The Bloody Future of Israel In Dispensational Eschatology

By Gary DeMar

In The Living End, Charles Ryrie claims that the Bible predicts "the time of Israel's greatest bloodbath."¹ This is true, Ryrie contends, because the Bible is "history prewritten."² Indeed, the Bible does predict a judgment on the Jews, but this event is now history. Instead of encouraging Jews to emigrate to the doomed city, Jesus warned the inhabitants of Jerusalem to flee from a judgment that was near at hand for them (Matt. 24:16). A number of Christian ministries raise funds to help Russian Jews to immigrate to Israel. Why do they do this when they know that two-thirds of the Jews living in Israel during the Great Tribulation will be slaughtered?

Ryrie and other dispensationalists have futurized prophecies related to the destruction of Jerusalem beyond their intended first-century time frame and audience. As we will see, this method has had dire consequences for the Jews.

Name Calling

Why have some dispensationalists shifted their attack against non-dispensationalists from exegetical arguments to ad hominem attacks? There is one simple answer: They can no longer defend their system by an appeal to the Bible or to history. Rank and file dispensationalists are jumping ship, and those who remain are redefining the system out of existence. Here is an example:

For years, dispensational theology, with its differentiation of God's program for the church and for Israel, shaped conservative evangelical views. Its literal interpretation of prophecy, promoted by the Scofield Bible and scholars from Dallas Theological Seminary, marked the restoration of Israel as the starting point for many other end-times prophecies, culminating in Christ's return.

But some say the influence of traditional Dispensationalism has declined in the past decade. Others, like Darrell Bock, professor of New Testament at Dallas, say it's entering a new phase. He sees it going through a period of self-assessment. A new, "progressive Dispensationalism" is emerging, one that is less "land-centered" and "future-centered" than past versions.³

Others are questioning dispensational "orthodoxy." For example, Robert L. Saucy, tells us, "Over the past several decades the system of theological interpretation commonly known as Dispensationalism has undergone considerable development and refinement."⁴ The change has been radical enough to warrant the giving of a new label--progressive Dispensationalism--"to distinguish the new interpretations from the older version of dispensationalism.⁵

In Dispensationalism, Israel and the Church: The Search for Definition, the contributors describe how Dispensationalism has changed and will continue to change. One writer states that "Dispensationalism has been in the process of change since its earliest origins within the Plymouth Brethren [sic] movement of the nineteenth century."⁶ In the same series, Craig Blaising admits and welcomes "modifications currently taking place in dispensational thought."⁷

A few old-school dispensationalists remain, but they can no longer turn to their more scholarly counterparts for exegetical backup support, so they resort to a highly effective form of name calling: "If a person does not believe that the Bible teaches that Old Testament prophecies predict a future re-establishment of national Israel he or she is anti-semitic."⁸

A careful study of dispensational rhetoric, reasoning, history, and theology will demonstrate that Dispensationalism has within its system the seeds of "theological anti-semitism."

Messianic Vision?

Sid Roth, host of "Messianic Vision," on the September 18, 1991, edition of the "700 Club," stated that "two-thirds of the Jewish people [living in Israel] will be exterminated." He, along with other futurists, bases this view on a futurized interpretation of Zechariah 13:8–9. He sees incidents like that of Blacks against Jews in New York as a prelude to a coming great persecution. Pat Robertson asked Roth: "You don't foresee some kind of persecution against Jews in America, do you?" Roth responded: "Unfortunately, I believe God foresees this." Roth believes that the end (pre-tribulational rapture) is near. Since he believes that Jews are destined to suffer, based on a futurized interpretation of Zechariah 13:8–9,⁹ he postulates that today's anti-semitism is a prelude to a greater, future tribulation. The reality of violent acts against Jews today is all part of the inevitabilities that come with dispensational Premillennialism. What is the origin of this position?

The Rupture of Theology

The pre-tribulational rapture is the key to dispensational eschatology. The pre-tribulational rapture separates Dispensationalism from other forms of Premillennialism as well as Amillennialism and postmillennialism. This is what makes it a "fourth view" of eschatology.¹⁰ According to Dispensationalism, prior to the rapture, Israel has no prophetic significance. This is carried to a consistent extreme by some dispensationalists who claim that Jews once again must be ejected from their homeland and brought back as believing Israelites. Dr. Paige Patterson stated this position on a Dallas, Texas, radio program (KCBI) on May 15, 1991. He said:

The present state of Israel is not the final form. The present state of Israel will be lost, eventually, and Israel will be run out of the land again, only to return when they accept the Messiah as Savior.

