Major Bible Themes

All right, quickly, since I figured out how to work my computer in the projector now, we ended up, I think, on this one where we'd gone, actually, we'd gone through the vine and the branch and the fruit, and we talked about in the John 15 passage where I think we'd ended where in that passage there were several different types of fruit bearing. No fruit bearing, bearing fruit, bearing much fruit, or more fruit, and then bearing much fruit. And again, we ended with, can you, you know, is our goal as believers, is it to bear more fruit? Is that what we should, our purpose should be, is to try and bear more fruit?

Yes. No. You're brave today. You're brave today. No. No. You're bringing out the best in me. You know, the one thing, basically what we do as branches is we basically get everything through the vine. And who is the vine? Jesus. Right. And okay, we rely upon the vine only. These should comfort us. It is not us. It's the Holy Spirit working through us to bear fruit.

So, remember the main point of the fruit bearing is expressed in John 15.8, My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. So, is it more important to produce fruit or abide in the vine?

I'll get to this one and then I'll ask the question as I thought over it this week. This was so important that the Lord expressed this in His most intimate prayer with the Father, and this is in John 17. I'll read them, verses 20-23. I do not ask on behalf of these alone, for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me. The glory which you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as we are one, and I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that you sent me, and love them, even as you have loved me.

So again, it's the intimacy, it's this oneness with the vine, and then the bearing of fruit is a result of that. So, I think we have it in here. So what fruit are we to bear? What does that fruit look like? Fruit of the Spirit. Yeah, the fruit of the Spirit is expressed in Galatians 5, 22 and 23. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Kate, you know, one of the things, and I thought about this, and this is one of those ones where we say it and we've already been through it. Oh, did you have something? No, sorry. What does that look like? This is shoe leather time. This is, as a guy who used to know Sam Dalton, put it in shoe leather. What does that mean to abide in the vine? We use that term, and it sounds really good, and we've all answered the question, that we're the branch, the vine is the Lord, and we're to bear fruit. Flesh that out in real terms.

What does that look like? What is that and how is that accomplished? It's your behavior, wouldn't you think? Behavior? It's Christ working through you to produce the patience. So what does that look like? How do you do that? So instead of when a kid makes you angry, instead of getting really angry, you say, well, let's don't talk about that. Let's figure out how to solve that problem. By reading the Bible? By reading the Bible. We'll get to that verse. Mike's favorite.

Instead of focusing on outcomes, it's a matter of somehow finding a way of sitting back and relaxing and knowing that he's got it all under control. I think it's a supernatural thing where Before I was a Christian, I'd take a big wrench and beat my head to death with it because it was ticked off. And I just don't have that feeling or someone's cut me off in traffic. It was just a natural difference.

Interesting. I would like, I think also a part of that, though, is Craig was talking about OIDA a couple of weeks ago. how important it is for the believer to be thoroughly schooled in understanding who he is, where he is, and what he has, so that it isn't just a, well, I'll turn her over to the Lord and everything will be cool. No, he's aware, really aware of the principles that are in play and the doctrine that's in play, which is the Lord Jesus himself. And so it's not a, oh, I'll just, you know, I'm not going to think about that today. It's not a Scarlett O'Hara deal. It's a real awareness and a thorough understanding of who I am in Christ and who Christ is. And therefore you have confidence. Absolutely.

Others? Yeah, I think it's a matter of two things. One, growing into grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, as Mike points out. The second one is that the more that we learn about our Lord Jesus Christ, the more that we find ourselves in fellowship with him. And that's something that one can always rest on. going, then that naturally becomes the first focus. Okay? Is it also just because we're new creatures in Christ, we're born again, and there's a difference in our countenance and everything? Any others? Come on, you guys. You guys have quiet ones. Anything?

When you're abiding in the vine, and you're the branch, and you bear this fruit, what does that mean? What does that mean at two o'clock today? If I want to get pissed off, I have something better. I'll be honest, I mean, you bring up kids making you angry, and I'm, I mean, that is still my first reaction. And wait a minute, you're working at camp this summer, is that with kids? Oh, no. Okay. These are adults, that's right, you're, that's an adult. Yeah, no, I'm retiring in two days. Yes. Yeah. Okay.

But I know when I feel myself, like I can feel it escalate and then I'm able to sit down and be like, Uncle, give me your eyes. So it's a feeling? It's total calmness. Like I can do, I can get myself, like okay, give me your eyes. Show me this kid the way you see this kid and then I'm not angry anymore. But I am first to anger. So it's a feeling.

