PART – #06 of “Dispensation Under Attack”
“God has never left Himself without a testimony.”
Every single Old Testament Bible account of all those wonderful stories and the four Gospels are God’s Personal Testimony.
And they are over a period of four thousand years, since the creation of man to Christ’s death on the cross.
They testify of His consistently uncompromising and unchanging attributes of Grace, Love, mercy, patience, long-suffering, goodness and faithfulness.
All these attributes of His have never changed.
And two thousand years later down to this very day, in this wonderful ‘Age of Grace’, it‘s exactly the same.
All those who have truly come to the saving knowledge of Christ Jesus, can and do testify to these.
Each one’s testimony is unique and different.
Each testimony is unto the Glory of Jesus Christ.
And each one’s testimony revolves around, “once I was blind, and now I see”.
The Testimony Of Each Believer
The testimony of each believer in the historical death, burial and Resurrection of Jesus Christ evolves more and more with time.
And it continues till his/her dying day.
Each one’s personal testimony, testifies to every single one of God’s Amazing Attributes.
One may ask, “what do I have to do with this Jewish Man who lived and died two thousand years ago?”
The answer is “EVERYTHING”, because HE died and rose again, for death could not hold Him, and so HE still lives.
And our eternal salvation rests solely on what ‘HE’ has accomplished on the cross.
Dead people do not talk! [CRUMB 0006].
The apostle Paul puts this to the carnal Corinthians, who had come out of abject paganism, with a lot of serious issues.
“Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you:” [1 Corinthians 1:6].
Christ’s Unchanging Faithfulness
We will never be perfect in this life, but Christ’s Faithfulness will never change.
For life does not get easier by any means, if anything, it’s gets harder.
For we have chosen to go with the Truth and stick with the Truth.
And the TRUTH will always be strongly opposed [CRUMB 0032].
But yet, God NEVER leaves Himself without a testimony in each of our personal lives.
And we can build on that brick by brick.
It’s like the natural law of gravity, it will always be totally reliable and consistent, with an unchanging 90°.
It will not shift for anybody or anything, hence we can confidently build on it.
Likewise, the Attributes of God have never changed, HE is the same yesterday, today and forever.
How wonderful it would be if we had people like that around us today.
It would be a whole different world.
But that is not the case.
Consistency
Today we live in a world where one of the hardest, if not ‘the’ hardest commodities to find is ‘consistency’.
Consistency is something that is rare and far and few in between.
People without consistency can never be easily trusted, and we all know what we’re talking about here.
Because consistency speaks of reliability and the two can never be separated.
And it does take effort and sacrifice, it’s not something that’s automatic and comes naturally.
And in this everyday life of hardships and struggles, it is something that we all are looking for.
We all want and need it in this day to day life, and it’s hard to come by, making tomorrow uncertain.
Bringing In The Concept
So let’s bring that concept in, as far as our eternal future is concerned.
For one of God’s unchanging and totally reliable attributes is His consistency, which reflects His testimony.
God, with all those wonderful attributes of His, set in motion a concrete plan of redemption, as soon as man fell.
Adam disobeyed the one and only ‘dispensational instruction’, giving way for sin and death to make their entry.
“Do not eat of that one tree or you will surely die!” [Genesis 2:16-17].
And that resulted in sin, that fallen human sinful nature, carrying over to every human being to this very day.
We saw that in CRUMB 0139.
How “as by one man”, speaking of Adam’s disobedience in [Romans 5:12];
“……sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men…”
Created For Eternity
All men were created for eternity and eternal they will be.
The only question is which end of eternity will they choose.
And the ‘fact of life’ (sometimes referred to as ‘a law’, for example, in Romans 7:21) is, “for that all have sinned:”
All have “come short of the glory of God.” [Romans 3:23];
Hence, every man/woman is heading for the wrong and horrible end of eternity.
But God with all His unchanging consistent attributes, has made a way out, for that is impossible with men.
