Transcription downloaded from https://sermons.gracespringfield.com/sermons/101314/2026_09_20_dispensationalism/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] So, we've got about 50 minutes here. Well, I probably have enough questions to take up about half that time.!

[0:30] All right, so just to set things up here, again, we have, this is our final, it's not really a message, but our final Sunday here in our series on dispensationalism.

[0:41] Just because of some of the things going on in the culture, that word has been coming up, not just in church settings, but in, you know, programs like the Tucker Carlson, his program.

[0:51] And Candace Owen has been bringing that up, always in a very negative fashion, because both of those people think that dispensationalism, and it's kind of becoming a popular thing over the last 200 years, think that it's some kind of Jewish psyop, you know, to increase Jewish power in the world, and have promoted all kinds of conspiracy theories, some that have been around for a long time and debunked many, many, many times over many, many years, but they continue to be promoted.

[1:27] Regardless, because it came up, you know, I thought it would be good to talk about it, and speak about what it is, and as a church, that's kind of the framework that we use here as we teach through the Bible, and so I thought it would be helpful to just go through, well, what is this thing called dispensationalism?

[1:46] So today, we're going to have some Q&A. Now, we had some questions submitted, so I'm going to start with those, but as we go through here, once I exhaust these questions, that are submitted, we'll go ahead, and my daughter, she'll be roaming around with a microphone, and we'll take some questions.

[2:06] So we're going to start with the first one here, and the first question that I got, and this was actually at the very beginning, after our first message, is, why, in your opinion, does God have so many different dispensations?

[2:22] Why are there so many different, why are these different eras where the rules changed in some kind of fashion, where things were different? One of the examples that I gave that first message was when it comes to eating meat.

[2:36] That has changed over the different eras of the Bible. In the very beginning, there was no eating meat. It was just the plants and the trees, the herbs, the things that grew out of the ground.

[2:50] Those were food for Adam and Eve. But then after the fall, and then specifically after Noah's flood, God said, you can eat of any of the animals.

[3:03] And then into the law of Moses, it was restricted, not just any of the animals, but then just there was a separation of clean and unclean animals. And then later on, Paul says, in Christ, we are free when it comes to what we eat.

[3:17] And so there is no more regulation around what we eat. We can eat whatever we'd like. We're free in that regard. So, but why, in your opinion, does God have so many different dispensations?

[3:30] The morals stay the same, which is true. So why do the consequences and even some of the rules change? And that was, the food laws is just one example of some of the rules that have changed.

[3:41] Again, not the fundamental moral principles, but the rules on how to be God's people. Okay, so we'll start with that.

[3:51] I think, and this is a typical thing given by dispensationalists, people who teach dispensationalism, is that kind of each of these eras represent somewhat of a test or a lesson to teach.

[4:04] And so we went through kind of the seven dispensations. People argue about whether there's really seven, and I don't know how much those details are helpful.

[4:15] I think they can be helpful. But each dispensation, I think, teaches a lesson. After the fall, what happened?

[4:28] Remember what caused the fall. It was eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And the serpent said, you will be wise like God, knowing good from evil.

[4:41] And it says that their eyes were opened to good and evil. That first dispensation, we actually call the dispensation of innocence. Adam and Eve were innocent. There was no sin.

[4:53] But when sin entered the world, their eyes were opened to good and evil. And we call what happened to them, they experienced, is that their hearts were opened. That knowledge of good and evil that they were open to, we call it our conscience.

[5:08] And so during that next dispensation, which people called the dispensation of conscience, people lived according to what, to their own conscience, to their determination in their own hearts of right and wrong.

[5:24] And so I think what God was doing throughout all of these ages was teaching lessons. What happens if you have people where sin has entered into the world, where they just live according to their own conscience?

[5:40] Well, how did things turn out during that time era when people were living just according to their own conscience? Well, it says during the age of Noah, during the time of Noah, that the earth was filled with violence.

[5:52] And that everybody, I'm trying to remember the passage. Let's turn to Genesis. Genesis. Oh boy.

[6:14] I'm not going to be able to find this. And of course, I need my glasses too here, guys. Here it is.

[6:25] Genesis 6, 5. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intent of the thought of his heart was only evil continually.

[6:38] That's what happened when men, when sin enters the world, when men just live according to their conscience. The earth is filled with violence and people's hearts are just filled with evil.

[6:50] And so, the next thing is, well, we're going to bring in some human government and we'll see what happens. And human government comes in after the flood of Noah, specifically with the death penalty.

