God Himself, His Character and Who He is never changes, He’s the same yesterday, today and forever, but the way in which He has and will deal with man through the ages most definitely has and will change.

God Himself, His Character and Who He is never changes, He’s the same yesterday, today and forever, but the way in which He has and will deal with man through the ages most definitely has and will change.

In our two timeline charts below, we’ve added an orange marker to show this very small but highly important place these verses occupy, the little space in the line between the Cross and the dispensation of grace NOT begun yet until in Acts chapter 9. That whole section up until that line is still Israel’s program and still time past on our timeline.

These opening chapters of Acts are critical to our understanding of the Bible. Many Christians think our program today started here, and that one of the main events taking place in these passages, the feast of Pentecost, is “the birthday of the church.” But that’s not what the Bible says.

The dispensation of grace did not begin in the gospel accounts, and it did not begin at Pentecost, and with that statement, I will lose many listeners who have stayed with the series so far.

God did not reveal this new dispensation until He raised up Paul as a brand‑new and different apostle in Acts chapter 9. Paul was not one of the twelve. He was not chosen during Christ’s earthly ministry. His apostleship is separate, unique, and tied to the revelation of the mystery of Ephesians 3.

Many Christians say Peter and the others “ran ahead of God” when they replaced Judas with Matthias in Acts chapter 1. But that idea only comes from not reading the text. Acts 1 shows they followed Scripture exactly. And Paul himself never says he was supposed to replace Judas. In fact, Paul makes it clear in Galatians 2 that his apostleship is distinct from Peter’s. Paul is not the 13th apostle to Israel. He’s the apostle of the Gentiles, with the gospel of the uncircumcision, not the gospel of the circumcision.

So, at this point on our timeline charts, everything from Matthew to John, to Acts 1–9, is still in Israel’s prophetic program. There’s nothing about the mystery, nothing about the body of Christ and nothing about our dispensation as yet. Israel’s being offered her kingdom. The Lord has gone back to heaven by this point, and Israel is entering her last days, as shown in Acts 2. That’s why these chapters matter so much.

But Christians often mix these different time periods together, thinking that the gospel accounts and Pentecost are the start of the church today. They claim the promises, the signs, the commands, and the kingdom instructions, and try to make them fit our dispensation. That confusion keeps people from seeing what God is actually doing today. Satan delights in that.

Acts 1–9 is not the beginning of the church, the body of Christ. It’s the continuation of Israel’s program, moving toward the kingdom, until God interrupts it by saving Saul and revealing the mystery.

In the next episode, we’ll look more closely at Paul’s unique apostleship and why it proves that the dispensation of grace did not begin until Acts 9.

If we’re honest with the Scripture, we’ll clearly see that Pentecost is not when the Body of Christ, the Church and the dispensation of grace began, and Paul’s epistles open our eyes to that. People seldom study details, so they see this big event of Acts 2 and assume it must be the start of our program. But if we let the text tell us what’s going on, it’s clear: Israel’s program is still running in Acts 1–9.

In our last episode, we looked at the gospel accounts—Matthew, Mark, Luke, John—and we’d need to be willingly blind to miss the fact that the kingdom program’s in effect.

The Lord’s rejection, His death, His resurrection, and His return to the Father did not end Israel’s program. All of that was expected and prophesied. Jesus told Peter, James, and John in Mark 10:34 that the Christ must suffer before entering His glory. The cross was a necessary step toward the kingdom, not the beginning of something new.

In Matthew 24, the Lord prepared them for what they would be doing after He left, all according to the prophetic time schedule in Daniel chapters 11–12. He said nothing about the mystery, nothing about Jew and Gentile being made one, nothing about forming the church, the body of Christ or the dispensation of grace to the Gentiles. He did not teach them what Paul later teaches in Romans 11 about Israel falling, God turning to the Gentiles, and Israel’s fullness being delayed until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in. He kept the mystery hidden.

So when Christ ascends, Peter, James, John, and the rest continue right on in Israel’s kingdom program. And that’s exactly what we see in the opening chapters of Acts. The great dispensational change does not happen in Matthew 1, Acts 1, Acts 2, or anywhere before Acts 9, when God raises up Paul as this brand‑new apostle with a brand‑new message.

Failing to see this is a dangerous mistake, and it causes endless confusion in the church.

Now, let’s look at Acts 1:1–3, where Luke, the writer of Acts, continues the story from his gospel. He says,

The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, 

Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen: 

To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God: 

Notice, it was what Jesus “began”. This was the climactic stage of Israel’s program—confirming the promises made to the fathers as Romans 15:8 depicts. And He handed the finishing of that work to the twelve apostles and keep in mind, Paul’s nowhere in the story yet.

Turn to Matthew 16 and Hebrews 2. In Matthew 16, about two years into His ministry, Jesus begins to show the apostles that He must go to Jerusalem, suffer, be rejected, and rise again. Before that, He never told them about the cross. They didn’t understand it, didn’t preach it, and didn’t include it in their gospel. They preached the gospel of the kingdom, not the gospel of the grace of God. Luke 18 says God even hid the meaning of the cross from them.

So how could they be preaching the same gospel Paul later preached? They couldn’t. It’s impossible. Two different messages for two different programs.

So, in Matthew 16, the Lord also prepares them to carry on the kingdom program after His departure. The cross would not stop Israel’s program. Jesus going back to the Father would not start the body of Christ. All of that fits the prophets.

So, as we’ve said so often, and we’ll keep saying, when we step onto our timeline charts below, everything from Matthew → John → Acts 1–9 is still Israel’s prophetic program, still time past, still moving toward the kingdom—until God interrupts it by saving Saul in Acts 9 and revealing the mystery.

In Matthew 16:13, Jesus asks,

…Whom say ye that I am?

Peter answers in Matthew 16:16,

 Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

In Matthew 16:17, Jesus says this was revealed by the Father, not by flesh and blood. Then He says,

Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.

The “rock” is the revelation Peter just confessed—not Peter himself.

Most people today hear the word church and think only of the body of Christ, but the Bible uses the word many times for Israel’s assemblies. There was a church long before Paul. Psalm 22 speaks of it. Isaiah 65 speaks of it. It is the remnant, the little flock of Ezekiel 34, the believing group inside Israel who would receive the kingdom. That’s a prophesied church, not the mystery church, the Body of Christ, revealed to Paul.

Stephen, in Acts 7, even talks about “the church in the wilderness” under Moses. Hosea 2 says God would call Israel again into the wilderness. Jesus in Matthew 24 tells the remnant to flee into the wilderness when the abomination of desolation appears. All of that is Israel’s prophetic church—not the body of Christ.

So when Jesus says, “I will build my church,” He’s talking about that remnant church, believing Israel, who’ll inherit the kingdom. This is the group Peter, James, and John will lead once Christ returns to the Father. That’s why Jesus gives Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven in Matthew 16:19. The message has not changed, and the program has not changed. Peter will use those keys in the opening chapters of Acts, and he expected to use them all the way through Israel’s last days, because nothing about a Gentile dispensation had been revealed yet.

Then comes the surprising command in Matthew 16:20,

Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. 

That sounds strange to us today, because in our dispensation, we’re told to preach Christ openly. But back then, during the Lord’s earthly ministry, the remnant church was not to be built until after He left. So for that last stretch of time, the twelve were ordered not to announce Him as the Christ. If they had preached it anyway, they would have been disobeying Him. That alone shows the message back then is not our message today.

Everything Jesus “began to do and teach” as we saw in Acts 1:1, belonged to Israel’s kingdom program. Luke understood that. Anyone studying the Bible God’s way—not hopping around into random verses all over the place—would see that before reaching Acts 1.

The Lord prepared the twelve to carry on the kingdom message in His absence. He gave them authority to bind and loose. He gave Peter the keys. He prepared them for the last days of Israel’s prophetic timeline.

None of this is the dispensation of grace.

By the time we reach Acts 1, Luke expects that we’ve already read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We’ve already seen the Lord prepare Peter, James, and John to carry on Israel’s program after He returns to the Father. Acts simply records the history of the continuation of that same program and the apostles doing exactly what Jesus trained them to do.

Now look at Hebrews, because that book shows how God resumes Israel’s program after the interruption of the dispensation of grace. Hebrews sits after Paul’s epistles on purpose. God designed it to be exactly where it is. It belongs to the last division of the Bible, dealing with Israel’s resumption and fulfilment of their prophetic program. Revelation then shows the Day of the Lord’s wrath, the kingdom, and the new heavens and new earth—none of which describe us in this dispensation.

Hebrews is a reorientation of the Hebrew people as to where their program stood before God interrupted it with the mystery. It reminds them what the Lord taught when He was here, and what the apostles confirmed. That’s why Hebrews begins simply with “God…”, no human author named. When God resumes Israel’s program, He speaks to them again, just like the silence of Amos 8 was broken by John the Baptist.

Hebrews 1 points them back to time past, to the prophets, the covenants, the Messiah seated at the Father’s right hand, ready to bring the kingdom. None of this describes the mystery of Christ. It describes the situation in Acts 1, right before the program was interrupted.

Now open Hebrews 2:3–5, and this is a key. We’ll paraphrase those verses here.

How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord… 

That salvation is the kingdom salvation promised to Israel—the same salvation Luke 1 speaks of: deliverance from their enemies and entrance into the kingdom.

It quote “began to be spoken by the Lord” in His earthly ministry. Then it was confirmed by “them that heard Him”—that’s the twelve apostles. Their ministry in Acts 1–7 is a confirming ministry, not a new dispensation. God bore them witness with signs, wonders, miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost—the very things we see at Pentecost. Those signs validated the gospel of the kingdom, not the gospel of the grace of God.

