Bob Enyart Live takes us on a deep dive into the theme of repentance and the kingdom of God promised to Israel. Dominic unpacks the motivational drive behind early Christian communal living as depicted in Acts, addressing questions about poverty and communal sharing. The narrative walks through the transitions made by early apostles, noting the adjustments in faith practices when anticipated events did not unfold as expected. This session is a rich exploration of expectations, reality, and the ultimate faith journey.
Greetings to the brightest audience in the country, and welcome to Bob and Yart Live. We are on Tuesday of our final week here on KLTT Radio. For decades, this has been our home from my dad, Pastor Bob and Yart. He started his show decades ago, and it was on KLTT, and he started it with a vision to defend God’s word. Now, to me, in these final broadcasts, This station has been part of our lives and part of yours. It’s bittersweet, but I am encouraged that our ministry is going strong. The Enyart Theology YouTube channel, the Real Science Radio YouTube channel, the kegov.com broadcasts, the podcasts, right, with hundreds of thousands of downloads. Through these, God is using us to edify believers and reach unbelievers all over the globe. We’d love for you to stay with us for this next chapter. Listen to our daily podcast at kgov.com. Get your Bible studies at enyart.shop, www.enyart.shop, and subscribe on the YouTube channels. Your support helps us to continue this work. you can subscribe you can donate one time or monthly or more important than any of that pray for us my email is in your theology gmail.com if you want to share any favorite memories of our time here on kltt or if you have any questions about this transition now as our gift to you this is a parting gift that we’ve been going through the last few weeks we continue with segment eight of part one of the plot bible overview the plot bible overview is the study which has been our number one best seller it’s been behind a paywall for our entire ministry in fact it is still behind a paywall the only reason that you are getting it right now is because you are listening on kltt radio this is the plot bible overview this is the eighth segment on kltt the life’s work of Pastor Bob Enyart. Let’s jump right into it.
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And the times of refreshing will come from the presence of the Lord because we’ll have God’s kingdom on earth because Christ will be here present among us. Let’s read Acts 3.19. Now in the whole early part of Acts, it’s all directed to Israel. Verse 12, we see Peter speaking to the men of Israel saying, In verse 19, repent therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that he, that God may send Jesus Christ who was preached to you before whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things. That’s the kingdom. which God has spoken of by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. And we’ll look at those verses again in a moment. But basically what Peter is saying is Jesus is in heaven right now and he will stay there until God sends him back. what would cause God to send Jesus back to earth? If you repent, men of Israel, repent so that we’ll have the presence of the Lord and that God may send Jesus Christ, whom heaven must receive until the kingdom, right? Jesus went to heaven to remain there until what? Until the kingdom. And if Israel would only repent, then the kingdom would be established because Christ would return to be their king. Now, if you look down, let’s see, to verse 24, Peter, in his address, says something really strange. He says, Why does he single out Samuel? Why does he do that? All the prophets who have spoken from Samuel and all those who follow. Well, how about Moses? He was a prophet. What was Enoch? Chopped liver? What’s going on here? Why does Peter say, this is that which was prophesied by all the prophets from Samuel forward? Why Samuel? because he was the prophet who was identified with Israel’s kingdom. He anointed the first king in Israel. He anointed David to establish his throne in Jerusalem. It was Samuel who did that. It’s in the book of Samuel that we read the prophecy that God gave. I’ll quote to you from 2 Samuel 7. God says, “…I will set up your seed, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” I will be his father. He shall be my son. Your house and your kingdom shall be established forever. Your throne shall be established forever. Samuel, if you search before Samuel, from Adam to Samuel, you don’t read any explicit promise or prophecy of a kingdom. You don’t read that. There’s a battle between good and evil. between God and all the forces of evil. And there’s God choosing a nation through Abraham, and Moses establishing the laws by which the nation would live. But you don’t read of an eternal kingdom. You just don’t read of it. It didn’t happen. It started with Samuel. So from Samuel and all the prophets who followed, they are the ones who specifically speak of the kingdom of Israel. And that’s why Peter says, from Samuel and all those who follow. So in this whole context, he’s talking about getting the kingdom. Jesus is in heaven. If we men of Israel repent, God will send him back and establish the kingdom from the presence of the Lord here among us. All right. Now, they did something strange at this point in the book of Acts. If Christian ministers did this today, they would be condemned by most. What did the apostles do? They told their followers, their converts, to sell their homes and take all the proceeds and give it to the church, give the money to the church, and basically become wards of the church. Now, what if I came here