Is Your Bible Shrinking?

Well, good afternoon again, and wonderful to see all of you. It's fabulous to be able to celebrate the Sabbath. God, of course, tells us to do that. We do that out of, I was thinking, you know, there are a lot of different things you could say about the Sabbath. It's a day that God sets aside for us to rest, but it's even far more than that. It's a day, you know, a 24-hour period of time from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset, where He tells us to reflect on Him. So we are not only to rest, but to reflect or respect His authority, and also to rejoice. And so it's a day of rejoicing, and so it ought to be always wonderful to come and meet together and be able to enjoy Sabbath services here in the city, at least in the afternoon. All of us brought with us today a book, an important book. At least most of us brought with us our Bible. And of course, we study. I think we all recognize a need to study the Bible every day. And of course, we use the Bible as the main authoritative source during our services and for the entirety of our lives. Not just when we're a church, but it's what we are to do, how we are... it's an instruction book from God to show us or teach us how He wants us to live. And I think we all realize that God wants us to be well versed in the Bible. And again, I know I'm talking to people who have been studying the Bible extensively for, in many cases, decades. But I want to point something out that I hope will be helpful. We know that we're ultimately going to be teaching others, whether we directly do that today or whether we do that in whatever role God allows us to have in the kingdom of God. He says we're preparing to be priests and kings and teachers of the law of God or the Word of God. And, of course, this is not a small book. You know, my Bible, this one I commonly use, has a thousand pages. About 80% of those are in the Old Testament, about 20% are in the New Testament. And so how do we get a handle on a thousand pages of instruction? Well, I want to point out that, and this is, of course, it's not going to be able to read a thousand pages to you. I am going to cover the area of a thousand pages, but we study the Bible and we become versed in that as we come to understand the plan of God.

From Genesis, back in the Old Testament, to Revelation, at the very end of the New Covenant or New Testament, we have a revelation from God about His purpose, about His plan, about not just specific things we read in the Bible, although those are things we need to be aware of, we see the big picture that God has for us, and that picture is that God is bringing sons and daughters to glory. He is growing a divine family. He wants us to take on a divine nature. And that plan, we realize, is outlined in the Holy Days. It also is revealed in the pages of the Bible, again, from Genesis to Revelation. Now, 2 Timothy 3, verse 16 and 17 is a common verse that I'm sure you're familiar with. 2 Timothy 3, verse 16 says, All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for doctrine and for reproof and correction and for instruction in righteousness, so the man of God.

So, the man of God may be proficient and equipped for every good work.

Now, again, you can say that's somewhat of a simple verse, and yet it points out that God is involved.

In inspiring the book that we all carry around with us, or that we bring to church, and that we use on a daily basis. In 2 Peter, chapter 1, I want to also take a look at another verse. 2 Peter, chapter 1, verse 19 says, We have this prophetic message more fully confirmed, and you would do well to be attentive to this, as a lamp shining in the dark place.

In verse 20, see, Peter is in essence writing in summary of much of what he had seen through his life.

He was writing this letter, a small letter toward the back of the Bible.

He was writing it toward the end of what he had seen in the early church, and of course, what needed to be documented for all of us today.

But he says, first of all, in verse 20, you must understand this, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

See, that again is a summary of what God tells us, that His Word is not only inspired by God, it tells us that He has used. He has chosen. So it rises above just the common level of Peter or John or James or Luke or Moses or Samuel in the Old Testament.

It rises above human direction.

It is a matter that God wrote the Bible in a way, you know, to reveal His plan.

And I want to point out that there are several things that we need to keep in mind as we understand, as we grow in understanding of a book that is an inspired book.

Over in Isaiah 28, you have one of these principles.

Isaiah 28 tells us, and in some ways, I think all of you know that sometimes I cover a given chapter or a given book or whatever it is, something that's pretty sequential in the pages of the Bible. And of course, that's a good way to do it. It's a good way to study it. It's a good way to become familiar with the intricacies of some of the parts of the Bible. And that's quite different than reading the Proverbs where you've got a chapter of, you know, 30 different topics in each chapter because many of them are just two lines.

