Bible Prophecy: God's program: Dispensations — Scott MacLeod

We've got a big subject ahead of us. It's absolutely impossible to cover this chart in one week. You might say, well, maybe I'm looking for an invite back. Well, that all depends how the week goes. Maybe it might not be worth your time.

We trust it will be. It has been a great encouragement to me. One of the main reasons why we want to look at a broad structure of the Bible is, like I said, it will help you understand when you're looking at a tree or a certain part of scripture to know where does it fit.

Dispensationalism and Replacement Theology

And why that's so important is because I don't know what it's like here in mid-United States, but back where I come from in the Maritimes, Prince Edward Island, the eastern sea coast of Canada, there seems to be an upsurge in what's known as Reformed theology.

And mostly, generally speaking, a lot of Reformed theology denies dispensations. And they are heavy on covenants. They will add a number of covenants into the Word of God that are personally not in the Word of God.

I'll show you that tonight. But what they'll also do is they take all the promises that God had given to the nation of Israel. Because the nation has failed, they have something called the replacement theology, where God now has taken all those promises and he's moved them over to the church.

So there's a whole number of things that spin out of that. They then claim that there is no literal future history for Israel. It's done. That's what they say. And then they will deny, as I think I might have mentioned this on Sunday, they deny that there's going to be a literal future for the nation of Israel, the city of Jerusalem.

They deny that Christ himself will literally sit on a throne. They end up denying then a literal 1 ,000-year reign, which the Word of God clearly teaches. So we have to look at the structure of the Word of God.

And as I said, I'm going to prove it to you tonight, we're going to look at the three different programs that God has going through all of time. And when you discover those three different programs, and as you're reading the Word of God, you will find these verses apply to the Jews.

These verses apply to the church. These verses apply to the Gentiles. And that way, you won't be taking verses out of their context, because what's happening today in a lot of denominational circles is they are taking verses from the Old Testament that in their context refer to the nation in the millennial reign.

And they're saying, oh, this is being fulfilled today. No, it's not. And I will prove, I will show you a number of places where those mistakes are being made. So we just have to get things straight. And the Word of God is our teacher, it's our only source, and that is what we want to go through.

So before we start, I want to look at just, like I said, the broad, broad thing, and then we're going to start to zero in on covenants, because we don't hear a whole lot of ministry on covenants. And I'm going to explain what a covenant is to you in a few minutes.

God's Sovereign Rule in Psalm 103

But while we start, we're going to start in Psalm 103, just to start here. Psalm 103 will be our starting point. There's a lovely verse that we have here, and it's really an umbrella that we can put over this entire chart, this whole program.

This chart just represents a program, okay? And we'll look at a few things to set it in its context. So Psalm 103, we have a Psalm of David we'll pick up at verse number 19. This is just picking up from where I had gave a little ministry on Sunday.

We introduced you to a title of God called El Elyon, the strongest, strong one, and that is God working in humanity. Verse number 19 of Psalm 103, the Lord, now you'll notice in your Bible that it's all capital letters.

So that's telling you that that is the Hebrew word Jehovah, the covenant keeping God. The Lord hath prepared his throne in heaven, in the heavens. Notice, and his kingdom ruleth over all. Now that's a wonderful verse.

That just, once again, reaffirms what we said yesterday, that the hand of God is over everything. Nothing falls outside of his hand. Interesting, if you look at the Hebrew grammar for the word prepared, it's what's known as a perfect.

That means something that has been done and the effects of that are still ongoing. So nobody can change this. God's throne is established. It was established, it still is established, it always will be established.

Then you come to the next one, and his kingdom ruleth. Same again, it's a perfect. God has always ruled. God still rules. And God will always be the one that will be ruling. So like I said, when you look at that massive chart which represents all different events of time, you can just put a big half moon over the whole thing and right above it, just right, God's kingdom ruleth everywhere, no exception.

So keep that in mind. Now let's go to Daniel chapter four for a minute. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentation, Ezekiel, and then comes the book of Daniel. Sometimes, one thing that'll happen at the end of this week, we'll try to remove the arthritis from your fingers because we turned a lot to chapters, and you'll know where Daniel is.

