Harmonizing God’s Promises to Israel and the Church
July 2, 2025
Host: Hon. Sam Rohrer
Guest: Dr. Carl Broggi
Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 7/02/25. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.
Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.
Sam Rohrer:
Hello and welcome to this Wednesday edition of Stand In the Gap Today, and it’s also our bimonthly focus on Israel, the Middle East and biblical prophecy. My guest today is once again, Dr. Carl Broggi, senior pastor at Community Bible Church in Beaufort, South Carolina, and also the host of his own radio program entitled Search the Scriptures. And that has a website, a very good website, a lot of information@searchthescriptures.org. Search the scriptures.org and I’ll give that again later in the program. But with the increasing global political and geopolitical and military and economic focus on Israel and the Middle East, all people, but I’m going to say including all students of biblical prophecy, we certainly understand that this phenomenon is not accidental, it’s providentially prophetic. And on that no one can honestly disagree since the scripture does make it very, very clear that both nations and leaders of nations, they rise and they fall at the discretion of the sovereign hand of God.
And as we’ve talked about so many times, the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord and he directs those hearts and hence the decisions and the policies made of those in positions of authority. Now, another point to which there can be no disagreement is that God cannot lie and he always keeps his promises. Some are conditional, some are unconditional, but promises are promises and he always keeps them. Yet on the other hand, there’s not full agreement on how God’s major promises, for instance, to Israel as a nation, the people, the city of Jerusalem and his promises to the church established at the first coming of Christ, how they actually work together. Not everyone’s agreed on that. The understanding of God’s plan for Israel and the church and his promises to both, while frankly they’re not in conflict. And that is how it is possible as our focus of the program today is this, and it’s how I’ve entitled it, harmonizing God’s promises to Israel and the church, they do work in harmony. And with that, Dr. Carl Broggi, thank you so much for being back with us today. You’re very busy, so much on your schedule a blessing. Thank you for being with us,
Carl Broggi:
Sam, it’s great to be here. I think as you know, we’re living in a unique time in human history and God is setting the stage for the return of his son. And so our topic is so critical today because there’s so much confusion over what God says about Israel, what he says about the body of Christ. And it certainly has come to the forefront recently through attacks Candace Owens has made against Bible believing pro-Israel believers, Tucker Carlson interviewing Ted Cruz, who believes what I believe. He just couldn’t articulate it. And then all kinds of, so it’s come to the forefront. So this is a really important issue you’re addressing today,
Sam Rohrer:
And I’m wanting you as we walk into this, we’re going to begin in the next segment, actually talk about what allows it to be harmonized together, but from your perspective in a practical sense, we’re talking about this today, there are disagreements, but they’re not necessary in reality. It all stems from how a person views and at least in part as I look at it, how a person views God’s promises to Israel and also Christ made promises to the church, but the consequences for how one views God and God’s promises and Israel and the church, they produce significant consequences. So from your perspective, what’s the major problem that you are seeing today in regard to these and some of the consequences and tie these together with how this relates to one’s view of God and his promises to Israel and his promises to the church because as we believe they’re not in conflict?
Carl Broggi:
Well, absolutely. So it does start with the premise that God never changes. He’s the same yesterday, today and forever. And therefore the promises he makes that reflect his nature never, ever, ever change. And I would say as born again, people, whatever stripe you may be reformed, covenant, dispensational, whatever denomination you may represent, Christians would affirm that. And so we’re not denying that, but it is essential that we affirm that God is immutable and that’s an important word for people who may not be familiar with it, like omnipresent or omniscience or omnipotent. Immutability is just a theological word that underscores that God never changes. He said in Malachi, a book I recently preached for I the Lord do not change. And so we’re affirming that God who never changes means his word is true just like his character is true. And as you said and the opening segment, it’s impossible for God to lie.
