How Dispensationalism Turned Americans Into Slaves of Israel

Today on American Glory, I'm going to show you how the heresy of dispensationalism rewired American Christianity and turned us into political servants for the nation of Israel. In my weekly audit, we'll be looking at two videos regarding Zionism and the claim of replacement theology. All that and more coming up right now.

Welcome to American Glory. This is season two on American Christianity. I'm your host, Dale Partridge. This is episode number three of season 2, and it's titled How Dispensationalism Turned America into Servants of Israel. Now, if you didn't know, American Glory is both a podcast and a video show. And if you want to listen, you can listen on the NXR podcast feed or from my personal podcast feed. Search Dale Partridge's podcast and you'll find me on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever podcasts can be downloaded.

If you want to watch the video, it comes with helpful slides, graphics, video clips. Man, I I'm I'm just going to brag. I think that the videos are awesome. They're like little miniature documentaries. I really want to encourage you guys get over to YouTube and watch the video. Um, if you want to watch the episode without any ads and you want to support what we're doing over at NXR, check out NXR Plus. You can download it in the App Store or the Google Play Store. It's a great resource with tons of different con pieces of content that we are producing at NXR to regain a Christian America.

Now, this season I'm going to be covering eight episodes around the topics of American Christianity. In my last episode, I covered the curse of Ham. And wow, that was a doozy. And we talked about how the Bible explains racial distinctions. And in my next episode, I'm going to cover Zionism and how basically the nation of Israel subverted and destroyed much of American life. So, this is kind of part of a two-part series, dispensationalism in this episode today, and then we're going to be talking about Zionism in the next episode.

Now, I want to add one more point. You may not realize it, but the battle over many of these issues that we talk about here at NXR and on our platforms often happens in the comments. So, new viewers, they're they're, you know, they're not always looking at the view count or how many likes a video or a post has. Many of them just look at the comments to determine whether they are allowed to believe what was just said. Okay, there's a lot of people that are looking and they're trying to feel the consensus of the room. They're testing if they're allowed to embrace what is being taught. Um, they're they're they're asking, "Is this acceptable? Am am I the only one who sees this? Am I going to be attacked for believing what is being said here?" And they do this because many people they they honestly they fear man more than they fear God.

So, one simple way that you can help kind of fight this consensus war is by leaving a clear, positive comment wherever you see uh or listen or watch this episode. It's a great way again to move the ball forward down the court in the right direction. So, on that note, let's go ahead and begin.

Imagine a civilization where for nearly 2,000 years, everyone used the same dictionary. Words had stable meanings. Judges used it. Teachers used it. Parents taught it to their children. Every great work of literature assumed the same definitions. If someone asked what courage or marriage or justice or freedom meant, the answer wasn't a matter of opinion. It had been settled for centuries.

But then a rebellious professor comes along and decides to publish a new dictionary. He didn't remove or burn the old dictionary. He simply printed something new. And at first, hardly anyone noticed. Many of the words stayed the same, but a few of the most important words were quietly redefined. The professor knew that novelty is the universal attraction. He understood that people loved what is new, even if it's worse than the old. And he was right. To the untrained, this new dictionary felt fresh. It felt insightful. It seemed to unlock hidden meanings that previous generations um had supposedly missed. And for many, that was part of its appeal. It made them feel as though they had discovered something deeper, something special, something the rest of history had failed to see.

And not long after, schools adopted this new dictionary. Universities taught it, journalists quoted it, judges began interpreting laws through it, and then children grew up learning it as though it had always been the standard. Now, the old dictionary did not just disappear overnight. It was simply set aside, right? Then it was treated as unnecessary. Then it was treated as being outdated and then dangerous. And eventually the very dictionary that had defined the civilization understanding of words for nearly 2,000 years was spoken of as though it had been the problem all along.

This is how perversion works. It does not always begin by burning the past. Sometimes it simply publishes a revised version of it. It changes a few definitions. It waits for a generation to forget and then accuses the old meaning of being strange or narrow or extreme. And before long, the new is called historic and the historic is called new.

And this is actually remarkably similar to what has happened in modern evangelical theology. For 18 centuries, the church understood the relationship between Israel, the church, the covenants, the kingdom in what was called covenant theology. And I want to talk about this for a second because that is the old dictionary. Then in the 19th century, a new interpretive system emerged called dispensationalism. It was fresh. It claimed to recover truths the church had supposedly missed for centuries. And because it felt new and exciting, it spread rapidly through, you know, Bible conferences and seminaries and study Bibles and eventually entire denominations.

Now, today, many Christians have grown up assuming that this newer system is simply what Christians have always believed. So when they encounter the old historic understanding held throughout all of church history, they label it something new or what they call replacement theology as though covenant theology were something novel. And as I said before, eventually the new is called historic and the historic is called new. And that's exactly what's happening. So today, dispensationalism has become the standard uh in America and covenant theology is now treated as some sort of departure.

