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What Difference Does Rightly Dividing Make to My Walk? – Colossians 2:6

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Summary:

Our “walk” (Col. 2:6) is how we behave (Ps. 101:2), our manner of life (Gal. 2:14), i.e., how we live our lives.  God has always wanted His people to walk in ways that please Him, but as we rightly divide the Word, we know that how to walk to please Him changes dispensationally.

For instance, God told Israel to walk in the law (Ex. 16:4), because they got saved by the law.  But He tells us to walk as we received Christ (Col. 2:6), and we received Him by faith, by believing something (Acts 16:31).  So we should walk in Him by believing some things!

What things?  Well, Paul uses the word “walk” often, so let’s let him tell us.   First, he says to walk in “newness of life” (Rom. 6:2-4).  If you believe you died and rose with Christ and have been given a new life, you should walk in it.

Paul gloried in the cross (Gal. 6:14) because the Galatians were glorying in circumcision.  The Jews walked in circumcision (Acts 21:21), that was their rule, but we walk in the “rule” that only the newness of life of the new creature matters (Gal. 6:15,16).

We’re spiritually circumcised (Col. 2:10,11), so we have what the symbol of circumcision symbolized.  We also rest in Christ, which the sabbath symbolized, and we have the cleansing that water baptism symbolized (Tit. 3:5).  See how rightly dividing makes our walk different that 7th Day Adventists and Baptists?

Paul also says to walk in the Spirit so you won’t fulfill the lusts of the flesh (Gal. 5:16).  How?  By believing that we’ve already crucified the flesh (v. 24,25)!  If God sees you as sinless, why not walk that way, if you believe it.

Paul also says to walk “honestly” by not sinning (Rom. 13:13).  If God sees you as sinless, and you sin, you’re not being honest with yourself.  The way to stop that is to put on Christ (v. 14).  How?  By believing that you already have put Him on (Gal. 3:27).  He’s the “new man” you put on when you trusted Christ (Col. 3:9-12).

Paul also says to “walk by faith” (II Cor. 5:7).  Isn’t that what we’ve been talking about, walking in Christ by believing some things?  He had to add “not by sight” because that’s how the Jews walked.  God saved Abraham by faith (Gen. 15:5,6), but he didn’t have to take God’s word for it that he was saved.  God gave him wealth he could see (Gen. 13:2) to prove he had the salvation that he couldn’t see. He did the same for Job, who lived around the same time (Job 1:3).  But we don’t walk by sight like that, for God doesn’t enrich His people financially today.

God also enriched the Jews (Deut. 8:18), and gave them other things to see, like parting the Red Sea.  They didn’t have to walk by faith when they saw that, but we do, for God isn’t doing miracles like that any more.

Rightly dividing also affects our “walk” (I Cor. 7:17) when it comes to the subject of divorce (v. 12).  Paul says to stay married to an unsaved wife, but under the Law God told the Jews it would give Him “pleasure” if they would divorce their unsaved wives (Ezra 10:2-11).

Rightly dividing also affects our walk in that the Lord said not to work for food and clothing, that God would provide it (Mt. 6:25-33).  The Jews to whom He said that were heading into the Tribulation, when God would feed them with the “daily bread” He taught them to pray for (Micah 7:14,15),  But Paul says we should work for our bread (I Thes. 4:11,12).

Can you see why Paul tells us to walk as he walked, and mark them which walk otherwise, so we have him as an example (Phil. 3:17)?

You hear a lot about identity theft these days, but you didn’t steal Christ’s identity, God gave it to you as a gift.  Men who steal your identity don’t love you so they charge things to your account, knowing you’ll have to pay for them.  When you sin, you’re acting like you don’t love the Lord, charging things to His account that He’s already paid for.  Why not “walk worthy of the Lord” instead (Col. 1:10)?

Video of this lesson is available on YouTube: What Difference Does Rightly Dividing Make to My Walk? – Colossians 2:6

What Difference Does Rightly Dividing Make to My Worship? – 2 Timothy 2:15

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

This message is also available on YouTube: What Difference Does Rightly Dividing Make to My Worship? – 2 Timothy 2:15

Summary:

Rightly dividing means to see the difference between God’s grace program for us and His law program for Israel.  When Paul began to preach it, the Jews accused him of worshipping “contrary to the law” (Acts 18:12,13).  He refuted that, insisting he worshipped “believing all things… in the law and the prophets” (24:14).  That means we worship in some of the same ways they did back then.