It is only in this way, so the theory goes, that the prophecies concerning Israel's restoration can literally be fulfilled in prophetic time, that is, after the rapture of the church. Israel's expulsion occurs prior to the rapture with the church looking on. Would Christians be fighting against God if they helped the Jews hold on to their land? Would they be anti-semitic if they allowed prophecy to unfold and saw millions of Jews persecuted by their enemies?

The Parenthesis

Standard Dispensationalism has always taught that the prophetic time clock stopped ticking when Israel rejected her Messiah. This rejection put the conclusion of Daniel's seventy weeks (490 years) on hold. Israel experienced 483 years of the prophecy outlined by God in Daniel 9:24-27. The final week--the seven years that will complete the prophecy--is still to take place. This is the period of "Jacob's trouble" when Israel will go through untold persecution. Of course, as with much of Dispensationalism, there are no verses to point to in support of this view. One must be an expert in reading between the verses.

The result of such a system means that Israel has no prophetic significance in God's program until the church is raptured prior to the seven-year tribulation period (Daniel's 70th week). This is the dispensational view as ably articulated by E. Schuyler English:

An intercalary period of history, after Christ's death and resurrection and the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, has intervened. This is the present age, the Church age. . . . During this time God has not been dealing with Israel nationally, for they have been blinded concerning God's mercy in Christ. . . . However, God will again deal with Israel as a nation. This will be in Daniel's seventieth week, a seven-year period yet to come.¹¹

According to Dispensationalism, God is now dealing with His Church, His "heavenly people." God is not, according to Dispensationalism, dealing with Israel, His "earthly people." The promises made to Israel are "postponed." Technically speaking, with this unusual dispensational view in mind, there can be no such thing as "anti-semitism" as Lindsey and other dispensationalists describe it! The Jews are like everybody else: They are lost in their sins until they embrace Christ as their Lord and Savior. "Anti-Semitism," according to the dispensational view, is no different from anti-Japanese, anti-Italian, anti-Arab, anti-Irish, or anti-German attitudes. Jews are not God's chosen people this side of the rapture. This is the dispensational view!

Consider this as well. If the promises to Israel as a people and nation are postponed, as Dispensationalism teaches, then the land promise, and the promise of "those who bless you, I will bless," also have been set aside, until the prophetic clock begins to tick once again when the Church is raptured. Treating Jews with care or persecuting them will affect God in no special way prior to the rapture. God is not obligated to keep a promise that has been postponed. Again, these are the implications of the dispensational view of prophecy.

A number of dispensationalists understand the problem of how to view Israel before the rapture. Stan Rittenhouse has written the following about present-day Israel:¹²

! "A curse has been put on Israel" (7).

! "Israel will again be made desolate" (8).

! "Today's Israel is not of God" (9).

! "Today's Israel is not of Christ but rather that of the Devil" (45).

! "The Israel of today is a Satanic counterfeit" (169).

! "Israel must first be destroyed" (179).

Why does Rittenhouse write such inflammatory things about the present state of Israel? Like a good dispensationalist, he believes that "Today is an in-between age which is commonly called the Age of Grace, the Age of the Holy Spirit, or the Church Age (the Church being the body of believers in Christ, the total and complete group, whosoever that may be, Gentile or Jew). During this period in between the First and Second Coming[s] of Jesus Christ, a Satanic counterfeit--political Zionism--masquerading as the State of 'Israel' will be established."¹³

According to Dispensationalism, God has a special place for Israel, but only until after the rapture when the church will no longer be earthbound. This means that Israel has no special significance between the first and second comings of Christ. Dispensational Premillennialism, which had its start sometime in the nineteenth century, does not have a place for Israel until after the rapture. And even then, two-thirds of the Jews living in Israel will be destroyed.

The establishment of the State [of Israel] is seen as a sign that the Second Coming is near, to be preceded by a Soviet attack on Israel. These groups profess simple biblical values and clear cut support for Israel, but their political activity raises complex, troubling questions for Jews.¹⁴

It is this part of Dispensationalism that rarely gets public and scholarly scrutiny. If any group within evangelicalism, other than dispensationalists, claimed that Israel has no special redemptive significance until after the rapture, they would be condemned and labeled anti-Semitic.

Armageddon Now!

