Daniel 10:1-4

 Daniel 10

Vision of Jesus

The context: Daniel 10:1-4

How do you understand your Bible?

Shalom!

In the previous message we were talking about the last times and how the events we are experiencing nowadays are prophesied from long ago. Lost souls don't care about God and prophecies, but He wants us to be healed souls, not sick ones. Satan's goal is to send us to hell, but God's purpose is to save us. That's why He sent His only Son so that anyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. And that's why He sent the Holy Spirit in order to guide us, especially - albeit not only - through the understanding of the Scriptures. The Holy Bible is a revelation from God to holy men through the activity of the Holy Spirit in them. It is the same Spirit that reveals the Word of God to us also, the One who inspired it.

As the last times are coming to their fulfilment, Satan is tightening his ties on our world before the Second Coming of Jesus. An example of this is the incredible war Satan is waging in the US to make the Supreme Court - which is not intended to legislate but to apply the Law as the Senate approves it - its instrument of dechristianization of the land. The appointment of believing judges which Mr. Trump has done is being fought to death, because Satan's ideas can't win on themselves in a nation which is the last stronghold of Bible-based morals in the Western world, so he wants those ideas forcefully and undemocratically imposed from a non elected group of people, aka "legislation from the bench". Pray that President Trump wins! If Satan loses this battle then we have taken some years from the Antichrist, in which we will be able to win many lost souls for the Kingdom of God. The body of Christ is the only force on earth preventing the rise of the Antichrist.

When God was about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham was pleading with Him, in order to save the people there. God told him that for the sake of a few righteous ones He wouldn't destroy those cities. When Israel's governors conspired to do evil, and its priests didn't discern between holy and profane, God told Ezekiel that He would pour judgment on Jerusalem because or their sins, and that He didn't find anybody that "would build up the wall and stand before Him in the gap on behalf of the land" so He wouldn't have to destroy it. We have got God's power to fight Satan, and prayers are powerful. The ongoing pandemics and the economic crisis our response has provoked are nothing compared with other God's judgments which will come when the Antichrist begins to govern. We are in the position of Abraham or Ezekiel to pray for our nations' healing... and in our Western societies, to vote as well. The God who "deposes kings and raises up others", and who gave us the man who recognised Israel's rights to its eternal capital Jerusalem and to the Golan Heights, and is cleaning the judiciary from satanical servants, that God is powerful to give him the victory again. When the prophet Daniel was praying for his nation, He gave him visions and prophecies about Israel's healing and restoration, and when Daniel sought more knowledge and confirmation, He Himself came to tell him. 

Do you know how many times Jesus appeared in the Old Testament? He did it not just once, but several times and to different persons. The tenth chapter in Daniel's book is about one of these called "θεοφανιων", (teofaníon) which is the plural of Greek "θεοφανια" (teofanía) which is translated into English as "theophany", meaning a manifestation of God - who is the Spirit - in a visible form, as a human being. 

How did God appear to Daniel? Why did He do it? What for?

There are some answers to these questions in the beginning of the book of Daniel chapter 10, in verses 1-4:

"In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia, a revelation was given to Daniel (who was called Belteshazzar). Its message was true and it concerned a great war. The understanding of the message came to him in a vision"

"At that time I, Daniel, mourned for three weeks. I ate no choice food; no meat or wine touched my lips; and I used no lotions at all until the three weeks were over. On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was standing on the bank of the great river, the Tigris..."

The original Hebrew text of these verses is:

בשנת שלוש לכורש מלך פרס דבר נגלה לדניאל אשר נקרא שמו בלטאשצר, ואמת הדבר וצבא גדול ובין את הדבר ובינה לו במראה

 בימים ההם אני דניאל הייתי מתאבל שלשה שבעים ימים. לחם חמדות לא אכלתי ובשר ויין לא בא אל פי. וסוך לא סכתי  עד מלאת שלשת שבעים ימים. וביום עשרים וארבעה לחדש הראשון  ואני הייתי על יד הנהר הגדול הוא חדקל.

And this is the pronunciation:

"Bishnát shalósh le-Xóresh, mélek parás, davár niglá le-Daniel, ashér nikrá shemó Belteshatsár, veemét ha davár vetsavá gadól, uvín et hadavár uviná lo bamaré"

"Bayamím hahém, aní Daniel hayíti mitabél shloshá shavuím yamím. Léxem xamudót lo axálti, ubasár veyáyin lo ba el pi, vesóx lo sáxti ad meót shloshét shavuím yamím. Ubeyóm esrím vearbaá lexódesh harishón, vaaní hayíti al yad hanahár hagadól, hu Hidékel"

The reason Daniel was praying and fasting is not directly mentioned in this chapter, but we can certainly understand it because of the answer of God in verse 14, "I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come". Daniel knew some things about Israel's future through Nebuchadnessar's dream he himself explained to the king, and through the visions we read about in chapters seven and eight and the 70 weeks prophecy of Daniel 9. However, Dn 7:28 shows us that he was "deeply troubled by his thoughts" and Dn 8:27 that he didn't understand it well: "I was appalled by the vision; it was beyond understanding". The mysterious language of the 70 weeks prophecy didn't make the visions clear to him either, so he continued praying and fasting for his people. 

