Dispensationalism (06/17/2001)

Fathers, Grandfathers, and Teaching Children in the Home

Well, could I have everyone in this congregation who is a father or a grandfather and I suppose he always would have to be a father to be a grandfather, but could I have each of you stand if you're in that category, one of those two categories.

And I want you to stand while I read this passage and I want you to think about it. This is in Deuteronomy chapter 6, starting with verse 4. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

And these words which I command you this day shall be in your heart. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the post of thy house, and on thy gates. And it shall be when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he swear unto thy fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities which thou buildest not, and houses full of all good things which thou fillest not, and wells digged which thou diggest not, vineyards and olive trees which thou plantest not, when thou shalt have eaten and be full, then beware lest thou forget the Lord which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage.

Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name. You may be seated. All through the Old Testament times and carried on into the New Testament times, God has put the predominant responsibility of training the children upon the fathers in the homes.

And that passage of Scripture is amazing because it tells us that it's not always the best thing to sit down in a formal time of study with your children. That's good to do, but it becomes almost meaningless if you don't do this other part where he said talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk in the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up, and just as you're going from place to place with your children you speak of the Lord in real life so that they see that you're walking with him in everyday life.

And isn't it interesting, gentlemen, that as you go down into verse 11, it reminds us as the men that we live in houses full of good things that we did not fill the house with. We have wells that we didn't dig.

We have vineyards of olive trees that we didn't plant. Who did these things for us? Our Father in heaven, lest we become prideful and forget God. And there's nothing greater in the world than a house, a home, that has a godly father who is the spiritual leader in the home, who teaches the children by his words, by the scriptures, but also as he walks, by the way.

And to the extent that we accomplish that, we will raise up another generation that will keep this church going in the biblical, seeking God path that we're trying to lay down. They'll do the same if we do what we're supposed to in the home.

So we want to commend you. Being a father is not an easy job, but it is a wonderful job that God's given us. And so congratulations to each of you who were standing this morning. We want to honor you.

Studying the Word and the Habits of Proper Bible Interpretation

Turn with me, if you would, to 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 15. We're going to continue with our series this morning, but I think it is very appropriate on this day because there are probably very few things neglected more in America among men than studying the Word.

And I mean even men who claim to be Christians, men who perhaps go to church on Sunday. And there are probably two or three types. One type is the type that already knows the Bible, they have it memorized, and they know it so well that they don't have to study anymore, they think.

They don't understand that the Word is kind of like the manna. If you don't, you know, what you don't use today pretty much goes away and you got to go out and get some more in the morning. They don't understand that, so they think that because they have read the Bible through once and studied in Sunday school all their lives growing up that they don't have to study today.

What a great mistake, because what we're saying is I don't have to spend time fellowshipping with the Lord today. I don't need to hear from Him. I mean I'll fellowship with Him, I'll pray and let Him hear from me, but I don't need to hear from Him today.

Isn't that kind of a subtle form of pride? It says, I can make it just fine today without hearing from the Lord's Word. And then there are those who just simply don't study because they're carnal. I'm not saying they're lost, they may be lost, it's difficult to tell in that situation, but they may be saved, but they're just walking in the flesh.

Romans 8 talks about that, how there are two different types. There are those who mind the things of the flesh, think about the things of the flesh, that's what predominates their mind. And there are those who mind the things of the Spirit.

They're both kinds in our churches, but we have those who don't study just because they're flat out carnal. They're in the flesh, they're backslidden, they're away from God and that's why they don't. But neither of those two types make a good father.

Now, he may be a good old boy and be a good father in the world's view and his children may love him and think he's doing a great job, but if he's not studying the Word, he can be dangerous. He can get into false philosophies and he can get into the flesh in other areas that could hurt his home and so forth.

So I think this is very appropriate. But let's read it, follow along with me, 2 Timothy 2, 15. Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

And we had one other verse, remember when Jesus said to search the scriptures daily. And recently, we've taken two points from this verse 15 and then the point that Jesus just made and we've pointed out that there are three habits that are critical to proper Bible study.

