God's plan for the ages is presented as a structured, purposeful unfolding of His dealings with humanity, rather than a series of random events. The sermon outlines six dispensations, drawing parallels between the six days of creation and distinct periods of God's interaction with mankind. These periods include the introduction of light, the institution of order, the indoctrination of Israel, the interruption of grace (the Church Age), the indignation of deity (Great Tribulation), and the inauguration of true justice (the Millennium), culminating in the eternal state. The core lesson emphasizes that God's plan is literal, distinguishes between Israel and the Church, and prioritizes God's honor and glory above all. The message concludes by urging listeners to recognize God's light in their lives through Jesus Christ, especially if they are unsaved, to move from spiritual death to life.
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Thank you to the ladies for singing. They were singing about not being able to comprehend. Now that's very appropriate for this week. Because I have in mind to bring before you some of the truths of God that everybody may not agree with. Now I believe they're truths of God. I believe it's how God, the Spirit, has laid them out for us in the Word of God. But, you know, it's a very wonderful thing. There are things that are not essential to our salvation, things that sometimes we may differ on, but they, as you can see, create no problem for us, for in some of these areas we are quite willing to agree to differ.
Of course, those who don't agree with me are wrong, but be that as it may, we're going to have a good time this week speaking about God's plan of the ages, for the ages. Now I realize that so many of you who live in the colony have heard my voice from time to time and it's very gracious of you to come to the meetings. The Bible says the prophet is not without honor saving his own country. I'm in my own country but still you turn out to listen. Now if you have any plans to go away for a holiday, for a vacation during the conference, make it this week so that the other speakers who come from away will have the benefit of your presence in the meetings, and you've heard me before.
So if you have any plans for a vacation, colony folk, this is the time to take your vacation. For the visitors, you're stuck with me. But however, I think we're going to have a good time and a happy time together. Let's turn to Genesis chapter one, shall we? Genesis chapter one, we're going to read just a few verses here and there in chapter one and chapter six. By the way, how many folk do we have here from Minnesota? Would you put your hands up? Let me see the Minnesotans. All right, there they are. We're very happy that they are here.
I was reading about a man from Elk River, Minnesota named Clifford Bowman, B-A-U-G-H-M-A-N. Clifford Bowman. And he had a very domineering wife. and he got so frustrated with life that in the end out of peak he went and robbed a bank but he didn't get away with it in spite of the fact that when the police searched his home for incriminating evidence they came across a brochure entitled how to rob a bank now obviously a man who's gonna rob a bank has some kind of a plan.
I remember staying in Cleveland, and I was staying in the home of a man who was inventing a machine for speedily making hors d'oeuvres. And I remember going down into his basement, and he had a number of very interesting machines that intrigued me. But lying there on a desk was a plan for his machine. And I saw it in a half-finished state. It never did get finished, and he's in the glory now. So those are plans that didn't come to fruition. But apparently, whether you're going to rob a bank or invent a machine, you've got to have a plan in mind.
I can remember, too, going to see the building of a chapel in Cleveland. It was underway. And as I wandered around the building, I found that the construction man outside his little wooden hut there had a sort of, it wasn't really a desk, but it was something he had nailed to the side of his wooden construction hut there, and on it was a set of plans. And from time to time he'd turn a page. If a man's going to build anything, he has to have a plan. Now, this is what you would expect. Now we dare to believe that time is not just an accident.
We believe that it's a period that God has some very definite plans for. And the man whose chart I have behind the curtains that are behind me is a man who believed that these chapters in Genesis were illustrative of that plan. So let's read Genesis chapter one and verse one. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light. And there was light. and God saw the light that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. Now the maker of our chart suggests that the first portion of time in God's planning can be illustrated by this first day, which I am going to call the introduction of light. Verse six.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters, and God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament, from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. And God called the firmament heaven, And the evening and the morning were the second day. Now he suggests that this is illustrative of the second period of time in God's plan. Now I want to call this the introduction or the institution of order.