And this is not some abstract seminary debate. This theology is not some sort of footnote for pastors and professors. This is one of the most important doctrinal questions shaping American life, politics, foreign policy, uh, evangelical loyalty, the conscience of millions of Christians. Because one of the great dividing lines in America today is our relationship with Israel. Should America support the modern nation state of Israel? Is the nation of Israel God's chosen people? Uh, should American soldiers, American tax dollars, uh, American foreign policy be tied to the preservation of the Jewish people? Uh, should churches raise money for Jewish causes? Uh, was America truly built on Judeo-Christian values?

And beyond these questions, there's actually more questions. You know, is it good that Apac funds our national elections? you know, why do organizations like the United Democracy Project or uh the American Israel Education Fund or the Anti-Defamation League and Christians United for Israel wield uh so much outsized influence in American politics and culture? And why does the United States Department of State maintain an official website dedicated to global guidelines for countering anti-semitism?

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Now, none of these are neutral questions. They reveal how deeply a foreign nation's interests have been woven into the fabric of American life. And these questions are tearing the country apart. Literally, they are dividing the Republican party. They are dividing churches and denominations. They are shaping elections. They are influencing wars. They are determining who gets called faithful and who gets called dangerous. And that is why this topic is such a massive issue.

If America embraces the historic position of covenant theology, these questions have a particular set of answers and will lead America in one direction away from the notion of Christ rejecting Israel, which is in step with all of church history. But if we embrace dispensationalism, these questions have an entirely different set of answers and will lead America in an entirely different direction, becoming more united with Christ rejecting Israel, which is out of step with all of church history.

So what I'm saying is that our national conflict over Israel is almost entirely not political. It's doctrinal. It's theological. And this is why Ted Cruz in his interview with Tucker Carlson defended America's relationship with Israel by what? Appealing to Genesis 12. It's also why the United States ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabe, does not defend his position on the basis of clear American interests or strategic foreign policies, but on the basis of theology. And this is why the issues matter so much.

I believe that if dispensationalism is exposed as a modern incoherent and unbiblical theological system, much of America's unquestioned loyalty to Israel will begin to collapse with it. What I mean by that is if I can contribute to disproving this theology, I can help loosen the entire framework that has made America's allegiance to Israel feel like some sort of sacred obligation rather than a political decision. So that's my aim in this episode is to explain what dispensationalism is, where it came from, and why when you test it against scripture in church history, it doesn't stand.

But before we look at the new dictionary of dispensationalism, we need to actually understand the old dictionary of covenant theology. So before dispensationalism entered the scene, the Christian church did not read the Bible as two separate stories. Okay? One story for Israel and another story for the church. Okay? Christians did not believe the Old Testament was Judaism and the New Testament was Christianity. No, the whole Bible was Christian scripture. Okay? The whole Bible was the story of Christ. The whole Bible was the unfolding of one redemptive plan. Adam was a Christian. Noah was a Christian. Abraham was a Christian. Moses was a Christian. David was a Christian. Okay?

So, from the earliest centuries of the church, Christians understood that God had one people, one promise, one savior, one covenantal purpose, and one way of salvation by grace through faith in Christ. The saints before Christ trusted in the Christ who was to come. and the saints after Christ trust in the Christ who came. But both are saved by the same savior and they're saved through the same plan of redemption and they're brought into the same household of God and made heirs of the same promises. Okay? That is the historic Christian understanding of the Bible.

Covenant theology is simply the recognition that God's plan unfolds through covenant. So before the foundation of the world uh the father, son and the holy spirit purposed to redeem a particular people. You can call it the elect, you can call it the church, whatever you want to call it. Then in history, God revealed that purpose through successive covenants with Adam, with Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and finally in the new covenant, it was revealed with Christ. And so the best way I've learned to think about this is the eternal covenant of redemption is like the engagement or the intent. Um, the covenants throughout history you know with Adam and Noah and you know Abraham and Moses etc are the love letters and the new covenant is like the wedding.

So every promise uh in the Old Testament, every sacrifice, every priest, every temple, uh every king, every prophet, every covenant sign was preparing people for and pointing people to Christ, the bridegroom. Okay? There were shadows, um, but he was the substance. Uh, there were um scaffolding before, but he's the house. Um, you know, all of those things before were the cradle, but he is the child. uh they were the letters but he is the reality. In other words, Jesus was the true sacrificial lamb. Jesus was the true high priest. Jesus was the true temple of God. Jesus was the true son of Abraham. Jesus was the true uh son of David. Jesus was the true Israel. Okay?

