What Do You Think?

Good afternoon, everyone. Happy Sabbath! Nice to be surrounded by such a big fan club. People are just a little slow in the heat, aren't they? All right. Got to get myself situated here. Hope everyone had a good week. It's been an interesting Newsweek. As we heard in the sermon last Sabbath and probably saw in the news, we had the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. That was pretty exciting. I didn't get a chance to catch many of the news reports and TV shows looking back on it. I don't remember the original moon landing. I was only a few years old at the time, but I remember pretty clearly the last moon landing that we had. Being in elementary school during that time, absolutely an exciting time. Of course, predictably, at the same time that we celebrated the moon landing, we had a healthy dose of people come out who denied the fact that the U.S. ever landed on the moon. If I remember correctly, back in the 1970s, I can't remember the name of the movie and I didn't look it up, but there was actually a movie made that postulated this whole thing, that it was a government plot, and there was actually a faked moon landing that happened somewhere in the desert of Arizona or Las Vegas. If someone gets bored during the sermon, they can Google that movie and tell us what actors were in it. But whatever it is that's going on, we'll find somebody, even with fairly straightforward facts, who will find a way to deny it. In fact, my son showed me a video this week. I looked that up. It was actually from 2002, and it was Buzz Aldrin walking across the street. Some of you might have seen it posted on Facebook or elsewhere. This almost militant denier of the moon landing came up to him and just started going at him about the fact that, admitted it never happened, held out a Bible, said, will you swear on the Bible that you landed on the moon? Eventually called him, I think, a coward and a liar, at which point Buzz Aldrin actually punched him in the face. So I guess we shouldn't glorify violence, but sometimes it does kind of seem justified, doesn't it? The Internet in particular is full of assertions about just about any theory that you can think of. Holocaust deniers are proliferating on the Internet. You see them all over the place. Again, a fact that's very difficult to dispute based on history, based on personal experience of probably people that some of us have met. I know certainly living over in Europe have met a number of people, including distant members of my own family, that suffered in the Holocaust. Just about any dietary theory that you can think of, you'll see on the Internet. In fact, I wasn't able to find it, but I saw this great article out a couple of years ago that said, if I followed all of the dietary recommendations on the Internet, here's what I would eat. It basically was a blank sheet, because you'll find something that says that everything out there is healthy and equally unhealthy, and so you won't know what to do. And of course, flat-earthers have not been left out either. I think we've probably all seen that flat-earth theories are on the rebound. Someone was joking, is there something called the Global Flat-Earth Society? Again, it's hot outside. There's an article from the online magazine Medium that I found from December 2018. It was written by a guy named Matt J. Weber, and I wanted to read a few of the things from it.

It starts out, it says, before the advent of the Internet, it took 50 years for the Flat-Earth Society to reach 3,500 members. Their website now gets over 300,000 unique visitors every day. There are flat-earth Facebook pages with over 100,000 likes, flat-earth YouTube videos with millions of views, and an untold number of Twitter users and subreddits and discussion forums and online chat rooms, all dedicated to the dissemination of flat-earth theories.

It goes on to say that in a 2018 Ugov poll, one-third of millennials surveyed said they were not totally convinced the world was round, even though we've had half a millennia of scientific consensus on the subject, not to mention more than a few airplane trips for most people. In 2017, the article goes on, NBA star Kyrie Irving went on a podcast and claimed the Earth was flat. Twice. Being a professional sports star, he held the attention of millions of followers.

In social media parlance, he's an influencer. Despite eventually disavowing the belief, Irving spurred on an untold number of people in thinking the world is flat. Thanks to him, classes of middle school students had begun to embrace the theory. That's all kind of humorous in one way, deeply disturbing in another way, but probably a pretty good commentary on the level of thinking and critical thought, especially in today's world. And the fact is, if we boil it down to a point, we live in a world where impressions rule the day. Impressions and influencers will tend to rule the day. Facts can be viewed as too complicated to fully explore, inferior to the ultimate underlying emotional truth, or personal in nature.

How many times have we heard someone say the phrase, look, this is my truth? It's important we give this thought because the things going on in the world, the way that people do things, the way that people think, does have an impact on us. Our society does rub off on us. We have to think about the things that are going on. So, for those of you who like titles, I've titled this message, What Do You Think? And that's a question I'd like us to spend some time thinking about today, and not only today, but as we go on.

And more importantly, why do we think the things that we do? As Christians, we have to be fueled by more than a video soundbite or an emotional speech. We have to be grounded in the word of God.

So, I'd like to explore that idea for a short time this afternoon, the importance of studying God's word. And just so our AV people are aware of it, in the latter part of the message today, I've got some video that I do want to use, and walk through some tools that we can use in a positive way on the Internet.

And likewise, I guess it's fitting for our library being set up now to think a little bit more about how we can use that, or similar online resources to more deeply study God's word. Fundamentally, God's word is a necessary ingredient for repentance and for living a Christian life. As we say in the Fundamental Beliefs Bible Study, where would you turn in the Bible to support that statement? I'm not asking for an answer, I'm just asking for you to think about it. Why don't you turn with me to 2 Timothy 2.15?

2 Timothy 2.15. 2 Timothy 2.15, Paul writing to Timothy, who was a young minister at that point in time, Paul writes to him and says, Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

So the key for him to be approved of God and a worker who doesn't need to be ashamed was to understand how to rightly divide or rightly work with and understand and work his way through the word of truth, referring to God's word.

I think of a fine craftsman when I think of that passage. How many of you have known somebody who is a really good hand worker? Whether it's whittling, doing woodworking, building furniture, chainsaw art? Anyone do chainsaw art? Okay, maybe not. When we lived in Colorado and would drive up into the mountains, we'd actually see sometimes these stands on the side of the road. In addition to selling elk jerky and moose jerky, you'd see the occasional one that had these incredible carvings.

