Dispensation - Ephesians 1:10

For many years, historians have been trying to answer the perplexing question, is there any purpose to history? Perhaps you'll recall when you studied history in high school or in college that the textbook often raised the question, does history repeat itself? Is there purpose behind history? Is it leading somewhere? Do we know?

Some years ago, Oswald Spengler wrote the great study, The Decline of the West. And in recent years, Dr. Toynbee has been bringing out his monumental study of history. And these two great historians have been seeking to unravel the threads of history to see if there's any purpose behind it.

Now we've been looking at Ephesians 1:8-11, and we've discovered that in Jesus Christ, there is purpose in history, that history is his story. In the course of a month, we have occasion to read a number of news magazines, to watch a number of news broadcasts on television, listen to them on the radio, and sometimes you get confused. There's war here, there's disruption there, there's sin. You pick up the morning paper and the front page is covered with all sorts of sordid events that are being reported. And we shake our heads and say, where is it all leading? Does anybody know? The answer is yes.

One of the blessings that we have received as Christians is the blessing of wisdom. God has granted us the wisdom through the Holy Spirit to understand what is going on in this world. You recall back in the Old Testament, some of David's soldiers were men who understood the times. We need people today who understand the times. There are those who know what is happening, and there are those who know why it is happening. And if you'll study your Bible, if you'll read the word of God, you'll have the discernment to understand the times.

Now we saw in Ephesians 1:8 that God has abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence. We have abundant wisdom through Jesus Christ. In Ephesians 1:9, He's made known to us the mystery of His will, the purpose that He has purposed in Himself. Now in Ephesians 1:10, we discovered what this purpose is, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ. God's purpose is one day to unite the universe in Christ. Christ is the beginning of the universe. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made, says John 1:3. Christ holds the universe together. Colossians 1:17 says, and by Him all things consist. They hold together. Christ is the end of the universe. All of history is moving toward the coming of Jesus Christ.

Now there are two words in Ephesians 1:10 that need to be studied carefully, the word dispensation and the word fullness. Let's take the word dispensation. We don't use this word too much today, although it was a very popular word a few hundred years ago. The word dispensation simply means administration. Or, if you want a more colloquial definition, it means the management of a household. The way you run your household is a dispensation. Now perhaps in your household, everyone gets up at 6 o'clock in the morning, has breakfast at 6:30, and they're off to work at 7 o'clock. Or perhaps in your household, everyone sleeps until 10 o'clock and they don't have breakfast at all. They have brunch, and then you have dinner later on. Every household has its own kind of management.

Now the word dispensation simply means the management of a household, economy. It's also used over in Ephesians 3:1-2. For this cause, I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ, for you Gentiles, if ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God, which is given me to you word. God gave to Paul the responsibility of helping to manage His household. He gave to Paul a special responsibility, a special ministry, a dispensation that is. Now the word dispensation simply means the way you manage a household, economy. Let's take for example, our own United States government. When one party is in power, things are managed one way. And then let's suppose the president is not re-elected and someone else is put into power. He manages things another way. It's the same government, the same nation, the same laws, but a different management.

Now, unless you recognize in your Bible the different households and the different kind of management from time to time, your Bible will be a confusing book. We must recognize the fact that even though God's principles remain the same from Genesis to Revelation, God's dispensations change. For example, you and I as New Testament Christians do not sacrifice a lamb at Passover. Why? Well, because God changed His management, God changed His household administration, a new dispensation came in. When you go through the word of God, you discover a number of dispensations. Now keep in mind, God doesn't change. Sin doesn't change, salvation doesn't change. Whether a man is in Genesis, Ezekiel, Matthew, Revelation, or anywhere else, salvation is always the same way, by grace through faith. Noah was saved by faith, Moses was saved by faith. But during different periods of time in the word of God, God managed things a little differently.

In Genesis 1-2, God put the first man and the first woman in a perfect garden. He gave them one law to obey, stay away from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He walked with man, He talked with man. They had perfect fellowship, no sickness, no sin, no tears. Then man sinned, and the instant man sinned, God had to change His administration. Man was cast out of the garden, and man was now a sinner. Now, in the Garden of Eden, Adam never offered a single sacrifice. He never killed a single animal. But once sin came into the world, God came along and killed some animals. He took the coats, the skins of those animals, and He made coats for the sinning Adam and Eve. God had to change His administration. Now His principles didn't change. Sin still brings death, everywhere in the Bible, sin produces trouble, judgment. Everywhere in the Bible, faith produces blessing, but God's administrations change. There's dispensation number one, the dispensation of innocence, when man was in the garden, perfect. Then he was expelled from the garden, and he had to live outside of paradise.

