[0:00] So, we've been doing a study here in this Sunday School Hour on rightly dividing the word truth.! Because they can't all be right. You can't possibly obey every command that there is that comes out of this Bible.
[0:36] Now, some of them seem to contradict or suggest one thing, where the other one, the result of it is a different thing. And so, we need to figure out what belongs where and which ones we need to follow and obey. So, I showed you that by way of introduction, took a little time with that.
[0:50] I showed you a timeline and put it up on the screen and made some divisions on that timeline based upon major events in time. One of them was Calvary, the cross of Calvary and how that brought in a New Testament.
[1:03] And when the testator was put to death, then he instituted something new. And that was just one. There's a few others that we showed on that timeline. The rapture of the church, the second coming of Christ back in the Old Testament before Calvary was the giving of the law.
[1:19] Something that we've been studying in the second hour. And so, on that timeline, major events cause or show divisions. Because God, at an event in time, shifts or does something different.
[1:31] And we need to follow that and understand that. I also took you through another angle, which was looking at messengers. Different messengers sent from God to different people at different times with different messages.
[1:44] And it's not like this is how you study this out, but it's rather just kind of a different angle to help you get the concept that we just don't follow every messenger that comes our way.
[1:55] And some of them aren't even aimed at us. Some are, if you think, well, it's in the Bible, so I have to obey it. And everything revolves around Jesus. Then you're going to be misled and mistaken on trying to interpret some Bible passages.
[2:07] Last week, we looked at the order of the New Testament books. And I showed you why I believe the Jewish epistles are all lumped in the back. Although, in the timing, you would presume they would be lumped in front of the Apostle Paul's epistles.
[2:22] Because the ministry of those men, those Jewish apostles, they stayed preaching to the circumcision. And that fizzled out and faded. But the Apostle Paul's ministry has yet to fizzle out and fade.
[2:34] That's continuing on today. And as the book of Acts shifts from the Jewish apostles in Jerusalem to the Apostle Paul going to Gentiles, you'd kind of presume, though, well, then Peter, James, John, all those things should be back before the Apostle Paul.
[2:48] But I showed you, no, I think they're back at the other side. Because as Paul says, God is going to, in so many words, he's put Israel on the shelf for the time being, but he's going to go back to them. And he's going to lift them back up.
[3:00] And he's going to reinstate them as a nation of beloved people. The gifts and calling of God are without repentance. And although they're enemies for the gospel's sake, they're beloved for the Father's sake.
[3:11] And God is not reneged on his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And so he will one day again come back to that Jew and fulfill his promises to them.
[3:23] And so I believe that's why those epistles are lumped in the back. Because it shows us when God's finished with the Gentile believers, the church that has been called out of this time, he's going to move back to Israel and continue on his fulfilling plan.
[3:36] And Daniel's 70th week, that prophecy will pick right back up and resume. And so I think that's the order of the book. Show us that. Now, all of these things we've been looking at so far, they've all been very broad and very basic, just concepts, really.
[3:52] They're pieces that can help and aid in understanding this doctrine of what is called dispensationalism. And this has not been a thorough study. This is not a detailed, topical study, taking one thing and just showing you all the scripture and dotting all the I's and crossing all the T's with it.
[4:09] It's been more general. And that's really my only intention here, was to just give you some general building blocks that can help you see the big picture or better understand it from different angles, different concepts.
[4:21] And so I want to today take another angle or another general concept. And I've already talked about briefly, but talked about the messengers that God would send.
[4:31] For instance, he sent John the Baptist. And then the Lord Jesus Christ followed him. And the apostles that he picked and sent out, they were all with the same message. And as we kind of just glanced at that, there's a group, a core in the gospels, a messengers God sent to his people.
[4:49] But then he sends others. Back in the Old Testament, he sent Moses to them. Before that, there was Noah preaching a message that if you didn't want to follow it, fine, but you're dead. That is the only way of deliverance was by listening to that messenger.
[5:03] So we've already looked at messengers. Now I want to kind of focus in a little bit on the messages and show you that there's different messages that came from different messengers. And again, this is conceptual only.
