The Doctrine of Dispensations. Dispensation of Promise. Part 1.

Grace Bible Church
PastorTeacher
Robert R. McLaughlin
Friday,June 24, 2016

Dispensation = Promise Opening Event = God calls Abraham and gives him promises -- GEN 12:1-7; 13:41-17; 15:5; Repeats these promises to Isaac and Jacob -- GEN 26:1-5; 28:10-15.Man's Responsibility = Believe and obey - ROM 15:6; ROM 4:3.Man's failure =

Promised blessings pursued by fleshly means; Abram GEN 16:2--Jacob; GEN 27:19; Moses Acts 7:22-29.

Man's Tendency = Away from God - God's promises disregarded by Lot --- GEN 13:10-13; Esau --GEN 25:31-34; Sons of Israel --- GEN 37:18-20.Closing Event = Judgment - Bondage in Egypt -- EXO 1:7-14; 2;23-25.Personal Salvation = By Grace through Faith - ROM 4:3-5;
GEN 11:8-22; GEN 22:8; 15-18. GEN 49:8-12,18.

Nine generations after Shem, Abraham was born. Abraham was about 75 years old and living in Ur of the Chaldees when God one day spoke to him.

The covenant He made with Abraham was again unconditional and contained many promises (GEN 12:1-3).

The only hint of a condition appears to be that Abraham had to forsake his home and family and go to a land God would show him.
1. Make Abraham a great nation (verse 2), this promise has been fulfilled both physically and spiritually. Physically through Isaac and Ishmael, spiritually through all those who have Abraham's faith (GAL 3:7).
2. To bless him (verse 2), and He did this also both physically (13:14-18) and spiritually (15:6).
3. To make his name great (GEN 12:2), still today the name of Abraham is known and respected by millions.
4. Make him a blessing to others (GEN 12:2). Abraham blessed people in his own time and blessed humanity by his seed Jesus Christ.
5. To bless those who bless him (GEN 12:3).
6. And curse those who curse him (GEN 12:3). God has not only blessed those who blessed Abraham, but He also blessed those who blessed the nation that sprang from his loins, Israel.

Those who cursed Israel (Babylon, Assyria, Rome, Germany, etc.) must suffer. Some have suffered already, but these promises will not be completely fulfilled until the future.

7. Bless all the families of the earth in him (GEN 12:3). The fulfillment of this is Christ himself, who blesses all those who believe on Him with salvation and who will also physically bless all who are in the Millennium.

Like the Noahic Covenant this covenant also has a sign, and it is circumcision (GEN 17:9-14).

God also revealed the boundaries of the land given to Abraham. Moreover, God promised all of this to Abraham while Abraham was asleep! This proves the covenant is unconditional.

God reconfirmed the covenant again after Abraham passed his severe but revealing test of offering Isaac (GEN 22:15-18).

The dispensation that began with this covenant is called the Dispensation of Promise for obvious reasons.

For the first time God has made promises to one group of people at the exclusion of all others.

From the time of Abraham on in the Old Testament, the only way someone other than an Israelite could partake of the promises was to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

The promises He made to Abraham He reconfirmed to his son Isaac, his grand-son Jacob, and then to Jacob's sons, the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel.

The manner of behavior God expected in this dispensation is much like the previous except that He told Abraham to go to a certain land and stay there (Canaan).

Promised blessings pursued by fleshly means; Abram GEN 16:2--Jacob; GEN 27:19; Moses Acts 7:22-29.

GEN 11:8-22; GEN 22:8; 15-18. GEN 49:8-12,18.

Abraham was called Abram in the Bible before God changed his name. Abraham was a Gentile who became a Jew when God started the
Jewish race through him at age 99.

He was the ninth generation descended from Noah's son, Shem.He was born in the city of Ur about 2161 BC and this passage picks up Abraham around 2086 BC (where he had just entered Canaan or was about to.

First, his migration or his moving from one place to another.

Abraham's story begins with his migration with the rest ofhis family from UR of the Chaldeans in ancient southern Babylonia, GEN 11:31.

He and his family moved north along the trade routes of the ancient world and settled in the flourishing trade center of Haran, several hundred miles to the northwest.

While living in Haran, at the age of 75, Abraham received a call from God to go to a strange, unknown land that God would show him.

The promise must have seemed unbelievable to Abraham because his wife Sarah (called Sarai in the early part of her life) was childless and he had no children, GEN 11:30‑31; 17:15.

Terah was an Akkadian unbeliever and according to JOS 24:2, he was an idolater.

JOS 24:2 "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, 'From ancient times your fathers lived beyond the River, namely, Terah, the father of

Abraham and the father of Nahor, and they served other gods. "

His name Terah means delayed and he's well named for he delayed Abraham from getting to the place where the Lord wanted him.

God had a plan for Abraham but as long as Abraham stuck with his father he was delayed in fulfilling the will of God.

The king of Ur was a very well known worshipper of the moon God called Ur and Ur was the great center of moon-god worship and other forms of idolatry.

The Muslim bible called the Qur'an or Koran never explains tenets of their faith: it assumes familiarity with them and that the name Allah is assumed to be well known to the reader.

The word "Allah" comes from the compound Arabic word, al-ilah.

According to Middle East scholar E.M. Wherry, whose translation of the Koran is still used today, in pre-Islamic times Allah-worship, as well as the worship of Ba-al, were both astral religions in that they involved the worship of the sun, the moon, and the stars.

In Arabia, the sun god was viewed as a female goddess and the moon as the male god. The moon god was called by various names, one of which was Allah.

The use of the crescent moon as the symbol for Islam which is placed on the flags of many Islamic nations and on the top of mosques and minarets (tower on a mosque) is a throwback to the days when Allah was worshiped as the moon god in Mecca.

The Quraysh tribe into which Muhammad was born was particularly devoted to Allah, the moon god, and especially to Allah's three daughters who were viewed as intercessors between the people and Allah.

The literal Arabic name of Muhammad's father was Abd-Allah. His uncle's name was Obied-Allah.

These names reveal the personal devotion that Muhammad's family had to the worship of Allah, the moon god.

Many of you are also familiar with the phrase praying toward Mecca.

This is done because an Allah idol was set up at the Kaaba (car-ba), a Muslim shrine in Mecca along with all the other idols.