Good morning to everyone, thank you guys for leading us again, we appreciate that. 

I was kind of torn to be quite honest with you about preaching this message. I met, even which we don't normally do, but I met with the elders to ask their opinion if this was a good idea because it's kind of a lot of information and it's a topical message, we'll talk about that. Normally we preach verse by verse through the book of the Bible here, we just finished 2 Peter, which brings us kind of to this point, the subject of the day of the Lord. Peter says the day of the Lord will come, so we wanted to explore a little bit the day of the Lord. 

Paul wrote to Timothy and Titus, I was thinking about that a lot this week, the instruction, they were young pastors in Ephesus and Crete, and his explicit instruction to them was to give themselves entirely to the Word, to doctrine in the Word, to read, to give exhortation, to preach the Word, and that's our commitment at Living Hope Church. 

I think you understand that I am fully convinced that it's God's intention for the pastor-preacher in the local church to give himself entirely to prayer and the study of the Word in order to preach and teach the Word of God. I believe firmly that the only way to do this effectively is to slowly work through the scriptures, to say what God says, that's the intent. And the elders of Living Hope Church are all firmly committed to this method of teaching and preaching, to know and understand and believe and obey what the Word of God says so that we might equip the believers for the work of ministry that God has called us to in this world. 

And so I want you to know how disconcerting it is for me to preach a topical message. I don't like to do that. It's not that I think there's anything wrong with it or that it's not even sometimes necessary, which I think this is the case with what we're doing this morning. I just feel exceedingly cautious about doing it. And this is primarily because when I am exegeting a given text, preaching an expositional message on words in their context and flow and applying the meaning, then I am very much constrained by the words themselves. 

I am always endeavoring to say what God says, to give the sense of it, and that is all. But when a man prepares a topical message, whatever that topic may be, he has a topic that he wants to preach on and very often an opinion to go with it. And what he endeavors to do in varying degrees depending on the man is to support his opinion with the scriptures that he selects, many times divorced from their context. 

This is a danger in my opinion of preaching topically. Too much of my ideas, man's ideas, too much wiggle room and personal opinion. It can be done well, but I just want you to know that it makes me uneasy and I feel cautious and careful about it. Well, with that said, we're going to preach a topical message this morning. We're going to endeavor to explore a topic in our message this morning, hopefully with a biblical perspective and conclusion. 

The reason that we're doing this is because I believe this is a topic that affects us, that influences many teachers who influence us and our thinking, and I believe that it's a topic that we are largely ignorant of. Also, it fits in very nicely with the series that we're in the middle of in our study of 2 Peter 3 concerning the day of the Lord. 

I suppose we've gone all topical lately. We've studied two times together already concerning the day of the Lord and the end times, first concerning God's creative intent. Remember a broad look at God's salvation plan, his intention in the creation, as well as the forming of the nation of Israel, and last time we considered the centrality of Israel in God's plans and promises. 

Well, what I want to look at today fits very well into our study at this point. We're going to look at how we understand the Bible as a whole, what we might call our system of theology. Historically, this has taken two forms in the church, covenant theology and dispensational theology. These two systems of thought and their subdivisions form the basic systems of how we understand the Bible in evangelical Christianity. 

So most certainly for us, God's creative intent and the nation of Israel and its place in God's salvation plans sits right at the heart of how we understand the whole of the scriptures and God's salvation plan, as well as how we interpret God's word and apply it in our lives. So my hope is, you know, I wish I had time to go into all the scriptures and support what I'm saying and prove things and give evidence, but we'd be here till midnight. 

So I'm just hoping this morning to give you a basic understanding of these two systems of thought so that when you're listening to a preacher on the radio or reading a book and you hear something that just doesn't seem quite right to you, you might know why he said or wrote that and where it's coming from. And most importantly, I want for each one of us to know what we believe and why we believe it, and I hope for you as for me that is based wholly and entirely on what the word of God says. 

