Can I Trust the Bible? - Theology for the Rest of Us Part 1

0:00 Dude, thank you guys for being in the house today. Oh man, well, that was a crazy week. The Hope Center is right there in the path of the tornado. And I just want to say on the behalf of the church, if you know somebody needs help or may need help with a clean up brush or moving stuff or anything at all, we'd love to help you. How many guys were affected by a tornado? Had some limbs down, weird stuff going on. I know I'm connected to a few of the homes that really got roofs ripped off, all sorts of stuff. But Friday night they came right behind the Hope Center in that movie theater that were on contract. So I drove out there and I was like, well, they're still standing, right? Just your pastor going. Is it still here? I know Holly drove out too, but there's so many people who need some help. So I just want to make ourselves available as a church for anybody who needs that.

0:42 So if you know somebody, just let us know. We'd love to send out e-mail, get our team together. I know you guys got some chainsaws. Amen. This is Cass County, come on with somebody, right? But we'll get out there and and do we can and make our budget available, people available, just whatever we can do to help there. I know there's like a tourist thing going on yesterday. We're talking to people that are back in behind the behind Hyvee and it's just endless cars every just kind of looking and then it's just thankfully it's not worse than it was. 0 injuries and 0 people, 0 fatalities. So thank you, Jesus. Amen. So, yeah, backyard. Who would have thought that would be right in the backyard, right? So anyway, I'm excited for what God's doing in our church right now. God's been on the move last Sunday. Just an incredible, there was some energy last Sunday, by the way, Amen. Do you guys feel it?

1:27 Just as we started entering a contract with the Belt and Cinema Aid and we had people come out that normally don't come. I appreciate you guys being here and I know God's going to use it. But last week I'm going to celebrate the most important thing to celebrate. We had three people commit their life to Jesus last week. Amen. So good, that big. That's why we do it. I love it, man, people going to heaven. And I remember it was like not knowing Jesus. I remember like taking that step and you know what in the world I get into actually brought my very first Bible today. And we're going to talk through the Bible a little bit today, some history of the Bible and what it is. But man, there's nothing more significant. So thank you guys for bringing, for inviting, for sharing, for welcoming. There's a lady last week that came out and she said it's been a really, really long time.

2:08 So I've been to church and I've never been more excited to go to church. That's that's good. Amen. I know if you're like me, there's some seasons where I went to churches and it was like, just drag yourself to it. And man, it is amazing to be a part of a life giving church, a church that loves people, a church that welcomes people and a church that preaches from the Bible, Amen. And so excited for what God's doing. Last week we had our youth group Wednesday night over at the Hope Center, a couple nights for the tornado right there and they had packed it out one of the largest nights ever. Had they actually used all the chairs in the building with all the teenagers? And I'll share with you a text message that that Logan, he runs our youth sent to me. They celebrated with Donuts.

2:49 Remember we had a lot of Donuts last week. They got the leftovers. Come off somebody. It's a youth group. That's how they roll their good for it. They didn't complain. But here's what Logan said. It's about 10:30 Wednesday night. You're going to love this. He said the Donuts were a success, but they certainly came at a cost. Lol. Someone from the youth clogged the toilets. I'm like plural. This is interesting. Probably not the same person, hopefully. Right. It says the blockage is pretty deep. So this is getting good. I'm laying in bed going perfect. He said deep enough I can't plunge it. This is great. When I plunge it, I hear the water rise in the floor drain.

3:29 So it's a good blockage somewhere deep in the plumbing because I'm sorry, I tried to take care of it. So he must have just walked out of the building, right? But without a drain snake or or something like that, I can't really do a whole lot more. I'm worried if I mess with it much more water will overflow out of the floor drain and only make things worse. Oh man, I know that God is unlimited, but the the plumbing at the Hope Center isn't Come on somebody right. So Thursday morning, let's just say there was there. We, we, we, yeah, we snaked it out. We got it working. Amen. Thank you. Jesus, it came at a cost, but we did it. So oh, man. So it was a crazy week all the way around. Little update, Belton SIM 8.

4:13 How many guys decide about the Belton SIM 8 By the way, you guys excited about that? It is a it is a crazy whirlwind of situation. It's it's a miracle of God even at the table and having this conversation just divine appointments all around it. And so we're except to close September 15th. We're in the middle really the said middle about 11 days in not about we're 11 days in. I know these things right now into inspections due diligence. And So what that means is we got roofers, plumbers, HVAC parking lot. I'm you guys been around the belt and some made at all little bit. OK. So you know, it needs a little bit of updates, right? Bring it back to excellence, not extravagance, come on somebody, but excellence. And so we're just diving through infrastructure like crazy and I don't know how many people have been involved in the contractors coming out and all different things.

4:57 It is keeping us really, really busy, but in a good way. Amen. And so just be praying for divine appointments. You know, we're looking at like there's so much that needs to be fixed, but I just believe that this is a thing that God's put together. Amen And so we're just trusting God, but we're we're like who, who, who loves Jesus that could love us and jump in and help. And there's there's so many pieces, but God's on moving. I got a huge vision for this space that well exceeds our resources. Amen. I mean, it should I I mean, I don't care how much resource you have. Your vision always should go further right? And it's really the job as a as a pastor, as a leader to really see out in the future. And I'm just really excited. I probably walked that building no less than a dozen times, maybe more.

5:37 I've been on the roof. You drive by sometimes I'll be out there. Hello world. You know, the roof needs some help. If you've been there, you know, but just ask God for divine favor, divine appointment and just the right conversations. You got a chance to talk to Brian Mitchell last week. He is very excited what God's doing and this the whole setup and it's just exciting season for our church. Amen And so we'll just be praying we'll we'll just give some time to kind of get that vision and what's going to cost and figure out what phases will be and stuff like that, but just exciting stuff. So today dive in the Bible. Amen. I want to, I want to dive in the word of God today. So theology for the rest of us, you know, you might see this term like, man, this means we're done a dumb it down. No, I don't, I don't think so at all. Amen.

