Originally published in "The Lord's Coming Herald & Wesleyan Bible Prophecy Advocate," Summer Edition 2003
What's Gone Wrong With The Harvest?
One of the biggest problems we face in the
modern Wesleyan Holiness movement, we believe, is a total lack of understanding
the New Testament message of "the gospel of the kingdom." This is due, in large
part, to the prevalence of the dispensational premillennial theory widely held
among us, which teaches us that Christ's messianic kingdom was "postponed" at
the end of Daniel's prophecy of the 69 weeks, and now awaits the return of
Christ to "set it up" in an expected post-second coming Jewish millennial era.
The Darbyite theory of the postponed messianic kingdom, with
its resultant artificially-created dichotomy between the church and the kingdom,
however, demolishes the very ideological formulation of the Christian faith, for
the realization of Christ's messianic kingdom within the Christian system, as
John Wesley rightly believed and taught, is the very essence of what New
Testament Christianity is all about.
It cannot be said too frankly, friends, that those whose
concept of reality is molded by the dispensational belief in some parenthetical
church age completely distinct from Christ's messianic kingdom are living in
ideological bankruptcy, and can never adequately comprehend biblical
Christianity. Unbeknown to them, what they in their Darbyism are really clinging
to, as Wesleyan theologian Daniel Steele so well pointed out over one-hundred
years ago, is "a substitute for holiness, or antinomianism revived."
While this might be a new and disturbing thought to some of
you who have never been exposed to, or dealt with, this deeper truth-claim
reality issue, you must remember that we are not the first to say it: Daniel
Steele did. In fact, he believed it so strongly that he wrote an entire book of
over 400 pages soundly condemning J. N. Darby's fledging dispensational
premillennial theory as doctrinal heresy, that, should it be accepted in the
Wesleyan holiness rank, over time, would bring the movement to its knees in
galling Bible-standards-of-holiness-forsaking worldly antinomian apostasy.
Understanding what we have just said above, dear friends,
goes a very long way toward answering the questions so many of the most
concerned among us have about what's gone wrong with the harvest. Why such
conditions of spiritual dearth in the church-world today? When Jesus promised
his followers fullness, why are half of us running on spiritual empty half the
time? Why aren't we having genuine revival that produces real righteousness in
society anymore? Why has the Holy Spirit seemed to have lifted and there is no
"conviction" on our altar services? Why are so many of us losing our kids? Why
aren't we preserving the standards of Bible holiness is most churches? Why all
the conflict, confusion, pessimism, negativity, declension, and decline?
It's a simple cause and effect paradigm, it really is: in our
Darbyism, in our dispensational premillennial theology--the Blackstone's Jesus Is Coming/ Larkin's Dispensational Truths syndrome
that we old guards all studied once upon a time in Bible school somewhere--in
our Darbyism, I repeat, the treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously and we
are very lean--majorily deceived about Christ's coming and his kingdom, and on
the ideological skids to antinomianism, if not already there in the quagmire of
the Bible-standards-forsaking conundrum of practical worldliness that we now see
on every hand.
We realize that many will not buy our alleged sowing and
reaping paradigm of the modern Wesleyan Holiness movement's ideological
bankruptcy in dispensational premillennialism, simply because of the fact that
some of the great men and women of our movement in the not-so-distant past were
the very ones who had taught us this heresy, in our Bible college classrooms,
and from our evangelistic pulpits. How, then, is it possible to expect us to
accept the fact that these godly men and women, whom we have so much confidence
in, and rightly hold in such high esteem, could ever have gotten it so wrong?
A less confrontational question is: who were they
listening to, and, did they really understand what it was that they were then so
readily swallowing?
Friends, we have all been adequately warned that false
teachers would come in the latter days (II Peter 2:Iff; Titus 2:14; II Timothy
4:3-4); we all know that the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of Truth, cannot, and
does not, bear witness to doctrinal error (John 16:13 -15); and, we all know
that the Scripture indeed does tell us, after all, to "prove all things" (I
Thessalonians 5:21).
So then, it is not God's fault, your fault, or my fault, dear
friends, that some of the great men and women of our movement in the past did
not "prove" the dispensational premillennial theory sufficiently enough to
distinguish truth from error!
The fact remains, however, that others did prove it, and they
rejected Darbyism on the grounds that it could not be made to square, either
with Wesleyan Arminian theology, or with the Holy Bible.
Related Article Links
Darybism's Distortion Of The Kingdom Concept
Where Are We Headed?