Revitalizing Your Bible Study

Good afternoon again, brethren. It's wonderful to see all of you. I was grabbing my phone there while the song was going on. I saw that I had a call from Paul Erbom, and so I wanted to at least listen to what he had to say. And, of course, he said, well, I'm not really remembering exactly where you are right now, whether you're driving or what. But he did just want to tell me that he feels like he's doing very well. He certainly appreciates the prayers of everyone, not only in Kansas City, but all of you up here who they think and feel are a part of their family. And that he's actually been able to be up a little bit. He said they hope to get him out and try to see if he can walk down the hall. And that's, of course, something they need to continue to work on. He said he has been having oxygen that has been kind of forced oxygen. And he says they don't have to do that now. And they're able to try to help him do a little more, trying to identify again whatever other tests they'll need to do, try to identify where the cancer may be coming from. But he was very, very encouraged and wanted to at least let us know and for me to pass on to all of you that he very much appreciates your prayers and loves all of you. And so I will just give you that update here. Hot off the press or hot out of the phone, hot off the voice dial or whatever that is that I've got here. The machine that works, if I happen to remember to turn it on. Anyway, I wanted to go over something today that I believe all of you will be familiar with. It's certainly something we talk about here at church all the time about how it is that we can grow as the children of God. And primarily, we know and we often state or we have said that it is through the Word of God and through the Spirit of God that we are going to develop a closer relationship with God. Now that's clearly a true statement. It's one that you can see written throughout the whole Bible. And yet for those of us who understand, for those of us who know what God's doing, studying the Word of God and learning to utilize the Holy Spirit are incredibly valuable tools.

Now, one of our speakers up in Kansas City a few weeks ago, he mentioned during the sermon that he was giving, he mentioned that he had gone back. This is a man who'd been in the church for 40-50 years. He says, I've gone back and I've started to read all the way through the Bible again.

And he said he was, I think, in Kings or Chronicles or somewhere. So he wasn't all the way through, but he mentioned reading through the Bible again. Now, I'm sure he's done that before. And yet, as he said that, I thought, now that's brilliant. That is incredible that even after you study the Bible and you're kind of familiar with most sections and you either are and even asked to preach and teach about it, to go back through and to read it all the way through again, you know, that's a very commendable and valuable exercise for any of us.

And after I gave this sermon last week in Kansas City, I was incredibly pleased to have one of our teenagers come up and tell me that they had just finished reading the Bible all the way through. Now, and I didn't discuss it a lot with them. Did you think I like you understood all of it?

Well, I'm sure if I'd asked that question, they'd say, no, we were kind of lost at times and trying to figure out who's what. And some of it is a pretty easy story to follow. And much of it is special in the Old Testament. Not that easy to follow. And with the prophetic books, you know, you have to have some kind of context for those. You have to understand a little bit about who is being talked. But that was exciting to me to find out that they were aware.

See, teenagers can do what I'm talking about today. And even younger kids can do what we're talking about today regarding the reading of the Bible. Now, Mr. Petty, Gary Petty, one of our presenters on Beyond Today, went through last week or the week before a program where he gave an overview of the Bible.

I think he's intentionally doing that. He has up on the screen 66 books of the Bible. And I think I've mentioned before, I think, well, he's probably going to go through five, you know, maybe mention, you know, he said, I'm going through all of them. I went through all of them in 17 minutes, which he knew how long he had to be able to, you know, with anything else that they're planning to say. But he went through giving an overview of the Bible where he explained that Genesis 3.15, which is the first prophecy that you see of the Bible, that Satan will bruise Jesus' head, but ultimately, or his heel, Satan will bruise Jesus' heel, but Jesus will crush Satan's head.

And so that is, in a sense, a theme that you can study through the entirety of the Old and the New Testament. Now, whether you go through the law or the former prophets or the writings or the later prophets, which are all in the Old Testament, or the gospels and acts, or the writings of the apostles, mostly Paul and Peter and John, and then finally the book of Revelation, you can learn something about that prophecy and about the, you know, how it's going to come about, what the outcome is. You can do that as you gain an understanding of the overview of the Bible. So, he was advertising in that program one of our booklets.

It was How to Understand the Bible. And I know that that booklet is designed for mostly people, maybe who are new, or maybe somewhat excited early in studying the Bible or trying to learn about the Bible.