Verse 5, Hebrews 2:5, says this message concerns “the world to come.” That’s the kingdom age—the same “world to come” Paul mentions in Ephesians 1, which arrives after this dispensation ends.

Hebrews quotes Psalm 8 about the Son of Man having all things put under His feet. But then Hebrews 2:5 says, “We see not yet all things put under him.” Why? Because the dispensation of grace interrupted Israel’s program.

So, Hebrews helps us understand the ministry of the twelve and what’s happening in the opening chapters of Acts.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John prepare us for Acts. Hebrews confirms what Acts is doing. And all of it shows the same truth on our chart, that Israel’s program continues from the gospels into Acts 1–8, until God interrupts it in Acts 9 by raising up Paul and revealing the mystery.

When this dispensation of grace ends, God’ll turn Israel’s program back on, and the Hebrew people will look again at the gospel accounts and the opening chapters of Acts. That’s why we must understand Acts 1 as the continuation of Israel’s program, not the start of ours.

Come back to Acts 1. Acts 1:2 says Jesus continued what He began to do and teach until the day He was taken up, after giving commandments through the Holy Ghost to the apostles He had chosen. Those commandments included replacing Judas. Peter wasn’t running ahead of God. He was obeying what the Lord had taught them during the forty days after the resurrection. The Holy Spirit had already been given to them in a special way so they could understand the Scriptures—things that were hidden from them earlier. Peter understood Psalm 69 and the other passages perfectly. Anyone saying Peter made a mistake simply doesn’t believe the text.

Acts 1:3 says Jesus spent forty days speaking to the apostles of the kingdom of God. He didn’t change the program. He didn’t tell them the kingdom was postponed or that a new heavenly body was about to begin. He didn’t reveal anything that Paul later teaches. He kept speaking the same kingdom truths that He always spoke.

In Acts 1:4, He commands them to stay in Jerusalem and wait for “the promise of the Father.” This fits the order He already gave them—Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, then the rest of Israel. He’d told them in Matthew 10 that they’d not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man returned. They knew their order. They knew their territory. They knew the kingdom program was still moving forward.

Then, in Acts 1:5, Jesus reminds them of what they already heard:

“John truly baptised with water, but ye shall be baptised with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.” 

They had heard this from Jesus, and even earlier from John the Baptist in Matthew 3:11–12. John said the Messiah would baptise Israel with the Holy Ghost and with fire, gather the wheat, and burn the chaff. John outlined the whole prophetic program. He knew nothing of the dispensation of grace.

Acts 1 shows that the same program is still in effect. The coming of the Holy Ghost was not a mystery event. It was prophesied. To see that, go to Ezekiel 36. God lays out Israel’s cleansing process, and we see:

1. Clean water — John’s baptism, Ezekiel 36:25
2. A new heart and new spirit — Christ’s atoning work, Ezekiel 36:26
3. The Spirit within them — the Pentecost outpouring, Ezekiel 36:27
4. Entrance into the land and kingdom, Ezekiel 36:28

That’s the exact order. Pentecost is step three in Israel’s prophetic cleansing—not the beginning of the body of Christ.

Everything in Acts 1–9 fits the timeline chart of Israel’s program continuing from the gospels. Nothing here belongs to the mystery. Nothing here belongs to the church, the body of Christ. All of it is prophecy being fulfilled, right up until God interrupts it in Acts 9 by raising up Paul.

When the dispensation of grace ends, God will turn Israel’s program back on, and the Hebrew people will look again at the gospel accounts and the opening chapters of Acts. That’s why Acts 1 is so important—it shows Israel’s program continuing, not changing.

Back in Acts 1, the first verses already tell us the program’s still Israel’s. Jesus continued what He began to do and teach until He was taken up, after giving commandments through the Holy Ghost to the apostles. One of those commandments was to replace Judas, and we can see this when we read Acts 1:12-26, closely paying attention to the details.

Peter wasn’t acting in the flesh. He was obeying what the Lord taught them during the forty days after the resurrection. The Spirit had already opened their understanding so they could grasp the Scriptures—things hidden from them earlier, as in Luke 18. Peter understood Psalm 69 better than any theologian today.

Acts 1:3 says Jesus spent forty days speaking of the kingdom of God. He didn’t change the message. He didn’t tell them the kingdom was cancelled or postponed. He didn’t reveal anything about the body of Christ. He kept teaching the same kingdom program that He taught in the gospels.

In Acts 1:4, He commands them to stay in Jerusalem and wait for “the promise of the Father.” This fits the order He already gave them—Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, then the rest of Israel. In Matthew 10, He told them they would not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man returned. They knew their territory. They knew the kingdom program was still moving forward.

Now look at Acts 1:6. The apostles ask,

Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?

People mock them for this, but they understood the program perfectly. The only thing they didn’t know was the timing, so they asked.

Jesus doesn’t correct their doctrine. He doesn’t say, “No more kingdom.” He simply says in Acts 1:7 that the timing is in the Father’s hands. The kingdom itself is still the program.

In Acts 1:9–12, Jesus ascends from the Mount of Olives, and two angels tell the apostles He’ll return in the same manner. That points straight back to Zechariah 14, where the Lord returns at the end of the tribulation, His feet standing again on the Mount of Olives and with the mountain splitting to protect the remnant. That prophecy has never been fulfilled. The Roman, Titus, didn’t fulfil it when he and his legion destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD. It’ll happen after this dispensation ends.

Those angels are not announcing a rapture here. They’re confirming the prophetic second coming, the kingdom return. The rapture is part of the mystery revealed only to Paul that Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Thessalonians 4–5 and 2 Thessalonians 2.

Peter, James, and John knew nothing about it. They expected to go through Israel’s last days, just as the prophets said.

Now look at Acts 2, which we’ll look at more next time. The day of Pentecost arrives. It’s one of Israel’s feast days that we saw in previous episodes. Acts 2:1 says,

When the day of Pentecost was fully come…

That means Israel’s prophetic calendar was moving forward exactly as God laid it out. The feasts in the Law were shadows of things to come or prophetic pictures of the days of the Messiah. Passover pictured His death. Unleavened Bread pictured His burial. Firstfruits pictured His resurrection. Pentecost pictured the Spirit poured out on the remnant, just as the prophets said.

Acts 2:1–4 shows the Spirit coming with wind and fire, and the apostles speaking in other tongues. This is not the start of the body of Christ. This is the third step in Israel’s cleansing program. Remember the steps?

1. Water — John’s baptism
2. Blood — Christ’s atoning work applied to the remnant
3. Spirit — Pentecost
4. Kingdom — preservation through the tribulation into the land

You can see this whole order perfectly prophesied in Ezekiel 36:25–28. Pentecost fits perfectly. Nothing here is mystery truth. Nothing here belongs to the church, the body of Christ. Everything is prophecy.

That’s why in Acts 2:44-45 they had all things in common, sold their possessions and goods and distributed to every person according to their need and walked in perfect unity. God’s causing them to walk in His statutes. This is how they’ll survive the tribulation to come. That’s definitely not how God deals with us today in the dispensation of grace.

When you follow the timeline chart, Acts 1–7 flow straight on from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There’s no hint of a new program. The shock comes in Acts 9, when Christ suddenly returns from heaven and raises up Paul. That’s the true dispensational change.

In the prophecy-filling days of the Messiah, Israel’s feast days weren’t just shadows—they were fulfilment of prophecy.

When Christ died, the Passover feast had fully come. In Acts 2, when Pentecost was “fully come,” the event it pictured in Israel’s program had arrived, perfectly fulfilling God’s calendar from Leviticus 23.

God expects us to read His book from the beginning, not just jump into the middle somewhere randomly. You wouldn’t open any other book halfway through and expect to know the characters it writes about. It’s the same when we get to Acts 2. Before we ever reach Pentecost, God expects that we’ve read Genesis through to Acts 1, and that we already understand Israel’s program, the feast calendar, and how those shadows become fulfilled in the days of the Messiah. Now, if we haven’t done that, how is it possible to know God’s program? However, that doesn’t stop the multitude of teachers and preachers from passing on what they don’t fully know and understand and the millions who suck it in.

So, Acts 2:1 shows that the day of Pentecost was another prophetic event on Israel’s calendar taking place, not the start of the body of Christ. Peter will explain this in Acts 2:16 and following. Peter never says that Pentecost is the birthday of the church, the body of Christ.

In the next episode, we’ll see :

– the day of Pentecost in detail

– the opening seven chapters of Acts

– why God brought in the dispensation of grace

– Paul’s unique apostleship

– who you are in the body of Christ

– and the satanic policy of evil designed to keep Christians “biblical but not dispensational.”

How about reading Acts 2:1-21, slowly and methodically, in preparation for the next episode.

Until then, may God bless you in the knowledge of Him.

That’s what we’re reading when we open the Gospel accounts, and this is where so many Christians get confused. Most believers today open Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to find their instructions for Christian living — but that’s out of line with what God’s doing today. The Gospel records, and Acts 1–7, belong to Israel’s program, not the present dispensation of grace.

Paul says plainly in Romans 15:8 that Jesus Christ was “a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers.”

We’ve seen that in Ephesians 2, and we’ve seen the Gospel accounts themselves showing the same thing.

The first stage that we looked at was Christ’s first coming, where He confirmed the promises made to the fathers.

The people Jesus dealt with then were Israel. He said Himself that He was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He told the Twelve apostles not to go to the Gentiles. We saw that the Gentiles were called dogs, and we saw that the middle wall of partition, separating the circumcision and the uncircumcision, was still fully in effect.

No change to that was expected, and no change to that was happening. The Bible’s perfectly clear on this, and the only way Christians can miss it is if we don’t pay attention to what God actually says. Today, we tend to listen to too many so-called authorities on the Word of God teaching from their own positions of misunderstanding instead of understanding the whole counsel of God themselves before turning their listeners to confusion and error.

