And then after you get to Genesis 15, I'll draw your attention to the screen. Derek, I don't know if my lapel, is it not sitting there tonight? So, all right. Thank you, brother. Yeah. Like I said, I'd like to say I'd stand still, but I won't do it. And so Genesis 15 tonight, what we're talking about overall is God's prophetic calendar. Thank you, brother. All right. So God's prophetic calendar. But what we're talking about first, before we get into, let's be honest, before we get into the stuff that you want to know, we're talking about the other stuff. All right. And every week I prepare the lesson. And my wife says to me, how are you not further in that study yet? And I said, we're taking our time. We're taking our time. The Bible says that God at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in times past unto us by the prophets, but hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son. And that's Hebrews 1, 1 and 2. And the whole purpose of those verses and others like them throughout the New Testament is to teach us that even though God himself may not change, the way that God works with mankind does change. And this is very simple. If you look at your Bible, you have an Old Testament and a New Testament. And that enough should be sufficient to show you that God, throughout the course of the ages, works in different manners. I'll give you another example that will make sense. If you were to look at Genesis 22, which you don't have to take time to do, you're gonna find that God issues a command to Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. And it's important to understand, as abrasive of a command as that may seem to us, that in the time frame and the dispensation in which God was working, that did not seem like an incredible thing for God to ask Abraham to do. In fact, that type of sacrifice was very common for other religions that Abraham would have been familiar with. Now I'm not saying that God in that way changes his character or he acts in accordance with what other religions are doing. What I'm saying is that Abraham was operating even before the Ten Commandments were given. There wasn't even a command that said, thou shalt not kill. And so Abraham was living in an entirely different culture and dispensation than what you and I live in. We can tell you based off of the solid authority of the word of God, that God is not going to speak to you in this present day and age and issue a command to you to sacrifice one of your children. And so that it should go without saying but I'm proving to you the point that it is obvious that God works at different times in different ways. And it is a progressive revelation. God over the course of time is constantly telling us more and more and more about himself. And by the way, the capstone of this. I want you to think about theology, what we know about God as if it's a building. Think of it as a building. Where do you start with a building? You start with a foundation, right? You start with a cornerstone. And so you start with a cornerstone and you start with a foundation. We would consider that to be what we know about the Bible. And so I want you to think about all the other doctrines. Think about all the other books of the Bible. You've got Genesis, that's your foundation. It's been said before that every major doctrine of the Word of God can be traced back to the book of Genesis. And so it's all there. It's just kind of folded up and you have to unfold it. And that's what God does over time. So here's what I'm trying to say. If you have Genesis as the foundation, and then you build on it, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and you build 65 books, and then you reach what? What is the last book of the Bible? The book of Revelation. Do you know what Revelation is? It is the revelation of Jesus Christ. Now let me ask you a question, wasn't Jesus manifested in the book of Matthew? Oh sure, yes he was manifested, but have you read Revelation? The way he showed up in Matthew is not the way he shows up in Revelation. So what I'm trying to say to you, you see, even throughout the whole Bible, God is progressively revealing himself more and more to the point where he reaches Revelation and he shows you, if you will, on full blast who he is. Listen, John, the revelator, he knew Jesus. He knew Jesus personally. He knew Jesus intimately. But he had never seen him the way he saw him in Revelation chapter number one. So my point is there's a progressive revelation and it does not stop all the way through the scriptures. You reach all the way where we're eventually going to talk about the rapture. We'll talk about the tribulation. Do you know what all of that is? God continuing to reveal and to show himself. When Jesus returns on a white horse and wipes out all of his enemies at the second return, and then he reigns and rules for a thousand years on earth during what we call the millennial reign, he's showing himself in a way we have never known him before. He is always progressively revealing himself. So tonight, I want to answer a very specific question. And we're eventually going to take these lessons and put them at least on audio. I don't think we'll put them on YouTube for visual sake, but we will put them out in the form of audio. And we're going to be working on that very soon because we've had a lot of people maybe who are sick tonight who would like to hear this. And what I'm trying to