To Zola Levitt and Dr. Tom McCall
We seldom receive letters from seminary presidents (and that certainly
includes Dallas Seminary and Moody Bible Institute). But the writer
below heads a seminary that we recommended for its correct doctrine. His
analysis of what's really going on in our theological institutions is
very instructive.
I want to congratulate you on your ongoing exposé in regard to what is happening in Christian schools. The general Christian public is in the dark about the spiritual deterioration that is rapidly changing the face of our evangelical denominations and seminaries. I know that you have taken criticism from many who think all is well in our conservative circles. But you are right on. The unending conversation of "older" evangelical leaders, authors, and Bible school teachers is in regard to the gradual destruction of our theological institutions.
To try to help, here are some areas to inquire into in order to try to find out what is going on in a given church or seminary:
Does it address doctrinal issues like the Rapture, Tribulation, and the Second Coming of Christ? Thank you for mentioning Tyndale as one of the more solid schools still around. By God's grace, we are definitely going to hold the line. May God bless you as you stand firm and expose the errors rapidly growing in our circles.
Sincerely in Christ,
P.S. Feel free to use this letter if you wish.
"Progressive Dispensationalism is not serious"The Admissions Department of Dallas Seminary Responds to Theological Questions
Greetings from Dallas Theological Seminary! Dr. Swindoll has asked me to reply to your question. My name is Les Fleetwood; I'm a graduate of DTS (Th.M.-96), and am currently on staff in the Admissions Department.... We also have one faculty member, Dr. Darrell Bock, who holds to the Progressive Dispensational position. He has written a book about the issue, "Progressive Dispensationalism" with Dr. Craig Blaising (a former DTS faculty member now at Southern Seminary).... The administration of DTS sees no conflict here with the doctrinal position of the school... Dr. Bock's theological opinion, while a minority one on campus, is not in great conflict with our tradition... You state what the progressive camp believes concerning Israel. While I don't agree with those views either, I don't feel that they are as serious as you make them out to be. The one chosen to respond to these weighty theological issues is not from the Theology or Bible Department, but from the Admissions Department, which specializes in helping prospective students work out their requirements for entry. Rev. Fleetwood argues that, although the doctrine of Progressive Dispensationalism is taught at Dallas Seminary (a view with which he personally disagrees), it is a minority view and it does not conflict with the doctrinal position of the Seminary. Is it a minority view? Rev. Fleetwood says there were only two who taught PD at the Seminary: Dr. Blaising and Dr. Bock, and Dr. Blaising has left to go to Southern Seminary. Is there only one now? I wish it were so. Several of our sources indicate that the Theology Department, which largely controls the theological direction of a seminary, is dominated by adherents to Progressive Dispensationalism, and that it is pervasive throughout the faculty. Perhaps they can argue that Dr. Bock is the only one because he alone of those who are left has published a book on the subject. Which raises another question. Where are the books produced by the new crop of professors? There was a time when the professors and graduates at DTS were publishing books right and left on Biblical exposition, burning issues of theology and prophecy. Drs. Chafer, Walvoord, Feinberg, Johnson, Pentecost and many others produced standard works on Biblical studies. It seems that once Progressive Dispensationalism was published, the ink began to dry up among the young professors at DTS. Have they nothing to say to the public or theological community now? An old adage in academic circles is "publish or perish." The second argument advanced by Rev. Fleetwood is that Progressive Dispensationalism does not conflict with the doctrinal position of the Seminary. In the preceding issues of the Levitt Letter, we have demonstrated several times that the key teaching of PD, that Christ is now seated on the throne of David in Heaven, is Biblically erroneous, and leads to devastating confusion of the Biblical dispensations. Many Biblical scholars are therefore convinced that this new doctrine seriously violates the following provision of the DTS doctrinal statement:
We believe that three of these dispensations or rules of life are the subject of extended revelation in the Scriptures, viz., the dispensation of the Mosaic law, the present dispensation of grace, and the future dispensation of the millennial kingdom. We believe that these are distinct and are not to be intermingled or confused, as they are chronologically successive.
So what if professors confuse the dispensations? Isn't this just
theological nitpicking? Sadly, such deviations have a far-reaching
impact. With such teaching, the entire framework of the Scriptures
becomes confusing, prophecy is neglected, the blessed hope of the
Rapture of the Church begins to wane, and the place of Modern Israel in
the preparation for the Second Coming of Christ is diminished to the
point at which neither professor, pastor nor people have any interest or
understanding on the subject.