6:20 I I think actually God wrote the Bible to every ordinary people, everyday people. Amen. I don't think the Bible is written to theologians or scholars or 4 point O's or people who can read Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic. I don't think that's the point. I think God wrote for everyday people and so on. Do is just help you guys along the way. Maybe you're new to church. Maybe you, you haven't read the Bible in a long time, or maybe you never read the Bible. Some of y'all just our relationship with Jesus. Some of you made me come for a long time and you show up, you listen and you're like, oh, that's really good pastor, but you're not in the Bible. You just get a little confused like what's this about? How does this work and what's going on? And if you feel like me had all sorts of doubts when I first became a Christian, I was like, how do you know this is true? I started reading left to right. We'll talk about that. And I was just confused.

7:01 And I was like, I don't know, this is is a sure thing, but I'm trusting you, Lord. And so there's room for all that. So what you want to do is just help you understand what the Bible is and let it become alive today for you. Amen. That's the goal. So today, just big picture, what is the Bible? And can I trust it? And so we're just going to start at the very beginning and we're just going to walk through like, what exactly is the Bible? Here's the reality. The Bible itself has survived empires. It's it survived centuries, it survived critics, Amen. It's it survived all sorts of leadership that hate it. There's people who, who've burned every Bible in their whole country and yet it still exists, Amen, because it, it's a living word.

7:43 And, and when you know this, then I'm just going to skip ahead because I know this, this is the only source of absolute truth. Can we just start right there? And you may not believe that that's a bold statement, Amen. You'll be like, hmm, that's, that's pretty bold. And when I, when I first started, became a Christian, I would have not made that statement. I would have said, well, maybe. But now that I know the Bible, I know the God of the Bible instead of the Bible, There's not a shadow of the doubt that this is the only source of absolute truth. And there's not a shadow of doubt that my faith is fully put into this. And for me personally, I'm just going to share my story a little bit. It would take more faith for me not to believe the Bible and to believe the Bible. Like it would take more faith to be an atheist. It would take more faith to believe in all the I'm trying to think of a positive word that the world is telling us, right?

8:24 Counterfeits, we'll sum it up like that it it takes more faith to believe in the string theory and believe in evolution and believe in all the other things we come up with to get God out of our culture. It just take more faith for me. That's where I'm at personally, but we'll say this, God loves your questions. Amen. If you're doubting, you're like, well, I'm not so sure about you have a thing in mind or like, I can't believe this or how this came about or all these questions or you think it's fabricated. That's OK to just have an open mind and take it to God. If your heart is open, you could be a skeptic. God is good at taking critics and turn them into converts. I'm one of them. Amen. He's really good at taking people. They're like, I'm not so sure.

9:04 Like that's just made-up. That's for weak people. That makes no sense. Science and reasoning are against the Bible, which is absolutely not true. I, I love it when science finally catches up to the Bible, you know, Did you guys read the story the, the, the captain that Artemis 2 that we talked about a little bit last week? That's the spacecraft, right? Remember, right. And the captain got back and he, he's not a believer, but he actually met with a chaplain because you're so moved. But what do you saw in space? And there's a guy up there you saw he was doing DeVos and he just it was glory to God kind of thing. And he got back in met with a chaplain because he said he saw the the, the earth go behind the moon and the sun go behind the moon. And he's, he's just couldn't have fathom the fact that this just happened by chance. That's pretty good, Amen.

9:48 I bet the science is always trying to catch up. Like people try to say, oh, that didn't happen. It's like God did this in six days and we're trying to figure out what happened. It's just God did in six days. Amen, Amen. So there's a verse we'll start with here, second Timothy 215. How many guys went to Iwana growing up? Ever heard of Iwana? Maybe a little bit. OK, I'll know it's just maybe in the baddest circles on who runs that thing, but approved workmen are not ashamed is what it stands for. It comes out of second team to 2:15. I'll do NIV. It's I struggle with this NIV because I didn't memorize NIV on this one. So it's like man, you don't anybody like that at all. I remember all my verses in KJV and now it's like, all right, brother, you know, worker indeed not be ashamed, right, but says this do your what help me out, do your what?

10:34 Do your what? Somebody said worse. Somebody said worse. I heard it out there, right? Do do do halfway, right? I mean this, this is 1's worse. Like this is a full effort, full on passion, 100% energy, not halfway, not just try until it's hard or or stop once it gets difficult or it's your first doubt. You don't follow through, but it says try your best to present yourself to God as one. How approved? This verse kind of bothered me a little bit because it's like what is he talking about? Because when you know Jesus, you are approved in a position like you're saved. Amen. Like when he looks at you didn't see your sin, he is wiped away as far as east from the West over hit each other. So so so you're loved by God and you're chosen by God and you're forgiven by God.

11:19 What does this mean that you're approved? So then he explains it, and it's important to understand, he says, a worker who does not need to be what? Ashamed. So it's the first part and the second. And who correctly handles the word of truth? Be approved in your work and be approved in your handling of the Bible. And it's interesting because you give an account for what we do in our life, like because God is real or there should be fruit in our life, we should be changed in our life and how we live, how we think, how we act, where we go, what we say, what we surrender to, what we dream about, what we love should be different because of Jesus, Amen.

11:59 And instead, the work you do that your life should look different and God should approve it. And not only your life, but actually how you handle the Bible. It's interesting because if, if you're like me and I started out like I, I didn't know this, I had a big family Bible at my house when I was growing up and it sat in the long bookshelf as long as this whole front row. And I don't know why we had that. That's what we did back in 1990. Big bookshelves. Remember the Encyclopedia Britannica. You guys remember that? You know, the first game I played online, we had a search for answers in the encyclopedias so that we can answer the questions. That was the game, you know what I'm saying? It's like, yeah, we're living it up, baby.

