The first two dispensations, from Adam to Noah and from Noah to Babel, illustrate God's plan for humanity and man's repeated failure to adhere to divine order. The first dispensation, characterized by creation's light, conscience, and divine command, saw humanity's fall through disobedience, leading to the flood. The second dispensation, focused on the institution of order, granted man dominion and established capital punishment, but ultimately ended in humanistic pride and the scattering at Babel. Both periods highlight man's tendency to reject God's ways, leading to divine judgment and the need for God's intervention.
Restored with Diffio
Audio restored with Diffio. Diffio processed the original archive recording to reduce noise and produce a cleaner listening version; the original stays available.
Speech quality score (model-estimated, SCOREQ): before 1.79 → restored 4.27
Now a friend of mine who used to spend his summers along with others of us have word of life, whenever he wore one of these things, used to call it Fido. It didn't follow him, but it had a leash. And I invariably get into trouble with these things. This one is very temperamental. So I hooked up the other. Did anybody have a problem hearing me this morning? Does anybody at all have a problem hearing me this morning? If it's working at this point, if it stops working, I'll discard it and we'll go to the other little gadget there.
Now all I have to do is find a place to put it. Does that sound anything like? Is that going to work there? Is it sounding all right? Mr Gilbert was saying that he felt like Belshazzar, I couldn't make up my mind whether it was that he saw the handwriting on the wall or just that his knees smote one against the other. Will you open please to the Book of Genesis again and then I'm going to go over the chart once more very quickly just to refresh your memory. We'll be doing this from time to time and tonight we'll begin reading at Genesis chapter two.
Genesis chapter two, where it says verse seven, and the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Now what we have there is the, of course, the creation of man. Let's go a little further down, verse fifteen. And the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying. And you know what it was that God commanded him.
Now will you go to chapter eight, please, and look at verse fourteen. I think perhaps we'll read verse twenty-three of chapter seven, first of all. And every living substance was destroyed, which was upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle, and the creeping things and the fowl of the heaven, and they were destroyed from the earth, and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark and the waters prevailed upon the earth in hundred and fifty days. Now I just read to you the beginning of the first dispensation and the end of the first dispensation.
Now go to verse fifteen of chapter eight, and God spake unto Noah, saying, Go forth of the ark, thou and thy wife and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee, bring forth with thee, every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth. And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives, with him. Now turn over, please, to chapter eleven.
and verse thirty-two. Perhaps again we should read a little earlier in that chapter eleven, chapter, in verse nine, chapter eleven, verse nine, therefore is the name of it called Babel. The previous verse read, The Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth, and they left off to build the city, therefore is the name of it called Babel, because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth, and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
And I just read to you the beginning and the end of the second dispensation. Now let me go to the chart if Fido will allow me to get that far. He's coming, and I'm here. And I believe he's still working. Right now you will recall what we are doing here is using the chart which is called from eternity to eternity. One side to the other of the chart. Now please remember this is not one eternity and that's another eternity.
Time is just a little section that is sort of intruded upon eternity. Eternity never had a beginning, it never has an ending, but what we are doing here is taking the chunk out of it that is entitled Time, that is called Time. And we are dividing it up into six different time periods, some longer than others. Each one is illustrated from a day in the creation. Now we talked this morning about the original creation, about the reduction of the earth to a chaotic condition, and then the recreation when we read that God began it by saying, Let there be light and there was light.
The first day illustrates for us this first period of time or dispensation. the second day, the second dispensation, the third day, the third dispensation, and so on through the sixth days. And after each one it says, the evening and the morning were the first day. the evening and the morning or the second day, and so on. But when we get to the seventh day when God rested, there is no mention of the evening and the morning, because it represents an eternity that has no ending. So we are concerned with these six periods, these six dispensation.
Again this morning I reminded you that each one of them ends with a shaded portion because every one of them has a dark closing. Now my first argument with Mr. Booth and the chart. Had I been designing it, I would not have started one dispensation where the other one leaves up, because dispensation, periods of time, do not end at one moment and the next one begin the next moment. Always there is an overlapping period between dispensation. That's the reason why, while here we begin with Adam, before the dispensation ends, Noah is introduced to us.