They'd be like five, six feet tall, and they were chainsaw art. And this person would actually take a chainsaw to a chunk of wood, it would probably be a trunk of a tree that would be maybe five feet tall, a couple feet in diameter, fire up a chainsaw, and just start going at this tree and make incredibly fine sculpture using a chainsaw on a piece of tree or a piece of wood. So if you can imagine, you think of, that's a pretty extreme example, I suppose, of using a tool, but think of any other craftsman that you know.

Think of somebody who works on cars. We've got people here who do bodywork on cars, for example. What you can do with a trained hand, a trained eye, when you know your tools, and whatever that tool is that you're working with, you're able to work with it to find precision. It's amazing how God created the human body. For example, if you put sheets of paper between your fingers, you can tell if you've got two sheets of paper between your fingers, can't you?

Our body is that finely attuned, and when we're working with a tool, and we work with it over a period of time to do a certain type of job, whether it's chainsaw art or bodywork on a car, we can really learn our way around those tools and use them like experts. That's what's being talked about in a verse like this. It talks about using the Word of God, rightly dividing the Word of Truth, and being a workman that doesn't need to be ashamed.

How good are we in wielding the Word of Truth? How well are we able to use it? Are we somebody like me who would fire up a chainsaw, hold it up to a log, and probably kick it up against himself and slice off a finger? Or are we somebody who can make a beautiful sculpture out of it and know exactly how to use that tool and how to draw all of the power out of it? Turn with me, if you will, a little later in 2 Timothy, and we'll read 2 Timothy 3, verses 16 and 17.

2 Timothy 3, verses 16 and 17. Follows on from the thought of the verse that we just read, and talking in this case more specifically about God's Word and the content of His Word. 2 Timothy 3, verses 16 and 17. All scripture is given by inspiration of God. It's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God, and of course we know that refers to all children of God, women as well, may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

So what we're told here is that in terms of our spiritual development, in terms of being inspired by God, in terms of understanding doctrine, being reproved, being corrected as people, and being instructed in righteousness, God's Word is fully sufficient for all of those things. The other thing that's brought out in this passage where it talks about being given by inspiration of God, you go back to the original words, it's talking about being God-breathed. That's one of the literal translations of it. And just like we see in creation, the beginning of Genesis, where God moved across the waters, the idea in Hebrew that's brought out there, again, is God-breathing, speaking.

So from the very breath of God comes His creation, the physical creation. The breath of God went to Adam to give Him physical life.

And we read here in 2 Timothy 3 that the Word of God is breathed by God, and it fuels our spiritual life. It's enough, it's sufficient, and it's also necessary in order for us to grow and develop as Christians. So with that foundation as a backdrop, what I'd like to do in the message today is take a look at a few specific ways that God works in us and with us through His Word.

And then we'll shift gears a little bit and just get very practical about some ideas and tips and thoughts on how to study His Word. So let's start with the first point in terms of how God's Word works in us and with us, and that is that it allows us to understand ourselves. God's Word allows us to understand ourselves. Let's go to Hebrews 4, and we'll read a couple of verses that talk about this. Hebrews 4, we'll read verses 12 and 13.

Hebrews 4, verses 12 and 13. Here we read, The Word of God is living and powerful, just like that chainsaw, Sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing, even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow. It's a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there's no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him, to whom we must give account. So we think in those days of swords that would have been carried, for example, by a Roman soldier. And we've probably seen different types of swords depicted in movies, Middle Eastern swords like the curved scimitar, that had a single blade on it, right? You could use it on the downstroke and it would have a blade. The sword He's talking about is a double-edged sword. We've probably seen some like that. You can hold the sword up and the blade on both sides is sharpened. And no matter what direction you move that sword in, you've got a razor-sharp blade, if you've got someone who's taken good care of that tool, ready to cut. God's Word is compared to that in terms of what it does as we hold ourselves up against what's written in that Word. And what it's meant to say is that as we take in God's Word, as we study it, as we think about it, as we compare our own lives to that Word, sometimes it cuts us.

And I think those of us who've spent time studying the Bible can see that. We'll read a certain verse and it'll just pierce us right to the heart, won't it? As we look at that and we say, wow, I've got to think about that. I'm not doing that. Or I have been doing that and I shouldn't be. Or it makes us think about the thoughts and the motivations that we have within us. That's what this verse is saying within Hebrews.

And what that requires in order to get to that point is careful reading thought and consideration to the Word that's in there. We have to spend the time with it. We have to let it sink in. We have to think about it and compare our lives to what we're reading in the Word. Let's read on in James 1, which uses a slightly different analogy. I love this analogy. In fact, I've used it without quoting the Bible. I've used it at work quite a lot.

I think it's a very apt analogy. James 1, verses 21-25.

Here we see the Bible talked about as something that's able to give us salvation as Christians.

He's like a man observing his natural face in a mirror.

What I love about this example and what I use at work is this idea of when you analyze a situation. In this case, it's talking, of course, about the Bible, what we read in the Bible. It's like looking in a mirror. How many of us go look in the mirror when we get up in the morning, look at ourselves, do an assessment, and say, I look really rough this morning? It happens a lot of mornings to me. I didn't have to raise your hand, Glenn. We believe you.

You look in the mirror and you say, I look really rough. Then you walk out the door and you go to work. Of course not. It's ridiculous. That's why we have a mirror, isn't it? So we can see what we look like. We can see, okay, what kind of construction project do I have in my hands this morning before I can walk out of the house?

