The Dispensations, Cont. (07/29/2001)

Park Meadows Church

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Good morning, everyone It's good to be back in, Texas Believe it or not.

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I'm always glad to get back And I love living in Mahea because when you live in Mahea anywhere you travel is beautiful And you appreciate it north south east or west and We always love getting back home

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The Lord allowed us to meet or come across the path of a couple of born -again

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Christians on our vacation And that was really nice back one of them was a young man that reminded me so much a brother

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Myron It was unbelievable in fact after we realized he had that same personality we came to find out he was a pastor of a church over there and He was working there at the resort taking photos photos of the guests to make a little extra money on the side because he had just started a brand new church had just a few members, but what a pleasure it was to meet him and It's good when you go places where you don't really know if they're any born -again people or not you got some brothers and sisters

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And you can trust them It's an incredible thing and you got to make sure they're not the kind just saying they're a brother or a sister, but a

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Lot of times it's possible for your heart to To discern those things let me give you a verse this morning

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It came across my mind in Sunday school before we get into the message. I thought that was a fascinating Conversation going on in the adult

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Sunday school class. I tried to just sit back and listen and enjoy it Look at Matthew chapter 18 verse 7

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Most churches wouldn't even discuss such a thing and certainly couldn't do it in a Sociable manner but It has never occurred to most

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Christian people that Even sin has good behind it because God is in control of all things

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But I like what brother Jesse said when we look at it the only way we can do it is to look at it from points of view human point of view versus God's point of view and we're delving in an area that is so far beyond our understanding that That we need to be thankful.

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We can even discuss part of it But Matthew 18 7 says woe unto the world because of offenses

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For it must needs be that offenses come but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh

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The part where it says it must needs be that offenses come is the sovereignty of God They're going to come

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You can you could ask the question can you think of any sin that was good It's a trick question, of course, just say something like that when you're wanting to have fun together but You know

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It's interesting to think about Judas, isn't it when he sinned Did that work together for good?

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we'd all be in hell if Jesus Christ hadn't died on the cross and So we see here how

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Offenses must come but isn't it interesting in the same breath? He says but woe to that man by whom the offense comes.

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There's the responsibility of man it's amazing to me how often God puts in the same verse or within the same couple of verses the sovereignty of God and the

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Responsibility of man right there side -by -side We'll we'll have a hundred more discussions of it or a thousand more before the

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Lord comes And I guess we creep a little closer to understanding it, but we won't totally get there

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But it is and they're wonderful to be at a place where you can discuss things like that instead of be out fishing on Sunday morning

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Turn with me if you would to Genesis chapter 2 There are several men in History who have studied or spent some time dealing with the idea of dispensations.

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I Around the year 1646 now, I'm not counting The penman of the

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Bible because as they were inspired they discussed Dispensations as we've already looked at the

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Bible verses that contain these words and concepts They fully understood that it was important to rightly divide the word of truth and so forth

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But as you come into the Dark Ages, we lost a lot The Rise of Roman Catholicism and you have to understand that the

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Roman Catholic Church did not become the whore overnight Augustine was a great

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Bible scholar who was a Roman Catholic in the early years before it was totally

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Paganized so it happened over time over a long period of time

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Somewhere in my study. I have a tract that a former priest Who's now born -again believer wrote a tract that gave the actual dates when the different things came into practice in the

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Roman Catholic Church? In fact, I know where it is because my son Paul was asking about it

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I pulled it out the other day and he's taking a look at it But it's over a long long period of time that these apostasies came in one by one into the church in fact

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Augustine was one of the men that Martin Luther read after As God was giving

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Martin Luther light on grace in the concept of salvation by grace not by works

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So it didn't all happen overnight, but it did happen. And as we went into those dark ages where truth was covered up by The foolish traditions of men and the traditions became more important than the

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Word of God It was a mirror as brother Russ has shared with me and Allowed me to understand so much how it's a mirror of the same thing that the

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Jews have did in their history They started out with the Word of God But over a period of some 400 years right before the

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Lord Jesus was born into this world They ceased to study the Word of God and began to study targums and paraphrases and things that were not teaching what the

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Bible Actually taught and the Roman Catholics repeated this and So you lose a lot in those years however during the

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Enlightenment period a lot of things were Rediscovered and a lot of the old ways of studying the

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Bible were found again And one of the first was a man named Pierre Poiret which lived from 1646 to 1719 and he

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Divided the dispensations of the Bible into these categories The first he called creation to the deluge and he put in parentheses

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Infancy and he likened this to the life of a man and he said this is like the infancy the second period of time was the deluge to Moses and he called this childhood and then the third dispensation that he listed was

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Moses to the prophets and he called this adolescence and then from the prophets to Christ and he called this youth and then

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The Church Age he called manhood and then after that he's referring to the millennial period.

