Well, we are now in Hour 24 of our Learn the Bible
in 24 Hour project, which is basically just an opportunity to come to some conclusions,
take a broad review of what we've covered over the last 24 sessions, or last 23 sessions. We obviously have gone through the entire
Old Testament, starting with the Torah, then through the historical books, the poetical
books, major and minor prophets. And as we did, we generally ... tried
to develop a broad perspective on the one hand, and yet I tried as we went along
to pick up a few of the details. The truth is in the details. You may recall, we noted that if you take
every 49th letter in the Book of Genesis, it spells the name Torah, interestingly
enough. If you do the same thing in Exodus, the first
tau and the first vav, the first resh, every 49 letters again spells Torah. In Leviticus it doesn't happen. In Numbers, of course, it does, but backwards
of all things. Same thing with Deuteronomy of the equivalent
kind of thing occur. And this is a mystery. Why on earth is this here? Is this by accident? I don't think so. Is it by design? I guess so, but what does it prove? Well, Leviticus, let's take another look at
Leviticus. We discover that every 7th letter, not 7 squared,
but every 7th letter spells out the unpronounceable name of God. Which the rabbis typically say
Yod-heh-vav-heh, or Jehovah, or people have different ways of rendering it, but basically
the tetragrammaton. Well, now when we stand back from this design,
we notice that Torah is spelled forward in the first 2 books and backwards in the last 2 books. In Leviticus, it highlights the fact that
the Torah always points to the name of God. Now, this is not a big deal, except it's
a flag to alert us to the fact that underneath the text is design, and these designs
are in some cases very profound. We'll touch on a few of those. Very early in our review, we talked about
the nature of time. And we got into the physics of that, but the main point of it is that
in our 20th-century science heritage, we now know that time is a physical property. It varies with mass, acceleration, and gravity
among other things. And that means that we exist in more than 3 dimensions. In fact, the physicists now tell us probably
10 dimensions, but the main point is that God uses His ability to be outside time altogether to validate His message to us. And if we think of time as linear, we
think of eternity as starting at infinity on the left going to infinity on the right.
Or putting that into our space, if you can visualize this curve as a 3-dimensional space,
we are in the present, behind us is the past, ahead of us is the future. For us, life is a sequence of events, but
to someone who's outside time in eternity, He can see the past, the present, and
the future simultaneously. And this is an attribute of God alone, but He uses that to
authenticate the message He sends us. He proves it, that it's really from Him by
writing history before it happens. We call that prophecy in one sense, but we
find it also in subtle sense. Much of the Bible makes no sense except as
history finally plays out. The brazen serpent is an example of
that in Numbers 21. Makes no sense, until you get to John 3 and so forth. So, we also talked about the stretch factor
of the universe as it's commonly thought of. Is the universe 15, 16 billion years
old, or was it created in 6 days? And it turns out the expansion factor
of 10 to the 12th, which is widely accepted is in fact simply the same expansion factor,
if you render it in terms of the mass, the mass of the earth versus the mass of the
universe. You take that ratio, that 6 times 10
to the 12th days is ... renders down to 6 days if you will. Day 1 and it goes to ... that's one rendering
by Dr. Gerald Schroeder, but there's other considerations. The main point is, I believe in a 6 day creation. Literal days because God intends us to understand that. From, not from Genesis,
but from Exodus 20 verse 11. So, we talked a lot about that. We talked about information measures. The
difference between order and disorder, noise and signal, cacophony and music, and chaos
and cosmos. These are opposites. On the left we have disorder. We have entropy, which is a way of saying
randomness. And on the right we have information, and
they're opposites to each other in a sense. And so they are different, and things
are always flowing towards randomness. The universe is winding down. It takes external input to create order
or information, and that's that speaks to the, to a ... creation, a definitive
creation. The Darwinists cannot explain the origin of life, because they can't explain
the origin of information. That's really the issue, not the biology of it. We made an entropy profile of the
universe, and we noticed that entropy ... randomness is at the bottom,
order is at the top in this little diagram. And so we ... the word erev speaks
of obscurity or disorder, and the the word boker of being orderly or discernible. They
... ultimately come to mean evening and morning. But what we really have is an
erev and boker defining the 1st day of creation, and light was created and so forth. And then we went to the 2nd day, erev and boker, and we had the properties of space emerge, and then we had the land and vegetation. And then we had, on the 4th day we had the sun and the moon and the stars. And then we had the birds and the fish, and so forth. And then we finally had, in the 6th day, animals, Mr. and
Mrs. man and so forth. What's provocative about this, of course, is in the seventh day,
there is no erev and boker. There's obviously an evening and morning, but the point is that
erev and boker, the reduction of entropy, the insertion of structure and design
had ceased. It was completed at the end of the 6th day, and so the scripture tells us. But then we get to a huge discontinuity. The
Fall of Man in chapter 3, in which we have a decay. We have a huge disruption of the
original creation. Everything we know about the universe is post-curse. That starts the
Scarlet Thread. God promises that He would redeem the world through the "seed of the woman."
It's a hint of the virgin birth. It's going to come from mankind. It's going to be a man
to do this. In fact, from a specific nation that Abraham is called to do. Jacob, the tribe,
and David, the family, and so forth. And, so as the scripture goes, it sequentially
focuses on God's plan of redemption, and as He focuses, ... Satan tries to disrupt it. We even took a look at the proper names in
the genealogy of Genesis 5 and discovered, interestingly enough, that there's a sentence: Man is appointed mortal sorrow, but the blessed God shall come down
teaching that His death shall bring the despairing comfort or rest. Adam, Seth, Enosh, Kenan,
Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah are built from Hebrew roots saying
Man is appointed mortal sorrow, but the blessed God shall come down teaching that His death,
who's death? God's death, shall bring the despairing comfort or rest. Praise God. So,
here we have the summary of the Christian gospel tucked away in a genealogy in the Torah,
astonishingly enough. Well, of course, we got into the fallen angels,
and the nephilim, and all of that. We talked about Noah's ark and the realities of it.
It's displacement being equivalent to at least 500, maybe twice that, railroad
cars, and equivalent space for 125,000 sheep when you've got only about 18,000 species
to deal with. It does, it sounds quite, much more comfortable than it does on the face
of it. We also covered the reasons why we don't think that Mount Ararat is ... in
Turkey, is a viable site for the Ark. It violates what the scripture would tend to argue that
they came from the east to Babel, which means that somewhere the ark, the real Mount Ararat,
is probably in Iran somewhere, and we will not be surprised if some of the attempts
to find it will surface in the coming years. But then we, of course, talked about the call of Abraham and his family. How he married his half-sister and had Ishmael
as well as Isaac, and how ... as the family grows and so forth, these relationships
are important. He has a nephew by the name of Lot that becomes very prominent in Genesis.
