It's good to see each one of you in the House of God this morning, Saturday morning, and for this conference on Understanding Bible Prophecy. It's been very encouraging to me to be here, to find a group of people who are enthusiastic about the Word of God. This, of course, didn't just happen. There's been a lot of work that has gone into the establishment of this church, and each of the members is an important part of it. at least most of you. No, I understand that this church has some good biblical standards for members. Church membership is a serious business. It's no little thing. It's treated as a little thing, but it's the most important business on earth, really. Eyes of God, the house of God, the pillar and ground of the truth. Now, what could be more important? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing in the world is more important than what we're doing right now in the New Testament Church, the business of God. New Testament Church has everything people need. All the important things are available in the true New Testament Church. And so I'm encouraged to be here. I've been very encouraged by your comments and things to me. You're very good liars. or you've gotten some real blessings. I have to try to figure that out. No, it's been very encouraging, very encouraging. So thank you for the invitation to be here. So the subject this week is understanding Bible prophecy. We finished up the study on interpretation, or we're finishing up The study on interpretation of prophecy, we're finishing up understanding the dispensations as one of the principles of interpretation. And so we want to finish that this morning by considering what are the dispensations. We saw that the dispensational way of looking at Scripture was taught to Paul in the book of Ephesians and other places, and it is clearly a biblical thing. It was not invented by a Jesuit priest in recent times. That's absolute nonsense. The Bible, though, does not specifically tell us how many ages there have been since God made man or how many there will be in the future. The Bible talks about aeons, plural, even in the future and in the past. The Schofield Bible popularized seven dispensations, Scofield Bible, C.I. Scofield. And he said that each of the dispensations may be regarded as a new test of the natural man and each ends in judgment marking his utter failure in every dispensation. That's how he defined the dispensation. And so the Scofield dispensations which are followed quite widely, is number one, man innocent, Genesis 2 and 3. And then number two, man under conscience, Genesis 3 and 4, 3 through 8. Three, man in authority over the earth, Genesis 9 through 11. Four, man under promise, and that's from Abraham to Moses. And then man under law, Moses to the first coming of Christ, and then number six, man under grace, first coming of Christ until the second coming, and then number seven, man under the personal reign of Christ, which is millennial kingdom and beyond. That's one way that ages can be explained. It's not the only way. We don't see that exactly in the New Testament, so that's man's thinking and figuring things out. But the benefits, great benefits in interpreting the Bible according to dispensationalism, and we consider three here, And that is, first of all, that dispensational theology interprets Bible prophecy in a normal literal method, which we've focused on. If you interpret the Bible in a normal literal method, you're going to be some kind of dispensationalist. Number two, and to me that's fundamental because it's clear as a bell that we must interpret the prophecies by the normal literal method. That is clear. irrefutable as far as I'm concerned, and that will give you a dispensational view of the Bible and of history, and that will give you a pre-tribulational position also. But number two, dispensational theology makes a clear difference between the church and Israel, which is a very important thing. But then number three, dispensational theology enables the student to interpret the Bible within its proper context. And this is very practical, then, in regard to interpretation of prophecy. And our goal, as some of you have caught on in this, is to help you interpret the Bible for yourself. Some have caught that, and it's a sharp group. But that is exactly it. not to be, we need good teachers, but not to be utterly dependent upon them. For every one of God's people to learn how to be a serious Bible student, which requires learning how to interpret it for yourself, learning how to understand it for yourself at some level, and the level will be different according to each individual and gifts and intelligence and all of that, but still, to the best of your ability, with God's enablement, to be a serious Bible student. But you've got to learn how to do this, and that's been our focus. Not just giving the prophetic events, which are very interesting, but the fundamentals of how to interpret those. How did people come up with those events? for yourself. And so there's a saying that everything is not written to the New Testament believer, but everything is written for him. And we'll look at that a little bit later, but not everything to the New Testament believer, but everything