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He called it the renovation of all things And then you come forward to about the time of the later 1600s 1639 to 1716 marks the life of Jonathan Edwards one of the great men of God that you read about in history he

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Divided the dispensations of the Bible into these terms. The first was innocency

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We'll discuss in a little bit what some of these are but innocency. The second was the

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Adam Adam after the fall up to he called it the antediluvian period or in other words before the flood and Then the next dispensation that he noted was called the

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Noah Cole Dispensation and then the next he called the Abrahamic and then the mosaical and then the

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Christian and then you come forward to the mid 1700s

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Isaac Watts He divided them into innocency and then the next one he called the

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Adamical or in other words after the fall and then the Noah Cole and then the

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Abrahamic Cole and Then the mosaical and then the Christian so you can see that they're very similar and there was a man named

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J in Darby in the mid 1800s who called the first one the

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Paradisaical state and that sounds like pharisaical, but he's playing it's a play on the word paradise and Then the second one he called

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Noah the third one Abraham and then he divided the next one into Israel under the law under the priesthood and under the

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Kings and Then what we call the church age he called the Gentiles age of the

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Gentiles and then he has divided that also into the age of the spirit and then he speaks of the

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Millennium and Then you come forward to the late 1800s James H Brooks had the period of Eden and then he had one called the antediluvian period and then one called the patriarchal period and then one called the

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Mosaic period and then the Messianic period and and he divided that into the Messianic and the

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Holy Ghost So I'm sure the Messianic is the part where Jesus was on the face of the earth and the

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Holy Ghost Part was from Pentecost on and then he had the Millennial period

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And then James M. Gray in the early 1900s published a book in the year 1901 about Dispensations he divided them into the

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Edenic Garden of Eden and then the antediluvian the patriarchal the

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Mosaic the church age the millennial age and then he went beyond that into something he called the fullness of times and then he went beyond that into something he called the eternal and Then Coming into the early 1900s again, we have

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CI Schofield Probably the most famous many of you have a Schofield study Bible on your lap this morning and you've probably read the words that he gives the dispensations and his words pretty much stuck and Most of the scholars today will use his terminology.

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He called the first one the age of innocency The second one he called the age of conscience and the third one

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He called the age of human government and the next one the promise and the next one the law and the next one grace and the next one the kingdom those stuck

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I think because he put them into one word and pretty descriptive words

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There was another man named Clarence Larkin who in 1920 wrote a book called rightly dividing the word of truth

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And it's very interesting. It not only speaks of those dispensations but he also speaks of ages and times and Dispensations and he takes it even further so you can see that the history starting in about the year 16 75 somewhere in that time period men began to relearn the methods of rightly dividing the word of truth and This morning

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I want us to start and just take a panoramic view of these and I want you to notice what

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God is demonstrating and There's a theme here that I think will become very clear

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First we go to Genesis chapter 2 in verse 15. This is called the dispensation of innocency by many

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One man called it the dispensation of freedom because this was before the fall before sin and before man was a slave to sin and to the enemy and to the world and So this is called usually the age of innocency.

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It begins in the Garden of Eden in the coolness of the day walking with God Genesis 2 15 and the

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Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it Notice that man had work even before the fall.

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It just wasn't toil and The Lord God commanded the man saying of every tree of the garden now mayest freely eat

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But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it for in the day that thou eatest thereof

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Thou shalt surely die. And that was God's first law. In fact that law has

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Resonated through the eons of time since that day you find it in the middle of the

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Old Testament Phrased this way this soul that sinneth it shall die you find it as you come into the

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New Testament for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God and You find it all the way through the

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Bible But this is where it all began and he said the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die

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The wages of sin is death Well The Lord God said it is not good.