say is what I want to address tonight is one more thing before we get into the specifics of the dispensations. because I want to address essentially, if you will, this question. I want to talk about salvation in the dispensations. I think if you can switch that over for me to where I've got control, that will help me. Salvation in the dispensations. So here's the thing. If Jesus did not manifest until somewhere around 0 AD whatever it might have been because there's probably like 3 BC something like that when he was actually born there's about a five-year window where we don't have things nailed down exactly but whenever Jesus comes and then when Jesus dies and he rises again We now have an understanding of the fullness of the gospel. Do we not? We understand the birth. In fact, we understand the prophecies about Jesus. We understand his birth. We understand his life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension. We have all of this information that has never been had before. So here's a question for you. How did people get saved before this dispensation? How did people get saved and know that their eternity was gonna be spent with God previous to having the full gospel presentation that you and I have every week? Well, I wanna answer that. And we're gonna eventually look, I ask you to go to Genesis 15, we're eventually gonna get there. I want you to listen to these verses. You've heard them a million times. I've put them on the screen for you. For by grace are ye saved through faith. We know these verses, right? I mean, if you've been in church any length of time, you probably have these, probably even committed to memory. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that, not of yourselves, not, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. The next verse isn't often quoted with it, but it's just as important. So, here is what the Bible says salvation is. And I want you to get this. Salvation has always been this. Salvation will always be this. These verses are not just about this present dispensation in which we live. This is how salvation happens. So let's talk about what it is. First off, it's by grace. That means it is a spiritual gift from God. When I say it's a spiritual gift, what I mean is it's not something that's tangible or physical. You can't go pick up salvation at the corner store. It's a spiritual thing. And therefore it's a matter of the heart. So salvation is always by grace. It is a gift from God. Secondly, it is always through faith. What is faith? It is a position of the heart towards God. Now, I want you to listen to this tonight. When I look at your life, I may be able to tell some things about your life, but the ultimate test of your salvation is a matter of your heart before God. Listen, there are people who are newly saved, and when they come and they give me their testimony, their testimony to me doesn't make a lot of sense. There's testimonies that we can all grasp, right? I heard a preacher preach the gospel. I was convicted in my heart. I went forward. Someone opened the Bible. They read to me the Romans Road. And then I said, dear Jesus, I know I am a sinner. I believe you died and rose again. Please forgive me. My faith is in you and you alone. I believe in the virgin birth, the trinity, the fundamentals of the scriptures. And now my faith is in you and you alone. Thank you for saving me and taking me to heaven. I'm never gonna doubt again in Jesus' name, amen. All of us could go, I think that person got it. I think that person got it. But let me ask you a question. Was it that simple when you got saved? I mean, or was it a little bit something that unfolded over time, right? Listen, I got saved at three years old. I don't think I declared my faith in the Trinity at that age, okay? I pray this in the name of the Father. I pray this in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. I didn't know those things. Here's what I did know. I did know I was a sinner. I did believe Jesus died and rose again. And the only thing I knew to do was just to ask him to do whatever it is that he could do to get me out of the mess that I was in. My heart was dark and dirty. I wanted him to clean it. And by the way, at three years old, that's what he did. So faith is a heart attitude towards God. And it cannot always be explained. You know, faith is one of those things that's like a box without handles. What is faith? Well, it's the substance of things hoped for. Well, thank you. Well, it's the evidence of things not seen. Thank you. What is it? It's a hard attitude towards God. It's very hard to grasp. And by the way, that's why salvation is by faith. Because it is not something you can ever claim to have done. It is not an action or a work. So, but let me say this, this position of the heart is a position of the heart that shows repentance towards God. That's what faith is. So I hope you're starting to get the picture. If we were to look at people in the Old Testament, would they be able to confess the name of Christ? They didn't know the name of Christ. How did they get saved? Well, first off, I know they got saved by grace. that it was a spiritual gift from God. I know that it was based not off of any action that they did. I know it was based off of their faith, which was their heart attitude towards God, which included their knowledge that they were not sufficient to save themselves. They had to have a repentant