Last month while reflecting on bygone eras of my church life, I was rummaging through some second hand books and I happened upon a book entitled “Dispensationalism Exposed” by Dale A. Albertson. I didn’t know anything about the author but I noticed the book was self published so it was right up my street.

I have a history with Premillennialism, from my early days where the theory was projected at me, to my more recent days when this happening reoccurred. I have a distinct distaste for Premillennialism and so often it is difficult to find folks who think alike. Thankfully Dispensationalism is not a big issue in UK churches, but for many people, especially American Christians, Premillennialism is nothing more than Scripture itself.

But now things have changed. More and more people are realising that it ain’t necessarily so. Premillennialism is not the only interpretation of Matthew 24 or the Book of Revelation. But the problem for some believers are, that other views are rarely presented. At least in some circles.

So, I bought the book and I have found it to be a pleasant surprise. In it, the author presents his arguments against dispensationalism and argues the doctrine is distructive and in many cases, harmful. Dispensationalism prevents people from trying to make our world a better place, it often denies the reality of what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 24, and it creates unnessesary division and is not accurate to the early church.

The author focuses upon the 1,000 year reign of Christ and His saints and the events of AD 70 when the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed by the Romans. Yet Premillennialists often ignore what Josephus documented and prefer to promote various rapture theories as though Matthew 24: 40 refers to an event way off in the future. It does not, Jesus was talking about the Roman armies taking people into captivity when Jerusalem was about to be destroyed and it all goes back to the writings of John Nelson Darby and his incorrect hermeneutics. The Olivet discourse and a majority of the book of Revelation are all about the past, not the future.

Dispensationalism has a dark side, the author argues, “and its bad fruit” has a “negative impact-on the world today”. “Dispensationalism is a very new doctrine in the scope of church history,” the author argues, dating to the 19^th century and the “Plymouth Brethren minister” (P. 12). Spurgeon was a “well-known vocal critic of Darby” the author exclaims. Darby’s ideas where adapted from Edward Irving (1792-1834) a clergyman in the Church of Scotland and Darby’s influence spread through seminaries of Europe and his tours of the United States.

Dispensationalism brings about the practice of “separatism” and causes people to fail in working towards change in our world because according to them, the decline of society and church is all part of the unfulfilled prophecies of Scripture. I have been making this point for years. I argue that the powers that be use Premillennialism as a gateway to disencourage Christians to make changes in our world, because when Dispensationalism is believed, the bad events of our day and age are all foretold.

“The indoctrination of Dispensationalism is now nearly universal in America.” and “Dispensationalism is considered unassailable by the majority of Christians in America” and “those who disagree have been called heretics,”. (P. 25)

I can relate to those claims, since one man attempted to assassinate my refutation of Premillennialism by claiming that I was denying the second coming of Christ. So for me, since Premillennialists often ignore and overlook the writings of Josephus, you can see why the real historical events of Matthew 24 are unknown to them. Because of this I think many American Dispensationalists are ‘Nuda scriptura’ rather than ‘Sola scriptura’. Personally I am Sola scriptura a position which allows for other historical sources to help us rightly divide the word of truth.

Premillennialism does not rightly divide the word of truth since it fails to recognise that a literal-historical hermeneutic of Matthew 24 would reveal that Jesus was warning His 1^st century listeners about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, by the Roman armies under Titus. A fact which according to the author “Dispensationalism must (mostly) deny in order to justify its alternative interpretation of the great tribulation.” (P. 31)

The author continues on to argue that Dispensationalism is so bad an idea that even sceptics and Muslims use it to argue that the prophecies of Jesus were not fulfilled, then there is the credulous nature of the support for the rapture doctrine, and the secret rapture of the church, a position that the author rightly argues “is not found anywhere in scripture.” (P. 46)

Amen to that. Absolutely.

If you are looking for a good book to read over Christmas or the new year, you should get yourself a copy of this book. Self published works can oftentimes be great reads.