Abraham worshipped by being willing to obey God whatever the cost (Gen. 22:5), and so should you.  “The lad” worshipped by being willing to give his life as a sacrifice, and so should you (Rom. 12:1).  You can worship God by believing all things in the law by putting God first in your life (Deut. 26:10).  If you can worship God when you lose your baby son (II Sam. 12:20) or all your children (Job 1:20,21), you can worship by believing all things in the law.

The Lord said the unsaved Jews worshipped Him “in vain” by teaching incorrect doctrine (Mt. 15:9), which means teaching correct doctrine (as we do) worships Him correctly.  If teaching the commandments of men made for vain worship, then teaching the commandments of God would make for true worship.  And Paul repeats the commandments!

But we worship differently in that the Jews were told to keep the commandments or be cursed (Deut. 11:26-28).  We are told to keep them out of love, not fear (Rom. 13:8-10).  If you love your neighbor, you won’t lie to him, steal from him, etc. And the love He showed you by not sending you to hell for your lying and stealing should constrain you to keep them (II Cor. 5:14,15).

But there were 603 other commandments in the law, many of them like the “touch not, taste not” of Colossians 2:21.  Paul called them “the commandments…of men” (v. 22) because commandments of God imposed on people out of their proper dispensation become commandments of men.

But worshipping God by keeping His commandments involves more than just recognizing that some of the commandments of God are no longer in effect.  It involves recognizing that God gave some new commandments through Paul.  Circumcision was a commandment of God, so for Paul to say it was nothing, but keeping the commandments was everything (I Cor. 7:19), he must have been talking about keeping the commandments given to him (I Cor. 14:37 cf. I Thes. 4:2; II Thes. 3:6,12).  Paul gave hundreds of commandments, and if you teach them you’ll avoid worshipping God in vain, for you’ll be teaching the commandments of God for this dispensation. 

The only other time Paul tells us how we should worship (besides Acts 24:14) is when he says we worship God “in the spirit” (Phil. 3:2,3).  That means to recognize that Gentiles used to be dogs (Mt. 15:26), but now the Jews are (Phil. 3:2) because we are the circumcision (v. 3), the spiritual circumcision.

We were circumcised with Christ (Col. 2:10,11) when He was “cut off” (Isa. 53:8; Dan. 9:26).  God told the Jews that He wanted that for them (Deut. 10:16 cf. Rom. 2:29), and promised to give it to them in the kingdom (Deut. 30:6).  But we have that now, so we have no confidence in the flesh.  The Jews had all their confidence in the fact that their flesh was the circumcised flesh of Abraham (Mt. 3:9), and in the fact that three times a year they had to march their flesh to Jerusalem for Israel’s feasts.  But we observe the feasts in the spirit (cf. I Cor. 5:7).  Our confidence isn’t in the flesh of a passover lamb, but in the Lamb of God that was slain!

We gave examples of how we worship as they did under the law, but we gave none of how we worship as they did in the prophets.  But the prophet Isaiah said that in the kingdom the Jews will worship God by looking into the pit of hell to see the suffering of the unsaved (Isa. 66:23,24).  This answers the question I’m often asked of how we’ll enjoy heaven knowing our loved ones are in hell.  God won’t erase our memories, He’ll change how we think about them.  We will agree with God that they are getting what’s coming to them (cf. Rev.16:7).  So if you don’t ever want your loved ones to be “an abhorring” (Isa. 66:4), tell them about Christ!

Witnesses for the Prosecution – Acts 2:32-41

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Video of this message is available on YouTube: Witnesses for the Prosecution – Acts 2:32-41

Summary:

“Witnesses” (v. 32) are people who’ve seen or heard some-thing and testify that it’s true.  The disciples had seen and heard “all” the things the Lord did before He died (Acts 10:39-41), and so were good witnesses that it was Him after He rose again.  That’s why the Lord picked them (John 15:27).