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The man should be alone. I will make him a help meet and out of the ground the

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Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air and Brought them into Adam to see what he would call them and whatsoever

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Adam called every living creature that was the name thereof and Adam gave names to all cattle and to the fowl of the air and every beast of the field

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But for Adam there was not found a help meet for him. I Don't know how many

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I guess everybody here's had to study Bog biology in school how would you like to name all the plant plants and the animals didn't necessarily say the plants, but it's kind of You kind of believe that happened also

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Adam the first botanist and the first zoologist. How would you like to do that? The man had an enormous intellect

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Untainted by the fall no telling how much of that brain capacity he was able to use perhaps all of it and We obviously don't this side of the fall

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But God looks and says there's still no help meet for him and the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof and the rib which the

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Lord God had taken from man made he a woman and Brought her unto the man

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That was his happiest day. I Figured one man at least would say amen.

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I Think all the men know where we're headed with this story is the problem And Adam said this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh

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She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh it all began right there and the

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Age of Innocency was a beautiful time period Man did not have the carnal flesh as one of his enemies.

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He did not have what we called the the flesh the carnality

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That we read so much of in the book of Romans chapter 6 7 and 8 That was not there to pull against Adam or Eve They were in a perfect environment

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You know how today the popular thing in the world is like if a young man or woman goes wrong and they end up in the penitentiary

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It's because the social surroundings usually so we can always either blame it on their parents or on the social

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Aspect of their surroundings. Well, Adam and Eve couldn't use that one. Could they because they lived in the

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Garden of Eden and If you go to some of the beautiful places in the world like Charlotte and I just got back from we've got to be on one of the islands about 60 miles off the coast of Florida and You can see a lot of God's beauty but imagine how it was before the curse

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Imagine how it was before the thorns and the thistles and so forth And this is where they lived in this beautiful place and they walked with God in the cool of the day

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How many of you have ever had the thought I wish God would just show up and tell me what to do You know,

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I wish he would tell me the things between the lines That the

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Bible don't seem to be telling me right now. I'm sure Myron was thinking, you know, which house do

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I move into? He's looking in his Bible. I know Myron. He's trying to find a house in that Bible. You know, what block number is it on?

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Well, that's good. You should approach it that way But still don't you sometimes wish

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God would walk up and say well, it's that one right over there So you would know you know why we wish that now we wouldn't have to pray

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We're lazy. We're lazy Christians, but Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the day.

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This is how this dispensation began But how did it end turn to Genesis chapter 3 in verse 8 now here?

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We have an experiment if you want to call it that from a human viewpoint. We have an experiment with humans

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We place them in a perfect environment We place them in a body that is not carnal in the bad sense of the word

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It is not fleshly. It is not like what we call the old man. It is an innocent human being a free will human being as far as a creature can be and a perfect environment

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No, mom and dad to let them down or to blame anything on No social ills no taxes.

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Hallelujah Can we go back there? well Look what happens in Genesis 3 8 the next we read of Adam To me is probably one of the most

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Somber sorrowful passages in the whole scripture and they heard the voice of the

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Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and Adam and his wife hid

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Themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden and the

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Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him where art thou and He said I heard thy voice in the garden and I was afraid

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Because I was naked and I hid myself Perhaps the most awesome passage of scripture dealing with human beings and the nature of human beings and From this very point we see that this dispensation ends in tragedy from the human viewpoint

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Not too long after this One of their sons murders another one and they get to see death for the first time

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Can you ever ever tried to picture that? Here you have two people that don't know death yet God told them in the day that you eat the fruit thereof you shall surely die, but they didn't die physically

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But you know what they did die spiritually didn't they because death simply means separation They were separated from God and they hid themselves.

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They were aware of this separation and Yet they got to see physical death from close hand not too many days hence as they went out and Their son was laying in a pool of blood on the ground and the ground was drinking up the blood

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How do you think that must have been now? We see it every TV show we turn on every movie has at least 15 murders in it

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We read it in the newspapers. We hear it on the radio Makes me wonder how we can obey

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God when he says think on things that are lovely If we watch the news, I try not to watch it very much or hear it.

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I never watch it I try not to hear it too much but You know, we we walk up upon death and we can handle it

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But how do you think it was for two humans that had never even heard of it never even seen it never experienced it and it's

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Their child lying there This is how this dispensation ends total failure

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Perfect environment no flesh pulling them down But it ends thusly the next dispensation is often called the age of conscience

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Some have called it self -determination If you want to look at a New Testament verse that describes it very very well

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It's Romans chapter 2 verse 15 as it looks back and it says which show the work of the law written in their hearts

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It's talking about even Gentiles even people that Have not known God. It says that they have the law written in their hearts their conscience also bearing witness

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It's called the law of the conscience and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another and Romans chapter 1 says therefore they are without excuse

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So we've all been given a conscience and this dispensation is marked by the fact that God had it's so that men walked predominantly according to their conscience and Genesis 3 15 is

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Sort of the beginning and it begins with a promise turn to that verse This is a famous verse among theologians because it is the first promise of the

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Messiah what a way to begin a dispensation and I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head and now shall bruise his heel and This dispensation includes the first murder even though it was a result of the what happened at the end of the first dispensation it includes the first murder

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Genesis 4 9 and The Lord said to Cain where is Abel thy brother?