We talked about that. Under Bethuel we had Rebekah who becomes the bride of Isaac,
and from whom we have Esau and Jacob. Esau being the forebearer of the Edomites,
the enemies of Israel. And some of these tensions we see in the world today
have their roots way back in Genesis time period. And, of course, also to Bethuel
in addition to Rebekah, he had Laban, and Laban has Leah and Rachel, 2
daughters that marry into Jacob, so we have, you know, the whole scenario of the
patriarchs start to lay out in the Book of Genesis that we went through. And so on it goes, but under the patriarchs,
we took some time to really understand Abraham ... who had Ishmael through
Hagar, not Sarah. Under Sarah we had Isaac, ... who marries Rebekah
and has again Jacob. And again, we have the key line from which come the 12 tribes,
9 through Leah and Rachel. Leah has the 4, and then, Rachel gives her handmaid, they
have 2 more, Dan and Naphtali, and then, Leah figures, "That's a good idea. I'll do
the same thing with Zilpah," so there's a couple there. And by this time, Rachel
finally has a child, Joseph, and then Leah has 2 more. And then finally Rachel has Benjamin, but dies in childbirth. But Rachel's the one ... Jacob loved Rachel
more than life itself and so, obviously, Joseph was very favored. And Joseph becomes
the prime minister of the world through the incredible drama that finishes the last few
chapters of the Book of Genesis. He has 2 sons that get adopted by Jacob
as he adopts his grandsons as we would call them so that you have 13 potential tribes.
So you can always have 12 by dropping, if you have to drop 1 out that relieves a lot
of the confusion that comes later. As for the other descendants of Abraham, under
Esau who marries into, or marries with the sons of Ishmael. But it's interesting that ones
that are truly Arabs are really sons of Keturah, not even Hagar as well as Sarah. Certainly
not Sarah, but not even Hagar, interestingly enough. They really come from Keturah, and
from Jokshan we have Saudi Arabia and from Midian we have the Bedoins
and such, so the whole issue of Arabs is an issue. Something else, getting back to some of the
subtleties we pointed out as we went through, we noticed that in 49 letter intervals,
we have a very interesting genealogy tucked away in Genesis 38. We have Boaz at 49 letter
intervals, then we have Ruth in 49 letter intervals, and then we have Obed in 49
letter intervals, and then we have Isai or Jesse in 49 letter intervals, and then
we have David in 49 letter intervals. And what's ... astonishing about this, this
is Boaz, Ruth, Obed, Jesse, and David in chronological order centuries before the fact. This is in
the Book of Genesis. This is long before, you know, Moses and all of that.
And so, yeah. This is ... the chances of this happening, ... I mention this
not that it's a big deal, except be aware of the fact that there a discoveries laying
just beneath the surface of the text that highlight its supernatural origins. And so the text anticipates the lineage of David several centuries in advance. David did not
come as a surprise or an afterthought, that was God's plan from the beginning. And so anyway, we went through the Torah,
the Book of Beginnings. We took the Birth of the Nation in Exodus. We looked at the
Book of Holiness, the Law of the Nation, and then we talked about Numbers, their Wanderings
be due to a lack of faith. And then finally Moses's epiph- Moses's 3 epistles that
make up the Book of Deuteronomy, his final, his final review and comments on the whole
thing before he dies. But ... we went through the historical
books. Joshua and the conquest of Canaan. Judges the next 300 years where they really
snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory by not following through what Joshua had started.
And then we have Ruth, this incredible little 4 chapter book that really ... It reveals
to us the role and background of the Kinsman Redeemer. Very essential when we get to the
Book of Revelation. Then we had 1st Samuel, Birth of the Kingdom and then 2nd Samuel,
the Reign of David himself. And then the Kingdom Divided under Solomon, and then the
the History of that Divided Kingdom. Chronicles is a review of both of those with special
emphasis on David and the Southern Kingdom. But we have basically the Monarchy there from
1st Samuel through to Chronicles. 1st Samuel being the bridge between the Judges and the
Monarchy period. So we went through the whole background
of history here with Genesis covering a huge part of history from the creation all
the way up to the exodus. And then the rest of the Old Testament from there through
the Monarchy period. Then 4 centuries of what they call the Silent period, and the
New Testament is so different from the Old Testament. It it occurs in just 1 lifetime,
but boy what a lifetime it is. And so we have that perspective. The Monarchy, of course,
was ... we went through that rather hurriedly, but the best we could with the time. Saul started with such promise, but
ended in failure. We had David who is the key to all things in many respects, and then
Solomon who started well, but again failed. It's interesting, you look at Saul or Solomon,
or many others, finishing well is the name of the game. And so we have the 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings, sometimes called 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Kings in some
Bibles, but in any case, Elijah being in 1st Kings, Elisha in the
2nd Kings is at the break point there. Chronicles being a repeat of 2nd Samuel through
2nd Kings, from the point of view primarily of the Southern Kingdom, but ... We went through the Prophets, the various
prophets that ... we also, as we went along, saw the building of the temple. We noted the
differences between it and the tabernacle that are very profound, but the same basic
architecture ... but adding the elements of the porch, the pillars and
the hidden chambers. And many lessons out of this that we touched upon. And how
the basic tabernacle model, the body, the soul, the heart, and the spirit
seem to be profiled. And 7 times in the scripture, God says, "Ye are the temple of God." What
does He mean by that? Many lessons here that are well amplified by our little
briefing called the Architecture of Man, but perhaps more profoundly by my wife's books,
trilogy, The Way of Agape and the books that followed. The fact that the porch is there
is our willpower, very key issue and the the subconscious being implied by these wooden
chambers and so forth. Sounds strange at first. I encourage you to study, review all that. But after the Monarchy, we get to the historical
books. Ezra, the return from captivity from the Babylonian captivity. And Nehemiah, the
rebuilding of Jerusalem, and the scene of the famous ... the fulfillment of Daniel's
70 weeks, or 69 of the 70 weeks. And between Ezra and Nehemiah actually occur Esther,
from which the ... escape ... from being exterminated. Very, very dramatic,
dramatic story. We went through the poetical books, not
too expositionally too much. We talked about Job, at least in the central points, and Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and so forth. The Messianic details in the Psalms
are astonishing. You don't think of the Psalms as a book of prophecy, but they really
are. They're more than just the hymns. There's an enormous amount of details about Jesus.
His person. That He's the son of God, Son of Man, and the Son of David is emphasized
by many of them. His offices: prophet, priest, and king are emphasized by many of them. But
His Messianic profile is astonishing. That He'd speak in parables, He'd calm storms, He'd
be despised, rejected, mocked, whipped, derided. He would be impaled on a cross, He'd be thirsty,
given wine mixed with gall, lots cast for His garments, not a bone would be broken.
All these are detailed in the Psalms with astonishing precision. He'd rise from
the dead, He'd ascend to heaven, He'd be at the right hand of God, ... He's the high
priest, He'll judge the nations, His reign would be eternal as the Son of God and also the
Son of David. People would sing Hosanna to Him, Blessed forever, and would Come into
Glory in the Last Days. All this is laid there. The Coming of His Kingdom is mentioned in
Psalm 46. Through tribulation, the range of His Kingdom - all the earth in Psalm 47.
The Center of His Kingdom Psalm 48, so 46, 47, 48 are a trilogy on the Coming, Range,
and Center of the Coming Kingdom of the Messiah. Well, without going through all the other
poetic literature that was in the Bible, we've touched on it. But then we got
to the Major Prophets and how what rich material. We spent a whole session just on
Isaiah, the Messianic prophet, and then we tried to get most of the others. We spent
a special time on Daniel also because he's half history and half prophets. 12 key points in Isaiah. That he ... just
Isaiah 53, He comes in absolute loneliness, He was despised, rejected of men, He suffered
for sins in the place of ourselves, that God Himself caused His suffering to be vicarious.
All these are descriptions not from Paul's epistles, from the Book of Isaiah chapter
53. His absolute resignation, He opened not His mouth. The description there is astonishing
in Isaiah 53. He died as a felon from prison and from judgement. He was cut off prematurely
out of the land of the living. He was personally guiltless, no violence nor deceit in His mouth.