Hebrews tells us that Moses said God is not like a man that he should ever lie. Paul will say in the opening verses of Titus that God cannot lie. So covenant reformed and dispensational believers, and I know we’re going to define those terms as we move through these different segments. In the end, the question becomes, did God make some eternal and unconditional promises to the people of Israel? We would all affirm God never changes. His word is true. So then the question becomes, did he make some eternal unconditional promises? The writer, the Hebrews, I’ve opened here to Hebrews six and it says, for when God made the promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater than himself, he said, I will bless you and multiply you. And then he says two verses later. And so having patiently waited, he Abraham obtained the promise and the promise is found in Genesis chapter 12 that God is faithful to his word, that he will keep his promise to Abraham.
And so he made a covenant to Abraham and the question becomes, is it unconditional in nature? We call it the Abraham Covenant. There’s the Mosaic covenant, there’s the Davidic covenant, the Noahic covenant. So there are different promise groupings that God makes in the word of God and they’re distinct. But the Abrahamic covenant, I believe with all my heart that it’s an eternal covenant. It had nothing to do with Israel’s obedience. It had everything to do with God’s faithfulness because indeed he is unchanging. And so God appears to Abraham and he says, go to the land that I’m going to show you in Genesis 12 in verse one. And he gets up. He doesn’t have directions. God doesn’t say go north, south, east or west. He just goes in the basis of God’s word that God will reveal it to him.
He travels to Haran then to check him, and along the way he has to make some detours to Canaan, to Hebrew and Beersheba. The man walks nearly 2000 miles before God appears to him and says Abraham, and he says, this is where I want you to live. And we call that place today Israel. And then he goes on to say in Genesis 12 in verse two, I’ll make you a great nation and I will bless you and I will make your name great. And indeed God has made the Jews a great nation. We hear about him every day in the news. Now, seemingly they weren’t around for 1900 years, but they’re back front and center and we’re going to continue to hear about them,
Sam Rohrer:
Ladies and gentlemen. So there’s a basis behind why we are seeing so much of world’s attention on Israel. Again, not by accident to all according to God’s word, but when we come back, we’re going to go into discussion on this approach for the viewing of scripture that allows God’s promises to Israel and then later God’s promises to church work in complete harmony. It does fit and it works together well if you’re just joining us today, thanks for being on board. Stay tuned with us because I think the theme and the topic that we’re discussing today, and here’s the title of the program, harmonizing God’s Promises to Israel and the Church and therein, there ought to be something that would be of interest I think to all who are listening to me right now. My special guest is Dr. Carl Broggi with me generally once a month.
He’s a senior pastor of Community Bible Church in Beaufort, South Carolina does his own radio program called Search the Scriptures, which you can find@searchthescriptures.org, but this is an Israel Middle East and biblical prophecy focused program today. So that is around which this theme is built and it’s basically how do we look at the church? How do we look at Israel? Are they the same? If they’re not, why not? Well, how can one come to the conclusion it’s a big issue for some people. It’s not for me and it’s not for Dr. Carl Broggi. I know, but we’re trying to walk through and how do we approach this? Now, one fundamental truth about scripture held, I think by every person who fears God is that just like we said in the last segment, there are some things God does not lie. God always keeps his promises. There’s another one about God’s word.
Every person who truly fears God believes that God’s word is God’s very written word. God breathed and such a person believes therefore, as a result that the Bible is eternally true because like God himself, it cannot change and it will not change and it cannot in any way logically therefore contradict itself or contain one iota of error. It’s absolutely true and unchanging, that’s fundamental in how we approach God’s word and when certain passages may seem to not make human sense. You read a passage here, you look at passage over there and you say, these things don’t seem to go together, rather than coming up with some new way to explain it, we just say, no. The plain reading of God’s word is the way it is. And then we pursue the understanding of God’s word and therefore because God is perfect, his word is perfect and it must therefore be in complete harmony.
Hence my title today, harmonizing God’s Promises to the Church and to Israel. Now, Karl, let’s go right into this. There is an approach, and you referenced it earlier, but build it out a little bit. Now, there is an approach called the dispensational approach to scripture. You talked about covenantal and then there’s others, but how one approaches scripture helps to determine whether or not it actually fits into harmony or it does not. Would you talk about this approach and the others and just kind of describe them a little bit and then we’ll go into some of the more common arguments against what we’re talking about.