If you don't understand anything else this morning, I want you to understand this. Our system of theology is completely subject to, formed by, what the word of God says. We do not start with a system here and conform the scripture to it. We are wholly willing to be wrong, to understand subtle nuances and changes to our thinking as we study the word of God verse by verse, seeking to rightly divide the word and form our understanding of the Bible as a whole. But it is important that we have the right skeletal framework, a broad understanding of the whole of scripture and how to interpret and apply. It matters how we see God's revelation to us as a whole in his future plans and promises. 

So my prayer is that this small departure from our normal preaching and teaching will prove to be beneficial for each one of us. 

I want to read those verses again that Mark read in Romans 9 to 11. Just as a kind of base of operation, we're not going to exegete any text really this morning. Romans 9, 1, I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, I just want you to hear Paul's heart here, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen, according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises, of whom are the fathers, and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen. 

So right from the beginning of chapter 9 here, we see that this section in 9 to 11 is about Israel and Paul's heart for Israel and what God's doing, why things are happening the way they're happening. Look at chapter 10, verse 1. Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. 

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. So Paul, chapter 10, still talking about Israel and their rejection of God's righteousness. Romans 11, 11. Paul addresses in chapter 11 the very question, has Israel fallen? Has the church replaced Israel? Has God done with Israel? I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Can they not get back up? Certainly not. But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. 

Clearly a contrast between the nation of Israel and the world, the Gentile nations. Now if their fall is riches for the world and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness. And you look at verse 25, Paul's conclusion. I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written, the deliverer will come out of Zion, he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob, for this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. Concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. 

Now look at this tremendous statement in verse 29, for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Well I've given you five points on your outline, you see the sheet that you have in your hand, on one side we have the outline, first how we understand the Bible, second covenant theology, third dispensational theology, fourth a literal hermeneutic, and fifth what we believe, why we believe it. If you look at the other side of that paper, there's some helpful notes kind of outlining what I'm going to talk about for you to reference. 

So when we think about a system of theology, what we're really talking about is how we understand the Bible. Let me give you an example. Some people today, religious people, perhaps even Christians, say that it's wrong for a believer in Jesus to eat certain things. When we look at the revelation that God has given to us, how can we understand what we are allowed to eat, and perhaps what is forbidden to eat? If we look at Adam in the garden, what could he eat? Only the fruit of the trees, seed bearing plants, no meat. But then as we go through the book of Genesis, we see that there came a time when God allowed man to eat meat. 

Then if we look at the law given to Moses at Sinai, we see all kinds of regulations on what men could eat and not eat, and some things were clearly forbidden. But when Peter has his vision in the book of Acts, and the sheet comes down, a lesson concerning Jew and Gentiles, yes, but also a release from the dietary restrictions in the new covenant that the people of God had lived under in the covenant with Moses. 

So what conclusions can we draw from observing and studying God's word concerning dietary restrictions? Well, it seems for sure, at least on this issue, that God deals with different people in different ways in different periods of time. So this may be a principle for our understanding of the whole of the scriptures and God's plan for mankind. 

Let's consider another option. What if your way or system of understanding the Bible showed no difference or distinction between the Mosaic covenant and the new covenant? There's just a continuum. One people of God living under one system and then going into the next covenant, no real distinction or line. What if you believe that there's a tremendous continuity from the Old Testament to the new concerning the people of God? Well, this understanding would certainly impact how you understand, interpret, and apply the word of God. 

This is what we're talking about when we talk about covenant and dispensational theologies. It's how we understand the whole of the revelation of God, how God relates to man and reveals himself and works out his plans through time. So what are the specifics? What are the distinctions between these two major views generally? Well, first of all, to be fair, there are a variety of views within each camp and subtle and sometimes not so subtle differences between views under the umbrella of covenant or dispensational. So I do not mean to paint with a broad brush or set up any straw men, that's not my intention, but our intent here is to give a basic understanding. And as I said before, we don't have time in one message to go into the intricate details of every idea of men. 

And remember again, these are ideas of men, constructed and tweaked by men as they seek to more fully understand the word of God and how God relates to men. So we'll touch on a couple of these distinctions which we find to be important. 