I’ve been the subject of that myself for many years, but I don’t blame the teachers. It was me who was either too lazy or too busy to properly check out what I was being taught using the entire Bible, even though looking back now, the timings of God’s overall plan and purpose were in full view all the time.

Also, I absolutely understand how living in this world can consume us, demanding our full attention, and even though we believe in God, the pressure of the “now” drags us away from studying the Bible properly and understanding our eternal destiny and the truth relating to our lives that’s at stake.

Now we’re on the second stage of the message being preached in the Gospel records.

Turn to Luke 1:31–33, and it’s where the Angel, Gabriel, tells Mary why the Messiah is coming. Let’s read,

And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. 

He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: 

And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

That’s the Davidic covenant, the promise that God made to David, which was itself built on the Abrahamic covenant, the covenant God made with Abraham. That’s why Christ came — to bring in that long-promised and prophesied kingdom.

He, Jesus, will be “great” because God promised to make Israel a great nation, not by fleshly greatness but by Jehovah’s working in them and through them. That’s what the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, is in the Gospel accounts — God establishing His covenant kingdom in and through Israel.

Nothing here is about forming the church, the body of Christ, where Jew and Gentile are equal. That truth was still hidden in God. The message preached by John the Baptist, and then by the Lord Himself, and then by the twelve apostles and the “seventy”, and then by the twelve again after the resurrection and His ascension to heaven, was all the gospel of the kingdom, the good news that the promised kingdom for Israel was at hand.

That kingdom of heaven on earth, ruling and reigning through the seed of Abraham and Jacob.

Look again at Luke 1:33,

And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

God the Father will give Christ “the throne of His father David.” That’s a literal, physical throne, not a spiritual kingdom in men’s hearts, not heaven itself, but the actual kingdom on this earth that was promised in the covenants.

Christ will reign over the house of Jacob forever. That’s His house, a real nation, in a real land, with real borders. And “of His kingdom there shall be no end.” It’ll be here, on earth, forever! That’s the Abrahamic covenant being fulfilled.

This is the same kingdom Jesus teaches the apostles to pray for in Matthew 6:5-13. “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth.” God’s will is destined to be done on earth, with Christ reigning as Jehovah in human flesh, the Son of David, Jesus, the Christ, fulfilling the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants. Gabriel knows this. He isn’t speaking his own ideas — he’s sent from the Father, who wrote the plan.

We see it confirmed again before the public message even begins. Luke 1:67, John the Baptist is born, and his father Zacharias is filled with the Holy Ghost and prophesies.

He says, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His people.”

His people are Israel, not the world, not Gentiles. God has raised up a horn of salvation for Israel in the house of David. This is all fulfilling prophecy, not revealing a mystery.

Zacharias says it plainly: “As He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets, which have been since the world began.”

Nothing secret here. Nothing new. This is the climactic stage of God’s program with Israel.

Zacharias explains the salvation he has in mind: Israel saved from their enemies in verse 71. Those enemies are Gentiles, friends. In time past, the Gentiles were the nations Satan used against Israel. Joel 3:9 even records God’s message to the Gentiles in the Day of the Lord. It reads,

Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: 

That’s what we would have heard if God had not brought in the dispensation of grace. Without the mystery of Christ, God’s message to us would have been, “Get ready — I’m coming to fight you.”

Here in Luke 1, the salvation is God delivering Israel from their enemies to perform the mercy promised to the fathers and remember His holy covenant (verses 72–73).

God staked His holiness on that covenant. Paul says in Romans 11 that the gifts and calling of God to Israel are without repentance. God swore to Abraham that Israel would be delivered and would serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness all their days (verses 74–75).

That’s what the Holy Spirit was declaring through Zacharias. That’s what was happening in the Gospel accounts. And notice how there’s nothing at all there about the mystery of Christ. Nothing about Jew and Gentile being made one, nothing about the body of Christ and nothing about a dispensation of grace given to the Gentiles. None of that is in Luke 1 because none of that was the issue. This is still Israel’s program.

And what was our status as Gentiles at that time? Enemies of God, not only as sinners but on the basis of just being Gentiles. Paul says in Colossians 2:13 that before God saved us in this dispensation of grace, we Gentiles were dead twice. Dead in sins as Adam’s children, and dead in the uncircumcision of our flesh. One of those deaths was simply being a Gentile.

Gentiles were Israel’s enemies, and Luke 1 shows that clearly. God promised Israel deliverance from those enemies in the Day of the Lord’s wrath.

In Luke 1:76, Zacharias tells his son John what his ministry will be:

And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; 

John will give knowledge of salvation to Israel — not salvation from hell, but salvation from their enemies, performed by the Horn of Salvation, the Messiah. That’s why John preaches the wrath to come and why he speaks of the Lord purging His floor, burning the chaff, and gathering the wheat as we see in Matthew 3. That’s the salvation he’s talking about.

Luke 1:77 says He gives this knowledge “by the remission of sins,” which is where his water baptism fits. John’s baptism identified the believing remnant of Israel who would escape the coming wrath. This is tied to the Dayspring from on high that Luke 1:78 mentions.

This is a Davidic‑covenant title, visiting Israel to give light to those sitting in darkness. It’s Israel under Gentile oppression, as in Isaiah 9:2 says,

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.

This is the program in the Gospel accounts: Israel entering the climactic stage of prophecy, the kingdom being offered, the wrath approaching, and the Messiah ready to deliver the nation and bring in the promised kingdom. The message is about national deliverance, kingdom blessing, and Jehovah’s reign on earth through the Son of David.

This is not the message God’s preaching today. You can’t go out and preach John the Baptist’s message, or the Lord’s kingdom gospel, or the Twelve apostles’ message, and be doing God’s will today. That would be preaching something God’s not doing in this dispensation of grace. It would make the Word of God of none effect by ignoring the timeline.

Now turn to Matthew 3. John the Baptist breaks the 400‑year silence. Luke 3 says the Word of God came to John in the wilderness. John 1 says he was a man sent from God, and Matthew 3:1-3 says,

In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, 

And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. 

For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

Matthew 3:3 quotes Isaiah 40:3, the voice crying in the wilderness, preparing the way of the Lord.

Malachi 3 also foretold him. Jesus later quotes both passages and applies them to John in Matthew 11 and Mark 1.

This proves something important for our timeline:

John is a prophesied messenger with a prophesied message.

He’s not preaching anything new, secret, or hidden. He’s preaching exactly what the prophets said would come. That means he’s not preaching the mystery of Christ, not the body of Christ, not Jew and Gentile made one, not the dispensation of grace. His message belongs to Israel’s prophetic program, not ours.

Look at Isaiah 40. The whole context shows the message John would preach:

“Comfort ye my people… speak comfortably to Jerusalem… her warfare is accomplished… her iniquity is pardoned.”

This is comforting news to Israel, just like Zacharias said: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His people.”

This is what was happening in the Gospel accounts, Israel’s kingdom program, not the mystery program revealed later to Paul.

The Messiah is Israel’s deliverance, the means by which everything in Isaiah 40:1 will happen — Israel comforted, no longer oppressed, delivered from all who hate her, and finally receiving her kingdom. John will proclaim this publicly. None of this is a mystery. It all sits in the Abrahamic covenant, the mercy promised to the fathers, and the words spoken by the prophets since the world began.

John’s message is simple: Everything God promised is now at hand. He begins the comforting news. The end of that comfort will be Israel’s warfare finished, her iniquity pardoned, and her kingdom given. John prepares the people for the Lord in a very specific way. He is in the wilderness because God said in Hosea that He would bring Israel back there and speak to her heart again.

John matches Elijah in 1 Kings 17 and 2 Kings 1:8, where prophecy is about Elijah coming before the Messiah.

These fine details show Israel’s program is in full operation, and the climactic stage has arrived.

In Isaiah 40, the voice asks, “What shall I cry?” The answer begins with a personal indictment: all flesh is grass. Israel must face her condition. Then comes the good news to Zion, “Behold your God”.

The Messiah is here. He will come with a strong arm, ruling in power and glory. He will also feed His flock like a shepherd.

John announces both stages of the Messiah — the meek and lowly One now present, and the powerful One who will come in judgment and glory.

This is a prophesied message, not a mystery. John could never say he was preaching something “kept secret since the world began.” Everything he says was spoken by the prophets. Jesus Himself said in Matthew 11 and Luke 16, “The law and the prophets were until John.”

That doesn’t mean the law ended with John — it means the law and prophets kept saying, “It’s coming, it’s coming,” until John arrived and said, “It’s here. It’s at hand.”

Daniel even put the kingdom on a time schedule. When the schedule reached its point, the kingdom would be declared “at hand”. That is exactly what John does in Matthew 3:2:  “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”*

That marks this climactic stage of Israel’s program on our timeline.

When something is “at hand,” it’s within reach — ready to be established. And we know what that kingdom is: the literal, physical kingdom of God on this earth, promised in the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants, confirmed by Gabriel in Luke 1, and tied to Daniel’s prophecy in Daniel 2:44, which says:

“In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom…”

The kingdom of heaven is not heaven itself, and it’s not a spiritual reign in men’s hearts, but God ruling on earth through Israel in an actual, physical kingdom. That’s the good news of the Gospels — the gospel of the kingdom — because the issue in the Gospel accounts is God’s program with Israel, not the mystery program revealed later to Paul.

In Mark 1:14, we read,

Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, 

See? The same message John preached. The Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of heaven are the same thing — God’s kingdom, set up by the God of heaven on this earth. Moses, in Deuteronomy 11:21, spoke of the days of heaven upon the earth, because God Himself will come down and reign here. Jacob saw the same thing in his ladder vision in Genesis 28:10–22, heaven’s business carried out from the land God promised to him. That’s why he called it Bethel, the house of God.

