They were the chosen people of God. This was not a product of mass delusion, no figment of collective imagination, but a simple fact, demonstrated by many infallible proofs. The great I Am had personally led them by the hand from the iron furnace of Egypt with the promise of a land flowing with milk and honey. So when the children of Israel came to the border of that promised land they went up to take it. We have the word of Almighty God, they said. We have His promise that He will deliver this land into our hand. So up they went, and down they fell in horrific defeat, disillusionment and despair.
And they rose up early in the morning, and gat them up into the top of the mountain, saying, Lo, we be here, and will go up unto the place WHICH THE LORD HATH PROMISED...
Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites which dwelt in that hill, and smote them, and discomfited them, even unto Hormah. (Num.14:40-45)
The people acted on a clear promise God had made to them, yet He refused to honor their "obedience" to His word. Before we see the reason why, let's consider another similar case.
Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. (Ex.17:6)
Moses and Aaron were great men of God, faithful in all His house. When the children of Israel tried their patience beyond all human limits, Moses and Aaron interceded even more on their behalf. When they cried that they had no water to drink, Moses took their complaint to the LORD, then he followed God's instructions. But what did he get for "obeying" God's directive? He was barred from entering the promised land.
And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also.
And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them. (Num.20:11-12)
Like the children of Israel did before, in fact, exactly like them, Moses acted as the Lord had commanded him, and was punished for his actions. Now as the reader may be less patient with us than Moses was with his people, we will quickly admit that we did skip some passages between the quotes above. But we ask, what difference does it make? Didn't God say that He would deliver the land into Israel's hand? He most certainly did. Did He not command Moses to smite the rock? Yes; we saw the verse! Then what possible difference could the intervening passages make? God said it, I believe it, that settles it! But the difference to be made by the missing passages is the very difference that brings "faithful, trusting, obedient" Christians the world over into that same experience of defeat, disillusionment and despair. So we would do well to carefully consider those intervening passages and to see that they truly do make a difference.
In our first example in Numbers chapter 14, the people did go up to take the land, but not until after God had REVOKED His previous charge and CHANGED the instruction. When the spies returned from searching out the land, most reported that any attempt on Israel's part to take it would be shear suicide (Num.13:31-33). The people believed their evil report, and God responded by reversing His previous commandment. No longer were they to go up and take the promised land, but now, were commanded to remain for a generation in the wilderness.
But as for you, your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years... (Num.14:32-33)
But rather than submit themselves to the change, the people presumed upon God to act on His former promises; promises of a time now past and therefore no longer theirs to claim. Someone might say, But at least they obeyed in the end. Better late than never, right? But that's exactly the problem, they didn't obey at all! You see, to "obey" a commandment that God has revoked is not obedience, and to do so contrary to the present instruction is outright transgression.
And Moses said, Wherefore NOW do ye TRANSGRESS the commandment of the LORD? but it shall not prosper. Go not up, for THE LORD IS NOT AMONG YOU... (vss. 41-42)
It is clear that to obey a word from God which He Himself has since overridden can not be called obedience in any sense. Let not that man think that God shall be with him in his deed. The people did not "obey in the end". First they disobeyed by not going up as God commanded, then they transgressed further by going up after God had changed the order.
Then, just a few short chapters later, we find Moses himself committing the very same trespass at the waters of Meribah. We said above that Moses followed God's instructions when he smote the rock, and indeed he did. But like the children of Israel before him (and like so many do today) Moses followed the Lord's FORMER instruction, and in so doing, disobeyed God. Moses did have a word from God telling him to smite the rock, but that was before, on a previous occasion (Ex.17:6). BUT NOW the Lord required something different.
Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and SPEAK YE UNTO THE ROCK before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water (Num.20:8)
But alas, Moses' mood at that moment was not so much in line with this later rule as it was with the former. Moses was hot with anger and the Lord's previous call to STRIKE the rock was more suited to his present passion than this new commandment-come-lately. So now Moses has two sets of instructions, and both from God. But this was not a matter of deciding which "path to obedience" he would follow. What was true of Israel was true of Moses, and is every whit as true today; to "obey" a commandment that God has changed is not obedience, it is transgression, it is not faith, it is unbelief.
