What Is a Dispensation? - Pastor Art Sims

  In the Bible, a "dispensation" is a system of teaching dispensed by God for people to know and abide by.  Our English term "dispensation" is translated from the Greek word oikonomia meaning guidance or direction for a household, from oikos, house, and nemo, to guide, minister, direct.  As the steward of a household manages or ministers according to instructions dispensed to him, so God's affairs are administered according to teachings that He has dispensed.

   Notes in the Scofield Reference Bible identify 7 major dispensations:  

1. Innocence
2. Conscience
3. Human Government
4. Promise
5. Law
6. Grace
7. Kingdom

    These seven are widely recognized and easy to grasp.

• Innocence consists of instructions dispensed by God to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden before they sinned.
•  
• Conscience began with man's consciousness of sin and consists of man's responsibility to abide by what he knows is right.
•  
• Human Government was instituted after the flood of Noah's day to assist in controlling human mischief.
•  
• Promise consists of promises dispensed to Abraham and confirmed to his son Isaac and grandson Jacob.
•  
• The Law is the system of laws dispensed by God through Moses.
•  
• Grace is the system of grace teaching dispensed by Jesus Christ for people today 
•  
• Kingdom consists of government dispensed from the throne of David with Jesus 
•  
• Christ, David's greatest Son, ruling on that throne.  This is a future dispensation.

    Identifying these 7 programs of God produces a basic sketch of advancing truth in God's dealings with man.  God didn't reveal everything at once.  Rather, over time He has dispensed a series of unfolding programs with teachings going into effect at the times of His choosing.  Our task is to study the Scriptures to learn about these purposes of God, to distinguish our present program of grace while appreciating God's dealings with people at other times as well.

   Much more is involved in precisely identifying and appreciating the dispensational character of Scripture than is presented in this brief sketch.  Significant differences exist among Bible teachers with regard to the specific time our present dispensation had its beginning.  However, identifying these seven dispensations is a useful start in understanding the dispensations of God.

How God Saves Men

Believing Christ DIED, that’s HISTORY.

Believing Christ DIED for YOU SINS and Rose again that’s SALVATION.

Read Romans 1:16, Romans 10:9-10 and 1. Corinthians 15:1-4

Read the KJV BIBLE in large print (Click Here)

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Jesus is JEHOVAH The One True GOD (Click Here)

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TREASURED TRIALS - By Miles Stanford

"Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time" (1 Peter 5:6).

The Blesser sends trials because the trials are blessings. Most covet the "blessing" of having the trial removed.

"I find the brightest summer is when the winter has been longest and most severe. The wheat, the best grain, passes a winter in the soil. The bud, the blossom, or fruit, most fragrant of Christ, is the one which nobody knows what it cost me but Himself; and where one had hardly noticed it; like the beautiful wild flowers in the hedgerow, contending with bushes and briars, to shed their fragrance on the unthankful or unthinking traveler going by."

"I think we are sometimes ready to say to the Lord----Could you not have taught me without subjecting me to so much sorrow and humiliation? The answer I have had is, You could not be effectually taught any other way. The Lord knows the nature of the obstacle in me which He has to overcome: a less efficient hand might think that it could be dealt with in some other way.

"A weakness be it bodily or otherwise, is sometimes allowed to continue in order that there may be dependence, and when there is dependence, the weakness becomes a gain; the grit---the trying thing---is superseded by a pearl of great price." -J.B.S

"The God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after ye have suffered awhile, make you perfect [mature], establish, strengthen, settle you" (1 Peter 5:10). 

How God Saves Men

Believing Christ DIED, that’s HISTORY.

Believing Christ DIED for YOU SINS and Rose again that’s SALVATION.

Read Romans 1:16, Romans 10:9-10 and 1. Corinthians 15:1-4

Read the KJV BIBLE in large print (Click Here)

(A 10 Minute Video)

Jesus is JEHOVAH The One True GOD (Click Here)

 Posted By Cecil and Connie Spivey
cspivey1953@gmail.com

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What is going on in the Middle East? - By Les Feldick

What in the world is going on in the Middle East? Well, get your Bible out and let the Scriptures answer the question without any comment from me.