And we still have the lower nature, so that's a part of the deal. Honestly, it's kind of resting in your position that you're able, you're not under sin, that you're able to love, peace, joy, patience, and kindness. Good. I think that's a part of it.

You know, I kind of, you know, I just, this is one of those things that I thought, you know, after I got done last week, and I thought, oh, here's the vine and all. What does that mean? I mean, what does it mean we talk about all these kind of not esoteric, but these metaphors and whatever, and then what does that mean, like I said, two o'clock today? And I think a lot of it is, and you kind of all touched on it, two different things, two different points I'm wanting to do.

It's really with unification, knowing who we are, I mean, that's first and foremost. You've got to know who you are. And that's the conformity, as you're being conformed to Him. It's the way I said last week, you rest in Him so you can walk in the Spirit. And Craig touched on it, to know Him, grow in the grace and knowledge. As you know Him, as you look at Him, as you look at Christ, what are you looking at? Who you are. And as you do that, as you know more of who Christ is, you then act as who you are in Christ. That's your response. So when the kids get angry or whatever, If you know who you are in Christ, is your first reaction is to pummel him?

Well, no, and I think about this idea of knowing. I understand the identification truths, and I understand what my position is in Christ. I know them. I am not to the point where I am... I accept those things, I know that they are true. My actions don't show that yet. And so there's that time of conformity of, I'm not there yet. And so like you said, that lower being, I'm still, that's my first reaction, and about five seconds later, it's like, oh yeah. See, and the Lord takes you through those to expose that.

Yeah, oh yeah. But I'm still in that time. Right. But don't you think most people are in that? Everybody's growing. You've never arrived. There's never going to be a point where I'm perfectly conformed until I shirk this shell and the Lord takes me home. Because we do, we have two natures still.

As you grow, more of this becomes the expression, you're a new creature in Christ. As you grow and know, grow in the grace and knowledge, the computer 318, as you grow in the grace and knowledge, what is more your the persona that comes out is that conformity to Christ, that knowledge of who you are in Christ. That's the one that becomes more of the dominant feature of who you are. It's a growing process to grow and that's the whole thing. It's maturity. It doesn't happen like that positionally. Lots of things happen immediately. We go through the 33 things and all that. That positionally happens, but the conditional walk is a conforming, a process, a spiritual maturity, a walk. That is all being done now. And the other point before we get to it, Mike, that's part of it, but who enables that? That was my point. Who enables that? The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit. That's who does it. So, you know, that's the whole point, and that's what I was trying to get at, the two things.

One, the conformity and all that, but the fruit-bearing, we just went through the fruit-bearing, is that our effort? No. The conformity comes through the conviction of the Holy Spirit, this Holy Spirit revealing more of who Christ is. As you look in the mirror, the Bible, it uses everything, and it's the Holy Spirit's job to do this. It's not, we just went through what I was telling about is resolving to make fruit. We don't resolve to make fruit. It's the Holy Spirit.

So, again, I go back to that, do we sit in a room and go, okay, Holy Spirit, I'll wait, I'm waiting. Yeah. I think we can, on a moment by moment basis, trust the Spirit of God to do several things. One, to bring to mind in the middle of the circumstances, exactly the information of who I am in Christ, and to thereby present an opportunity for me to trust Him and to live by faith. If He doesn't do that, the sin nature will take you off and it's way more powerful than your ability to do anything about it, but the Spirit of God is faithful, as the Lord Jesus said, He will bring to mind, and He does that. And you learn, I think, over time to trust Him on a daily basis. I don't have to have my refrigerator list on the rear view mirror of my car. I can just trust the Spirit driving down the road no matter what happens.

And He's there. He's in me. And He will bring things to mind. And He's in charge of the circumstances. And you will use them for my growth. And we talked about that before. I don't know if it was Holly or Monica or whoever. One of those things is He takes you through those things. He'll take you through them. He'll expose that.

But in time, through growth, through this conformity, he's going to take you through it until time after time, it's like you become, your first response is not err. You know, he'll work you through that, through the conviction of the Holy Spirit, that you, you know, a lot of times, and I say this, that's not who, I mean, it's the first John 1, 9.

I confess to the Lord, that's not who I am. It's not who I am in Christ. I agree with you, that's not the way I'm supposed to act. And as I realize that, that's not who I am. Is that who I am in Christ? No. And that's the growing and the growth and the knowledge and grace, is that's not who I am in Christ. And He'll take me through a lot of things. You know, I have that car cut right in front of me, you know, whatever, and what's my reaction? You know, it's nothing.