Because YE BELIEVED ME NOT...ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.
How ironic is it then, that these very passages, these ensamples of disobedience and unbelief, are employed continually today as warnings to every congregation, from every pulpit. Just after the taking of the tithe and just before the baptismal ceremony, preachers the world over warn their congregations not to fall into the sins of "that stiff-necked generation". But by the examples above, one sure sign of a stiff neck is the inability to turn one's head from 'time past' into the 'but now' and recognize the division God has put between them.
But the insistence on living by God's instructions for time past is not the only dispensational error one can make. Consider, for example, the offense of Dathan and Korah.
Num.16:3 And they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much upon you, SEEING ALL THE CONGREGATION ARE HOLY, EVERY ONE OF THEM, and the LORD is among them: wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the LORD?
The argument of Korah and Dathan concerned the priesthood of Israel. They had heard God's declaration by Moses when he said...
And ye SHALL BE unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. (Ex.19:6)
The promise of God to them was that if they obeyed God's law, the time would come when every Israelite would be made a priest. But like so many others, these anti-dispensationalists were not content to leave the truth of the ages to come, where God had put it. In their stubbornness and unbelief they insisted that what God said "shall be", must be true today. By their refusal to rightly divide the word of truth, Dathan and Korah concluded that every Israelite was now a priest, and that therefore, the Aaronic priesthood was illegitimate, all of which will be true in the ages to come (Heb.7:11; I.Pe.2:9; Rev.1:6). And just as before, the Lord's attitude toward this denial of divisions is clear.
Num.16:32-33 And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up...They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation.
So it would seem that to claim God's FORMER instruction is not the only way to find one's self on the wrong side of God's Word, but stealing a truth from the ages to come to stow it away in the present, is also a grievous error. Furthermore, this action was not against God only, but in their rebellion against the rightly divided word of truth, Dathan and Korah had become "sinners against their own souls" (vs.38), bringing destruction upon themselves and all that followed them.
For those who insist that the commandments and promises of our Lord do not change, holding to the mantra, "Once true, always true", please know that many others before you have held to this view. You may say, "What WAS true, and what WILL BE true, must be true today, for God changes not!" But is it an accident that the Lord responded to this very notion by creating "A NEW THING" for the punishment of Dathan and Korah (Num.16:30)? God changes not, we agree. From the very beginning He has required men to recognize their "present truth" (II.Pe.1:12) and to obey it. If our Lord counted the refusal to do so as rebellion then, He counts it rebellion today, for God changes not. We conclude therefore that the people of God in any age are either dispensational or disobedient. Moreover this particular brand of disobedience, as we have seen, is not one that God regards lightly. Moses was banned, the armies of Israel were slaughtered, and Dathan and Korah were swallowed whole as Jonah, only without the hope of expulsion.
Something important to notice too, is that in each case we've considered here, not once did the offender CHANGE the command or the promise of God. They did not deny God's truth, they did not alter the promises. In fact if someone had tried to deny or to change God's word as they were trying to claim it, they no doubt would have defended the veracity of the Scripture with all vigor. They didn't deny those precious bible promises, they simply MOVED them across God's timeline, claiming either that which was no longer theirs, or that which was not yet theirs, to claim. In every case they were scriptural, but not dispensational, and this was their great offense.
Now since all these things were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come (I.Cor.10:11), we should not be surprised when Paul warns us of even more offenders in his day of the very same ilk.
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, RIGHTLY DIVIDING the word of truth.
But shun PROFANE AND VAIN BABBLINGS: for they will increase unto MORE UNGODLINESS.