And then we carry on with Noah, and before that dispensation ends, Abraham is introduced to us. And then we go on from Abraham to Christ. And then, of course, before this dispensation ends, the Lord Jesus is introduced to us. And so it goes all the way through. And it's very valuable to remember with dispensations that they always overlap. And there'll be times when you're reading the history of mankind, you'll find these overlapping periods. and sometimes it's important to remember that the dispensations do just a little overlap.
Now why, and perhaps I ought to mention the days, because some of you from way back there cannot read the chart, that's all right as long as you can get the general idea. This line here, coming down from the chaotic earth here and referring to the recreation, says the first day, light. Now we entitled this first day the introduction of life. The second one here reads the second day the rule of the heavens or government. We have entitled this one the institution of order. Third day the earth appears.
We call this one the indoctrination of Israel. because just as the earth appeared on the third day, so in the third dispensation Israel, the people of God, appears and is taught, instructed, and carries an especial responsibility before God. The next line says, Fourth Day, the heavens garnished, the light is arranged, And this was the day when the sun and the moon and the stars were created, the sun representing the Lord Jesus, the moon which reflects the light of the sun representing the church, and the stars, the individual believers.
And this illustrates for us the church period. Even the church period had a dark ending. I mentioned it this morning. The first day says the waters bring forth. And this becomes illustrative of this fifth period, the second half of which is what we call the Great Tribulation. Now the Church will not pass through the Great Tribulation. It's impossible that the Church should pass through the Great Tribulation because probably ninety percent of it is already in heaven. But the fact is that it is also called the time of Jacob's trouble because it is a period that has especially to do with the Jew.
But I don't want to go ahead of myself. We'll come to that later. The sixth day is entitled Adam and Eve and Dominion. And it becomes illustrative of the reign of the King of Kings this thousand years, which we usually refer to as the Millennium. This then is the general tenure of the chart, and I hope that you can at least gather that wherever you may be. I think it's rather striking that right in the center of these six dispensations stands the cross. Have you ever noticed how God always puts the Lord Jesus in the midst?
Did you ever chant the words in John three sixteen? Never quote that verse like this, God so loved the world. For the verse begins, for God so loved the world. And if you go through those words you'll find the central one is the Son. Once again he is there in the midst. When three crosses were erected on Calvary, where was the Lord Jesus? He was there on the middle cross. And so it goes, and so it seems to be in the matter of time. Now why should the first day of the recreation illustrate for us this period from Adam to Noah, which we are calling the introduction of light?
How during this first period in time was light introduced? Well, I want to suggest to you that there are three kinds of light that were introduced during that first period. There was the light of creation. there was a light of conscience and there was the light of communication because God spoke to the man. Would you turn in your Bible, please, to Romans chapter one. We read about the light of creation when God said, let there be light and there was light. Now I want you to notice a comment here in Romans chapter one.
It says that God spoke to men, and he spoke to them through the creation. Romans one and verse twenty, for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. When God made the creation and God gave physical light, he removed from men any excuse that they might have for not knowing him. Because it was possible, through the light of creation, at least in an imperfect fashion, to get to know something about God.
For his works preached him. The things that he had created proclaimed him. And so concerning the light of creation it says that these are guilty inasmuch that they clearly saw the things of the creation, and so should have understood by them God's eternal power and indeed his very Godhead. So it was a period in which light was introduced by way of creation. Now turn over to the next chapter in Romans, and look this time at the verse fifteen in chapter two.
The work of the Lord says, is written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing them witness, and their thoughts for meanwhile accusing or excusing one another. in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel. Now we know that the conscience is a very imperfect thing, because it has to be educated, it has to be schooled. And yet God who has given the light of creation has also given the light of conscience so that every man has a conscience. Now some consciences are more tender than others.