attitude. Then I know this, I know this, it was not of works, but I also know this, it was two good works. You say, preacher, what do you mean? Here's what it means. It means that a person who gets saved, and it doesn't matter what dispensation they live in, if they got saved, there's gonna be evidence that flows out of their life of that. That's why verse number 10 is so important in Ephesians 2, eight through 10. We are saved and we are created in Christ Jesus unto good works. We are not saved by good works, but we are saved unto good works. So that means, listen, I'm gonna make a very plain statement. The Bible is very clear about this, that if you do not have works, you do not have faith. Faith without works is dead. If you can live your whole life and never be reproved or convicted over your sin, if you can live your whole life and claim the name of Jesus, but there's been no change in your life, you don't know the creator of the universe. If the Holy Spirit of God, who literally inspired the creation of the world, lives inside of you, He's going to be inspiring some change in you. And so the idea here is it doesn't matter what dispensation in which you live, salvation is really the same. It's not obtained. So let me say this, it is unobtainable by an action, yet it's inseparable from a product of action. Now, the one thing I wanna draw back to that I haven't gone over is I want you to notice this parenthetical phrase we put in here, the clarity of the object may change. When Abraham put his faith in God, He was not able to say, God, I am a sinner. I believe Jesus died for me and Jesus rose for me. Forgive me of my sin. Because Jesus Christ had not yet come. He had not yet died. He had not yet rose again. Now, does that mean that Abraham just couldn't be saved? No. The object in which he placed his faith was still God's promise of salvation. Now I want you to look in Genesis 15, that's where I've asked you to turn. We're going to read a few verses. I'm going to try to speak a little bit more quickly than I have, or we're never going to get into the dispensations. After these things, the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed, and, lo, one born in mine house is mine heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came unto him saying, this shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. Here's what he said, you are going to have a son. Look at verse five. And he brought him forth abroad and said, look now, this is God speaking to Abram, look now toward heaven and tell the stars if thou be able to number them. And he said unto them, so shall thy seed be. Look at verse six. And he believed in the Lord and he counted it to him for righteousness. Now that's Genesis 15. You really almost can't go back much further than that, can you? And by the way, we don't even believe that this is the actual record of Abraham's salvation. He was saved long before this. This is the record of how it occurred in that day. It's very simple. And basically it was this, God spoke to him, Abram believed it, and that's salvation. What was the attitude of Abram's heart? Was Abram's heart repentant before God? Yes. Was Abram understanding that he was insufficient to save himself? Yes. And here's what his trust was in. I don't get it, I don't understand it, but God said that he would and I believe he will. Can I ask you a question? Do you understand salvation tonight? I don't care if you've been saved for 30 years. Do you understand salvation tonight? Do you understand how your heart changed over and said, God, I accept what you said is true and that he delivered you from being an eternal child of the devil to being an eternal child of God? Can anybody get up here and draw an equation to explain that tonight? Can we ask Brother Chris Key to come up here and do some sort of chemistry equation that would show how we went from being a child of the devil to being a child of the king? Listen, can we ask a mathematician in here? Can we ask somebody who's part of a construction crew to come up and give us some sort of blueprint of how this happened? I'll tell you right this, you don't have a clue. Neither do I. Here's what I know. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. My trust isn't in a process that I don't get. My trust is in the word of God. And in that regard, hear me, that is no different than what Abram did. Abram was like, I don't get it, but you said it, and I'm with you. And that's as simple as it is. And so here, what you're looking at is the record of Abram's salvation. Now, here's what I want you to do. I want you to go with me to Romans chapter number four, please. And I want to show you that even though We are in the New Testament. The Bible in Romans 4, which is all about salvation, is actually going to go back and talk about Abraham as an example of saving faith. We're thousands of years later and the Bible's still using him as an example. Look at Romans chapter number four. Ready? Verse number one. What shall we say then that Abraham, our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? Says, let's just talk about Abraham as the first Hebrew. When we look at him physically, this act of circumcision, him being the first Jewish man, what did Abraham find that he could work to achieve? Let me ask you a question. Was Abraham saved because he was circumcised? Was Abraham saved because he was the first Jew? No, no, no. The Bible says in verse