Moses said in Exodus 15 that Israel would be brought to God’s sanctuary, His habitation, and that the Lord would reign forever and ever from that land. This’s been God’s plan for the earth since the world began, carried out through the seed of Abraham. In the Gospel accounts, the time schedule has reached the point where this kingdom can be declared at hand.

So Jesus says in Mark 1:15,

…The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel. 

See how the “at hand” message is tied directly to time. John, Jesus, and later the Twelve all say the same thing because the time schedule given to Daniel was almost complete.

Daniel, in his incredible prophecy relating to the fulfilment of God’s plan, in Daniel 9, laid out a 490‑year program for Israel and Jerusalem. After 483 years, Messiah would be “cut off.” The Lord’s earthly ministry lasted about 3 years, placing His preaching at roughly the 480‑year mark, which makes about 98% of the prophetic clock completed. That’s why Jesus could honestly say, “The time is fulfilled.” They couldn’t say that in Daniel’s day, nor during the 400‑year silence. But once John and Jesus appear, the prophetic clock is near its end.

This answers an important question on our timeline chart below:

Why did the kingdom not get established, even though it was truly “at hand”?

The only honest answer is that God interrupted the program. When Israel rejected their Messiah, and the last seven years of Daniel’s prophecy, which we know as Daniel’s 70th week, were ready to begin, God brought in the dispensation of grace. He stopped the prophetic clock, and it hasn’t started ticking again since! And it won’t start again until after this dispensation ends.

That’s why Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:1,

But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. 

Times and seasons belong to Israel’s program, not ours. In Matthew 24, Daniel 11–12, and the Lord’s own teaching, Israel is given detailed timing for the last seven years. But in the dispensation of grace, we’re not on a time schedule, at least not one that God’s revealed to man in any way.

So when Jesus and John preached, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand,” they were speaking truth because the prophetic time schedule was nearly complete. The kingdom they preached was the literal, physical kingdom promised in the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants, confirmed by Gabriel in Luke 1, and tied to Daniel 2:44, which says,

And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed:

That’s the gospel of the kingdom — the good news in the Gospel accounts of God’s program with Israel. It’s not the mystery program revealed later to Paul.

The time schedule God gave Daniel lets us know exactly whose program is operating in the Gospel accounts. That prophetic clock is still ticking in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Nothing mysterious is happening there. It is all prophesied, and even scheduled. That’s why the kingdom can finally be called “at hand.”

The kingdom wasn’t at hand in Abraham’s day, or Moses’, or David’s, or Isaiah’s, or even Daniel’s days. It becomes “at hand” only when the prophetic clock reaches its final years. So when Jesus says, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent and believe the gospel,” He means exactly that — the timeline is almost complete.

Back to Matthew 3. This could be called the “gospel of the Gospels” — the good news that the time for God to fulfil His program with Israel has arrived. The message is preached to Israel, the lost sheep of the house of Israel. It’s their kingdom, their covenants and their promises.

John the Baptist shows the rest of Isaiah 40 being fulfilled. In Matthew 3:7, he warns the Pharisees and Sadducees:

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 

That wrath is the final seven years of Daniel’s timeline — the Day of the Lord, the time of Jacob’s trouble. After 483 years, Messiah would be cut off. Only seven years remain. John’s announcing the urgency of that moment.

In Matthew 3:10, John says,

And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees:

God is ready to cut down the unfruitful trees in Israel. The axe is already in place during Christ’s meek and lowly ministry. In the Day of His wrath, He’ll swing it. Every tree not bearing good fruit will be cast into the fire — the purging fire of the tribulation spoken of in depth in Malachi 4.

John says he baptises with water, but the One coming after him will baptise with the Holy Ghost (Acts 2) and with fire (the Day of the Lord).

Pentecost is not the beginning of the dispensation of grace. It is a prophesied event, spoken of in Isaiah 40, Isaiah 42, Joel 2, and many other places. Nothing about Pentecost was a mystery. John knew it was coming because the prophets said it.

In Matthew 3:12, John says of the Messiah,

Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. 

The wheat is the believing remnant — the little flock. The chaff is the rebellious part of Israel.

This is the message of the Gospels — the gospel of the kingdom. It may sound severe to us today, but to Israel back then, it was good news: repent, escape the wrath, be part of the remnant, and receive the kingdom.

Now look at Luke 12:32. Jesus speaks to that believing remnant — Peter, James, John, and the others who believed the gospel of the kingdom:

Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 

They’ll go through the Day of the Lord, but God will provide for them. Their treasure will be in heaven, but they’re not going to heaven — the kingdom will be brought back to earth when Christ returns, just as Gabriel told Mary in Luke 1.

The Father will give the kingdom to that generation — the generation that goes from being a “generation of vipers” to His generation, fulfilling Psalm 22.

These believing Israelites are counted as His generation, and they’ll enter and inherit the kingdom with Him, which the terrifying but glorious Isaiah 65 prophesied.

Because of that, Jesus tells them in Luke 12:33 to Sell that ye have, and give alms.

In that coming time, they’ll not need earthly possessions — God will miraculously provide for them. That command is not for us today. It’s not a test of our dedication, and it’s not some sort of spiritual symbol or image. It was a real instruction for the remnant of Israel in their program.

Peter and John understood this.

In Acts 3, they say, *“Silver and gold have I none.”* They weren’t lying. They had obeyed the Lord’s instruction. They didn’t twist the passage or spiritualise it like preachers do today when they fail to rightly divide the word of truth.

For those who believed the gospel of the kingdom, their hope was the earthly kingdom, not heaven. They were not looking for a rapture, not looking for a heavenly citizenship like we have today. Their promise was the kingdom on earth, brought by the Messiah.

Come down to Luke 12:49. Jesus says,

I am come to send fire on the earth…

There’s no dispensation of grace in view here. John the Baptist had already said the Messiah would baptise with the Holy Ghost and with fire, and that His fan was in His hand to purge His floor. Now Jesus Himself says the fire is already kindled. The wrath is ready to break out according to the prophetic timeline.

Paul later calls this present age the longsuffering of God — God holding back wrath, but in Luke 12, Jesus is not talking about longsuffering. He’s talking about wrath that’s ready to fall as soon as His baptism (which is the cross) is accomplished.

Then He says in Luke 12:51,

Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: 

Peace comes only when the kingdom’s established. Until then, there’ll be division — exactly what Micah 7 foretold, families divided, households split, because God’s separating the believing remnant from the rebellious nation. This also fulfils the powerful Ezekiel 34, where God separates “cattle and cattle,” gathering His flock and judging the rebellious.

That is why Jesus calls the believing remnant His little flock in Luke 12:32. That is why He calls Himself the Good Shepherd in John 10. He’s fulfilling Ezekiel 34 and Psalm 23 — passages about Israel, not you and me today and the body of Christ.

John the Baptist is the porter, water baptism is the door into the sheepfold, and the believing remnant becomes His generation.

This is the gospel of the Gospels — the gospel of the kingdom. It’s the good news that the long‑promised kingdom is at hand, the prophetic clock is almost complete, the wrath is near, and the remnant who believe will escape the fire and inherit the kingdom.

We’ll say a few more things about this at the start of the next episode, then we’ll move into the third and final point that makes the Gospel accounts clear on the timeline.

But when we look at the timeline chart below this recording, we can see that’s not true.

The books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John still sit in time past. The earthly ministry of Christ, John the Baptist, the twelve apostles, and even the early chapters of Acts (up to Acts 9) all belong to God’s program with Israel, not the church, the body of Christ.

Paul makes this clear in Ephesians chapters 2–3. The mystery—the revelation of this present dispensation of grace—was not revealed before Paul. God raised up Paul as the other apostle, the one who came later, the one not found in the gospel accounts, because his apostleship is unique. He’s the apostle of the Gentiles, and the doctrine for this dispensation was committed to him alone.

The marker page, between Malachi and Matthew, is deceiving because it suggests that everything following it, from Matthew 1:1 to Revelation 22:21, is the New Testament, or the New Covenant prophesied in Jeremiah 31:31–34 and Ezekiel 36:24–28 and many other places both directly and indirectly.

But everything after that marker page is not about the New Testament. Jesus Christ came to this earth, God in the form of man, to bring in and fulfil the New Covenant that God had promised to Israel. But as we’ll see in detail through this series, this was not completed.

Because of Israel’s unbelief, their rejection of their prophesied Messiah, the New Covenant was never fulfilled. It was put on hold, temporarily, and a new dispensation was introduced by God, the Dispensation of Grace.

So, if we were going to use marker pages to segregate the sections of the Bible correctly, we’d have one between Acts and Romans chapter 1, printed with “Dispensation of Grace” or “New Dispensation” or something like that.

Then there should be another marker page between Philemon and Hebrews 1 printed with something like “New Testament Resumed” or something.

Everything in Paul’s epistles deals with this dispensation of grace and how God has made Jew and Gentile one new man, and how He deals with us now, today. And as we saw in the last episode, there are huge differences between God’s dealings with Israel in time past and His dealings with us today. The examples we looked at, such as the dietary laws, holy days, and rudiments of the world, were just the most obvious ones.

But the differences go far deeper than that. They reach into things like personal prayer. Prayer in this dispensation works differently than it did for Israel. God expects it to accomplish something different in us today, and He responds to it differently. That’s why rightly dividing the Word of Truth isn’t just a chart; it affects the details of our life, our walk, our expectations, and our ability to honour God.

Sometimes the obvious examples don’t hit home. But when we start seeing how rightly dividing the Word affects something as close to us as prayer, we begin to feel the weight of it.

In this episode and the next, we’re going to look at some clear examples from the gospel accounts that show the dispensation of grace was not in effect during Christ’s earthly ministry. But before we do that, we need to understand that marker page in our Bibles and what it does not mean.