for, having application to. And Paul instructed Timothy to rightly divide God's Word, II Timothy 2.15, rightly divide. And that Greek word means to make a straight cut, to dissect correctly. And so it's essential to learn proper rules of interpretation so we can cut the scriptures properly. And mostly in Christianity, the word of God is not properly interpreted. I mean, 99% probably, if we're talking about Christianity as a whole. So it's a great privilege to understand these things. Now, so we are seeing that the dispensational approach allows us to interpret things in its proper context. So we give many examples here, Genesis 1, 29 through 30, which says man could eat only vegetables, vegetables. This is no longer in effect. In effect, thank the Lord, since after the flood, God told Noah he could eat meat. And that's kind of interesting because there wasn't a lot of meat yet. I mean, just two each on the ark, basically. And so they didn't have that much time yet to be proliferating, but God told Noah, you can eat them, those ones that were on the ark. But that's when the That was a changing of the times. So there are all kinds of dietary programs. And some of them called themselves biblical. You got the heavenly diet, which is a totally meat diet. No, that's not really. It's a totally vegetarian diet, I think. And they will go back to things like that. See, Adam only ate meat, vegetables. Yes, he did. But that's changed now. That's dispensational. Leviticus 11, 7 and 8 forbids the eating of pork. And that is a dietary restriction that many people still follow. And of course, it's still under the law of Moses. But dispensationally, we understand that that was for Israel, and that's not for Gentiles, and that's not for the New Testament church. Deuteronomy 13, 6 through 10, Exodus 22, 18, they command idolaters and witches to be stoned to death. And there were the burning of witches in the early colonies in America and such. It's infamous, but it was a confusion. It was a misinterpretation. It was a not interpreting Scripture dispensationally. And they considering themselves back under the law of Moses there, the congregational churches there in Massachusetts and other places. But it's wrong. We don't do that. We don't see Paul doing that. We see Paul encountering witches like in Acts 16. He didn't burn her. Because that's not what time it is, and that's not where we are dispensationally. It's that simple. And it just makes things clear. 2 Corinthians, no, 2 Kings 23, 14 through 15, King Josiah destroyed the idol. I've often wanted to do that, go on a rampage. And where we live, they're everywhere. It's temples. The earthquake knocked a lot of them down. They're building them back. But we don't go over there with our sledgehammer. And we don't go over there like Gideon did in the dark of the night and tear the idols down. And then everybody said, what happened here? But because it's not what we see in the New Testament scriptures. And Paul didn't do that. Paul didn't do that. Paul hated idols. He went to Athens and his spirit was stirred at all the idols. He stirred him up and he preached on the unknown God, he said. But he didn't go around breaking their idols. That's not what time it is. That's dispensationalism. That's simple. 2 Chronicles 7.14. 2 Chronicles 7.14 was a promise given to Israel. And when the first temple was built, I'm going to skip over that one right now. Psalm 126, 5 and 6, those verses are used for evangelism. But actually, as we're going to talk about in a little bit, we've got to first get the interpretation according to the context. before we ever do any application to our lives. All of these things have applications, but the very first thing we must do is get the proper interpretation according to context. Psalm 126, 5 and 6 says, They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." And that I have heard ever since I was a new Christian. And I heard John Rice preach, I think, a different time, multiple times at Highland Park Baptist Church. He often used this for evangelism. And it has an application definitely for evangelism, but it's not what it's actually talking about. It's a promise that God will fulfill his covenants with Israel, bring them back to the land. That's the context. And we can apply these verses definitely to evangelism, but we have to understand these things. What is the context? What is the actual dispensational context there, first of all? Ezekiel 33, 12 through 16, and it says, men are judged by whether or not to keep the law. It's very practical. People are so confused many times by passages like this, and they get confused about salvation. Ezekiel 33, 12, 33, 12. Therefore, thou son of man, say unto the children of thy people, the righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression. As for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness. Neither shall the righteous be able to live for his righteousness in the day that he sinneth. When I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, if he trust to his own righteousness and commit iniquity, all his righteousness shall not be remembered. But for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it. And so that is what? The law. It's a work salvation, which is the law. It's not the gospel. It has nothing to do with those that are in Christ, except there are lessons here. But we interpret the Bible dispensationally, and we can figure out what is that about, who is it for. Matthew 5, 25 and 26, We've already looked at this. The Sermon on the Mount has many things that do not, specifically cannot be interpreted for the New Testament church. The imprisonment of those that do not reconcile with their adversaries. There'd be a lot of Baptists in prison. Guaranteed. Probably should be. A lot of Baptists in prison. But it's not. We don't have prisons. We're not allowed that kind of enforcement, that kind of discipline, we're not allowed it. And when the Catholic Church took upon itself to have prisons, oh my, terrible prisons, it was misinterpreting the Bible dispensationally, claiming to be Israel. So this is very practical. Matthew 10, 5-15 is something that's misused because of dispensational confusion. Matthew 10, 5-15 is where Christ sent out the disciples to preach during His ministry in His first coming, the 12th. Here He sends the 12th. And he gave them power against unclean spirits to cast them out, to heal all manner of sicknesses and all manner of diseases. And he sent them out. And he said in verse five, go not into the way of the Gentiles and into any city the Samaritans, enter ye not. And preach the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, verse 8, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils, and it goes on. And so that is used by Pentecostals, especially by the early Pentecostals and many of the healing Pentecostals to say, well, that's what we're doing. Well, it may be what you do, but it's not what you do because they can't do it. That was very fundamental to me. I tried to figure out Pentecostalism as a young Christian, led to Christ by Pentecostal. So I started out with favorable thoughts toward Pentecostalism because of the testimony of that particular man. But the night I got saved, he prayed that I would speak in tongue. And so God took me off in another direction. But I mean, I've never seen him again. And so I was exploring that, and I went to some healing meetings. I went to some healing meetings. I went to a Nikki Cruz crusade, but everybody all tried to get them all emotionally fired up, you know? And that'd be hard to do here. But I won't get off on that either. No, we don't need that. But it was artificial. It was artificial, and I could see that. And I didn't want them manipulating me to get happy, happy if I wasn't happy, happy. Don't be manipulating, working this stuff up. And I saw that, but also saw they couldn't do these things. They couldn't heal, and they couldn't actually speak in tongues. I examined their tongues, and it was just gibberish. Gibberish. That was one of them. That was actually one I copied down one time and have memorized. If I ever need a tongue, I can trot that out. And they say, oh, he speaks in tongues too. That gullible. What'd you say? That's the problem. Well, but there's great dispensational confusion about this, and Pentecostalism is built on dispensational confusion. The whole idea that we can have a new Pentecost and recover these gifts, these sign gifts, apostolic sign gifts, it's all dispensational confusion. And a great amount of the heresies is because of the dispensational confusion. They were only to preach to the Jews. And so I went to the Happy Hunters Crusade one time. Don't want to get too far off on this. But I went to a Happy Hunters. They were the Happy Hunters. They're always happy. Probably not. But in their public forms, you know. Old, they were old. And they, she was more prominent than he was as far as preaching even. Better preacher. But they, They had healing crusades and they came to Australia, they came all over the world and they would teach people that every single believer can lay hands on the sick and heal them. Twice she had to go home in a wheelchair because of various sicknesses from a healing crusade. Isn't something wrong with this picture? And they claimed to heal and she was bald. There's nothing wrong with it. If you lose your hair, you lose your hair. But to say you can heal baldness when you're bald, there's got to be something wrong with this. There's got to be something wrong with it. People need to think. But the whole idea is dispensational confusion. And I would watch them roll the wheelchairs in that meeting. Lots of wheelchairs. People, you know, just desperate for healing. And they'd roll them back out. Not one, I didn't see one healing. He would claim that he could lengthen legs. That's just a trick. Most people aren't short of one leg, actually. But it's a trick. But it's not a miracle. So they can't do miracles, so they do these phony weird things like fall on the floor. That's not a miracle. If you have a little grandchild or something, they fall down. Standing up is, flying would be a miracle. Floating in the air would be a miracle, but fall on the floor, that's pretty pathetic. But it's all they have. And I saw that, and I rejected that. It's that simple. But it really, fundamentally, is dispensational confusion. the miracles of Christ in the Gospels, the miracles of the apostles in the book of Acts. If we go and study them in context, dispensationally, as to what was happening then, then we know what those miracles were all about. They're not for us to do they were for Christ, Jesus, to prove that He was the Christ. And the apostolic sign, 2 Corinthians 12, 12, that they were demonstrating that they were the apostles. And if everybody could do that, then there would be no demonstration, no sign. Really, dispensation was very important when it comes to interpreting Scripture. And then Revelation 13, 10 is the last example we give. And that is written at Revelation 1310. Revelation 1310, he that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity. He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here's patience and faith of the saints. So anybody that ever kills with a sword, is under God's judgment. No, it's not true. The context is the Antichrist. The dispensational context is the reign of the Antichrist. And he that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity. He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. That's Antichrist laws that will require everyone to worship him. It's a certain context. not just general application to every time and every use of the sword or a gun, whatever. And it's not referring to the sword at any time and age. Pacifists use this first, Christian pacifists, forbidding the use of weapons at any time, Quakers and whatnot. It was dispensational confusion. There is in the Bible, self-defense, there is defense of the family, there is defense of the nation. Very important to understand the Bible dispensationally. Now, interpretation and application, which we've mentioned already, it's fundamental to understand this. to distinguish between the interpretation of prophecy and the application of prophecy or any other part of the Bible. And we give a quote here from Paul Lee Tan. I don't know if his book is still in print. I found it to be very helpful as a young Christian, the interpretation of prophecy. but he's dead now, but the literal method of interpretation is concerned with interpretation, not application. Applications are proper when they are used on that which has been literally interpreted, but to base interpretations of the Bible on applications is erroneous and will end in chaos. Indeed, we're talking about proper interpretation. The literal interpreter, by insisting on the literal sense of Scripture, does not imply that the Bible has no depth or latent riches. God's Word contains truth, principles, and applications which every interpreter must fathom. Some of these are latent, inward, and hidden. Others are patent, outward, and obvious. The correlation of both the simple and the profound in God's Word is wonderful to behold, but this licenses neither a mystical approach, mystical approach, very common now, very dangerous, permeating evangelicalism. There's no doubt it's going to start coming in the Independent Baptist any day. because they're giving up separation. That's the danger of evangelicalism. There might be some biblical substance at the heart, but there's no boundaries. And therefore, you can end up anywhere. The dangers can come in. Separations for protection. That's what he's talking about, the mystical, the contemplative prayer movement. And I'm sure it's because people are not saved, probably not saved, and they don't have anything. So they want something experientially, so they go to this contemplating prayer stuff that came out of Rome's monastic system, people sitting in front of the host, the piece of bread, worshiping that as Jesus. Well, I can't get far off on this, but it's a major, major thing. But he mentioned mysticism, a mystical approach, and that is dispensational confusion, nor a forced search for some super-added spiritual sense. There's nothing clandestine about Christianity. The proper approach to God's Word is the reverent one of accepting what it says and then making applications to life. And two major texts in the New Testament refer to this, refer to the application. And that's Romans 15, 4. For whatsoever things were written aforetime, whatsoever things, Old Testament, were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. So the Old Testament is for us, not to us, but for us, and for all these great benefits. And then 1 Corinthians 10, 11, now all these things happened unto them for in samples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Ends of the world are come. That's us. That was 2,000 years ago. He said that. But these things, they're examples written for admonition. That's the application. And Paul taught that the Old Testament, though it's not the New Testament believer's law, as we've seen, is full of instruction for us. Full of instruction. Jeremiah's pain, loneliness, prayers, how powerful that is, how powerful those examples are. Jeremiah lived that. He didn't have a wife. He was not allowed to get married. He didn't have, as far as we know, any really close friends that were really like-minded, perhaps Barak. It seems though perhaps not in certain ways. He was very much alone, very much alone. His friends, Anathoth nearby, he was from Anathoth, just right by Jerusalem. Priestly City. They turned against him. They plotted to kill him. And it was just very lonely in his ministry and had a lot of pain and physical pain too. And the terrible experiences like being thrown in that pit and being left there to die except that black man came and rescued him. Hard experiences and prayers were given more Jeremiah's prayers. We're allowed to listen in to his prayers with God. And sometimes he was complaining. And God doesn't accept that very long. God shut him down. Shut him down with the complaints. But we're allowed to listen into that because it's for us in that sense. And all those things that Jeremiah went through, it just ministers to us and helps us and instructs us. Jeremiah! Have you ever met Jeremiah? You have not. But here he is in the Word of God. Yeah, it's for us. It's all for us like that. These great narratives, these long narratives of people's lives and Joshua and Judges' narratives. and the Kings mostly, details of people's lives, ancient times. But it's for us. It's just full of instruction, as we know. But it's not to us. We have to be very careful. Another example is Isaiah 59, 18 through 21. Isaiah 59, 18 through 21, a prophecy. Isaiah 59, 18 through 21, just illustrating this principle a little bit. According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay fury to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies. To the islands, he will repay recompense. This is an island. It's a big one, but it's an island, isn't it? It's a continent and an island. Repay, recompense, so shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun. Yeah, they will. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him, and the Redeemer shall come to Zion, Jerusalem, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob. Only them. It seems like a third then living will be converted, but they will turn, they will repent. So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun. And when the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him. And I already read that. Verse 20, and then verse 21, As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD. All caps LORD, all through here, Jehovah. My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth. nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord from henceforth and forever. The Word of God will not fall down in one generation as it did right after Joshua. And it's often done in churches. It's said we're only one generation away from apostasy if those children don't get saved and serve the Lord. Oh, it's a beautiful prophecy, the coming of the Lord, the establishment of His kingdom. Verse 18, referring to the judgments of the great tribulation, judgments upon the isles, and isles moving out of their places. What an earthquake that's going to be. What an earthquake that's Terrible, horrible, worldwide judgment so great that Jesus said no one will survive the thing if He did not shorten it. One-fourth of mankind perishing just at opening judgments in Revelation 6. Just an opening here, a fourth of mankind. And all our great resources are going to be overwhelmed right away. Oh, that's what it's talking about. That's the context. That's the interpretation, future. We have to understand that. The restoration of Israel is clearly described here in verse 20 and 21. That's the new covenant. That's the interpretation. But then there's all kinds of applications to us as we are looking ahead to those events, and those events are not happening now, but there's application. God judges sin. That's an important thing to understand. The Lord is to be feared. God is the God of the whole earth. The Lord protects His people against the enemy's most fierce attacks. Thankful for that. very thankful for that. There's spiritual warfare going on if you're trying to pronounce the Word of God, spiritual warfare. Glad that God is in the protecting business. The Lord is the Redeemer, the Savior. That's good to know. God demands turning of repentance. not just in the future, today, except you repent, you'll all likewise perish, Jesus said, twice. And God offers a covenant of salvation today through Jesus Christ to anyone that will come to Him. What a deal. What a deal that is, because it's a free eternal gift of being a joint heir with the very Son of God. Who can invent universes? Not invent, but create. Joint heir with him? That's filthy rich, folks. The whole world is after riches. We just had a young man in Nepal leave the rehab program we operate and go, getting ready to go overseas and chase riches. He just opened his eyes and believed the Word of God. God, the Spirit of God, listen, the Spirit of God opens men's hearts and minds to the truth. That's great truth, and then salvation is eternal. Those are all for us. For us. And so, we've got to, first of all, interpret that passage properly according to the context and understand who, what's the situation, who is it for, all the promises of the book are mine. No, not exactly. You've got to understand that properly. There's application of all the promises, but all the promises are not mine, are yours. And this is proper interpretation of the Bible, very but actually a little long. And so we'll stop there and finish up, the Lord willing, in the next section on the rules of interpretation or principles of interpretation.