The fourth dispensation, known as the Church Age or the interruption of grace, began with Christ's ascension and the descent of the Holy Spirit to indwell believers, and will end with Christ's return. This age, distinct from previous dispensations, is characterized by the Holy Spirit's indwelling presence rather than His anointing of specific individuals. The sermon traces the historical progression of the church through the seven letters to the churches in Asia Minor, highlighting periods of love, persecution, popularity, corruption, reformation, dead Protestantism, and finally, the lukewarm indifference of the Laodicean era, signifying the end times. The practical application for believers in this age involves exercising their abilities through persistent prayer, seizing opportunities by walking in wisdom and speaking with grace, and utilizing their liberty to spread the gospel, mirroring Christ's sufficiency and the apostles' dedication.
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close your eyes, but don't do that. You might fall asleep. You've got the title never. Listen from it. Infantation number four is the infantation that we then titled the interruption of grace because its grace is that which gives to us, it gives its name that it's able to call the lady's grace. Every day, grace is about faith for us, whether we are Jews or Gentiles. It was in grace that the Lord Jesus laid aside his glory and came down to be born in a stable and cradled in a manger and eventually to go to the place called Calvary and lay down his life for us.
So grace certainly is that virtue which automatically gives its name this fourth dispensation. An interruption between or in God's program for the Jew. You'll remember that red line at the base of the chart that is interrupted at this point where we have an age in bracket painted blue. You recall that. Now this is the only dispensation of the fifth. I believe, at which there is not an overlap. I pointed out to you earlier that each dispensation overlaps the other.
So you get Adam to Noah and Noah appears and the dispensation, the next one begins at Noah and goes to Abram. And then again there's an overlap there and the third dispensation goes from Abram to Christ. However the fourth dispensation does not begin until the Lord Jesus ascends, goes to his Father, and sends the Spirit of God down. Now you remember the blue line that comes down, because for the first time in human history, the Spirit of God, who from time to time on many occasions, especially anointed men of God, came down upon them and empowered them with a task for God.
this temptation, the Spirit of God comes down to take up his abode in the heart of the believer. So that's where the dispensation begins, and again it ends very distinctly and very especially at the moment of the return of the Lord Jesus of the air to catch away his own. Now remember again on this chart, we had a drawing of seven lamps, and we read together the letters or excerpts from the letters to the seven churches in Asia Minor. And I reminded you of three things.
First of all, that when those letters were written, they were letters essentially meant for each of those seven churches for that particular day, and dealt with problems that existed at that time in those seven different churches. But a second thing that God did was describe for us in those seven letters the condition that exists at this present moment somewhere in the Church of God. Somewhere there are conditions that have existed in everything. Somewhere today in the Church of God there are conditions or surrounding the Church of God. that existed in Smyrna and Pergamot and Tyra and Sardis and Philadelphia and of course Laodicea.
Now we know here that this dispensation, like the fruit that have gone before it, ends with a shaded section because while the first dispensation ended with immorality, and the second ended with idolatry, and the third ended with infamy, the crucifixion of the Messiah, This one ends with indifference. That's the reason why we have the Laodicean Church mentioned at the end, and you'll recall that was a church that was neither hot nor cold, and therefore God was going to judge it. He said he abhorred their lukewarmness. I did give to you very quickly a survey of the ages last night, taking these seven letters because...
Not only does God give to us in those seven letters, that which is appropriate for each of the seven churches at that time, and not only does it give to us a picture of what is happening in the church today in one part or another where conditions correspond with the conditions in those seven churches, but using those seven churches, he gives to us a panoramic history of the church. And I mentioned this, I mentioned it again just very quickly in passing, after the first century, in which we read in the book of the Acts when the church was very active, very much on fire, very concerned about the will of God, and willing to say anything rather than be silent, eventually, in the middle of the second century, organization took over, and the church became very lethargic.
Now in the first letter, the letter to the Ephesians, God says, you've left your first love. So this was the first stage in retrogression for the church, the middle of the second century. The second letter is a letter to a modern church, Smyrna, and it corresponds to that period which goes from the middle of the second century all the way through the third century to the beginning of the fourth century. when the church was very much persecuted. The third letter, the Letter to Pergamot, is a letter that was written to a church who would enjoy a measure of popularity in the second.