Zola's Bulletin Board
Never before this Fall have we offered such a complete tour, so fantastic that we call it Zola's Ultra Grand Tour! Our tours depart August 30 and September 4. This year, why not enjoy an all-inclusive tour of Israel, Greece, Eilat and Petra from August 30 - September 17? To determine the best dates for you, please request your color tour folder from Diana or Becky at (214) 696-9760, during office hours, or 1-800-WONDERS anytime [or click here for an online request form].
A Note From Zola
Dear Friends, I think some readers are starting to wonder if we will go on censuring the declining seminaries— Moody Bible Institute and Dallas Seminary among them—for teaching wrong doctrines (and covering up that shortcoming). And I guess the answer is we will go on with it as long as they do, constantly warning serious Biblical people to avoid these kinds of errors and those who profit by them. The cover letter from Dr. Mal Couch, the president of a fine seminary which holds to accurate Biblical truth, says it better than I could have. Seminaries falling away is an ongoing problem and deserves on-going commentary. And Christian people turning into politicians, as have some of our seminary administrators, creates a kind of shame to be borne by the entire believing community. I suppose you have realized if you have received letters from the president of Moody Bible Institute or from the assistant to the president of Dallas Seminary that they just won't respond to your questions or come out with the whole truth. This behavior is characteristic of politics, not faith. And politics and faith meet over an issue like modern Israel, which is being systematically expunged from thinking in our generation. What a terrible shame that the homeland of our Lord and the place where all of us are going for a thousand years (and I don't think presidents Stowell and Swindoll or any other legitimate seminary president could question that for a moment) is being relegated to some back shelf. How awful that the very generation of Christians who may see the End Times prophecies unfold is ignorant or even erroneously informed about these very prophecies. No wonder the churches have so little to say about Israel. No wonder the Christian community sat quietly by while Bethlehem, the birthplace of our Lord, was given to Moslems. No wonder, even today when I speak in certain evangelical churches, they question whether I am "too controversial" and why I always harp on the subject of Israel. How strange, to harp on a subject that's mentioned on every page of the Bible and to which the entire Christian community will be taken in the Kingdom to come! It must seem that we harp on two seminaries out of many, but it should be realized that Dr. McCall and I have had long associations with both Dallas Theological Seminary and Moody Bible Institute. We are thoroughly acquainted with the personalities and the goings-on at these institutions. We have pointed out that Talbot Seminary, Biola College, and any number of other "reputable" schools have fallen into the same nest of questionable doctrines and policies, and we have also tried to list the good seminaries that we know of. We are invariably willing to publish the letters of any seminary official, though we personally never expect to hear from Joseph Stowell, president of Moody Bible Institute, or Charles Swindoll, president of Dallas Seminary. The former writes only to our viewers political platitudes to keep up the preposterous pretense that Moody is not changed from over a century ago; the latter consigns to an assistant the chore of talking down to Zola Levitt's viewers and readers (my personal feeling is that Swindoll, whose teaching I have respected for years, thinks these Progressive Dispensationalists are a bunch of crackpots who are hardly worth the trouble). We are receiving so many letters about Progressive Dispensationalism and other failings of the seminaries that we can't possibly run them all. Instead, we are going to create a book and put these things in permanent form, which can be carried into the seminaries themselves and put on the desks of the offending professors (I don't know why students don't get up and shout when bad doctrine is taught in a formerly good seminary, but a book might be helpful). More on that later on. Keep the letters coming. We'll more than likely include them in the book. And as to why we think we are competent to complain, as some of you have asked in your letters, I would remind you that we censure only the un-Biblical, and we do that evenhandedly. We have criticized the liberal Protestants, the Catholics, the Jews and, of course, the seminaries all for the same thing — wrong-headed Bible interpretations, obvious to prove. We always invite anyone at all to debate the point with us, and virtually no one ever takes us up on it. When we see a Bible school forcing what is obviously an incorrect textbook on its students, as with Criswell College, we complain. When we see an institution like Dallas Seminary having an Arabist professor teaching anti-Israel doctrines on campus, we complain. When we see Moody Bible Institute open a bank, we complain. There are very good Biblical reasons for our complaints, and that's all I can say. If yours is a good school, then by all means let us know, and if you know of Progressive Dispensationalists, etc., coming into formerly reputable institutions, let us know that as well. Naturally, we don't want to take time for reports on Replacement Theology, liberal seminaries, denominational follies, and the like. We're well aware that "the way is narrow" as our Lord warned, and that sincere Scriptural study can be difficult to find. I, for one, won't abandon Israel, ever, and I have just come from over there with a report of some new developments. First of all, unrest in the West Bank, wildly exaggerated in the media, is on the order of the protests in Washington and far less than the problems last winter in Seattle. The Palestinians keep up a drumbeat of displeasure (at least in front of the cameras) while they enjoy the freedom to do so that only comes from living in a real democracy like Israel. If you want to have a perfectly quiet atmosphere, move to Beijing or Havana or Pyongyang, North Korea, if you take my meaning. Israel has one-upped America again as Jesus beat Regis in the TV ratings. Indeed, the recent Jesus movie—which added very little to our knowledge of our Lord—was watched by 24 million viewers and buried Regis, despite the dramatic way he passes out the millions of dollars. As to the Jesus movie Jay Leno said he liked the book better. I learned something new about Arabs on this trip, and that is that they would not accept the term "Palestinian" under the British mandate which controlled the land prior to 1948. They replied that it was the Jews who were the Palestinians, and they wanted no part of such a name! They changed their tune in 1964 when Arafat and his henchmen came up with the idea of simply co-opting the term. The rest is history and the ignorance of the media. I also learned that the terrorist bombers of the Middle East are not very good at what they do. In one case, since the Palestinians would not accept Daylight Savings Time, thinking of it as some kind of Israeli phenomenon, a bomb blew up in the terrorist's car an hour before its planned destruction. A second terrorist mailed a letter bomb, but neglected to put enough postage on it. When the letter was returned, he opened it and....
