Category: Pauline Dispensationalism / Dispensational Bible Study

Big Brother Versus Heavenly Father #7

Sunday, November 10, 2013

“…for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me” (Hebrews 13:5c,6 KJV).

Big Brother is watching; Heavenly Father is, too!

Earth’s governments did not become corrupt overnight. They have been growing progressively worse since Genesis chapter 3, when sin first entered creation through Adam’s disobedience, some 6,000 years ago. God is very much aware of the problem, and in His own time He will resolve it, but until then, He is operating our program.

The Apostle Paul, writing to members of the Church the Body of Christ living in the Dispensation of Grace (people like us): “Do all things without murmurings and disputings: that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:14,15).

Why were they living in the midst of a nation with a corrupt government like we are? God’s program to restore earth’s governments—Israel’s program—was (and still is) temporarily suspended. Evil Roman emperor Nero allegedly decreed Paul’s beheading shortly after this epistle to Philippi was written. Satan is “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4); hence, the Bible calls it “this present evil world” (Galatians 1:4).

Remember how our Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles behaved in the context of the wicked Roman Empire. They were all willing to die for the truth of the Holy Bible. Christianity was an illegal religion in the eyes of the Roman government, and yet the Apostle Paul preached the Gospel of Grace for over 30 years before being executed by that same corrupt government.

Beloved, let us not be afraid of man’s government. May we let the light of Jesus Christ shine brightly in and through us. Just as He will be with believing Israel during the antichrist’s tyrannical regime (today’s Scripture), He is with us and we are privileged to represent Him in this dark world.

Just remember, in the end, “Big Brother Versus Heavenly Father” will have a Victor — Heavenly Father! 🙂

Big Brother Versus Heavenly Father #5

Friday, November 8, 2013

“…for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me” (Hebrews 13:5c,6 KJV).

Big Brother is watching; Heavenly Father is, too!

In Daniel 9:24-27, the angel Gabriel informed the prophet that, in addition to Israel being out of her Promised Land for 70 years (the Babylonian captivity of 606-536 B.C.), so that her land could be cleansed of sin, there would be 70 weeks of years (or 490 years) for her people to be cleansed of sin. Verses 25 and 26 say that 483 years were fulfilled before Calvary. The last seven years—God’s wrath, the “Tribulation,” or “day of the LORD”—should have occurred in early Acts (Joel 2:28-32 cf. Acts 2:16-21).

However, rather than wrath, the ascended Jesus Christ poured out His grace and peace on Saul of Tarsus, his chief enemy on earth. In Acts chapter 9, Saul was saved, and was ordained of Christ as the Apostle Paul. The program that God had been operating—Israel’s prophetic kingdom program (Acts 3:19-21)—was interrupted. Jesus Christ’s earthly kingdom is still awaiting fulfillment.

From Paul’s salvation onward, God began to form a body of people, the Church the Body of Christ, who would govern the heavens for His glory like Israel would do on earth (Ephesians 1:20-23; Ephesians 2:6,7; Colossians 1:16-20). The Bible calls this the mystery program, which God had kept secret until He revealed it first to Paul (Romans 16:25,26). We, living in the Dispensation of the Grace of God, are actually living in an interim time period between the 69th and 70th weeks of Daniel’s prophecy.

The program that God is operating today has nothing to do with Israel’s prophetic program; our current dispensation, the mystery program, revealed first to the Apostle Paul (Ephesians 3:1,2), is totally isolated from Israel’s program. Hence, earth’s governments remain corrupt: God’s program to restore them is currently postponed so He can operate our program to restore the heavenly governments to Himself.

Howbeit, before we discuss God’s present-day dealings with mankind, let us see the resumption of Israel’s program….

Big Brother Versus Heavenly Father #4

Thursday, November 7, 2013

“…for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me” (Hebrews 13:5c,6 KJV).

Big Brother is watching; Heavenly Father is, too!

A brief survey of the Old Testament Scriptures reveals God’s chief nation in the earth, Israel, refused to submit to His will. Like sinful Adam, Israel had no interest in governing earth for God’s glory. Israel’s recurrent breaking of the Mosaic Law had a consequence: she could not be a “kingdom of priests” (Exodus 19:3-6).

In Leviticus 26:27-39, God had warned them that, after repeated chastisements and subsequent habitual disobedience, His final judgment on them would be that Gentile nations would defeat them in battle, and carry Israel out of her Promised Land. Israel’s monarchy would be lost, and not restored until Messiah-King would come (Ezekiel 21:26,27).

The culmination of this judgment against Israel was when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon successfully thrice invaded Jerusalem. During the last invasion (586 B.C.), Jerusalem was utterly destroyed, God’s Temple was burned to the ground, and the remaining Jews taken captive to Babylon (see 2 Chronicles 36:5-21).

Some Jews returned to the Promised Land after the Babylonian exile, such as with Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Nevertheless, the majority of the Jews are still scattered worldwide, still without a Davidic kingdom. By the time Jesus Christ came, Babylon, Media-Persia, and Greece had already ruled over Israel. In Jesus’ day, the Roman Empire was oppressing Israel.

Ezekiel 21:26,27 said that Israel would not receive her crown again until her Messiah came. When Jesus finally arrived, and Pilate told Israel, “Behold your King!,” the Jews released themselves from their national heritage as they publicly declared, “Crucify him… We have no king but Caesar” (John 19:14,15). By rejecting Jesus their King and demanding His crucifixion, they hindered God’s earthly kingdom from being established (again!).

During the early Acts period, most of Israel still rejected Jesus’ right to David’s throne. The last week of Daniel’s prophecy, Israel’s spiritual cleansing and God’s wrath, would be postponed so God could commence another program… ours….

Big Brother Versus Heavenly Father #3

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

“…for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me” (Hebrews 13:5c,6 KJV).

Big Brother is watching; Heavenly Father is, too!

Just before the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and carried the last of its inhabitants away to Babylon in 586 B.C., the LORD told the Prophet Ezekiel to command Israel’s (wicked) prince: “Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him” (Ezekiel 21:26,27).

Notice, God would take Israel’s crown from her, and she would not be restored politically until her Messiah (Jesus) would come: it is Jesus Christ’s right to inherit Israel’s crown (see Luke 1:31-33). Until Jesus would come and establish His earthly kingdom, Israel would be out of her Promised Land and Gentile empires would dominate her (in Luke 21:24, Jesus called this “the times of the Gentiles”).

The book of Daniel, contemporary with Israel’s 70-year Babylonian captivity, is the prophetic record of the Gentile empires that would rule the world (which had been Israel’s prospect). In Daniel 9:24-27, the angel Gabriel informed Daniel that it would take 70 weeks of years (or 490 years) to cleanse the Hebrew people of their sin (especially pagan idolatry). Since then, 69 of these weeks of years—or 483 years—have run their course (according to Daniel 9:25-26, they were fulfilled between circa 450 B.C., the year Jerusalem’s wall was rebuilt with Nehemiah, and A.D. 30, the time Jesus Christ died on Calvary).

One more week—the final seven years—of Daniel’s prophecy is still waiting fulfillment. We call this the seven-year Tribulation (or “Daniel’s 70th week”). Once that last seven-year period is finished, Israel will be spiritually cleansed, and she will be God’s chief nation on earth, the nation God wanted her to be from her earliest days. However, before earth’s governments are restored, they will grow increasingly worse….

Big Brother Versus Heavenly Father #2

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

“…for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me” (Hebrews 13:5c,6 KJV).

Big Brother is watching; Heavenly Father is, too!

Mankind was to have dominion over the earth for the glory of his Creator, the Lord Jesus Christ (Genesis 1:26-28). However, man willfully sided with the opposition, Satan, in Genesis chapter 3.

Approximately 2,000 years after Adam was created, God chose to create the nation Israel (beginning with Abram/Abraham in Genesis chapter 12), a nation that would do in the earth what man had failed to do for the last two millennia. It would be through this nation that God would regain His dominion and authority in earth; through Israel, God’s will for the earth would be accomplished.

Moses told Israel: “And the LORD shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the LORD thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them: and thou shalt not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them” (Deuteronomy 28:13,14).

Israel was to be God’s chief nation in the earth, thereby dispossessing it from Satan, and exalting JEHOVAH above all the earth. However, Israel deliberately disregarded God’s Law and followed pagan idols. She fell into sin, and she broke the Old Covenant (Mosaic Law); that is, like Adam, Israel also sided with God’s adversary, Satan.

About 400 years after King David’s reign over Israel, Israel’s monarchy was lost to Gentile domination. At that time, the last of the Jews in Jerusalem were deported to Babylon (God’s response to Israel’s centuries-long wickedness, as recorded in 2 Chronicles 36:5-21). Israel lost her political strength, and this is one reason why earth’s governments are still corrupt.