[7:04] And then later on, we see the law enter where there is a code written in black and white. And what happens there? There's a lesson to be learned.

[7:15] Here is a code. It's not just what's in your heart. You know, that's kind of, can be somewhat abstract, right? But you have this concrete law written in stone and then in black and white on parchment that says what you ought to do and what you ought not to do.

[7:30] And how does that turn out? What's the lesson? Well, even the law written in black and white cannot make people righteous. And ultimately, I think all of these lessons were meant to point to the solution that everybody needed.

[7:51] And the solution was God himself. That mankind needed God, needed union with their creator. And that's ultimately what God did for us in Christ Jesus.

[8:04] Union with Christ. And so we have Christ in us, the hope of glory, the Bible says. Just a few scripture verses. I wrote these down since I got these beforehand.

[8:17] Romans 3.19 says, Now we know that whatever the law says, so this is one of the past dispensations, it says to those who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and that all the world may be guilty before God.

[8:27] The law was teaching a lesson. Not here's how you become righteous, but hey, you're not righteous. So that everybody would become guilty. Galatians 3.22 says this, But the scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

[8:47] So the scriptures, the Old Testament scriptures, the law, it confined everybody as a sinner. And so there are lessons to be learned through each of these dispensations.

[8:59] And ultimately, with the grace dispensation, the one that we are in now, in a lot of ways, this is a fulfillment of what God kind of promised. A lot of the things, by the way, in the Old Testament law, all these rituals.

[9:13] So there was, and we've talked about this in our Ten Commandments series. You can kind of separate moral, the moral aspects of the law and the ceremonial or ritual aspects of the law. And the ceremony and ritual things were types and shadows that also pointed to Christ.

[9:30] They were things to make the Jewish people a particular, a peculiar people, the Bible says. A people that would stick out from the rest of the people in the world.

[9:41] And those types and shadows ultimately pointed to Jesus Christ and what he would do through the cross. Let's see. Let me see if I answered kind of all of those.

[10:05] Yeah, I think looking into the future, the other thing to bring up is, so we live in this dispensation of the grace of God. That's the term the Bible uses. And this is kind of, in a lot of ways, this is what God planned, kind of the end game.

[10:24] Not the complete end game, but union with our creator is part of the end game. But there is a dispensation left, which is the dispensation of the kingdom.

[10:37] And that's the kingdom, that's the dispensation, the era in which Jesus will come, he'll return, and he will rule and reign on the earth for a thousand years.

[10:49] And some people debate whether it's a literal thousand years, but for a long time. I think it's probably exactly a thousand years, but that's debatable, or people debate that.

[11:00] But I think during that era, it will be a time where God's law, the law that he gave to Israel, will be justified.

[11:12] You know, in a lot of ways, the law really didn't work under Israel. And why? Well, because the people who were administering the law were also sinners. And they failed in so many ways.

[11:23] All these kings, failure after failure after failure. But I think in the future, this 1,000 year reign of Christ, God will show, because here's what it says that's going to happen.

[11:37] Jesus will rule all the nations with an iron fist, and there will be peace on the earth, and justice will reign like water. I can't remember exactly all the terminology used, but it will be a time of great peace and justice in the earth.

[11:52] And that's because Jesus himself, God our creator, will be the one ruling and reigning on the earth. And it will justify, say, hey, see this law? It's actually a good thing when you have the right person administering it.

[12:07] But then even then, there will be a later time after that, the new heavens and the new earth, when even the law itself will no longer be needed, because all sin will be eradicated from the world.

[12:21] So, anyway, the big, kind of, to wrap that all up, I think the answer is, hey, God's teaching a lesson. I think if God, right after Adam and Eve fell, if God brought in, you know, Jesus to die for the sins of the world, I think there would have been a lot of things that were missed, that were not understood clearly.

[12:40] And I think all of these different eras help to kind of build up the case for why the most important thing that we need in life is not a rule book.

[12:53] It's God himself in us. That's the way that God designed us to live. All right. All right. All right.

[13:11] Here's another question. Don't Gentiles in Christ receive all the blessings promised to Abraham as stated in Galatians 3.14?

[13:22] So, one of the things that we talked about in one of our previous messages was about the promises made to Israel are different from the promises made to the body of Christ.

