Reset in the Word: "Finding the Word of God" with Doug Batchelor

as well as amazing facts tv so pass the word around just a really great series focusing on the bible now we do have a free offer we'd like to tell you about me excited about this this is a bible reading plan that we would like to make available to those of you who are joining us now there's two ways that you can get this bible reading plan the one is by calling and asking for it if you're in north america and we'll be able to mail it to you it's actually uh in a bookmark format with all of the verses listed so you can check off which chapter you need to read each day and this will get you through the whole bible in 12 months you can get a digital download of the book or the plan i should say the bible reading plan if you're outside of north america or anywhere and if you'd like to receive this bible reading plan if you'd like to receive the hard copy first the number to call for that is 866-788-3966 and you can ask for offer number 872 and we'll get in the mail and send it to you or you can download this free offer by texting the word read to the number 40544 and we want to encourage you to do that and then start reading it's not too late you probably today the first of january it's the first four chapters in genesis and then we'll kind of guide you through the rest of the bible through the whole year we also have one additional item we'd like to make available and this is the book entitled the ultimate resource it's all about the bible and if you'd like to receive this mailed to you in north america again that number is 866 788 3966 and this time ask for offer number 104 or you can text the word bible to the number 40544 to get a digital copy of the book the ultimate resource well before we get into our presentation this evening we do have a theme song and we want to encourage those of you who are there watching at home or wherever you might be you can sing along with us we're going to be singing that great song give me the bible it's very appropriate for the series and so join us wherever you are give me the bible [Music] [Applause] is [Music] since jesus came to and save the last give me the bible holy message [Music] is [Music] fear give me the precious words of jesus spoken hold the face let's do show my savior [Music] shall guide [Music] and me lie and love combining till night shall vanish [Music] [Music] safety [Music] holy message shining thy light shall guide me [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] amen give me the bible what a way to start the year let's begin with the word of prayer dear father we thank you once again that we have this opportunity to meet at the beginning of a new year on a new sabbath the very first sabbath of the new year and we're going to focus on the word and so lord we want to invite your presence to be with us be with pastor doug as he shares about the scriptures and the importance of finding the word in our hearts and in our lives so bless our time together in jesus name amen as is mentioned during the prayer we have this three-part series tonight the topic is finding the word and so we'd like to invite pastor doug to come forward thank you pastor ross good evening i want to welcome those who are watching various places around the world some through the internet through three abn amazing facts tv for our friends that are gathered here safely in our new auditorium we thought it was appropriate as we're right now stepping over the threshold of a new year to talk about priorities in the christian life and so we want to have a special program where we emphasize the importance of building this next year in our lives on the word of god and so hence the title reset i mean let's reset our lives and calibrate everything we do based on the word of god and so that's going to be the theme for these next three presentations and i i hope you'll be praying because you know there's really nothing more important i could talk about than the importance of the word of god in the life of a believer and so that's going to be our theme now tonight's message is dealing more specifically with finding the word of god and i'd like to use a scripture as a springboard for this and it's found in psalm 119 verse 162. you know what the longest chapter in the bible is psalm 119 just a little side note i i read through the bible uh all the time i'm always at some point six days a week i'm progressing through the bible when i'm done i start again now being january 1 i just i'm all set up to go through the new testament i take three years to read through the bible for some reason finishing the old testament this year i don't know just the way the program i use on my computer worked out i had two empty days i said well i got to read something and so i thought i bet i could do psalm 119 you know like 180 verses in there wow what a book and so in the process of reading that this verse jumped out at me psalm 119 verse 162 i rejoice at your word as one who finds great treasure i remember hearing a story about a man who dreamed that one night he was walking through the wilderness and he came to a dry stream bed and as he was crossing over the dry stream bed he heard a voice from the word woods speaking to him and it said reach down in the dark and pick up some stones and put them in your pocket tomorrow you will be happy and sad so obeying the voice he reached down he took a handful of stones he put him in his pocket then as the sun came up he pulled the stones out of his pocket and discovered they were jewels and he was happy that he had obeyed and put some in his pocket he was sad that he had not put more in his pocket and you know i think when we come to the end of our lives and we stand before the lord we're going to be happy in the kingdom that we did take up his word i think we're going to regret we did not make the most of the promises of god our success in the christian life is going to be directly dependent on the relationship we have with the word of god in our lives and that's a truth that cannot be overstated you know we're saved by jesus jesus is the word in fact everything around you right now the chair you're sitting on the air you're breathing everything is a result of the word of god have you ever thought of that go to the first