12:41 Dial up. You don't know what that is. That's great. It was great, man. But I I opened the Bible. I saw the pictures and I'm like, it was like a Precious moments kind of Bible. And I'm like, dude, this is weird, man. You know, like, what is this? Pictures and stuff? But can you open the Bible and understand like this is the Old Testament and you know what that is like? You know the way that God worked in the Old Testament or you open up and it's like New Testament, like this is how God worked in the New Testament. Or you open a book and it's like pasam. I mean, you're like, man, I don't understand any of that, right? Or Malachi, right. I mean, no joke, when I first became a Christian, I opened the book of Job and I thought it would help me get a job. I'm not joking. Dead serious. Come on, somebody, it's Job if you don't know, OK, They're just like, oh, what are you talking about? Right?

13:24 I, I had no idea about anything in the Bible and had to start, right, and had to start somewhere. And so there's this desire, like, can you correctly handle the word of God? And it's not just, you know, the Bible, but OK, let's say you go back here behind Hyvee and there's these roofs ripped off, right? And you're, you're walking down the street and you're talking to somebody and they're like, man, my whole house is destroyed. My life's destroyed. There's babies, there's kids, there's families being displaced. And they say, well, what's God doing? Like, why, why is bad things happen to good people? That, that, that that's what it means when you collected by the word, you, you have an answer to people in need. Amen. Like do you know how to answer somebody that's walking through a miscarriage? Like do you know to help somebody that's going through a season? Like is it, is it deep enough to handle your pain or is just good enough if it's comfortable?

14:09 Like, because that's where people like walk away because oh God, they're they're suffering and it's painful. It's like, yeah, in this life there will be trouble. There's not a person place in the Bible where it said, it's going to be easy until you go to heaven, right? But, but sometimes the theology of, of, of Christians is like, it's comfortable, it's easy, it's good. And if not, then I'm walking away and Satan is good at twisting that scripture. But can you correctly divide the word of truth? Like, and what does that look like? And so I was going to walk through a day like, how can you follow that? And if you think about this and this idea of not being ashamed and so being ashamed of, of, of our works and our, our division of the Bible, there's inspections in a, in about every trade, right? Like in construction, there's an inspection. Anybody hasn't built anything, had an inspector come out that built.

14:53 We all love the building inspector. Amen. Right. Like nobody wants the building inspector, right? But we do, we do like the food inspector, the health inspector. Come on, somebody you ever been somewhere and it's like, you see, they have to post the violation. Do you know this by the way, every restaurant has to post their last violations on the wall. Do you guys know that? And and if you're standing in line, you start reading the violations, you're like, hmm, not sure I want to drink that ice at that ice machine. You know, the didn't clean that, you know, and just you start reading it right. There's inspections that come in and they see, is this work sloppy? Does it meet expectation? Is it good? And in one day our lives, we are presented to God and our goal is to not be ashamed of our life. Amen.

15:35 We lived a life worthy of Jesus death. We lived a life worthy of the call of God. We followed the Holy Spirit, we're submitted to him and we walked with wisdom things of God. It was yes, name in and then we knew the Bible. We correctly divided the word of God. It's as if when you present yourself to to God as you handle the Bible in your life, you're a skilled Craftsman for Jesus. You guys ever met a skilled Craftsman by the way, OK, a lot of guys are like rough end guys. You know what I mean within 1/4 inch. They don't know what the the Latin lines mean on the tape measure past 1/4 inch. You know what I'm talking about, right? Just works and you need a lot of roughing guys, right? But you got the Carpenter that come in. Is Bruce in this room? Bruce is up here, so he's going to bear some say this Bruce is a true Carpenter, man when it comes to wood. I'm telling come on, give it up for, you know, Bruce. But give it up Bruce, man.

16:21 I've just seen a handful of projects and every time he does something it's like, wow, how did you do that? You know, there's skills involved, there's experience, there's time. We did a little project up at church for corners years ago and we built this wall and this half wall and all this stuff. And he trimmed it out at the end and he put it together and I, I wasn't there when he trimmed it out. I missed that day and I came back. I'm looking at staying like, man, where's the seam? It's just like 40 feet. Like where? How Bruce, you're so good, man. Yes, Bruce, man, it's it's just amazing. That was probably like he's like, oh, dude, that was that was bad work. You know, see, see my best stuff, right. But there's there's something to saying to get around a true Craftsman.

17:02 It's just they're professional. They do. I'm not saying we have to be at that level with Scripture, but we should try. We should try, we should try. We should we should open the Bible and do our best. Amen. Not like, well, I'm busy. It's too hard. I don't understand it. Well, it's interesting. If you don't try, you never will. And I don't think God's trying to play a sick game, hide and seek. By the way, I don't think he's like, well, when you get spiritual enough, I'll I'll let you know. I think he wants to reveal himself. He the New Testament. He reveals the messages of God, like if we just get, and Satan is really good at keeping us away from Scripture. He's good at keeping Scripture out of languages and out of people. It's his goal. But this Bible is not meant to sit on a shelf. It's meant to live in our hearts. It's with your newer minds and it's meant to transform our lives.

17:50 And so we're let's walk through the Bible list. So we're just going to just big overview. OK, you may not know this, but but the Bible is not just one book, not one book. OK, There's actually 66 books inside the Bible. So Old Testament has 39 books. The New Testament has, who knows, 27. That's word. Man has 27 books. And so it's real interesting. The word Bible, when you look, it says Holy Bible. Every one of your Bibles probably says Bible on the cover. There's a lot of different, you know, versions, translations, different people have wrote different things. But you all have the word Bible on there, right? What's the word Bible even mean? Everybody knows what the Bible means. It comes from the word Biblia. You know what that means? Yeah.

18:31 So some people, well, it means book. And for a long time I thought it meant book. It actually means books means books. So it means a collection of writings. It means a library of writings. So you're going to say open your Bible. You're really saying open the books. Come on, somebody open the collection of writings. Open your God inspired library. Amen. So, so if you open this, like when I first became a Christian, I was like, this is all one book and I read it like everything else. And I'm going to start in a left and it's going to come to, you know, the, the tension, the conflict, the, the, you know, the Dana Moi, you don't, you don't talk about, right? No writing classes for anybody here. Perfect, right? And you have the whole, you know how it goes. Now it's like, this is going to make no sense to me, man. But it's a collection of writings. Here's the thing.