And you will remember that in the fourth and fifth and sixth centuries, Constantine, the emperor had gotten converted. And so there's many Christianity, a popular religion, and that popularity lasted. What a change from the Sicilian immediately before it. Undoubtedly, the church leveled in its acceptance, but it became a very dangerous one. So let's take root. The fourth, the fifth, and the sixth saw the church settling down to become a popular religion. Now, that paved the way. for the fourth letter and the fourth period when Rome took over.
And so we go from the seventh century all the way through the thirteenth century. There you have medieval days, there you have the the dark middle ages, that's where you have the Inquisition and all of these things. That's a long period in the Turkish history when Rome was dominant and the church was so very badly colluded because of it. But then came the Reformation. Martin Luther came into the picture of the fourteenth and the fifteenth century, the Reformation could play, and the roots of the Reformation continued through that fifteen-centurance, and the church had a loose version, and getting the letter to Luce to Scottish, leave the letter to Scottish, and you have that period of time.
Then, like, well, always happens, eventually, then settle down, and so you have the new Protestantism. You either two centuries, the fruits of the Reformation, sort of settling down into a dead Protestantism. So that finally God has to move again, and a remnant comes out of that dead Protestantism, which is portrayed for us in the letter of Brotherly Love, the letter to the Church of Philadelphia, and then finally we'll move into our own age, which is represented by the last of those letters, the letter to the Church of the Laodicean, when once again the Church has become infected in large measure, this time because of being neither hot nor cold.
And since that's the last letter, it's a reminder to us that we are living in the last day. Now, my thought this morning was, I did mention too, and perhaps I should mention it for the sake of the tape, that what we did after portraying the age, using these seven letters to the seven churches, was to remind our hearts that the interruption of growth, that this sensation... was called the church age, or the church period, was an age in which the Lord Jesus was thankful. Everything depended upon him, God sent him, he became the only means of entry into heaven, and the message of that period is the message about Christ.
And I mentioned to you the past and the present in the book he said, he did, something this, something will come. He did come to the earth, he did come to the earth, and he will come to the earth. He did come to the earth to receive. He did come to the earth to receive. He did come to the earth to receive unto himself all of his people, and that will bring that meditation to a close. Now this morning, since we are in the morning, taking a peek at each of the grass, practical tools and a practical challenge from these letters, what is the practical challenge that surely is meant to reach our heart as we think about and we study this force, this temptation?
If indeed the Lord Jesus is his sum and token, if indeed from the center to the circumference, the Lord Jesus is God's message for this particular age, it is incumbent upon us as believers to recognize our solemn responsibility to spread this news. And I want to read with you from Colossians chapter four. I don't know how long it's been since we've studied this little Old Testament article. It's a very beautiful article. I don't want to take up too much time in doing this, but we ought to put it into its background. It's a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote. He wrote thirteen letters that he had in our New Testament.
Of course, he wrote more letters than thirteen, but these thirteen were inspired of God and found their way into the sacred canon and are part of God's instruction for us and have been down for years since the New Testament was written or was assembled. Now, a Paul's letter might be a good idea, but I'll reserve it. And Paul's letters, which will refer to him, we have the scholars divided into four groups. We have two letters that are what is called F-catalogical.
That is, they have to do with future things. Now, those are his two letters to the Thessalonians. Then we have three letters. Now, we have four letters that are called Soteriological. Now, you may come across these words. You don't have to remember them. But Soteri, though, is a Jewish meaning, Stacey. These are salvation letters. The verse in second letters of the Corinthians, the letter to the Galatians, and the letter to the Romans. Now, those are four letters that Paul wrote that have to do with salvation. Then we have four that are called Christological. And these are the four that Paul wrote in prison. Colossians is one of them, Ephesians is one of them, Philemon is one of them, and Philippians is one of them.
And these four letters have to do with Christ. They're called Christological, and if there is one of the four, then it's more Christological than the other. It's the letter from which we're going to read this morning. That's why I thought we should put it into the fourth dispensation. Now, the last three letters, first Timothy and Titus, and Saturn generally, but in that order, are called ecclesiological because they are letters that have these, they are pastoral epistles. Now, I don't expect you to remember all that, but that's the background into which we need to put this colossian letter. Now, I said that if there's one that's more epistemological than the others, it's this one.