But Peter didn’t know what Paul later learned, that He rose for our justification (Rom. 4:24).  So he charged Israel with the Lord’s death and threatened them with His resurrection.  Saying, “The one you killed is alive and coming back to get you!” And the disciples were witnesses for his prosecution.

“Exalted” (Acts 2:33) means to raise or elevate (Isa. 52:13,14).  God “exalted” the Lord “with His right hand” (Acts 2:33) by setting Him at His right hand (Mark 16:19).  To prove that, Peter quotes David (Acts 2:34).  Earlier he quoted a psalm of David where he talked about rising from the dead before his body corrupted (Acts 2:25-31).  Then he pointed out that David’s body was still in the grave, so he must have been talking about Christ.  Now Peter’s quoting another psalm of David, one where he talked about sitting at God’s right hand.  David couldn’t be sitting there if he was still in the grave, so again he must have been talking about Christ.

And if any of the Jews forgot that Psalm 110:1 ended by saying Christ would sit there till God made His enemies His footstool, Peter reminded them (Acts 2:35).  The Jews loved that psalm, for it went on to say that God would conquer the Lord’s Gentile enemies (Ps. 110:5,6).  But Peter was telling them that by crucifying the Lord they had joined the Lord’s Gentile enemies, and now He would return and judge them too!  Just as Psalm 2:1-12 said He would do, to Jews as well as Gentiles.

Luke 20:9-16 predicted this also, a parable the Lord told about the Jews (Mt. 21:41-45).  Of course, He couldn’t return and judge anyone unless He was Israel’s Christ, so Peter went on to say that He was (Acts 2:36). God declared that by setting Him at His right hand in the heavenly Zion (Ps. 2:5,6). The Jews knew Psalm 2 ended with advice to “kiss the Son” that they’d crucified, and that’s what Peter was telling them to do—and put their trust in Him, as the psalm also advised.

Peter called on them to “repent” (Acts 2:38), which means to change your mind about something.  Preachers today quote that to tell sinners to change their mind about their individual sins. But Peter hadn’t mentioned those!  He charged them with Christ’s death, wanting them to repent of that.  He was quoting Joel’s call to “turn” (Joel 2:11-14).

Preachers say baptism isn’t for salvation, but Peter said it was (Acts 2:38) because the Lord said it was (Mark 16:16). That’s just not God’s message for today!  Baptists also disagree with Peter when he said that if you get baptized you’ll get the Spirit in such a way you’ll speak in tongues, for they don’t believe in speaking in tongues.  But all that confusion could be avoided if they’d just realize Peter was talking to Jews and their children (Acts 2:39).  The “promise” was the Spirit (Acts 1:4,5), a promise God never made to Gentiles.  Those “afar off” were Jews who were scattered when Israel disobeyed God (Dan. 9:7).

Peter told the Jews to save themselves from that generation in Israel (Acts 2:40) because they killed the Lord, and so God was going to judge them for the death of all the prophets (Lu. 11:50,51).  He calls them “untoward” because he’s quot-ing how Moses called them “froward” (Deut. 32:19,20). Jews thought they were saved just because they were Jews, part of the nation of Israel, but that generation was “a froward nation” that God planned to provoke to jealousy with “a foolish nation” (Deut. 32:20,21,28).  When the Lord quoted that (Mt. 21:43), most people think He meant to make that nation jealous by giving their kingdom to the Gentiles.  But the Gentiles are many nations, not one.  “The nation” (singular) that the Lord gave it to was His little flock (Lu. 12:32).  Salvation used to be “of the Jews” (Jo. 4:22), but now it was of “the remnant” (Joel 2:32), so they had to get out of that nation and in Peter’s nation, the believing nation (I Pe. 2:9).

We don’t get 3,000 converts from one message today (Acts 2:41) for the same reason we can’t speak in tongues.  We aren’t filled with the Spirit in the same way they were!

Peter Tells the Jews to Listen Up! – Acts 2:22-31

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Video of this message is available on YouTube: Peter Tells the Jews to Listen Up! – Acts 2:22-31

Summary:

“Nazareth” (2:22) was a despised city (John 1:46), but Peter mentioned it anyway.  Never be ashamed of the truth!