It'd be an awful thing, you know, to meet Daniel in heaven and go, oh, you wrote a book? I hardly read it. These are sometimes the clean white pages of our Old Testament, so we want to make sure we get this straight.

Daniel chapter four, there is an expression that comes up four times in the book of Daniel, only in the book of Daniel, and I mentioned Nebuchadnezzar to you yesterday. He was the first king of the Babylonian Empire, which commenced the times of the Gentiles.

I'll explain that later to you, but I want you to notice chapter four and verse number 32. We're going to the last part of the verse. This is a judgment pronounced to Nebuchadnezzar. Seven years, he's going to eat grass, and here was the end result.

Until thou know that the most high, ruleth, there's our word again, in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will. So there's a lot of simple things we can learn just from that simple verse.

Every form of government is given of God. Every ruler that has ever lived, who has ever ruled in this earth, who will ever rule in this earth, has been given of God. Now, there are individuals that have popped up in history that would challenge our thinking on that, like a Hitler.

You might look at me and say, how could that man have been raised up of God? Well, I'll give you another character, Pharaoh. I'll take you to Romans chapter nine in the New Testament. You know what the word of God says about Pharaoh, the man that afflicted the children of Israel for 400 years.

He didn't himself, he didn't live 400 years, but he was in a long line. Here's what the word of God says. God says this, for this cause have I raised thee up. Now, that's clearly said about Pharaoh. Now, there's not one of us here that would have put our hand up and voted for Pharaoh.

It would be in power. But that's the man that God wanted at the time. So that's only one example. So this verse just simply tells us, this is this man, Nebuchadnezzar, who thought he was a God and God is gonna teach this man a lesson.

Here's the lesson, that God ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth it to whomsoever he will. Go over to verse number 25, you get the same thing again. Verse number, actually, I read in the wrong verse.

Let me read verse 17 again. To the intent, the last part, to the intent that the living may know that the most high ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth it to whomsoever he will and setteth up over at the basis of men.

There's the first time that appears. Go down to verse 25, the last part. Till thou know that the most high ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth it to whomsoever he will. Go to verse number 32, the last part of the verse.

This is actually the verse I read. Didn't read my numbers carefully enough. Until thou knowest that the most high ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth it to whomsoever he will. And then the final one appears in chapter five and verse number 21, the latter half of the verse.

And this is actually Nebuchadnezzar telling it. This is Daniel speaking about Belshazzar, referring to Nebuchadnezzar. Till he knew that the most high God ruleth in the kingdom of men and that he appointeth over it whomsoever he will.

So that just reaffirms for us and it should give you a measure of peace because your nation is about to elect a new president. You don't need to fear. And I would encourage you from the word of God that you don't even need to vote as Christians.

The Great Tribulation and God's Prophetic Program

In fact, I would say a Christian should not vote. I could take you, the reasons I say that is I could take you to the Bible in Revelation during this period here called the Great Tribulation. Right at the midpoint when Satan is cast out of heaven and he comes down into this earth, you know what has happened just prior to that?

The 10 toes of Daniel had been functioning. What that simply means is this. After the rapture of the church, there is going to come into this world, pushed by the devil, of course, there's gonna come a 10-nation confederacy.

And that 10-nation confederacy is going to rule. It'll be the body that will rule over the habitable world. Behind it will be the devil, the man of sin. Now, what will happen for the first three and a half years of the tribulation period is that 10-nation confederacy will allow multiple religious beliefs.

They'll encourage it. Now, you see that even amongst the religious circles today where they're trying to encourage all this unity, right? Forget doctrine. We're all worshiping the same God, they say, but we're all just taking different paths to that God.

Well, that will be pushed big time after the rapture of the church, and the devil will be behind it. What will happen at the midpoint when the devil comes down? He'll say, enough of that. I wanna be worshiped.

I wanna put my image in the temple in Jerusalem that will be rebuilt. And I want the entire world, and I want those 10 nations, those heads, to be encouraging all the world to worship me. Do you know what you read in the book of Revelation?