Now, I divided this epistle up, and we should be taking a month on it, and not just... but I divided it up as I did it into four parts that are, I think, very obvious. In the first part, I won't read it, the verses in the Catholic religions and so on, but in the first part, the name of Christ is brought before the church. In fact, it's mentioned five times in the first four verses. And so, for some pro-verses or so, we have the name of Christ brought before the church, and it's associated with all your faith. In the second section, we have the majesty of Christ displayed in the church.
And we have language like this. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature, by him, who were all things created to go in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were made up by him and for him and he is before all things and by him all things. That's my very, very much. That's the language. because the Apostle, I believe, having brought the name of Christ before the church, now displayed the majesty of Christ through the church. And we get to that place because we haven't moved out of chapter one. But if chapter one comes to an end and goes through chapter two and chapter three and chapter four, we get the long part of the letter, and in that letter we have the simplicity of Christ exercised in the church.
It is proved to be the adequate one. He is the sufficient Christ. And so in dealing with this sufficiently, it's not surprising that it takes two whole chapters and parts, the end of the first and the beginning of the fourth, because that's our big topic. And then finally, as chapter four comes to an end, we have the messengers of Christ valued by the church. But you'll notice it all, the Christ, the name of Christ, the majesty of Christ, the proficiency of Christ, the messengers of Christ. It's at a Christological level. Now, when we come to chapter four, we begin to get into the practical invitation of it.
If Christ fills the physical, if indeed Christ fills all and in all, if Christ fills our lives, then we have to have a practical impact upon us. and do we find that the writer, the Apostle Paul, is never so heavenly-minded as to be no earthly duty. He never has his head in the clouds, but he has his face firmly planted on the ground, and he never fails to remind us of a practical indication of knowing the Lord, and walking with the Lord, and professing to love the Lord. So when we get to Colossians chapter four...
He is in the middle of a dispensation in which he talks to wives and to husbands and to children and to fathers and to servants. Only now he comes to masters. And he says, verse one of chapter four, Masters, live unto your servants that is just an equal, knowing that you also have a master in heaven. So he brings to an end these specific matters to whom he's spoken, and then he says, whether your wives or husbands, Whether you're children of parents, whether you're servants or masters, there are certain things incumbent upon all of you. And I chose this for this morning because it gives to us a practical lesson that we have to learn with regard to our own involvement in enhancing the things of God and in spreading them.
Look at this little expression in verse two. continue in prayer and watching the same with Thanksgiving would all pray also for us that God would open unto us a door of utterance that would be the mystery of Christ for which I am also in bond that I may make a naked manifest as I ought to speak. Now here he's talking about prayer but his concern is something wider than just praying. I believe that what he is saying, dear, is this. As a believer, during this crusade, which is such a challenging time, you have an opportunity to exercise your ability.
I'm going to come back to that. And lots of people say, I can't do this. They say, I can't do this, I can't do that. They say, I can't do this. I can't do that. But if they're American, they say, I can't do it. But, however, they have a list of things that they cannot do. Because God is saying, God is serious, he's saying, he's saying, forget what they cannot do. You're responsible to God for whatever ability you have and for whatever you can do, but whatever you cannot do, you can pray. You can pray, and after all, there is nothing more important. Now, let me come back to it. So he's saying, exercise your ability.
I don't know how you assess your ability. I don't know how you assess your capability. But you are responsible, God, one hundred percent, for exercising that ability that you have, one hundred percent of it, in furthering his cause and bringing about the accomplishment of his will and reaching the rock for heaven. A little further down, he says, look at verse five, walking wisdom toward him that are without. Redeeming the time. Now, here's our second, this person. Hunting you in prayer is the first. Redeeming the time is the second. Let your faith be always great, send you with God, if you may know how you ought to answer every man.
Says Paul. it's encumbered upon you, it's your responsibility to exercise your ability, and also to seize your opportunity. That's what redeeming the time means, seizing your opportunity. I'm going to come back to that too. Let's go a little bit further. In fact, let's go a long way further on. Look at verse seventeen as the letter is coming to a close. Send to our people. Say, he is to the ministry. which thou hast received in the Lord as thou fulfilled it. The sanitation by the hand of Lee Paul, remember my bonds. That's the third expression. Remember my bonds greatly with you.
