Our study today begins with First Corinthians 14:33: For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of the Saints. And in verse 40, Paul says, "Let all things be done decently and in order.”
This is what happens when we adhere to dispensational Bible study. The dots connect, the confusion disappears, and the Scriptures bring peace. Some say, “Oh, that dispensational stuff was invented by a man in the 1800s.” Really, those making this statement are in one of three states: the state of denial, the state of delusion, or the state of confusion. Dispensation is a Bible word. Second Timothy 3:16 says all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and dispensation is in the Bible. It is a part of the “all scripture.” Ephesians 3:2 is from the Bible, is it not? Paul says right there, “if ye have heard of the dispensation”—there’s the word. You know, the word that was created in the 1800s by a man. “If you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God, which has given me to you-ward.” The apostle Paul wrote this, and he was not a man from the 1800s. A dispensation is a distinguishable economy set up, put in place by God. It’s not man-made. Without a dispensational distinction, it’s impossible to know what God’s plan and purpose is for us today.
In Second Timothy 2:7, Paul said consider what he says, and the Lord will give you understanding in all things. Through him, the apostle Paul, we were given a unique administrative stewardship. Understanding this will help us navigate our way around the Scriptures. When we come to a passage written by the apostle Paul that says one thing about something, but then we see another passage in another place written by someone else and the opposite, we don’t have to guess. We don’t have to be troubled over that. We simply view them both by looking through the dispensational lenses, and that clears up all the confusion.
Romans 11:6, for example: “And if by grace, then it is no more of works. Otherwise grace is no more grace.” This verse tells us that prior to Paul receiving the dispensation of grace, justification came by faith plus works. That’s why he wrote the words “no more.” Understand that if by grace, then it is no more of works. What does that mean? No more of works means that it was once of works, but no more. Truths like this are supported when we just compare the verses.
With one hand, get Deuteronomy chapter 6, and with the other hand get Titus chapter 3. Deuteronomy 6:25: “And it shall be our righteousness,” Moses speaking here to the children of Israel, “if”—don’t miss the if; that’s a condition—“if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God as he hath commanded us.” Now compare what Moses told Israel to what Paul tells us. Titus 3:5: “Not”—see that first word? One word changes everything. “Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to His mercy he saved us.” That’s not what Moses told Israel. That’s as different as night from day, darkness to light, up from down, left to right. If you missed it, you did so on purpose. God here makes it so simple for us. We don’t have to be smarter than a 5th grader to see the importance of studying the scriptures dispensationally.
God’s always worked with humanity on the basis of faith, but for us it is faith plus nothing, whereas for time past Israel it was faith plus works. Faith plus works, but as Paul said, not anymore. No more, no more. Isn’t it outstanding when we actually do what Second Timothy 2:15 says? It changes everything. It brings awareness to the fact that Israel and the body of Christ, they’re separate. That’s just a fact. They’re separate, they’re distinct, and commissioned with two separate purposes. All Scripture leading up to Paul’s writings makes a distinction between Jew and Gentile. But when we get to Paul, we see a change. In Galatians 3:28, he said no more distinction, no Jew, no Gentile, no male, no female, just one body of Christ. That’s different. That’s a dispensational change that we have to pay attention to.
In time past, God gave Israel the chance to be the head and not the tail, and in order to get to Him, one had to come through them. But due to their unbelief, all that changed. They rejected their Messiah, and God ushered in a brand new dispensation. He’s no longer nation-building, but bodybuilding. That’s what we’re a part of. I don’t know how anyone can call themselves a lover of God’s word and not see all the vast differences in the Scriptures. But that’s what dispensationalists do. I know we’re a little crazy for doing that, but that’s how it goes. We notice and respect the differences. We see the changes. We recognize one instruction may be different from another.
If you’re not a dispensationalist, what dietary plan do you follow? The one God gave Adam, the one he gave Moses, or the one Jesus gave Paul? See, if you don’t study dispensationally, you’ll have no idea which dietary plan is yours. One diet in the Bible was strictly vegetarian. No meat at all. That’s how Adam and Eve started before the change. Then God told them they could eat anything they could run down and kill. That was the new diet after sin entered the world. Then we come up to the law of Moses, and there were certain meats that were restricted. Then we come to Paul. And in First Timothy chapter 4, we learned that under grace, those who restrict you from certain meats are teaching a doctrine of devils. So listen, if you’re obeying what God instructed those of another dispensation, you’re disobeying him. Now you get that, right?