[13:35] And that's something that's disputed among Christians. So, in the dispensational camp, you say, well, there's a difference here. Our, and what kind of I was teaching was our blessings are spiritual in nature, whereas Israel's, it included spiritual promises, especially for the future, but there were a lot of material blessings involved.

[14:00] A land, a kingdom, a king being the head and not the tail. There were blessings if they kept the law of Moses. And so, some people have put it this way.

[14:15] For the body of Christ, our blessings are spiritual, and for Israel, they're more material in nature. But Galatians 3.14, this is what the passage being referenced here.

[14:31] It says this, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

[14:43] And so, there's this reference to the blessing of Abraham coming on the Gentiles. And some people read this, and they say, oh, well, all the things that God promised to Abraham is something that is for all believers of every, you know, kind of we are the spiritual descendants of Abraham.

[15:02] And so, everything that was promised to Abraham is for us. And so, some people interpret that to mean, well, the land promises to Israel must be just spiritual in nature. And they were kind of physical for a time.

[15:15] There was actually a land that they inherited, that they went into. But that ultimately, in the future, the land just represents kind of a spiritual kingdom that God will rule and reign, you know, through the hearts of men or something like that.

[15:31] But the whole, you know, a huge portion of Galatians, and actually that's the next book we're going to be studying, is, kind of makes the correct distinction.

[15:47] Notice that this blessing in this verse, Galatians 3.14, that the blessing of Abraham, it doesn't say the blessings, it says the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus.

[16:01] And Paul, I think, makes the case in this same passage, what that blessing is. In Galatians 3.8, it says this, And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, In you, all the nations shall be blessed.

[16:22] So then, those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham. Abraham. And so, the blessing being discussed here is not all these things promised to the Jewish people or to Abraham's physical descendants, but it's that justification by faith.

[16:41] In Romans, I can't remember exactly where this is, but it mentions that Abraham is the father of two groups of people. Not just one, but two groups. He is the father of those of the circumcised, it says, and of the uncircumcised.

[16:57] He's the father of those who keep the law, and he's the father of those who have faith only. And so, because of that promise that happened in the very beginning of his interaction with God, it says that God justified him without any works.

[17:13] But then later on, was there any works that Abraham had to do? Yes, there was. He had to be circumcised, and he had to circumcise his children. But those came later.

[17:24] And one of the points made in Galatians is that those things that came later did not annul what came before. And so, the blessing that we have through Abraham is not through circumcision.

[17:37] That's where the Jews came in, and their covenant with God is through circumcision. But he says, no, the blessing that we have through Abraham is through the promise that was made.

[17:53] And so, sometimes people will point to some of the promises given to Israel and say, oh, well, we can adopt those for ourselves. And I don't think that that's the case at all.

[18:05] And I think, and Paul makes this point, hey, if you want to receive the blessings of Abraham, or excuse me, the blessings of the law, you also have to be willing to receive the cursings of the law, which says, if you don't do these things that are in the law, then you will be under a curse.

[18:24] But he says, Christ freed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. All right, let me take, just to kind of mix things up here, are there any questions from the audience?

[18:44] Okay, I see one in the back. Where's my mic? Right in the very back there. All right, so, am I talking loud enough?

[19:02] Yep. Okay. I think so, I can hear you really clear. Okay, so, talking about Romans and the distinction between Jews and Gentiles, one of the sticking points that I have in a question that constantly is going through my head, that I have not found a good answer to yet, is in Romans 9.

[19:30] Yeah. Verses... Which is a highly disputed chapter among Christians. Three through six, I think.

[19:41] But specifically six, I guess. And six and seven. So it says, But it is not as though the word of God has failed, for they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel, nor are they all children, because they are Abraham's descendants, but through Isaac your descendants shall be named.

[20:02] That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants. Right.

[20:16] And so the idea is that God really didn't recognize just the physical descendants of Abraham as Israelites, but only those who are faithful.

[20:29] Right. Is that the idea? Yeah. Yeah, and this is definitely... So there's the kind of alternative framework to dispensationalism.

[20:43] It's called covenant theology, and it says, Hey, we are the descendants of Abraham. The Jewish people don't really have any identity anymore as God's people, and won't in the future as well, either, I should say.

[20:56] And so this is definitely a passage that they would go to. So let me read this again. But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect, for they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children, because they are the seed of Abraham.

[21:13] But in Isaac your seed shall be called. I'm trying to figure out where I should end here. That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as the seed.

[21:30] And then he goes in, and he makes a point regarding what was promised to Abraham. There were... Abraham actually had his first son, was Ishmael.

