Ephesians chapter number one. Two weeks ago I told you we would be continuing this week our study on the idea of rightly dividing the Word of God. We've looked at a couple ideas so far in that series and this is going to be kind of an ongoing one. We'll have breaks here and there. We did last week with Pastor Starr. here teaching us on the idea of the preeminence of Christ. And over the month of March, we'll have our missionaries in that will share different things with us and we'll return to this series. So this one's gonna last a while, but really just getting us deeper into our understanding of the word of God and what God has for us there. The picture of rightly dividing comes from 2 Timothy chapter two. where Paul tells Timothy that he needs to rightly divide the word. And the illustration is the idea of cutting something straight. And we'll keep referencing that illustration because as Paul was a tent maker, he understood the importance of measuring things and marking them properly and cutting them straight. If you make the wrong cuts, you're not going to end up with the right product at the end. The sides aren't going to come out evenly. Things are going to leak if it comes to the tent. Things just aren't going to match up right if you don't cut things straight. And it comes to the Word of God, when we start making wrong divisions or wrong applications, we can easily come up with the wrong doctrine. And that's why somebody was asking me just a couple weeks ago, Why are there so many different types of Christian churches? Well, they've all got a mix of what man thinks about the Bible mixed up with what God says about it. And as Baptists, we try to go right with what God said, so we need to understand the Bible properly to do that. So, so far in this series, we've talked about kind of just the idea overall of rightly dividing the Word, and then we went into the division between the Old Testament and the New Testament, and that kind of brought us into the next study, which was of the five covenants. We looked at the different covenants that are in the Bible, and that one kind of leads into this next topic, which we're going to discuss the idea of dispensationalism. So dispensationalism is what we'll be covering this week. We'll kind of introduce it today and then next week we'll go in detail into the different dispensations that we can see in the Word of God. Now I taught on this topic of dispensationalism four years ago in January of 2018. So, it's been a little while and in that message I did the same thing I'm doing today is where I'm saying we're going to introduce it at some point in the future is what I said back in 2018. We'll go over what the dispensations are. So, now four years later, we're going to do that. We're going to review that lesson from four years ago. So, if some of this sounds familiar, you have a better memory than I do because we did go over some of this material several years ago. But when it comes to this idea of dispensationalism, it's important for us to understand it if we're going to rightly divide the Word of God. As we study the Bible and the things discussed in it, it's important for us to understand how God interacted with men at that point in history. When reading something from the book of Ezekiel, what was going on? What did God require of men at that time? Who was He addressing? Who was the audience that was there? And what did His audience understand? They didn't have the book. of 1 John when Ezekiel was written. We understand that, but when it comes to us understanding the Word of God, make sure we apply that knowledge. So, in Ephesians chapter 1, verse number 10, we kind of see this idea of a dispensation referenced in this verse. It says in verse number 10, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in the earth, even in him. Let's open with a word of prayer. Lord, we love you. And we thank you for your word. I pray that we would be able to take this material and it would be something that I can explain clearly and that we can understand and grasp and be better students of your word as a result of the material that we cover today. Father, we ask that you bless this time around your word. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen. So we're going to jump right in and just start talking about what is dispensationalism. So if you are a member here at Hunt Valley Baptist Church, you have made the claim that you are a dispensationalist because when you joined the church, you said you were in agreement with our doctrinal statement. And part of our doctrinal statement is that we believe in the idea of dispensations. And so if you've agreed to that, you've acknowledged that, maybe not even knowing what that is. I was talking to some of the teens yesterday and said, we're going to learn tomorrow about dispensationalism. So you'll be able to sound smart. when you're home with your family or at school and you can tell people, I'm a dispensationalist and they won't know what you're talking about. So what is this idea of dispensationalism? Well, we look at where it comes from. The idea of dispensationalism comes from a literal interpretation of scripture. Those who do not believe in dispensations understand the Bible allegorically. There was a pastor by the name of David Larson who said, every believer who does not offer animal sacrifices is, in a sense, a dispensationalist. Charles Spurgeon defined a dispensation as a period of time during which man is tested in respect to his obedience to some specific revelation of God's will. So when we look at the Bible, there's different ways to understand it. There is a literal interpretation. meaning I see what God says and I believe it just like it's written. When I read the story of Jonah and the whale, I believe that a man named Jonah was literally swallowed by a whale and was in the belly