Modern-day Jews are bothered by the potential for harm that such a position might bring with it. Their fear is justified in light of history. Dwight Wilson, author of Armageddon Now!, convincingly demonstrates that dispensational Premillennialism advocated a "hands off" policy regarding Nazi persecutions of the Jews during World War II. Since, according to dispensational views regarding Bible prophecy, "the Gentile nations are permitted to afflict Israel in chastisement for her national sins," there is little that should be done to oppose it.¹⁵ Wilson writes that "It is regrettable that this view allowed Premillennialists to expect the phenomenon of 'anti-Semitism' and tolerate it matter-of-factly."¹⁶ Wilson describes himself as "a third-generation Premillenarian who has spent his whole life in premillennialist churches, has attended a premillennialist Bible college, and has taught in such a college for fourteen years."¹⁷

Wilson describes "Premillenarian views" opposing "anti-Semitism" in the mid-thirties and thereafter as "ambivalent."¹⁸ There was little moral outcry "among the premillenarians . . . against the persecution, since they had been expecting it."¹⁹ He continues:

Another comment regarding the general European anti-Semitism depicted these developments as part of the on-going plan of God for the nation; they were "Foregleams of Israel's Tribulation." Premillennialists were anticipating the Great Tribulation, "the time of Jacob's trouble." Therefore, they predicted, "The next scene in Israel's history may be summed up in three words: purification through tribulation." It was clear that although this purification was part of the curse, God did not intend that Christians should participate in it. Clear, also, was the implication that He did intend for the Germans to participate in it (in spite of the fact that it would bring them punishment)--and that any moral outcry against Germany would have been in opposition to God's will. In such a fatalistic system, to oppose Hitler was to oppose God.²⁰

Other premillennial writers placed "part of the blame for anti-Semitism on the Jews: 'The Jew is the world's archtroubler. Most of the Revolutions of Continental Europe were fostered by Jews.' The Jews--especially the German Jews--were responsible for the great depression."²¹

Wilson maintains that it was the premillennial view of a predicted Jewish persecution prior to the Second Coming that led to a "hands off" policy when it came to speaking out against virulent "anti-Semitism." "For the Premillenarian, the massacre of Jewry expedited his blessed hope. Certainly he did not rejoice over the Nazi holocaust, he just fatalistically observed it as a 'sign of the times.'"²² Wilson offers this summary:

Pleas from Europe for assistance for Jewish refugees fell on deaf ears, and "Hands Off" meant no helping hand. So in spite of being theologically more pro-Jewish than any other Christian group, the premillenarians also were apathetic--because of a residual anti-Semitism, because persecution was prophetically expected, because it would encourage immigration to Palestine, because it seemed the beginning of the Great Tribulation, and because it was a wonderful sign of the imminent blessed hope.²³

Dispensationalism sees a great persecution yet to come where "two thirds of the children of Israel in the land will perish" during the "Great Tribulation."²⁴

Dispensational "Anti-Semitism"

Let me recount another bit of history related to this issue. Dispensational premillennialist James M. Gray of the Moody Bible Institute believed in the authenticity of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He defended Henry Ford when Ford published installments of the Protocols in his self-funded Dearborn Independent newspaper.

In a 1927 editorial in the Moody Bible Institute Monthly, Gray claimed that Ford "had good grounds for publishing some of the things about the Jews. . . . Mr. Ford might have found corroborative evidence [of the Jewish conspiracy] had he looked for it."²⁵ As time went on, Gray was coming under increasing pressure to repudiate the Protocols as a forgery. Not only Gray, but Moody Bible Institute Monthly was being criticized by the evangelical Hebrew Christian Alliance for not condemning the manufactured Protocols. Gray grew indignant and once again voiced his belief that the Protocols were authentic. He did this in the Moody Bible Institute Monthly, a dispensational magazine still in publication today as Moody Monthly! Gray, of course, pointed out that "Moody Bible Institute had always worked for the highest interests of Jews by training people to evangelize them."²⁶

Even so, Gray went on to assert that "Jews were at least partly to blame for their ill treatment." He supported this contention by referring his readers to an article written by Max Reich, a faculty member at the Moody Bible Institute. Reich wrote: "Without religion, the Jew goes down and becomes worse than others, as a corruption of the best is always the worst corruption."²⁷