And THEIR WORD will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;
Who CONCERNING THE TRUTH HAVE ERRED, saying that the resurrection IS PAST already; and overthrow the faith of some. (II.Tim.2:15-18)
In this passage we have two more hosts, like Dathan and Korah, of this same malicious disease. Hymenaeus and Philetus would not dare speak against the resurrection. They are "Bible teachers" and have more regard for the word of truth than to treat it with the indignity of denial. No, they will not refute the doctrine, they will only move it from it's future place on God's timeline, imposing it back onto some time past. But notice that once having done that, having carefully preserved the resurrection itself while despising its dispensational place, the word that these teachers are now peddling is no longer God's. It has become "their word". It is no longer truth, it is "error". What was godly has become "ungodliness"; no longer divine, but now, "profane". Though the doctrine itself was carefully maintained, their handling of it with dispensational disregard has left "vain" what was once profitable, and that which was good for spiritual health has now mutated into a destroying cancer. Do these maintainers of the creed build up the faith of the saints? No. In their violence against the rightly divided word of truth they "overthrow" the faith of God's people. Had the above passage been Mosaic rather than Pauline what could we do with Hymenaeus and Philetus but to expectantly wait for the earth itself to take them alive? We can praise God even on the rebels behalf for a new dispensation, though they themselves will not.
Are we too hard against the anti-dispensational spirit? Transgression, unbelief, ungodliness, profane, these are not flattering words. I suppose we could defend ourselves by pointing out that not one of these words is our own, but seeing that the word of Christ should dwell in us, that defense would be self-defamatory. We can only say, fully knowing that the Lord Jesus Christ will bring to light every hidden thing, that our intent is not to offend. Our goal is, first, to encourage the soldier who stands resolute in the defense of Paul's gospel. Your sacrifice is not in vain. These are not light things which the great God and our Savior has, by His grace, entrusted to your care. Only the judgement seat of Christ will reveal the full and eternal value of your "stubborn" insistence on rightly dividing the word of truth, and your absolute refusal to give place, no, not for an hour, to anything less. Secondly, our hope and our prayer is that the dear brother or sister who has until now taken right division lightly, would know that God has not relegated these things out to the periphery of our faith, and so, neither can they. These are not marginal issues of small consequence, but so fundamental and so grave as to leave every gainsayer ultimately beaten and consumed, but sadly, often not until they have overthrown the faith of many otherwise faithful saints.
So as we consider one final unflattering label of the Holy Spirit upon the anti-dispensational spirit, we pray that its impact would transfer and remain upon every servant's heart, to move us with all zeal against this increasing power of darkness, and to move us with all grace toward those who are taken captive by it.
(Gal.4:8) Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods.
As Paul reminds the Galatian believers of their former religious state, how that they were servants "unto them which by nature are no gods", what the apostle says next is positively bone-chilling.
...HOW TURN YE AGAIN to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? (Gal.4:9)
Paul is here flatly accusing these believers of returning to IDOLATRY. But the Galatians did not return to idols. They had come to know the true God and would never consider regressing back into those blasphemies. No, the Galatians did not return to bowing before false gods; they only took the Law of Moses, the word of God Himself from time past, and determined that they would now live according to it. Was Paul being too hard then, when he equated their anti-dispensationalism with the worship of false gods? Error, yes. Profane, maybe. But idolatry? Does the Holy Spirit go too far here, or is it actually possible that bowing to serve a commandment from God which He Himself has rescinded is nothing less than the idolatry of this Christian age? Can it be that the very thing God had once instructed but has since done away has now itself become the doctrine of devils? (Lev.20:25 & I.Tim.4:1-3). And Paul is not alone in his assessment. Consider that after the millennium in the ages to come, when the kings of the earth gather themselves against Christ and against His saints, God will consume them with fire (Rev.20:7-9). Yet when the kings of the earth were gathered together against the Lord and against His Anointed AT ANOTHER TIME, Peter desiring to stop them was met with the Lord's most stinging rebuke, "Get thee behind me, Satan." (Mat.16:23).
If we are at any time hesitant to preach and defend Paul's gospel, remember this; One day, Satan and his ministers surely will preach it. The day AFTER this dispensation has ended, when access to God is no longer offered apart from works, the gospel of salvation by faith alone will be declared by so-called "ministers of righteousness" (II.Cor.11:15) far and wide. The very existence of the second chapter of James assures us of it, as this inspired defense against Pauline doctrine is written to bolster the saints in the ages to come. In every age it is Satan who holds forth what God has put away. In every age the adversary disguises his tracks by treading in God's former footsteps, and in every age the faithful are succoured in the fight by God's present truth. So it was for the saints in time past, and so it will be in the ages to come. But now, by the grace of God, the battle is ours.
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