The spiritual gifts we know as "word of wisdom" or "word of knowledge" were powerful, through the anointing of the Holy Spirit in Daniel the prophet. As we saw in chapter 5 when he interpreted Belshazar's writing in the wall, we see here that he continues searching for the truth. ובין את הדבר ובינה לא במראה ("u-vín et-ha-davár u-viná lo ba-maré" can be translated as "he considered the message and the understanding came to him in vision") "בין" (bin) can be translated as "minded, paid attention, considered carefully" or as "understood". Don't be afraid to ask God about more clarity! He wants you to be sure about His revelations. 

Daniel's faith is also worthy to note in this passage. צבא, "tsavá", could mean war, conflict or service to God (the war prophesied in the message, or Daniel's spiritual war to keep his mourning, which matches better with "service" and "conflict" and with the vav) "Concerned" is nowhere in the original Hebrew, so the literal translation would be "and [or "but"] the conflict [or "war"] was great", meaning Daniel's spiritual war or conflict. 

There is a reason for Daniel's prayer; He wanted to know more about Israel's redemption. Nowadays we have the whole book of Daniel, Matthew 24 and 25 with paralells in other gospels, Revelation 6 to 20 and other passages by Zechariah, Paul and others who wrote after Daniel, which make a most detailed picture of the last times altogether. But the prophet had pretty much the statue of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, the vision of chapters 7 and 8, and the prophecy of the 70 weeks, most of them images or words which are not easy to understand. And he wanted to understand. 

There is a purpose in everything God does. There is a purpose of God for your life, for my life and for everyone's life. There was a purpose of God for Daniel's life, and that's why he received all of those prophecies and the explanation for most of them, even when they covered mostly times after Daniel's death. Because of Daniel's faith, his prayers were answered and his visions and prophecies explained by Jesus Christ Himself. 

Is there faith in you to receive from Jesus the Word of God? Our Lord Jesus Christ said that if your faith is as small as a mustard seed, nothing will be impossible for you. You don't need right now Daniel's faith, just a little faith as small as a mustard seed. The only faith you need to receive the Word of God from Jesus Christ Himself is that belief, that you're receiveing it from Him. 

If you have that faith, keep reading! The Word of God came to us for salvation! If you don't, it is my prayer that God will send His Spirit to you so that you receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior and be able to escape eternal damnation and receive eternal life. 

In the love of Christ, your brother Israel Leonard.

PS: Jesus is coming soon!

NOTE:

In the book of Revelation we find a very strong warning about the book - and about the whole Bible - that we have to consider before talking about anything concerning God. In Revelation 22:18-19 we can read:

"I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll".

In short, these verses are warning about adding human "prophecy" as it if were Word of God, or taking away God's warnings, commandments or prophecies we don't want to accept or obey.

There is no place in the Bible where you find that we should pray to Santa Claus, prohibit Christian ministers to marry or prohibit Christian women to preach the gospel. Those who do this are adding things that God doesn't mandate, usually because of tradition. There is neither a place in the Bible where you can call marriage something else than the union of a man and a woman, or where you can ordain unbelievers as ministers, or teach Socialist politics as God's word. Those who do these things are ignoring basic commandments of God which are unambiguously given in the Bible to tell us about what is good or what is evil. They are usually Atheists and cherry-pick or distort the Bible to do as they want.  

We could offer here a very long list of "adders" and "ignorers" but we'll live it to you because the knowledge of the truth should precede the knowledge of lies. That's why we introduce the truth only here. If you know the truth, then you know also which ones the lies are (they contradict the truth) If something is good or evil in the Bible, then it is good or evil for everyone. There is not "good for me but not for you" in the Word of God. We will talk about biblical periods or dispensations, which derive from the Bible itself and there's nothing in the Bible which is human or profane, but godly. 

"Dispensation" is the name of every one of the biblical periods of time where God made a certain covenant with mankind. The word comes from Greek "οικονομια" (oikonomía) which means stewardship, management. In every period, God "dispenses" the management of His creation to mankind, or to a part of it, through a covenant. In Ephesians 1:10 Paul is talking about how God will unite all things in the Messiah in the "dispensation (οικονομια) of the fullness of the times", it is, in the period of the completion of His will for mankind. The word is translated this way in KJV, American Standard Version, Young's Literal Translation and many others but not in NIV.