So first, let's look at covenant theology. Covenant theology is a system or way of understanding the Bible that came out of the Reformation, particularly from Calvin and Zwingli, but it really dates back further than that and finds its genesis in the mind of a man called Augustine. So what is covenant theology? R.C. Sproul said that covenant theology is reformed theology. We hear that term quite often. Covenant theology is reformed theology, one and the same. 

So we often hear men say that they're reformed. This would be co-equal to being covenant. If you're reformed, you're covenant. Remember, this is a system of understanding of the whole of God's word, a way to put it all together to make sense of it, how God relates to men and accomplishes his will and purpose. In covenant theology, it is believed that the unfolding of God's salvation plans and his way of relating to man is revealed through covenants. Covenant theology has, who wants to take a guess, how many covenants? Two? Traditionally, two. John, that's true. Oftentimes we think of covenant theology having a multitude of covenant, Abrahamic covenant, Mosaic covenant, Davidic covenant, Palestinian, but actually it has two or some say three. 

My notes say three, John, I'll go with that. Three theological covenants. First is the covenant of redemption. This covenant was made before creation, a determination of the Trinity to redeem a people for the glory of God. So that happened before the Bible was written. From the, I'm sorry, the second covenant is the covenant of works. This is the covenant that God made with Adam in the garden. So he said, obey this command, right? And you will have eternal life. Obey the covenant of works. But Adam failed to obey the covenant of works. From the fall, the covenant of grace takes effect in Genesis 3.15 and extends into eternity future. So when we look at the whole of God's revelation, the entire Bible, save the first two chapters, it exists under the covenant of grace, okay? 

Therefore the Mosaic Law covenant is under the covenant of grace, as well as the covenants with Noah and Abraham and David in the New Covenant, etc. So one of the major distinctions of covenant theology is that there's continuity between the Old and the New. There's not a great demarcation or distinction between the Old and New Covenants. So continuity defines covenant theology. For example, we often hear the term replacement theology. The idea is that the church has replaced the nation of Israel as God's people. And this does exist in some circles such as Dominionism or Christian Reconstructionism. But technically it does not exist in covenant theology, in traditional covenant theology. 

Covenant theology teaches that there's only one people of God. So in the Old Testament, Israel is the church. The church existed in the Old Covenant, the Old Testament. In the New Testament, the church is Israel. There's one people of God through all time. Continuity. The terms are interchangeable. They would even say that the term ekklesia, called out, which is used of the church, is also used in Septuagint of Israel. But it's also used of every gathering in the Bible, okay? So the church is Israel, Israel is the church. They don't say that the church has replaced Israel, they say the church is Israel, alright? 

Covenant theology also teaches the binding nature of the Law of Moses. The covenant theologian does something very interesting here, and this is a good example, I think, of how we can be unknowingly affected by how a teacher we listen to understands the Bible. Covenant theology alone divides the Mosaic Law into three parts. You've heard this, I'm sure, civil, ceremonial, and moral. That comes only from covenant theologians. There's nothing in the Scriptures that indicates any such distinction or reason for such a division in the Bible. In fact, we will see that this is one of the differences between Reformed Baptists holding to the 1689 Confession as opposed to traditional covenant churches such as the Presbyterians who hold to the Westminster Confession. The 1689 does not accept this division of the Mosaic Law, okay? 

And yet the evangelical church has pretty much accepted this idea, and we find ourselves using these terms, such as moral law, affecting how we interpret and apply God's Word. We're going to see that the Bible says that the Mosaic Law was abrogated in the New Covenant, done away with, made obsolete, all of it, okay? Because of a belief of continuity between the Old and the New, and no great distinction between the two, both being under the covenant of grace, the covenant theologian believes that the Law is still binding as a rule of life for the believer. And because covenant theology makes no distinction between the church and Israel as the people of God, they also see the church, like Old Testament Israel, listen now, as a mixed multitude of believers and unbelievers. 