And what we've been talking about, if you're visiting with us today, we're going through the great doctrines of the Bible on Sunday mornings and we started this a while back and of course, the first topic is called Bibliology, which means what the Bible teaches about itself.

What does the Bible say about itself? And we've been studying the Bible from inspiration to preservation and we're currently on the topic of how to properly interpret the scriptures. And there are three habits that I feel that we need to have.

I believe the Bible says so, and they are number one, study, number two, searching, and number three, separating or rightly dividing the word of truth. Two of those are found in 2 Timothy 2, 15. The other one is found in the verse where Jesus said, search the scriptures.

But those are three habits that we must have. We must have the habit of studying, the habit of searching, and the habit of separating. And we've talked about studying and searching and we're currently in the area of what does it mean to separate or rightly divide the word of truth as we see towards the end of verse 15 there in 2 Timothy chapter two.

So we have to have those three habits. Now, just by way of review, there are seven or eight points in Bible interpretation. Usually most people mention about seven. I've got eight here, but I believe if we would all join in these, it would minimize any type of division among us.

It would minimize any types of differences and certainly any differences of major proportion. And they are the following. Number one, understand the purpose of the Bible as a whole. I mean, you can see what, you know, if I were to ask you that question, we'd probably get a couple of three different answers.

But let me just say what I think. Many would say the purpose of the Bible as a whole is the plan of salvation, the plan of redemption from the first to the end. And I think that's a wonderful answer, but I don't think it's the answer.

I think the purpose of the Bible as a whole is that God is revealing himself to us that he may be glorified. And I believe that the glorification of the Father is the end of the whole thing. And the plan of salvation is a wonderful and maybe the most important part of that end because it certainly brings forth the glory of his grace, the glorification of his grace.

And so the purpose of the Bible as a whole, we should certainly understand that we see the Lord Jesus on every page. We should certainly understand that the Lord himself is the author of this book and we should read it as such.

Secondly, the distinct character and message of each book of the Bible, especially the particular one you're studying, is something symbolic or is it literal? Normally, it's literal unless the Bible itself indicates that it's not, but the best way to know that is to understand the distinct character of the message because not only is God the author of the Bible, but he has done with the Bible as he has with so many other things, he has chosen to work in his people.

So he has used humans to pen the 66 books of the Bible and he did not destroy their self. He didn't destroy their, well, I shouldn't say it that way. He had destroyed their self, theologically speaking, but you know what I mean?

He did not destroy their personality. He didn't take away from who they were. He worked in them and that creates a specific character for the different books. Thirdly, to whom is a given scripture addressed?

Are there dispensational considerations? And that's one of the topics we're getting into starting this morning is this idea of what do we mean by dispensation? Number four, we have to study the context that the passage is in.

Number five, we must consider all scripture bearing on this particular passage. In other words, I like to say it this way for this principle, let the Bible interpret the Bible. And then, sixthly, discover the exact meaning of the key words and the grammar.

So do a grammatical, you know, I have to understand the words. And this I have added that most of the time is left out of these types of lists. But I would like to add this, what have other saints of God learned from this passage and said about it through the past ages?

Now, they're not always going to be right just like you and I won't always be right. But the Bible does say something about warning about a private interpretation. So you or I may get into the scripture and say, boy, God just taught me something new today.

And God can do that because we haven't seen all the depths that every verse in the Bible and every passage has different depths of levels of understanding and light that God can give us. So yes, we can learn something that's new to us, but we have to be careful.

We don't want to learn something that's new to God's mind. We don't want to invent something that God did not say. And that would be a private interpretation and we need to at least look and see. I mean, we've had almost 2 ,000 years of history with believers in every generation and many times they do write their thoughts on what they think God is teaching on certain portions.

We should at least check it out. We don't have to agree with everything they said, but we should take a look at it lest we be so prideful as to think that we have more insight than some of the saints 100, 200, 300, 400 years ago who didn't have television and movies and baseball and basketball and football and games and all of that.