And so, you know, there are different ways that you can look at the Bible, but here in Isaiah chapter 28. Isaiah 28, you see Isaiah pointing out, and God actually saying about how it is that he will write his word and how it is that we should understand. So many times we might go from one place to the next, even as we've mentioned 2 Peter. You know, we've mentioned now Isaiah.

It says in verse 9, Isaiah 28 verse 9, he says, whom will he teach knowledge? Whom will God teach knowledge? To whom will he explain the message?

And so it kind of asks a question. Well, who's really going to understand an inspired word book from God? And he goes on to answer that. It says, those who are weaned from milk and taken from the breast. So is it infants? Is it a baby who's going to understand the message or who's going to understand the word of God? Well, it's those who are growing.

Those who are maturing. We're going to read this in Hebrews, but it's talking about, not just studying the Bible to be studying the Bible, or because I have to, but because I want to see the big picture. And then God says how he has written it, for it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, lying upon line, lying upon line. Here a little there a little. He points out that you have to be able to, in a sense, see the overview of the entirety of the Bible to understand his purpose for human life. He repeats that down in verse 13. Therefore, the word of the Lord will be to them precept upon precept and lying upon line. Here a little and there a little. See, so it was going to be written in such a way that help from God is needed to understand it. And we read about that, and maybe we should turn to that in Matthew chapter 13, because here in Matthew, in chapter 13, we covered this in services a couple of months ago. It's an entire chapter about the kingdom of God. There are a number of parables about the kingdom of God. And yet, before, and as he gave some parables, Jesus said, when he was asked, why do you speak in parables in verse 11, he said to you, it has been given to know the secrets or mysteries of the kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. To here he points out that, well, I've spoken in parables so that to those that you give understanding, to those who are maturing, to those who are growing, to those who are responding and obeying, you will give more understanding. And, of course, he says in verse 16, blessed are your eyes, for they see him blessed are your ears, for they hear. It's important to seek God's guidance, God's inspiration, his blessing, because Jesus said, I spoke the parables in order to reveal information to some and to conceal that information from others. That is Jesus' instruction.

So, one of the things that we should keep in mind about, in a sense, kind of how to understand the Bible will be to recognize how much we need understanding from God, how much we need to seek from God help. Here in Hebrews 5, Hebrews chapter 5, starting in verse 11. Now, the book of Hebrews is written to a number of people who had a background that was in Judaism. They were Israelites, clearly. They were Jews, and yet they had embraced Christianity, and they were being instructed. Here in the book of Hebrews, about what's important. It's not what you thought you knew, it's what God is willing to teach you. And he said about this in verse 11, we have much to say.

It's hard to understand, or excuse me, hard to explain, since you have become dull in understanding.

Paul, as I believe, writing this, he said, you know, you're not paying attention. You actually have become sluggish.

And he goes on in verse 12, for though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk instead of solid food. For everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant is unskilled in the word of righteousness. That solid food is for those who are mature, those who are growing with the help of God. For those who faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil. See, does God expect us, does he continue to reveal to us more of his mind, his word, his understanding, if we don't do what he tells us? Well, he says we have to practice.

And he describes, you know, the people he spoke to as being sluggish. You know, they were depending too much on their past and that they needed to depend on Jesus Christ and the word of God.

So here, regarding these principles for understanding, understanding the Bible is written where, you know, there is an overall overview, a trunk of the tree. If we want to keep that in mind about God's purpose for man, that we need to be obeying whenever we learn what God is telling us. And then finally, here in James 1, James chapter 1, you see, and we read this the other day, but I want to read it again.

It says in verse 21, James 1, 21, therefore rid yourself of all-sortedness and rain growth of wickedness and welcome with meekness. Welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your soul.

Welcome the word that God can plant in your heart and mind that will eventually lead to salvation.