In covenant theology, God relates to men on the basis of covenants, and to become a part of the people of God, one must enter the covenant through a religious ritual. In Israel, in the Old Testament, this ritual was what? Circumcision. They say in this time in the church, the religious ritual that allows you to enter the covenant of God and become part of His people is baptism, okay? So this is why Presbyterians baptized their babies, in order to initiate them, bring them into the covenant. And later, with a desire for their children to confirm their own faith, they participate in confirmation in those churches. 

So the universal church exists with believers and unbelievers living together under the covenant, rather than a worldwide group of believers set apart as those united to Christ. The church proper would exist with believers and unbelievers in covenant theology. These doctrines also affect how the covenant theologian views eschatology, which becomes important to our present study. Because God has one people, Israel is the church in the Old Testament, and the church is Israel in the New Testament, there's no real distinction between the church and Israel, and thus there is no future plan for the nation of Israel. Most if not all covenant theologians are amillennial or postmillennial. 

I don't know if you're familiar with those terms, but these concern the 1,000-year reign of Christ on the earth that we read about in the Old Testament, and particularly in Revelation 20, the kingdom for Israel. Millennial people, just like the word says, amillennial, do not believe in a millennial kingdom at all, literal millennial reign of Christ, a physical kingdom on the earth. And very often these folks are preterist, I'm giving you a lot of terms here, preterist or partial preterist. The word preterist, the doctrine means that they believe that when Jesus taught the Olivet Discourse, the wars and rumors of wars and so forth, all those things He taught about in the end times, and the entire book of Revelation were all fulfilled in 70 AD when Rome conquered Israel. Okay, so there's no, none of that is future in a preterist view. This doctrine certainly holds true with the postmillennial crowd. 

These folks believe that we are living in the millennial kingdom right now. It began at Pentecost, and we are now establishing the kingdom for Christ by making the world Christian. So out of this view comes a lot of your reconstructionism, your dominionism, your political activism, your Christian nationalism, those kind of things. They use the parable of the mustard seed to support this view. As the gospel goes out, the church will slowly take over the political structures, the government institutions, and eventually make the whole world Christian, and then Christ will come. Interestingly, Pat Robertson holds this view, and when he was running for president, he said this, if you elect me, we will hand the kingdom to Christ. 

That's because he's a postmillennial. So those of the covenant persuasion hold a very different view of eschatology than do the dispensationalists, because they hold a completely different view of Israel and the church, and God's salvation plans for His people. So you can see how your system of theology can greatly affect how you understand and apply the Word of God. Before we move on to dispensational theology, I want to just make one clarifying point that I think is important. Oftentimes we confuse the doctrines concerning salvation or soteriology, how a man's saved, with systems of theology such as covenantalism. 

Let me explain. Many associate themselves with Reformed theology, or covenant theology, because of the doctrines of Calvinism. And it's true, I think absolutely, that all Reformed people hold to the doctrines of Calvinism. However, these are two separate things. You can believe in Calvinism and not be Reformed. Calvinism deals with how a man is saved, not with how we understand the Scriptures as a whole. Are you following me? For example, many of you are familiar with John MacArthur. He's a Calvinist. He believes in the five points of Calvinism, the doctrines of grace. But he is not Reformed, he is dispensational. 

And this is because he believes that God will keep His promises to Israel, that there's a distinction between the Old and the New Covenants, and a distinction between Israel and the Church, and he also holds to a literal, grammatical, historical method of interpretation of the Bible, which we'll talk more about in a moment. So I often run across people who consider themselves Reformed because they follow men like John Piper, or Alistair Begg, or James Kennedy, or R.C. Sproul, but they actually are Calvinist in their soteriology, but they're not Reformed. Remember, Reformed and covenant are co-equal, and Reformed people are confessional, meaning they hold to the historical confessions that came out of the Reformation. 

