Why Don't We Follow Leviticus Today?

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick, an Oklahoma rancher and farmer. Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for over 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say, time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Okay, good to have everybody in again, and I guess everybody had their coffee, and we're ready for another half hour. And we'll be going right back where we left off in Ephesians chapter 3, and now we're still in verse 2. I think people are getting used to it. They know that when we start a verse, we'll be there for a while, so we'll still be in verse 2. All right, for all of you joining us out on television, of course, we like to again just let you know that we're an informal Bible study. I guess we got folks here from various and sundry different backgrounds, but this Bible is for everybody, not just for any one group. And we just like to be able to teach it in such a way that you can study it on your own, and search the Scriptures, and see if these things are really so. The book of Acts calls them Bereans. The Bereans went home after they had heard Paul, and they searched the Scriptures. Of course, that was the Old Testament in those days, but they searched the Old Testament to see if what Paul was talking was in accord with that. Now, of course, we also have all the past programs available in videotape, audiotape, as well as the little book. Now, of course, what we've done, we've put 12 programs in consequence, all in one six -hour video, and then that's been dubbed over into six-hour audio cassette package. And then Jerry Poole here, bless his heart, he keeps transcribing everything word for word from the tape to the printed page, and so we can offer it in all three areas of video, audio, or the little book. And if you're interested in any of that, why, you call us, and we'll get the information that you need. All right, this is a Bible study, so we're going to get back. We're going to, again, pick the Scriptures apart word by word, and we're still in verse 2 of Ephesians chapter 3, where Paul writes, If you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God, and that's where we stopped, and we're still going to stay stopped, because I'm still not quite through with what I wanted to get across so far as, why does Paul define this dispensation of the grace of God? Now, always remember, every word that Paul writes, as well as every word that the Old Testament writers write, every word of Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit. None of this is just the will of a person. You know, I read one time someone said, even when Paul says, now I speak of my spirit, not of the Spirit of God, it is still inspired. Even when he says, this is my idea, it's still inspired, and never lose sight of that. Every word is here because the Holy Spirit wants it here, and so when he says that I am the apostle of the Gentiles, that's not an egotistical man talking, that's the Holy Spirit speaking. And so now when he says, if you've heard of the dispensation of the grace of God, now we spent the whole last half hour defining a dispensation. I hope we got it through. And now what's the difference? Well, I've put it on the board years ago when we were still clear back there, I think in the Old Testament, that over here at Mount Sinai, God, in Exodus chapter 3, which of course was God the Son, but nevertheless it calls it God, God spoke to Moses up there on Mount Sinai, and He gave to Moses the law, and then Moses takes the law down to the nation of Israel, and He dispenses it. And we pointed that out in our last half hour. God gave the law to Moses, Moses takes the law and dispenses it to the nation of Israel, and so this was actually then the dispensation of law, and that's the way we look at it in the Scriptures. All right, now then some 1,500 years later, after the Damascus Road experience for Saul of Tarsus, or as we later know Paul, the same God, as I pointed out in the last half hour, God never changes. He is absolute, He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, only now God's going to do something different, which is His prerogative. He's sovereign. Now He calls out to Mount Sinai a different man, and it is what we now refer to as the Apostle Paul, and to Paul He reveals these doctrines of grace, and Paul in turn dispenses these doctrines of grace not so much to the nation of Israel, but to the Gentiles. Now of course in both cases, the law is going to have an influence on Gentiles, and grace is going to have an influence on the Jew, but as a group the dispensation of law was given through Moses to Israel, the dispensation of the grace of God was given through the Apostle Paul to the Gentiles. Now there's only one other place in the New Testament where that term is used explicitly, and come back to me, I think it's in Acts chapter 20, Acts 20, and look at verse 24. Now in all the other places in Paul's writings he may refer to this gospel as the gospel of Christ, the gospel of God, my gospel, and various others, but here in Acts 24 as well as in Ephesians chapter 3, he refers to it as the grace of God. Acts 20 verse 24, but he says, "...none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify, or to speak forth the gospel of the