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[0:00] If there were some way that I could overemphasize or exaggerate the importance of the content that I am going to bring this morning, I would not hesitate to do it.

[0:10] But I cannot overemphasize or exaggerate too much how important this is. We are talking about grasping the plan and program of God from this point on, and the problems that exist in coming to those, what I think are inevitable conclusions, that keep Christendom as we know it sadly divided and confused over a number of these issues.

[0:41] So we are going to be providing you with some historical background information that I think is germane to what we're going to be talking about, and it is absolutely essential that we grasp this content.

[0:55] And I want to say this also. Yes, I do hope that we'll have some time for Q&A. I'll make every effort to do that. So please feel free to have your questions ready, and feel free to have your objections ready too because we are looking for truth, and we are not looking for a congregation to simply rubber stamp what the pastor has to say.

[1:16] Okay. The age-old question always applies here at Grace Bible Church, and it goes something like this. If what you believe now is not true, would you want to know it?

[1:30] And our view is absolutely, most definitely, we would want to know it because no one can afford to be devoid of the truth.

[1:40] We are seekers after truth, and frankly, that is the thing that delights the heart of God more than anything else, is his children walking in the truth.

[1:53] But you have to know the truth before you can walk in it. So what we are going to be considering and continuing with our theme of the Jewish solution to the world's problems ties in with the present consideration of the transitions that take place within the body of the New Testament.

[2:14] Almost nobody has difficulty understanding the transition between the content of the Old Testament and the New. That's pretty obvious. But what is very often lost on most people is the transition that takes place right within the New Testament in general and in the book of Acts in particular.

[2:36] And what we are talking about is an inescapable, unavoidable, undeniable transition between the primacy of Peter, the apostle, chosen by our Lord along with eleven others, and the primacy of Paul, formerly Saul of Tarsus.

[3:01] There is a transition between the two. And this must be understood or you are confined to confusion in the New Testament and in the plan and program of God.

[3:15] So let me begin with some preliminary propositions for you to consider and then we will look at some of the texts involved. First of all, please consider.

[3:28] There are two great theological obstacles to overcome. The first is replacement theology that began with the very early church, likely in the second and third centuries, and propagated by early Roman Catholicism, as fueled by early church fathers, and perhaps etched in stone, if you will, by none other than St. Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo and early apologist.

[4:07] This view, replacement theology, this view radically impacted their view of eschatology. That's just a fancy word and all it means is a study of future things, or it's a synonym almost for the idea of prophecy.

[4:27] Events that will happen upon the earth yet to come. It comes from the Greek word eschatos, which means last or last things. And this view of replacement theology, which essentially says or requires them to allegorize or spiritualize prophecy so as to exclude the nation of Israel and replace them with the Christian church, hence the name replacement theology.

[5:03] The idea is that the nation of Israel was originally God's chosen people through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But because of their disobedience and rejection of Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah, God has written them off permanently and has replaced them with the Christian church.

[5:29] So whereas Israel used to be God's chosen people, they no longer are nor ever will be again, they have been replaced by the church, the Christian church.

[5:42] And we are now the chosen people. Israel is completely out of the picture. That's what is meant by replacement theology. This, of course, also necessitated their denial of a future literal reign of Christ on earth and making our present day in which we are now living to be the millennium.

[6:09] They feel that this today, where we are, this is the millennium. In their view, Christ has already come the second time.

[6:22] The second coming of Christ has already happened, as far as they are concerned. And he has already established his kingdom here on earth, and we are in it right now.

[6:37] So the kingdom of heaven come to earth and the millennium are one and the same thing. Both the preterists and the historicists believe the content of the book of Revelation has already been fulfilled, and nothing awaits us but a general resurrection and a general judgment.

[7:01] That's the only thing that is left. Now, I've used some terms like preterists and historicists and so on, but don't worry about those terms.

[7:12] You'll know full well what they mean later on as we engage the study of biblical prophecy. These views were adopted by the early Roman Catholic Church, and when Luther broke with Rome in the 1500s, he essentially carried over much of what he had been taught as an Augustinian monk when he was a Catholic priest.