today to minister the gospel and I urged you to sell your home, sell your land, give me all the money, and I’ll keep you fed and clothed. Would that go over well? And if I told you it’s because the Lord was coming back soon. The Lord is coming back soon. You don’t have to worry about a 30-year mortgage and pay all that interest. You don’t have to worry about land appreciating over time. getting a windfall for your retirement you don’t need it let’s focus 100 percent on our effort on evangelism because the Lord is coming back soon that’s what the Apostles did the twelve not Paul Paul never did any such thing in fact he helped them to put the pieces back together after it all fell apart but the twelve had their converts sell their homes and their land and give every penny to the church I remember Ananias and Sapphira. They tried to get around that in Acts chapter five. They sold, but they held back some and they gave some. And what did the Holy Spirit do? Killed them. He killed them. So this wasn’t a plan that just the 12th cooked up. Hey, this is a way for us to guarantee our retirement. No, this was what God wanted them to do. Why would God tell people? In fact, if we look at it in Acts chapter four, Verse 34, all who were possessors of lands, this is acts four 34, all who possessed lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold and laid them at the apostles feet. And they distributed to each as anyone had need. So the apostles took all the money from the sale of the homes. And that, you know, people sold their homes, gave the money. Were they fools for doing that? No, they weren’t fools. That was the absolutely right thing for them to do. But they all ended up starving. They were starving. There was a famine. The Jews in Jerusalem could not support themselves. Of course they couldn’t. They’d sold their homes and their land. They’d given it all for the ministry. But then Christ didn’t return when they thought he would, and they had to now survive long-term. So Paul would go through the Gentile churches that he had planted and take collections and brought the money to the saints who were in Jerusalem who were starving. And so the Gentile Christians supported the Jews in Jerusalem, the Christians there, for some time in a very significant way. Now, I’d like to look at another verse that says the same thing back in Acts. Let’s see. I think I want to go back to Acts 2.44. Acts 2.44. Now, all who believed were together and had all things in common. You know, Karl Marx, in order to set up his economic system of communism, he didn’t need a big imagination. All he needed was a Bible. And all he had to do was read the first few chapters of the Book of Acts, and he got his Communist Manifesto. There it was. This is how you should live. Now all who believed were together and had all things in common and sold their possessions and goods and divided them among all as anyone had need. Wow. That’s different from what we want to do. Are there many of you here who want to do that? And do you think the communists were right? And the Christians who oppose communism, are we wrong? You know, Christians today… when they get in a debate with a communist who uses the Bible to defend his argument. And the communist says, this is the way God established for the church to live. The early Christians endorsed by the Holy Spirit were communist and God killed those who didn’t put in everything. It’s a pretty strong argument. Have you ever heard a Christian respond and refute that argument? I never have in my whole life. When it’s come up, the Christians lose the debate. They don’t know what to say. Because here it is, communism at the beginning of the church. I used the term church a little loosely there, but here it is. Communism, right in the book of Acts. What’s going on? Well, the apostles were in short-term survival mode. They believed that Christ would come back within seven years. He’d come back soon. There’d be such a persecution that many of them would be killed. They would end up fleeing to the mountains. This was not going to be a normal time in human history. It was gonna be dramatic and different. So in that circumstance, you know, many people could sell their homes and their land and their investments and live for seven years. A lot of people could pull that off. And if you live like a communist, which means living in poverty, you can do it for sure. And so that was their plan. Let’s fund the ministry full-time. Let’s all become full-time ministers, evangelize, like there’s no tomorrow, because in a way there isn’t. Because Christ is coming back, and then if we give up houses or land, he will restore a hundredfold, because we’ll inherit the kingdom with Christ. And in the tribulation, Jesus said in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, there’d be massive destruction of property. Government and religious officials would kill the believers. Christ would return soon and establish his kingdom. So there was every reason for the 12 to prepare their converts for hostile conditions and the soon return of the Lord. They threw risk management to the wind. They said, forget it. We’re putting all our eggs in this one basket that Christ is coming back soon. And they were wise for doing that because he had told them he would. And there was a possibility, if the whole nation of Israel rejected, that he would not return because he would not set up the kingdom under those circumstances. But it was worth the risk. It was worth it to try to get a ministry out of Jerusalem to take the whole nation by storm and convert the whole land. But it just did not happen. So what happened as a result? Well, in Acts chapter 21, maybe before we go to 21, I want