Psalms 83:1-18 Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God. 2 For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head. 3 They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones. 4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. 5 For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee: 6 The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes; 7 Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre; 8 Assur also is joined with them: they have holpen the children of Lot. Selah. 9 Do unto them as unto the Midianites; as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the brook of Kison: 10 Which perished at Endor: they became as dung for the earth. 11 Make their nobles like Oreb, and like Zeeb: yea, all their princes as Zebah, and as Zalmunna: 12 Who said, Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession. 13 O my God, make them like a wheel; as the stubble before the wind. 14 As the fire burneth a wood, and as the flame setteth the mountains on fire; 15 So persecute them with thy tempest, and make them afraid with thy storm. 16 Fill their faces with shame; that they may seek thy name, O LORD. 17 Let them be confounded and troubled for ever; yea, let them be put to shame, and perish: 18 That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth.

Ezekiel 35:1-15. Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 2 Son of man, set thy face against mount Seir, and prophesy against it, 3 And say unto it, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O mount Seir, I am against thee, and I will stretch out mine hand against thee, and I will make thee most desolate. 4 I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am the LORD. 5 Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end: 6 Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, I will prepare thee unto blood, and blood shall pursue thee: sith thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall pursue thee. 7 Thus will I make mount Seir most desolate, and cut off from it him that passeth out and him that returneth. 8 And I will fill his mountains with his slain men: in thy hills, and in thy valleys, and in all thy rivers, shall they fall that are slain with the sword. 9 I will make thee perpetual desolations, and thy cities shall not return: and ye shall know that I am the LORD. 10 Because thou hast said, These two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will possess it; whereas the LORD was there: 11 Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, I will even do according to thine anger, and according to thine envy which thou hast used out of thy hatred against them; and I will make myself known among them, when I have judged thee. 12 And thou shalt know that I am the LORD, and that I have heard all thy blasphemies which thou hast spoken against the mountains of Israel, saying, They are laid desolate, they are given us to consume. 13 Thus with your mouth ye have boasted against me, and have multiplied your words against me: I have heard them. 14 Thus saith the Lord GOD; When the whole earth rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate. 15 As thou didst rejoice at the inheritance of the house of Israel, because it was desolate, so will I do unto thee: thou shalt be desolate, O mount Seir, and all Idumea, even all of it: and they shall know that I am the LORD. Remember these are all Arab/Muslim nations.

Now turn to Ezekiel 38:5-6 - Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet: 6 Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee. Again this is speaking of the Arab world.

Their doom is consummated in Ezekiel 38:18-23 - And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, that my fury shall come up in my face. 19 For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel; 20 So that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground. 21 And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord GOD: every man's sword shall be against his brother. 22 And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. 23 Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the LORD. This, I feel, will be in the latter part of the first year of the tribulation. All of which means the end is getting near-er!

As for Israel, Matthew 24:9 - Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. 

How God Saves Men

Believing Christ DIED, that’s HISTORY.

Believing Christ DIED for YOU SINS and Rose again that’s SALVATION.

Read Romans 1:16, Romans 10:9-10 and 1. Corinthians 15:1-4

Read the KJV BIBLE in large print (Click Here)

(A 10 Minute Video)

Jesus is JEHOVAH The One True GOD (Click Here)

 Posted By Cecil and Connie Spivey
cspivey1953@gmail.com

E-mail this BIBLE STUDY to all your friends 

Let Him Be Accursed - by Pastor Paul M. Sadler

Let Him Be Accursed 

by Pastor Paul M. Sadler

　"It can’t possibly be the correct interpretation that Paul’s usage of the term ‘accursed’ in Galatians 1:8,9 meant believers could lose their salvation. What is your position on this issue?"

"As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed" (Galatians 1:9).