Amen. Now what is Paul saying here? When he says continue in prayer, he's reaching out into a wider area and he's saying, exercise very good. When he says redeem the time, he is covering another wide area and saying, seize your opportunity. When he says here, remember my bond, he's saying, and contrast your lot with my captive lot and use your liberty. That's the third thing. So I want to use these three things to sum up what God expects of you as a Christian. Endure the fact that during this age of grace a very special responsibility evolves upon you.
You've got to exercise your ability. You've got to seize your opportunity. And you've got to use your liberty. Now how can I very quickly, in eight minutes, comment on these things? You exercise your ability. Continue in prayer. Now, the Christian who doesn't pray is the Christian who's not going to accomplish anything. You can be the most gifted believer in the world. You can have the greatest talent of any person in the world. And you can be very, very busy and active exercising that talent and that ability.
But if you don't pray, it's going to come to you. My, what a long time it's But the easiest thing for the Christian to neglect is praise. Because you can neglect it, nobody really knows, of course, eventually they find out, because your life becomes weak and it isn't very long before the devil takes advantage, and suddenly that which makes them admire you as a Christian becomes whittled away and they begin to assume what you are. Their prayerlessness is a sin, you know, one of those said, God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in preaching to pray for you. Prayerlessness is a sin, and God knows I'm speaking to my own heart when I say these things, because none of us ever pray as much as we should.
Exercise your ability, and he sums it up by saying, come to you in prayer. Now, this is an ability that is common to all. Now, praying does not absolve you from using your other abilities. God has given them to you primarily. Not that you might make a living. Not that you might make a splash. Not that you might get a name from yourself. Not that, sir, people might admire you because of the talent of the person you are. But that God will might be accomplished in and for you. That's why you're willing to use these abilities and these talents. But the one that is common to us all is the ability to pray.
Now we could take time and talk about praying. We could pray, according to these verses, for ourselves. We're also to pray for the saints. We are to pray for the lust. We are to pray, Paul says, for me, that is, to the servants of God that his door of utterance might be opened up. Then let me ask you. Do you have a missionary handbook? Do you have a work in church, a home work in handbook? If you don't, then it's less than something because you have a special responsibility to pray to these people who many of your own assembly are commending to the work of God and should be praying for them when the work of God is put into their hand.
If I say this often enough and I keep on having pushed the knife and giving it a little twist, maybe I'll turn you off and get one of these books, two of these books, and to read them every day and to use them as part of your prayer list so that you pray for the work of God. Now, how are we to pray? Well, we are to pray with faith, continuing prayer and watch in the Holy Spirit. You know, I'm sure that the idea behind this is not just being on the alert of praying and watching for the answer, because you accept what you answer.
And like the old lady, I don't know how many times I've ever told this story, who heard the preacher talk about faith as a grain of mustard seed, and a man who had it being able to say to the mountain, the room to the midst of the sea, she went home remembering she had a house with a very lovely picture window, and the sea in front of it was between her and the sea, there was just a hill. and interfered with her view of the water. So she decided, how she'd be worth a lot more, and her view would be so much more pleasant if you could see the water. So she asked the Lord to take away the hill while she was sleeping that night. When she got up, went to the window, the hill was still there, and she put her hands on her hips, and she said, I thought so.
Now that's the way we pray. That's the way we'll get our answers. We are to pray watching. And I have an idea that one of the thoughts here is we're supposed to pray rushing for the answer because we're expecting it. And then we ought to do it with Thanksgiving. And the word used in our little phrases, continue in prayer. Continue in prayer. I was very interested to read a while ago that expression that we had in the Word of God about praying always. You may say, how do you pray always? Well, they discovered some very old manuscripts which were at an evident degree in a doctor's office.
They were the squirreling of a doctor. And a word was used in one of them that is using that scripture, praying always. And it was the report on a patient written by the doctor to say he had an incessant cup. Same word was used as it used in the Bible. Now a man who has an incessant cough, he doesn't the moment he opens his eyes start to cough and then he coughs and coughs and cough while he's eating his breakfast and cough and while he's eating and he's eating his breakfast and cough until he falls asleep. No, that's not the way he coughs. He coughs and he coughs and he coughs and he coughs. That's an incessant cough. And so it is with prayer.