19:18 The Bible's not a random story. It's even though it's 66 different books, it's one unified story. Amen. So we're in #1400 years. There's approximately 40 authors. We don't know. All of the authors know, most of them approximately or 40 riders I should say. And it's just about these riders. They're like all over the place. You've got kings and you've got fishermen, Amen. I mean, you've got prophets, someone who speaks to the people on behalf of God. You've got disciples, you've got the half brother of Jesus you, you've got all sorts of people. You've got a man that has suffered you. You have so many different leaders and people that makes no sense how their stuff would ever survive except for God. Amen.

20:00 If you think about this, this thing about authors in the Bible, that the first five books of the Bible actually written by a murderer. Did you guys know that Moses murdered somebody? You guys have heard that story. If you don't know it, you've got to read it, right? And he, God used ten of the first five books. Then you get the New Testament and a third of the New Testament over 1/3 is written by murderer as well named Paul. Isn't that crazy to think about? It's like the law of God. The Old Testament way was written by murder in the New Testament. That that's moving force is it's like God could use anybody. Amen. You'd be like, Oh, I'm disqualified. What did who did you kill last week? You know what I'm saying? Like, and if you did, hello, it's crazy, right? But my original Bible, this thing is, is, is just torn to threads.

20:44 I mean, I got my tape on here, all sorts of stuff and I made the the just the air of like, hmm, Genesis 1 one in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and I started going right. And I was so confused. I got to the I got to the flood and the tower of Babel and then all the Huba got who and the Shem, the ham, the all the things, you know, and I was like, what in the world? And at 15 I was just confused. So I want to just walk through like a big picture, like how's the Bible organized? Like what is actually happening? What is the Bible? So I got this got this picture, which I guess is art on the screen. They beat me to it. Just kidding. It's so small. Can't read it down here. It's perfect.

21:26 But the the first five books. All right now this is interesting because the picture is kind of deceptive because you lead it just Old Testament. Come on somebody law and then it goes to history, but didn't fill in the shelf. So they put poetry up top. So this thing is confusing just the way it is. You know what I'm saying? So it goes from law to history to poetry and prophets. But let's just talk through like it's organized by what? What what do you see in length? No, no, but what genre? Come on somebody type of literature. So the Bible's organized by type of literature. So what type is it determines where it's placed. Now you're like, OK, this is less confusing because now I know there's some, some rhythm to it.

22:09 And so this kind of walk through what this looks like. So the law, this is the very beginning. So you got Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, first five books. This is the murder, right? This is Moses wrote these and you go all the way through these patriarchs. You got Abraham, got Isaac, you got Jacob, you got Joseph. These are big names of the Bible. And you can read these, You can go to Genesis and you can read all these people and their stories. By the way, they're amazing. Amen. You, you should teach these to your kids. You should internalize them. This is where the Bible becomes real. When you start seeing these amazing stories, you go from creation to them being nomadic to a, to a, to a nation being created that doesn't have a king. It's just a group that God's create a nation. And then then they they go into Egypt and slavery and they're set free. You have all these stories.

22:52 They're so foundational to our faith. The law is given to Moses. And so this is how it's put together. The first five books. Then you go to history boring those kids. It's amazing, Amen. These history books are awesome and it really is. This is the chronology putting together the the acts of God through through the nation of Israel and God's power. And you start out and you got Joshua. And by the way, I did went to that second show. If you saw that, I don't know why it's put that on that whatever. So Joshua Joshua's an animal, by the way, Amen. He wasn't perfect. You're going to see some of that later. But but Josh was just just a man. Just the bold confidence, be strong and very courageous and just stepped out in faith and I just live on that. Judges, how many guys read the book of judges by the way, book of Amy read the book of judges.

23:37 Oh man, dude, this is awesome, right? I mean, Judges is this amazing book where they they have freedom and then they have excess and they they walk away from God, they start worshiping other things and they go into captivity and they're just persecuted and oppressed and the God raised up a judge. And then then there's a miracle that happens. And then God sets them free and they all worship. And then a cycle repeats over and over and over. Any of these judges, right? Yeah. Deborah, you, you've got Gideon, you know. Oh, you warrior. He's in a threshing floor, right? You got Barrack, You got Samson, You got the Lady Yael. You guys remember Yael? The steak? You don't talk. Anybody know what talking about?

24:18 Do what? Yeah, right. She she in the temple. Holly knew where to put the steak. He's sleeping. Drew. Better watch out where you're sleeping, brother. There's some awesome bug with her on there. If you've seen the mug. We need to pass those out on Sunday, Right. But anyway, just to make Ruth. First and Second Samuel. 1st St. Kings, 1st St. Chronicles Yeah, Ezra and Nehemiah, Esther. These are all like history, but they're infinite purposes, right? I mean first take Samuel, you get this prophet that arises hands and praying Samuels born he annoyance David. If you hear the stories of David, just start bringing through Samuel. Absolutely amazing. First thing, Kings are Chronicle chronologically putting together the kings and all the stories of the kings.

24:58 And then Chronicles is written way out by Ezra, and he's looking back because they've lost their way. And so he rewrites the history of Israel so they could actually follow it. And here it is put back. So you read Chronicles, you got to know where it's written. And Ezra, Ezra's a priest, he came to 2nd remnant back from Babylon and he re established the temple. And he said, man, I can't sit here. Your walls are built. But this temple's in the ruins, right? And I want this to be rebuilt and brought back to his full glory. Not just the temple, but the practice of the temple. Nehemiah all know Nehemiah, right, built the walls. We all love to hear the stories, you know, stored in one hand, you know, laying bricks and the other kind of thing. Esther saves the nation with Mordecai. I mean, these are all great stories.