Charges of "anti-Semitism" were not abated by Gray's attempts at clarification. His views concerning the Jews remained. "By the beginning of 1935, Gray was fending off charges from the American Hebrew and Jewish Tribune, the Bulletin of the Baltimore Branch of the American Jewish Congress, and even Time magazine that persons connected with Moody had been actively distributing the Protocols."²⁸

Of course, Gray was not the only dispensational premillennialist who vouched for the genuineness of the Protocols and had rather negative ("anti-semitic"?) things to say about the Jews. Arno C. Gaebelein, an editor of the Scofield Reference Bible, believed that the Protocols were authentic, that they accurately revealed a "Jewish conspiracy." His Conflict of the Ages²⁹ would be viewed today as an "anti-semitic" work because it fostered the belief that communism had Jewish roots and that the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 had been masterminded by a group of well-trained Jewish agitators. At the same time that Gaebelein was using anti-semitic rhetoric, he had a thriving evangelistic ministry to Jews in New York City. Why the double mindedness? Dispensationalism requires both the persecution and salvation of Jews.³⁰

Dispensationalism's Future Holocaust?

Over against the clear statements of Scripture and the corroboration of unbiased secular historians who were living at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, dispensationalists maintain that the events of Matthew 24:1–34 refer to a future seven-year tribulation period where the entire world will suffer untold persecution and slaughter at the hands of the antichrist and his armies. John Walvoord, a leading dispensationalist spokesman, writes that these supposed future judgments will be "without parallel in the history of the world. According to Revelation 6:7 the judgments attending the opening of the fourth seal involve the death with sword, famine, and wild beasts of one fourth of the world's population. If this were applied to the present world population now approaching three billion, it would mean that 750,000,000 people would perish, more than the total population of North America, Central America, and South America combined."³¹

Hal Lindsey supports Walvoord's position, affirming that during the "Great Tribulation" there will be "death on a massive scale. It staggers the imagination to realize that one-fourth of the world's population will be destroyed within a matter of days. According to projected census figures this will amount to nearly one billion people!"³² Of course, with the latest census figures, with the dispensational view in mind, nearly 1.25 billion people will die. Not only does the world come in for a beating under the dispensational hermeneutic, but Israel is specifically hit hard. Walvoord, with his view of a future seven-year "Great Tribulation," must claim that a large number of Jews living in Israel will be slaughtered. He writes:

The purge of Israel in their time of trouble is described by Zechariah in these words: "And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith Jehovah, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part into the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried" (Zechariah 13:8, 9). According to Zechariah's prophecy, two thirds of the children of Israel in the land will perish, but the one third that are left will be refined and be awaiting the deliverance of God at the second coming of Christ which is described in the next chapter of Zechariah.³³

Israel's present population is around 4,500,000. If two-thirds of the Jews living in Israel at the time of the "Great Tribulation" are to die, this will mean the death of nearly 3,000,000! In addition, there is continued immigration from the former Soviet Union supported by Christian organizations like "On Wings of Eagles." Financial support is raised by Christians to fund Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. "'This is a biblical issue,' says Theodore T. Beckett, a Colorado developer who founded the Christian-sponsored, adopt-a-settlement program. 'The Bible says in the last days the Jews will be restored to the nation of Israel.'"³⁴ For every three people who enter, two of them will be killed during the "Great Tribulation." Why aren't today's dispensationalists warning Jews about this coming holocaust by encouraging them to leave Israel until the conflagration is over? Instead, we find dispensationalists supporting and encouraging the relocation of Jews to the land of Israel. For what? A future holocaust?

Eugene Merrill, while not discussing Zechariah 13:8 in his commentary on that biblical book, does describe how a future holocaust of the Jews is in view in Zechariah 14:2. Merrill writes:

@QUOTE = The restoration and dominion cannot come until all the forces of evil that seek to subvert it are put down once and for all. Specifically, the redemption of Israel will be accomplished on the ruins of her own suffering and those of the malevolent powers of this world that, in the last day, will consolidate themselves against her and seek to interdict forever any possibility of her success. The nations of the whole earth will come against Jerusalem, and, having defeated her, will divide up their spoils of war in her very midst.³⁵

If this is to be the future of Jews living in Israel, then why aren't dispensationalists warning Jews to flee the city? Israel was warned by Jesus to "flee to the mountains" (Matthew 24:16). The New Testament is filled with warnings about the coming A.D. 70 holocaust with no encouragement to take up residence in Jerusalem. In fact, there was a mass exodus from the city by those who understood the world-wide implications of the gospel message and the approaching destruction of what was the center of Jewish worship (John 4:21-24).

