I speak in tongues more than you all - A biblical exploration about the gift of tongues. Two pitfalls are pointed out: The dangerous error of counterfeiting the truth and the chilling error of a dead orthodoxy.

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John Brokaw

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John Dennison

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10 Ways to Read the Bible

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The Music of Glorybound

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I am having a little trouble finding you doctrine info on your website.  Where can I find the information on what you believe? 

Benn

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The page at http://www.gospelhall.org/faqs/faqs/your-first-visit.html would give you some information on the doctrine, style and priorities of assemblies.

We believe the Bible is the inspired, once-for-all revealed word of God.  We teach that Salvation from sin is through the death of Christ on the cross.  Works of any kind do not save, but provide evidence of the reality of the dwelling of the Spirit of God.  We believe that the church is a group of called-out believers who share common doctrine and maintain a good testimony of honesty, good works and respect among neighbors and friends.  The pattern of believers found in the Acts and Epistles is our model.  There is no creed or organization other than the Bible that we follow.  We believe Christ will return at some day, known only to God, to rapture all beleivers.

Shad Sluiter
www.gospelhall.org

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Did God replace Israel with the Church?

No. 

If we fail to distinguish between the Church and Israel, we will have difficulty in interpreting the Bible, especially in regards to prophecy.  

The Church is distinct from the nation of Israel.  Israel is God’s chosen people who have specific promises (land, king) that are eternal and irrevocable.  There is still much that God is going to do with Israel.
A common error is to teach that Israel was the Church of the Old Testament and the believers of the New Testament are just another manifestation of the chosen people of God.  It is taught that since the Jews rejected Christ, God has rejected them forever.  That leaves room to say that the Church is the new Israel in sprit.  All promises that were given to Israel would therefore apply to the Church of the New Testament.

It can be shown from a few verses that God still sees a future for Israel as well as sees a distinction between Israel and the Church.

The Bible makes a division of the world into three groups:

1 Corinthians 10:32" TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 10:32 "Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God."

• The Jews – Israel
• The Gentiles – the unconverted, unsaved of the world.
• The church of God – all believers in today’s period of grace.

 
    In Acts 15:14-17" TARGET="_blank">Acts 15:14-17 divides the world in the same way:

The Church

God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name (v. 14).

Israel

After this I will return, and will build you the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up (v. 16).

The Gentiles

That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things (v. 17).

    
Again we see the same division in Ephesians and Colossians:
    the Jews-the circumcision made with hands (Eph. 2:11)." TARGET="_blank">Eph. 2:11).
    the Gentiles-the uncircumcision (Eph. 2:11)." TARGET="_blank">Eph. 2:11).
    the Church-the circumcision made without hands (Col. 2:11)" TARGET="_blank">Col. 2:11)

What difference does it make?

Israel will one day have a son of David sit on the throne in Jerusalem.  This kingdom will have no end.

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."  (Luke 1:31-33)" TARGET="_blank">Luke 1:31-33)

All Israel will be saved.  They will repent and receive Christ and be forgiven for their sins.

Lest you be wise in your own sight, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, "The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob"; "and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins." As regards the gospel, they are enemies of God for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers.

(Romans 11:25-28)" TARGET="_blank">Romans 11:25-28)

Currently, most of the Jewish people are not saved.  Only a “remnant” is saved.

So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace. What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, as it is written, "God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day."

(Romans 11:5-8)" TARGET="_blank">Romans 11:5-8)

When the Jews did not receive Christ as their Chosen One, they were temporarily set aside.  No longer does God work through them to accomplish his work on earth.  They will remain in this dormant state until Christ returns. The work of God with the Jews has been put on “pause” until God is done working with the Gentiles.