And I think it's good for us to ask ourselves, how about us? Do we have the same type of excitement that we maybe once had when we first started reading and growing in understanding of, you know, well, the Bible does go together. It does make sense. It is a book that God wrote using numerous people, I think 40 authors, and over 1,500 years, but God was the one who inspired it to be written.

And so, to remind us and to ask us, you know, what is your preferred method of immersing yourself in the Word of God? Because there's a lot of different ways to study the Bible, but what is your preferred method? Is it still exciting? How can you improve your personal Bible study? Now, for any of us who have to speak, I guess I shouldn't say have to. Any of us who do speak, you know, we know we better figure out what we're going to talk about next week, or a couple of weeks from now, and often I'm going to be studying something that's leading up to, you know, actually giving something.

You know, Tom has to write about it about every day, I imagine, or study different parts of the Bible. But what about each one of us? Are we as immersed in the Bible and purposely doing that, no matter what our age at this point? It really should be the case. Here in 2 Timothy 3, Mr. Jackson mentioned 2 Timothy 3.

He was actually referring to a section here in 2 Timothy that is familiar to us.

He was reading verses in verse 10 and 11, talking about persecution and even how Paul was, you know, persevering through a lot of different trials. In verse 12 it says, indeed, all who want to live a godly life in Jesus Christ are going to be persecuted. So we're going to expect some difficulty along the way.

But what we continue to read in this same section is Paul telling Timothy who, who in essence had grown up with an awareness of the Scripture.

See, Timothy's mother and his grandmother were students of the Old Testament because that's the Bible that was there at their time. And it says, verse 14, as for you, Timothy, I want you to continue in what you have learned and what you have firmly believed, knowing where you have learned it and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings, the holy Scriptures that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

See, that's directed to a young person in essence, Paul to Timothy, and yet he said, you from your youth, from your childhood, from your mother's guiding training, and from your grandmother's teaching, you have been familiar with the Scripture that can be a basis for your successful life.

Of course, he goes on to say in verse 16 that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. And so we have a Bible that is in many ways quite diverse and written over a wide number of years, even millennia, by many different people, but all of it was inspired by God.

And it is useful. And then it tells us what it's useful for. It's useful for our teaching, for our doctrines. It's useful for reproof, to give us guidance, to guide us in the way that we should go, to correct us, because it does show us. It is a spiritual mirror. If we read the Bible with a desire to know what God wants us to know, well then it will, as a spiritual mirror, reflect what we need to see, how we need to be corrected. And then, of course, the last part of that verse, doctrine, reproof correction and for training in righteousness, which whenever you study that, say the word or the idea of righteousness, that's ultimately what the family of God is. They are righteous. They are righteous before God and righteous forever with God. That's actually how you see the description of what's going on even beyond the human project that God is working out here below.

But he tells us we can be trained in righteousness by studying the Bible so that everyone, a man of God, may be proficient. A person of God, you could say. Any one of us can be proficient and equipped for every good work. So, it is greatly important for us to immerse ourselves in the Bible.

Now, I know we read it every week, and surely you bring your Bible to church every week, or most of the time, Bible or a tablet or a text or a phone or something where you can look up Scripture.

But see, that should be a daily endeavor. That should be a daily endeavor and one that we should never neglect in John 6, verse 63. It says, the words of God are spirit and life. See, that's what Jesus was saying. It says, my words are spirit, and they are life.

They can impart not only successful physical life, but they can impart eternal life.

And so, the Bible isn't just another book. It isn't at all. It's an incredibly important book. And so, whenever we have a program about how to understand the Bible, we know that we're offering that to people who may read the Bible some.

We know they certainly do need to understand the Bible. And of course, I think we're expecting that all of us do. That all of us are already not only well versed in the Bible, but that we have some kind of plan to keep us planted in that foundation. Not just something we occasionally do. Now, I want to ask that these be passed out, so whoever's swift of feet. Brad, maybe you can help with this since you're abler than many of us. He's in the prime prime. You can pass those. Well, I think maybe that he's got a little more. I think there's enough of those for everybody.

And this is clearly information you should easily be familiar with.

But actually, I took this directly out of our booklet, How to Understand the Bible.