number two, if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God. And then the Bible says this in verse three, for what saith the scripture, Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Can I tell you something tonight? Here's some good news. It should be good news. I want you to listen to me. Do you want to know what you have to do to get saved? Not a thing. Because Jesus Christ did it all. All of it. So if you need to be saved tonight, here's what you have to do. You have to believe in the Lord. You say, well, preacher, that's kind of hard to understand. Yeah, that's faith. It's a weird thing. Here's what it means, very simply. You can't save yourself. Jesus died and rose again so you could be saved. And you've got to take any hope you've got of ever getting to heaven and place it in Jesus Christ. And guess what? That is the proper object of faith and he will not fail you. Now, did Abraham know all that in the Old Testament? Nope. Let me ask you a question. Did Adam know that in the Garden of Eden? No. Here's what Jesus said. Jesus said, one day I'm gonna give woman a seed. Woman can't have a seed. A man has a seed. How does a woman have a seed? The only way a woman could have a seed is if there was a virgin born child. And God said, don't ask, I'll explain it later. I'll explain it later. She's gonna have a seed and her seed is gonna get bruised by the serpent, but his heel is gonna bruise the serpent's head. And then the next thing God did, he shed the blood of an animal and he made coverings for Adam and Eve. Do you understand? Adam did not understand the concept of what Jesus would one day do. but he knew that God made a promise and he put his trust in that promise. That is no different than you and I sitting here tonight. Do you right now, have you died in this life and entered into heaven and seen Jesus in the face? Have you done that tonight? No, how do you know it's gonna happen? Because you believe God. That's the same thing for Adam, same thing for Abraham. Now here's a beautiful verse. This is one of my favorite verses. I have a lot of favorite verses, Romans 4, 4. Now to him that worketh, is the reward not reckoned of grace but of debt." You know what he just said? If you're working for it, it's not grace. If you're working for it, you're trying to pay it off. And here's the point. You have a debt that is higher than any price you'll ever be able to pay. Salvation is not paid by you doing the right things and getting your debt paid off. Salvation is paid because Jesus Christ paid the debt. He paid the debt. Now, I want you to see also, he's gonna say this again, look at Romans chapter four, look at verse number six real quickly. I'm sorry, look at verse five, we don't need to skip it. To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. It's that simple. Now here's the next example the Bible gives. Look at verse number six. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. David, the Bible says, is another example of this faith. Let me ask you a question. Was David a man who had a heart of repentance toward God? Yes, he was. Yes, he was. Did David do some terrible things? Did David have a heart continually of repentance before God? Yes, he did. There's some encouragement in that tonight because you and I have done some pretty terrible things. But with a heart towards God that says, God, I am wretched and I am frail and I am sorry. And he says, I'll tell you something else you are, you're forgiven. You're forgiven. This quote in Romans 4 is actually a quote from Psalm 32. And I'm not actually going to ask you to turn there if you're keeping notes. And I'm going to, I've had someone ask for the notes of this. I'll kind of publish these notes. And if you want a copy, you just need to text me or email me and we'll get them to you. Because obviously the notes, when I finish them will be more than this. Listen to Psalm 32. This is a, this is a quote, Romans 4. What you're looking at is a quote of this Psalm. Listen to this. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture," he's talking about his crying, my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. He said, I cried until I had no more tears. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Listen to this, for this shall everyone that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found. And then he says this, thou art my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. Thou shalt compass me about with the songs of deliverance. You get that? Listen, that was written a thousand years before Jesus. And you can't hear the gospel much more clearly than that. Isaiah recorded it in Isaiah 53, 700 years before Christ. What I'm telling you is this, salvation has always been by grace through faith. not of works but produced works. Salvation has always been the same. I think that was an important thing for us to understand. Now, I'm going to answer this next question that I think you'll be interested in. We're going to enter into that blessed realm. We're about to go overtime. Aren't you excited? Rebecca is so excited. She's the one who has to practice with everybody tonight. Here's a quick question for you. How can God forgive sins if the price hasn't yet been paid? How can God in His justice and His righteousness forgive sins if the price hasn't been paid? Well, there's an answer to that, and I think we'll answer it next week. That's about the best that I can offer