Three phrases tell us about this time of parenthesis:

1.  The riches of the Gentiles (Rom_11:12) is the great blessing that falls to the Gentile nations through salvation by faith in Christ.  The Gentiles are spiritual rich while the Jews remain in poverty.
2.  The fullness of the Gentiles (Rom_11:25) is the time allowed to the Gentiles to be saved.  When Christ completes the church with the last soul saved, He will come again to rapture the church home.  That will mark the end of the Gentile’s time of salvation.
3.  The times of the Gentiles (Luk_21:24) refers to the political domination of Gentile nations over the nation of Israel.  The Gentiles have been asserting control over Jerusalem ever since the last king of Juda was led captive to Babylon in 521 B.C.  The times of the Gentiles will end when Christ liberates Jerusalem (Revelation 18)." TARGET="_blank">Revelation 18).

The Mystery of the Church

The Church is “a mystery”.  A mystery is a doctrine that was kept hidden from Old Testament believers but has been revealed to us now.  The fact that the Church was a mystery means that it is something new in comparison to the Old Testament.

This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

(Ephesians 3:6-10)" TARGET="_blank">Ephesians 3:6-10)

The Beginning of the Church

The Church had it’s start on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2." TARGET="_blank">Acts 2.  The Church did not exist before this date.  In Matthew 16:18," TARGET="_blank">Matthew 16:18, Christ spoke of the Church as a future event yet to be fulfilled.  

Entrance Requirements

To become a member of the nation of Israel, one must be born to Jewish parents.  To become a member of the Church, one must be born again.  One must receive Christ to become a member of the Church.

Spiritual Benefits

If a person is born a Gentile they are naturally without hope and without God. Gentiles which here are called the "Uncircumcision" suffered two types of separation. For centuries, the Jews looked upon the Gentiles as lower-classed, rejected, dogs, alienated peoples who were in darkness. Seconldly, the Gentiles were separted spiritually:

1) they were "separated from Christ". They had no Messiah, no Savior, no Redeemer.  They had no hope of ever coming to God without a mediator to bring them.
2) They were "alienated from the commonwealth of Israel." The people of Israel being God's chosen people enjoyed the only physical place on earth where God dwelled and worked.  Without being part of the nation, people were alienated.
3) They were "strangers to the covenants of promise," aliens to God's blessings. While the church doesn't have the priviledge of participating in all the Covenants of the inheriting the Land - "To your offspring I give this land" (Genesis 15:18)" TARGET="_blank">Genesis 15:18) or of having the King rule over them - "And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. " (2 Samuel 7:8-17)," TARGET="_blank">2 Samuel 7:8-17), the church does enjoy the blessings that come from the Covenant of Promise that God made with Abraham that "and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:3)." TARGET="_blank">Genesis 12:3).
4) They were "having no hope". They were lost and had no possibility of changing their future.
5) They were "without God in the world." While they had many gods, they did not have the One True God.

 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called "the uncircumcision" by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands-- remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

(Ephesians 2:11-12)" TARGET="_blank">Ephesians 2:11-12)

However, once a person is in Christ, the barriers that kept Gentiles away from God's blessings are removed.  God created a third group, the Church, in which both Jews and Gentiles enjoy intimacy with God and blessings.

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.

(Ephesians 2:13-18)" TARGET="_blank">Ephesians 2:13-18)


Conclusion

God defines the nation of Israel as his people.  They may have been set aside, but they are not forgotten.  The promises regarding an eternal kingdom for Israel should not be allegorized into some undefined blessing for the Church.  God has preserved the Jews throughout the centuries as a distinct people.  God is preserving them for the Day of Christ when he comes again and begins to work with them to fulfill all that was written about them.

Shad Sluiter

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“By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. . . God testifying of his gifts, and by it he being dead yet speaketh.”Hebrews11:4" TARGET="_blank">Hebrews11:4

Why were Abel and his offering accepted, and Cain and his offering rejected? Does the expression “more excellent” imply that there was something excellent in that of Cain?

