Christian Zionism - New Life Tabernacle of Chattanooga

here and in fifty years they will become extinct, merged into another,
but bring a Jew here, and in fifty years, a hundred years, or a thousand
years, he is still a Jew. When I meet a Jew I can’t help having a
profound respect for them, for they are God’s people.’ 389
Moody clearly did not believe this promise had been fulfilled in the Church.
For Moody the Jews remained God’s chosen people. In the same sermon, he
gave evidence of his dispensational conviction, that the Jews will be
converted at the return of Christ and a separate people apart from the
Church. ‘I have an idea that they are a nation that are to be born in a day, and
when they are converted and brought back to Christ, what a mighty power
they will be in the land, what missionaries to carry the glad tidings around the
world.’ 390 Moody did, however, distance himself from those who speculated
that specific signs had to be fulfilled before Christ’s return. On one occasion
he preached, ‘Now there is no place in the Scripture where we are told to
watch for signs – the rebuilding of Babylon, or the returning of the Jews to
Jerusalem; but all through Scripture we are told what to do – just to watch for
Him; just to be waiting for our Lord’s return from Heaven.’ 391 Moody also
taught a love for the Jewish people. ‘If we love the seed of Abraham … we
shall joyfully welcome the hope of Christ’s coming’, and remained convinced
God had not broken or superseded his covenant with Abraham or Moses. 392
Moody’s name is particularly associated with the popular Northfield
Conferences which he founded in 1880. 393 Sandeen observes that none of
Moody’s biographers have noted how at these conferences dispensational
speakers dominated the platform especially in the 1880s and 1890s. 394
389 D. L. Moody, To All People: Comprising Sermons, Bible Readings, Temperence
Addresses, and Prayer-Meeting Talks, (Boston, The Globe Publishing Company, 1877),
p354, cited in Rausch, op.cit., p155.
390 Ibid. In another talk given at the Northfield Bible Conference, Moody was more
emphatic, ‘When Christ returns … they will reply “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of
the Lord”, and the Jews will then be that nation that shall be born in a day.’ Northfield
Echoes III (1896), p281, cited in Rausch. p157.
391 Moody, op.cit., p508, cited in Rausch, op.cit., p155.
392 D.L. Moody, The Home Work of D.L. Moody: The School for Young Men, the College
for Young Ladies, the Summer School for Bible Teaching, together with Mr. Moody’s
Pointed, Practical and Helpful Talks (New York, Fleming H. Revell, 1886), p67; cited in
Rausch, op.cit., p158.
393 Gerstner, op.cit., p45.
394 Ernest R. Sandeen, ‘Towards a Historical Interpretation of the Origins of
Fundamentalism’, Church History 36 (1967), p76.
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