[7:39] You've got to remember that virtually all of the Reformers, frequently referred to as covenant theologians or Reformed theologians, etc., virtually every one of them, I think without exception, were former Roman Catholic priests serving in an ordinary priesthood capacity, and eventually they began taking exception with some of the doctrines and practices of Rome, and eventually they started pulling away men like John Wycliffe and Martin Luther and William Tyndale and so on.

[8:12] These were all formerly Roman Catholic priests, and then when they pulled away, they began a movement that came to be known as the Protestant Reformation.

[8:23] John Wycliffe was referred to as the morning star of the Reformation, and he surfaced and had his ministry in the late 1300s, and the subject kept fomenting during the 1400s.

[8:38] Martin Luther kind of brought it to fruition in the 1500s when he made the break from the Church of Rome and established for all practical purposes what would become the Lutheran Church.

[8:49] So these things are essential to understand from a historical point of view. And when Luther made his break from Rome, he still carried over much of the doctrinal content from Rome with which he had been in agreement.

[9:10] And it wasn't to be expected for him to make a break from Rome with all of the doctrine and all of the practices. Some of them he scrapped, and some of them he kept and brought with him, one of which, of course, was infant baptism.

[9:25] And if you know anything about Lutheranism, as well as many of the Presbyterians and some of the Methodists, they practice infant baptism, and they assign different values to it and different subjects of it.

[9:38] But it was only natural, I suspect, for Luther when he made his break to bring some of those things with him. I think probably anybody would have. Under the circumstances, it would be just a natural thing to do.

[9:49] So, his greatest departure from Catholic theology lay in the truth of justification by grace through faith.

[10:02] That was the thing that really separated him from Rome. Justification by faith. For all practical purposes, that had been lost on what would be referred to as the Christian church for hundreds and hundreds of years prior to the time that Luther came on the scene.

[10:24] Because the Roman Catholic Church taught then and still does teach today, to this very day, and you can get this confirmed from any of your Catholic friends, if they are at all knowledgeable of Catholic doctrine.

[10:36] And if they are not, you can talk to any priest, and I'm sure he'll be glad to fill you in. And their position is, they believe that salvation is by grace also, just as we do.

[10:49] But, when you inquire further as to what is meant by that, they will tell you that grace is dispensed through the sacraments.

[11:04] The way you receive God's grace, according to Roman Catholic theology, is by participating in the sacraments. The first of which is baptism.

[11:16] So, when a baby is born, shortly after the baby is born, the Roman Catholic priest sprinkles the holy water on the baby, and this, they believe, in their theology, removes from the baby the original sin with which the baby was born.

[11:34] This is why it is referred to as holy water. They believe it is able to do that. So that if that infant dies in infancy, it will not be subjected to limbo, which is where unbaptized babies go, which is part of Catholic theology, but certainly not found in the Bible.

[11:57] But the baby is then free to go to heaven because its original sin has been removed. And then, another grace that is extended through the sacraments. But you see, Catholicism is a sacramental religion.

[12:11] There are sacraments. And one is baptism. And another is holy communion. They believe that you receive Christ by mouth. And when you partake of the wafer, the priest has consecrated it and turned that wafer into the actual flesh of Christ.

[12:31] And that's how you receive Christ by mouth. It still looks like a wafer, and it tastes like a wafer, but faith, they believe, is where it comes in, and you are able to identify that wafer with the body of Christ, so you receive Christ by mouth.

[12:51] When we talk about receiving Christ, this is what they mean when they talk about receiving Christ, and the same thing with the cup. And then there is, in addition, marriage is one of the sacraments.

[13:03] Last rites is one of the sacraments, and so on. So, you are a recipient of God's grace, but only as it comes to you through the sacraments.

[13:16] And the only one who is officially delegated and recognized by God, in their view, to dispense the sacraments, is the priest. And the priest, of course, is serving the church.

[13:29] So, bottom line is, your salvation is tied to your being in good standing in the church, receiving the sacraments administered by the Catholic priest.

[13:43] And Martin Luther scrapped some of that, kept some of that. So, we have clergymen in the Lutheran church, at least in some Lutheran churches, taking the position of forgiving sin in the same way that Roman Catholics do.

[14:02] I remember years and years ago, and boy, I'm going back a long ways now. Wow. This is when Barbara and I were coming across country on our honeymoon trip from Washington State to Ohio.