Look at Colossians 1:25: Paul said, “Whereof I am made a minister according to the dispensation of God, which is given to me for you to fulfill the word of God. Even the mystery which hath been hidden from ages and from generations, but now, but now is made manifest to His Saints.” Obviously, the diet Jesus prescribed to Paul, the one He gave to us, changed and was not made manifest in other ages and generations. See, that information found outside Paul’s epistles dealt primarily with God’s plan for Israel to have dominion over the earth. But God’s purpose for us is different. We need to know what He’s doing now by paying attention to his hidden wisdom that he chose to reveal to Paul. Paul was the first and only one to whom Jesus revealed the mystery—the mystery of the new creature church in Christ. No one had ever heard of anything like that.
And under this current administration, it is in Paul’s Romans through Philemon epistles where we find the doctrine, position, walk, and destiny of this mystery church for profitable Bible study. We’ve got to recognize the dispensational changes.
Abraham, for example, was given the promises of God; he was given the covenant of circumcision, and this lasted for 400 years, until the law was added because of their transgressions. But later on, Jesus called out Saul, Saul of Tarsus, and brought one heck of a change—an extreme change—to all this. And after Paul received what Luke describes as new doctrine Acts 17:19, he received this new doctrine from Jesus. By the way, Galatians 1:11: Paul takes his pen, and he writes, “For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed where there is no law.” What? Isn’t that something? That’s Romans 5. Read it for yourself. This is the kind of news that the religious-minded folk can’t stand. Oh, they get offended by this truth when navigating through Paul’s epistles.
What you’re reading, my friend, you’re reading about a revelation of the mystery, the mystery of God in Christ. Second Corinthians 5:19: How He was in Christ, not imputing the sins to the world, and He did so without the law of Moses. He did so without the covenant of Abraham. He put an end to the doing. The change had come, the change from prophecy to mystery, from law to grace. No more need for priests and temples. All that was abolished. And today you and I have a different economy under a new administration. First Corinthians 12:5: “And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord.” Our administration comes with differences, but we preach the same Lord, and when we do so, we do it according to the Romans 16:25 revelation of the mystery.
We do not preach Jesus Christ according to prophecy. Without dispensational Bible study, it’s impossible to know that God stopped imputing the sins to the world before being revealed to Paul. That was a total mystery, and to most it still is. It was a mystery never spoken by any of the prophets. Israel always had something to do to get their sins forgiven. It’s urgent that we preach this. It’s why Paul said God hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation and also said that God hath given us the ministry of reconciliation. It’s our Commission—a Commission most ignore. Even some grace teachers see dispensational Bible study. It allows us to give up our job as a thief, no longer having to steal Israel’s promises from their mailbox because we know where to go to get our own. We can quit telling others that they have to do something before God will stop imputing their sins, because he’s already done that. Nothing ambiguous about Second Corinthians 5:19. Pretty easy to understand that verse. The Bible not only has more than one diet plan, but it also has more than one forgiveness plan.
One of you said to me recently that we shouldn’t rock the boat. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to tell you that I am a boat rocker.
We’re glad you’re here today as we discover this dispensational truth. It’s a reality and not something created in the 1800s by a man. That’s just a lie made up by those who like to confuse others with their blender doctrines because they fail to rightly divide. The whole Bible is for you, but the whole Bible is not to or about you. Such a blessing to be alive today and living out this grace life during this unique dispensation of God’s grace. We’re so thankful. So thankful to all of you who are here. You’ve downloaded the Truth Time app, and you’re studying along with us today. The number of downloads has recently tripled. Thank the Lord this dispensational truth continues to march forward. And to all of you, to all you guys who have supported us financially or through your prayers, thanks for your partnership as we continue to make others see what is the fellowship of the mystery.
Here’s another quick comparison to demonstrate a dispensational change. In Matthew 19:29, Jesus said everyone that hath forsaken houses or brethren or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold and shall inherit everlasting life. How did they inherit everlasting life? Well, they just told us. You can’t blow through these verses like you used to while sitting there in the pew. You just can’t do it. You have to slow down and take it all in. This is Jesus teaching the gospel of the earthly Kingdom, nothing to do with anyone going to heaven. And notice, notice what you had to do to inherit everlasting life. People just don’t believe their Bible. It’s plain—He said they have to forsake their family and land. Was it for the cross's sake? No, for my name’s sake, for the name of Christ, not the cross of Christ. That wasn’t the gospel here. And notice what happened by doing so—they received a hundredfold and inherited everlasting life. There’s their salvation, not in the gospel as we know it. There’s no “Christ died for all your sins, God’s not imputing sins anymore, He was buried, and He has risen to justify you.” That’s simply not here.
People who do not look through their dispensational lenses go over to Paul, and then they read all that back in over here and act like Jesus in the red letters of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are saying the same thing Paul was—not a chance. The way they inherited life was exactly what Jesus said. They first had to have faith, and then He was going to instruct them in the things that they should do. This is part of those things they needed to do. There were others as well, like being water baptized. They had to do all these things and endure unto the end. No one was saved by faith alone. But you see, you were always taught that this was for you. Who taught you that? Someone who thought all this dispensational stuff is for the birds. It was just invented by a man in the 1800s. But they were wrong.