[5:15] It is somewhat literal, but it is not to be taken in a book-by-book basis. In other words, I cannot say, well, Matthew, that's all to the Jew.
[5:28] And there's nothing in there for me. It's Jewish. And it's true. It's a Jewish gospel presenting the Lord Jesus Christ as the King of the Jews. All of that's true. But I can't just throw the book away and say everything in there is to the Jew.
[5:40] I can't take the book of Hebrews and say, well, it's written to Hebrews, so it's all to the Hebrews, and act like it doesn't have New Testament doctrine that declares the Son of God to be the high priest and have replaced all that and really how it's detailed institution of a New Testament in that book.
[6:01] There's doctrine in there to be received and understood. We don't throw them out. And so I say that it's not on a book-by-book basis. You don't take the messengers and say, well, Paul's epistles, 13 of them, that's the message to the church and nothing else.
[6:16] That's what a hyper-dispensationalist does. Hyper meaning overly dispensationalizing or dividing. And they'll just chop that book up so fine that nothing applies to them except for the apostle Paul today.
[6:29] And it's a bad way of looking at the Bible because, like I taught you last week, those apostles, those Jewish apostles back toward the end, like Peter, he talks to people that have obtained like precious faith.
[6:40] And he talks to people that have been begotten again unto a lively hope. And so we can't just ignore everything he says in that epistle and pretend like, well, that's not to us because that's Peter to the Jews or something. James is written in 12, so we just ignore it all.
[6:53] That's not the way you handle your Bible. And so we don't look at this on a book-by-book basis, but based on the message itself. What is the message that is sent? So let's take a look at some things.
[7:06] And I'm really just going to give you some examples of this, and it'll be pretty clear. Take your Bible and go back to Leviticus chapter 4. Leviticus chapter 4.
[7:20] I want to look at some messages of the Bible. And I want to use, to get your mind around it, this analogy of mail that shows up in your mailbox. When the mail, the letter comes in the mail, whether it's a bill or whether it's junk mail or whether it's from a friend or a family member, whatever that is, if it has your name on it, then by all means, pick it up and read it.
[7:44] If it says urgent, if it says final notice and it has your name on it, maybe you do want to take a look at it or throw it away, take your chances. But you want to take a look at that mail, and you want to read that and consider that this is directly aimed at me.
[7:59] Now, if somebody writes my wife a letter, and somebody wants to give her some news about the family, and maybe her parents want to tell her about their future plans and their will, and they made some changes, and they just want to keep her informed on that.
[8:16] If my neighbor reaches in the mailbox and digs that out, number one, it's a federal offense for them to open up that letter and read it. That's against the law. But just to give you an indication of, it is important, and it does carry weight if you read somebody else's mail, not just in this world, but in this Bible, and then think you can get away with trying to follow it.
[8:39] So my neighbor picks up a letter that's addressed to Karla Walski and opens it up and reads it and says, Honey, look, we're in the will. They put us in the will. It says you're in the will.
[8:51] Like, while absurd as that is, you get the concept that my neighbor has no business assuming or presuming that anything written to my wife applies to her or her spouse.
[9:05] Now, we're going to look at the Bible in a very similar way, just in concept only, okay? Get that? I'm trying to drive that home because I don't want you to take too literally that nothing in here is for me, and I have to, like, I'll tell you what, you can read somebody else's mail and learn things, right?
[9:23] You can learn things about the person that sent the mail. You can learn things from what they say, but you cannot take it and say, Well, I better obey this or else. I better appear at court at 8 o'clock Monday morning because that's what this piece of letter says.
[9:39] But if it doesn't have your name on it, then you might want to think twice about it. So not every piece of Bible, not every command in the Word of God is addressed to believers in this age, on this side of Calvary.
[9:54] And so understanding that's simple, but yet people make a big mistake going through their Bible, and they just can't seem to apply that truth. So here's Leviticus chapter 4, and let me take a quick peek at a verse here.
[10:07] Look at verse 27. 27. Now last week in Exodus, we looked at dealing with a great sin. Verse 27 says, If anyone of the common people sin through ignorance, while he doeth somewhat against any of the commandments of the Lord concerning things which ought not to be done and be guilty, or if his sin which he has sinned come to his knowledge, then he shall, what?