Man became worse and worse, man sinned so greatly that God had to destroy all of mankind with the exception of Noah and his family. He saved them in the ark. When Noah came out of the ark, God instituted something brand new, he instituted the dispensation of government, human government. There had not been human government up until this time, but God instituted human government, and He gave man the privilege of taking another man's life. He gave him the sword. This is the dispensation of government. Well, things got worse and worse. God called Abraham. God started something new. He called into being the Jewish nation and gave to the Jewish nation the law of Moses. This is the dispensation of law. You see, Adam didn't have this law, Noah didn't have this law. They were under a different administration. But God gave the Jews this law, and for hundreds of years, they lived under this law. Then He sent His Son, Jesus Christ. And when He died on the cross, He set aside that law. The law and the prophets were set aside, they were fulfilled. And now there's a new dispensation on earth, the dispensation of the church, the age of the church, the age of the Holy Spirit. You see, back in the Old Testament times, the Holy Spirit came and went as He pleased, but in New Testament times, the Holy Spirit now has come down and He dwells with us, a different administration.

One of these days, Jesus Christ is going to return in the air, take His church, His bride, home to be with Him. And on this earth there's going to come awful judgment and tribulation such as the world has never seen, a new administration. Then Christ is going to return to this earth and set up His kingdom for a thousand years, a new administration. Do you see the point? God has a series of administrations, a series of dispensations, if you please. And each of these periods, each of these administrations reveals something about man. People say, oh, if we just had better housing, and if we just had better cities, people wouldn't sin so much. Adam and Eve were in a perfect garden and they sinned. Someone else says, oh, if people would just live up to their conscience. Well, when Adam and Eve were outside the garden, people tried to live up to their conscience, they failed. God had to send a flood to destroy the whole world. Oh, if we just had better laws, better government. Well, God set up human government with Noah, that failed. God set up His own divine government with Israel, that failed. You see, God sent His own Son down on the earth. People saw Him as a perfect example, they heard His teachings, what did they do? They crucified Him. In every age, in every administration, man is seen to be a failure.

I want to emphasize this. History, if it shows anything at all, shows that man is a failure. He's a failure in a perfect environment. He's a failure if he tries to live up to his conscience. He's a failure under the stern rule of law. Law just makes people more lawless. Now the law is good, but people are bad, and the law cannot control lawless flesh. So in each of these administrations, God shows man's sinfulness. Each of these administrations ends in judgment. The first administration ended with Adam and Eve being cast out of the garden. The second administration ended with a flood. The third administration ended with judgment coming down upon Mount Sinai. The fourth administration ended with God's own Son being crucified on the cross. Each of these administrations ends in judgment. But you know, in each of these administrations, God's grace saves a few people. If people are ever going to be saved, they're saved by grace.

Now what is God doing? God is calling out from among the people of the world a people for His name. God is gathering together His children. And one of these days there is going to be a final administration, a final dispensation, the dispensation of the fullness of the times. Now what have we been saying up to this point? We've been saying this, that history is in God's control. God is not to blame for what people do. We don't blame God for the awful crimes of the war. We don't blame God for what we read about in the newspapers. Man are working out the sin that's in their lives. They are resisting the spirit of God, they are fighting against the grace of God. God is not to blame. But God has an overruling purpose in this universe, in this world. He is working out His dispensations. And there's going to be one final dispensation called the dispensation of the fullness of the times, when God is going to gather together all of His children, when God is going to renovate the universe, when God is going to give to mankind through Jesus Christ perfection.

I wonder if you'll be a part of that. Did you notice, He's going to gather together in one all things in Christ, which are in heaven and which are on earth? You know, many times in the Bible it talks about three levels, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. If you look over at Philippians 2:9-10, for example, it says this, wherefore Philippians 2:9, God also hath highly exalted Him, Jesus, given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth. That's judgment, that's hell. But now Ephesians 1:10 says that He's going to gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth. He says nothing about those that are under the earth. Those that are under the earth are lost.

I wonder if you're going to be gathered together with God's people in the dispensation of the fullness of the times. Where will you be? In heaven? It's possible that before this week is up, someone listening to my voice may die. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you go to heaven. When God gathers together all things in Christ, He'll bring you from heaven. Or it may be that we'll be alive on earth when Jesus Christ returns. If so, then He'll gather us with them on earth. We should be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air, says 1 Thessalonians 4:17. But no one who's under the earth, no one who's in that place of judgment will be gathered together with Christ. Quite the contrary, Jesus says, depart from me, ye that work iniquity, I never knew you.