of the whale and repented to God and the whale vomited him out on shore and he went and preached because God, he learned his lesson. When I read about the story of Jonah and I'm sorry, not Jonah, I just said Jonah. When I read about the story of Noah, and I read that God commanded him to build an ark, and to take two of every kind of animal, I believe that a man named Noah literally built an ark, and that a flood literally covered the world. And when the Bible says that in six days God created all things that were created, I believe that in six days God created all things that were created. Literal interpretation of the scripture. What God said, God meant, if God said something did happen, if God said something is happening, or if God said something will happen, it'll happen just the way that God said. If God has it in the Bible, That is true. That is a literal interpretation of the Word of God. Now this idea of the little interpretation of the word of God does not negate the use of similes, hyperbole, or poetic language. If you're following the devotional reading plan that we passed out at the beginning of the year, yesterday we read Psalm 19. And in Psalm 19, there's a reference to the words of creation testifying to the glory of God are a tabernacle or a tent where the sun dwells at night. And so that is obviously, there's not a tent where the sun goes and hangs out in the evening. That's a poetic language, and we're understanding what God's saying there. So, just the literal interpretation doesn't change this fact that there are similes, there are hyperbole, there are poetic languages of the Word of God. We understand those things in their proper context. The other way that people interpret the Word of God is allegorically. Now, in an allegorical interpretation, this takes the truths of the Bible and spiritualizes them, or makes everything symbols. Noah didn't really go into a whale. That's just talking about a time of deep depression that Noah... Jonah. I said Noah again. These names are too similar. All right, so Jonah, he went down into the belly of the well. That was just a time of deep depression. And when God says that he's going to come rule and reign on earth for a thousand years, that's not really a thousand years, or he's not really going to reign in Jerusalem. Or when the Old Testament talks about Mount Zion and the city of Jerusalem, it's really talking about the church. They make all these different applications and symbols in the Word of God, and it's interpreted symbolically. When you follow this method of interpretation, there's no limit to what somebody can make a passage mean. If I can just say, well, this represents this, what's to say somebody else can't take the same verse and say, no, this represents that? There is no limits to what we can make the Bible mean if we're gonna interpret it allegorically. An allegorical interpretation gives rise to many false doctrines, including covenant theology, which we discussed a few weeks ago. Covenant theology kind of stands in opposition to this idea of dispensationalism. So this word dispensationalism, it comes, you got your root word there, is dispense. The word dispense means to give something out, like a candy dispenser or the Pez, Pez dispensers. You pull the head back and it shoots a piece of candy out. To give something out, that's the idea of dispense. Dispensationalism deals with what God has given out to man over the course of time. God did not give all the truth found in the Word of God in Genesis chapter 1 in the garden. Obviously, it was written over a period of time. So, Adam didn't know everything that's in the book of Revelation because it hadn't been written yet. So, over time, God gave out more truth, more revelation. It's also called progressive revelation that God gave out more truth to man throughout history. And man was responsible for the truth that God gave to them. This is kind of the idea that at different times in history, God gave out different, not different from one another, but more truth and man was more responsible for the truth that God gave. There are times when God revealed more of his will and man became responsible for that new revelation. The New Truth did not negate the Old Truth, it simply added to it, just like we talked about with the Old Testament and the New Testament. It didn't do away with the Old Testament, the truth is still there, it's still valid. It adds to it, it gives us a fuller understanding of it as the New Revelation. These points of new revelation and new responsibility are what we are calling dispensations. Now, as we go through this study and we look at the different dispensations, especially next week as we go into detail of what they are, I'm going to try not to define them as clear-cut blocks of time because they're not. Each dispensation does have a clear starting point when God gave that revelation, but there's a lot of overlap between the different dispensations They overlap. Portions of each have some way continued on throughout time. Each has a time they're predominant, but there's not always a clear cutoff or ending point with the different dispensations. So understand that as we go on. When it comes to our church constitution, I referenced that already. It has this to say about dispensationalism. We believe that the scriptures, interpreted in their natural, literal sense, reveal divinely determined dispensations or rules of life which define man's responsibilities in successive ages. These dispensations are not ways of salvation, but rather are divinely ordered stewardships by which God directs man according to his purpose. Three of these dispensations, the law, the church, and the kingdom, are the subjects of detailed revelation in scripture. So, when looking at what dispensationalism is, I'm just kind of going to break all that down and give you what my simple definition of dispensations is. Dispensationalism is the idea that God has interacted with man differently at different times in history in order to accomplish His will. The way that God related to Adam in the garden was different than the way that God related to Moses at Mount Sinai. It was different than the way that God related to a Christian here in the world today, which is different than the way that God will relate to someone during the Millennial Kingdom when He's ruling physically from Jerusalem. There's different ways that God's interacted. God hasn't changed. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. But the way He's interacted with man, the truth that He's given to man has been different throughout history. So, dispensations in the Bible, there are five Bible words that can refer to dispensations. These words are a dispensation, ages, times, seasons, and days. Now, not every occurrence of these words relate to dispensation. the context will give you the clue to what it is. So the first of these words is the word dispensation. It shows up four times in the word of God. Remember we said dispensation means to dispense something out, to give something out. Three of the times this word is used, it's related to a dispensation or something that God gave to the apostle Paul as a ministry. God gave Paul, this is the ministry that I want you to do. That's three of the four times the word dispense or dispensation shows up in the word of God. The fourth time is here in our verse in Ephesians chapter one, verse number 10, where it says that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ. This verse relates to the dispensation or the plan that God has put out for the fullness of times. When this time has comes, what God's plan is, is that he's gonna gather all together in one which are in Christ. So this dispensation refers to this idea of a period of time where God's interacting We also have the word ages. This one's a little more subtle because the Greek word for ages is translated into several other words in English, such as ages, world, course, and forever, as in forever and ever. That's all the same word that carries this idea of age or a period of time. We see this referencing different periods of time in a couple of verses in the Bible. This present age is referred to in Romans chapter 12, verse number two. be not conformed to this world." That word world is this age. Do not be conformed to what's going on right now in this time period. That's the word for the present age. The ages past is referred to in Ephesians 3, 5, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of man, but is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. So there were ages past where this wasn't known. So you have the idea of an age past, we have the idea of an age present, and then there's another verse that refers to an age in the future. Ages to come is referred to in Ephesians 2 verse 7, that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. So this idea of an age shows that there was a time in history, there's a time going on right now, there's time in the future. The word age. Another word in the Bible that references this idea is the idea of the word times. This is seen in our text verse as well, in Ephesians 1 verse 10, in the dispensation of the fullness of times. When the times have been completed, that's the dispensation referred to in Ephesians 1 verse number 10. Another place this is used in the context of dispensationalism is Acts chapter 1 verse 7. And he said, "...of them it is not for you to know the times or the seasons which God has put into his own power." Luke 21 verse 24 is a little clearer reference. It says, "...Jerusalem shall be trotted down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." There's a time period that God's saying, this times of the Gentiles. That's a time period of world history where God's interacting with man. The word day is another Bible word that kind of shows us this idea. It shows up in phrases like the day of the Lord or the day of salvation or the last days, referring to a period of time. A couple of other men that gave us some definitions of dispensationalism. William Graham Scroggie said dispensationalism is the administration of the human race or any part of it at any given time, just as a parent would govern his household in different ways according to varying necessity, yet ever for one good end. So God has at different times dealt with men in different ways according to the necessity of the case, but throughout for one great grand end. The analogy he's giving there is of a home. When your children are infants, you as a parent have a level of instruction that you give to them. You have a level of things that you require of them. You have some things that they are responsible for, all right? And then they move to toddlers, and hopefully you require a little bit more of them, and you give them a little bit more instruction, and you interact with them differently. You don't wrestle with your infant the way you wrestle with your toddler. You interact differently. And then you go to a young child of school age and there's a way that you instruct them and things that you give them and things they're responsible for. And then they become a teenager and you interact with them a little bit differently. So that's kind of his illustration of how God's interacted with humanity throughout time, just different ways according to man's need and levels of responsibility at that time. Paul Nevin said this about dispensationalism, a dispensation is God's distinctive method of governing mankind or a group of men during a period of human history marked by a crucial event, test, failure, and judgment. From the divine standpoint, it is a stewardship, a rule of life, or a responsibility for managing God's affairs in his