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And he said I know not am I my brother's keeper? Well, that's a that's a modern attitude, isn't it? Yes, sir.

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It is and he said what hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground

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It also includes moral corruption Genesis chapter 6 verse 2 says the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair and they took them wives of all which they chose and this was immoral from the point of view of the fact that it broke

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God's rule of being unequally yoked together with unbelievers and so once the

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Children of God began to marry the lost of the world and that were influenced by them it created all sorts of problems and look how it ends in chapter 6 verse 3 and The Lord said my spirit shall not always strive with man for that He also is flesh yet.

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His days shall be numbed a hundred and twenty years There were Giants in the earth in those days and also after that when the sons of God came in and to the daughters of men

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And they bear children of them the same became mighty men which were of old men of renown when they say mighty

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They're talking about warriors and hunters and so forth and God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every

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Imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually

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This is how this dispensation of conscience ends It is a test of man's ability in and of himself

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To do right because God has placed within him that which knows the difference between right and wrong

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And even in the face of this beautiful gift that God has given mankind the ability to have a conscience man fails

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He not only fails he gets to the place where that conscience is covered over with such sin

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That he only thinks thoughts that are evil and he thinks them continually

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At that point it said it can Repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him at his heart and the

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Lord said I will destroy man Whom I have created from the face of the earth both man and beast and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air

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For it repenteth me that I have made them but the next verse has a beautiful word

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But Noah found race You mean that words in the

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Old Testament Grace in the eyes of the Lord so this dispensation of human conscience

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Begins with man having a conscience knowing the difference between right and wrong It begins with a group of men who knew the

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Lord because they were the children of God They disobeyed him even though their conscience told them not to and they began to let their children marry lost people

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We need to be aware of that problem even today As we raise our children, we need to fight against that even today

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And it came to the place where all they could do was have evil thoughts and God came to the place where he destroyed man

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Except for Noah who had found grace in his eyes So it ends in a deluge, but it also ends with grace

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But it was an experiment from a human viewpoint that failed man could not operate according to his conscience and Succeed the next dispensation is commonly called the dispensation of human government it begins with the

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Noahic Covenant in Genesis 8 20 it begins with the promise and Noah builded an altar into the

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Lord and took of every clean beast and of every clean foul and offered burnt offerings on the altar And the

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Lord smelled a sweet savor There's grace and mercy right there

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Praise be to God that he smelled that sweet savor because he smelled that same savor when Jesus Christ was on the cross and as he was elevated above the earth and Nails through his hands and his feet

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And he looks up and he says my God my God Why hast thou forsaken me and he has all of the sins of you and me in him

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God smelled a sweet savor that day and the Lord said in his heart I will not again curse the ground anymore for man's sake

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For the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth Neither will

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I again smite anymore every living thing as I have done. Isn't it interesting that this dispensation?

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The one the previous one that just ended the dispensation of conscience Demonstrated to man that the imagination of his heart is evil even from youth and so therefore he cannot walk based upon his heart

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Do you hear that? That's what America and the whole world believes The false doctrine of today is that you just do what you feel like doing you follow your heart

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This demonstrated that that would not work with men and women or boys and girls or teenagers

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While the earth remaineth seed time and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease

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So he starts with a promise in chapter 9 verse 6 Gives the law that creates the reasoning behind why most scholars call this the age of human government

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Genesis 9 6 says whosoever shed at the man's blood by man shall his blood be shed

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Or in the image of God made he him and so it is the first ancient resemblance resemblance of human law and Of the law taking care of a problem and it was in fact the death penalty

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So he told them then to be fruitful and to multiply and bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply therein

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Now this is the age of human government. Let's look forward and see how it ends. Look at Genesis chapter 11 in verse 1

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It ends in pride and As you look out at the human governments today, what do you see predominantly among politicians?