For the Presbyterian crowd, they hold to the Westminster Confession. This rules over their body, their belief in the Church. And for the Reformed Baptist crowd, they hold to the 1689 Second London Baptist Convention. You can put that in your notes, Diane. Now I don't want to get too far off here, but just a couple of distinctions between those two, if this kind of thing interests you. The Reformed Baptists, 1689, depart from the Presbyterian's Westminster Confessionalists on three points. 

This is interesting, I think. Many of you might know more Reformed Baptists than you do Presbyterians, so they reject the idea of the theological covenants of redemption, works, and grace. They don't hold to those theological covenants. They only hold to the covenants in the Bible, okay, and believe that God progressively reveals Himself through those covenants. They also reject the tripartite division of the law, as we said before, the ceremonial, civil, and moral law, because these distinctions do not exist in the Bible. And third, they reject the idea of the people of God entering the covenant through a religious ritual. They don't see the Church as a mixed multitude of believers and unbelievers, but see the Church existing of those people who are united to Christ through faith. 

So the Reformed Baptist community does not baptize babies, but practices what's called credo-baptism, that is what we practice, believers' baptism upon a credible profession of faith. Alright? Alright, one more little wrinkle. In the Reformed Baptist theology, according to the 1689 Confession, they would hold to the Sabbath as a rule of life for the believer. They support this by saying that God instituted the doctrine of the Sabbath in creation before the Mosaic Law. God worked six days and rested on the seventh, thus the Sabbath is an eternal doctrine based on creation. Interestingly, they changed the Sabbath to Sunday in the new covenant, which seems to me to undermine the whole basis in creation, but neither here nor there. 

Anyway, these folks see Sunday as the Christian Sabbath. So to summarize, covenant theology sees the covenants as the basis by which God relates to His people, and they see continuity from the fall through the whole of the revelation of God in the Bible, all existing under this covenant of grace. They do not see a distinction between the Church and Israel. They do not see a future plan for the nation of Israel or any literal kingdom on this earth fulfilling the Old Testament promises made to that nation. They also do not see an end to the Mosaic Law or a great distinction between Old and New Testaments, and therefore, although the ceremonial and civil have been abrogated, what they call the moral law continues as a rule of life for believers. 

And they also see the people of God as one through all time, a mixed multitude that one enters through religious rituals such as circumcision in the old and baptism in the new. So these are some of the basic distinctions of covenant theology and they have great implications as to how we understand the whole of the Scriptures, God's salvation plan, and especially the things that are yet to come. Now let's move on to dispensational system of understanding. The word dispensation is defined as a period of time. 

So the basic idea of dispensational theology is that God relates to His people in different times in different ways. They are usually divided into seven different dispensations that cover the whole of God's revelation and salvation plans. They are innocence, conscience, human government, promise, law, grace, and finally, the millennial kingdom of Christ. We don't have time to go into all these dispensations and define them, but dispensationalists do not see the progression of the covenants as a defining way to understand the Bible, but these different dispensations in different periods of time. The covenants play a major part in our understanding but exist within the different dispensations. 

Therefore, the dispensational theologian sees a great discontinuity between the law time and the age of grace, between the old and the new, whereas the covenant theologian sees continuity from the fall through eternity, all under the covenant of grace; the dispensationalist sees discontinuity, that is, a great distinction between the old covenant law of Moses and the new covenant in Christ. And he, as a hallmark of this system of understanding, sees a distinction between the nation of Israel and the church. The church is not Israel, and Israel certainly is not the church, as in covenant theology, rather, as Paul writes, the church is a mystery never before known until the New Testament revelation wholly distinct from the nation of Israel. 

Dispensational theology sees the promises of the Old Testament as given to the nation of Israel and ultimately fulfilled in Israel, the promises of a land, of a nation, of the Messiah ruling on David's throne, of a fulfillment of God's creative intent in Israel, as we discussed last week, to be a witness and to lead the nations to God. These promises are largely fulfilled in the millennial kingdom. The promise of the New Testament is a promise that is fulfilled in the millennial kingdom. Promised earthly physical kingdom for Israel where Jesus reigns on David's throne and they possess the land and their full destiny as God's people, witnesses that lead the nations to Christ. 