house. From the historical standpoint, it is a stage in the progress of revelation. And Harry Ironstein said, dispensationalism is an ordered condition of things. There are various economies running throughout the word of God. A dispensation, an economy then, is a particular order or condition of things prevailing in one special age, which does not necessarily prevail in another. Getting this kind of definition, what is a dispensation? It's the idea of there's a period of time where God interacts with man in a certain way and has certain things that he requires of them during that time period. So what are these dispensations? We're going to go much further into this next week to go into detail what these dispensations are, but the first thing we have to answer is, how many dispensations are there. People have divided the Bible into as few as three and as many as 35 dispensations. Most conservatives, however, would break it somewhere between seven and ten, different men. And if somebody lands a little bit differently, I'm not going to have a big problem with it as far as how they divide it. But for our study, we're going to settle on nine dispensations. And again, don't worry about writing all this down, we're gonna go into more detail next week. So the first dispensation or time period where God interacted with man was the dispensation, it's been called the dispensation of innocence, or the Edenic dispensation. This is seen in Genesis chapter one through three, and it's the time period of Adam in the Garden of Eden, how God interacted with him. He'd come and walk with him in the cool of the day. Adam enjoyed perfect fellowship with God. He was clothed in the glory of God. He had not yet sinned. There was a way that God interacted with Adam during that time period. So it lasted from the creation of man until the fall of man. The overall program going on during this dispensation was that in this original arrangement, Adam and Eve are sinless, but not perfect. They enjoy perfect conditions and they are given a perfect innocence. Then from there, we go to what's been titled or called the dispensation of conscience. This would be the antediluvian dispensation, meaning before the flood. That's antediluvian. This is Genesis 4 through 8, and the time period is from the fall of man until the flood. What man is required during this time is that God had given man a basic knowledge of himself, including right and wrong through conscience. We see that in Romans chapter 2, which is testified of by creation from Romans chapter 1 as well as Psalm Man understands who God is, man understands right and wrong, and man's given the opportunity to obey God under the freedom of their conscience. Then the next dispensation we get is the dispensation of human government. This would be the post-Diluvian dispensation, or after the flood. This lasted from Genesis 9 through 11, basically from the flood to the time of the Tower of Babel, but would be one that would continue outside the nation of Israel because the nation of Israel is going to get a little bit more specific in the next dispensation. But this one continued as the people were not able to control themselves by just doing what was right. They had to have some external controls put on them through human government. In this dispensation, God charged Noah with the task of enforcing justice for murder. And it is following this that we begin to read of tribes and of nations and of kings. These governments would enforce the law written in their hearts with conscience, so that God put a human government in place. After the human government, the next dispensation we see in the Word of God, and this is where we're getting specific to the nation of Israel, would be the dispensation of promise, or the patriarchal dispensation. This lasted from Genesis 12 to Exodus 19, basically from the call of Abram to the time at Mount Sinai. During this time God called out a man through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed and to whom would be given great promises of scripture. We saw that with the Abrahamic covenant that God singled out a man who he was going to turn into a nation and how God interacted with Abraham was different than how God interacted with those under human influence. government, so the dispensation of promise. This is followed by the dispensation of the law, which has also been called the legal dispensation, lasting from Exodus 20 until Matthew 27, basically from Sinai to the cross. What was going on during this time period, God provided a very detailed record of His legal expectations for the nations of Israel, which would ensure their prosperity and longevity in the land of promise. So, more Revelation. Here's my law. Here's what I expect you to do. Here's how I expect you to live. Following the cross, we have the dispensation of the church, or the ecclesiastical dispensation. This lasts from Matthew 27 to Revelation chapter 3, basically from the time of Calvary to the time of the rapture. During this time period, God would call out a people for his name, both Jew and Gentiles, that would constitute a bride for his son. Then we get, following the dispensation of the church, we have the dispensation of judgment, or the tribulational dispensation, Revelation 3 through 18. This lasts from the rapture until the second coming of Christ. During this, God will, through judgment, prepare Israel and the world for the second coming of Christ. Then you have the dispensation of the kingdom, the millennial dispensation, Revelation 19 and 20, from the second coming until the great white throne judgment. During this time period, Jesus Christ will rule the earth with a rod of iron from his throne in Jerusalem with the nation of Israel at the head of the nations. And this is followed by the dispensation of eternity, or the perfect dispensation, Revelation 21 