He was to live ... He was to live on after His sufferings to prolong His days, and Jehovah's pleasure would prosper in His hand, and so that the mighty would triumph after
His suffering. By all this, God would justify many the scripture says. All this
is in the Old Testament centuries before. Isaiah 53. And hidden behind the text within those 12
verses are the names of the people that are at the foot of the cross. You've got Pharisee,
Levites, Caiaphas, Annas, the man Herod, and and so forth, and all kinds of ... words that are relevant, but perhaps most astonishing the disciples that were mourning,
Peter, Matthew, John, Andrew, Phillip, Thomas, 2 Jameses, not 3 because one was not a believer
until after the resurrection. Simon, Thaddeus, Matthias, 3 Marys are there, and one of them
is entangled with the reference to John, Salome, and Joseph. Just amazing. These are encrypted
within 12 versus, the people at the cross. What's even most astonishing is a name that
should occur statistically, just because of the frequency of the letters within that
period, that sequence of text, that is conspicuous in its absence, and that's the name of Judas. Well, we got to Daniel. Talked about Daniel
chapter 2, and and the strange metallic dream that Nebuchadnezzar had, but then also
the series of visions that Daniel would have later in his life, and how they paralleled
with each other, both of them profiling the history of gentile dominion on the planet
earth right up to the end where it's interrupted by God's own Kingdom being set up. And so,
we went through all of that. And, of course, we can't zip through even on
a summary basis and talk about (sighs) the Book of Daniel even without, or any part of
the scripture, without pointing out the 69 Weeks. This incredible prophecy penned 5 centuries
in advance that was translated into Greek 3 centuries in advance about ... that Gabriel
tells Daniel the exact day that Jesus would present Himself as a king to Jerusalem. From
the command to restore Jerusalem to Messiah the King would be 69 weeks of
years, and that turns out to be exactly right to the very day. Get into Ezekiel, there's all kinds of things
in Ezekiel, but, of course, perhaps most eminent on our horizon is the famous Magog Invasion.
Which could very well happen in the near future. Magog and his allies are listed there.
It's famous for 2 reasons. God will intervene on behalf of Israel rather dramatically, and
also it appears to describe the use of nuclear weapons. So that's ... It's much studied among
the prophecy buffs today because there's an expectation by people in the strategic
community that this could be on our near horizon. And each one of these is a study in it's own rite. Then we went to the so-called Minor Prophets.
Not because they're less important, but because they happen to be physically smaller.
Major and Minor are a librarian's categorization, not in significance. Hosea talks about
the apostasy of the Northern Kingdom, and his book is an incredible indictment by parallelism
with America. Because exactly the predicament of the Northern Kingdom is vary parallel to
America, and the remedy may be the same. Joel is a major source of information about the
Day of the Lord, the final climax forthcoming. Amos emphasized the Ultimate Rule of David. Obadiah talks about the enemies of Israel,
the Destruction of Edom, but you need to understand that the Edomites is generic for all of Israel's
enemies. Always has been. And they would celebrate any time Israel got set ...
got put down. The word as you, the more you study the Edomites and the whole history,
the more you recognize it becomes a synonym for Israel's enemies, and Obadiah has much
to talk about them. And Jonah, of course, is a, was the ...
led to the repentance of Nineveh, and an incredible book and also very relevant to
our day. 10 miracles in that book, but the most impressive one is not the fish thing,
it's the repentance from the king on down within 40 days that averted judgement. Micah
has many things in it, but we know it best probably because of the the birth in Bethlehem
and so forth. But it also identifies the source of the Antichrist and some other interesting
things in Micah. Nahum was also from Galilee to Nineveh, but this this time Nineveh doesn't
repent. In 722 they get, they disappear from history. And it wasn't, they weren't rediscovered
in history until 1849 strangely enough. It many people thought it was just a legend. Habakkuk has many interesting things, mainly
about why does God use uh, bad people to even to judge some of the people that aren't where
they should be. In other words um, he he's really troubled that uh, that God will use
uh, sometimes very evil people to accomplish His His uh, judgments. But also in Habakkuk
is this plea that the just shall live by faith, which becomes the watchword of the reformation
and it's also the subject of uh 3, 3 epistles as a trilogy on that subject. And that's why
we believe that um, Paul wrote Hebrews. Hebrews, Romans, and Galatians are a, are a trilogy
of that. Zephaniah is a number of little nuggets, but
not the least of which it predicts that not only with Israel be regathered, but when they
do they'll speak pure Hebrew. And that sounded preposterous until May 14th of 1948, and obviously
we we uh, the the Hebrew in Israel today is a, is a a uh, pure Hebrew. Haggai focuses
on the frustrations in rebuilding the temple. Zachariah has all kinds of nuggets about the
2nd coming, so very timely stuff. And then Malachi is the final message to an o-, a disobedient
people, but he also has a secret revealed in there that's a, that's the solution to
all financial problems. But um, as you go through the study of these,
the uh, the minor prophets, we can, one of the things, we won't take the time to review
it in detail now, but to understand that the prophets are not in chronological order. As
you study them, try to understand which prophet prophesied under which king. And uh, as you,
as you double-back on these things and do your homework, um, try to relate them to the
context in which they were prophesying. And uh so, Haggai in the days of Ezra, and Zachariah
the days of Nehemiah, and of course Malachi at the very, very end. So, and the silent
years are profiled for you in advance in Daniel 11. So that's the Old Testament. The uh uh, when
you finish the Old Testament, the one thing you're hit with is that there are unexplained
ceremonies left, sacrificial rituals that are not explained. You have unachieved purposes.
You have all the covenants. What for? Some are conditional, some unconditional. You have
unappeased longings, the poetical books are full of things they are yearning for that
have yet to be fulfilled. And the prophecies of course are uh uh, incomplete. It's important
to really taste and appreciate the fact that the Old Testament is incomplete by itself.
There's something missing, and what's missing of course is the Old, is the New Testament. Jesus challenges you. In John 5:39 He says,
"Search the scriptures. For in them you think you have eternal life," and He's referring
to the Old Testament to them when he's talk-, when he's saying that. "Search the scriptures.
For in them you think you have eternal life, and they are they which testify of," what?
"Me." That's His boast, and indeed they do. And when you discover that for yourself, it'll
change your whole perspective. We talked a little bit about the history of
the English Bible, and how the He- Hebrews Vorlage, it became translated to the Greek,
the Septuagint Greek. The Council of Jamnia led to the Masoretic Text, but meanwhile the
Greek text primarily, and somewhat some of the old Latin stuff led to the Textus Receptus,
which uh uh, Jerome rendered into Vulgate, and ultimately become, the Textus Receptus
becomes the primary set of documents for the King James. The King James translators um
uh, just like Tyndale, they had about 5,000 different manuscripts. What they leaned heavily
on were the so-called the, the received text as they say. But uh, but the problem was that
the Alexandrian text um, which were uh, highly venerated but for some reasons, led to many
of the new translations, NIV and others. But in more recent years, they recognized the
Alexandrian text were uh, tampered with by the Gnostics, which is causing many scholars
to go back and re-, and and respect more highly the the Textus Receptus sources. But uh, we
talked a little bit about that. We don't have to dwell on it here. We got to the New Testament. Again, it has
5 books up front, just like the Torah does in the Old Testament. Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John, but Luke in 2 volumes, Luke and Acts. Instead of, but instead of Deuteronomy
which is Moses's epistles, we have Paul's 13 epistles plus 8 so-called uh uh, Hebrew
Christian epistles. Well, 1 I believe by Paul and then the others that are written by, written
for, by and for the Jewish believers- James, 1st and 2nd Peter, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John,
and Jude. And having gone through all that, then of course we hit our capstone, the book
of Revelation which wraps it all up in a climactic form. But the Old Testament prophecies that are
quoted in the gospels are astonishing. That just, that the Messiah would be of David's
family. He'd be born of a virgin. He'd be born in Bethlehem. He'd sojourn in Egypt.