25:38 Amen. And they're true. And these are kind of stories. You can pick one of these books up and be like, Lord, just show me, and you can study why it's written. I'm not saying you use ChatGPT, but you can right now, it seems to work decently. You can be like, what's the story? How does this work? Who wrote it, blah, blah, blah. You're going to get some decent answers. I'm not saying you should always trust it. Amen. It's kind of weird sometimes, right? But with the rise and fall, the struggles of God's people, then you got poetry, which at the end, OK, it's top shelf, top shelf poetry right here, right? Perfect poetry and wisdom. So you got Job, Psalms, Proverbs, you got Ecclesiastes and Psalm, Solomon Job. OK, man. I mean, you guys read Job. By the way, this is what if you're, if you're going to see the South Korea man, Job is for you.

26:20 But this, this job is probably the oldest piece of literature that we have in humanity right now. So it's it's worth the read. Amen. I mean, I think they should teach it in school. I think they should teach the Bible in school because it's true. Need no, nothing else to know. I mean, even if you thought of history, these are writings of history. They're more proof for this existence than Alexander the Great. So it's incredible. But Job would have written before Moses wrote the Pentateuch. The first five books of the Bible, Job would have been written. So this makes it the oldest piece of literature we have. So we're three. See, now I've got to read Job when you get home. Amen. Like I read the oldest piece of literature in the history of humanity today.

27:00 That's pretty cool. It's pretty amazing. But Job's story, you get into it, but it's amazing. Psalms. Psalms is like the hymn book of the Old Testament. They're meant to be sung. So when you read it, like there's a meter and a rhythm and there's certain pieces, a lot of them written by, most of them written by David, sons of Kora. There's this dude that turned his back on Moses. It was a crazy deal and eventually got some things right down the road and they wrote some psalms. You'll see Correlator in Jude. They got some punishment there, but Moses wrote some of the Psalms when they crossed the Red Sea. It's just pretty amazing. So it's worth reading some of you guys. How many guys are in the way right now? The way groups, the Salman groups, some of y'all reading Psalms right now walking through, if you're in that, it's just amazing, right?

27:42 Proverbs, book of wisdom written by the wisest person ever lived. God give a gift to Solomon, David's son, Ecclesiastes, Vandy, Vandy, all is Vandy, right? At the end of the day, it's like know God and follow him, follow his wisdom. Song of Songs. That's a good devotion with your spouse every night. Come on, somebody. If you know what it is, it's like a romantic book put together. Her teeth are like the teeth of goats. Come on, somebody. Her hair is like the hair of sheeps, right? Her breasts are like coconuts and her necks are like palm trees. I mean, nothing more sensual than this book. It's amazing. Quite the devotion. Well, we'll move on. Let's go to the prophets.

28:24 All right, so you got major prophets and minor prophets. This is interesting. It's not about like, are they important or not? Like it's not major because they're like these guys made a huge difference and they're minor because it's leftovers. It's the length of the books. The major prophets are the longer prophets. OK. And it's amazing about the major prophets. They're actually in order of length. So if so, if you start reading it like Isaiah is the longest major prophet. So you got Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, the missing 1, Daniel, Ezekiel, Daniel. So these are the so these are just major problems that they're long and they're over in a different reason. So a prophet is somebody that God gives to speak on behalf of God to people. And oh, that was close.

29:10 Jordan, what are you doing, man? Our compass monitors like this. It's brand new. By the way, Logan, I love you. He dropped it the day it was great. Anyway, that'll been a that'll been a minor problem. Not a minute. I'll stop anyway. So the, the, the, the major profits, they're written to specific groups of people at different times. So you got to study on a little bit. Once you know the history and who it's written to and when it becomes alive. Amen. You do a little bit of study and all of a sudden, like the, the the book of Isaiah is, is probably the greatest masterpiece of writing maybe in the history of the world, like Isaiah itself. It, it's just so well put together and there's so much prophecy.

29:54 It, it, it's just one of the things like if you're going to start somewhere, just study this book. It is so good. Everything kind of hangs on Isaiah. But anyway, there's reasons that they they're right, each of these and there's full of amazing stories, minor profits, like I said this, because they're shorter and they're they're not organized by length, although they're kind of close. They're actually organized by pre exile. I'll talk about in a second exile and post exile. So let me explain what that is just a little bit. So when you read these books, you can understand when when David Saul was the first king and he got all selfish and started touching glory. And then and then David stepped in and then he had too much blood on his hands and he couldn't build the temple, but he designed it. And then he had his son Solomon, who took over for him. And then his Solomon had two sons, Jeroboam, Rehoboam. And this they could, they're fighting. And so the Kingdom was split between two groups of people, OK.

30:49 And so these prophets, they're speaking to the northern Kingdom or southern Kingdom primarily. And you got to know who they're talking to because they're different histories. Amen. Anybody, anybody have a Johnny Mack Bible? John MacArthur, Johnny Mack, all right back in the he's got an amazing he's got an amazing timeline if you can look this up. But like, here's the Pharaohs, here's the kingdoms, Reboam, Jeroboam. Here's the prophets are talking to who and when, but they're lined up both these kingdoms, they follow God. They have good kings and bad kings and God sends prophets to them. They're telling them like you need to turn from your sin. They don't Northern Kingdom goes Assyria and the southern Kingdom goes the Babylon in captivity. So then there's prophets that line up with them in captivity and then they come back from captivity and there's more prophets that are written to each of these kingdoms after that.

31:34 That makes sense. That was like a 30,000 foot view. But you have to kind of put your head around that when you pick the book up. You can't be like, this isn't making any sense for me today. Like you got to know what you're reading. So the in the Old Testament ends with Malachi. I said Malachi earlier, but it's Malachi. And after Malachi, there's 400 years of what they say is silence, but God is not silent. He is definitely not silent. Matter of fact says in Galatians, when the fullest of time has come, God set forth his son like he's weaving together kingdoms right now of the Greek Empire at the end of the Old Testament, Alexander the Great has just conquered the world. The Roman Empire is coming in and the perfecting crucifixion and all the different kings. And when since this is are happening, prophecies are coming true, God's moving.