grace of God." See how plain that is? This was Paul's whole ministry, was to proclaim the gospel of the grace of God. All right, now I think it may be appropriate if you come back to Ephesians chapter 3, that now we can look at the word grace for just a moment. That's the next word in the verse, that if you have heard of the dispensation or that administration of God which dispensed grace. Now as I said in my opening remarks in the last program, very few people have any idea of the grace of God. I don't claim to know all that much. It's beyond human understanding that a sovereign, eternal, creator God would do what He did simply because He loved the human race, and that was that He took on human flesh, walked amongst men for three years the dusty roads of the land of what we now call Canaan or Israel, and then ended up going to the cross to suffer the most horrible death ever invented, all because of His love for mankind. And through that death on the cross, He was able then to pay the price of redemption for the whole human race, not just for a few chosen ones, but for the whole race. Now listen, that's grace, and that's beyond our comprehension. He didn't have to do that. He could have just zapped the human race and started over. But from day one, from the time that Adam and Eve first fell in the garden, on up to the rebellious multitudes just before the flood, on up to the Tower of Babel, when again that group of humanity met in Hagen consort, God could have zapped them, but He didn't, and He let them go on until He was able to find one man 200 years later in Ur of the Chaldees, we know as Abraham, and began again something totally different, all because He refused to give up on the human race. And why didn't He? Grace. And so everything that God does and the patience of God toward the human race is all because of His grace. Now I call it an attribute. I had a seminary president that we were talking about, and he said, well, I've never thought of it as an attribute. Well, how else can you look at it? It is something that is in the very makeup of the eternal God that prompts him to pour out all this unmerited favor and love on a rebellious human race. And all we have to do is just look around us today and just stop and think for a minute, why does God put up with it when everything is flying in His face in total rebellion? All He'd have to do is speak the Word and we could all be gone. But He doesn't. And why doesn't He? Grace. Grace. Unmerited favor. Now you see, under the law, that wasn't the case. Law was demanding. Law, as I've said so often, at least in my Oklahoma classes, law was what, Jerry? Severe. It was severe, and there was no bending it. If you broke the law back when they were in its pure, early stages, you broke the law invariably. What was the penalty? Death. Death. No questions asked. And so that was the law. There wasn't grace in that, except that it was still the grace of God that was bringing a way for man to come back. But law was legalism. It was severe. It was the opposite of grace. But now on this side of the cross—in fact, I guess I should put this up here— now on this side of the cross, the same God who gave the law in all its severity to Moses and took it to Israel, God now opens up the windows of heaven and grace, and through this apostle, this is where it all began. And again, I just can't emphasize enough that it's through this man's writings that we have the opening of the door of grace. Now some people say, well Les, don't you make too much of Paul. No. Paul, as he said, he followed Christ, and Paul knew only one thing, and that was Christ crucified, risen from the dead, and so we don't elevate Paul above that. But you see, God, as He kept things secret, as we saw in our last half hour, has decided that it's through this man that He would reveal the things that had been kept secret. And that's why Paul over and over uses the term revelation, that God revealed to me, and He revealed and such and such. And it's over and over, this reference to a revelation. Now the other argument I sometimes get, and I praise the Lord, we don't get many. We get very few arguments of all the mail that we get, and usually it's over water baptism, where they have to make it sound like if you're not baptized you can't be saved, and that's the only argument I get. And then of course when I read back or write back an answer that this is what Paul has said, then they'll come right back and they say, but we go by what the Bible says, not what Paul says. You've heard it, or we use the whole Bible. We don't just use Paul. Well I have been able to shut more than one mouth by, and I'll let you do it here, and my television audience can see what I'm talking about. If you're going to come back at me and say, well I do what the whole Bible says, then I take you right back to Leviticus chapter 5, and let's look at it. This is a fun exercise. It really is. This is fun, because it says it so plainly. Now I could use any other portion of the Old Testament, but this one says it so clearly, and it's not real deep theological. It's just an everyday possibility for any one of us. Leviticus chapter 5, starting at verse 1. And if a soul, or a person, sin, and hear the voice of swearing, and is a witness, whether he hath seen or known of it, if he do not