He would like in Galilee and in uh, spec- specifically in Nazareth. He'd be announced
by an Elijah-like herald. He would occasion the massacre of Bethlehem's children. He would,
they would, he would proclaim a jubilee to the world. His mission would include the gentiles.
The secret that we're going to talk about is not that role of the gentiles, it's something
else. Many people misunderstand the fact that His mission to include the gentiles is all
through Isaiah and other places. His ministry would be one of healing. He would
teach throughout parables. He would be de- disbelieved and rejected by His rulers. That
was predicted in Psalms 69 and 118, and Isaiah 6, 29, and elsewhere, 53. He would make a
triumphal entry into Jerusalem, in fact riding a donkey Zachariah tells us. He would be betrayed
by a friend for 30 pieces of silver. He'd be smitted like a shepherd. He'd be given
vinegar and gall. They would cast lots for his garments. His side would be pierced. Not
a bone would be broken. He would die among malefactors, other criminals. His uh, dying
words were foretold. He would be buried by a rich man. He would rise from the dead on
the 3rd day, it's all through the scripture. And his resurrection would be followed by
destruction of Jerusalem. And uh, on it goes, so it's amazing. Now, when we get to the gospels, we discovered
and we talked about how they're structured. That Matthew, being a Jew, presents, emphasizes
His presence as the Messiah. And uh, that uh, Mark his emphasis is that He's a servant,
so He has no genealogy, no pedigree. Matthew has a uh uh, genealogy starting from the first
Jew, from Abraham down through the legal line. Luke, being a doctor, focuses on Him as the
son of Man, his humanity. His genealogy started with Adam. He goes down through the bloodline,
which turns out to be Mary. And John has a genealogy, but it's hard to recognize cuz
He's the son of God. He has a genealogy of the Preexistant One. And uh, and so, Jesus
uh, Matthew emphasizes what Jesus said, very Jewish. Mark, what He did. Luke, what He felt.
And John, who He was. And uh, characteristically Matthew ends with
a very Jewish thing, the resurrection. Mark ends with the ascension. Luke ends up with
the promise of the Holy Spirit, which sets him up for his sequel, the book of Acts. John
clo- closes his book with the promise of His return, and he sets up his sequel, the book
of Revelation. And uh, they also interestingly enough exemplify the 4 faces we see around
the throne of God- the lion, the ox, the man, and the eagle- as symbols of the Messiah,
the Servant, the son of Man, the son of God interesting enough. Well, the book of Acts of course had all the
uh, many key facts. The ascension, the pente- the the birth of the church, the first uh,
martyr, the stoning the stoning of Stephen, Phillip and the Ethiopian treasure, which
has uh uh, secrets to it that are still being revealed, and then uh, we have the call of
Saul of Tarsus. Both Sauls of the Bible were Benjamites, but this Saul becomes Paul, and
becomes the uh, an incredible human being, one of the most brilliant people to walk the
earth. Peter's vision at Cornelius opens the gospel to the gentiles, something that was
unthought-of at in some respects, became a big controversy for a while. The mission of
the gentiles is really focused on in chapters 11 to 14 in Acts, it it, climaxing in the
famous counsel for Jerusalem in which uh, James by then has become a believer and a
leader of the church there, and that gets resolved. And then we get into the missionary journals,
journeys, 3 of them. The 1st throughout Galatia, the 2nd one uh uh, to Europe uh, Athens, Mars
Hill. The 3rd one recounting the 1st one just to strengthen those churches. But as the,
as Acts comes to a close, we have the growing outcry against Paul before the Sanhedrin,
before Felix, before Festus, before King Agrippa where Paul finally plays his trump card, he
appeals to Rome. That bring him to Rome, n which much is accomplished interestingly enough,
primarily because the letters Paul wrote while he was there. Treasures, every one of them,
Pauline epistles. It's so important we took Romans, we took a full hour on Romans, because
the definitive statement of Christian doctrine, the gospel according to Paul as some people
would call it. But then we went through the others. 1st and
2nd Corinthians, order in the church. Galatians, law versus grace. Ephesians, the mystery of
the church. It was Paul's privilege to reveal something that was hidden in the Old Testament,
and he makes that point. And many people have a problem in eschatology, they study the uh,
last thing. The real problem is that they haven't done their homework about ecclesiology.
They don't understand what makes the church distinctive from all other period of history.
Believes that uh, are members of the church have privileged and aspects that were not
available to the Old Testament or those that are uh, or after the rapture. There's a very
strange set of benefits that we have we need to understand. And uh, Philippians of course
is resources in suffering. Colossians, Christ's preeminence above all things. Thessalonians
are the the uh, eschatological uh, epistles. We left those for the next, for the final
session, uh next to the final section to be part of eschatological review. And then Tim-
Timothy and Titus be uh, basically uh, letters to pastors. 2nd Timothy's particularly remarkable
as Paul's last letter, and Paul is about to die. He knows he is, and he's encouraging
Timothy. I think its a little, it sounds a little backwards doesn't it? Incredible guy,
incredible letters, and just precious, precious letters. Then Philemon is a little gem, a little
tiny gem explaining intercession. And it's almost like a miniature.
I always think of every art gallery has somewhere in there, no matter how many
great things they have, they always have room for some little special miniature. And Philemon
is that sort of treasure. Then the non-Pauline epistles that are sometimes
looked at, or the Hebrew Christian epistles. Starts with Hebrews, it's unsigned.
I believe it was written by Paul, but that's neither here nor there. It really emphasized
the New Covenant. It makes an argument for the Messiah-ship of Christ without relying
on his apostolic position. Strictly with rabbinical arguments from the Old Testament, contrasting
the Messiah with angels, the levitical priesthood, all the contrasts. In each case,
laying out how Christ is preeminent over all those things. James, His brother, writes a letter that's
very practical. If you've got faith, let's see it demonstrated. Many people misunderstand
this epistle, they think he's talking about faith with works. He says, "No, no." If you
have faith, He expects to see it demonstrated by works. You're not saved by faith, you're
saved- I mean you're not saved by your works, you're saved by faith, but if you have real
faith, it should be bearing fruit. So He's a fruit inspector. 1st Peter's focusing
on the persecuted church. 2nd Peter is focusing on the coming apostasy, just as Jude will.
And very important epistles to today, very descriptive of today. John's epistle is one of those masterpieces.
1st John is really sermon notes on love. Incredible, incredible letter. 2nd
John is a surprise to many, because I believe you can prove it was written to Mary. ... One of the subjects it touches on are false teachers. And 3rd John is a just
short little letter having to do with the preparation of helpers. And Jude is a fascinating
final little letter on apostasy, but it includes so many allusions and so much comment on the
Old Testament that it's ... it gives us illumination of all kinds of issues beyond the ones that
... he was making directly. And so, that's the ... here's the quick
summary of it. In the Old Testament, we have Christ in prophecy which says, "Behold, He
comes." The gospels as Christ in history, "Behold, He dies." Acts is Christ in the church,
it says in effect, "Behold, He lives." The epistles are Christ in experience, "Behold,
He saves and sanctifies." And the apocalypse is Christ coming in glory, "Behold, He reigns."