So we have the introduction of light and the institution of order. Now let's read on a little bit further. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear, and it was so. And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters called he seas, and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth, and it was so.
And the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself after his kind, and God saw that it was good, and the evening and the morning were the third day." And again the producer of our chart suggested as on the third day the earth appeared so it is illustrative of the third period into which time has been divided in which God's earthly people appeared and I'm going to call this this period the indoctrination of Israel now let's go to the fourth day Verse fourteen, and God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, and it was so.
And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. and set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness, and God saw that it was good, and the evening and the morning were the fourth day." Again our chart maker suggests that this is illustrative of the fourth period, and that the sun is a picture of the Lord Jesus, and the Moon is a picture of the Church which reflects His face and His glory, and the stars are illustrations of individual believers.
This is the Church Age. I'm going to call it the interruption of grace, because it is actually, I believe, an age in a bracket. So we have the introduction of light, we have the institution of order, we have the indoctrination of Israel, and now the interruption of grace. Let's go on to the fifth day. And God said, this is verse twenty, let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven, and God created great whales and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind, and God saw that it was good, and God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth, and the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
Now this is made to illustrate, according to our chart maker, that period which follows the snatching away of the saints. And this we are going to call the indignation of deity. Now some tremendous things happen during this period of feverish activity, like those waters churned up by those great fish and so on, and all kinds the peopling the earth, many of whom are rebellious against God. But eventually that period will come to an end and usher in a period that I am going to call the inauguration of true justice.
Man was created on the sixth day, and he was given rule over the earth of his day. even the beasts at that time came to him for their names and so on, and that part of the story you know, and it's a rather long one, so I'm not going to read it to you, but it suggested that this is illustrative of the period of the reign of the Lord Jesus upon the earth. One thousand years, a period that is named a number of times, it's never called the millennium in the Bible, but since a thousand years is a millennium, and it's called a thousand years, a number of times, then undoubtedly it is a millennium.
And so then we'll be ushered in the eternal state so that our chart maker has divided the period of time into six separate periods. Now, I'm going to open the chart in so that you can see the chart. and think some of my friends are going to move the puppet over to the side here for me. And I realize, although the chart is twelve feet long, that some of you at the back are not going to be able to read it. And that will encourage you to sit at the front next time. But that's not why I did it. It's just that I couldn't get a bigger chart than this one.
Thank you. Now, because I know that probably fifty percent of you, maybe even more, will not be able to read it, let me ask how many of you, and I hope we have a nice big number here, how many of you have seen this chart before? You disappoint me. I expected three quarters of you to have seen this chart before. How many of you have ever possessed a copy of this chart? How many of you still have a copy of this chart? Well, bring it to the meetings because then you won't have to strain your eyes looking at the chart up here.
You'll be able to refer to it. Now in the mornings, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I'm going to take up some of the individual personalities and events that are pictured for us on the chart. For instance, we can talk about Satan. We can talk about the Great White Throne. We can talk about rapture. There are so many different things that we can talk about, and we're going to talk about just four of them, if the Lord will, in the morning. In evenings we're going to go through the chart from eternity to eternity. Now we could spend a month of meetings every night on this chart because it's so full.
For those of you who've seen it before, you've read it, you know that here on this blue section we have four eternal things mentioned. I'm not going to dwell on them. And I hope the fact that I move away from the microphone doesn't cut me off from any of you. but there is the eternal God, the eternal Son, the eternal Spirit, and God's eternal purpose. Now since you all know about the three persons of the Trinity, and it's very striking that God the Father is called the Eternal Father, I know in King James Version it says the Everlasting Father, but it's really the Eternal Father. And I know that in the Word of God the Lord Jesus is referred to as the eternal Son.
You know, that should immediately raise a question in your mind or settle a question in your mind. If the Son is eternal, then obviously the Father must be true. And there could never have been a time when the Son did not exist. he is as eternal as the Father. To be an eternal Father, God must always have had at least one Son. And to be an eternal Son, he must have existed from an eternity past and go on existing into an eternity future.