Of course, God has not forsaken Israel forever, and government restoration of earth is still on His agenda….

Strength in Weakness

Saturday, November 2, 2013

“My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9 KJV).

When you realize God’s grace is all that you have, then you realize that God’s grace is all that you need!

Yesterday, I visited Brother “G.” for the first time since his wife of 55 years died Wednesday. He knows that she is present with the Lord, but understandably, he is lost without her. In his own words, “I know the verses, but they seem like ‘just words’ right now.” In his own strength, he cannot make it; but God’s grace is more than enough to get him through it.

Beloved, knowing the verses is easy, but applying them to life is hard. Our old sin nature rejects God’s Word, as the Apostle Paul delineated in Romans 7:22,23: “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.”

Paul, as a saved individual, took pleasure in God’s Word in his spirit (spiritual body). However, he still lived in a physical body—“the body of sin” (Romans 6:6)—that was genetically related to Adam (the origin of man’s anti-God nature). You are strongly encouraged to read Romans chapter 7 in its entirety, but suffice it to say that Paul labored in vain to live the Christian life in his own strength. Sin would defeat him every time, and he lamented in verse 24: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

The solution to this “flesh-walking” is Romans chapter 8: “walking after the Spirit.” We study the Bible rightly divided for ourselves, and no matter what circumstance in life, we, by faith, allow the indwelling Holy Spirit to then work in us using the verses that apply to those specific circumstances. We are weak; Jesus Christ is strong. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13). In Christ, we are equipped to handle every situation, good or bad, and He will live His life in us if we let Him.

Arrayed in Hypocrisy

Thursday, October 31, 2013

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity” (Matthew 23:27,28 KJV).

“Looks can be deceiving” is not only true during Halloweentime, but confirmed year-round within Christendom.

Today is Halloween, when children dress up and feign themselves to be creatures they are not. Likewise, many church leaders today wear “Christian” garbs, but their ministries do not bring the Lord Jesus Christ glory and honor. They promote their denomination, and seek to perpetuate it, rather than serve and exalt the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. The Bible manifests these who appear to be good, as “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”

In today’s Scripture, Jesus Christ exposed Israel’s corrupt religious leaders who misled the nation in His day. In His Parable of the Tares, Matthew 13:24-30,37-43, Christ explained how just as He had sown good seed (wheat, believing Jews) in Israel, Satan had also sown tares/weeds (unbelieving Jews). Tares resemble wheat; unbelieving Jews resemble believing Jews. The unbelieving Pharisees and scribes, for instance, looked like God’s people (believing Israel). Judas Iscariot was another example of Satan’s tares—the apostles never realized who Judas really was until it was too late!

But Satan’s counterfeit believers are not confined to Israel’s program. Today, within local assemblies of the Body of Christ, there are people feigning themselves to be Christians: For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15).

Beloved, beware of the church leaders who are arrayed in hypocrisy, “and avoid them” (Romans 16:17b). If their teaching does not agree with the rightly divided King James Bible, you have no business as a child of God to be listening to them.

*This is excerpted from a larger Bible study with the same name. The Bible study can be read here or watched here.

Shallow #8

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

“Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame” (1 Corinthians 15:34 KJV).

If the professing “Church” is to impact our culture as the Lord Jesus Christ intended, then it had better recognize today’s Scripture as applicable to it!

Many professing Christians often criticize lost people for living like lost people. Paradoxically, these very Christians are saved people usually living like lost people. Beloved, when the professing “Church” takes its Christian ambassadorship for granted, and lives like the world, we need not wonder why lost people exclaim, “The Bible is irrelevant, irrational, and outmoded!”

Beloved, if we Christians are not living in accordance with God’s Word, how can we expect lost people to do it? If our attitudes and actions do not reflect God’s grace and values, then how will the lost world ever see their need for Jesus Christ as personal Saviour? They will not! The lost world observes the hypocrisy, shallowness, and silliness of much of Christendom and they want nothing to do with the Lord Jesus Christ!

When Paul wrote today’s Scripture to Christians in the 1st century, he could have just as well been writing to Christians in the 21st century. Like the Corinthians, today’s average Christian is spiritually asleep, living contrary to the identity and life he or she has in Christ (2 Timothy 2:24-26). Why? The typical Christian church is not teaching sound Bible doctrine; rather, it too is totally oblivious to what the Lord Jesus Christ is doing today. Today’s Scripture admonishes, “Awake to righteousness, and sin not!”