A Past and Confined Holocaust

Preterists believe that the events described in Matthew 24:1-34 were fulfilled in the events leading up to and including the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. "The guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom [they] murdered between the temple and the altar" (Matthew 23:35) fell upon the generation of Jews who "did not recognize the time of [their] visitation" (Luke 19:44) and crucified "the Lord of glory" (1 Corinthians 2:8). How do we know this? Because Jesus told us: "Truly I say to you, all these things shall come upon this generation" (Matthew 23:36 and 24:34). No future generation of Jews is meant here.

Unfortunately, by futurizing this prophecy, Jews through the centuries have been reliving this past (Preterist) judgment at the hands of misguided men who have been driven by bad theology. For example, in the Bavarian Alpine village of Oberammergau, controversy has arisen over the re-enactment of Christ's Passion. "The classic folk drama originated in 1634, after villagers vowed to re-enact Christ's Passion regularly if they were spared from the Black Death."³⁶ The most severe criticism has arisen because of a single verse from Matthew's gospel: "His blood be on us and on our children!" (27:25). While a number of alterations have been made in the play, the verse from Matthew has not be cut.

The commission voted narrowly to retain the controversial line, prompting criticism from Rabbi A. James Rudin of the American Jewish Committee, who is calling for a completely new play that "should reflect the reality of the 'cursed' Jewish people living in a reborn and independent state of Israel."³⁷

The play does not need to be rewritten; it just needs a more biblical interpretation. The curse had its end in A.D. 70 upon the generation that uttered the oath. To continue to futurize the events that are of a certainty fulfilled prophecy can only do more harm. Much of modern-day evangelicalism and fundamentalism unwittingly contributes to wide-spread "anti-semitism" because of their continued futurization of texts that have been fulfilled. Secular writers have picked up on this element in Dispensationalism:

Convinced that a nuclear Armageddon is an inevitable event within the divine scheme of things, many evangelical dispensationalists have committed themselves to a course for Israel that, by their own admission, will lead directly to a holocaust indescribably more savage and widespread than any vision of carnage that could have generated in Adolf Hitler's criminal mind.³⁸

Jews are always in jeopardy of being persecuted as long as dispensationalists push a false interpretation of prophecy that makes Jews the scapegoat for a distorted theological system.

Jewish "Anti-Semitism"?

Even Jews can sound like theological anti-Semites. Orthodox Rabbi Eliezer Schach suggested that millions of Jews were murdered during World War II because of their sinfulness.

The Almighty keeps a balance sheet of the world, and when the sins become too many, he brings destruction. We don't know how long his patience holds out, sometimes 20 years, sometimes 10, and sometimes only a year. . . . The last time he brought destruction, it was the Holocaust. . . . Because of the sins, the Almighty may bring another Holocaust upon us, and it may already be tomorrow.³⁹

Auschwitz survivor Menachem Russak said Schach "exonerated the Nazi murderers, but turned them into messengers of God who were sent to punish the people of Israel for not observing the Torah."⁴⁰ Dispensational premillennialist Hal Lindsey could be doing the same when he writes: "Until Messiah comes again and Israel turns to him, the nation is still officially under God's divine discipline."⁴¹ Lindsey concludes that the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70 "began the long period called by Jesus the 'times of the Gentiles.' As Moses predicted, during this long period the Jewish people would be wanderers from place to place with no assurance of safety or acceptance."⁴² A Preterist, someone who believes that the prophecies relating to Jerusalem's destruction were fulfilled in A.D. 70, maintains that the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70 ended the forty year period Jesus outlined in Matthew 24. While Lindsey awaits a future Jewish holocaust, Preterists assert it is over. Sure enough, Lindsey's futurist interpretation is a reality. "For nearly two thousand years now," Lindsey writes, "this prophecy has been a horrible reality in the life of God's chosen people. No nation in the history of the world has undergone such persecution and distress."⁴³ Lindsey is still awaiting a time when God will "purge" Israel of sin.⁴⁴ These comments from Lindsey come from a chapter titled "The Holocaust."

