DISPENSATIONALISM, SOULWINNING AND THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

Acts 1: 7 - 8

"The voice of unbelief says, 'Yes, I'm a believer. I believe the Bible. I don't like those modernists, liberals and modern scientists who deny the Bible. I would not do that for the world. I believe in God, and I believe that God will bless.' That is, He will bless at some other time, in some other place and some other people. Those are three sleepers that bring the work of God to a halt. We are believers and we can quote the creed with approval. We believe it, but we believe that God will bless some other people, some other place, some other time but not now, not here and not us....

If we allow the gloomy voice of unbelief to whisper to us that God will bless some other time but not now, some other place but not here, some other people but not us, we might as well turn off the lights because nobody will get anywhere....

The average evangelical church lies under a shadow of quiet doubting. The doubt is not the unbelief that argues against Scripture, but worse than that. It is the chronic unbelief that does not know what faith means."

- A. W. Tozer

"The church is afflicted by dry rot. This is best explained when the psychology of nonexpectation takes over and spiritual rigidity sets in, which is an inability to visualize anything better, a lack of desire for improvement.

There are many who respond by arguing, 'I know lots of evangelical churches that would like to grow, and they do their best to get the crowds in. They want to grow and have contests to make their Sunday school larger.' That is true, but they are trying to get people to come and share their rut. They want people to help them celebrate the rote and finally join in the rot. Because the Holy Spirit is not given a chance to work in our services, nobody is repenting, nobody is seeking God, nobody is spending a day in quiet waiting on God with open Bible seeking to

mend his or her ways. Nobody is doing it we just want more people. But more people for what? More people to come and repeat our dead services without feeling, without meaning, without wonder, without surprise? More people to join us in the bondage to the rote? For the most part, spiritual rigidity that cannot bend is too weak to know just how weak it is." - A. W. Tozer

"Does our doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and His work, leave any room for revival either in the individual or in the church; or is it a doctrine which says that we have all received everything we can have of the Spirit at regeneration, and all we need is to surrender to what we have already?" - David Martyn Lloyd-Jones

"Is not the greatest sin among Evangelical people today that of 'quenching the Spirit'? Do we regard the exhortation of the Apostle in I Thessalonians 5: 19, as being applicable only to the church in the time of the Apostles? Do we recognise that this is our greatest sin, or do we pacify our hearts and our consciences, by saying that that applied only to the early church and the Apostolic Era?" - David Martyn Lloyd-Jones

INTRODUCTION

he greatest argument against Dispensationalism is the rotting testimony of the Dispensationalist churches. If no other arguments could be found - and indeed there are many - for Biblebelieving Christians to avoid Dispensationalism like the plague, to flee from it and to shun it utterly and completely, the godless and powerless state, that is, the total impotence and raw carnality of Dispensationalist churches alone would serve as sufficient warning against embracing this poisonous doctrinal leaven. Let the Believer beware. We see them all around us, these dying fishes out of water, floundering and thrashing about endlessly without ever accomplishing anything. Indeed, if we can credit them for little else, we must acknowledge

at least this much: they stay busy. I don't mean by that that they stay busy in terms of anything of real substance. The historic prayer meeting is generally obsolete among them, the outdated relic of an antiquarian period before Mr. Scofield and the Dallas Theological Seminary scholars instructed the Church about the misguided error of praying for Holy Spirit power. The Lord's Day (Revelation 1: 10) is not honored among them either, nor are church services seen as times for sober and reverent (Hebrews 12: 28 - 29) worship. But they stay busy in terms of the true fundamentals of their faith: games, gimmicks, go-carts and golf outings.

Now all of this results from their Dispensationalism. It is the natural product of Dispensational theology. And that is because Dispensationalism inevitably suffers from a wrong view of the Holy Spirit.

We recognize this in two extremes, Baptist, Bible and non-denominational Dispensationalism on the one hand, and Charismatic Dispensationalism on the other hand. Both of these groups have a wrong view of the Holy Spirit.

There is a third group, among the ranks of Baptists. These Dispensationalists are the exception to the rule, but they are nearly all off the scene by now. They are represented by the late, great Dr. John R. Rice, and in an inferior sense by Dr. Jack Hyles.