And we offer in the booklet 15 keys that can help us understand the Bible. Now, again, you read through those and you can say, well, this is the simplest sermon I've ever heard of.

Well, I hope that you don't overlook whatever this says.

Because, as we look down through over these 15 different keys, which we state in our booklet, these will help you grow an understanding of the Bible.

You know, all of these are keys that can keep us immersed in the Word of God.

And not just on a weekly basis, not just on a festival basis, which obviously we also need to do, but daily keeping our minds wrapped up in His Word.

Let's look down through these 15. I'm going to comment on about a few of them.

At the bottom of this sheet, I'm going to ask you to write down which three of these are most helpful to you.

I'm sure all of them could be helpful. Now, you could say any of these could be helpful.

And yet, which of these are most helpful to you in your personal study of the Bible?

Because that's what, not only I want you to make a note and jot down and determine which of these are helping you, but I would hope that we could even encourage each other by talking about it this evening. You know, we're going to be sitting here eating. We could talk about which ones are helping me most.

Because that could be a way that we could even more ingrain the Bible in our thinking. Of course, the first one is just pray for understanding. Now, again, you might say, well, that sounds pretty simple, but do we actually utilize that? Do we actually utilize that? Matthew 7, verse 7 says, What does that first directive say?

It says, if we want to receive, then we need to ask. If we want to have understanding, then we need to ask God.

You know, I was thinking, and I'm sure I'm going to eventually put a sermon together, because the Bible uses a lot of trios, I guess I would call them. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and ask and seek and knock, and there are many of those. I'm sure Dr. Hasselstyn has many in his head right now, because he's kind of good at that kind of stuff. But I'm sure there's a reason God does that, because we can kind of remember three things. In the Proverbs, it talks about getting knowledge and understanding and wisdom. That's another three-pronged memory tool, I guess, pneumatic device. Maybe God even puts in the Bible for our benefit, because I'm finding I can remember a series of three better than I can remember most any other. But that's maybe a side point here. First one is pray for understanding. Second one is keep an open mind. Now, in Acts 17, it does talk about the Bereans. It talks about them in contrast to the Thessalonians, or the people down in other parts of Greece, in Athens, or in Corinth. It says the Bereans were real diligent in daily, searching the Scriptures to see if what Paul was telling them was that what it actually says? Is that talking about Jesus Christ? And is he actually already come in the flesh and lived and died and is resurrected? Now, that's what they were proving, but they were keeping an open mind about the fact that maybe I don't know everything.

See, I actually talked to a member the other day who appeared to know everything. Now, I wasn't about to argue with him. I didn't want to argue with him because I thought, well, some pass and some fail. Because if we don't think we need to know anything more, if we don't think we need to learn, then there are obviously things we need to guard against because there are some things that will take us away from the Church. But we certainly need to open mind to study the Bible in anticipating of knowing more.

Number three, humbly seek instruction and correction. Isaiah 66 talks about this as the man that I will look to, God says, as humble and of a contrite mind and trembles of my word. See, if this is the word of God, and if this has been written in order to give us the teaching that we need, see, we all kind of know the doctrines of the Church. We kind of know what we're supposed to do.

We know in many ways what we were growing up doing or being taught to do. Do you know any other organization on earth that teaches about the Second Resurrection? It teaches about anything in regard to what the Second Resurrection is about. Do you know anybody else who teaches about the Second Death? You know, most people don't bother to read that part of the Bible much, but of course we do. You know, because it's a part of the Bible. It's a part of God's inspired word, but we've got to humbly seek instruction and correction.

Number four, accept the inspiration of the Bible. Now, 2 Peter 1, 21 says that we can recognize that the holy men of God were inspired by the Holy Spirit to put together this book.

Now again, I'm sure all of you agree with that. You believe that. But that's a part of gaining insight or gaining understanding. Number five, plan time for regular study. See, in a couple of these verses here, 2 Timothy 2, verse 15, it says, study to show yourself approved unto God a workman that needs not be ashamed. See, that's directed at Timothy, obviously, but it's also directed to do all of us as members of the church.

If we are going to really have a grasp of what it is that God says in His Word, you know, all thousand pages of it. Is that right? At least this is... Yep, about a thousand pages. Simple book to know. No. There's some of it that we haven't read for a long time. There's some of it we don't read at all. We read some of it, and we often read particular things, and there are reasons to specify certain things that you need to know.