to look at the passage where they appointed the seven earlier in Acts. They appointed seven to serve, to administer the money and the food. Right? They pooled all their money. They lived like communists. So with communists, somebody’s got to be in charge. Because what does communism produce? Envy, jealousy, bitterness. Hey, this is not fair. They’re getting more food than we are. They’re getting a nicer house than we’re getting or nicer living conditions. So what do we read in Acts 6? Now, in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. Now, the Hellenists are Jews who speak Greek. So there were a bunch of Jews who became Christians in Jerusalem. Some of them spoke Hebrew. Others spoke Greek. They were Hellenized. And the Greek speaking Jews said of, and here’s the apostles running this whole commune. And they said, we are not being treated properly because the Jews who speak Hebrew, they’re getting more money and food and supplies than we are. We don’t like this. Then the 12 summon the multitude of the disciples and said, it is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. In other words, look, we have a responsibility. We don’t want to have to administer who gets how much food each day. That’s a little ridiculous that it’s come to this. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word. And the saying pleased the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen. He became the first martyr. And it was with his death that God determined to cut off Israel and turn to the Gentiles, cutting off Israel and grafting in the body of Christ. So they chose Stephen, a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch. So Nicholas was a proselyte. That meant he was a Gentile who became circumcised and became a Jew and then put his faith in Christ. All right, notice Philip. Philip was one of the seven leaders who would distribute the money and the food, the supplies to all the Christians living in the commune in Jerusalem. Uh, once Christ did not return, they began, uh, to starve. We don’t know that any of them starved to death, but hunger became something that they lived with. And so Paul traveled among the Gentiles and he would write in advance and he’d say, take a collection now so that when I get there, I don’t have to do a fundraiser and get the money together. And when I come, I’ll take it to Jerusalem, to the saints who are in Jerusalem who are starving. And he did that in a number of places. Well, Christ did not come back. So their end times administration fell apart because it was no longer the end times. And their commune broke up. And then Stephen, I mean Philip, let’s look at what happened to Philip. Let’s go to Acts chapter 21, verse 8. Paul is on his way to Jerusalem and he is coming from up north. So he passes Caesarea, goes through Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast, a beautiful city, the ruins even to this day. On the next day, we who were Paul’s companions departed and came to Caesarea and entered the house of Philip and entered the house of Philip, the evangelist, who was one of the seven and stayed with him. Notice any interesting little tidbit there? Ananias and Sapphira had been killed because they lied to the Holy Spirit and kept back the proceeds of their own land. You know, their own home. Well, God didn’t want the apostles to administer an economy whereby they did their own thing. He wanted them because it was the end times and Christ would be coming back and they’d be killed and flee to the mountains, sell all your homes and live together in a community. And Philip was one of the ones who administered that commune. But what happened? Paul gets saved. The years go on. Christ did not return. The ministry in Jerusalem broke up. So Philip said, you know, guys, I’m not staying in Jerusalem. He headed up to Caesarea and went to work, got some money and bought a home. Very different. Very different. And they had a struggle with these circumstances because they put their faith in God and Jesus returning he didn’t return they were hungry they had no homes no land but Jesus had told them he said sell all that you have everyone who has left houses or lands for my sake shall inherit everlasting life he told them to sell everything they had not because that’s the model by which we Christians should live And not that he was being figurative because they did. They sold it all. He literally meant it because he was teaching them two things, how to live in the kingdom and how to live in the tribulation. Those were the two things Christ taught. So we read his teachings, like he said, if someone tempts a little one, who believes in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a millstone tied around his neck and flung into the ocean. It’d be better for him to be killed than to cause a little one to sin. That seems pretty harsh. You know, tragically, we as Christians, we sin, and we, by our sin in the flesh, we sometimes cause those around us to stumble and sin. And we don’t take it quite that seriously. We don’t say from the pulpit in Sunday school, it’d be better for you to kill yourself or be better for you to be killed than to cause one little one at one occasion to stumble. That seems a bit harsh to us. Why? Because Jesus was speaking in the time of the kingdom. And in the time of the kingdom, he would rule from his throne in Jerusalem with a rod of iron. And if someone says you fool and does not repent, he’s in danger of hellfire if he doesn’t repent. If someone sins in the kingdom and they do not repent, if they openly sin or commit a crime and they do not repent, Christ rules with a rod of iron and he will destroy them. You know how today a drug dealer will sell to kids on