32:19 But there's something really special that happens in this silent period, this intertestinal period that God does, and he puts together something called the Septuagint. So somebody say Septuagint. All right, it's a big word that means 70. OK. And I'll, I'll explain what it means, what it is. But Alison the Great took over his conquest and the language changed from really Hebrew was the main spoken language for those lights, and it changed to Greek. And so with these 70s scholars set out that they would translate all the Hebrew and some of the Aramaic, because Daniel's written Aramaic and they translate it into the common language of the people of Coen Greek. And they would take that and they wrote it and they put together into the Septuagint, which is the complete Old Testament. And what's really cool about this is that when Jesus shows up on earth as a as a, as a baby, OK, because you understand, Jesus already existed, Amen.

33:11 He's eternal. He wasn't just born and there was Jesus, OK, he came to earth. But when Jesus shows up to earth, he shows up and he has the entire Old Testament put together. Did you guys know that? Like he literally, he's like the MOT baby, right? He's got the Septuagint, Amen. Then you might say, well, why is that significant? It is so, so significant. By the way, I'll say it's significant that that God translated all this into Greek because we're talking about theology for the rest of us. It actually started about 200 BC when they said, you know what? We need to get the Bible into everybody's language. That's theology for the rest of us, Amen. Like, why would I show up when they're speaking Hebrew, but I only speak Greek?

33:51 I get tickled to death when I show up to some masses and random places and nobody speaks Latin, but they do it in Latin. I'm like, you do not care about people. That's all it tells me, Amen. I mean, why in the world would you not just tell them what the Bible says? And there's been so many people have been killed for getting the Bible into every person's language over all the centuries. But thank you, Jesus, we have it, Amen. We have in our language. There's people today that still don't have the Bible in language. There's still people who cannot read the Bible in a native tongue. And, and, and, and Satan has been really, really good at keeping people illiterate or in the dark ages. Satan is really good at keeping the Bible away from people. And that's maybe just the only reason why you should read it, because your enemy doesn't want you to. Amen.

34:36 And so the silence, right? There's this Septuagint that God put together and Jesus had it. And this is what Jesus says about this Septuagint, about the Old Testament. You find this in Matthew 518 says for truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter and not a stroke, not the least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished. Now, if you go back like, you know, on this verse, right, but not a jot or title, that's a weird word, but but not a jot or title will pass the law until all of this is accomplished.

35:16 And this is really interesting. Like, what does that even mean? And so if you think about what what a jot is and it says the smallest letter. And so a jot is in reference to an iota. An iota is the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet. So what you're saying is even the smallest letter is inspired by God and put an exact place where it should be. So so when Jesus came, he's like, well, you guys are pretty close on this Old Testament here, but there are some issues. Come on, somebody, somebody asked me a few weeks ago, how do you know the Bible, Bible's true? Like, how do you know, like people didn't change it and stuff like that? Do you think the God, the universe has the ability to preserve his word? Do you think he can do that? Do you think he's like, oh, these people mess it up?

35:57 Are you crazy? He can split the Red Sea, but he can't make his word, his word. This isn't a man's word. So he even goes back. So he's got the Septuagint and he's got hey, every every iota of this Septuagint, every time you see the letter I the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet, every iota I put there. That's amazing. And he says title. This is an interesting like what's a title, right? And in Hebrew, it's like the you'd have AI don't know, like the the little accent mark on the words in in Hebrew, that's a title. Matter of fact, even in the English language today, you still have a title is a dot of an I is a title. The dot of AJ is called a title. Isn't that crazy? And So what Jesus saying is not every, not just the smallest letter is an exact place, but the exact stroke of the pen is an exact place.

36:47 Amen. It just was crazy to me. There's something like people like, well, I don't know if I believe all this Old Testament stories. There's some crazy stories. I'm like, brother, if you believe in Jesus, you have no choice but to believe everything that is said in the Old Testament because he did not correct it. He matter of fact, he confirmed it, Amen. And then just confirm it. He actually fulfills it because he's not going to. Nothing's going to disappear until Jesus fulfills every single part of this. And So what he's saying is every detail of God word actually matters. And then you start thinking about what Jesus didn't correct in the Old Testament because there's some crazy stuff in the Old Testament. I know people don't follow Jesus because the story's Old Testament. I'm like everything hangs hinges on the resurrection of Jesus, By the way, like if you believe that a man could have raised from the dead, you have nothing else to say about creation.

37:37 Like when it when it when it says that God created 6 days and then he rested on the 7th. We should take no further thought to say, well, we'll put evolution into that or, or these are eras. Is your God so small? You have to come up with human reasons for God's doing his work. I'm just going to say it. It's it's like, what are you trying to do here? Like he he's not rewriting the word of God because we think we know something or he created male and female. There's 2026 in a nutshell. So we put that in the clip so we can be blacklisted somehow, right? Like male and female. Do we have to create that differently? There was God like, oh man, I forgot to wall that down for you. Let's get rid of all the you've just versions of the Bible. You're a God being he. This is like a neutral Bible, right? That is so weak.

38:21 You know, like the word's the word, Amen. He just put together or says he should leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife. Like, are we going to redefine marriage in, in 2026? Because the culture and I'm, I'm sorry, like, I know there's a lot of struggles. I know the world's putting a lot of counterfeits out there. I know a lot of people run a lot of directions. We love you, Amen. But like, I'm not going to like if, if, if I don't have this to stand on, I'm going to go do something else in my life. Amen. I can find a lot of ways to have fun, brother, right? I, I can find a lot of things to do with my Sundays. I can do a lot of things. But if this is real, it, it comes at a, at a, at a price. Amen.

39:01 Is it comes with obedience or you think about the wars and the, and if you, the death and the fighting and all these people being killed, like, oh man, it's just crazy. And it's like, it is crazy. Like you see the power of God and, and then the darkness of sin, like you see the all of God and all these different pieces. How about Jonah? Maybe some people actually can't believe in Jonah. I believe about the Bible. I can't believe in Jonah. It's like how many guys know that Jonah's actually a type of Christ? Do you guys know that? Like when Jesus in the New Testament, he goes, I'm going to race him dead in three days, just like Jonah come out of the belly of the whale. What he's saying is just as Jonah, and it might be an argument that Jonah died just going to put out there, but just as Jonah was in the whale, I'm going to be in the dirt for three days.