Now we’re at the point we mentioned last episode:  where we take a clear look at the time when the Lord Jesus Christ was on earth, and those opening chapters of Acts.

Most Christians think that Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and early Acts contain the main instructions for their daily walk on earth today. They don’t ignore Paul on purpose, but when they need help, they almost always turn to the gospel accounts.

Many Bibles encourage this. They load the four gospels and Acts with notes, applications, charts, and advice, such as lists saying, “if you have this problem, read this verse”. And then you have red‑letter editions, which make people think the words in red are more inspired than the rest of Scripture, as if the whole Bible isn’t the Word of Christ.

That kind of thinking damages a new believer. Jesus Christ never told anyone to highlight His earthly ministry above the rest of His word. If anything were to be printed in red, it should be Romans through to Philemon, because that’s where Christ speaks directly to us today through our apostle, Paul.

Paul tells us how to divide God’s word:  Time past – God’s program with Israel, but now – the revelation of the mystery given to Paul, and Ages to come – when God resumes and fulfils Israel’s program.

Rightly dividing the Word of truth is not Old Testament vs. New Testament. It’s prophecy vs. mystery, Israel’s program vs. the body of Christ, earthly kingdom vs. heavenly purpose.

And this shouldn’t surprise us. In Genesis 1:1, the very first verse of the Bible, God shows us that He has two realms: heaven and earth. Two spheres. Two purposes. Two programs. From Genesis onward, the focus is mainly on the earth, because that’s Israel’s realm. But when the mystery’s revealed to Paul, we finally see God’s purpose for the heavenly realm—and that’s where the church, the body of Christ, fits.

So when we come to the gospel accounts, we need to keep in mind that the “New Testament” marker page is not marking the start of the dispensation of grace, and it’s only partially marking the New Testament. The gospel accounts still belong to Israel’s program. The Lord’s earthly ministry is still time past on the timeline. Israel is still under the law. The Kingdom is being preached. The twelve apostles are ministering to Israel. Nothing about the mystery or the body of Christ has been revealed yet.

In Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and early Acts, Israel’s program is still in view. The dispensation of grace has not yet begun, and it’s plain to see that the Lord Jesus Christ lived under the law.

Paul says in Galatians 4:4,

But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 

Everything in Christ’s earthly ministry shows that. He taught His disciples that they were under the law. In Matthew 23:1-3, we read,

Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples, 

Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat: 

All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.

The people were to obey what Moses said.

In Matthew 5:17, Jesus said,

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 

In Matthew 5:19, He said,

Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 

Jesus came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it.

But He did not fulfil the whole law at the cross!

He fulfilled the sacrificial part, the shadow of His once‑and-for‑all offering, but the law also includes the prophets, and the prophets pointed to things still future in Israel’s program.

The kingdom, the judgments, the rewards, the last stage of Israel’s dealings with God, those things were still ahead. So during Christ’s earthly ministry, the Old Covenant was still in force.

The sacrifice for sin that was critical to the New Covenant was provided for at the cross, but that New Covenant does not become active for Israel until their program resumes, as Hebrews explains, and Israel finally accepts their Messiah.

Even in early Acts, the law is still operating. WE see priests believing the gospel of the kingdom, yet still serving in the temple. That wasn’t disobedience. That was exactly where Israel’s program was at that time. Nothing in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, or early Acts is the dispensation of grace given to the Gentiles. So, again, when we open Matthew 1, we’re in time past on the timeline.

Just because “New Testament” is printed there on that marker page before Matthew 1, we mustn’t assume God’s program changes at that point. As we said in the last episode, the Old Covenant didn’t even begin until Exodus 19, and it wasn’t confirmed until a few chapters later. Genesis isn’t “Old Testament ground” in the covenant sense at all. The break between Malachi and Matthew is mostly because the language changes from Hebrew to Greek.

The page marked “New Testament” does belong there, just not for the reason most people think. It represents the so-called 400 years of silence between Malachi and John the Baptist. God had warned through the prophets that a time was coming when He would “give them up” and there would be a famine of hearing the word of the Lord. Amos 8:11-12,

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD: 

And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it. 

No prophets. No fresh revelation. That silence lasted until John the Baptist appeared.

On our timeline chart below, Amos and Micah stand back there in Israel’s history, speaking of things that would come in the earthly ministry of Christ and the final stages of Israel’s program. Their prophecies look forward to John the Baptist, the birth of Christ, the twelve apostles, the cross, and the early chapters of Acts, all still part of Israel’s program.

So when we hit Matthew 1, were not entering the New Covenant, and we’re not entering the body of Christ, and the dispensation of grace. We’re stepping into the next phase of Israel’s prophetic program after 400 years of silence, exactly as the prophets said.

In Micah 5, God gives one of the clearest prophecies about the coming Messiah. Remember, this is 700 years before Matthew chapter 1.

He names Bethlehem as the birthplace of Christ, and He looks ahead to the days when the Messiah will finally begin Israel’s redemption, comfort, and deliverance.

Micah—and Amos with him—are looking forward to the Kingdom, the literal kingdom God will set up on this earth through the nation of Israel.

None of these prophets sees anything about the dispensation of grace. That program was still a secret, kept hidden until God raised up Paul in Acts 9.

That famine of the word spoken of in Amos chapter 8 that we just saw didn’t happen in Amos’ day. Nor did it happen in the days of Haggai, Zechariah, or Malachi either. And it didn’t happen during Christ’s earthly ministry.

John the Baptist, Christ Himself, the twelve apostles, and even the seventy, because, quite plainly, were all speaking God’s word.

It didn’t happen in early Acts either, because the apostles were still preaching with the Spirit.

So when did that famine happen?

Between Malachi and John the Baptist. It lasted for about 400 years where God said nothing to Israel.

That’s what the marker page in our Bible really stands for. It’s not the start of the New Testament church and the beginning of the dispensation of grace, but the silence of God before the Messiah came.

Micah confirms this in Micah 5:2, he names Bethlehem as the Messiah’s birthplace, then in Micah 5:3 he says,

Therefore will He give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth.

God would give Israel up, let them go on without His voice, until the birth of Christ. That’s the silence. That’s the famine. That’s the blank page.

Then comes Malachi, the final prophet.

In Malachi 3:1, God says,

Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.

That messenger is John the Baptist, as all four gospels confirm. Malachi ends his prophecy, and God goes silent, and the next voice Israel hears is John the Baptist crying in the wilderness.

We’ve included a second chart below to show the sequence of events so far. Amos and Micah prophesy, Malachi closes the Old Testament prophets, 400 years of silence, John the Baptist appears, Christ is born in Bethlehem, the twelve apostles minister, then the cross, then early Acts, then, unexpectedly, Christ returns from heaven and raises up Saul of Tarsus, the apostle Paul, and the dispensation of grace begins.

So again, when we open Matthew 1, we’re not stepping into the New Covenant as God promised Israel through the prophets, and we’re not stepping into the body of Christ, and the dispensation of grace. We’re stepping into the resumption of Israel’s prophetic program after 400 years of silence, exactly as Amos, Micah, and Malachi said.

When we study the prophets and the natural timeline that God’s blended into His Word, we can see exactly why there is this 400‑year gap before Matthew 1. It’s that period God called a famine of hearing the word of the Lord in Amos 8. During these 400 years, there were no prophets and no fresh revelation. God went silent toward Israel. That’s why that blank, separating page is there between Malachi 4 and Matthew 1, belongs there. It marks the silence, not the start of a new program, not the beginning of the New Testament church, and not the dispensation of grace.

If we understand Israel’s history up to Malachi, we would never expect something new to begin in Matthew 1. What we’d expect is exactly what God said: a long silence, then a messenger, then the Messiah, and then the continuation of Israel’s prophetic program. And that is exactly what we see when we open the gospel accounts.

John the Baptist appears preaching a prophesied message, not the mystery revealed later to Paul. Everything in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and early Acts fits perfectly with what the prophets said would happen when God resumed speaking to Israel.

Understanding that blank page also helps us avoid another major mistake. Some people—and some Bible publishers—include the Apocrypha as if those books were Scripture. But every one of those books was written during the time when God said He would be silent. If God said He would not speak, then anything written in that period cannot be His word. Books like Tobit, Judith, 1–2 Maccabees, Bel and the Dragon, and the Song of Susanna may have historical interest, but they are not Scripture. Amos 8, Micah 5, Malachi 3, Daniel 9, Hosea 5—all these passages show God Himself set the boundaries of His word. That protects us from thinking we’re missing something or that God’s word is incomplete.

So the blank page is important—but not for rightly dividing the Word of truth as Paul instructs. It marks the 400 years of silence before God spoke again through John the Baptist. And once we see that, we also see that what follows in the gospel accounts is the resumption of Israel’s program. God begins to act again through the Messiah to bring Israel the salvation, deliverance, and kingdom He promised.

On our chart below, the gospel accounts and early Acts mark the second‑to‑last stage of Israel’s program. The last stage—the day of the Lord’s wrath—was ready to begin. Everything Christ said and did was prophesied. Every word He spoke can be traced back to the prophets. The gospel accounts are not mystery ground. They’re prophecy ground.

And it was right at that moment, when Israel’s final stage was ready to unfold, that the Lord Jesus Christ unexpectedly returned from heaven, raised up Saul of Tarsus, and suspended Israel’s program, and that’s when the dispensation of grace began.

So the gospel accounts are not the beginning of something new for us today. They’re the continuation of something old for Israel—the climactic stage of their prophetic program. And the only thing left to be fulfilled after this dispensation ends is the last stage, the “to come” era that the prophets spoke of.

This is why the Lord told the Pharisees, “Search the scriptures.”