See, that's talking about having a perfectly teachable heart. See, receiving, welcoming the Word of God to be a part of you and to be a guide for your heart and mind.

So, I mentioned these things as a beginning to this sermon today because I want to go over something I've been thinking about for some time, and I would guess you could say that the title for this sermon today is, Is Your Bible Shrinking? Is your Bible Shrinking? Now, I'm not talking about Mr. Brannon's Bible.

Some of us have seen a large Bible that he uses. So, I'm not talking about the perhaps the size of the Bible. I'm not talking about, like I told you, this is so Bible that I commonly use, which is a different than your New King James, I think. It's a new revised standard, but it's one I've used for several years. I'm not talking about dunking it in a bucket of water and seeing if it shrinks because it might. It might lose some pages. It might, everything would be wet and it probably would shrivel up. So, that's not the type of shrinking that I'm talking about. But I'm asking you, because I know many of you are familiar with lots of the Bible, is your understanding of the entire Bible growing. Because if it is, then the Bible, and I'm thinking about this in my own mind, the Bible can seem just inexhaustible. It can seem impossible to know what a thousand pages say. And yet, the more we understand how it goes together, the more we comprehend the patterns that are there, and even understanding the sections, because there are distinct sections in the Bible, to see how they all go together and show the purpose of God in men's lives. Now, that's what I'm wanting to talk about. And like I said, we should see a continuity from Genesis to Revelation. We should see how it connects together, because in Genesis, you see God introducing Adam and Eve, mankind. Of course, there are other things that are also mentioned there in Genesis chapter one, but he's beginning to work with Adam and Eve, and he wants to have a relationship with them. He desires for his children to respond to him in an open and positive way, but of course we know in Genesis 3, they were introduced to a deception, and things went downhill from there. That wasn't something that surprised God. I'm pretty sure he knew that that would be the case, because they were facing an incredible force, and so they were deceived, and they did sin. And yet, we see God throughout the pages of the Bible, again continuing to want a relationship with his children. You see that as you see the children of Israel developed, the nation of Israel, the sons of Jacob, as they were then brought out of Egypt and into wandering in the wilderness, you see that at that point God told Moses to make a tabernacle, and he said, I want and I'm going to dwell. He was there in the pillar of fire. He was there in the cloud during the day, but he said in the tabernacle, I'm going to be among the people. And later, during the days of Solomon, the same thing would happen with his temple.

The temple was to be built. It was a glorious temple, in essence kind of different than anything else that had ever been created, and yet the glory of the Lord would come to that temple.

That wasn't directly in the people, per se, because the people still disobeyed. They still dishonored God, and later when they would go into captivity, they'd be sent back to build another temple, but it turned out to be somewhat in comparison a very shabby temple, comparatively. And it doesn't say that the glory of the Lord came to that temple, but what does he say?

Well, he says, as we come into the New Testament, the people of God on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2 received the gift of the Holy Spirit. They received a blessing of God dwelling not just with them, but in them, and that's what Jesus had told his disciples in John chapter 16, I believe. He told them that the Spirit of God has been helping you, but it's going to be in you, and later Paul would write, you know, don't you realize that you're a temple of God?

You're a temple that God wants to reside in, and see, ultimately, we see the development of the Church of God. We see a called-out group of people that God is particularly guiding and directing with his Spirit, and ultimately, when we get to the book, the end of the book in Revelation, we find in Revelation 21 and Revelation 22 a description of not a physical temple, but of people who are in a new heaven and a new earth, or individuals, I guess I should say, who make up the new heaven and the new earth, the holy city Jerusalem, the bride of Christ, all of these are written about in Revelation 21, and what you see there is the divine family of God dwelling in righteousness, dwelling in peace.

Now, I give you that as an overview of what I want to go through, because when I can't sleep at night, which is most every night, I always wake up three o'clock. I know what time it'll be. Usually from three to four, I can look at the clock if I want, but I don't worry about that. That's not really a problem. I go back to sleep eventually, but I always think through the Bible.