God approved the Lord by miracles (Acts 2:22), miracles that would tell the Jews that their God had come (Isa. 35:4-6).  The Jews require a sign (I Cor. 1:22) and the Lord gave them plenty of signs that He was their God!  But the Father did them (John 14:10,11) through Him. God was “with Him” (Acts 10:38) but that didn’t mean He wasn’t God (John 1:1).

How’d Peter know they knew about the Lord’s miracles (Acts 2:22)? They were from all over (Acts 2:5). But His fame got around (Mt. 4:24; 9:1,26,30,31; Mark 1:28; Lu. 4:37).

But the Jews killed Him (Act 2:23). God “delivered” Him to them by His “determinate” counsel, even though His “foreknowledge” told Him they’d kill Him.  But that doesn’t mean God forced them to kill Him to provide the world a Savior, despite what He “determined” (cf. Lu. 22:21, 22).  They should have sacrificed Him in faith, not executed Him in unbelief (Psalm 118:250-27 cf. Mark 11:9).

Peter says God the Father raised the Lord from the dead (Acts 2:24 cf. Acts 3:15,26; 10:40; 13:30,34; 17:31; Rom. 4:24; 6:4; I Cor. 6:14; Gal.1:1; Eph. 1:20; Col.2:12; I Thes. 1:10; Heb.13:20; I Pet. 1:21).  But the Bible also says the Lord raised Himself up (John 10:17), and that the Spirit raised Him (Rom.8:11), showing the oneness of the Trinity.

It was “not possible” that death could hold the Lord (Acts 2:24) because “the wages of sin is death” (Rom.6:23) and He was no sinner.  True, God put our sins on Him, but God was “satisfied” with His payment for our sins (Isa. 53:11).  So death couldn’t hold Him—or us!  But Peter didn’t know this, so he says death couldn’t hold Him “for” the Bible predicted that He’d rise from the dead (Acts 2:25-27), and all Bible prophecies must come true (cf. John 10:35; Acts 1:16).

Peter quotes a Messianic psalm of David (Ps. 16:8-11), a psalm that was true of both David and Christ.  The faith of both was so strong, they saw the Father in the grave with the eyes of faith, and so couldn’t be moved (Acts 2:25).  You’d think the Lord would be sad He was killed but He was “glad” (2:26) because His flesh rested in the “hope” of resurrection.

The “hell” they both went to (Acts 2:27) was the paradise side of hell (Luke 16:19-31 cf. 23:43).  The Lord “finished” paying for our sins on the cross (John 19:30) and didn’t have to go to the torment side of hell to pay for our sins.

But if the Lord was “glad” (Acts 2:26) in paradise, why’d He want to be raised from the dead?  It was because His flesh was still in the grave, where bodies see “corruption” (Acts 2:27).  So God showed Him the way out of the grave by the path of life (2:28), a way that unsaved men in the grave can’t find (Pr. 2:2-19).  His hope was to see God’s countenance (Acts 2:28), as was David’s (Ps. 17:15)—and ours too!

Peter probably knew that quoting Psalm 16 would remind his hearers of the similar-sounding Psalm 21:6-9, which predicted that after the Lord rose, He would avenge His enemies.  Peter wanted them thinking about that when he later told them to “repent” (Acts 2:38).

Peter’s argument in Acts 2:29 is that David didn’t rise from the dead before he saw corruption, so either he was mistaken when he said he would or he was talking about someone else. Peter knew the Jews would never admit there was a mistake in their Bible, so they’d have to admit he was talking about someone else—someone Peter identified as Christ (v. 30,31).

David predicted Christ would rise from the dead, knowing God had promised him that one of his descendants would be Christ (Act 2:30 cf. II Sam. 7:12,13).So God had to raise Christ to fulfill His promise that He’d sit on Israel’s throne forever.

But Paul says God raised Him for our justification (Rom. 4:25).  Peter and Paul didn’t preach the same thing!  We must remember Christ according to Paul’s gospel (II Tim. 2:8), not Peter’s!  Finally, Peter wasn’t trying to be unkind in charging Israel with Christ’s death, he was just trying to get them to mourn for Him (Zech. 12:10), as they someday will.

