In order for us to understand the will of God, we need to first understand what it means to have free will of our own. Until we truly understand what God has given us by giving us free will, we will remain confused about the will of God.

When God created the earth, its intention was to have the perfect communication with mankind. This was indeed the case for a short while until the fall. After Adam and Eve sinned, they hid from God and communication that they had was no longer open and honest.

When God created man, he gave him dominion over all the earth and over all the animals. God also gave mankind to free will which was to choose whatever he wanted to do. When God gave us free will, he meant exactly what that was. In other words it was our choice to do exactly what ever we want to. God does not make us do anything. The choices that we make are in highly our own to make.

I believe we need to have an understanding of the different periods of time since the creation of man. The first period I would like to call before Christ and this is commonly known as BC. The entire data suggest that we have in the world today is based on the number of years since the birth of Christ. So if today’s date is for example 10 June 2010, this means it is 2010 years since the birth of Jesus Christ. The period before Christ was born was characterised by God appearing to man in the form of natural miraculous phenomena. So for example God brought about a flight which destroyed the Earth. On another occasion not fit the children of Israel by sending food from heaven every single day for many many years. On another occasion, God part to the sea so that the children of Israel could walk right through the middle of the water. There was no physical presence of God on earth. God was in heaven and his people were on Earth. If God wanted to speak to his people, he would speak through the prophet or his appointed people such as King David.

There was no role for the holy spirit to play at this time and so God would speak to the people through revelation of the prophets.

Then everything changed the day that Jesus Christ was born.

The world as it was before would never again be the same. The day that Jesus was born was a pivotal point in the existence of birth and no doubt in the existence of God.

Before Jesus was born, God demanded that that the people serve him and him alone as we know from the 10 Commandments. God’s desire to be number one and to be the only God that we serve is a theme that runs not only in the Old Testament but right through the new Testament as well. If you read the book of Samuel, you will see how David physically fought wars against the enemies of Israel. Recently I read one of the chapters of first Samuel and I saw how David slaughtered thousands and thousands and thousands of enemy troops. There was even one instance where David made all the prisoners lie down in a long row and the first two were killed and the next one was allowed to go free and then the next two were killed and the following one was allowed to go free and in that way two thirds of all of them were killed. Now this might seem extremely barbaric to us in this day and age. But as I read through that chapter, God must have said on at least three occasions in that chapter alone that He gave his favour to David in everything that he did. In other words God thoroughly approve of everything that David had done to defend his name.

The reason that I am mentioning this is that gave me some insight into the Muslims. The whole world is highly critical of radical Muslims are killed to defend their faith or what they believe is defending the faith. However what they are doing is no different to what God’s people used to do before Jesus. They would kill people who did not believe in their faith and who they believed were against their God or enemies of their God.

And so for the first time I could have a faint or vague understanding of why Muslims would act this way. In our faith everything changed when Jesus came. Jesus came as the saviour and he came to change history and to change the world as we know it. Jesus came to introduce a new covenant which was no longer based on the law. It is no longer based on a works and we were no longer required to defend the name of God by killing the enemy. Jesus said I came to give you peace. When Jesus came everything changed.

And so the second dispensation I would like to call the time that Jesus walked the earth. During this time Jesus was physically present on Earth. Jesus would speak to his father and commune with his father all the time and in fact Jesus tells us in many occasions in the book of John that he simply does what his father tells him to do. Once again there is no role for the holy spirit to play at this point in history. Jesus was there in the flesh and so there was no need for the holy spirit.

The final dispensation is after the ascension of Jesus. When Jesus ascended into heaven, he left us with a very precious gift namely the holy spirit. Jesus said to his disciples that it is better for them for the holy spirit to be with them that the Jesus himself to be with them. My understanding is that the holy spirit can be with us all simultaneously whereas when Jesus was in the flesh he could only be in one place at one time.