The Spirit of God is also referred to as the eternal Spirit. So those who deny the Trinity, three persons in one and one in three, and I believe that, though I cannot explain it, those who would seek to do away with it have a real problem as far as I'm concerned when they have to admit that the Bible speaks of the eternal Father, the eternal Son, and the eternal Spirit, and from time to time God refers to himself as us. because while he's one person he's three persons in one and one person in three now God from the very beginning has had a purpose as eternal as his person and this is what we have in mind to examine during these days of conference now We have a name for these.
There's day number one, or that which is illustrated by day number one, day number two, day number three, there's age in a bracket, day number four, day number five, and day number six, and then on into the eternal state. We have a name for these periods into which we divide time. They are called dispensation. Don't be afraid of that word. A dispensation... is a period of time in which God deals with men in a specific fashion and men react to God's dealings. Now down through time this has changed and so that's what gives place or gives way to these various dispensations.
Usually we think that the person who believes in dispensations is a dispensationalist. How many of you ever heard that long word? Would you put your hands up, please? How many of you never heard that big word? Well, a dispensationalist, supposedly, is one who believes in dispensations. A non-dispensationalist, to confuse you further, is one who says he doesn't believe in dispensation. Yet he immediately contradicts himself because he will say, well, I believe that God dealt with the Jew in one way and that he believes that he deals with the Gentile in another way, or I believe that there's an Old Testament in which the economy is different from the New Testament.
Now he's admitting there that there are at least two dispensations One that's portrayed for us in the Old Testament, one in the New Testament. Now, you might not be surprised to know there are people who sometimes come up with three dispensations, some with four dispensations, some with five, Mr. Booze here with six, and Mr. Schofield, if you have a Schofield Bible there, he has seven, and that's because seven is a perfect number. And the reason why we have six here, and not seven, is because Mr. Boole includes in the first one that period of innocence, which was Adam's.
God created Adam, and he was innocent, and with Eve in the garden they lived, and they walked and talked with God in the cool of the evening, and then you remember that they fell. taking from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Now, Mr. Schofield gives that period of innocence a little sort of semicircle to itself, but Mr. Booth includes it. In day number one, Adam to Noah, day number two goes from Noah to Abraham, day number three goes from Abraham to Christ, day number four is this great period in which we are living, Day number five goes through the period of the Great Tribulation, which is a half of that period.
And then we have the millennium when the Lord Jesus will be on the throne. Can you hear me when I walk away from the microphone? Oh, thank you. I'm glad that you can, because I don't want to create a problem for anybody. So then there are dispensation lists who divide up time differently. from the way that we are going to divide it up. But please don't be distressed, because after all, what we are trying to do is portray for you God's plan of the ages, and let you know that these things did not just happen. They're not apathod or accidental, but God knew them from the beginning, and they all fall into His plan.
Now, having talked about a dispensation very briefly, and having mentioned the dispensationalist, I think you ought to know that there are three ways in which the dispensationalist does differ from the non-dispensationalist. There are those who just take this whole thing from here to here and say, well, there really are no dispensations. It just goes from this place to that place, and there it is. But you know, they have some problems when it comes to these thousand years, which is a very specific figure, and God's word is very specific about it.
And there are a number of other things. Now here are the three ways in which a dispensationalist differs, and I'm a dispensationalist, mind you, there are ultra-dispensationalists. And those who are people who pick out parts of the Bible and say, this is not for the day, this was only for Israel, and that's taking things to extremes. But a dispensationalist insists, number one, on separating Israel and the church. He makes these two things always distinct. The non-dispensationalist does not do this.