[21:42] And he makes the point, well, Ishmael wasn't a child of promise. It was actually Isaac through his wife, Sarah. And then even further, with the next generation, Isaac and Rebecca had two boys, twins, Jacob and Esau, and God specifically chose just one of those twin boys to be the pathway of blessing for Abraham's children.

[22:16] And so, in both of those cases, and Paul actually makes the point here, that it wasn't really related to whether people were faithful or not.

[22:28] Like for Ishmael, the reason God rejected Ishmael was not because, well, Ishmael was a bad guy. And he could have been a bad guy. We don't really know a lot about him.

[22:39] Or the same thing with Jacob and Esau. It wasn't because Jacob was this amazing, you know, believer who was faithful to God, and Isaac wasn't.

[22:49] It was that God just simply chose who he was going to bless. One of the things that happened, or I'm trying to remember where this is at, but somewhere along the way in the scriptures, and there's a lot of great scripture, you know, Bible scholars out here, so feel free to help me out here.

[23:12] But somewhere in the scriptures, it says that God could raise up children to himself from the rocks. Am I getting that right? From these stones?

[23:24] That God could do that. And so God can choose to bless any kind of group of people. And so one of the things that Paul is doing here is he's making a case for why God is allowed to temporarily turn from the Jewish people as ethnic Israel, the ethnic children of Abraham, and temporarily turn from his program with them or his blessing towards them, and instead bless who?

[24:00] Bless the Gentiles. The same thing. And so he's saying this as, he's saying, but it's not as if the word of God has not taken effect. And the reason he's saying that is because, well, God made these promises to Israel, so I guess now he's not going to fulfill those promises, and he's not going to bless who he said he was going to bless.

[24:27] And so I guess God's a liar, or he doesn't know what he's talking about. And so he's making the case, well, that's not true. Nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham, but in Isaac your seed shall be called.

[24:40] There are other passages, and I think when you read Romans 9, I think really you've got to read Romans 9, 10, and 11 together because it tells a whole, it paints a big picture.

[24:54] I mean, of course, reading the whole Bible paints an even bigger picture, but sometimes there are certain portions of Scripture that, man, you really cannot understand well unless you read the whole thing.

[25:12] The other thing that kind of goes along with chapter 9 in Romans, and I don't remember what chapter, even book or verse it was, but Paul does clearly state that the covenant with Abraham, when they talk about the seed, that that was not a plurality, it was a singularity, and Christ was the seed.

[25:43] Yeah, that's in Galatians. Yeah, so, and he makes that point to say that, hey, even though the Gentiles are not heirs of Israel, God can still bless them because what the prophets foretold, and this gets into the whole difference between prophecy and mystery, what the prophets foretold was that there would be a day in which the Jewish people would bless the Jews by leading them to God.

[26:23] So the Jewish people would become somewhat like evangelists to the world and lead people to God. And because of their rebellion against God when Jesus came, that didn't happen.

[26:36] But they were still blessed through the seed, the seed of Abraham, that singular seed, Jesus Christ himself.

[26:47] And so it still happened the way that it said it would happen in that specific promise anyway. And so it was through the seed of Jesus, Jesus himself being a Jew, being a descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and then even a descendant of David himself.

[27:10] And so, in fact, I think in Galatians, Galatians chapter 5, 6, I can't, I can't find it.

[28:01] But it says that we are children of the promise through Christ. And going back to exactly what Paul was talking about there in Galatians. 4, 28.

[28:12] 4, 28. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise.

[28:28] But as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the spirit, even so it is now. And yeah, so he's saying, just like Isaac was a child of the promise, his brother Ishmael, his half-brother Ishmael, was not.

[28:43] We are also children of the promise because we have trusted in Christ. We are in Christ. That's our identity. We are part of the family. We are adopted in because we have joined ourselves to Christ.

[29:02] But the assumption from that is that, well, because we inherited the promise of blessing that was promised to the Gentiles in the future through Jesus Christ, that that means that, well, Israel, physical Israel, material Israel, never really had a, have something that's unique from us.

[29:34] That we have kind of replaced national Israel in that way. But if you go to Romans chapter 11, which is just a couple of chapters after Romans 9, of course, in verse 1, so Romans 11, I say then, has God cast away his people?

[29:58] And who is he talking about with his people? He says, certainly not, for I am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. And so he's talking about physical Israel.