God will put it into their minds to turn against world religion, unite, and focus all attention upon the man of sin. God will do that, not man. Now, we might find that strange, but I'll tell you the reason for that is because God is longing to get to this point here where a son comes back to this earth.

You see this line here? This is known as the apostasy line. You read about it in 2 Thessalonians. There is a wickedness that is ongoing in this world right now. And as we advance to the rapture of the church, this line, that wickedness gets greater and greater and greater.

So don't expect the world to get better. It will not. Don't expect the world to become more Christianized. It will not. The devil is the God, the present God of this world. And God is allowing him to have so much movement, and he's actually moving it, not out of control, because God's over the whole thing.

I always remind people, don't forget that the devil is God's devil. And even what the devil does still advances the program of God, because it is ultimately heading to this time here when the Lord Jesus will be glorified.

So I just gave you those very simple verses in the book of Daniel to prove to you once again that our God rules in all of the kingdoms of men. So we discovered from Psalm 103 that this is the kingdom of God.

And within that kingdom of God, there's all of these different kingdoms of men. Right from the beginning of time, right up until the end. But always remember, God's kingdom rules over the entire thing.

Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon, and God's Servant

Now, I wanna give you an example of this just in the life of this man here, Nebuchadnezzar. Go to Jeremiah chapter 27. We're very familiar with this expression today. You've probably heard of a G20 summit, okay?

Or G8, it all depends on what particular thing they're meeting over and how many nations are involved. But did you know that there was a G6 summit in the city of Jerusalem, way back at the time of Jeremiah, the prophet?

And we're just gonna read a little sample about it. And this will just prove once again, I mentioned it yesterday, Nebuchadnezzar, in the word of God, you might find this hard to believe, but do a search.

Nebuchadnezzar became a Christian near the end of his life. But at the first of his life, do you know what God calls him three times in the Bible? My servant, my servant, my servant, not even saved. He doesn't even acknowledge the God of heaven.

He worships rocks and trees and stars and everything else. And yet God calls him my servant. Now, just keep that in mind as you read this. So here's what's happening in Jeremiah 27. You might know this Babylon, they swept into Jerusalem three different times.

The first time they swept in, they took Daniel. He was a young boy. Second time they swept into Jerusalem, they took Ezekiel. And then the final time they swept into Jerusalem in 606, they destroyed the whole thing and burnt the temple and wiped it all out and they left it just completely desolate, right?

Where we are here in Jeremiah 27, the first invasion has happened. Sorry, 606. We're just about up to the second invasion. Now look what's happening. Look at verse number two. Thus saith the Lord to me, make thee bonds and yokes and put them upon thy neck and send them, now notice these kings, send them to the king of Edom and to the king of Moab and to the king of the Ammonites and to the king of Tyrus and to the king of the Zidon by the hand of the messengers, which come to Jerusalem onto Zedekiah king of Judah and command them.

Now pause for a minute. What's happening here? Because of the threat of Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian military, do you know what was happening down here in Jerusalem? Zedekiah was the last king on the throne of Judah.

He was the final king and he's eventually gonna be carried away. Five nations around Jerusalem, they all came into Jerusalem and they had what I call a G6 summit with Zedekiah. They said, look, we've got to unite our militaries.

If all six of us put our military together, we just might be able to stop this Babylonian war machine from taking us over. Now God knew about this and God actually got Jeremiah to build, you know, the old fashioned wooden yoke that you put on two animals.

You imagine this now and Jeremiah says, now I want you to give that wooden yoke to one of your messengers, your servants, and he's gonna put it around his neck and he's gonna go down into Jerusalem and he's gonna break into this room where these six kings are meeting around the table and here's what I want you to tell them.

Well, let's read it. Look at verse number four. And say unto their masters, thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, thus shall you say unto your masters, I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground by my great power and by my outstretched arm and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me.

And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and the beasts of the field. Have I given him also to serve him and all nations shall serve him and his son and his son's son until the very time of his land come.

That's 70 years we know. And then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him. And it shall come to pass that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon.

Notice, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, saith the Lord with the sword and with the famine and with the pestilence until I have consumed them by his hand.

Isn't that something? I mean, that must've been quite a meaning now to interrupt. And can you imagine the, just the way that must've hit those six kings? What?