The second thing is the dispensationalist insists that whenever he can he must take the Bible literally or he must normally interpret the Bible. I once heard Dr. Rolls, who's not a dispensationalist, say, I've seen some fat woman, but I never saw a woman fat enough to sit on seven hills. Now he was referring to the picture of Rome. Now, obviously, that's a portion that one cannot take literally. Now, where you cannot take a portion literally, you know that it is speaking to you figuratively. But it's a grave mistake, I feel, to take the Scripture and try to spiritualize it all so that a thousand years doesn't mean a thousand years, and one thousand so many hundred and so many tens of days do not mean that.
which is what the non-dispensationalist must do. He must constantly spiritualize and use the Bible figuratively. The dispensationalist says, I'm prepared to accept it in every instant that I possibly can as being literal. That's how I intend to interpret it. Again, many non-dispensationalists say that God's great plan revolved around one theme, and that was the salvation of mankind. But the dispensationalist says no. That was only a part of God's plan. God's plan was to bring about His own honor and His own glory.
So those are probably the three big things that separate the dispensationalist. That is the person who divides up time, something like this, from the non-dispensationalist who says it just moves from one to the other with no real significance, but has a lot of figurative things that are meant to teach us truths. Number one, then, he separates Israel and the church. Number two, wherever he can, he takes the Bible and interprets it, literally. and he believes that God's purpose primarily is not man's salvation, though that's in his plan, but his own honour and glory.
All right, all that by way of introduction. Now let's go to the chart. Eternity obviously cannot be a dispensation, whether you put it this end of the chart or that end of the chart, because a dispensation has to have a beginning and it has to have an end. Now before we talk about the first one here, I want you to notice something. At the end of each of these, if you can see it from where you are, there is a shading dark. Because since man is active in each of these divisions of time, it's not surprising that he fails at the end of every one of them.
And that dark shaded part is to remind us that the dispensation ended with man's failure. It was so in this instance. That's why God sent the flood to end that dispensation. It was so in this dispensation that the reason why God confounded the languages of the people and brought to an end that dispensation and began instead to take up one man and his progeny. So we have the period from Abraham to Christ. That also ended with man's desperate failure, for the Jew took his Messiah and nailed him to the cross.
When we come to the church period, This also ends with a shaded period, because you will remember to illustrate that, and we'll come to it eventually, God gives to us the history of seven churches, which themselves become a picture of the whole age, which ends with the Laodicean Church, a church to which God said, because you're neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth. So the Age of Grace will end with the failure of the Church and its inability to stand for God pure and unmixed.
The legacy and age is that which brings to an end the age in which we are living. Then we have the Great Tribulation ending this period. Oh, it starts fairly smoothly. It starts although the church has been taken away, when people have gotten over the shock, then a man comes into the picture to rule the world in large part, and he'll seem to bring peace, but only for a short space of time, and then it will be shattered, and then there will be horror such as the world has never known, and that will come to an end. when the Lord Jesus returns to the Mount of Olives and puts an end to that dispensation and begins his own, which is his one thousand years reign.
But even that ends with the release of Satan and the leading of Magog and Magog into battle, and God himself will destroy them with fire coming out of heaven and bringing time to an end. And then we'll be ushered in. the eternal state. Now that roughly is what we have on the chart. So let me go now to the first dispensation and talk with you about the introduction of light. Now before beginning here you will notice these three globes here. One is white at the top, the other is shaded dark in the middle, and then here we have the drawing of a tree with fruit on it.
grasslands and a serpent round of three. Now Mr. Booth believes that when we read, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, that there is a gap between those two statements. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And as we know it can be, He translates it, and the earth became without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the beast. Now that is called the cataclysmic theory. Now I was told very recently, everybody's tossed that over.
I said, well, don't say everybody because you can't count me out. I still am inclined to believe that the cataclysmic theory has something going for it. because in Isaiah, chapter forty-five, I think it is, maybe the eighteenth verse, it says, He created not the earth empty or waste or void. That's what it says. I'm also told that that refers to the flood, but reading that whole chapter I failed to find the flood in it. And I'm not prepared to throw this theory overboard, because a man's footprint was found beside the skeleton of a dinosaur. Now, I'm not going to be dogmatic either, but I still need a little more persuading.
But it's not too important, except that, for me, it is an illustration of a number of things. We know that God created the physical light. It didn't necessarily happen at that moment when God said, let there be light. The earth was in darkness. and he was going to introduce light and banish its darkness. Now, when God created man, he created him in his own image perfect. Man fell and became empty and void and waste.