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You have politicians that are so arrogant that they can take the human life of a Barely budding young girl in her early 20s and just snuff it out as a plaything perhaps

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Now, I don't know if that's happened recently, but I know it's happened before and there's a great possibility

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It has just happened again in the last weeks They're so arrogant. They're so prideful and And Even Henry Kissinger some of you can bring up an image of his face.

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Remember him He wasn't the most beautiful thing to look at was he that he made the statement that power is the strongest aphrodisiac in the world

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And these politicians are so lifted up with pride that they just use Humans as playthings and it all began back here and look how

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God rebuked it and how this dispensation ended chapter 11 verse 1 of Genesis and the whole earth was of one language in one speech and it came to pass as they journeyed from East from the

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East that they found a plane in the land of Shinar and They dwelt there and they said one to another go to let us make a brick make brick and burn them thoroughly

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And they had brick of stone and slime Had they from mortar and they said go to let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach into the heavens

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Let us make us a name Lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth

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Isn't it interesting that? God dealt with that pride problem by creating the nations of the world and the races

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I don't mean he created the races at that point But he divided the people and put different races of people in different geographical areas of the world and they were given different languages

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Isn't it interesting that the end times? Mindset is to mix that back together and we have many many interracial marriages all over the world

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Which was not really a common thing a hundred years ago even but now it's taking place everywhere and we have the re

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Merging of the nations and the languages nearly everybody speaks English now in the whole world and Everyone can communicate with the

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Internet And so man is now in these last days built back up in pride thinking that he can build a stairway to heaven through technology

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They're bringing together everyone that God separated and I don't believe it'll work

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There was a rock group in my younger days called Led Zeppelin that wrote a pretty famous song called stairway to heaven some of you are humming it in your head, so I shouldn't have mentioned it, but That's what the world thinks

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We can build a stairway to heaven God demonstrated in this dispensation that that would not happen.

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Look what God did It says that he in verse Seven well verse six and the

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Lord said behold the people is one and they have all one language and this they began to do and Now nothing will be constrained or restrained from them, which they have imagined to do

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Go to let us go down now. Why would God say us if God is one God?

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in that peculiar Remember when he made man, he said let us make man in our image so even from the earliest portions of the

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Bible we see the idea of The Godhead Go to let us go down and there confound their language

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That they may not understand one another speech So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth and they left off to build the city

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Therefore is the name of it called Babel because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth and from hence

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Did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth so here we have a dispensation of human government the be -all to end -all

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We'll get together our government and we'll govern the whole thing and everything will work out just fine. Did it work?

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It ended in failure. Once again Once again, it is demonstrated to man by God in time that man will fail

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Under these circumstances, so innocency didn't work a perfect environment didn't work

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Conscience did not help the heart did not lead in the right direction And now we see that even government did not cause the perfect world

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In fact, it ended in judgment and God punished and scattered to end this dispensation

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That brings us to the next one, which is called the promise The dispensation of the promise some call it the

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Abrahamic time it begins with the Abrahamic Covenant a Couple of New Testament verses speak of this

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Hebrew 615 says and so after he had patiently endured He obtained the promise that's talking about Abraham in Hebrews 11 9 by faith

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Abraham sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country Dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob the heirs with him of the same promise

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Do you see this sojourning characteristic you see this? Separation of Abraham from the world as God pulled him out of the world system and sent him out into the wilderness

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Into a new land and this is a very much So a picture of the way it's supposed to be for Christians Because we are the you remember how we studied last time

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I was here time before last that Abraham had a veil over his face and the Bible says it was so that they might not

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See the end The end is where we are as far as the end of the promise

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We are the part of the promise the promise was made to the seed and we are in Christ and therefore we're partakers of the promise and the partakers of this promise ought to be just like the founder of this time period way back in the

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Dispensation of the promise. He was a sojourner. He did not count this world to be his home

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He had a home in a different place and he kept that in his mind all the time In fact, all of Hebrews chapter 11 talks about people throughout the ages that had that mindset

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That's the mindset that we should have anything that we do in this world Any money that the

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Lord brings our way any any type of position that the Lord would bring our way We should view it merely as a tool

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Merely as a tool that God might accomplish his will to get the gospel out and for his kingdom growth and so forth and It is not ours.

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It is on loan Even the homes we live in we're just sojourners here.