Sometimes our tour groups visit these fellowships. In any case, we have all sorts of varied experiences. For our Fall Tour, we are offering something special in addition to our usual tours. The Ultra Grand Tour gives you the opportunity to take a luxurious cruise of the Greek islands, then tour Israel, and then visit Petra. You will follow Paul's path through the Mediterranean, seeing Mykonos, Patmos (where John wrote Revelation), and Rhodes, Athens (with its incredible Parthenon and Acropolis), Mars Hill, Corinth, and Ephesus, Turkey. You will join the Deluxe Tour in Israel, seeing all the major Biblical sites such as the Sea of Galilee, the Mt. of Beatitudes, the Jordan River (where you can be baptized just as our Lord was), Mt. Carmel, Megiddo, Nazareth, the Western Wall, the Mt. of Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Upper Room, the Garden Tomb, Masada, and the Dead Sea. You will tour the beautiful Golan Heights and explore the Old City of Jerusalem, see the original Dead Sea Scrolls, and tour the Holocaust Museum. You can float in the Dead Sea, shop the stalls and marketplaces of Israel, and eat hearty Israeli meals. See the lush fields in the midst of barren desert, and know that God's promises have been fulfilled. After your tour of Israel, you will continue on to the lovely resort city of Eilat, from where you will travel to the "rose-red city half as old as time," Petra, carved out of the rocky mountains of Jordan. If you choose, you can take the Athens Grand Tour, which excludes Petra/Eilat, or the Petra Grand Tour, which excludes the cruise, or simply choose the Deluxe Tour of Israel. Call Diana or Becky at 214-696-9760 for more information or to make your reservations, or you can call 1-800-WONDERS for a full-color brochure. I hope you can join us. Any of these choices will give you the experience of a lifetime. And remember to pray for the peace of Jerusalem!
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Thomas McCall |
In the previous articles, we have considered the meaning of the term Armageddon, why Satan and the Antichrist perpetrate this horrendous final war, and the fact that it involves not only the Valley of Megiddo, but at least five other locations, or theaters, around the Middle East. The first two theaters are Syria and Egypt. The kings of these two countries revolt against the universal power of the Antichrist. Daniel 11 does not state precisely where the armies of Syria and Egypt first clash with the army of the Antichrist, but it is clear that the army of the Antichrist prevails against them, and "will enter countries, overflow them, and pass through" (Daniel 11:40b).
As we explained earlier, in the process of this conflict with Syria and Egypt (and perhaps other unnamed countries), the Antichrist will dominate the country of Israel (the beautiful Land), and will replenish his war chest by raiding Egypt, Libya and Ethiopia (Daniel 11:43). Three areas that will escape the Antichrist's wrath at this point are Edom, Moab and Ammon, which constitute the present nation of the Kingdom of Jordan. It is not explained why this area is left alone, but it may well be because these people are not revolting against the world dictator at that time, and it may well be that it is the general location of the refuge of a large segment of the Jewish people during the Time of Jacob's Trouble.
When prophetic teachers write about Armageddon, they often overlook a couple of passages in Isaiah that obviously describe the Second Coming of Christ and His work of defeating the enemies of the Lord in battle. The remarkable thing is that the scene of the warfare is not at Megiddo or even in the Land of Israel, but is across the Jordan in Edom:
Isa. 34:6
The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, It is sated with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, With the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah, And a great slaughter in the land of Edom.Isa. 63:1
Who is this who comes from Edom, With garments of glowing colors from Bozrah, This One who is majestic in His apparel, Marching in the greatness of His strength? It is I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.2 Why is Your apparel red, And Your garments like the one who treads in the wine press?