So, that's the build up, and, of course, the Divine outline of the last book of the Bible
is in verse 19 of the 1st chapter. "Write the things which thou hast seen," that is
the vision of Christ that shows, that opens the 1st chapter. "The things which are," which
are 7 letters to 7 churches that we reviewed in some ... depth. Chapters 2 and 3 are
the most important chapters for you and me probably in the book. "And the things which
shall be Meta Tauta," hereafter, the things which follow after those things which were ... the churches. So that's the Divine outline. And we talked
about the 7 letters and we're intrigued how they parallel the 7 kingdom parables of Matthew
13. And we also ... the sower and the 4 soils, the fruit of the ... apostolic period. We have Pergamus and mustard seed, where
the mustard seed grows to be a tree that even becomes a a haven for the birds, which were
the enemies of Satan in the earlier parables. Thyatira, the woman and the leaven. Thyatira
having Jezebel and the false doctrine. Philadelphia, the pearl of great price. Philadelphia is the the church that was raptured. The pearl of
great price being a very strange idiom for a Jewish rabbi to use to Jewish disciples
because oysters are not kosher, but the pearl is a jewel that is a response to irritation,
that it grows by accretion, and is removed from its place of growth to become an item
of adornment. A very apt description of the church, interestingly enough. And anyway,
each one of these parallels are instructive to consider for yourself. Check 'em out, and
see what you think. It's also interesting to know that Paul wrote
to 7 churches. He wrote 13 signed epistles, but 3 of those were doubles, 1st and 2nd whatever.
Well, Ephesus is pretty straight forward, Paul's caution to Ephesus was certainly
heeded by Ephesus by the time Jesus writes. The only trouble is they'd lost their first
love. Smyrna is the the suffering church, and, of course, Philippians is ... resources in suffering. Pergamus was the church that married the world, and that, of
course, is idiomatic of Corinthians. And Thyatira- Galatians, Sardis-Romans, Philadelphia-
Thessalonians, the Eschatological church in the Eschatological epistles, and Laodicea
and Collosians, and Collosians was indeed the remedy for Laodicea, and they happen to
be suburbs of one another. So they were instructed to exchange letters. So, it's kind of interesting. Is there something to that? You can only find out by studying it yourself and coming to
your own conclusions. These are just observations that are for your consideration. But it's interesting that these 7 letters to 7
churches are interesting in that they are not only local real churches, not only
are they advice for all churches, but they're also advice personally in a personal homiletic
sense. But they're also prophetic in the order they happen to be placed, the main theme of
each one fits church history. Ephesus was the Apostolic church, diligent
on doctrine, but ultimately failed to to stay devotionally committed. Smyrna was
the Persecuted church, the suffering church. Smyrna means myrrh, if you will. And Pergamus
was the Married church, the one that had this perverted marriage that was, ...
the church married the world. Big mistake, which led, of course, to the Medieval church
in which you have the queen of heaven running things. You have inquisitions, the whole description
of Thyatira is astonishingly descriptive of the Medieval church, out of which, of course,
comes the Reformation, but really Demoninationalism. And Sardis is 1 of the 2 letters that has
nothing good said about it. And Smyrna and Philadelphia are the 2 letters
that nothing bad's said about it. 4 of the letters were a surp-, all of them
were a surprise I suspect, but ... 2 of them had nothing good said about them,
2 of them had nothing bad said about them. So I think there's a real lesson here.
I think all of us, if we really understood would be surprised. Philadelphia, of course,
the Missionary church. It's one of the ones that had nothing bad said about it, very encouraging.
And Laodicea was the Apostate church. What's interesting about these 7 letters is
the first 3 have the Promise to the Over-comer as a postscript, and the last 4 have the Promise
to the Over-comer in the body of the letter. So, they're distinctive in that sense. Also, these last 4 include explicit references to the Lord's 2nd Coming, interestingly
enough. And so, one of them, Thyatira, is promised to be, that it will go into the great
tribulation. That's a disturbing event. One of them is promised that it would not see
the time of trial or tribulations coming on the earth. And so, one of the things you ...
what happens in Sardis and Laodicea is problematical, so I guess it will depend on the individuals,
of course. So anyway, we then went to ... we went
to a review of Eschatology in our summary. Amillennialism, Premillennialism, we pointed
out that your view of Eschatology will really derive from your Hermeneutics. If you have
a very tight Hermeneutic, if you have a very high view of inspiration, if you take the
Bible very literally, you will lean to the right side of this diagram. You'll tend to
be Premillennial for sure, and very likely Pre-Tribulational, that is you'll believe that
that the church will be pulled out before the Tribulation begins. There many people who are Premillennial but they try to be Post-Tribulational. They think that
the church is going to go through the Tribulation, and it's our view that that has too
many problems. But in any case, if you have a willingness
to allegorize, if you treat these things just symbolically, if you treat the Bible as just
a collection of instructive lessons rather than any hard truth, you'll tend to be
to the left side of this diagram. You'll tend to be Amillennial, as most churches are.
Most denominations are Amillennial, and Post-Tribulational. The ultimate
form of Amillennialism is Preterism. You see, many Christian leaders are saying, "Well,
it's all been, It's all fulfilled long ago," because they don't have a willingness to take
the the scripture tightly. We believe God means what He says and says what He means. Well, we talked about the whole idea, the
70th week of Daniel. On that fabric we pointed out that the 70th week is defined
by the covenant being enforced by this world leader. In the middle of that 7 year period,
he's going to violate that covenant by setting himself up to be worshiped. And that triggers
a 3 1/2 year period that is labeled by Jesus Himself as the Great Tribulation. And that
is interrupted, of course, by the 2nd Coming. The dilemma comes among many, when does the
Rapture take place? Many feel well, it comes need the end. They don't discern the difference
between the Rapture and the 2nd Coming. We think that discernment is very clear in
the scripture, which causes us to look at one of the other places. We tend to have
the view, it doesn't mean we're right, but we ... believe that the ...
Rapture will occur prior to the beginning of the 70th week, maybe by some distance.