Carl Broggi:
Let me first define the word dispensation because it’s become almost a dirty word. Tucker Carlson recently used it like Darby was an ignoramus, and he invented this. Darby was an incredible scholar. He knew at least 10 languages. He literally was used of God to plant several New Testament churches. Schaeffer, they said these guys made it up. Schofield, actually not. The word comes from the Greek word economy or the verb. You can hear our word economy in it. Ocos means house. No moss means law or rules. So we’re talking about house rules, we’re talking about house management, and it’s typically translated as dispensation. The word dispensation is found at least three times in the New Testament, depending on your translation or administration or sometimes it’s translated stewardship. It just refers to how God manages the world, his house and people and time. For instance, in some respect, everyone would have to acknowledge some different economies.
For instance, last Sunday, Sam, no one brought an animal to church for a sacrifice. Why? Because we recognize the once and for all finished work of Christ. So dispensationalism was not something that was invented in the 18th and 19th century, though I would say in many ways it was rediscovered because starting with Augustine who had a profound influence on men like Calvin and Luther, Augustine was known for an allegorical approach to prophecy, and he came up with some really weird doctrines. He believed that we should pray for the dead. He believed unbaptized babies went to hell. He believed Mary was sinless and on and on and on we could go. He planted the seeds for Roman Catholicism and the Roman Catholic Church because they rejected Israel as God’s people and said that they were the people of God. They embrace Augustinian theology, but how do we interpret the scripture?
That’s really the critical issue. And so we are to interpret literally historically, grammatically, and I would underscore the word consistently. Why? Because that’s how all the prophecies for the first coming were fulfilled. And so take Zacharia, Messiah’s going to enter in on a donkey. He’s going to be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. He’s going to be struck, they’ll look on him whom they’ve pierced. Those are four prophecies found in Zechariah. All quoted in the gospels is literally fulfilled in Jesus’s first coming. So why would we expect the prophecies for the second coming worldwide? Jew hatred, Zechariah 12 and 14, Messiah planting his feet on the mount of all of splitting it into living waters, flowing from the mountain, further elucidated in Ezekiel 40 sevens that floated the dead sea such that men can fish in them. And so what covenant theologians and reformed theologians has done is they don’t consistently interpret prophecy.
They literally interpret the prophecies for the first coming, but for the second coming, they spiritualized them. And so because of that, there’s so much confusion in their thinking. So how does someone become a dispensationalist if you just literally historically consistently interpret prophecy? That’s what Jesus modeled. He literally interpreted Daniel nine and relegated to his second coming. The New Testament writers when they interact with the Old Testament prophecies literally interpret it. And so why would we want to do that differently? So it’s not something new. It’s something that in some ways was rediscovered, but certainly not by just these men. In the 19th century, you have the early church fathers that men like Lee Brainerd has documented who are pre-millennial. They recognized a future for Israel that God had not forsaken them, but Augustine came up with a different hermeneutic. So when we speak about two, I should say the chosen people or the chosen nation, we’re not saying that every Jew goes to heaven. That was not true in the Old Testament. Jews were swallowed up alive and brought down into Hades because of their unbelief. Jews in the Old Testament were saved by their faith in the coming Messiah. Neither are we saying that as we’re often portrayed. And again, it’s a straw man, easy to tear down that Jews are saved in one way, in Gentiles in a different way. Not at all. No Jew will go to heaven apart from belief in Jesus Christ today. I just want to underscore that.
Sam Rohrer:
Okay, that’s excellent. All right. Now, you may have already mentioned it, but just to go here as quickly as we can on it, what would you perceive to be the leading argument against approaching the interpretation of scripture dispensation as we’re talking and biblically refuted
Carl Broggi:
Leading argument would be a passage like Genesis 15. It’s a foundational moment in biblical history where God ratifies this covenant with Abraham and it has direct ramifications on how we understand Israel, the church and God’s future plans. And so if you remember, God put Abraham to sleep, some animals were slave, he had cut up the animals, he goes to sleep. And then through this theophany, this physical appearance of God as a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch, God alone walks through the cut up animals. What was he doing? Typically, two people would walk through the cut up animals and you would say, you can do to me what we did to these animals. If I don’t keep my word. So this has nothing to do with Abraham who’s the founder of a new nation underscored in Genesis 12, Genesis 15, God is making a one-sided covenant where he obligates himself to keep promises to Abraham concerning a land, a seed, and a blessing.