That's why we have a mirror. That's exactly the analogy that's being given here. Why do we have the Word of God? Why do we read about the things that are in the Word of God? It's a spiritual mirror.

If we look in the Bible, we read a chapter, we read a handful of verses, and say, wow, that's really interesting. Smack. Close the book. Get up and walk out. Go on doing things the way we've always done them.

It is just like rolling out of bed, looking in the mirror, seeing what a wreck we are, and then taking off and forgetting about it. And that's exactly what this verse is saying. It's ridiculous to think that you'd go look in the mirror and not do something about what you've seen. And likewise, God's Word, the Bible, is given as that same mirror to help us understand what's inside of us, the thoughts and intent, and most importantly, how we need to move those in order to be conformed with God and His way of being.

So as we think about this first point of how God works with us through His Word, it allows us to understand ourselves, to see ourselves as we really are. It's the question we have to ask is, are we using the Word as a tool to do that? You know, we can think about different types of mirrors as well. I think it's in 1 Corinthians 13. We won't turn there, but it uses a metaphor that I love, which is we see through a glass darkly.

And it's talking about the fact that as human beings, we can understand just a glimmer of what God's plan really is. And it's like looking through a looking glass or a lens that's all fogged up. Or I think about a mirror. If you've ever been to an old museum, and you see these old mirrors that they might have in a home from the 1800s, and you've got corrosion that's sort of come into that mirror, and you can only see bits and pieces through it.

How clear is that mirror that we're looking into? The amount of time that we spend with God's Word, the amount of time we spend thinking about it, reflecting on it, we can think about as polishing up that mirror, making that view a lot clearer, helping us to see more clearly the reflection that's in there, and the way that we want to become as we strive to conform to God's way of being. So let's move on to the second, which naturally follows from understanding what we're like, and that is that God's Word shows us the way that we should live.

So it's not only a mirror that shows us our current state, but we're actually, through God's Word, able to see what it is that we should become. We have so many examples within the Bible that show us that. Let's turn to Romans 12 as a passage that shows us that God's Word works with us to show us the way that we should live.

Romans 12 is a fairly common couple of verses at the beginning of Romans 12, verses 1 and 2 that we'll read. Here Paul, writing to the Romans, in Romans 12, 1 says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

And don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And so the way that we do that is through His Word. Now the word prove here is interesting. It's a Greek word, dokimazo, dokimazo.

And it means to test, to examine, to prove, to scrutinize, as in to see if something is genuine or not, such as a medal. To recognize is genuine after examination, or to approve, or to deem worthy. And that's one of the things that we do through God's Word, is we prove what is the good and acceptable word of God.

So if we've ever seen any old Westerns, you've seen gold coins change hands, right? Somebody pays another guy with a gold coin. What's the guy who gets the gold coin do? Puts in his mouth, right? And takes a little chew on it. Why in the world would you do that? Well, gold as a medal is softer than other medals. And one of the ways, back in the day, if you didn't have a kit with you to chemically test that gold to see if it was genuine, is you would prove it. And the way you'd prove it was with your teeth. And if it had that softness in it that you could tell through your teeth against the fine senses that God has given us, it was a way to prove that medal, to see if it was actually what it was. And of course, we're familiar with all kinds of other tests that we take in high school chemistry. We're familiar with litmus strips that we use for litmus tests and acid titration experiments and all those fun things that probably most of us haven't done for decades. All kinds of ways that we go about things to prove out what they are, to examine them, find out what they are if they're authentic or not. That's the word that's used here in terms of the Bible, helping us to prove what is good and acceptable in the perfect will of God, so that we can live that way. It is our ultimate litmus test. Let's turn to Psalm 119, verses 9 through 11.

This is another way that God's word helps us in the way that we should live. Psalm 119, we'll read verses 9 through 11.

In this passage, the psalmist starts with a question, how can a young man cleanse his way? And this can be applied to any of us in terms of how we cleanse our ways, how we live a clean life according to God's way. It continues in verse 9, by taking heed according to your word.

So one of the ways that we can be kept from sin, one of the ways that our hearts turn more to God, that we know the way that we should walk, and that we're reinforced in walking that way, is by hiding God's word within us. And that's very simply done through reading, through study, even through memorization. Scripture memorization is a great way if there are things that you're struggling with, there are things that we're trying to deal with. If we're dealing with anxiety, for example, we think about and we learn and hide within ourselves some scriptures about the peace of God, and ways that we find peace, and ways that God will give us peace and calm. We have those scriptures ready so that when anxiety hits, when we're fighting difficulties or whatever it might be, we have those scriptures hidden within us that we've committed to our minds. Think of the example of Jesus Christ when he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness. What is it that Jesus Christ did in response to every one of the temptations that came from Satan? He went back to the Word of God. He quoted Scripture to Satan. Jesus Christ had the Word of God deep within him, and we don't see any record that he hesitated in any way. That temptation came. Satan laid something out to him in terms of proposition. Throw yourself off the temple. Jesus immediately had within him the Word of God and was able to rebut what Satan was putting in front of him to resist that temptation. The second way that God's Word lives within us and helps us is it shows us how we should live. By hiding that Word of God deep within us, by learning it, by studying it, by committing parts of it to memory, we can keep our feet moving in God's direction. Thirdly, and I'll spend a little more time on this point, it gives us a standard against which to judge ideas and philosophies. Now, in this world, I think that's incredibly important. I don't want to downplay the earlier areas, but I think the battle that we fight more and more in today's world, as we move away from a reading society, as we move away from a society with deep critical thought, and as we move more and more towards a society where we gather quick impressions, and then we move on, I think this is an area that we really need to dwell on as Christians, is we have to have this standard against which we judge ideas and philosophies.

