www.scatteredchristians.org
Another Sermon for the Starving Bible Believing Christians All Over the World Wide Web
2005 - Touchet Baptist Church, Touchet, Washington - Pastor Mike Paulson - 2005
Expounding the way of God more perfectly - Acts 18:26 - with the Scriptures Rightly Divided - II Timothy 2:15

Modern Gainsayers Against Paul's Gospel
Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine
both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.
Titus 1:9

Mention the word "Paul" and folks/preachers, etc. immediately label you a hyper dispensationalist.  Mention KJB and they label you a Ruckmanite; mention soul winning and you are Hylesite; mention homeschool and you are probably following vision forum or Michael Pearl and while your kids are obedient while they are little kids, they all tend to grow up to be miserable teens.

People are so quick to label - and often they miss the blessings of the truth.

Because we have preached Paul's gospel these past few years, and despite the obvious fact that the Bible has come alive to you, there are folks who will not give Paul the time of day - and they will attack us by calling us hyperdispensationalists.

Remember Nehemiah and all the attacks that Sanballat and Tobiah threw at Nehemiah?  We can't be surprised at their attacks - we are seeing rightly dividing do what it is suppose to do and thus we are attacked by the brethren!


This will be a short series of learning about the criticisms against preaching Paul's gospel.   We then will also be preparing ourselves so that we can try to convince those gainsayers (who seldom change their mind because of pride and formal educational brain blockages) that this stuff on Paul is not what they say it is - and so just maybe they can get a grip on this Bible - rightly divided of course!

The majority of these criticism are coming from a common critique of Hyper-dispensationalists from someone I call their baptist pope.  They may be right about some folks out there who do divide incorrectly - but to lump Paul into one basket shows me a few things that are serious concerns.

As all my sermons seem to have, the audio has more content than the notes!  You can easily misread and mislearn my preaching and teaching by only reading the notes - and skipping the audio.

We are not hyperdispensationalists as they are perceived - we are preaching Paul's gospel and we are still preaching from Genesis to Revelation.  It is just so simple - everything from Genesis to Revelation is NOT all written TO us - it is all there FOR us, but it is not all TO us.  Paul's teachings is what is written TO us!

Thus we see just what rightly dividing the word of truth is - so please remember, anything that is wrongly divided leads to more ungodliness.  And sometimes you can be doing right wrong!


Paul's Gospel is...

Deeper Dispensational Dividing, it is not "different!"
The Way of God More Perfectly!
A More Excellent Way!
Biblical Increase God’s Way — the Book!
True Liberty in Christ!

Being a Christian is more than just leading others TO Christ,
and more than just living FOR Christ...
...it is learning to live WITH Christ after you have been led to and are living for Christ!

Having an understanding of the Scriptures is how a persons grows to live WITH Christ.
See Revelation 3:20


But these Baptists who claim to be Bible Believers are gainsayers
who don’t see it that way...  ....in fact, they don’t see it at all!

These gainsayers are folks who:

1)  are ...Envious of all that Paul's gospel does for folks in helping them understand the Scriptures and actually change their lives.
Acts 13:45 - But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy, and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming.
See also Matthew 27:18; Mark 15:10; Acts 7:9
Also note that in James 3:16, we see that where envying and strife is, there isconfusion and every evil work.
2)  are ...NOT King James Only folks - they are usually Greekers - the Textus Receptus crowd.  They are liars in some sort because they preach from and tell folks to read their King James Bible but they themselves go to the Greek to find their 'deeper' knowledge and guidance.
3)  are ...Anti-anyone who is KJVOnly - especially the Ruckman and Riplinger readers, etc.and love putting "ites" after their names.
4)  believe ...Salvation is the same from Genesis to Revelation believers.  What a thing - there IS a difference in salvations and so their wrong thinking permeates in these criticisms.
5)  are folks who believe there is only one church - the local church.  They do not believe that there is a universal body of Christ - invisible church, etc.  They have made their local church the same as that Roman Catholic Church - the holy church on earth - the one that the gates of Hell will not prevail against!
5)  are folks who lift the church above the Book!  They truly hate to see folks get stuff from their Bible 'on their own' without the preacher being the 'answer man' and personal guide, etc.  Their joy and peace, etc. all comes from a local church, NOT the Bible!
6)  are folks who use' the Bible to build a church.  The church is the pillar - it is suppose to lift the Book - the truth.  These folks are using the Book - the truth (if they use the truth at all anymore...) - to lift the church!
7)  are so against Paul that some even call his gospel a false gospel and say Paul is a false prophet!  Yes - there are some baptist brethren who believe Paul's gospel is all wrong and is to be rejected totally!