And even in Genesis 15, the land is described from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates and certain geographical boundaries that have never ever been fulfilled in human history. Well, is God forsaken his promise? Is he going to keep it? No, he’s going to fulfill it, absolutely. Just as he said. And so the church is a new entity. It didn’t exist in the Old Testament. God worked through the Jew, but Matthew 12 is a turning point because they officially reject. Jesus has the Messiah. Matthew 1618, God reveals he will build a church, a new set apart people. And of course, God’s not done with the Jew. There’s a future time. It’s called the time of Jacob’s trouble. It’s called the time of the great tribulation when there’s going to be an end gathering of Jews. Today, Jew and Gentiles are one people and the body of Christ, we all come in the same way.
Once the church is removed, God is going to focus on this new entity, Israel. They’re going to preach the gospel to the whole world. They’ll preach the same message I’m preaching today call on Jesus and you’ll be saved. In fact, Jesus made it clear right before he introduces the olive discourse that his second coming cannot happen until the Jewish people say blessed is he. That is Jesus who came in the name of the Lord. They will believe in Jesus before the second coming happens. And this is a future time when that’s going to take place and unfold.
Sam Rohrer:
Ladies and gentlemen, I wish we had more time because I’d like to go down through a number of other arguments, but every one of them can be biblically, refuted and addressed. So that all fits into harmony, which is what the word of God does no conflict. There is no conflict in the mind of God and there is no substitution of Israel and the church and there does not need to be. And when you try to make it that way, alright, that’s when often problems will come. Now, when we come back, there is a portion there where God promises to Abraham blessing and cursing and to those who do the same to Israel, we’re going to talk about what that actually means. Now in the last segment, Dr. Carl Broggi, who’s my special guest today, been with us often and I know a favorite of so many of you who are listening because you’ve written that and you’ve told me that in person.
But he referred to what’s referred to as the Abrahamic covenant. That’s in Genesis 12, two and three. And let me just read that because we’re going to discuss that further and what it means in this segment. Now, this is what it says there, and the Lord said to Abraham, and I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee and curse them that curses thee. And in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Alright? There’s a lot of things we could pull out of that, but what we’re wanting to look at here is this concept of what does it mean to bless and to curse in this passage in the passage in addition to the reference to bless and curse.
I’m always impressed when I read this passage that the fact is, and you referred to it earlier, it’s all about God and his promises and only secondarily, I’m going to put in my words about Abraham and the eventual nature of Israel as a vehicle, the vehicle for God’s blessings. I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee and I will bless them that bless you. It’s that focus of it’s I, God, God, God. Which is why it’s so important that we understand what it is about God’s promise. So any further comment on this promise of God before we move to the meaning of bless and curse?
Carl Broggi:
Well, I would just say indeed God kept his word as you said, and they became a great nation and they’re still great and I will bless you and make your name great. A day doesn’t go by when we don’t hear about Israel. And he said in you, Abraham, all the families of the earth will be blessed. That’s my family, Sam, that’s your family. And Abraham is a blessing for two reasons. One, the Jewish people gave us the book we’re studying this morning, every book of the Bible, including Luke in Acts, was written by a Jew. And so I thank God for the Jewish people because we have the book they gave us, as Paul said, the Oracles of God. And number two, the humanity of the Lord. Jesus came from the Jews. He is a Jew. Jesus salvation he said is from the Jews and what a blessing Abraham has been. Here we are 4,000 years later and we’re still talking about this
Sam Rohrer:
Man. Fantastic. That’s great. Alright, let’s move now into this. I will bless them that bless you. What’s the full meaning of that? Because there’s more there than just those simple words. I’m going to make you feel good. I will bless them that bless you.