3 I have trodden the wine trough alone, And from the peoples there was no man with Me. I also trod them in My anger, And trampled them in My wrath; And their lifeblood is sprinkled on My garments, And I stained all My raiment.
4 For the day of vengeance was in My heart, And My year of redemption has come.
5 And I looked, and there was no one to help, And I was astonished and there was no one to uphold; So My own arm brought salvation to Me; And My wrath upheld Me.
In both passages, the Messiah is seen leading a march from Edom toward Israel, with the saved of Israel at His train. He is not going into battle, but rather coming from a tremendous battle with the enemy of the Lord and His people. In His first coming, the Messiah was stained with His own blood when He died for our sins, but here He is described in His second coming, where His garments are spattered with the blood of His enemies. Here He is the wrathful Messiah, taking vengeance upon those who have rejected the Gospel and persecuted the Jewish people.
Christ at this point is seen as having accomplished redemption and salvation in a military sense, rescuing the people of Israel from dire straits in Edom, of all places. Apparently, Isaiah sees the Lord as He makes His way to Israel, with His rescued people, after He has vanquished the foe there. This must have a connection with Armageddon, because it is a battle that occurs in connection with Christ's second coming.
The passage does not specifically say, but the inference is that large segments of Israel have found themselves at the end of the Tribulation in Edom, and the Messiah Himself has taken the battle to Edom, where he has slaughtered the enemy army and rescued the Israelites from that long-hostile nation. It is a vision of victory and redemption for the Chosen Nation and the Messiah in the end times.
In our last Armageddon article, we saw that Rev. 12:14 prophesied that the woman of the vision (who gives birth to the ruling man-child) will flee into the desert to "her place" for refuge for the latter half of the Tribulation. It is not clear where the place is that is prepared for Israel in the wilderness, but Petra certainly would be a candidate. As Walvoord and Zuck explain in their commentary, Petra certainly meets the qualifications:
This hiding place was not clearly identified. Some suggest that it might be Petra, fortress capital of the Nabateans in Edom, south of the Dead Sea. This city has a narrow access which could easily be blocked but which opens up into a large canyon capable of caring for many thousands of people.
One of the first to recognize Petra as a possible place for fulfillment of this prophecy was W. E. Blackstone, who wrote Jesus Is Coming at the beginning of the last century. He believed it so strongly that he reported that he had hidden thousands of copies of the New Testament in Hebrew in Petra to be used by the Jewish refugees in the Tribulation. Others have agreed with this view, including Dr. Joseph Hoffman Cohn, founder of the missionary organization now called the Chosen People Ministries, and Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum, author of Israelology.
At any rate, when the Lord returns, He will make His way to Edom, defeat the enemies of Israel there, rescue the Jewish refugees and bring them victoriously to Israel as He establishes His Millennial Kingdom on earth.
Assuming the above scenario is part of the conflict of Armageddon, where will the Lord go first, to Jerusalem or Edom? It is not specifically spelled out, but I believe that the Lord will return first to Jerusalem, at the Mount of Olives. Afterwards, He will turn His attention to Edom, going there to defeat His enemies and rescue the Jews who have fled there, and restore them back to Jerusalem and the Promised Land of Israel.
In our next article, we will endeavor to look into the remaining theaters of the multiple battles of Armageddon, Megiddo, the Valley of Jehosephat and Jerusalem.
[Click here for Part 5]
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Copyright © 2000 by Zola Levitt Ministries, Inc., a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. All rights reserved. Brief passages may be quoted in reviews or other article. For all other use, please get our written approval.
Some questions you have been asked, "To what school do I send my child
if he or she wants a Christian-based education?" and "How can I tell if
the school is shifting away from strong and solid Biblical instruction?"
Unfortunately, these are tough questions because neither the teachers'
pedigrees nor the doctrinal statement of the institution will indicate a
major change in instruction and belief. There is underway a very subtle
and diabolical degrading of truth that certainly won't show up in any
publicized material.
And, finally, I learned that there are about 70 Messianic
congregations in Israel, and I think that's very heartening in so
small a nation. When you think of it, the population is not much more
than the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, and we don't have 70 Messianic
congregations down here, I can tell you! Despite the best efforts of the
seminaries, the media, and the government, Israel is still a topic of
excitement among Christian people—especially in Israel!