Remember that Zechariah 8 passage we read last week says, thus says the Lord of hosts, in those days ten men from every language of the nations shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man saying, let us go with you for we have heard that God is with you. There might be ten men grasping the Jew right now but it doesn't have anything to do with leading them to God, does it? That has not been fulfilled. The dispensationalist sees this as being literally fulfilled in the kingdom. The system demands a premillennial view. If you're dispensationalist, you have to have a premillennial view. That is that we are now living in the age of grace, we are awaiting the promised rapture of the church but after this, God will turn His attention back to Israel to bring to pass the unconditional promises made to her. 

We will have the tribulation time, the day of the Lord, the consummation of all things and this is a process whereby Jesus takes back what is rightfully His, the scroll and revelation, judges all things, sets up His kingdom on this earth and fulfills His creative intent of a theocracy through man on this earth and Israel as a witness to the nations. So all dispensationalists are premillennial. The millennial kingdom is yet to come and it will be literally fulfilled in a literal 1,000 year period on this earth. 

And this brings us perhaps to the greatest distinction between covenant and dispensational theology. The dispensationalist believes in a literal hermeneutic. Hermeneutics just means rules of language, rules we apply to interpreting the Bible. So like if I told you I went out and I went up and I went down, you wouldn't really have any idea what I was talking about, right? But if I said I drove up to the Ironwood, well I should say Minneapolis because this just happened to me about a month ago, I drove to the Minneapolis airport, I got on a plane at six o'clock, we went up, we hit 10,000 feet and we came back down because the seal blew out and there wasn't any cabin pressure. Now you know by, how do you know? You know by context, the words around the words up and down, exactly what I mean when I say I went up and down, okay? 

So the dispensationalist believes in a literal hermeneutic, an application of the principles of understanding the Word of God mean that the words mean what they say. So unless there are contextual or literary reasons to understand the words as symbolic, we are to interpret them literally. Let's look at Revelation 20, turn over to Revelation 20 with me, please. Revelation 20 at verse 1, this is concerning the millennial kingdom we've been talking about. 

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, this is John's vision meant to reveal something to him, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. And he cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up and set a seal on him so that he should deceive the nations no more until the thousand years were finished. But after these things, he must be released for a little while. And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. 

Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus, for the Word of God, who had not worshipped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands, and they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection, over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years." 

This is perhaps the clearest passage concerning the thousand-year kingdom of Christ on the earth. The dispensationalists would read this text and interpret it literally, meaning that when it says a thousand years, when it talks about Satan being bound for a thousand years so that he can deceive the nations no more, and when it talks about Satan being released for a little time after the thousand years, what it means is there's going to be a thousand years. The covenant theologian would say, no, this is typological, it's allegorical, it's not a literal thousand years, there is no kingdom on the earth, okay? 

I wonder if there were saints beheaded for their witness. I wonder if there were people who took the mark of the beast. No, that was all fulfilled in 70 A.D. You see the difference? We would take these things literally. The covenant theologian, beginning with Augustine and his arguments with Pelagius, would employ what's called a typological or allegorical hermeneutic, thus it does not necessarily mean what it says. In fact, if you read a Reformed commentary on the book of Revelation, it will say it does not mean what it says. The dispensationalist asks, if it does not mean what it says, then who decides what it means? 

This is an important distinction, a literal historical grammatical method of interpreting the Bible. Also, for dispensational thought, the Mosaic law has ended as a whole, and no longer is a rule of life for the believer in Jesus because there is discontinuity between the old and the new. In other words, a distinction, a line of demarcation between Moses' covenant and the new covenant under Christ. We now live under grace, not under law, moral, or otherwise. Just a couple of scriptures on this, and I want to make a point here, it doesn't mean that we aren't striving to live holy lives, it doesn't mean that we want to break the law, it doesn't mean we are antinomian against the law, it means that God has a new way to produce holiness through us, a better way than an external law. 