Carl Broggi:
Well, the verb Barak in the noun, barakah just means to bestow favor to speak good. And so I think there are many practical ways in which we can bless Israel today as God admonishes us to first just their right to exist as a people. The modern state of Israel, contrary to covenant theologians who say they are no more significant than Uganda. It’s actually a fulfillment of prophecy because God is going to use the people of Israel to bring back his son. And he promised to regather the nation after 1900 years, people assumed it’s not going to happen. Maybe God didn’t mean what he said. God said what he meant. He meant what he said. And he’s gathered them from the four corners of the world. And so we should affirm their right to exist. God calls them the apple of his eye, meridian. Deuteronomy 32, he found him Israel in a desert land and in a howling wasteland of the wilderness, he encircled them.
God cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye. Zechariah two uses the exact same wording. He said that the one who touches you Israel touches the apple of his eye. Literally the Hebrew says the little man of the eye, meaning the pupil, which is something that is precious and in need of protection. And when you mess with Israel, you are messing with God. So number one, we bless Israel by supporting their right to exist. Secondly, I think we bless Israel, Sam, when we defend her against antisemites and anti-Semites are everywhere. And I would say to anyone listening, if you are a part of a denomination that supports boycott, divest, sanction, the BDS movement, Presbyterian Church, USA, United Church of Christ, United Methodist, Quakers, Unitarian Universals, Episcopalians to name a few that come to mind, you should leave because they are poking God in the eye.
And I wouldn’t want to do that, get involved in an evangelical denomination. They may not be dispensational, but they certainly I hope will not oppose Israel. I think you can bless Israel by evangelizing the Jewish people. Remember the hardening that Paul speaks of in Romans 11 is partial. It’s not total. We should pray for the peace of Jerusalem churches after October of last year who didn’t pray for Israel, they showed their colors. They didn’t really believe there was any significance as prophetically as to what happened. And thousands of churches were silent all across America. So those are some ways in which we can bless Israel.
Sam Rohrer:
Okay, now what about curse? Is it basically just the opposite of what you just said or is there more involved in that? I will curse them that curse this thing
Carl Broggi:
To deny her right to exist would certainly be to curse Israel. And there are groups like Hamas where they say that Israel is to be eliminated off the face of the earth. The Palestinian constitution opposes any concept of a two-state solution. I don’t believe in a two-state solution. I believe in a one state solution, namely that the land is Israel’s, they try to have a two-state solution by giving them Gaza. Look what happened. It was just a disaster. A church curses a people and individually curses Israel if they tolerate antisemitism. And so I would say this to some of my reformed brothers, and I’m not calling them antisemites so I don’t want to be misunderstood, but I would say a failure to teach what God says about the Jews is to create a vacuum in which antisemitism is filled. Look at it. Augustine was an antisemite.
He called them the enemies of scripture. Calvin said, the Jews are a rotten and unbending people whose obstinate deserves that they be oppressed without measure and end and that they die in their misery without pity. That’s not blessing Israel. John Calvin who influenced him, he’s influenced by Augustine. He quotes Augustine 4,119 times, look, if I didn’t preach against homosexuality or heterosexual lust, then I would be giving permission for those things to take place. And when I don’t preach against antisemitism, I am creating a vacuum for the world to fill it with a hatred. And we’re seeing this across the planet. So those would be some things that I would underscore
Sam Rohrer:
And we could go much further. But those are excellent. Let’s go into this. I’d like to comment on this one aspect because I believe my sense is that there are many, many, many people, even well-meaning people who don’t really understand the basic meaning of what you just talked about, number one. And so we see things happening. But another one would go to the point of people who would say, well, if I’m going to bless Israel means I have to support everything that the political establishment of the government of Israel were to make every policy, every decision that they would make because they are Israel. And if I disagree with them in any regard, I am not blessing them. So that can also in my opinion, get into a dangerous track. But there are some that are in there. So would you clarify this? I’m going to say frequently misunderstood consideration. Does bless Israel mean to agree in all cases and all times? And if not, then how would one determine that?
