Understanding Dispensations

Well, it's delightful to see all of you again today. It's almost nice, since we've got the nice sunshine, to have it turn this way where I'm not looking right in the sun. Whenever I'm looking at all of you. And so, I guess this can just sunburn the back of our head. That'll be what some of us will get.

Well, I appreciate what Tom was able to cover here in the sermonette, and actually a new find and something that gives verification to the Bible. And we've been going over recently the unity of the Bible. We've covered a little bit of information about the unity that you see in the Gospels. And a couple of other things that I know that the labor in the Word program that is being presented to the ministry. They're going to be going over the threat of the Bible. They're going to be going over the themes of the Bible. And those are really exciting. Whenever you start making the Bible come alive, whenever you start putting it together and where it actually makes sense. See, what it is, the Bible is the inspired Word of God. It's been written and covers a long, long period of time. It covers from the very beginning to the very end. What the ultimate outcome is going to be. What is it that man needs to know? And one thing that was presented that I guess I hadn't really thought about very much, but I found it very, very helpful, is that the Bible mentions a number of dispensations. Now, maybe that Word is familiar with you. Maybe you understand it a lot better than I did, because I hadn't thought about it in the way that it was presented. It pointed out how this program that, again, the ministry is covering.

It showed how that there had been different periods of time where God has tested people in a certain way. That's really what dispensations mean. And actually, if you look that up, if you Google it, you can find there are a lot of different Biblical writers who talk about different dispensations. They divide them in numerous different ways. Three, or nine, or twenty-three, you know, there's a lot of different ways of dividing it. Dr. Ward was going over, was showing seven, which appear to be very significant and very important dispensations or administrations where God has dealt with people through the time of Adam or from the time of Adam to right now, and even as he's going to deal here in the immediate future. And I wanted to cover those with you. It does give, as I will mention, there are different views on this. This is what we currently teach, or this is what we generally can use to understand the Bible, to understand the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation. That's what we all want to be able to have at least an overview of. We often study different verses and go through verses, as we did earlier, regarding Hezekiah and some of the things that he did or said, and even about the sun going backwards. That's obvious control over the sun. Who is dealing with Hezekiah? Well, the God who created everything was dealing with him. And he was very thankful for that, and clearly even pointed out that we have hope because we believe in the God who is entirely reliable.

We all want to be reliable, but we're people. We're pretty limited. But God is not. He's not limited in any way. And he is extremely faithful and reliable, and so we can trust. What he says, he can trust what he says about our lives today. We can trust what he says about what's going to happen. So, we want to keep in mind that God's Word shows us that his purpose is that he is bringing many sons and daughters to glory. We read that in the book of Hebrews. It's a statement that it should take on more and more impact as we understand more about what that actually means, that God wants us to be in his divine family. He, when you think about it, I was thinking about this as I came up here today, of all the work that the Holy Spirit does, the work of the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit is the essence of God that does works of power. Now, clearly, one of those works was Jesus being born as a physical child, a little boy, and becoming the Lamb of God. That was one of the works, and of course, you could see during the life of Jesus, he raised Lazarus from the dead. That was another work of power. You see in John 9, how that he healed a man who had been blind all his life. That was another work of power that was done through the Holy Spirit.

And yet, the most incredible, and as you think about this, the most incredible work that the Holy Spirit is involved in doing is converting the human heart, converting your heart and my heart to where we're actually no longer carnal, we're no longer solely focused on physical things, but that we are actually growing, being transformed and growing in a divine nature and are going to be glorified as the children of God. That's an incredible undertaking, and as we understand it, it takes our involvement. We have to be desirous of that. We have to want that. We have to seek that, and we certainly want to be led by...there are a lot of different descriptions that you find in the Bible, being led by the Holy Spirit, being guided by the Holy Spirit, but being transformed by the Holy Spirit is a matter of changing our heart, changing the way our mind is, changing the way our heart is, helping us be attuned to God. So I'm going to go through a couple of these verses. A couple of them are here in Ephesians. Ephesians 2...or excuse me, I'll start in chapter 3. Ephesians 3 says in verse 1, Paul is saying, this is the reason that I, Paul, am a prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles. And so he is talking to the church and he's saying, verse 2, If indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you. See, here he mentions the word dispensation. It's in the New King James. It's in the King James. Some of the translation I normally use says, surely you have heard of the commission of God's grace toward me that was given to me for you. He's using the word dispensation as an administration. Or, again, as I said, a period of time where God tests people in a certain way. And here Paul is just talking about it being His commission. But if we back up to chapter 1, you see that we have, if we drop down to verse 7 in him talking about in Jesus, we have redemption through His blood. We have the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace that He's lavished on us, and with all wisdom and insight, He has made known to us, He has made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself.

