Revelation and Dispensationalism

I received a question basically asking me what I think of Dispensationalism.  This is a huge question.  For me to be able to answerat all I have enclosed a “classic” dispensational Chart.  Dispensationalism divides history both Biblical and Kingdom up into dispensations, with God often dealing differently with people during each dispensation.  For many who divide history up in dispensations we are now in the Church or grace age.  Some will also take the Church age, the last 2,000 years, and divide it up as well, with periods in Church history defined by the seven letters to the seven churches in asia, most who do this say we are now in the Laodicean Church period, the lukewarm Church.    But for those who structure salvation history by dispensations you can have many different divisions, names, and causes for that dispensation. There is the dispensation of innoncence or the time in the garden of Eden.  There is the dispensation before Noah’s flood, and then the dispensation of promise after.  There is the dispensation of the law, or Israel.  Included in dispensationalism is the age of a tribulation, a milliniual reign, Etc.  For the dispensationalist there are sucessive periods in history with each defined by a particular covenant with God, law is one,  grace is another.  This doctrine was originally defined by a Scottish pastor in the Bretheren movement named John Darby over 150 years ago.  Classic dispensationalists separate the Church from Israel and believe that God will keep Old Testament promises to Israel  as a nation, and that the Church has a separate line of grace that defines it.  The key componentof dispensationalism is that one day there will be a milliniual reign on earth, one thousand years, where Christ and His followers will rule the world from Jerusalem.  But again, there are huge divergences in beliefs and breakdown in dispensational teaching.  In recent years people lie Hal Lindsay and Tim LaHay have championed dispensational teaching.  Dispensationalists almost always believe in a 7 year tribulation preceded by a rapture of the Church and concluded by the 1000 year millenium, then Christ returns to judge the living and the dead and a new heavens and a new earth begins.  I will seek to address some of this in upcoming messages.  Now what do I think?  When people have tried to put God in a box they have almost always been wrong.  The religious leaders of Israel did this when they defined their understanding of the messiah and when He came they missed Him.  God is a God of surprises. What a surprise that He would die for us to save us.  What a surprise that He would deliver His people through a man named Moses.  Could we find a more unlikely character than Paul to be the apostle to the gentiles.  Who would have guessed that 2,000 years would go be before Christ has come when the early Church thought His coming was immanent.  I belive in Christ’s return one day.  I believe that one day there will be a new heaven’s and a new earth with no more mourning, crying or pain, a place where Christ is the light of that place.  I believe God will be faithful to His followers and will not lose one.  I belive that whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved and that God loves me and I love God.  I believe God is a God of grace but I also believes He will one day judge those that turn their back on Him.  I believe in heaven, the resurrection, and that life is eternal.  Maybe dispensationalism is the way to understand the Bible, I have a tendency to think not and that God wishes we spent more time worshiping Him and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ rather than trying to figure out the future.  Again, I will say more about this in the messages to come.  I think Dispensationalism is fascinating and sincere people for that last 150 years have tried valiantlyto break down the Bible is more understandable ways.  Jesus did not do this as a teacher and neither did Paul, so maybe we go to far.  As we walk through Revelation together I hope we can come together on the Biblical truths that save us and define us, as well as understand the amazing time in history we live in.  What do I know for sure.  Jesus Christ will return to the earth one day.  God’s people will be separated from those who are not.  There will come a judgement.  The earth will end one day and God will bring a new one.  We will see Him face to face and not look through the mirror dimly one another.  No one can pluck us from His hand.  And as Peter tell us, “God is long suffering, not willing that any perish but all inherit everlasting life”.