The power of influencers has largely replaced the power of study and thought in our society. I read earlier about the fact that Kyrie Irving was a flat earther, and it spawned all of these people looking at, or even just believing in, flat earth theories. I mean, it's logical, right? Kyrie Irving is a great basketball player. Therefore, he knows a lot about quantum mechanics. It goes without saying, doesn't it?

But how often do we put those two things together, right? Somebody with the right stature, political status, popularity, famousness, whatever you want to call it, says something, and it creates an impression. And if we're honest about it, there are places where we have impressions that we've created in our minds, based on simply things that people have said, without going back, and as we've read, proving things, and proving them out. How often, for example, over the past month or two, we've read things, for example, on Facebook, that say, choose love. Choose love over everything else. Okay, now that sounds good, doesn't it? Sounds roughly like what we should do as Christians, but what's it applied to? What it's applied to is saying, legitimize every lifestyle that is against the way of the Bible, and as long as it involves people who make a conscious decision to love one another, it's okay. That's the meaning that's behind that, if you read beyond the slogan. We tend to memorize a slogan. I've talked with people, I've sat at dinner with people, and they say very earnestly, you know, my guiding proposition in life is, I'm always for love, and I'm always against hate. Well, again, that's great, but what do you define as love, and what do you define as hate? Nowadays, more and more in the world, hate is defined as anyone who has an opinion other than mine and wants to think that something that I do is inappropriate or sinful. We don't really use that word anymore. Again, what does the Bible say? What impressions do we build in our mind, and are they true to God's word? And what about the greatest virtue of all in our society? Freedom of choice. Freedom of choice. That sounds great as well, doesn't it? I mean, we enjoy freedom of choice. We're here worshipping on a day many people don't in a way that not everybody does, with beliefs that not everyone has, because our nation gives us freedom. But freedom of choice is used as a slogan to mean something completely different. It's meant to support the idea that we can slaughter the youngest and most defenseless members of our society, and not only just not talk about it, but actually celebrate it, and say it's a great thing.

And in fact, let's go ahead and keep doing it in a short period of time after they're born, because choice is wonderful, and we should all have choice, shouldn't we? How much do we think about these things? The impressions that they create, the slogans that are out there, and what's really behind them? Again, influencers are an incredible force in today's world. A humorous example to change things up a little bit. This is from an email newsletter called The Hustle from November 30th of 2018. This was right after Black Friday, Christmas shopping season starting in the U.S., written by Connor Grant. It's titled, Tricking Influencers into Spending $640 on $35 Shoes is the PR Stunt that 2018 Deserves.

Payless shoe stores made a fake luxury brand and tricked fashion influencers into spending $640 for their discount kicks. A 1,800% markup on shoes that normally retail for around $35. On the one foot, the publicity stunts showed the only difference between Payless and luxury shoes is a brand name. On the other foot, it proved expert fashion influencers can't tell a discount sneaker from a designer collectible. All Payless needed to do was rent a former Armani store in Santa Monica with dramatic lighting, launch a fake website with an Italian-sounding name, fill up a fictional Instagram account with stock images, and boom, fashion influencers were buzzing with open checkbooks. The 80 influencers who showed up to the invite-only event bought $3,000 worth of shoes in the first three hours, with many commenting on the fake luxury brand's sophisticated style and high-quality materials. We're talking Payless shoe stores here. Payless reimbursed the ignorant influencers at the end of the event, and now the shoe source plans to use the footage of the influencers to create a commercial. The advertising campaign that will come out of the stunt will help Payless take on expensive e-commerce competitors like Allbirds or Rothy's.

And here's a quote. The campaign plays off the enormous discrepancy in the fashion industry and aims to remind consumers we're still a relevant place to shop for affordable fashion. So this article ends, So kudos, Payless, outfaking people who are paid to post fake testimonials deserves an Oscar. So that's what's behind influencers. The name of the shoe store, by the way, which was supposed to be an Italian brand, was Paylessi.

So, this was great. And according to Hopper HQ's 2018 Instagram Rich List, influencers Selena Gomez and Kylie Jenner pull in $800,000 and $1,000,000 per post, respectively, for more than 100 million followers, while those with smaller followings on the list, like only a million people, charge $1,300 to $3,000 per post. So, a lot of what's going on out there is simply paid advertising under the name of influencers, who, because of the status that they have in our society and the popularity that they have in our society, are able to trade on that financially in order to say that certain things are good and certain things are bad.

And by saying that happens in every sphere of society, there are plenty of places where people simply vent their opinions and are listened to because of who it is that says the opinion. But we've got to be conscious of that in this society. And just because someone says something doesn't mean it's necessarily so. So, what do we do? How do we defend ourselves against that? I was talking with a teacher of one of my kids a while back.

He was going back a few years ago. And what he said was, what we have to understand in this society when we read things, especially electronically, we tend to read like the letter F. The letter F. What does that mean? Well, what it means is when we read, the first paragraph or so is like the top line of that letter F. Most of us will read the first paragraph in full. And then, like the upright on the F, we just start scanning.

And then maybe a third of the way down, we'll read another sentence or two. But shorter, that's the shorter line on the F. And then we'll scan the rest of the way down. And what do we think when we're done doing that?

We think we've gotten not only the gist of that story, but an understanding of the topic of what's in there. Now, if we're honest about it, I know that that struck home for me, because I definitely read things that way. In fact, I sometimes stop myself now thinking of that exact quote, and the fact that, hey, wait a second, I'm skimming through some things that I need to be paying attention to, and thinking about, and processing.

And it's that use of printed material, and the fact that more and more, as a society, we don't tend to go back to source material. We don't tend to go back and read different articles on a topic in order to assimilate the information and to form an independent point of view, or to test the things that we're hearing. We, as a society, tend to believe all kinds of crazy things that come out of people's mouths.