I try to, I start, you know, if nothing else, if I can't do anything else, I think about the books of the Bible, I think about the sections of the Bible, I think about how they tie together, and I think about how God reveals his plan throughout the entirety of the pages of the Bible. And I would hope that that is something that you can do as well, because the more we learn about the Bible, we learn how it goes together, we learn how God has inspired it to go together, well, then we see more clearly his purpose for man.

So I ask you, can you think through the sections of the Old and New Testament and see the overview of God's plan for man? And as we do that, our understanding will grow. Our understanding will increase, but overall, the thousand-page Bible ought to kind of shrink. It shouldn't be as intimidating, it shouldn't be as overpowering. Now, admittedly, as we'd start out, and certainly, you know, I think back over 50 years of somewhat studying the Bible, my understanding was pretty limited to start with, and it increased some as I've gone along.

So that's fine. And certainly, I have a long way to go to understand more clearly the Bible. But I'll point out to you that the Bible is divided into sections. The Old Testament is made up, as Jesus said in Luke 24 verse 44, it's made up of the sections called the law, the prophets, and the writings. And so there are three kind of major sections that you read in the Old Testament.

And it's important to understand that, to understand kind of what each section is about, kind of where it started, where it ended, if there is a beginning and end, and even where, like in the writings, you know, it's pretty sporadic.

Job, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Psalms, those are all distinctively different books, and yet they provide a great deal of insight into God's plan.

And then the prophets. You know, I'll mention that a little later. When you go to the New Testament, it seems to break down into four groupings. First of all, the Gospels and the Book of Acts.

Now, clearly, the Gospels talk about, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John talk about the life of Jesus, the life, the death, and the resurrection of the Son of God. And the Book of Acts begins with the coming of the Holy Spirit to those who have gathered together, Jesus' apostles and disciples, 120, who were gathered together and received a gift of the Spirit of God that in essence transformed them. And yet, throughout the Book of Acts, if you want to know what the book, or what the Church of God should look like, you see it revealed in the Book of Acts.

You see what they were doing, you see what they were teaching, you see what Paul taught, he taught the kingdom of God, he taught that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, he taught, as Peter did, that everyone needs to repent.

Everyone. Each of us. Everyone needs to repent. And we need to be forgiven.

And we need to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and we need to grow in that divine nature that God is seeking, where He is seeking sons and daughters to glorify in His family. See, that's the first section in the New Testament, the Gospels and Acts.

And then you have a number of books, as you know, written by the Apostle Paul. Many of those books are directly written to, so you could say the Pauline Epistles or Paul's Epistles.

Many of them are written to church congregations in Rome or Corinth or Galatia or Colossians or Philippians or Thessalonica, written to those specific church congregations. And then later, in Paul's writings, you see him writing directly to a younger group of ministers, Timothy, Titus, by Lehman, more as an instructive letter. And so you have the Gospels and the book of Acts. You have Paul's Epistles. You have a section of General Epistles, James, 1st and 2nd Peter, 1st and 2nd and 3rd John, and Jude. See, those make up different sections. And of course, the final section is, in a sense, a unique one at the end of the Bible, the book of Revelation. It is a revelation from God. It is not a mystery, as most people look at it and say, this is pretty confusing. And it is. There's a good amount of symbolism in the book of Revelation, but it's not. And it shouldn't be confusing because it can be understood as we study the book of Revelation and see what many of the symbols are representing. And how that through a series of seals and trumpets and plagues, that leads up to what? The end of the age. The end of the rule of man on earth and the introduction of Jesus Christ coming to the earth for the second time to establish his kingdom on earth.