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We keep that attitude It'll go a long way towards keeping us away from the pride that the people from the human government dispensation had

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However, we see that this Abrahamic time period this promise ends with the rejection of a relationship now,

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I Count this period to end at a different date than most do. I think most would consider that it ends with with the beginning of the time of Moses or some would say that it ended with the captivity in Egypt and As they turned into slaves in Egypt that it ended at that place but I don't really believe that dispensation ended until they got all the way to Exodus chapter 33 and Verse 8 and they began to say such things as we will do everything that you say

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But we don't want to come and talk to you face to face. Remember we talked about that Sunday before last

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It said that Moses built a tabernacle for them to go out and worship and only two men went out there

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And that was Moses and Joshua and the rest of them stayed back at their tents but they got down on their knees and played like they were worshiping but they weren't where God was and they weren't doing it

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God's way and that truly is a great picture of religion a modern religion today and So what happened was

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God offered them a relationship very similar to what we have in this dispensation

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In fact, he offered them to be priests and kings and they rejected it and said no

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We don't want to come near you Moses you go up there and you do all the talking and the face -to -face stuff and have the

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Relationship and you come back and just tell us what to do and we will do it. So do was emphasized rather than be

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The doing of it was the emphasis not the being not the having of the relationship and that carried all the way to the time

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Of Jesus when we had the Pharisees who thought they could build another stairway to heaven by keeping the law

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They focused on the law so much that they didn't even know the lawgiver That's a great problem

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And that's where I believe that the dispensation of the promise ended was when they rejected the relationship and said no

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We would rather do things and so God gives them the law and it begins We then see the next dispensation begin we call it the dispensation of the law

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Coming right after the dispensation of promise. It begins with Moses at Mount Sinai And it ends with John the

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Baptist that includes the time of the prophets and so forth and many many things and we're just We're fairly familiar with that dispensation

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So I won't give a lot of time to it and we've spent a lot of time already talking about the time of the law now the sixth dispensation is commonly called the age of grace and The last dispensation that most scholars will talk about is the kingdom age or the

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Millennium Isn't it interesting? I'm gonna come back to grace as we finish here in a minute, but let me jump forward to kingdom

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Do you think that? law ended favorably If that dispensation was a an experiment in time to Show man his ability to do exactly what

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God said to do. How did it end? Miserably It ended miserably it ended with the pharisaical spirit

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I Dare say that that's the most destructive spirit in the church today the pharisaical spirit

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Where we like to set up laws for each other to keep that we don't even keep ourselves Run from that one that one will not work it's been proven very beautifully and very perfectly by the

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Lord that man fails under the system of law and it ended in failure with John the

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Baptist having his head severed from his body and Then with Jesus being crucified and so forth and would go then into the age of grace

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But before we do that, let's jump forward into the kingdom age a thousand years now. You think the Millennial Kingdom was perfect?

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I'm sorry, the paradise was perfect Where they walked with God? Imagine a thousand years on this earth with Jesus Christ himself reigning in person with a rod of iron from Jerusalem Can you imagine a better political scenario than that?

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Can you imagine a better religious scenario than that? In many ways the

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Old Testament prophets pictured this Millennial Kingdom as a Restoration of the Garden of Eden where the lion lays down with the lamb and the children can play with the with the snakes and Everything's fine and back very much like paradise

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You have a place where as in the Garden of Eden Man was given a time to live where he didn't have a problem with the flesh

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During the Millennial Kingdom man will be given a thousand years to live when he doesn't have a problem with the world the world system and the philosophy of the world is gone and destroyed and only

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Jesus Christ rules and it's exactly as it should be and Yet, how does it end?

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How does this dispensation end in Revelation chapter 20 in verse 7 it ends with?

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Satan being released and Finding out that there was a group of people

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Living during that perfect time that were not God's children that rebelled against God and rose up to try to destroy

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Jerusalem at the end of that perfect age So man can't do well in a period of innocence where the flesh is not a burdensome thing man

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Can't do well in a period of perfect world system ruled by God himself

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Man has failed in all six of these dispensations now Let's stop today and give some thought before we finish with the age that we live in We live in the age called the age of grace

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We live in the only age so far in human history. Anyway, where God himself Dwells within our bodies our bodies are the temples of the

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Living God Where at the point of salvation the Holy Spirit is sealed within us until the day of redemption where we can be filled with the

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Holy Spirit and in that sense literally seated and Positioned at the right hand of God in Christ above and beyond the law above and beyond the flesh above and beyond the world