[14:14] I was coming back here to attend Cedarville College. This is where my home was. And we stopped in a town in Montana, and we were going to, we stayed in a motel overnight, and we were looking for a church to visit.

[14:29] And we saw this marquee or sign for a Lutheran church of the Missouri Synod. And she said, well, I've heard that the Missouri Synod is a pretty evangelical or fundamental Lutheran church.

[14:46] So, we'll go there. And we went and attended the service. And I don't remember what the preacher, what the pastor spoke on. But at the end of the service, he had everybody stand, and they recited something.

[15:00] And then he closed the service by saying, by the authority invested in me as a clergyman and as a representative of Jesus Christ, I hereby forgive you for your sin.

[15:14] And Barbara and I looked at each other and thought, I don't know about this. So, that was the end of our experimentation with Lutheranism. And you can see the carryover there from Roman Catholic, except there was no confessional, and there was no actual confessing of sin.

[15:32] But at any rate, he presumably, or at least he thought he forgave us for our sin. So, justification by faith was literally a bombshell when Luther began preaching and teaching this.

[15:50] And justification by faith meant then, and still does mean, that you are declared righteous before God on the basis of simply exercising your faith or trust in Jesus Christ as your substitute for your sin.

[16:13] And you do that as an act of your will, an act of your volition. You deliberately, purposely receive Christ and you commit yourself to him for his salvation.

[16:31] Nothing in your hand you bring. Simply to his cross you cling. And this is what it means to be justified solely on the basis of faith.

[16:41] This is solely on the basis of believing, trusting, committing, relying. And that's it. It is by grace, through faith, plus nothing.

[16:54] And the moment anything is added to it, anything, it depreciates the work that Christ accomplished on the cross and it is in effect saying he didn't quite do enough.

[17:09] You have these hoops that you also have to jump through to complete your salvation. It may be baptism, it may be circumcision, it may be communion, it may be something else.

[17:21] But the scriptures make it clear that justification is by faith. And that, of course, to the Church of Rome was heresy, absolute heresy.

[17:34] Because if justification is by faith alone, you really don't have to have a priest. That makes the priest dispensable.

[17:45] And of course, that was unthinkable and still is unthinkable. And you do not have to be a member in good standing of the Roman Catholic Church. All that is required for salvation is one Savior and one sinner.

[18:01] And you put your trust in Him and that's it. that is that by which you are regenerated or brought into a right relationship with God.

[18:13] It is by grace through faith. And that truth had been virtually lost on what was passing off as Christendom for hundreds and hundreds of years.

[18:24] And it was Martin Luther to his credit who really resurrected that great truth of justification by faith. many other religious bodies, denominations, arose from Luther making his departure from Rome and they too continued many of the doctrinal practices, particularly replacement theology.

[18:52] You see, one of the reasons they arrived at this is that before Christ ascended to heaven, he made it quite clear to his apostles that he was going to return.

[19:07] I'm going to prepare a place for you. I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am there you may also be. And the Bible talks a great deal about the second coming of Christ.

[19:19] And frankly, as you search the Old Testament, particularly the prophets, you will find far more prophesied in the Old Testament about the second coming of Christ than what you find about the first coming.

[19:34] A lot more. So, when Jesus said he was going to return and decades rolled by and then centuries rolled by and he still hasn't returned, what was the common thinking?

[19:55] Maybe we've got this wrong. is that what he meant? That he was really good? Or, do you suppose he already somehow has returned and we missed it?

[20:11] Maybe, maybe when the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost, maybe that was actually the second coming of Christ in the person of the Holy Spirit.

[20:22] God, well, if that's true, then where does that put the content in the book of the Revelation? It's not future.

[20:33] It's already happened. It's already passed. So, eventually, over the centuries, the church became more and more acclimated to this idea that Christ had already returned, or that he had returned spiritually, mystically, somehow, so that we missed the return.

[20:52] But he's already returned and he's already established his kingdom and this is it. We're in it. Well, if that's the case, then what happened to Israel and the promises God made to Israel, oh, that's all gone, that's over and done with, that's passed.

[21:11] Israel had their chance and they blew it. So, God is now fulfilling everything that he intended to do in the church, not in the nation, of Israel. So, this again ties in with the idea of replacement theology.

[21:25] This view became dominant throughout Christendom and it remains dominant today. We, we who refer to ourselves as futurists, we who believe the content of the book of Revelation is yet to be fulfilled, we constitute a minority.

[21:53] You need to understand that. We are not in the majority. We are in a relatively tiny minority. The vast majority of Protestant Christendom adopts the same view the Roman Catholic Church adopts as regards replacement theology.

[22:13] theology. It's all over for Israel. Everything is now focused on the church. This is more than anything else a hermeneutical problem and all that is is a fancy word for meaning how do you approach and study and interpret the Bible.

[22:34] That's the subject of hermeneutics. What are or what should be the rules for interpreting the Bible generally and should those rules be changed when interpreting prophetic portions of scripture?

[22:51] Is the book of the Revelation referring to prophecy already fulfilled or is it speaking of what is yet to come? We believe it is what is yet to come.

[23:05] Again, I remind you, that is the minority position. And the second great theological obstacle is one with which you are perhaps more familiar.

[23:22] It is an obstacle that considers and it also relates to hermeneutics in general and the doctrine of the inspiration of scripture in particular.

[23:36] Now, when we're talking about hermeneutics and interpreting the Bible, the statement has been made and it is true. You can make the Bible say almost anything you want it to, depending on how you interpret it.

[23:52] The natural tendency is for each of us to bring our own personal biases, our own personal slant interpretation to the Bible, and look for texts that will support it.

[24:07] that's a perfectly human thing to do. I think we're all capable of doing that. And it is true that it's all dependent upon how you interpret the scriptures.

[24:23] There are logical, consistent, dependable rules to be followed for interpreting the Bible. rules that govern linguistics and grammar and history and exegesis and all that goes with it.

[24:41] And you're going to get a taste of that up front, so you'll be able to appreciate and put a handle on some of the things that we will be sharing with you. There is a tendency on the part of many Christians today toward what I call an inadequate, insufficient view of the authority of scripture.

[25:03] Many have an emotional fixation, a sentimental attachment to the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

[25:17] I would not be truthful if I did not tell you. I also have a sentimental attachment to those four gospels. That's why we spent five years going through the gospel of John, verse by verse by verse, and I missed more than I caught.

[25:39] It is inexhaustible, and I have an emotional attachment to it. Why do we? Why is it that way?

[25:50] Because the red letters make it very clear, don't they? It's the red letters where we find the words of Jesus.

[26:02] And the most natural thing in the world, the most ordinary, expected thing in the world, is to attach more significance to those red letters. That's why they're in red.

[26:14] So you'll get the point. And you'll give special authority and attention to those red letters, because that is getting it straight from the authority.

[26:28] I don't deny that. But the book of Numbers, and the book of Judges, and the book of Jude, and the book of 1 Corinthians, they are all straight from the authority.

[26:48] The same authority. authority. Exact same authority. No less. No more. That's where many evangelicals go straight.

[27:05] Sad to say. They justify their attention to the four gospels on the fact that this is where Jesus is.

[27:20] here in the gospels, Christ was born, lived, died, and was resurrected. What greater reason do we have, they ask, than to spend more time preaching and teaching from the gospels?

[27:36] Doesn't that make sense? Well, it certainly does on the surface. So, if you want to get the real scoop about anything, say they, you must go to the most authoritative source in all of the Bible, and that is clearly Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

[27:51] All the rest of scripture is of lesser authority, say they. And that's where we part company. That's where we must part company.

[28:03] Because nothing else in scripture is of lesser authority. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction, and righteousness that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished, equipped unto every good work.

[28:22] This means the book of Judges, the book of Numbers, the book of Leviticus, the epistle of Jude, they all have equal authority, and they all come from the same source.

[28:41] No exceptions. Christians. No part of the Bible is more the word of God than some other part. No part of the Bible is more or less inspired of God than is some other part.

[28:58] And I would be the first to admit there are of course portions of scripture that are more inspiring, more interesting, more uplifting, more spiritually beneficial we feel to our inner man than other parts of scripture.

[29:20] But no other part is less the word of God than any other part. It all comes with the same equal authority. And that is where many, I believe, have gone astray.

[29:32] Especially when we consider something like the transition in the New Testament and moving from the writings of Saint Luke in the book of Acts and the exploits regarding the apostles and in particular Saint Peter who unquestionably was raised up of God to be the chief spokesman for the twelve.

[29:58] It was Peter to whom the keys of the kingdom were given. Christ mentions that in Matthew chapter 16 at Peter's great confession there at Caesarea Philippi. There can be no doubt that Peter was the principal vehicle that opened the way to the Gentiles.

[30:18] And he took a lot of heat for doing it simply because he was a Jew and he and his fellow Jews thought that anything to do with God was limited strictly to the Jewish people.

[30:31] That God had no interest or care in the Gentiles. And yet the lesson that was taught through the incident involving Cornelius that God used Peter to open the way to is I think of stunning clarity and significance.

[30:50] And we'll not bother to go back to the account now but we spent some time in Acts chapter 10 and 11 in previous sessions dealing with this tremendous breakthrough through.

[31:01] That God was taking Jew and Gentile and putting them into one new body and Peter didn't get it. He never understood the concept.

[31:15] And it isn't until the most unlikely individual you could imagine came on the scene one who was brimming brimming with hatred and animosity toward Jesus Christ and everyone who was connected with him.

[31:37] Saul of Tarsus a butcher an original Jewish Gestapo agent if you will. God arrested this madman on the road to Damascus and called him to be the apostle to the Gentiles.

[32:00] Who in the world ever heard of such a thing? Gentiles don't have any apostles. Israel had twelve.

[32:11] Peter, James, John, Matthew, Philip. The list is there in Matthew chapter 10. One apostle for each of the twelve tribes of Israel.

[32:23] Gentiles don't have tribes. They're just a conglomerate of pagans. That's all. And if you want to read how God really viewed them, read the second chapter of Paul's letter to the Ephesians.

[32:41] And it's a pretty sad plight that belonged to the Gentiles until God raised up this man called Saul of Tarsus. And he said, I'm going to send you to the Gentiles.

[32:55] Nobody in all of Israel ever heard of such a ridiculous thing as that. And what we're going to have is a changing of the guard because when you get into Acts chapter 12, that's the last you read of Peter.

[33:12] He's gone. He's off the scene. I don't know how much into the book of Acts Peter was still alive or if the tradition that he was crucified upside down because he didn't feel that he was worthy to be crucified in the manner of his Lord and he requested that he be crucified upside down and they accommodated him.

[33:35] I don't know if that's just tradition or if it really happened. But when you come to the 12th chapter of the book of Acts, Peter is gone and yet, there are several years of history because the Acts of the Apostles encompasses, remember, three decades, 30 years.

[33:55] And Acts chapter 12 is only about halfway through that 30 year cycle. And then the baton, the baton is passed from Peter to Paul.

[34:11] Paul. And it is Paul who becomes the chief spokesperson not only for the Gentiles but also for the Jews.

[34:26] Paul is a switch hitter. He goes both ways. To the Gentiles he became a Gentile, to the Jews he became a Jew, to the Greeks he became a Greek, that he might win some. He became God's all-purpose apostle, but with a tremendous emphasis on the Gentiles.

[34:46] Because Israel, as a Jewish nation, was coming more and more and more into a position of rejection and refusal of Christ as their Messiah.

[35:06] And while we are excited about the number of Jews that believe beginning with 3,000 on the day of Pentecost, and the number added 5,000 a couple of chapters later, that's going to undergo a reversal.

[35:22] And later on there are going to be fewer and fewer Jews who are going to embrace Jesus as the Messiah and the Jews who do and continue to come to the Jewish synagogue where all of their connections were, social, business, educational, and everything else, they began to be ostracized.

[35:48] And the establishment Jew was beginning to become very uncomfortable with these pesky Jewish friends of theirs who insisted that Jesus was the Messiah and they kept propagating this stuff.

[36:03] and it wasn't long until they were persona non grata in the synagogue. And they ended up starting little home churches of their own.

[36:15] Jews gathering together, believing in the Lord Jesus, no longer welcome in the synagogue, meeting in private homes. Sometimes Gentiles would be added to them, sometimes it would be almost strictly Jews.

[36:29] This is the kind of demarcation that was taking place very early, in the second century, probably even in the first century, within just a couple of decades after the closing of the book of Acts.

[36:42] So we've got this tremendous transition that is taking place, and more and more Gentiles are coming to faith, and fewer and fewer Jews.

[36:52] And the next thing you know, the Jewish people are going to be almost an isolated segment all throughout the Mediterranean world as Christendom, belief in the person of Jesus of Messiah is burgeoning in growth, and eventually it will overtake the Roman Empire.

[37:14] And it will be Constantine the Great who in 325 at the Edict of Nicaea proclaimed that it is no longer illegal to be a Christian.

[37:29] Now, it's illegal not to be a Christian. And everything changed. Meanwhile, the Jew and the Gentile are still really isolated.

[37:44] Who has come on the scene to proclaim this new thing? Otherwise, not even known what God was doing with the Jew and Gentile. And this completely escaped Peter.

[37:56] And I need you to understand something about Peter's not knowing this. Peter didn't know this, not because he was dull and couldn't figure it out, but because it was not revealed to Peter.

[38:12] It was revealed to Paul. And it is amazing how many Christians that is lost on. For some reason, they have a problem with that.

[38:23] And I don't understand it. But it is the singling out of the Apostle Paul and the revealing to him a whole new thing that nobody before had ever even dreamed of.

[38:37] And now, he has the task of proclaiming this and breaking into the scene with this new information. And you know what? He's going to get a lot of opposition.

[38:50] And let me tell you something. He still does. 2,000 years later, he still does. And I can well recall talking to some of my pastor friends over the last 30, 40 years about this issue.

[39:06] And I said, but what are you going to do about this? Here in Ephesians chapter 3, Paul said, well, that's Paul. That's Paul.

[39:17] What? What? Paul. That's not Paul. That's God. How did we reduce that and just put it on Paul?

[39:32] That's Paul's opinion? That's Paul's idea? It's incredible how many Christians actually believe that. Now, if you want the real scoop, get back in the Gospels where Jesus is and get it from him because that you can believe.

[39:48] But what Paul said, that's just his opinion. Oh, my dear friends, no wonder we are so messed up. All scripture is given by inspiration of God.

[40:01] I've got some verses I have to hasten to them. Let's go first of all to oh my. well, let's just stop off at 1 Corinthians 14.

[40:17] Just for starters, I'm not going to elaborate on this, but 1 Corinthians 14. Monumental statement.

[40:31] Verse 37. Take it or leave it. The apostle says, if anyone thinks, he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize that the things which I write to you are the Lord's commandment.

[40:51] Now, my question is this. Is that true or not? If it isn't, if it isn't true, then maybe are friends who say, well, that's just Paul.

[41:12] Maybe they've got a point. Because if this isn't true, what right and what reason do you have to believe that anything else Paul said is true? Do you see what this does to the authority and the inspiration of the scriptures?

[41:25] It all comes crashing down. You don't have an authority. as far as some people are concerned, you might as well take the four gospels, remove them from all the rest of the New Testament and just go with them alone.

[41:40] Because according to their thinking, that's all you need. But that isn't all you need. The four gospels are just part of the story. I don't know that anybody is of the opinion when you read in Exodus, chapter 20, thou shalt worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.

[42:08] You shall have no other gods before me. I wonder if anybody is going to say, well, that's just Moses. That's just Moses. That's Moses giving you his opinion.

[42:23] You see, it all stands or falls together. scripture, this book is authoritative and inspired from cover to cover or the whole of it is suspect.

[42:37] You don't know what to take or what to leave. But all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable. It isn't just what Paul said.

[42:48] Jesus Christ is speaking through Paul in the same way that he spoke through Moses in the same way that he spoke through Isaiah in the same way that he spoke through Habakkuk.

[43:00] That's what inspiration is. It is the spirit of God moving these men to write the things they wrote without error and with supreme authority.

[43:14] And while it is true, God could have just plopped the Bible down out of heaven and not using any human instrumentality or he could have used angels to write it or he could have written it himself and just dropped the kerpunk down and say now make copies of it.