That's what we find. And of course, beyond that, you see what God's going to do. So, I cover those just very quickly that way, but I want to go back over them because, like I said, I've thought about these throughout the night. And I ask you, can you summarize in your mind these different sections in the Bible? As we mature spiritually, we should grow in our overview of God's plan for man. So, let's go back. I want to go back to the first section in the Old Testament, the law. So, what books make up the law? Well, Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy. There are four or five of them. And if you think through there, it goes from beyond the beginning dealing with man. It goes to God originally creating the heavens and the earth, but then later reshaping the earth for man, setting Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and desiring a relationship with man. That was, you know, the contentment, that was the peace, that was the cooperation. That initially is shown there in Genesis 1 and 2. But, of course, in Genesis 3, we know that that contentment, that stability, was shattered.

It was shattered because of Satan and his deceptions, and it was shattered because of sin, disobedience, disregard for what God had said to do. And so, we should look at the book of Genesis as a book of beginnings. There are a lot of beginnings in the book of Genesis, beyond or before even, and I'm not going through all of these, I'm just mentioning that there are many beginnings, and we can easily see how the God established. He established Adam and Eve in order to have a relationship with him, and yet they blew that chance. They didn't do what he had said.

They were overpowered, and they were deceived, and yet, John still was concerned about them. He was concerned about their prodigy. We see in Hebrews 11 a listing of the righteous people who would be considered people of faith. Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. See, that's who's dealt with in the book of Genesis. Many of those were firsts dealing with Adam and Eve, dealing then with Abel and Enoch before the flood, and by the time you get to Genesis 6, into the time of Noah, and a time some 1600 years into man's existence, and God resets the world.

He resets the world with a universal flood, and beyond that, then you start reading about Abraham and then his son Isaac, the son of promise. Now, you also know if you read that, you see Ishmael, and you see other problems, but I'm only going through this in a very, you know, limited way here today. So, you see Abraham and Isaac, and then you see Jacob, and Jacob has 12 sons, and ultimately one of those sons is sent into captivity in Egypt, but he rises to incredible power, and so Joseph is then in Egypt to rescue everybody else. God has set that up so that they are able to be secured, and so that, in essence, is a summary of the book of Genesis. But see, there are a lot of firsts when you read through there, and yet if you wanted to know something about Isaac, the best place to look would be in Genesis. If you wanted to know something about Joseph, even though Joseph is mentioned in other places, that would be where you would look. So, that's what we find when you think through the book of Genesis. In Exodus, of course, the name kind of gives it away, doesn't it? A book written by Moses, inspired by God, but written by Moses to explain how it is that God delivered Egypt, or excuse me, Israel from captivity in Egypt, and how He brought them through the Red Sea, and how they would then wander in the wilderness. But see, what do we find in the book of Exodus? Well, Exodus 20 has an important note there. The law of God is given, and beyond the Ten Commandments, you see a lot of other instructions, statutes, and judgments, and you see God giving a good amount of information about how to build the tabernacle, because He says, I want to dwell among the people of Israel.

And so, that's what you find in the book of Exodus. The book of Leviticus is a book about the priesthood, and I'm not going to go into that more right now, but it is about the priesthood of Aaron. And then in the book of Numbers, you find, again, the Israelites are wandering around further in the wilderness. They were there over 40 years, and eventually, we're going to get to the point to where they would go into the Promised Land. But what do we find? We read part of this last week. They were grumbling, they were complaining, they were moaning and groaning, and almost ready to stone Moses of several different times, having to be rescued by God. And of course, the book of Numbers kind of says what much of the book there is about. It's about a census, counting. You know, you read through, and there's just chapters after chapters of, you know, the number of people in each of the tribes, and how many, and the many, many names.

And yet, that's kind of a summary of the book of Numbers, and you get to Deuteronomy, the fifth of the books of the law, and you find it's essentially a repeat. It's a second listing from Moses, as he is about to die. He's on the verge at the end of the 40 years of wandering and turning over authority to Joshua.

He is rehearsing. This is what we did. This is what we said. This is what God told us.

That's why you have in Deuteronomy 5 another listing of the Ten Commandments. That's why you have a lot of instruction about what you should have learned approaching the Promised Land, and why you ended up wandering around because God was going to test and try you during that time. But then that's the end of the book of Numbers, or excuse me, Deuteronomy.