That, in verse 10, in the dispensation of the fullness of the times, that He might gather together and want all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, in Him. And in Him we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will. See, that's clearly talking about what is God doing? What is His plan? What is His purpose for human life? And He again uses the term dispensation in verse 10, and there He talks about the whole thing being wrapped together, you know, the fullness of times. There's a significant reason. I don't know that everybody focuses on the fullness of times in the way that we do, because we understand a good amount of prophetic things. We understand the book of Revelation. We understand what the last few chapters of Revelation talk about that we're not there yet. We're in the mid-part of Revelation of waiting chapter 20. We're waiting chapter 19, I guess, because we want Christ to return. But in chapter 20 and 21 and 22, you know, we've got a lot ahead of us. And that's a part or a dispensation of what God is doing in His plan that's called the fullness of times. It's going to be an amazing time in the future. But I want to go back, and I know I'm going to have to go through these things quickly.

But perhaps you can at least get the overview that I'm wanting to give, and then we could discuss it more, think about it. And again, this is not the only way it could be broken down. You might see it in some other way. But these make really good sense to me, the seven that were presented in our program. Let me just, if you wanted to write down the seven, I can give you the names of them, and then we could go back and discuss them.

And some of these names are commonly used, like I said, about the final one being the fullness of times. I don't think everybody uses that one, but we clearly do, because we see that as the culmination of what God says He is going to do.

But the first one is the dispensation or administration of innocency.

Innocency. The second one is the administration of conscience.

Innocency, conscience. The third one is an administration of human government.

Administration of human government. The fourth one is an administration or dispensation of promise.

The fifth one is the dispensation of law, or the law covenant, the Old Covenant that we read about as we read throughout much of the Old Testament.

The sixth one is the dispensation of grace, or of the church age.

And of course, we understand that to be applicable to us as the New Covenant applies to us, having been recipients of the Holy Spirit.

And then, finally, the seventh one is regarding the fullness of time.

See, when you look through the Bible, and of course this is beginning from Genesis and going to the very end of the book of Revelation, you can see how these could all summarize different periods of time.

Some of them very short, like what we see in the Garden of Eden, that looks pretty short.

There's not a lot that you could say as far as time that were evolving at Ammoniv.

But that was a short time. You have a much longer time in some of these others.

And yet, it's important, and again, this is just one way of kind of breaking down the whole Bible, to try to see or understand the plan that God is bringing to pass in dealing with human beings, and bringing us to be a part of His divine family.

So let's go back to this first one here, the dispensation of innocence. What's that talking about? Well, in Genesis 2, and in Genesis 3, we see how God created mankind.

And of course, this is not covering everything that you read in Genesis 1, because there was a lot that happened before God reshaped the earth, and settled it in a manner where Adam and Eve were created beings, and where they were given, made out of the dust of the ground, but then given the breath of life.

And in essence, Adam and Eve were in a state as they were created by God, having been given the breath of life, having to become living souls.

They were not immortal souls, because God told them, if you sin, if you disobey, then you'll die.

You take of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and you will die.

That's what we read here in Genesis 2, verse 15.

The Lord God took the man, put him in the garden of Eden, to till it and keep it.

And the Lord God commanded the man, you may freely eat of all the trees in the garden, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you do, you shall die.

So he was not immortal. He was not, you know, he was created in a very limited sense, or a little limited form.

And yet what we find, as we read on through chapter 3, is that Adam and Eve, in essence, started off kind of neutral.

They were neutral, and they were going to be expected to make a choice.

And we've talked about choice before, how important it is that all of us choose, and continue to choose, life from God.

And yet Adam and Eve, you know, in this very brief period of innocence, failed.