If we compare what we just read here in Matthew 19 to what Paul said in Romans 6:23, watch what happens: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” See that? On this side of the cross, and based on the information that was given, especially that which was revealed to Paul, for us, eternal life is a gift—a free, by grace through faith gift without forsaking anyone or anything. There’s no forsaking houses, land, and family. This is completely opposite to Matthew 19, and it should be, because it’s on this side of Calvary’s cross where Jesus went and died for the sins of the world, shed his blood, was buried, but the grave could not hold him. He rose in three days, and that’s Paul’s gospel. That was the gospel Jesus later gave him, but it’s not going on back here. Back here is Jesus giving them instructions on how they can endure through these things and make it into that earthly Kingdom that had been promised to all their fathers under the previous dispensation. Salvation was conditional and based on things they had to do. Forgiveness was based on things they had to do.
Matthew 6:14: “For if ye forgive”—now think about what you’re reading—“For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” Next verse: “But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” He made it simple enough for a child to understand. You cannot give this an honest reading and walk away denying that their forgiveness and salvation were both conditional on their faith plus works. But our salvation is based on faith plus nothing. And as for forgiveness, there is no sin being imputed. Second Corinthians 5:19. These are things most don’t understand because they’re not dispensational in how they approach their Bible. But today I’m giving you ample proof, ample proof to demonstrate that dispensations were not invented by man; they were invented by God.
With all the churches on every corner and all the teachers on social media, who’s right? Everyone likes to quote Scripture, but without putting on your dispensational lenses and rightly dividing, you’re left confused; you’re not equipped to Second Timothy 2:16 shun profane and vain babblings. Second Timothy 2:7: Paul said, consider what he said, and the Lord will give you understanding in all things. And over there in First Timothy 1:13, Paul said to teach no other doctrine, and in verse 13 to hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me. Paul says to rightly divide the word of truth, shun profane and vain babblings, to teach no other doctrine than his, to hold fast to the sound words that we learned from him. And he says, if we do this, the Lord will give us understanding in all things.
He emphasizes his authority, his gospel, his doctrine. He says he is our pattern. First Timothy 1:16 and three separate times—count them—he claims that he has his own gospel. Romans 2:16, Romans 16:25, and Second Timothy 2:8. The gospel that he says was taught to him by no man, but by direct revelation from Jesus himself. Galatians 1:12. So either Paul is the most egotistical maniac in the Bible, or he truly was given a special grace dispensation to give to us. Ephesians 3:2.
Hey, as we study the scriptures, we can’t help but see that God had one purpose for Israel and another purpose for the body of Christ. The purpose He had for Israel was earthly and physical; His purpose for us is heavenly and spiritual. We see that in the first verse of the 1st chapter of the first book of our Bible, Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heaven”—there’s one—“and the earth”—there’s two. We were created for heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6), while Israel will inherit their land, the land that was promised them thousands of years ago (Genesis 17:8 and 28:13). See, our hope is heavenly. Praise God for Colossians 1:5: “For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof you heard before in the word of truth of the gospel.” This is the same word of truth that Paul calls the gospel of your salvation (Ephesians 1:13) and the same word of truth gospel that we’re told to rightly divide (Second Timothy 2:15) in dispensational Bible study.
The key is to rightly divide. James 1:1 says, “James to the 12 tribes which are scattered abroad.” Romans 11:13: “Paul says I speak to you Gentiles.” That’s rightly dividing. Rightly dividing is not hard to do; it’s just hard to find teachers who teach it. Dispensations were invented by God, not a man from the 1800s. The body of Christ is a spiritual people. We have a heavenly hope, and don’t let anyone fool you. We were never an afterthought or Plan B—God purposed and planned the formation of the Body of Christ Church before the foundation of the world. Ephesians chapter 1 starting at verse 3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.”
Once you’re established in dispensational truth, you can read scripture and watch the dots connect. You’ve collected the dots; now it’s time you connect them. How God operated in time past is not how He’s operating today, and it’s not how He’s going to operate in time future after we’re—First Thessalonians 4:17—caught up out of here. During this present time, we are wrath-free, sin-free. God’s not imputing sins. He’s not pouring out wrath. But this time of grace is going to come to an end, and humanity will experience both. Sins will be imputed, and His wrath will be unleashed.
All right, that’ll do it for now. Go to our new website and get answers to your questions by utilizing the search box. Also, download our new book, Understanding Bible Terminology According to Scripture, not Tradition. Listen, God stopped imputing sins because Christ died for them all. He was buried, and He has risen. Believe on him right now, and thou shalt be saved. Grace and peace.
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