Things that, in the end, can be fairly easily disproven. So we have to think about that as we bring that into our own Christian lives. Let's turn, if we will, to Romans 8. Romans 8. I've been doing some reading lately on AI, artificial intelligence, and some of the implications of artificial intelligence on us as people, and on the world, and what it's going to mean in terms of how we decide to use our brains, or, more appropriately, maybe not use our brains. And some of the predictions out there are pretty scary.

And the fact is, it's our choice. How much we decide to think, and how much we give that away, to crutches that are more and more available out there. But we have to remember that there's no more powerful combination than the human mind powered by the Spirit of God. There's no more powerful combination, eternally speaking, than the human mind powered by God's Spirit. Romans 8, verse 14.

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. For you did not receive the Spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by which we cry out, Abba, Father. The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. What that's saying is the Holy Spirit matched up together with the cognitive abilities of our minds, powering our minds and our thoughts and our reflections, are what bears witness to the fact that we are the children of God. So what we have to think about is we have God's Spirit. We've given our lives to Him. We've been baptized. We've had hands laid on us, the vast majority of us. So we have God's Spirit. There are two parts of the equation here, aren't there? The Holy Spirit bearing witness with our spirit, talking about our minds, our cognitive ability, our ability to reason. Are we using that? Are we living up to our side of the bargain? Because the Holy Spirit by ourself, it doesn't say here, the Holy Spirit, inside of whatever you want to call your head, without anything else happening, will take you to God's Kingdom, will convert you, will do everything for you. It doesn't say that. It's matched up with the human mind that God has given us. We have to use it. We have to utilize it. And if we don't, we're not achieving everything that we could as Christians. The Bible tells us repeatedly that we have to apply critical thought inspired by God's Spirit and powered by God's Word. Turn with me, if you will, to Ephesians 4, for one example of this. Ephesians 4. We'll read verses 14 and 15. In fact, I think Mr. Thomas alluded to this verse in a few of his comments during the announcements. Ephesians 4, 14, and 15. That we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into him who is ahead, Christ. It's talking about the fact that we have to be rooted and grounded in God's Word, so that we're not tossed about and carried in every crazy direction. He's using a sailing analogy here, because people in Ephesus would have known the sea. That when you go out to sea, you don't want to be in a position where, whichever way the wind blows, that's the way you're going, because you're not going to get to your destination. Or if you do, it's certainly not going to be in the most efficient way. That's exactly what he was saying here. Let's turn to 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 21.

1 Thessalonians 5, verse 21. Just a short verse here that says, Test all things, or some translations say, Prove all things, and hold fast to what is good. The word here for test or prove is the same word that we looked at in Romans 12, not too long ago, Dokimazo, talking about, like you're testing the genuineness of a metal. You're examining something to see if it's the real article. That implies active thought. God's saying we're supposed to take active thought to prove out, to think through, to understand, to get through the arguments and debates and the discussions, and understand God's word and what it is that's good.

We have to exercise our minds with the power of God's Spirit to do that. Let's look at another example in Acts 17, verses 10 and 11. Acts 17, verses 10 and 11. There's a positive example of a group called the Bereans. Some of us might have heard of them. That Paul visited Acts 17, verses 10 and 11. Here, as Paul and Silas were leaving an area, they were sent away in verse 10, and when they arrived, they went to the synagogue of the Jews. Here it says in verse 11, These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, and that they received the word with all readiness.

They searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. What the Bereans were commended for was the things that they were being taught. Think how revolutionary this was for the Jews of that day. It talks about them going to the synagogue. People coming and bearing witness to Jesus Christ. Somebody was in the grave for three days and raised from the dead, claiming to be not only some great prophet, but the very Son of God.

And what did they do? They went to the Scriptures. They searched the Scriptures to see whether these things were so. You can imagine them going back to the prophecies that existed in the Old Testament. Prophecies in Isaiah that foretold the birth of the Messiah, where that would be, the signs that might come with it.

You can just picture these people digging in and probably even debating among themselves the proof that was in there from the Old Testament and the prophecies and the things that were being told them of what had happened to make a conscious decision, a decision fueled, I think, by God's Spirit, to understand what the words of Paul were speaking if they were so.

They were commended for that. Let's go to one last verse on this topic, and that's in 1 John 4. 1 John 4 and verse 1. We're going to encounter the same word again, dokamazo, that we've encountered a couple of times. 1 John 4. And we'll start and read verse 1. Here we read, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they have God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. Again, the word test here is that same word, dokamazo. To take time to prove them out, to examine, to determine the genuineness, an active activity of going in and figuring it out.

And here we see as well the why. And if we look around everything going on in our world today, there are plenty of things that are out there that we're being asked to believe, to think, to have as a viewpoint, and we need to test those things.

We need to determine whether they are of God. Because whether it's false prophets with a religious agenda, or whether it's people with any other agenda, whether it's political, or social, or anything else, we need to examine what it is that they're putting forward. What is it that they want us to think, to buy into, the slogans that they want us to take on, the meaning behind those things?

And we need to test and examine whether genuinely those things are consistent with God's word. So understanding how God's word works with us, and the things that it does for us, is vital to our Christian life. So what I'd like to do in the balance of our time is focus on some ways that we can more effectively study God's word. And now I know there are people who've been in God's church for a variety of periods of time, so for some people this might be old hat, for some people hopefully it gives some thoughts of things to study and think about that you haven't thought about before.

So I'm going to move the lecture over so we can fire up the computer in a minute as well, and then we'll delve into the last part of the message.