You know, God was dealing with them. It's incredible that when you think about Adam and Eve, the only two people on earth, and having a relationship with God, being, you know, instructed by God, Adam being told to name the animals.

I don't know how he came up with all the names. Armadillo, Platypus, you know, all the different strange animals, you know, elephant.

I don't know how he came up with some of the names, but you know, you read about him naming the animals.

But what we find in chapter 3, of course, is that the devil, the serpent, entered the picture.

Now this again had to be allowed by God. You know, he didn't exclude that.

That was a part of what would eventually play into the plan of man having to choose to be a part of God's family.

And yet, this is just a very limited dispensation.

It doesn't seem to last very long because it appears as you read into chapter 3 immediately.

Eve is deceived by the serpent.

And then Adam follows suit. I want us to look at 1 Timothy 4 because Paul talks about this.

1 Timothy chapter 2, I guess it is.

1 Timothy chapter 2 verse 13, Adam was formed first, and then Eve, verse 14, and Adam was not deceived.

But the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

Yet it goes ahead and talks about women still being given salvation through Jesus Christ.

Now to tie that together with what happened in the Garden of Eden, it would appear that Eve was deceived.

But clearly Adam followed right along.

He didn't. And you could say, perhaps, well, was Adam deceived? Well, clearly we see that undoubtedly as he went through his life, he got more and more deceived, more and more confused.

And yet, what we find about Adam was that he just deliberately sinned.

He didn't reject at that point the deception. He accepted the deception.

And of course, the outcome of that was what? They were cut off.

Cut off from the Tree of Life. And God, even, and we don't have time to go through, but God in chapter 3, even predicted that, well, I'll have to rescue you. I'll have to send a Redeemer.

I'll have to send a Savior. And he mentions this in chapter 3. So you have the very beginning there of starting off in a neutral state and yet immediately being deceived, and then suffering the consequences of sin. They were going to die.

They didn't immediately die. They died some years later, some centuries later, actually.

And yet, they were going to die. They had selected the wrong thing.

The second dispensation of conscience. You see that written about from the time of Adam and Eve.

And then their children, Cain and Abel, maybe chapter 4, you can see Cain and Abel.

And of course, Adam and Eve, throughout the remainder of their lives, they were just simply dealing with what seems right to me.

What do I think is good and what do I think is evil?

And of course, people today think like that.

All of us have thought like that, and probably we still do think about that some of the time.

And we try to figure out what seems right to me.

Well, we need to look to see what's right to God. What does He say is correct?

And then you can truly rely on that. You can truly trust that. But what we find from Adam, and primarily from chapter 3 and 4 as he has sinned and turned, and then his children obviously being conflicted, Cain, you know, he was probably given a lot of preference.

A lot of, what, firstborn, a lot of encouragement.

They probably wondered, you know, that this is an amazing thing that a little baby can be born.

And yet you find, you know, from Adam and Eve, Cain and then Abel, and you find at this dispensation, when God was dealing with them, they were simply deciding what they thought was right and wrong.

And some did better. It appears Abel did better than Cain did.

And certainly, you know, I hadn't thought about this, but this is where God introduces how to approach God.

And they approached God through a sacrifice. They approached God through an offering.

And in the case of Abel in chapter 4 of Genesis, we know that his offering was acceptable to God, but Cain's wasn't.

And so you see the horrendous mess that Cain made as you continue through chapter 4 and 5, and of course, 6.

This is a period of time, a lot of it is genealogy, you read through there, and yet it is a period of time that it's almost 1500-1600 years before Noah would come onto the scene in chapter 6.

And there was a period of time. See, during that 1500-1600 years, there was an expansion of people.

And yet following their conscience, following what seemed right to them, and not really, you know, drawing close to God, seemingly Abel, seemingly righteous, you see Enoch walking with God. Other than that, you don't see anything until Noah is brought onto the scene, and then Noah had his own problems, but God was merciful. God was very gracious to Noah.

But of course, in Genesis 6, verse 5, we see the outcome of the dispensation of conscience. And see, this continues down through today. You know, all of us suffer from, you know, sometimes just relying on our own ideas or our own conscience. But here in Genesis 6, verse 5, the outcome of this dispensation, the Lord saw the wickedness of mankind, was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their heart were only evil continually.