a playground at a school. In the kingdom, do you think they’d get away with that, with Christ on the throne in Jerusalem? No way. He’s going to rule with a rod of iron. By the way, that’s not grace. That’s law. The kingdom is for Israel. When Christ comes back, he will administer the law to those in the kingdom. The law. And just like he administered to Israel for three years in the Gospels. The law. So… When Jesus speaks in the gospels, he’s teaching them how to live in the kingdom and how to survive in the tribulation. Those are the two things he’s teaching. And we’re not in the kingdom. We’re not in the tribulation. So often we read his teachings and we don’t know what to make of them. Sell all that you have and give your money to some ministry. Well, it’s easy for the ministers to say that on Christian TV, but they don’t do it, you know. And sometimes they put a guilt trip on you. If somebody shows up in your church and he says, I don’t have any money. I don’t have a place to stay. I gave away everything to the poor to be a minister. At our church, we’d say, oh, congratulations. He’d say, well, I need a place to stay. I need some money and some food. And we tell him, we don’t have anything to give you because we gave away all ours too. You’re stuck, buddy. What do we call a Christian today who gives away everything and gives everything he has and has no place to stay? What do we call him? A saint? We call him a flake. You’re a flake. You might be a well-meaning flake. You might have read the verses, had no idea the overview of the Bible, the plot of the Bible or the plot twist, and no idea why those Christians in Jerusalem ended up starving and homeless. You have no idea why all that happened and now it’s happening to you. mere flake. And he wants those who have not reached the level of holiness that he has to support him. Why? See how easy it is if you don’t understand the overview of the Bible to misunderstand the simplest statements and teachings? And so if Jesus is teaching for what life in the kingdom will be like and what life in the tribulation will be like, and then we take them directly and try to apply it to our lives in the body of Christ, there are all kinds of problems. There are all kinds of promises that will be let down on. Like Jesus saying, you know, you could pray and whatever you pray for in my name, believing it will happen. Who here has tried that? And I don’t want to test anyone’s veracity or credibility or truthfulness. So I won’t ask you if you always get your prayers answered. But I don’t. I pray many things that I know are God’s will. that do not happen in Christ’s name. You know, that a husband would be faithful to his wife and that this marriage would be restored, and it doesn’t happen. It’s according to God’s will. Paul says it’s God’s will that you’d be faithful to your wife and avoid sexual immorality. It’s God’s will, pray in Jesus’ name, and it doesn’t happen. You know, there’s a lot of things that we pray for that do not happen. But Christ promised over and over in the gospels that the most dramatic prayers would see an instant fulfillment and be answered. And then we have Paul in the epistles praying the most dramatic prayers and they don’t get answered. He’s like three times I prayed for a healing. I haven’t got a healing. What’s going on? And God said, my grace is sufficient for you because he was preaching a gospel of grace, and he called it a fellowship of suffering. You know, every person we meet in the epistles who has an illness, some kind of tragedy, if you meet someone in the gospels and they’re blind or they’re lame or deaf and they come into the story and here’s this blind guy or here are these 10 guys with leprosy, what happens to them? They get healed every time. Every time you meet an individual who needs a healing, he gets healed. Every time in the epistles you meet someone who’s sick, they don’t get healed. Every prayer, they’re sick and they die. That’s it. It’s different. It’s very different, but it’s a dramatic change. We go through it in detail in the plot. We tell people at our church, we invite people to come to our church, and we say, yeah, our church is different than most. At our church, if people get sick, they die. And you’d be surprised how many Christians say, wow, I’ve been looking for a church like that. It’s such a relief. Well, I’d like to end our morning session with… I shouldn’t have said that because there are three passages. It’ll take us a little bit of time to get through them. But the first is in Romans 16, very short. The very end of the Epistle of Romans. Paul, later on this afternoon, we might get to the verses…
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stop the tape stop the tape that was segment number eight of the plot bible overview right here on kltt my father’s heart was to help believers truly understand the bible and understand the word of god i hope that you feel that in every moment of this study that you’ve felt that remember the mission continues and your theology the youtube channel we have millions of views real science radio the youtube channel we have millions of views make sure to subscribe there check out the daily podcast at kgov.com with hundreds of thousands of downloads visit www.nyart.shop that’s www. E-N-Y-A-R-T dot S-H-O-P to get the full plot study and all of the other Bible studies. Subscribe to the YouTube channel as if you at all can. Please donate, especially monthly donations really help or more powerful than that is pray for us. Keep us in your prayers. Your support allows us to edify believers and preach the gospel to unbelievers worldwide. This is Dominic Enyart reminding you to do right and risk the consequences.