The definition of these periods began with the church fathers back in the second century (i.e. Irenaeus and Augustine of Hippo) but the modern concept is found in John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) a London born preacher and evangelist who brought it to Canada, USA and other countries. In the USA it became widely popular through the Scofield Reference Bible, the work of the American theologian Cyrus Scofield (1843 – 1921) which spread it.

The most natural biblical division in periods could be OT / NT (God's covenants with Israel and with the church) Nevertheless, God's covenant with Israel didn't exist from the beginning; it began with Moses in the book of Exodus (having been announced to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) and it didn't end because of the New Testament. The same thing happens with God's covenant with the church; it began in Acts 2 (having been announced through Our Lord and others in the gospels) and will end when Jesus comes. It means of course that there are other periods in the history of God's relationship with mankind, namely all of those that the books of Genesis and Revelation cover, and where many prophecies have their final fulfillment. For instance, all prophecies about the Millennial Kingdom in Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel or Zechariah have their fulfillment in a future time which is also prophesied in Revelation 20 and forward, as well as many prophecies of Our Lord Jesus Christ and several apostles. They point to a period which is not part of the "Old Testament" - the covenant of God with Israel - or the "New Testament" - the covenant of God with the church. In that period of time, both pacts will have ended and the Kingdom of God will be established on earth. 

The Old Testament

At least five different periods can be defined in the OT, called Edenic, Antediluvian, Postdiluvian, Patriarcal and Mosaic Law. In all of them we'll find warnings, commandments and promises of God to people which are included in what a "covenant" is. 

"Edenic"

• God admonishes - "if you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will die" (Gn 2:17)
  
  
• God mandates - To take care of the Garden of Eden (Gn 2:15) to rule over all animals on earth (Gn 1:26) to be fruitful and increase in number, in order to fill the earth and subdue it and all animals (Gn 1:28) 
  
  
• God promises - a Redeemer (Gn 3:15) should defeat Satan and justify Adam and Eve again, with their descendance, after they sinned

"Innocence" is used to describe the state of mankind in this period. And the Scripture approves as "right" all things you do in innocence (taking care of animals and plants and eating from them, working in your "garden" - or whatever it is now that produces your incomes - and marrying and having children) More than right, they are mandated by God. Both the OT and NT sanction these things as good and holy (see i.e. Ecc 2:12,13,22; 5:18 and Gal 5:22-23) The corollary of this could be that all things that the edenic period considered good are still good. The sin of Adam and Eve is not in the activity of their daily life, but in their disobedience to God's prohibition. Therefore, another part of the corollary is that it doesn't matter if you don't live as a sinner, there is a serpent trying to cause you to sin. 

"Antediluvian"

• God admonishes - sin desires to have us (Gn 4:7) and God will wipe the evil ones from earth (Gn 6:7)
  
  
• God mandates - to do good and rule over sin (Gn 4:7) to make an ark, fill it with animals and bring his family with him (to Noah, Gn 6:13-21)
  
  
• God promises - to accept those who do good (Gn 4:7) and to save them (Gn 6:18-19) 

"Conscience" is the key word which is used to describe this period. We human beings are endowed with a sense of right and wrong which we call "conscience", "morality", "moral compass" or "decency". In both the OT and the NT we find several examples of people who don't know God's laws, but they are properly guided by their conscience to act according to them. King Nebuchadnezzar when he repented in Dn 4, Ruth the Moabite, Naaman the Syrian and Rahab the prostitute are some examples of Gentiles seeking the God of Israel. All of them acted righteously (after Ro 2:14-15) following their hearts. 

The corollary of this period could be, "listen to your heart" - as John 3:18-20 declares. Our conscience is usually the judge of good and evil. But our heart is "deceitful above all things and beyond cure", meaning our conscience could be wrong (because we don't always agree with God about what is good or evil) and even that we can silence its voice if we want (Jer 17:9) That's why it was not sufficient for most people in Noah's times to "follow their hearts", and it is not sufficient now either. We need God. 

"Postdiluvian"

(Noahide Law)

• God admonishes - The death penalty is established for murderers (Gn 9:6) Only those who lived as Noah and family could be called "righteous" (Gn 7:1) so the covenant was excluding those who worshipped other gods, blasphemed, commited violence, sexual sins or robbery (all of this is included in the "corruption" named in Gn 6:11)
  
  
• God mandates - To execute justice (Gn 9:6) to be fruitful and increase (Gn 9:7) to not eat living animals (Gn 9:4)
  
  
• God promises - To keep both the existing order of nature ("cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night") and that of human activity related to it ("sedtime and harvest") in Gn 8:22. To never again destroy life, or curse the earth (Gn 8:21; 9:11, 15)