We don't know if the interval between the Rapture and the ... beginning of the
70th week is a day or 30 years, but we think there is an interval there because the 70th
week's defined by a treaty enforced by this world leader. He can't enforce that treaty
until he's in power. He can't be in power until after he's revealed, and he cant' be revealed until the Rapture. So if the rapture comes 1st, he then gets revealed
and comes to power. That could be 1 day or it could be 30 years. We don't know. But in
any case, that's where we are. Now there are some people who are sort of in
between Pre and Post. They call themselves Mid-Trib, meaning the Tribulation isn't
really, it's really 3 1/2 years, not 7, but some people use, speak of a 7 year Tribulation
as a connotative term, and the Mid-Trib guys understand that they will be out
before the Abomination of Desolation. But these other views, both Mid and
Post deny, have to end up denying imminency. Clearly, the New Testament teaches to expect
Him at any moment, which is an argument for Pre-Tribulationism. So that's at least
the profile that many have. The Apocalypse, of course, is a catastrophic
end crisis of the present time we're in. I believe we're plunging into that. We're going to
see the spectacular reappearance of the King of Kings and His Global Empire, and
we're going to see the internment of Satan in he Abousso, and the Millennial earth-reign
of Jesus Christ. Both the Old and New Testament are full of. Then we'll, ... at the
end of that 1,000 years, we'll see a final insurrection and the abolition of sin. That's
when it finally gets wrapped up, and we'll see a New Heaven and a New Earth. That's sort
of the quick summary of the Book of Revelation in total. Something else, as we stand back from our studies and try to put this all in perspective, let's take
a look at Genesis versus Revelation. In Genesis, the earth was created. In Revelation, the
earth passes away. In Genesis, we had the sun to govern the day. In Revelation, we have
no need for the sun. The darkness He called night in Genesis. There is no night there
in Revelation. Waters He called the seas. There's no more sea in Revelation, interestingly
enough. A river for the earth's blessing, and a river for the new earth in Revelation. In Genesis, we have the earth's government, that is through Israel. And in Revelation we're going to see the earth's judgment. One's the earth's government,
one's the earth's judgment in terms of Israel. Man in God's image in Genesis, we have man
headed by Satan's image shows up in Revelation. And the entrance of sin is in Genesis. The
end of sin is in Revelation. The curse is pronounced in Genesis. There is no more curse
in Revelation. Death enters in Genesis 3. There is no more death in Revelation. And
man is driven out of Eden in Genesis 3. Man is restored in Revelation 22. The Tree
of Life is guarded in Genesis. The right to the Tree of Life is reestablished in Revelation
22. Sorrow and suffering enter in Genesis 3. There is no more sorrow in Revelation 22.
Nimrod founds Babylon in Genesis 10. Babylon falls in chapter 17 and 18. God's flood destroys
an evil generation in Genesis. Satan's flood tries to destroy the elect generation in Revelation
12. And there's a bow, a token of God's promise in Genesis 9. There's a bow for remembrance
in Revelation 4 and 10. Sodom and Egypt represent corruption and judgment in Genesis
13. Sodom and Egypt, that is Jerusalem show up in Revelation 11 representing those things. A confederation is against Adam's people in
Genesis 14. A confederation is against Adam's seed in Revelation 12. There's a bride for
Abraham's son in Genesis 24. There's a bride for Abraham's seed in Revelation 21, the marriage
supper of the Lamb. The marriage of the first Adam occurs in Revelation 2. The marriage
of a last Adam occurs in Revelation 19. Man's dominion ceases and Satan's begun in Genesis
3:24. Satan's dominion ends and Man is restored in Revelation 22. So, ... I mentioned
this as you stand back, you can tell it's all designed on purpose. And the New Testament
is in the Old Testament concealed. And the Old Testament is in the New Testament revealed.
One book. There are 2 basic discoveries we've tried to emphasize
in this excursion: that the Bible, although it consists of 66 separate books penned by
over 40 guys over a people of several thousand years, is an integrated message system. Not
only the themes. Every word, every place name, even the mathematical structures that
hide underneath the text demonstrate a very, very skillful integrated design. And if that's
true, you've got a 2nd discovery. You can then demonstrate that the origin of the message had to come from outside our dimensions of space-time. You can demonstrate it. You
can't prove the Bible. Yes, you can. If you can demonstrate the integrity of the design
in the 1st place, and then demonstrate that that design had to emerge from outside the
time domain, you've got a very, very ... You've demonstrated a
property that no other book on the planet earth has. This super, ... this demonstrable
supernatural origin. Not a claim, a demonstration. The central theme is that the Old Testament is
the account of a Nation. The New Testament, the account of a Man. The Creator became
a Man. His appearance is the central event of all history. He died to purchase us, and
He's alive now, and our most exalted privilege is to know Him. That's what the Bible is really
all about, is to know Him. (sighs) They say that there are (sighs) over 8,000 ... This is just 1 categorization by J. Barton Payne. Other people have different ones, but
he categorized over 8,000 predictive versus and over almost 2,000 predictions on 700 different
matters. I happen to disagree with him. I think it's all prophecy, but that's, you know,
another thing. One of the things that you'll quickly determine
as you try to compare what you know about your Bible and what's going on in the world
is that there are major themes emerging. If you want to know what time it is on God's
clock, you look at Israel. Find out what's going on in Israel, you can tell ... because
of Israel's origin, it's ups, it's downs, and it's ultimate destiny are all laid
out in advance. If you want to find out what time it is, check out where Israel is. The
city of Jerusalem, a bone in the throat among all major nations today, exactly like Zachariah
predicted. Watch Jerusalem. The temple is going to be rebuilt. You can't see any evidence
of it yet. In fact, quite the contrary. The Muslims are quite aggressively with bulldozers
trying to destroy all evidence of, all Jewish evidence on the site. But we know it's going
to be rebuilt. How do we know? Because Jesus, Paul, and John all make reference to it standing
at the end times. The city of Babylon is going to re-emerge we
believe on world, in world history. And this ... is an exciting thing to
watch, because I think you're going to see it reemerge on the horizon, and when you do,
that's going to be an incredible witnessing opportunity as people start to take notice.
And, of course, Russia, the Magogians, if you will. There are people in the strategic
community that believe that Russia is on the threshold of shenanigans in
the Middle East. We'll watch that with great interest. The rise of China as the major economic
and military power on the horizon. Europe and China are going to be the big players
over the coming decades. The past 50 years it was Russia and the US, it was the USSR
and the USA. But in the coming decades it's clearly going to be China and the European
superstate. The UN is on frail ground. People are saying there needs to be an alternative
to the UN, and it probably will emerge in the form of the European Union. Watch and
see. It'll either take it over or ... simply be a rival. And while all this is going on, the movement
towards a 1 world religion. It's astonishing to see how many Christian leaders are falling
for this ecumenical mania that's going on, ecumenicalism. Park truth at the door. Let's
just all agree that we're going to agree. And this is in the context of a global government, which has to happen because of a proliferation of nuclear weapons, the rise of terrorism.
All of these are global issues and the thinking people are recognizing that it's
going to take global supervision to deal with these issues. And while all this is going
on, we have the rise of the occult. How interesting it is, that we live in an age of materialism. As people have rejected God and embraced materialism, both in terms of their lifestyles and also
in terms of their philosophies. And as they discover materialism is morally bankrupt,
what do they turn to? To mysticism. And how interesting it is that in this enlightened
age with the advancements of science and all that sort of thing, we find
that increasingly people at all levels of society, not just the disenfranchised, are
turning to mysticism. How fascinating it is. All these are major themes that we tried to
map and track. But our challenge to you in this course has not been just to learn
the Bible. What I want you to do is challenge this preposterous statement. The statement is,
"that we're being plunged into a period of time about which the Bible says more than
about any other period of time in history, including the time that Jesus walked the shores
of Galilee and climbed the mountains of Judea." That is an audacious statement, some would
say preposterous. Great. Don't accept it. Challenge it. How do you do that? You've got to
do 2 things. 1 - find out what the Bible says, not what Chuck Missler, or Hal Lindsey, or
Chuck Smith, or whoever your favorite teacher is. No. Find out what the Bible says, point
1. Point 2 - find out what's going on, and you won't on the 10:00 news. You need to do
a little homework, but with internet, the alternative press, talk radio you can today
find out that the stranglehold by the mass media is being ... is being broken. Their overt attempt by promoting ...
knowingly deliberately promoting falsehoods. Trying to topple a sitting president during
a time of war has discredited virtually all, almost all of the mainline media. And,
with exception of Fox News, I think they're all caught ... they all have their hands
dirty with having prostituted their franchise. The franchise of the mass media is to inform
the electorate, but these are people that take pride in shaping opinion rather than
informing them. And then they deliberately indulge in deceit, and so that's
going, that comes home to roost. The point is, most thinking people recognize they've
got, it takes a little homework to find out what's really going on in the Middle East,
in Europe, China, wherever. Find out what's happening. And the more you know about what
the Bible says, and the more you know about what's going on in the world, the more you'll
see a convergence. Not by 1 or 2 things, by all of them. And ... pretty exciting times. But the ultimate issue is that you and I are
in possession of a message of extraterrestrial origin, and it portrays us as objects of an
unseen warfare, and our eternal destiny, yours and mine, depends upon our relationship with
the ultimate victor in this cosmic conflict. It does not uh, depend upon what church you
go to. It doesn't depend on what denomination you happen to have allegiance to. Our eternal
destiny depends upon our relationship with Him, the ultimate Victor in this conflict.