Let's look at a couple of scriptures on this because it's important. I want you to see that we have a firm conviction that we should base our theology on the revelation of God in his word and form our system of theology based on that. We here at Living Hope Church are not confessional. We do not hold to creeds and systems designed by men, covenant or dispensational, as a rule, but seek to form our understanding on the word of God alone. 

I clearly don't agree with much of covenant theology, but I also don't agree with classic dispensationalism as created by John Nelson Darby or Schaeffer or Schofield, because they taught things like a permanent, eternal separation between Israel and the church as earthly people and heavenly people. They taught that the Old Testament saints were saved by works and that we're saved by grace through faith. My point is that we're not bound by any system, but are continually forming our system of understanding by the study of God's word. 

The law as a rule of life is a great example of this, so I say, what does God say about this? When we study the scriptures and see a distinction between Israel and the church, between the Old and the New Covenant, we see an end of the law covenant as a whole. Hebrews 8 makes this clear. The covenants and promises in the Old Testament were given to Israel and in a literal sense will be fulfilled in Israel in the future, but Hebrews 8 makes clear that we in the church age are experiencing a pre-fillment of these promises. 

In other words, we are partakers of the blessing, the New Covenant promises now that are yet to be fulfilled in Israel. We are blessed out of the New Covenant with Israel. This is what Paul's talking about in Romans 11. Well, listen to what the author of Hebrews says after contrasting the Old Covenant law with the New Covenant when he quotes from Jeremiah 31. Here's his conclusion, Hebrews 8, 13. In that he says a new covenant, he has made the first obsolete. That seems pretty clear, doesn't it? 

So what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. The law covenant of Moses is made obsolete in Christ in the institution of the new. That's why at the Last Supper, Luke 22, he raised the cup and he said, this is the new covenant in my blood. Thus we now live under the dispensation of grace in the church age and under the law of Christ, the law of love. That's why John says the commands of the new covenant are what? First John 3, 23 and 24. Believe Jesus and love one another. 

Turn to 2 Corinthians 3 with me, please. 2 Corinthians 3 at verse 2, Paul writing to the believers in Corinth, he says, you are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men. Clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is of the heart. And we have such trust through Christ toward God, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter, or law, but of the Spirit. 

For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. 

Actually Paul speaks of the law of Moses, the Ten Commandments, engraved on stones. And he says they are a ministry of death, they are a ministry of condemnation. Paul writes in Galatians and Romans that God gave us the law in order to show us our sin and lead us to faith in Christ, but once faith has come, we are no longer under the tutor. In Romans 7, he says this, my brethren, you have become dead to the law through the body of Christ in order that you might be married to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that you might be able to bear fruit to God. 

For when we were in the flesh, when we were in Adam, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now, listen to what he says, we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by. 

Why? Because we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. It's not that we shouldn't serve, it's not that we shouldn't present ourselves to God, it's not that we shouldn't live holy lives, it's just God has a better way by His Spirit living in us in the new covenant as we are regenerated with new spirits and new hearts to now produce righteousness out through the members of our body. 

So what law was Paul talking about that we're delivered from? In Romans 7.7 he says this, what shall we say then, is the law sin? Certainly not. On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. See that was the purpose. For I would not have known, what, covetousness, unless the law had said thou shalt not covet. Well that's one of the ten, isn't it? What law is it we were released from, Paul, that we are no longer bound by, that we no longer live by? The Ten Commandments, the law of Moses. 

I'm just trying to give you an example of why we believe what we believed, based on the Scriptures. The dispensationalist also sees the church as existing of all those who believe Jesus universally in the world. It's not because you were baptized that you're in the church, it's because you believe Jesus that you're in the church. The local church can have unbelievers in its midst, tares among the wheat, but the church universal exists of believers only, and thus we do not baptize babies, because baptism is not a sacrament, such as in the Catholic or Lutheran church, efficacious for salvation, nor is it a rite of passage into the New Covenant, but rather it's a testimony, a picture of what has already happened in the life of the believer, in his union with Jesus, in his death, burial, and resurrection through faith. 