We should bear in mind at this point that anti-semitism is an overused and often misunderstood term that is applied indiscriminately. Consider the charge of anti-semitism leveled against the Willowband Declaration, produced at a meeting convened by the World Evangelical Fellowship in April of 1989. An international consultation on Jewish evangelism challenged Christians "to stop looking for excuses for not sharing the gospel of Jewish Christ with Jews."⁴⁵ What was the response of A. James Rudin, a rabbi and national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee? "He called it a 'blueprint for spiritual genocide' and expressed the hope that it will be 'repudiated by Christians everywhere.'"⁴⁶ For Rabbi Rudin, evangelizing Jews is anti-semitic! The belief that Jews are in need of redemption teaches "contempt for Jews and Judaism," says Rabbi Rudin.

Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, asks, "To what extent will a theological view that calls for Armageddon in the Middle East lead [evangelicals] to support policies that may move in that direction, rather than toward stability and peaceful coexistence?"⁴⁷ The most probable scenario is that prophetic futurists will sit back and do nothing as they see Israel go up in smoke since the Bible predicts an inevitable holocaust. It is time to recognize that these so-called end-time biblical prophecies have been fulfilled, and Zechariah 13:7–9 is certainly one of them. Those Jews living in Judea at the time after Jesus’ ascension and who fled before the assault on the temple were saved (Matt. 24:15–22). Forty years of preaching gave them ample time to escape the predicted slaughter.

Conclusion

What is the answer to anti-semitism? First, we must reject the simplistic treatments of dispensational writers who consider anyone who does not agree with their future holocaust view as being an anti-semite. "Being opposed to the policies of the modern state of Israel for its West Bank atrocities or for its socialism or for its anti-Christian laws will not suffice as anti-Semitism." Being "opposed to the policies of Israel's government…is not he same as being opposed to Jews as such."⁴⁸ For decades Christians have opposed the Soviet Union. This did not mean that Christians were prejudiced against the Russian people or their heritage.

Second, we must understand that minority groups of all kinds suffer persecution. There was a period in our nation when blacks were enslaved. For a time, the Irish were often treated worse than blacks. "In the pre-Civil War South, Irish laborers were often used in work considered too dangerous for slaves, who represented a sizable capital investment. . . . The native public's reaction to the Irish included moving out of neighborhoods en masse as the immigrants moved in; stereotyping them all as drunkards, brawlers, and incompetents; and raising employment barriers exemplified in the stock phrase, 'No Irish need apply.'"⁴⁹ Even today we find continued persecution of blacks, Asians, and Jews. Little is said by our dispensational brethren, however, when Israel discriminates against Christians or when Arab nations are just as hostile toward Christians as they are against Jews.

Many conflicts around the globe can be traced to religious intolerance, [Carl] Henry noted, such as: the Nazi extermination of Jews, the Chinese Communist massacre of Christians, Israel's official hard-line policy toward Jews who consider themselves Reformed, Conservative and Messianic Jews (Christians), the fighting among Irish Protestants and Catholics, and Islam's persecution of Muslim converts to other religions.⁵⁰

To what in eschatology can we attribute these acts of persecution? Are we to assume that only Dispensationalism can save us from these centuries-old rivalries?

Third, the Jews will be safe when Christians can teach others that it is wrong to do harm to a neighbor, no matter what their race or religion. The issue, therefore, is ethics, not eschatology.

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Notes

1. Charles Caldwell Ryrie, The Living End (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, 1976), 81. "A Bloodbath for Israel" is the title of chapter 8.

2. Ryrie, The Living End, 80.

3. Ken Sidey, "For the Love of Zion," Christianity Today (March 9, 1992), 50.

4. Robert L. Saucy, The Case for Progressive Dispensationalism: The Interface Between Dispensationalism and Non-Dispensational Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1993), 8.

5. Saucy, The Case for Progressive Dispensationalism, 8.

6. Stanley N. Gundry, "Foreword," Dispensationalism, Israel and the Church: The Search for Definition (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 11.

7. Craig A. Blaising, "Dispensationalism: A Search for Definition," Dispensationalism, Israel and the Church, 15. See Craig A. Blaising and Darrell L. Bock, Progressive Dispensationalism: An Up-to-Date Handbook of Contemporary Dispensational Thought (Wheaton, IL: Victor/Bridgepoint Books, 1993).