Let us look to Deuteronomy 7:26, which is the first place in our English Bibles that the Hebrew word ghehrem is translated "a cursed thing." This will help us understand Paul’s usage of the term. It is important to bear in mind that the apostle had a thorough knowledge of the Old Testament, from which he often borrowed his terminology, even when writing in Greek.

"Neither shalt thou bring an abomination [an idol] into thine house, lest thou be a cursed [accursed] thing like it: but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed [accursed] thing" (Deuteronomy 7:26).

In other words, the idol was to be removed from their presence; it was to be avoided. In like manner, those who reject Paul’s gospel are to be avoided lest we be drawn away to another gospel, which is exactly what happened at Galatia. As we know, two cannot walk together in close fellowship unless they are agreed (Amos 3:3).

So Paul isn’t speaking about saints who teach another gospel losing their salvation, because we know that those who are saved are eternally secure in Christ. Thankfully, salvation doesn’t depend on our actions, but on Christ’s finished work at Calvary on our behalf. Clearly the apostle is speaking about separating ourselves from those who deny his gospel. However, there may have been some who believed a false gospel and therefore were not saved in the first place. Those who believed such a false gospel and went on to teach it to others were accursed indeed.

 Transformed By Grace  -

Kevin Sadler

Transformed By Grace #1 - Unity in Christ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qca95hwMWQk&feature=player_embedded

Transformed By Grace #2 - One Body in Christ

hps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lch03dYG99Q&feature=player_embedded

Transformed By Grace #3 - The Apostle of Grace

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-zbHErkLB4&feature=player_embedded

Transformed By Grace #4 - The Gifts of Christ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQiWaVlBYzQ&feature=player_embedded

Posted By Cecil and Connie Spivey

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What Is a Church? - by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam

What Is Church?

by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam

　is strange but true that most people — even the great majority of religious people — do not know what a church is. Ask the average man what a church is, and he’s apt to reply: "Well, anybody knows that! A church is a building where people go to worship God." But this is not correct. The word translated church, in our Bibles, simply means assembly. A church is not a building, but the assembly that meets in the building. Technically, a church is not even a religious gathering, for the same word is used in Acts 19:32 of a riotous mob which had assembled at Ephesus, and this verse says that this assembly was confused and that "the greater part knew not wherefore they were come together." Perhaps this could apply to many a church today, but the point is that a church is not a building but an assembly of people.

The church of which the Bible has most to say is "the Church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood" (Acts 20:28), and St. Paul calls the church of this present dispensation, "the Body of Christ," or "the Church which is His Body" (I Corinthians 12:27; Ephesians 1:22,23).

Men cannot join this Church by water baptism or any other religious rite, but only by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. With regard to believers in Christ St. Paul declares: "By one Spirit are we all baptized into one Body" (I Corinthians 12:13). And in Romans 12:5 the Apostle says that "ye, being many, are one body in Christ."

Many sincere people have had their names on local church rolls for many years before learning this great truth — that the true Church of God is not a building, but the assembly of those who trust in Christ as their Savior. Doubtless, people in and out of many of the religious organizations we call churches belong to this one great Bible Church, while others, with all their religious profession, do not. The question is: Have we sincerely trusted in Christ as the Savior who died for our sins?

Video Archive - Les Feldick Bible Study

How God Saves Men

Believing Christ DIED, that’s HISTORY.

Believing Christ DIED for YOU SINS and Rose again that’s SALVATION.

Read Romans 1:16, Romans 10:9-10 and 1. Corinthians 15:1-4

Read the KJV BIBLE in large print (Click Here)

(A 10 Minute Video)

Jesus is JEHOVAH The One True GOD (Click Here)

 Posted By Cecil and Connie Spivey
cspivey1953@gmail.com

E-mail this BIBLE STUDY to all your friends 

I Have Set Thee A Watchman - by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam

I Have Set Thee A Watchman

Pastor Cornelius R. Stam

The Prophet Ezekiel was appointed by God as a "watchman" over the house of Israel (Ezekiel 33:7). He was held responsible to warn the wicked from their way, for while God must deal justly with sin, He had declared: "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live" (Verse 11).