Carl Broggi:
Absolutely not. And this is why I’m glad you brought it up, because this is one of those straw men that people accused dispensationalist of affirming that we embrace everything that Israel does and we certainly do not listen, if the government of our nation or any nation including Israel does affirm something that is anti-God, anti Bible, we should speak out against it. And so yes, there’s some very, very liberal minded people in Israel. Tel Aviv is one of the most gay cities on the planet. It’s much like San Francisco. It’s very, very sad. Only about a third of the Jews are practicing Orthodox either rigidly Orthodox or semi orthodox. About a third of the Jews are semi-religious, say acknowledge Sabbath. And one third wants nothing to do with anyone. And so no, we are not saying when we bless Israel that we affirm every single thing that they espouse, but we do affirm their right to exist.
We do affirm that they are the people of God, a chosen nation again, not meaning that everyone will be saved but a chosen nation in which God will fulfill his plan for the second coming of the Messiah. Those things we do affirm, but we speak out against any evil. It’s not like the Jew has the white hat and the Arab has the black hat by no stretch of the imagination. And there’s coming a day when according to the prophets, Zechariah, two thirds of the Jewish people will perish during the time of Jacob’s trouble. So only about a third are going to survive the tribulation. I’m not saying two thirds of those who perish were unbelievers. I think a high percentage of those are persecuted just because of this growing hatred that God said will come to a peak that will be worldwide during the last seven plus years of human history. And again, the stage is being set for that. People are nearly blind as to what is happening and they need to wake up and open their eyes.
Sam Rohrer:
Thank you for clarifying that ladies and gentlemen. I hope that that was helpful for you. I have been working through that in my mind as well. But it’s important to understand agreement ultimately must be with what God has promised. And God has said not necessarily because of everything that the nation or the political establishment of Israel does, they can be just as opposed to God as the Israel of old was. So anyway, hopefully that’s understanding and that’s clear when we come back with this understanding of scripture and God’s prophecy lays out what events then can we know are coming next as we go into our final segment now. And just a reminder to all who are listening that again, this program as you’re listening to it, and you may be in your kitchen, you may be in your car, you may be sitting at home, some people I know.
Listen, this program is carried at different times during the day depending on where people live. So many on the west coast I know will listen to this later at night when it’s carried. This program will be carried for instance tomorrow, which will be Thursday across the nation of Kenya in Africa and some of the other nations because of the nature that their day comes before ours. So regardless of where you may be or when you listen, understand that the program, you can achieve it and listen to it again off the website. And that’s given at the end. Stand in the gap radio.com or off the app and you can find there a transcript that you can read along with it. There’s many times there are verses that are given or there like today, arguments given for what we’re talking about and biblical refutations to it.
You may not be able to remember all of those, but you can get that in the transcript. So I just invite you to remember to do that. And then it becomes easy either location, you may find it to pass it along to a friend. And surely those who know where good news is, we should all be passing along good news. So if this has helped you pass it along to a friend. Alright, now one of the consequences for not approaching scripture through the lens of, as we’ve described today, dispensational theology, the understanding how God has orchestrated kept the house in order more house rules as Dr. Carl Broggi defined it is that that the sequence of political or prophetical events, not political but prophetical events yet to come depending upon how one approaches scripture depends upon how one views what scripture says is yet to come.
And depending upon if you do not take the approach of dispensational theology, then you almost have to go back and reinterpret portions of scripture. And that’s been talked about here on the program. But when that’s reinterpreted the believer’s role and duty and driving passion in our day, as in how should we then live, that changes too. But it goes beyond into the practical political actions and decisions are reinterpreted. Political leaders assume in some cases near Messianic personas and hope is transferred from God’s plan to some form of man’s plan and man’s promises. Some of these are very, very real. And reinterpretation of any aspect of scripture in my opinion, opens the door for false prophets and deception of all types as we can see rapidly and increasingly in occurring in our day. But Jesus warns about these kinds of days. So we have to be alert now.
Carl, as we close the program today, I ask you in the first segment to identify some of the consequences of reinterpreting scripture As we’ve just talked, I’ve just given just a few of those again here today. But could you now build out just a bit more of the consequences and the benefits that accrue to, I’m going to say all true believers because this has to be true believers, beginning true believers if we approach scripture as we’ve talked about today, and then let that interpretation direct our lives. And then if you would identify the timeline of prophesied events according to harmonized scripture that we know will occur. Carl, are you there? Oh, of all the things. Sometimes ladies and gentlemen, even the best of connections. Hopefully Carl will get back with us here momentarily because I want him to answer this question to us. But I’m going to talk a little bit until we do get him. Tim’s trying to get him right now. We’ll see before I begin on a discourse, Carl, are you there?