You know, back when I was in that Bible study with Hal, he did Thursdays. There was a guy that did the Old Testament on Tuesdays, and he was talking about being controlled by the Holy Spirit. And he said it's not a switch, it's like a hundred switches. And it's like you've got control over maybe four out of a hundred things, and so you're kind of being controlled by the Holy Spirit, but you still hate these people's guts and all that stuff, and God's got to get that switch back in full.

And that's kind of, no analogy like that. Yeah, I think there's a lot of things in the conformity side that you're, as you said, like an onion. You're peeling off pieces and you get more and more and more down, but you're either walking in the spirit or you're not. These hundreds of other switches are things that the Lord's working on. But you're either walking with the Spirit or you're not. I'm 33% here. You're either in the Spirit or not. You're either walking in the Spirit or not. What if you're trying and not? No, I was just going to say that.

I have comfort in this. I've developed a lot of comfort by this. When he takes you through that, or you fail in sin or whatever, he is working on you. He knows that. He knows why he's taking you through those circumstances. And he may take you down to Nebuchadnezzar's where you're eaten with the beast of the field. I mean, take you down to where, yeah, you have to look up and realize, that's not who I am. And he'll take you through that until you get to a point where, okay, And then, you know, probably six months later it would try you again, you know.

But I rest in the fact that he's sovereignly in control. And you know, if I sin, who allowed me to do that? The Holy Spirit. Well, God. God let me get to that place. Satan. You know, I had this at the camp meeting the other night. When you say Satan's attacking me, who allowed that? God. God did. You know? So you never, oh Satan, Satan, Satan. Satan is a defeated enemy. God uses him now for his own purposes. Okay? So when you're being attacked by Satan, who allowed that? God did. Right. And did he do it just to be nasty? He's a defeated enemy? Yeah, Satan is. God uses him now for his purposes.

You know, it's like when you capture a country. and you capture those people, what do you do? You put them to work for you. Same? Well, I guess, old days, old analogy I guess. So anyway, I guess the thing is that when you go through these and you sin or you do something, yeah, you confess it's not who I am in Christ. But God allowed that and I think it's for His purposes. What?

Is to draw you to Him for intimacy and to glorify Him. In all of these things, in everything. That is his purpose. And when you put all the pieces together, you can't be separated from his love. So whatever you're going through, he's allowed it, but he's a big bully wanting to whack you. His love is deeper, greater than anything that we can be separated from. We can't be separated from it. So whatever you're going through, it's for his purpose, which is to what? Bring it to intimacy with him and to glorify him.

So whatever you're going through, remember that sovereign control. I'll blow through this. You've already used up a half an hour. Thank you. You're my conscience. Yeah, I'll give you $15,000 next week. I'll give you $15,000 next week. Okay, so again, if we look into this, and we can go through this real fast, the glory of Jesus Christ, if you look at 2 Corinthians 3, 1-8, we can, I don't know if you want to go through this or not, basically if you look through this, we get to The final verse, which was going to be the perfect transition for Mike. Basically it ends with, but we all with unveiled face beholding in a mirror the glory of the Lord are what being transformed into what the same image from glory to glory just as from the Lord the Spirit. OK? And that's Mike's favorite verse, basically, the unveiled face.

Again, what is that referenced to? Moses. Remember? And then beholding in the mirror, what is the mirror? The Bible. We behold His glory and then what? We're being transformed to the same image. The transformation is a metamorphosis, a changing from completely new And what are we transforming? We're being conformed to His image.

And I'll end there and let you get in. But I just want to go over the kind of the, we talk about esoteric terms and then we get, you know, what does it mean today? So think about those things as, you know, what we talk about, divine and all that, but what does that mean in your life? And it's, remember, it's about identification who we are, new creatures in Christ, and who does the work, the Holy Spirit.

You just have to be the vessel. Again, Sam Dalton, this guy we used to know, he's with the Lord now, but he used to carry around a straw. And that was what he said we are. Instead of the vine, he wanted something, he'd bring a straw. And we're just a channel for the Lord to work through. That's what we are, it's like a straw. All we do is take from the Lord, pass it through us to be used by Him. Was it the time clock? No, it didn't. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Everybody hates people who believe in it.

