BURIED TREASURE

BURIED TREASURE

There’s something special about a treasure hunt that can be exciting for young and old alike. Wonderful hidden treasure can be discovered in the Bible, but we must diligently search for those treasures.

You are ready to take part in this excursion if you have personally believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. If so, you are a Christian with an activated human spirit, and you are able to understand spiritual truth. God the Holy Spirit will teach your human spirit what you need to know so that you may find and fulfill His plan and purpose for your life.

Being properly equipped for this treasure hunt means you have named any known sin in your life to God the Father so that the Holy Spirit, our real teacher, will be able to reveal Biblical truth to you, to help you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:9)

If you want to gain wisdom, knowledge and understanding about the Lord, you must search for those things just as you would search for hidden treasure of gold and silver. (Proverbs chapter 2) Let’s venture out on this treasure hunt together, using a good map to guide us. Our map is the infallible Word of God … the Bible … and like any map we must find a starting place. Our first stop looks like an interesting one, and when we dig here we will uncover a very large treasure chest that is overflowing with CATEGORIES. Categories are objects of thought that we must consider individually in our minds, and we must separate each one just as we would separate diamonds, rubies and gold. After all, there is ‘fool’s gold’ in contrast to the real thing. In the sunlight Gypsum can look like diamonds, and to the untrained eye broken red glass can easily be mistaken for rubies.

The most valuable of all treasure is the category known as BIBLE DOCTRINE. To be able to separate truth from false teaching, we must receive Bible Doctrine from a man who has been given the gift of pastor-teacher by the Lord and who studies and gains considerable knowledge of the original languages of scripture in which the Bible was written. The word ‘doctrine’ simply means teaching; therefore, Bible Doctrine is teaching about the Word of God. Hearing, believing and applying sound Bible Doctrine will enable us to become spiritually mature so we may find God’s purpose for our lives. The Holy Spirit will not metabolize false doctrine, so those who do not receive sound and correct teaching will not be able to grow up spiritually.

Categories of Bible Doctrine are found throughout the Bible … from Genesis to Revelation. There are many examples, but let’s examine just two of them. The first one deals with the subject of DEATH, and we will see that there are seven different kinds of death:

PHYSICAL DEATH … a death that effects everyone at God’s perfect timing
SPIRITUAL DEATH … we are born dead to God, because we have a sin nature
POSITIONAL DEATH … the believer is identified with Jesus Christ in His death on the cross
OPERATIONAL DEATH … the believer produces dead works of human good when he is out of fellowship with God
TEMPORAL DEATH … the state of being out of fellowship, because there is sin in the person’s life that has not been confessed
SEXUAL DEATH … there is a time in life when a person becomes sexually dead
SECOND DEATH … the last judgment … the Lake of Fire which is for Satan and his angels as well as people who rejected Jesus Christ as their Savior during their lifetime on earth

The next category we’ll examine is the Biblical doctrine of DISPENSATIONS. A dispensation is a period of time in human history that is expressed in terms of divine revelation and during which man is tested in respect to obedience to some definite revelation of God’s will, God’s plan, and God’s purpose for his life.

Some Bible scholars have separated these dispensations into seven periods of time, but for the sake of simplicity in answering this extremely important doctrinal issue let’s break them down into four parts:

During the first dispensation there were only Gentiles on the earth. When Adam and the woman disobeyed God by eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they were driven out of the Garden of Eden so they would not eat of the Tree of Life and live forever in their sinful state. They and their progeny were tested to discern between good and evil and to act according to the direction of their own conscience. The dispensation of the Gentiles ended in failure for mankind, and with the exception of 8 people, Noah and his family, the Lord destroyed that civilization with a flood. After the flood, the earth was populated by the three sons of Noah and their families. (Genesis chapters 10 and 11)

The next dispensation, the Jewish Age, began when the Lord called a Chaldean by the name of Abram to leave his homeland and follow Him, and He promised Abram he would be the father of a brand new race that would be a blessing to the entire world. (Genesis 12:1-3) The Age of the Jews continued for 38 years … until the death, burial and resurrection of the God-Man, Jesus Christ. It was interrupted when the Jews rejected Jesus as their Messiah, but after the completion of the next dispensation, which is called the Church Age, it will continue for another seven years.

The Church Age is the dispensation in which we are now living, and it will end at an appointed time known only by God the Father. The Church is a body made up of born-again believers, beginning with the Day of Pentecost and ending at the resurrection (rapture) of that body which is called, “the Bride of Christ” in Acts 1:9-11 and in Revelation 19:11-16. Jesus will come in the clouds of the air and take His bride to heaven. The details are recorded in 1 Corinthians 15:51-53, and also in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. Once the Church is removed from the earth, the Jewish Age will resume and continue for seven more years. That period of time will hold the center of attention throughout the world for 7-years during the next dispensation called the Tribulation, and it will be the worst period of time in all of human history.

The Millennial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ will usher in the last dispensation, and it will begin when Jesus returns to the Mount of Olives from which He ascended. He will set up His 1,000 year reign of perfect environment on this earth. (Acts 1:9-11 and Revelation 19:11-16) At the end of man’s history, all human good will be judged. The sins of the world were judged on the Cross more than two thousand years ago, but human good, which is part of man’s sinful nature, has not yet been judged; therefore, unbelievers of all the ages will be resurrected after the Millennium to stand before the Lord at the Great White Throne Judgment to be judged according to their human good deeds … NOT THEIR SINS! On the basis of their rejection of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, all unbelievers will be cast into the Lake of Fire with the devil and his angels, where they will be tormented day and night throughout eternity. (Revelation 20:10-15)

The doctrines of death and dispensations that we have covered so briefly are just two of the hundreds of wonderful treasures found in the Bible. As you continue to study God’s Word, I’m sure you will agree that understanding the doctrine of Dispensations is necessary for us to know and understand so we may be oriented to the time in which we are now living.

“STUDY TO SHOW YOURSELF APPROVED BY GOD, A WORKMAN WHO NEED NOT BE ASHAMED, BUT ABLE TO RIGHTLY DIVIDE THE WORD OF TRUTH.” (2 Timothy 2:15)

Writen by Lois Delnay
01/14/07
loisdelnay@hotmail.com

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