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And yet what will this period demonstrate about man? Failure again, we're looking at each other

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We're looking at failure you're looking at one I'm looking at several You know how

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I know that Because in this age the ultimate law goes like this

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Galatians 5 6 for in Christ your position in Christ neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision

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But faith which worketh by what? Love That's called the law of Christ We have that law written in our hearts

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God gives his definition of love as we look at our relationship with one another in this church and in our families

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Love is patient towards the other Love is always kind towards the other

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Love never envies the other and is happy that the other has the thing that they have There is no pride in love these are all in first Corinthians 13 just exactly the definition of what love is

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Love is always appropriate never behaves unseemly Love is selfless

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Love is not provoked by the other person. I always remember that little story when dr

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Freeman was preaching and he got through and this woman ran up the aisle and met him at the front said you made me mad

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And he looked at her and said dear lady I can't make you mad Anger comes from within your heart

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Love is not provoked Love thinketh no evil of the other love never thinks evil of the object of the love

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Now think of that with us in our relationship here in this church and ask yourself the question

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Are we succeeding or failing in this dispensation? Do you ever think evil of anyone else in this church or think that they got something up their sleeve or they're up to no good or You get these negative thoughts and you get this bitterness going and that's not love

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What about this one love Rejoices not in iniquity boy

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God got them That's not love love rejoices in the truth

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How often do we have times when we take the favor of people rather than the word and We'll believe things because it makes people happy rather than believe in what

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God said Shouldn't go there. That's not love

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Do you think it's love to love men or women more than you love the one who wrote the word and to?

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Change your beliefs just to please people That's not love in the church

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What about this love bears all things did you know that there's not anything you can do to me that should cause me to To not be able to bear up under and just have to just let everything go

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And there shouldn't be anything I can do to you. They will cause you to have to flee from this place Because if you love you bear things you bear the good and you bear the bad

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Now that's the test of the age of grace. Can you do that? What about this love?

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Believe it's all things. What about if you heard a story? About verge

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And you heard a bad story about verge if you love him, do you believe the bad story or do you believe verges story?

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You can't live that way You have to be in Christ Which means filled with the

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Holy Spirit? We have to be vitally Conjoined with him by the

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Holy Spirit and in that time period we're seated in the heavenlies far above all things

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Nobody can offend you Nobody can cause you to believe evil things.

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You don't even want to hear negative things You want to think on good things if there be any good report if there be any virtue you think on these things

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It's all easy when you're in that place But the difficulty of this dispensation is staying in that place

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Because we have the choice like we spoke of in Sunday school to come down from the heavenlies and sit on the throne of our own life

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That's called being in the flesh, but we never realize it immediately but the more we grow to love him and know him and the more we stay in the word and the more we speak of Him when we're together

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The easier it is to know about our own selves when we're seated on the throne of our own life

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Rather than seated in Christ in the heavenlies So we can have the greatest success of all the people of all the dispensations because we have been given the greatest dispensation

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The dispensation of the law of Jesus Christ and we've been given him dwelling in our hearts

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But we can also have the most miserable failures Because when we choose not to love and exhibit love to one another

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We have shown the inability of human beings even to succeed in the age of grace

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Let's stand and have prayer together when you have a brother or sister that's hurting even if they've hurt you

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I Think love says you go to him And you work it out

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Yes, no, we do we

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I think brother Jesse Wayne did that you just didn't hear him So Jesse Wayne did that So you're you're off the hot seat any other confessions?

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Let's let's go to the Lord in prayer father We thank you so much for letting us be born in this time period for it is truly the greatest we can experience a

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Relationship with you that is far above Any of the other dispensational activities far above even the law because you've written a law in our hearts

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And father help us to yearn to stay in the heavenlies and to control this earthly body for your purposes that it might truly be a bond servant to both us and you and That the new man which is us connected with you would be in complete control of this

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Earthly body that it might be a servant of righteousness and in that way and in that way only may we succeed

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We see for the most part that the church at large has failed even in this greatest of all ages we ourselves fail when we lack the love of Christ for one another and we let our flesh come in and Cause imaginations and thoughts and bitterness and we let it stay there

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So father give us victory over these things by being in Christ And Lord, we ask you as we are seated in the heavenlies that your

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Holy Spirit would teach us deep things of the mind of God And father that we might rejoice even in this pilgrimage

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Because we have that awesome relationship Go with us into our fellowship together bless our meal together and the remainder of our worship time today