and 22. This lasts from the Great White Throne until eternity future. With a new heaven, a new earth, and a new Jerusalem, God the Father and God the Son will be the eternal center of all worship with his kingdom ever be expanding. So you see, these are these different time periods and some people combine or separate or don't count different ones as different time periods. But basically, you can see how different time periods in history, God interacted with a different level of responsibility that he put on man. Things that were the same, God was the same throughout all of it, even though He interacted differently. And God's standards are the same, salvation is the same, but there's just different ways that God interacted with man. When it comes to looking at the dispensations, there are several things that are common to each of them. Each has a starting point and a period of time when it is predominant. Each has a program that God is running with specific goals in mind. Each has a way in which God reveals himself to mankind. In each, man has a level of responsibility to God. Each contains satanic diversions. Each records a failure of man. Each records a judgment of God. Each records the consequences for man. Each records the grace of God. Each has a continuation into other dispensations. Each of the first eight have God coming to man. In each, man has a responsibility to believe God and to obey God. Each has a representative symbol. Each has a leader of the evil going on. Each has a leader of the stewardship or responsibility from God. And each seems to follow in some way the original commission to be fruitful. So we'll look at how each of those play out those characteristics next week as we go into detail in each dispensation. looking at it, just taking a very, very backup, overarching view of all of it, we can really get to see man's failure and man's need of salvation, where when we're witnessing to somebody, we would point out to them the fact that man is not righteous. We can't earn salvation on our own. We have no ability to be good enough or righteous enough for God. And we can see that through the scope of human history in relation to these different times. When man had the opportunity to live in a perfect world without a sin nature, could man be good enough? No. Adam and Eve messed it up. Perfect environment. Perfect people. Sinless people. Had never sinned. Did not have a sin nature. In a perfect environment, man failed. So what did God do? God gave man an opportunity. Well, just You have freedom of conscience. You know what's right and wrong. You have nobody telling you what to do. You have the option to follow me on your own. Did man do it? No. So, then the next thing we have, we have, okay, well, I'll put some rules in place. I'll give a government. I'll put somebody in place that'll make you obey. Did it work? No, man's heart is continually wicked, and he continues to go on from there. So you go on from human government, and you get the God's option for promise. Hey, I'll be your God, you'll be my people, I'll work through you, I'll make you a great nation, and Abraham runs off to Egypt. And just, again, man's failure when that opportunity presents itself. And then you have the idea of the written law of God. Okay, God says, I'll give man my law, I'll spell it out, I'll give him chapters and chapters and chapters Leviticus and Deuteronomy and have the whole of the Old Testament there. I'll just write it down for them so they know what they need to do. And did man do it? No, man can't do it. When we have God's law just written out for us, even the start of that time period of law, God spoke from heaven to the children of Israel and gave them the Ten Commandments. And they said, Moses, you go talk to God. We can't listen to Him anymore. We're too afraid. You go talk to the Lord. So God can speak from heaven His law Man still cannot follow that law. Man could only be made right through the grace of God that was offered through Jesus on the cross. We get to this dispensation of the church. But overall, man has the opportunity for the free gift of salvation. There's nothing that you have to do. You can receive salvation, forgiveness of sins, and eternity in heaven. And what do most people do? Reject it. Here and during this time period, they're rejecting God's salvation. Well, then you get to the judgment of God coming through the tribulation, where God's going to say, you had an opportunity to do right, you had an opportunity to receive me, here comes my wrath. And God's going to pour out his wrath on this earth, and what are men going to do? They're going to continue to curse God. They're not going to repent of their sin or of their wickedness or of their idolatry. They're going to continue to curse God under direct punishment for their sin. Then God's going to say, OK, well, I'll come down to earth. I'll set up my throne in Jerusalem. I'll rule with a rod of iron and have men forced to do right. And what does mankind do? Forms a rebellion to try to overthrow God again. And so then we get to the time of eternity, where it is only those who have chosen to have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ will spend eternity with the Lord, while those who have chosen to reject him will be punished for eternity in the lake of fire. So we see throughout the whole scope of history God gave man chance after chance after chance after chance to do what's right. God did everything and mankind still rejected what God offered. As we look at the Old Testament and we talked about this a little bit in the discussion of the two testaments. Some people treat the God of the Old Testament as if He was different from the God of the New Testament, where God in the Old Testament was judgmental and the God in the New Testament is merciful. No, God's always the same. And that's one thing