But if we don't plan time to regularly study the Bible, that becomes a second option. You know, I've got this to do, and I've got that to do. I've got other things to do. You know, we have in this booklet even a whole couple of pages that are probably kind of on the inside of the booklet that lists many U.S.

presidents or other famous people that you would know who readily recognize reading the Bible is about the most important thing you can do. And what was it? Mr. Adams, who were one of the earlier presidents, John Q. Adams, our sixth president said, My custom is to read four or five chapters of the Bible every morning immediately after rising.

It seems to me the most suitable manner for beginning the day. And it is an invaluable and inexhaustible mind of knowledge and virtue. Many other similar quotes here that I won't take time to read. Let's see, do we plan some kind? See, if we don't plan, then we'll find that, well, the plan didn't work.

If you fail to plan, you'll plan to fail. That's really what we end up doing. So, have a regular time. Verse 6, let the Bible interpret itself. It is not contradictory, as some think. As some will even point out, you can read a couple of verses in Proverbs that appear to contradict each other. One right after the next, but that's not really correct. It's not contradictory, but complementary and actually gives a lot more information than you might ever imagine on a given topic.

Number 7 says you can study the Bible if you want to gain understanding by topic. You can study the comprehensive topic of, what does the Bible say about heaven? Or, what does the Bible say about hell? Or, what did Jesus say in the Sermon on the Mount? I mean, there's any number of different things that you could say, okay, I'm going to study a topic. Number 8 is read the whole Bible. Now, I've already mentioned that one. And see, how long does it take to read the whole Bible? Well, it depends on if you're a speed reader or not.

It'll take me a long time. Although, there are numerous plans, as I'm sure some of you clearly have used, that'll take you through the Bible in essentially a year. You can break it down pretty easily and be able to say, like this teenager was, I think, happy to be able to say, I just finished reading the Bible all the way through.

See, that's something that, you know, do you understand all of it? No, but I did read it. I did read the whole thing. And that maybe, you know, if I wasn't so stuck on this particular old book, I would venture out and get a different Bible, probably a different translation, and start over. But I'm a sucker. I go back to the same one. I go back to ones that I've already read and already marked and already know even where to look on the page, as you do, to know where stuff is.

But see, if I were to sit down and read the whole Bible, which I haven't committed myself to doing yet, but see, for some of us, that might be a great plan. And of course, we have a new, at least, Roman year beginning here in January. I think it doesn't. Our Bible reading program, does that go through the Bible in a year or the Old Testament in a year?

Oh, well, it was longer because Tom was involved!

Okay, I believe I've seen guides where you can read through in a year. And that's not necessarily maybe studying the Bible like we might want to, but this is just simply Bible reading.

Reading it through a number of, I don't know whether the president said, you know, I don't think he was talking about a given year. But you can do it in a year. You can do it if you are, and of course, if you get behind, then you have to catch up. But you can read the whole Bible. That gives you a chronological overview and a perception. And I would say from your more mature view today than the last time you did that, I bet many of us would benefit.

Number nine, again, a study key that we have in our booklet, read or compare different translations. Now that's something that today is easier to do than ever before. You know, in the past you used to have to buy a different translation than what the King James probably you maybe had at one point. Many of us use the New King James today, which is what we commonly quote from in our articles and in our programs. And yet there are other translations. Actually, in a sense, this is almost a disadvantage. There are over 450 different English translations of the Bible, and not all of them are very reliable. That's why we're sticking primarily with the New King James or ones that are reasonably close to that. Now I know I'm usually quoting from the New Revised Standard, but I'm often reading it with an awareness of what the New King James says.

And yet, we have to be aware. And I would say that this is somewhat, we can...not just any, and certainly there are different types of translations in different manners in which they are done, and some of them are just paraphrases which are pretty easy to read, but may not convey the right idea at all. You know, I've got a living Bible that I don't use.