chapter in the bible and it tells us there god said let there be light god said god said matter of fact ten times in chapter one of genesis it says and god said so everything in the world comes from the word you know i don't uh i think it was a nova article a few years ago and and they said that they've got this new um idea about the creation they don't call it creation about how all things came into being and they call it string theory they think that the very smallest components of matter are made up of vibrating strings and that all life is a result of these vibrations well that's what the bible says god said and it happened it was through the voice the amplification of god's word all things came into existence so the world came from the word and yet we need the word to live in the world and so everything is foundational to the word of god jesus said there's a storm coming you know the parable that he shares about the wise man and the fool at the end of the sermon on the mount and of course he says that the wise man builds on the rock the foolish man builds on the sand never miss the point that the storm comes to both the wise man and the fool so the storm is coming so what is the rock he that hears these words of mine and does them he is the wise man and so the word of god is a treasure and we don't always appreciate it as we should but listen to what some of the um of the great writers in the bible said about it psalm 19 verse 7 through 10 the law of the lord is perfect converting the soul the testimony one way the word of god is addressed is as the law then it says the testimony of the lord is sure making wise the simple now you get the testimony the statutes of the lord there's another word for the word of god the statutes of the lord are right rejoicing the heart the commandment of the lord another word for the law of god the word of god the commandment of the lord is pure enlightening the eyes go down to verse 10 more to be desired are they than gold yes than much fine gold sweeter also than the honey and the honeycomb you know i was not had a lot of travel going on this year because of you know the covin don't even need to say 19 anymore we all know what we're talking about right just the covet and we did take a trip to alaska i had agreed to do a men's retreat in alaska i went there years ago with stephen this time i went with nathan and they weren't having as much problem up there so they said you know the program is still on so i came up and among the things that they did there you know we had a men's retreat but they let the guys go gold panning in uh in the creek and they said yeah this is a this is a claim so the owner of the claim said anything you find you can keep and so all the different guys he showed us how to pan with for gold and all the guys were trying it and they're looking to see these little bitty specks he just barely glint he said well there you found something there and he'd show them how to to touch their finger to the pen and pull that little speck of gold out and put a little bottle he gave him a little plastic bottle and and i started digging around and i'd done a little bit of painting before so i found a place that i thought would be promising i dug around the pick and i cleaned my sand and i and then at the bottom there's several seven flakes of gold and i did it two or three times every time i was coming up with gold i said hey let's do it again he said no no no no more because it was his claim and i've got that at home now and i took it down to the gold people here in town that they buy gold and silver and coins and things like that and he said oh yeah this is whatever the percent was pure he kind of rinsed it and got all the sound and said yeah this is pure gold it's worth fifty dollars he said i said i'm not selling it i said it's worth more to me for the memory this little vial of gold and you know the most precious thing they could talk about in bible times with gold what are we going to walk on in the new jerusalem what better words could god find when he talked about the tangible materials gold but the bible writers go on psalm 12 6 the word of the lord sorry the words of the lord are pure words like silver tried in a furnace of earth purified seven times there again pure silver psalm 119 verse 72 the law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of coins of gold and silver so we had gold we had silver now we have gold and silver go to proverbs 3 13-15 happy is the man that finds wisdom and the man who gains understanding for her proceeds are better than the prophets of silver and are gained in fine gold she's more precious than rubies all things that you might desire cannot compare with her all things jesus tells a parable about a man he's renting this field for farming and while plowing the field his plow gets stuck i'm elaborating a little bit and he wants to dig the rock out of the ground he finds out it's not a rock it's a box and he takes the box and he opens it up and it's full of treasure and the man realizing wow this field i'm renting it so it's not mine it's got a valuable treasure in it not sure the owner knows that he covers it back up puts it back goes the owner and says i'm interested in buying your field he didn't just take the treasure he was honest he said i gotta buy the field if i want the treasure i said yeah well it's so much money wow it's pretty steep i'm a poor farmer but he realizes that it's worth it and he tells his wife you know what we're selling everything we can got because we're going to get old elmer's field she says elmer's field that's worthless you could buy everything he says trust me it's worth it everything because he knows there's treasure in it a lot of people don't know about the treasure in the bible but if you listen to david and solomon and jesus they say that if you find the words of god you find life and yet if we were to be honest the average christian spends very little time in the word of god compared with other forms of entertainment whether it's television or on their ipad or their phone or whatever it is we become like what we look at and as we are launching into this new year and i think we're very close to the second coming what better time to really come to know the lord through his word you're invited to say amen