utter it, then he shall bear his iniquity. In other words, I guess you'd have to say, unless he would tell the priest or somebody what this individual has said, then he's guilty. All right, but then come on down to verse 2. Or if a soul, or a living person, shall touch any unclean thing, whether it be a carcass of an unclean beast, or unclean cattle, or anything like that, if he touch it, he shall be unclean, and what's the next word? Guilty. All right, now let's just for sake of time come all the way down to verse 5. Now if a person, if a person, when he shall be guilty in one of these things, that he shall confess that he hath sinned in that thing, and he shall, what is that? That's a command. Boy, there's no getting around it. And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the Lord, for his sin, which he hath sinned, and then he goes on to say what kind of a sacrifice he has to bring. All right, now you know what I say? That's what the Bible says. Didn't it? Plain as day, the Bible says if you touch a dead animal, you will bring a sacrificial offering. So the Bible says. Do you do it? No. Does God expect you to do it? No. Why? Because this was law, see? This was all part of what Moses instructed Israel, and we're not under that economy. That's another good word. We're not under this economy. We're under this one. And so when people say, well, I go by what all the Bible says, they get their foot in their mouth before they can even turn around, because there are so many things back here that just cannot be done today. You don't do that. And so what's the difference? You've got to separate law and grace. Now, you see, Paul will never tell you that if you touch something dead, you go and offer a sacrifice someplace, does he? No. That's not part of grace whatsoever. And so always keep these things straight, that when I say that we have to listen to the apostle of the Gentiles, that doesn't mean that we don't read the rest of Scripture. That doesn't mean that it isn't profitable. Of course it is. All of these things written back there, even though it was law, it's still profitable, because it shows us the very mind of a holy God. It shows us what it was like to live under the yoke of bondage, which is what the law really was. It's what Peter called it in Acts chapter 15. It's what Paul calls it in Galatians. It was a yoke of bondage. We're not under a yoke of bondage. We've been set free from all that. All right, now coming back to Ephesians chapter 3 for just a split second. We won't stay there very long, but now it says that, "...if we have heard of the dispensation, or the economy, or the administration of the grace of God, and, like I've shown, that law came to Israel through Moses, how in the world did the doctrines of grace get to the Gentiles?" Well, the next part of the dispensation of the grace of God, which is given to me, to you, Wordly. You see what that says? You have no idea how many times I've had someone at my now famous kitchen table, and I will tell them this very concept, that all of our doctrines of grace come from Paul. Well, here's one good example. This is just one, and they'll read it. Well, I don't see what you're getting at. Well, you didn't read it. Yeah, I did. No, you didn't. Read it again. Iris knows. She's heard me go through this more than once. Read it again, and then the third or fourth time, then they'll finally, oh, I never saw that before, and I dare say there's multitudes like that. Here it is, the dispensation of the grace of God, which was given to Paul, just like I've got it here on the board, and Paul, through inspiration and by the grace of God, has brought it to us Gentiles. Isn't that easy? All right, now let's just show you from Scripture what we're talking about. Come back with me to ... I hardly know where to start first. There's just so much of this. Let's start in 2 Corinthians. I'm debating whether to use Galatians first and then Corinthians or Corinthians and then Galatians, but I'm going to use Corinthians just for sake of chronological order in your Bible. Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 5, because just like he had to deal in 1 Corinthians with the Corinthian believers who wanted to follow Peter rather than Paul, others wanted to follow Jesus rather than Paul, and their whole concept was that Paul was something less than those fellows at Jerusalem, and this is what he had to overcome, and we covered this quite in detail when we taught the Corinthian letters. All right, but this is review. Verse 5 of 2 Corinthians, chapter 11, where he writes, I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles. Wow! What does that say? I'm not a half a step behind Peter. See, they were trying to put Peter up above him. He said, I'm not one whit behind that chiefest apostle, and I think we all agree that would have to be Peter, maybe John, but whatever. I think most people would say, no, that was Peter. He's not one whit behind him. Now, if he's not behind him, where is he? Well, he's either beside him or ahead of him. All right, now the next one, same chapter, verse 22. Now this puts him out a step ahead, see. Verse 22, speaking of the Jerusalem leadership, which would include the 12 as well as some of the other head people of the Jerusalem assembly. Paul says, Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. Are they the ministers of Christ? Now see, this in parenthesis, he says, I speak as a fool, but it's still Spirit -inspired. I am more. See how plain that is? That's the Holy Spirit writing through the pen of the apostle Paul that Paul is more the minister of Christ than anybody back there at Jerusalem. And this is what we have to understand. All right, let's go on one more in 2 Corinthians chapter 12. 