39:42 So if you want to delete Jonah, you could just delete Jesus because that's just what you did. Amen. But like there's all these stories like all can't be true. It's like, no, it's true every, every jot, every title, every stroke, every letter was perfectly placed by Jesus. Jesus in the New Testament, he quotes the Old Testament over 60 times. It's it's quoted so much and then he confirms it. He actually relates to it, if you want to call it references it more than 100 times. Matter of fact, the first thing Jesus did when he opened his public ministry, this is the very first thing he did. Luke chapter 4 verse 16. Look at this. He went being Jesus to Nazareth. When he had been brought up, so he gets to the where he'd been brought up, so his hometown. And on the Sabbath day, so this is Saturday, it's when they had the synagogues and they met.

40:27 He went to the synagogue as was his custom. So every Saturday, Jesus didn't skip. Come on, somebody just saying he stood up to read because that's what you did in the scroll of the prophet who? Yeah, I remember. It's still up there. Oh, no, we got the screen. But the prophet Isaiah. So he finds that major prophet Isaiah told you so much on Isaiah was handed to him. You think that's an accident? Nope. Unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written. It's you know, he's like, where did I write this at? You know, verse 18. This is a direct quote. He said the spirit of the Lord is on me and I don't know what he's doing. Maybe he's doing this the spirit of the Lord's on me because he's annoying me to play him good news to the poor.

41:08 He has sent me to proclaim freedom to the prisoners, to recover sights of the blind, to set the oppressed free and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And they took the he rolled up the scroll. I just see him like, you know, just I'm in charge here, right? And he gave it back to the attendant. And then he walked through whatever he sat at the front and all the eyes, the eyes of everyone that's saying God was fastened on him. That's how he knows a good sermon. By the way, they're like, what did this guy just say? And he began by saying to them, today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Is that crazy? And so you look at the Old Testament like, oh, it can't be true.

41:51 Jesus confirmed and fulfilled the Old Testament, the beginning of his public ministry. He just quotes what he already wrote in the future or in the past about the future. He's writing about himself. And then he repeats like, and again, just so you know, I'm doing what I already told you is going to do. And so that's the Old Testament, Amen. And I'm going to run out of time, so I'm just going to make this this take good notes. Come on somebody New Testament, we're going to roll gospels. So the Gospel means story. OK, So you got Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The three early ones, Matthew, Mark and Luke, they're written early on close to when Jesus resurrected, like with within 20 years.

42:34 Now you've got John, which is written 900 or 90 AD. So you've got, you know, 6055 years after. So, so the first they're called the Synoptic Gospels and the last one kind of stands on its own. And John is writing to make sure everybody knows that Jesus was God. He's writing by the deity. He has like 7 or 8 I am statements, you know, and he just nails it out. And so master of Gospel story, it's the story of Jesus, Amen. But it's not just the story, It's the story of Jesus on earth in the story of Jesus resurrection in almost a third or a fourth of those 4 gospels is dedicated to Jesus last week, his death, burial, resurrection, sighting, because it wanted you to know that for sure. So if you know who Jesus is, I was starting the book of John.

43:16 I just read the book of John. If you're like, I'm not sure. I don't believe any of this. Read the book of John. And then Matthew, Mark and Luke. They, they, they're different written, different people and different types of groups, but they all have the same story of Jesus. Now Jesus existed before the gospels. Amen. In the Old Testament, this was somebody told me a few weeks ago, man, you know, Jesus was in the Old Testament. Like, Yep, Yep, he's eternal. Before there was time, there was Jesus. He's always been and always will be the alpha, the Omega, the beginning, the end. He's timeless. He's not bound by time, space and matter. He's not bind by the Trinity of our, our world, time, space that matter. He's bound by something else. And so, so Jesus seem boundless, I should say, but there's Christophany. He's like when Christ in the Old Testament, you heard another in the fire, you sing the song, right? And there's no other fire.

44:00 That's Jesus, right? When you see in the Old Testament when somebody worships somebody and they take their shoes off, that's Jesus. There's Christophanes, there's somebody who wrestled somebody named Jacob, that's called Jesus. Amen. So when you read the stories, you're about the stories of Jesus when he came as a human, the incarnation to earth. All right, I'm moving faster history. This is the book of Acts. OK, we got the it's back up. Perfect. They did a better job on this one. Perfect. So the book of Acts, it's just history. It's really called like Acts of the Holy Spirit, Acts of the early disciples. I like the acts of the Holy Spirit, just what God was doing. And it moved from like just a, a, a, a little movement in the upper room. Jesus sins and and the, the Pentecost comes a few days later. They speak in tongues.

44:43 It appears on language and the gospels preached and many come to Christ and there's missionary journeys. Paul goes on three of them. He brings the gospel to all these places. You're going to see the letters in a second and the gospel goes out into the world. That's the story of Acts. Great book. By the way. Haven't you read the book of Acts before? I mean that'll, that will change your faith right there. Amen. Then you got these letters. Some people call them epistles. That's the old name for it. But letters, and all these letters right here, Paul's letters and the general letters, those are all letters written to either churches or to groups of people or to individual people. And it was really cool in the New Testament, all of Paul's letters are actually put together. How many guys knew that? Right? And they're back-to-back to back-to-back. And so Paul, he starts out with Romans. So he's writing the Church of yeah, Church of Rome, Right. And then first St.

45:27 Corinthians Church of Corinth and then and then he has Galatians, the Church of Galatia and the and then the letter to Ephesians written to Ephesus. And then Colossians is written to Colossae, and then Philippians are written to Philippi. And then he goes into the First Thessalonians, which is written to the Church of Thessalonica. And then he changes gears a little bit. He starts writing individuals. So he writes to his protege Timothy first, Second Timothy. And then he writes to Titus. And then he writes to a guy that he's appealing to him to take back somebody that once was his slave but adopted with his son. And he writes to Philemon. This is good news, Amen. So why are they there? Well, these are churches that he's established on his missionary journeys and you can read the history between Acts and those you put them together.

