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The broad way is
the way of darkness where man mentally lives in the cosmic system that
is controlled by Satan and his demonic forces all around us. Some
people will come to the conclusion that there is no God, because they
are programmed to embrace the false teaching presented by those who
promote the theory of evolution. King David said In Psalm 14:1 and in
Psalm 53:1: "The fool has said in his heart, (the thinking part of the
mind), there is no God. They are corrupt; they have done abominable
works; there is none that does good." Solomon said in Proverbs 12:15,
"The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he who pays attention
to the counsel of God is wise."
If you have
believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, by FAITH ALONE IN
CHRIST ALONE ... adding nothing, you are a brand new spiritual species
who can enjoy traveling on that narrow road, and you have the
potential to live a life that is p leasing to God.
What is faith? In
the eleventh chapter of Hebrews faith is defined as the substance of
things hoped for, and the evidence of things that had not been seen by
great men and women who lived many hundreds of years ago. By believing
and resting in the promises of God, those Old Testament believers
obtained a good report.
In the Church Age
in which we now live, believers are told to walk by faith ... just as
they received eternal life by simple faith in the Son of God who
became a man in order to die on a cross and pay the penalty of sin for
all mankind. (Colossians 2:6) We cannot earn salvation by any good
works we may accomplish, because our human good works come from our
sinful nature and are not acceptable to God. Some very sincere people
may say you must "clean up your act" before you can please the Lord,
that is, get rid of our bad habits and old ways of doing things, but
the Bible tells us that we can DO nothing that will please Him,
because our ways and thoughts are contrary to God's thoughts and ways.
(Isaiah 55:8,9) Only God the Holy Spirit can make good changes in our
lives, and He makes those changes by way of our thought pattern as we
learn Bible Doctrine (teaching) on a daily basis ... He will do it all
if we don't get in His way by trying to change ourselves!
A new believer in
the Lord Jesus Christ must develop a desire for the 'pure milk of the
Word' so that he may eventually grow up. (1 Peter 2:1) Every believer
must also learn to not walk by sight but by faith in the more than
7,000 promises that are found throughout the scriptures and not live
by the world's viewpoint, which surrounds us everywhere and every day
by way of every kind of written and audio media at our disposal.
(Colossians 2:6,7 and 2 Corinthians 5:7) In some cases, the believer
may be satisfied to follow the traditions that were accepted and
taught for many years by a particular group or denomination because he
has been influenced by friends or family, but the majority of
denominations have rejected and do not teach what God's Word says
about His perfect plan for mankind throughout all ages. The apostle
Paul tells us in Colossians 2:8: "Beware lest any man spoil you
through philosophy or empty deceit, after the traditions of men, after
the rudiments of the world and not after Christ."
God has
established what theologians call 'DISPENSATIONS', which are periods
of time expressed in terms of Divine revelation. They are God's way of
communicating thought to help believers find and hold the right mental
attitude toward the specific time in history in which he lives so that
he can orient to God's will, plan and purpose for his life.
Between each
dispensation there is a period of adjustment before ", God deals with
the next one. The first dispensation began when Adam and Eve were
removed from the Garden of Eden so they would not eat of the Tree of
Life and live forever in their sinful state. The Lord God promised a
solution for their sin ... He would provide a Savior who would be the
seed of the woman and would eventually come into the world to die for
their sin. (Genesis 3:15; Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-35)
Adam lived 930
years and became the father of many children. As time went on, there
was a tremendous population explosion. God saw that the wickedness of
man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts
of his heart was only evil continually.
God saw that all
flesh had become corrupt, and His attitude changed toward all but
eight people ... Noah and his family. God said to Noah, "The end of
all flesh is come before Me, for the earth is filled with corruption
and violence. I will destroy them with the earth." (Genesis 6: 11-13)
God instructed Noah to build an ark in which his family and designated
animals would stay during a worldwide flood that He would bring upon
the earth. While Noah was building the ark, the Lord gave the people
120 years to turn from their wicked ways, but they would not, so the
Lord sent waters from above and from beneath the earth for 40 days and
40 nights, and they remained for 150 days.
After the waters
were dried up, Noah, his wife, their three sons, Ham, Shem and
Japheth, and their wives along with the animals that were with them in
the ark came out of the ark. God instructed them to be fruitful and
multiply and replenish the earth. From the three sons of Noah came all
the nations of the earth. From Ham would come the dark-skinned people;
from Shem would come the Jews and the Arabs; from Japheth would come
all the rest of the Gentile nations.
After many
hundreds of years, there was a tremendous population explosion. It was
God's will that the people should be scattered abroad into various
places on the earth, but the people wanted to stay together in one
area. They all spoke the same language and decided to build a city and
a tower within it that would reach up into heaven in which they could
hide from God and not be scattered. However the Lord came down and
caused them to speak many different languages, so they had to stop
building the city and the tower, and then the Lord scattered them
abroad all over the earth. In that way, the nations were divided in
the earth. God's purpose has always been Nationalism ... not
Internationalism.