Jesus Christ made that crystal clear in [Matthew 19:25-26].
“…..who then can be saved?”, was the question.
And Christ Jesus replies:
“With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.”
And that is only through the message of the death, burial and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, called “THE GOSPEL”.
It is “THE GOSPEL” and NOT ‘A GOSPEL’ and we’ll do well to recognize the definite article, ‘THE’.
“This ‘THE GOSPEL”, was revealed to none other but the apostle Paul for you and me, found in [1 Corinthians 15:1-4].
“….how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;”
“And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:”
The Thing That Very Few Consider
And while we are about it, here is the thing that very few consider and give thought or credence to.
“This revelationary truth was given ‘none other’ but the apostle Paul.”
How that “sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men…”
The Old Testament, didn’t speak of it, and neither did Jesus Christ expound on this during His three-year earthly ministry.
This fact was revealed only to the apostle Paul, and that is the reason we can understand these things.
And isn’t it amazing that most today do not give the apostle Paul the light of day.
They do not give him his rightful place of being the Divinely ‘Hand-picked’ apostle of the Gentiles [Romans 11:13].
We can correctly understand so much of the Old Testament Scriptures because of the revelations given to this man, Paul.
Dispensational Truths
And all these truths are ‘dispensational’ in nature.
God, in His Sovereignty, did not reveal these things before.
For men did not need to know these things, so they were kept veiled.
Everything with God is on a ‘need to know’ basis.
And we should understand that, for we do exactly the same, don’t we?
But now God has revealed everything we need to know through ‘this apostle’ Paul.
There are ‘no more’ revelations coming, for they are now totally fulfilled and complete.
Look at what the apostle Paul, by direct revelation from the Ascended Lord Jesus Christ says in [Colossians 1:25].
“ Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God…”
See how that word ‘dispensation’ keeps coming up again.
It’s Biblical!
“…..which is given to me for (whom?) you, to fulfil (or to complete) the word of God;”
That’s it!
It’s all there now, if we care to study it.
And yet the masses follow Peter, who wasn’t expecting to go to heaven, but is waiting for his kingdom on earth.
Nowhere In Scripture
Nowhere in Scripture are we admonished to follow Peter, but rather we are admonished, more than once, to follow Paul.
Peter and Paul were under different dispensations, Law and Grace respectfully.
‘The Kingdom programme’ vs ‘The Mystery Programme’, and they just do not mix.
God was careful in separating the two, and so should we.
Now that does not mean we ignore the epistles of Peter, James or John.
By no means!
They are invaluable, and there is so much we can learn and draw from them.
But we don’t get our ‘Grace Age’ Church doctrines from them.
For they were Jewish letters, written predominantly to the ‘scattered Jews’, [James 1:1] and [1 Peter 1:1].
And these ‘scattered Jews’ were mainly because of the Saul’s infamous persecution of them in [Acts 8:1] and [Acts 11:19].
So, concerning following Paul, see it for yourselves in [1 Corinthians 4:16], [1 Corinthians 11:1], [Philippians 3:17] & [1 Thessalonians 1:6].
And when Scripture repeats something more than once, it is for the purpose of ‘emphasis’.
Paul is ‘not’ the object of our worship, only Jesus Christ is.
But it’s through ‘this apostle’ that God Sovereignly chose to dispense to us that which is now for us in this Grace Age.
He is the “pattern” [1 Timothy 1:16]. IT IS SO CLEAR!
According To The Revelation Of The Mystery
SO, when we follow Paul, it’s “according to the revelation of the mystery” (or secret) from the Ascended Lord in Glory.
This is clearly mentioned in [Romans 16:25], without confusion.
When we follow Paul, we are categorically following Jesus Christ, as ‘HE’ has instructed us.
And all these instructions are under God’s newly revealed ‘dispensation or administration of Grace’.
Before Paul came on to the scene, everything was under the ‘dispensation or administration of the Law’.
Everything the apostle Paul pens, was given directly from the Ascended Lord Jesus Christ, about 7 years ‘after the cross’.