[10:33] What is his action? What is the course of action of a sinner? He shall bring his offering, a kid of the goats, a female without blemish, for his sin which he hath sinned. And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the sin offering, and slay the sin offering in the place of the burnt offering.
[10:48] And the priest shall take the blood thereof with his finger and put it on the horns of the...on and on. So which of you in here, don't answer this with stupidity, but which of you in here has ever brought a goat to a priest, slayed the goat, collected the blood, applied it to...
[11:06] You don't even have an altar to apply it to, but built an altar. Like, nobody follows this today. Nobody follows this today. Why not? That is a clear-cut command.
[11:18] This is God speaking through Moses. And it's clear what he says to do when you sin. There's the problem and solution right there. Why do we just ignore this?
[11:30] Like, oh, yeah, I haven't ever done that. You haven't ever done that. Do we not believe the word of God? Do we not care? Why do we just so quickly dismiss this?
[11:42] Now, of course, we understand in the New Testament why. That the Lord Jesus Christ was the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. We understand that he offered one sacrifice for sin forever.
[11:54] And so he made this null. But if I don't understand division, if I don't know that Calvary division, what's stopping me from getting a Bible and starting in Genesis and ending up in Leviticus and saying, oh, man, I've been way off for a long, long time.
[12:12] Look back at chapter 4 and verse number 20. And this is, let me see here. Verse 16 says, And the priest that is anointed shall bring of the bullock's blood to the tabernacle of the congregation, and the priest shall dip his finger in some of the blood, etc.
[12:33] Verse 20 says, And he shall do with the bullock as he did with the bullock for the sin offering, so shall he do with this. And the priest shall make an atonement for them, and it shall be forgiven them.
[12:46] Huh. So a priest needs to be involved in making an atonement for the sins of man or the sins of the congregation in that case.
[12:57] And I could have kept in verse 27, 8, 9, when we were coming through there, the priest comes up a little bit later in that passage, and he's part of it. Verse 31, The priest shall burn it upon the altar.
[13:10] So the question comes, Do I need a priest? Do I need somebody, a man, to stand in between me and God and getting my sins atoned for?
[13:21] Now, if you know your Bible, and I trust you all right away, you know Jesus Christ is our high priest. And he does go before the Father and accomplish this for us already. But if I don't have that knowledge, and I get back here in Leviticus, this is a reason why some religions in this world today still operate under this man priesthood that carries on generationally.
[13:45] They have a priest standing in front of the people today. And they believe and declare that maybe we don't offer blood sacrifices, but you do have to come to me in order to get your sins cleared with God.
[14:00] Where do they get that? From the Bible is where they get it from. And this is just a clear and simple way of rightly dividing and understanding that is an Old Testament practice and an Old Testament institution that God has since changed his dealings on and altered it to something new.
[14:19] But if we don't rightly divide the word of truth, we go to Leviticus 4, and there's a case in point and proof text that I need a priest and that I need an offer of sacrifice to make atonement for my sin.
[14:32] Okay, so we, I don't need to take you through Hebrews, I don't believe to really, you know, show you the solution. I think we're pretty sound on that. But there's a case in point where there's a message to somebody, it's from God, but we just ignore it.
[14:47] Look at 2 Chronicles 7. Here's one that does not get ignored. Here's a prayer that gets offered up by a lot of Baptists around this land.
[14:59] 2 Chronicles 7. Have you not seen this verse put on a billboard or put on a sign and put in people's yards or read or preached or prayed all over the place since, especially since 9-11 in my lifetime?
[15:25] That's where it really came to the surface that I've ever noticed. But 2 Chronicles 7.14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
[15:45] Now this has become so popularized by Christians in America, especially, since 9-11, since the whole country was going to turn back to God and get right with God and show up to church, every preacher in every pulpit, give or take, stood up and preached, if you'll get right with God, if you'll repent, then God will heal this land.
[16:09] And we'll be back to red, white, and blue and a Bible in our hands and it'll be just lockstep with God. And so what is really going on here? And are we rightly dividing the word of truth when we claim this prayer?