The God of heaven is wanting us.

To place ourselves under his yoke? This Babylonian, this Nebuchadnezzar? No, we're not gonna do it. What was the rest of the message? If you don't do it, you know what God's gonna do to you? I'm gonna destroy you by famine and war and pestilence.

Ah, because listen, this is God speaking. God says, I've given him all this land. I've given him even all the beasts, all to serve him. You say you're getting a little worked up. I am getting worked up, because this is exciting stuff.

There's nothing like the Bible.

Israel's Future and Jerusalem in Prophecy

To uncover what is actually happening in this world. You know what I long for? I long for a bit, well, they wouldn't give me 20 minutes, but even if they gave me five minutes, I'd love to go to one of these present day G20 summits.

And you know what I tell every single nation? I'd like to go to UN and do it. You know that little despised nation that is now the tale called Israel? The Bible says that one day she'll be the head with Christ, God's son at the top, and every nation will flow down from her.

Can you imagine how that would strike them?

They'd look at me as if I had antennas on my head, but I got the word of God, because that's what the word of God says is gonna happen. There is coming a time when the Lord Jesus will be acknowledged as the head, and along with him will be his nation.

You go through the word of God, and you know what you'll discover? There's only one piece of land, nation that God actually calls my land. It's Jerusalem, Israel, my land. Do you know what's fascinating about your country and every other country?

Maybe you know this. Every embassy is always in the capital of a nation. Probably knew that. Why is it that when you go to Israel, everybody's embassy is in Tel Aviv, not Jerusalem? Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.

You can go over to Jerusalem today, and your tour guide will take you to a plot of ground. I saw it with my own eyes when I was there, and your country owns that plot of ground in Jerusalem. It's just full of grass, all these buildings all around it.

Do you realize that when your present president, Obama, ran for office eight years ago, do you remember one of his speeches? He said, I will put the U .S. embassy in Jerusalem. He didn't get too far, did he?

You know why? Because no nation of the world wants to upset the Arab kingdom. That's what they will do. You go over and travel over in Egypt, you go buy a map, they will not even print the name Israel, Jerusalem, on the map.

Nobody wants to acknowledge her. And that's just coming right into the word of God. God says in the end times, the end times prior to the rapture here, I will make that little nation a burdensome stone to every single nation.

And every nation that picks her up should actually get cut from it. That's tremendous to think of. Like we don't realize, I've often quoted it, one brother was asked years and years ago, he says, give me a proof that the Bible is the word of God.

One word, the Jew. There is not a nation like it on the face of the earth that has been able to retain their nationality in spite of being dispersed into the world so many times. We get pictures of it in the word of God.

Remember Jonah? Jonah is a picture of the Jewish nation cast into the sea. The seas always speak of the Gentiles, swallowed by the whale, but you know what? The whale did not assimilate him. He came out whole.

He came out the way he went in, just a little more stickier when he came out. But that was Jonah. That is a picture of that little nation. There is not, I don't have time. Often I spend a whole night on just the nation of Israel.

And you go through history. Not a nation has experienced more wars than that nation. That nation has experienced over 36 wars. Do you know how many times the city has been devastated? 25 times, flattened.

That's why when you go over there today and they'll take you on these tours, you gotta go down about 60, 80 feet to get to the streets where the Lord Jesus walked on in some places because he's literally built upon rubble, rubble upon rubble.

That's why there's so much archeology being done over there in that little tiny nation because there's so much history that is buried underneath. So just keep that in mind. This in Jeremiah 27. Jeremiah had a tough, he had a tough job to do in the spite of a nation that would not listen to him.

Yet he stood faithful to God. And of course, we can learn something from that today as well. Now let's go into the New Testament, 1 Corinthians chapter 10. That was just by way of introduction. Oh my dear, and we already got 30 minutes gone.

The Three Programs: Jews, Gentiles, and the Church

Okay, 1 Corinthians chapter 10. This is where we go for the three different categories, three different programs, unique programs that God is actually doing in the world today under this kingdom of God ruling.