God Still Dealing with Israel
For those first 7 years after the cross, God was still dealing with the nation of Israel.
HE was yet giving them every ‘valid opportunity’ to still accept their Messiah Whom they had rejected and crucified.
They were still under the ‘dispensation of Law’.
But they continued to reject their ‘now provenly resurrected’ Messiah in unbelief.
And that unbelief reached its pinnacle, being displayed by the brutal stoning to death of Stephen [Acts 7:54-60].
Then God set the nation of Israel aside for a season.,
And then, according to His same predeterminate counsel and foreknowledge [Acts 2:23], God set in a new programme.
A programme that was kept secret and hidden in Him “since the world began” [Romans 16:25].
He Sovereignly intercepted Saul of Tarsus, while he on his way to Damascus.
And then raised him up to become Paul the apostle to the Gentiles [Romans 11:13] & [Acts 22:21].
Then HE gave to him HIS new dispensational revelations and instructions for this Age of Grace, where we find ourselves today.
And that is what we all need to see and understand.
It’s all so clearly laid out there in the Book of Acts if we study it carefully.
Everything before the cross was ‘under the Law’.
Today, we are ‘under Grace’.
Christ Himself tells us so through the apostle Paul in [Romans 6:14]:
“….for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”
This is what we call a ‘dispensational understanding’.
And we are called to have a ‘dispensational approach’ to the Scriptures.
Peter’s Admission
The amazing thing here, is that Peter himself finally admitted that he couldn’t understand some things concerning this “Age of Grace’.
He has come to the end of his long hard ministry to the Jews, the nation of Israel.
He knows that the time of his departure, his martyrdom is now at hand [2 Peter 1:14].
The nation was still in ‘unbelief’ and so the promised Kingdom had not come, and it couldn’t either.
So Peter understands that there has been a change in God’s operation, a change in ‘dispensation’ or administration.
But he can’t quite put his finger on it.
He tells us in [1 Peter 1:9-10] that even the prophets of old sensed there was something out there.
But they also couldn’t quite put their finger on it.
Don’t forget that Peter was a strict Law-keeping Jew, steeped in Judaism.
But he realizes that it is ‘this apostle’, Paul, who ‘must’ now, at any cost, be given heed to.
That he is the one to be followed.
The eternal destinies of millions were going to be at stake!
And he admonishes his Jewish readers accordingly in [2 Peter 3:15-16].
“And account (that is, consider) that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation;…..”
That is, the patience of our Lord in delaying judging and avenging wrongs of the human race.
Thus graciously giving and allowing more time for more to be saved, which is 2000 + years today.
And then he brings the apostle Paul right into the picture as ‘the man of the hour’.
“……..even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;”
Well, Who gave Paul all the wisdom and these revelations?
The Ascended Lord Jesus Christ
These revelations did not come from any man, but directly from the ‘Ascended Lord Jesus Christ’ [Galatians 1:11-12].
Peter continues…….
“As also in all his epistles,………”
That means all of Paul’s letters to the ‘seven Churches’ from Romans through to Thessalonians and from Timothy to Philemon.
That’s thirteen in all.
And if you believe that Paul is the author of the Hebrews as many do, then it’s fourteen in all.
Peter continues:
“…..speaking in them of these things;……”
What things?
‘Everything’ pertaining to our ‘personal salvation’ via the finished works of the cross, and the wonderful things that accompany it.
Now watch this as Peter categorically admits….
“…….in which are some things hard to be understood,…….”
He concedes that there were some things that he even couldn’t fully grasp and comprehend, even though they were true.
This is Peter’s testimony, before he departs this life.
And then he ends his statement with a strong warning to those who misuse and twist the truth of God’s Word.
“…….which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest (twist), as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.”
Click [HERE] for PART #7 of ‘Dispensation Under Attack”.
(Please note, all that is written in the orange colour, are connecting links, so do read them. You will find them to be very useful.)