Speaker 3:
Yes I am. Yes sir. So I’m not sure what happened, but I understood your question is okay, go ahead. We approach 10 times. What are the benefits of understanding
The dispensational approach? I’d say there’s several, Sam. First of all, there’s clarity in how you understand God’s word. When you take a literal consistent principle of interpreting the scripture, you see that there’s a unity in the whole Bible from the old and the New Testament. It gives you a sense of confidence that what God said he meant and what he said he is going to do. And so we mentioned earlier, for instance, Jesus standing on the Mount of Olives and he splits it in two. You can read 10 reformed theologians, 10 covenantal the theologians and get 10 different interpretations. Why? Because if you don’t take it literally it’s up to the reader to interpret it how he thinks it should be interpreted. And so that is, I think, very risky. And again, you don’t have that example in terms of how the apostles in Jesus interpreted the scripture.
Not to mention all the prophecies. Even in that book, Zachariah were literally fulfilled for the second coming. Why we would think differently for the second coming is beyond my belief. Secondly, I think it gives you a sense of confidence that God is faithful, that he keeps his promises to the Jew just like he keeps his promises to the church. Paul ends Romans eight by saying nothing can separate us from the love of God that’s in Christ Jesus. How do we know that? Wait a minute. God said you loved Israel with an everlasting love. That’s Romans nine, 10 and 11. God elected the Jewish nation out of all the nations of the world, they’re in unbelief. That’s chapter 10. But in the future they will be restored. Israel’s election, Israel’s rejection, Israel’s future reception. That’s nine, 10, and 11. So if God can’t keep his promises to the Jew, what makes us think?
He’ll keep his promises to you? He will keep his promises to the Jew because he loved them with an everlasting love. And then I would say it gives us a balanced expectation for the future. Listen, only the literal hermaneutic gives you an understanding of what’s going on in the world today. What’s happening today? Most of my dear reform friends are blind to, they don’t see that we’re in the final chapter of human history. No one knows the day or the hour, but we’re in the final chapter because Israel’s back in the land, he’s gathered them from across the world just as God specifically predicted. And there’s coming a time when spiritually they’re going to come to faith in Jesus. And so we should be wide awake. And this gives us an evangelistic passion, that there’s a missional urgency that we as believers should exercise and listen, even my reformed friends would admit that the Darbyites and because of Schofield and the rest, there was a great movement of evangelism that swept the nation in other foreign countries. They can’t help but do it. But listen, they’re in last place today. And I say this with a sense of sadness. They’re in last place today to winning people to Jesus. Why? Because they don’t have the passion. They don’t see what is happening before them. Not to mention all these other theological things that they embrace that I think becomes a killer to personal evangelism. So there’s many, many benefits to approaching scripture and a literal consistent grammatical hermeneutic
Sam Rohrer:
Less than 30 seconds, the timeline. What events are next on God’s prophetical clock?
Speaker 3:
The next event is the rapture of the church. And once the church is removed, the 70th week of Daniel’s prophecy will literally be fulfilled. A man will come on the scene known as the antichrist. He’ll sign a covenant with Israel that will start the seven year period. During that time, God will use the Jews to carry the gospel to the whole world. And then the end shall come. 144,000 Jewish men are going to be converted. Not to mention two witnesses I think are Elijah and Moses, not to mention even an angel. For the first time in human history will preach the gospel to the whole world. Every tribe, tongue, and nation will hear people will repent and believe. Most sadly, many will embrace the false messiah of the Anti-Christ.
Sam Rohrer:
And Dr. Carl Broggi, thank you so much. Search the scriptures.org as his website. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being with us and I trust, I really do pray and trust that this information today has been helpful to you, helping to put together an understanding of scripture and all that we’re talking about, what God’s word talks about so that we can properly view what is happening around us.
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