[30:11] So he's making a point about us as Gentiles being like how God is able through his prophetic promises to graft us in, why he has the right or the ability, you know, to do that.

[30:26] But then he follows up in chapter 11, say, hey, God still has a plan. He still is going to fulfill his promises that he made to Israel. But how he gets to blessing the Gentiles, the route just changed a little bit, if you will.

[30:43] Instead of Israel being the avenue of God's blessing to Israel, like the people of Israel, the nation of Israel being God's path of blessing to the Gentiles, instead it's just through Christ alone is the path of blessing.

[31:05] But God still has a plan for Israel. He says this again, I say, then has God cast away his people? Certainly not. For I am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin.

[31:16] God has not cast away his people whom he foreknew. Or do you not know that scripture says of Elijah how he pleaded with God against Israel, Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars and I alone am left and they seek my life.

[31:29] And so he's saying, hey, I've got people among Israel that are still faithful and then he says, basically he's saying that I have kind of darkened the eyes of the Jewish people kind of in general.

[31:49] Some people call this a judicial blinding of the nation of Israel. And so verse 15, for if they're being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be?

[32:09] So he's looking still for a future acceptance of ethnic Israel. For if the first fruit is holy, the lump is also holy and if the root is holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches were broken off and you being a wild olive tree, so now he's talking about the Gentiles being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree, do not boast against the branches.

[32:34] But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will then say, branches were broken off that I might be grafted in. He says, well said, because of unbelief, they were broken off.

[32:46] Again, he's talking about ethnic Jews and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he may not spare you either. Therefore, consider the goodness and severity of God on those who fell severity, but towards you goodness if you continue in his goodness.

[33:02] Otherwise, you will be cut off also. He's just saying, hey, listen, this is all through God's grace. Don't boast as if you're, you know, some big deal. You're not really that big of a deal only because God put his blessing on you.

[33:16] And again, we have to think about these people as groups. So God's blessing of the Gentiles, right? He blessed Gentiles by opening the door of salvation to the Gentiles.

[33:29] But you have to go through that door, right? In order to kind of inherit the blessing. And not all Gentiles do. Nathan, real quick.

[33:44] Yeah. I get what you're saying, but it reminds me of another verse also. I can't tell you the passage again either, but it goes something like it is God's will that all are saved.

[34:07] Yeah, God desires all men to come to the knowledge of the truth and to salvation. Right. I think that's in Timothy, one of the Timothys. Right, right, right.

[34:18] So, and there's other verses where God has had this planned since before the first day of creation.

[34:30] Right? I think that's in Ephesians where it says that God planned all of this before he ever even created the world. And so, if he planned for all to come to faith and be saved, saved, then I don't see how we can say that he chose a specific people to be saved.

[35:03] It almost seems like you were saying earlier where you think that the different dispensational eras was kind of like God teaching humanity lessons.

[35:17] Yeah. I kind of, I agree with that. But I almost wonder if it kind of seems like to me the more that I read from the Bible, whether from the New Testament or the Old Testament, that salvation pretty much seems to always occur through faith of some form or another.

[35:38] Whereas we see the law and we talk about the law as like works today, right? And they're called works in the New Testament. the more I think about it, the more it seems to me almost like those works at that point in time were God's requirement as the demonstration of faith.

[36:02] So you demonstrate your faith through those works, right? Yep. Whereas today we call them works and we talk about them as being not faithful because we are explicitly told in the New Testament that's not for you at this point in time, right?

[36:21] And so the demonstration of faith at this point in time is demonstrating that you have faith that God is not requiring you to do those works.

[36:35] Does that make sense? Yeah, agreed. Yeah, I think in every age faith is, some level of faith is required. For Israel, their faith was in the covenant that God gave them.

[36:47] And so that included, that required works. And so in order to demonstrate your faith, well, if you believe that this is God's covenant for you, Israel, well, then you have to keep the covenant.

[36:58] That's how you demonstrate your faith. But for us in Christ, we don't have that covenant. Our relationship with God is based on our trusting in the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

[37:09] And so that is the only thing that we put our faith in. And so there is nothing for us to demonstrate as far as keeping the law regarding our faith. We just trust Jesus died for the sins of the world and for my sins in particular.

[37:24] Terry? I wanted to thank you for doing this dispensation series. This church is a mid-acts dispensational church. If you're not sure what that means, and most of the people here do know exactly what it means because of the great teaching.