It is important to distinguish this third group, because their Dispensationalism differs from that of the first two groups. By that I mean that they are simply not thoroughgoing Dispensationalists. They carry the name, but ultimately, their theology differs from real, thoroughgoing Dispensationalism, because they embrace it on a mere nominal level. Many of these men are men that simply sat through a class on Dispensationalism in Bible College or Seminary, memorized the answers for their tests and - God be thanked - never followed the doctrine out to its logical conclusions, and, consequently retain a more historic Baptist position and one that is, in many respects, very non-Dispensational, even though they bear the name of Dispensationalists. Dr. Rice had the insight to steer clear of many of the pitfalls that a thoroughgoing Dispensationalism results in and denounced many of them in his books. Indeed, one of the great blessings of reading Dr. Rice's book, Prayer: Asking and Receiving is noticing how many times he honestly, openly and directly refutes Dispensational error and calls it exactly what it is: unbelief. We may well say that one reason that Dr. Rice was such a great man was that he was such a bad Dispensationalist.

Dr. Jack Hyles is a similar example. Without entering into the debate that surrounds Dr. Hyles' whole personality, let us simply note that his view of the Holy Spirit was essentially non-Dispensationalist in

character. His book Meet the Holy Spirit is sufficient evidence for that, as it represents a pneumatology that runs entirely contrary to the ideas advanced by the Dallas Theological Seminary scholars, and draws heavily from the testimonies and perspectives of Covenant Theologians of the George Whitefield variety. Remember that true, thoroughgoing Dispensationalists who are thoroughly immersed in true Dispensationalist theology reject the testimonies of men such as George Whitefield, Savonarola, D. L. Moody and others who testified to experiencing a unique anointing of God's Holy Spirit and downplay such testimonies as enthusiasm and extremism and error. They say that all of the power came on the day of Pentecost and that it is actually wrong to pray for the great experiences that Covenant Theologians such as Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield and others testified of. But Dr. Hyles not only claimed to have studied the experiences of such men and to have earnestly pursued and actually shared a similar experience, but he also encouraged men reading his book to pray for such experiences. Moreover, he went to great lengths to challenge believers throughout the country to seek after what he referred to as "fresh oil" or fresh anointings of God's Holy Spirit. A true, thoroughgoing Dispensationalist genuinely immersed in Dispensational theology would have never done this because his theology actually forbids it.

And this is obvious when reading the works of true, thoroughgoing Dispensationalists such as J. Dwight Pentecost or Charles Ryrie. Their view of the Holy Spirit is the merest husk of dried-up intellectualism that can be imagined. They promote this utterly academic view of the Holy Ghost, stripping pneumatology of all the great monuments to Holy Spirit power that the centuries since Christ have witnessed and saying that these wonderful testimonies are simply misguided and unbiblical, mere enthusiasm, mere fanaticism, that these men never really had any unique anointing at all, that the Holy Spirit doesn't do these things, that all the power came one time on the day of Pentecost and never again since, and so it is actually wrong to pray for Holy Spirit power the way that the old Puritans and Reformation saints and Medieval saints did. Not only that, but they advocate the idea that the power of the Holy Spirit will be either less available or less effective in what they identify as "the last days", wresting the Scriptures to teach their damnable view that the "Church Age" ends in failure. And that is (among other things) what makes their theology so wicked, such an utter abomination. And that is why Dispensationalist churches are so utterly powerless and floundering about trying to win souls with games, gimmicks, go-carts and golf outings. They have no power.

Then of course you have the other extreme of this. If you have ever known any Charismatics or have had any interactions with them, you probably know that the Charismatics are just as deeply immersed in Dispensational theology as many Baptist churches are, if not more so. Now these Charismatics still have a wrong view of the Holy Ghost, but one quite dissimilar to the view of Pentecost or Ryrie or Walvoord and the Dallas Theological Seminary scholars. Their view of the Holy Ghost in fact is diametrically opposed to that view, and centers around pure sensationalism, enthusiasm, fanaticism and all sorts of unbiblical extremes and errors that we all know too well.

I. DIVINE POWER
The problem of both extremes is that they both miss the great need of the everyday soulwinner: the need to earnestly seek God's face for the anointing power necessary to do the work of God in reaching the lost. The Dallas Theological Seminary perspective ignores this need, and actually denies it and says that the soulwinner already has the Holy Spirit if he is saved, and so consequently he automatically has all of the power that he needs if there are no outstanding sins to his account. It simply assumes that if the soulwinner is truly saved and all of his or her sins are confessed, than he or she automatically has this power and consequently should not pray for anything above and beyond what God gave to all believers at salvation.