if you feel so inclined now embracing the word has great reward rejecting the word brings great sorrow for example first doubt expressed in the bible was the devil expressing doubt in the word of god isn't that right satan said hath god said and the first question in the bible was questioning the word of god what happened in chapter 3 of genesis after adam and eve began to doubt what god had said all of the misery and the woe came from rejecting the word of god and so blessings come by receiving it thy word i have hidden in my heart that i might not sin life comes from receiving it god spoke and life happened rejecting the word brings all kinds of misery and pain and this is true historically it's true in the life of every believer jeremiah 11 verse 10 they've turned back to the iniquities of their fathers who refuse to hear my words refusing god's word is really returning to iniquity you're either embracing the word and moving towards the light or rejecting the word and you're moving towards the dark and so the the desire of my message is to inspire everybody listening or watching to recommit themselves to spending time in god's word this new year and forever more as we go forward a few amazing facts bible was the first book ever printed on a printing press the bible is still the most widely distributed book in the world yes way more than harry potter the quran or any other book is the bible do you know a microfilm packet containing genesis 1 1 in 16 languages was placed on the moon by apollo 14. and i think it was on christmas eve during one of the apollo missions was at level he read from genesis 1 looking back on the earth i'm not sure astronauts would be allowed to do that now things have changed abraham lincoln said i believe the bible is the best gift god has ever given to man all good from the savior of the world is communicated to us through this book mark twain he was not a very religious man but he did say something that was true he said most people are bothered by the passages of scripture they cannot understand the scriptures that trouble me the most of the ones i do understand some people say i don't read the bible because there's so much i don't understand well what about living up to what you do understand george mueller that great giant of prayer he said the vigor of our spiritual life will be in exact proportion to the place held by the bible in our thoughts in our life and and george washington carver he said the secret of my success it's simple it's found in the bible in all thy ways acknowledge him and he will direct thy paths the promises in the bible can just transform our lives so i'm going to quickly summarize let me tell you what i'm going to talk about i want to quickly summarize some of the specifics of the bible i always know there's some people who are maybe for the first time they're being introduced to the bible when i first started reading the bible when i literally found the bible and started reading it i knew almost nothing about it and so i think it's helpful to just go through some of the basics why do we need the bible a little history about the bible and then making a commitment to spend regular time in the word of god in this new year so why do we need the bible well we're lost and we want to be saved and salvation comes from the word of god first peter 1 23 having been born again not of corruptible seed but incorruptable through the word of god which lives and abides forever hebrew said the word of god is quick that means living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword jesus said the words that i speak to you they are life it's not just black ink on white paper the bible the words of the bible are living there's something transformational about it someone once said dust on the bible brings drought to the heart and leads to a christian falling apart someone else said that uh a bible that is falling apart typically belongs to a person that is not falling apart i've got some friends that had bibles that were literally falling apart because they just they were reading the word all the time and and studying the word and my bible's in pretty good shape because i do most of my study on my computer now i use the same bible at central church for 20 years and i kind of told the lord i said when we get the new church i said i'm finally going to get a new bible so that's why mine's in such good shape now i'm just making excuses i almost wish my bible's beat up for this sermon second timothy 3 15 we need the bible for salvation from childhood you've known the holy scriptures that are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in jesus christ you want to be saved you need the bible and it says through faith well you need the bible for faith and bible says without faith it's impossible to please god and that we are saved by grace through faith well where do you get faith romans 10 17 so then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of god can't be saved without the bible can't be saved without faith faith comes from the bible you need the bible to be saved we need the bible because we want to know the truth now we are just coming out of a year like none other when everybody was saying i've got the truth no no your truth is a false truth i've got the truth no no that's fake news and everybody's wondering who can you believe and i don't know about you friends but i've come to where i don't believe everything i hear in the news am i the only one a lot of what i hear in the news has just become suspect and everyone is wondering well what if you want to know what's really going on out there where do you find the truth all right the bible john 8 32 jesus said you'll know the truth and the truth will make you free and then he said i am the way the truth and the life john 17 17 sanctify them by your truth your word is truth now those are the words of jesus can anything be more direct than that christ said your word is truth psalm 119 verse 151 and all of your commandments are truth psalm 119 verse 160 the entirety of your word is truth now i'll often you know answer bible questions in pastor ross and i have a program sunday night or doing an evangelistic meeting people ask questions and periodically i run into a question that you know i just more than periodically there's