2 Corinthians 12, verse 11. He says, I am become a fool in glorying, and Paul didn't like to. Paul didn't like to have to boast, but he had to in order to convince especially the Corinthians that he was a special instrument in God's hands. So he said, I am become a fool in glorying. You have compelled me. You've forced me, for I ought to have been commended of you. Now what's he driving at? It was this man who brought these people out of their abject paganism. It was his message that set them free and brought them into a relationship with Christ. It was this man's gospel that brought these pagan Corinthians into a life of morality and hope for eternity. And so he says, you should have commended me for bringing you out of that darkness. Instead, they're putting him down and said, well, you're not who you claim to be. All right, read on. For in nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles. Where does that put him? Well, not behind them. Maybe beside them, but the other verse says he was in front of them. So what does it tell you? This is the man that is given and has been ordained of God to go to the Gentiles. And he claims it over and over. All right, now that should suffice for that part. Now turn on a little further to Galatians, just a couple pages. To Galatians chapter 1. And this is all to back up his claim now in Ephesians 3 verse 2. That the dispensation of the grace of God which God has given to me to you were, and the you were there are Gentiles. Galatians 1 verse 11. But I certify you brethren that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. I'm not following in some other man's footsteps. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by, here it comes now, the word I've been warning you about, by the what? The revelation. See, the revealing of a secret that had been kept covered in the mind of God according to the El Olam that we looked at in the last program, or the Deuteronomy 29 29. God hath kept things secret. See, all right, this is what he's claiming. That that which was kept secret has now been revealed to this apostle, but it came by revelation of Jesus Christ in verse 12. Now whenever I teach Paul's epistles, I always emphasize, was this revelation after the death, burial, and resurrection or before? Well, after. See, after, and that makes all the difference in the world. See, Jesus couldn't even preach his death, burial, and resurrection for salvation. It hadn't happened yet. He tried to tell the twelve about it, but they never got it. But it just wasn't in the economy of that system of law for Israel and the Jews to understand the gospel of grace. It wasn't meant to be. So now he says in verse 15, but when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace. You know you can do this as well as I can. The other night I took my Strong's Concordance, and I counted all the times that grace was used between Matthew 1-1 and Acts chapter 9. How many times do you suppose it was? 16. 16 times the word grace, and it wasn't even used as a doctrinal term, but it was spoken of as a word grace. From Acts chapter 9 until the end of Paul's letters, 84 times. Six times more is the word grace referred to in Paul's epistles than in everything that went before. That's shocking, isn't it? And yet it shouldn't be, because this is the apostle of grace. I have a book at home, I think the title of it is, it's more or less a biography of the apostle, and it says, The Apostle of the Soul Set Free. And I like that. I didn't like the book all that well, but I sure did like the title. The Apostle of the Soul Set Free. It says it all. I've got a few seconds left, so He called me by His grace, and now verse 16. And again, what's the word? To reveal. See? To unveil His Son in me, that I might preach Him where? Among the heathen, the Gentiles. That's His specific calling, to take this gospel of grace to the Gentile. That's why I put it this way over and over through the years, that as law was given on Mt. Sinai to Moses, Paul goes out to Mt. Sinai, and God gave him the doctrines of grace, which is beyond human comprehension. Now reading on for just a few seconds. He said, "...to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him to the heathen. Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood, neither did I go up to Jerusalem to them who were apostles before me, but I went into Arabia." That would be Mt. Sinai. And then he goes on to say that this whole mystery of the gospel was revealed to him. And that's why I'm always stressing Paul's apostleship, and spending most of our time in his letters. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kenta, Oklahoma, 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kenta, Oklahoma, 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer -supported, and your gift is appreciated. 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