And in all of these different times of men and women ruling, here's what we have. 1 Corinthians chapter 10 in verse number 32. Here's what we read. 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 32. Give none offense.

Now here it is. Neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God. There are your three separate categories, three separate programs that God is working. I told you on Sunday, if you go into your Bible and read Genesis 1 to the end of chapter 11, it's amazing that God covers 2 ,000 years of Gentile history.

You start Genesis chapter 12, and there's a man called Abram called out the Gentiles. And he is the fountainhead of the Jewish nation. You go from Genesis 12 all the way to Acts chapter two, where the spirit of God came down from heaven.

You've got almost 2 ,000 years again of Jewish history. And at that point, God put the Jewish program on hold. We all know this. Then from Acts chapter two, right up until now, we've almost got 2 ,000 years of church history.

I believe there's more in Genesis 1 in the six days of creation and the one day of rest than we might want to admit. This here is referred to as a rest in Hebrews for God. And you got six days of God actually working in Genesis 1.

Then you got God resting. I look at, you know, this might sound strange to us, okay? But time is going to end one day. Do we believe that? Or do we just think that time is just gonna keep on going? No, no, no.

It is going to end. Let's just refresh ourselves with that, okay? God simply out from eternity, just simply put, like, I call it, just drew a line in the sand. Time started. In the beginning, God created.

Then God has the end of it, just another line in the sand. The world is not gonna keep going the way it's going. Now, if we're living outside of the Bible and we're just down at this level, we think of the advancement of man and now they're talking about putting colonizing Mars.

Save your breath to cool your soup. You'll never, never, never put a colony on Mars. I can guarantee from the Bible. Oh, we're spending all this money to find life. There is life out there. It's called God and the angels.

Yeah, there's life out there. There's no human life out there. You know why there's such a push from the ungodly humanistic scientists of the world to find other worlds out there? It's to deny the uniqueness of God's son dying here.

Dying here. I'm a firm believer that the earth is the center of God's program. No problem with that at all. I go, I line up two scriptures. Getting off in a rabbit hole now, but that's fine. Genesis and Romans.

Do you know what God was thinking of when he was forming the man on the ground? We read it in chapter four. Adam was only an image, a type of him that was to come. That's all. Don't ever think that the reason the Lord Jesus has two arms and two legs is because Adam had two arms and two legs.

You're looking at it all wrong. The reason that God gave two arms to Adam and two legs and two eyes and two ears is because he was thinking of what his son would have down the line of time, okay? So that's where God's mind was.

All of what you get in Genesis there, God creating the garden and the environment, the paradise for the man. Do you know where God's mind was? His son reigning here. That's where his mind was. When God put the man to sleep and he took the rib out of the man.

Where was his mind? It was on you and I, the church. That's where it was. Oh, I was in a Bible study and a man tried to tell us that men today have one less rib. Oh, come on. I said, check your ribs for Pete's sake.

I haven't heard so much foolishness in all my life. God has placed a lovely little sheath over every rib. Do you know what you can do? You can cut that sheath, pull out the rib, sew it back up again, and that sheath will grow a new bone.

It will. So men, we all got the same ribs as women. So don't get carried away. This is interesting now. Those that wanna discover, what day did Christ die, Thursday or Friday? What day was Adam put to sleep?

Oh, now I got you thinking. Well, what day did God rest? Saturday. Adam was put to sleep on Friday and from his side came a woman. Now, I just leave that for you to consider. I hope I didn't blow all your ministry apart and you're thinking he died on Thursday.

Whatever, leave that as it is. I think at the time of the rapture, we're gonna have a whole lot of I told you so's when we're going up to meet the Lord. So we'll just leave it there for now. So before we jump from 1 Corinthians 10, these are the three programs that God is presently and the only three that he has.

Distinctions in the Eternal State

And what you'll discover when you come into the book of Revelation, even when we get to the eternal state where everything is static, you still have your distinctions of the Gentile, you still have the Jew and you still have the church of God, the bride of Christ.

So that's something to keep in mind. This will always be, sometimes people think that when we come to the new heavens, everything is just amalgamated together and it's all just one big happy family. Well, it is one happy family, but within that family, there are distinct.