[37:41] you're providing and because of the wonderful teaching that Marv has provided through the years, you know what a mid-acts dispensational viewpoint is. The nice thing about the books that the church is providing is that it incorporates that information so that just by reading those books, you can get a great overview of how all this fits together.

[38:07] And as you know, I'm a great proponent of Don Samdall, who wrote the God's Programs books and his website, doctrine.org, that if you want to know about why do we not do water baptism, if you want to know about the rapture, if you want to know the difference between the mystery and prophecy, if you want to know the secret, if you want to know about the church, the body of Christ, all that information is there, it's very readily, it's well researched, you can read it in 15 or 20 minutes and have the answers that you need.

[38:47] You know, for a majority of my Christian life, I knew I was a believer, and when people would talk to me and I would say, I believe, and they'd say, why, or they'd ask me a question, or they'd bring up a point about their church, I was stumped, and I didn't have a ready answer.

[39:11] With the books that the church is providing, with Don's website, you have that information readily available, you can educate yourself, and you can be prepared to provide a response, and that's exactly what we need to do as members of the church, the body of Christ.

[39:32] Yeah, thank you, Terry. Yeah, there are various kind of flavors, if you will, of dispensationalism, and a lot of it has to do with, well, when did the church, the body of Christ actually start?

[39:44] And so, there's like, you know, I think the majority view, by the way, you know, one of the most famous dispensationalists today is John MacArthur.

[39:55] Well, he's passed away in this last year, but he would be what you call an Acts 2 dispensationalist. He believes the church started in Acts 2. Kind of the approach that I take, and this church has taken over the years, is, well, actually, the church, the body of Christ started with the ministry of the apostle Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles.

[40:16] And so, that, you know, changes a few things, not everything. They're still kind of under the umbrella of dispensationalism, but it can change how you view different things.

[40:29] And so, yeah, that's the approach that we take, you know, as I teach through the Bible. And one of the nice things about Don Samdahl's books, he gives you that foundation, and you know exactly what the answers are.

[40:46] So, for example, in the Acts 2, he gives 21 reasons why the church, the body of Christ, could not have begun in Acts 2, and it began with the Apostle Paul.

[40:59] Yep. And there's 21 well-researched reasons why that occurs. So, as you're reading all the multiple literature that's available about the Bible and the various things, you're going to read things and you're not going to know whether they're telling you the truth or whether they're not.

[41:16] If you read these basic core books, then you'll be able to come back and know exactly what the differences are of why you believe or don't believe a certain way.

[41:30] All right, I'll try to keep making some progress here. One more, we've got a few more questions here. So, someone asked this question, will there be any Jew-Gentile distinction during the millennial reign of Christ?

[41:45] And so, we've got a future in which one of the things we talked about is the church will be raptured away, and then there will be this tribulation, and then Jesus will return, and he will reign for a thousand years, with, according to the prophets, the Jewish people being the head and not the tail.

[42:05] Jesus himself said that you twelve apostles will sit on twelve thrones ruling over the twelve tribes of Israel. And you look at a lot of the prophecies about this coming reign of the Messiah, and the Jewish people would kind of be the chief nation in the world, and all the other nations would come to them, would bless them with all kinds of material things, and so that's the idea of this future dispensation of the kingdom.

[42:40] And so, the question is, will there be any Jew or Gentile distinction between that millennial reign of Christ? Christ? So, I think, I'm trying to think of exactly how to answer this.

[43:01] Jesus told, in, he talked about this sheep and the goats, and he said during the tribulation, he talks about the tribulation, and when all this stuff happens, there will be a, all the nations of the world will be judged.

[43:21] Nations, actually, that term nations, if you see that in the scriptures, in the New Testament, it's actually the same word as Gentiles, same word as Gentiles. And so, there will be this judgment of the nations based on whether they, what they did with the persecuted Jews during that time.

[43:39] you've heard people talk about, well, you know, Jesus said that if, you know, people who clothed the naked or visited people in prison and that kind of thing, well, that's actually talking about during the tribulation.

[43:54] So, Jesus said, hey, you who helped out the Jewish people during this time of tribulation, I am going to bless you and you're going to enter into my kingdom. And so, in the kingdom, there will be Jew and Gentile.

[44:09] So, in the book of Revelation, chapter 20, it teaches that the Jews will act as priests to the Gentiles in that future era.

[44:20] Revelation 20, verse 6, says this, blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such, the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years.

[44:35] So, the Jewish people will act as priests to represent God, to the rest of the world. There's a prophecy in Zechariah, chapter 14, where it talks about the Gentile nations during this kingdom era.