It's all amazing isn't it!


The following comments are from the gainsayers against Paul's gospel and are typed in bold black - my response is in blue!

Here is my rebuttal to the accusations from those who attempt to apply their critique to us here in Touchet!


Lesson One
Audio sermon lesson 1

“Hyper-dispensationalism” is characterized by making a sharp division between the ministry of Christ and that of the Apostles, and of further dividing Paul’s teaching from that of Peter and the other apostles.
We don't preach a 'sharp' division at all.  In fact, we don't see a division at all.  That is why it is called a more excellent way - the way of God more perfectly.  It is all about growing and going beyond.  Early Peter and late Peter is an obvious fact.  Peter was corrected by the Lord in Acts 10 and by Paul in Galatians.  The apostles had signs that followed what they preached, Paul didn't and we still don't!  There are differences, but not a sharp division!  These gainsayers like to make something bigger than it really is.

Some of the well-known teachers of hyper- or ultra-dispensationalism are E.W. Bullinger, Cornelius Stam, J.C. O’Hair, Charles Welch, Otis Sellers, A.E. Knoch, and Charles Baker.
These gainsayers are so good at taking a persons name and attaching the itis to them - and making them a cult leader.  The same can be said of David Cloud and all that he teaches.  I have read some of the works of those guys listed, but I read them after I started seeing this stuff on Paul.  I don't stand with them - not at all.  But the gainsayers like to take everyone and put them into one bucket.

Just like the accusation that someone who believes that the King James Bible is the ONLY Bible is called a Ruckmanite.  I know of many folks who believe the KJB to be the inspired, preserved, infallible word of God and they never did know Dr. Ruckman.

I preach Paul, not Bullinger, Stam, Ruckman, Cloud, Hyles, etc.


There are many varieties of hyper-dispensationalism, but the following are some of the characteristics:
However, they still put everyone in the same 'camp.'

(1)  The four Gospels are entirely Jewish and contain no direct teaching for the churches.
Here we see that these folks do not understand the 'to' and 'for' princple applied within the Bible.  Simply put, the early part of Acts was TO the Jews and the transition TO the Gentiles takes place throughout the book of Acts; but it is all there FOR everyone.

Yet, the writer of Hebrews said that the same gospel of salvation that was preached by the apostles was preached by Christ (Heb. 2:3-4).
No - not at all.  Note that the gospel preached in Heb includes signs, miracles, etc.  Yes, that was preached by the apostles to the Jews, but NOT to the Gentiles.

Though we know that Christ presented Himself to the Jewish nation and we do understand that there are differences between the gospels and the epistles...
Ahhh, so they do admit to that statement.  I think we are seeing some circular commenting going on.

...yet in Hebrews 2 we do not see a sharp delineation between the gospel preached by Christ and that preached by the apostles who followed.
We also see in Hebrews 6 that a person can lose their salvation.  That seems to be a pretty sharp delineation!  Hebrews is for the Millennium - not for today.  It is how it would have been in the gospels had the Jews accepted Christ as their Messiah.

In fact, the Gospel of John presents exactly the same gospel as that preached by Paul. Further, 1 Tim. 6:3 shows that Christ spoke directly to the church age.
What is "the gospel" that is the same.  There are anywhere from 4-10 gospels...  Of course Christ spoke to the church age - Paul has taken what Christ has told him and written it to and for us today.  Paul still preaches the words of Christ - the words that Christ gave to Paul to preach!  Acts 9:1-22; 20:24; 26:15-28; Gal 1:11,12; I Cor 15:8; II Cor 12:1-6; Eph 3:1-7.


End of lesson one