The word translated, “more excellent,” is literally “more, “or’ ‘greater,” and is used either of quantity or quality, here clearly of the latter. It does not imply any excellence in Cain’s offering, otherwise we should not read, “but unto Cain and to his offering God had not respect.” Also later God said to him, “If thou doest well (i.e., come like Abel with the slain victim, implying that Cain had not done well in offering his fruit of the earth), but if thou doest not well (i.e., persist in thy refusal of that offering;) sin’ lieth at the door; i.e., croucheth like a wild beast ready to spring. There can be no reasonable doubt that God had revealed to His fallen creatures how they must approach to Him—even by the minhab or approach offering—a lamb of the flock. Clearly this was to be slain, as the expression—”of the fat thereof” shows. Had there been no such revelation, how could Abel have had “faith” to draw near in this way?

I remember years ago seeing a blind Kabyle reading in Braille type by the wayside in North Africa, what I learned to be this fourth chapter of Genesis. When we asked him why God accepted Abel’s offering, he replied, “There was something in it which spoke of the Messiah.” This is true; no doubt that sacrifice was a type of the Lamb of God slain at Calvary, and foreshadowed the bruising of the Kinsman’s heel. Abel confessed himself worthy of death and appropriated the death of the victim in his stead. Cain’s offering was of the same vegetable kingdom as the fig-leaves of the aprons of Adam and Eve, and as the host of flour and water, which the Romanist and Ritualist offer on their “altars,” all of which are bloodless offerings and powerless to remit
sin.

W.H.

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THE TERM “JEW”

When and how did the name “Jew” originate, and to whom does it apply to-day?

The word is an abbreviation of “Judan” and occurs first in 2 Kings 16:6," TARGET="_blank">2 Kings 16:6, where we read that “Rezin recovered Elath and drave the Jews” thence. A reference back to 2 Kings 14: 21 tells how Azariah, made King by “the people of Judah,” had smitten Elath and restored it to Judah, which shows that Jews and people of Judah are synonymous terms and represented the Southern Kingdom, after the separation of the ten tribes under Jeroboam. After the Captivity, those who returned though no doubt including Levites, Benjamites and representatives of other tribes, were all known as Jews, the Judans being predominant (see Ezra 4:12;" TARGET="_blank">Ezra 4:12; Nehemiah 1:2;" TARGET="_blank">Nehemiah 1:2; Nehemiah 4:2)." TARGET="_blank">Nehemiah 4:2).

Only twice in the Synoptic Gospels do we find the word (Matthew 28:15;" TARGET="_blank">Matthew 28:15;  Mark 7:3)," TARGET="_blank">Mark 7:3), if we except a few occurrences of the phrase, “King of the Jews,” but the name is common in John and the Acts. I believe it is a great mistake to meet the British Israel “hypothesis” (which I believe for many reasons, historical and scriptural, to be a complete delusion), by denying any difference between “the lost tribes of Israel” as they are usually and properly termed, and the scattered Jews. Certainly many Israelites had lapsed to the Southern Kingdom, before their captivity by Assyria, under Sargon, but in spite of this the Northern Kingdom of Israel was able to withstand a three years’ siege from the greatest of the then world-powers. We are distinctly told that they were taken captive, except a feeble remnant, and placed “in Halah and Habor, by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.”

Considering that these places were far-removed geographically from Babylon, at a distance of 300 or 400 miles to the north, and that the captivity of Israel took place in 721 B.C., that is a century-and-a-quarter before that of Jehoiachin, it is very unlikely that the two captivities mingled or even came in contact. When a thing is lost it is not a bad idea to seek for it as near where it was lost as possible, and probably the representatives of the lost tribes may still exist in or near those parts.

The difference between Judah and the ten tribes of Israel is preserved in the accounts of the final return to the land, e.g., in Isa. ii. Ia, we read of “the outcasts of Israel” and “the dispersed of Judah.” See also Isaiah 27:13;" TARGET="_blank">Isaiah 27:13; Zepheniah 3:19, and especially Ezekiel 37:16-22," TARGET="_blank">Ezekiel 37:16-22, where God commands prophetically the two sticks to be taken, one “for Judah and the children of Israel his cQmpanions” (representing those individual members of the ten tribes who had lapsed to Judah and are confused sometimes with those tribes themselves), and the other “For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim and for all the house of Israel his companions” (i.e., the lost tribes). To meet this British-Israel delusion with a defective argument is to strengthen it, for its advocates will surely take notice of it, though they usually leave the sound arguments, which abound against their theory, severely alone.