46:10 You got amazing little piece of text going there and then you got journal letters. OK, so Hebrews, we do not know really what Hebrews. I don't think it's Paul, but yeah, James. James half wrote to Jesus. He's very practical. It's a great practical book. First time. Peter's written by Peter himself to the Church of Rome. It's an underground church. His name is Babylon. So don't know who's writing to make sure you get this next one right. Oh, yeah. First, second and third John and then Jude. So first, second, third John. If you don't know, they're written by the same John who wrote the book of John, the Gospel of John, and also the person who wrote Revelation. But we had this happen a few weeks ago. We got some some guys can do to their faith in our way groups. And remember, I was in Scripture and it was first John 19 and they memorized John 19.

46:52 They didn't know there were different books, but now you know. Amen So the basics here, right? And then and then Jude and Jude's a fire fire book, right? And then Revelation, different type. It's not a letter. It's really a kind of apocalyptic. John is getting this, he's getting this vision from heaven and he's with Jesus and he sees these churches and all these beasts and it's end times. It become really relevant one day. Amen. But this is called the collection. So you say open your Bible. This is the collection. Amen And you got to get really good. Like you open it like do you know what you're reading? And I'll just say this is in with this verse. But Hebrews 412. It says for the word of God is what living and active.

47:37 The Bible is not an A book with old writings and fables and good teaching. It is an active living book. Amen. It says sharper than any double edged sword. It is an offensive weapon, like when when Peter put away his physical sword, he actually picked up the real sword. You know what talking about? And he preached this because this is life and it's so sharp. It says it pierces into the dividing soul and spirit joints and marrow. How how deep and how sharp is the word of God? That would actually divide marrow from joint like the very fabric of your soul to actually dichotomize and split your soul from spirit.

48:21 It's only the word of God can do that. Amen. Like, yeah, that's how deep it penetrates. And so when you're like giving somebody advice and to me struggling or whatever The thing is, you share the word of God, Amen, Because it's what they need. And it's it divides. And what's a dividing good, bad and ugly? Amen, old man Newman, Sean. And God, it's it's dividing those pieces every time you hear it and it says it judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart. It doesn't even judges your thoughts, it judges the motives of your thoughts. Is that incredible? And you go back to Genesis chapter 6. And the flood came because every thought and intention of the heart was wicked beyond all deceit. And it goes on to say nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and exposed before the eyes of him being Jesus, to whom we must give what an account. Yes, we know Jesus.

49:17 Yes, we love Jesus. Yes, we're forgiven. But we should be careful how we live because one day you have to give an account. Did you live the way I asked you to live? Was your life full of yes and Amen? Was your life a position of surrender? You guys saying today I'm available, do what you want, take what you want. Like everything I have is yours. You saying this earlier and is built on the word of God. I was 18 years old, I had this Bible and I knelt down by this tree at a youth camp and I surrendered my life to Jesus. It was like a blank sheet of paper. And I just signed it and said, God, whatever you write, wherever you ask me to go, wherever you lead me, it is just already a yes, Amen.

49:58 It's built on the word of God. And so this Bible isn't just any book. It's not there to collect dust. It's there because it's living and active and transformative and pierces our soul and divides our thoughts. And when you look into it, you have nothing left but to be transformed because the Holy Spirit working in you, Amen. And so my challenge today is how many guys need to get into the Bible, Like how many need to make this a daily habit? I mean, you don't have to know everything. Come on somebody, you just learn one thing a day, just learn the next thing. You open the toolbox, You're like, man, that's a Phillips. OK, cool, that's a Phillips. Some of you are going to learn some advanced tools, somebody going to learn some new tools, but you're all learning.

50:38 Amen. And you have to get the word of God into your life every single day. That's the challenge, that's the goal. And that's not for the next week. It's for your whole life is built on this. And so Father, we come before you God, we ask God, you just give us the confidence. God give us the courage to do drastic things and as simple as just picking the Bible up and your word would just strip us of ourselves. We grow into the image of your son. You'll be transformed. You got to renew our minds. We studied the real thing. So we know when we see a counterfeit hope. Our church should be so counter cultural because it's just built on you. The culture is not going to understand to God your word is true. We trust it. We trust every single word, every single letter is perfectly placed, every stroke of the pen, every dot of the I and so God, we trust you. I'll pray for one more group of people in the house and that's those you say I just don't not only need to get in the word of God, I need the word of God to get in me. The Bible says that in the beginning was the word and word. Word was with God and the word was with God and the word is God because on verse 14 says the word became flesh and dwelt among us be on the glory, the glory of the only God of the Father, all of grace and truth.

51:45 It's about Jesus and some of you guys need the word himself, Jesus to come into your life to save you from your sin, to recognize you're a Sinner and need of a savior that this book is not just some fable, but today you surrender your life just like we sang already and said Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, I need you God for the first time in life, I surrender myself. I surrender to your way. I believe you died on the cross, my sin 2000. You got resurrected for me and so today if you need Jesus, the Bible says today is the day of salvation. If you call on him and confetch him out that he is the Son of God and raise him dead and believe in your heart that you'll be saved. So today if you need Jesus, they might get weird then call you out, but if you need Jesus, we just raise your united place. I need Jesus. I think the word of God to get in me for the very first time to be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. If you raise your hand, just praise prayer. The prayer is not save you but your belief in him and say Father God thanks so much to Jesus at your word I am changed the word of Jesus.

52:42 You died on the cross through my sins. Lord, I surrender myself. God, I trust you God, I obey from now on. God, it's yesterday, Amen. God draw close to me. I draw close to you, Father, forgive me God make me whole. That's through my life God use it how you see fit. I'm available for you. I pray this and the church said Amen. Give some glory to God today. Amen.