[44:52] It says this, Zechariah 14, 16, and it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Israel, this is during the tribulation, shall go up from year to year to worship the king, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.

[45:08] So, there is this reference to Jew and Gentile even during this kingdom, but there is a separation. It's not a mixture. God has Gentiles that he will bless, but then he has special blessings for the Jewish people.

[45:24] Let me make sure I get back to the question. And so, there will be a distinction during that millennial reign of Christ. There will also be Gentiles who will not really be interested in blessing Israel or in loving the Lord during that time.

[45:42] Now, Jesus will rule with an iron fist and people are not going to stir up trouble. They're going to kind of keep the peace, but they're going to be people who hate God. And what happens at the end of that millennial reign is that there will be a final battle where God will kind of allow there to be one final revolt against his authority and that will be kind of the end of everything.

[46:08] God will put down his enemies, allow what's in their hearts for the last thousand years to kind of come out in that battle and he will put an end to all rebellion in the world.

[46:23] Another question that kind of comes up, oh man, time flies, is in the new heaven and the new earth. So that's what comes after the millennial.

[46:34] The millennium is the new heaven and the new earth. Will there be a Jew-Gentile distinction there? Well, if you read in Revelation, it seems like there is. And then there's a question of, so some people teach, well, grace believers in this era will be raptured up to heaven and that will be our home for all of eternity in heaven.

[46:55] And the Jewish people, well, they were promised that they would inherit their land and then Jesus talked about inheriting the! I'm not, I think that we were all made to be people of the earth.

[47:13] In fact, we were made out of the dust of the ground. And there's a passage in Ephesians 1.10 that says this, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth faith in him.

[47:31] And I don't think you can make a total final theology from that, but it seems like God is going to, hey, take all these different groups of people and they're all just going to be one people in the end.

[47:49] So that's kind of my take on it. I got a couple more questions that I really want to get to. Alright. Regarding grace, salvation taught by Paul versus works taught by Peter and James.

[48:04] I've always understood that Peter and James were not actually teaching works-based salvation, but that salvation would show itself to be true because we would have works.

[48:15] You are saying that they actually were teaching that works were required until Paul came along and taught salvation was through grace alone. I'm confused because to me this means that there is an actual conflict in scripture. Can you explain a little bit more, please?

[48:26] Yeah, so Peter was a disciple of Jesus and he was part of this program for Israel. And Peter always taught that people needed to keep the law.

[48:39] In fact, he was shocked out of his mind when the Lord gave him a vision, told him to go to Joppa and to talk to them about Jesus to this house in Joppa.

[48:51] And he said, you know what? God told me to come here, but I'm not supposed to even be in the house of Gentiles. That's against the law. Because he was continuing to keep the law of Moses, Peter was, all throughout his ministry.

[49:08] And so there was kind of this shocking transition of events that happens when God starts turning to the Gentiles and showing Peter, and this comes up later by the way, when Paul, who just finished a missionary journey in which he finishes saying, God has now opened the door to the Gentiles.

[49:30] That's what Paul says when he returns from his first missionary journey. God has opened up the door of faith to the Gentiles. And then he has to go down to Jerusalem right after that because all these Jewish Christians are telling the believers there that, well, you guys need to be circumcised and you need to keep the law in order to be a faithful Christian.

[49:48] He's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. This is not what God has planned for the Gentiles. When he goes down there, who's down there? Well, Peter's there, but also James.

[49:59] This is not James the disciple. This is actually James the Lord's brother, but he is effectively, what appears to be, the leader of the church there in Jerusalem. And he, by the way, is the one who wrote the book of James that we have in our Bible.

[50:13] And so, one of the things that Christians have debated about for 2,000 years is to what degree is salvation by faith alone, or, you know, faith versus works.

[50:25] And Paul is very clear that it's by faith alone, no works. To him who does not work but believes on Jesus Christ, his faith is accounted for righteousness.

[50:39] To him who does not work. Then James actually says, you see then brothers, I gotta find it. Because they say almost exactly the opposite.

[50:56] You see then, this is James 2, 24, you see then that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. I mean, he says it very explicitly.

[51:07] You see then that a man is justified. So people have tried to figure out, well, what's going on? And people have addressed this as like, well, it's both, and you just kind of, you know, Paul emphasizes one, and James emphasizes the other.