That's still true today, but clearly, you know, the judgment was the flood. The judgment was a universal flood, a flood that killed all but eight, all but eight humans. And so we see then the beginning of the next administration here, where God was dealing through a certain level of human government.

Now, again, I don't know that I have recognized this in Genesis, chapter 9. In Genesis, chapter 9, you see, even though people were still doing what seemed right in their own eyes, and Noah was told, you know, you need to rectify this, where I'm going to start over. But I'm going to give you even more responsibility in the dispensation of human government. This was going to run from the time of Noah and his life involving the flood, and then in his life following the flood, because he lived after the flood.

But here in chapter 9, in verse 5, it says, For your own lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning, and from every animal I will require it, and from every human being, each one for the blood of another, I will require a reckoning for human life. Whoever sheds the blood of a human by a human, shall that person's blood be shed. For this man, for in his own image, God made mankind. See, again, I've read that, and I don't know if I recognize that while God was, in a sense, allowing, you know, human system or human government to, in a sense, be the way that people lived.

And of course, if you read from chapter 9 and 10 and 11, you see how that this was a time that was going to involve the development of the nations, the Tower of Babel, and ultimately God then, at the mid part of chapter 11, chapter 11, verse 9, it called Babel because the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered people all over the face of the earth.

You know, that obviously didn't work. You know, people were deciding again to disobey God, to dishonor God, disrespect God's ideas, but he had given them what we would say is capital punishment. He had allowed that to be a part of that dispensation.

From Genesis 12 on through a good part of what we have in the book of Genesis, you see the dispensation of promise. Now, it's described this way because of what we read here in Genesis 12, verse 1. And it was beginning with a very important man. Now, clearly, in regard to the flood, you can say Noah was pretty important. He was significant in that God gave him mercy and told him what was going to happen, and had him prepare for 120 years to be able to live through that type of flood.

But in Abraham, God was starting something new. That's why it's the fourth dispensation here. He was telling Abraham, and you see in verse 1, chapter 12, the Lord said to Abraham, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I'm going to show you. In verse 2, I will make of you a great nation. See, here God is starting to deal with men completely different than, as you read earlier, the Tower of Babel in verse 11.

And the confusion that was happening when people were simply governing themselves and whatever seemed right to them. But in verse 2 it says to Abraham, I'm going to make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great so that you will be a blessing. He says, I will bless those that bless you, and the one who curses you, I will curse, and in you all of the families of the earth will be blessed.

So here God is giving to Abraham, and we know of Abraham as the father of the faithful. When you read the Bible, Abraham is clearly a greatly significant figure, and of course his descendants will be making up the house of Israel. They'd be making up the people that the whole Bible talks about.

It's written from the standpoint of the Israelite people, and that's what we read in the Old Testament, that the kings later of even... Well, no, I don't want to get that far ahead at this point, but of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.

You read chapters there about how God tested Abraham, and you say, well, did he know anything about Jesus? Did he understand anything about salvation? Well, I think he certainly would come to understand certain things, but what he was required to do was remarkable. And even the way that Isaac or later Jacob would be tested by God was, in some ways, different than what we would go through the day. But God had told Abraham here in verse 2 and 3, I'm going to bless you, I'm going to make a great nation of you, and actually all people, all families of the earth are going to be blessed through you.

Now, that was not simply from the physical generations, but that was predicting that Jesus Christ would come through Abraham, and of course, he would also be a son of David. That was going to be a part of the continuation. And so, you see how that this promise actually is later fulfilled, more so in Genesis, or excuse me, Galatians chapter 3. You see Paul writing about Galatians chapter 3.