a question that stumps me or it's difficult and you wonder if you're giving the best answer and i'll admit there are some mysteries to the bible there's some things i don't understand there are a few places in the bible that are apparent contradictions notice how i'm worrying that apparent contradictions most of them i've been able to resolve by just comparing scripture with scripture i realized it wasn't really any contradiction for example i had a person they sent in the question they said if the bible's true then why is it when you read matthew mark luke and john and they talk about the sign above the head of jesus they all say something slightly different so the bible can't be exactly true because they contradict each other and first time i heard that i thought i looked at it and i thought yeah and then then i read where it says they were written in hebrew greek and latin so it just really depends on which version of the sign the bible writers were quoting because the wording in greek could have been a little different than the wording in latin or in hebrew and you know it said this is the king of the jews or jesus christ where he said he was the king of the jews they're all very similar so some people have a meltdown because they think there's some little thing in the bible that they don't understand and they they use it as an excuse to question what they do understand friends please remember this if you're going to make a mistake of either believing too much of the bible is true or not enough of the bible is true make the mistake of believing that all of it is true because you're much safer as soon as you start setting yourself as the arbiter of what part of the truth is true then you're saying your truth is more important than bible truth because you become the one the critic of the truth and you'll start saying well you know there's this person here i don't like very much i don't think it's true you're better off making it be the entire word of god than getting upset or losing your faith over some wrinkles that you may not be able to explain right away you know there's a lot of things i don't understand i don't understand everything about the digestive system but i don't let that keep me from eating or enjoying my food right and so who was it billy sunday used to say there's a lot of things i don't understand he said i don't understand how black cow can eat green grass and make yellow milk or white milk and yellow butter it says but i still enjoy them so don't let the uh the mysteries derail your faith in the word of god we need it for salvation we need it for faith we need it for truth you need the bible for purpose to know what your purpose is you know you cannot be happy if you don't know something about where you've come from what you're doing here and where you're going you know to be secure in life you really need to know something about your origin where you came from what your present purpose is what are you doing here and where you're going the bible answers all of those questions psalm 119 verse 130 the entrance of your words gives light it gives understanding to the simple you need the bible not only for direction we need the bible for success now i really like this word this verse when joshua was bringing the children of israel into the promised land god spoke to him in the first chapter and he said in joshua 1 verse 8 of course moses had finished writing his five books six books including job and he said this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth but it you shall meditate in it day and night now there you have an example meditating in the word of god day and night that's morning worship that's evening worship it's a good idea to read the word every morning in our family we have bible reading every morning we typically get together and read a devotional when we're home together he said meditate in it day and night that you may observe not only meditate but you might observe to do all that is written in it then you will make your way prosperous and you will have good success now i don't want to sound like a prosperity preacher but you know god does say he wants us to prosper and the key to prosperity is what obey read and obey read frequently and obey it's a day and night and god says i'll bless you i'll prosper you you will be successful now anyone here want to be unsuccessful and unprosperous ignore the bible there's your formula we need the word of god for cleansing for sanctification to be saved from our sins john 17 17 i read this before but i want to emphasize another word sanctify them by your truth your word is truth what else does the word do it's not only truth it sanctifies the word sanctified means to make us holy in ephesians 5 26 that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word that's talking about the church it's cleansed by the word you know every week when the preachers or the teachers stand up and talk about the word of god there is a sanctifying influence in the word of god in your life and you may not recognize it all the time it's like that boy that was talking to his father one day and uh i got up in the morning the boy notices grim he was actually his grandfather every day they that his grandfather would wake up early and he'd read his bible and he wanted to be like his grandpa so he started reading his bible but he was only like eight or nine years old and he would read it and he struggled to understand what it was saying and he said grandpa i'm i read the bible but some of it i don't understand it seems like i forget it almost immediately he said it just seems like a waste of time grandpa said it's not a waste of time you know the grandpa was just stoking the fire with coal from a basket and he said sonny i want you to do something for me he said i want you to take the basket down to the creek fill it up and bring it back to me so the boy took the coal basket he went down to the creek and he scooped up a basket full of water and went back to the grandpa but when he got there all the water'd run out he said you're gonna have to move a little faster than that let's try it one more time and he went running down to the creek he scooped up a full basket of water ran back up to his grandfather but let it all run out again he said try one more time he says