The Charismatic view of the Holy Spirit ignores this need as well. However, it ignores this view because it places all of the emphases upon the sensationalistic euphoria of speaking in tongues or holy laughter or barking or vomiting or stripping or whatever else they are up to these days. Again, the missing note is the need of the soulwinner to earnestly seek God's face for power to reach the unconverted for the cause of Christ's kingdom. In both cases, the result is prayerlessness and powerlessness, the presumption that no extraordinary efforts in prayer need be made by the soulwinner to obtain power with God to reach the lost with the Gospel message of salvation.

Now the historic Christian view and the Biblical view that has prevailed throughout the centuries among Covenant Theologians is the view that earnest prayer and heart-searching and self-humbling before the Lord and even fasting ought to be engaged in an extraordinary measure in order that the soulwinner may obtain the power necessary for the work of the ministry. This is of course unpopular today in our age of total self-indulgence, but it is the historic Christian view, and we find among the Puritans, Reformation saints and Medieval saints numerous testimonies to the necessity and effectiveness of this pursuit. We need only consider Jonathan Edwards' season of earnest fasting and prayer before preaching Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, John Tauler's self-searching and self-humbling before God before his supernatural preaching ministry, or Savonarola's refusal to preach apart from the assurance of God's supernatural power for service to confirm this.

And this is the pattern set forth in Scripture. The Apostle Paul and Barnabas were united with the prophets and teachers of the church at Antioch in fasting and prayer prior to the call of God that initiated Paul's supernatural preaching ministry (Acts 13: 1 - 2). The Apostle Peter and the rest of the church had tarried in prayer for days before the Holy Ghost descended upon them in mighty power, resulting in the conversion of three thousand souls (Acts 1: 5 - 14). John the Baptist spent decades apart and alone with the Lord in the wilderness prior to the initiation of his preaching ministry (Luke 1: 80). And of course, our blessed Lord, who of all men didn't have to, spent forty days in the wilderness in

fasting and praying before engaging in the supernatural preaching ministry that shook all the region about Galilee through the mighty power of the Holy Spirit (Luke 4: 1 - 14).

II. DISPENSATIONALIST PESSIMISM

But now we are simply told to dismiss all of that, to disregard it. It is not necessary, they say. The Holy Spirit descended one time on the day of Pentecost, and there is no further need to pray for his power today. "Get yourself a good marketing strategy" it is said. "Host these activities, these games and so forth. That is how you win souls." And of course there is absolutely no Scriptural foundation for any of this. There is no Biblical precedent for it. It is merely asserted by the Dispensationalist textbooks written by the Dispensationalist scholars. The traditions of men are appealed to, and the Bible accounts and Church history are dismissed at once without a second thought. And of course, this is ultimately because of unbelief. The Dispensationalist scholars have decided for us all that now, now we are really in the last days and of course the Church Age will end in failure. So great revival is now impossible. Great harvests of souls are now impossible. "The times are so bad", they lament. "Evil seducers have waxed worse and worse. Strong delusion hangs over our head. We cannot hope for a great revival. We cannot hope to glean great harvests of souls. It is too late in the grand scheme of things to claim God's promises of victory. Bygone generations saw mighty revivals and multitudes of conversions, but alas, we cannot expect those things now. We must simply hold the line and hope for the Rapture". And they talk about the fig tree budding in 1948 and other worthless rubbish that has no Scriptural foundation to confirm the validity of their unbelief, their denial of Scriptural promises.

III. DISPENSATIONALIST PRESUMPTION

Now what is this, but presumption? These Dispensationalists are presuming to know what Christ himself said that he had no knowledge of (Matthew 24: 36). Worse than that, they are setting dates, claiming to know the times and the seasons of Christ's return. And of course our Saviour prohibited this. He told his disciples before his Ascension "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power" (Acts 1: 7). "It is none of your business", he told them in effect. "Your business is not to become these great prophecy experts. Your business is to witness to the lost. Your business is to carry the Gospel unto the uttermost parts of the earth. And so you must tarry at Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high (Luke 24: 49; Acts 1: 8).