So let's summarize dispensational thought. God relates to His people in different periods of time, in different ways, to reveal Himself in His salvation plan. Second, there's a clear distinction between the nation of Israel and the church. Third, there's a clear distinction between the Old and New Covenants, and the Mosaic law has been made obsolete, we now live under the New Covenant, not by the letter, but by the Spirit. Fourth, we interpret and apply the Scriptures based on a literal, historical, grammatical method. 

And so what do we believe here at Living Hope Church? We hold a basic, dispensational view of the Scriptures. We believe solidly in a literal method of interpretation. And so germane to our present study concerning the end times of the day of the Lord, we see the imminent rapture of the church, then a tribulation time for Israel called the time of Jacob's trouble, where God will fulfill His unconditional promises to the nation of Israel when they look on the one whom they pierced, and all Israel will be saved. 

That is, those Jews who survive to the end of this time and place their faith in Jesus alone. Then Jesus will come in judgment, as described in Revelation 19, and set up His kingdom, as we read in Revelation 20, on this earth. He will fulfill His creative intent in a genuine theocracy, Jesus reigning from David's throne, and Israel worshiping God as He intended and leading the nations to Him through faith. And then, in the course of the day of the Lord, according to Peter, God will destroy the present heavens and earth, create a new heavens and earth in which righteousness dwells. 

This is the promised eternal state found in Revelation 20, 21 and 22, okay? We believe these things because we believe the Old Testament promises and prophecies are to be taken literally, understood as they were written, with their original audience in mind. 

So in Ezekiel 36, when Ezekiel says, thus says the Lord, I will sprinkle clean water on you, I will give you a new heart, I will give you a new spirit, I will put My Spirit in you and cause you to walk in My commands, in My statutes and judgments you shall do them, he's speaking to Israel, the nation of Israel, and those promises will be literally fulfilled to the Jewish people. Because we understand, see, the covenant theologian doesn't understand it that way. He can allegorize that, he can make it a type so that it's fulfilled in the church and not ultimately in Israel. 

But if we believe that it's fulfilled literally, considering the audience it was originally written to, then that prophecy must be fulfilled to Israel. Because it's unconditional. God didn't put a condition on that, He just said, I will do it, okay? And so we do not have liturgical or ritualistic practices in our church. We do not have ceremony or ritual, we are not concerned with historical confessions, the doctrines of Augustine that formed the Roman Catholic Church as well as the Reformed Churches and subsequent theologies. 

We are bound only by the Word of God. And that is why we seek to study, to know, to apply, to obey His Word, to obey Him and to live a holy life that brings Him glory by the means that He has prescribed in the New Covenant. Walking by faith, His life in us, lived in and through us by the grace and power of God. And all of this to be a witness in this world, saving men out of it until the Lord comes. This is the simplicity that is in Christ. 

I hope you found this beneficial, I know it's a lot of information, that's why I wanted to allow if you have questions or want to discuss things, I really struggle to do something like this because I really like to go to the next verses and say what God says, but I think we needed to know this basic information because when you hear a John Piper or you read a book like that, and you need to understand where he's coming from, how he's viewing the Scriptures, so that you might know why he says some of the things he says and what maybe you should think about that, you should search the Scriptures to see if what men say is true. 

Okay, well let's close in prayer. 

Father, we thank you that you've given us your Word, that you've made the gospel so abundantly clear that Jesus died for us, He's our substitute, He took our sins upon Himself and suffered your wrath in our place and that through faith in Him we can receive your righteousness and be saved forever. Thank you for that simple, clear truth of how we are saved. And thank you for the instruction of the New Testament about how we are sanctified and what your intention is for us for holy living and the means by which you intend that to happen. 

And thank you for the promises that we have for the future that you are coming to take us to be with you forever, if it were not so, you would have told us. Thank you that we can trust you and believe you. Just help us to understand these more difficult, deeper things that are not the substance of our life but important to have knowledge of and to put them in their proper place, Lord. Help us to be faithful today and every day that we might bring you glory and men to Christ. In Jesus' name, amen.