but really move this time so he went down he scooped up another basket full of water and he ran as quick as he could and but still it was the last drops were running out of it when he got said this is ridiculous this is a waste of time so let me go get the bucket he said no no i want you to look at the basket he said the basket is now clean it says yeah all that water ran through it but something happened in the process it was black with cold as before it's clean now and he said every day you're reading the word and you're thinking i'm having trouble memorizing it and maybe you forget what you read you may not understand everything you read you know a baby when its parents are first talking to the baby they love the baby they feed the baby they claim the baby the baby probably has no idea what the parents are saying which is understandable when you consider the silly words that parents use to talk to the baby when it's a baby babies babble have you ever noticed that parents will then babble through their babies isn't that right but somehow they learn to talk but it doesn't happen right away they keep listening and something clicks in and you know first couple words are like love or no and gradually pretty soon they understand everything their parents are saying they go through a space during the teenage years where they act like they don't hear what their parents are saying what they understand and that's how it is with reading the word of god you may not understand right away but keep reading it'll come to you so we need the word of god to cleanse us we need it for sanctification now just for some basics i didn't want to start with a lot of boring details but i'd like to read some facts to you about the bible first of all the word bible is the word bible in the bible not in english but the word that you have for bible in greek is in the bible and it's the word biblia or biblos and actually that is a word that comes from you can look on a map now of lebanon you'll see a city there that's the north of beirut called biblus and it was an ancient phoenician port where they shipped paper and so it became a word for papyrus it became a word for books biblos and so a biblio is a book or a bible and the bible was called a collection of books and and that's where the name comes from bible is written by approximately forty different authors over a period of fifteen hundred years with the last part being written just about two thousand years ago there are sixty six books in the bible 39 in the old testament 27 in the new testament if you're reading a catholic douay version of the bible they sometimes added some books that were of questionable origin between the old and the new testaments that most protestants did not recognize originally when god first made man the word of god was transmitted god did not hand adam a bible and say i want you to read this every day when god first created man and after man fell he orally verbally communicated the truth to man adam's mind think about people's minds start wearing out about the same time as their bodies and their bodies you know start wearing out after about 90 or 100 years and and minds often go then too but when man used to live 900 years can you imagine how prodigious his mind was back then man did not need to write anything down because i think every man before the flood had a photographic memory some of you have heard there was a movie called rain man and rain man was based on a true character his name is kim peake now he passed away a few years ago at the age of about 59 but kim was born in 1951 his parents knew that he was different his head was enlarged his eyes seemed a little bit offset and after some tests they realized that most of us you've got a right in the left hemisphere in your brain and there's a membrane that sort of separates the true but not with kim his brain was all completely connected and melded together and he had trouble with simple motor skills he didn't walk until he was four years of age but he could read it too he'd read the dictionary through by the time he was three he had an incredible ability to read and he memorized everything that he read he had nine thousand books that he knew from memory he knew all the zip codes in north america he knew all the sports scores if you played any piece of classical music he'd tell you who wrote it when they wrote it he tell you when they were born when they died and what day of the week they were born matter of fact later in his life kim would go around he'd visit with public schools and school children they'd shout out their birthday tell them what day of the week they were born just like that incredible he's called a mega savant now that's somebody that lived in 2020 had that kind of mental capacity way back before the flood man had you know we store things on uh thumb drives usbs man never forgot anything so god would speak his word it would be recorded and as they sat around at night they didn't watch television the the elders and the patriarchs would review the the words of god that had come uh to the people of god how do you think moses now keep in mind moses still had probably a pretty strong memory he was educated in all the wisdom of egypt he had a brilliant mind but he wrote the book of job and the book of job we are almost certain moses wrote it though he doesn't claim to be the author the book of job was written about people that lived at least 200 years but up until the time of the book of job everything had been transmitted orally but as man's life got shorter and his body got weaker and his brain got weaker god knew in order to preserve his word he would need to write it down he needed to have man write it down and so at that point it was important that the word be inscribed you read in exodus 17 verse 14. the lord said to moses write this for memorial in the book in deuteronomy 31 verse 9 so moses wrote this law and delivered it to the priests the sons of levi who bore the ark of the covenant of the lord and all the elders of israel deuteronomy 6 6-9 and you know this is after the great shaman that is given saying love the lord with all your heart mind soul and strength and he goes on to say and these words i command you today shall be in your heart you shall teach them diligently to your children they've