The next
dispensation is called the Age of the Jews. It began when the Lord
called a Chaldean by the name of Abraham to leave his homeland and
follow Him, and promised to make of him a new race that would be a
blessing to the entire world. (Genesis 12:1-3) That dispensation
continued until the death, burial and resurrection of the God-Man,
Jesus Christ. The Jews rejected Jesus as their Messiah, and that
dispensation was interrupted until after the next dispensation, the
Church Age in which we now live, has ended.
After Jesus had
risen from the dead, He spent 40 days on the earth in His resurrection
body, instructing His disciples about the things that were going to
happen after He would ascend into heaven. Ten days later they saw Him
being taken up from the earth, into the clouds of heaven, and the
Church Age officially began. God the Holy Spirit came to indwell the
eleven apostles and gave them the power to evangelize thousands of
Jews who had come to Jerusalem from various parts of the world to
celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. Those pilgrims were amazed to hear
the apostles speak the message of salvation in their own languages,
and about 3,000 believed in the Lord Jesus Christ that very day.
Many other
temporary spiritual gifts were given to the apostles such as healing,
removing evil spirits and even raising the dead. The purpose for those
miracle gifts was to get the attention of people so that the Good News
of the Gospel could be presented to them. There is much confusion
among believers in this dispensation concerning those spectacular
gifts, but they ceased to be legitimate after 96 AD, because the Bible
was complete. Now God speaks to man in just one way ... THROUGH HIS
INFALLIBLE WORD, THE BIBLE.
The Old Testament
prophets knew nothing about the Church Age. They saw two mountain
peaks of prophecy ... the cross and the crown. The Lord gave to the
apostle Paul the mysteries of the Church age, and they are recorded in
his epistles.
Some of the things
that are presented to believers in this dispensation make believers
stand in two places at once ... with one foot in Old Testament Law,
keeping the 10 Commandments, and the other foot in the New Testament
epistles under Grace. In this age, the Law is to act as our
schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. (Galatians 3:24) Also in Romans
3:20, Paul tells us that no one is able to keep the Law to be
justified in God's sight ... the Law reveals our sinful nature. During
Jesus' 3-year ministry, He only was able to keep those commandments,
because he had no sin nature. In this Church Age we have been given
many commands, such as: pray without ceasing; walk by faith and not by
sight, in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in
Christ Jesus.
Tithing is another
subject that is misunderstood in the Church Age. Tithing was commanded
by the Lord for the purpose of income taxes in the Jewish Age.
Spiritual giving today should be, "Every man according as he purposes
in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly or of necessity, for God
loves a cheerful giver." (2 Corinthians 9:7)
Sabbath observance
was for the Jews ... not the Church. Our worship day is Sunday, the
first day of the week. In Exodus 31: 13, God spoke to Moses saying,
"Speak unto the Children of Israel and tell them, 'Surely my Sabbaths
shall you keep; for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your
generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sets you
apart.'" Then in Exodus 31: 1 7 a, God said that the Sabbath is a sign
between Himself and the Children of Israel forever.
Israel had a
specialized Priesthood by which the people were instructed in the Word
of God. The priests also were designated to intercede for the people
before God. The apostle Peter tells us that every believer in this
dispensation is a holy priest who represents himself before God. (1
Peter 2:5)
This present
Church Age will continue until an appointed time known only by God the
Father. When it does end, Jesus will come back in the clouds of the
air to take His bride, the Church, to heaven, as recorded for us in 1
Corinthians 15:51-53 and also in 1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18. Once the
Church is removed from the earth, the Jewish Age will resume and
continue for seven more years during a dispensation known as The
Tribulation. For the first 3 1/2 years, there will be a time of false
peace with Satan ruling the world. The last 3 1/2 years will be the
worst time in all human history, and will end when the Lord Jesus
Christ returns to the Mount of Olives from which He ascended, and He
will set up His Kingdom called the Millennium. During those 1,000
years, Satan and his angels will be bound in prison, and there will be
perfect environment on the earth. (Acts 1: 9-11 and Revelation 19:
11-16)
At the end of
man's history, all human good will be judged. The sins of the world
were all judged on the cross, but human good, which is part of man's
sinful nature, has not yet been judged; therefore, unbelievers of all
the ages will be resurrected to stand before the Lord Jesus Christ at
the Great White Throne Judgment to be judged for their human good
deeds ... NOT THEIR SINS! On the basis of their rejection of the work
of Jesus Christ on the cross, they will be cast into the Lake of Fire
with the devil and his angels, where they will be tormented day and
night throughout eternity. (Revelation 20:10-15)
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