They just really spent a whole lot more time in prayer than we do. And yet we're going to correct everything they wrote. We have to be careful with that prideful attitude. And then lastly, number eight, we must avoid personal prejudices that we have because other people have taught us certain things that the Bible means.

You can put the Lord in a box, so to speak, if you want to, but he'll stop teaching you when you do that. So those are the points now. So we have eight points of proper Bible interpretation and three habits, study, search and separate.

What Dispensationalism Means and Why It Matters

This morning, I'd like to speak to you on this topic or at least begin speaking on this topic of separating or rightly dividing the word of truth. Most of you in the church this morning would not be aware of this, and this is wonderful and I hate to make you aware of it, but there is quite a bit of disagreement on this topic in the world, in the religious world, mostly among theologians, not so much in the pew, but because I think most people who just study the Bible recognize that the Bible has different divisions in it.

The most obvious is the Old Testament and the New Testament. I mean, most of you are kind of aware of that. The theologians debate these things. And so you need to at least be aware that there is a debate, but I think it's very similar to some of the other debates, such as the debate of the sovereignty of God versus the will of man or the responsibility of man.

Those are not new debates. They've been debated through the ages, and the truth is you always have a balance. You always have also the person who is a hyper something. You have a hyper-Calvinist, or you have an Arminian who's hyper the other direction.

Well with regard to dispensationalism, you have what we call ultra-dispensationalists, and you've got a whole range in there. And what we want to try to teach from the Bible is what the Bible says about it.

And if we'll just learn what the Bible says about itself, we will have a balance in this area. I'm not afraid to use the term dispensationalist because it is a Bible term, and even if it weren't, it could be a theological term.

The word rapture is not found in the Bible, but we use it all the time and we know what it means. So you can't knock something out just because you say, well, that word's not in the Bible. It may be a concept that helps us understand the Bible.

And really that's all dispensationalism is to me. It is not a theological thing with me so much as it is a tool that helps us to understand what God is saying. And that's what I think it means in 2 Timothy 2 .15 where it says, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth into its correct divisions. Obviously the Bible speaks of it right there in that verse, so I don't see where the debate is actually.

But I do know that there are ultra-dispensationalists who are heretics and I'm aware of some of their teachings and I know where that can take you, so you do have to have a balance. Now with that said, let's go into a little bit of this material today.

First of all, when we look at 2 Timothy 2 .15 and we see this word divide, rightly dividing the word of truth, the word literally means a straight cut. It comes from two smaller Greek words and it just means a straight cut.

The first little part of it is the word ortho, which you hear in orthoscopic surgery, different words like that. It just means a straight cut. So it means we want to cut the Bible into its appropriate divisions so that we understand how they all work together as one book, one revelation from God.

It's not that we divide it up so that we can eliminate parts of it or not have to think certain parts apply to us. Now there are some cases where the Bible itself may say that a certain part does not, but be very careful not to read into other portions that they're that way, unless God said so.

And that's where your ultra-dispensationalism can come in. For instance, I know a group of brothers who like to talk about the fact that they are a New Testament church. What do they mean by that? They mean you can't prove anything to me if it's in the Old Testament.

And so they're ultra, they've gone too far. They say we have these dispensations and I'm in this one, therefore nothing back here is for me. Don't take it that far because there are two verses that I know of, at least in the New Testament, that says that all the things that were written aforetime were written for those of us who were in the last days.

And they are written as examples or in samples or types. Even the things that don't apply specifically to us because perhaps we're not the nation of Israel, for example, certainly have a secondary application by way of a type which is fulfilled in the New Testament or an example.

And so we have to keep balance here. Well, it is obvious that there are dispensations, however. The most obvious is the Old Testament and the New Testament. And many times the best way to see a dispensation is by way of contrast.

In other words, contrasting the way God deals with people in one versus the way he deals in another. Always understand when we're dealing with this, we're not saying that God changes because God never changes.