My Dispensationalist friend, you do not know when the Lord Jesus Christ will return! You argue that he may return before you finish reading this. But that is not the point. The point is that you are presuming to know something that you do not know, to possess knowledge which God the Father in his Sovereignty and wisdom has reserved exclusively unto himself, and that you are doing this without authority, without Scriptural warrant, based upon bare speculation about world events. The point is that for all you know, he may not return for another four hundred years! You do not know, no matter what you think! You are presuming upon God. You are seeking to peer into the secret things which belong to him alone (Deuteronomy 29: 29). You are presuming to put your hand upon the Holy Ark, when you have no business doing so. And God has smitten your churches for your presumption.

You say, "Well, what about Israel in the Middle East? What about these Middle East Peace Talks? What about the Gaza Strip? What about the Temple mound?"

What about them? God is Sovereign. God can do anything he wants. He can turn all of that completely upside down in the blink of an eye. He may reverse everything that has happened there since 1948 and upset the entire order of the world as we know it. He may allow a Second Dark Age. He may bring us all back to the most primitive conditions imaginable and allow everything to start up all over again from there, just to perform his purpose in saving souls. Who are you to say what God will or will not do, or when everything will happen? Who are you to say that it's too late to have revival or to see great multitudes gathered into Christ's kingdom? You don't know, and your entire position is one of presumption. You are presuming upon God.

IV. DISPENSATIONALIST PRIDE

This is pride. This is man seeking to climb up into God's throne and peer into the secret things that belong exclusively to God (Deuteronomy 29: 29). This is the whole attitude of Satan who said

"I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High." (Isaiah 14: 13 - 14) But my friend, "pride goeth before destruction" (Proverbs 16: 18). And your churches are being destroyed. Your nation is being destroyed. Your families are being destroyed.

Look at yourselves. You have everything all figured out. You are experts about the Middle East. You know all about the Gaza Strip and the Temple Mound, and so on. You can identify every one of the ten toes of Daniel. But you do not even know how to reach your own rebellious teenagers, to stop your own children from leaving the church and turning their backs on God. You are completely and utterly powerless.

Look down the street, my friend. Look at that tavern. Look at all of those young people boozing it up. How have you helped them with all of your Dispensationalist nonsense? Look at that Adult Store opening across the street from your church. How has your Dispensationalism prevented that? Look at that pornography theater being built in your neighborhood. What has your Dispensationalism done to intervene? Look at that Casino operating there on the river front. What has your Dispensationalism done to oppose it? Look at that abortion clinic there, murdering babies. What has your Dispensationalism done to defend them? Look at that Gay Pride Rally marching down your street. What has your Dispensationalism done to protest it? Look at that little girl over there, suffering from abuse. What has your Dispensationalism done for her? Look at that family over there, falling apart. Look at that marriage headed for the rocks, headed for divorce. What has your Dispensationalism done to save it? Look at that man contemplating suicide because he can't get a job in these hard times and he can't collect unemployment and the debt collectors are after him and he doesn't know what to do or where to turn for help. What hope has your Dispensationalism offered him? Look at that woman suffering in the hospital with broken health, facing death. What has your Dispensationalism done to reach her? You know, the Church was doing all of these things with great success under the ministries of men like Billy Sunday and Mordecai Ham up until the Scofield Reference Bible and Dallas Theological Seminary persuaded us that we no longer needed to seek the Holy Spirit and his power in earnest, fervent prayer. But since that time, it's been nothing but games, gimmicks, go-carts and golf outings, the Church fiddling while our nation burns.

CONCLUSION
As I said, the greatest argument against Dispensationalism is the rotting testimony of the Dispensationalist churches. Their families go to Hell while they speculate about the Temple Mound. Their society collapses all around them while they worry about the Middle East Peace Talks. The efforts made in their communities to reach the lost have turned the church into Chuck E. Cheese. They have no influence worth mentioning, except what they can generate with the marketing strategies that they borrowed from unregenerate lost men on Wall Street. Prayer Meetings are a foreign concept to them. Fasting is obsolete. Power is gone.

You may not agree with all of this. You may not agree with any of it. But that's okay. We can still be friends. Here. Just to show you my good will, I've got something for you. It's my copy of 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988. You can keep it.