"Government" is the word which is associated with this period. For the first time we see that a legal code will be established, where the transgressions will be punished by our peers: the Noahide covenant, which is kind of an embryo of the most comprehensive Mosaic Law that would come. The oldest civilizations we know about appeared by that time (Sumerians, Egyptians and other ones) and they were established under legal codes. In this period we find those civilizations in the Scripture in the establishment of "peoples" that would become nations - defined by the descendance of Noah's three sons - and populating Europe, Africa and the Middle East (Gn 10) Their dispersion is told to happen after the failure of Babel (Gn 11) 

The corollary of this period is that mankind needs a moral code - a God's given one - to live by. That's why both the OT and NT abound in rules and commandments to be observed by Jews and Christians respectively. And as mankind in the postdiluvian period engaged in building Babel's tower in order to "make a name for themselves", people in posterior times have tried to establish their own justice, unregarding God's commandments. Many atheists, who reject God, usually point to the fact that there's so much evil in this world, without thinking about how could a world be, where people lived by God's commandments. So another part in the corollary of this period is that human government, even with detailed God's given codes and rules, is not enough for men to do God's will. Long sections in the OT deal with Hebrews that disobeyed God and were called by the prophets to go back to the law, and likewise special sections in the epistles of the NT, and five of the seven letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3, deal with disobedient Christians as well. Disobedience has caused divisions, wars, apostasy, heresy, and for Israel, to be conquered by Assyria, Babylonia, Greece, Rome and many others. We certainly need God's Spirit in order to do God's will. 

The dispersion of Noah's descendants after the failed attempt of Genesis 11 brought not only the plurality of languages we have now, but also a plurality of "gods" and religions. From this pagan world God called Abraham to bring forth a people that would know and follow Him again.

"Patriarchal"

• God admonishes: a curse for them who curse Abraham (Gn 12:3) Slavery for 400 years for Abraham's descendants and punishment for the nation that did it (Gn 15:13-14) Ishmael would be a violent man and would live in hostility (Gn 16:12)
  
  
• God mandates: to Abraham to leave country and family and to go to the promised land (Gn 12:1) To not be afraid (Gn 15:1) To offer animal sacrifices (Gn 15:9) To circumcise every male as a sign of God's covenant (Gn 17:9-14) To listen to his wife (Gn 21:12) To send away Ishmael (Gn 12:12) To sacrifice Isaac (Gn 22:2)

To Isaac: to not go down to Egypt, and to live in Canaan (Gn 26:2) 

To Jacob: To leave Paddan Aram and go back to Canaan (Gn 31:13) To be called Israel (Gn 32:28; 35:10) To settle in Bethel and build an altar (Gn 35:1)

To Hagar: to submit to Sarah (Gn 16:9) to call her son Ishmael (Gn 16:11)

• God promises: to Abraham to create a great nation from him (Gn 12:2; 13:16; 15:5; 17:2; 22:7) to make Abraham a blessing, to bless those who bless him and curse them who curse him (Gn 12:2-3) To be a father of many nations (Gn 17:5-7) To reach good old age (Gn 15:15) To give the land of Canaan to his descendants (Gn 12:7; 13:15; 15:18-21) God would be Abraham's shield (Gn 15:1) A heir to Abraham (Gn 15:4; 17:19; 18:10) His descendance would escape slavery with great possessions (Gn 15:14) Abraham's descendance would take possession of the cities of their enemies (Gn 22:17) All nations would be blessed through Abraham's descendants (Gn 22:18)

To Isaac: God's covenant would be with him, not Ishmael (Gn 17:21) To bless his descendants and increase them (Gn 26:4, 24) 

To Jacob: To bless his descendants and increase them (Gn 28:13-14; 35:11) To be with him, watch over him and bring him back to Canaan (Gn 28:15) To not leave him until the promise is fulfilled (Gn 28:15) To give him and his descendants the land of Canaan (Gn 35:12) To go with him to Egypt and bring him back to Canaan (Gn 46:3) 

To Sarah: to be the mother of many nations (Gn 17:16)

To Hagar: a great descendance (Gn 16:10)

To Ishmael: father of twelve rulers and a great nation (Gn 17:20; 21:13, 18)

"Promise" is the word associated with this period. Most of the history of mankind - especially Jews, Christians and Arabs - is related to the promises of God to Abraham and his descendance. And it is amazing that a period which in itself is hundreds times shorter than the other ones in Genesis, God gives us from chapters 12 to 50 a so detailed story of Abraham, the other patriarchs and Joseph. It is also remarkable the number of promises and orders God gives to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, even to Sarah and Hagar (in "patriarchal" times) in order to get His will done. God's election of Abraham and his descendants will be defined from now on with a more detailed guidance and many promises. The destiny of the "chosen ones" is always like this. The obedience of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob caused the will of God to prevail and the people of Israel to be formed. Their disobedience - to descend to Egypt instead of living in Canaan as God intended - caused their descendants to become slaves in Egypt for 400 years, as God had foretold. 