been written down said teach what i've written down now they needed to teach it over and over because they forgot teach them diligently to your children talk of them when you sit in your house when you walk by the way when you lay down that's your evening worship and when you rise up that's your morning worship they were to surround themselves with the word of god now if we understand who really wrote the bible i think it increases our desire to know what it says a little more the bible is not a collection of books written by men i know i said before there's about 40 different authors i'm talking about the human authors technically the bible is really written by god based on its own testimony you read in luke 1 70 as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets who spoke god spoke spoke to the prophets but it was the speaking of god now if there's any words that you want to read wouldn't it be what god has said think about that what could be more important if you love somebody you're going to want to read their letters and i remember hearing stories about soldiers that are overseas and and you know weeks would go by before they got a letter from home from their mother or the girlfriend and it would be all they'd have no communications you couldn't you know email home during world war ii or world war one and they'd have no message and they would carry those letters and they would read them again and again because they were precious to them well we've got a love letter from god to us in enemy land and he's got promises that should encourage us second timothy 3 16 and 17 all scripture is given by the inspiration of god and is profitable for doctrine and reproof and correction for instruction and righteousness that the man of god might be complete thoroughly equipped for every good work it's given by the inspiration of god second peter 1 21 for prophecy never came by the will of man it's not a man thing but holy men of god spoke as they were moved by the holy spirit and then in first thessalonians 2 13 as i was preparing for the message karen said here's a good one when you receive the word of god which you heard from us you welcomed it not as the word of men but as it is in truth the word of god now friends if we can get that straight the reason i'm making a big deal about the bible is not because i'm in church it's not because i'm a christian and a pastor the reason i'm making a big deal about the bible is because it's a big deal this is the word of god god is speaking to us through this book and i i should mention that i want to treat it like other books you know sometimes people are you know traveling they fly and they got a novel they kind of stuff in their bag and they throw it around they might sit on it i mean you know all kinds of books in the house you stack things on it and sometimes you use a book as a coaster you've probably done that before you don't use your bible that way i think it's important that we realize because this is a message from god and i know it's paper and it's you know cowhide or depending on what else you got in the materials but just because you recognize it's a message from god and it's holy notice holy sacred set aside bible it's a holy book so i think you should teach your children to treat it with respect i've gone to churches before where i've seen you know i've got a lot of different denominations in my past and i've seen preachers they throw their bibles down they slam their bibles they punch their bibles they throw them up in the air i mean i've seen all kinds of interesting things i saw a sermon like that once and the guy never read a word out of it it was like it was a prop and he wasn't very respectful with the prophet i dropped my bible once when i was preaching and it was like oh no i thought that's got to be bad i didn't let anyone know i felt that way because it's a secret book so bible should be treated that way god is the author a little bit about the arrangement of scripture now of course the bible is made up in what we call two testaments you've got the old testament and the old covenant new covenant old testament the words mean the same thing in the old testament the books are not written chronologically some of you may be planning on reading through the bible this year or beginning a journey through the bible you may do it like i do where i take three years i used to read through the bible in a year but i realized i was reading so fast i didn't have time to pause and study out the things i was reading so i slowed it down the last 15 20 years i've been reading every three years i read through the bible but i've got an advantage over you in that i'm also reading the bible a whole lot in sermon preparation and writing articles so i'm reading a lot of the bible through the week you may want to do it in a year by the way if you want to read through the bible in a year amazing facts has a free plan you can download just you can go to google and just type in amazing facts bible reading plan it's there at the website and you can just download that and uh it'll you know january 1 might not be too late to get your first segment in today so you've got the bible's not arranged chronologically and sometimes people start reading the bible and they realize that the story is jumping around a little bit begins with they divided it up in the books of the law what we call the pentateuch pentagon's got five sides penetrates the first five books of moses that would be genesis exodus leviticus numbers and deuteronomy then you have the historical books joshua judges ruth first and second samuel first and second kings first and second chronicles and there's some repetition in there but i like reading them both because they leave things out the others cover ezra nehemiah esther then you have the category of what they call the wisdom literature which is the book of job psalms proverbs ecclesiastes and the song of solomon then you've got the book of the prophets and it begins with the major prophets isaiah jeremiah lamentations ezekiel and daniel then you've got the minor prophets hosea joel amos obadiah jonah micah nam habakkuk zephaniah haggai zechariah and malachi now that's the arrangement of the old testament you may want to choose actually programs online you say i want to read through