[16:24] Now, I'm not going to rip this whole thing away and say that this has nothing to do with you. It's the Jew. You can't pray. You can certainly pray and you can certainly humble yourself before God and seek His face.
[16:38] And if God's people would do some things like that, no doubt we'd see some results. But let's specifically look at the command or rather the situation here.
[16:50] This is the Lord responding to Solomon in verse 12. The Lord appeared to Solomon by night and said unto him, I have heard thy prayer. And God responds to Solomon's prayer by saying, if my people, which are called by my name, Jews, shall humble themselves.
[17:09] Now, the prayer is in chapter 6. Flip back to chapter 6 and just glance at this quickly. There's a lot of this passage, like of all these individual times that Solomon says, if this happens and we turn to you, then God hear our prayer.
[17:29] Like he says, he's going to make a prayer and starts in verse 14. And it goes through the chapter.
[17:42] Let me just pick up the end of it here. Verse 35. Oh, man. Okay, 35. Then hear thou from the heavens their prayer and their supplication and maintain their cause.
[17:54] If they sin against thee, for there's no man which sinneth not, and thou be angry with them and deliver them over before their enemies, and they carry them away captives unto a land far off or near.
[18:05] Yet if they bethink themselves in the land, whether they are carried captive, and turn and pray unto thee in the land of their captivity, saying, We have sinned, we have done amiss, we have dealt wickedly. If they return to thee with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, whether they carry them captives, and pray toward their land, which thou gavest unto their fathers, and toward the city which thou hast chosen, and toward the house which thou have built for thy name, then hear thou from the heavens, even from thy dwelling place, their prayer and their supplication, maintain their cause, forgive thy people which have sinned against thee.
[18:38] Now the chapter, he says, if they do this, then you do that. If they do this, if there's no, if the heaven has showed up and there's no rain because they've sinned, if there be a dearth and there be a pestilence, a blasting mildew and all of that because of their sin, and then they turn and pray to you.
[18:52] And so God's answer to all of Solomon's prayers, if they do this, and then you get angry with them. If they sin in this way and then you send this, if they do that, then if we turn to you and we pray to you, then Lord, would you hear and would you forgive and would you fix it?
[19:08] And God responds by saying, in verse 7, 13, if I shut up heaven and let there be no rain, if I command the locusts to devour the land, if I send pestilence among my people, if my people which are, and then he tells them, if you'll do that and you'll humble yourself and seek me and you'll turn, you'll repent, then I will hear, I will forgive and I will heal their land.
[19:32] Now the trouble with applying this to believers today is, number one, just because he says, my people, that doesn't mean automatically, okay, well, let's just put that on the church because then we better go back and start sacrificing too.
[19:47] That's something he commanded his people. But the problem is is that the New Testament church is not the United States of America. It's not even close.
[19:59] Those are two completely separate kingdoms in the eyes of God. The one, the violent take it by force, it's land and it's physical. The other one's spiritual. It's the church of God, a spiritual kingdom.
[20:12] Those are not the same. And a little bit more detail on this, the prayer is, if we repent and turn, then I will hear from heaven, I will forgive their sin and heal their land.
[20:24] That is what everyone was praying for the last 20 some years is God, forgive our sin and heal our land. Make us a powerhouse again.
[20:35] Make America great again. Put us on the top. And the trouble is that the church of God, listen, the church of God does not have a land.
[20:51] Where's the land that God has promised us and given us? It's America. What are you talking about? Because, I mean, if you read history, if you study the history of our land, there's some special things, no question, some very special things that God has allowed and done in this place.
[21:10] But if you read the history through the lens of a Bible-believing Christian, this, like, everything is of God, that's what you'll come out with. If you read it through the lens of a, of we just want liberty and want to get away from paying taxes and not being under anybody else's thumb, you'll come out with a different version.
[21:30] I don't know if you understand what I'm saying, but you can rewrite history books to make it sound this way. And certain preachers have been preaching for a long, long time that we're just born-again believing Baptists that moved over here just because we wanted to worship Jesus Christ and preach the gospel to the Indians.