And the question you need to ask yourself is where do you stand with respect to Him? He's
what it's all about. Now people ask, "Gee, Chuck, that's great.
How do I study?" Well, first of all, 2 things- through prayer and through a relationship
with the Author. The important thing here is to have a relationship with Jesus Christ,
and to pursue that relationship diligently and faithfully. One of the things you
need to do when you study your Bible is set aside your presuppositions. We all bring to
any study presumptions, presuppositions. Blindfold them, put them aside. Go at it with an open mind
and hear what the scripture says. I also encourage you to take notes. I really wish I had been
more thorough in my early years taking notes. I'm doing it in more recent years, but build your own reservoir of your own notes and insights. And along that line, let me tell you another
secret. One of the things I encourage you to do is go to a stationary store and get
a journal. You girls know what I'm talking about. The guys haven't the foggiest notion
what I'm talking about. In a stationary store, you typically can find a bound book, not a
loose-leaf, a bound book that's maybe blank or lined, your preference, that's designed
to be a personal diary, a journal. And the girls are fond of doing this. Guys usually
don't bother, but I'm going to encourage you to undertake a secret journal. This is a journal
that you're not going to ever show anybody, and that's important, because I want you to be
honest. I want you to be candid. This isn't something you're going to ever show anybody. This
is private. I want you to be able to pour out yourself that no one will ever overlook
your shoulder, or look over your shoulder to see it. And what I want you to do,
and you might want to do this with your prayer life too by the way. It's an exciting thing when you pray is to
make a, keep a journal, write down what you pray about, and when He fulfills it make a
note. You'll be astonished. So often we pray for something, and when it happens we sort of take it for granted. No, make make a journal, take a journal. In fact, you shouldn't pray
without a pad. You ever notice if you've been a member of a large corporation,
when the boss asks the secretary to come into his office, you never see her enter his office
without a pad. That's considered, you know, that's ... a sharp secretary will always
carry a pad. The presumption is she's going to get an assignment. And when you go to prayer,
do you have a pad? When God's speaking to you, do you make a note? But there's something else about this journal
I want you to think about. How many of you have ever encountered a passage in the Bible
that was confusing, or self-contradictory, or you didn't understand? Can I see a show
of hands? Okay, anybody without their hand up hasn't read their Bible, right? You'll
always, we all have. We all have. Here's what I want you to do. When you encounter something
that makes no sense, jump for joy, because you have now an opportunity to conduct an empirical
experiment in the supernatural. An actual laboratory ... You know, it's interesting, if you're an engineer or in a technical field, you know that most of what you learned
in college was in the lab courses when you got your hands on, you actually did
it. Not the theory and the equations. When you really, that's where it came, that's where
it became real. Well, here's a chance to conduct a laboratory
course in the supernatural. What you do when you encounter a passage that makes no sense,
you get your journal, get a blank page. Put the date down, put the reference, and here's
the important part, you do this in ink, not pencil, try to write down why that passage
is confusing or apparently contradictory, why it just doesn't seem to make sense. And
try to be as thorough and as ... effective as you can. Then when you've done
that, you set that aside and you go to prayer. Go before the throne. Say, "Father, you've
promised that the Holy Spirit would teach us all things. Now this passage confuses me.
I don't understand it. It seems to be, it doesn't make any sense. It seems to contradict
the whatever." You ... take it before Him and remind Him that He promised
that He would teach you all things, and call on His claim, claim that. Call Him on
that, and then watch what happens. Now, it may not happen in the next 10 seconds.
It may be the next day. It might be who knows? What's going to happen though, you may be reading
somewhere else in the Bible, and suddenly the insight'll come. Or maybe you'll be driving
and you'll be listening to some radio speaker, and he may not even be talking about
this subject, but he'll say something that will cause an insight. Or you might be in
a hot-, in a restaurant and you'll overhear a conversation at another table. I don't know
what instrument the Holy Spirit will use, but what He's going to do in the reasonable
time forthcoming, He will make that problem so clear. You now need to go back
to your journal, find that page, and at the bottom put the date and explain how the Holy
Spirit, what medium the Holy Spirit used to make that ... to let that fog lift, to
get rid of that cloud, to let you see the reality there. Now you're probably saying, "Gee, Chuck. That
sounds like great fun, but why all the paperwork?" I'll tell you why, because the day's
going to come when you are going to go through the valley of doubt, dark times. And you'll
begin to question that is this all really real? Have I gotten just carried
away with all of, whatever? I want you to be able to go back to that journal and
look at the footprints of the Holy Spirit as He carried you item-by-item as your personal
tutor. Not Chuck Missler or whoever, the Holy Spirit taking you through your Christian walk
step-by-step in a supernatural way. That journal will become one of your most precious possess-
You never show it to anybody. And the reason you don't want to do that, is you want it private.
You want to be able to communicate with complete openness, without any mask, or facades, or
whatever. And it will be precious to the extent that you're candid with it. Well, the other thing I'm going to suggest
... How many of you have a hobby? Anybody here? How many here have hobbies? Let's see,
ah, oh good, okay. Now, I'm I'm gonna tell you a couple of things about your, that are
probably true about your hobby. You probably know more about your hobby than you do your
profession, because it's a labor of love. I mean, that's what you're into. Whatever, right?
I'll tell you something else about your hobby, you probably have more invested in it than
you want your wife to find out, okay. I have a suggestion. It may sound strange, but I
have a suggestion. You know, Ben Franklin said, "Jack of all
trades." His concept was, "Jack of all trades, master of one." He's always misquoted, "Jack
of all trades, master of none," is the way you usually hear it. That's not what he said.
He said, "Jack of all trades, master of one." What his concept was, for an educated person,
is an educated person should know something about everything, and everything about something.
That was his concept, and that's a good idea. For a Christian, that something should be
the Bible. If you're a Christian, you can know a lot about anything. You can know
something about everything, but you should know everything there is to know about the
Bible. So, I'm going to suggest you do that. Set out to make the Bible your hobby. You
don't have to supersede all the others, but it certainly should come ahead of the others
in the sense of your priorities. What do I mean about making it a hobby? Well,
1st of all, invest in it. Go to a Christian book store and pick up some helps, a good
exhaustive concordance. Find out what an exhaustive concordance is and go get one. They're not
expensive. Get a Bible dictionary or a Bible encyclopedia. A 1 volume set or a 5
volume set. They're not expensive, even the big ones. And if you are computer literate,
the Bible software that's out is astonishing. You don't need to know Hebrew and Greek to
use Hebrew and Greek. It'll diagram, it'll translate for you. It'll diagram the sentences
for you. The Bible software that's around is available ... is incredible.