the bible chronologically in order i got programs like that i think karen had a bible that was written a bible study program that took her through it chronologically in the new testament it's kind of arranged similarly it's not all in order um you've got the books of history first which is the four gospels and acts then come the epistles paul wrote the most and it starts with paul's epistles and then they begin with the longest down to the shortest and then come the individual letters including the writings of peter and the others and then revelation comes in the end it'd be the only book of prophecy in the new testament and but even among the pauline epistles the letters of paul they're categorized first as the the epistles to the churches then the personal letters now you might wonder when the books of the bible were chosen how did we come where i mean there's a lot of people that say oh you've got the the gospel of thomas and they say there's this special gospel of judas or book of judas or all these different apocryphal books doubtful books how did they know which books they were going to keep what method did they use to authenticate the various books in the bible well it was actually a very careful process now first let me tell you that everything that you've got in your bible today in the typical protestant bible they had by the first century of the church people who knew the apostle john all recognized the books that are included in your bible there was some discussion that went on for hundreds of years about should other historical books be included in the canon of scripture and so they debated that for a while but they were all settled on what we have now and they basically came up with when in doubt leave it out and so what you've got here is what you call the cream of everything they believe to be inspired first they would ask the question when it came to the new testament how did they pick the books apostolic authorship was it written by an apostle whether it was believed to be written by an apostle paul or someone because paul technically was an apostle these people saw jesus jesus spoke to them personally or it might have been an assistant of an apostle is luke called an apostle no but luke spent all this time with paul how about mark did mark write a gospel was he an apostle no but mark really was dictating the gospel for peter and so they were closely associated with them and that was one of the criteria another thing was the antiquity of the book now some of these new books that cropped up several hundred years after christ were very suspicious and they were left out so they kept the books that they knew dated back to the time of the apostles of course at this point the old testament was fairly well established hundreds of years before jesus the books of the old testament most of them were really endorsed during the time of ezra who was a scribe ezra nehemiah and i know there were some other minor prophets after that time but that was all pretty well established the other thing so we got the apostolic authorship the antiquity and the agreement how well did the texts confirm with the current christian teaching and endorse was it endorsed by other books so the canon books of the books that were kept canon means a collection the canon of the bible are the books that stood the test of time was it written by a prophet of god it needed to be you know someone who was a spokesman like moses or one of the prophets uh was it confirmed by the acts of god would you see the power of god connected with those who wrote these books so you know when you've got the moses and elijah jesus the miracles there were supernatural signs you might be surprised did elijah write any of the bible you're waiting for an answer i just yes a letter is written by elijah a very brief letter in the bible and he sends it to ahab anyway so but no there's no book name elijah in the bible um so but the power of god attended it let me give you a verse for that hebrews 2 verse 3 and 4 how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation which the first began to be spoken by the lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard him how was it confirmed god also bearing witness with both signs and wonders and with various miracles and gifts of the holy spirit according to his own will one of the reasons there was a real baptism of the holy spirit during pentecost was to endorse the authenticity of the apostles now peter and john and the other apostles they performed many miracles after christ went to heaven so when they spoke you saw the power of god with them did paul perform miracles yeah so he also met with jesus and they have the power the other thing is were these books where they amplified with the power of god in the lives of the people it wasn't just that they were performing simon signs and wonders what was the result the fruit you know there was a time when believe it or not the church the orthodox church the catholic church they told people they shouldn't read the bible they said it confuses people they even called it a bad book they said it should only without it's the church that should communicate truth common people shouldn't read the bible and this priest in bulgaria he caught this one family reading the bible and he said to the lady of the house he said why are you reading that bad book and she said well you know my brother my brother was he was drinking and gambling he wasn't working there was misery in the family he said we started reading this book he gave his heart to the lord he stopped drinking and gambling he's working he's coming home with money taking care of his mother he said if it's such a bad book then why does it have such good fruit the greatest evidence for the bible being authentic is the fruit and that was one of the things i looked for in the books what was the fruit of it and so that's i think a very important criteria does its message agree with the truth about god the church fathers maintain this policy that if it didn't match up with the message the central message of salvation then it was left out of the canon of scripture that you and i have and was it generally accepted by the people of god as it had circulated among the churches that were growing then they read it and they understood that