8. Those who accuse non-dispensationalists of being "anti-semitic" rarely define the term. Instead, they manufacture a new term called "theological anti-semitism" to suit their defamatory tactics. True anti-semitism is defined as prejudice against semitic people because they are semites. Those who study the Old Testament prophecies related to Israel note that these prophecies have been fulfilled in (1) the return of the Jews after their exile into Assyria and Babylon and (2) the first-century establishment of the Jewish church. See William Hendriksen, Israel and Prophecy (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1968), 16–31. The first church was made up almost exclusively of Jews. Later, Gentile believers were grafted into an already existing Jewish Church (Romans 11:19). These believers, consisting of Jews and Gentiles, are the true "Jews" (Romans 2:28–29), the true "circumcision" (Philippians 3:3), the true "seed of Abraham" (Galatians 3:7, 29), the "children of promise" (4:28), the "commonwealth of Israel" (Ephesians 2:12, 19).

9. Zechariah was describing a future holocaust. It was fulfilled in A.D. 70 with the destruction of Jerusalem and the slaughter of 1,100,000 Jews at the hands of the Romans.

10. Robert G. Clouse, ed., The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1977).

11. E. Schuyler English, A Companion to the New Scofield Reference Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), 135. Emphasis added.

12. "For Fear of the Jews" (Vienna, VA: The Exhorters, 1982).

13. "For Fear of the Jews," 7.

14. The B'Nai B'Rith International Jewish Monthly (Sept. 1981), 17.

15. Dwight Wilson, Armageddon Now!: The Premillenarian Response to Russia and Israel Since 1917 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1977), Reprinted by the Institute for Christian Economics in 1991 with an updated foreword by the author.

16. Wilson, Armageddon Now!, 16.

17. Wilson, Armageddon Now!, 13.

18. Wilson, Armageddon Now!, 94.

19. Wilson, Armageddon Now!, 94.

20. Wilson, Armageddon Now!, 94. Emphasis added.

21. Wilson, Armageddon Now!, 95.

22. Wilson, Armageddon Now!, 95.

23. Wilson, Armageddon Now!, 96–97. See comments on page 217.

24. John F. Walvoord, Israel in Prophecy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan/Academie, [1962] 1988), 108.

25. Timothy P. Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming: American Premillennialism, 1875-1982 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan/Academie, 1983), 189.

26. Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming, 189.

27. Quoted in Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming, 190.

28. Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming, 189.

29. Arno Clemens Gaebelein, The Conflict of the Ages: The Mystery of Lawlessness: Its Origin, Historic Development and Coming Defeat (New York: Publication Office "Our Hope," 1933).

30. Timothy P. Weber, "A Reply to David Rausch's 'Fundamentalism and the Jew,'" Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (March 1981), 70.

31. Walvoord, Israel in Prophecy, 108.

32. Hal Lindsey, There's a New World Coming (New York: Bantam Books, [1973] 1984), 90. Emphasis in original.

33. Walvoord, Israel in Prophecy, 108. Emphasis added.

34. Ann LoLordo, "Evangelical Christians Come to Jews' Aid," Atlanta Constitution (August 8, 1997), A8.

35. Eugene H. Merrill, An Exegetical Commentary: Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1994), 342.

36. Michael Walsh, "Oberammergau's Blood Curse," Time (June 4, 1990), 89.

37. Walsh, "Oberammergau's Blood Curse," 89.

38. Grace Halsell, Prophecy and Politics: Militant Evangelists on the Road to Nuclear War (Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill & Co., 1986), 195.

39. "Rabbi sees Holocaust as God's punishment; Israelis are outraged," The Atlanta Journal (December 28, 1990), B5. A shorter version of this Associated Press news story appeared in USA Today (December 28, 1990), 4A.

40. "Rabbi sees Holocaust as God's punishment; Israelis are outraged," B5.

41. Hal Lindsey, The Promise (New York: Bantam Books, 1994), 190.

42. Lindsey, Promise, 190.

43. Lindsey, Promise, 190.

44. Lindsey, Promise, 191.

45. Arthur H. Matthews, "Evangelism To Jews Supported by Gathering, But Blasted by Rabbi," World (May 20, 1989), 12.

46. Matthews, "Evangelism To Jews Supported by Gathering," 12.

47. Quoted in Jeffery L. Sheler, "Odd Bedfellows," U.S. News & World Report (August 12, 2002), 35.

48. Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., "Anti-Semitism, Reconstruction, and Dispensationalism," Chalcedon Report (August 1997), 11.

49. Thomas Sowell, Ethnic America: A History (New York: Basic Books, 1981), 27 and 17.

50. Carey Kinsolving, "Southern Baptist warned of Saudi Arabia's Religious Persecution," The Washington Post (March 7, 1992).