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Through the Bible with Les Feldick
LESSON 2 * PART 3 * BOOK 53
James 1:1-23
What did the average Jew on the street think of Gentiles? A good Jew, go to those pagan Gentiles?" That’s where you’re going Saul! All right, so that was the beginning, then, of God turning toward the Gentile race of people and beginning to let Israel slip through the cracks. All right, now, years later, of course, after about twelve years, in about 52 AD, Paul has now been out there ministering among the Gentiles especially up in Asia Minor - and he would establish these little Gentile congregations based on his Gospel of Grace, not of works but by faith plus nothing.
All right, now, the reason I’m rehearsing all that is because I’m taking you now to Acts chapter 15 (and at the culmination of this Jerusalem counsel now in around 51 or 52 AD, when Peter, James and John finally make a gentleman’s agreement with the Apostle Paul that they would confine their ministry to Israel and they would quit sticking their nose in Paul’s dealing with the Gentiles, and Paul and Barnabas could go to the Gentiles). All right, now then, here’s where James, of the James and Peter and John that writes in the back of our Bible - this is the statement that James makes at the end of this counsel in Jerusalem. Starting in verse 13:
Simeon (or Peter) hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name." The house of Cornelius, when Peter was forced by the miraculous power of God to go to that Gentile Roman household, and he saw the proof that God was now saving Gentiles - even those pagan Romans, see? All right, so James says, "this is the conclusion that at the first He did visit the Gentiles to take out of them (out of the Gentiles) a people for His name." The calling out of the Church, the Body of Christ, the calling out a people from amongst the Gentiles) I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David,…" This top timeline was interrupted because God is going to call out a people for His name beginning with the Apostle Paul there in about 40 AD, and that is still going on today. And since this top timeline was interrupted, God just funneled the Nation of Israel because of their unbelief, back into the flow of humanity in what we call the dispersion in 70 AD, and they were scattered amongst all the Gentiles of the world.
So that message was called the Gospel of the Kingdom. Repentance and water baptism was also preached under that Gospel of the Kingdom. Peter and the Eleven are still preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom to the Jews, and Paul has now begun to preach the Gospel of Grace to the Gentiles. There’s one Gospel for Jew and Gentile, black and white, rich and poor - there is only one plan of salvation today.
It’s going to be caught up in what we call Paul’s teaching of the Rapture.
This Body of Christ out of the Gentile world can also include some Jews, we’re not going to leave them out. It was appropriate for the Jews of Peter’s day because they thought this was all coming, and it’s appropriate for the Jews of today. Now the question came up at break time, "Was Peter looking for the Rapture? It’s found over in II Peter. All right, so before Peter loses his life, and as he writes his second letter, verse 15 of chapter 3, a verse I’ve used many, many times to show how that even Peter now recognizes that Paul is now the man of the hour. It’s Paul’s epistles where the human race has to go for all their instructions during the Church Age. II Peter 3:15-16a
God has always been concerned about the salvation of lost humanity.) even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath (past tense, it’s all done) written unto you;" (Jews) 16. All right, so he says finishing the verse.
II Peter 3:16b
All right, so now then we’ve established that after the Church Age is finished and the Body of Christ is Raptured out, then the Tribulation is still facing the whole human race, and Israel in particular. All right, so now we’ll start looking at the little letter of James. James chapter 1 verse 1. James 1:1
"James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to (now watch this - my, I guess if I’ve taught anything over the years, it’s to watch who a portion of Scripture is written to. Who are these scattered Jews to whom James is writing? Well, they were Jewish believers of the Kingdom Gospel that Jesus was the Christ, but they had been ravaged by the persecution of Saul of Tarsus.
Well, who was that assembly at Jerusalem? Believing Jews. So that Jerusalem congregation of believing Jews that believed that Jesus was the Christ, was a goodly number. The apostles!

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