Everything He said and did was already written in Genesis through to Malachi. The prophets testified of Him—not only of His coming, but of His words, His works, His miracles and His judgments. Israel could check the Scriptures and see that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah.

And once we understand that, we also understand something else:

If everything Christ said and did was prophesied, then He could not have been revealing the mystery of Christ, because the prophets knew nothing about it. The mystery was still hidden in God until He revealed it to Paul. That’s why Christ’s earthly ministry cannot be the beginning of the dispensation of grace.

I know we’ve spent a lot of time laying groundwork, but this prep work matters. Without it, the details of the gospel accounts get twisted, and people start pulling instructions for the body of Christ out of passages that were never written to us.

Now we’re ready to look at the details—the things in the gospel accounts and early Acts that show plainly that God’s program with Israel was still operating, and that the dispensation of grace was not in effect.

Our instructions as members of the church, the body of Christ, are not found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, or Acts 1–7.

Pentecost is not the birthday of the church.

The body of Christ was not formed in Acts chapter 2.

Pentecost is part of Israel’s program, prophesied in Joel 2, and Peter says so directly in his famous sermon in Acts 2:14:41.

Everything happening in early Acts is prophecy being fulfilled—not mystery being revealed.

Now, that doesn’t mean Christ’s earthly ministry has no value to us. It absolutely does. But we must understand who He was talking to, what He was talking about, and what program was in effect. The instructions for us today are the words the resurrected Christ spoke from heaven through Paul, our apostle.

In the next episodes, we’re going to look at three major proofs—three out of about forty—that show the gospel accounts and early Acts belong to Israel’s program. Here’s an early summary of those three proofs.

1. Who Christ said He came to.

He states plainly, He was sent to Israel, not to Gentiles. That alone settles the issue.

2. The message being preached.

John the Baptist, Jesus, and the twelve preached the gospel of the kingdom, also called the gospel of the circumcision, in Galatians chapter 2. That message is about Israel’s covenants, Israel’s promises, and Israel’s kingdom—not the gospel of the grace of God given to Paul.

3. The sign ministry.

The miracles, healings, and casting out of devils were signs to Israel, proving that the prophesied last days of their program had arrived, because the prophesied Messiah had arrived. Joel 2 foretold the intensifying of signs in Israel’s final stage, and Peter quotes that very passage at Pentecost.

All of this is prophecy ground, not mystery ground.

Once we finish those three proofs, we’ll take a full episode to walk through Pentecost itself so we can see exactly what the apostles understood was happening—and what they were not saying.

By now, it should be very clear from our two charts below that there was no dispensation of grace in effect during the earthly ministry of Christ or the early chapters of Acts. What was running then was God’s program with Israel, not the program we live in today.

Let’s step back for a moment and appreciate this dispensation of grace—its background, its uniqueness, and our place in it as members of the church, the body of Christ. We need to know who we are in God’s plan, why this dispensation exists, and why Paul’s apostleship is so special.

Later we’ll also look at Satan’s policy of evil against the body of Christ, and how confusion about dispensations is one of his favourite tricks. He loves it when Christians mix Israel’s program with ours. It produces confusion in our doctrine and produces messed‑up Christian living, even in sincere people.

Our adversary will happily keep us comfortable in the wrong program, surrounded by friends, doing things “the popular way” instead of God’s way.

For now, let’s meditate on two key passages where Paul looks back at time past and at Christ’s earthly ministry:

Ephesians 2:11–12 and Romans 15:8.

In Ephesians 2:11–12, which we’ve already studied in this series, Paul tells us this:

Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; 

That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: 

Paul’s not just saying, “remember before we were saved.” He’s saying, “Remember before this dispensation of grace began.” Back then, God’s program was with the circumcision—Israel—and we Gentiles were afar off. When Christ was on earth as the seed of David, we Gentiles were without Christ. He did not come to us. He said Himself in Matthew 15:24,

I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

That’s His own words about His earthly mission.

Later in the chapter in Ephesians 2:17, Paul says Christ “came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.”

But that coming to us happened after Christ’s earthly ministry, through the preaching of Paul, once the mystery was revealed.

Then in Romans 15:8, Paul sums it up saying:

Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers: 

Notice the word “was.” That was His, Jesus Christ’s role in time past. He was a minister of the circumcision, confirming promises to Israel’s fathers. He was not a minister to you and me as Gentiles. Whenever circumcision vs. uncircumcision is an issue in Scripture, we’re on time‑past ground, not in the dispensation of grace.

My friends, how much more clearly can God spell it out before we get it? Do you see how critical it is to understand the whole counsel of God as one fully integrated message? We’ll never understand the Bible while the only exposure we get to it is cherry-picked verses. Some here and there from the gospels, one ot two from Paul’s epistles. maybe a couple from the Psalms, especially at funerals, and a hand-picked few from Revelation.

So on our timeline charts below, Christ’s earthly ministry sits firmly in Israel’s program, not ours. We Gentiles were without Christ then. He comes to us later—unexpectedly, unprophesied—through the raising up of Paul, and that’s when this dispensation of grace begins.

Before the next episode, why not read Ephesians 2:11–12 and Romans 15:8 slowly and deliberately, letting the weight of those words sink in. They tell us exactly who Christ came to then—and who He comes to now.

God bless you all.

So, we must understand the vast differences in the things going on in this dispensation of grace, now, from what was going on before and from what’s going to go on in the ages to come and to do that, we must rightly divide the Word of Truth.

So many Christians fail to do that. They take portions of God’s Word, especially dealing with time past, and especially that portion of God’s Word called the gospel accounts and the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, and they try to apply those things to their lives today.

They claim promises that the Lord gave to Peter, James and John and the remnant of Israel, before He brought in the dispensation of grace. But they fail to appreciate the glorious and wonderful things freely given to us in this dispensation of grace.

They don’t see God’s dealings with us as the one new man, the new creation, the church, the body of Christ, and the vast differences in the way in which God deals with us and treats us today as opposed to what He did do and will do with Israel.

The result is a lot of heartache, discontent and dissatisfaction and a lot of deceit as Christians try to make things fit in this dispensation of grace that don’t.

So in this episode, we’re going to look at how God’s Word

is laid out in the order of the outworking of His plan and purpose. It naturally divides itself into “time past”, “but now” and “to come”.

The books of the Bible were, of course, written at different times, and this often matters a lot when we’re studying. For example, 1 Thessalonians was Paul’s first letter, then 2 Thessalonians and then Galatians, but that’s not the order they appear in the Word.

So when Paul refers to a letter he wrote earlier than the one we’re currently reading, it helps to know which was written before.

However, when they were written has little effect on how they’re placed in the Bible. God’s placed them perfectly to outline His plan and purpose.

In the timeline chart below, we see the creation of the world on the far left. God’s Word opens up with the book of Genesis, the Book of Beginnings, where God begins to describe the outworking of His plan and purpose with the creation of the heavens and the earth.

In the book of Genesis, we eventually come to chapter twelve, where God separates the man Abraham, and we get the beginning of the nation, Israel, and the beginning of God’s program with Israel, the circumcised people.

Then we go to the book of Exodus, and the bringing in of that law contract and the setting up of that middle wall of partition that we’ve seen Paul talking about. We commonly call the books from Genesis to Malachi the Old Testament.

Everything from Genesis through to Malachi falls into this “time passed” era. But that’s not all the books in “time past”.

When we come to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, we’re in the gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The “Gospels” as they’re known, deal with the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, His birth as the seed of David, of the Virgin Mary, there in Bethlehem, and the details of John the Baptist’s ministry.

Most Christians don’t understand that we’re still in “time past” at that time. More on that as we go.

The Bible, from Genesis through to the book of Revelation, is laid out in accordance with God’s plan and purpose.

God hasn’t put His word together in a haphazard manner where the books that make up the Bible are just jumbled together randomly.

God’s the one who wrote it. He utilised certain men to put the words down on paper, but God’s the author of the book. It’s His Word. It’s His book.

God Himself oversaw every aspect of it, its construction and preservation. What we hold in our hand when we pick up the Bible, either as a physical book or as software, is the preserved word of God translated into the English language for you and me today.

God’s Word is put together in the order in which God wants it put together.

Sometimes people don’t understand that. There are so-called scholars and theologians out there who tell us that the best way to study the Bible is to find out the chronological order in which the books were written, and then study them that way, and that’s a bunch of tripe. God’s smarter than any theologian, and He’s smarter than me and you.

He’s put His word together in the order in which he designed us to study it.

And He’s put it together in the order in which He’s working out His plan and purpose. He had the books written at particular times for particular purposes, but he’s put the word together so it corresponds with the outworking of His plan and purpose.

As we study the Bible from Genesis to the Revelation, we go through in perfect order, time passed, then, now and then the things to come, the details of God’s timing.

We go through past dealings with His nation, Israel, and then we come to a break in Israel’s program, and deal with a portion of God’s word that’s focusing on now and this dispensation of grace. Then we come to a portion that ends the Bible, which focuses on the resumption and the fulfilment of God’s program with Israel. God’s word is laid out in the order of time past, but now and to come.

In 2 Timothy 2:15, which we continue to refer to time and time again, we see,

Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth,

Timothy understood what Paul was saying. He had followed up on his education with Paul, and he understood the things we’ve briefly gone over in Romans nine, ten and eleven, and in Ephesians two and three, regarding time past, now, and to come.

Timothy wasn’t puzzled or confused by what the Apostle Paul meant when he said, rightly dividing the word of truth.

He knew that God’s Word records things in connection with God’s time, past dealings with Israel, his present dealings with us in Paul’s epistles in this dispensation of grace, and the things yet to come when God resumes and fulfils his program with Israel.

Timothy knew what it meant. And you and I can know what it means, because the one who said it explained it all in his earlier epistles.