Now, the second section that you read about in the Old Testament is the Prophets.

And I will just point out that the Prophets, you could divide up pretty easily into former prophets, mostly what you would say is pretty much just a history of the people of Israel.

And then the later prophets, which is really not so much later because they're going on at the same time. They're symmetrical, but the chronology is carried as you read into the books of Joshua and Judges. You see the small book of Ruth there. And then you see 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings. That's all pretty much just a chronology from Joshua to 2 Kings.

You find a history of what happened as they entered the land, of how it was that Joshua did a good job of leading the people. And yet, as he died and as those who knew him then died, things got considerably worse. The book of Judges, even though it does list a number of Judges that God raised up, a summary of that book is just simply the people did what seemed right in their own eyes. That's written two different times. The last verse of Judges says that, and then I think chapter 17 verse 6 says this same thing. And so, those are the things that we read in the book of Joshua and in Judges. And in 1 and 2 Samuel, you see Samuel being the last of the Judges and him struggling with trying to maintain any kind of order among the people of the Israelite nation at that point. Then, you know, they're clamoring for a king. Now, we want to be like everybody else. We don't want God to be king over us. We want a king. And so, he said, ask God, and God said, give him a king. Gave him Saul. Later after Saul, David. Later after David, his son Solomon. You know, that spans actually 40 years, each one of those. And yet, so we ought to have those in mind because, see, those are all recorded in Samuel or in Kings directly whenever you go to the latter part of that. And you find that not only was Solomon a king over Israel, after Solomon, there was a great division. A great division of where the kingdom of Israel maintained, but the kingdom of Judah would also be on the scene. And so, you have a parallel account of the kings of Israel and then the kings of Judah. And both of them will ultimately fall to other oppressors. And yet, that's all contained in these history that is from Joshua to the end of second kings. And you essentially see in 1 and 2 Chronicles a kind of a legal repeating of the history of Israel. The ten tribes of Israel having been scattered and the house of Judah, the kingdom of Judah going into captivity to Babylon. And so, that is the history. That's what it tells us. Now, after they were in captivity, the house of Judah was in captivity for 70 years and then sent back to rebuild the city and the temple in Jerusalem. And you read about that in Ezra and Nehemiah. So, that's a little bit out of sequence, but it still is exactly, you know, what was happening there when you read through the history of these former prophets. Now, as we read this in the order that we have in most of our Bibles, you come then to the writings, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes. Again, I say, you know, these are incredibly wonderful writings, incredibly inspiring, some of them written in such a jubilant and joyous way.

It may, it's just exciting to read them, others written even about difficulty, trauma, you see distress being dealt with by some of the writers, some of the leaders of God.

And so, I'm not going to comment much more on the writings because that's a whole other section, but they are. They're descriptive of some of the things that were happening in Israel and even prophetic about Israel. And in the end of the Old Testament, we come to what we would call the later prophets or latter prophets. The history books being more former prophets, what we see in Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, we see these prophets. See, they were talking to the kings of Israel or Judah during their reigns. And so, these prophets were, we call them major prophets, mostly because of their size, mostly because of the time frame that they were living in and that they were saying, you know, what God wanted said. Thus sayeth the Lord. That was the description you often read. And so, you can see how that those tie in with the other, and then you come to the book of Daniel. The book of Daniel is truly unique because Daniel is a captive in Babylon, and God then is predicting what's going to happen. Even though he's predicted it before, he's even more detailed the prediction in the book of Daniel about the world-ruling empires that are in front of him. See, Daniel was writing this in captivity in Babylon, and yet he starts describing as the God of heaven gives him revelation. He starts describing the Babylonian king in Babylonian empire. He described following that would be the Medo-Persian empire, and then a Grecian empire, and then a Roman empire. That was actually going to span the next thousand years. So Daniel is pretty predictive. It's pretty prophetic, and yet it laid the groundwork for the coming of Jesus Christ. And so, even though the books of Hosea through Malachi, the latter smaller prophets, the minor prophets, as we mention them or as we talk about them, seeing how they fit in, seeing who they were talking to, they all fit into the framework of the history of Israel and Judah. And yet that brings us up to 2,000 years ago. 2,000 years ago, in the beginning of the New Testament, in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the book of Acts. It brings us to the time of Jesus and to the beginning of the New Testament church, how it is that God is going to call and draw people who He wants to dwell with, that He wants to live in, that He wants to grow, to be a part of His family, and He wants to be glorified in the Kingdom of God and beyond. So you read about that in Acts, Gospels, and Acts, and Paul's Epistles, as I mentioned. He's talking to church congregations. In the book of Hebrews, he's primarily writing about the New Covenant. He's writing about how it is that the Old Covenant that God made with Israel did not bring people into the relationship with God, that God was making available in the New Covenant. And so, he gives a lot of information there in the book of Hebrews about that. And then, of course, he writes to Timothy and Titus, people that he worked with, people that he loved, people that he knew were going to live beyond him, and who knew he knew were going to work in the ministry. See, they had a mission. Their mission was to preach the Kingdom of God and to preach the King of that Kingdom, Jesus Christ.

