Dispensation = Promise
Opening Event = God calls Abraham and gives him promises -- Gen 12:1-7; 13:14-17; 15:5;
- Abrahamic Covenant = God's promises to Abraham concerning the creation of the Jewish race and the real estate that the Jews would possess someday as the citizens of the first and last client nation in history.
- The Abrahamic Covenant also has a spiritual aspect to it that is for all born-again Jews and born-again Gentiles.
The Abrahamic covenant or the Dispensation of Promises deals with the new racial species (the Jews) and the new spiritual species, made up of born again Jews and Gentiles throughout the different dispensations.
The gentiles, basically all of us, have a share in the inheritance of Abraham.......not the land inheritance but the spiritual blessings promised to Abraham.
2 The promise of both national and universal redemption, Gen 12:3; 22:18; Gal 3:16.
If the promises were given to Abraham and his seed (not SEEDS but TLJC - seed in the singular ) and if we are in union with the seed (TLJC), then we share in the blessings that the seed (TLJC) would receive.
- The promise of a national land.
2 The promise of both national and universal redemption.
- A great nation should come from him, Gen 12:2.
- Abraham's name shall be great, Gen 12:2.
- He should be a blessing so great that in him shall all families of the earth be blessed, Gen 12:3.
- To him personally and to his seed (not the church, but the Jews) should be given Palestine forever to inherit, Gen 13:14-17.
- The multitude of his seed should be as the dust of the earth, Gen 13:16.
- Whosever blessed him should be blessed and whosever cursed him should be cursed, Gen 12:3.
- He should be the father of many nations, Gen 17:4.
- Kings should proceed from him, Gen 17:6.
- The covenant shall be perpetual "an everlasting covenant", Gen 17:7.
- The land of Canaan shall be "an everlasting possession",
Certain individual promises were given to Abraham, certain national promises were given to Israel, certain promises were given to nations that Abraham would become associated with.
Mohammed says in the Hadith, the Bible that he wrote that "Allah hath commanded me to fight against the Christians, the Jews, and the pagans until they submit to Islam or be killed."
The Bible, the word of God says that Abraham believed in Jehovah Elohim, The Qur'an says that he believed in Allah, the moon-God.
Do you want to believe the Qur'an which dropped out of the sky on a stone tablet written by Allah, the moon God, who disagrees with the Bible? Or do you want to believe --- Heb 4;12; 2Ti 3;16-17?
Dispensation = Promise
Opening Event = God calls Abraham and gives him promises -- Gen 12:1-7; 13:14-17; 15:5; Repeats these promises to Isaac and Jacob -- Gen 26:1-5; 28:10-15.
Man's Responsibility = Believe and obey - Gen 15:6; Rom 4:3.
Abraham passed the "believe and obey part" of the dispensation of promise concerning his salvation, Gen 15:6, but he had some problems after that when it came to trusting God to provide him a seed through Sarah.
His failure began in Gen 12 with two major sins, fear and lying.
Whenever God gives you an order through the word of God, you should follow through on it immediately.
The longer you prolong obedience, the more complicated your life becomes until you finally reach the point where you realize that life is too short to disobey God.
When life seems to become confused and complicated, it's because we have done it to ourselves with our own ideas, talents, abilities, and whatever it is that you had to intrude upon the plan of God.
1CO 14:33 for God is not a God of confusion but of peace,
The more time you stay out of God's will, the more time you waste and delay your blessings.
- Ur represents separation from glamour.
- 600 miles north up the Euphrates river we have Haran, the trade center between Syria and Egypt, and it represents the dried spiritual life.
- The third area is Canaan which represents the place of blessing, the place of positive volition, and the place of spiritual advance and blessing.
- The Negev, Abraham will break camp and we will see him going south from Canaan into the Negev which represents not rejection of doctrine but neglect of doctrine.
- After he was in the Negev a while he went on down to Egypt and Egypt is the place of rejection of doctrine.
We will see that to neglect the word is to reject the word but the neglect comes first.
First comes the Negev (neglect) and then comes Egypt (reject).
Both came after Canaan, the land of promise.
ACT 7:4 "Then he departed from the land of the Chaldeans, and settled in Haran. And from there, after his father died, God removed him into this country in which you are now living.
In grace, He will bring a shock into your life, perhaps even the death of a loved one.
prin-Death broke the shackles which bound Abram to Terah his father and to Haran the dried up place.
That is from Lot because of the evil influence of Lot's wife.
Lot wound up committing incest with his daughters in a cave and as a result of the incest we have two Arab groups called Moab and Ammon who have been antagonistic to Israel since the day they came into existence.
God graciously helps the believer in areas of personal blindness through the events of history.
No believer reaches maturity and super-grace blessing without those events which separate us from loved ones and ones that we might consider more important than Bible doctrine, and those who are negative toward doctrine.
This is the principle of going forward and gaining ground and not losing ground and therefore standing firm against the satanic attacks designed to hinder your spiritual growth.
EPH 6:11 Put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.
EPH 6:13 Therefore, take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.
EPH 6:14 Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
1CO 16:13 Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.
2TH 2:15 So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the doctrine which you were taught, whether by word {of mouth} or by letter from us.
- The believer who stands firm in the angelic conflict and spiritual warfare will continue his momentum inside the PPOG.
- The believer who stands firm in the angelic conflict and spiritual warfare must have a personal sense of destiny.
- The believer who stands firm in the angelic conflict and spiritual warfare must have control of his life in normal times so that he will have control of his life under pressure.
- The believer who stands firm in the angelic conflict and spiritual warfare must make good decisions from a position of strength.
- The believer who stands firm in the angelic conflict and spiritual warfare must possess right priorities.
- The believer who stands firm in the angelic conflict and spiritual warfare functions under honor, integrity, and virtue when under pressure.
- Right priorities are not developed in the crisis. Right priorities must be developed before the crisis.
- Therefore, the believer who stands firm in the angelic conflict and spiritual warfare is spiritually prepared for disaster.
- Sometimes, the pattern of the believer who stands firm in the angelic conflict and spiritual warfare is low profile during normal times, but it emerges from obscurity to standing in the gap during the crisis.
1Co 11:19 For there must also be heresies among you, in order that those who are approved may have become evident among you.
"approved" is the noun daimio which means to be tested and approved, to pass with integrity.
Mat 18:7 For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom stumbling block comes!
Deu 13:3 For the Lord your God is testing you to find out if you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
Lot will feed the human viewpoint of Abram because that's all that he gets from his wife who runs him.
She was a feminist but not feminine......and there's a tremendous difference.
Abram gets out of his reversionism by leaving Haran, however he does not separate from the reversionist, Lot.
He goes from Haran type reversionism to Egypt type reversionism or from the dried up spiritual life back into the devil's world or literally the kingdom of darkness.
No believer can continue to enjoy or to have fellowship or to socialize with a reversionist without getting reversionism on him.
He has 100 more years because he's going to die at age 175.
Abram finally came to geographical obedience but not personnel obedience.
You must be in the right geographical location and make daily decisions to perceive, metabolize, and apply Bible doctrine to your life.
The strict academic discipline is the fact that if you can't be face to face then you should have the discipline to take doctrine in daily some other way.
ACT 20:28 "Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood."
Epaphras was the founder and pastor of a local church at Colossae, according to Col 1:7 and 4:12.
According to Phile 23, Epaphras was serving with Paul in Rome during Paul's first imprisonment.