we miss is the overall scope, where God in the Old Testament, you have the Old Testament, takes hundreds and thousands of years of time go by as God gives men chance after chance after chance to turn to Him and to receive His salvation and hundreds of years that He gives and mankind doesn't do it. So God was very merciful to man throughout history giving man chance after chance after chance to show us that we cannot do it on our own. We have to have God and yet we still, mankind still rejects God. So these dispensations really show mankind's need of salvation. So thirdly this morning, why should we look at the Bible this way? Why should we study the Bible dispensationally? First of all, because it is biblical. It is studying the Bible from a literal interpretation. The Bible should not be interpreted allegorically. If we're going to understand God's word, we have to accept God's words as true and at face value. So it's a biblical way to look at the Bible, and it helps us with our understanding. That's point number two. It aids in Bible understanding through a dispensational context. This gets us into the idea we're presenting that it helps us to rightly divide the word. We look at different things in the Bible and sometimes it may seem to contradict or it may not make sense to us or we make a wrong application because we're taking things out of its context and dispensationalism really has to do with the historical context of things. For example, when Cain was judged by God for murdering his brother, what did God do? God sent Cain away. God put a mark on Cain. made him a vagabond, made the earth no longer yield to him of its bounty. That was Cain's punishment in Genesis chapter 4. But just a couple chapters later in Genesis chapter 9, God told Noah that murderers should be put to death. So wait a minute, we had a murder in Genesis chapter four, and he was allowed to live, and then in Genesis chapter nine, murderers are supposed to be put to death. Well, murderers are supposed to be put to death by human government, which was started in Genesis chapter nine. There was no human government in Genesis chapter four, so is it a contradiction? No, there's different levels of responsibility and truth that God gave out at different times, so it helps us understand things like that. Another example would be the book of Ezekiel. refers to a man being judged by their keeping the law. This is not written as a passage for how someone is saved. This is written during the time period of the law, and men were judged under their keeping the law, not for their salvation, but that was the dispensation and the responsibility that they had at the time. It's very easy for somebody to take something historically out of context and make an application to ourself and get false doctrine from it. Kind of a humorous story. It comes from a pastor friend of mine. While he was in college, he was praying about a certain girl that he was interested in. And he was asking God's will and he was pleading God, just show me if this is the one for me. And he took his Bible and he flipped it open and he looked down at the Bible to see what was there that God had for him. Not how we find God's will, by the way. We don't flip our Bible open and point at a verse. However, that's what he did. And he found himself in 1 Kings, chapter 22, verse number 15. And his eyes fall upon the phrase, go up and prosper. Go up and prosper. He's like, wonderful, praise the Lord, just what I was looking for. It's amazing how when we have something in mind that we want from God, we can find permission to go do what we want and then call it God's will. But that's what he did. He found this verse, go up and prosper. So he went up to see this young lady and to go forth and prosper and was miserably refused, miserably failed, turned down. And he is dejected. He is despondent. He's on the verge of weeping and going back to God and saying, God, you gave me from your word what I was supposed to do, and it didn't happen. And I don't understand. So he goes back to First Kings chapter 22 and reads it in context and he finds that the phrase go up and prosper was spoken by a lying spirit in the mouth of a false prophet. In the verse where the king was asking whether he should go to war and a lying spirit came into a false prophet and told him to go up and prosper. So completely missed the context, not how we're supposed to understand the Bible. So understanding things in their context, understanding things in their historical nature will help us to apply the Bible properly in our lives. When we fail to understand that God dealt with people differently at different times, we will misunderstand scripture. Another important reason why we need to understand dispensationalism is because it makes a clear distinction between Israel and the church. We talked about this with the idea of covenant theology, sometimes it's called replacement theology, that the church is the new Israel, that God isn't doing anything with Israel anymore, that now it's the church, the church has replaced Israel, all of Israel's promises are now for us as the church, and that's not true. Romans chapter 11, very clearly Paul says, is God done with Israel? No, absolutely not. God still has a plan for Israel. Israel is still God's chosen people and God's not done with them. Church has not replaced Israel. The promises in the Old Testament are not given to us as a church. They have application for us. They're practical for us. They're profitable for us. But there is the promises God made to Israel when we looked at the covenants, they're still intact. And dispensationalism helps us to understand that yes, God had promises for Israel and He focused on Israel during this time in history. Right now His focus is on the church and He's going to come back to Israel during the time of judgment. Helps us to