So in covenant theology, the nation of Israel was never the intent of the end of the story. Ethnic Israel was the womb through which the Messiah came. Okay? The nation was the vessel. Christ was the treasure. Okay? The physical people were the outward administration of this redemptive plan. The elect remnant within that nation were the true heirs. And this is why Paul says, "Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel." And that sentence alone destroys the entire idea that ethnic descent automatically equals some sort of covenantal inheritance. Okay? Paul does not say all ethnic Israel is true Israel. No, he says the opposite. There is Israel according to the flesh and there is Israel according to the promise. There is the visible nation of Israel. And then there is the faithful remnant within Israel. That's the true Israel, the chosen, the elect, the faithful. There are the children of the flesh. And then there are the children of the spirit. And that is in the nation of Israel. There are some who are part of the church and many who are apostate. And that distinction is not a footnote. Okay? It is the key to understanding the whole Bible and covenant theology.

Jesus actually confronted this same error of thinking that ethnic descent had some sort of uh right to uh covenantal promises. And he's talking to the Pharisees. They assumed that because Abraham was their genetic father according to the flesh that they were secure in the covenant. But Jesus told them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham." And then he said something even more devastating. He said, quote, "You are of your father, the devil." End quote. In other words, Jesus did not treat bloodline as covenant security. Okay? He treated faith as covenant security.

So John the Baptist said the same thing. Do not presume to say to yourselves, "We have Abraham as our father. For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham." End quote. Paul says actually the same thing in a different way in Galatians. He says, quote, "Those who are of faith are the sons of Abraham." End quote. Not those who merely share Abraham's DNA. Right? those who share Abraham's faith. And that means that covenant identity is not defined by ethnicity, but by election. It's not by bloodline, but it's by the blood of Christ. It's not by descent from Abraham according to the flesh, but by union with Abraham's promised seed, Jesus Christ.

And this is why the apostles constantly emphasize that believing Jews and believing Gentiles are one people in Christ. One body, one olive tree, one household, one flock, one temple, one bride, one new man. Okay? Paul even says that the dividing wall has been torn down. Uh, the Gentiles are not second-class citizens. They are not temporary guests in a Jewish program. They are fellow heirs, members of the same body, partakers of the same promise in Christ Jesus. Okay? That that again understanding covenant theology that is the old perspective, the historic perspective. That's the old dictionary and all of Christendom agreed. And this isn't just like a reformed position because I'm reformed. Uh, it's not a Protestant position. Um, this was the universal position of the entire church. Okay? Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterians. Um, and think about this. They all disagreed on many, many things, but they did not disagree on this. And that should really tell you something. That should tell you something for sure.

This is this is also why uh throughout Christian history the holy land was called holy not because it belonged to ethnic Christ-rejecting Israel but because Christ was born there died there rose there ascended from there and you know if you think about it like when the medieval crusades fought for Jerusalem in 1099 they were not fighting because they believed that the holy land belonged to the Jews they were fighting because they believed it belonged to Christ and therefore to Christendom. It is the church that is our land. Okay? Jerusalem is um not treated as some sort of inheritance to unbelieving Israel, but it's the sacred ground of the church. You know, we know that the meek will inherit the earth. That would certainly include Jerusalem, but that is the holy land is the church's land.

And ultimately the historical theological assumption was clear. Christ-rejecting Judaism was not considered an older sister uh faith of Christianity walking alongside us. It was universally considered a false religion that had rejected Christ and serves now a false god. And that is another major confusion today. Okay? Many modern Christians, they assume Judaism is simply like, I don't know, Old Testament religion without Jesus. But that's not true. Okay? Old covenant religion had a temple and a priesthood, an altar, sacrifices, purification rights, covenantal ceremonies ordained by God. Again, this was Old Testament Christianity, not Old Testament Judaism. There was never been such a thing as Judaism. Okay? Modern rabbinic uh Judaism has none of those things from the Old Testament. No temple, no Levitical priesthood, no sacrificial system, no blood atonement. Biblical Israel was ordered around uh sacrifice and priesthood and promise. All of which did what? Well, they pointed forward to Christ. But rabbinic Judaism developed after the destruction of the temple and this kind of religion of those who rejected Christ. They rebuilt their identity around rabbinic man-made traditions. And so Judaism is not Old Testament religion faithfully continuing without Jesus. Okay? It is a post-Christian false religion developed by those who are antichrist. That is to say that the Old Testament does not terminate in the Talmud. Uh, it terminates in Christ. It doesn't. The priesthood terminated in Christ. The sacrifices terminated in Christ. The the temple terminated in Christ. The promises all terminated in Christ. Uh, the land, the throne, the kingdom, the blessings of Abraham, they all find their yes and amen in Jesus Christ. And I wish I could go into more details around, you know, um, Jesus's phrases around, you know, if you hate the son, you can't love the father. And we know that the Jews reject the son, so they can't love the father. They don't serve the same god as us.