Listen, the father will have a wife. She's called the nation of Israel. Christ will have a bride, a wife, it's called the church. And there will always be the Gentiles rejoicing in that union. So keep that in your mind.

Physical and Spiritual Aspects of God's Program

Now let's go back to Genesis 13. For a minute, I wanna show you just what I'm going to build. I'm actually, you might not think this, but I'm actually building to something. I think a week of ministry like this, you have to go on building blocks, okay?

So that means you can't miss a night because if you miss a night, you're gonna miss a whole bunch of building blocks. What I'm actually heading to, if you wanna look at the chart for a minute is, you see this blue that's going along here and then all of a sudden it breaks and then in comes this red and then the blue picks up again.

When we look at the program that God has for the Jewish nation, there is an aspect in which it was physical at one point. It was very much taken up with the nation and the people. We know that. But there came a turning point in the nation's life when they rejected their Messiah.

Do you know what the Lord Jesus did? He turned away from the nation. And what is God doing now? God has turned to the Gentiles and out from the Gentiles and the Jews, he's taking the church, right? Interesting, just go through the word of God.

What does Galatians teach us about the church? There's neither Jew nor Gentile. Do you realize that the Jew will always be a Jew, Gentile will be a Gentile, but in this dispensation of grace, you lose that distinction and you're now in Christ.

That's something unique to this dispensation. So what you have is you have the physical kingdom comes to a stop. God now brings in the spiritual aspect of the kingdom, which is this, the church of God.

After the spiritual kingdom is done, then he picks up the physical kingdom again. So the reason I'm stressing that, I want you to see it from the word of God is this, people are reading the Old Testament, taking verses that apply to the physical kingdom.

They're trying to fit them in here, doesn't work. You see all of your Old Testament prophets, every single one of them, there was their focus, the physical kingdom, that was their focus. So when you read something, a quote like in the Old Testament where it talks about the trees will grow again in Israel, you know what you hear now?

Everybody that goes on a tour over Israel, they plant a tree and they say, here's the fulfillment of this verse. Trees are growing in Israel. Wrong context. It's referred to this here, okay? It's just the wrong context.

There's many, many, many different verses like that that they're taking out of the Old Testament and they're actually applying it to today. For instance, I could take you into the New Testament, Matthew 24, do you know what you read in Matthew 24?

You read about the fig tree budding. When you see the fig tree bud, go read your commentaries. You know what just about every one of them will say? Well, that happened in 1947 when the nation of Israel became a nation for the first time.

Don't believe it for a minute. Why would I say that? Because the context of Matthew 24, what has happened before it? The rapture has happened. So Matthew 24 has taken me into this period here. What is the budding of the fig tree?

When the Antichrist signs the peace treaty with the nation of Israel, do you know what will happen for the first time? All nations will accept her. Israel will be convinced we've come into our glory. This is it.

This is what we've been waiting for, to be finally given our rightful place. And that man of sin will give back the temple mount. They will build their temple. They will think this is it. The fig tree's budding.

It's coming to life. What happens? Midpoint, the covenant is broken. And that nation then plunges into, they discover it's been a contract with death. We read from the Old Testament. So you see how important context is.

In the word of God. You just can't pick a verse out and just say, oh, it looks like this is fit. No, no, no, no. You got to see everything in its context. So that's what I want to show you for a few minutes here.

Abraham's Seed, the Land, and the Stars

Always remember Genesis is a seed plot of the Bible. There are so many things in Genesis that we just, we kind of read it too quickly. But I want you to show you, I want to show you even Genesis. You've got this physical aspect of the kingdom and you've got this spiritual aspect.

Look what we have in Genesis 13. This is God speaking to Abram when he calls him out of the Gentile nation. He's going to start a nation from him, the Jewish nation. And notice this expression here. Verse 14, and the Lord said unto Abram, after that lot was separated from him, lift up now thine eyes and look from the place where thou art northward, southward, eastward and westward for all the land which thou see is to thee will I give thee and to thy seed forever.

Notice that, forever. Okay, that verse alone will prove to me that the nation will never go out of existence. This is what God is promising. Notice verse 16, and I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth.