What Is God's Will For Me?

Thru The Bible In One Hour

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In this episode we take a walk through the entire Bible and we’re going to use a very simple timeline which appears below this audio. Tap on the image to open an enlarged version.

When we study the Bible that God gave to us and we learn how to rightly divide its ages, or dispensations or what God has dispensed, understanding comes, and we see the Bible with the clarity that God intended.

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Thru The Bible In One Hour – Transcript

When we study the Bible that God gave to us and we learn how to rightly divide its ages, or dispensations or what God has dispensed, understanding comes, and we see the Bible with the clarity that God intended.

In Ephesians 3:4 the apostle Paul says that “when we read, we may understand my (Paul’s) knowledge in the mystery of Christ.” So, we need to read the Scriptures to understand the things of God.

We can go through the whole Bible in an hour. Not every verse but a bird’s eye view and in so doing we can remove much of the confusion that’s been handed to us by tradition, and culture, rather than an honest search of the scriptures. We need to verify what we’ve been taught ourselves, like the Bereans that Paul preached to in Acts 17:11,

These were more fair-minded (or noble) than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. 

Then, in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says,

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. 

This is what we’re trying to do, to stop relying on hearsay and the traditions of our own particular denomination.

We’re so used to people preaching from one or two cherry picked verses followed by a 20 minute story or life improvement message that we’ve forgotten this is a real book that God’s given us to instruct us about the world, humanity, salvation, sin, and everything else, and we need to understand that what God says to man changes over different ages. God’s book to mankind didn’t materialise like light did at creation where God said in Gen 1:3

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 

It was given to us in bite size pieces of information in 66 different books over 1,500 years by 40 different writers who were directly inspired what to write by God. It was a progressive work through the ages and what God said to man over those ages changed. God Himself never changes but what He instructed man to do did change.

Now this doesn’t mean that because the way God deals with mankind changes over the ages, He just up and decides on the spur of the moment to do things differently. Every revelation that He’s given to us is part of an unchangeable, plan and purpose that’s been in place for an eternity.

So, we need to understand not only what the Bible says but to whom it’s addressed to and why it was said at that time.

If we just randomly pick a place in the Bible to start reading and try to apply it to our life we may well be trying to apply something that God never intended for us today.

We should never assume that if it’s in the Bible, it must be true for today. That’s just not so. Many things in the Bible were true before or will be true in the future, but they’re not true for today.

Is it important for us to know about every time? Very definitely YES because every word is a vital part of the entire message even though the things that God instructed man to do then is not what He’s instructing today.

Also, throughout the majority of the Bible, both past and future, God’s dealings with mankind were, and will be in the future, through a single nation, a chosen nation, Israel. Even when Jesus Christ, God in human form, came into the world He created, He came through and to the nation of Israel, and we see that in many places like Matthew 15:24

But He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Jesus’ mission was to Israel, fulfilling age old prophecy, but later, through Paul’s 13 epistles to the church, the body of Christ today, we see God’s greater purpose where, for a time, His message is to all people Jew and gentile.

So then, is the knowledge of Jesus’ earthly ministry of any value to the Body of Christ today? Very definitely! In fact, it’s crucial to our salvation and our eternity.

Hebrews 1:1 tells us that

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 

We need every line of scripture to gain the full picture of God’s dealings with mankind, but we also want to know what God’s will is today so that we can operate according to it and be involved in what He wants for us today. To do that we need to know not only the messages He revealed, but to whom He revealed them, what they said, and which ones are for our learning and which ones are for our instruction.

One major misunderstanding in the Body of Christ today is God’s will and our purpose. So much heartbreak and frustration occur when we think God’s speaking to us verbally or through the circumstances of our lives. But if we know 1 Timothy 2:1-4 we know God’s will for the age we live in now,

Therefore, I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

God’s desire, His will is for “all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

And what is “saved”?

To be saved from the wages for sin which is eternal death.

Romans 6:23,

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

What is the method God gives to get this salvation?

Romans 1:16,

For I (the apostle Paul) am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. 

The Gospel is God’s power to salvation. Something in that Gospel contains all the power of God to save a sin saturated human.

What is the Gospel?

1 Corinthians 15 1-4,

Moreover, brethren, I (Paul) declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: 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,

That is the pure unadulterated Gospel that is God’s power to salvation, folks.

How do we partake of this power of the Gospel?

In the beautiful and wonderful scripture found in Ephesians 2:8-9,

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. 

So, now let’s try to learn how this Gospel of Salvation came into being and what the Scripture actually says.

To start at the beginning we look at the first and most profound revelation God gave to man in Genesis 1:1

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

This is revelation given to every man across every age and it tells us very clearly that there was a beginning to the entire universe as we know it.

It also tells clearly that before that beginning God existed. He must have else how could He have begun after He created?

God is outside of His entire creation including its time, energy, matter and space.

Psalm 90:2 says

Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever You had formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God. 

The human mind naturally thinks in terms of beginnings and endings because we live in a universe governed by time. But God is beyond time and space, and He exists in a way that doesn’t require a beginning or an end.

Eternity is beyond the human mind to comprehend. The only way we can handle it is to accept it by faith, believing what God has said.

In the first part of the earth’s early history, we see the first instruction given to man in Genesis 1:28,

Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Then, in Genesis 2:16-17 God speaks directly, verbally, to the first man,

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Of course, the man was not obedient to that one simple command and as a result he fell into a state of sin and took the now cursed earth with him.

If we never read past chapter 1, we won’t recognise that we live in a fallen creation, a cursed world, that’s full of sin.

By the time we get to Genesis 9:1, God’s now speaking to Noah. A few chapters earlier, He told Noah to build an ark—an instruction He didn’t give to Adam, but to Noah and we see humanity wiped out, all but 8 souls on the ark,

Then God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill, or replenish, the earth.”

Then, in verses 9-11, He says to Noah again:

Thus, I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

This is the first time in the Bible that the word covenant is used. In Genesis 1, God simply blessed Adam and gave him dominion. Now, a thousand years later, after judging sin by flooding the world, God introduces something new—the way He operates has changed, you see. Flooding the entire world is very different from the paradise He provided for Adam.

So now, along with the command to have dominion over the earth—just as He told Adam—God’s also making a covenant with Noah. In verse 10, God extends this covenant:

“With every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.”

Then, in Genesis 9:11, God promises:

Thus, I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

Gods remained faithful to this covenant ever since. There’ve been local floods, and people have drowned in water, but never again has He flooded the entire world.

So, we see that from the very first chapters of the Bible, God changes the way He operates, and we must be careful to recognise the places in scripture where God dispenses new information.

Later in Genesis 12:1, we see yet another way God communicates with humanity. The earth had been replenished but humanity remained in sin even building a tower and a false religion until God confounds their language and they’re scattered throughout the earth. From Adam to Abram, we see that mankind simply could not do what God required.

Then the Lord again speaks directly to a single man, Abram.:

Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you.

It would be wrong to apply this verse to every son or daughter who gets married, thinking it is an instruction to them. This was a specific command to Abram.

Yet here, God’s doing something new. He dispenses new information to one man—Abram (later named Abraham) and to his descendants Isaac and Jacob who would later be called Israel. God makes a promise to Abram in Genesis 12:2-3,

I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

This is new. God chooses one man out of all the people on the earth and says, “You are going to be special to Me.” I’m going to make from you a great nation.

If anyone blesses you, I’ll bless them. If anyone curses you, I’ll curse them.

  • He’ll give Abraham a land.
  • He’ll make Abraham’s descendants a great nation.
  • And through Abraham, all the families of the earth’ll be blessed.

We can see these promises to this nation have not changed throughout the entire bible right to the end of the book of Revelation.

God spoke, He dispensed, He revealed, and He changed the way He operated.

See the pattern developing?

Not every verse in the Bible is speaking about us, and not every verse carries the same message. Yet, in just the first twelve chapters of the Bible, we already see three dispensations, three steps in God’s revelation, building upon the message.

Now, let’s move to Genesis 15:18 to confirm that God did promise Abraham physical land,

On the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates

The boundary lines of the land that God promised to Abraham can still be identified today. They’re right there clearly marked.

Now, if we thought this was what God was still doing today, we might consider moving over there believing this is what God wants us to do. But, has God changed anything from Genesis 15 to today?

In Genesis 17:14 we find another covenant made with Abraham, circumcision,

And the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”

God tells Abraham that he must circumcise all his male children—or else he’ll be cut off from God’s covenant.

This is new. Circumcision even further separates Abraham’s descendants from the gentile nations, which Abraham had been called out of. He was sanctified, which simply means separated for God’s purpose. Abraham had never been circumcised before but now it’s required.

Many people today believe this is still necessary, that circumcision is the entrance into God’s covenant dealings with humanity. But has God changed anything since then?

Let’s move on to Exodus 19.

By this point, we see that God fulfilled His promise to Abraham. His seed had multiplied into a great people. However, they were in bondage in Egypt. So, God sends a saviour to get them out of their bondage in Egypt. The saviour was Moses.

The book of Exodus tells the story of God delivering Abraham’s descendants (Isaac and Jacob’s) children out of Egypt.

In fact, in Exodus 4:22-23, God tells Moses to approach Pharaoh,

Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD: “Israel is My son, My firstborn. So I say to you, let My son go that he may serve Me. But if you refuse to let him go, indeed I will kill your son, your firstborn.” ‘ ”

Now, many of us may have thought God’s firstborn son was Jesus. But Exodus 4:22 calls Israel His firstborn son.

Of course, Jesus is the only begotten Son of God—God in human form. But Israel was the nation that God created.

After delivering Israel from Egypt, God makes a new covenant with them.

Through Moses He gives them the law and tells them if they obey they’ll be blessed and if they don’t they’ll be cursed. God’s revealed even more information. Moses is given the Law. That’s the Ten Commandments and 613 other laws. And a priesthood is established for Israel.

See, how God reveals things progressively? Abraham didn’t have the law; he was dead long before the law was given. Neither were the gentiles given the law. God has new things to teach and this time it’s about His righteousness, which the law showed, and Israel should have realised that there was no way they could keep all 613 points of that law and to fail once was to be cursed. That’s why provision was made within the law for sacrifices to be made when they broke it.

God says, “Here’s the law and what you’ve got to do when you break it.” It tells us that God always knew they couldn’t keep the law. It was to teach them something.

We should also realise here that these were instructions were for Israel not for gentiles. Israel was separated out of the gentiles so we, as gentiles, need to see what’s for our learning and what’s for our instruction.

The bible is not God’s love letter to us. It’s his revelation of His dealing with humanity.

In Exodus 19:5-6, He says:

Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.”

What do priests do?

They act as mediators between God and men. God had already promised Abraham that his nation would be a blessing to others. Now, in Exodus 19, He reveals more detail: Israel will be a nation of priests.

Here, God offers Israel a new covenant. But what happens next?

When God lays out His covenant, Israel responds in Exodus 19:8 with this,

Then all the people answered together and said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do.” So Moses brought back the words of the people to the LORD.

It wasn’t a bad response, except that they couldn’t do it. They continually broke God’s law.

We’re moving quickly through the Bible, trying to understand what God’s saying, to whom He’s saying it, and where you and I fit into it all.

So now we’ll move to Leviticus 8:6,

Then Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them with water.

This verse is part of the Law. The book of Leviticus lays out the laws for the Levites—the priestly tribe of Israel and the first step was washing them with water.

Then, in Leviticus 8:9 says:

And he put the turban (or the mitre) on his head. Also, on the turban (mitre), on its front, he put the golden plate, the holy crown, as the LORD had commanded Moses.

Then in Leviticus 8:10, Moses anoints them with oil and later, in verse 14 and beyond, they’re sprinkled with blood.

Now, all this may seem dry and liturgical, but it’s something God commanded Israel to do for His priests. Again, we see messages that God has revealed—so far, and we’re only up to Moses.

So, the question is, Is this what I should do? Are these instructions for me? Who in Christianity today does this?

Now let’s go to Leviticus 18:5,

You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them: I am the LORD.

Here in Leviticus 18:5, we see a religion set up by God Himself. It says:

“If a man does these things, he shall live.”

Some people actually do follow this. Seventh-day Adventists for example are adamant about keeping God’s law from this part of Scripture.

So, by this time:

  • Israel had received the Law.
  • They had entered and conquered the Promised Land.
  • They had established their kingdom.

Eventually, Israel set up a king, king Saul. David was the second and the most famous and beloved king of Israel. David, of course, was the shepherd boy who took on Goliath and killed him.

Now, we’ll skip ahead hundreds of years into Israel’s future to 2 Samuel 7:12-13 and see another new promise God makes, this time to David.

“When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

God’s now saying that a king will come through David’s lineage and His kingdom will last forever. That’s some promise! And 2 Samuel 7:16 He adds.

And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever.

This is entirely new information, but it’s built upon the previous information.

So far, God’s revealed promises relating to Dominion on earth through covenants.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are promised land, seed, and blessing.

The Law is given for the people to obey.

A priesthood is set up to serve God.

A King and a throne are promised that will last forever through David’s lineage.

God has revealed a lot progressively and we’re only in 2 Samuel 7.

Hopefully we can all see that:

  • This promise of an everlasting kingdom had not been revealed before.
  • Before Leviticus, the Law had not been given.
  • Before Abraham, the covenant of the land had not been made.

God’s revelations build upon each other. This is dispensational Bible study or understanding when something was dispensed by God and to whom.

Now, let’s turn to Psalm 89:18 realising that many of the Psalms were written by David but not all of them. I’m going to quote this verse from the King James Version:

For the LORD is our defence; and the Holy One of Israel is our king.

God is the defence of His chosen nation, Israel. The Holy One of Israel is their King—the promised Holy One who would come from David’s throne.

Now down to Psalm 89:26-28 and back to the New King James:

He shall cry to Me, ‘You are my Father, My God, and the rock of my salvation.’ Also I will make him My firstborn, The highest of the kings of the earth. My mercy I will keep for him forever, And My covenant shall stand firm with him.

God’s talking here about the promise He made to David and about this seed of David who would rule an eternal kingdom. We go on to Psalm 89:28-34:

My mercy I will keep for him forever, And My covenant shall stand firm with him. His seed also I will make to endure forever, And his throne as the days of heaven. “If his sons forsake My law And do not walk in My judgments, If they break My statutes And do not keep My commandments, Then I will punish their transgression with the rod, And their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless My lovingkindness I will not utterly take from him, Nor allow My faithfulness to fail. My covenant I will not break, Nor alter the word that has gone out of My lips.

Then He says in Psalm 89:35-37,

Once I have sworn by My holiness; I will not lie to David: His seed shall endure forever, And his throne as the sun before Me; It shall be established forever like the moon, Even like the faithful witness in the sky.”

Now, for quite a while in human history, Israel wasn’t in their land, and even today, they’re still trying to determine the boundaries. There’s no King David over there, so where’s the fulfillment? These are valid questions.

Now, let’s move into the prophets just to highlight some key points.

We see that God revealed messages to the prophets—words that were inspired, written down, and preserved for us today. We can read them, and there’s lot of reminders about the promises, the law, and the covenants made to David—but there’s also new information.

Most of the time, the prophets messages warned Israel:

“You’re breaking God’s law, and you need to repent.”

The prophets came with words from the Lord, saying:

“Send this message to Israel: If you don’t repent, if you don’t stop sinning, I will curse you.” Just as He had said that he would in the law.

Now, in Ezekiel 18:29, we read:

Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ O house of Israel, is it not My ways which are fair, and your ways which are not fair?

That’s what rebellious Israel said. But God responds in Ezekiel 18:30,

“Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways,” says the Lord GOD. “Repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin.

God’s saying, “I’m doing this right; you’re the ones who are wrong.”

That’s what the law said. If a man does the commandments, he’ll live, if he does not, he’ll die. The word repent means a change of mind.

Gods warning, through the prophets, that people must repent—change their minds—and stop doing wrong. That’s the message God gave the prophets to deliver to Israel. Some of the prophets also spoke to Gentile nations, telling them the same thing:

Now let’s look at Micah 6:7

Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, Ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

Does God want you to kill animals? Is that His ultimate purpose for you?

Micah 6:8

He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?

Three things God requires:

  1. To do justly,
  2. To love mercy, and
  3. To walk humbly with God

These were requirements given through the prophet Micah to Israel and, by extension, to the world. So far, the message has been very consistent.

Now we move to Isaiah 13:9, another prophet, who declares this:

Behold, the day of the LORD comes, Cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger, To lay the land desolate; And He will destroy its sinners from it.

The prophets now spoke about a future day—a day of tribulation. The prophets warned people of the coming wrath and told them to repent and get right with God.

They were also told about a new covenant that God would make with Israel, and we read that in Jeremiah 31:31 -35. This new covenant wasn’t made with the gentiles as we see when we read.

“Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD.

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

No more shall every man teach his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

This new covenant would be later ratified by the death of Jesus Christ Himself.

Now, let’s move forward to The Gospel of Matthew were we read about the genealogy of Jesus Christ which proves He is indeed of Abraham and David’s seed as God had promised all those centuries ago.

We’re also introduced to the greatest of the prophets, John the Baptist.

This is all within what’s popularly called the New Testament which is the division we have in our bibles between the Old Testament and the New. It’s not a division inspired by God but by bible publishers. They wanted to separate the Greek writings, in the so called New Testament from the Hebrew writings in the so called Old Testament. It’s the same with the division of chapters and verses. They’re not inspired by God either, they’re the publishes way of making it easy to find particular places in scripture, and it works, but it’s not inspired.

The problem is that Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and half of the Book of Acts are a continuation and a fulfilment of the Hebrew writings and the prophecies that came before.

In Matthew 3:1-2, we read:

In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”

We’ve already seen that message before. The prophets also preached repentance, but the second half of the sentence is new information:

“The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

John the Baptist comes preaching repentance and the coming kingdom.

This kingdom is the dominion promised to Israel. A kingdom with a temple and a nation and a King that will rule over the earth forever. This was God’s promise to Moses, Abraham, Issac, Jacob and David.

Now look at John 1:31-32, which says, (and John the Baptist is speaking):

I (John the Baptist) did not know Him (The Christ); but that He should be revealed to Israel, therefore I came baptizing with water.” And John bore witness, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He (The Holy Spirit) remained upon Him (Jesus).

Matthew 3:16-17, also says that when Jesus was baptised, The Spirit descended like a dove and God spoke from heaven, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’

This was a sign to Israel that Jesus was The promised Messiah, the One who would sit on David’s throne and the One who’d lead them into the promised land and reign over the earth.

See God’s revelation progressively unfolding through history?

John the Baptist’s ministry and Jesus’ earthly ministry to Israel are the fulfillment of what God previously foretold. The long promised Kingdom was now at hand.

Mark 1:1-3 says:

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the Prophets: “BEHOLD, I SEND MY MESSENGER BEFORE YOUR FACE, WHO WILL PREPARE YOUR WAY BEFORE YOU.” “THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS: ‘PREPARE THE WAY OF THE LORD; MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT.'”

Here again, we see the call to prepare for this coming Kingdom. This is confirmation of what the prophets had already said especially Malachi 3:1:

“Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming,” Says the LORD of hosts.

Mark 1:4, says:

John came baptising in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.

This connects back to the law program where, under the Law, sins were forgiven through animal sacrifices and Priests were cleansed with water. You see Israel was to be a nation of priests. They had to follow what the law required.

Now, John the Baptist comes preaching to prepare the way for Jesus and the establishment of God’s Kingdom on earth.

Just as in Exodus 30:17-21 where God instructs Moses to make a bronze basin for washing and place it between the Tent of Meeting and the altar. Aaron and his sons, the priests, were to wash their hands and feet with water from the basin before entering the tabernacle or approaching the altar, so that they wouldn’t die.

This ritual cleansing was a vital part of their duties and symbolised purity and holiness.

Now, let’s drop down to Mark 1:14. By this time, John the Baptist has been put in prison, and now Jesus comes onto the scene, and we read:

Mark 1:14-15 says:

Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

The same message John preached! “The kingdom of God is at hand!” What did Jesus mean by “The time is fulfilled”?

To understand that we need to know what God’s been doing since the world began.

  • The time He promised to David—that his throne would last forever.
  • The time He promised in the Law—that Israel would be a kingdom of priests.
  • The time He promised to Abraham—that his seed would inherit the land and have dominion.
  • The time the New Covenant was promised to Israel

That’s the time Jesus is talking about!

He says, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel!”

Now what gospel? Gospel means “The Good News” or “The Good Message”. What Good News? Well, the good news that the promise God made from the beginning of the world is now about to come to pass!

He’s progressively revealed His plan throughout human history.

  • He used the prophets to call for repentance and foretell of a coming kingdom.
  • He used John the Baptist who preached repentance and announced the kingdom was at hand.
  • Then God Himself in human form, Jesus Christ, confirmed it, declaring, “The time is fulfilled!”

A lot of Jesus’ earthly ministry wasn’t new information, it was a confirmation and fulfillment of what had already been revealed progressively since the world began.

In Romans 15:8, Paul says that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision, The Jewish nation. He came to fulfill what had already been spoken about.

So far in this episode we’ve skipped thousands of years with each step but now, as things are being fulfilled, we’re dealing with days and years in which God’s speaking and giving out new things.

A new thing is announced in John 3:17-18,

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

See, John the Baptist said, “The kingdom’s coming, the Messiah’s coming, repent, and be water baptised.”

Jesus says, “The kingdom is coming, and I am the King. You must believe in me.”

Jesus is adding to the message, saying that He’s the promised Messiah and to believe on the name—His authority. That’s what “name” means. A police officer comes in the name of the law. A minister marries people in the authority invested in them by the state. It’s the name of Jesus, meaning He is the promised Messiah.

Matthew 1:1 says He’s the Son of Abraham, the Son of David, and under the authority of the covenant God gave to David. This is the Son of God. Now that was good news because they’d been waiting for Him for a long time.

We’re looking at a time where John the Baptist and Jesus were close to each other timewise. Before that, in biblical history, it was a long time between the pieces of God’s revealed information. There was one prophet for one era, another prophet for another era. Moses was gone before someone else came along.

In John 3:25-26 we learn something else:

Then there arose a dispute between some of John’s disciples and the Jews about purification.  And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified—behold, He is baptizing, and all are coming to Him!”

John the Baptist’s disciples confront John saying, “Hey, that Jesus, the one you pointed to, he’s also baptizing, and now people are following him instead of you.”

John answers them in John 3:27-28 saying,

“A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ,’ but, ‘I have been sent before Him.’

Then, in John 3:30-31 he adds,

He must increase, but I must decrease. He who comes from above is above all; he who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all.

When two things happen at the same time, but only one can continue, you transition from one to the other. And why shouldn’t Jesus increase? After all, he’s the Messiah, the King, God manifest in the flesh, the one promised to David and Abraham.

Then in John 14:12 Jesus says,

“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.

Jesus says, “I’m leaving and where I’m going, you can’t follow me.” He came preaching a message, and then he left. And he left his disciples with something else. He said, “You’re going to do something greater because I’m going to give you the power to do it.”

Jesus also promised the Holy Spirit. John 14:16-17 says:

And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.

So, Jesus was leaving, but something new was coming, the Holy Spirit.

This would fulfil the promise of the New Covenant where, through the Holy Spirit, Israel would not only have a comforter to enable them to survive through the coming time of God’s wrath on unbelievers but have God’s laws placed in their hearts and in their minds.

See the law that God delivered to the nation through Moses would not cease, even though no man could keep it, it would be fulfilled another way by installing it into their hearts and minds. We also remember that Jesus said in Matthew 5:17

“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.

After Jesus’ earthly ministry, Peter and the other apostles, who’d been preaching with Jesus, received the Holy Spirit just as He’d promised. This led to greater works than what Jesus did during His earthly ministry.

Acts 2:14-15 describes the scene:

But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words. For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. 

The Holy Spirit had come, allowing them to speak in various languages so that all could understand. Peter explained in verse 16,

But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

He’s saying this was the fulfillment of prophecy.

Then in Acts 2:32 Peter preaches the resurrection:

This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses.

Peter told them, “You killed the Messiah!” But he also stated that God had raised Him from the dead.

In Acts 2:36 Peter goes on and says:

“Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

Peter’s message included:

  • Repentance (as the prophets taught)
  • Belief in the name of Jesus (as Jesus taught)
  • The Holy Spirit (as Jesus promised)

Then, in Act 2:38 we see,

Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Many churches today focus on different parts of the Bible—Abraham, the Law, the prophets, or the apostles. But we need to understand the whole picture as Paul would later state in Acts 20:27,

For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God.

So where are we?

John the Baptist preached that, “The kingdom is near.” Then Peter said in Acts 2:16, “These are the last days.” But that was all 2,000 years ago! What’s happened since?

Well, there’s more scripture after Acts 2 so let’s keep reading.

In Acts 3:19 Peter’s urging,

Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,

If Peter preached that the last days were coming 2,000 years ago, why aren’t we seeing the miracles they saw? Why can’t we heal the sick, raise the dead, or perform signs like they did?

We even see in Acts 5:15 that even Peter’s shadow healed people. The woman in Jesus’ ministry was healed just by touching His garment and the Roman centurion’s servant who was healed without even Jesus’ presence, just His word. But today, we don’t see those miracles, despite what some churches and ministries would try and have us believe.

Why?

Because God has revealed even more truth since Acts 2. There’s been a further unfolding of His plan, and to understand what He’s doing today, we must continue studying His Word beyond Acts 2.

So, we have Peter, looking at all the messages God revealed, saying, “We’re close to it. We need to repent because when the kingdom comes, the time of refreshing will arrive, and your sins will be blotted out.”

In Acts 3:18-21, Peter says:

But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled.

Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.

Peter ‘s proclaiming that Jesus not only has fulfilled all that the prophets spoke of but that He’ll come back, judge and make war, destroy all sinners, and then set up His kingdom. At that point, the end will come—no more death, no more pain, no more tears.

This aligns with everything we’ve studied so far. From Genesis onward, we see Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David—all these figures pointing to a dominion on the earth through Israel, which will bless the other nations. The Gentile nations looking up to Israel, being blessed through them, with Jesus Christ as the Messiah and King, sitting on the throne of David, fulfilling what the prophets spoke since the world began. The kingdom was coming, and miracles were happening.

Stephen, one of the apostles with Peter, who was anointed with the Holy Spirit was captured and brought before the rulers of Israel.

We read about him in Acts 6:15:

And all who sat in the council, looking steadfastly at him, saw his face as the face of an angel.

His face was glowing, evidence that the Holy Spirit had anointed him. Just by looking at him, they could see God’s power.

In Acts 7, Stephen delivers the longest recorded sermon in the Bible, recounting Israel’s history from Adam to Peter, pretty much as we’ve done here. He emphasizes how Israel continually rejected God’s revelations, even as He kept fulfilling His promises.

But in Acts 7:58, the people didn’t like what he was saying and we read,

and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.

Now, why does it matter whose feet they laid Stephen’s garments at? Because that young man, Saul, is very important.

In the next chapter, Acts 8:1, we read:

Now Saul was consenting to his death. At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.

The apostles had been instructed by Jesus to stay in Jerusalem because that’s where the kingdom would come. So, they remained there despite the persecution.

This is why we have the epistles of Hebrews through to Revelation.

Let’s look at James 1:1

James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To (who?) the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad: Greetings.

Every book from Hebrews to Revelation was written by one of the twelve apostles—Peter, James, John, Jude, and John again in Revelation.

Now, we just read in Acts 8:1 how the believers were scattered due to persecution, but the apostles stayed in Jerusalem. That’s why they wrote letters. They were scattered. The apostles wrote to those scattered believers, instructing them on how to continue in the faith.

When we read James, it closely resembles Jesus’ and Peter’s teachings. The same applies to 1 John, 2 John, and Revelation—they all continue the message of God’s purpose with Israel since the world began. Nothing new is added.

Now, if we go back to Acts 9, we see a portion of the Bible we haven’t covered yet—the epistles of Paul.

In Acts 9:1-2, we see Saul (later called Paul) still persecuting believers:

Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

He wanted to go to Damascus to arrest more believers and bring them back to Jerusalem.

But in verse 3, something happens which would prove to be one of the most important events of the bible, especially for us today:

Acts 9:3-5,

As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven.  Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.”

The response in Acts 9:6 changed everything:

So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” Then the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

This moment in time is a major turning point in the Bible. Saul, the great persecutor, would become Paul, the apostle of grace, receiving a new revelation from Jesus Christ Himself.

Paul is blinded yet he sees the Lord Jesus Christ after His resurrection—after everything that had happened, and after Peter’s ministry.

Paul was the one persecuting these believers, the ones preaching the message that had been revealed since the world began, yet Jesus appears to him. Sort of like the song, “Why me Lord?” Why? Apparently, by His grace, because there’s no other reason Jesus would reveal Himself to Paul.

Then, in Acts 9:15-16, God says to Ananias, who questioned The Lord about the wisdom of choosing this man Saul:

Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.”

Later, in Paul’s epistles, we read that he received a direct revelation from the Lord Jesus Christ. So, here’s where we need to add something new to our study. But there’s a problem.

Up until now, everything God revealed had been building upon itself. Each new revelation confirmed what came before. But with Paul, as we read in Romans 16:25, starts preaching a message different from everything else in Scripture.

Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ,

Up to this point in the verse there’s nothing new. We’ve seen gospels, we’ve seen Jesus Christ being preached before Paul. But then Paul adds something unique in the rest of this verse:

according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began

Now hold on! Paul is talking here about a message concerning Jesus Christ that had not been spoken about since Genesis 1:1!

What’s this mystery Paul’s referring to?

Look at 1 Corinthians 9:17 and the context of the whole passage is Paul refusing payment for preaching, which was his right, and his conviction that he had no choice but to preach the gospel. He says:

For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, a stewardship (or a dispensation) of the gospel is committed unto me.

This mystery, this thing kept secret, has to do with a gospel—a message of good news—that God revealed to Paul.

Let’s look at Galatians 1:1,

Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead;)

Paul was not made an apostle by Peter or by any human authority. Jesus Christ Himself made him one. Paul emphasises this again in Galatians 1:11-12:

But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Paul is making it clear that he didn’t receive this message from men. It was directly given to him by Jesus Christ.

So, what exactly is this message?

We see in Ephesians 3 that his is truly something new. Unlike everything before it, this revelation doesn’t just confirm the old that had been given since the world began, it introduces something that had been kept a secret since the world began.

Ephesians 3:1-6:

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles—

Now, wait a minute! Gentiles? Since Noah, God had never gone directly to the Gentiles. His purpose had always been to work through Israel. But here, Paul is speaking directly to Gentiles.

We carry on in verse 2,

if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you,

Paul’s revealing something unique here, a dispensation of God’s grace, given specifically to him.

Verses 3 to 5,

how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets:

See, this wasn’t made known in other ages.

Verses 6 to 7,

that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel, of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power. 

I hope we can all see how groundbreaking this is. The Gentiles, who were always supposed to be blessed through Israel, are now included in something directly—without going through Israel.

Why is this change happening and why was no mention ever made by God of this new dispensation?

Because of Israel’s rejection of their Messiah!

The Messiah had come, clearly demonstrating that He was the Messiah, The Christ. What was supposed to happen was that that the Holy Spirit would be given, the New Covenant activated, and a period of tribulation and judgement would come to the earth before Jesus would return to set up the Kingdom and establish His rule from David’s throne in Zion, Jerusalem, and Israel would finally be the separated, special nation that God intended all along.

But Israel rejected the Messiah, rejected God’s Word and rejected the Holy Spirit by stoning the Holy Spirit filled Stephen. It was the final straw!

God knew this would happen but, as per usual, He gave Israel every chance to claim their glorious destiny.

But at that final rejection when they stoned Stephen God stopped His timeline to the kingdom and replaced it with a new dispensation, given through Paul, which had never before been spoken of by God to man.

That dispensation has so far existed for 2000 years. It is the dispensation of Grace where man can be saved freely, without works, purely by God’s Grace through believing His word, nothing else.

Eventually this interlude to the prophetic timeline will end and prophecy leading to the establishment of the kingdom will resume, beginning with the removal of the Church, The body of Christ, from the world and the beginning of a terrible judgement of the earth and it’s people by God.

Now, look at Galatians 2:7 and how the apostles to the circumcision agreed with Paul,

But on the contrary, when they saw that the gospel for the uncircumcised had been committed to me, as the gospel for the circumcised was to Peter.

This is huge. There were two gospels being preached:

  1. The Gospel of the Circumcision—preached by Peter to Israel.
  2. The Gospel of the Uncircumcision—preached by Paul to the Gentiles.

Galatians 2:9

and when James, Cephas (Peter), and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.

Peter, James, and John recognised Paul’s calling, and they acknowledged that he’d been given a different message for a different audience.

Now, turn back to Ephesians 2:6.

Eph 2:6

and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

Since the beginning, God told Adam to have dominion on the earth. He promised Israel dominion on the earth. Instead of focusing on the earth, Paul here speaks of heavenly places.

When God made His covenant with Abraham in Genesis 12:2-3, He said, “I will make of you a great nation,” and “And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” That was Israel’s role—to be a light to the nations.

But Colossians 3:11 tells us that in Christ, there is:

neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.

Can you see how much of a radical shift this is? Under Paul’s message, there are no racial or national differences. All believers—Jew or Gentile—are one in Christ.

Paul received a revelation of God’s purpose directly from God, that had been kept secret since the world began. Unlike the message given to Peter and the apostles, which had been building on God’s promises to Israel, Paul’s message revealed a new dispensation of grace where Gentiles are included without Israel.

Instead of the focus being on the earthly kingdom promised to Israel, Paul speaks of a heavenly calling. His gospel—the Gospel of the Uncircumcision—is distinct from Peter’s Gospel of the Circumcision.

This is why Paul’s letters (Romans-Philemon) contain doctrines that differ from those found in the rest of Scripture. Paul says, “There is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision; Christ is all and in all.”

We’re now just covering Paul’s epistles, which, people say are the most doctrinal of any book in our Bible. There’s no storytelling in them. Why is that? Paul says it’s because God revealed His manifold wisdom—the things that He had purposed and kept secret—He revealed to Paul.

He says in 2 Timothy 2:7,

Consider what I say, and may the Lord give you understanding in all things.

Romans 6:14 says,

For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

What’s Paul talking about?

All the prophets since Moses said we’re under the law. Then Paul comes along and says, “You’re not under the law; you’re under grace.” He’s changing things—he’s changing everything that’d been revealed since the world began based on the authority of the revelation of Jesus Christ according to the mystery.

In 2 Timothy 2, Paul writes to Timothy, who is rather ashamed that Paul is preaching things that are so opposite to the history of Israel. Paul says, “Don’t be ashamed. I know whom I believe.” Paul says, “I know who gave me this message—Jesus Christ Himself.”

In 2 Timothy 2:8 Paul says to Timothy,

Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David…

Remember God’s promise to David that there would be a king on the throne forever from his seed.

He goes on in 2 Timothy 2:8 with,

Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my gospel,

He’s saying that God promised David that there’d be a king on the throne from his seed. But there’s another purpose. He says, “According to my gospel, there was a purpose that Jesus Christ needed to be raised from the dead.” He was resurrected not just to be the King of Israel but for the salvation of all men who would put their trust in His death and resurrection.

Throughout history the prophets had been preaching, warning of coming wrath, and the repentance needed for Israel. “If you don’t repent, you’re going to be punished for your iniquities.”

Then, in 2 Corinthians 5:17 Paul says,

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

A new creature?

Now, if you were part of Israel, you’d be part of a creation of God. They were the firstborn of God as we see in Exodus 4:22. If you became part of Israel, you became part of something very old, something God created long ago.

And yet, here in 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul says, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Again, this is huge because Paul’s saying that all these things, all this history, is not going on anymore today!

“Old things are passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

What “all things”?

We’ve seen a new dominion. We’ve seen a new creation. We’ve seen that there’s no Jew or Greek. We’ve seen that we’re not under the law but under grace. We’ve seen that David was raised according to Paul’s gospel.

See, things are becoming new—there’s new information, a new understanding.

Carrying on in 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 we see,

Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

What does that word reconciliation mean?

It’s the act of coming to an understanding and putting an end to hostility, as when former enemies agree to a harmonious truce.

Why were the prophets sent to Israel?

Every time they were sent, it was because Israel was doing wrong, and God was threatening them, saying, “If you don’t stop this, I’m going to become your enemy.”

Now, Paul’s saying in 2 Corinthians 5:19, God’s not your enemy anymore.

Why?

Because Christ died for the sins of the world, and He is not imputing trespasses to the world so that they might be saved.

If He were imputing trespasses, He’d be judging. He’d be doing what some people claim causing disasters as judgment. But 2 Corinthians 5:19 says He’s not doing that.

Romans 5:1 says we are at peace with God by faith in the gospel. God is offering salvation freely to all men today. He is offering peace between man and Himself.

He will come back in the future and wage war with a sinful creation, but until then, we are in the dispensation of God’s grace, in which He has provided salvation for all.

What Is The Mystery

What Is “The Fellowship of the Mystery”? – Part 2

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Although this mystery is spoken of often by Paul it’s easy to just gloss over it without really paying much attention to it.
But if we’re to know where our position in Christ is today, not in times past or times future, but today, we need to understand what Paul is clearly teaching. We need to know what it is, how it came into being and what it means for you and me today.

Adapted from various teaching material from Grace Ambassadors.

“Speed Slider”

Comparison Between the Old Covenant, The New Covenant and the Fellowship of the Mystery

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Old, New and Mystery Comparison

 

What is the Fellowship of the Mystery? Part 2 – Transcript

In this second part of our study of what this Fellowship of the Mystery is, that the Apostle Paul talks about throughout his 13 epistles, we get to learn exactly what it is, how it came into being and what it means for you and me today.
We’ll see how it’s one of the most important doctrines in the Bible for us the Body of Christ, the church, today.

In part 1 of this short series on What is the Fellowship of the Mystery, we did a brief summary of the history of the nation of Israel, because Israel is a major key in understanding this mystery that was revealed to the apostle Paul for us.

We need to see that it was through Israel’s continued disobedience to God and rejection of His Word that the nation fell, and that fall meant that now, God’s grace would be focused on the Gentiles and no longer Israel as a nation.

We start in Paul’s epistle to the Romans.

In Romans chapters 9, 10 and 11, Paul tells his audience what happened to Israel, and he describes Israel is fallen.

In Romans chapter 9:31 to 33 we read this,

What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. 

Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone. 

As it is written: “BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A STUMBLING STONE AND ROCK OF OFFENSE, AND WHOEVER BELIEVES ON HIM WILL NOT BE PUT TO SHAME.” 

That stumbling stone, that rock of offense, Is Jesus Christ, Israel’s Messiah and the Saviour of the world.

This is a quotation from Isaiah chapter 8 verses 14 and 15 and we won’t read that but just for your own knowledge you could go back to Isaiah and see the quote.

Now let’s look at Romans chapter 10:3, and we read,

For they (Israel) being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. 

Skip down to verse 16,

But they (Israel) have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “LORD, WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR REPORT?” 

Then verse 21,

But to Israel he (God) says: “ALL DAY LONG I HAVE STRETCHED OUT MY HANDS TO A DISOBEDIENT AND CONTRARY PEOPLE.” 

Israel has fallen and that’s what Paul’s describing in these chapters and there are 90 verses in Romans chapters 9, 10 and 11 which give highly detailed evidence of how and why this fallen state of Israel came about.

But God had a plan, a plan that He kept secret from before the beginning of the world and that was that Israel’s fall was the salvation of, and to, the Gentiles.

Look at Romans 11:11,

I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. 

And in verse 25,

For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 

Look at Romans 11:12

Now if their (Israel’s) fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness! 

The riches of the Gentiles came through Israel’s fall.

Now, Israel may be fallen at this time, however God made promises to Israel, to the nation, and we saw that in the last episode. He promised a land, a kingdom, a nation and that was to be forever, and it was to be here on Earth.

God will save national Israel!

Ok, so we’ve seen the history of Israel and we’ve seen that it’s fallen today but that God will save them in the future. So, what does that all have to do with the Fellowship of the mystery that Christ revealed to Paul?

Everything actually, as we’ll see.

Now what do we clearly see in all this?

Israel is fallen and Israel will be saved in the future. We can see that Israel fell 2000 years ago. When will it be saved?

In the coming Great Tribulation as we see in Jeremaiah 30:7,

Alas! For that day is great (the day of the Lord, the tribulation), So that none is like it; And it is the time of Jacob’s trouble, But he (who? Israel is the subject here.) But he shall be saved out of it.

Then in Zechariah 13:8 and 9,

And it shall come to pass in all the land (the land always refers to Israel),” Says the LORD, “That two-thirds in it shall be cut off and die, But one-third shall be left in it: 

I will bring the one-third through the fire, Will refine them as silver is refined, And test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, And I will answer them. I will say, ‘This is My people’; And each one will say, ‘The LORD is my God.’ ” 

Again, we see in Revelation 12 verses 13 to 17. The woman in this passage is Israel. She is protected and nourished in the wilderness during the tribulation and God preserves her from the serpent (Satan) who seeks to harm her.

Then in Romans 11:25 to 27 we read,

For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 

And so, all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “THE DELIVERER WILL COME OUT OF ZION, AND HE WILL TURN AWAY UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB; 

FOR THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS.”

And Paul here is quoting the prophecy of Isaiah 59:20.

Of course, there’s many other prophecies relating to this ultimate salvation of Israel.

But that hasn’t happened yet! Israel’s not saved today. They bear no resemblance to the nation that will finally accept Jesus Christ as the Messiah and turn to God. This is yet future.

So, the question is what’s happened in the 2000 years that’ve past between Israel’s fall and today?

Well, there’s an interlude in the great timeline of prophecy. It’s as if the prophetic clock’s been stopped, and this is exactly how it is.

In this interlude to prophecy God’s done an almost inconceivably great work, and He’s revealed it to us, primarily but not exclusively, through the ministry of the apostle Paul.

God has “slotted into history” a period of time, a dispensation, an age, which we know of today as the Dispensation of Grace.

Paul calls it the Dispensation of the Grace of God in Ephesians 3 verse 2. Sometimes this age is called “The Church Age” or even sometimes, “The Age of the Gentiles”.

It’s this disruption, this interlude to God’s great prophecy timeline which has made God’s Grace freely available to all people, both individual Jew and individual Gentile today. And, unlike the other ages, the vehicle is not Israel and their covenants and laws.

The vehicle now is faith!

We’re now saved by God’s Grace, through faith, plus nothing. We believe God’s Word, the Gospel of Salvation, that Christ died for our sins according to scripture, was buried and rose again from the dead according to scripture, and based on that belief we’re saved. We have eternal life and we become members of the Body of Christ and partakers of all the riches of God, in Christ.

Paul was chosen by God in spite of being an intensely committed unbeliever in Jesus Christ and His claim as the Jewish Messiah.

He had an intense hatred for “The Way”. That was the movement that was gathering momentum in Pauls day that had, as its core belief, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ and that Jesus was the Christ, the Jewish Messiah and the Saviour of the world.

Paul was uniquely saved by God, not by his murderous works, nor by the covenant promises made to Israel, but freely by God’s grace.

We see in Titus 3:3 to 7 Paul describing his salvation,

For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. 

But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. 

Paul was a unique apostle. He was the chief persecutor of the twelve apostles, and he calls himself the chief of sinners. We see him before he was saved in Acts 8 and verse 1 being a willing participant in the stoning of Stephen,

Now Saul (his name was changed later to Paul) was consenting to his death (that was the stoning of Stephen).

At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. 

Then, Paul was called by God to be an apostle of God’s grace.

Romans 1:1,

Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God…

And in Romans 15:15 and 16,

Nevertheless, brethren, I have written more boldly to you on some points, as reminding you, because of the grace given to me by God, that I might be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. 

And also 1st Timothy 1:15 and 16,

This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. 

However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life. 

The Lord Jesus Christ appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus where he was on his way to wreak havoc on the church some more. The Lord Jesus appeared many times after that to reveal what was “from the beginning of the world… hid in God”, that is, this fellowship of the mystery.

Ephesians 3:8 and 9,

To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; 

Paul calls this revelation the “mystery of Christ”, the “mystery among the Gentiles”, and the “dispensation of the grace of God”.

This mystery of Christ is different from what “was spoken of by the mouth of the prophets since the world began” concerning Christ, as Acts 3 verse 21 says,

…whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.

Paul continues to explain how he came to minister this mystery in Romans 16:25,

Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began

And in Ephesians 3:1 to 3,

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles— if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, 

So, what is this mystery revealed to Paul?

The mystery revealed affected both the message of salvation and sanctification (which is God’s separation of a people for his service).

The mystery regarding salvation is the gospel of Christ: how any man can be justified freely by God’s grace through faith in Christ Jesus as our propitiation. Propitiation is the act of appeasing or satisfying God’s wrath or anger. It’s closely associated with atonement—the reconciliation between God and humanity through Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross.

We look at Romans 3:20 – 26,

Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. 

But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference (difference between Jew and Gentile he means) ; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 

The mystery revealed to Paul is the identity of a new creature called the church, the one Body of Christ.

Nowhere does this Body of Christ appear in prophecy, a Body with Christ as it’s head and every other joint and cell made up of all who have received the grace of God, redemption and salvation, through nothing else but faith. Simply believing what God said in His Word.

We see that in Romans 12:5,

so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. 

And we also see it in Ephesians 4:4,

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; 

The church, this Body of Christ in which we are all members if we’ve believed, is to practice and preach the gospel of Christ and all its blessings which are free in Christ to all men through faith.

In Romans 5 to 8, Paul lays this out in great detail.

Also in Ephesians 1:3,

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 

And Ephesians 3:1 – 9,

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles— if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel, of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power. 

To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; 

The most important thing we can learn in discerning God’s will in the Bible is to rightly identify and divide the mystery of Christ from what was spoken by the prophets concerning Christ, the nation of Israel and the Gentiles.

What God had spoken of by the mouth of His prophets since the world began is not what God kept secret since the world began.

Act 3:21,

whom (that’s Jesus Christ), whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things (this is the kingdom come), which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.

We put that verse up against Romans 16:25,

Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began.

See the difference? Spoken of by the prophets since the world began, kept secret since the world began!

Mixing mystery truth with the message prophesied to Israel has led to a great deal of confusion of doctrine.

Without understanding the mystery Christ revealed to Paul we can’t be faithful stewards of those mysteries, nor, actually, faithful ministers of Christ.

1st Corinthians 4:1 & 2,

Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. 

Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful.

More importantly, if we don’t understand the mystery of Christ revealed to Paul, we can’t obey the Lord’s greatest commission, “to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery” with its unsearchable riches and we look at Ephesians 3 verses 8 to 9,

To me (that’s Paul), who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ;

It’s not difficult to see that there was a mystery ‘hid in God’ ‘kept secret since the world began’ and then revealed to Paul.

We see this clearly in Romans 16:25, and Ephesians 3:3 and other places we’ve just looked at.

Yet there seems to be difficulty among many sincere Christians with identifying what this mystery is.

Some claim that this mystery is something that we can’t know. It’s about the nature of God. After all, they say, ‘God works in mysterious ways’.

Yet the scripture says that the mystery is now ‘known’ and ‘revealed’. Though it was once a secret it’s not hidden any more.

Others say that the mystery is simply Gentile salvation. But, there’s evidence of Gentile salvation in the both the Old and New testaments before the mystery was revealed to us through Paul.

One purpose of the nation Israel being established was to be a blessing, a light, and the ‘Priests of the Lord’ to the Gentiles. The blessing of the Gentiles couldn’t be a mystery or a secret if it was told about so often in the prophecies to Israel.

Another belief says the mystery is Gentiles becoming part of Israel and their covenants. This is a dangerous misunderstanding because it leads to confusion about both Israel and the church, which are very clearly separate throughout the Bible.

This view requires us to replace most of the prophecies given to Israel with prophecies supposedly referring to a Gentile church. The prophecies and commandments of Jesus himself concerning Zion, Israel, Jacob, Jerusalem, and ‘my people’ would need to be replaced with commandments to ‘the church today’.

This is pretty much impossible to do and still keep the verses in their correct context.

Unfortunately, many denominations and pastors believe at least one of these views of the mystery.

What leads to a mistaken view of the mystery is ignoring the revelation of the mystery which was first given to Paul.

Paul was the first to explain that Israel has fallen from their special status with God. Through this fall, salvation is no longer the covenant possession of Israel alone but is being given to the Gentiles.

It’s not until Paul that we read about salvation apart from the law and the covenants based on faith alone in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Those who’re saved do not become Israel or remain heathen Gentiles; instead, they become part of the body of Christ, which is the church today.

Our hope today lies in our heavenly position reigning forever with Christ in heaven, but for now we’re left on earth to represent the Lord and the message of his reconciliation to God by grace through faith alone to a world that’s entirely rejected God.

It’s a good thing for us to understand the differences between the Old Covenant, The New Covenant, and the Fellowship of the Mystery which, as we’ve seen, all describe different ways in which people receive God’s blessings throughout different ages.

If we ignore the differences, or we’re not aware of them, we can claim blessings or curses belonging to someone else and miss blessings belonging to us.

So, what are the differences between the old covenant, new covenant, and the fellowship of the mystery? We’ve got a chart included below this episode list to help see these differences.

As a sidenote, we do have a covenant called the Abrahamic Covenant which is found in Genesis chapter 15 where God makes a formal agreement, a covenant, with Abraham that He would do what He’d said. Interestingly, Abraham had no part in this, he was put to sleep, showing that this was God’s responsibility to ensure it was fulfilled and didn’t rely on anything Abraham would or wouldn’t do.

We also have another covenant known as the Davidic covenant where, in 2 Samuel 7:12 God makes this promise to King David,

“When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.

But we’re concerned here with the two main covenants that we know as the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.

We’ll start with the Old Covenant.

The law was given to Israel, by God, through Moses in the exodus out of Egypt.

This law was intended to be a blessing to the world through Israel’s separation and obedience.

God declared to Israel, “You will be my people, and I will be your God.”

The covenant outlined specific terms for Israel’s relationship with God.

The law was the basis of this Old Covenant, and the terms were that if Israel was obedient to the law it would lead to blessings, prosperity, and them remaining in the land.

But disobedience would result in curses, judgment, and potential exile from the land.

It was this latter condition of the covenant that Israel would learn the hard way throughout their history. They couldn’t keep the law and they required a multitude of sacrifices to cover their sin. And, into the bargain they constantly suffered for their disobedience as we saw in part 1 of this series.

However, and this important, Israel as a channel of God’s blessing was not done away by their failure to keep the law.

God had made promises to the fathers of Israel to make Israel the nation through which the world would be blessed. Those promises of God cannot be cancelled out because they were given to the fathers before the law. Israel did not fulfill them by their own power to keep the law.

So, to summarise the Old Covenant we have:

  • Israel must perform on their own, by their own works of obedience
  • Israel is a nation separate from the Gentiles
  • The law given to obey
  • It was a Covenant to make Israel the channel of blessing to the world

Now we come to the New Covenant.

Israel was given promises from God to be the nation through which the world would be blessed. The old and new covenants were both intended to fulfill this promise. This is why both the old and new covenants are made with the house of Israel and Judah. It’s hard to see why most modern-day churches regard the New Covenant as for the church today.

We see Jeremaiah 31:31,

“Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. 

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

Then we see Hebrews 8:10 & 11,

FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY LAWS IN THEIR MIND AND WRITE THEM ON THEIR HEARTS; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE. 

NONE OF THEM SHALL TEACH HIS NEIGHBOR, AND NONE HIS BROTHER, SAYING, ‘KNOW THE LORD,’ FOR ALL SHALL KNOW ME, FROM THE LEAST OF THEM TO THE GREATEST OF THEM.

Both the old covenant and the new covenant include the law, priests, a kingdom, and sacrifices for sin. Both were intended to provide blessing to the world through Israel.

Both are the subject of prophecy, and were not part of God’s mystery kept secret since the world began.

The new covenant was made better for Israel in that God would perform all that they couldn’t do on their own. He would be the better priest, he would give the Spirit to cause them to keep the law, and he would send Christ to establish the kingdom.

The new covenant is merely the old covenant blessing, the promises to the fathers, made possible through the provision of God.

John 1:17,
For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Whereas the old covenant emphasized man’s performance, the new covenant was God performing for Israel what they could not do. The old covenant failed to fulfill the promises because of that inability of Israel to perform, but the new would not fail.

Hebrews 8: 7 – 8,

For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. Because finding fault with them, He says: “BEHOLD, THE DAYS ARE COMING, SAYS THE LORD, WHEN I WILL MAKE A NEW COVENANT WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AND WITH THE HOUSE OF JUDAH—

and then we go into the remainder that we’ve already read.

So, to summarise the New Covenant and compare it to the old we see this:

  • In the Old Covenant Israel must perform on their own, by their own works of obedience, whereas in the New Covenant God gives His grace for Israel to perform by the Spirit.
  • In The Old Covenant Israel is a nation separate from the Gentiles and it’s the same in the New Covenant.
  • In the Old Covenant the law given for Israel to obey in their own strength whereas in the New Covenant God’s law would be written on their hearts and minds as we saw in Jeremaiah 31 verse 33.
  • The Old Covenant was to make Israel the channel of blessing to the world, and in just the same way the New Covenant was to make Israel the channel of blessing to the world.

Now we want to compare The Fellowship of the Mystery.

Because the new covenant describes God’s performance on behalf of Israel, many people get confused by the difference between the new covenant and the fellowship of the mystery. People think that because they both require God’s grace they must be talking about the same thing.

But we can’t make a decision based on similarities. Both a Ford car and a Toyota have wheels, doors an engine and steering wheels, but does that make them the same? Of course not! It’s the differences that define them.

And the differences are critical for us to see here.

The new covenant is God’s blessing of grace through Israel, through their covenants, and their law written in their hearts.

The fellowship of the mystery is God’s grace given to all, Jew and Gentile freely, without the nation of Israel, without their earthly covenants, and without their law written in hearts.

Whereas under the old covenant God was the law giver, and under the new covenant God in Christ was the law keeper, under the fellowship of the mystery, God in Christ is the law remover. We see that in Romans 6:14,

For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

We also see it in Colossians 2:14,

…having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 

Whereas the old covenant was given to Israel, and the new covenant was given to believing Israel, the fellowship of the mystery is for all that believe the gospel of Christ: Jew or Gentile.

2Corinthians 5:17,

Therefore, if anyone (Jew or Gentile) is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 

Ephesians 2:15,

…having abolished in His (Jesus’s) flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances (or regulations), so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace,

Colossians 3:11,

…where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all. 

See, there is no place in the one body, revealed through the mystery, for a separation between Israel and Gentile.

Whereas the old and new covenants are the subject of prophecy to fulfill God’s promise of blessing through Israel, the fellowship of the mystery was not revealed in any promise from God since the world began.

Romans 16:25,

Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began 

The fellowship of the mystery is not the fulfillment of any covenant, prophecy, or promise given to Israel. The dispensation of grace was hid in God until revealed to the apostle Paul for the church today.

Ephesians 3:1 – 2,

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles— if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you…

Ephesians 3:9 – 11,

…and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, </strong

Once the differences between the old covenant, the new covenant, and the fellowship of the mystery are understood, then the riches of God’s grace according to the revelation of the mystery will be better valued.

Grace and faith were always necessary to receive blessings from God, but today, through the fellowship of the mystery, grace stands alone without Israel, the law, or covenants. This is the way God blesses the world today.

Today , in the body of Christ, in this dispensation of grace that has temporarily interrupted the great timeline of prophecy, Grace stands alone because of the differences between the old and new covenants and this fellowship of the mystery of Christ.

What Is The Mystery

What Is “The Fellowship of the Mystery”? – Part 1

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In this episode we look at one of the most important doctrines in the Bible for us the Body of Christ, the church, today.
The Apostle Paul talks throughout his 13 epistles about something called the Fellowship of the Mystery.
Since Paul was given the position of Apostle to the Gentiles by Jesus Christ Himself and because the 13 epistles he wrote are the instructions and the doctrine for the church today, we need to know what this Fellowship of the Mystery is.

Adapted from various teaching material from Grace Ambassadors.

“Speed Slider”

Summary of Israel’s History

Click or press image to enlarge it

Timeline of Israels History

 

What is the Fellowship of the Mystery? Part 1 – Transcript

In this episode we look at one of the most important doctrines in the Bible for us the Body of Christ, the church, today.

The Apostle Paul talks throughout his 13 epistles about something called the Fellowship of the Mystery.

Since Paul was given the position of Apostle to the Gentiles by Jesus Christ Himself and because the 13 epistles he wrote are the instructions and the doctrine for the church today, we need to know what this Fellowship of the Mystery is.

Although this mystery is spoken of often by Paul it’s easy to just gloss over it without really paying much attention to it.

But if we’re to know where our position in Christ is today, not in times past or times future, but today, we need to understand what Paul is clearly teaching. We need to know what it is, how it came into being and what it means for you and me today.

The natural place to begin to understand what Paul’s teaching is to look at the verses in the Bible where this mystery is presented to us.

We’re going to take these verses in the order that the epistles of Paul appear in our Bibles, realising that this is not the chronological order in which the epistles were written.

Romans 11:25,

For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 

Romans 16 verses 25 and 26,

Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith—

1st Corinthians 2 verses 6 and 7,

However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory,

1st Corinthians 15:51,

Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep (that means die), but we shall all be changed—

Ephesians 1 verses 7 to 9,

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself,

Ephesians 3 verses 1 to 5,

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles— if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets:

Ephesians 3 verse 9,

and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 6 verses 18 and 19,

praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints— and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel,

Colossians 1 verses 25 and 26,

of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints.

Colossians 1:27,

To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Colossians 2 verses 2 and 3,

that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Colossians 4:3,

meanwhile praying also for us, that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in chains,

1st Timothy 3:9,

holding the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience.

There are other passages where Pauls refers to the mystery as well but some of these are, if could put it like this mystery within the mystery, so we’ve not included them.

Mystery! How come a mystery? How come God kept it a secret from the foundation of the world? Why was it revealed at that time to the apostle Paul?

What is it? Is it important that we, the church, the Body of Christ know this today?

These are questions we hope to satisfactorily answer.

We’ll make a bold claim here that without understanding this mystery, now revealed, our attempts to understand the Bible, particularly that which relates to us today, and the coming events of the end times, will be confusing and leave us with more questions than answers.

Let’s start by understanding that although this mystery was kept secret by God from the foundation of the world, the vast majority of God’s revealed Word, The Bible, was not kept secret.

In fact, one of the many ways, we can be sure that our Bible is the Word of God, that it was inspired by Him, is through hundreds of prophecies that were given by God long before the events actually happened, in some cases, centuries and even thousands of years before they were perfectly fulfilled.

This shows that that author was from outside of our time dimension.

Prophecy is the major portion of the Bible, and it was God revealing His plan and His will to mankind over time. He spoke through many prophets, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and these prophets wrote all these prophecies down.

So, in these prophecies God has told man about His plan and His will.

  • He would send a Saviour Who would willingly pay for the price for the sin of Adam and, by His death and His spilled blood, would take away the sins of the world.
  • He would create a special nation, separated from the rest of the world for His own purposes. That nation is Israel.
  • He told us how that nation, Israel, would continually reject Him and go their own way and how they would pay a very heavy price when they did, but how when they did do God’s will, He would bless and prosper them. As a result of their rejection, they would be enslaved and be taken captive by other nations, but that God would deliver them.
  • He told us how that nation would be a nation of priests to where the other nations of the world would come to learn of God and His ways.
  • He told how He would send a Messiah, The Saviour, to Israel through Whom they could be saved, and He told us that the Saviour would die and how the nation would reject Him and the salvation He bought.
  • He told us about a great and glorious Kingdom that would come to earth and be the inheritance of His separated nation and how this Messiah, this King would rule this kingdom for 1000 years.
  • He told us about a terrible period of time that would come upon the earth before the setting up of this glorious kingdom, where God would pour out His wrath on all the unrighteous and all the unbelievers on earth. This would happen because no unrighteous or unbelieving person could ever enter this earthly kingdom.
  • He told us how through this terrible period, a remnant of His beloved nation of Israel would finally turn from their rejection of the Messiah and accept Him.
  • He told us how the earth would be restored after that awful period of tribulation.
  • He told us about the end of sin on earth permanently.
  • He told us about a final judgement where every person who ever lived will be judged and how every person who had not trusted in the way He Had made whereby man could become righteous, at an awesome cost to Himself, would be judged to eternal damnation.
  • He told us that the current heaven and earth would pass away, and a new heaven and a new earth would replace them and how a magnificent city, called the New Jerusalem, would come down from heaven and from there God would dwell and His King, the Messiah would rule for ever and sin, death tears and sorrow would never be again.

All of this and much, much more was revealed to mankind through the prophets.

But what was never revealed to mankind, what was kept secret by God, since before the foundation of the world, told to no man, was this mystery that was finally revealed to mankind by Jesus Christ Himself to the apostle Paul.

At the same time this mystery was revealed to Paul he was given a ministry to preach this mystery to mankind both Jew and Gentile. But his main ministry was preaching it to the Gentiles.

So, the difference with this mystery revealed to Paul, is that completely opposite to prophecy, which was God revealing His plans and His will to mankind, this mystery was not revealed. It was kept secret by God until Christ revealed it to Paul.

There’s one more foundation that we’re going to need to firmly stand on as we look at these things.

That foundation is the knowledge that God deals with different people, in different ways, in different ages.

Hebrews 1 verses 1 and 2 tell us,

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds.

See God at one time, in the past, spoke through the prophets. However, in the last days He’s spoken by His son. See different methods of speaking to people at different times.

Common sense tells us that although God instructed Noah to build an ark, He’s not instructing you and I to do that today.

Likewise, God, in a test of faith, instructed Abraham to offer his beloved only son as a sacrifice. Are we to do that as a test of faith today?

All through the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John we see Jesus Christ coming to the nation of Israel, proving He was the long-promised Messiah by fulfilling prophecy to the letter and yet we see enormous contrasts in what Jesus taught to Israel and how we, the modern-day church, live today.

So, it’s of the highest importance that we recognise that there are differences in the way God deals with mankind through the ages, and we need to know what God’s doing today so that we can understand what he requires of us today.

It’s also important to realise that God Himself never changes, scripture tells us that, but the way he deals with mankind does.

Although the Bible shows us clearly how God dealt with man down through the ages, we cannot try and select things that God did in the past, or will do in the future, and relate them to us today.  It’s vital for us to know what God’s doing today! If we don’t, if we try and mix these ways that God’s dealt with mankind so that we apply bits of what God’s done in the past, with bits He’s going to do in the future and then try and understand what’s happening today, we’re opening ourselves up for a heap of confusion, a mish mash of bits and pieces that don’t fit.

In order to guard against this confusion, we must understand the whole story, the whole plan of God, in order to understand our place today in that plan.

Scripture bears this out in 2nd Timothy 3:16 and 17,

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

And we’re instructed to understand scripture. In 2nd Timothy 2:15 we read,

Be diligent (or study) to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Notice the emphasis on “rightly dividing” the Word of truth?

See we’re to understand these division between how God worked with man in the past, how He’s dealing with man today and how He will deal with man in the future, and those big differences are vital to you and me if we’re to know God and His purpose for us.

One word of warning!

As these differences become more and more familiar we can easily find ourselves questioning traditional church teachings and doctrines, many of which are passed down and distributed as truth without any real questions being asked.

Often they’re the product of misunderstandings about context and the reliance on single, or limited, passages of scripture that tend to become regarded as doctrine.

When we ask ourselves simple questions like who is speaking, who are they speaking to, and what is the age or dispensation they’re living in and referring to, we can see these passages in an entirely different light.

One other thing we must keep in mind is that the vast majority of the Bible is written to and about Israel, God’s separated nation, not us Gentiles.

We mustn’t try and put ourselves, as the church today, in place of Israel.

That’s not only wrong but dangerous as it’ll completely hide the truth of God’s plan and our part in it.

Israel is the key focus of the Bible even though, as we’ll see, Israel is in a fallen state in this day we’re living in now.

So, to understand this “Fellowship of the Mystery” we need to go back in time to past ages, past dispensations and understand how and why this nation of Israel has such a huge influence on what’s happening to us today.

Let’s look at some terms that relate to these past ages so when they appear we know what they mean.

These terms are parts of God’s program through the ages.

We have the promises, the Covenants and the law.

Understanding the promises, the covenants, and the law, all given to the nation Israel, is another key to understanding this mystery.

The Promises.

When we talk about the promises we’re talking about both unconditional and conditional promises that God made the nation of Israel.

We see that in Genesis chapter 12 and God’s unconditional promises to Abram who would later be Abraham. Then in Exodus chapter 19 we see the conditional promises made to the nation of Israel which had grown from Abraham.

The Law

This is the mosaic law, the law given to Israel, by God Himself, through Moses. The 10 commandments were just a sort of table of contents because there’re 613 laws.

We see the start of these laws in Exodus 20 and the details throughout Deuteronomy and many come from the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh.

The Covenants.

The covenants are agreements that God made with the nation of Israel. There were two. The Old covenant, and the New Covenant.

The Old Covenant, which Israel did not, and could not keep their part of, relied on them keeping the law that God had given to them through Moses.

The New Covenant that God made with Israel was that, at the correct time, He would put His laws into their hearts and into their minds so they would do what God required of them as a natural instinct.

There’d be no need for them to be taught the things of God because they’d all know Him and His ways in their hearts and minds.

We see the old covenant in Exodus 20 and the New Covenant prophesied by Jeremaiah in Jeremaiah 31:31 and confirmed in Hebrews 8:10.

Then, last but certainly not least, we need to understand a person. The promises, the law and the covenants along with everything else in the Bible revolves around a hub and that hub is a person.

We’re talking, of course about The Lord, Jesus Christ.

He’s a part, a member of the Godhead, the triune God, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

He was the Word of God Who was in the beginning with God, and was God.

All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

The Word became flesh in the town of Bethlehem some 2000 years ago, born of flesh through the body of a virgin, human woman. Born apart from the seed of Adam which carried the sin nature from person to person, every person who’d ever been born, except this One. The seed of this person was not from man but from God, making Him fully God and fully man both at the same time.

He was given the name Jesus, according to prophecy, which means saviour.

Jesus came to His own, to the nation of Israel, as the long-prophesied Messiah who would save Israel, though Israel did not receive Him. They rejected Him and crucified Him, all according to prophecy.

He came to Israel in the flesh to fulfill prophecy. We see this in Matthew 5 verse 17 and 18, Jesus Himself speaking,

Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.

For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

Then we see in Matthew 15:24 Jesus speaking to the Syrophoenician woman,

But He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

The prophecies and the prophetic dates that were given through prophets like Daniel made certain that there was no puzzle about this coming Messiah or the time He was due.

The nation should have known and there was no excuse for them.

But we’re jumping ahead of the story.

What exactly happened to Israel? Let’s look at a brief history.

Below this broadcast list is a timeline showing this history to make it easy to follow.

From the creation we see mankind continually rejecting God, and outliving the sin which is in every person’s heart, inherited from the fallen first humans. We see that sin and wickedness get so bad that God wipes out the population of the earth except for eight people, Noah and his family. As Noah and His family repopulate the earth we see that population continue in evil and disobedience to God and His plan through the account of the Tower of Babel at which point God disperses the population by separating their language, forcing them to spread over the earth.

But then we get to a man named Abram, whose name would be later changed by God to Abraham, and wife Sarai whose name would also be changed to Sarah.

God chooses this man to make a promise to and we see that in Genesis 12 verses 1 to 3,

Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house To a land that I will show you. 

I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. 

I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

God has promised that a great nation would emerge from this man and that this nation would be a blessing to all the earth. That promise was passed on to Abraham’s son Isaac and then to Isaac’s son Jacob.

Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, and he had the 12 sons that would become the 12 tribes of the nation of Israel.

One of those 12 sons, Joseph, was despised by the other brothers who were jealous of him, and the brothers sold him into slavery and told their father Jacob, Israel, that he’d been killed by a wild animal.

However, Joseph, through one of the most amazing life journeys ever, becomes a ruler in Egypt where he’d become a slave.

In a background of high drama, which can be found in Genesis chapters 37 to 50, there came a great worldwide famine which ended up with this fledging tribe of Israel, 70 people at this stage, coming to Egypt for food and through Joseph, who bought them to live in Egypt, they survived as a nation.

In Genesis chapter 15 God tells Abraham that this would all happen.

Let’s look at Genesis chapter 15 verse 13 and 14,

Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. 

And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions.

That happens. The nation of Israel goes into Egypt and as they’re in Egypt they increase greatly and the Egyptians fear that they may grow to be more powerful than them, so they put them into harsh slavery.

God hears their cries for deliverance from this slavery and raises up a person who would lead them out of captivity, Moses.

In Exodus 12 verses 35 and 36,

Now the children of Israel had done according to the word of Moses, and they had asked from the Egyptians articles of silver, articles of gold, and clothing. 

And the LORD had given the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they granted them what they requested. Thus, they plundered the Egyptians. 

It was God’s way of simply collecting back wages for their years of slave labour in Egypt. The Egyptians owed the Israelites so much in back wages that the children of Israel plundered them and left with much of Egypt’s wealth.

Then we go down to Exodus 12:41,

And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years—on that very same day—it came to pass that all the armies of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt. 

They go from Egypt into the Wilderness where they got God’s law. The fathers weren’t perfect people, and we can read a lot about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’s failures in life, but the nation also learned all sorts of incorrect customs while in Egypt. They served other gods and as they came out they had to get rid of those idols and things.

So, God gave them a law.

And what did they do? Moses goes up to Mount Sinai to receive the law and the very first thing the nation does is build a golden calf, an obscene idol.

It’s the same as the story of the Earth. From the beginning sin entered by one man Adam, ruining the thing that God had created.

Now, God has created this special nation, and their fall begins right away. They start a history of tripping and falling that continues to this day.

Now out of Egypt, it’s God’s intention for them to go in and possess the land that He’d given them through His promise to Abraham.

When they get there, probably after a few weeks, they’re too afraid to go in. They’re afraid of the people who’re in the land at the time.

What they’re really saying is, “We can’t trust God to give us our land, we don’t believe His promise.”

So, God punishes them and says, “Well you’re going to wander in the wilderness until all of this current generation are dead.”

After forty years wandering in that wilderness, they finally get into their promised land, led by the only two people of that unbelieving generation who did believe, Joshua and Caleb.

As usual, they mess up very quickly. God tells them to get rid of the native peoples and they don’t, and so those people remain and cause them problems for the rest of their history.

Then, as soon as God’s man, Joshua dies the nation of Israel disobeys God.

They followed God’s statutes while Joshua was alive and as soon as he died they chucked out those statutes.

In the law that they were given God clearly told them what He would do when they disobeyed

and what they He would do when they obeyed that law.

However, its vital to point out what Paul makes clear in Galatians chapter 3 verse 16 to 18 and we read,

Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “AND TO YOUR SEED,” who is Christ. 

And this I say that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect. 

For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise. 

What Paul’s saying is that the requirement for Israel to be obedient came with the law. However, the promise to Abraham was made 430 years before the law was even given. This means that the promise of the land made to Abraham was not annulled or cancelled out by the nation’s disobedience to the law.

Let’s move to Judges now and look at Judges chapter 2 verse 14 and 15,

And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel. So, He delivered them into the hands of plunderers who despoiled them; and He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. 

Wherever they went out, the hand of the LORD was against them for calamity, as the LORD had said, and as the LORD had sworn to them. And they were greatly distressed. 

The Lord raised up these judges which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them. Let’s keep reading in verses 17 to 19,

Yet they would not listen to their judges, but they played the harlot with other gods, and bowed down to them. They turned quickly from the way in which their fathers walked, in obeying the commandments of the LORD; they did not do so. 

And when the LORD raised up judges for them, the LORD was with the judge and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the LORD was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed them and harassed them. 

And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they reverted and behaved more corruptly than their fathers, by following other gods, to serve them and bow down to them. They did not cease from their own doings nor from their stubborn way.

This is the continuing story of Israel. They didn’t just fall at the end; they were tripping up all along the path of their history.

Israel gets to a point that God said in the law that they would, they look around at the other nations and decide that what they need a king, a man to lead them.

That was wrong because God was their King, and they should have been looking to God for their leadership. However, God then began appointing them Kings and it’s in this time period of the Kings where they get punished some more because their Kings aren’t good.

They end up messing up yet again and God, according to the law, punishes them.

Now let’s look at 2 Samuel chapter 7 and a very important promise that God makes to King David, a man of whom God said was quote, “A man after my own heart”,

“When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 

He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 

Here’s a prophecy talking about the Kingdom of Israel being forever.

God will eventually raise the Kingdom of Israel regardless of how they mess up and fall, and, of course, they did mess up.

David had issues with BethSheba, and his son Solomon had issues with his 700 wives and 300 concubines.

We just saw David getting promised the throne in the Kingdom forever, but still, it didn’t take long before the problems of the nation continued and compounded.

In 1 Kings 11 starting verse 9 to 13 we see,

So, the LORD became angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned from the LORD God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he did not keep what the LORD had commanded. 

Therefore, the LORD said to Solomon, “Because you have done this, and have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant. 

Nevertheless, I will not do it in your days, for the sake of your father David; I will tear it out of the hand of your son. 

However, I will not tear away the whole kingdom; I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of my servant David, and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen.”

After King Solomon’s death his two son’s Jeroboam and Rehoboam (who was Solomon’s rightful successor) cause a civil war in Israel resulting in the nation being split in two.

Israel split into the 10 kingdoms referred to as Ephraim or the house of Israel in the north of the land and only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin remained loyal to Rehoboam in the new kingdom of Judah in the south.

We read about it earlier when God was telling Solomon what was going to happen for his disobedience.

Jeroboam the first king to the 10 tribes, didn’t want those tribes returning to Jerusalem so he set up his own Temple and he set up his own idols, calves made of silver and gold, just like they did in the wilderness.

After this split in the time of the Kings, Hosea prophesied. This is when there’s still a nation, so Israel’s not fallen at this time but they’re making mistakes.

In the future, when Israel goes again into captivity, other nations came in and lived in that area and the Samaritans, who we hear a lot about in the Bible are a mixture of those peoples.

This was in the northern part of the promised land that God had given the nation, and the Samaritans originated there.

In 2nd Kings chapter 17 verse 24 we read,

Then the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel; and they took possession of Samaria and dwelt in its cities. 

Then in 22nd Kings 17:29,

However, every nation continued to make gods of its own, and put them in the shrines on the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities where they dwelt. 

The idolatry and spiritual adultery were almost universal.

As the nation of Israel continued to disobey God He did what he said in the law. The punishment for that disobedience was that they were taken out of the land.

This is the period of captivity that Hosea is prophesying about. He’s says you lot are going to get punished and the kingdom is going to end, and you’ll be carried away to Egypt and to Assyria and you won’t live here anymore in your promised land.

Well, after this split occurs, they keep messing up, and eventually they fall into captivity.

The prophet Jeremiah prophesied that after the 70th year of their captivity, Israel would return back to the land.

This happens during the rule of Cyrus who, despite not being a follower of the God of the Bible, played a pivotal role in God’s plan for His people.

He decrees that they should go back to their land.

This is the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, or the nation of Judah and it’s to Jerusalem to where they’re returning.

The prophet Daniel reads the book of the prophet Jeremiah and in Daniel chapter 9 verse 2 we read,

in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the LORD through Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. 

Go to Jeremiah chapter 29 verse 10 and 11,

For thus says the LORD: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. 

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

We clearly see in Jeremiah that Daniel is speaking of the 70 years of punishment that God gave the nation of Judah for their sins and disobedience of the Covenant.

It talks about their return to that land.

Take a look at Jeremiah 25 verse 11 and 12,

And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

‘Then it will come to pass, when seventy years are completed, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity,’ says the LORD; ‘and I will make it a perpetual desolation.

Then, Cyrus, king of Persia, (the Persians had by now conquered Babylon), issues a decree and sends those from the nation back to rebuild the city of Jerusalem in the land of Judah and to rebuild the temple.

That’s described in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which detail the actual people. It even gives a list their names and how many there were that returned to Judah and Jerusalem and how they rebuilt the wall and then rebuilt the temple.

After that there’s nothing that God says to this nation any longer.

He’s punished them with captivity away from their promised land and then some of them returned to Jerusalem and Judah.

Then God is silent.

Then one day a prophet named John the Baptist came along.

His appearance is prophesied about in the book of Malachi, the last prophetic book in the so-called Old Testament.

Look at Malachi 3 verse 1,

“Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming,” Says the LORD of hosts. 

We also see this in Isaiah 40 verse 3,

The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the LORD; Make straight in the desert A highway for our God. 

In Mark chapter 1 verse 2 we read,

As it is written in the Prophets: “BEHOLD, I SEND MY MESSENGER BEFORE YOUR FACE, WHO WILL PREPARE YOUR WAY BEFORE YOU.” 

“THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS: ‘PREPARE THE WAY OF THE LORD; MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT.'” 

It’s here that God begins to speak to the nation of Israel again.

God spoke to the fathers previously and gave the nation prophets and here’s John, another prophet, and then God Himself comes to the nation in the form of humanity.

What did Israel do in that time?

They did what they’d done since the beginning of their history. They disobeyed God. They didn’t do what He said.

Jesus, who was God Himself came and they rejected him. They nailed him to a cross and crucified him. They rejected the kingdom that he preached was coming. This was their promised kingdom which now The Lord Himself was there to bring to fulfillment.

They rejected Christ Himself and they rejected the Apostles Christ sent to herald the coming kingdom.

Let’s look at that in Matthew 21 verses 42 and 43 where Jesus is telling his disciples what’s going to happen,

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED HAS BECOME THE CHIEF CORNERSTONE. THIS WAS THE LORD’S DOING, AND IT IS MARVELOUS IN OUR EYES’?

“Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. 

And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.”  

That stone is Jesus. Jesus is also referred to by Paul as The Stumbling Stone or what Israel tripped over and we read that in Romans chapters 9, 10, and 11 where Israel failed to receive that Kingdom because of their disobedience.

Their disobedience continued even after God punished them and sent them out of their land.

They continue to reject God.

Look at Matthew chapter 16 verse 15 to 18 where Jesus talks about how he would be rejected. He’d already asked the disciples, “Who do men say I am.” and they answered telling Him that some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.,

He (Jesus) said to them (the disciples), “But who do you say that I am?” 

Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 

Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. 

And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. 

Here we see a play on words by Jesus. Peter means rock and “on this rock” Jesus says. On Peter did He mean?

No! Don’t fall into the Catholic trap. This is not the rock of Peter! The rock is who? Jesus!

The nation of Israel rejected that Cornerstone which became the chief Stone.

Jesus is talking about Himself, Who He is, and it’s upon believing Who He is that He’s going to build his church and the Gates of Hell will not Prevail against it.

Of course, true to form, the nation of Israel rejected that stone. They stumbled over that stone which was Jesus.

They didn’t have faith in God and all God had promised but instead they sought to establish their own righteousness through the works of the law.

This is, in fact, has the opposite result, proving them unrighteous through their lack of faith in Who Jesus was, The Messiah.

Right back into the dawn of mankind faith in what God had said was accounted to man as righteousness as we see in Romans 4 verse 3,

For what does the Scripture say? “ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS ACCOUNTED TO HIM FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS.”

So, the nation rejects Jesus and crucifies Him, and His Apostles preach at Pentecost that thank God He was resurrected. He rose again from the dead and lives.

There’s still hope for our kingdom they say, just repent, or turn from your rejection of God.

The apostles continue to preach that message until we get to the stoning of Stephen in Acts chapter 7.

It’s at this time that the nation falls for the final time. They’ve rejected the prophets which the Father sent, they rejected the Son and now they’re rejecting the Holy Spirit, who the apostles at Pentecost were preaching under the influence of. Jesus Himself said there’s no forgiveness for that rejection or blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

In God’s great prophetic timeline, what should have happened was that Israel would receive their Messiah with overwhelming joy and then, after a short but horrific time of tribulation, where God would pour out His wrath on all unbelievers and all those that had rejected the Messiah, the promised kingdom would be set up on earth and Christ would rule over that kingdom from Jerusalem and from King David’s throne, again in full accordance with prophecy.

In the next episode, part 2 of What is the Fellowship of the Mystery, we’ll see what did happen and we’ll see why this brief summary of the rise and fall of Israel was key to our understanding of that Mystery.

 

How Do I Pray

How Do I Pray – Part 2

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We’re continuing our study looking at prayer and trying to understand just what it is and how we’re supposed to approach it under the dispensation of grace in we live in today and what should we expect in response to prayer.
We’re trying toclear up some of the confusion about prayer by knowing God’s will for the age we currently live in and learning to pray according to that will.

“Speed Slider”

How Do I Pray – Part 2 Transcript

We’re in a series about prayer and we’re just trying to deal with some Elementary lessons about prayer under grace.
Last episode was simply the idea that it’s normal not to know how to pray. Romans 8:26 says,
…For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought…

There’s reasons for that and we’re trying to uncover them in our study here.
It’s very natural for people to pray to God for things, but it’s not natural to understand the things of God and to know what to pray for as we ought. Those things have to be learned.
We learned last time that a good prayer might be, “Lord teach me to pray.” Teach me to pray so I can pray knowing what you’re doing.
It’s natural for people to pray prayers saturated with requests, a laundry list of things to ask God for relating to the life they’re trying to live, but there’s gaps and holes and questions and uncertainties.
Last episode we tried to change the perspective a bit to the perspective of knowing all that God’s already done for us. That change in our prayer perspective should move us from constantly praying to get to praying to give as Paul tells us in 1st Thessalonians 5:18,
In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
That’s a result of knowing what God’s done. If we don’t know what God’s given us, what He’s done for us, it’s hard to say thank you.
Not everyone in the Bible was able to pray prayers of thanksgiving. Many didn’t receive the same things God’s given us which puts us in a unique position in this dispensation to pray certain prayers of thanksgiving.

It’s normal not to know how to pray according to God’s Will and how His will affects our prayers in this dispensation.
It’s normal not to know how to pray and we’ve covered that before.
It’s normal to make requests in prayer. Paul even instructs us to in Philippians 4:6,
Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

It’s also normal to think that prayer is something that should work for us.
We say prayer is a tool God’s given us to submit our requests and suggestions and things because I need help and it’s all about my needing help.

But, what if it wasn’t entirely about that?
Now we wouldn’t know this unless God has revealed things in the scripture about what He’s doing and what His will actually is.

This is what we’ll explore today.
Prayer does not come naturally. We’re born with a spirit, we’re born with a conscience, we’re born with the knowledge that there is a Creator, and so praying to that creator for things is natural.
But prayer is not about making our voice heard before God even though some people think of prayer that way. They even talk about the number of people who join in prayer having a higher chance of getting that prayer heard by God. Almost like making a petition to the government or something, but that’s not how prayer functions, or how God wants it to work, especially in this dispensation of grace that we live in today.
If there’s just one person praying, God hears their prayer just fine.
It’s much less about how many people want a thing or what it is that we want and more about what God wants.
However, if we say prayers about God’s will and not ours then people tend to turn off. It’s not what they want to hear. They say well then what’s the point of me praying?
Well, now our heart is exposed for what it really is which is us wanting things according to our will.

God will hear our prayers, especially in this dispensation where we have access to God through Christ and everything we pray He hears. And that’s different from how it was before.
Prayer has the purpose of aligning our will with God’s will, that’s what prayer’s purposes is and when we go into prayer with that thinking then we’ll understand it instead of thinking that prayer is trying to get God to align with our will.
That’s how most people naturally pray and that’s normal for people to pray that way until we learn differently.

So, rather than thinking that I’m going to pray to tell God what’s up with me so that he can get on board with what I’m doing and help me out, we begin to realise it’s the opposite.
We pray so that the wills that we’re constantly using to do the things we do in life can be aligned in those moments of prayer with what God’s doing. That’s what prayer’s supposed to do.

When we do that, what tends to happen is our own will becomes very diminished. the things that we thought were problems don’t seem as big as before, because now we know what God’s will is.
So, having that perspective about prayer being about God’s will is important. We’ve already learned that God instructs us to pray in this dispensation, so we pray by the will of God, and we pray according to the will of God, with knowledge of that will, and then we pray for the will of God to be done.
We pray as God’s instruct us to pray and we pray with the knowledge of what He’s doing according to His will.
What do we pray for as we ought? Well, that requires us to learn some things and the thing we need to learn is exactly what the will of God is, so we know what to pray for. We’re going to pray for His will to be done.

People talk about prayer and how prayer it didn’t work for them and usually it’s because they want God to do something that they want, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s God’s will or not.
But that’s not what prayer is!
Prayer is us aligning with God’s will. Prayer will work for the will of God, but we have to know what the will of God is. If we don’t know the will of God we’re going to be stuck praying prayers that’re trying to get God to know our will and
it just doesn’t seem like He’s hearing us. He is but prayer doesn’t have that function. Prayer is trying to align us with His will and if we don’t know His will what are we being aligned with? It simply doesn’t work that way.

Let’s look at some men from the Bible who prayed in this way, prayed God’s will in their prayers. There’s a pattern in these scriptures that we should notice.
First, we should notice how they’re praying according to the will of God and for the will of God and secondly how what they’re praying for and how they’re praying according to the will of God changes in different dispensations.

Before the cross of Christ and before Grace, Grace being something that God’s dispensing right now, God operated through the law. He operated through Covenants and He operated through Israel, and this is the way God operated even through the day of the cross through to Pentecost as he was promising a future Kingdom.
And then we have this revelation of a mystery given to Paul by Jesus Christ Himself. It was never prophesied but was kept secret by God before the foundation of the world and then it was revealed to Paul.
It’s a new dispensation that would interrupt prophesy because of the nation of Israel’s rejection of the Messiah.
In this dispensation called the dispensation of Grace, God pours out grace, saving grace, to a wicked world and He’s no longer working through the law, Israel or Israel’s covenants. So, the way God’s operating now, or the will of God today has changed from what God was doing before. Before the law was given God was operating with people in a different way again, without the law and without covenants.
Remember, Abraham back there was not an Israelite. Israel hadn’t even been created yet until Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. It was his twelve sons that became the tribes of Israel. Abraham was not under Israel’s covenants like the Davidic covenants, or the Mosaic covenants and he was not under the law. He wasn’t even circumcised at one point in his life when God made His unconditional promise of the land to him. The apostle Paul takes great pains to point that out in his epistle to the Romans.
And so, we have God operating with Abraham differently than how he’s operating here today.
And we can easily see this in the scripture and reflected in the prayers of men living in these different times of God’s operation.

Let’s look at Genesis chapter 20. We’ll start with Abraham and by this time, Abraham is circumcised, and he’s given a promise that he would have a seed, a son and his son would be a blessing and Abraham would be a blessing among the Nations, and if anyone blessed him they’d be blessed and if anyone cursed him they’d be cursed. It’s important to realise that this promise given to Abraham at this time is not with Israel being present.
This is for this man and his family. So, in Genesis 20 verses 1 and 2 we see this,
And Abraham journeyed from there to the South, and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur, and stayed in Gerar. Now Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah.
This causes an ordeal. Abimelech thinks well she’s a pretty woman, I think I’ll take her to be my wife. Then God appears to him in a dream down in verse 3,
But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, “Indeed you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.”

What’s interesting here is that many people come to the scripture and read these stories and they say well this must be how God deals with everybody.
But, it isn’t how God deals with everybody. These people we’re reading about are the exceptions to how God deals with people.
God gave Abraham a unique promise and Sarah was special because he gave her a promise as well to have a son, Abraham’s son, and so this is a big problem for God’s will being done.
This king of Gerar is going to take Sarah to be his wife. God interrupts and says you’re dead. Now that’s how you change the course of history!
So, Abimelech says whoa, hold on!
Genesis 20 verses 4 to 6,
But Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, “Lord, will You slay a righteous nation also?
Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she, even she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and innocence of my hands I have done this.”
And God said to him in a dream, “Yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart. For I also withheld you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her.

From down in verse seven God tells Abimelech to restore Abraham’s wife to him He’s a prophet and he’ll pray for you, and you’ll live. But if you don’t restore her you’ll die and everyone who is associated with you will die.

Abimelech then wakes up and calls Abraham and said, “Why’d you do this to me? Why’d you lie to me? God threatened me.
He goes back and rebukes Abraham, then down at the end of the chapter in verse 16 he tells Sarah behold I’ve given your brother a thousand pieces of silver, go and be at peace and leave me alone. Now in verse 17 we read and here’s the part that we want to see, it’s Abraham’s prayer,
So Abraham prayed to God; and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female servants. Then they bore children; for the LORD had closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.
You see, God gave a promise to Abraham.
Abraham and Sarah had a special Covenant with God and God actually intervenes to make sure His will gets done.
Abraham prays to God and God healed Abimelech so that his household could again bear children.
So, we see the healing of Abimelech’s household after Abraham prays.
He prays for the healing of Abimelech’s household, and it works, let’s look at how this occurs.
This praying for healing isn’t Abraham coming out of the blue saying you’re sick and I’ve got power from God, so let’s heal you.
It’s God having a purpose with Abraham, Abimelech’s interrupting this purpose and God’s the one that actually caused the sickness here, the barrenness in the wombs. Then he tells Abimelech that Abraham will pray for you.
What’s God’s will here? God’s will is that Abimelech gives Sarah back and for Abraham to pray for him Abimelech obeys the will of God.
Abraham obeys the will of God and says the prayer.
The passages don’t even tell us what Abraham prayed but God heals Abimelech’s household.
Does it even have anything to do with what Abraham prayed? It’s that he prayed in obedience to God and God’s will was already stated. He was going to heal Abimelech when Abraham prayed. That’s what he said!
So, this isn’t some desire of Abraham, it was God’s will for Abimelech’s household to be healed.
It was written in Scripture. Abraham did it and God’s will was done.
That’s how this prayer worked!

Now let’s go to Psalm 37 and we’ll see this pattern over and over again in the scripture, where people, men of faith, pray according to the will of God that’s already known to them and then God’s will’s done.
People tend to think they’re going to pray for their own will when prayer is really about God’s will being done.
People often use Psalm 37 to justify praying for what they themselves want.
Psalm 37 verses 4 and 5,
Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass.

Well, there it is in scripture! We take that verse and put it on a bookmark or a sticker on the fridge. But sadly, most people take the verse completely out of the context. When that happens, we see the verse as whatever the will of your heart is just pray and the Lord’ll give it to you.
Well, firstly, scripture cuts to the chase when speaking of the heart of man.
Jeremaiah 17:9,
The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?
So, knowing that the heart is desperately wicked and knowing that we don’t know what to pray for as you ought. Knowing that we might desire things God doesn’t want us to desire it’s good advice to follow our heart.
But Psalm 37 verses 4 and 5 say God will give us the desires of our heart if we delight ourselves in the Lord.
So, what does it mean to Delight yourself in the lord? What does the Bible say about delighting in the Lord?
Is it that God gives me the desires of my heart and I really want the desires of my heart?
Well, David says in verse 5, commit your way to the Lord!
Now, David’s operating under the law covenants that God gave to Israel. Those covenants were that if you obey, I (God) will bless your field and bless your children and give you prosperity.
Everything that was part of the Covenant was already written down, and it’s the will of God.
So, God is saying here that He’ll give you the desires of your heart after he’s already told you to circumcise your heart and love God with all your heart.
Deuteronomy 10:16,
Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer.

Deuteronomy 30:6,
And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

See how it fits with the good will of God already?
So, us saying well this is the desire of my heart even though I don’t love God very much, that’s breaking the Covenant.
Verse 5’s instruction to, “Commit your way to the Lord” means that your way has to be the Lord’s way. If our way is not the Lord’s way we’re not going to get anything. But what’s the Lord’s way? What’s the lord’s will?
He declared in the covenants keep my Commandments, and so verse five, “Trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass”, does not in any way mean God’s going to do what I want. No! He’s going to do what He wants and when we get on board with what He’s doing, what He wants, that’s when Psalm 37 becomes a reality.
Let’s drop down to verse 9 of Psalm 37,
For evildoers shall be cut off; But those who wait on the LORD, They shall inherit the earth.
We can’t rip these verses out of context. The land was given to Israel. They had land covenants, earth covenants and by the way this this type of language here that they shall inherit the earth sounds familiar doesn’t it?
Look at Verse 11,
But the meek shall inherit the earth, And shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

Remember someone else saying this in the Bible? Jesus said it. He didn’t invent it, apart from the fact that He’s God and He did say it in this Psalm as well!
Jesus said this in Matthew Chapter 5 and 6 repeating prophecy about Israel’s land covenant and it’s fulfillment on the Earth. They’re going to inherit the earth is what God promised to them going right back to Abraham’s promise.
God’s will was known. It was in the law and the covenants. So, the promise God’s going to fulfill for them is what He’s already made known to them.
When they pray to inherit the earth and obey the terms of God’s covenant, God’s going to do what He wills to do. He’s going to keep His promise.

This is not willy-nilly stuff like someone saying, “I like that beachfront property on the Gold Coast, so God give it to me please.”
That’s just not the promise here. There’s nowhere where God said it’s His will for that.
But it was His will for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Israel to have a certain specific measured out piece of land.
Meanwhile in this same Psalm 37:23 David writes,
The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, And He delights in his way.
This is in the same chapter about delighting in the Lord. We shouldn’t read this like whatever I’m going to do he’s going to lead me mystically to do it.
God has given 613 Commandments to Israel from everything about what they wear to what they eat to where they go to what days they celebrate.
He’s ordered everything in Israel and in their society and how they’re to live.
The steps of a good man order by the Lord is that if you’re a good man in Israel you will keep the law. It wasn’t simply love your neighbour, even though that was the second Chief commandment, it was a whole range of very specific details.
They’re ordered by the Lord it says and He Delights in His way.
You see what that’s saying? Delighting yourself in the Lord in Psalm 37’s context is doing the law.

God already revealed what He wanted them to do and what it means to Delight in Him.
Then in Psalm 37:29,
The righteous shall inherit the land, And dwell in it forever.
There it is again. The righteous shall inherit the land! There’s a half a dozen times in this chapter it talks about the land the land the land. This is Israel! The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell therein forever.
Well, there goes Heaven if you’re going to be on the Earth forever. This is Israel!
Then down in verse 31,
The law of his God is in his heart; None of his steps shall slide.
The law of his God is in his heart. Delight yourself in the Lord and He’ll give you the desires of your heart. Well, what’s in his heart? The law of God!
What’s the law of God say? You’ll get the land forever.
Well, that seems like God’s only going to do what He wants. We come to prayer thinking we’re going to manipulate and change God to get him to do what we want. That’s not how prayer works.
We might say, “Well, God, a lot of us down here want something different than what you’re doing.”
However, it’s not going to convince Him.

Go to Psalm 40 verse 8,
I delight to do Your will, O my God, And Your law is within my heart.”
David’s talking about how to condition your heart under the law.
Delight yourself in the Lord’s law. They had to understand that the law of God wasn’t a suggestion or just something that ruled an earthly nation, it was divinely given. It was God’s will for them to do it.
It’s different from the laws of our country which were Man created. Even though many of them were originally influenced by the Bible they were not given from Heaven on Mount Sinai.
We follow laws in our society for various reasons and motivations but it’s not because God gave them from Heaven.
But the law of God that Moses was given was God given from Heaven.

See, the scripture’s clear about what’s the desires of the person’s heart in Psalm 37? The law of God! They delight in the Lord’s will. So, you see where we’re going here?
The prayer it’s not, “Oh goodie, I get to finally make my own request. God says you be good for a week I’ll give you whatever you want.”
No, it’s God saying, “I want to change your heart to do My will because although you don’t know it, My will is better than yours.”
That’s what the Bible’s trying to teach in a nutshell.
God knows better than us, but we think otherwise.

Now let’s look at Solomon.
Go to 2nd Chronicles chapter 7 verse 14,
…if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land..
God’s people here are of course the nation of Israel.
Humble themselves and Pray. In that context it says to Humble yourselves which means we’re not saying me, me, me.
First we have we have the “if” and then we have the “then”.
The “if” is humble themselves, pray seek God’s face, turn from their wicked ways.
The “then” is I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin and heal their land.
Question. Does God hear from heaven when they don’t turn from their wicked ways? Not according to this verse! If they’re not turning from their wicked ways God will not hear from Heaven.
This is why we don’t use this verse as a prayer in this dispensation today, because the unique thing about prayer in this dispensation is that if we’re in Christ, God hears all our prayers by Grace.
We’ve done nothing to be saved by grace. Nothing we’ve done or not done gets us access to God. Therefore, anything we utter in prayer God receives, unlike under the Covenant program and the law where God would only hear their prayers when they obeyed his Covenant. Obey first then I’ll listen to you says God.
Under grace today it’s, “I’ve saved you by My grace. You’re my child in Christ. Pray.” What an amazing privilege and benefit to have.

But back there with Solomon, God says forgiveness and healing of their land is received through humbling themselves, praying and seeking God’s face and turning from their wicked ways.

Forgiveness in this dispensation of grace we live in today is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
Colossians 1 verse 14,
…in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
You see using this verse in 2nd Chronicles as a prayer denies the grace blessings you’ve been given by Christ today.
Forgiveness then was not yet being offered based on Christ’s shed blood.
They were under a covenant program which said you need to do the law then
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God’ll hear and then respond, and that’s what God promised. He’ll hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.

God’s talking about Israel in 2nd Chronicles 7:14. God’s speaking to Solomon privately in Solomon’s house in response to Solomon’s Prayer.
So we should go back and see exactly what Solomon prayed, because if Solomon can get a private response from God and some sort of prayer promise even though it’s not the dispensation you and I live in today, then maybe we should learn how Solomon prayed.
2nd Chronicles 6 verse one,
Then Solomon spoke: “The LORD said He would dwell in the dark cloud.
The context of what’s going on here is that Solomon is dedicating the temple that he built for God.
The prayer to which God is responding to in chapter 7 is this prayer of Solomon’s.
2nd Chronicles 6:2,
I have surely built You an exalted house, And a place for You to dwell in forever.”
He’s talking to God there saying I built you a house to dwell in forever.
2nd Chronicles 6:3,
Then the king turned around and blessed the whole assembly of Israel, while all the assembly of Israel was standing.

The notice what Solomon says next in 2nd Chronicles 6:4,
And he said: “Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, who has fulfilled with His hands what He spoke with His mouth to my father David,
See, Solomon is praying according to what God’s already said He’s going to do. look at verse 5,
Since the day that I brought My people out of the land of Egypt, I have chosen no city from any tribe of Israel in which to build a house, that My name might be there, nor did I choose any man to be a ruler over My people Israel.

Now verse 6,
Yet I have chosen Jerusalem, that My name may be there, and I have chosen David to be over My people Israel.’
This is what God promised David!

Verse 7,
Now it was in the heart of my father David to build a temple for the name of the LORD God of Israel.
Remember, David wanted to do that. He wanted to build a house. What did God say to David? No!
But what did he say to David instead?
Verse 9,
Nevertheless you shall not build the temple, but your son who will come from your body, he shall build the temple for My name.’
When David wanted to build God’s house, God said no but his son, Solomon would build it.
Now Solomon’s built the temple and He’s dedicating it.
See how all this was God’s will. Solomon’s prayer is that we did God’s will and he’s now praying according to that will!
You see a lot of background knowledge in all these verses. Solomon’s not just praying something like, “Well I built something for you God, even though you didn’t ask for it and I hope you can bless it even though you never promised you would, and I hope that if anyone comes in this building that you know they’ll have spiritual fulfillment even though you’ve never said that.”
That’s how many of us Christians pray.
We pray about things we do when there’s no biblical justification for it.
Solomon built this because God said to!
God made a promise to do it and to bless him for doing it. And he’s is praying to fulfill what God said he wanted him to do.
In verses 10 and 11, Solomon goes on,
So the LORD has fulfilled His word which He spoke, and I have filled the position of my father David, and sit on the throne of Israel, as the LORD promised; and I have built the temple for the name of the LORD God of Israel. And there I have put the ark, in which is the covenant of the LORD which He made with the children of Israel.”
So over and over again he’s talking about God’s fulfilling of what He promised Down in verse 17 and 18 he says,
And now, O LORD God of Israel, let Your word come true, which You have spoken to Your servant David. “But will God indeed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built!
Solomon turns his attention to speak to God directly and this is in front of the congregation of Israel.

Do not make this house the house you go to for church.
This is a house God told Solomon to build specifically for Him.
No church organisation ever received that instruction.
Solomon goes on for the remainder of the chapter praying about the temple according to the will of God.

God responds to Solomon privately as Solomon goes home and tells him that he has heard his prayer and that, quote, “I will be in this house and if my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray then I will heal their land I’ll forgive their sins.”

People don’t know what to pray for because often they’re not interested in learning what God will is.
That’s why it’s not easy to know what to pray for in this dispensation of today because knowing God’s will requires us to understand how His will has been revealed and how it has changed and now been revealed in this dispensation.
Christians, not understanding that not all the Bible is written to them and about them, take prayers from everywhere.
Whenever we hear Christians taking verses out of context and asking for
things contrary to God’s will, a red flag should go off in our mind.
If it’s not God’s will as clearly given tin the Bible, then there’s no way we can walk in that information or participate in it. It’s just simply outside God’s will and we should back away.
We saw Jesus in the last episode is teaching the disciples to pray in the so called Lord’s prayer and it was easy to see from prophecy that it was all according to God’s will, and the disciples knew that.

And as we pointed out last time also, to think that the church is to pray this prayer, especially as frequently as they do, is to say that in this prayer is the will of God for the church today and there’s a problem with that.
If this prayer is the will of God for the church today it doesn’t include the cross at all, or seeing all men saved, or the body of Christ, the creating of that new creature, or the church anywhere for that matter!
It’s eating every day to survive, being led on the earth to a kingdom come and forgiving others so you might receive forgiveness.
That is actually for the 12 tribes of Israel, it’s simply not the will of God for you and me today in this dispensation of grace.
But what that prayer does include, as Jesus taught it, was the will of God for Israel.
Jesus knew the will of God. Jesus knew He was God, but he also said He came to do the will of His father. That’s why He came to Earth to do the will of His father, to confirm the promise made in the covenants and also to die on the cross.
See the pattern of prayer? God’s will, God’s will, God’s will, not our partitions for things, for health, wealth and happiness that emerge from our own desires.

In Luke 18 verse 31 to 33 we hear Jesus say,
Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished.” For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon.
They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.”

What He just said was that whatever God said before that He was going to do; He’s going to do. Is it a mystery here what Christ is going to do? No, it’s been revealed even though the disciples are kind of ignorant of it.
We see this in the next verse, verse 34,
But they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.
Like a lot of us Christians today, they just don’t know what the Bible actually says, but that doesn’t mean God hasn’t said it.
Now the disciples were not taught to pray about the situation, for Jesus’s work to die on the cross for the sins of the world.
That wasn’t even in that prayer the Lord taught them.
The disciples don’t understand anything he says here.
They didn’t know about his death and Resurrection, but Jesus did know. He
Knew He’d come to this earth to die. He also knew why.
In Luke 22, the night of His betrayal, and remember the disciples don’t understand anything about it, Jesus says this,
Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.
He hasn’t died yet. No one there that night understood the gospel preaching of the Cross, but Jesus says I’m going to shed My blood for the New Testament, I’m going to shed my blood for sins, I’m going to shed my blood for Israel’s promises being fulfilled.
Jesus knew what God’s will was for Him and why.
Now drop down to Luke 22 verse 42. It’s after the meal and they go out and sing a song then go to the Garden of Gethsemane. Peter, James and John are with Him and He’s told them to pray that you may not enter into temptation.
Jesus then prays saying,
“Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done.”
Jesus knows why He came. It was to die. He knew He’d come to fulfill the promises and the prophets. He knew He’d come to die for the sin of the world. He knew even what was not yet revealed according to God’s will, which is that His death on the cross would accomplish something far greater, the creation of a new creature in the body of Christ. To perform His will for the ages and that’s why He says, “Nevertheless not My will but yours be done.”
Whatever pain and suffering and sorrow He’s feeling, whatever the resistance and temptation to not perform this thing, it needs to be accomplished because it’s God’s will, incidentally, the will He Himself purposed with the Father.
That’s Jesus’s prayer to the father. Should our prayers be any less according to God’s will?
However, for us to pray God’s will we need to know His will!

1st John 5 verses 14 and 15 is a popular prayer today, taught by Jon who was there in the Garden with Jesus on that dreadful night. John says,
Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.

That’s what we’re trying to get across from the scripture.
When we pray it should be according to God’s will.
Then we have to recognise that God’s will relating to how he deals with mankind changes from age to age. God Himself never changes of course, but the way he deals with His human creation does.
John writes in this epistle of 1st John as a member of the remnant of Israel. One of those who’ve been promised a kingdom come.
He says we know we have confidence in him that whatever we ask we have the petitions we desired of Him.
That sounds like Psalm 37 which said,
Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
As we saw at length He’ll give you the desires of your heart because your heart contains God’s will.
God’s not waiting for us to have a good idea. He has His will. We’re the ones that need to know it, for us to align with His will. In the circumstances of our lives, where sometimes it’s hard to see God’s will, we do our own thing anyway, but to do the things we need to do we must align ourselves, in that moment of prayer, to say God has a will and I’m supposed to be aligning with it. That helps us in how we walk day to day in this world.

According to Romans 8, we don’t know what to pray for, but the Holy Spirit helps but His words are not given to us in a supernatural inner voice today, they’re given to us in the scripture, which means we’ve got to open up the book and read and understand these things.
If we go back to 1st John 5 we see in verse 16 why they could ask anything according to His will and He hears, and they have the petitions they asked of Him.
See they’re talking about forgiving sins. The things that they’re asking God to do is forgiving sins.
In 1st John 1 verse 9 we see,
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
That’s what they’re ask Him. That’s why verse 16 says there’s some sins you shouldn’t pray for, which is another issue for another day, but they’re praying specifically for forgiveness.
Do we need to pray for forgiveness today? Is it our job to pray for forgiveness of someone else? No! Christ has shed his blood for all men’s forgiveness. Our pray today is that mankind, including the people we know and love, trust His completed work for the forgiveness of their sins.

In every prayer that we’ve just covered, and there are many, many more throughout the Bible, all these men prayed the will of God and their own will aligned with it.
None of them said, “Well that’s a good idea God but I have a better thought on how to do it.”
How do we get prayer to work? We need to know how God is working and what He wants. When we align ourselves with God’s will and His work then we see God working more clearly. Now we’re praying the same thing that God’s doing, His will for today.
Prayer works today according to how God works, what He’s doing in this dispensation, knowing full well that what He does changes throughout the scripture. Of course, God Himself never changes. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, but how he deals with His precious creation, mankind, does change from age to age.
What He’s doing today is not what He’ll do in the future on the earth.
It’s not what He was doing at Pentecost or during Israel’s wilderness wanderings or when Israel conquered the land. And, when God changes his mode of operation with man, then prayer must change as well.
We know that The Body of Christ is not Israel. The body of Christ is neither Jew nor Gentile. We’re not under the law. As Romans 6:14 says,
For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
The body of Christ is a new creature created to serve God outside of the law.
2nd Corinthians 5:1,
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Then in Galatians 6:15,
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision (the Jew) nor uncircumcision (the Gentile) avails anything, but a new creation.
That doesn’t mean that we’re walking in sin. It means the law’s not the motivation for us to do right. We have a greater motivation which is God’s grace explained to us in the incredible book of Romans.
Not only are we not under the Mosaic law, we’re also strangers from the covenants relating to the earthly Kingdom.
Ephesians 2 says that we’re strangers from Israel’s covenants and when we join to God we don’t join to God through Israel’s covenants We join to God through the new man that he’s made, the new creature, the Body of Christ.

To fully understand God’s will for us today we need to understand the dispensation of grace that we’re now living in today.

We look to Romans 16 verses 25 to 26,
Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith—

Now, it isn’t just knowing that there was a mystery that was kept secret even though that’s important. It’s knowing that this mystery that God kept secret from the foundation of the world has now been revealed. It was revealed by Jesus Christ Himself through the apostle Paul.
The point of this verse is that Jesus Christ will establish us in the will of God that’s the point of the verse.
It’s so we might know God’s will according to that mystery.
How did this mystery period, which is the dispensation of grace come into being?
Ephesians 3 verses 1 to 7,
For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles— if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel, of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power.

It’s hard to imagine that the apostle Paul, before he met Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus and was saved, was a violent and unrelenting persecutor of all who believed in Jesus Christ.

If you go through some of our other material you can find a more detailed explanation of the mystery revealed.
This dispensation that was revealed to Paul after being kept secret by God before the foundation of the world came into reality as an interruption, if you like, to the timeline of prophecy. This timeline included all the things that happened throughout Israel’s history and during Jesus’s earthly ministry when He came to earth to fulfill prophecy and the law to the letter. It also included the events of the day of Pentecost after the Lord had ascended back to heaven after His resurrection.
This is where the apostle Peter quotes the prophet Joel and refers to this time as the time that those events spoken of in Joel are actually happening. This certainly would have been the case but for one major factor, Israel rejected Jesus Christ, the Messiah. They rejected Him when He was on earth, and they continue to reject Him after He returned to heaven. The last straw for Israel was when they stoned Stephen in Acts chapter 7.
They had Rejected the Messiah, they’d rejected God and rejected the Holy Spirit and, as a result God rejected them, and Israel fell.
All that they were promised, the New Covenant, the Kingdom and the restoration of the nation to its former glory under King David and King Solomon were postponed and Israel entered a state of blindness which lasts right up till today.
So, in place of what should have happened, according to prophecy, God introduces this interlude that He knew about and knew would come, but kept it secret.
Every promise and prophecy relating to Israel was now on hold.
This period, this dispensation of grace, would be a time where God offered free Grace to a rebellious and wicked world. Grace that would be bestowed no longer through Israel, their priests and their religious systems, but directly from God by no other vehicle than faith in God’s Word, the gospel of grace. This gospel and salvation by grace is now open to every human, no matter how bad or good or whether he’s a Jew or a Gentile. The nation Israel has been temporarily sidelined as God’s priesthood that brings all nations to the knowledge of God. They’re sidelined until a day comes, which it will during the great tribulation, when they turn and realise that Jesus was the Messiah all along and they accept Him.
This incredible dispensation of grace has so far lasted for 2000 years.

So, now God has once again changed the way He deals with mankind. Now salvation is by grace alone, through faith, without works of the law or works of any kind. It’s through believing and nothing else!
Where do we find our instruction, our doctrine and what God’s will is for this incredible dispensation of grace today?
We find it in the 13 epistles written by the apostle Paul. The interesting thing with Paul is that in those 13 epistles Paul gives us both instruction in prayer and examples. He continually uses his own prayer life as an example of the instruction to pray.

In 1st Timothy 2 verses 3 and 4 we read about God’s overall will and therefore a baseline for our prayers,
For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

So, we have salvation by the gospel of grace of God as Paul preaches and then coming to a knowledge of the truth. The truth of what? Of whom we are and what God’s doing today and what He’s accomplished by the cross and through his grace today.

In 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 1 and 2 Paul writes concerning our walk,
Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God; for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
He says very clearly that this is the will of God concerning us that we should abound more and more. In what?
In the knowledge of God and His will as we see in Colossians 1 verses 9 and 10,
For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;
When we read what Paul wrote in Romans and Corinthians and Galatians and his other epistles we’re reading what Paul taught these churches and we can
receive from Paul what they received from Paul, and we can know how we ought to walk.
If we don’t know we go back and learn. It’s that learning process that takes us from not knowing how or what to pray for as we ought to knowing what and how to pray.

1st Thessalonians 4 verse 3,
For this is the will of God, your sanctification:
Our sanctification or our purity is God’s will. To be who God made us to be, set apart for His purpose which means we have to know His purpose, which is Grace today.
Part of that’s, in fact a very big part, is being grateful. In 1st Thessalonians 5 verses 17 and 18 we’re told,
pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

We’ve covered these verses before. Knowing the will of God is clear in these passages. In everything give thanks. That’s a prayer verse but what we’re talking about today is praying knowing the will of God and then praying for the will of God.
If we struggle praying from this perspective of grace today, maybe we need to pray to God to change our perspective.
If we constantly think that the only thing we can pray for is something that we need and we don’t respect what God’s already given us in abundance then maybe our prayer might be, “God please help me to be thankful because I know that’s your will.” See we’d no longer praying our will we’re praying His will.
We can pray, “Lord teach me what it means to be a member of the body of Christ and to be sanctified. What does it mean to walk according to what you told Paul because I’m still trying to learn that, but I know that’s your will because I can see it clearly in scripture.”
See, we’re praying according to His will and that should help inform our Prayers.
It’s sometimes easier to read these verses about God’s will and know the will of God than it is to practice the will of God in prayer.
It requires a heart change.

We have to believe that what God’s doing today is the best thing for today.
We can’t pray to God to ask Him to act like He did in another age, like start healing the masses or bring that Kingdom in because we think that’d be better. What God is doing today is what He wills to do today, and it will work when we pray according to His will.
We can clearly know the ministry God’s doing today and it’s different than what He was doing before. He’s dealing with the spiritual today. He wants to see Souls saved and be spiritually strengthened in our inner man.

Paul prays in Colossians 1 verses 9 to 12,
For this reason, we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.

This is God’s will for us.
Colossians 4 verse 2 to 4 is a great prayer of Pauls,
Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving; meanwhile praying also for us, that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in chains, that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.
This is for all those who strive to bring the whole counsel of God to people.

We’re trying to see how all these prayers even in the old Testament were patterned according to the will of God. We just have to discern what the will of God is for today.
The Colossians 4 prayer works by understanding what God’s doing then we pray accordingly and then we watch because when we know God’s will we know what to look for and as we pray according to God’s will we’re participating in that will.

We change our will to recognise we want God’s will being done not ours.
A good prayer to start with may be, “Lord, your will be done not mine.” And then go and learn his will and our prayers will align us with that will.
There’s reasons for that and we’re trying to uncover them in our study here.
It’s very natural for people to pray to God for things, but it’s not natural to understand the things of God and to know what to pray for as we ought. Those things have to be learned.
We learned last time that a good prayer might be, “Lord teach me to pray.” Teach me to pray so I can pray knowing what you’re doing.
It’s natural for people to pray prayers saturated with requests, a laundry list of things to ask God for relating to the life they’re trying to live, but there’s gaps and holes and questions and uncertainties.
Last episode we tried to change the perspective a bit to the perspective of knowing all that God’s already done for us. That change in our prayer perspective should move us from constantly praying to get to praying to give as Paul tells us in 1st Thessalonians 5:18,
In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
That’s a result of knowing what God’s done. If we don’t know what God’s given us, what He’s done for us, it’s hard to say thank you.
Not everyone in the Bible was able to pray prayers of thanksgiving. Many didn’t receive the same things God’s given us which puts us in a unique position in this dispensation to pray certain prayers of thanksgiving.
It’s normal not to know how to pray according to God’s Will and how His will affects our prayers in this dispensation.
It’s normal not to know how to pray and we’ve covered that before.
It’s normal to make requests in prayer. Paul even instructs us to in Philippians 4:6,
Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

It’s also normal to think that prayer is something that should work for us.
We say prayer is a tool God’s given us to submit our requests and suggestions and things because I need help and it’s all about my needing help.

But, what if it wasn’t entirely about that?
Now we wouldn’t know this unless God has revealed things in the scripture about what He’s doing and what His will actually is.

This is what we’ll explore today.
Prayer does not come naturally. We’re born with a spirit, we’re born with a conscience, we’re born with the knowledge that there is a Creator, and so praying to that creator for things is natural.
But prayer is not about making our voice heard before God even though some people think of prayer that way. They even talk about the number of people who join in prayer having a higher chance of getting that prayer heard by God. Almost like making a petition to the government or something, but that’s not how prayer functions, or how God wants it to work, especially in this dispensation of grace that we live in today.
If there’s just one person praying, God hears their prayer just fine.
It’s much less about how many people want a thing or what it is that we want and more about what God wants.
However, if we say prayers about God’s will and not ours then people tend to turn off. It’s not what they want to hear. They say well then what’s the point of me praying?
Well, now our heart is exposed for what it really is which is us wanting things according to our will.

God will hear our prayers, especially in this dispensation where we have access to God through Christ and everything we pray He hears. And that’s different from how it was before.
Prayer has the purpose of aligning our will with God’s will, that’s what prayer’s purposes is and when we go into prayer with that thinking then we’ll understand it instead of thinking that prayer is trying to get God to align with our will.
That’s how most people naturally pray and that’s normal for people to pray that way until we learn differently.

So, rather than thinking that I’m going to pray to tell God what’s up with me so that he can get on board with what I’m doing and help me out, we begin to realise it’s the opposite.
We pray so that the wills that we’re constantly using to do the things we do in life can be aligned in those moments of prayer with what God’s doing. That’s what prayer’s supposed to do.

When we do that, what tends to happen is our own will becomes very diminished. the things that we thought were problems don’t seem as big as before, because now we know what God’s will is.
So, having that perspective about prayer being about God’s will is important. We’ve already learned that God instructs us to pray in this dispensation, so we pray by the will of God, and we pray according to the will of God, with knowledge of that will, and then we pray for the will of God to be done.
We pray as God’s instruct us to pray and we pray with the knowledge of what He’s doing according to His will.
What do we pray for as we ought? Well, that requires us to learn some things and the thing we need to learn is exactly what the will of God is, so we know what to pray for. We’re going to pray for His will to be done.

People talk about prayer and how prayer it didn’t work for them and usually it’s because they want God to do something that they want, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s God’s will or not.
But that’s not what prayer is!
Prayer is us aligning with God’s will. Prayer will work for the will of God, but we have to know what the will of God is. If we don’t know the will of God we’re going to be stuck praying prayers that’re trying to get God to know our will and
it just doesn’t seem like He’s hearing us. He is but prayer doesn’t have that function. Prayer is trying to align us with His will and if we don’t know His will what are we being aligned with? It simply doesn’t work that way.

Let’s look at some men from the Bible who prayed in this way, prayed God’s will in their prayers. There’s a pattern in these scriptures that we should notice.
First, we should notice how they’re praying according to the will of God and for the will of God and secondly how what they’re praying for and how they’re praying according to the will of God changes in different dispensations.

Before the cross of Christ and before Grace, Grace being something that God’s dispensing right now, God operated through the law. He operated through Covenants and He operated through Israel, and this is the way God operated even through the day of the cross through to Pentecost as he was promising a future Kingdom.
And then we have this revelation of a mystery given to Paul by Jesus Christ Himself. It was never prophesied but was kept secret by God before the foundation of the world and then it was revealed to Paul.
It’s a new dispensation that would interrupt prophesy because of the nation of Israel’s rejection of the Messiah.
In this dispensation called the dispensation of Grace, God pours out grace, saving grace, to a wicked world and He’s no longer working through the law, Israel or Israel’s covenants. So, the way God’s operating now, or the will of God today has changed from what God was doing before. Before the law was given God was operating with people in a different way again, without the law and without covenants.
Remember, Abraham back there was not an Israelite. Israel hadn’t even been created yet until Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. It was his twelve sons that became the tribes of Israel. Abraham was not under Israel’s covenants like the Davidic covenants, or the Mosaic covenants and he was not under the law. He wasn’t even circumcised at one point in his life when God made His unconditional promise of the land to him. The apostle Paul takes great pains to point that out in his epistle to the Romans.
And so, we have God operating with Abraham differently than how he’s operating here today.
And we can easily see this in the scripture and reflected in the prayers of men living in these different times of God’s operation.

Let’s look at Genesis chapter 20. We’ll start with Abraham and by this time, Abraham is circumcised, and he’s given a promise that he would have a seed, a son and his son would be a blessing and Abraham would be a blessing among the Nations, and if anyone blessed him they’d be blessed and if anyone cursed him they’d be cursed. It’s important to realise that this promise given to Abraham at this time is not with Israel being present.
This is for this man and his family. So, in Genesis 20 verses 1 and 2 we see this,
And Abraham journeyed from there to the South, and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur, and stayed in Gerar. Now Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah.
This causes an ordeal. Abimelech thinks well she’s a pretty woman, I think I’ll take her to be my wife. Then God appears to him in a dream down in verse 3,
But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, “Indeed you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.”

What’s interesting here is that many people come to the scripture and read these stories and they say well this must be how God deals with everybody.
But, it isn’t how God deals with everybody. These people we’re reading about are the exceptions to how God deals with people.
God gave Abraham a unique promise and Sarah was special because he gave her a promise as well to have a son, Abraham’s son, and so this is a big problem for God’s will being done.
This king of Gerar is going to take Sarah to be his wife. God interrupts and says you’re dead. Now that’s how you change the course of history!
So, Abimelech says whoa, hold on!
Genesis 20 verses 4 to 6,
But Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, “Lord, will You slay a righteous nation also?
Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she, even she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and innocence of my hands I have done this.”
And God said to him in a dream, “Yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart. For I also withheld you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her.

From down in verse seven God tells Abimelech to restore Abraham’s wife to him He’s a prophet and he’ll pray for you, and you’ll live. But if you don’t restore her you’ll die and everyone who is associated with you will die.

Abimelech then wakes up and calls Abraham and said, “Why’d you do this to me? Why’d you lie to me? God threatened me.
He goes back and rebukes Abraham, then down at the end of the chapter in verse 16 he tells Sarah behold I’ve given your brother a thousand pieces of silver, go and be at peace and leave me alone. Now in verse 17 we read and here’s the part that we want to see, it’s Abraham’s prayer,
So Abraham prayed to God; and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female servants. Then they bore children; for the LORD had closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.
You see, God gave a promise to Abraham.
Abraham and Sarah had a special Covenant with God and God actually intervenes to make sure His will gets done.
Abraham prays to God and God healed Abimelech so that his household could again bear children.
So, we see the healing of Abimelech’s household after Abraham prays.
He prays for the healing of Abimelech’s household, and it works, let’s look at how this occurs.
This praying for healing isn’t Abraham coming out of the blue saying you’re sick and I’ve got power from God, so let’s heal you.
It’s God having a purpose with Abraham, Abimelech’s interrupting this purpose and God’s the one that actually caused the sickness here, the barrenness in the wombs. Then he tells Abimelech that Abraham will pray for you.
What’s God’s will here? God’s will is that Abimelech gives Sarah back and for Abraham to pray for him Abimelech obeys the will of God.
Abraham obeys the will of God and says the prayer.
The passages don’t even tell us what Abraham prayed but God heals Abimelech’s household.
Does it even have anything to do with what Abraham prayed? It’s that he prayed in obedience to God and God’s will was already stated. He was going to heal Abimelech when Abraham prayed. That’s what he said!
So, this isn’t some desire of Abraham, it was God’s will for Abimelech’s household to be healed.
It was written in Scripture. Abraham did it and God’s will was done.
That’s how this prayer worked!

Now let’s go to Psalm 37 and we’ll see this pattern over and over again in the scripture, where people, men of faith, pray according to the will of God that’s already known to them and then God’s will’s done.
People tend to think they’re going to pray for their own will when prayer is really about God’s will being done.
People often use Psalm 37 to justify praying for what they themselves want.
Psalm 37 verses 4 and 5,
Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass.

Well, there it is in scripture! We take that verse and put it on a bookmark or a sticker on the fridge. But sadly, most people take the verse completely out of the context. When that happens, we see the verse as whatever the will of your heart is just pray and the Lord’ll give it to you.
Well, firstly, scripture cuts to the chase when speaking of the heart of man.
Jeremaiah 17:9,
The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?
So, knowing that the heart is desperately wicked and knowing that we don’t know what to pray for as you ought. Knowing that we might desire things God doesn’t want us to desire it’s good advice to follow our heart.
But Psalm 37 verses 4 and 5 say God will give us the desires of our heart if we delight ourselves in the Lord.
So, what does it mean to Delight yourself in the lord? What does the Bible say about delighting in the Lord?
Is it that God gives me the desires of my heart and I really want the desires of my heart?
Well, David says in verse 5, commit your way to the Lord!
Now, David’s operating under the law covenants that God gave to Israel. Those covenants were that if you obey, I (God) will bless your field and bless your children and give you prosperity.
Everything that was part of the Covenant was already written down, and it’s the will of God.
So, God is saying here that He’ll give you the desires of your heart after he’s already told you to circumcise your heart and love God with all your heart.
Deuteronomy 10:16,
Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer.

Deuteronomy 30:6,
And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

See how it fits with the good will of God already?
So, us saying well this is the desire of my heart even though I don’t love God very much, that’s breaking the Covenant.
Verse 5’s instruction to, “Commit your way to the Lord” means that your way has to be the Lord’s way. If our way is not the Lord’s way we’re not going to get anything. But what’s the Lord’s way? What’s the lord’s will?
He declared in the covenants keep my Commandments, and so verse five, “Trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass”, does not in any way mean God’s going to do what I want. No! He’s going to do what He wants and when we get on board with what He’s doing, what He wants, that’s when Psalm 37 becomes a reality.
Let’s drop down to verse 9 of Psalm 37,
For evildoers shall be cut off; But those who wait on the LORD, They shall inherit the earth.
We can’t rip these verses out of context. The land was given to Israel. They had land covenants, earth covenants and by the way this this type of language here that they shall inherit the earth sounds familiar doesn’t it?
Look at Verse 11,
But the meek shall inherit the earth, And shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

Remember someone else saying this in the Bible? Jesus said it. He didn’t invent it, apart from the fact that He’s God and He did say it in this Psalm as well!
Jesus said this in Matthew Chapter 5 and 6 repeating prophecy about Israel’s land covenant and it’s fulfillment on the Earth. They’re going to inherit the earth is what God promised to them going right back to Abraham’s promise.
God’s will was known. It was in the law and the covenants. So, the promise God’s going to fulfill for them is what He’s already made known to them.
When they pray to inherit the earth and obey the terms of God’s covenant, God’s going to do what He wills to do. He’s going to keep His promise.

This is not willy-nilly stuff like someone saying, “I like that beachfront property on the Gold Coast, so God give it to me please.”
That’s just not the promise here. There’s nowhere where God said it’s His will for that.
But it was His will for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Israel to have a certain specific measured out piece of land.
Meanwhile in this same Psalm 37:23 David writes,
The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, And He delights in his way.
This is in the same chapter about delighting in the Lord. We shouldn’t read this like whatever I’m going to do he’s going to lead me mystically to do it.
God has given 613 Commandments to Israel from everything about what they wear to what they eat to where they go to what days they celebrate.
He’s ordered everything in Israel and in their society and how they’re to live.
The steps of a good man order by the Lord is that if you’re a good man in Israel you will keep the law. It wasn’t simply love your neighbour, even though that was the second Chief commandment, it was a whole range of very specific details.
They’re ordered by the Lord it says and He Delights in His way.
You see what that’s saying? Delighting yourself in the Lord in Psalm 37’s context is doing the law.

God already revealed what He wanted them to do and what it means to Delight in Him.
Then in Psalm 37:29,
The righteous shall inherit the land, And dwell in it forever.
There it is again. The righteous shall inherit the land! There’s a half a dozen times in this chapter it talks about the land the land the land. This is Israel! The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell therein forever.
Well, there goes Heaven if you’re going to be on the Earth forever. This is Israel!
Then down in verse 31,
The law of his God is in his heart; None of his steps shall slide.
The law of his God is in his heart. Delight yourself in the Lord and He’ll give you the desires of your heart. Well, what’s in his heart? The law of God!
What’s the law of God say? You’ll get the land forever.
Well, that seems like God’s only going to do what He wants. We come to prayer thinking we’re going to manipulate and change God to get him to do what we want. That’s not how prayer works.
We might say, “Well, God, a lot of us down here want something different than what you’re doing.”
However, it’s not going to convince Him.

Go to Psalm 40 verse 8,
I delight to do Your will, O my God, And Your law is within my heart.”
David’s talking about how to condition your heart under the law.
Delight yourself in the Lord’s law. They had to understand that the law of God wasn’t a suggestion or just something that ruled an earthly nation, it was divinely given. It was God’s will for them to do it.
It’s different from the laws of our country which were Man created. Even though many of them were originally influenced by the Bible they were not given from Heaven on Mount Sinai.
We follow laws in our society for various reasons and motivations but it’s not because God gave them from Heaven.
But the law of God that Moses was given was God given from Heaven.

See, the scripture’s clear about what’s the desires of the person’s heart in Psalm 37? The law of God! They delight in the Lord’s will. So, you see where we’re going here?
The prayer it’s not, “Oh goodie, I get to finally make my own request. God says you be good for a week I’ll give you whatever you want.”
No, it’s God saying, “I want to change your heart to do My will because although you don’t know it, My will is better than yours.”
That’s what the Bible’s trying to teach in a nutshell.
God knows better than us, but we think otherwise.

Now let’s look at Solomon.
Go to 2nd Chronicles chapter 7 verse 14,
…if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land..
God’s people here are of course the nation of Israel.
Humble themselves and Pray. In that context it says to Humble yourselves which means we’re not saying me, me, me.
First we have we have the “if” and then we have the “then”.
The “if” is humble themselves, pray seek God’s face, turn from their wicked ways.
The “then” is I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin and heal their land.
Question. Does God hear from heaven when they don’t turn from their wicked ways? Not according to this verse! If they’re not turning from their wicked ways God will not hear from Heaven.
This is why we don’t use this verse as a prayer in this dispensation today, because the unique thing about prayer in this dispensation is that if we’re in Christ, God hears all our prayers by Grace.
We’ve done nothing to be saved by grace. Nothing we’ve done or not done gets us access to God. Therefore, anything we utter in prayer God receives, unlike under the Covenant program and the law where God would only hear their prayers when they obeyed his Covenant. Obey first then I’ll listen to you says God.
Under grace today it’s, “I’ve saved you by My grace. You’re my child in Christ. Pray.” What an amazing privilege and benefit to have.

But back there with Solomon, God says forgiveness and healing of their land is received through humbling themselves, praying and seeking God’s face and turning from their wicked ways.

Forgiveness in this dispensation of grace we live in today is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
Colossians 1 verse 14,
…in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
You see using this verse in 2nd Chronicles as a prayer denies the grace blessings you’ve been given by Christ today.
Forgiveness then was not yet being offered based on Christ’s shed blood.
They were under a covenant program which said you need to do the law then
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God’ll hear and then respond, and that’s what God promised. He’ll hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.

God’s talking about Israel in 2nd Chronicles 7:14. God’s speaking to Solomon privately in Solomon’s house in response to Solomon’s Prayer.
So we should go back and see exactly what Solomon prayed, because if Solomon can get a private response from God and some sort of prayer promise even though it’s not the dispensation you and I live in today, then maybe we should learn how Solomon prayed.
2nd Chronicles 6 verse one,
Then Solomon spoke: “The LORD said He would dwell in the dark cloud.
The context of what’s going on here is that Solomon is dedicating the temple that he built for God.
The prayer to which God is responding to in chapter 7 is this prayer of Solomon’s.
2nd Chronicles 6:2,
I have surely built You an exalted house, And a place for You to dwell in forever.”
He’s talking to God there saying I built you a house to dwell in forever.
2nd Chronicles 6:3,
Then the king turned around and blessed the whole assembly of Israel, while all the assembly of Israel was standing.

The notice what Solomon says next in 2nd Chronicles 6:4,
And he said: “Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, who has fulfilled with His hands what He spoke with His mouth to my father David,
See, Solomon is praying according to what God’s already said He’s going to do. look at verse 5,
Since the day that I brought My people out of the land of Egypt, I have chosen no city from any tribe of Israel in which to build a house, that My name might be there, nor did I choose any man to be a ruler over My people Israel.

Now verse 6,
Yet I have chosen Jerusalem, that My name may be there, and I have chosen David to be over My people Israel.’
This is what God promised David!

Verse 7,
Now it was in the heart of my father David to build a temple for the name of the LORD God of Israel.
Remember, David wanted to do that. He wanted to build a house. What did God say to David? No!
But what did he say to David instead?
Verse 9,
Nevertheless you shall not build the temple, but your son who will come from your body, he shall build the temple for My name.’
When David wanted to build God’s house, God said no but his son, Solomon would build it.
Now Solomon’s built the temple and He’s dedicating it.
See how all this was God’s will. Solomon’s prayer is that we did God’s will and he’s now praying according to that will!
You see a lot of background knowledge in all these verses. Solomon’s not just praying something like, “Well I built something for you God, even though you didn’t ask for it and I hope you can bless it even though you never promised you would, and I hope that if anyone comes in this building that you know they’ll have spiritual fulfillment even though you’ve never said that.”
That’s how many of us Christians pray.
We pray about things we do when there’s no biblical justification for it.
Solomon built this because God said to!
God made a promise to do it and to bless him for doing it. And he’s is praying to fulfill what God said he wanted him to do.
In verses 10 and 11, Solomon goes on,
So the LORD has fulfilled His word which He spoke, and I have filled the position of my father David, and sit on the throne of Israel, as the LORD promised; and I have built the temple for the name of the LORD God of Israel. And there I have put the ark, in which is the covenant of the LORD which He made with the children of Israel.”
So over and over again he’s talking about God’s fulfilling of what He promised Down in verse 17 and 18 he says,
And now, O LORD God of Israel, let Your word come true, which You have spoken to Your servant David. “But will God indeed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built!
Solomon turns his attention to speak to God directly and this is in front of the congregation of Israel.

Do not make this house the house you go to for church.
This is a house God told Solomon to build specifically for Him.
No church organisation ever received that instruction.
Solomon goes on for the remainder of the chapter praying about the temple according to the will of God.

God responds to Solomon privately as Solomon goes home and tells him that he has heard his prayer and that, quote, “I will be in this house and if my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray then I will heal their land I’ll forgive their sins.”

People don’t know what to pray for because often they’re not interested in learning what God will is.
That’s why it’s not easy to know what to pray for in this dispensation of today because knowing God’s will requires us to understand how His will has been revealed and how it has changed and now been revealed in this dispensation.
Christians, not understanding that not all the Bible is written to them and about them, take prayers from everywhere.
Whenever we hear Christians taking verses out of context and asking for
things contrary to God’s will, a red flag should go off in our mind.
If it’s not God’s will as clearly given tin the Bible, then there’s no way we can walk in that information or participate in it. It’s just simply outside God’s will and we should back away.
We saw Jesus in the last episode is teaching the disciples to pray in the so called Lord’s prayer and it was easy to see from prophecy that it was all according to God’s will, and the disciples knew that.

And as we pointed out last time also, to think that the church is to pray this prayer, especially as frequently as they do, is to say that in this prayer is the will of God for the church today and there’s a problem with that.
If this prayer is the will of God for the church today it doesn’t include the cross at all, or seeing all men saved, or the body of Christ, the creating of that new creature, or the church anywhere for that matter!
It’s eating every day to survive, being led on the earth to a kingdom come and forgiving others so you might receive forgiveness.
That is actually for the 12 tribes of Israel, it’s simply not the will of God for you and me today in this dispensation of grace.
But what that prayer does include, as Jesus taught it, was the will of God for Israel.
Jesus knew the will of God. Jesus knew He was God, but he also said He came to do the will of His father. That’s why He came to Earth to do the will of His father, to confirm the promise made in the covenants and also to die on the cross.
See the pattern of prayer? God’s will, God’s will, God’s will, not our partitions for things, for health, wealth and happiness that emerge from our own desires.

In Luke 18 verse 31 to 33 we hear Jesus say,
Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished.” For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon.
They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.”

What He just said was that whatever God said before that He was going to do; He’s going to do. Is it a mystery here what Christ is going to do? No, it’s been revealed even though the disciples are kind of ignorant of it.
We see this in the next verse, verse 34,
But they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.
Like a lot of us Christians today, they just don’t know what the Bible actually says, but that doesn’t mean God hasn’t said it.
Now the disciples were not taught to pray about the situation, for Jesus’s work to die on the cross for the sins of the world.
That wasn’t even in that prayer the Lord taught them.
The disciples don’t understand anything he says here.
They didn’t know about his death and Resurrection, but Jesus did know. He
Knew He’d come to this earth to die. He also knew why.
In Luke 22, the night of His betrayal, and remember the disciples don’t understand anything about it, Jesus says this,
Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.
He hasn’t died yet. No one there that night understood the gospel preaching of the Cross, but Jesus says I’m going to shed My blood for the New Testament, I’m going to shed my blood for sins, I’m going to shed my blood for Israel’s promises being fulfilled.
Jesus knew what God’s will was for Him and why.
Now drop down to Luke 22 verse 42. It’s after the meal and they go out and sing a song then go to the Garden of Gethsemane. Peter, James and John are with Him and He’s told them to pray that you may not enter into temptation.
Jesus then prays saying,
“Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done.”
Jesus knows why He came. It was to die. He knew He’d come to fulfill the promises and the prophets. He knew He’d come to die for the sin of the world. He knew even what was not yet revealed according to God’s will, which is that His death on the cross would accomplish something far greater, the creation of a new creature in the body of Christ. To perform His will for the ages and that’s why He says, “Nevertheless not My will but yours be done.”
Whatever pain and suffering and sorrow He’s feeling, whatever the resistance and temptation to not perform this thing, it needs to be accomplished because it’s God’s will, incidentally, the will He Himself purposed with the Father.
That’s Jesus’s prayer to the father. Should our prayers be any less according to God’s will?
However, for us to pray God’s will we need to know His will!

1st John 5 verses 14 and 15 is a popular prayer today, taught by Jon who was there in the Garden with Jesus on that dreadful night. John says,
Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.

That’s what we’re trying to get across from the scripture.
When we pray it should be according to God’s will.
Then we have to recognise that God’s will relating to how he deals with mankind changes from age to age. God Himself never changes of course, but the way he deals with His human creation does.
John writes in this epistle of 1st John as a member of the remnant of Israel. One of those who’ve been promised a kingdom come.
He says we know we have confidence in him that whatever we ask we have the petitions we desired of Him.
That sounds like Psalm 37 which said,
Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
As we saw at length He’ll give you the desires of your heart because your heart contains God’s will.
God’s not waiting for us to have a good idea. He has His will. We’re the ones that need to know it, for us to align with His will. In the circumstances of our lives, where sometimes it’s hard to see God’s will, we do our own thing anyway, but to do the things we need to do we must align ourselves, in that moment of prayer, to say God has a will and I’m supposed to be aligning with it. That helps us in how we walk day to day in this world.

According to Romans 8, we don’t know what to pray for, but the Holy Spirit helps but His words are not given to us in a supernatural inner voice today, they’re given to us in the scripture, which means we’ve got to open up the book and read and understand these things.
If we go back to 1st John 5 we see in verse 16 why they could ask anything according to His will and He hears, and they have the petitions they asked of Him.
See they’re talking about forgiving sins. The things that they’re asking God to do is forgiving sins.
In 1st John 1 verse 9 we see,
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
That’s what they’re ask Him. That’s why verse 16 says there’s some sins you shouldn’t pray for, which is another issue for another day, but they’re praying specifically for forgiveness.
Do we need to pray for forgiveness today? Is it our job to pray for forgiveness of someone else? No! Christ has shed his blood for all men’s forgiveness. Our pray today is that mankind, including the people we know and love, trust His completed work for the forgiveness of their sins.

In every prayer that we’ve just covered, and there are many, many more throughout the Bible, all these men prayed the will of God and their own will aligned with it.
None of them said, “Well that’s a good idea God but I have a better thought on how to do it.”
How do we get prayer to work? We need to know how God is working and what He wants. When we align ourselves with God’s will and His work then we see God working more clearly. Now we’re praying the same thing that God’s doing, His will for today.
Prayer works today according to how God works, what He’s doing in this dispensation, knowing full well that what He does changes throughout the scripture. Of course, God Himself never changes. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, but how he deals with His precious creation, mankind, does change from age to age.
What He’s doing today is not what He’ll do in the future on the earth.
It’s not what He was doing at Pentecost or during Israel’s wilderness wanderings or when Israel conquered the land. And, when God changes his mode of operation with man, then prayer must change as well.
We know that The Body of Christ is not Israel. The body of Christ is neither Jew nor Gentile. We’re not under the law. As Romans 6:14 says,
For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
The body of Christ is a new creature created to serve God outside of the law.
2nd Corinthians 5:1,
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Then in Galatians 6:15,
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision (the Jew) nor uncircumcision (the Gentile) avails anything, but a new creation.
That doesn’t mean that we’re walking in sin. It means the law’s not the motivation for us to do right. We have a greater motivation which is God’s grace explained to us in the incredible book of Romans.
Not only are we not under the Mosaic law, we’re also strangers from the covenants relating to the earthly Kingdom.
Ephesians 2 says that we’re strangers from Israel’s covenants and when we join to God we don’t join to God through Israel’s covenants We join to God through the new man that he’s made, the new creature, the Body of Christ.

To fully understand God’s will for us today we need to understand the dispensation of grace that we’re now living in today.

We look to Romans 16 verses 25 to 26,
Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith—

Now, it isn’t just knowing that there was a mystery that was kept secret even though that’s important. It’s knowing that this mystery that God kept secret from the foundation of the world has now been revealed. It was revealed by Jesus Christ Himself through the apostle Paul.
The point of this verse is that Jesus Christ will establish us in the will of God that’s the point of the verse.
It’s so we might know God’s will according to that mystery.
How did this mystery period, which is the dispensation of grace come into being?
Ephesians 3 verses 1 to 7,
For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles— if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel, of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power.

It’s hard to imagine that the apostle Paul, before he met Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus and was saved, was a violent and unrelenting persecutor of all who believed in Jesus Christ.

If you go through some of our other material you can find a more detailed explanation of the mystery revealed.
This dispensation that was revealed to Paul after being kept secret by God before the foundation of the world came into reality as an interruption, if you like, to the timeline of prophecy. This timeline included all the things that happened throughout Israel’s history and during Jesus’s earthly ministry when He came to earth to fulfill prophecy and the law to the letter. It also included the events of the day of Pentecost after the Lord had ascended back to heaven after His resurrection.
This is where the apostle Peter quotes the prophet Joel and refers to this time as the time that those events spoken of in Joel are actually happening. This certainly would have been the case but for one major factor, Israel rejected Jesus Christ, the Messiah. They rejected Him when He was on earth, and they continue to reject Him after He returned to heaven. The last straw for Israel was when they stoned Stephen in Acts chapter 7.
They had Rejected the Messiah, they’d rejected God and rejected the Holy Spirit and, as a result God rejected them, and Israel fell.
All that they were promised, the New Covenant, the Kingdom and the restoration of the nation to its former glory under King David and King Solomon were postponed and Israel entered a state of blindness which lasts right up till today.
So, in place of what should have happened, according to prophecy, God introduces this interlude that He knew about and knew would come, but kept it secret.
Every promise and prophecy relating to Israel was now on hold.
This period, this dispensation of grace, would be a time where God offered free Grace to a rebellious and wicked world. Grace that would be bestowed no longer through Israel, their priests and their religious systems, but directly from God by no other vehicle than faith in God’s Word, the gospel of grace. This gospel and salvation by grace is now open to every human, no matter how bad or good or whether he’s a Jew or a Gentile. The nation Israel has been temporarily sidelined as God’s priesthood that brings all nations to the knowledge of God. They’re sidelined until a day comes, which it will during the great tribulation, when they turn and realise that Jesus was the Messiah all along and they accept Him.
This incredible dispensation of grace has so far lasted for 2000 years.

So, now God has once again changed the way He deals with mankind. Now salvation is by grace alone, through faith, without works of the law or works of any kind. It’s through believing and nothing else!
Where do we find our instruction, our doctrine and what God’s will is for this incredible dispensation of grace today?
We find it in the 13 epistles written by the apostle Paul. The interesting thing with Paul is that in those 13 epistles Paul gives us both instruction in prayer and examples. He continually uses his own prayer life as an example of the instruction to pray.

In 1st Timothy 2 verses 3 and 4 we read about God’s overall will and therefore a baseline for our prayers,
For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

So, we have salvation by the gospel of grace of God as Paul preaches and then coming to a knowledge of the truth. The truth of what? Of whom we are and what God’s doing today and what He’s accomplished by the cross and through his grace today.

In 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 1 and 2 Paul writes concerning our walk,
Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God; for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
He says very clearly that this is the will of God concerning us that we should abound more and more. In what?
In the knowledge of God and His will as we see in Colossians 1 verses 9 and 10,
For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;
When we read what Paul wrote in Romans and Corinthians and Galatians and his other epistles we’re reading what Paul taught these churches and we can
receive from Paul what they received from Paul, and we can know how we ought to walk.
If we don’t know we go back and learn. It’s that learning process that takes us from not knowing how or what to pray for as we ought to knowing what and how to pray.

1st Thessalonians 4 verse 3,
For this is the will of God, your sanctification:
Our sanctification or our purity is God’s will. To be who God made us to be, set apart for His purpose which means we have to know His purpose, which is Grace today.
Part of that’s, in fact a very big part, is being grateful. In 1st Thessalonians 5 verses 17 and 18 we’re told,
pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

We’ve covered these verses before. Knowing the will of God is clear in these passages. In everything give thanks. That’s a prayer verse but what we’re talking about today is praying knowing the will of God and then praying for the will of God.
If we struggle praying from this perspective of grace today, maybe we need to pray to God to change our perspective.
If we constantly think that the only thing we can pray for is something that we need and we don’t respect what God’s already given us in abundance then maybe our prayer might be, “God please help me to be thankful because I know that’s your will.” See we’d no longer praying our will we’re praying His will.
We can pray, “Lord teach me what it means to be a member of the body of Christ and to be sanctified. What does it mean to walk according to what you told Paul because I’m still trying to learn that, but I know that’s your will because I can see it clearly in scripture.”
See, we’re praying according to His will and that should help inform our Prayers.
It’s sometimes easier to read these verses about God’s will and know the will of God than it is to practice the will of God in prayer.
It requires a heart change.

We have to believe that what God’s doing today is the best thing for today.
We can’t pray to God to ask Him to act like He did in another age, like start healing the masses or bring that Kingdom in because we think that’d be better. What God is doing today is what He wills to do today, and it will work when we pray according to His will.
We can clearly know the ministry God’s doing today and it’s different than what He was doing before. He’s dealing with the spiritual today. He wants to see Souls saved and be spiritually strengthened in our inner man.

Paul prays in Colossians 1 verses 9 to 12,
For this reason, we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.

This is God’s will for us.
Colossians 4 verse 2 to 4 is a great prayer of Pauls,
Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving; meanwhile praying also for us, that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in chains, that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.
This is for all those who strive to bring the whole counsel of God to people.

We’re trying to see how all these prayers even in the old Testament were patterned according to the will of God. We just have to discern what the will of God is for today.
The Colossians 4 prayer works by understanding what God’s doing then we pray accordingly and then we watch because when we know God’s will we know what to look for and as we pray according to God’s will we’re participating in that will.

We change our will to recognise we want God’s will being done not ours.
A good prayer to start with may be, “Lord, your will be done not mine.” And then go and learn his will and our prayers will align us with that will.

How Do I Pray

How Do I Pray – Part 1

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In this episode we’re looking at prayer to try and understand just what it is and how we’re supposed to approach it under the dispensation of grace in we live in today and what should we expect in response to prayer.
There’s a lot of discouragement about prayer because many of us don’t understand it’s purpose.
Frustration also comes by not understanding how prayer can change in the Bible from one dispensation, one age, to the next.
Let’s try and clear up some of the confusion about prayer by knowing God’s will for the age we currently live in and learning to pray according to that will.

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How Do I Pray – Part 1 – Transcript

There’s a lot of discouragement about prayer because many of us don’t understand it’s purpose.
Frustration also comes by not understanding how prayer can change in the Bible from one dispensation, one age, to the next.


Additionally, when we talk to God, He doesn’t really talk back to us, so is he really listening?
So, prayer can be confusing and there’s a lot of ignorance associated with it.
Talking to the Eternal Creator, our maker Who’s in heaven and all around us is a difficult concept to get hold of. He’s invisible, a spirit and, into the bargain, we’re not even worthy of talking to Him.

Now, if you’re struggling with prayer and really don’t know what to pray for or how to pray, how to approach God, you’re normal!
You and I have to accept the fact that our struggle with prayer is the normal situation for Humanity.
Even us Christians who’re saved by God’s grace find it difficult to pray. It’s normal! We need to accept that and realise that the Bible actually says we need to be taught how to pray because we don’t know how.
That’s both comforting to know we’re normal and discouraging at the same time, especially when we realise there’s such a thing in the Bible as praying wrong.

We’re certainly told by Jesus Himself that we can pray wrongly.
In Matthew chapter 6 verse 5 for example, Jesus said this,
And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.
To pray like the hypocrites would be wrong according to Jesus.
A hypocrite here means a stage player, an actor, a pretender, a moral or religious counterfeit or fraud.

How do the hypocrites pray? Jesus tells us in this verse. They put on a public spectacle to draw attention to themselves, to their own importance. Jesus said that’s the sum total of their reward, they get that recognition, and their self-importance is satisfied.

There’re so many passages on prayer in the Bible, much more than we could study here, however there’s not a lot of instruction or specific detail on how to do it.
Despite that, prayer is something God wants us to do, so we’re left with a question mark.

We learn in the scripture that prayer is something very personal between an individual and God. It’s something that we pray out of our inner man.
But these hypocrites are making a performance out of it and so they’re making it about their flesh and that’s the hypocrisy.
In Matthew 6:6 Jesus goes on to say,
But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.
So basically, the Lord’s saying rather than pray like the hypocrites do it in secret.
There’s another way to pray that’s wrong.
Matthew 6:7,

And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.

Saying the same thing over and over and over again like a chant doesn’t affect God any more or less.
He says the Heathen, those who don’t have knowledge of God, pray that way.
They think if they repeat these incantations God’s going to hear them.

Jesus says no He doesn’t hear them.
There are religious dominations that do that, just chanting the same thing over and over again, and it’s nonsense. So’s the idea that we just pray whatever jibber jabber we want.
There’s a right way to pray and a wrong way to pray.
The difficulty surrounding prayer is partly to do with that because we’re trying to learn how to talk to our maker to the Holy God of the universe and none of us want to do it wrong.

Luke 11 verse 1 we see the disciple after ministering with Jesus and seeing all that He did and listening to Him pray. Here’s what happens,
Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”
Jesus follows up with the so-called Lord’s Prayer, which we’ll look at closer shortly, but the fascinating thing is that if prayer was something natural, something we were born knowing, then it was a silly question they asked Jesus.
Instead, Jesus said, “When you pray say this.”
He was teaching and they were listening. So, learning how to pray is something we to do. We need to learn how and what God says about how to pray to him.
There’s good news and bad news here.
Romans 8 verse 26 says this,

Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

Paul’s talking here about us, the body of Christ, in this current dispensation of grace.
Romans 8:26 describes us as not knowing what to pray for.
The good news is that God knows that, and this verse says the Holy Spirit helps our infirmities making intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.
Contrary to the belief of many charismatic Christians that’s not tongue talking or us groaning. It’s the things that cannot be said and the Holy Spirit who dwells in you in this dispensation can intercede between us and God with things that we need when we don’t know what to say.

I mean, that’s a very comforting verse. When we come to prayer not knowing what to pray for, God knows the mind of the Holy Spirit, Who dwells in us, and that even though you don’t know what to even request, He knows what we need.
That he can give us what we need is helpful.
Of course, we need to deal with what we think we need, and we’ll get to that, but it’s helpful to know that God knows what we feel and think and what’s in our mind and heart.
That’s interesting way to pray just like that. “God, I don’t know how to pray. You know better than me what I need. Help!”
It might not seem real eloquent but the good news is that God knows that we don’t know, and He’s provided help for us.

Another part of the reason why people don’t know how to pray is that prayer concerns the spiritual. When we talk to each other we can have a sort of two-way conversation about things in the world, but is there anything God doesn’t know? No!
It’s a bit awkward sometimes in prayer when God knows everything. What’s left for me to say?
And, it’s not easy for us to engage with someone that’s seemingly not in the room, even if God’s omnipresent, everywhere, all the time.
When we talk to other people our conversation is geared around the mutual interest of the things you have in common or the things we’re discussing, but with God, we’re dealing with His mind. How much do we know about God? When we pray to God, how do we know Him? Who is He? What and how does He think?
Well, of course we learn this from scripture of course, but how much of that have we really studied? Not as much as we should have right?
So, it’s hard to enter prayer when we don’t know the mind of God and especially when we request things of God.
Paul tells us to make our requests known to God so He can help, and He can intervene.
But what we’re talking about here is what is God’s will.
Jesus prayed in Mark 14:36 just before going to the cross,

“Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.”

Not my will! But what is the will of God? This is also a big question for Christians and it’s why a lot of people pray in ignorance and don’t know how to pray, because they simply don’t know what God wants, what His will is.

As the charismatic movement influences the church more and more, many churches turn to the idea that God will do anything that we ask and intervene in any way that He has throughout the Bible.
In so doing they destroy any dispensational changes in God’s operation. We’re talking about God’s divine intervention you see and who are we to know how God intervenes.
When we’re talking about God’s Will and God’s intervention that’s a big subject. A lot of the prayer ignorance today is because there’s generally ignorance about God and particularly in what He’s doing today as opposed to what He was doing in the past or future dispensations.
If you don’t know that we won’t know how to pray correctly, and the result is frustration and confusion. We want to communicate to God. We want to talk to Him, and we need His help. We want to depend on Him, but we simply don’t know what He’s promised and what He’s doing now, what His mind is now, and so we’re confused.
We might try to offer up a prayer thinking God may be doing this or we read a verse in the Bible thinking maybe He’s doing that, and you pray, and it doesn’t seem to work out, or it doesn’t work out the way you thought or hoped. So, confusion and frustration.
Each of us need to simply acknowledge when we’re ignorant about something. That’s the first step to learning. We can’t learn if we think we already know. If we think we know it, we’re not going to learn anything.
We need to change what we think.

So, if you’re coming to prayer and you think you already have this sorted, you already know how to pray, then good for you. But we’re dealing with people who don’t know how to pray as we ought.
Now we combine this idea that we don’t know what to pray for as we ought with the Bible’s instruction that we’re to pray, then we’ve got a real issue.
I don’t know how to pray but God says pray!

Even outside Christianity there are pagan religions where people pray to their gods based on what they believe. They come because of faith. When you pray, you pray because of Faith, believing that there’s a God who’ll hear you.

Many pray to Saints and even to different beings in the universe claiming that they can hear them.
People pray to God because of fear. It’s like the no atheists in a Foxhole idea. People pray because they’re desperate. There’s nowhere else they can turn.
“I’m afraid so God if you’re listening, I need help”.
People pray out of a desire for something. “God, I really, really, really, want this, so pretty please give it to me”.
People pray because they need help even when they don’t know anything about God or His Word or what He’s doing today.
It’s a good thing to pray, but we shouldn’t pray in ignorance and yet we’re all ignorant of how to pray in the beginning.

Prayer usually stops when people think they don’t need God anymore or that prayer doesn’t work. “I prayed about it, and it didn’t work”.
Sometimes prayer stops or slows down amongst those who learn the Bible and start to understand what God is and is not doing in the age in which we live.
Before that, we assumed that all the Bible is written to us and we could just open the Bible at any place, wherever it falls open, and there’ll a promise there for us.
So, God will do anything today that He’s done anywhere else in the Bible.
For example, I can pray Gideon’s prayer in Judges 6:36 and we read,

So Gideon said to God, “If You will save Israel by my hand as You have said look, I shall put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor; if there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that You will save Israel by my hand, as You have said.”

Or Jabez’s prayer in 1st Chronicles 4:10,

And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, “Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!” So God granted him what he requested.

Or Elisha’s prayers in 2nd Kings 6 verses 17 and 18,

And Elisha prayed, and said, “LORD, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” Then the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
So when the Syrians came down to him, Elisha prayed to the LORD, and said, “Strike this people, I pray, with blindness.” And He struck them with blindness according to the word of Elisha.

Or Revelation 6:10,

And they cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”

We could go on and on, but it’s pretty obvious that these types of prayers would not be answered by God today.
Through the understanding that God works through different people at different times in different ways we begin to rightly divide the Word and we start to learn that God’s doing that particular thing for Israel according to His covenant with them and that not everything God said is talking to you and me today.

So, when we begin to see that God works through different people at different times in different ways, we tend to stop praying at all.
Why? Because we’re left not knowing how to pray.

God tells us to pray so at the very least it’d be good to try and learn how.
In the prophecies relating to the New Covenant made to Israel and the House of Judah there’s a huge advantage in that the Holy Spirit comes, and He guides into all truth, but the benefit of the period that you and I are living in now, the dispensation of grace where we’re members of Christ’s body is that we’re given clear information that we can understand and put into practice.
We need to be aware that as many of God’s ways of dealing with humanity change from age to age, dispensation to dispensation, prayer changes as well!

We don’t want to waste our time with things that don’t work today and unfortunately a lot that’s preached today doesn’t work and quite often it doesn’t work because we’ve not understood how things change from age to age. We try and do things today that simply aren’t for the current age.

So, can we talk to God? Sure, we can, but praying rightly requires information that we need to learn.
We might ask, “Isn’t God just happy that we’re talking to him?”
Well, He tells us to pray. And, the Holy Spirit’s in us if we’re saved in order to intercede for us, but God wants us to know and to do his will and we get that by learning.

We look at Job.
Job who existed and lived at a time long before there was a written Bible. He lived without the Revelation that we have today of all scripture.
Even the Book of Job wasn’t written to Job.
So, job didn’t have a book and he was a bit frustrated because he’s living his life, upright before the Lord and he was being blessed in prosperity and physical blessings until all this was removed because of the deal Satan had with God and God was silent towards Job.
If God had said, “Okay Job there’s going to be some trouble going on but don’t worry I’m still here and I know what’s going on,” Job could have understood but God didn’t say that.
Suddenly Job loses his children his wealth, everything, and he’s left frustrated. His friends are trying to defend God trying to tell him how he should speak to God and apologise to God and how to pray to God, and Job says this in
Job 31 verse 35,

Oh, that I had one to hear me! Here is my mark. Oh, that the Almighty would answer me, That my Prosecutor (God Himself) had written a book!

Oh, that God would hear me. He’s not talking to me. I don’t know what He’s doing. If only the almighty would answer me.
This sounds like many Christians today when it comes to prayer.
I want to pray and oh that God would just tell me something, even if he just verbally said no! But he doesn’t even do that.
We just assume it’s NO when he doesn’t respond. Or maybe it’s a YES but I’ve got to be patient. We don’t know.
But Job says oh I desire the almighty would answer me and that my prosecutor, meaning God in this situation, had written a book. We Christians pray as if God never wrote a book, but He did and it’s about what He’s done before, what He’s doing now and what He’ll do in the future, and it needs to be understood.
The trouble is when we have a book, what’s that require? Study, and who likes doing that?
We’re back to study again, because God has spoken through these words, they’re God’s words to us. It’s his revelation and if we don’t understand this revelation, we’re no better off than Job.
Things can happen to us for better or worse and we don’t know why and all we desire is that God answers us, and He doesn’t.
Job says in Job 31 verse 36 about this book he wishes he had,
Surely I would carry it on my shoulder, And bind it on me like a crown;
Job says just tell me what’s going on and why and I’ll gladly endure anything for you.
Most of us don’t have that heart to endure anything like Job did, but it doesn’t excuse us. Job had an excuse. He didn’t have a book. We do have one.

The disciples in Luke 11 verse 1 had Jesus, the Son of God, right there with them and it’s a fair question for them to ask, teach us to pray.
It’s recorded in scripture which shows us they didn’t know how to pray and here’s the Lord right here, so why wouldn’t you ask Him?

Did you know that in the law of Moses there’s no commandment to pray?
If you look up the word prayer it doesn’t show up as a commandment in Deuteronomy, Exodus, Numbers or Leviticus, yet Moses prays, and Israel prays.
When we need help in life we want to communicate with God.
But the big challenge for us is to know and understand what God’s doing today.
Is what we’re asking Him for according to His will?
And what is His will for the age we live in today?
What He’s doing today in this present age may be, and most certainly is, entirely different than what He was doing in Moses, or David’s day. Even what He did when Jesus walked the earth may be different than this church age we live in today.
We need to know how God is dealing with mankind today in order to know if what we’re asking is even His will, remembering that the most pointless prayer would be asking something that’s not His will.

The person who writes more about prayer than anyone else is King David.
Many of the Psalms are prayers from David. However, they’re written under the law and Israel’s covenants so, if we’re praying David’s prayers we’re praying Israel’s covenants. Clearly this is not the way for us to pray today.

The one whose writings are filled with more instruction on prayer for you and me today than anyone else in the scripture is the apostle, Paul.
Every epistle Paul writes it’s filled with instructions and examples of Prayer.
In the dispensation of Grace that we live in today, it’s Paul’s Epistles where we find the instructions stating the will of God for today, this present age, and how to pray.
In 1st Timothy 2 verses 1 and 2 Paul says this,

Therefore, I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.

First, before anything else, prayers should made for all those that be in authority.
This is Paul’s instructions to Timothy on how to respond to those that’re in authority and why. That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.
The in the next two verses of 1st Timothy 2, verse 3 and 4 we read Paul further explaining why,

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior,
who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
We’re praying for all men to be saved and come knowledge of the truth.

Then in 1st Thessalonians verses 16 to 18 Paul writes this to the Thessalonians,

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

This is perhaps the most popular prayer instruction in the scripture and it’s very clear.
Rejoice always!
Christians, those who have believed in Christ and His completed work on the cross, can rejoice always because their joy isn’t based on circumstances, but in God. Circumstances change constantly, but God doesn’t.
In the midst of the worst that this world can dish up to us we know our Saviour and we know we’re saved by His grace, and permanently secure in Him by the Holy Spirit. We know our ultimate destiny!
This is why we can rejoice always.
Pray without ceasing.
We don’t find anything like that in the law of Moses, but we find it here in Paul’s Epistles, under the age of grace.
What does it mean to pray without ceasing?
Surely Paul here doesn’t mean prayer without stopping.

To stop eating, sleeping, and working in the place of praying all the time would be silly. Paul himself says he does not ‘cease to pray’ for the Colossians in Colossians 1:9, yet in 2nd Thessalonians 3:8 he says that he quote, “worked with labour and toil night and day.”
The idea is that we shouldn’t give up on prayer and chuck the process of praying into the bin.
However, we shouldn’t spiritualise this verse either by saying that our whole life is a perpetual prayer to God. We simply ought to walk in continuous attitudes of prayer by being aware of God’s existence in our everyday lives and knowing our destiny through the blood of Christ.
The passage refers to regular prayer communication with God faithfully and without failing.
Paul says pray without ceasing and in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
So, what’s the will of God?
In everything give thanks and pray without ceasing!
This is the will of God Paul’s talking about here.
We say we want to know God’s will for our life? Well, it’s in black and white in the scripture.
We might say, “But that’s not specific to my situation”. But, yes, it is!
Pray without ceasing in everything give thanks in Christ Jesus.

Why is prayer so important in this dispensation of grace today?
One reason may be because under grace, unlike any other dispensation, we don’t see God intervening in the way He did back then.
So, we need to know how God intervenes today, and to learn how God operates today and then act according to that.

Even though we don’t know how to pray there is a way we ought to pray, and the Holy Spirit can help us.
But then we’re stuck because we don’t know how to do that.
This is why people are discouraged about praying but the instruction’s clear.

In Philippians chapter 1 Paul tells the Philippians how he thanks God for them and how they’re in every prayer of his as he makes requests for them with joy. Joy because of their fellowship in the gospel and for how God has begun a good work in them and will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.

Paul gives us more instruction on prayer and the results if we do it, by what he says to these Philippians in Philippians 4 verses 6 and 7,

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

The word “anxious” in the King James is “careful” meaning don’t take the care of the world and the circumstances of everyday life on board.
Paul gives an example of this in his own life a bit later in verses 12 and 13 of the same chapter, Philippians 4,

I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

What are the “all things” he’s talking about? Being able to live and rejoice in whatever circumstances he finds himself in because of his knowledge of God.

He says stop being careful for everything. Pray to God make your request be made known to him and the peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and Minds through Christ Jesus.
See the instruction here? In everything, by prayer, let your requests be made known.
But hold on! We still don’t know what to pray for because it doesn’t tell us what to request does it?
So, we’re going to have to learn.
In Colossians 4:2 Paul says,

Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving;

Notice he says “continue” in prayer, so they must have started already. Being vigilant in it. The King James has the word “watch” instead of vigilant.
Watch in the same with Thanksgiving.
There’s thanksgiving again.
Then in the next two verses Colossians 4:3 – 4 Paul tells them what to pray for,

…meanwhile praying also for us, that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in chains, that I may make it manifest (to make it known or apparent), as I ought to speak.

What should the Colossians pray for?
That God would open to us a door of utterance, for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ.
To speak what? The mystery of Christ!
Have you heard of the mystery of Christ? Well, we sure need to because this is what Paul says we should pray for. Our prayer won’t help Paul now. He’s been with the Lord for 2000 years but there’re ministries now popping up everywhere that have had a revelation of this mystery period, this age that we now live in called the dispensation of grace and they’re boldly preaching it and, just like Paul did, they’re challenging traditions that the Body of Christ has accepted without sound bible foundations. We need to pray this same prayer that Paul told the Colossians to pray for him, for these ministries.

In Colossians 1 verse 9 Paul describes his prayer for the Colossian Christians,

For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, (heard of their love in the Spirit) do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;

 

You see the people he tells to pray need wisdom and understanding.
When we don’t have wisdom and understanding what are we? Ignorant!
The Colossians were ignorant just as we all are. So, the very people Pauls telling to pray are the people he says need to grow in understanding.
When we start to learn to rightly divide the Bible it starts becoming clearer, much clearer. We start seeing things we didn’t see before even though they were always there in black and white.
Our understanding goes up really quick but sometimes we miss the connection of how that understanding helps our prayers.
We can even think that don’t need to pray anymore, but the opposite’s true. We need to be taught how to pray. First comes the teaching then comes the praying.
Paul explains this in the next verses Colossians 1 verses 10 to 12,

That you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.

When we get this understanding of the Bible it’s time to start walking worthy of the Lord, pleasing Him.
Well, how do I do that exactly?
How about in everything give thanks or pray without ceasing, learning to implement what God’s taught us.
Then, we can increase more in the knowledge of God. Some things we can only learn after we put into effect what God’s already taught us.

Prayer’s not something that saves us, and it’s not something we know how to do naturally.
When we learn the Bible it helps inform our prayers but often we kind of forget why we’re praying in the first place.
For example, maybe we prayed that we didn’t understand God’s will, but we wanted to know His will.
Then we learn God’s will as we study and then it’s, “great, prayer answered, no need to pray ever again because I now know what God’s will is.
Well now it’s time to try doing His will.
Prayer’s not the magic tool that gets you God’s answer. The Bible is God’s revelation it’s not something that gets you saved. Christ did that on the cross and when you put your trust in that it’s something that you use in your walk every day.
To not be interested in that walk, often results in the knowledge we’ve gained making us puffed up with pride, knowing things without actually doing them.
God wants us to do!
The instruction to pray is very clear in scripture but at this point we know that we don’t know how to pray. We know we need understanding but we don’t have it and yet we have to pray because the Bible tells us to. So, the conclusion we come to is that prayer must be taught to us.

It’s very interesting that in Jesus’s earthly ministry, His disciples came to Him and asked Him to teach them to pray. Although they were Jews, bought up on the law and the Jewish scriptures, they didn’t know how to pray!
When they asked, Jesus didn’t treat them as idiots who should have known. On the contrary, Jesus responded with the most famous Prayer in the Bible, popularly called The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6 from verse 5 to 13.
It’s a weird title and Jesus certainly didn’t call it that. Jesus himself would never have prayed that prayer for Himself because the prayer asked to forgive your sins. Jesus didn’t have any sins. He was the sinless Son of God.
To see a prayer that Jesus did pray for Himself we look at the entire chapter of John 17.
We’re not going to study that prayer right now, but it’s Jesus praying to the Father. What’s not in Jesus’s prayer in John 17, is anything in the so-called Lord’s Prayer.

So, the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray and Jesus gives them just three verses. But then he Himself prays 26 verses to the father!

Our reaction might be, well teach me how to pray those long prayers the glorious ones.
Jesus says pray this. Compared to His prayers it’s like He’s talking to Children. Look at Luke 6 verse 12,
Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.
This records Jesus praying.
There are many, many books written about prayer, and they often talk about how much Jesus prayed. The motive is often to exhort us to pray as much.
I mean we’re talking hours here! How many hours did you spend in prayer last week? See, guilt starts rising.
Many books use this verse to tell us we’ve got to get somewhere where we can see the glory of God, like in the mountains. That’s how this verse is often preached. He continued all night in prayer.
So, you have the International House of Prayer where they pray all night and all day. 24/7 in praise and prayer.
What did Jesus pray all night? Maybe that’s the secret to accessing God’s power?
When Jesus’s disciples asked Him how to pray Jesus was patterning something a little different, at least in the length of time that he prayed.
Turn to Luke 11 verse 1, and we’re trying to get an understanding of the basic truth that we don’t know how to pray, and we have to acknowledge that before we can learn anything about it. So, Luke 11 verse 1,
Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”

Now, we already know that here in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, is not instructions for the Body of Christ in today’s dispensation of grace, so when Jesus is instructing his disciples here He’s instructing men that would reign over the tribes of Israel in the coming Earthly Kingdom.
He’s teaching Israel how to pray through that tribulation to come before their earthly kingdom. We know that because down in verse 10 to 13 Jesus says,

For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish?
Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

You see He’s talking here about the Holy Spirit. These are going to be Holy Spirit filled Israel, who will know what to pray by the unction of the Holy Spirit telling them the words.
In fact, later in Luke Jesus’ll say the Holy Spirit will give you the words to say. People then go and teach prayer like that saying, “Well to pray you just sit down wait for the Holy Spirit to give you the words. You wait and you wait and sometimes you just force it out.
Sometimes you need to help the Holy Spirit, maybe open your mouth move your tongue a little bit, you know make a noise or groan and then the prayer’ll come.
But that’s not the instruction to pray here. The Holy Spirit giving these people words to speak is not what God’s doing today!
We’re members of the Body of Christ today.
Romans 8:26,

Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

We’ll cover this shortly.
In Luke 11 and Matthew 6 Jesus is talking to people who receive the New Covenant Holy Spirit before this prophesied tribulation period after which they’ll enter their Kingdom. They can ask and they’ll receive because they’ll know what to speak because the Holy Spirit, given to them under the New Covenant, will be the One saying it.
Every word Peter said at Pentecost was Holy Spirit inspired.
He didn’t prepare that sermon!
Let’s go back to the lesson Jesus taught to the disciples in response to their request to teach them to pray.
Luke 11:2,

So He said to them, “When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.

As we said this prayer is given to New Covenant Israel going to their Kingdom and so in the context of Luke 11, when Jesus tells his disciples, who are Jews, “Our Father” God is the father of Israel.
A gentile wouldn’t pray that. He’s not talking here about the fact that He’s our Creator and so He’s everyone’s Daddy and we’re all children of God. No!
You get to be children of God through Israel’s covenants. That’s how that is in Luke 11.
There’s another way you and I are the children of God which is explained in Paul’s epistles written specifically to you and me, the Body of Christ today but that’s not the audience here in Luke 11. Paul hadn’t even been saved at this time and the mystery of the dispensation of grace certainly had not been revealed. It was still kept secret by God since the foundation of the world at this time.
So the Father here’s the Father of Israel. Jesus starts with the acknowledging who He is, Our Father, and where He is, in heaven.
Hallowed, holy, be thy name. So there’s an acknowledgement of who God is and how holy He is.
Now, even though this prayer’s not even given to us to pray, we need to learn who God is! If we’re not praying to God or the right God, we’re doing it wrong. We can all agree I think that if we’re praying to a stone figure we’re doing it wrong.
If we’re praying to the birds we’re doing it wrong. If we’re praying to Poseidon the god of the sea, who never existed, we’re doing it wrong. If we’re praying to a god that we think is God but is not what the Bible describes as God, that’s idolatry and we’re doing it wrong.
How do I know I’m praying to the right God? I can’t see Him! Well, have to be informed from the scripture who the true God is.
We must know who God is and when we don’t we just vainly throw up a prayer with the question, “If there’s a God there, hear me.”
When you teach our children we have to teach them who God is before they know who they’re talking to.
So, there’s step one of the things you have to be taught.
Jesus goes on and says our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. On Earth as in Heaven!
Jesus is saying thy kingdom come now. Where did he get that idea, the kingdom come? Is this just a desire he has? “God I really want a kingdom.”
No! This is something that’s been promised and prophesied since the world began to the nation of Israel, that He would bring his kingdom to the earth. Something we must learn, along with who God is, is what He’s doing. What’s His will? Right after Jesus says, “thy Kingdom come”, He follows it up with, “Your will be done.”
You see God’s already promised Israel this earthly Kingdom and said that it would come, and Jesus is telling the Disciples of Israel here as he’s preaching of the nearness of the Kingdom, to pray for God’s kingdom come to Earth for the fulfillment of those prophecies about the earthly Kingdom. Thy kingdom come. God bring your kingdom down.
We have to know what God’s will is behind “thy kingdom come” and understand what God has promised already and what He’s doing now.
That inform our prayers so we can pray for what God’s will is.
For example, “God I pray that I’d be more thankful. You tell me to be thankful and I’m not feeling it but I want to be more thankful according to Your will.” That’s a good place to start!
We can pray for that right now. “I pray your will be done, Lord.” If we know his will and we certainly can through His Word, we can pray it.
Jesus goes on to say, “Give us day by day our daily bread.” Matthew 6 says give us this day our daily bread.
The famous Daily Bread verse that took a swift change from thy glorious Kingdom from the heaven down to earth to I’m hungry and give me bread. Israel needed daily bread when they were wandering through the Wilderness. Until they get to their promised land they had no land to bear food to eat and they were in a desert that God led them to, and they had nothing to eat. God gave them bread every day.
Behind this part of the prayer is knowing what God provides, what He has provided, and what He will provide.
We need to know that in the context of the time.
Jesus says to the disciples, you’ll go to the kingdom. The kingdom will come. But before you get there you’ll need provision and God will provide your daily bread.
So, in Luke 11 and Matthew 6, give us day by day our daily bread is speaking of what God is providing for them.
We need to know what God is providing for us today also. How do we know that? How do we know what God’s giving us?
It helps to learn what the scripture says God has done before and what He’s doing now.
To learn what God’s provided for you informs your prayers.
Jesus goes on to say, “and forgive us our sins for we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us.”
We need to learn what God requires of us. The forgiving of sins is something that a sinner, before God, would recognise, that He’s holy and they’re not. How are our sins forgiven today? Is it because you forgave other people their debts? Many people don’t see it, but Jesus is teaching very clearly here, as he does in Matthew 6, that if you do not forgive others their sins God in heaven will not forgive your sins. Your forgiveness of sin, according to Jesus’s teachings in this instruction to pray, is dependent upon your forgiving others. God requires them to forgive other people before He will grant them the request of forgiveness.
This is opposite to Colossians 2:13 and 14,

And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

So, if we’re going to make a request to God if we’re going to pray to God we need to know what He requires and what His will is for today, not what His will was in past dispensations or what it will be in the future.
We can pray till we’re blue in the face but if we’re not meeting what God requires today, in the time in which we live, nothing’s going to happen.
What does God require today? What kind of work does God require for our salvation? Nothing, only believe His Word, The Gospel. What works does God require before you engage with him in prayer? Nothing!
What does God require before you get forgiven? Faith in Jesus Christ and nothing more! This informs our prayers, you see. We can say, “Thank you Lord for forgiving me on my faith in the gospel, even if I haven’t forgiven my neighbours. That teaches me what forgiveness looks like so that I can forgive my neighbours.”
That’s a very good prayer. We’re not talking about how you can speak, with the wisdom of men.
We must learn what God provides and what He requires of us.

The Lord’s teaching the disciples here that they’re to forgive other people to get their sins forgiven. So, you see, no one. no disciple could actually pray forgive me my sins as I forgive my neighbour unless they actually did that.

Jesus goes on to say, “and lead us not into temptation but Deliver Us from Evil” Again, we need to learn Who God is, what His will is, what He provides for us and what’s required of us.
We’ve also got to learn how God leads us.
The request here is lead us not into Temptation. But what if God wants to lead you there? How do you know? We need to know what God’s leading is, which has to do with His will.
What’s the path, what’s the ladder look like for me?
Is it just it I’m saved and now I’m stuck here the rest of my life, grateful I’m saved? Or, is there a means of growth and a purpose and a mission God’s given that he’s leading me somewhere and to do something? And what is that?
Jesus is talking about His audience going to the tribulation, and being tempted not to face that suffering but instead, take the mark of the beast and everything else.
“Deliver Us from Evil.” We live in a present evil world. How do we get delivered from evil? Well, we die, and we go to heaven! That’s how we’re delivered from this present evil world.
But, we don’t want to go through the evil, do we? Or maybe we need help to get through the evil.
But, we need to know how God leads us now, in our present day.
We’re going through what Jesus taught his disciples to pray, which they didn’t know.
Jesus gave these men an example, so should we pray that way also?
No. Because Jesus’s example has a different context. When we study the bible through a dispensational lens we recognise who is speaking and to whom. Jesus is speaking obviously, and to whom is He speaking? Israel. To the 12 disciples of the 12 tribes of Israel.
We recognise what God is doing and how what He’s doing changes from age to age, or dispensation to dispensation.
When we study the Bible recognising the changing instructions of God throughout the scripture, so we also see man’s responsibility changing accordingly.
When God instructs Noah to build an ark, no one before him or after him had to build an ark, but Noah did.
When God told Moses and Israel to keep these Commandments they had to. When he tells us that we’re not under the law but under grace, guess what, our responsibility is to walk with the knowledge that we’re under grace not under the law.
So as God’s instructions change, as he progressively, over time reveals new information, it’s our responsibility to learn that information and put it to use. So, we’re talking about how we don’t know how to pray so isn’t that a different thing from realising God’s changing instructions to mankind through the different ages? No! They’re connected.
If we think that prayer is simply the same throughout the Bible we’re wrong! What we do in response to those changing ages and changing instructions has everything to do with the way we pray.
Because prayer is our responsibility, and we’re instructed to pray, how do I pray? Well, that’s going to change according to God’s instructions. Does that mean we’ve got to learn how to pray? Yes, because we don’t know until we learn what God’s revealed.
If we don’t know what God’s doing today, we don’t know what we need to do. We talk to God knowing what He’s said for us today, His progressive revelation.
We could say, “Lord I know you created the world with Your Word and that you spoke to Moses and You parted the waters and You spoke to David and gave him promises, and I know what you’re doing now.
That’s an important prayer! Prayer changes with God’s progressive revelation. None of us know how to do it in the beginning. We need to learn.
We have to learn how to use the scripture as a tool, as a weapon, as a sword. We have to learn to use it and it’s the same with prayer.
We learn it through personal Bible study.
We should never leave it to the so-called experts to tells us what God has said to mankind so we can just close the book and don’t even consider it any further, just listen to the high and mighty priest or minister who knows it better than us anyway.
That’s not what God intended. He wants us to learn and part of that learning is opening up the book so the book can teach us what God said and what we should do.
God wrote the Bible for you and me to understand. It just requires us to engage with it so we can teach one another, and we can show each other how the scripture tells us to study it and rightly divide the Bible.

People get concerned about their lifetime struggle with prayer. They think it’s impossible to ever learn how to pray but we can if we can learn what God’s doing. We have the Bible to inform us and that’s more than Job did.
Even without a book, Job would not blaspheme God, knowing that God knew what he was doing.
God still knows what he’s doing, but unlike Job, you and I can now know too if you read the scripture and rightly divide it.

So how do we pray under grace, under this present dispensation of the Body of Christ?
First, we realise, and accept, that as we learn under grace, and learn to study and rightly divide the Bible, we will fail. We’re all going to do it wrong and that’s okay. But pray anyway.
There’s examples in the Bible of people praying wrong.
Peter’s a great example. Poor old Peter’s the guy who fails over and over again. He’s got so much zeal, and he longs to do it right. He jumps out of the boat, and he actually walks on the water but drops into the water. He gets blamed for not having faith but those other guys in the boat never stepped out. Would we?
Peter took his sword out and cut Malchus’s ear off, and Jesus says no Peter, put it up. Failed again. The guy was going to fight for his Messiah.
It’s a good thing to have zeal and to fail. At least you can learn some things from it.
Paul himself, though different than Peter, also failed when he prayed specifically in 2nd Corinthians 12:8 to 9.
Paul didn’t know but this is the thing, even when we fail it’s only because we don’t know.
If we have the heart to pray and we’re not trying to lie to God and we want to pray rightly and talk to him, Hebrews 4:12 says that the Word of God knows the thoughts and intents of our heart and the spirit who’s in us knows. God knows the mind of the spirit.
Paul got it wrong in 2nd Corinthians 12 verse 8,

For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Jesus actually responded to Paul’s prayer and this’s not a common thing. Jesus is speaking to teach Paul so that you and I can learn something from Paul’s failure.
Jesus doesn’t say no to Paul, He says my grace is sufficient. I’ve given you what you need. He tells Paul to acknowledge what I’ve given you what I provided for you, Grace.
And then Jesus gives the reason why His grace is sufficient. “For my strength, Christ’s strength, is made perfect in weakness.
Paul’s learning something and he changes from thinking, “I need to remove this thorn In the flesh,” to “Now therefore will I rather glory in the thorn in my flesh.”
He went from remove this thorn in the flesh, to I’m going to glory in this thorn in my flesh.
What changed? Paul learned something and this is how it’s going to work for us too.
When we pray with sincerity and with a heart to do right with God, to communicate with Him for His will to be done, and we do it selfishly and wrong, We can learn.

Romans 5:8 says God committed his love toward us that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.
Christ died for Sinners who didn’t pray and could not pray.
Oh, maybe they were praying Pagan prayers or maybe they were praying to another god or maybe they were praying to what they knew was the true God but not according to His will, either way they didn’t have to pray. How could they? They’re unsaved! If you don’t know God’s grace and don’t know what he’s doing then that’s us folks.
Christ died for our sins when we didn’t know how to pray. He died for our sins when we didn’t know how to walk rightly.
Do you think our inability to pray is going to somehow hinder our relationship to God or our salvation? No!
We’ve seen already in Romans 8:26 that the Holy Spirit dwells in us. He seals us in Christ. He dwells in us and intercedes for us when we don’t know what prayers and help that we need.
That’s a relief but it’s still left to us to learn what the fruit of the spirit is and how to walk after the spirit and what God has done. Under grace the spirit’s not given to you to judge our prayers and whether we’re doing it right and if we’re not He’s going to leave us. He dwells in us.

A very wise man once said about prayer, “Don’t frame a saviour out of your prayers. Don’t think that praying is going to save you or that praying rightly is somehow going to make you a better Christian. You are who you are because Christ made you that way.”
Paul didn’t say pray and be saved. He didn’t even say pray so that we’ll be mature Christians. Prayer, he says, is the utterance of a living soul, the breathing of a child’s desire to our heavenly Father. We are the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, not by faith and prayer.
We mustn’t think prayer is going to do something that it doesn’t actually do. Many Christians give too much power to prayer, but the power is in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit that dwells in us. Prayer is how you talk to God to engage Him in His will. We need to learn how to do that.
Galatians 3:26 says,

For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

We’re children of God by faith alone. No one that tells us that we must pray to make God merciful can tell us how long we must pray to be make God merciful because we can’t make God merciful or make Him save us by our lengthy prayers.
We’re saved by grace through faith. It’s a gift of God not of works (or prayer) lest any man should boast.
That means ignorant selfish prayers do not save us and rather righteous holy prayers don’t save us. Neither do they change our standing with God.

In this dispensation of Grace, we’re made a child of God by virtue of God’s grace, justified by faith. We’re put into his son, into the body of Christ and so praying wrongly or ignorantly or selfishly doesn’t change our standing with God.
It wasn’t always like that! In 1 John 1:9 there’s forgiveness of sins and confessions of sins to get back a right standing with God, but that’s not the case for us who’re in the Body of Christ.
That’s written for Israel under their Covenant program. We’ve been crucified with Christ, and we’re resurrected in Him.
That access to God through Christ cannot change by what we do which includes our prayers.
So how do we pray under grace? With that understanding! We’ve got to learn and know some things so that when we pray we’re not praying, fearful that we’ve somehow lost fellowship with God because we forgot to pray for three months. We haven’t lost anything with Christ if we’re saved by God’s grace.
So, we’re learning here that we don’t know how to pray be we should pray according to Paul’s instructions.
The disciples themselves asked Jesus to teach them and we also have to be taught how to pray in this dispensation we live in and when we pray it has to be with the knowledge of what we have in this dispensation.
If we struggle praying a good prayer might be, “Lord teach me to pray.”

What Is God's Will For Me?

What Is God’s Will For Me?

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What is God’s will for my life?

There’s many of us Christians, redeemed by Christ’s blood, and who love and trust in God, who haven’t yet discovered God’s will for their life.

Christian bookstores are full of how to guides and lifestyle improvement books that supposedly tell us how to find God’s will, and lots of churches run self-help, self-improvement programmes to find the will of God, but the fact is that most of them fail to explain the will of God.

“Speed Slider”

 

What is God’s Will for Me? – Transcript

What is God’s will for my life?
There’s many of us Christians, redeemed by Christ’s blood, and who love and trust in God, who haven’t yet discovered God’s will for their life.

Christian bookstores are full of how to guides and lifestyle improvement books that supposedly tell us how to find God’s will, and lots of churches run self-help, self-improvement programmes to find the will of God, but the fact is that most of them fail to explain the will of God.
If God has something he wants us to do, don’t you think he’d let us know?
After the incredible price that He’s paid for our redemption, which displayed His love for us, would He just leave us to figure out that purpose ourselves with no input from Him?

Christians, who haven’t discovered God’s will for their life would make us think this.

It seems that everyone’s asking for God’s will for their life.

To know God’s will for us and, as a result doubt less, have more confidence, and have a clear picture of what God wants from us, is right in front of us if we would read the scripture.

For example, Ephesians 1:9,

“Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which He has purposed in himself:”

The trouble is that’s not what most people want to hear!

When Christians ask to know God’s will what they’re often really asking is for God’s opinion about their circumstances, as if he were a personal career counsellor.

“Dear God, I feel like I am not going anywhere in life, and I would really like to do something I enjoy. Can you give me a great opportunity?”

We pray for God’s will and the quote “perfect plan for my life”. When we don’t get a clear sign in the mail, we do what we think’s best anyway.

In spite of all the how to guides, lifestyle improvement books, and churches that repeatedly preach on how to find God’s will, but many of us fail to learn what God’s will is for us. and there’s a reason.

If we add to this an almost never-ending procession of advice from the pews of the organised church, particularly the Charismatic churches, where people always seem ready to advise you to look for signs, dreams, omens, or coincidences and circumstance that point us to God’s will for us or to verify that what we’ve already decided to do is God’s purpose.

They say if God wants us to do something He’ll open doors. Be careful! That door may be a prison door. The apostle Paul spent a great part of his ministry behind bars, and he was perhaps the most certain of all Cristians about God’s purpose for his life.

Many people go and ask some sort of spiritual advisor, pastor, or some other mentor, but it’s a fact that other people love to tell us what to do. After all, the closer that person is to God the better chance we have of getting the proper message relayed from God, right?

If you’re a Calvinist, which is one who thinks that God forces his will upon every step of your life, then there’s no point in reading any further, it’s all been pre organised for you outside of you free will. So, your confusion about God’s will is God’s will.

If you’re like most people, what you end up doing is praying fervently about what you should do, where you should go or even what you should say. Some even pray about what clothing to wear and think that in doing so they’re “trusting and loving” God more.

Unfortunately, God never responds about those plans for becoming a millionaire, or that career move that you’ve all but committed yourself to.

Many people will say this doesn’t necessarily mean anything since it could be that God is testing your patience. Wait, you mean indefinitely?

Most people we ask will tell us that knowing God’s will is difficult.

However, we’re not like most people!

God’s will for our life is not difficult to understand, but sometimes it can be difficult to accept, especially if we want God’s will to line up with ours.

The fact is though, God’s will has nothing to do with personality tests, circumstances, opened doors, or prophetic utterances by self-proclaimed modern day “prophets”.

As we mature as Christians, and we mature only by knowing God’s Word, we come to know God’s will and as a result we doubt much less, and have more confidence, and a clearer picture of what God wants from us.

But the great realisation is this, Not my will But God’s Will.

We learn through the Word that God’s will is right in front of us as we read and meditate on scripture, but it is not the response that most people want. For most, it’s saying, “I haven’t got the time to learn the Word, I just need God to direct me to this career.”

Learning to discern God’s will is centred on an understanding of God’s Word, the Bible, but it must be an understanding that comes from rightly dividing that Word as 2nd Timothy 2:15 says,

Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 

Paul also realised the importance of understanding the whole Bible. In Acts 20:27, Paul speaking to the elders of the Ephesian church says,

For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. 

Without rightly dividing the whole Word of God the Bible is beyond understanding, it’s confusing and so we look to our heart’s desires and life’s circumstances and to other so-called “Godly people” for clues as to what God’s will is for us.

We tell ourselves that the unknown outcome of our lives is in God’s hands, and then we take blind steps towards our own ends while being ignorant of His will. And when those blind steps fail, we make excuses as to why they failed, but deep down we know that it wasn’t God’s will after all.

The greatest deception we can experience is that we do our own will and call it God’s will.

It’s a lie that God’s will is beyond understanding. It’s a greater lie that we can do God’s will without knowing what it is.

If we don’t know God’s will, then we’re not doing God’s will. To do God’s will is to first know it.

If we don’t know God’s will, we can’t live a life in Christ in the peace that He promises in Philippians 4:7,

and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Ignorance of God’s will condemns us to a life lacking in purpose and peace and as we continue to pretend that we’re living our life according to the Lord’s purpose, we’re only deceiving ourselves.

The truth is we’re doing our own will and calling it God’s.

But there’s a giant arrow pointing us to God’s will, plainly revealed in the Bible, if we’re prepared to first look and then accept it.

It would be good to introduce something at this point that many Christians seem to trip over. It’s a state that’s called “Waiting on the Lord”.

Many Christians go about their lives hoping that one day God’ll make it clear what His purpose for them is.

They love him and want to do his will, but they don’t know what He has in mind, so until God speaks to them in some way, all they can do is wait.

Isaiah, a prophet under the Old Testament, states the condition of these people exactly in Isaiah 64:4,

For since the beginning of the world Men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, Nor has the eye seen any God besides You, Who acts for the one who WAITS for Him.

In Psalm 25:3 to 5 King David reaches out to God,

Indeed, let no one who waits on You be ashamed; Let those be ashamed who deal treacherously without cause. Show me Your ways, O LORD; Teach me Your paths. 

Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You are the God of my salvation; On You I wait all the day.

This passage describes something different to what many Christians understand “Waiting on the Lord” to be.

This describes a person who waits on another so attentively that a mere look at the eye indicates the will of that person. It’s like a dedicated butler or some other servant who’s completely dedicated to their master. A good illustration is that servant waiting on his master at dinner where the servant knows the master so well that the master only needs to look at the saltshaker and the butler understands that he wants it.

We should notice that King David’s prayer here is for those who deal treacherously without cause to be ashamed and then he pleads for God to teach him His ways and His paths and His truth.

God promised that for those who diligently seek and focus on God, through faith, there’ll be reward.

Hebrews 11:6,

But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. 

And so, Christians “wait on the Lord” for Him to reveal what he has “prepared for those that love him” as 1 Corinthians 2:9 says,

But as it is written: “EYE HAS NOT SEEN, NOR EAR HEARD, NOR HAVE ENTERED INTO THE HEART OF MAN THE THINGS WHICH GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.” 

But what if God had already revealed his will, and it’s simply been ignored?

Wouldn’t it be a tremendous relief to know just WHAT God has prepared for His people?

Of course it would, and it has already been revealed!

God has declared his will for all in the revelation of the mystery given to the apostle Paul by Christ Himself, and Paul’s passed it on to us in his epistles written to the Body of Christ today.

Unfortunately, very few Christians are aware of this revelation.

Paul explains that from the beginning of the world men like Isaiah have waited on the Lord as we just saw Paul reminding us of in 1st Corinthians 2:9 where he quotes Isaiah 64 verse 4:

“eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which god has prepared for those who love him.”

But then Paul drops a bomb shell on those people that are sitting with Isaiah waiting on the Lord in the next verse, 1st Corinthians 2 verse 10.

But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 

What has the Spirit, The Holy Spirit, revealed?

The things God has prepared for those that love him! There’s now no more need for waiting! God’s spoken his will.

Ephesians 1:9 and 10,

(God), having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. 

God’s will is in Jesus Christ, and people being in him (Col 1:27-28).

Often, when Christians ask to know God’s will what we’re really asking is for God’s opinion about our circumstances. We’re trying to get some sort of sign or a word of prophecy that we can know that God has confirmed our plans for our day to day lives here in this world. It’s like He’s a personal career counsellor.

“Dear God, I feel like I’m not going anywhere in life, and I’d really like to do something I enjoy. Can you give me a great opportunity?”

However, God already has a purpose: His own purpose.

God’s will changes in the Bible as his operations with humans’ changes.

When the Lord revealed to Paul that He has counted the whole world in unbelief His will boiled down to two things:

1 Timothy 2:4,

[God] will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”

If you’ve believed the gospel, you’ve already done half of God’s will. The other half includes a lifelong process of coming to a knowledge of the truth. This requires study that’s study of the Bible, prayer, and fellowship as 2nd Timothy 2 verse 15 says,

Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

When the word of truth becomes part of our inner man we gain wisdom. We learn skills to pass on to other people. We’re equipped to live according to God’s purpose in a time when the days are evil.

But it’s easier said than done, of course, like 1st Thessalonians 5:18,

in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

It’s hard to do God’s will sometimes, but at least we can understand it.

True thanksgiving comes from a grateful heart for what God has accomplished on our behalf. We owe him our life. That’s the bottom line. Whatever direction we take in our natural lives, the underlying foundation we live by is that we have eternal life because of God’s grace. He paid an astronomical price to redeem us and wipe away the death penalty for sin. When this knowledge becomes the basis of our life what else can we do but give thanks continually to God.

We can’t give Him thanks if we don’t understand that foundation.

2 Corinthians 5:15,

and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. 

The Bible says we should not live unto ourselves. Yet, this seems to be the motive behind why people continually ask for God’s will.

The expectation is to receive a personal life assessment or a road map to earthly success and happiness from God’s divine job bank.

The complaint really, is that God’s word doesn’t give us specific enough answers about our circumstances. It doesn’t address the way we see ourselves going.

Well, perhaps God is telling us something about the way we seek His will like in Philippians 2:21,

For all seek their own, not the things which are of Christ Jesus. 

We can know God’s will, but now for the hard part, doing it.

The revelation of God’s will for the church today is called the mystery of Christ.

1 Corinthians 2:7 to 8, Paul speaking,

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

This mystery is not something we receive in dreams and visions, or through the mouths of self-proclaimed modern prophets, or from people who long to show others they’ve ” got a special gift from God” by quote “speaking a word from God to us”.

No, it’s been written by Paul in the Bible through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for us to understand.

Ephesians 3:3 to 5,

how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: 

There’s now no need to wait on God because God’s already revealed his will that the manifold wisdom of God might be known by the church. (Ephesians 3:10.)

Before the mystery was revealed, Isaiah said in Isaiah 40 verse 13 (and Paul repeats it in 1 Corinthians 2:16),

For “WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD THAT HE MAY INSTRUCT HIM? (or tell the Lord what He should do)“

But now, you and I, if we’re Christians, have the mind of Christ as Paul says in the rest of that verse in 1 Corinthians 2:16,

“But we have the mind of Christ!”

It’s no longer us who should be waiting on the Lord to reveal His mind, but it’s God waiting on us to study what He’s already revealed in Ephesians 3 verse 9,

and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ.

We see God’s overriding will plainly given to us in Ephesians 1 verses 7 to 10,

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, (wait for it) having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. 

Furthermore, Paul says in Ephesians 5:17 we’re unwise if we don’t know God’s will, and we read,

Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

So, what is God’s will? Here it is:

  1. Salvation is God’s will for you and me and all other people. 1 Timothy 2″3 and 4,

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved…

  1. Coming to a knowledge of the truth. 1st Timothy 2 and the remainder of verse 4,

…and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 

  1. Giving thanks to God. 1st Thessalonians 5 verse 18,

in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Notice that it’s God’s will that we give thanks IN everything, not FOR everything.

God’s not going to tell you to be a doctor or a bus driver. He won’t tell you who to marry. He’s not going to give you insider information on which stocks to trade or which investments to make.

What He’s done is give you His Son and the source of all truth in the Bible.

We make our own decisions, but those decisions should be based on these biblical truths and it’s within the dedication to these truths that our way in this world is outworked.

Don’t steal.

Ephesians 4:28,

Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labour, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need. 

Don’t marry someone who doesn’t love God as much as you do.

Ephesians 5:21,

…submitting to one another in the fear of God. 

In everything give thanks.

Thessalonians 5:18,

…in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Ephesians 6:10 to 20 further reveals God’s will for us,

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. 

Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 

Therefore, take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. 

Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. 

And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints— 

and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.

Paul’s been in glory for 2000 years but there are still multitudes today that sacrifice their own lives and quote “open their mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which they are ambassadors in chains, and we pray that they may speak boldly, as they, and we, ought to speak”.

Now at this point many of us may ask, “Well doesn’t God guide us at all in our everyday lives here on earth?”

In Psalm 32:8 we have King David speaking a prophecy from God to the nation of Israel,

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye. 

Here God’s prophetically promising the nation, through David, that He’ll guide them with His eye upon them.

But look at the next two verses, Psalm 32 verse 9 and 10,

Do not be like the horse or like the mule, Which have no understanding, Which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, Else they will not come near you. 

Many sorrows shall be to the wicked; But he who trusts in the LORD, mercy shall surround him.

What’s happening here is that God’s using the horse and mule to demonstrate something. The horse and the mule are not easy to guide. They need the bit and bridle, along with hard and constant training, before they’re useful to the master.

God’s saying don’t be like them, don’t make Him constantly use afflictions, trials, and testings, to keep us on the right path.

Proverbs 3:5 and 6 give us the conditions under which God will direct us,

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.

Many people are scared to have God direct their paths. They’d much rather direct themselves! However, this is the heart that doesn’t trust in the Lord. The heart that delights in God’s Word is the one that receives direction in God’s paths.

“How can I know the will of God?”

King Solomon’s answer is when we:

  • Decide to put our trust in the Lord.
  • Decide to not trust in our own understanding but give attention and priority to God’s revealed word.
  • Decide to acknowledge and honour God in all that we do.

Psalm 119:105,

Your Word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path. 

In summary you and I can know God’s will. It’s revealed to us clearly and plainly in His Word that’s freely and easily available to all today.

God’s not going to speak audibly to us or send a dream or an angel to tell us whether we should take this job or wear these clothes or buy this or that thing. These things will all come to us naturally as we live in His counsel, His Word.\

We mustn’t to fall into the trap of looking to circumstances, events, or other people’s so-called prophecies as signs from God telling us to do this or not to do that.

To know and trust in God is to know and trust His revealed Word.

The Trinity Explained

What is the Trinity?

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In our studies so far we’ve continually seen three persons referred to as God. We’ve seen God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Because of these mentions of these three persons we thought that now would be a good time to take a break to define each of these persons which in Christianity are known as the Godhead.

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The Trinity Explained

What Is The Trinity? – Transcript

Now we have to start with a stipulation.

God is Beyond the ability of a human to fully comprehend.

Therefore, all man’s attempts to explain the three persons of the Godhead, what’s known as the Trinity, are limited, incomplete and imperfect.

God is beyond the ability of a human to fully comprehend.

Therefore, all man’s attempts to explain the three persons of the Godhead, what’s known as the Trinity, are limited, incomplete and imperfect.

God simply cannot be explained in human terms. How could he possibly be?

He’s outside of all that exists. He’s eternal which means He never began, and He’ll never end. The mind of man is incapable of rationalising that.

The only way we can truly know Him is through faith.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, that’s Hebrews 11:1.

The hardest part of explaining the Trinity is man’s inability to grasp that there could be a being far beyond man’s own intelligence and capabilities. It just won’t compute to most people. In other words, If something can’t be explained it must not exist.

Despite this we live in a world where we’re surrounded by the unexplainable and the existence of a great many of those unexplainable things is beyond dispute, yet where God’s concerned, man’ll do almost anything to deny His existence and there’s a very good reason for that and the answer lies throughout our bible study.

Now, we don’t find the word “Trinity” in the Bible, yet the doctrine of the Trinity is there in many places, in fact throughout the whole book.

The Trinity means there is one God who is revealed in three distinct Persons, all of the same Substance, co-equal, co-existent, and co-eternal, and known as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father. However, The Father is God, Jesus is God and the Holy Spirit is God.

The Trinity is explained in diagram form.

Note: No crudely created diagram can ever go close to explaining our unexplainable God! It’s simply a way of challenging our human logic and thought patterns.

Look at this Syllogism. A syllogism is an argument, a logical conclusion, a deduction, or a reasoning.

If it can be shown that:

There are three persons mentioned in the Bible,

And, that these three persons are all called “God”,

And that there is only one God,

Then the three persons must be the one God whether we understand it or not.

Can this be shown in the Bible? Yes, it can!

First, there is only one God.

James 2:19 – You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!

1 Corinthians 8:4 – …there is no other God but one.

Deuteronomy 6:4 – Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!

Second, The Hebrew word for “God” (Elohim) is plural but is used with a singular verb.

Genesis 1:26 – Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image…”

Genesis 1:27 – So, God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Genesis 11:7 – Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language…

Genesis 11:9 – …there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

Third, the Hebrew word for “one” (Deut. 6:4) is not yachad, which means “absolute mathematical oneness,” but echad meaning “composite unity” or “united one.”

Genesis 1:5 – So the evening and the morning were the first day. One (echad) day.”

Genesis 2:24 – Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one (echad, the same as One God) flesh.

Numbers 13:23 – …and there cut down a branch with one (echad, the same as One God) cluster of grapes.

Deuteronomy 6:4 – Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!

Fourth, Jesus revealed God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Matthew 28:19 – …baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…

Fifth, The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all called “God.”

The Father is God.

1 Peter 1:2 – …according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ…

2 Peter 1:17 – For He received from God the Father honour and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

The Son is God.

Hebrews 1:8 – But to the Son He says: “YOUR THRONE, O GOD, IS FOREVER AND EVER; A SCEPTER OF RIGHTEOUSNESS IS THE SCEPTER OF YOUR KINGDOM.

Titus 2:13 – …looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, …

Romans 9:5 – …of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.

The Holy Spirit is God.

Acts 5:3 – But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? then to the next verse, verse 4, You have not lied to men but to God.”

1 Corinthians 6:19 – Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?

2 Corinthians 6:16 – As God has said: “I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM. I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.” We are indwelled by the Holy Spirit after we believe!

Sixth, The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist as three eternal and distinct persons.

John 14:16 – “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever…” This also disproves the teaching that the Father becomes the Son, who becomes the Holy Spirit.

The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father. Jesus is sent by the Father, and He and the Father send the Spirit (John 14:26, 15:26, 16:7, 17:8, 20:21).

Therefore, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three persons of the one God, not three manifestations of God, which was the belief and heresy of the third-century priest and theologian Sabellius.

This proves that God (Elohim–plural) is one (echad–composite unity) and is three separate persons–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Verses that tell us of the Trinity.

The following verses all contain each member of the Godhead.

Matthew 28:19 — Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, …

Notice Jesus said to baptize in the “name” (singular), not “names” (plural). Then 3 separate persons are listed: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Greek uses “and the” between each person, clearly distinguishing them as separate from each other.

2 Corinthians 13:14 — The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

1 Peter 1:2 — …according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ…

Matthew 3:16-17 — The Father speaks, the Son is baptized, and the Holy Spirit descends.

John 15:26 — “But when the Helper (The Holy Spirit) comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.

Other verses — Acts 7:55, Luke 1:35, 3:21-22, Eph. 2:18-20, 4:4-6, 5:18-20, 1 Cor. 12:4-6, Isa. 48:16, Zech. 12:10, John 14:16-17, 26, 1 Thess. 1:2-5, 2 Thess. 2:13-14, Titus 3:4-6 1 John 5:6-9

Who Indwells the True Believer?

God the Father

2 Corinthians 6:16 – …I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM. I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.

Philippians 2:13 – …for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.

Jesus Christ

2 Corinthians 13:5 – …Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?…

Galatians 2:20 –  I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me…

Colossians 1:27 – …what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

The Holy Spirit

1 Corinthians 6:19 – Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?

John 14:17 – the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.

2 Timothy 1:14 – That good thing which was committed to you, keep by the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.

Romans 8:9 – But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.

Who Raised Jesus From the Dead?

God the Father.

Acts 3:15 – …and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.

Acts 3:26 – To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.

1 Thessalonians 1:10 – …and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

Acts 2:32 – This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses.

Acts 17:31 – …because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.

Jesus raised Himself.

John 2:19-22 – Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Then the Jews said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” But He was speaking of the temple of His body. Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.

The Holy Spirit

Romans 8:11 – But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

1 Peter 3:18 – For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit…

Who Will Raise the True Believer from the Dead?

God the Father

1 Corinthians 6:14 – And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power.

Jesus Christ

John 5:25-29 – Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.

John 6:40, 44 – And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” The Jews then complained about Him, because He said, “I am the bread which came down from heaven.” And they said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that He says, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus therefore answered and said to them, “Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.

Philippians 3:20-21 – For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.

The Holy Spirit

Romans 8:11 – But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

God Is…

God is Sovereign.

He is absolute.

Psalm 8:4 – What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him?

Romans 9:19-21 – You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honour and another for dishonour?

Everything that comes into being is a result of the sovereign choice and creation of God. Consequently, we should never question God, “Why did you make me as I am?” You are God’s unique creation. We live and move under a Sovereign God.

God is Grace and Love.

God’s attitude toward even the worst of sinners is that He wants to save him.

Romans 5:8-11 – But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

Romans 5:20-21 – Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

God is Infinite.

He is without end – without limit. Scientists tell us that the universe is expanding outward at a tremendous speed, but God is always beyond it. The universe will never go beyond our infinite God.

God is Omnipresent.

He is everywhere, always present.

Psalm 139:7 – 17 – here can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?

If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.

If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me.

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,” Even the night shall be light about me.

Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You.

For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.

I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.

My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skilfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.

How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!

God is Omniscient.

He is all-knowing. There is not, or was not, or will never be a time when God had to seek advice or to consult someone or some source outside Himself, or study something out. Certainly, within the Godhead there was counsel, but it was immediate, there was no debate among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

God is self-existent.

He has no beginning; He has no end.

In Genesis 1:1, “God” refers to the Trinity – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

This Triune God is Spirit, invisible, intangible.

He is unable to be comprehended with the senses of man. But in

Colossians 1:15, speaking of Jesus, it says, “Who is the image of the invisible God, …”

John 1:1 to 3, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

 

God became visible in the flesh; He became touchable.

In summary, there is absolutely no doubt that the Bible clearly portrays The Trinity.

As individuals we have the God given right of free will to believe what the Bible says or to reject what the Bible says, however there’s one thing we cannot say!

We cannot say that the Bible doesn’t teach the Trinity, the Triune nature of God.

The Last Days – Part 9 – Christ as King

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In this episode we continue to define this period known as the end times or the last days and we see Christ in the Kingdom that He’ll set up on earth in those times.

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The Last Days – Part 9 – Chris as King – Transcript

In this episode we’re discussing the Kingdom and Christ as it’s King.

If you recall when Christ died 2000 years ago Peter stood up at Pentecost filled with the Holy Spirit saying all the prophecies relating to the last days were being fulfilled now.

He quoted from Joel chapter 2. Joel 2 spoke about the last days in which tribulation and wrath will come from the Lord and the kingdom would be set up.

Well, it’s been 2000 years since that happened, so where are those last days prophesised so long ago.

As we read in the Bible continuing past Acts chapter 2, we see that Christ saved the apostle Paul in a completely unprecedented and unprophesied event. Christ revealed to Paul a mystery dispensation where not only could mankind be saved by grace alone through faith in the completed work of Jesus Christ on the cross, but that He’s creating a new creature that’s not Jewish or Gentile. It wasn’t a fulfillment of prophecy, but it was a mystery that was kept secret since the world began.

It was something that concerned a new creature that would reign and rule with Christ in Heavenly places as part of God’s universal plan and purpose for the ages.

This revealed mystery was different from what God had purposed for the earth in prophecy.

We’ve seen in this series that when we rightly divide the Bible, this mystery, now revealed, this dispensation of the church, the Body of Christ, from the tribulation, the Bible begins to take on a simple clarity.

Where people get confused with the end time prophecies is when they think we live in this time of tribulation, or that the catching away of the church is a tribulation event.

When we rightly divide this mystery period from prophecy, we see that the tribulation was prophesied throughout the Bible but what God’s doing today is not.

So, when we separate these periods, it’s called rightly dividing as 2 Timothy 2:15 says in a direct instruction from Paul to us today

Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

It’s very important to see this distinction between prophecy and mystery, Israel and the church, law, and grace.

If we don’t make that simple distinction, we’re going to have trouble with these end time events because we’re going to mix in prophesied events with what God’s doing today and we’re going to get confused and possibly lead people into error.

People may take these verses about the Tribulation or these Kingdom verses and apply them to their salvation today and may even get the idea that they’re enduring till the end to be saved, or that they’ve got to keep those commandments to be saved. They may think they’ve got to build this Kingdom.

The Gospel of grace in 1 Corinthians 15:3 – 4,

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: 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, 

Studying end times and for that matter the whole Bible according to God’s dispensations is critical to understanding. By dispensations we simply mean taking into account the different ways that God deals with mankind through different ages and seeing where we are today in those ages.

There’s so much we could talk about relating to prophecy, but we simply want to get the foundation right first, so we’re not talking about the antichrist, the 144,000 Witnesses, or the mark of the beast.

When we talk about the end of the world, we’re not talking about the annihilation of everything. It’s not that a comet’s going to hit us and suddenly humanity is extinct. That’s not it at all.

We understand that God created the world out of nothing. He created man from the dust of the earth, and He has a purpose and a plan for the ages and so when we talk about the end of the world, as the Bible’s talking about, it’s the end of the world system as we know it, the end of the present evil of the world’s institutions where sin and rejection of God are the foundations.

In Ephesians 2 – 3 Paul explains this,

And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

We were born unsaved and before we were saved in this present world we walked according to the things of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of Disobedience.

That Prince of the power of the air is not the Lord Jesus Christ.

Many people think Christ is King now, that He’s reigning now with his rod of iron and He’s currently running this world. Not so!

He has every right to be King and we’ve covered that. Because of his death on the cross He’s been set in a position where He’s going to possess that Kingship in the future, but He’s not possessed it yet.

The prince of the power of the air here has to do with Satan.

2 Corinthians 4:3 – 4 says this about the God of this world that blinds people’s minds,

But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. 

In Galatians 1:4 we read about Christ,

who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.

We battle today against spiritual wickedness in high places according to Paul in Ephesians 6:12,

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 

We’re also in a battle of doctrine, a battle where the enemy tries to twist, and distort the Words that God’s spoken to mankind.

2 Corinthians 11:3,

But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. 

We’re not fighting against people, we’re fighting against the bad Doctrine and the wrong teaching that keep people from salvation and from trusting Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 2:3 says,

Among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

When we talk about the end of the world, we’re talking about that right there.

About the children of Wrath that’ll be dealt with during this time of tribulation and Judgment of the Nations.

We’ve seen that in the tribulation Christ returns and tears down the institutions and kingdoms of this world and sets up His own kingdom. That’s when the children of wrath get dealt with.

We’re talking about the rise of the Kingdom of God on Earth, Christ’s Kingdom, where Christ returns and says I’m the King and I’m here to claim My kingdom.

It’ll be a great day because no longer will we talk about the prince of the power of the air or the God of this world or this present evil world because during this time Christ will be on His throne reigning.

Look at Zechariah 14 verses 7 to 9.

It shall be one day Which is known to the LORD Neither day nor night. But at evening time it shall happen That it will be light. And in that day it shall be—That living waters shall flow from Jerusalem, Half of them toward the eastern sea And half of them toward the western sea; In both summer and winter it shall occur. And the LORD shall be King over all the earth. In that day it shall be “The LORD is one,” And His name one. 

That tells us that we’re not living in the time of the prophesied Kingdom at the moment and yet that’s what some people believe.

They think when Christ came and died and rose from the dead, His kingdom began and all those prophecies, one of which we’ve just read, is now fulfilled and we’re now living in the Kingdom.

Christians pray for the furtherance of God’s kingdom, to further build his kingdom out and that’s what they honestly believe the church’s job is today.

They think we’re living in this Kingdom and that we are the kingdom, and we need to build institutions to reform our world.

But this world is lost.

God’s already condemned it. That’s why we’re called by the scripture ambassadors in 2 Corinthians 5:20,

Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. 

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

We’re sent into an evil world where Christ currently has no rule and influence because everyone’s rejected Him.

However, there will be a time when He’s no longer offering those terms of peace that we’re here to tell of. The ambassadors are gone, caught up together with the Lord after which time He comes back in wrath and judgement before he sets up his kingdom.

The world will see the salvation of the Lord and his righteousness, and they’ll no longer be able to say, I don’t believe anything I can’t see. They’ll see Him alright!

This’ll be a time when Jesus is actually there, where they’ll see Him not only as He was once before, but he’ll be reigning and ruling.

We’re looking for the hope of this change, Christ as King as government and as judge.

Today we listen to politicians of all parties of government trying to convince us that this or that policy will work better but it’s not an internal change. It’s a mental calculation done in minds that are completely unable to see the entire picture.

But to preach salvation and trust in the gospel will change a person by putting their hope in the right thing, Christ coming as King and ruling in absolute righteousness and justice.

Christ came the first time as a servant, as a minister and his ministry lasted three and a half years and, in that time, He changed the world. What’ll happen when he comes and reigns for a thousand years.

Look at Psalm chapter 2. This is a Messianic Psalm that talks about Christ, and it says in Psalm 2: 6 – 8,

“Yet I have set My King On My holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: The LORD has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You. ” 

Ask of Me, and I will give You The nations for Your inheritance, And the ends of the earth for Your possession. 

That’s God the Father speaking to Jesus, God the Son and He’s talking about this time of the Kingdom.

Paul talks about this same prophecy in Acts 13:33. Let’s see that,

God has fulfilled this for us their children, in that He has raised up Jesus. As it is also written in the second Psalm: ‘YOU ARE MY SON, TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN YOU.’ 

Christ was begotten to sit in the position as the Son of God in heaven when he rose from the dead and ascended to heavenly places and He hasn’t yet possessed the kingdom.

When he comes back it’s time to possess it and He’s going to take it. It’ll be His and it says in Psalm 2:9 and 10,

You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel. Now therefore, be wise, O kings; Be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, And rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, And you perish in the way, When His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him. 

This is an Earthly Kingdom friends, not spiritual or heavenly that’s somehow in our hearts.

Notice the warning in these verses? It says when Christ comes and possesses His kingdom beware you judges and kings on the Earth. You’d better kiss the Son, that’s the Son of God, or Trust in the Son. You’d better fear the Lord or else He’ll judge you face to face right there on the Earth.

We’re talking about that Kingdom on the earth when Christ is King and what that’s going to be like.

Will that be different than today? Very much so. The name of Christ’s become an insult for a lot of people today in this world. It won’t be then when He’s the King over all the earth and everyone’ll know Him.

Romans 14:11, quoting prophecy from Isaiah 4:23,

For it is written: “AS I LIVE, SAYS THE LORD, EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW TO ME, AND EVERY TONGUE SHALL CONFESS TO GOD.” 

Then Philippians 2:10 & 11,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 

Now let’s go to Romans 11:25 – 27 and we read,

For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 

And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “THE DELIVERER WILL COME OUT OF ZION, AND HE WILL TURN AWAY UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB; 

FOR THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS.”

Paul’s again quoting prophecy, this time Isaiah 59, explaining Israel’s place in this dispensation of grace today and why Israel and their promises aren’t being fulfilled today.

He explains that Israel is not finished. Israel will be saved because of those prophecies that have yet to be fulfilled. Every Word of every prophecy God has given must and will be fulfilled.

Paul explains this mystery unless, as he says, you should be wise in your own conceits, or opinions, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in.

That’s after this current mystery dispensation that was kept secret since before the foundation of the world but is now revealed. Israel’s blind in part currently. Israel’s fallen today, but they’re only blind in part until a future time and that’s when Paul says in verse 26 here, that all Israel shall be saved, as it is written in Isaiah 59.

Remember how in previous episodes we saw how ever since Israel was taken to captivity back there in Daniel that Gentiles have reigned over the world and Israel’s not been in their position that God promised them as a nation and how Christ called this time, “the time of the Gentiles”, because of that.

However, when the time of the Gentiles is done, and Christ comes back and destroys the kingdoms of this world and sets His own kingdom up, what happens?

Israel’s going to be saved and put in the position that God promised them since Abraham.

All the world’ll be blessed through Israel at that time. People will look at Israel and say the Lord’s with them. They’ll say salvation is in Zion. That’s a lot different than now. When Israel’s talked about today, we only hear about bombs and armies and guns and struggle and hatred.

But not then.

They’ll be in a position above all Nations and all the world’ll come to them as Romans 11:25 – 26 says.

Israel is no longer blind in those days. They get saved to be the priests and ministers of the lord, to bless the nations of the world.

In Romans 11:12 Paul writes,

Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness! 

If their fall led to Salvation being sent to Gentiles by Grace what incredible things will come from their fulness?

Romans 11:32 says,

For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all.

That’s the reason why God’s giving grace to the world, Jews, and Gentiles, because the Jews, as a nation, fell when they rejected Christ their Messiah.

As a result, they no longer have a position anywhere close to what they had before they fell.

They’re no different than the Gentiles that’ve rejected Christ.

So, since both Jew and Gentile are fallen, God can offer salvation to all of them freely by grace and that’s what he’s doing today.

The problem is that, today, we’re still in our sinful flesh.

We have salvation by grace through faith and hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet we have to constantly deal with our flesh not being healed.

We struggle with things in this present evil world.

When Christ Reigns as King we won’t have to deal with that anymore. No more present evil in this world.

How much more their fullness the salvation of Israel.

That’s the hope that God has for the Earth.

Romans 11:15 says,

For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? 

I mean if we get reconciled through grace freely today what will it be like when Israel actually rises to power, and this world is no longer evil with everyone in unbelief?

Look at Jeremiah 23:3 and it’s God speaking through Jeremaiah,

But I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase. 

Everywhere we see that word “flock” in the Bible it deals with Israel.

Israel are God’s sheep so it shouldn’t surprise us to see in Psalm 23 the shepherd leading through the valley and the green pastures, talking about Israel in that tribulation time of trouble, the shadow of darkness and death, and leading them into that Kingdom Psalm 24 depicts.

Jeremaiah 23:4,

I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking,” says the LORD. 

Many people think that Israel’s fulfilling these prophecies of Jeremiah 23 today.

They think that the Balfour Declaration of 1917 was God bringing them back to the land. But does Israel today lack nothing and is the Lord their Shepherd over them?

As a nation, they reject the Lord Jesus Christ today just as they’ve always done.

Prophecy says Israel will return in a certain way and God’ll do it and when they return the world’ll know that God did it and that surviving remnant of them will finally accept the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jeremiah 23:5,

Behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, “That I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness; A King shall reign and prosper, And execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. 

Is that a picture of unbelieving Israel today?

See this is talking about a kingdom that God establishes after he’s knocked down the kings of this world. This’ll be a King who’ll execute judgment and Justice in the whole earth.

There’d be a huge political problem with that right now if you preached God’s Kingdom on the earth following the justice and Judgment of Jesus Christ.

It’s ridiculous for Christians to think they’re helping bring God’s Kingdom to earth by donating to the building of the next temple.

We live in a present evil world where even Bible believing Christians either reject the whole counsel of God or fail to learn it.

In Jeremaiah 23:6 God says,

In His days Judah will be saved, And Israel will dwell safely; Now this is His name by which He will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Is that what we see in today’s headlines? Israel dwelling safely?

Some say, well, they’ve got the Iron Dome missile protection system, so there it is, fulfillment of Prophecy! Hardly!

He shall be called the Lord our righteousness. Is that Israel’s current prime minister?

Jeremiah 23 verse 6 is talking about Jesus Christ as King in Israel and He’s going to protect them.

We’ll see later in Revelation 21 how He protects them with fire from heaven and it’s not the Iron Dome system.

He’ll just burn them up. That’s how he protects them. No need for missiles. Won’t it be great when the people living at the time in that Kingdom no longer need to use the brains that God gave them to create missile defence systems? How many unknown and awesome things will they turn their intelligence to?

Today Israel observes their holidays, and those holidays hearken back to when God delivered them out of Egypt. So, they do Passover, and they do the feast of unleavened bread and all to remember what God did for them in Exodus.

But God says in Jeremaiah 23:7 and 8,

“Therefore, behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, “that they shall no longer say, ‘As the LORD lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,’ 

but, ‘As the LORD lives who brought up and led the descendants of the house of Israel from the north country and from all the countries where I had driven them.’ And they shall dwell in their own land.” 

They’ll say the Lord brought them back, not out of Egypt but out of the countries, to their own land.

The world will say this. They won’t need a church to explain it to them, they’ll all know the Lord. That’s what the Bible says.

Look at Jeremiah 33:14 to 16,

Behold, the days are coming,’ says the LORD, ‘that I will perform that good thing which I have promised to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah: ‘In those days and at that time I will cause to grow up to David A Branch of righteousness; He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. In those days Judah will be saved, And Jerusalem will dwell safely. And this is the name by which she will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.’

Is that what we ought to call Israel today? The Lord our Righteousness?

These are questions we all need to ask if we think the Kingdom’s happening today.

Of course, it isn’t but what a time that’ll be when there’s actually a nation that’s proclaiming the Lord Jesus Christ and He’s the King.

Jeremaiah 33:17,

“For thus says the LORD: ‘David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel; 

Never shall there not be a king from the house David on the throne of Israel and so the promises that God made to David will be fulfilled in this Kingdom.

It’ll be a Son of David as the King.

Jeremaiah 33:18,

nor shall the priests, the Levites, lack a man to offer burnt offerings before Me, to kindle grain offerings, and to sacrifice continually.’ ” 

Today Israel can’t offer sacrifices because the Kingdom’s not here and the temple’s torn down.

Jews today want to rebuild their Temple to offer sacrifices. What’s stopping them? Money? No, it’s not money it’s politics. They don’t have the authority. They’re fighting a political battle. There’s Muslims over there. There’s Palestinians over there. There’s Jews over there who all but a few reject Christ outright.

The issue is political, and it’ll be solved when this Kingdom comes with Christ as King.

In Jeremiah 33 we can read down to verses 25 and 26 where God explains this promise He made to them and how He made a covenant with them that will not be taken away.

He considers the things in the heaven and in the skies as a covenant. He’s saying that if I can break my Covenant of the day and my Covenant of the night then there should not be day and night in their season. Then may also my Covenant be broken with David my servant.

He says similar in Jeremiah 3.

Look at the sun, the Moon, and the stars. The sun comes up every day and the moon has its Circle every month. If you can stop the Sun from shining and stop the Moon from doing what it’s doing and the stars from shining, then Israel will cease to be able to claim the promise I made with him.

That’s what God says in Jeremiah 31.

Those things are there because I put them there for times and seasons and if you can stop that then you can stop the kingdom coming back to Israel.

The point being that nothing can stop what God’s going to do. He’s going to make it happen. He’s got a covenant with Israel. He made a promise to them.

The Kingdom come to Earth means the rise and salvation of Israel.

For Christians today to preach that the Kingdom on Earth is theirs is only one step away from claiming to be Israel.

Christians cannot build the Kingdom and it won’t be set up without Israel being present.

Isaiah chapter 11 verse 1 and 2, was fulfilled in Jesus’s Earthly Ministry, now he’s going to be the judge of all the earth.

In verse 3:4 we read,

His delight is in the fear of the LORD, And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, Nor decide by the hearing of His ears,

But with righteousness He shall judge the poor, And decide with equity for the meek of the earth; He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked. 

See, with righteousness He’ll judge the poor and with equity or fairness He’ll judge the meek, the humble of the Earth.

Look down at verse 9,

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD As the waters cover the sea. 

It says nothing will hurt or destroy. There won’t be people hurting each other at this time.

When the Gentile powers are destroyed and Israel is set up as that Kingdom, and Christ is ruling, the Gentiles will come to Israel and Israel’ll give them blessings. They’ll come to learn the law of God. No more debates about the best system of government or the best form of economics or the best political rules. You go to Jerusalem to learn the law of God and that’s how it’s done all over the Earth. What a great time.

Isaiah 11:11 and 12,

It shall come to pass in that day That the Lord shall set His hand again the second time To recover the remnant of His people who are left, From Assyria and Egypt, From Pathros and Cush, From Elam and Shinar, From Hamath and the islands of the sea. 

He will set up a banner for the nations, And will assemble the outcasts of Israel, And gather together the dispersed of Judah From the four corners of the earth. 

This is what will happen in this Kingdom after the tribulation is over.

It’s time to gather in His people. Building the kingdom begins here when Christ returns.

Look at Isaiah 46:13,

I bring My righteousness near, it shall not be far off; My salvation shall not linger. And I will place salvation in Zion, For Israel My glory.

The glory of God on the earth will be that Nation, and it’s where people get saved.

We wouldn’t send someone to Israel today to be saved, but at that time that’s where they, the nations, will go for salvation.

They’ll hear about salvation and God’s blessings in Israel.

Look at Isaiah chapter 60 verses 1 and 2,

Arise, shine; For your light has come! And the glory of the LORD is risen upon you. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, And deep darkness the people; But the LORD will arise over you, And His glory will be seen upon you.

Who’s this? Israel! The darkness over the face of the Earth is the tribulation where there’s flames and fire and smoke and dead people. That’s darkness. But what happens? The light that comes out of this Darkness is saved Israel.

He says rise from the ashes Israel. I’ll resurrect you; I’ll make you this nation and you’ll be my glory on the Earth.

Isaiah 60:3 and 4 now,

The Gentiles shall come to your light, And kings to the brightness of your rising. 

Lift up your eyes all around, and see: They all gather together, they come to you; Your sons shall come from afar, And your daughters shall be nursed at your side.

So, you see all the nations come to them and they won’t need to be convinced.

God makes that happen.

This certainly doesn’t describe Israel today, does it?

However, at that time the world will be so desperate for salvation from this destruction that when they see a nation with the power of God on them that’s where they’ll go.

To Isaiah 62:1 and 2.

For Zion’s sake I will not hold My peace, And for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, Until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, And her salvation as a lamp that burns. 

The Gentiles shall see your righteousness, And all kings your glory. You shall be called by a new name, Which the mouth of the LORD will name. 

This is the Word of God, where God Himself is speaking by the Holy Spirit through Isaiah the prophet. It’s very plain.

Isaiah 62:3 and 4,

You (Israel) shall also be a crown of glory In the hand of the LORD, And a royal diadem In the hand of your God. 

You shall no longer be termed Forsaken, Nor shall your land any more be termed Desolate; But you shall be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; For the LORD delights in you, And your land shall be married. 

There’s a famous old Christian church hymn called Sweet Beulah Land, but it’s not for the church today, it’s about Israel and their land. This is the only place where Beulah shows up, and it’s clearly about Israel.

In Biblical Hebrew Beulah means “married”, and applies to the land that Israel will marry, the land promised by God to Abraham, Issac, and Jacob.

We’re not Israel and we don’t have a land promise so us singing about this Beulah land somehow relating to the church today is very odd.

By the way this gives a whole different perspective on Revelation 21 and the Bride of the Lamb which many if not most Christians think is the church.

Where does the church get that from? But that’s a discussion for another day.

In Zechariah 8:22 and 23 we read,

Yes, many peoples and strong nations Shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem, And to pray before the LORD.’ 

“Thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘In those days ten men from every language of the nations shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man, saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.” ‘ ” 

People will flock to Israel to learn of God.

We’re going now to Revelation 19 to see what this is all going to look like according to the revelation of Christ.

The Book of Revelation is not a confusing book. It’s very clear if we take it literally.

Revelation 19 is where the Lord Jesus Christ comes back to judge and make war and to set up his Kingdom.

Revelation 19 down in verse 19 and 20 we read,

And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army. 

Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. 

Christ comes back and destroys the armies of the world, and he takes that false Christ and that false prophet, those dictator leaders of the world at that time, and casts them into the Lake of the fire.

They’re done, finished. He doesn’t compete with them. They’re simply finished off.

Verse 21,

And the rest were killed with the sword which proceeded from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse. And all the birds were filled with their flesh. 

Remember last episode we spoke of this sword being a symbol of the Words that Jesus speaks. Words of Judgment in this case.

Now look at what happens in Revelation chapter 20 verses 1 and 2,

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. 

He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; 

So, we’re here at the beginning of the kingdom and Christ has just destroyed the armies of the earth and He’s destroyed the antichrist and the false prophet by casting them into the lake of fire.

Then he turns to Satan, the third member of that Unholy Trinity.

He casts him into a bottomless pit, and he binds him for a thousand years.

We can’t bind Satan today, contrary to what most in the charismatic movement believe.

When the kingdom comes Christ will bind Satan and he’s not going to be unbound for the 1000-year span of the Kingdom.

Can any of us imagine this earth with Christ ruling and Satan and his evil influence bound from anything to do with the operations of this world?

Revelation 20:3,

and He (Christ) cast him (Satan) into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while. 

You see, at this time in the Kingdom, when Christ first sets it up, this isn’t to get rid of sin and death.

This is simply to set up his Kingdom and He’s going to show the whole world what the reign in righteousness is like.

Sin and death are still there.

Satan’s in the bottomless pit and he’s just bound up at this time, but then, when this thousand-year period is up, Christ will let him out!

Why would He do that?

Well, this Thousand-Year Millennium as people call it, this Millennial reign of Christ is going to be a time where Christ enters into this cursed world and reigns Himself showing people how righteousness can reign and how from that we’ve been for the last six thousand some years. He’ll show firsthand the incredible way the earth functions with sin bound and Christ ruling.

But even then, even at the end of this Thousand Years there’s going to be people who oppose Him.

How could that be?

Sinful man! Sin still exists!

There ‘ll be people in this thousand-year long Kingdom, generations in fact, who weren’t born before Christ set up this Kingdom.

All they know is Christ on the throne.

Their parents’ll tell them stories of old about before Christ came and how He was rejected and how He destroyed all the unrighteous people of the earth, but the kids don’t know that, or at least it’s just an old story to them. They’ve been born in this Kingdom, and they don’t know anything else.

There’ll be plenty of them who’ll say, “I don’t like the way Christ’s doing things”, even though they don’t know anything different.

It’s like kids today complaining they’re bored, even though they have smartphones and TVs and video games and every toy and gadget imaginable. It’s like, “Really? We used to have a stick!”

That’s how it’ll be in this time. People are born and at the end of this thousand years there’ll be an uprising again against Christ.

The Lord’s response is quick and sharp.

I’m the King of the earth. You’re in rebellion, poof. With fire they’re gone.

That’s the end of all things. That’s the end of the world. We talk about the end of the world, that’s the end of it.

He, The Lord Jesus Christ, comes back to conquer and possess the world, but this is the end of it.

There’s no more sin and death after that, after the thousand years.

In Revelation 20:7 and 8 we read,

Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog, and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea. 

Though it says in verse 2 that Satan is bound for a thousand years here we see where he’s unbound after the Thousand Years.

So much is written about Gog and Magog today, but do you know that this is the only time in the entire New Testament it shows up?

In what context do we find it? In the millennium, at the end of the thousand-year reign of Christ.

Why is there such a fascination with Gog and Magog today?

Even if you think we’re living in the tribulation, they’re not mentioned in the tribulation at all. They’re mentioned here at the end of the millennium and only here.

The only people who could possibly be looking for Gog and Magog are people who don’t take their Bible literally and who think we’re living in the Kingdom now, otherwise it’s not important to us today.

There’ll be a thousand-years where whole Nations will be built. Gog and Magog will be there. Generations will be born, and Gog and Magog show up to gather them together to battle.

The number of them is as the sand of the sea.

Revelation 20:9,

They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city (that’s Israel and the city of Jerusalem). And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them.

Revelation 20 verse 10,

The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

That right there is the end of all things sin.

Now, let’s jump back a moment to Revelation 20 verse 4 which is after Satan is bound for a thousand years. Who’s going to reign in these thousand years?

We know Christ is on the throne, but John says here, and we read,

And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. 

There’s going to be people who had died Martyrs deaths during the tribulation and were resurrected to be rulers in this Kingdom.

That’s an amazing thing because today, only Christ has been resurrected. Christ is the first of the Resurrection.

But during this time, these people will be raised from the dead to Reign on Earth with Christ.

As Revelation 20:5 says,

But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. 

There’s going to be both people who’re resurrected from the dead and people who are living for the first time during this Kingdom.

It seems strange, but that’s what the Bible says.

There’re going to be children being born during this time and we’ll get to that in a moment.

There’re also going to be people dying during this time. You’d better be dying in the Lord because Revelation20 verse 6 says,

Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.

Paul, in the epistles to the church today, never once uses the word priest to describe members of the Body of Christ.

We’re not Priests of God! We’re his ambassadors and we’re members of his body.

The priests of God mediate between two parties, that’s what a priest is.

During the kingdom there’ll be Israel who’ll be priests mediating between the Gentiles and God.

In Israel there’ll be great rejoicing.

Psalm 98 is the song they’ll be singing and it’s a song about all the nations coming to Jerusalem and praising God for the works that He can do. It’s a great Psalm that confirms all we’ve been discussing here.

Isaiah 49:6 deals with this Kingdom and talks about the restoration of people during this time,

Indeed, He (God) says, ‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob, And to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles, That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.’ ” 

Then Isaiah 49:7,

Thus says the LORD, The Redeemer of Israel, their Holy One, To Him whom man despises, To Him whom the nation abhors, To the Servant of rulers: “Kings shall see and arise, Princes also shall worship, Because of the LORD who is faithful, The Holy One of Israel; And He has chosen You.”

Isaiah’s talking about the day of salvation and the restoration of Israel.

God’s going to remember Israel and He’s going to bring them back.

Ezekiel chapter 40, which you can read on your own, talks about priests and temples.

Israel had a religion that God established and he’s going to set it up in this Kingdom, in this time during the thousand years where there’s still sin and there’s still death.

Christ is the king and he’s judging righteously, and Israel is resurrected and they’re reigning with him and they’re going to be ministers to the world ministering God’s righteousness.

Ezekiel 40 describes a temple that has never been built in the past. It can only be built in the future.

People might say that’s crazy. You’re saying they’re going to reinstitute the sacrifices? Yes!

Jesus Christ is the atonement for sins and during this time sin has not yet been destroyed.

How many times did Israel sacrifice for atonement of the sins of the nation?

Once a year? How many times do they offer other sacrifices? All the time!

There are offerings and sacrifices that have nothing to do with the atonement of sins. There’re burnt sacrifices that have to do with praising God. It’s a testimony given to God.

People are disgusted by sacrifices. They say, see God’s going to kill animals. But hold on.

What about your steak on the grill, your hamburger patties, or the roast cooking in the oven?

We tend to disconnect from where our food comes from.

There’s going to be sacrifices.

Ezekiel 40-48 explains how that Temple will be rebuilt and how The Lord will actually be sitting there.

In the Old Testament there was the glory of God in the Holy of Holies.

No one could go in there except the chief priest once a year.

But that changed when the veil, the curtain, that separated the Holy of Holies was supernaturally torn when Christ died. We see this in Matthew 27:51, Mark 15:38 and Luke 23:45.

But in this Kingdom day Jesus Christ will be sitting in the temple.

There’ll be a table of the Lord and the priests, as described in Ezekiel 40, will bring their sacrifices to Him and they’ll eat these sacrifices with Him.

In the Old Testament the priest would eat the sacrifice. The burnt ones are all burned up but the other ones they’d eat.

That’s what the priest’s privilege was and so in the Kingdom come the priest will take the sacrifices for the sins of the people.

They’ll come to that table of the Lord, and Christ’s priests’ll sit and eat with Him.

In this amazing picture the whole world comes to Jerusalem and what are they doing? Bringing sacrifices to the King of all the earth.

You and I are not going to be on the Earth but that’s what’s going to happen. Read Ezekiel 40 through 48 and you’ll read more about that temple and the temple worship before the table of the Lord and how they’ll follow that law.

Isaiah 66 says that they’ll observe the Sabbaths, Passover, and the new moons and all those holy days.

They won’t celebrate their deliverance out of Egypt at Passover, but Jesus Christ and his shed blood.

They’re going to observe those holidays and those Sabbath days as they were then in the past shadows of the things to come which is this Kingdom on the earth.

The millennial reign’ll be an institution of perfect worship on the earth which is why they pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven”.

There’ll be a final judgment after the thousand years, after Christ’s reign of righteousness and judgment, after Israel’s rise.

There’ll be an uprising when Satan’s released, as we’ve seen, and Christ, the King, will put that uprising down very quickly as Revelation 20 says.

Fire comes down and devours the rebellious just like in the Old Testament, and immediately after this happens there’s a judgment.

Revelation 20:11 and 12,

Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. 

And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. 

Are you and I going to be there?

The answer is no!

If we’re saved by God’s grace, we’re not saved by works, we’re not judged by works.

We’re saved in Christ Jesus and we’re in Heaven at this time.

These are all the dead who have been in Hades as verse 13 says,

The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. 

This resurrection of the dead is not for believers.

For believers who died during the tribulation, the resurrection of the just has already happened and, of course, the dead from our age today, the dispensation of grace, were resurrected at the catching away of the Body of Christ, the rapture, along with those that were alive at the time.

This is the resurrection of the unjust.

Death is not the end of the story.

Those dead who’re not saved throughout the ages will see Jesus Christ.

In Revelation 20 verse 11 there’s the final judgment. All the unbelieving world’ll be judged, you see. All those throughout the ages who’ve rejected God and the salvation He paid such an incredible price to give us.

This includes Hitler along with every filthy dictator like him. The politically correct, self-serving unjust judges and politicians, the war and terror merchants, every killer and thief, every unbelieving, God rejecting person who ever lived.

This is why we read in Deuteronomy 32:35,

Vengeance is Mine, and recompense; Their foot shall slip in due time; For the day of their calamity is at hand, And the things to come hasten upon them.’ 

And in Romans 12:19,

Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY,” says the Lord. 

They’ll all be resurrected and stand before the Lord Jesus Christ, King of all the earth and answer for their sins and their works.

As believers we’re judged righteous. Not for our good works, we have none, but because Jesus was judged on our behalf all those years ago at Calvary’s cross.

But these people have rejected what Jesus did in taking our place, so judgment can only be carried out on their own works and there’s no righteousness in those works.

At the end of this judgment, we have Revelation 20 verse 14 saying,

Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. 

No one will ever go to Hades, to hell, anymore after that because it, along with death has been destroyed forever.

Then verse 15 says,

And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire. 

That’s when we move to Revelation chapter 21, and in verse 1 John says,

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea.

To the Jewish mind, the sea meant a place of separation and evil.

In verse 2 John says,

Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

Then in verses 3 and 4,

And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” 

Then in verse 5,

Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.”

God’s intention throughout all mankind’s history is to first show this world what righteous reign looks like in a sinful world, then get rid of sin, get rid of death, and make everything new.

Believers are here for eternity with Christ. They’re serving Christ with no pain, no death, and no sorrow and they’re reigning with him forever.

You and I as believers are part of that reign but not on the earth. We’re in Heavenly places. We’re part of God’s great purpose to reign with him forever in perfect righteousness, but we’re not part of Israel on the Earth.

Ephesians 2:4 to 7 make this clear as it says,

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

We’ve been given a Heavenly place, so when we talk about this everlasting Kingdom and how great it’s going to be, where all things are new, we see that we’re part of the Heavenly purpose of God.

We have a hope that Jesus Christ, as King will reign both in heaven and earth and we’ll be subject to him.

This is the great hope. It’s why we see in Revelation 22:0,

He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming quickly.” Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! 

So, when we read these things about the Kingdom, we can understand it’s for Israel and it’s for the Earth. We see in this preaching of the Kingdom, God’s plan to reign in righteousness.

It also should give us hope for the heavenly places as well, because that’s how he’s going to reign there, with righteousness, and justice. We’re going to be with him in glory in heaven.

May all who have the opportunity to be saved and come to knowledge of the truth do so today.

The Last Days – Part 8 – The Kingdom Come

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In this episode we look at the Kingdom come. What is it.  How will it come to pass and what will be the result?

“Speed Slider”

The Last Days – Part 8 – The Kingdom Come – Transcript

In the last few episodes, we’ve discussed this coming Tribulation Period and last episode we dealt with salvation during the tribulation period so we could see if that’s what God’s doing on the earth now, today, is the same as during that Tribulation and, of course, it’s not.

By the way, it’s important to note a couple of things when reading the book of Revelation.

The visions that were given to the apostle John are not what the people alive at that time will see. They’re representations, symbols of events that’ll be happening at the time. The people won’t see a white horse with a rider with a sword galloping through the sky!

Instead, there’ll be an almost unrecognisable change on the planet where this antichrist will sweet talk the population of the earth and take over power and control in a way that the average person’ll probably not even realise, much like totalitarian governments have always done, in ways that don’t alarm people to their intentions.

Also, we should be aware that these ancient languages are much more descriptive that English and there’re many things that are much more easily understood by the original speakers of those languages.

Our Bible has everything we need but we know that the original words and phrase often mean more that we can express in the English.

OK, so, there’ll be people on the planet after the horrors of the tribulation and we saw that in order for those events to happen, there has to be a complete change in God’s ministry on the earth.

That change’ll happen when this current dispensation of grace ends with the church’s catching away in the air. Then God’ll dramatically change the way He deals with the world. He’ll start to reclaim his right as the possessor of heaven and earth.

When the kingdom comes you have the kings of this world knocked down and replaced by the kingdom of God being established in Israel. And that’s where we are at this time where Christ returns at the end of the great tribulation.

 

We’ve seen that the purpose of the Tribulation is not just God delighting in punishing people, it’s to take the kingdoms of the world that have been set up by man and knock them down, while at the same time restoring and regathering Israel.

This period is of course, a lead up to God establishing a Kingdom on earth over which Christ will reign for a thousand years.

There’ll be people in the world that’ll oppose him. Sin will still be present, and yet Christ will be visible, and He’ll be reigning and ruling as King.

At the end of this period we know as the Millenium, Christ will get rid of death and sin and pain and tears. There’ll be no more sin. Sin itself will be destroyed.

So here we’re talking about that time that his Kingdom comes and what that looks like.

We won’t go through all the details of the kingdom, so there’ll probably be questions about things that we’ve heard from prophecy teachers or read in books about the Kingdom or the Millennium that won’t be here.

It’s not that we shouldn’t study them or think about those details, but we need to first get the big picture of what God’s doing during that Kingdom time and why He’s doing it.

We finished last time in Revelation 19 where Christ returns with that sword in that final battle against the kingdoms of this world where they finally get the deathblow. They’ll get knocked down and Jesus Christ will institute’s His kingdom.

 

James, who was one of the Twelve Apostles, wrote his epistle to the twelve tribes of Israel who were expecting these prophetic events to happen at the time they were alive, maybe even within days or weeks.

They were expecting these times of trouble and then the kingdom coming because of the massive weight of prophecy that they were well familiar with.

So, in James 5:7 we read,

Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain. 

James is talking about the harvest and the rain at the end of the season and he’s waiting for that latter rain that harvest when believing Israel, cleansed of sin by the blood of the Messiah, would rise back to its former glory and finally receive God’s promise to Abraham, Issac, and Jacob.

And so, James is saying here to these Jewish Saints, “be patient”.

This is an instruction purely for these people who are expecting this move of God at any moment, this precursor to the kingdom.

James is preaching the gospel of the Kingdom, which is the Kingdom is at hand.

Peter preaches the same thing at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, that these are those last days, and that Christ is the fulfillment. He’s the King he’s going to bring in the kingdom.

These people are all seeing that Kingdom coming at any time. They’re looking for it right then. So, James tells them to be patient.

Now 2,000 years have passed and that’s sort of beyond patience, wouldn’t you say?

There’s doubt arising as to whether or not these disciples, Peter, James, Jude, and John were even telling the truth about the Kingdom coming.

That’s exactly what Peter deals with in his epistle of 2nd Peter.

People were doubting Peter’s message that the Kingdom was at hand, you see, because it still hadn’t come. Over at Pentecost, Peter had preached that the last days were here.

So, he writes in 2nd Peter verses 14 to 16 and says yes, the Kingdom is not here yet.

He says I wasn’t wrong, and he wasn’t. He says to listen to what Paul wrote.

Let’s read what he writes,

Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.

He explains the long-suffering of the Lord and explains that God’s trying to save more people now. Peter preaches that something changed from Acts 2 when Peter stood up there filled with the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost and you and I should understand that change which was the complete rejection of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, by the nation Israel.

So, James is writing here in James 5 verse 4 about this time period and says to be patient.

If we were to remove 2,000 years of human history since the day of Pentecost and Peter’s sermon in Acts 2, like everyone else, we’d be expecting the last days, the tribulation period of judgment spoken of by many prophets, and then, after surviving that tribulation, the setting up to the long-promised Kingdom.

The problem for so many Christians today is what’s happened in those two thousand years since Peter preached the last days.

It’s only answered in Paul’s epistles. If we take Paul’s epistles out of the Bible, we have no idea of that period of the last 2000 years. It would be easy to think all scripture is just an allegory, a symbol of some spiritualised happening. And, of course a great many do believe that’s what scripture is.

Jews mostly don’t take their Bible literally today because they realize that too much time has passed for prophecy to be fulfilled correctly.

So, you have allegorical or spiritualised interpretations of the Kingdom and of the Messiah.

But we can take the Bible literally, all of it and it will fit perfectly into the timeline of history and prophecy.

Even amongst Christians who tend to take the Bible literally, if you asked them whether or not they’re selling all they have, according to Luke chapter 12, or if they’re actually doing what Jesus said in the red letters of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you’d soon see that they’re not.

They spiritualise those things.

When they pray to God, give us this day our daily bread are they really waiting for God to give them daily bread?

They say, “Well that daily bread just means the devotion I get in the mail every month, that’s daily bread. It’s my daily bible verse.”

But No!

That prayer that Jesus taught the disciples when they asked Him to teach them to pray in Matthew 6:5, was actual physical daily bread.

Just like God gave to Israel in Exodus when He gave the bread, the manna, every morning, and they couldn’t collect two days of it, only one day.

This daily bread can be taken literally because they were anticipating going through that same wilderness trouble period just like in Exodus, the tribulation period before the setting up of the Kingdom.

There’s this time coming where God would provide for that remnant, the remnant of Israel, who’re going through this terrible tribulation, and so He tells them to pray for their daily bread because then they’re not going to be able to buy bread when they haven’t got the mark of the beast and they’ve got destruction and judgment all around them and almost everyone they meet wants to tear them apart.

We’ve covered some of the destruction that God sends on the earth, and we saw it’s in order to destroy the kingdoms and the institutions of this world that humans filled with sin have instituted.

God’s going to purge it and purify it. He’s going to make it right.

And so, he not only destroys the kingdoms of this world, but he preserves and protects his Saints of Israel and those Gentiles that come to those saints of Israel for salvation.

James is part of that. He says be patient as you see these things happening around you during that time.

James chapter 5:8 says,

You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 

See James is not talking about just general patience like when we get frustrated at people and powers generally in the world, or frustrated that our chosen party didn’t win the election.

That’s not the patience Jame’s talking about.

Yes, we ought to be patient, but this is far beyond that.

See to them at that time, the coming of the Lord is near. So why would they need to be patient? The coming Lord is near so that’d be great news.

If you and I knew the Lord was coming in a year or two it’d be easier to be patient, wouldn’t it?

Well, this patience has to do with the trouble, the tribulation coming before the Lord comes.

Be patient, endure to the end.

Look at what Jesus says to the disciples in Mark 13 verses 10 to 13,

And the gospel must first be preached to all the nations. 

But when they arrest you and deliver you up, do not worry beforehand, or premeditate what you will speak. But whatever is given you in that hour, speak that; for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit. 

Now brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. 

And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end shall be saved.

Endure to the end in order to be saved. In this whole tribulation and kingdom era, according to prophecy, salvation comes to Israel when the Lord comes to set up the Kingdom.

In James 5:10 James is talking to My brethren. James is a Jew you see. His brethren are Jews. In James 1:1 He opens with this,

James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad,

So, in James 5:10 he says,

My brethren, take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, as an example of suffering and patience. 

The prophets were a part of Israel. You read the prophets back there and they were ministering in Israel, to Israel, when Israel itself was not following God. That was the point of the prophets. God sent prophets to declare to Israel to get back on track to repent to correct the wrongs.

Those prophets were in the wilderness, they were isolated.

They suffered affliction and with patience endured as a remnant. They were a persecuted and afflicted minority.

Then in James 5:11 we read,

Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord—that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful. 

Job! That’s the pattern? Really?

He lost everything, his kids, his material goods, everything was gone. He was diseased, I mean his wife told him to curse God and die.

Is that our pattern today?

We can learn a great deal from Job spiritually. We can say if that’s what he went through I can surely go through my petty challenges.

But, quite literally here, these people’s homes are being destroyed and they’re suffering the loss of all their things and being heavily persecuted.

All they have to hope for is the coming of the Lord Who’ll make restitution and restore all these things.

So, we need to be careful not to strip this out of its context and just spiritualise it by applying it to life in the last 2,000 years.

Our message in the current age, the dispensation of grace, is to preach salvation by grace through faith. We have a different operation.

We point out this patience issue because it’s so obviously relating to a group of people that’s not us, the Body of Christ, today. If we mix ourselves, the church today, together with these people we’ll get a distorted, confused view of God’s ultimate plan and we’ll fail to see where each group fits into that timeline.

These Saints are the remnant of Israel, believers who are surviving, somehow, through this tribulation period and are going into this Kingdom, their earthly long ago covenanted promise from God. That’s the goal.

The goal is salvation in this kingdom. God’s wrath being poured out is just the means to get to here.

Remember, they had no idea at the time that this was going to be 2000 down the track. That period of time, that age that would interrupt the prophesied timeline had not yet been revealed to anyone.

We, the church today, have no covenant promise of a Kingdom, in fact we have no earthly promise at all. Our promise is a heavenly promise, and our home is heaven, and we’re promised that we won’t see that wrath of God.

 

In Daniel 2:44 we read this prophesy of the stone from heaven that comes and destroys the kingdoms of the world and from this stone rises a mountain and that kingdom of God will be forever and ever.

Mountains in the Bible symbolize strength, stability, security, power, faith, authority, and greatness.

They represent the majesty of God and His unshakable nature.

Therefore, when the Bible talks about mountains, it’s talking about deeper spiritual truths beyond their physical presence.

Well, that’s what’s going on here. An actual physical earthly Kingdom that God promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. A land that He gave them. A promise that He made to them.

Revelation 13 is in the midst of this destruction in the tribulation and in verse 10 it talks about the patience of the Saints saying,

He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity; he who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.

Here is the patience in the faith of the saints.

Now if you’ve studied Revelation before you’ll know that this chapter is the chapter that talks about the mark of the beast and the famous 666 which people try to calculate and put in our dispensation today.

You need have no fear of taking the mark of the beast because if you were alive in that time and if you believed you would be marked by God first.

The mark of the beast is given to oppose God.

God’s trying to destroy the system that’s why the marks given.

There’s a battle going on here where God is actively opposing the kingdoms of this world.

The kings of this world resists and they say, “Well, we’re going to draw the line so if you don’t have this mark, you’re against us and you’re with God, so you’re our enemy like God is.”

If you find yourself alive and living in this period, you won’t want to take that mark under any circumstances.

In fact, Revelation 14:9 to 11 an angel says,

Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.”  

In James chapter five, they that keep the commandments of God in the faith of Jesus need this patience to go through this time of economic and political turmoil more than the world has ever seen. Nothing that’s ever happened on earth can compare with these times.

These things need to happen for the world to be overturned.

This mark here is another desperate attempt at opposing God’s laws, and God’s nation, Israel.

Look at Hebrews chapter 10 verse 36 again, remembering that Hebrews is written to Israel, to the Hebrews. Contrary to what a lot of believe, Hebrews is not a book written to the church today. It’s describing Israel’s New Testament.

It’s describing Israel’s future city, the law, and the priesthood.

Hebrews 10:36,

For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise: 

This is talking to the whole group of Israel. That you may receive the promise. The Promise of what?

Well, the promise God made since the world began, the Kingdom.

And why is it you have to do the will of God before you see the promise? I thought we were saved by grace through faith not of works?

Yes, we’re saved by hearing the gospel of our salvation trusting it and then, as Ephesians 1:13 says, we’re sealed, and we’re saved.

We’re not saved by a covenant. We’re not saved by the promise that God gave to Israel. We’re not saved by the Kingdom come.

We’re saved by Christ’s finished work, Grace by faith plus nothing.

These Jewish believers, on the other hand, are saved by faith in the completed work of the cross PLUS works. The nation of Israel still needs to be obedient to the law you see in order for that land inheritance to be completed!

Why would they be obedient now, at this tribulation period, when they couldn’t be throughout the rest of history?

Because of the New Covenant. The covenant Jesus sealed in His own blood when He was on earth. The covenant of Jeremiah 31:31 and Hebrews 8 which promises that God’s law will be written on their hearts and minds.

They won’t be thinking, “Maybe we shouldn’t do this? Or maybe we shouldn’t do that?”

They’ll do those laws just as naturally and automatically as a fish swims or a bird flies, without thinking of each action. It’ll be perfectly natural.

You and I realise that we cannot maintain righteousness in our own strength, We’re unrighteous and the only way for God to forgive humanity is not by the blood of bulls and goats but by a perfect atonement that’s provided and pictured by the Old Testament.

Jesus Christ is that atonement that pays for the sins of the world and that’s what Hebrews describes. In His resurrection, He gives us proof that we have justification and eternal life.

If you’re identified in Christ, you’re identified with his death for sins and his resurrection unto life. That’s the gospel.

But Hebrews chapter 10 here is talking about after you’ve done the will of God you might receive the promise.

Isn’t this putting the cart before the salvation horse?

Of course, that’s correct for Israel as a nation and Israel’s program.

Their hope lies in the next verse, Hebrews 10:37,

 “FOR YET A LITTLE WHILE, AND HE WHO IS COMING WILL COME AND WILL NOT TARRY. 

That’s Christ and He’ll not tarry.

Verses 38 and 39,

NOW THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH; BUT IF ANYONE DRAWS BACK, MY SOUL HAS NO PLEASURE IN HIM.” But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul. 

Doesn’t that verse teach that if you fall back, if you don’t endure to the end and to Christ’s coming, you’re not going to get saved?

That’s exactly what those verses teach. That’s what 1st Peter 1 says when he said to receive grace and salvation at the coming of the Messiah the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That’s what the Jews teach today, that salvation comes at the coming of the Messiah, who they believe has not yet come.

What differentiates Judaism from Christianity is that Christianity teaches Christ already came once and He’s going to come again.

But Hebrews 10 talks about these people not getting salvation until the coming of the Lord, so they require patience to endure to the end.

In Luke 21:28 Jesus tells His disciples,

Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.

He says when you see these signs in heaven in the earth that are just before the return of the Lord, when you see those terrible things, He says look up for your redemption draws near.

Well, I was redeemed through the blood of Jesus Christ and so were you if you believe.

Ephesians 1:7 says,

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.

Colossians 1:14 says,

In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. 

That was 2,000 years ago.

That was where my redemption was, and yours if you believe.

That’s not the redemption and salvation of Israel according to their prophecies, according to the promise God made to them. Salvation will come when God brings His Kingdom that He promised them.

That’s when salvation happens to them. That’s when God fulfills his promise to them.

So, Luke 21:28 then talks about their redemption being near. This is when things happen. The Kingdom come, the Lord Jesus Christ’s return to the earth.

This is a fundamental of Christianity.

Israel over the last 2000 years and right now, today, missed that there wasn’t just one coming of the Messiah, there were two comings.

So, a lot of Christian scholars look back at Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and say well the disciples were wrong because they thought that Christ is going to come physically to conquer and bring a kingdom and they were wrong because it hasn’t happened. The Jews would say the same thing.

Many other Christians say well they were wrong because it was all spiritual and the Kingdom prophecies were just talking about spiritual things, that the Kingdom of God is in your heart.

Other groups of people around the world try to unite to love each other. We’re all children of God and we can all learn how to love each other from Jesus’s example. This is the Kingdom of God that we live in today and it’s all spiritual, not literal.

When we take our Bible literally, we realise that Christ is going to literally set up the Kingdom as He explained to His disciples in all of his parables. Don’t you know that I’ve got to go away and come back, he said.

We saw an Acts chapter 1 how when Jesus ascended to heaven, He said I’ve

got to go to heaven to fulfill the prophecies to send the Holy Spirit.

There are things that had to happen between His first coming and the setting up of the Kingdom.

Well, if Christ had to go to heaven before the kingdom comes that means He’s going to come again, and all that’s in prophecy.

So, the return of Christ is a fundamental of Christianity. If we don’t believe in Christ’s return, we can’t call ourselves a Bible believing Christian who takes the Bible literally.

Look at Hebrews chapter 9 verse 28. Hebrews was written to the Hebrews as we’ve said,

So Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation. 

If that verse in Hebrews is accurate for today, why are we preaching salvation at all?

We should be saying well salvation will come when Jesus comes back.

Instead, we have a present salvation as we know from Paul’s epistles to the Body of Christ today.

Hebrews here says that Jesus will come back again the second time unto salvation.

He came the first time to bear sins, a second time to redeem His right.

We covered last time about how that blood was needed to pay for that new covenant and that land title for Him to justly reclaim the earth and the promises he gave to Israel.

Otherwise, what basis does He have to fulfill the things which He promised He would do if Israel sinned so repeatedly against God?

Well, the answer would be because He died for their sins. His shed blood!

When Hebrews 9 says Jesus will come again the second time unto salvation, what salvation is being talked about?

Obviously, it’s not talking about the salvation you and I hear in the gospel of Christ’s finished work 2,000 years ago, that we have salvation and atonement now.

To find a definition of what Hebrews is talking about turn to Luke 1 verse 68.

Zacharias, John the Baptist’s father and a priest, describes here the coming Messiah and said,

Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, For He has visited and redeemed His people, 

Why?

Verse 69 and 70,

And has raised up a horn of salvation for us In the house of His servant David, (talking here about Jesus) as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets, Who have been since the world began.

That tells us that the Book of Luke is not talking about the Mystery of Christ that was kept secret since the world began and revealed to us by Christ through the apostle Paul.

Verse 71 of Luke 1,

That we should be saved from our enemies And from the hand of all who hate us, 

So, there it is. A horn of salvation in the house of David that we should be saved. A horn is a symbol of strength and courage.

How will they be saved?

From the hand of their enemies. From the hand of all that hate them.

On to verses 72 to 73 of Luke chapter 1,

To perform the mercy promised to our fathers And to remember His holy covenant, The oath which He swore to our father Abraham: 

Luke is talking about the salvation Israel hopes for. It’s the salvation God promised to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.

What did God promise Abraham in Genesis 12 verses 2 and 3 and we read,

I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. 

I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” 

They will be that nation.

Luke 1:74 and 75,

To grant us that we (Israel), Being delivered from the hand of our enemies, Might serve Him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life. 

That sounds like peace on earth, doesn’t it?

That sounds like goodwill towards man? Like Kingdom Come? Serving him without fear every day of their lives. That’s Israel’s rise. That’s the kingdom that we’re talking about, the Kingdom come.

John the Baptist came as a fulfillment of Malachi 3 and John the Baptist preaches baptism, which was a Jewish ceremony. Washing with water. They did it to anoint priests. They did it to clean people.

They have ritual baths even today, though they don’t call it baptism. This is a very Christian word, but it’s part of the Jewish system and John the Baptist came as a priest baptising people in water for the repentance and the cleanliness of their sins, remission of sins.

And he says in Luke chapter 3:4,

as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, saying: “THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS: ‘PREPARE THE WAY OF THE LORD; MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT. EVERY VALLEY SHALL BE FILLED AND EVERY MOUNTAIN AND HILL BROUGHT LOW; THE CROOKED PLACES SHALL BE MADE STRAIGHT AND THE ROUGH WAYS SMOOTH; AND ALL FLESH SHALL SEE THE SALVATION OF GOD.’ ” 

That’s John the Baptist’s message 2000 thousand years ago when he said the kingdom was at hand.

He was talking about this (Kingdom coming).

What’s he say in verse 5,

every Valley shall be filled, the low places are filled up and every mountain and hill will be brought low.

That’s a theme repeated in the prophecies talking about the kings of this world being knocked down and the low things being brought up. As we’ve already said mountains symbolize strength, stability, security, power, faith, authority, and greatness. In this context here it’s talking about the existing power and rule that’ll be overturned.

Why did Jesus repeatedly say in His ministry the first will be last and the last be first?

He was quoting the prophecies that if you’re on that high tower, if you’re the ruling kings of this world you’re exactly what Christ is coming to destroy.

It’s the humblest there in lowly places, the meek that inherit the earth.

Matthew chapter five and the so-called Beatitudes that we looked at in our Mattew 5 study is according to prophesy.

So, in Luke chapter 3, John the Baptist came preaching the gospel of the Kingdom. He was talking about this right here.

He says this is going to happen and then all flesh shall see the salvation of our God.

Can we say today that the world sees the salvation of God today? Even if the church, every person who claimed to be a Christian, stood outside, and said Christ is King, most of the world that would say No, He’s not. So how is Luke chapter 3 verse 6, (AND ALL FLESH SHALL SEE THE SALVATION OF GOD.) be true of today in any way today?

This Kingdom we’re talking about is a time in which all flesh will see the salvation of God, even though they still won’t all accept it.

You won’t have to ask for proof that Jesus Christ is raised from the dead because He’ll be right there. You’ll see Him reigning! He’s ruling with a rod of iron! You see Him fulfilling the prophecies.

You see the salvation of our God, and you have a choice. You’re going to listen to what He says or not.

Of course, this all happens after this time of destruction that we know of as the tribulation.

That’s why you’ve got to get right here, now while salvation is offered today freely by God’s grace through faith alone, nothing else required.

Christ won’t come and enter into the political campaigns of the world and run for election. He doesn’t become part of what’s currently existing.

He destroys those things, and sets Himself up.

So that’s how God’s going to operate and that’s what John the Baptists preaching about here.

In Luke 3, that’s why John’s baptising these people, for the repentance, remission of their sins. To be identified with the Messiah so that when this happens, instead of destruction, they get provision and protection. And always keep in mind that everyone expected this to happen within a very short space of time.

John the Baptist came preaching as the prophets prophesied of him, and Malachi’s the Prophet that he’s talking about.

In Malachi chapter 3:1,

Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming,” Says the LORD of hosts.

The Lord’s way needed to be prepared when the Lord comes to dwell with Israel, and so John the Baptist came as that messenger.

In Mark 1: it says,

As it is written in the Prophets: “BEHOLD, I SEND MY MESSENGER BEFORE YOUR FACE, WHO WILL PREPARE YOUR WAY BEFORE YOU.” 

Notice in Malachi 3 verse 1 however, that the first part of that verse was fulfilled in John the Baptist, but the second half of this verse was not fulfilled!

There’s two comings here in Malachi 3:1.

You see this happen over and over again in the scripture. We’ll see it again in Isaiah 8:59. In the same verse you have two comings of the Lord so from the perspective of the prophets looking in the future they see the same events. Christ’s coming to die, Christ coming to set up the kingdom.

They don’t see the valley of this present time period, the dispensation of grace, between them.

They just saw the mountain peaks so to speak.

But now with the benefit of hindsight we can look in the past and say that’s how it was fulfilled.

So, in Malachi 3:2 and 3 we see,

But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire And like launderers’ soap. He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, And purge them as gold and silver, That they may offer to the LORD An offering in righteousness. 

This is all about the Levites and about their impure offering of sacrifices. It’s saying that when the Messiah comes, He’s going to make Israel pure again.

He’s going to bring salvation. He’s going to purge out the drawers. He’s going to make them right, which is, by the way, what Paul says in Romans 11 when he says that the salvation of Israel will happen.

So, you see in Malachi 3 here the talk about this second coming when Christ returns. There was no refining fire the first time he came as a baby in a manger.

Here he comes with fire and vengeance as Paul says.

Then in Malachi 3:4 we read,

Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem Will be pleasant to the LORD, As in the days of old, As in former years. 

This talks about as in the days of old, offerings will be made in Judah and Jerusalem. There’s going to be a restoration of Israel and their system of religion that God gave to them.

These are verses that really have an impact on our understanding of what God’s doing today.

In Acts 1 verse 6, Jesus is telling the twelve apostles how He must ascend to heaven and how He’s going to send the Holy Spirit according to the prophecies.

Verse 6 reads,

Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 

Why would they ask that question? Because God promised to restore the Kingdom to Israel, and, by this time, after Jesus’s death and resurrection, they understood that He had to go back to heaven.

He’d already explained in John 14 and in Matthew that He had to go back to fulfill prophecies.

So, they said, okay, we get that. So, when is this restoration going to happen?

Jesus doesn’t say yes or no. He says, “It’s not for you to know.”

He doesn’t say, “No you guys misunderstand entirely, there’s no restoration of the Kingdom. You live in it now. Isn’t it great?” That’s not what he said. Neither did he say, “Yes I’m going to restore it next Tuesday.”

He said, in verse 7,

“It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. 

Malachi 3 talks about the restoration of Israel’s program and their Kingdom on the earth. This’s something that will happen. It’s the Kingdom come.

We shouldn’t put the words of our Bible through a blender and mix them all together. We do this when we see the Bible speak of the gospel of the Kingdom and we read that and say, “Well that must be talking about the gospel we preach today.”

To do that you take that Kingdom that God’s clearly said would come, and totally change it to be something else.

Christians today try to further God’s kingdom themselves and bring it to earth through the church.

But what if that’s not the message to preach here?

What if God’s not doing that yet?

What if you and I have something else to perform on the earth?

As ambassadors, which we are according to 2nd Corinthians 5:20, we’re not native to this planet any longer. God’s made us citizens of heaven and so we’re in foreign territories while we’re ambassadors. This is not our land. God’s using a different approach today.

There’s a literal Kingdom that’ll come to Israel that the Prophets spoke about.

We’re dealing with passages in Matthew Mark, Luke, and John here that most churches take as their doctrine.

These are the red letters. A lot of Christianity would be offended by what we’re saying here.

They’d resist it almost violently because to them, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is what’s going on today. If we say any different, they feel where somehow blaspheming and dishonouring Jesus. Actually, failing to divide God’s Word rightly is doing exactly that.

Most think Israel had the Old Testament and Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is the New Testament but that’s not so.

In Matthew 6, Jesus gives the most famous prayer of all Christianity, The Lord’s Prayer.

If we say that it’s not our prayer for the church today, we’re in trouble and to a lot of people we’re no longer a Christian. Not in the sense that some people think anyway.

Matthew chapter 6 when Jesus teaches them how to pray, the first thing He says in verse 9 is,

“Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

When he says, “Our Father” He’s talking about Israel and God being the father of Israel. God never promised the Gentiles a thing, except through Israel.

At verse 10 He asks of God in the prayer after the introduction, “thy Kingdom come”.

Jesus told this to His apostles, who were anticipating the last days, to pray thy Kingdom come.

Jesus also taught in Matthew 6:33,

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

If you’re going to seek the things of the world Jesus taught, you’re going to lose everything, and we teach that spiritually, but Jesus is not talking to us.

He’s talking about these people who’re going to have to give up all they have. If they pursue the things of the world that’s it.

The tribulation’s purpose here is to knock down those institutions and kingdoms of the world, and so, if they’re climbing the ladder of worldly success that’s the same ladder Christ’s going to knock down.

Is he knocking down those ladders today? No!

Jesus is telling them to seek first the kingdom and all these things will be added unto them because they’re not going to get them from the world system that Christ’s going to knock down at that time to come.

Let’s go back to Matthew chapter 6. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done. Where is “Thy will” supposed to be done?

According to this prayer, on earth!

Today people say this means a spiritual kingdom of heaven.

Then why does Jesus teach them to pray for it to come on earth?

Well, they say, thy kingdom come means it comes in my mind. I can understand spiritual realities.

I mean, really! How do people come up with this. It’s much easier and much less confusing to accept what these verses actually say.

The only way to understand that is to accept that they’re praying for God’s provision in the tribulation and for the kingdom to come to the earth, which is what God promised.

As far as God’s will being done is that happening now on earth as it is in heaven? Is he reigning on earth? Is this earthly system of government by sinful humanity and the devil God ruling? How is this on, “earth as it is in heaven” today. Hardly!

God’s not on the earth today except in the sense that he’s omnipresent.

When Christ comes to the earth to reign on the throne, on the earth, everything’s different and that’s what we’re going to see in the Kingdom, His rod of iron, His righteous rule.

Matthew 6:11,

Give us this day our daily bread.

We saw this earlier, about how this is actual daily bread because they’re going through a time of wilderness just like in the Exodus and they need food.

They can’t buy or sell. They can’t eat or drink. They’re enemies of the vast majority of the population who’ve identified with the antichrist through the mark of the beast, and they don’t have that mark to buy food.

Jesus’s done this before. Remember the loaves and fishes?

This’s not the Christian Church today.

Here’s a salvation verse, verse 12.

Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

Or Do unto others as you would have them do to you, the golden rule for Christians.

This is not the gospel of the grace of God.

The golden rule is that if I do good, God’ll do good back to me.

The gospel of grace is you can’t do good. We’re all sinners and God gave us salvation through trusting His goodness in Christ. Salvation by God’s grace.

So, this verse here is contrary to our gospel today where we’re forgiven through the blood of Jesus Christ. Here, forgiveness comes conditional upon us forgiving others.

Jesus amplifies this in verse 14 and we read,

For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 

But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. 

If you don’t do right first, God won’t do right to you.

Nothing there was the blood of Christ. Everything’s about us forgiving other people.

Matthew 6 is a Kingdom prayer for people hoping and waiting for this Kingdom come.

God’s law will be instituted and then righteousness will reign finally on the earth, and it certainly never has before or now.

This is what Peter preached at Pentecost in Acts 3:19 to 21.

Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.

He says Christ is in heaven. He rose from the dead after you Jews crucified our Messiah after seeing clear evidence of Who He was, the prophesied Christ.

He’s telling them to repent, to turn from the unbelief that caused them to carry out that act. He told them to prepare so that the times of refreshing can come.

Times of refreshing from what?

From every injustice and every corrupt thing that’s not of God in this present world.

The Jews knew about this time of refreshing and Peter’s preaching repent that your sins may be blotted out when those times of refreshing come from the presence of the Lord.

Jesus Christ is going to reinstitute His institutions, not the world’s.

The times of restitution of all things which God has spoken by the mouth of all the prophets through Israel since the world began.

When Israel rises, finally they won’t be the object of the world’s persecution and hatred, but instead they’ll be the object of God’s glory. And the world will turn to them for blessing.

That’s what Judaism is. That’s what Israel is, and the Bible says that’s going to happen.

When we talk about end time events, that’s what we’re talking about, the restoration of God’s Kingdom to the earth, Christ’s rule over it, and the reinstatement of the nation Israel to where God always intended them to be.

When Christians talk about the end of the world events, according to the scriptures, according to prophecy, they don’t often know it but they’re not talking about church, Body of Christ, end time events. They’re talking about the future time of Israel.

We simply cannot understand these events unless we rightly divide the mystery of this dispensation of grace, this interlude in the prophecy timeline, that we’re living in now.

If we mix them, we’re taking from Israel what’s not ours to take.

We’re saying we’re part of Israel’s restoration and we’re not.

When we rightly divide these two things, suddenly we understand what’s part of prophecy and what’s part of the mystery that was never prophesied.

Today, you and I are going to heaven if we believe, but to Israel the description and detail of their coming Kingdom was given in multiple books and multiple prophecies.

There’re sinners and wicked people everywhere today, but we’re still to preach grace and salvation to them in spite of so much evil today. God’s offering grace to them just like He did to you and me.

In Revelation 19 though, we’re talking about this time at the end of this trouble where the final nail will be driven into the coffin of the kingdoms of the world by Christ himself coming back on this white horse.

Here’s the picture.

You see the clouds rolling back and the white horse with the Lord on it and it says His eyes were a flame of fire and on his head were many crowns and he had a name written that no man knew but He Himself.

He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood. His name is called the Word of God. This is the Word from John 1:1.

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

Revelation 19:14 and 15,

And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. 

Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

Out of this mouth goes forth a sharp sword.

We say to take the Bible literally? So, do we think there’s a physical mouth out of which a metal sword comes?

No, There’s no actual metal blade coming out of His lips.

We all understand figures of speech, and the Bible often tells when symbols are being used. We all surely see that these symbols are a way of showing in word pictures, what will happen in reality.

We can read back in Revelation chapter 1 where it describes this sword coming out of his mouth and Revelation chapter 2 when it talks about the church is there and how if they don’t listen, they’re going to be slain by the sword coming out of the Lord’s mouth. Of course, this tells us we’re not the church in Revelation chapter 2.

If you look at Ephesians chapter 6:17, for example, you can see a definition of the sword,

And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; 

So, if there’s a sword coming from the commander’s mouth, smiting the nation’s, what’s He’s doing? Speaking! At the sound of his voice.

How can you fight people with words? The same way you create things with words.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And he said let there be light.

God spoke and creation came together. He can also speak and destroy. He’ll say it and it’ll be done.  And, in case you believe the word of faith preachers, your words don’t have that power.

In Revelation 19 He comes back, and He starts speaking words of righteousness. And His judgment burns up things, burns up the enemies. It burns up the mountains, the earthly kingdoms. It burns up everything that He doesn’t want to be there, and He smites the nations, and rules them with a rod of iron.

Not a message we would preach today if we’re preaching grace to the nations.

In Revelation 19 verse 16 we read,

And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. 

We have here the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to the earth to set up the Kingdom after he destroys the kings of the nations of the world.

Look at Isaiah 9:6,

For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 

This is another prophecy about the coming Messiah to Israel.

It’s often sung in Christmas songs, talking about Jesus’s birth in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but the key to this verse is in Verse 7,

Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. 

This isn’t just a temporary rule here.

This is an Eternal Ruler upon the throne of David in His Kingdom.

The Messiah’s born but this is actually speaking about this Kingdom being set up with everlasting righteousness.

Look at Isaiah 11:1,

There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, And a Branch shall grow out of his roots. 

That’s the son of David coming through the line of David through Jesse, David’s father.

Isaiah 11:2,

The Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon Him, The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, The Spirit of counsel and might, The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD.

Verses 3 to 5 are all speaking prophecy relating to the coming of Christ,

His delight is in the fear of the LORD, And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, Nor decide by the hearing of His ears. But with righteousness He shall judge the poor, And decide with equity for the meek of the earth; He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of His loins, And faithfulness the belt of His waist. 

When Jesus came teaching the meek will inherit the earth, he was claiming He was fulfilling these prophecies in Isaiah 11.

He’s this King that’ll judge righteously and fulfill these prophecies.

In Christ’s Kingdom on the earth there won’t be the free reign of wicked people. The world doesn’t understand God’s righteousness because it functions on a sort of collective evil heart. People of the world today generally think they’re in pretty good shape spiritually, after all most don’t murder or commit adultery, so they make a critical error! They compare themselves to other, more bad, people and they see themselves as rather deserving of a pat on the back from God. However, the critical error is they’re making the wrong comparison!

The comparison they need to make is between their righteousness and God’s. When any of us do that, we immediately realise that we come up impossibly short. God’s righteousness is the only standard of righteousness that we can judge ourselves by and as we’ve said a number of times, we only need to read the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 to see just how dismally short of that standard we all are.

But Isaiah 11 says the world, the earth, will have the judgment of God upon it. We’ll have the righteous judgment and dominion of the Lord.

That’s a wonderful time that we can’t even imagine and it’s certainly not describing the time in which we live today.

Isaiah 11:6 to 9 give us this,

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, The leopard shall lie down with the young goat, The calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little child shall lead them. 

The cow and the bear shall graze; Their young ones shall lie down together; And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 

The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole, And the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’s den. 

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD As the waters cover the sea. 

This is talking about the removal of the curse on the earth and the sea and all nature, from the fall of man in Genesis.

Now look at Isaiah 11:11,

It shall come to pass in that day That the Lord shall set His hand again the second time To recover the remnant of His people (Israel) who are left, From Assyria and Egypt, From Pathros and Cush, From Elam and Shinar, From Hamath and the islands of the sea. 

Part of the setting up of this Kingdom is the regathering of Israel. The King of Israel gathers into that Kingdom the remnant of the nation of Israel who have faith in Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 2 verse 2 talks about this, and we read,

Now it shall come to pass in the latter days That the mountain (strength, stability, security, power, faith, authority, and greatness) of the LORD’s house Shall be established on the top of the mountains (or earthly rules and rulers), And shall be exalted above the hills (every other minor area of earthly rule); And all nations shall flow to it. 

That’s the difference between prophecy and the mystery period we’re living in today.

Nations are not flowing to Israel today!

The nations hear the gospel from almost anywhere except Israel!

What’s going on in Isaiah 2 verse 2 hasn’t been fulfilled yet.

When is the time of Isaiah 2?  When the nation’s flow unto Jerusalem in Israel to learn about God.

In Isaiah 2:3 we see,

Many people shall come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. 

Isaiah elsewhere says that the glory of God is in Israel. Israel’s My glory God says. That’s what the Kingdom is. Israel being established.

It’s not happening today, but it will happen and when Israel’s finally established, we’ll see Isaiah 2:4 happen,

He shall judge between the nations, And rebuke many people; They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war anymore. 

How many times have we heard politicians say they’ll bring peace, equity and justice to the world. Then what happens? No matter how good intentioned they are, they fail.

Imagine when the whole world won’t need to make weapons of war.

The wicked powerbrokers and warmongers, drunk with their own pride, will be eradicated in that day.

The people will finally live in joy and peace and happiness on the earth.

Until next time friends may you find the answers to this life in God’s Word.

Take it while it’s still being offered.

The Last Days – Part 7 – Tribulation Salvation

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In this episode we continue to define this period identified in prophecy as the tribulation and we’re going to look at who’ll be saved in this period and how. Once the dispensation of grace has come to an end and this period of tribulation begins, will the method of salvation change?

“Speed Slider”

The Last Days – Part 7 – Tribulation Salvation – Transcript

In the last episode we uncovered the purpose for the tribulation and what God’s going to bring about through it, and how there could be no other way for a perfectly just God. Everything must be done according to His laws and His justice and righteousness.

We saw that the purpose is to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy.

Then we looked at how the tribulation will achieve these things and we saw that included in the process is the redeeming of Israel’s land grant that God promised unconditionally to Abraham.

In this episode we’re going to look at salvation in this period. We know many people will be saved in this very dark time, but how?

People tend to think that the study of the end of the world events is about studying every detail in the book of Revelation, but the main point is understanding why we believe in the return of the Lord and the fulfillment of prophecy and what the difference is between the end times and us today.

This is what rightly dividing scripture means in 2nd Timothy 2:15

Be diligent, or study, to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 

If you and I don’t understand the difference between the mystery of Christ given to Paul, the time we live in now, the dispensation of grace, and God’s purpose to Israel, or if we try to mix these times, we’ll not grasp the reality of end time events.

We should understand that today is called the day of salvation by Paul in 2nd Corinthians 6 verse 2,

For He says: “IN AN ACCEPTABLE TIME I HAVE HEARD YOU, AND IN THE DAY OF SALVATION I HAVE HELPED YOU.” Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

Paul’s using the prophecy of Isaiah 49:8 here.

We’re saved today by what Christ did for us in suffering death on the cross in our place.

We’re sinners deserving of just punishment, but He took it for us that we might be saved from it.

So, God has this world today, a world full of sinners, a world that’s entirely rejected Him.

Gentiles had rejected God for centuries in the past, but his own people Israel had rejected him also.

So, what should God do?

Well, the just way for our Righteous Holy God would be to judge the sinners and then save the righteous, but instead of this God reveals the mystery of salvation and the mystery of the gospel to this man named Saul whose name is later changed to Paul.

He wrote 13 epistles in our Bible and in them Paul describes this gospel of salvation, not by our righteousness or our works of the law or because of who we are, if we’re of the nation of Israel or not, but by grace through the hearing of and the acceptance of, the gospel of grace.

We don’t do anything to be saved other than believe.

Christ did everything required for our salvation when he died and shed his blood on that cross and rose from the dead. It was fully complete works and we can add nothing to it.

If we believe that, it’s called faith and  we’re saved freely by His grace, through that faith.

That’s how God sees the world today, a world of sinners that, potentially, can be saved by God’s grace if they accept it by believing the Gospel of grace.

We, who are Christians, are His ambassadors according to 2nd Corinthians 5:20,

Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.

To those who are saved God gives the role of ministers of the gospel and we make this gospel known to others and more are saved and the church, the Body of Christ is built and continues on and that’s why we do what we do.

God’s not pouring out judgment today, He’s offering salvation. Believe the gospel and be saved. How long will he wait? Only as long as His grace is still available.

In this dispensation of God’s grace that we live in today, salvation is different to the time of the prophesied tribulation, the day of the Lord’s wrath, the time of Jacob’s trouble.

This is the time God pours out judgment and wrath to the people on the earth who’ve rejected Him.

That change is so important to grasp.

In Romans 11:32 we read speaking of Israel,

For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all. 

The reason God can offer salvation freely to all sinners today is because His own people, Israel, rejected Him.

That’s why He offers grace to all individuals today, Jew and Gentile. We’re not being dealt with as Gentile nations or a Jewish nation anymore, but as individuals who make up a body, the Body of Christ.

Israel as a nation is counted into unbelief.

We’re looking at salvation in the tribulation and how it works.

Though there’s a change in the method of salvation between now and then, this does NOT mean that Christ’s blood isn’t still the bases of salvation. It’s on Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection that all men are saved and it’s always by God’s grace.

But God’s attitude towards humanity’s going to change when He stops dealing with the world according to His grace alone.

It’s time for judgment then and we understand more why Paul said now is the day of salvation. Now is the time when God’s not pouring his judgment on the earth. Now is the day to be saved when it’s offered freely.

In Roman’s 6, Paul explains how we’re free from the power of sin over us and how, not being under the law, we’re dead to sin and dead to the law.

Romans 6:11,

Likewise, you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

He also explains how we’re free from the penalty of sin, which is death. Verse 23 of Romans 6,

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Then there’s a third thing called the presence of sin.

Romans 7:18,

For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. 

For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.

We’ll it’s this presence of sin that’s exactly what Christ is coming to eradicate, temporarily before the Kingdom is set up during the tribulation and permanently after the Kingdom has existed for 1000 years.

To save the world from the presence of sin is going to take a major overhaul!

That’s why the cataclysmic events that occur in Revelation are justified and need to happen on such a grand scale, because sin is so entrenched in people and institutions and governments in the kingdoms of this world that they cannot stand.

Simply reforming them won’t work.

We see that time and again through the Bible. Israel would occasionally get a good king and times would be good for the nation only for the whole thing to fall miserably with the next appalling king. It’s no different than governments today except they get continually worse. It all needs to be overturned and started anew.

In this we see the justification in what God’s going to do in this coming tribulation.

We’ve all heard about the horrors that’ll happen during the tribulation, the water poisoned, people being killed by the millions, the oceans turning to blood, horrific sores over people’s bodies, and we think, how can anybody get salvation from this.

When you and I talk about salvation we’re talking about how to be saved from the penalty of sin. How can we, as individual humans, be saved from eternal death and get eternal life? How do we get justified before God? How do we get forgiveness? And we know all is answered in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

But for Israel as a nation to who God promised would be a nation above the nations, a nation of blessing over the earth with physical prosperity, they’re looking for salvation from the oppression of their enemies.

That’s what Zacharias, John the Baptists father prophesied about regarding Jesus in Luke chapter 1.

He says here’s a child that will deliver Israel from its enemies and allow them to live peacefully in this world. He’s talking about worldwide peace and salvation, physically, on the earth, not just a spiritual peace with God.

So, the salvation that we’re talking about here is different.

Let’s look at Hebrews 9:26 to 28,

He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. 

And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.

This is where we get the phrase “second coming” and we’re not talking about Him returning to Paul which He did after he ascended to heaven, and we’re not talking about the rapture where He’ll meet the Body of Christ in the air.

We’re talking about a second time the Messiah comes to the earth according to prophecy, in the Hebrew Scriptures.

And when He appears the second time it’ll be apart from sin.

Now I’m sure you all realise that doesn’t mean He sinned the first time. It means He won’t come to pay the price for sin. He did that when he came the first time, he bore the sin of man in His own body on the cross, but here in Hebrews He’ll come the second time bringing salvation.

We’ve really got to get what’s going on here.

Hebrews 9:28 talks about a future salvation. So, are we saved now or are we not?

Well, only in Paul’s epistles do we hear that we’re saved now, but in the Hebrew epistles, in prophecy, they’re hoping for salvation and salvation’s going to come when the Messiah returns to the earth the second time and brings it.

He came the first time to pay for the penalty of sin and to send the Holy Spirit to help us break the power of sin in our lives, but salvation isn’t complete until the presence of sin is destroyed.

For Israel, for prophecy, there’s a different attitude towards salvation and, in Hebrews 9:28, Jesus comes a second time to bring salvation.

Look at 1st Corinthians 1:18,

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are saved, it is the power of God.

This is the language in Paul’s epistles, that Christ died in the cross and when we believe we’re crucified with Him. Our sin is paid for in full.

We’re not Israel hoping for a future salvation. We’re not under Israel’s covenants or its law which would require something of us to do.

If it’s by grace, we can be saved completely right now. If it’s by grace, if God does all the work, there can’t be anything we have to do or anything on the earth that needs to be done.

The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

See that phrase?

We’re saved if we trust the cross of Christ. Thats the gospel for our salvation we are saved by the power of God.

We should point out that this verse, 1st Corinthians 1:18, in the New King James Bible says, “to us who are being saved!” The King James is more correct here and reads, “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

So, in the New king James it infers a process. How do we know when that process is complete?

We shouldn’t allow these changed words to confuse our understanding of God’s salvation.

Romans 5:11 says,

but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

See how different this is than future salvation?

It all comes down to whether or not we’re Israel under law and covenant or we’re under grace.

If we have earthly promises from God attached to our salvation, then our salvation isn’t complete until those things’re accomplished.

If we have no earthly promise, if we don’t have an earthly destination, and we’re not under a law that requires us to perform some sort of works, then we don’t have to wait for it. God’s offering it to us now.

Now look at 1st Peter.

Peter is one of the Twelve Apostles who ministered at the events on the day of Pentecost. He’s writing to people who he said himself were living in the last days and he’s warning about the coming tribulation.

When he preached at Pentecost he stood up and said this is that which Joel spoke about.

Joel prophesied about what would happen during the “day of the Lord”, this period of tribulation before the Kingdom is set up.

Peter prepares them for that in Acts chapter 2 because that’s the next event prophesied to happen, after which Christ will return a second time to set up the kingdom.

Peter also writes the epistle of 1st Peter where he’s talking to people who’ll go through the tribulation.

If you want to know what salvation’s like during the tribulation read the Hebrew epistles, Hebrews to Revelation. They speak about Christ and salvation in the tribulation according to prophecy.

1st Peter 1:1 to 5 says,

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation “”ready to be revealed in the last time””. 

He’s talking to people who have a hope renewed through faith for salvation which will be revealed in the last times, the last days.

 

Remember that according to their program they needed a King to set up a Kingdom and when their King died all hope was lost in that program.

When Christ rose from the dead it’s all back on again because now the King’s alive again.

1st Peter 1:3 says,

He (God the Father) has begotten us again to a living hope. A hope of what? The Kingdom come.

That’s the gospel they preached! A lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.

See, it’s all on layby until it comes.

Verse 5 refers to those who’re kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time, the last day.

In verse 7 Peter encourages them and tells them not to be discouraged about the trial of their faith.

What trial? Tribulation!

This isn’t talking about the guy down the street that pokes fun at Christians.

This is talking about the prophetic tribulation where Peter’s warning that there’s very bad times coming. He talks about the fiery trial.

Again in 1st Peter 1 in verse 7 Peter says,

that the genuineness, the trial, of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 

Peter says when Christ appears again, He’s coming with salvation.

So, you see these verses in the Hebrew epistles dealing with Israel going into the tribulation talk about salvation in the future when Christ comes again.

It all makes sense when you separate this from Paul’s writings.

It’ll be confusing if you try to push these Hebrew epistles in together with Paul’s epistles.

Paul talks about present salvation while the Hebrew epistles talk about future salvation.

1st Peter 1:13,

Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; 

See the difference?

He’s saying gird up the loins of your mind because you’re going to have to tough it out until the end, the end of the events that we’re talking about.

That’s when salvation is brought to you, at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

He’s not talking about the revelation of the mystery, the dispensation of grace, given to Paul, he’s talking about the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ when he comes again from heaven and brings salvation.

When Christ comes at that time, He’s got a bloody sword, bloody garments and there’s smoke coming out from cities on the earth. Is that our picture of salvation today? No, it’s not.

We might say, “Well that sounds kind of wicked.”

No! The world’s wicked. God’s righteous. He’s talking about the judgement of every corrupt system and person on earth and salvation and grace being brought to Israel and the bringing of the promised Kingdom on earth.

It’s a very different mindset than what we have today.

If we’re preaching grace today what’re we trying to do to our enemies? Get them saved! Preach the gospel to them! It’s a very different approach to enemies in what God’s doing today.

It really matters to rightly divide scripture.

Now look at 1st Peter 4:12,

Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you;

Same book, same apostle, same last times context.

Then in 1st Peter 4 in verse 13,

but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. 

So, when Christ’s comes back in flaming fire and vengeance, Peter say that’s the day you can rejoice. That’s the day that Jesus said look up because your redemption is nigh.

When you see these signs, Christ returning, well, you’ll get redeemed.

Today, we’re not looking for signs of redemption we’ve already got it, and when the Lord comes back for the church, in the twinkling of an eye, we’ll be with Him forever and there’re no signs that herald that moment in time.

For the people Peter’s talking to, Israel, they’re looking for signs.

They see tribulation, and they shouldn’t worry about it and give up. They should stick it out through the fiery trial because when the Lord appears in glory, when He comes back and He’s revealed to the earth, then they get glorified.

Look down to verse 17,

For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first (Israel), what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? 

Paul preaches Grace and peace from God dispensed to the earth but Peter’s saying here the time has come for judgment.

The only way they can both be right is that they’re talking about different times, different dispensations or ages, a different group of people.

God changes from what He’s doing from today in the tribulation.

It’s like when we get a new government. The way things happen changes, a new dispensation begins. Our world changes.

Peter says in this verse that the time has come that judgment must begin at the house of God. Who’s the house of God? Israel!

In verse 18 of 1st Peter chapter 4 Peter says,

Now “IF THE RIGHTEOUS ONE IS SCARCELY SAVED, WHERE WILL THE UNGODLY AND THE SINNER APPEAR?

Romans 4:5 says that God justifies the ungodly by faith in his gospel.

The ungodly can be saved, but at that time of judgement, the tribulation, God’s pouring out fire from heaven and you want to be saved from that. And the “you” we’re talking about are those in the tribulation.

So, Peter says here if the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? Friends that’s not describing the gospel today.

Today it’s not our righteousness at all, it’s what Christ did, and ungodly people can be saved freely by God’s grace but there’ll be a time where God changes his operation and how He deals with ungodly people.

God says, “Yes, I was offering them salvation, but they rejected it! Now it’s time to judge them.” And we understand that a perfectly righteous God must judge unrighteousness.

Better to be saved now through His righteousness and His shed blood, by grace, while we still have the opportunity.

Let’s look at Romans 11:11,

I say then, have they (Israel) stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. 

What God is doing today is that salvation, which was once of the Jews, and is now being offered to Gentiles without Israel. The Gentiles salvation and the knowledge of God was always intended to come through Israel, the nation of priests.

Through Israel’s fall salvation has come to the Gentiles directly.

In verse 12 we see,

Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!

Pauls saying that if salvation can be offered today to the people of the world without Israel, how much more will God bring salvation to this world when Israel rises again, when Israel’s restored, when Israel’s saved, when all the prophecies are fulfilled.

The world longs for this salvation of Israel, knowingly or unknowingly, because that’s finally when this present world turns into a righteous world and things will be run differently when Christ brings in His Kingdom.

A saved Israel will fulfill the prophecies in the Bible, making the high places low and bringing up the lowly things that this world mocks.

Those low things are Israel and the reason for the tribulation is to turn the world upside down and destroy the institutions of wicked, unjust, corrupt, and unrighteous Gentile rule and then, from the ashes, bring in a righteous and just Kingdom of salvation.

Last time we saw Jesus in heaven opening the seals of a scroll and we saw why there’s a scroll and why the seals, and why Christ is the only one that can open it.

When Christ starts opening those seals God’s focus is back on his covenant people. So, when that very first seal is opened God has changed the way he thinks about and deals with the world.

He was offering grace to a world of people who rejected Him but when that first seal is opened, He’s reclaiming His right on the earth through His chosen people Israel according to His covenant with them.

That first seal in Revelation 6 is where we have that white rider, the antichrist, coming in the image of the Messiah.

He conquers the world and tries to bring in peace just like the Messiah promised. He’s going to claim that he’s bringing in that new covenant God promised Israel and Israel’s going to believe him.

They deny Christ came in the flesh the first time and because of that they fall for this false Christ at this time.

The church, the Body of Christ is not even there.

There’s not a word about God operating through his ambassadors anymore, offering grace to the world.

Instead, He’s looking at the world differently now, changing the way He operates with a world that’s rejected His Gospel of Grace.

Gentile nations have ruled the world since Israel fell from their heights during the rules of Soloman and David. They fell because of their rejection of God’s laws and disobedience and became captive to Gentile nations.

Gentiles will reign over Israel until prophecy is fulfilled, and that Kingdom of heaven comes and then it’ll be the time for Israel to rise back up to power.

What’s that mean for the Gentile rule that’s been reigning ever since Israel’s captivity?

They’re going to fall, be knocked down and Israel saved.

Israel’s going to be restored out of this into their Kingdom where they’ll reign over the nations. That’s what prophecy talks about, when Christ will come back and make the high places low and the low places (Israel) high.

He’ll completely overturn and reorder things.

During this time of the Gentiles, He’s allowed them to rule in their wickedness until finally He’ll judge everything. Who’s righteous? Who’s wicked?

The wicked will get a sword and that’s when He comes in Revelation 19 fulfilling Jeremiah’s prophecy with a sword bathed in blood. That’s the righteous judgment on the wicked.

In Hosea chapter 12 God says a similar thing only this time instead of the Gentile nation’s, He talks about Judah.

Just because they’re circumcised Jews and of the nation of Israel through genealogy, doesn’t mean they don’t have a problem with God.

In Hosea 12:2 we read,

“The LORD also brings a charge against Judah, And will punish Jacob according to his ways; According to his deeds He will recompense him. 

See, the Lord will punish them according to their ways also.

Ezekiel 21:27,

Overthrown, overthrown, I will make it overthrown! It shall be no longer, Until He comes whose right it is, And I will give it to Him.” ‘ 

Give what? The land. Whose right is it? Christ’s, as it is Israel’s through the promises of old.

Christ will be the King over Israel whose right has come when He comes.

When we ask about salvation in the tribulation it’s the same as if we were asking how people got saved in Exodus.

Israel were slaves to Gentile powers, similar to the tribulation, under the rulership of Pharaoh, a pagan unbeliever, against the God of Israel.

God had made a promise 400 years earlier to these people, who were enslaved to the Gentiles, that He would deliver them out from the hand of their enemies.

Then God sent Moses a deliverer and what did Moses do?

He sent plagues upon the Egyptian powers and knocked those high powers down.

At the end of the story in Exodus, Israel walks on out of slavery to freedom. They’re singing praise to God, because they’ve been saved, delivered from Egypt.

How did that happen? By God’s power!

The picture of the plagues in Egypt is a shadow of what’s going to happen in the future in the tribulation.

Prophecy tells us that what happened before, God’ll do again. He parts waters back there, He’ll part waters over here. He turns the waters to blood over there He turns water to blood over here. Revelation is an echo, it’s a shadow of the past that’s going to happen again.

In Exodus, if you were an Egyptian how could you get saved?

You would need to go to Israel, to the Jews.

The last plague in Egypt, was a shadow of the cross of Christ. The innocent lamb dying with its blood painted on the lintels and the posts of the doors. What happened to those who didn’t apply that blood over the door?

They died!

It was a horrific time of trouble even for Israel. They’re in their houses trusting in that blood while the Angel of Death came. That’s the tribulation.

That’s the picture here.

Will there be salvation available? Yes.

Is it like the day of salvation we live in now? No!

God always makes a provision but it’s not going to be the day of free grace that He’s offering today.

It’s not God’s purpose in Revelation to send His ambassadors like He has today and evangelise the world. He’s going to overturn everything and make the wrongs right.

In spite of that and because of His mercy, salvation will be available.

Look at Revelation 6:9

When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. 

Next verse, Revelation 6:10,

And they cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”

These are those that turned their trust to Jesus Christ in this tribulation period and were killed by a wicked and corrupt people, from a wicked and corrupt system that’s rejected God.

Their souls are in heaven and they’re asking God how long must they wait for Him to judge these people. They’re saying get it over with and let’s bring in the kingdom.

At this fifth seal these martyred saints cry out in heaven for their blood to be avenged.

The next verse, verse 11,

Then a white robe was given to each of them; and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed. 

Does that sound like how God’s dealing with the world today, a world of sinners being offered grace and salvation?

You see God’s attitudes changed.

They’re crying out how long must we wait for judgement and vengeance and God tells them to wait a bit longer until more people of this corrupt world system die. Judgment has to occur.

It’s too late for the day of free salvation and grace as we have today.

Many of the people who turn to the Messiah are going to die at the hand of the people in the world.

Then in Revelation 6 verses 12 to 15,

I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood. 

And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind.

Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. 

And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 

The world’s kings, the rulers, the dictators, and every corrupt person in power on the earth, these people that were high and lifted up, are going to be knocked down and will run for their lives.

Verse 17 says,

For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”

The kings of the earth, the rulers, are saying this. They’re terrified and their underground bunkers and their money isn’t going to save them from this terrible time.

In Revelation chapter 7 verse 1 to 8 we have 144,000 men of Israel who’re sealed with the seal of God on their foreheads. Apparently, they’re going to be there on the earth with God’s supernatural protection.

There are twelve thousand from each of the 12 tribes of the nation of Israel which at this time has a small remnant restored.

In verses 9 and 10 we read,

After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 

Here we see the people who’re saved in the tribulation. How do we know?

John asked who these people are, and we get the answer in verse 14 when the angel says to John,

“These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 

This isn’t the church on the earth crying out, it’s these people in heaven crying out thank God they’re saved!

What about these robes?

They are the righteousness of the saints. They’re wearing their righteousness.

They’re before the throne of God in verse 15.

People think that when they see some disaster on the earth today it’s a sign of the tribulation. Nothing like it. No person living today can compare any hardship or catastrophe they may be confronting or anything that’s ever happened before on the globe with this time of tribulation.

Revelation chapter 9 gives us an account of the absolute horror of this period, far beyond anything the earth has ever experienced or ever will again.

Wouldn’t you think that in the midst of this horrific judgment from God, the people would cry out for a salvation?

But look at Revelation 9:20 and 21,

But the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk.

And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.

People may say this is a reason not to believe because God kills all these people in the tribulation and they say, “I don’t want to serve a God Who does such things.”

Why is this God of love judging and killing all these people?

Well, the message of the cross, that Christ paid for our sins, and we can be saved through His shed blood is everywhere today and it’s also ignored everywhere.

There’s simply no other choice. Judgement must come because unrighteousness must be judged, and the free gift of salvation has been almost universally rejected.

In this present dispensation of grace, God’s holding back judgement, but He can’t and won’t hold it back forever.

Hebrews 2:3 says,

how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

People think a righteous God would just let them live on acting out whatever an evil heart can conceive.

They’ll not repent of their works. They’ll continue to worship devils, idols of gold silver, brass, and stone.

They’ll not repent of their murders, their sorceries, their fornication, their thefts, or anything else.

In Revelation chapter 11 verse 11, God resurrects two ancient witnesses who He gave power to be witnesses to Him.

They have miraculous abilities and they’re going to preach a gospel of fear of God and how people must repent, or turn. Also make no mistake that these witnesses will be somehow seen and heard all round the world.

Some will listen, the majority don’t. They don’t like the idea of God threatening them.

Well for 2,000 years now God’s love and grace has been preached and people didn’t like that either. They’ve largely rejected anything to do with God.

These two witnesses of Revelation 11 have power.

As we read down through the verses, we see it’s the same power that Moses had in Exodus to bring plagues on Egypt.

Why did God, through Moses, bring those plagues on Egypt?

To change Pharaoh’s mind. To show Pharaoh that this is the true God and to fear him. God said to Pharoah, “Let my people go,” but because of the hardness of his heart Pharaoh says, “No,” over and over again.

What do they say on the earth? “No, I won’t repent.”

Eventually they’ll be overcome just like Pharoah in Exodus. And like Moses was the messenger to Paharoah, the two Revelation 11 witnesses will be to the world in tribulation.

In Revelation 11:15 we read,

Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!”

The kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of Christ.

When Christ comes back, He’s coming to take what’s His right, and He’ll take it by force.

In Revelation 14:6 and 7 we see an angel sent to the earth. John writes,

Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people saying with a loud voice, “Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water.” 

The gospel this angel preaches is not the gospel you and I preach today.

It’s a gospel of fear and judgment.

Here’s another opportunity for them to repent but, unfortunately, Revelation tells us that not many will.

We do see multitudes in heaven that do, but we also see that most on the earth don’t.

In Revelation 14:8 – 10 we read,

And another angel followed, saying, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.

 

You see, if any man worships the Beast, the antichrist and His image and receives his mark in his forehead or his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God.

God marked 144,000 witnesses and the devil answers with his own mark. We know it as the mark of the beast.

There’s no need to be afraid of the mark of the beast today because none of these things are going to happen while God has His ambassadors on earth preaching grace.

But if you’re alive during that time simply don’t worship a false Christ. What if a person accidentally gets a chip in the hand? Do not worship the false Christ, it’s very simple.

If they do, they’ll drink of the wrath of God.

Some may say, “I don’t believe in a God like that, I believe in a loving God.”

Yes, we do As well. That’s what He’s doing now and that’s what He’s going to do in the future.

But He’s also a God of justice. Failing to recognise that side of God gives us a false picture of Who He really is.

Revelation 14:11 and 12,

And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.” 

Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. 

The saints here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

It required of them to do Christ’s commandments, to do good things during this tribulation or else they’re going to be judged.

The patience of the saints is that if you’re alive and you’re saved on the earth during this time you have to hope for death or the end of the age to know if you’re saved.

We have salvation now! We don’t need to die to know it. We’re crucified with Christ and dead in Him. We’re not Israel and we’re not in their covenants or under their law.

Revelation 14:13 says,

Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labours, and their works follow them.” 

That’s the patience of the Saints, to endure to the end and they shall be saved.

Works, Labor’s, patience. Salvation in that day relies on you waiting, enduring and being patient until the end.

That’s why the kings of the earth are trying to die, and they can’t.

Friends this is real horror and it’s all unnecessary in light of the free salvation that’s offered today by grace, salvation that we’re 100% certain of.

Hebrews 10 verses 36 to 39 says this, written to the remnant saints in that period,

For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise: 

“FOR YET A LITTLE WHILE, AND HE WHO IS COMING WILL COME AND WILL NOT TARRY. 

NOW THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH; BUT IF ANYONE DRAWS BACK, MY SOUL HAS NO PLEASURE IN HIM.” 

But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul. 

You can fall away if you don’t endure.

Today, God’s given us grace and all spiritual blessings. You and I who believe have been freely guaranteed it by the cross of Christ and through the sealing of the Holy Spirit. We have a place in heaven guaranteed for us.

That’s the opportunity every person has today.

Take it while it’s still being offered.