In verse 14, in order that in Jesus Christ, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles. Paul has written a good deal about the need for the Jews and the Gentiles to understand that God is drawing them into a spiritual family. And that family was to be the Israel of God. It was to be the church, the called-out people. But he says in order that in Jesus Christ, as God would draw people to Jesus Christ, as He would send them to the earth and He would be the Lamb of God, in Jesus Christ the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. And so that's how all of us, even as we live many, many years, 2,000 years since the time of Christ, that promise is still available to us. And we are able to be blessed. We are able to be saved through Jesus Christ. But that's the promise that you see that God gave to Abraham. The fifth dispensation is just called the Dispensation of Law. And I think we're familiar with much of this because we study God bringing the children of Israel through Moses or with Moses, by Moses, out of the land of Egypt. And then you see the whole discourse about what happened to the Israelites as they were going to be approaching the Promised Land. And then how later there would be judges and there would be kings that would be appointed. And you find an entire section of the Bible, actually a very large section, that would be dealing with the dispensation of law, the law, covenant. And if we look at this in Exodus 19, see all of these are described early on here in the Bible. But in Exodus 19, it says in verse 4, of course this is leading up to the time when the law is going to be given, it's going to be thunder from God, from Mount Sinai. In verse 4, You have seen what I have done to the Egyptians, and how I have bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to Myself. Now therefore if you obey My voice and keep My covenant, you shall be My treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed the whole earth is Mine, but you shall be for Me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. These are the words that you should speak to the Israelites. This is what God was relating to Moses, and then He was going to relay it to all the Israelites. And of course, as you know, in chapter 20, you see a recitation or a listing of the Ten Commandments, the commands from God that the Israelites needed to respond to. Now that was a little different than the information that Cain and Abel had. You know, it appears that they had a little less direction, or at least it's not recorded, as far as how much were they given. They were shown to approach God through sacrifice, through offering. And they couldn't do that, or at least Cain couldn't do it. Abel did a fairly good job. That didn't get him very far in this life, except, you know, he will be resurrected as a righteous individual. And yet here, in verse 7, Moses summoned the elders of the people. He set before them all that the Lord had said, commanded. And the people all answered everything that the Lord has spoken we will do.

Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord, and the Lord said, I'm going to come to you in a dense cloud in order of the people, and so here he's going to bring, you know, the law. But what they had agreed to do was obey God. Now we read in Hebrews that there wasn't a problem with the plan. There wasn't a problem with the law. The problem was with who? Well, the problem was with the people. The people were the ones who failed. Israel was supposed to be a respected nation. They were supposed to be an honored nation, but they failed to do that, even as we saw earlier with the paganism and the idolatry that was involving even the kings, and whether or not they even knew about the law. Now that's the record that you find in the Old Testament. But that dispensation, of course, failed, and ultimately it was going to lead to what we read in 1 Peter 2, 1 Peter 2, verse 9. For God in talking through Peter to the church, to the people who had been drawn to Jesus Christ, people who were either Jew or Gentile, both together, were to be drawn and said you are to be a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people. And of course, the purpose of that is not just to be saved, which we clearly want salvation and we want to be a part of the fine family of God, but at this time our responsibility is so that we may proclaim the mighty acts of Him who called you out of darkness into this marvelous light. From the time of the Exodus and Israel being brought out and being given the law until the time when Jesus would come. That would be 1500 years, the time 2000 years ago when Jesus would come and He would be the person who would be our salvation. And so, again, obviously the law continues. It continues to be identifying what sin is. It continues to tell us how we're to live, but all of us live during a time that you would call the dispensation of grace or the church age which began in Acts chapter 2. It started with the coming of the Holy Spirit. It started as Jesus was put to death and then resurrected. Then the church age could begin because God would then start expanding. A family that had hope, that had purpose, and that had the Holy Spirit. That had availability of a power from God to be transformed. That's an incredible thing to comprehend for any of us. And it should not be overlooked or taken for granted because if we ask every day to understand that more fully, well then we're going to be more motivated in living our lives in accordance with God's law and His will, but also with the prospect of the fact that He is going to cause us to be glorified. Whenever Jesus talks about asking the Father, even when He was on earth, I'd like for you to re-glorify Me. I had glory with you. I was with you. The Word was always with the Father. It eternally existed, completely uncreated. And now He was a human and He was going to give His life. And then He said, I want you to restore Me to that glory. And then whenever He talks about His family, He does that in a loving way and He talks about us being glorified as well. Being inheritors with Christ and being glorified with Christ. So this church age, the sixth dispensation, began at Pentecost, and of course it's still existent today. And you read this, if we back up to Ephesians chapter 3 again, where we read a little bit earlier. Ephesians chapter 3.