So the historic Christian position is not that the church replaced Israel as though God abandoned one plan and then invented another. The position is that the church is the true Israel. That it started in the nation of ethnic Israel, the elect within the nation of Israel. And then it it expanded and exploded into the world where we have been grafted in. And so this is not replacement theology. This is fulfillment theology. Okay? The unbelieving branches, they're broken off and then the believing Gentiles are grafted in. Believing Jews uh remain in and any unbelieving Jew who turns to Christ is grafted back into that olive tree. But there is only one tree. There are not two peoples. There's not two plans of redemption. There's not two destinies. There's not two ways of inheriting the promises of God. There is Christ and there are those who belong to him. That was the old dictionary. Okay? That is how all of Christendom understood the scriptures and the plan of redemption.

But then we had this new dictionary come out and it all began in the early 1830s with an Irishman named John Nelson Darby. Now Darby was not some fringe outsider at the start, okay? He was an Anglican priest. He was ordained as a deacon in 1825 and then as a priest in 1826 within the church of Ireland but in the late 1820s I think around 1828 1829 he grew deeply dissatisfied with the state-established churches and he left Anglicanism and became one of the co-founders of what's called the Plymouth Brethren Movement. Now, it was in that context that Darby began developing an entirely new system of theology.

Now, there's a saying among theologians that I really like and I think it's very good to memorize this or remember it. It's quote, "If a doctrine is new, it is probably not true. And if a doctrine is true, it is probably not new." In other words, after nearly 2,000 years of church history, we should be suspicious of doctrines that suddenly appear and claim to correct the entire historic tradition. So, I want you I want you to think about it for a second, okay? For centuries, the scriptures have been studied, preached, translated, debated, defended, confessed. I mean, thousands of pastors and theologians and scholars and councils, creeds, synods. They've labored. They've fought over the meaning of God's word on every possible element you can imagine. The Bible has been copied by hand. It's been printed into the masses, translated into multiple languages, and now it's debated openly all across the internet by millions of people. So when someone arrives late in history claiming to have discovered a doctrine that the church somehow missed for millennia, we we should really really slow down. Okay? Because if a teaching is truly biblical at this point in history, we should expect to find it somewhere in the historic witness of the church. And if no one seemed to believe it, to teach it, to confess it, or build doctrine around it until the modern era, then there's a good chance that we are not looking at recovered truth. We're looking at theological novelty or heresy.

Now, it's important to understand that the world in which dispensationalism was born was quite unique. The 1830s were not an age of calm theological continuity. Okay? They were an age of religious upheaval. Okay? The the cold rationalism of the Enlightenment era had left many people spiritually starved and institutional Christianity at that time was increasingly viewed especially as things started pushing west in the United States. It was viewed with suspicion um and especially in America because America had this kind of revolutionary spirit among them. It was a nonconformist kind of uh culture and as a result the 19th century became a breeding ground for all these new movements, new prophets, new systems, uh, new prophetic schemes. So in 1801 we saw the Church of Christ get its start. 1830 we saw Mormonism was uh was born. Uh, 1840s the Millerite movement began gaining some momentum. Um, the late 1850s, uh, dispensationalism began its move, you know, across the Atlantic into America. 1863, um, you have the Seventh Day Adventists emerging on the scene. Uh, 1870s, you have Jehovah's Witnesses began to take shape with their doctrine.

In other words, the the dispensationalist doctrine didn't arise out of thin air. Okay? It came out of an era marked by unique religious experimentation that we had not seen in previous generations. It was this kind of anti-institutional suspicion, prophetic speculation, um fascination with kind of new revelations around the end times. And so out of that same atmosphere came Darby. and Darby uh divided redemptive history into seven distinct dispensations teaching that God deals with humanity in different ways during different ages. And he introduced the idea of kind of a secret pre-tribulational rapture of the church. And he taught that God has two separate peoples with two separate prophetic programs or plans of redemption. one for the church and one for the nation of Israel which would resume uh after the church age.

In other words, um, according to Darby, God had kind of an original plan for national Israel, but the plan was postponed because uh the Jews rejected Jesus. So God instituted this kind of parenthetical period in history and that's called the church age. And during this parenthetical age, God is saving the church, the the Gentiles of the world. And eventually he removes the church through this secret rapture that's to come and then returns back to the original plan. So the parenthesis is over. He turns back to the original program which was just to save national Israel, you know, the the restoration of the Jews, the rebuilding of a physical temple, uh, and the fulfillment of all of Israel's earthly promises.

And see, what people are doing is the dispensationalists are taking all of these promises of the Old Testament that were made to Israel and they're applying them to the ethnic Israel when in reality they're applied to the true Israel, which is Christ and his church. So having this divide, I want you to see what it does. It confuses the entire nature of the covenant. Okay? God did not make covenant promises to an unbelieving nation as though ethnicity itself secured some sort of eternal inheritance. No, he made covenant promises to the children of the promise, the people that were within Israel, that were the people of faith.