Because of that, we understand the need to rightly divide the word of truth.

There’s a portion written in God’s Word that looks towards the resuming of, and the fulfilment of, God’s program with Israel. It follows after the collection of the thirteen epistles of the Apostle Paul, after the dispensation of grace is over.

If, at that time, a member of the remnant of Israel out there in the future, after God resumes His program with Israel, tries to walk after Paul’s epistles about this dispensation of grace, and thinks he’s a member of the church, the body of Christ, he’s going to be mishandling God’s word.

He’ll be mishandling it just as much as if a member of the church, the body of Christ today, goes back into the Old Testament scriptures and thinks that they’re talking about him, today, and so starts applying things in connection with God’s program with Israel.

God’s Word contains the record of all His dealings with mankind, and they’re not designed to be all blended. Sure, they’re all part of God’s overall plan and purpose, but that plan and purpose is made up of different parts, each with its own purpose within the main purpose.

The reason why Paul tells Timothy of the necessity to rightly divide the Word of Truth is that God’s word was being mishandled there in Ephesus, and Christians were acting as if the dispensation of grace either didn’t exist or wasn’t any different from God’s program with Israel. These folk were preachers, pastors of churches, who were desiring to be teachers of the law, not understanding what they were saying.

Paul says they were teaching things that were out of line with the revelation that was committed to him about and for this dispensation of grace.

They weren’t able to see the separation between the mystery revelation for today and the prophecy program that God’s had since the world began in connection with his nation, Israel.

How common that is today.

God’s Word lays itself out in accordance with that right division into time past, but now and to come, and we need to see that.

Let’s take a look at the layout of the books of the Bible and appreciate the natural breakdown into those 3 time spans.

The circle to the left on our chart below represents the creation of the world. We’re first and foremost in the things recorded in the opening chapters of the book of Genesis.

The book of Genesis is the Book of Beginnings. That’s what the name stands for. And there’s a number of beginnings that’re recorded there in the book of Genesis.

One particular beginning is in Genesis chapter twelve. It’s the beginning of the nation, Israel.

It’s here where we find out about that separation of this man, Abraham. God set him apart from the rest of the world, called him out to make of him a great nation, setting the rest of the nations of the world aside.

As we go through the book of Genesis, we read about the process that established that great nation.

We read about it being multiplied in the land of Egypt and, in later chapters, God’s dealings with Jacob, who was later named Israel, and his sons, who would become the foundation of the twelve tribes of Israel.

After the book of Genesis, we come to the book of Exodus, and we see this great nation now greatly increased in numbers.

God prepares to bring them out of the slavery they had fallen into in Egypt to fulfil one of his promises to Abraham there in Genesis fifteen.

As we go through the book of Exodus, which follows the book of Genesis, we eventually come to a point where God brings the law in connection with the nation, Israel, and, as we know from Ephesians chapter two, that law contract functioned as a middle wall of partition between Israel and the Gentiles, the other nations of the world.

The law established Israel’s being nigh, near, to God, while the Gentiles, the rest of the nations of the world, were not nigh unto God; they were afar off.

As you go through the rest of what we call the Old Testament scriptures, we’ve got this time past period being established. That is, of course, time passed in relation to us today.

The record goes on in the Old Testament scriptures through the books of Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and all the way through the book of Malachi.

We’re in time past ground while we’re in Genesis, through to Malachi. The dispensation of grace isn’t in view anywhere there. God’s still keeping that a secret at that time. It’s still hidden in Himself.

But that’s not all. It’s a secret beyond that, too. We’re not only in time past, in Genesis, through Malachi. The gospel accounts follow on after Malachi.

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are shown on our chart where the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ depicts their space in time. The gospel accounts record Israel’s rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ as their Messiah. The Lord’s earthly ministry went on for three and a half years and is testified to in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. That period is a very critical yet very confusing portion of God’s Word, and we’ll see why in a few episodes up the track.

These things may not sit well with you, because you’ve never heard them from your pulpit. But stick with me, and we’ll go over those things in detail and always from the Word of God.

But at the moment, I just want to alert you to the fact that when you’re in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the gospel accounts, you’re still in time past.

The Apostle Paul once again makes it plain and clear there in his epistles that the revelation of the mystery and this dispensation of Gentile grace was first revealed to him, and wasn’t known in ages and generations past until him. That so called gospels accounts were before him.

No one before Paul knew anything about it.

That means that the dispensation of grace begins with God’s raising up of Paul as that brand new apostle. And he is that, a brand new apostle, to the Gentiles!

He didn’t replace Judas as so many teach that he did, and he’s not aligned with the twelve. He’s a brand new and different apostle. We’ll clarify those things later in their correct context, but it’s plain and clear that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are still in the time passed period. In fact, those Gospels are also Old Testament scriptures.

The editors of the Bible stuck a blank page between Malachi and Matthew, and then on one side of that blank page, they printed the words “the New Testament”; however, the truth is that Scripture shows plainly and clearly that the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ was under the law under that old covenant.

In fact, the New Covenant wasn’t even established for the nation of Israel, because it was impossible to do so until Christ died upon the cross. Hebrews 9:16-17 proves this saying,

For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.

For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.

Paul states in Galatians chapter four, that Christ was born of a woman, made under the law, and the things that He did in his earthly ministry acknowledged the law’s existence and its authority, and, in effect, that it’s still in force while Christ was alive.

When we talk about the New Testament, it’s a misapplied and inappropriate, there where it is in our Bibles. We understand why it’s done, but human publishers put that label there, not God.

So, the misunderstanding that widely exists regarding the Lord’s earthly ministry and record of it in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John starts with the placement of those books. They’re not in the wrong place in the Bible. We must be absolutely clear on that, but they’re misplaced in people’s minds because of the publisher’s placing them in the “New Testament” section.

That New Testament publishers’ division leads people to think that the new program, the dispensation of Grace, began between the end of Malachi chapter 4 and the beginning of Matthew chapter 1.

When most people think about rightly dividing the word of truth, they usually think of the artificial division that men have created between the Old Testament and New Testament sections of the book. That just confuses things all that much more, and that’s not what Paul’s talking about there.

When we rightly divide the Word, we’re not relying on man’s division but on the way God has plainly and clearly divided His program with Israel from His program with us Gentiles.

We understand God began His program with Israel back in the book of Genesis, and when we come to Matthew 1:1, nothing has changed in that program. The Lord’s coming to earth and His earthly ministry are part of that program with Israel.

The gospel accounts are still in time past. When the Lord Jesus Christ was born here, He was made of a woman made under the law. Born of the seed of David, to save his people, Israel, from their sins in perfect accordance with prophecy going back to Genesis.

He’s the horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David, as Luke 1:69 tells us.

Zacharias, John the Baptist’s father, being filled with the Holy Spirit, makes that plain and clear in Luke 1:67-68, and we read,

And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying,

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people…

And Paul, in Romans 15:8, says this,

Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers:

Paul’s writing that from the perspective of the dispensation of grace. He looks back at the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he says Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision when He was here.

We’ll look at that more as we go on in our series, but for now, we see that the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ is in time passed.

We’re in God’s time past dealings with man when we’re in the gospel accounts, but that’s not what He’s doing today.

That’s why we hear the Lord say in Matthew 15:24 when He was on earth,

… I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

He didn’t say He was sent to the Gentiles. In fact, in Matthew 10:5-7, He told the disciples this,

These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not:

But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.

How in the world could a dispensation of grace be in effect to the Gentiles when he told them not to even go to the Gentiles?

All this should begin to make us realise that if we’ve been thinking of the gospel accounts as describing what God’s doing today, we haven’t been understanding the way we need to. We haven’t been rightly dividing the word of truth.

Back in Ephesians 2:12, now where Paul says,

That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:

Which “at that time” is Paul referring to?

The time recorded in the gospel accounts was Christ’s earthly ministry. And yet Paul says, “That’s time passed”.

And at that time, we were without Christ. He didn’t come to us Gentiles because we were aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel. His problem was with Israel at that time, and when we’re in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, we’re still in time past.

John the Baptist’s ministry and the ministry of the twelve apostles are all “time passed” ministry.

Even in the first eight chapters of the book of Acts, with the Day of Pentecost in Acts chapter two, it’s still time passed. No wonder there’s so much confusion in Christianity, around Charismatics, Pentecostals and the gifts and things. Those things don’t pertain to the dispensation of grace.

Those things were going on before the dispensation of grace was even revealed. They all pertain to God’s program with Israel, and it’s very clear when we go back and read it and just let the text tell us what’s going on instead of assuming that it must be for us today.

This is hard to see for a person who’s had a long term involvment with modern teaching and preaching where there’s often a lot to “unlearn”.

Genesis, through to Malachi, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and the opening chapters of the Book of Acts, is all “time passed”.

Everything that’s going on in most of that portion of God’s Word pertains to God’s program and dealings with the nation, Israel.

All the individuals involved in that period of time knew nothing about the dispensation of grace and the mystery of Christ, because, as we’ve said repeatedly, God kept it secret.

He didn’t reveal it until the Lord Jesus Christ came back from heaven, as recorded in Acts chapter nine and raised up Saul of Tarsus, later called Paul, and revealed the mystery of Christ to him. He gave him the dispensation of grace for us today and taught him how He was interrupting His program with Israel because of their unbelief.

Christ revealed to Paul this big dispensational change, how He was now making both Jew and Gentile one and forming the new creation, the one new man, the church, the body of Christ.

It was all kept hidden until He revealed it to the Apostle Paul.

So the main point we’re trying to establish is that this “time past” period is from Genesis through to those opening chapters of the book of Acts.

It’s not until we come to the apostle Paul’s epistles that we come to the time period of “now”.