But the way that he deals with mankind does, it changes as he gives man more and more revelation of himself. He expects man to be responsible for what man now knows that previously he did not know. So obviously we see that God does not have to change or does not mean that God changes when we say that he deals with man in a different way based on what man knows and is responsible for.

Let me get you to turn to 1 Peter 1 in verse 9. Let's look at an example that kind of talks about the New Testament dispensation as compared to the Old, or I should say contrasted with the Old. Remember this too, when you, you may pick up a book someday on dispensationalism and read it.

And some of them really are out there, I think a little too far, but we can learn where the divisions are that can help us understand the Bible better from some of these people. But sometimes where they take it a little too far is they would lead you to believe that when there is a dispensational change or we go into another time where God is dealing with man in a different way, that that then means that everything previous to that is no longer, or you might say is a moot point.

And that's not true at all. It simply is revelation that builds upon revelation and it's not trying to divide the Bible into different books in the sense of making them totally different things. It's all one and it has a unity, but it's just for measure of studying and for making sure we understand who God is talking to, what he is saying and how that applies to each of us.

1 Peter chapter 1 verse 9, let's follow along with me here and see if we can learn some things from this about what we mean by dispensations. And if you don't have a clue what the word means, we're going to get to a definition in a minute.

But if I don't tell you what it means, I can keep you a little bit curious. So keep you listening for a minute. So 1 Peter 1 9 receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you searching what or what manner of time.

Now this phrase manner of time is a good word to start thinking about when we talk about dispensations. The word dispensation does not primarily mean a time period, but it always has to include a time period because we're traveling through time.

So that's not the most important part of the definition, but it's just a necessity. It has to do then with a time period or a manner of time in which God deals with man in a certain way. We start to see some of these words and phrases in the scriptures here.

So these old Testament saints who were from a different dispensation than we are in. And from when 1 Peter was written, it says that back in those days they used to inquire and search diligently. Now notice that that's one of our habits to search.

They searched diligently and they even prophesied about the grace that should come down the old English. Just read that. Make it modern. You say that would come in the future. So you see they did not have this in their dispensation.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't mean to say they didn't have grace and we're going to study that next Sunday. One of the things that will keep us from being ultra dispensationalist or like a hyper Calvinist where you're off into error because you take it so far that you get unbiblical.

One of the things that would keep us from being that way is to understand that the old Testament includes the grace of God or we wouldn't have been here. They would have been gone. They would have been blotted out.

They would have all been in the flood. Every single one of them would have been in the flood or even before that they would be long gone, the whole race. So obviously there is grace in the old Testament, but notice what this says.

It says that these old Testament saints sought diligently and even prophesied of the grace that would come, which is a different way in which God would deal with man in his grace. And some call this the dispensation of grace that we're living in now.

Some ridicule that though, the folks who are not dispensationalists, I want you to be aware that they ridicule it when you call it the age of grace because they say, well, you know, God's always been a God of grace and they are right when they say that, but they are wrong if they mean to imply that the, as the Lord spoke here in first Peter one 10, that this was not something new that they were looking into, but they couldn't see it.

They couldn't grasp it. They were looking forward and seeing a new thing that God was going to do. And they even prophesied and wrote it down and they didn't understand it says this very clearly here.

So if it's new, that shows very clearly that it's not something that they had in their dispensation. So we're not saying that they didn't have grace. What we're saying is they didn't have this, whatever this is talking about right here.

So what does it say? Well, they inquired and searched diligently who prophesied of the grace that would come in the future. And to you searching water or what manner of time the spirit of Christ, which was in them did signify when it testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow later.

So it's talking about the, uh, obviously the sufferings, the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. Verse 12 says, and to whom it was revealed these very prophets that God revealed these things to. He also revealed that this was not unto themselves.

Do you see that? You see, so they lived in a different dispensation. They lived in a time when even the things they were writing about did not apply to them. Does that make sense? I mean, it's the Bible says it, so we have to believe it unto whom it was revealed that not unto themselves, but to us, they did minister these things.