Now in dispensationalism, the nation of Israel becomes the the true object, the true son, the the the church becomes like this stepson or Israel becomes like the real bride and the church becomes this like summer fling. And I I've actually heard people say that dispensationalism turns God into a polygamist because he essentially has two brides. the nation of Israel which is the bride and then you have the nation or you have the church which is also said to be the bride and so Israel becomes the center of God's prophetic plan in dispensationalism while the church becomes this kind of temporary detour and it's why Galatians chapter 3 says quote therefore know that only those who are of faith are the sons of Abraham there is neither Jew nor Greek, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise." End quote.

Again, even with Old Testament Israel, the promises were never effectually applied to every Israelite according to the flesh, but to the faithful, the the faithful remnant that was within Israel that Paul talks about in Romans, those that are chosen by grace. Now, you have to remember Paul said, "Not all Israel is Israel." Okay? Ishmael was Abraham's son, but he was not an heir. Uh, Esau was Isaac's son, but he was not an heir. Caiaphas was a Jew by birth, uh, but he's not an heir. And the Christ-rejecting Jews of the first century were Abraham's children according to the flesh. But Jesus said that they were not Abraham's true children because they did not again do the works of Abraham.

Now, dispensationalists um mistake essentially the outward country for the covenantal people. Okay? It treats national Israel even in unbelief as though it remains the center of God's redemptive plan. Again, this is why all of church history views the church as the true Israel. Now, if I could narrow it down to just one emphasis, the core fracture at the heart of dispensationalism is this. Dispensationalism takes what Christ united together and it separates them again. It rebuilds the dividing wall that the apostles said that Christ tore down. It literally changes the gospel.

Now, dispensationalism might have remained like a small Plymouth Brethren heresy had it not been packaged for mass consumption. So, I want to talk about the history of that, but let me just give you a little bit of the backstory. Um, in 1870, Darby met an American man named D.L. Moody. Many of you guys have heard of his name. Moody, who lived in Chicago and was a Baptist and a very renowned preacher. He was a congregationalist and he bought into Darby's doctrine. Now Moody uh he partnered up with a gentleman named Cyrus Scofield.

Now the Bible, especially the King James Bible, that was basically what everybody was reading at that time. uh has always been challenging for the average reader. Okay? Many Christians have struggled to understand the contextual meaning of a particular verse that they're going through. So in 1909, Scofield published what became known as the Scofield Reference Bible through Oxford University Press. Now, it was essentially the first study Bible. And a study Bible has, you know, essentially, you know, commentaries, notes that are printed alongside the text of scripture.

Now, Scofield's notes were uh not neutral, okay? They taught a sharp separation between Israel and the church, promoted this future literal restoration of national Israel, instructed Christians that they had a duty to support Jewish people because uh they remained God's chosen people. Um, and some notes even suggested that Christ's return was tied to Christian support for the Jews themselves. And uh essentially all of these notes were dispensational notes.

Now who was behind this project of getting this uh Scofield guy connected with Oxford University Press to produce this great Bible study this this uh study Bible that would be promoted all across the world. A New York Jewish lawyer named Samuel Untermeyer played a really significant role in funding, promoting, networking, connecting Scofield's work. Okay. Um, Untermeyer was not even a Christian. Okay. He was a Jew who rejected Christ and he recognized that dispensationalism could be used as a powerful tool to generate Zionist support in the West. and he invested his resources and his relationships to help advance Scofield's Bible and its distribution. That should just that's that's weird. Okay, that should just go, why is there a guy who doesn't believe in Jesus supporting this book to be sent all over the world?

Now, the Reference Bible became the first book in Oxford University Press's history to sell over a million copies. So, as a result, like millions of American Christians, especially in low-church, non-confessional circles that weren't connected to church history, they began treating Scofield's marginal notes as nearly like as authoritative as the Bible itself. And within a single generation, dispensational premillennialism, which is the eschatology that's informed by uh the end times theology that's informed by dispensationalism, it became the dominant theological lens for most of American evangelicalism.

Now, by the end uh or by the middle of the the uh 20th century, dispensationalism had become the default framework for so many people, especially in America. And then came 1948 and when the modern state of Israel was established which we will talk about how that happens in the next episode. Um, many Christians did not see it as a political development produced by wars and diplomacy and Zionist activism, British policy and post-Holocaust manipulation. Okay? They saw it as a prophecy unfolding in real time. And because dispensationalism had already taught them to expect this kind of great end times national restoration of Israel, the existence of the modern nation state became in their minds uh undeniable proof that this system of dispensationalism was true. And in that sense, 1948 functioned almost like a like a self-fulfilling prophecy for many people. Um, so dispensationalism expected national Israel to return. Then when political Zionism produced a Jewish state after World War II, they interpreted that state as though the very system that had trained them to expect it essentially came to pass. And so, uh, after 1948, America's relationship with Israel was no longer shaped merely by, uh, geopolitics or national interest. For millions of Christians, it became like a theological obligation. Okay? Supporting Israel felt like supporting God himself. You know, if you rejected Israel, it's like throwing your Bible in the trash. and opposing America's kind of unconditional alliance with Israel felt like opposing God's plan for the world.