I have a quote from you. all right You're doing dispensations, right? What's that? You're doing dispensations. 20 minutes ago. He's down to 15 now. Alright, dispensations. Now that I can't get the thing up. We're not going to get it done. Are you up next week, Craig? I don't know if we need to talk about that. That means you're going to be up. I know. I just realized that. I saw the boomerang there. Oh, you know what?

What's the dispensation era? What's the word dispensation in Greek? It's the word I don't know. What cost is the first part? No mass is the second part. What cost means what house? Right. Yes, I agree with you, Mike. That is correct. I agree with you. Okay. The Greek guy knows. Nomas is law or rule. So if you put the words together, what do you got? You got house rule. Oikonomia. Okay, wait a minute. Nomas is what? Nomas is law or rule. And the other one? Oikos. Oikos? Yes. O-I. Is a house. Is a house. Okay, thank you. So it means the rule in the house, or administration of the house.

So the idea of dispensation, the word dispensation is this, that within God's sphere of creation and his whole universe, the metaphor is that it's a house and there are rules under which the house functions. Most covenant viewpoints, or all covenant viewpoints, say that there's only one rule, you know, God's in charge and everybody's under this big umbrella and he created Adam and we're all moving down towards the end and we're all going to go to heaven. And that they do not allow for the fact that maybe within God's house there are different folks with different responsibilities. So, the classical dispensational model had seven dispensations are seven, I don't want to use the word time, even though your book talks about the fact that a dispensation is a time frame, it really isn't. You could better say that it's an economy. As an example, when God created Adam, Adam was innocent and there was no such thing as grace really, or a law system, except he had one law. What was the law?

Don't eat the tree. And if you do, you will surely die. Adam had a responsibility to tend the garden. And he was bright enough that God even gave him the ability to name the animals. Now, one of the things that the author says that in every dispensation is that God gives a test. in every dispensation and invariably man fails it and there are consequences. You gave Adam a test, you failed, there are consequences. Now, Adam fails, he gets kicked out of the garden, right? The whole creation falls.

Then things cruise along in history until we get to Noah, right? So God looks over the earth and he says that there's only evil done in man's heart continually so I'm going to dust them all out. but I'll save some through the family of Noah, his wife, his sons, and the sons' wives, and two of every animal, put them in a, in essence it's a start over process, right? So the flood happens, everything's wiped out, now he gives man some responsibility, like, he gives him the responsibility of He doesn't have to eat herbs anymore. He can eat meat if he wants to.

Stuff like that. But that doesn't work out so well. And so the next major dispensation is the Tower of Babel when he divided up the languages. That didn't work out so well. So now we've got what the classic people say are three dispensations up to then. The fourth is Israel.

He calls Abraham rather than deal with all of mankind. He calls Abraham, he says, I'm going to make a great nation out of you and I'm going to work just through you. And through this great nation I'm going to give you, I'm going to manifest myself to all the creation, but I'm going to make you guys really cool and the rest of the world will come around to me because I've done such great things with you. How well did the Jews work that out? No, they rejected it.

Now, we get to Moses. and so at the time Moses shows up on the scene there's another addition and that is the mosaic law system that's put in place only for the Jews only for the nation of Israel nobody else if you happen to live in South Vietnam you weren't under the law system and that system is in place until Christ comes And Christ is the end of the law. And now we have another dispensation that begins with the church. When does that start? When did the church start? Pentecost. And that dispensation goes to when?

To the rapture. Which was supposed to happen yesterday, somehow I missed it. It did happen. You've been left behind. I have these four or five buddies of mine that I went to college with that all have great sense of humor. One of them left me a voicemail last night and said, Hi, I talked to Butch. He said he talked to the Lord and he got him to postpone the rapture.

So the church leaves. and then there's a seven year period in there and then there's the millennial kingdom which is supposed to be the last of the dispensations. Now, if I went through all of the slides which Hal Malloy did, here's what he thought. He thought there were only three dispensations. Why would he get it down to three? Because that's what's actually in the Bible. He says there were Jews, Gentiles in the church. But here's the problem with that.

In every dispensation but one, there is a test and there's a difference of responsibility. If you say that if there were only three and under the dispensation of the Jews, did they have the same responsibility Did Abraham, which was a dispensation of promise, have the same responsibilities as Moses? No, he didn't. They were different. He was under promise.

Moses was under the law system. So you could say, well, gee, under the Jews there's probably two, there's a change in the rules of the house under Moses, right? Is everybody with me on that? Would you say that under the Gentiles, that the rules were the same for Adam and Noah. No, they were different.