I'm not even going to offer it to you, because it's useless. It's not information that I need to study. And even, you know, there's way too many of them to even comment, and I wouldn't be able to make correct assessment on most of them. But we can use different Bible translations that are available. Number 10, use study age properly. There are a lot of commentaries, a lot of Bible dictionaries. They give a lot of background, a lot of historical information. Now, how many people who wrote those commentaries were members of the Church of God? Very few. You know, the Church of God or people connected to the Church of God have written a few things. And certainly we rely on Mr. Robinson back here with the Bible reading program and the Bible commentary that the United Church of God has available. I mean, you can look it up off of our website rather easily. And I do. I trust that. I believe whatever we... But if you read, again, what Mr. Robinson put in there, now he's quoting from the commentaries of other people at times because they've already got, I mean, no use going over and over again. You've got the same information. It's historical or background or something. It's usually not directly about what we say this says. And in the Old Testament, it's much easier to do. In the New Testament, the theology and the teaching of Jesus Christ and what his message was doesn't ring true with many commentaries or commentators, I guess you could say. But we want to be using study aids properly. They can help us and they can actually give us some background. But again, that's going to take some time to sort through. Number 11, seek guidance from God's church. That's a pretty simple one to realize. Well, we've got a lot.

We have more information available today than ever in the history of the Church of God.

We have more book, I mean, doesn't matter as far as numbers of booklets or numbers of letters that we've answered. We have more information available than you could ever study in the rest of your life.

It's immense as far as what we can put out there with the internet capability that the Church has today. And so, you know, we can seek guidance from sources that we know are guiding us in the right direction, which would be primarily what we make available through the United Church of God. Number 12, in our book club, we point out that people can take notes. You know, most of you have probably written something in your Bible. You know, I've written a lot of things. Some of it didn't make much sense. As I look back, you know, I've got some rather poor marginal references in some of my earlier Bibles, because I didn't know hardly anything about it, and so anything that even stood out was new. And so, you know, we of course want people to realize, well, the Bible is not, you know, where you should never use it or never market or anything. We're wanting to help them understand. Well, and see, even marginal references, you don't even see that hardly in newer trends. This Bible that I use with just a regular little book, as far as the type of it, doesn't have any, it has very few center reference margins. It's not referring me back to something in the Old Testament that this is quoted from. It doesn't help hardly at all. But the King James, most of those printed, and the New King James often have some kind of a marginal reference that gives you some reference to what this might be alluding to in the Old Testament, what might be quoted out of the New. So that's something that we could take advantage of. Number 13, review and meditate. It helps us not only to read something, but to actually think about it, to think about how that applies to me. And again, not only for our adults, but for our young people here.

All of you are old enough to be able to do that. Of course, the final things in our booklet is that it's not enough just to know, verse 14, know that we should obey the Word of God and prove that it's right. Prove. God says, prove me now herewith. You know, in Malachi 3, He says, take me at my word. You know, you do what I ask and I can help you. And final one is number 15, hold fast.

Prove all things, hold fast to that which is good. That's what we all need to be able to do.

Now, on the bottom of your page, you have three lines. I want you to write something down.

Not S, he can knock. Not Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Which three of those do you find most helpful to you in studying the Bible?

And then I want to go through, I'm going to let you write those down here for a while.

You can write down the numbers if you want. That'd be even simpler.

As I thought about these myself, because again, I haven't read back through this type of what you might say is a foundational booklet, is just how to understand the Bible. I haven't gone back through that type of thing for some time, but I wrote down three different ones that are, I think, important for me. I wrote down number one, pray for understanding. Because when you already think you know, then God may be not able to teach me much. So if I don't remember to pray for understanding. See, Proverbs 3, verse 5 says, Trust in the Lord with all of your heart.

We all know that, but then the next says, and don't lean to your own understanding.

But in all of your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will direct your steps.

See, that's what verse 5 and 6 say. Again, most of us are familiar with that.

Verse 7 says, Don't be wise in your own eyes.

Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. It'll be like healing to your flesh and refreshment to your body. See, that's actually telling us something that we can all benefit from. Again, I'm pointing out which ones I thought were helpful to me.

In Luke 24, this is a great account of Jesus after He was resurrected and walking on the road to Emmaus with a couple of disciples who didn't know who He was, and they were talking about different things, and I guess talking about all the activity around Jerusalem here in the last few days, and they asked Him, Don't you know what's been going on? So, yeah, I know. But see, they needed to grow in understanding. They didn't know who He was.

But here in Luke 24, some of the insight that Luke recorded for all of us points out the value of number one, pray for understanding.