But how did dispensationalism actually affect America? And that is a key question and it's what I really want you to get from this episode. So I'm going to give you four at least four ways. There's there's probably a hundred ways, but I'm going to give you, I think, four key ways that this really did affect America.

Number one is eschatological pessimism. Okay, eschatology is just another word for end times. All right. Dispensationalism taught millions of Christians to read Revelation and Matthew 24 as though they are primarily describing the end of the world. And the problem with this is that they are actually describing the destruction of Jerusalem, the fall of the temple, and the end of the old covenant age in AD 70. And I did an entire sermon series on this. If you wanted to watch it on YouTube, you can check that out. But this shift in end times theology had massive consequences on the nation. Instead of believing that Christ is reigning now, that his kingdom is advancing now, and that the nations are being discipled now, Christians were trained to believe that the kingdom was after the rapture. The the kingdom was not yet. It was after the rapture to come. And until then we should expect cultural collapse. Ultimately they believed the world must actually get worse. Evil must increase. The churches the church must lose its influence. Culture must decay. Nations must rebel. And only then will Christ return. It's why uh John MacArthur said just a few years ago uh in his you know sermon, we lose down here. You know don't you get it? we lose down here and this produced a theology of defeat. Okay, historically we had a the we had an eschatology of victory. Dispensationalism created an eschatology of defeat. Um, yes we quote win in the end but in history we lose. That's the position of dispensationalism. The church that once built cathedrals that took hundreds of years to build. The once uh church that built universities and shaped laws and discipled nations and and started new nations and sent missionaries and established hospitals and composed hymns and hymnals and built institutions and expected the kingdom of Christ to grow throughout history was taught to see itself as a small remnant now waiting for evacuation. The church went from building the kingdom to waiting for the rapture. It went from uh discipling the nations to watching the headlines and waiting for everything to collapse. It went from generational dominion to end times speculation. And once Christians believed the world was prophetically destined to fall apart, retreat began to sound like faithfulness. So cultural defeat was rebranded as biblical expectation. losing ground was interpreted as like the proof that the prophecy was being fulfilled. And this is why so many Christians checked out of politics and education and economics and media and law and national affairs. They were told that don't polish brass on a sinking ship, right? This thing is going to hell in a hand basket. You can't stop it. In fact, uh, if you're paying attention, you should want it to get worse faster because that means Christ comes back sooner. Why preserve a nation that prophecy says must collapse? And that is the fruit of dispensational pessimism. It did not make the American church more courageous. It made her more passive. It did not produce builders. It produced spectators. It did not train Christians to conquer through faithfulness. It trained them to lose with theological confidence.

Okay. Second, second point is the doctrine of the imminent return of Christ. This is kind of the other side of the dispensational retreat uh theology. Dispensationalism did not merely teach Christians that the world would get worse. Um, it taught them that Christ could return at any moment to remove the church from history through the rapture. And that produced an entire culture of waiting instead of working. And since the rise of dispensationalism in the 19th century, uh, the church has seen an explosion of end times predictions, prophecy charts, uh, date setting, rapture series, and uh antichrist speculation, newspaper exegesis, right? Again and again, Christians were told, "This is it. Okay, the these are the signs. The rapture is near. Jesus is going to be back this Wednesday." In fact, there are more predictions since the middle of the 1800s to the current day than there have been throughout all of church history. But when you believe Christ is probably returning in your lifetime or in the next decade or in the next year, it shortens your vision. Why build institutions? Why start schools? Why plant generational churches? Why buy land? Why reform nations? Why why build businesses for your grandchildren and great-grandchildren? Why take why why build cathedrals that are going to take three or four hundred years to finish? Why create art and architecture and you know libraries and seminaries and farms and publishing houses and civilizations if you believe the whole thing is about to be abandoned. And this is how rapture theology reshaped Christian civilization. It trained believers to think in terms of escape, not inheritance, evacuation, not dominion, survival, not legacy. I actually once knew a couple who never had children. They were members at our church for a period of time. They have repented for this uh position that they held. But during their fertile years, they were deeply entrenched in dispensational end times thinking. and they believed the return of Christ was so near that having children seemed unnecessary and so they never did. Um, and so this isn't just like a small theological error. This is doctrine reaching into the womb into the household into the future into it's convincing Christians not to build what God commanded them to build. It it again it creates this escapism and that is the danger. Christianity used to be a force in the world until this doctrine came in like a disease. And so the church stops acting like an heir and starts acting like a like a tenant. Okay? Everything is temporary. Everything is disposable. Everything is held loosely because in their minds history is not something to inherit, cultivate, hand down. It's something to escape. And my sermon series, I talk about the alternative to dispensationalism, which is postmillennialism, which is an eschatology of victory, an eschatology of hope. It's an an eschatology of of kingdom building. It's it's the eschatology that fueled America and it fueled Christendom. And so hopefully you get a chance to go back and listen to that series.