And so, Paul's Epistles make up a good part of what we read in the Old Testament, or excuse me, the New Testament, middle part of it. And you follow that then with the general Epistles that are essentially were written a little later, 1st and 2nd Peter, James 1st and 2nd Peter, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John, and Jude.

See, those are all general letters. They're not directed at a congregation, they're not directed to a minister, a person like Timothy or Titus, but they're written, directed to everyone. They're directed to the entirety of the Church, and of course, they're directed to us as we read what Peter says or what James or John or Jude says in these small letters. See, God has put them together in this particular way for a reason. And again, like I said, we summarize in the book of Revelation.

The book of Revelation is at the end of what we know of as the New Testament, but it's Revelation from God through Christ to John to write down what he has to say, what he wants us to know in the end of the age, because in essence, it's describing in greater detail the end of the age than any other book in the Bible. You read some in Timothy or in Peter about what people will be like or even in Romans what people will be like in the end of the age. We're going to read some of that here in a little bit, but you find in the book of Revelation, it leads up to Revelation 19 and the coming of Christ to establish his kingdom on earth. And Revelation 20 is an incredibly in-depth chapter about what God is going to do. He's going to send Christ back. He's going to establish a kingdom that will rule for a thousand years. He says he will establish a reward to those who have been qualified at that point to serve in the kingdom. And that, of course, is what we hope to be. We hope to be a part of that ruling and reigning as kings or priests or teachers or servants, many different descriptions. And yet, that's what you see revealed in chapter 20 and finally a judgment. A judgment that covers a span of time. This is all in Revelation 20. A judgment even beyond the thousand years and ultimately a judgment that concludes with the second death for those who resist or refuse to even want what God has to offer. As I said, Revelation 21 and 22 deal with a new heavens and a new earth.

That's an incredible expanse of what God puts in the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation, his holy word. And he describes throughout those pages how he is bringing many sons and daughters to glory. Now, I want us to look, I hope that going over that helps you to be able to, in a sense, kind of frame some of those sections in your mind because we often read here and we read there, we read something else, we get interested in this, and as you know, if you read any of our articles, we've got references to many different parts of the Bible, but that's why God wrote it a line upon line and precept upon precept. That's the way it's written. And yet, it would be helpful for all of us to see the Bible shrinking, getting smaller, making more sense instead of just segmenting little things from out. They all go together. They all are able to be built together. I want us to look here in 2 Peter. As I said, this book of Peter is written later in his life, and it appears that he knows that he is writing some things down that will be preserved. It appears that he realizes this is being part of the Bible. It's going to be a part of what everyone and those of us who are at the end of the age, who live in the time we now live in, we're going to need instruction. And like we read here in 1 Peter chapter 1, we read about, you know, the Spirit of God is the one who has worked in the lives of men and women who spoke from God, God's words.