Verse 29, they ask Him, Well, won't you just stay with us? If it's about dark, you might as well stay with us. So He went in to stay with them. Verse 30, He was at the table, and He took bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And then, their eyes were open.

Their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him, and then He disappeared.

And they said to each other, in verse 32, We're not our hearts burning within us while He was talking to us on the road, while He was opening the Scriptures to us.

See, apparently, they didn't have understanding. Apparently, they needed to have the Scriptures opened to them. Verse 44, later, with other of the disciples, Jesus said, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses, and here He identifies the three major sections of the Old Testament, everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and in the Psalms, must be fulfilled.

Meaning, the law in the prophets, former and latter, and the writings, the Psalms being the primary book of those writings.

He says, then, verse 45, opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.

And He says thus, It's written that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning here from Jerusalem. Do we need to ask God to grant us understanding?

Well, I think we do. I think I would benefit from that, and perhaps.

You know, the second one I'm going to mention is, number 11, seek guidance from God's Church.

Like I said, we have a Bible commentary that goes through much of the Old Testament, and we have literature that goes through most other topics that we read about in the New.

We have all kinds of information about the Holy Days and about Christian living.

You know, there's way too much to even try to cover. In Nehemiah 8, verse 8, Nehemiah 8 is a...

I think it's a description of the church meeting or assembly on the Feast of Trumpets, I believe.

And it just talks about the fact that the people there, the people of Judah who had come back to Jerusalem and who had basically been in captivity for quite a while, they really didn't know the Word of God very well at all.

But here, in Nehemiah 8, you see this church service being conducted, and what was taking place in verse 7? A number of the individuals who and the Levites helped the people to understand the law. All the people remained in their place, and so it's describing a setting like we have, and someone speaking and teaching.

So, in verse 8, they read from the book, from the law of Moses, or excuse me, from the law of God.

With interpretation, they gave the sense so that the people understood the reading.

See, that's an important topic for us to utilize.

You know, we get the Beyond Today magazine, we get other booklets from time to time, we have access to, again, like I said, more information we can possibly easily study.

But this is what God tells us about being taught in Mark, or excuse me, Acts chapter 8. You've got the example of the Ethiopian eunuch, and God sending Philip to him, and saying, apparently he's reading the Old Testament. He's reading the book of Isaiah.

Acts chapter 8.

Acts chapter 8.

Philip meets the man in verse 30, he ran up to him, heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and he says, do you understand what you're reading? Do you understand what that says?

And he replies, well, how can I, unless someone guide me, let someone teach me, how would I know what this is about?

In the passage that he was reading was out of Isaiah 53, where it says, like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, like a lamb silent before a shear, so he does not open his mouth, and his humiliation justice was denied him.

Who can describe his generation? His life is taken away from the earth. See, that's a quote out of Isaiah 53.

And in verse 34, the eunuch asked Philip about whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this about himself or someone else? He says, is this talking about Isaiah? Is this talking about Elijah? Is this talking about Moses? Is this talking about the Messiah? He didn't really know.

But in verse 35, Philip began to speak and started with this Scripture. He proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. To proclaim to him the fact that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, and that we need to obey. We need to honor Him. And of course, he later will baptize Him.

He gave Him the correct information about the plan of God and the purpose of human life.

But see, seeking guidance from God's church is a beneficial thing for all of us to benefit from.

The last one that I wrote down here is number six. Let the Bible interpret itself.

And what you read in John 10, verse 35, Jesus Himself says the Scripture cannot be broken, meaning that it doesn't contradict itself. If I read two verses and think that they are contradicting, then who's wrong? The Bible or me?

See, clearly, I'm the one who doesn't understand how it is I need to put the Bible together.

Let's see, amazingly, in John 10. What is Jesus talking about? He's talking about the nature of God.

He's talking about my Father and I are one.

He's talking about how we have existed together for all eternity in love.

He's the one that we have to listen to in order to know how it is to understand the Bible.

And of course, let me go back and read a little more of this in John 10.

Jesus says in verse 30, the Father and I are one.

And of course, the Jews who hated Him, who didn't like that He said He was the Son of God, that He said that He had come at the direction of the Father. He goes ahead to say, Jesus replied when they took up stones to stone Him. I've shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these good works are you stoning Me?