We should appreciate how God’s Word naturally falls into parts or divisions that, although dealing with mankind differently, are all part of the outworking of God’s plan and purpose.

This dispensation of grace has been just like the parentheses, the brackets, on our chart below. And, just like Paul teaches in Romans nine ten and eleven, a divine interruption in God’s program with Israel.

God has put Paul’s epistles right in there, following the book of Acts. Three-quarters of the book of Acts is dedicated to the history and the activities of this brand new apostle from chapter nine on.

And it’s all done in perfect harmony with the interruption of His program with Israel.

So on our chart, it’s Romans through to Philemon that we’re dealing with now. That’s the portion of the Word of God and the time period that’s talking to you and me today. Those books contain the instructions, the promises, the doctrines and so forth that we need to understand. It’s in them that we learn what we should be doing.

Now, again, we need to understand the whole book. The whole counsel of God, all God’s Word, is for us.

2 Timothy 3:16 tells us that all Scripture is profitable. God desires us to get profit from it. But not all Scripture is designed for our obedience, because not everything in Scripture is said to you and me today.

But when we’re in Romans through to Philemon, those things are said to us today because Paul’s writing as our apostle, the apostle to the Gentiles, to us as who and where we are in God’s plan and purpose, and we’re not members of the nation of Israel.

Since the moment we trusted Jesus Christ as our Saviour, we’re members of the new creation, and God’s dealing with us in a very special way.

Every one of Paul’s epistles, from Romans to Philemon, opens with Paul saying grace to you, and peace from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

That’s what God’s extending to us today: grace and peace. And those words are from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ to us through the Apostle Paul.

That’s our mail, yours and mine.

All the Bible is a collection of all the mail that God’s written to His people in all His dealings, but not all that mail has our name on it. Paul’s letters do.

Every one of those letters is written to the members of the church, the body of Christ. And that’s the mail we’re supposed to read and understand.

Romans through to Philemon naturally follow God’s program with Israel, just as the dispensation of grace does. But the Bible doesn’t end with Philemon.

God’s program with Israel isn’t over with, and He’s had a portion of His Word written by the very individuals, the very apostles, who were ministering at the time the program was interrupted.

That portion of his word, Hebrews to Revelation, was written by them, in advance, looking to the resuming and the fulfilment of Israel’s program.

God’s put it in His word, and His word is complete. It’s not only set for the duration of this dispensation of grace for you and me. It’s also set out for the resumption of His program with Israel, after the dispensation of grace ends by the rapture of the church.

The books that follow Philemon immediately put us back into Israel’s program.

The book that follows Philemon is addressed to those very people. Hebrews.

Hebrews through to the book of Revelation focus upon and deal with the things connected with the resumption of Israel’s program and its fulfilment.

As we said, God’s Word is laid out in an order that makes sense of the outworking of God’s plan and purpose.

On our chart, we see the present time, the time past and the future, the time to come, and that’s how God expects us to look at His Word, rightly dividing it.

It’s not just dividing the Bible publisher’s Old Testament and New Testament.

Do you know that there was a time in God’s dealings with men in which there wasn’t even an Old Testament?

Just think about it for a few minutes. When did that law contract, that Old Testament, come into effect? Was it given to Adam? No. Was that given to Noah? No. Was it even given to Abraham? No. We don’t come across it until Exodus chapter nineteen. We’re not even on Old Testament ground, much less the New Testament. It’s no testament ground.

Now we realise that there’s a testament connection with Abraham, and a covenant in connection with Noah, but we should realise that the right division of God’s Word isn’t about Old Testament verses New Testament.

The right division of God’s Word is acknowledging God’s two programs: His program with the nation of Israel and His program with the new creation, the church, the body of Christ.

Israel is something He’s spoken about since the world began.

Let’s look at Luke chapter one and Romans chapter sixteen.

Luke chapter one is the time of the beginning of the gospel period, and we’re still in time past.

The Lord Jesus Christ has been conceived and will soon be born of the Virgin Mary. John the Baptist has just been born, and his father is filled with the Holy Ghost and prophesies about this critical time in God’s dealings with Israel. What he talks about is that everything’s coming to a head at this time in God’s program with Israel. At this point, there’s no knowledge whatsoever of a dispensation of grace, even to this man whose filled with the Holy Ghost.

He says that what’s coming to a head is what God’s been speaking about by the mouth of his holy prophets since the world began.

Look at it here, in Luke 1:67-73,

And his (John the Baptist’s) father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying,

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people,

And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David;

As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began: That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us;

To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant;

The oath which he sware to our father Abraham,

And he goes on to amplify that. Zecharias is prophesying, filled with the Holy Ghost. This is not just his misguided opinion. It’s God’s testimony to the nation.

What’s going on?

At that time, when John the Baptist was born, and the Messiah was conceived and ready to be born in the land, the issue is the salvation that God has promised to his people Israel, by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.

Zacharias is confirming here that God had a plan and a purpose of which the nation, Israel, was the focal point, and it’s been that way since the world began. He’s also confirming that the time for the fulfilment of that program had actually arrived. But that’s getting a bit ahead.

Now, we talk about the nation, Israel, beginning with God separating Abraham in Genesis chapter twelve. And historically, that is where the nation began. But in God’s mind, He was beginning a new aspect of a program that’s already been in effect since the world began. It’s just that the nation, Israel, is the means by which he’s going to fulfil that program.

He spoke about that program to Adam, but Israel is the means by which it’s going to be fulfilled.

That’s why Zacharias can talk here about the horn of salvation being raised up for them, the nation Israel, and this being that spoken about by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.

We want to appreciate that that’s what Zacharias recognised. There’s a message that’s recorded in the Word of God through the mouth and pen of His holy prophets. And it’s been the issue since the world began. And it’s the only message that anybody knew of up until that time.

But now open Romans 16:25. And when we come to Paul’s epistles, we see that same terminology about “being spoken about since the world began”, but Paul spins it.

Let’s read,

Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,

But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith:

See something that’s been kept secret since the world began. It can’t be the same thing that was spoken about since the world began, can it?

They aren’t the same thing. They’re two separate and distinct messages. And it’s on that basis that God expects us to rightly divide the word of truth.

The right division of God’s Word is dividing the prophetic message, which was spoken of since the world began, from the mystery message that was hidden since before the world began.

The prophetic message spoken of since the world began is God’s program with Israel.

The mystery message hidden since the world began is God’s program with the Gentiles.

Rightly dividing the word of truth is understanding that the two don’t go on at the same time, and they aren’t the same thing.

Trying to blend these two messages together only makes for confusion and error.

We need to let the God-inspired text do the talking, even when that means chucking out our denominational baggage that’s been there through our exposure to wrong teaching. Many of us also need to put aside the pride that makes us think we know something in ourselves and realise that only in God’s Word, His entire Word, do we come to the knowledge of Him.

If we, today, try to follow in the footsteps of Jesus in his earthly ministry, it dishonours the Lord, and that’s the plague in Christianity today.

Now we can say, “The Bible says this, and that’s what I’m doing, and I’ve got chapter and verse to back it up.”

We can be one hundred per cent scriptural and be dead wrong in God’s sight.

We can be one hundred per cent scriptural and dishonour the Lord. We can be one hundred per cent scriptural and disobey God. Now, if I said that to you before you had an appreciation for rightly dividing the word of truth, you’d have called me a heretic. But even with the basic things that we’ve gone over so far, maybe you’d look at it a little differently.

In Leviticus chapter eleven, God gives a long and complex list of dietary commands relating to eating certain foods.

If I say, “Since God said not to eat those things, I’m going to ban them from my diet.” I’d be dishonouring God.

Why? Because this is not the program for the dispensation of grace, and it’s not a commandment to me as a member of the church, the body of Christ today.

In fact, our own apostle, the Apostle Paul, explicitly warns against returning to the commandments and to Israel’s dietary ordinances in Romans 14:2–3, 1 Timothy 4:3–5, and Colossians 2:16–17. Those ordinances belonged to the law, and not in the body of Christ. They were given to Israel.

We’d be disobeying God by trying to fulfil Leviticus eleven, because that’s not part of this dispensation of grace. That’s God’s program with Israel. That’s time past.

Now, let’s go to 1 Timothy 4:1–5.

NOW the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;

Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;

Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.

For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving:

For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

Here, the Holy Spirit speaks expressly to us, telling us that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.

Sound doctrine is going to be ripped apart by a Satanic policy of evil.

Ministers are going to come into local churches and into Christian ministries speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron. What does that mean?

When skin is seared with a hot iron, it becomes numb, insensitive, unable to feel pain, and scarred and hardened.

The conscience that warns, convicts, and restrains can end up in the same condition.

A seared conscience no longer responds to truth. It’s no longer troubled by error or pricked by guilt, and it’s no longer able to discern right from wrong.

It’s not that the person never had a conscience; it’s that they destroyed its sensitivness through repeated rejection of truth.

Paul’s just told us here some of the things they’ll preach.

But didn’t we just see in Leviticus chapter eleven that there were some things to be refused? Sure, we did, and that was the Word of God!

But Paul comes along now and says that the Word of God sanctified them all. Who’s right?

Well, they’re both right. They’re two different programs. It’s that simple, and that’s what we need right now, and that’s what this whole series is all about. Simplicity. A simple approach to basic Bible understanding.

The key is proper handling of God’s Word of truth by rightly dividing it and understanding that God has said different things to you and me for obedience in this dispensation of grace from what he said to Israel. In fact, some of those things are so different, they’re the exact opposite.

And for us to follow things back in Israel’s program will cause us to be out of line with this dispensation of grace, and in many cases, we’ll be doing the exact opposite of what God wants us to do.

Next episode, we’ll look at the gospel accounts and the opening chapters of the Book of Acts. Until then may God richly bless you.