That's what it says in verse 20.

If we jump over to chapter 3, I want us to focus on verse 1. 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 1, and this is part of why I've gone through this this afternoon because it's important for all of us. It's important for us to study the Bible. It's important for us to understand the Bible. It's important to know, you know, the beginning and the end and how it does tie together. But here in chapter 3 verse 1 of 2 Peter, it says, this is now, brethren, the second letter that I'm writing to you, and in them, I'm trying to arouse your sincere intention by reminding you. So, Timothy was reminding them of certainly many things that they did know, those he would write to, and to us, you know, I'm sure nothing I've said today is brand new to any of you. And yet, being able to see it, to cause the Bible to, you know, come a little smaller, to not be so vast and so kind of incomprehensible, to bring it down to where it's understandable. He says, I'm writing to arouse your sincere intention by reminding you, verse 2, that you should remember the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets, and that you should remember the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken through your apostles. See, these are the people that God used to write the Old Testament and the New Testament. He says, I want you to be mindful of those individuals. And he says in verse 3, first of all, you've got to understand this, that in the last days, scoffers will come scoffing and indulging in their own lusts, and saying, where is the promise of his coming? You know, it doesn't look like Christ is intervening to me. Well, that's all yet to be seen. That's yet to be seen, and you and I believe that because the Word of God is absolutely sure. We believe Christ is going to fulfill Revelation 19. He's going to come back. And yet, what this tells us is there will be those who will try to dissuade you from that. And if your understanding of God's purpose for your life is rock solid and based on the holy prophets and the writing of the apostles, well, then you have a firm foundation. You can have stability and security. He says there will be those who say, where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. Things will just continue to go on. That's what they were saying right before the flood. That's what they're going to be saying today, and even worse, because ultimately Satan will try to break down every established order that God sets up. He wants to break down the family. He wants to break down the whole concept of marriage. He wants to break down even the fact that God created us male and female.

That wasn't by my selection. That was by God's direction. And so that's something that, you know, we want to continue to have in mind. But we want to understand, as Peter mentions here, he goes ahead and talks about how God is going to bring us to pass. And really, he says in verse 9, God doesn't want any to perish, but all to come to repentance. See, that's what God's intent is. That's his desire. Actually, he points out, since this is the case in verse 11, since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved and the elements will melt with fervent heat? See, that's what we read about in the end of Revelation 20. And in Revelation 21 and 22, it's describing, you know, a period or a time beyond where the divine family of God is in glory and where there is complete harmony and complete trust. And it says, there is no night, there is no day. The Lord, God, is the light. He is the temple. Now, that kind of writing, you know, is discussing about, you know, what Peter says in verse 13 here, in accordance with this promise, we wait for new heavens and new earth where righteousness is at home. See, that's what Revelation 21 and 22 are talking about. They're talking about a relationship with God that is developed, that is fully mature.

But it's important for us, as we continue to grow in our understanding of the Bible, that we learn to live, as it says here, in holiness and godliness. There are a lot of other instructions that we're told that that's what we should do. And yet, I hope that it is, as we go over this, I hope it is an encouragement to, you know, to see the Bible as a whole, to see it as God revealing what his intent is and what he wants to achieve. We've read John 6, verse 63 a number of times.

In that verse, Jesus says, my words are spirit and they are life. See, the Word of God, even though we carry it around in whatever form we might have with us, you know, that is an incredible blessing. And see, our lives have got to be guided and directed and led by the Holy Spirit. That's one thing he says, but they have also got to be guided by the Word of God.

See, we have to know the Word of God. We need to know how it's put together. We need to know how it portrays what God's purpose for man is. So, I encourage all of us to grow and mature in an overview of God's plan. Now, if you think about the sections of the Bible, to see how they come together, see how they tie together, because all of them ultimately point out how God is bringing sons and daughters to glory. And we want to be a part of that divine family, and that is what we see revealed in the pages of God's inspired work.