I won't need the screen for a few moments, but maybe somebody can keep an eye on that. If it's not coming on, let me know.

There we go. I think that's going to work.

All right, so before we kick that on, I'd just like to think foundationally, first of all. So if we think about studying God's word, embedding it more deeply in us, just a few basics maybe before we look at a few tools that can be useful. The first is simply foundationally making time.

I think it's something that we all have to reflect on in my life, which gets pretty busy. Do we take some structured time where we simply focus some time on reading God's word? It's useful, it's profitable to be listening to sermons or listening to the audio Bible when we're driving back and forth to work, or running errands, or maybe while we're cleaning the house, or something like that. But there's also a lot of profit. And as we go back to some of those scriptures that I read earlier, it's hard to really take time to reflect, to pull everything out, if you're doing something on the go and you're trying to multitask.

So one of the things we have to ask ourselves is, are we setting time aside in a structured way and just setting aside whether it's 15 minutes, a half hour, 45 minutes, and saying, this is the time I'm going to spend, to just tune out other things and focus on the Bible and what it has to say. Having this as a daily discipline, as a regular part of our lives, to set aside time to read from the Bible and to take advantage of some of these different resources that are there, is something that can be very effective.

I know it's been mentioned in a few messages over the course of the last years, but I'll just ask the question, don't have to raise your hands, but how many of us have read the Bible from cover to cover? If the answer is yes, you have, how long ago is it that you have? It's something to reflect on. I personally think it's profitable to do that once every couple of years.

It doesn't have to be the core of your Bible study. It's something that you can do, again, while you're on the go, especially if you have one of these. A lot of people use the Bible app UVersion. There are a number of different apps out there. I personally like UVersion a lot because it's got a number of different things in it, including a button along the bottom. If you have it, it has the word plans. It actually has a multitude of different Bible reading plans. Some of them are topical, and some of them cover the Bible from cover to cover.

If you haven't looked at those before as a part of your Bible study, I would recommend doing that. Secondly, it's important to go from reading, from simply reading, to actual studying. What's the difference between those things? We can sit down, we can read through the Bible, and say, I've read those verses before. You start doing the letter F thing because it all starts sounding familiar.

How do we turn that into actually studying, reflecting, and thinking about it? One suggestion I would have is to think about specific topics that you'd like to go in depth on. Study the Bible topically. If it's not something that you've done before, think about, for example, areas that you want to focus on in your own life.

Prayer would be a topic that's always profitable to read about. You can go and do a word study in the Bible about prayer, seeing examples of prayers that people have offered in the Bible, as well as things that are spoken about regarding prayer in the Scriptures. Faith might be another one. Patience, endurance, long suffering, different things like that, and doing word studies. What's useful there is you start to collect different Scriptures. You can write them down, you can type them into your computer. As you sit back and you think about and you reflect on the Scriptures on a different topic, you start to see a picture come together.

You can see consistency in God's Word. You can see different facets of this subject that you're looking at that can help us all to learn more about whatever that concept might be that we're studying. We could read and study on other things that we might want to learn more about. For example, the ministry of Jesus Christ. There's a lot to be pulled out of reading through the Gospels and focusing on different elements of the ministry of Jesus Christ.

Things that He spoke about, the people He spoke to, the way in which He taught. Just reading the parables and taking apart the parables and understanding, and reading the background that goes behind the parables, which can be pretty deep. The travels and ministry of Paul. A lot of interesting things there. Other topics like grace or mercy. Choosing different topics like that and going topically and digging into them. Another way that you can study the Bible is to look at different books of the Bible and go in depth on a book. We'll look in a moment at a few different tools that can help you do that.

Concordances that will tell you who wrote the book, what was the background of the people to whom the book was written. Think about the book of 1 Corinthians, for example. It's useful to understand who the Corinthians were. The Corinthian church and situations that were existing in the Corinthian church, which then gives more context to the things that Paul writes in that book. Why he writes about the topics that he writes, why he wrote in the way that he wrote to those people.

So going, for example, to a concordance and digging deeper into something like that can be very useful as well. Additionally, factual Bible study, Biblical geography, for example. How often have we pulled out a map and looked at... there are great maps out there, for example, that show the journeys of the Apostle Paul, or that show Jesus Christ and the different ground that he covered as shown in the Gospels. We can learn a lot more about the Bible by looking at those things. Projector timing out on me?

I really am going to use it.

Okay. And a few other tips and techniques, regardless of what it is you decide to study, and then we'll jump in here. One is to build a plan. How many of us actually have a Bible study plan? Things that you want to study and learn out of the Bible over the course of the next three months, six months, the next year? It's worth sitting down and thinking about a plan. I think it was Yogi Berra that said, if you don't know where you're going to go, you're not going to get there.

It's good to have a plan to figure out what it is that you want to learn about the Bible, and then set aside the time, praying about it. Praying about what you're studying. Asking God to open your mind, to give Him your spirit, to understand it. And let's not underutilize fellowship with other people. We're here with like-minded people with other Christians. It's a great opportunity to share with other people. You know what? I'm getting ready to do a study on the Acts of the Apostles, the Book of Acts. You might find a couple other people who are interested in doing the same thing, or reading ahead on the areas that Mr. Thomas is covering in the next upcoming Bible studies. And reading those, and beginning to form some ideas and opinions and thoughts on what's in there, so you can ask questions and have a different level of experience as you hear the next Bible studies coming up. And then using the opportunity to talk with other people about it. And then taking time just to think about what you study. It's interesting, a friend of mine that I went to college with, actually, who is a minister, he posted an article on Facebook a short time ago, and it was actually about the power of walking and sermon preparation. And what he talked about, and he said it's something he does, something his dad, who is a minister, does. And I actually have a habit every Sabbath morning of going for a walk myself. And especially when I'm speaking, there's something about that activity unhooking, going for a walk, and just letting the mind work through what you've been reading and what you've been thinking about. It helps to crystallize, compartmentalize, give some order and structure to the different things that you've been reading. So just that time, think about what works for you, examine what works for you, but I think the focus is to take some time and some planning to the idea of studying. Again, if we go back to the workman who's approved, if you want to be a master carpenter, you think about the things that you need to learn, the tools that you need to develop, what you need to learn from whoever you're apprenticed to in order to become a master carpenter. We're in the same situation. Think about what it is that all of us need to do and should do as our next steps to better handle the Bible as one of our tools. Let me spend a few minutes now, and I just want to walk through practically here a few tools that are out there as ideas for everyone that we can use in order to fuel our Bible study.