clearly understand the difference between those two. When it comes to this idea of dispensationalism, if you go on and do any further reading or just go into this, there are some things we need to be warned about, some warnings concerning dispensationalism. First of all, we do not want to make too sharp of a divide between dispensations. I told you at the beginning that there's a wide range of how people divide the Bible into dispensations and things they leave off and things that they combine. And it's called hyper-dispensationalism when you start going beyond what God's Word teaches and making one error is to make these real sharp divides. Some would say that nothing from one dispensation will overlap into the next. This is where the idea of, once the New Testament started, they're done with the Old Testament. That time is done. Cut it off. We don't need that anymore. We've got the New Testament now, and that's a false understanding of the Word of God. Some would even say that nothing in the Gospels is for the church because they're in different dispensations. The Gospels are written under the law, and then at the cross, we have the next dispensation beginning, so we cut off all that and throw it all away, right? No. No, we need to make sure we're not doing that, not making two sharper divisions. Another thing we need to understand is that salvation does not change from one dispensation to the next. It's very easy for us to get in our mind, like, okay, well, if God gave man the law in the Old Testament, then they had to follow the law to be saved. No. Salvation is the same. Salvation is always by faith in Jesus Christ. Now, in the Old Testament, they were looking ahead to when Christ would come. They would believe the promises of God and it was counted to them for righteousness, Romans chapter 4. That's how someone in the Old Testament is saved, not by following the law. Someone in the New Testament is saved by looking back at Christ. It's always been the same plan for salvation throughout all of time. Salvation has always been by faith. It will always be by faith without works. There are many things that someone with a hyper-dispensationalist view will be improperly understanding about Scripture. Now, not everyone that is a hyper-dispensationalist believes all of these things the same way, but some would teach that Peter and Paul preached a different gospel because they make a sharp divide between the book of Acts and the rest of the epistles. Some would say that the church at the beginning of Acts is different in their doctrine and practice than the church at the end of Acts. Some would say that only the writings of Paul are for the church today. Some would teach that no part of the law is for believers today. Some reject baptism in the Lord's Supper for the church today. Some believe that Hebrews is written just for the tribulational saints and it's not applicable to us as believers today. They believe that Hebrews and James do not teach eternal security. So these all come from taking this too far. We just have this basic understanding when it comes to the Word of God and as we're studying it that there is a historical context that God had given man a certain level of responsibility, a certain amount of truth that he held them accountable for during that time period and he interacted with them and that changed throughout history with the people that God was dealing with. Again, salvation always the same, God always the same, just the way that God interacted with man. And when it comes to studying the Word of God, this idea of dispensationalism gives us a framework or kind of a timeline that we can put truth in the Bible into and understand who is God dealing with, who is He talking to, what did that person know at the time, what truth did they have, how much light were they given, and what were they responsible for, and that aids us in our understanding. However, it can get carried too far, cause confusion and error. So, as with anything else, there's a balance. We have this idea of interpreting the Bible allegorically, and that you can make everything symbolic, and you have this idea of this hyper-dispensationalism, where things are cut off that don't apply to us anymore. The truth is there that God did deal with people in a historical timeline, and the more we understand about that historical timeline, the better we'll understand the Word of God. So next week we're gonna come back and we're gonna go into these nine dispensations in a little bit more detail and talk about what was man's responsibility, what truth did he know, where did he fail, who was the religious leader, who was the evil leader during that time period, what was God's judgment. We'll look at all of those aspects just to give us a fuller scope or understanding of what these dispensations are. And that'll pause our study on rightly dividing the Word for this month. We'll have some missionaries in during the month of March and we'll come back pick up the study again when we get into the month of April. Let's go ahead and close in prayer and we'll be dismissed to our next service. Lord God we love you and we thank you for your word. Lord I know again a lot of teaching today, kind of a more historical understanding of your word. I pray that the thoughts today would help us as we read the Bible to learn to apply it properly in our lives. Lord I thank you for the time we've had around your word. Pray be with us now as we go into the morning service. that you would bless us there with the preaching of your word, that we would be challenged, that we would be edified, be with all the songs. Lord, that we sing to one another to praise you, Lord, and just to lift you up. We pray today that Christ would be exalted, Lord, and that we would leave church today different than we came in. We ask all this in Christ's name, Amen.