A positive and a negative corollary emerge from this period. The first one is that for the chosen ones, God will make all things work for their good (as Romans 8:28 declares, "we know that to them that love God, all things work together for good, to them that are called according to his purpose") In spite of our human frailty, God will support us to the end, until He has done with us as He intended - a fact that the history of Joseph so beautifully illustrates. The negative corollary is that disobedience has always a price. To disobey God and abandon Canaan costed them 400 years of slavery. Even when God doesn't destroy his chosen ones, they suffer punishments in their lives that could be avoided by following God's guidance. The sad history of Hagar and Ishmael, which took place because Abraham and Sarah didn't wait for God to fulfil His promise, is another example of what can happen when we do things our way instead of God's way. 

Israel's slavery in Egypt was the consequence of their disobedience to God. But God had a purpose with the people of Israel, and He was about to raise their leader, who would lead them out of Egypt and give them the Law: Moses. There are more than 600 commandments in Moses' Law, so their description will be obviously abbreviated. 

"Mosaic Law"

• God admonishes - the Mosaic Law included many warnings about the punishment that the sinners should receive, and even the whole nation, because of their sin. Individuals should be put to death because of idolatry (following other "gods", Lv 20:1-2; Dt 13:5) murder (Ex 21:14) kidnapping (Ex 21:16) bestialism (Ex 22:19) desecrating the Sabbath (Ex 31:15) adultery (Lv 20:10) homosexuality (Lv 20:13) spiritism (Lv 20:27) blasphemy (Lv 24:16) sorcery (Ex 22:18) and many other sins. Punishment of the whole nation should come upon them if they did not keep God's Law (Dt 28:15-68) including plagues, sickness, to be defeated by the enemy and taken in captivity, to be dispersed among all nations, and many other punishments.
  
  
• God mandates - Among the 600 plus commandments we find in the Torah, some of them are especially known and even followed by Christians, as the love of God (Dt 6:4-5) and the study of the Scripture (Dt 6:6-9) In the same category we find the Ten Commandments (Dt 5:6-21; the only difference is keeping the Sunday instead of the Saturday) Special to Judaism are the religious feasts (Passover, Feast of the Weeks and Feast of the Tabernacles - Ex 23:14-17) the system of offerings (Lv 1:1-7:38) the circumcision (Lv 12:3) plus many more commandments. 
  
  
• God promises - All of the promises God gave to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, concerning their descendants, are about the people of Israel - nowadays, the Jewish people. They are the receptors of God's covenant, given in the Torah, and the New Testament doesn't change that (Ro 9:4-5; 11:26-29) Those promises should increase greatly in the Law of Moses, including: God being Israel's God (Ex 6:7) to make Israel God's treasured possession among the nations (Ex 19:5) and a kingdom of priests, a holy nation (Ex 19:6) to make them holy (Lv 20:8) to fight for them and give them victory (Dt 1:30; 3:22; 20:4) to keep His covenant with those who obey Him (Dt 7:9) to raise a prophet like Moses (Dt 18:18-19) and many others. 

"Law" is the word which is associated with this period. God's law in OT times applied not only to religious questions in Israel, but also to social ones, and organizative, administrative, ethical questions, and to all other ones. Both the religious and civil laws of Israel were holy and God's given, and they were vital to keep Israel holy and God's covenant working in Israel's favor. Disobedience of the law caused huge catastrophes to Israel, the division of the kingdom between Israel and Judah, and it was the cause they were conquered and their land desolated by several empires, from Assyria to Rome, that finally erased the nation from the earth.  

The effect of God's Law, given for the Jewish people in the OT, is huge. In the Law is God's covenant with Israel, which lasts until the coming of the Messiah, who brings a new covenant to live by in the Millennium. The Hebrews lived in the nation God had promised to Abraham, for more than 1500 years, and God always raised prophets among them to exhort them not to abandon God's ways, judges who delivered them from their enemies, and obedient kings that ruled according to God's will. Even when the country was occupied and destroyed by the Romans, and most of the Jews were scattered through the Roman Empire, the Jewish presence never dissapeared from Israel, and both those who lived there and the Jews of the diaspora kept their covenant and worshipped God in their synagogues all around the world, as they had done in Israel. Their obedience caused that God would restore Israel, after almost 2000 years, in 1948. 

The period of the Law has a corollary that remains as long as we live in this world: God keeps His covenant with those who obey Him. The second part of this corollary is not so glamorous: God punishes sin in those who transgress His laws. A significant portion of the Scriptures deals specifically with transgressors of the Law, and the conquest of both Israel and Judah, by Assyrians and Babylonians respectively, was the result of the transgressions of God's Law, as the Lord had warned them in Deuteronomy 28. Those transgressions caused finallly Israel's obliteration by the Roman Empire, and to be without their promised land for almost 2000 years. This was also permitted by God because He was about to rise the church, reaching out to the the Gentiles.