The first place I've gone here is beyondtoday.tv. I don't know if many of you go here on a regular basis, but I'm going to go here to this tab, Bible study tools, and click on it. There's a host of different Bible study tools that you can take advantage of here that can help you. I think many people have read a number of the booklets that the church puts out. To the extent that you haven't, though, there's a wealth of booklets here on topics where you can go through and do topical scriptural study. I think one of the strengths of the materials that we put together is they're very well tied back to scriptures. It's not just taking what someone says, but there's an opportunity to go to the scriptural support and see why it is that we believe the things that we do. For those who haven't looked at it before, the Bible study course is a great tool to go through in 12 lessons, an overview of the Bible, and go through all of the different fundamental areas of our beliefs, and be more grounded in the scriptural support for those things. There are also Bible questions and answers, and some other video series. The other place, though, that I'd like to focus is actually...

Before we go there, let me do one more thing. That is, if you want to search a topic, the search field here is also very useful. I'm going to type in, prove all things.

Here, I get 40,300 results on the United website for prove all things. This gives you a wealth of things. If you're studying any sort of a topic, and you want to get different viewpoints, different angles on it, some sermons that you can view on video or listen to on audio, some articles that you can read, some sort of orientation to what the major scriptures would be, because you'll start to see some consistency in those on a topic, type it into the search bar, and you can see these different things. It looks like we've got a United News article here, we've got a sermon here, we've got Bible question and answer here. So different formats all around the different topic that you might choose up in the search field. So that's one area that I'd recommend considering. Let's go next here to abc.ucg.org. This is the ABC or Ambassador Bible Center site that's set up by UCG. And if we go from here to courses, what we're going to find is that a number of the courses that are taught at ABC are available in audio. And so if you're interested in going through different sections of the scriptures and understanding more through ministry and the church, what it's all about, you can go in here and you can click in. If I click in on Survey of the Gospels 1 and 2, what I'm going to find here is hours of content that goes through a survey of the Gospels from beginning to end, starting here, Intro Jesus Christ as God in John 1, and going all the way down through lesson 61, dealing with types of the crucifixion and conclusions of the Gospel. And as we see here on the site, that's for much of the Bible. Not every bit of it is on audio, but major prophets, general epistles, minor prophets, Revelation, Acts of the Apostles, fundamental theology. There's a ton of stuff out here. And again, if you want to devote some time to these things, if there's areas that you're interested in studying, this is a great resource to go to to do some of this topical study. Now, concordances are another really good way to do things. And I'm going to show something a little bit different.

And that is a video resource that you might find interesting. I'm going to have to coordinate a little bit here because the audio doesn't work through the connection that I have. What I've done is I've gone to a website called thebibleproject.com. And in the menu, I'm going to explore videos. And what the Bible project has done is develop illustrated videos on a lot of different elements of the Bible. Now, when we go to places like this, when we go to concordances and the rest, of course, we understand. We're not going here to understand church doctrine. But at the same time, there's a lot of great material that's out there from people who, from a religious context, have studied the Bible, the historicity of it, the organization of it, the literature of it, the background of it, that can be very useful to us in understanding God's Word.

We just have to exercise the same thing that we always talk about. Critical thought, fueled by God's Holy Spirit, using multiple sources to make sure that we're getting to the right answer. They have an abundance of videos. I'm not going to endorse every bit of this and say I've looked at it all because I haven't. What I am going to do is move down here. They've got the entire Old Testament and the entire New Testament, where they spend anywhere from five to fifteen minutes on each book, giving an outline and background of the book. That's what I find useful on this site, is they've done some very good scholarly work in a very accessible way to give an overview of what the book is about, that in my opinion can help to bring out some more understanding as you're reading a book like this. I'm going to click on the Gospel of Matthew, and I'm going to try to do some coordination here so we get the audio out of my iPad and sync with the video that we're watching. We'll just watch a minute or so of this to get a feel for it.