If Ezekiel failed to warn the wicked, they would die in their sins, but their blood would nevertheless be required at his hand. If he faithfully warned them, however, and they refused to heed the warning, they would die in their sins, but he would be absolved of all responsibility (See Verse 8,9).

Would some Christian reader remind us that we are living under another dispensation and that our message is one of grace? True enough, but this does not diminish, it increases our responsibility toward the lost.

If we believers carelessly allow the lost to go to Christless graves are we not morally responsible for their doom, and will we not be held accountable at the Judgment Seat of Christ? (See II Corinthians 5:10,11). This is why we find Paul reminding the Ephesian elders that he had not ceased to warn men "night and day with tears" (Acts 20:31).

As the Apostle looked back over his ministry among the Ephesians he could say: "I take you to record this day that I am pure from the blood of all men" (Ver. 26). And this had been true of his ministry in general. Indeed, it was now his desire that, whatever the cost, he might finish his course with joy, and the ministry which he had received of the Lord Jesus, to testify "the gospel of the grace of God" (Ver. 24).

God give us who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, a greater sense of our responsibility toward the lost!

 

 Transformed By Grace  -

Kevin Sadler

Transformed By Grace #1 - Unity in Christ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qca95hwMWQk&feature=player_embedded

Transformed By Grace #2 - One Body in Christ

hps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lch03dYG99Q&feature=player_embedded

Transformed By Grace #3 - The Apostle of Grace

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-zbHErkLB4&feature=player_embedded

Transformed By Grace #4 - The Gifts of Christ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQiWaVlBYzQ&feature=player_embedded

Posted By Cecil and Connie Spivey

https://www.facebook.com/cecil.spivey

E-mail this BIBLE STUDY to all your friends

 

Do You Understand? - by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam

Dispensational Chart

PDF Download of Full Brochure Click Here

This was the question Philip asked of the Ethiopian prince as he sat reading from Isaiah’s prophecy (Acts 8:30), and it is a question which we should continually keep asking ourselves as we read the holy Scriptures.

There are always those among God’s people who do not much care whether or not they understand what they read if only it warms their hearts! To them the Bible is little more than a fetish. Taking only those Scriptures which appeal to them, and leaving the rest, they actually feel themselves quite spiritual and often talk about believing the Bible whether or not they understand it!

But such "spirituality" is far from genuine, and such "faith" is blind and superstitious at best. While it is true that the Bible teaches many truths which we believe, although they are beyond our comprehension (such as its opening verse!), yet how can we believe what the Bible says unless we understand what it says? God would have us understand what we read and believe it intelligently.

Indeed, true faith will want to know and understand more and more of God’s Word. One who does not care whether or not he understands what God has said is not truly interested in knowing what God has said. His faith is based on his own will rather than on God’s Word, for regardless of the meaning of Scripture, he will take any passage that suits his fancy and use it as he wishes. How great an emphasis God Himself places upon the importance of understanding His Word!

On one occasion, when our Lord saw the multitudes, He "was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd; and He began to teach them many things" (Mark 6:34). And now that the secret of God’s "eternal purpose" has been made known, how much more reason there is to study the Scriptures, with a view to understanding them! How Paul, by the Spirit, emphasizes this, as he writes of his prayers for the saints:

"That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him:

"The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of His calling…" (Ephesians 1:17,18).

Video Archive - Les Feldick Bible Study

How God Saves Men

Believing Christ DIED, that’s HISTORY.

Believing Christ DIED for YOU SINS and Rose again that’s SALVATION.

Read Romans 1:16, Romans 10:9-10 and 1. Corinthians 15:1-4

Read the KJV BIBLE in large print (Click Here)

(A 10 Minute Video)

Jesus is JEHOVAH The One True GOD (Click Here)

 Posted By Cecil and Connie Spivey
cspivey1953@gmail.com

E-mail this BIBLE STUDY to all your friends 

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