So here's the deal. And there are arguments from time immemorial about how many dispensations there are. I think it's very clear that there are three people groups. That's really important. But the people groups don't automatically translate into dispensations.

Okay? Now, one of the things that the author in the book says is that in every dispensation man is given a test and invariably he fails the test. Is that true with us in the church? What test have we been given? To believe. Love each other. Love each other. We've been given to believe. That's what gets us in. But once you're in, what obligation do you have? And if you fail it, what's the consequence? Communication with God. There is no obligation. That's exactly right. And here's why. it's called the dispensation of grace. What's the definition of grace? It's God's unlimited and unmerited blessing based on what? On my passing the test? No, on the work of Christ on the cross. You see that? So I disagree with the author. I do not think that in the body of Christ that lives in grace that there's a test.

Now, that doesn't mean that once you become a Christian everybody's totally mature and we never screw up. But the benefit derived from being under grace is there the day you're saved. And it never changes because the position never changes. And your position is accumulated or guaranteed by grace. You are saved by faith through grace, right? I'm sorry, grace through faith. It's not a yourself. Salvation is a gift of God. If it's a gift, how do you screw it up?

When I was first saved, the church I went to taught me that I was saved by grace, but it was up to me from that point forward where I could lose my salvation. That's exactly right. And I think that's what this kid on the trip was taught as well. And I think that's pretty general.

And so, if you're not taught grace after you're saved, you don't know what it is. And if you're not saved on a grace basis, you don't know what it is. You don't know what grace is. If I say to you that salvation is that you have to believe in Christ and make a commitment to Him. Is that salvation by grace? Absolutely not. You've got to come forward. Okay, so it's your position that never changes. You gotta be baptized. All you have to do is believe. Really? And what's the great thing about believing?

How much credit do you get for that? Nothing. It's the one thing you can do you get no credit for. But look at the benefits derived. See? It's amazing that salvation in this era of grace, this dispensation of grace, stands on faith and faith is the one thing we can do that we don't get credit for. Yet look what we get. See?

So let's say that I believe in the personal work of the Lord Jesus Christ and I'm saved but you know twelve years down the road I've had enough of this crappy Christianity so I'm done. I'm changing my mind. I'm going to go be a Jew. or something else. What does God say, okay Mike, you've made the decision so I'll see you later.

No, because the administration of the household of God, the oikonomia, has put in place this grace position, this dispensation of grace, and because it is gracious I can't screw it up, no matter what I do. Okay, wait a minute. If you... Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead.

So if you decide to become a Jew, for instance, Elizabeth Taylor decided to become Jewish. I couldn't believe that had happened. What happened? At one time she was a Christian, then she was a Jew, now she's dead. So what has happened? She's dead. Right, but is she dead to God because she changed? The issue would go back to, is she a Christian? Did she become a born again believer? Did she or didn't she?

If she did, no matter what she thought from then on didn't change her position in Christ. Because you don't get to decide. You get one decision and that's to believe in Christ or not. And if you do, that was the thing that blew me away anecdotally from the time that I was saved. And I kept questioning the guys that were trying to drag me into Christ.

I kept saying to them, do you mean that if I believe that my history as a human being is over, I don't have to make any more decisions, do any more spiritual push-ups? And they kept saying, yes, that's right. And I said, you guys are nuts. And they said, nope. Once you believe in Christ, you're in permanently. Well, coming out of Catholicism, that's heresy.

Well, he states it in 2 Timothy 2.13. If we are faithless, he remains faithful. He cannot deny himself. So, I mean, I can decide after I'm a believer and all of this stuff is positionally true of me to become a Muslim. Big deal. Doesn't change what God views me as. He sees me in Christ no matter what color my clothes are.

Really? Yeah. But that would be denying Christ, though. Probably. Even though you would deny him, he would still accept you. Well, he has to because he's baptized me into Christ. I'm done. There's a transaction that took place that wasn't of me. See, that's the great thing about it. The whole transaction of becoming a Christian is by grace alone. I had nothing to do with it. So if I didn't have anything to do with getting in, how could I possibly have anything to do with getting out? I couldn't. Do you see that? Yeah. Okay.

You know, I remember when Hal came, when brethren church, you know, and we had one guy who had a, a whole poster the size of the stage on the dispensations and Hal came in and was like, you know, and, and two things he made points of, which I remember was the, uh, dispensation that, that word never shows up in the scripture. Yeah, it does. Iconomia does. Well, this dispensation where it's translated into English dispensation. Yeah. Where is that? If I could get this to work, I could show you. Yes, it does show up.