In Acts 15:7-10, the apostle Peter brought two arguments that would establish a difference between Jews and Christians until the coming of the Messiah. The first argument was that God saved the Gentiles by faith, without any consideration about being observant Jews or not. He did mean that the Spirit of God came upon them who didn't live by the Law, in the same way He had come in Pentecost on 120 observant Jews, not because they kept the Law but because they believed in Peter's message about Jesus. The other argument - and the most decisive one - was that if Jews had not been able to keep the Law, why would them impose it to new Gentile converts who received Jesus as their Lord and Savior, and who received the Spirit of God? The answer of the Council is well known; we can read it in Acts 15. 

On the very day the Church's First Council in Jerusalem decided not to impose Moses Law on Christians, the Christian church was no more a sect of Judaism, but a new religion altogether. That's why the period of the church is called "of grace" in opposition to a period "of law". But this dichotomy is to be taken very carefully, because there was grace in the OT and there's law in the NT. Christianity is understood in the simplest way as receiving Jesus as Our Lord and Savior and to live as He did (otherwise we didn't get at all the meaning of having a "lord" above us) And when we start following Jesus, we are following a Jew who believed that the whole Old Testament is the Word of God, and who often confirmed God's law in his doctrine. 

The New Testament

There are three periods in the NT, but a significant part of the section of the Bible we call "NT" is about Our Lord and John the Baptist, as we read about them in the gospels. We have to adscribe the lives of Jesus and John to the period of the Mosaic Law, because they were both Jews who lived under the Law, and the church wasn't formed during their lives. It means that both of them lived in the Old Testament, and that the history the gospels narrate is a part of the Old Testament, dealing with Jews who lived under the Mosaic Law, celebrating Passover and going to their synagogues. They changed from "Jews" to "Christians" in the book of Acts - and even there, they are the "sect of the Nazarenes", a Jewish one, for some time. During the time the gospels are about, as history, they were just Jews following a new Jewish prophet. 

The first NT period begins actually in Acts 2 with the birth of the church - some say in the Last Supper, because it was there that Jesus instituted His covenant in His blood and His body, simbolized by wine and bread. However, it was in Pentecost when a congregation was born by the work of the Holy Spirit, a congregation called "church" and to whom this commandment of Jesus was vital. The apostles were not "the church", but the future leaders of the church, formed and trained by Jesus Himself to call and disciple others. 

The three periods in the New Testament are been called "Grace" - the period of the Church - "Great Tribulation" and "Millennium" or "Kingdom of God".    

"Church"

"Times of the Gentiles"

• God admonishes - There's a big deal of instruction (read "commandments", "warnings", "prophecies") in the New Testament (in every book of it, as a matter of fact) Obviously, we present only an abbreviated sample here. God admonishes Christians about: blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (the unforgivable sin of Luke 12:10) apostasy (Hebrews 12) homosexuality, adultery and fornication (1 Cor 6:9) debauchery, especially in the Lord's supper (1 Cor 11:27-30) sorcery (= "magic arts" of Rev 22:15) idolatry (1 Cor 10:14) robbery (1 Cor 6:10) rage, envy (Gal 5:20-21) unbelief, lie (Rev 21:8) and many other sins that would keep us out of the Kingdom of God if we don't repent. 
  
  
• God mandates - To receive Jesus Christ as Our Lord and Savior (John 1:12-13; Ro 10:9-10) to be baptized (Matthew 28:19-20) to love God and your neighbor (Luke 10:27) and to live as Jesus did (1 John 2:6) All commandments in the Bible derive from this last one, meaning that everything that is right or wrong for Jesus, mandatory for / prohibited by Jesus, falls in the same category for us Christians. The Holy Spirit comes to us to form Jesus in us, in order to lead us to live as He did, even to raise us from the dead, as He did with Jesus (Romans 8:11, 29) 
  
  
• God promises - The promises of the Lord to the church are many and magnificent ones. All blessings God promised to Abraham apply to us, even most of the blessings promised to Israel, as we are inserted in the olive tree (Romans 9:4-5; 11:17-18) which is Israel, the Jewish people. The demands of the Law on us were satisfied by the death of Jesus on the cross, so we are declared righteous without any animal sacrifices (Romans 8:1-4; Hebrews 9:1-10:18) We will experience God's blessing in our health (Isaiah 53:4-5; Luke 10:8-9; 1 Corinthians 12:9; James 5:14-16) our finances (Luke 6:38; Malachi 3:10) and our relationships (Matthew 7:12; 1 John 1:7, 2:10; 17:20-23; James 5:16) We will be spared the most terrible times of persecution that will come on earth (Revelation 3:10) and we will be risen from the dead and live eternally with God (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; John 3:16; 14:1-3; 17:2-3) We will rule on earth in God's Kingdom with Jesus (Revelation 3:21; 5:9-10; 20:4) 

