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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.
God's Prophetic Calendar 2024 (#3)
Series God's Prophetic Calendar
| Sermon ID | 1031241747318026 |
| Duration | 29:29 |
| Date | |
| Category | Midweek Service |
| Language | English |
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