Who's us? Those who live on this side of the cross. You see the cross being the very focal point of history by definition would create two dispensations, one on the other side of it and one on this side of it to say that there aren't dispensations would say that the cross didn't change anything, which in my book would be blasphemy unless they just say that ignorantly, but I mean, if they know what they're talking about and they say it to me, it's blasphemy now.

So there were these things that had to do with this grace, this specific type of grace that these prophets looked into and couldn't understand. And they said, this is not even for us. It's for those who will come later.

And so it says they did minister these things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, which things the angels desire to look into.

Not even the angels totally understood this grace. Isn't that amazing? They didn't. Verse 13, wherefore, gird up the loins of your mind and be sober and hope to the end for the grace that is brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

When Jesus Christ came in the first advent, this is when this grace was brought. So, so don't, don't let people ruffle your feathers. If you run into a person who says, well, I'm not a dispensationalist, you're a, you are a dispensationalist and you don't believe there was grace in the old Testament.

So yes, I do. I do believe there was grace. And next Sunday, we're going to give an excellent example of that. But you say, yeah, yeah, I do believe that, but I don't believe there was this grace and take them to this passage of scripture right here where we are and show them that even these prophets who wrote of these things said, this is not for us.

This is for those who come later. This is a specific kind of grace that is brought unto you at, it even gives the time period, doesn't it? So this tells you the time when this dispensation begins. The dispensation of the New Testament began when Jesus Christ was revealed to us when he came to the earth as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts and your ignorance, but as he which hath called you as holy, so also be holy.

Now, see, there are those who would say in grace, we don't have to be holy anymore. Now, that's the opposite side. You get out of balance. There's two sides you can go, right? If you're not in the middle, you need to be over here.

You can be over here. So we have people that say that those who are out of balance towards the legal end will say that there are no dispensations, that it's all just one book. And those who are dispensations are just trying not to have to keep the law anymore.

And that's what they'll say. They'll say, why wouldn't you want to keep the law if you belong to God? And then on the other hand, you get those who swing to the far other side and they say, well, we live under grace.

We don't have to keep the law anymore. We don't have to be holy. Well, God does just like he does with the sovereignty of God and the will of man. When you find a good, strong passage on the sovereignty of God, if you keep reading within two or three verses, you're going to find one that shows the responsibility of man.

God puts them right together. Why does he do that? Balance. He wants us not to get out and be a wacko. He doesn't want us to be a hyper anything or an ultra anything other than a hyper fan of his. But that's why he does it.

Well, just like in this passage, you start out, it's talking about dispensational dispensations, which come down here towards the end of it. It says, because it is written, be holy for I am holy. Verse 16.

Where was that written? In the Old Testament. So God keeps us from being hyper or ultra dispensationalist and saying the Old Testament is not for us by including it right there in a passage that deals with the new dispensation of the New Testament.

So you don't have to be out of balance if you'll just be like Brother Otis calls himself a, what is it, a bibliotarian? That's not quite right. What's the word? You get a biblicist. I don't know what it is.

He says, don't call me a Calvinist, call me a biblicist or something like that. Well, don't call me a dispensationalist, just call us biblicists. Just what does the Bible teach about it? And now turn with me to Ephesians chapter three.

Ephesians chapter three, verse one. For this cause, I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God. Here we see the word used in the Bible.

This this is used, by the way, four times that I can find in the New Testament. If you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God, which is given me to you, word, how that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery.

Now, I want you to start accumulating some words that will give you a good definition for what a dispensation is. Now, I can see this morning that this is a difficult morning to be studying this. Everybody looks sleepy.

So I have to say that's my fault, probably. It could be Greg's fault, but it's probably my fault. I'm teasing Greg. Greg taught Sunday school this morning, in case you weren't here. But actually, what I'm thinking is Greg probably should come on up and finish this message.