And of course, they say it's not for good works that we're about to stone you, but because you blaspheme, saying, even though you're just a human being, you're making yourself equal with God.

And Jesus said, is it not written in your law?

And He quotes Psalm 82, I said, you are God's, talking about human beings.

If verse 35, those in whom the Word of God came were called God's, and the Scripture cannot be broken, can you say that the one whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world is blaspheming? Because I say, I'm God's Son. See, here He's describing and teaching about the nature of how He and the Father coexist, how they both inhabit eternity, how they both live in love, in harmony, in cooperation. That's why He said, the Father and I are one, yes, two personalities, but no, we are one in unity, in harmony. See, we don't want to misunderstand the one. And of course, He describes how it is that the Bible has to be allowed to interpret itself. Whenever you read verses in the New Testament that say that no one's ever seen God or no one's ever heard God, and then you read verses in the Old Testament where clearly people did see God.

Abraham, Jacob, Moses, others. Let's look back at Genesis 24. Genesis 24 lists a whole number of people.

Or excuse me, it's Exodus 24. Exodus 24, verse 9, Moses and Aaron and Nadab went to bayu, and seven of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel.

Uh-oh, they saw God. They saw the God of Israel, and under His feet was something like a papan and sapphire stone like the very heaven for clearness. God did not lay His hand on the chief men of the people of Israel, but they beheld God, and they ate and drank. So you have references to God interacting with the people in the Old Testament, but who was that?

Well, that was the one who would later become Jesus Christ. The one we would say is the Lord God of Israel, and yet He existed even before mankind came into existence.

You read in 1 Corinthians 10 that it was Jesus who was the rock that was leading Israel.

1 Corinthians 10, verse 1, Paul says, I don't want you to be unaware, brethren, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, they all passed through the sea, they were all baptized into Moses and the cloud and the sea, and all of them ate the same spiritual food, drank the same spiritual drink, they drank from the spiritual rock that led and followed them.

And that rock was Christ. That rock, the one who was the God who was overseeing Israel, was the one that we know, Paul could say, we know as the Messiah. He was the rock of the Old Testament.

So, you know, many of these different keys here, and regardless of whatever you may have written down that you think would be helpful to you, I want to encourage us to use them.

I want us to encourage us to even discuss them. How is it that that would be helpful to you?

How is it that that's helpful? I had someone last week in Kansas City say, I've got all the wrong answers. I said, I think I didn't explain this well enough, because there are no wrong answers. All answers are right, but different ones would be helped by different things, or they would focus on it a little differently.

So, we can study the Bible chronologically or topically, or as a spiritual mirror, whichever we choose to do, but I surely want you to choose one. Choose something.

And you can see so many different scriptural threads and themes, and see the unity of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.

You have to be a serious Bible student to do that. But see, it's well worth it.

And as I said, I hope we can discuss this a little more at our meal. I hope it can help each of us to achieve one of the most important aspects of our lives, which is to be immersed in the Word of God. Be immersed.

And truly allowing the Word of God to live in us. See, it takes the help of the Holy Spirit, yes.

But see, I can carry the Bible around all I want, and even if I put it under my pillow, it doesn't just soak in. I have to read it. And I find that when I read it, I'm actually happier, and I'm learning more than obviously when I relied on my own understanding, which is not all that impressive. And of course, as Jesus says in John 15, He uses the example of Him being the vine, and His Father being the vine dresser, and all of us being the...

what? The branches! All right! No, we're the grapes! No, we're the branches.

We are branches who are to bear fruit. That's what He says. And of course, He says, as a branch, you can't do anything by yourself. You need to be attached to the vine.

He says, I want you to abide in the vine. I want you to abide in the words of the vine. I want you to abide in the love of the vine. And so certainly, you know, we want to be abiding in the words of the Word of God. And as we do that, of course, you know, we are going to be...you know, when it says that the words of God are Spirit, and they are life. They not only impart benefits and blessings to us in this physical existence, but they impart eternal life, because that's what we're growing toward. So, feel free to remember some or all or none of what we've covered. That's up to you. But it is something that's important for all of us, because it's a fact. Nobody is going to do it for you.

Or nobody else is going to do it, I guess I should say, except you.