All right. Third, the theft of Christian resources for modern Israel. So when tens of millions of Christians are taught that modern Israel remains the central object of God's prophetic concern, their loyalty begins to shift. Okay? They are told that the Jewish people are God's chosen people and that the modern nation state of Israel occupies a sacred place in redemptive history and that supporting Israel is not merely a political preference but a spiritual obligation. And once that idea takes hold, uh, resources begin to follow, money follows, votes follow, foreign policy follows, church priorities follow. Okay? Billions of dollars through private donations, lobbying efforts, uh, uh, military aid, political commitments are directed toward a nation that officially rejects Jesus Christ. while Christians around the world suffer persecution, poverty, displacement, and neglect. Okay? I want you I just want you to think about this for a second, okay? What could have been built if those resources had been directed toward the true Israel of God, the church of Jesus Christ? How many Christian schools could have been founded? How many churches could have been planted? How many persecuted believers could have been protected? How many widows and orphans and missionaries and pastors and Christian families could have been strengthened? Instead, many Christians have been trained to treat the needs of the church as secondary and the security of modern Israel as some sort of sacred primary objective. So, we give the money to literal pagans who then go and kill literal Christians in places like Palestine and Lebanon. Okay? This is not just a political problem. It is a theological misallocation. It is a heresy that calls Christians to fund, defend, and prioritize those who reject the Messiah over those who love Christ.

Fourth, blind embrace of Jewish supremacy. Now, perhaps the most sinister effect of dispensationalism is the theological cover. it has given to Christ-rejecting Jews and their influence in western nations. Okay? Because many Christians have been taught that the Jewish people remain, you know, God's chosen people. Even apart from Christ, they have been conditioned to kind of suspend normal biblical discernment when it comes to Jewish institutions or rabbinic theology, Zionist political power. And this has created a protected category where evil is allowed to advance without any scrutiny. Okay? Talmudic Judaism does not merely reject Jesus. It actively blasphemes him. Okay? The Talmud uh teaches that Jesus is boiling in excrement in hell and that Mary was a prostitute. It it regards Gentiles as lesser beings describing them as goyim. Okay? you know, we're little more than cattle to be ruled or to be used. Uh, more than that, it views Christian civilization as an extension of Rome. And they view Rome as what Rome is what came in and destroyed the temple in 70 AD. And so we are an extension of what destroyed their temple. and that ultimately Rome, Europe, America must be dismantled so that Jewish supremacy can be established.

So dispensationalism has blinded millions of Christians to these realities. It's trained them to treat criticism of Jewish influence in the media, you know, they they own so much of the media and pornography and usury and entertainment and politics. And if we scrutinize them at all, it's inherently anti-semitic or sinful. And as a result, Jews find themselves behind nearly every American perversion. From the New Deal to the Civil Rights Act to mass immigration, diversity mandates, um, and the relentless promotion of the Holocaust narrative, every World War II movie you've ever seen. All while any serious examination of Jewish power is shouted down as hate speech. And again, I'm going to have way more clarity on this stuff in the next episode, but this is not normal Christian discernment, okay? This is theological confusion produced by bad theology. Okay? Dispensationalism has created a Zionist America that cannot escape the grip of Jewish influence and supremacy because it has been taught that opposing that influence is the same as opposing God himself. Okay? The New Testament gives us one standard, Jesus Christ. Every person, every nation, every political movement must be judged by its relationship to him. Okay? There is no covenantal exemption for those who reject the son. Okay? There is no sacred immunity for any group that blasphemes Christ and works to undermine Christian civilization. Okay? Dispensationalism has not only misread prophecy, it has helped produce a nation that is spiritually disarmed in the face of historic and its own biblical enemy. Okay? You have to know that throughout church history, Christians and Jews who reject Christ have not got along. We have been historic enemies. You're going to see in the next episode. This is why Jews get expelled from over a hundred Christian nations. It is a pattern all throughout church history. It's very strange what we have going on with America and its relationship with Israel today.

So in the end, the issue is not complicated. Okay. Dispensationalism introduced a new dictionary that redefined the relationship between uh Israel and the church. And that redefinition has produced a generation of Christians who are theologically disarmed, culturally passive, politically captive to a pagan nation and a religion that openly rejects Jesus Christ. And until the church recovers the old dictionary, the historic understanding that there is one covenant, one people, one savior, America will continue to treat loyalty to modern Christ-rejecting Israel as a sacred obligation rather than just a mere political decision.

So hopefully that's helpful, but let's go ahead and dive into the weekly audit. This first video is from a gentleman I follow on Instagram and uh he produces these short explainer videos and I thought this one was helpful and it further supports what I've already been saying here in this episode and I don't know the age of this guy but I'm assuming he's probably part of Gen Z which by God's grace is very much uh skeptical of Zionism. So let's go ahead and watch.