But let me say this. Everything that we're going to get into in the study of the great doctrines of the Bible are based upon what you believe about the Bible. And every great doctrine that we'll study, which as we as soon as we launch out from bibliology, we're going to get into the stuff you're wanting to study.

We're going to get in the doctrines of salvation. Propitiation, sanctification, justification, what has God done for us on the cross over thirty three different things he did for us when it was finished?

What is he doing for us now as he is seated at the right hand of the father? What will he do for us in the future as we are glorified and we meet him and we look at him and we're changed and we're like him for we see him as he is.

All of those great truths and thousands of more truths that we'll study are all based on how you interpret the Bible. You can go right next door and you can find somebody I'll take the same Bible and tell you totally different things than what you believe or what anybody you even know believes.

How do they get it? Because they don't use proper Bible interpretative methods. So stay with me just for a few moments longer. We've got to introduce this. This is the morning God put on my heart to do it.

Stay with me. Stand up if you have to, whatever you have to do. But you've got to get these principles. You don't understand this. Many of you don't understand this, but there are very few people left today who believe what I'm teaching you this morning.

The greatest movement in the church today is against dispensationalism to not have any dispensations at all. It's just all just one big conglomerate. And what that does is it brings you to confusion. You take a new Christian.

Why is he confused? Why does he look at the Bible and say, well, it's a difficult book? Because it's all one big conglomerate just mixed together, and the preacher preaches one place this Sunday, the next place he'll be in another verse, and he'll spit out one verse and then tell a story.

Next Sunday, he'll pick a verse over here and read one verse and tell a story. And the new Christian comes and it's all just one big mixed up, confusing book. You know why? Because it's not rightly divided into divisions that can be easily understood and learned.

I'm not saying the whole Bible is easy. It's not, but it's much easier if we understand where it all falls in place. But the biggest predominant growth in the church today by the multiplied thousands of new Christian churches being erected with thousands, hundreds of thousands of new members, they don't believe in dispensations.

So this is very important, maybe not because you need to learn it because you probably already believe it, but because you may need to defend it, because if you don't defend it, the next generation will not even be able to learn the Bible.

They will learn it, and it'll take them five times as long to learn it as it would if they had a little help from you. So let's look at this now, start picking out some of these words. Notice, number one, in Ephesians chapter three, verse three, we see the word revelation.

When you start to put together a definition for the word dispensation, a new dispensation always begins when there is new revelation from God that man did not know before. Now, that doesn't mean every time you see a revelation from God that a new dispensation has just begun.

I'm just saying it's one of the points that you have to look for. The word dispensation itself is from the Greek word oikonomia, which means a household. It actually means the administrator of a household or an estate.

Now, keep that in your mind, because as we go, especially next Sunday, it'll really come to life for you what this word means, the administration of a household or a state. It comes from a Greek word oikonomos, which means house distributor and has been translated in the Bible as the word chamberlain, governor or steward.

So we're going to picture this as a household, and just as you might go from one household to another, the rules in that household might be slightly different. So think of it as a household. So that's what we see, the word dispensation, verse two, the economy or the administration of this household.

This particular one is called the one of the grace of God is what Paul calls it. That's why many as you read books about this, the dispensations, they'll call the one we're living in the dispensation of grace.

That's one of the things Paul called it. So I can't criticize that choice too much. Can you? But now the first attribute here is we see in verse three how that by revelation he had made known. So we see that dispensation only begins when there is a new revelation from God that man did not previously have and kind of attached to that.

We see the next phrase known to me, the mystery right down the word mystery, because you see, if it wasn't previously known, then that means it was a mystery. It might have been something they didn't even think about because it hadn't been revealed at all.

But as we started out in this passage in first Peter, some of the dispensation of grace, these prophets were writing about it and to them it was a mystery. They wrote about it, but they didn't understand it.

And so this idea of a mystery is another point. And he says in verse four, whereby when you read, you read, you may understand my knowledge and the mystery of Christ. When in other ages was not made known, now see that same thing first Peter said, so we see a third attribute is that this is something that was not previously known.