Some consciences are more educated than others. Some consciences, on the other hand, the Word of God says, are feared. But every man has a conscience. and through that conscience God speaks to him, and he becomes responsible to God as to what he does through the light, the measure of the light that conscience brings to him. Now let's go back again to Genesis and these early chapters of Genesis, and notice that after the creation of man, in chapter two It says, and I read the verse to you earlier, verse sixteen, and the Lord God commanded the man.
God not only brought into this first dispensation the light of creation, which was where it began, and the light of conscience as God dealt with men and the people of the earth, but there was also the light of command. God communicated with man and told man, what he had in mind for them. Now we said this morning that a dispensation is really comprised of two things, God's dealing in a special way with man and man's response to that dealing. Now during this first period men had examples of what was good and right and proper.
Let me mention Abel and his sacrifice. Now that was very, very early on in this particular dispensation. Now you'll remember that Cain and Abel were brothers. I'm inclined to think that they were twin brothers. If you would like to know more about that, talk to me at some time, at some point about it. However, even twins had one older than the other. Now Cain was a farmer. And Abel... was a sheep herder. But they both brought offerings to the Lord, you'll remember, and God had no respect to Cain's offering, but he did have respect to Abel's offering.
Now why? You know why, because Cain's offering was bloodless, and he offered of the fruit of the ground which he had produced in his own efforts. But Abel, on the other hand, had taken of his flock, and shed blood and offered an offering to God, and God accepted his offering. Now very, very strikingly, I don't know whether you've ever noticed it, but it says that Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. Now we know how precisely and explicitly God gave that command later. It's obvious to me that that was the command that God gave earlier also.
That's why Ableton knew not only to bring of the flock, but to bring of the first thing of the flock and to bring of the fact thereof. Now he obeyed God. Cain could have done the same, but he was too proud to go to his brother. to get an animal from his brother, he chose instead to bring what he himself had produced, and God rejected it. The reason being, of course, that the sacrifice right at the very, very beginning was to be a picture of the Lord Jesus, God's sacrifice, who should shed his blood upon the cross. So Abel was an example. But men didn't follow that example.
I think of another one from this period. There was a man named Enoch, and you read about him in Genesis chapter five, and it says, Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. If you will read the story, also it's a very short one in Genesis five, but there's a comment on it in the New Testament, and his history can be summed up very briefly, he accompanied with God, he was caught away by God, And he was commended of God. Now he lived during this period when light was introduced. And his response was a right response. He walked with God.
That meant when God went a short step, Enoch went a short step. When God took a stride, Enoch took a stride. He not only made God his company, but he measured his footsteps alongside God's footsteps. He walked. with God. Now Enoch was then an example. Men could have followed his example, but most of them did not. And when the dispensation is coming to an end, there's another man named Noah, a man who was a friend of God's like Abraham, a man to whom God confided his plan. He was going to destroy men from off the earth.
but he was still going to have those through whom he could re-people the earth after the flood. Now Noah preached for a hundred and twenty years, and he lived for God during that period. He so believed God that in the middle of a field he made a boat called the Ark, and although men probably ridiculed him. Yet the day came when for the first time in their lives After Noah had closed the door of the ark, correction, Noah never did. God shut the door. Why? Because Noah was a man of compassion. And when men came beating upon the door and upon the sides of the ark, I believe that Noah's heart would have taken it to him to open the door.
But when God shuts the door, no man can open it. So God was very careful to shut the door. for he didn't shut the door until he had first of all said to Noah, Noah, with all your family, go into the ark. Correction. God did not say to Noah, go into the ark. He said, Come thou and all thy house into the ark, which indicates that God went in first and then invited Noah and his family to follow him. Of course, as they rode the crest of those flood waves, they were not alone. God was with them. Now Noah was an example for a hundred and twenty years. Men could have followed his example, but they didn't. Now God has given to us the story of this first dispensation during which there was the introduction of light, the light of creation, the light of conscience, and the light of command in order, not just that we might know what had happened, but in order that we might learn from these things.
