh the dispensationalist author hal lindsey wrote the book the late great planet earth it taught dispensational beliefs about the end times including the antichrist the rapture the seven year great tribulation and armageddon he cited world events at the time as proof these prophecies were about to take place it was written in understandable easy-to-read style that that was was wild wildly popular according to the new york times it was the biggest selling non-fiction book of the 1970s so if you were i was in my uh teens beginning in the 1970s and i remember this book very well and i remember what reading it with great interest and so being the biggest selling non-fiction book for an entire decade uh this was a huge and very powerful reason why dispensationalism has become such such a predominant view of prophecy and end times uh here in the united states then that was the 1970s now we're up to the 1990s and uh if you are not old enough to remember the late great planet earth you are probably old enough to remember the left behind series of books and movies uh and that came out these came out uh in very fairly close to our own times and another major contributor to the popularity of dispensationalism was the left behind uh was the book left behind by tim lahaye and jerry jenkins this 1995 novel depicts life on earth experiencing future events as predicted by dispensationalists the book and its 15 sequels sold 80 million copies it has also produced four movie series and even a video game so this is uh if you're curious about what dispensationalists view if you want to see the whole movie you could probably rent it download it it's still uh it's still around and uh if you are not uh not a dispensationalist if you're orthodox it's a very good depiction the entire series is a fictionalized depiction of what uh awaits us according to dispensationalist theology now here is uh a summary of the future events according to dispensationalists now we don't you don't have to memorize these we will go through them one by one in much greater detail but this is sort of a a table of contents of what dispensationalists believe is in store for us from here on into the future the next event will be the rapture and we'll talk about that in much greater detail then we'll become the revelation of the antichrist and the establishment of a one world government under his control there will be a seven year great tribulation about uh halfway through that seven year great tribulation uh the antichrist will make a pact with israel and but then he will with his help uh the state of israel will rebuild the temple in jerusalem right on the temple mount right where it used to be before it was destroyed by the romans in 70 a.d but about the same about halfway through the the tribulation the antichrist will betray israel and will set up an idol of himself in the holy of holies of the new rebuilt temple in jerusalem so this will be the second half of the great tribulation and it will be horrible for the entire planet there will be worldwide war there will be disease there'll be famine there will be natural disasters and much of the world's population will die in the second half of the seven year great tribulation during that time of the especially the second half of the great tribulation jews and gentiles uh who believe in christ will face as gentiles who believe in christ will face intense persecution at some point russia israel will be invaded most dispensationalists believe that the invaders will be russia and china and they're all gathered together to fight each other but at the last moment just before it looks like the world will come to an end in a nuclear holocaust christ returns he will descend on the mount of olives in jerusalem then the when that happens the combined military forces of the antichrist which will include also will include russia and china they will military attempt to attack christ at uh armageddon of uh mcgee the valley of megiddo which is a valley in israel and at that moment christ will destroy all of his enemies he will raise the dead and he will judge all the survivors of the great tribulation both jew and gentile then the millennium begins and that will be a thousand years where christ will rule the earth in a new golden age will be very much like the garden of eden all over again all sickness and all pain and death will pretty much be non-existent at the end of the millennium one last rebel there will be one last rebellion against christ christ will return one more time there will be one last judgment and then eternity begins so that's that's the schedule of expected events in the future to us according to dispensationalism so here's a little chart that i put together oops you can see um the difference between orthodoxy and dispensationalism when it comes to future events with uh if you look at the top which is the gold bar that's where we are if this is imagine this is a timeline that's where we are right now so what orthodox orthodoxy expects is the next thing that's going to happen in our future we may it may or may not happen in our lifetimes but the next great event that will happen to humanity will christ will come again what we call the second coming he will destroy uh the earth his earthly enemies he will gather all the nations of the world all humans and judge all of humanity he will judge satan and the demons and they will be sent to they will be bound and and sent to hell and then there will be a new heaven and a new earth and at that point after uh from that point on there will be eternity we believe there will probably be also a new heaven and a new earth but basically it's very simple and there will be these events will all basically happen about the same time and then will be eternity that's it it's very familiar it's very um simple uh and that's to be compared with the dispensationalist understandings which is understanding that you see in the bottom graph where that's the far left of the timeline where we are now then there'll be the great tribulation with all the events that you see there then there will be the they believe there will be a well at the end of now there will be a rapture which is then there'll be a first judgment of christians only then the great tribulation then will come what they call the second coming christ will destroy his enemies there will be another judgment of those who live through the great tribulation and then the millennium will begin that thousand-year reign of perfection and eden-like situation on earth at the end of the thousand-year millennium there'll be that final rebellion third coming uh potentially third coming third judgment of those who lived through the millennium and then finally at the end of that will be uh eternity so that's a comparison between the very complex uh series of events that are anticipated by dispensationalists as opposed to a fairly simple timeline of events events that are expected by the orthodox so i'll start stop there for the day i wanted to uh i want to thank you for joining us uh we will continue with this class there will be a class about once a week and we will continue probably i'm guessing last at least four or five weeks maybe longer uh we'll see how how the the material fits into the time uh also i wanted to let you know that i will post in a moment i'll post my my church email address and uh i invite your feedback i don't know if i'm gonna get five emails or five thousand emails i really don't know i will uh if it's a lot i will i may not be able to respond to all of them um i i would prefer not to get into theological debate with uh dispensationalists that's really not my purpose here my again my main purposes purpose is to explain to orthodox christians what it is we believe and where it's both similar and where it's different from our dispensationalist friends and uh so i invite your feedback if i will read as many as i can what i will be especially looking for is sometimes i've learned i'll be teaching in class and i will think that uh what i said made perfect sense and later on i will find out that without how i phrased it wasn't clear as i thought it was or people have some legitimate questions so i'm i i'll particularly use these responses by email to uh to clarify anything that i may have said that was not clear and also to answer some basic questions that may have been left unanswered so thank you for uh joining me and i'll now put on the screen the my email address and and you can email at any time thank you for coming you

Channel: Holy Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church

Views: 21,214

Rating: 4.8607349 out of 5

Keywords: Orthodoxy, End Times, protestantism, prophesy, antichrist, mark of the beast, 666, apocalypse, revelation, Dispensationalism, second coming, last judgement, rapture

Id: _Sdp9Dmnp_M

Length: 59min 0sec (3540 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 19 2020