I travel with over 3,000 volumes on my ... disk drive in my laptop. You say, "Chuck, that's a lot of volumes."
Yes, but you see, it's better than being in my library. I've got books in my library I've
never, I couldn't read in a lifetime, but these are word searchable. If I want to find
out what Iranaeus said about love, it'll tell me. If I have a passage, it'll open all those
books to the pass-, any pages that are relevant to that inquiry, and it does it in a few seconds.
I can do in a half an hour what would take, what used to take me a whole weekend of study.
Because it's all automatic. Cross-reference in ways, ... it will take articles and
summarize them for me. Auto-abstracting software it's astonishing what's available to
you if you can use those appliances. So invest in helps. Now, there's exegetical helps. Those are
helps that help you understand what the text says. Exegesis is what does the Greek or the
Hebrew say? You have to know what it says before it can tell you what it means. Once
you know what it says, then you can explore what it is trying to say semantically.
That's called exposition. Exegetical, exegetical analysis is to understand the ... the tools there are grammar and lexicon in effect. Translate. Check the translation.
What does it really mean, and when, what kind of figure of speech is being used if it is,
and so forth. Exposition is, okay, what's the significance of that particular passage there,
et cetera? But there are helps of all kinds, and indulge in them. You'll quickly
discover some of your favorites. Certain guides will just ... you'll relate to. Some of them
are very wordy, but boy, they're rich. Others are very terse and pointed, but there are
all different styles. Different strokes for different folks. But the real issue that I want to close on before
we finish our little excursion here is that the Bible's about a Person, and I want to tell
you about Him. I was inspired by this by Pastor S.D. Lockridge down in San Diego. He passed
away now, but his ... he did a little thing that caught my attention and I've done my version
of it, but I really, I'm indebted to him for this basic idea. Who. I want to tell you about
our coming King. You know I, I often get invited to speak at governors' elections especially during an election year. Governor's breakfast, that sort of thing. They never invite
me back. Because I quickly point out I'm not a republican or a democrat. I'm a monarchist,
... but I tell 'em about my candidate. You see, He's a racial king. That shocks 'em. Jesus
was Jewish. He's King of the Jews, let's not forget that. He is the King of Israel. He's
a national king. He's not just some kind of religious figure. He is going to rule the world
through Israel. So, He's racial and a national king. He is the King of all the ages, the
King of Heaven, the King of glory, and the King of kings, and Lord of lords. The question is do you know Him? Do you really
know Him? That's the issue here, not quoting verses and all these other things. He was
a prophet before Moses, a priest after Melchizedek, a champion like Joshua. He was an offering
in the place of Isaac. He was a king from the line of David. He's a wise counselor even
above Solomon. He was beloved, then rejected, but then exalted Son like Joseph, but yet
He's far more. The heavens declare His glory. The firmament shows His handiwork. He who
is, who was, and always will be. He's the First and the Last, the Alpha and Omega, the
A, the Aleph and the Tau, the A and the Z. He's the first fruits of them that slept.
He's the Ego Eimi, the Ehyeh asher Ehyeh, the I am that I am. Yes, He was the voice
of the burning bush, and He so claimed in John 8. He's the Captain of the Lord's host. He was the conqueror of Jericho. He's enduringly
strong, entirely sincere, eternally steadfast. He's immortally graceful, imperially powerful,
impartially merciful. In Him dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily, the very God of very
God. He is our Kinsman-Redeemer indeed as we learned in Ruth, but He's also our Avenger
of Blood. He's our City of Refuge. He's our performing high priest, our personal prophet,
our reigning King. He is the loftiest idea in literature. He's the highest personality
in philosophy. He's the fundamental doctrine of theology. He's the supreme problem of higher
criticism. (laughs) He's the miracle of all the ages, the superlative of everything good. You and I are beneficiaries of a love letter.
That love letter was written in blood on a wooden cross that was erected in Judea some
2000 years ago. They say He was crucified on a cross of wood, yet He made the hill on
which it stood. By Him were all things made that were made, without Him was not anything
made that was made. And by Him are all things held together Paul tells us in Collosians.
I've got a question. What held Him to that cross? What held Him to that cross? It wasn't the
nails. At any time, He could have said, "Enough already. I'm out of here." What held Him to
that cross? His love for you and me, that's what held Him to the cross. He was born of
a woman so that we could be born again, born of God. He humbled Himself so that we could
be lifted up. He became a servant so that we could be made joint heirs with Him. We
have no idea what that means. He suffered rejection so that we could become His friends.
He denied Himself so that we could freely receive all things. He gave Himself so that
He could bless us in every way. He's available to the tempted and tried. He
blesses the young. He cleanses the lepers. He defends the feeble. He delivers the captives.
He discharges the debtors. He forgives the sinners. He franchises the meek. He guards
the besieged. He heals the sick. He provides strength to the weak. He regards the aged.
He rewards the diligent. He sympathizes and He saves. He's incredible. His offices
are manifold. His reign is righteous. His promises are sure. His goodness is limitless.
His light is matchless. His grace is sufficient. His love never changes. His mercy is everlasting.
His word is enough. His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. I wish I could describe
Him to you. He is indescribable. He's incomprehensible. He's irresistible, and of course He's invincible. The heaven of heavens cannot contain Him.
Man cannot explain Him. The pharisees couldn't stand Him, but soon learned they couldn't
stop Him. The personal representative of the ruler of the world couldn't find any fault
with Him. The witnesses could not agree against Him. Herod couldn't kill Him. Death couldn't
handle Him. The grave couldn't hold Him. He has always been and always will be. He had
no predecessor. He'll have no successor. You can't impeach Him (laughs), and He ain't going to
resign. His name is above every name, that of the name of Yeshua. Every knee shall bow
and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. His is the Kingdom, the Power,
and the Glory forever and ever. Amen. Well, some of you may be asking, "Great.
What do I do now?" We've gone through Learn the Bible in 24 Hours. Where you can go from
here would be to pick a book, any book, and go at it verse-by-verse on your own or with
a commentary, whatever. Do whatever, however energetic you want to be. And, of course,
we have helps that'll help you with CD-Roms. They're very inexpensive, a lot cheaper than they used to be with tapes and so forth. We also have topical studies
on over 100 different subjects, but that's not the only way to go.
I encourage you to go the expositional route. It's the most fruitful I think over the years. But the other resources I want you to
be available ... be aware of that we have available. We have an internet site that I
encourage you to check out. It's one of the oldest, largest Christian websites on the
internet, and no one can pronounce Koinonia House, let alone spell it. Everyone calls
us K House, so it's Khouse.org, K-H-O-U-S-E-dot-O-R-G. We monitor the strategic trends, and we try
to highlight those things that going on that are Biblically relevant. We publish
a free weekly 1-pager. You sign up for it, we'll e-mail you every week a little 1 page
that lists the things that have happened this week that's Biblically relevant. And it gives
you the link of the websites that are following that particular development competently. Just give it a try. Give it a try. But our primary goal is to try to encourage
you to participate in a home Bible fellowship. Over 50 years of study, the people
I've seen that really grow grow in small, face-to-face, accountable groups that meet
during the week. Sunday church, great. I'm not knocking that, but that won't be enough.
Get, find, ... check out your professional associates or your neighborhood. There are
all different kinds. Find one, give it a try. If you can't find one you like, start one.
We'll help you. That's what we're all about. That's us. Check us out, and if there's any way we can help, we want to hear about it. God Bless you.