In the first place it's possible for us to learn a very important lesson, although Adam had everything his heart could want for. And along with that the company of the God of heaven, everything in the garden was lovely, that was really true of Eden, in spite of the fact that he had everything. The day came when he chose his own way instead of choosing God's way. That should be a lesson to us. We whose lives have been so blessed, we who have so much, let's be very, very careful that we are not like Jezeerun.
Do you know what the Bible says of Jezeerun? It says Jezeerun waxed fat and kicked. And I think that that is sometimes what happens to the people of God. We must look at Adam's example and we must learn from it. We must also look at the examples of these men because the lesson we've to learn is this. You can have the lives of good men before you. You can observe them as they come and they go, but you can fail to learn the lessons that they teach. You know, Abel taught us or would teach us that to obey God is better than sacrifice.
His sacrifice was accepted because it was offered in obedience to God. And obedience is what God prizes. And Enoch tells us that the wise man walks step by step with God and doesn't allow his circumstances and those that surround him interfere with his company with and communion with God. A very necessary lesson to learn. And Noah, of course, teaches us that it doesn't matter how men may ridicule you. It doesn't matter how they may turn their back upon your testimony for the Lord Jesus.
You must not allow it to cause you to flag or grow weary or to give up. In the end, Noah was vindicated. But it was too late for those who fell back choking into the waters of the flood. Now can I stop here and ask you to ask yourself whether you are a Christian, whether, as I said this morning, your life has been brought into right relationship with God because remember the people that lived in Noah's day. The Bible says they were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark and knew not till the flood came and took them all away.
Judgment is coming. We're going to learn about that as we go along. But God only knows how much time you may have to prepare for that judgment. Many a man has said, Oh, I'm going to get saved sometime. But he's put it off and put it off and put it off until he put it off just once too many. And his opportunity of being saved was snatched away from him. This then is the first dispensation, Adam to Noah, and the chart suggests to us it is a period of something under seventeen hundred years.
That's a long period of time. We read about it, the creation of Adam, and then finally the period of the flood. So the dispensation, number one, began and the dispensation number one ended. But as it was ending in tragedy, the dark shaded part, Noah comes into the picture and he's prepared to usher in the second dispensation. Now this one we have called the Institution of Order. Because while we read of the first day, God said, Let there be light, and there was light.
God saw the light, that it was good, and the evening and the morning were the first day. Then it says, God divided the waters that were below the firmament together. He divided the waters that were above the firmament together, and that was all he did on the second day. But in doing that, he instituted... Now this becomes illustrative of the second period of time because in this second period of time God gives control to Noah over the replenished earth and he gives him some rules.
Now I want you to turn with me to Genesis, I think it's Genesis chapter nine. Will you do that please? Genesis chapter nine. And let's see what we can, what we read here concerning God's instruction to Noah. Remember now we are ushering in, or he is ushering in, the second dispensation in which we have the institution of order, or rule, or government. Call it what you will. And God blessed Noah and his sons, that's verse one of chapter nine, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replace the earth, and the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea, into your hand are they delivered.
Now you can see that the second dispensation begins very differently from the first dispensation. You go back to Adam, and you find him in the garden, and you see the beasts come into him to receive their names, and Adam names them. There was no fear in the heart of the beast for Adam, but God has put fear into the heart of the beast. For Noah, it's a different dispensation, it's a different period of time, and now man is given rule. Now look at the third verse. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you.
Now that also is different, because apparently man had been a vegetarian up until this time. But now it's a different dispensation. Man has not only been given rule over the brute creation, but part of it has been made meat for him. If you look at verse six, it says, Who so shedeth man's blood? By man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man. Now here you have the bringing into being of authority for capital punishment, and I can find nowhere in the Word of God where that authority has been abrogated.
I still believe today that capital punishment is in the plan of God, because it is still true that God made man in his own image. And if a man deliberately takes another man's life, then his own life should be forfeited. This was established as part of the early rule and government of the human being. Capital punishment. And then one other thing, as we come down to verse, verse eleven, I will establish my covenant with you. neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood, neither shall there be any more a flood to destroy the earth."