[21:49] Like, that is a very thin line of what may have happened in history. There's an awful lot of drunks in this land. You're going to say they were Bible-believing, gospel-preaching Baptists?
[22:01] They were just sop drunks is what they were. They were rebels. They were criminals. I'm not, I'm just trying to take away this veil of everything is just godly because we made a prayer.
[22:18] So what are we dealing, though, with really in this passage? Well, this is Solomon. He has the right to make this prayer. Let's see. Just real quickly. Look back in Deuteronomy 11.
[22:30] Very quickly here. Deuteronomy 11. This is Moses giving some precautionary warning to the new generation of Jews that are about to go in to inherit this land that God promised to their fathers.
[22:55] And God took them out of Egypt. And He did miraculous things in their sight. And now this generation, verse 7 says, But your eyes have seen all the great acts of the Lord which He did.
[23:08] Therefore shall ye keep all the commandments which I command you this day. This is about the Old Testament. This is about Moses' law to this people. Keep the commandments that ye may be strong.
[23:21] And go in and possess the land whither ye go to possess it and that ye may prolong your days in the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give unto them and to their seed a land that floweth with milk and honey.
[23:34] For the land whither thou goest in to possess it is not as the land of Egypt from whence ye came out. Where thou sowest thy seed and waterst it with thy foot and as a garden of herbs.
[23:44] But the land whither ye go to possess it is a land of hills and valleys and drinketh water of the rain of heaven. A land which the Lord thy God careth for. The eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it from the beginning of the year even to the end of the year.
[23:59] And it shall come to pass if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day. To love the Lord your God. To serve Him and so and so forth.
[24:10] Then God will bless you in that land. If thy people sin against God. If they turn their back on the Lord God's going to punish them.
[24:23] But according to that law God's intentions are to bless them if they covenant and obey Him. So that's why this is conditioned upon the Mosaic covenant. What Solomon is praying is in accordance to the word of God that he's already established with his people Israel.
[24:41] We are fools to try to dip back into the Old Testament and parse out a few things that we like and want to take and hold on to and apply to the church today.
[24:53] We don't have a land. God promised to bless that land. Our land is a future land. And this is if you see that if that makes sense to you if it kind of connects you cannot just redact certain elements of the Old Testament covenant and then apply what you like to us today.
[25:13] The whole thing fits together. It stays together. Of course if Christians would pray more and seek God more I think God would do more. But we cannot apply that to our land.
[25:25] We can't apply that to our nation. Because there's no such thing as a Christian nation. That's just not real. That implies that every single soul is a born again Christian.
[25:36] and that's not the case. So anyway let's move on. Look to Matthew chapter 10. That took longer than I wanted to so let's get to Matthew chapter 10.
[25:53] Whose mail are you reading? You can learn some things from somebody else's mail but you must be careful if you try to apply it and interpret it for you to follow and obey.
[26:09] Matthew chapter 10. This will be the last sample here this morning. In verse number 5 these 12 the 12 apostles starting in verse 2 3 4 these 12 Jesus sent forth and commanded them saying go not into the way of the Gentiles and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and as ye go preach saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
[26:50] There's a message those are the messengers but they have a message to take with them and to proclaim to preach as it says in verse 7.
[27:01] Now I want you to notice that Jesus sent them forth in verse 5 but let's back up a little bit before we do does this sound like does this sound like a good platform for a missions program for a local church?
[27:17] My folks just had a missions conference at their church in Idaho and my dad just told me about it and some of the missionaries that were there and I know they put flags up all around and they really emphasize go ye into all the world and preach the gospel.
[27:37] Would this one fly at a missions conference that like let's just go let's just go to one place in all the world and nobody else.
[27:51] Now here's a look back at chapter 9 at the very last part of this chapter last two verses this is the platform that most take to be their missions programs theme and model.
[28:03] Verse 37 Then saith he unto his disciples the harvest truly is plenteous but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth that's what he just did there in chapter 10 that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.
[28:21] Now that one everybody takes as their platform for missions. Everybody ignores five verses later where he says send them forth and specifically don't you dare go to the Gentiles don't even go into any city of the Samaritans even though they're like our neighbors right there only go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
[28:45] That's not a very good missions program today. Now why not? How do we reconcile this with other places in the Bible?