[43:30] But he didn't do that. In order to give the Bible a human dimension human pathos human feeling human emotion he utilized human beings and he filtered his authoritative word through their emotions and through their vocabulary and through their stylistic differences but with his authority.

[43:57] So the Bible has multiple writers one author spirit of God. God and when we come to the Bible and approach it like that we see a progression of movement of doctrinal development of change and transition taking place and the book of Acts is right smack dab in the thick of it.

[44:26] And here is where this tremendous transition takes place from the kingdom of heaven being proclaimed to the Jew by John the Baptist by Jesus and by the twelve and that being laid aside and replaced with a whole new thing that involves Jew and Gentile together in one body.

[44:53] I want to close with this passage of Scripture in Ephesians chapter 3 says it better than I could ever think of it. Ephesians chapter 3 this is just groundbreaking stuff.

[45:08] For this reason I Paul the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace which was given to me for you you Gentiles that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery as I wrote before in brief and by referring to this when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ which listen listen please listen verse 5 which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the spirit in other words nobody knew about this stuff before this is all new stuff nobody knew about this it was never prophesied you won't find this in Isaiah it's not in the

[46:08] Psalms it's not in the Gospels completely new it just popped in just dropped in on the scene out of nowhere seemingly and it's this thing called the mystery which is the body of Christ the two Jew and Gentile being wedded into one body one new man amazing amazing to be specific that the Gentiles are fellow heirs fellow heirs with whom with Jews with Jews put that in your pipe and smoke it wow that is groundbreaking stuff and fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel of which I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace which was given to me according to the working of his power to me and it is as if Paul is saying and who am I the very least of all saints this grace was given to preach to the

[47:11] Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things the picture is this God had it in mind all along but he never let anybody in on it until now and when he did it hit like a bombshell wow Jew Gentile together one body you've got to be kidding now that's called the church which is his body Jew and Gentile in order that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places in accordance with the eternal purpose which he carried out in

[48:16] Christ Jesus our Lord in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in him and where is Peter in all of this Peter is already off the scene listen he served his generation and his calling well but he had a different assignment to a different people and this is why he is going to write in his second I believe it says in his second epistle Peter uses this phrase I won't ask you to turn to it but you can look it up later if you want Peter makes a statement and he talks about our beloved brother Paul wrote some things that are hard to be understood you get that Peter says Paul wrote some things that are hard to be understood now is that any way for an apostle who is supposedly really enlightened to talk about another apostle well

[49:21] Peter didn't know that and the reason Peter didn't know it wasn't because he was supposed to know it or he was dull and stupid no it's because it was not revealed to Peter it was revealed to Paul and this establishes the primacy of Paul this is God's up to date information what was revealed through Paul you see in closing let me put it this way when Jesus was here on earth he gave a great deal of information to the twelve apostles and it all had to do with Israel and the kingdom of heaven coming to earth and the presentation of the kingdom the offer of it on the day of Pentecost and in Acts chapter 3 that was Peter's assignment that was the most up to date information then but after

[50:22] Christ ascended the glorified Lord from heaven isn't finished talking he's going to be continuing his communication and his doctrinal revelation from heaven to Paul the apostle on earth and this is the abundance of revelations that he is talking about when he writes to the Corinthians that he received from the Lord and what it is is updated information it is information that transcends what Peter and the twelve had this is new stuff and the apostle Paul is the only one to whom God revealed it and then he revealed it to others this is foundational very basic sorry I don't have time for Q&A if you have questions objections whatever feel free to write them out you don't need to sign your name drop them in the offering box

[51:25] I'll do my best to have a Q&A next week but this I wanted to get all of this in as much as I could in one fell swoop and I still didn't get to a really different and we trust that nobody will embrace it and accept it because it's new and different and we trust that nobody will reject it or decline it because it's new and different but we want everyone within hearing to give thoughtful consideration to these things as to whether they are valid or not and whether they make a difference or not and use it as foundational material we trust for greater enlightenment to come and father we want to be purveyors of truth and we recognize that we have so little truth compared to what there is to be had we have but an infinitesimal amount of truth but it has created within us a deep desire and hunger for more because nothing works like the word works thank you for whatever you are pleased to do with this information in name of

[52:58]  Christ our Lord amen