The Gospel according to Matthew is one of the earliest official accounts about Jesus of Nazareth, his life, his death, and his resurrection. The book itself is anonymous, but the earliest reliable tradition links it to Matthew the tax collector, who was one of the twelve apostles that Jesus appointed, and he actually appears within the book itself. For about thirty to forty years, the apostles orally taught and passed on their eyewitness accounts about Jesus, along with his teachings that they had all memorized. Matthew has then collected and arranged all these into this amazing tapestry and designed the book to highlight certain themes about Jesus. In this video, we're just going to cover the first half of the book. Specifically, Matthew wants to show how Jesus is the continuation and fulfillment of the whole biblical story about God and Israel, that Jesus is the Messiah from the line of David, that he is a new authoritative teacher like Moses, and not only that, Jesus is God with us, or in Hebrew, Emmanuel. Matthew has designed this book with an introduction and then a conclusion, and these act like a frame around five clear sections right here in the center, each of which concludes with a long block of Jesus' teaching. Now, this design is very intentional, and it's amazing. Just watch how this works. Chapters 1 through 3, they set the stage by attaching Jesus' story right onto the story line of the Old Testament Scriptures. So Matthew opens with a genealogy about Jesus that highlights how he is... Okay, I'm going to stop it there just to add some suspense. So if you found that interesting and suspenseful, you've got something you can look at for Sabbath afternoon. So my point here is not, this is a source of all truth, but I think you can see how just going into this, understanding a little more about the outline of the book, how it's constructed, what the points it's trying to get across, and why, can give you a little bit of a different impression and understanding as you're reading through the book. And that's what some of these outside Bible helps are really tremendous for. A lot of time and effort is spent in putting these things together. Again, we don't look at these as a source of doctrine, but we do look at them as a helpful way that we can better understand the Bible as a book and gain more from it as we go through our studies. I'm running short of time here, so I'm going to just briefly touch two other sources that I find very useful myself and use in sermon prep. The first is a site called BibleGateway.com. BibleGateway.com, for those of you who haven't seen it. I'll show you one example here, and we'll click on the top ribbon here on the word study.

I'm going to go to the topical index. Now, those who worked back in the old days of books might be familiar with Knave's topical Bible, which was a volume a couple inches thick, and it had all kinds of different words and topics. It would have a collection of scriptures that attach to that topic. This does this electronically for you. Here, you can enter a keyword, a passage, or a topic. I'm going to enter the keyword, faith, and hit enter. We see what I get here. I get from the Bible 391 occurrences of scriptures related to faith. It just goes down, and it lists them all out. With the site within the Bible, it highlights the search term that I entered in there. It's a great way, if you're doing a topical study, just to get a whole boatload of scriptures that you can start looking through and studying as you're trying to understand what the Bible says about the topic. If I click on topical index, here, this is similar, and it comes out of Nave's topical Bible. It gives us different sub-topics. You see Abraham listed, so you have scriptures related to the faith of Abraham. We see the word assurance. We see scriptures about the assurance that's provided by faith. We see Lois Martel, and we see the grandmother of Timothy, commended by Paul for her faith, 2 Timothy 1.5. We see these different subjects related to the topic of faith. A great place to go, just to get—as you can see, you're not even getting interpretation here— you're just getting straight scripture that's coming out that ties in with the search term that you enter. I'll go to one last item, and I'm more than happy to spend time offline with anyone who wants to look at any of this in more detail. This is another site that's pretty powerful. It's called BlueLetterBible.org. This has a variety of different Bible helps. If I hover over Study here, it has different Bible commentaries, Bible reference books, including even charts and outlines, timelines, which can be really interesting as you're looking at the timeline of different events that happened in the Bible and how they might fit next to each other. There are some maps and images. I'm kind of a map geek. I love going to those. It'll provide different maps, along with biblical citations of the things that happened in the different locations and arrows that tie them together. So a ton of different things. The one other thing that I'll show you that I think is helpful as well is— so we used the word dokamazo today to talk about a few places where that comes up. I'm going to enter in here, Romans 12, and hit enter.

What the site pulls up for me, then, is Romans 12 here, in this case, in the King James Version. We were in Romans 12, verse 2, so I'm going to click on Tools next to Romans 12, verse 2. Look what I get. I get, as a start, what's called an interlinear. An interlinear lays out the words that are in the Scripture against the source Greek or Hebrew words that they were translated from. You can then click into them to get the meanings. I apologize. I'm moving a little quickly here. Again, I'm happy to spend time with you guys offline on any of this. Here, transformed by the world, and here it is, may prove. This is where we see the word here, dokamazo. I'm going to click on this G1381. There are different Greek dictionary sites that are standard, coming out of Strong's concordance, that are used for these different words. Then it pulls up the Greek word. It's transliteration and pronunciation. Then, as we go down, it gives me links to dictionary aids that will help to explain that word more. It shows me the outline of biblical usage. You'll see here the definition that I gave to you earlier in the sermon.

As we go down, it gives other definitions as well. You're not just counting on one explanation of what it means, but you're going to different sources to see the different sources of what it means. Finally, what it does is it gives results using the King James Version, in this case. It takes the Strong's number for the Greek word, and it matches it to other scriptures that use that same word. You can do a study here, and you can look down the side here, all the places in Luke and Romans and so forth, that use the same Greek word. It's a way, again, as you're using your own independent way to understand what's going on, and not just relying on what somebody is telling you, you can compare different places in the Bible where the same word is used. You can see the different ways that it's used, and in that way you can build a greater understanding of what it means as you see it used in different contexts.

This is a great site to explore. They build their Bible helps around the verse that you're looking up. As I go back to this window, you can see, looking across here, it's got Bibles, so I can look at it in different translations, the same verse, and see the same verse in different translations. Cross-references will give me additional correlating verses that are related, as you can see, to different parts of even the phrase in the Scripture. Commentaries, which will then link to what people have written about those verses. And then, lastly, dictionaries as well. So, again, I want to be conscious of time here, and not take you farther over time than I already have.

The point here today was just to lay some foundation. Number one, we need to think of ourselves as being master craftsmen, with the Bible being our primary tool. It not only helps us to examine ourselves, but to see the way that we should live. Probably most importantly in the world today is the importance of testing the ideas that come across. The things that are said by whoever it is that influences us, and to compare them to something solid that we base our lives on, which is God's Word. And so, hopefully, with at least a quick introduction to some of these tools that are available, it spurs some thoughts in all of our minds, in terms of where we can expand and focus and concentrate our Bible study. And again, if anyone has questions or wants to talk about the topic more, or walk through some of these sites and ideas more, I'm happy to do that. Thanks very much.