it was from the original writers and that it was sacred so i've been talking about a lot of details about it what about a translation now i'm not going to stand up here and tell you what translation to use do you know there are 450 translations in english this is not such a big question if you go to china or in spanish countries they don't have nearly as many translations as we have in english but there's a couple of criteria in translations you've got what they would call your formal equivalence that's like a word for word a little more of a transliteration your thought for thought what they call dynamic equivalence and then the paraphrase where people kind of take the general thought they put it in their own words those are not typically safe for a serious bible study some of the best translations according to scholars of course king james has done more to define the english language than any other manuscript period it's a wonderful it's also very accurate translation the new king james is really a more modern version of it modernizing certain words and there's some other great ones you've got the new american standard the english standard bible and you can do some research on that now the big question is if i'm going to have a revival in my personal devotions where do i start a point of time pick a time if you're gonna meet with someone important and you say oh what's the date pick a time every day and make it important enough to write it down and say i have this appointed time with god a point of place you know it's good for you to have a place it'd be nice if it's an organized clean place it's kind of hard to have a serious bible study if you've got leftover chinese food all around you you want to have a a sacred place a clean place it's hard to have organized thoughts when everything is distracted and pick a place where you're going to read the bible don't worry about reading too much if you just say i lord this year i'm going to read 15 minutes but then be serious about it they say so many new year's resolutions fail within the first week i heard someone say the most difficult piece of equipment in a gym is the front door and sometimes the most difficult thing is starting to say all right i'm going to begin reading through the bible i'm going to start and if you don't get all the way through the first assignment dedicate yourself to 15 minutes stick with it you'll be blessed you'll have questions you'll start going from place to place and it will grow so i talked about appointing a time appointing the place and then create an atmosphere pray before you read invite god's spirit depends on your makeup you might put on your headphones and have some soft music as you listen some people they just want absolute quiet depending on your home you might need some headphones with no music just to make it quiet but find a place where you can be quiet with god and start reading through his word how do you read it well you can read it straight through and get the big story you can compare scripture with scripture here a little there a little just like gps satellites you know they you get several satellites and they fix you on the truth and and then realize that it is the guide in your life every day as you read the word it's going to give you directions it's going to give you guidance the bible is the map to get through this life and i enjoy reading history and i've just finished the last few years i've read about captain cook and magellan and many of the great explorers and it's a shackleton and it was amazing to me how they crossed these oceans without gps without telephones and all they had was a compass and maybe a sextant and they were able to use these lights in the heavens to figure out where they were this is the compass this is the sex this is the light that shows us where we are and if we neglect the bible in this world today as our principle source of truth you can be shipwrecked i remember i was so sad a few years ago when jfk jr so much tragedy in that family that he was taking off from new york going to his home in martha's vineyard with his wife catherine bessette and her sister had a brand new piper saratoga airplane and he was only trained in vfr flying visual flight rules but uh sun was going down he got late he wanted to make it and even though he was not trained in his instrument for instrument flying he took off at night and you know the pilots they say many are lost if they don't have training in instrument flight because they get spatial disorientation instead of looking at their instruments they look out their windows to try and figure out what their attitude is and he looked out his window after they did the flight review over the water boats on the water lights on the boats lights in the sky and he thought he was turning and he was still in the sky he was turning towards the water and he didn't even realize flight path showed he just turned his plane and went plowing right into the water they all perished of course wasn't watching his instruments he was looking out the window most christians are going through life today looking out the window they're looking horizontally they're not looking vertically vertically we need to be fixing our eyes on god and on christ if we're going to make it through what's going on a lot of confusion out there friends amen i want to appeal for everybody to discover to find the word of god this week and when you do make a commitment to spend time every day feasting on god's word and that will be our subject tomorrow morning we hope you can join us then i'm going to go off the air now and i just like to pray with you father in heaven we thank you for the treasure of truth that you've given us in this blessed book forgive us lord for the times that we've neglected how important it is help us realize this is a sacred communication and be committed every one of us to knowing you through your word we pray in jesus name amen god bless you friends we look forward to seeing you join us in our next presentation tomorrow morning where we're going to be talking about feasting on the word of god

Channel: Doug Batchelor

Views: 64,102

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Id: ltedbqWbLEE

Length: 59min 0sec (3540 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 01 2021