After almost 2,000 years, the Body of Christ should have a firm understanding of its mission, doctrine, duty, walk, and destiny. Alas, even today, many Christians still “have not the knowledge of God” (today’s Scripture). The people who should know God’s Word and should let it work in and through them, are just as ignorant of God’s will as the lost world is. What a shame!!

Beloved, may we study and walk by faith in Paul’s epistles, Romans through Philemon, God’s Word to us, that our understanding of it be not shallow, and that we not reject it as many have done. 🙂

Shallow #7

Monday, October 28, 2013

“Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame” (1 Corinthians 15:34 KJV).

If the professing “Church” is to impact our culture as the Lord Jesus Christ intended, then it had better recognize today’s Scripture as applicable to it!

The Scriptural record demonstrates that, by the opening years of the first century A.D., the LORD God has dealt with the most wretched, rebellious, unbelieving race of creatures in all of His creation. Some 4,000 years since creation, and God’s will in the earth (His earthly kingdom) is still not accomplished.

When He offers Israel her Messiah-King (Jesus), the Person who alone can redeem her from sin and Satan, and who alone can cleanse her of her sins, Israel demands His crucifixion (John 19:15)! Even into the early Acts period, Israel is still unrepentant. She continues to intentionally reject God’s Word to her, as the Prophet Stephen testified: “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye” (Acts 7:51). Shortly after Stephen spoke these words, Israel stones and murders him; national Israel has now committed the “unpardonable sin” of Matthew 12:31,32, and thus (temporarily) falls before God.

In Acts chapter 9, God implements a plan that He has kept secret in Himself since the world began (Ephesians 3:1-11). He saves His chief enemy in the earth, Saul of Tarsus, commissions him as Paul the Apostle, and sends salvation to the Gentiles without Israel’s kingdom (Romans 11:11-13), thus beginning a new agency, the Church the Body of Christ, and His purpose and plan for the heavenly places (Ephesians 1:20-23).

And so, we (finally!) reach the context of today’s Scripture. Unfortunately, members of the Body of Christ are just as sinful and ignorant of God’s Word as the billions who lived during the previous 4,000 years (or 6,000 years if we include the present-day). Sin abounds in Corinth, in the lives of these Christians (read 1 Corinthians). Today’s Scripture, sadly, applies to many sincere Christians today. Religious tradition and the world’s “wisdom” have polluted their souls and corrupted their minds. Consequently, they too have rejected God’s Word to them… often, deliberately….

Solved and Sentenced!

Monday, October 21, 2013

“The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good” (Proverbs 15:3 KJV).

From God’s perspective, there is no “cold” case.

“Cold cases” are decades-old crimes unsolved due to lack of witnesses and/or conclusive evidence. During the last 6,000 years, people have committed, and are still carrying out, very heinous deeds, causing their fellow man unimaginable suffering, and yet they go “unpunished” (for now). Oppressive politicians and ecclesiastical leaders who mercilessly torture, imprison, and execute anyone who opposes their “progress.” The clever “explanations” invented to cover-up the disappearances and deaths, and the downplaying of those crimes, make the bereaved cry out for justice.

Homicide victims unable to testify as to who murdered them, and elaborate schemes of corruption and cover-ups among authorities make justice seemingly impossible. Who will expose them and make things right? So many unanswered questions, doubts that never bring grieving family and friends any peace or sense of fairness. How will those deaths ever be avenged?

Saints, let us thank our God and Father that He sees every crime committed (today’s Scripture) and He is fair in meeting out punishment. As God’s judgment was about to fall on the pagan Neo-Assyrian capital Nineveh, the Prophet Nahum wrote: “The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked” (1:3). Like Nineveh of old, wicked (unbelieving) mankind has an appointment scheduled with the Lord Jesus Christ, and He will not be in a good mood (Revelation 20:11-15)!

God has been so longsuffering (patient) toward unbelieving and rebellious mankind especially these last 2,000 years, the Dispensation of Grace, but His justice will indeed be satisfied eventually (at the cross of Jesus Christ for believers’ sins, or in the everlasting lake of fire for everyone else’s sins). “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” (Romans 12:19; cf. Deuteronomy 32:35).

Dearly beloved, let us not be troubled regarding the injustices occurring all around the world, for we know that the only Witness whose testimony truly counts, is still a faithful Witness whose testimony will one day be heard and whose justice will one day be executed! 🙂