"Grace" is the word which is associated with the period of the Church, maybe because of John 1:17 in opposition to the "Law". There is a misleading tendency about "law vs. grace" that we have to avoid. On one hand, it is obvious that some parts of the Law don't apply for Christians, for instance those which are related to the system of sacrifices, which we don't need because of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. It is also true that we don't have the Law as the means of salvation, but the relationship with Jesus, as saved by Him, and the "what-would-Jesus-do" approach - the Spirit of God is as much God as Jesus or the Father are; He forms in us Jesus' thoughts and feelings. On the other hand, what "Jesus would do" is that which this observant Jew of the first century would do, and God's grace is found in the OT as well. There is no "God of the OT" and "God of the NT" dichotomy. The "God of the OT" did not lack grace and mercy, and the "God of the NT" is not a lawless one.  

There is another tendency which is to try to find the church in the OT, and after the Second Coming, as if it were an almost eternal thing (with the implication that the OT was the "imperfect church" and the NT is the "perfect" one, replacing Israel forever) It is true that the saved Christians and Jews will meet on eternity, in the "New Jerusalem" of Revelation 21, but the church as we know it now began in the book of Acts and will cease to exist as a such when the Rapture takes place. The period of the Church is the time between the First and the Second Comings of Jesus Christ, and it will be followed by the Great Tribulation which is in turn followed by the Millennial Kingdom. God's programs for Israel and for the Church are different, and there is no continuity in which Israel should have been totally replaced by the church. 

The total restoration of Israel, which will include the establishment of Israeli sovereignty on the whole country and the erection of the Third Temple, will be the sign of an immediate Second Coming and the return of Israel to be God's only instrument of salvation on earth. The church in this role will cease when Jesus comes, because we are a parenthesis that will end with that event and God will work only through Israel again, after the church's rapture. This parenthesis is called the "times of the Gentiles" in Luke 21:24 by Our Lord Jesus Christ. When these times were over, Jerusalem would be no longer "trampled on by Gentiles", Jesus prophesied. And these times will be over when Jesus snatches us up to heaven. 

During 2000 years of existence, the church of Jesus Christ has undergone several changes which make nowadays church to a very different one to that Jewish "sect of the Nazarenes" that appeared in the first century, reached out to the whole Roman Empire with the gospel, was forced to meet in caves and catacombs for two centuries, because of Roman persecutions, and was finally recognised by the emperor Constantine in 313 AD. After the Apostolic period (which is pretty much in the first century) followed the period of Roman persecutions (~100-313 AD) the imperial church (313-476) medieval church (476-1453) reformed church (1453-1648) and the modern period, after 1648 (when the 30 years war ended) These periods of the church are so determined after the "History of the Christian Church" of J L Hurlbut (there are other forms of division of the history of the church) and we shall talk about them when dealing with the book of Revelation, if the Lord allows. They have been chosen from JLH's book because they are prophetically divided. 

As long as Grace is the Biblical period we are living in, there's no "corollary" we will derivate from its history yet. However, considering the promises and prophecies we have about the last times, we know that the church will be lifted up by Jesus in the rapture. Sadly, most of mankind will not receive the gospel and will not take part in the rapture. The believing ones who are waiting for Jesus' Second Coming will be spared the Great Tribulation, but the rest of mankind - including many who consider themselves observant Christians - will be left on earth. That's why Jesus says that He will come "like a thief" and that we would be prepared (Revelation 16:15; Matthew 24:42; 25:13; Luke 21:34-36; 1 Thessalonians 5:2; 2 Peter 3:10)

The Second Coming of Jesus has been treated in the previous message. It is the event related to the next Biblical period, the Great Tribulation, where the church is not on earth, Israel is the only light to the nations again, and the Antichrist is trying to conquer the whole world, but he is defeated by Jesus. 

The Great Tribulation has been prophesied by Daniel, Our Lord Jesus Christ and the apostle John. There's some discussion about the timing of the rapture and the Second Coming of Jesus. We believe the church will be raptured before the tribulation because of Revelation 3:10 (which applies for the believing "Philadelphia" church in contrast with the wordly "Laodicea" one) and also because of 2 Thessalonians 2:7, where "the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way". This "secret power of lawlessness" comes from Greek "μυστηριον της ανομιας" (mustérion tes anomías) which literally means "the mystery of iniquity". 