W.H.

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What is the difference in Isaiah 9:6" TARGET="_blank">Isaiah 9:6 between the expressions the “child born” and the “Son given”?

There is an important difference, I believe, and one which the exponents of what they term “the New Light,” as to the Eternal Sonship of our Lord, would do well to consider. Why is the “child” said to be “born,” but the “Son” not born, but “given”? We read in Isaiah 7:14" TARGET="_blank">Isaiah 7:14 that God had been pleased to offer to king Ahaz a sign to confirm his doubting soul, that the line of David would not be superseded by the son of Tabeal, according to the Satanic design of Rezin and Pekah, which would have set aside the purpose of God regarding His future King, who must be of the seed of David according to the flesh. Ahaz had liberty of choice; he might ask for any sign in the depth, that is commensurate with the drying up of the Red Sea, or in the height commensurate with the standing still of the sun in answer to Joshua’s prayer. The king who was continually tempting God by his disobedience, refused this offer: He would not tempt the Lord, he said. Very well, then, the Lord will give a sign greater than any other known so far in the history of the world—the Virgin Birth of Him who was God:
“Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel” (v. 14). A great effort of unbelief has been made to show that the word,” ‘almãh,” translated “virgin,” should be rather rendered “young married woman.” Such an objection hardly shows unusual scholarship, so much as a lack of common sense; for the fact of a young married woman having a son would be no sign at all. In this verse, in the phrase “a virgin shall.. . bear a son,” the same verb is used as in Isaiah 9:6," TARGET="_blank">Isaiah 9:6, “a child is born.” Here the Son is viewed as the Son of
Mary in the sense of Matthew 1:25" TARGET="_blank">Matthew 1:25 “She brought forth her first-born Son.” Why then is the “Son” said to be “given” in Isaiah 9:6" TARGET="_blank">Isaiah 9:6? The reason is that there the One born is viewed as the One who had already been Son from all eternity. He could not become that by human birth. The child was born, but God gave His Eternal Son.

W.H.

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What is the difference in Isaiah 9:6." TARGET="_blank">Isaiah 9:6. between the expressions the “child born” and the “Son given”?

There is an important difference, I believe, and one which the exponents of what they term “the New Light,” as to the Eternal Sonship of our Lord, would do well to consider. Why is the “child” said to be “born,” but the “Son” not born, but “given”? We read in Isaiah 7:14" TARGET="_blank">Isaiah 7:14 that God had been pleased to offer to king Ahaz a sign to confirm his doubting soul, that the line of David would not be superseded by the son of Tabeal, according to the Satanic design of Rezin and Pekah, which would have set aside the purpose of God regarding His future King, who must be of the seed of David according to the flesh. Ahaz had liberty of choice; he might ask for any sign in the depth, that is commensurate with the drying up of the Red Sea, or in the height commensurate with the standing still of the sun in answer to Joshua’s prayer. The king who was continually tempting God by his disobedience, refused this offer: He would not tempt the Lord, he said. Very well, then, the Lord will give a sign greater than any other known so far in the history of the world—the Virgin Birth of Him who was God: “Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel” (v. 14). A great effort of unbelief has been made to show that the word,” ‘almãh,” translated “virgin,” should be rather rendered “young married woman.” Such an objection hardly shows unusual scholarship, so much as a lack of common sense; for the fact of a young married woman having a son would be no sign at all. In this verse, in the phrase “a virgin shall. . . bear a son,” the same verb is used as in chap. 9. 6, “a child is born.” Here the Son is viewed as the Son of Mary in the sense of Matthew 1:25" TARGET="_blank">Matthew 1:25: “She brought forth her first-born Son.” Why then is the “Son” said to be “given” in Isa. 9." TARGET="_blank">Isa. 9. 6? The reason is that there the One born is viewed as the One who had already been Son from all eternity. He could not become that by human birth. The child was born, but God gave His Eternal Son. W.H.

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