you. There's a quote used in Scripture, an exact quote used over 10 times in the New Testament, and it's this term, the foundation of the world. And you say, what does that mean? It means, remember this, remember we talked about how dispensations work? I want you to listen to this. I'm gonna give you a couple of quick things and we're gonna quit for tonight. Tomorrow is the same as yesterday to God. So I'm gonna ask you a question and I'm not trying to be silly. I want you to really think about this. When Adam sinned in the garden, I want you to put on your thinking cap for a second, as teachers used to say. when Adam sinned in the garden, was there any chance at all that Jesus did not come and die and resurrect? Was there any chance? Was there something that might've happened between Adam and the time of the Romans that might've just made God's plan just a little bit off kilter and God go, sorry, you know, I had a plan, but man, things just didn't work out. Was there any chance whatsoever that Jesus did not come and perfectly fulfill everything? Any chance at all? This is why the Bible says that God knows those who would be saved even before the foundation of the world. That's why the Bible calls Jesus Christ, you ready for this? The lamb slain before the foundation of the world. There was never one. Can I tell you how secure your salvation is? Your salvation was secure before God made the world. You say, preacher, that's too big for me to understand. That's a God-sized truth. Your salvation was secure before the world was ever created. And let me give you some encouragement tonight. If you in your life right now, this is gonna be a tough pill to swallow, listen. If you in your life right now, you're going, preacher, you don't understand, I've messed up so many times. I'm not living it. God had a plan for my life, but now I'm living out plan B. I'm living out plan C. I'm living out plan D. You listen to me. God has a perfect and a beautiful plan that picks up right where you are right now. Right now. There was never a moment where your life was gonna go differently than where it is at at this exact second. You say, you don't understand preacher, I know that I've done things that are wrong. Yep, so did David, so have I, so did the disciples. There's never been one moment where your life was gonna be different than what it is right now and God has a perfect and beautiful plan for you right where you are. So what I'm trying to encourage you is this, you and I, we think we run stuff, don't we? Oh man, you know, listen. I saw a phrase online the other day, some of you have seen this. It says, when God made his plan for you, he factored your stupidity into it. And that's the most comforting thing I've ever read. Right? I'm trying to encourage you tonight. What I'm trying to tell you is this. God has always had a plan and not one thing that you've done, I've done, or that has happened in this world has ever thwarted his plan. And so this is why God is able to save those even though Christ's sacrifice hadn't been made. But we are gonna discuss that how things occurred in the life of a person who died is different in the other dispensations than in our present dispensation. We'll discuss that next week. And with the Lord's help, we will actually get to this handout and talk about the seven dispensations. All right, let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word and we thank you for the encouragement that it gives us. Lord, we still have to do what is right and we understand our obligation and responsibility before your throne that our choices matter. They do indeed dictate the manner of our life and there are consequences to sin and there's rewards for righteousness. We're not in any way trying to remove the responsibility of man. But the truth is, Lord, we're not going to do one thing that shocks you. And God, we're not going to do one thing that throws you off. And God, I am grateful for that because I don't know what foolish thing I am going to do, but I know whatever foolish thing, whatever sinful thing I do, it won't change your love for me and it will not change my eternal destination that has been secured in the person of Christ. God, help me to understand I have decisions I must make and I must make them right. Oh, but God, Thank You that I cannot change my destiny. Thank You that I cannot change You. Thank You, God, that I can't make You stop loving me. Thank You, God, that I can't make You abandon me. And God, thank You that no matter how insane this world gets, it will never throw You off the throne. Thank You. Help us tonight to live in the comfort of the knowledge that You are in control. Help us to yield to Thee. God, I pray if there's anybody here tonight that does not know You as Savior, what the gospel has been given as clearly as it can be tonight. And I pray that the Holy Spirit of God would not allow that person's soul to rest until they themselves personally put faith in Jesus Christ for their soul's salvation. God, I pray that even now You'd be working in their spirit, in their soul, to draw them to You. Father, we thank You for all that You are to us. We do pray that You'll bless the kids' classes and the teens as they continue tonight. We pray for the music practice that's to come right after this. And all of it, Lord, we just give You glory and give You thanks. And we do it in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. God bless you.