And again, this is talking about Paul is saying in verse 2, you've already heard of the commission of God or the dispensation of God's grace that was given to me for you. And how in verse 3 the mystery has men made known to me by revelation? As I wrote above in a few words of reading of which will enable you to perceive my understanding of this mystery of Christ. In former generations, this mystery, this plan was not made known to mankind as it has been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.

And that mystery is that the Gentiles can become fellow heirs and members of the same body and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel. The Gospel message was that Jesus Christ is able to forgive your sins, but that you can be a part of the kingdom of God. You can be a part of the divine family of God. And so this is what, again, we see the bulk of the New Testament written about people that God was drawing into the church, not only back in the first century, but now since that time, God has worked with some.

He says He's not worked with everyone. Jesus said, I'm not saying everything in parables so everybody will understand. I'm saying it to those that I draw or that the Father draws to me. And of course, in connection with the church age, Romans 6, verse 1, you can see how the law obviously is still applicable here. What can we say? Should we continue in sin, in order that grace may abound?

Paul answers that by saying, by no means. How can we who have died to sin go on living in sin? See, obviously, to be a part of the church of God today, and a part of the church age, and a part of the projection into the future, into the divine family, then we're going to turn from sin. That's going to be, in a sense, a foundational part of our lives and of our growing toward God's family. But then the last dispensation, as I mentioned to you, is just called the fullness of time.

Ephesians 1, verse 10, mentions this dispensation of the fullness of time, ultimately drawing everything together. And maybe we should read that here in Ephesians 1 again. Ephesians 1, it says, In Jesus, in verse 7, we have forgiveness, redemption through His blood, forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, that He's lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight, He has made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure that He set forth in Christ, a plan or a dispensation of the fullness of time to gather up all things in Him, things in heaven and on earth in Christ, we have received this inheritance.

See, ultimately, everyone, not just those that God initially calls, not just those who respond to God and obey God and serve God and honor God and proclaim the message of the Kingdom of God, because that's what we are commissioned to do. That is the reason we are a part of the Church of God today, is to proclaim that Kingdom, to proclaim the coming of Jesus. And of course, as we read here in Ephesians, you see ultimately everyone is going to come under Jesus Christ's supervision.

And of course, we read this in Revelation 11, and yet Revelation 11 is simply a summary verse here, chapter 11, verse 15. The seventh angel blows his trumpet and a loud voice from heaven says, The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Messiah, and He will reign forever and ever. See, that is what God is going to do shortly. That's, in a sense, the next event that we are awaiting.

But as I mentioned, the fullness of time would involve what we read in Revelation 20, the Millennium, the White Throne Judgment, and in chapter 21 and 22, the new heavens and the new earth that are even beyond that, where the entire family of God is in complete unison with the Father and with the Son. And that, of course, is described as simply the fullness of time. So I hope that in going over this, that this gives you one way, another way of looking at not just the unity of the Bible, but the overview of what the Bible is telling us.

It's telling us it's not disjointed and disconnected. You start reading the begets and all of this, and you think, what is this talking about? And yet, it can be all put together, and there are segments of it throughout the Bible. And, of course, ultimately, it's awaiting what we read here in Romans 8. See, we're awaiting the end of the violent kingdoms of men. That's where we are today.

It becomes more and more visible every week, that that's what we deal with. People are being agitated and stirred up by the devil's influence as the prince of the power of the air. And there's going to be more of that. We ask for God's protection and for His kingdom to come, but ultimately, what we read here in Romans 8 is what we anticipate.

Paul says, and I consider that what we suffer right now, the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory about to be revealed to us, in us, actually, for the creation. The entire creation waits eagerly, longing for the revealing of the children of God.

The creation was made subject to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of the one who submitted it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now, but not only the creation, but even we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, grown inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. We're waiting. God is developing us now. He is causing us to grow. He's causing us to have insight into the Word of God. We are all going to be teachers of the Word that God has given us, so we want to be able to see it from the beginning to the end, be able to see how the different parts fit together, see how it's all united, but see how in the end it shows that those that God has worked with, those who God has transformed are the ones who are going to be given the glory of being, you know, the children of God with the Father and with the Son.