[51:22] But you know, you have to have both. Well, you can't have faith and works. In fact, Paul specifically says that in Romans. He says it's either one or the other. And if you add faith to works, then it's no longer faith, or excuse me, it's no longer works, and vice versa, it's no longer faith alone.

[51:39] So, some people have said, well, James is talking about a different type of justification, not a justification unto salvation, but some people will say it's a justification before men, for us to show to the world that our faith is genuine, that it's real.

[51:59] And, I mean, I sympathize with that. I think, I appreciate that people are trying to make a distinction between faith and works, and not attempting to mix them.

[52:11] But here's my view. James wrote his letter to who? to the Jews, if you look at the very first chapter, he says this, James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad.

[52:30] That's who he's writing to, to the twelve tribes of Israel that are scattered abroad. There was a dispersion. So, after Jesus ascended, he sent out his twelve to go continue to preach that he is the Messiah to Israel, and there was a persecution that arose, and people went out to the different nations surrounding Israel.

[52:55] And it's said that they became missionaries out in these places outside of Israel. And it specifically says, and I don't have the time to go there, we're actually out of time already, in the book of Acts that they went and they preached to the Jews only.

[53:09] That's what it says about these missionaries. That they went and they preached to the Jews only, because that was their mission. And so, that was James himself.

[53:21] He's writing to these dispersed Jews and telling them and teaching them about how they need to prepare for the coming tribulation and how they need to make sure that they are dutiful to keep the law of Moses.

[53:37] He actually doesn't use the word Moses in this chapter, but he calls it the royal law. James calls it the loyal law. And he makes the point that, well, you know, you think, because he's talking about them having, the big thing is treating people unequally, like treating rich people well and poor people poorly.

[54:03] And he says, you know, some people think, well, you just have to keep what you can. He says, no, if you break one part of the law, you've broken the whole thing. That's what James teaches.

[54:14] If you break one part of the law, you're breaking the whole thing. And so his point is, you need to keep all of it. Paul, in Romans, makes the exact opposite point.

[54:27] He says, if you try to keep one part of the law, that makes you obligated to keep the whole thing. And so don't try to keep any of it. And so my view is that James, he is just continuing to carry on this ministry to Israel who is under the law.

[54:50] James is identified by most scholars as the very first letter written. Of all the epistles, it's the very first one. And from what it appears to me, and you can't really know this for sure, James wrote this letter before Paul ever came on the scene, before Paul ever came on the scene.

[55:09] And so James is just writing to Israel, to the people of Israel, the believer, those who are believing on the Messiah, Jesus as Messiah, hey, this is what we need to do.

[55:19] Now the law did not save them. That comes out in Acts 15. Peter himself says, you know, we know that we will be saved just like these Gentiles, by the way in the future.

[55:33] But the law was required as part of God's covenant with Israel. And so in order to be, there's a word I'm trying to find, it was a stopgap measure, the law was.

[55:48] But they needed to continue to keep that stopgap because that was the covenant that was given to them. And faith was revealed, faith in Jesus dying for the sins of the world was revealed later.

[56:01] God's word, faith in Jesus. But until that time, James is just teaching what had been taught by Moses and even Jesus himself.

[56:13] Guys, I'm sorry. I thought maybe we would get out of here early. We didn't have enough questions, but we had plenty. I'm going to have to stop there. But I have more questions written down.

[56:28] So I don't know. We'll have to decide if we continue this next week or what we do. But let's go ahead and wrap up. I don't want to, we'll go ahead and let you all get out of here.

[56:41] Father, thank you so much for your word. These are a lot of great questions. questions. The Bible can be somewhat of a puzzle. And it says in Proverbs that wisdom is like a well.

[56:57] And a man of understanding will draw it out. And that's, I think, how we should see your scriptures. It's like a deep well. If we dig in and search the scriptures, we will find treasures of truth that we would not find if we were just, you know, on a surface level.

[57:16] I ask that you would help us to dig in, to find the answers that we need, to find the answers that we're looking for, that we might understand who you are and what you have for us and how we ought to live our lives to please you today, what the promises are that you have towards us.

[57:36] Thank you for helping us to understand your word and do it together as a body. Thank you for all of this in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, guys. Was that helpful at all?

[57:48] Okay, I hope so. And maybe we'll pick this up again next week. We'll see. But if anybody has any thoughts or questions in the meantime, want to just talk on the phone or through email or whatever, we're happy to do that as well.

[58:03]  Thanks, everybody. Don't forget those books. Don't forget those books.