On today’s Bible Answer Man broadcast (09/15/20), Hank talks about the heart of dispensational eschatology. In 1831—the same year that Charles Darwin left England and sailed into evolutionary infamy—another nineteenth-century dogma with profound consequences for the history of humanity was birthed in the British Isles. That year John Nelson Darby, a disillusioned priest, left the Church of England and joined the Plymouth Brethren. In much the same way that Darwin imposed a speculative spin on the scientific data he encountered along the South American coasts of Patagonia, Darby imposed a subjective spin on the scriptural data he encountered in the city of Plymouth. Darby contended that God had two distinct people with two distinct plans and two distinct destinies. Only one of the peoples—the Jews—would suffer tribulation. The other—the church—would be removed from the world in a secret coming seven years prior to the second coming of Christ. Darby’s distinctive twist on Scripture would come to be known as dispensational eschatology. In previous generations, dispensationalists were content to be mere spectators to unfolding events. Today’s brand, however, is bent on ensuring that the horrors of Armageddon become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the evangelical death march toward the endgame of Armageddon is to be subverted, it will be because believers recommit themselves to faithful illumination or faithful exegesis—to mine what the Spirit has breathed into the Scriptures as opposed to reading our own predilections into the text. For further information please see The Apocalypse Code.
Hank also answers the following question:
- How should we as Christians vote?