In Paul's prophecy, the "μυστηριον της ανομιας" is the opposite of the "μυστηριον της ευσεβειας" (mustérion tes yusebías) we read about in 1 Timothy 3:16, which means the "mystery of godliness". In this last verse God appears in human gestalt and is justified by the Holy Spirit. In 2 Thessalonians 2:7, on the contrary, the one who will reveal himself in a wicked "man of lawlessness" (described in 2:3-4 and 2:8-10 in the same letter) is Satan. In a nutshell, as the mystery of godliness is about worshipping God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) the mystery of iniquity is about worshipping Satan (the Evil one, the Antichrist and the False Prophet) 

It means that the satanical trinity - Satan, Antichrist and False Prophet - can be revealed at anytime, but the power holding them back, the church, is still on earth. The revelation of the Antichrist, then, requires the church to be taken away from earth, so that everything he will do will succeed, until Jesus "overthrow him with the breath of his mouth and destroy him by the splendor of his coming", as we read in 2 Thessalonians 2:8. The satanical power of the Antichrist appears in Revelation 6 - when the church has been taken from earth and Jesus begins to open the seven seals of the prophecy - and in Revelation 13 - when Israel has been protected by God and the second half of the Great Tribulation begins. 

"Great Tribulation"

• God admonishes - The Great Tribulation is a time of judgment like never before. But even there, God will not left himself without testimony. The people of the GT will be warned through earthquakes, meteor showers, demonic attacks and more, but they will not repent (Revelation 9:20-21) Two witnesses will prophecy to them for 3 1/2 years (Revelation 11:3-6) but they will kill them and make celebrations about their death (Revelation 11:7-10) They will have even angels admonishing them about the coming Kingdom of God, their need of repentance, the fall of Babylon (the religious and civil power at the time) and the horrors to come upon those who whorship the beast (Revelation 14:6-11) But most of them will worship the beast.
  
  
• God mandates - To worship Him (Revelation 14:7) to leave Babylon (Revelation 18:4) 
  
  
• God promises - To protect the Jews who are worshipping him (Revelation 11:1) to protect Israel from the Antichrist's persecution (Revelation 12) To be delivered from Babylon's plagues (Revelation 18:4) To be raised from the dead and reign with Jesus in the Millennial Kingdom (Revelation 20:4)

The Great Tribulation's keyword is "Judgment". God's final judgments for the sins of mankind will come on them when the opening of the seven seals, the sound of the seven trumpets and the outpouring of the seven bowls of God's wrath take place. The political and religious system of the Antichrist and the False Prophet - aka the "Great Babylon" - will fall at the Second Coming of Jesus, and then the Kingdom of God will be here. 

"Kingdom of God"

Millennium

• God admonishes - Nothing. For the first time, nobody will sin, and no punishment for sin will come on mankind. 
  
  
• God mandates - To reign under Jesus (Revelation 20:6)
  
  
• God promises - Eternal life (Revelation 20:6)

If you compare the "AD-MAN-PRO" in every period, the set of warnings, commands and promises that have been ADmonished, MANdated or PROmised by God is a different one, but never a contradictory one. After every period, when mankind has failed Him, God begins again by dealing with other group of people, but His moral precepts are the same and the little differences we observe have to do with different stages of mankind and - in the case of Israel and the church - with the obvious focal difference in the set of laws God would give us in order to raise up a special holy nation with God's given religious and civil laws, or a religious congregation intended to exist and grow in every country on earth, obeying the civil laws of their respective countries, giving "to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's" as Our Lord said.  

In the New Testament, Christians received no civil laws because they were supossed to live in non-Christian countries and to obey their civil rulers. When the Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal, and it became later  the official religion for the Empire, Roman Law was transformed because of the Christian faith, and with the fall of Rome, the countries that should be formed in the Middle Ages had a mixture of Civil Law, Bible and tradition which made up "the law" until the Reformation, which laid the foundations for the secular state vs. church, that we find as a hallmark of Western democracies. It is a big contrast with the Israel of the OT which had God's law covering both religious and civil aspects. However, the modern State of Israel is a democracy, pretty much in the same fashion than any Western country. 

The truth Dispensationalism conveys is clear: God has two different programs for Israel and the church, and He has made several different covenants with mankind or with a part of it since Adam and Eve's times, because mankind or his elected ones have failed in obeying Him. Where dispensationalists differ is in the application of this truth. For some ones, every new period is like drawing a line and starting from zero again. Of course it is not what the Bible teaches, because God is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. His warnings, commandments and promises rarely substitute something from the past; they rather build upon the previous ones. However, there are unreconcilable differences between Israel and the church which caused theologians of the past to adopt replacement theology, in times of strong antisemitism. The dispensationalist model gives heed to Romans 11, to several chapters in Revelation where God is protecting Israel, and to all promises God made TO ISRAEL in the Old Testament about the Millennial Kingdom. The concept of the period of the church as a parenthesis in history is not a fable, but a revelation. The coming of Israel's Messiah - aka the second coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ - is meant to establish a Millennial Kingdom where he will reign upon Israel - and the church, of course. This Millennium is not only prophesied by Isaiah or Daniel, but also by Our Lord Jesus Christ and the apostle John. A different approach is to "take words away from this scroll of prophecy".