Ephesians 2, 7, 3, 5, 9. Ephesians 3. Ephesians 2, 7, 3, 5, 9. Hebrews 1, 2. Yeah, the word dispensation is, oikonomia is in there. But it's always translated some place in administration, some place stewardship, some place dispensation. Right, but we have coined the term dispensation.

Yeah, we have. Okay, so that was number one. Schofield. Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, the word dispensation, yeah, they're administration, stewardship, other things that, and it's house rules, or whatever you say, nomas, the law, house rules. Yeah. Okay, which, you know, so it's just, it's house rule, it's a rule.

So, a couple different things, you know, one that, you know, Hal's contention was when he did this was, you know, we break these up into what we have categorized and why there are so many. There's 29 different ones. Or seven or five or whatever. He basically was saying, this is us coming up with something that is not specifically stated in the Bible. Number one.

Number two, he said, the only thing was that you can trace all the way through the three people groups, but the dispensations we come up with, we basically chop and push out. The last thing is you said, you know, that there's always a test. Well, there's no test for this dispensation. No. So by your own rules, you violate what a dispensation is, that there has to be a test.

That's right. So it's OK for six out of them. But OK, so now we're down to six. But I mean, that's my point. Yeah. We make this up. We do our our chops. That's right. And that's exactly what we do. So. So it's not specifically. And I guess my point is simply not called out. do the house rules or these sections. And this is just the way we look at them, but others could make it 3, 6, 22.

Here's two things that need to be really clear to us. One, there are two principles under which mankind functions from the time of Adam to now. One's law, one's grace. Those are the only two principles. Under law, man's given a responsibility and if he fails, there's a punishment. Under grace, man is given a responsibility. right? If he fails, what happens? Responsibility is already met by Christ.

The other principle is this, from a dispensational viewpoint, and I know it's a cuss word in Christianity today, in interpreting the Word of God, a dispensationalist is the only group who will go at the Bible literally, who will go into the Word of God to have the Word of God tell him what it says. Covenant theology and all the rest of them have the theology in place first, then they go into the Word to try to back up the theology. The most important thing about dispensational viewpoint is the exegetical study of the Word of God, that you are willing to have the Word of God teach you, no matter what. And, you know, I'm not going to go to the cross for how many dispensations there are.

I don't care. I know that I live under grace, and that's the only thing I care about. I know that the Church and Israel are totally distinct entities. Totally. And both of them live in the house of God. But there's nothing in Israel that lines up with the body of Christ and vice versa. We are so far different than them that we are even new creatures and belong to a new creation. Israel is not. Israel is earthly, we're heavenly. The difference is monumental.

Yet most of contemporary theology teaches that the church is just an extension of Israel and we're all going to be in this big herd of people at the end. You know? Not going to happen. Because, where's Abraham going to live for eternity? Paradise. Paradise. Where is it? Outside of Aurora somewhere? Where is paradise?

With God. We have ideas. What's a dispensationalist think? If he believes in a millennial kingdom and then a new heaven and a new earth, there's a new globe, there's a new earth that's going to be created, who's going to live on it? You. I'm not. Jews are. Why? Because God promised them the Earth. He's not going back on His promise. Where did He promise you? The Western Bank? The Gaza Strip? Where did you get promised? To be with Him. To be with God. To be with Christ. To be with Christ.

And where is He? He's not on the Gaza Strip. He's in Heaven. And where is Heaven? I have no clue, but it's up there somewhere. No, it's wherever He is. Okay, okay. Does that make sense? Yes. So that's the fastest dispensation has ever been discussed. So next week, whoever does it is the covenants. But you can talk about dispensations to questions.

Do you know why I was looking in line? I don't see a study of James. Seems like when you read James, there's an awful lot of you better be good. You'd better be doing right. I've done it a couple of times. At my house. Yeah, we did it there. And you know it's interesting, it's a very difficult book to get through on a grace basis.

And you have to understand who James is to start with. He's Jewish in content. But he is gracious. And he doesn't contradict anything that Paul says. That's the amazing thing about it. I'm a fan of Paul. When I get Paul figured out, I'm going to go somewhere else. Okay, let's close. Father, how we thank you for your word and how we thank you for the grace that we live in and live under and that we may continue to grow in the knowledge and grace of your son, the Lord Jesus. We pray in his name. Amen.