Young men ask a very different way that you are going to make. So would you tell me how long do you pray at a time? I'm sure the member is going to tell him that he spent nights in prayer, hours in prayer. He said, young men, I seldom pray more than ten minutes of a night. The young men were taken aback. They said, the preacher, I try not to go ten minutes of a night. Now that means that in prayer. That means praying always. Now we are to continue in prayer. Exercise your ability. Now the next story is to seize your opportunity. Receive the time. Now have your believers redeem the time. You want to know it's right here.
Look what goes before it and look what goes after it. Walk in wisdom at verse five and talk with grace. That's verse six. If you want to redeem the time, that's what you've got to do. You've got to walk in wisdom and you've got to talk with grace. How you walk and how you talk controls the measure in which you are able to see your opportunity. If you walk in such a way as people that justifiably criticize you, you're not redeeming the time, they'll say, that's a Christian, I don't want to be one. If you talk in such a fashion that you offend them and you cut up their ears, you won't be redeeming the time because they'll turn you up and they won't be even listening to you.
Notice the word Christian, and so the image walk. That's not only walking upright with your mouth, that's walking wisely. It involves walking uprightly, but you also got to walk wisely. I was going to give you a notice right there, but I don't have a hand to do it. There's a difference between just walking uprightly and walking wisely. And there's a difference between telling the truth and talking with grace. You can tell the truth and you can offend a person, and each person just abides in being with them. There is some people who know. They really want people to know about the Lord Jesus, but when they tell them so offensive, they ram it down their throat that they accomplish absolutely nothing.
So the man who continues in prayer is the man who will not only be right awake to his opportunities, but he'll make sure the way he lives has the right time of his death and the way he speaks has the right time of his death. So that he'll be at least going to make in his own prayers when he prays for the lost. He will redeem the time and be able to thank people for the Lord Jesus. Now that's a responsibility incumbent upon every one of us. We'll continue in prayer and we are to redeem the past. But you know the classic expression is, quote, Remember my God. Now what did Paul have in mind when he reminds them that he's a man who's boundly turned toward God?
What's he trying to tell them? Is he saying, I want you to remember my bond so that, along with the privation that goes with my captivity, you'll be that much more sympathetic towards? No, that's not in Paul's mind. He was suffering privately. When he says, remember my bonds, is he reminding them of the peril that he was constantly in? He was in peril, but now I don't think that would make his mind. When he says, remember my bonds, he's saying, do things to them. He's saying, realize how earnest I am about these things of God.
They matter so much to me that I've lost my liberty. Now you've got to follow my example as I follow the Lord Jesus. And also, when you think of my bonds, you're bound to pray the law for me, and I need you for it. But finally, he's saying this, and I think it is probably the same thing, remember my bonds, and contrast with my bondage, your liberty, your freedom, and make sure that you do what I cannot do. I'm bound, I'm restricted, I'm limited, I'm confined, but you're free and you must go and do what I cannot do. I have at my liberty.
You have your liberty. You must use liberty. You have your liberty. You must use it. You get to know the writer says, so do you know how to do that? Using your liberty not as a cloak of maliciousness, we must use Christians to our liberty to life. We must use it, says that New Testament writer, for the glory of God. I think that was in Paul's mind. Christ your freedom, he says, and use your freedom, because you don't know how long it's going to be prepared to live. Well, my time has gone again. Shall we have a word of faith? Our Father...
Our hearts are deeply grateful to be that we were born in the age in which we were born again. But they remark on a time when God temporarily has made us either Jew, when God has introduced a communion in parenthesis, in which whether a man is a Jew or a Gentile, through the Lord be so she can come to know peacefully, his sins forgiven, and the certainty of heaven. O Lord, this has been joyous and privileged for our lives. What a responsible people you are. God forbid that we should forget our responsibility.
But the grant of these three little phrases, continuing prayer, continuing prayer, redeem the time and remember my life, might stay with us through the day, another day, stimulating it, to exercise our ability, to see our opportunity, and to use our...