Do you see how serious a matter it is for a person not to be a Christian? Not only are you condemning your own soul, but you are missing the great blessing of being a part of that all things in Christ. The dispensation of the fullness of the times. Now Paul likes this word fullness, he uses it several times. In Ephesians 1:23, he talks about the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all. Jesus Christ has gone back to heaven. He fills all in all. He is in control, He has been glorified. And the church is the fullness of Christ. Now you look at the church on the earth, it doesn't look like the fullness of Christ, looks like the emptiness. Nature does not like a vacuum. Wherever there's a vacuum, something moves in to fill it. God doesn't like a vacuum. God doesn't want our lives to be empty. This is why He says over in Ephesians 3:19 that ye may know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. Here's an amazing thing. Jesus Christ fills everything, even though we can't see it. The church is the fullness of Christ, and God wants to fill believers with the fullness of God.

That's why Galatians says, and Ephesians also warns us about the flesh and the spirit. Don't be filled with fleshly things, but be filled with the spirit. Fullness. If you'll look in Ephesians 4:10, talking about Jesus, He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things. What is God's purpose? Ephesians 4:13, till we all come, all Christians come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, under the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. You see, God is building His church. In Ephesians, the church is compared to a building, a body, and a bride. This building is being built with living stones, people saved, quarried out of the pits of sin and cemented by grace into God's temple. The church is compared to a body. The body is growing. And when this body reaches maturity, the place of perfection, when it has been completed, when we have reached the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, God's going to call us home. It's possible that today, the last member would be added to the body, the last living stone be cemented into the temple, and God would call His people home.

Now God wants us to experience fullness. Ephesians 5:18, be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the spirit. Now to be filled with the spirit means to be controlled by the spirit. If we say somebody is filled with anger, he's controlled by anger. If he's filled with malice, he's controlled by malice. If he's filled with the spirit, he's controlled by the spirit. Many people's lives are empty, empty. Jesus said, I am come that they might have life, that they might have it more abundantly, and of His fullness have all we received and grace for grace. Be filled with the spirit. Unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. God wants us to have full lives. Our president in this country ran on a slogan during a presidential election of the full dinner pail. Well, it's good to have a full dinner pail, it's good to have a full bank account if you can have one. But what an awful thing to have a full dinner pail and an empty life. A house full of furniture and an empty heart. What an awful thing it is for a person to have an empty life.

You know, when people came in contact with Jesus Christ, emptiness became fullness. When they touched Him by faith, His fullness moved in to their emptiness. If you're having an empty existence these days, if life has no meaning for you, God wants you to experience fullness. Right now today, you can have fullness in Jesus Christ. Now where is history moving? History is moving toward the dispensation of the fullness of times. What is a dispensation? It is God's management of His household. God keeps His same principles. God's principles run all the way through the word of God, they never change. Sin is always wrong, faith is always honored, but God's dispensations, God's managements do change. Some things that were right at certain periods in the Bible are wrong today. Some things that God commanded men to do centuries ago no longer apply to us today, because God has changed His dispensation.

Now if you want to know what God wants for His dispensations today, you read what Paul has to say. We're going to see in Ephesians 3 that Paul is the one whom God especially called to reveal to men God's pattern for this present dispensation. Paul is the one who reveals to us how we ought to live. Now as we sum up this lesson, let me ask you this question. Are you a part of God's plan in history? Have you discovered in your own life emptiness? God has been revealing to you, speaking to you through His word that your life is empty. You're living on substitutes. You have religion, you have church membership, you have good works, you try your best, but your life is empty. The only way to have fullness is through Jesus Christ. He is the fullness of God. He can fill your life. He'll fill your mind, He'll fill your heart. There'll be no longer that emptiness, that loneliness, that wondering of whether or not you really belong. God can make you full through Jesus Christ. And then one day gather you together with Jesus Christ and allow you to share in the dispensation of the fullness of times that He might receive all of the praise and all of the glory.

Father, we thank Thee that history is moving toward the coming of Jesus Christ. We thank Thee, Father, that as Christians, we have a part in this movement of history. And Father, we're looking forward to that day when the dispensation of the fullness of times will dawn upon men, and we'll have all things in Christ. May we today experience the fullness of God through faith and surrender and obedience. If someone, Father, is listening whose life is empty, help that one to trust the Savior, in whose name I pray. Amen.