[28:56] What do we do with that? It's a message right? It's a message that goes to a people to a time and it's very pointed and specific you can't neglect verse 7 the kingdom of heaven.
[29:12] If you don't understand what that is then you're in trouble and you'll never understand what's going on at all and I think we'll get into some of this in a week spend a week on that on what this message is but right now I'm just showing you there's some messages in this Bible and some commands that man do they ever kind of they just don't sit right or they sound so different than what we think because of other passages.
[29:38] So where does that fit? Look at chapter 15 while you're in Matthew. Chapter 15 the Lord Jesus Christ backs up what he preaches in verse 23 well in verse 22 a woman of Canaan came out of the same coast and cried unto him.
[30:04] She's not a Jew. She's a Canaanite woman and she says have mercy on me O Lord thou son of David recognizing his messiahship that he is the Christ the son of David the promised one that would come.
[30:16] My daughter is grievously vexed with the devil and he answered her not a word. Just completely ignored this helpless faithful woman filled with faith came to the right person and he just completely ignores her because he's backing up what he preached how so look at verse 24 he answered and said I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel the last time I checked that Canaanite woman is not of Abraham's seed and I'm not here for her that doesn't sound like the Lord Jesus Christ that you know it doesn't sound like the one that his arms are wide open he's a racist he's segregating his people from the rest of the world and he's doing it with his own words not here for you woman he doesn't even answer her doesn't even give her the even the dignity that he would even like I don't even hear you wow how are you going to handle that somebody twist the reference to say oh he's just trying to get her to to show more faith he's just like he's playing a mind game with her no he's not he's backing up what he commanded his apostles it fits it's exactly the same thing so what are we going to do with that one well it's a message how are we going to reconcile that with other passages
[31:44] Paul says that Paul says that the gospel of Christ that it's the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth to the Jew first and also to the Greek well why is Jesus Christ not allowing the Greek or the Gentile or the Canaanite to get in on what he's preaching and offering well one reason is because it's a different gospel it's a different message different good news his news was aimed at a people for a time and Paul had something different but here we go so there's different messengers in different times or ages and they have different messages now I don't this is the last thing we'll do just a quick just a quick little note here look at Genesis 31 I'm going here on purpose because I want to show you that God can speak from his words anywhere anytime to anyone it's a matter of do we need to follow and abide by his command to a people at that time is it a matter of does the church the body of Christ follow and obey every command in the
[32:59] Bible and the answer is no but here in Genesis 31 is a verse that a missionary a friend of mine has kind of made his life ministry verse because it's a verse that as he's in the Bible he feels the Lord dealing with his heart speaking to him about doing something and it had to do with a calling on his life and it's it's in really it's just in verse 13 where God is speaking to Jacob saying I am the God of Bethel where thou anointest the pillar and where thou vowest a vow unto me and here's what he said now arise get thee out from this land and return unto the land of thy kindred and when that man read that verse he said it was God just saying son I want you to go I want you to go preach I want you to go be a missionary and it was Genesis 31 13 it would be on his prayer cards it would be return to the land of thy kindred get thee out from this land now
[34:03] I do not read that and say well I need to go back to where I was born or I need to go I don't need to that's not a command to me that's not God's message to me or you but the point God can speak to your heart from anywhere in the Bible he can spiritually communicate with you on a one on one basis you don't need to read that if God deals with you oh wait no this is for the Jew you don't need to tell God who it's for and who it's to if he's trying to deal with your heart but if a preacher is trying to put doctrine upon you from a different message then you better be careful and rightly divide the word of truth so I just wanted to add that little asterisk to the end of this so that you don't feel like yep that's Matthew that's not me yep that's Hebrew that's not me oh that's early in Acts and we better stay away no you can read that stuff and God can speak to you and teach you and he can even you can learn about him it's all a revelation of him anyway so you can learn about him everywhere but we're going to!
[35:04] rightly divide the word of truth and be careful whose mail we read and follow so let's stop with that and we'll pick it up next week kind of carry a little more deeper in the certain messages I believe that can be very confusing to some so we'll stop right there and take a break