>> Kyle thinks loving Jesus means he also has to love Israel. Kyle is wrong. Christianity in America used to be about Christ, but modern evangelicalism has turned it into a cheering section for a foreign government. How did that happen? For 1900 years, the church understood Judaism as a religion of rejection. One that denied Christ, persecuted his followers, and was no longer in fellowship with God. But then came dispensationalism. With post-war guilt and a little study Bible made by a guy named Scofield, Zionism found a back door into American Christianity. Suddenly, Israel wasn't just a country. It was a central part of the gospel message. Question it and you weren't just wrong. You were a heretic and an anti-semite, of course. But while Kyle's church pledges allegiance to a foreign flag, his own nation is dying. Borders overrun, churches empty, families broken. But hey, at least Tel Aviv is doing good. Kyle thought that loyalty to Israel was a required part of his faith. Now Kyle knows Christianity doesn't bow to a foreign nation. It bows to Christ and Christ alone.

Yeah. So, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. So, very helpful little explainer video and I think people are starting to wake up to this reality. The next video I want to watch is of Pastor Jack Hibbs out of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills. Now, if you don't know, Calvary Chapel is a major dispensational and Zionist network of churches that originated in the southwest. Uh, he's being interviewed by Marissa Street of Prager University and who is also a Christ-rejecting Jew herself. Let's go ahead and watch that video.

>> Islam loves the Christian who's a replacement theologian. >> Why? >> Because it's the eradication of the Jew. No land, no promise, no people. You can't do that. Because to my replacement theology friends, I say that sarcastically. Do you not believe that Jesus is going to return? He said he's coming back. And where does the Bible say he's going to return to? Jerusalem. And he's going to set it up his throne where in Zion. Hello. What? This is Bible prophecy. Where does it say that? Old Testament and New Testament. >> So, Pastor Jack, do you think >> they don't want that? >> Do you think political Islamists are trying to push this narrative of replacement theology on the West? So, that I mean, are they that smart? You would be shocked to find out how many Islamicists are in bed with Christian denominations. Yeah. So, first he says that Islam loves those who hold

To replacement theology. Okay. This, this is their term for covenant theology. They're, they're calling the old thing a new thing when in reality it is the old thing. And that's just flat-out false. Okay.

All of church history held to covenant theology. And Islam has been in nothing but conflict with the church for 1,400 years. Okay. The Muslims didn't like the crusaders who held to replacement theology or covenant theology either. Jack is literally a shill for Israel. He's applying all of the promises that belong to the church to Christ-rejecting Jews. And that's what dispensationalism does. It turns you into a Jewish slave.

And then you have Marissa, who literally hates Christ, calling Jack Pastor Jack and asking, "Do you think the Muslims are behind all of this? Or are they making Christians believe in replacement theology? Do you know how this is?" Okay. Muslims aren't smart enough to pull that off. Okay. They're inbred, cousin marriages with an average IQ of 85. Okay. It's the Jews who are actually having the intelligence and the power to manipulate this situation. They own the porn companies, they own OnlyFans and Instagram and Facebook and YouTube and CNN and New York Times and Chat GPT, almost all of Hollywood and nearly all of the banks. So when she asks, "Is it the Muslim that's doing this?" No, you subversive psycho, it's your people that's doing this.

And so when you start to get into this, the deep end of the pool, you start to understand what's really happening here. The Jewish subversion through theological manipulation, uh, through this weird discussion around replacement theology. It is a perverted, chaotic mess. And one of the best things we can do is get back to church history to believe what the church has always believed so that we might restore order with our relationship with Christ-rejecting Israel. Okay.

That's a wrap for this episode of American Glory. And I'm going to be tackling, as I said, the dimensions of this discussion. Today was dispensationalism. Next week is Zionism and how those two work together with dispensationalism to create a wicked Jewish control of America. Now, if you don't already, you can follow me on X and Instagram, YouTube. I'm posting content all the time. Uh, my featured book for this episode is, of course, The Israel Delusion. It's a short book. You can read it in about 90 minutes. And it goes at this discussion actually at a completely different angle, so it'd be good for you to read it. It's available at relearn.org. You can also listen to it, the audiobook version of it at the relearn app that you can also download, uh, at the app store as well. So, my name is Dale Partridge. Thank you for watching or listening to American Glory. I'll see you next week.

America will either have Christ or it will have chaos. For years, conservatives believed that Trump could reverse America's decline. But after Trump, the right is now fractured, exhausted, and losing ground. Endless infighting and electoral losses have exposed a deeper problem that politics alone cannot solve. A nation that rejects Christ cannot be restored by mere personalities, grandstanding, or Christless conservativism. So, NXR Studios' first annual conference, America After Trump, brings together pastors, politicians, commentators, and Christians that are committed to strength, cooperation, and a durable future for the American right. Complaining is not a strategy, and despair cannot be an option. Christ is king. Let's live like it.