Disciples Who Passed the Sobriety Test – Acts 2:14-21

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Video of this message is available on YouTube: Disciples Who Passed the Sobriety Test – Acts 2:14-21

Summary:

When the crowd at Pentecost heard the Lord’s 120 disciples (Acts 1:15) speaking in different tongues (2:4), some thought they were drunk (2:13).  So Peter corrected them (v.14,15).

It’s important to notice Peter was talking to Jews (v.14), because some say the Body of Christ began at Pentecost.  But the Body is made up of Jews and Gentiles (I Cor. 12:13), so Peter wouldn’t have excluded the Gentiles.  That’s just one of many proofs we’ll see that the Body did not start here.

After pointing out that it was too early to be drunk (2:15), Peter told them that what was happening fulfilled Joel 2:28-32 (v.16).  But that means the Body couldn’t have started here, for “the church, which is His Body” (Eph. 1:22,23) was “a mystery” (Eph. 5:32), and a mystery is something that wasn’t made known to the prophets (Col. 1:26).  Plus, Peter says that Joel called what was happening “the last days” (Acts 2:17).  That means Pentecost wasn’t the first days of the Body of Christ, it was the last days of Israel’s program.

In those days, the kingdom was supposed to come (Isa. 2:2-4).  The last days started with the Lord’s coming (Heb. 1:1,2). You can’t have a kingdom without a king!  And you can’t have the kingdom of heaven without the Spirit, who made it so they couldn’t sin (I Jo. 3:9;5:18).  That’s the only way to get rid of war (Isa. 2:4 cf. James 4:1,2).

The pouring out of the Spirit was also a time when God filled His sons with His word (cf. Pr. 1:23).  It was supposed to change the earth back to Eden-like conditions (Isa. 32:12; 35:1,2).  It didn’t because the dispensation of the mystery interrupted God’s prophetic program.

Some say God brought Israel back to the land in 1948, but He says He won’t do that until He pours out His Spirit again (Ezek. 11:19).  That’s when He’ll put a new spirit in them and cause them to walk in His ways (Ezek. 36:25-27) and stop hiding His face from them (Ezek. 39:29) as He’s done for the past 2,000 years now.  That’s also when they’ll mourn for Christ (Zech. 12:10).

When Peter said God poured out His Spirit on “all flesh” (Acts 2:17), that can mean everyone (Gen. 6:12).  But when Peter tells Jews that God would pour Him out on “your” sons and daughters (Acts 2:17), we know it means all Jewish flesh, all Jews who believed on Christ.

“Dreams” and “visions” (2:17) are the same thing.  They are how God talked to the prophets (Num. 12:6).  That’s how He communicated His Word to them (Num. 24:4).  And that’s what was happening here at Pentecost on all 120 of the disciples who were prophesying (Acts 2:18).

Blood and fire and smoke and wonders (Acts 2:19) are mentioned a combined 58 times in Revelation, the book that describes the Tribulation, so we know the time for the Tribulation had come.  Some of the wonders in heaven included the darkening of the sun (2:20), the beginning of the day of the Lord (Isa. 13:9,10; Rev. 6:12).

But Peter says the sun would be darkened before “that great and notable day of the Lord” (2:20), and the Lord said it would happen “after the tribulation” (Mark 13:24).  But while the entire 7 year 70th week of Daniel is the day of the Lord, the last 3 and a half years are the “great and terrible day of the Lord” (Joel 2:31).  So the sun will be dark after the first half of the Tribulation, but before the second half.

If it bothers you that only half of Joel’s prophecy was fulfilled after Peter said “this is that” (Acts 2:16), the Lord only quoted part of Isaiah 61:1,2 in Luke 4:16-20.  He left off the part about “the day of vengeance” because He added “this day is this scripture fulfilled” (Luke 4:21).  He knew it wasn’t time for that, so He didn’t quote that part.

But then why did Peter quote all of Joel’s prophecy, including the part about the day of God’s vengeance?  It is because he didn’t know that it wasn’t time for the vengeance.  The mystery that interrupted the vengeance wasn’t revealed until Paul.  We know Peter eventually learned the last days had been postponed because he later talked about what “shall” happen in the last days (II Pe. 3:3), and said if you want to learn more about the delay, see Paul! (v.15).