So the first thing is, the fear of man is put into the heart of the brute creation, and he is given dominion over them. The second thing is that part of the creation is given to him as meat, as food. The third thing is, part of this human government, the capital punishment, and the need for it, the authority for it, is to be recognized and exercised, and then finally that God has made a promise that He will not again destroy the earth by means of a flood. So the second dispensation, the institution of order, begins with Noah and his family.
Now you know that it isn't very long. Turn over the pages. Turn over the page. Let's go to chapter eleven and see how as time goes by, and this period is quite a bit shorter than the first one, our chart suggests is something less than four hundred and fifty years. Now I'm saying the chart says this, because I'm not persuaded that we can be absolutely dogmatic with regard to dates, but I also feel that there are reasons why these dates are here. Now it's a shorter period certainly than the first one, but see how it comes to an end.
The whole earth was of one language and of one speech, verse one of chapter eleven. and it came to pass as they journeyed from the east that they found a plane in the land of China, and they dwelt there, and they said, now this is man at large, man who, as in the first dispensation, has come to feel his feet, and although he doesn't feel it, he's got the swelled head, and now he says, they said one to another, go to. let us make brick and burn them thoroughly, and they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
And the Lord came down to see the city, and the tower, which the children of men builded, and the Lord said, Behold, the people is one. They have all one language, and this they begin to do. And now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to. Let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence. upon the face of all the city, and they left off to build a city. Now, did you notice that let us of man, and the second one, and the third one, and then God has only one?
Why, they said, let us make brick. They said, let us build us a city and a tower. And then they said, let us make us a name. And God said, let us go down and confound the language. So their clans were all destroyed and their tower came to naught. So our second dispensation comes to an end again with the total failure of man. Man is, during this dispensation, like the first one, chosen to put God out of his mind, chosen to believe that he in the universe is the only creature that matters.
You know, there is growing unhappiness and growing concern about a humanistic movement that is, that, well, it hasn't just started, but it is growing. And it is becoming a very real threat. And in many of our schools this very day, there are textbooks teaching humanism. There has been a humanistic manifesto issued. Maybe we'll say a little more about this if we have time, somewhat later on. But humanism goes right back to the first dispensation, and it...
characterizes the end of that dispensation. It's found way back in the second dispensation, and it characterizes the end of that second dispensation. We go back to the first. How did the first dispensation end? It ended with immorality. How did the second dispensation end? It ended with idolatry. will find that the third dispensation ends with infamy, for the heart of man is so vile that he whom God destroyed with a flood at the end of the first dispensation, who thought so much of himself that he was going to build a tower to heaven and rule God out of his existence, is the one who after the third dispensation took the Lord of life and glory.
and nailed him an object of scorn and delusion to a Roman gibbet. Is there anybody here who can believe there's anything good about the heart of man? Says the word of God, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart. We sing sometimes, are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? We tell the boys, girls sometimes. Though you're just a little boy, though you're just a little girl, you know you've already long ago told your first lie, practiced your first act of deceit.
And you know what has been happening? Your heart has been getting darker and darker and darker until today it's filled with darkness. But the Lord Jesus is the light of the world. If you'll open the door of your heart and invite him in, when the light comes into the darkened room, the darkness has to flee. And there's only one way that you can get rid of a dark heart. And that's by inviting the Lord, who is the light of heaven, into your heart as your Savior. Don't go on with a dark and sinful heart, because if you do, it will drag you down to hell.
Shall we bow in prayer? Our Heavenly Father, it is because we desire to hear thy voice through these things that we are together tonight, looking at the chart, reading thy words. listening to the message. And if indeed, O God, thou hast spoken to us, and we sit here in our seats challenged because we haven't taken the lives of godly men as our example, we haven't listened to the plea from Abel's sacrifice that we obey thee at all costs.
Perhaps we haven't yet gotten rid of a dark heart because the Lord Jesus is standing still on the outside of it. Oh, grant that whatever thy Spirit has in mind to say to us tonight, even in spite of ourselves, that we might hear him speaking to us and realize that we must respond, we must do what is pleasing to him. We ask in the name of the Lord Jesus, Thank