And if indeed the cataclysmic theory has anything going for it, it is an illustration of man who was made perfect but who fell into sin and his heart became dark and submerged in evil and void and empty and entirely waste. But then it says, the Spirit of God brooded upon the face of the waters. And we know that they could never have been a change in man, as they never could have been a change in the earth at large, if the Spirit of God had not hovered like a dove over that screen and caused things to change. Light always speaks of God.
In fact, the Bible says God is light. It's four minutes or twelve. Where did the time go? I'm glad I have tonight also. You know, God is light. And light as we know it, physical light is a beautiful picture of God. Some of us have gone over this a little earlier, so I'm not going to go into detail here. But you know, if you examine the components of light, you'll find that there are blue rays at one end of the spectrum, and there are red rays at the other end of the spectrum, and yellow rays in between. When a shaft of light is broken up, it's broken up into these component parts.
There is that which is fruit, causes fruit bearing, those are the ultraviolet rays. There is that at the other end of the spectrum which is warming. That's the reason why when you stand in the sun you get warm. And then there are those yellow rays in the center and those are the ones that illuminate us and cause us to be able to see. Now God is light and it is only as our lives are linked with God's light that our lives can be fruitful. It is only as our lives are linked with God that our lives can be warm and attractive. And it's only as our lives are linked with God that we can see as we ought to see. Otherwise we are blind.
God is light. There are other things about light which illustrate God. Do you realize that light is the only thing that can land upon filth and not be defiled by it? God's the only one who could deal with man's sin and not be defiled in the process. Do you realize that light always travels in straight lines? There's nothing crooked about light and there's nothing crooked about God. God will never become a partner to a man's sin. Light is that which we know that travels, the things we know, travels the fastest. A hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second, light is fast. God is fast.
Oh, sometimes he doesn't seem to be, but when God sees fit to move, he moves rapidly. God can solve problems when his time comes very, very rapidly. And light also, you know, is that which we couldn't live without. I wonder if there's somebody here and you're not saved. Do you realize, I remember going into a cave once in the bowels of the earth And as we were being shown the stalactites and the stalagmites and things of interest, the guide suddenly pointed to one of the lamps and she said, you see that green moss growing around the lamp? It only started after we put the lights there.
Nothing can live without light. God is light. If you're not saved, you haven't God. That's why the Bible describes you as being dead in trespasses and in sins. and it isn't until you get to know God that your life will become a truly living thing. And you can't come into contact with God without taking the Lord Jesus into consideration. He himself, who never told a lie, said, No man cometh unto the Father but by me. The Lord Jesus left heaven. He went to the cross.
He died on the cross. in order that he might atone for your sin. But although he did this for you, unless you receive him, unless you yield to him, unless you make him your very own Savior by receiving him into your heart, it will be as though he never died for you. Because he says, behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him. until he has your invitation he will not come into your heart until you invite him in he will not enter your life and until he enters your life since God is light your life is without light and without light you cannot live that's why today you're dead in trespasses in trespasses and in sin but you know it doesn't have to stay that way today can make a difference Today you can come and say, I do believe that I'm a sinner.
I realize deep down in my heart that I'm lust and that I've grieved God and that God would be perfectly just to keep me out of heaven. I also believe that Jesus died on the cross for me. I'm not going to keep him out of my heart any longer. Today I want him to be my Savior and I want my life to be brought into contact with God. Now we're going to go back to this tonight, for we haven't yet talked about this period, only just the beginning of it. Shall we pray? Our Heavenly Father, we thank thee that thou hast given to us thy word. We realize too, O Lord, that it is so profound and remarkable that we would be so foolish to imagine that we more than others know what it all means.
But we pray that in any measure that these things can be helpful to us, by thy Holy Spirit, thou administer them to our hearts. And we pray that we might find this not only an interesting time, but a time of true spiritual blessing. And Lord, we would commend to thee any heart that is in doubt about knowing thee. Grant that this morning. might be the time when they might come into contact with thee through the Lord Jesus, who gave himself for them.