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Getting Prepared, Getting Excited
Skip Heitzig

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How to Study the Bible and Enjoy It

God speaks to us through His Word—giving us encouragement, guidance, and sometimes rebuke, but always in love. We struggle with parts of it, but consistent exposure to the Bible along with a consistent desire to obey it will do more for your Christian walk than anything else. In this message, Skip Heitzig explains that the Bible is not just for an elite group of scholars—it's for everyone.

How can you effectively study the Bible? This is a great series for anyone wishing to gain more insight into personal Bible study.

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Transcript

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I grew up in a church, but when I went to a Bible-teaching church I was blown away.  It was a simple thing.  Chuck Smith stood up there, opened the Book, taught from it, it was very simple, it was very clear, it was very powerful.  I had never heard a Bible study before.  I'd heard people talk about the Bible and about God and I knew a few things and I could have a little running list of what I knew but when I had the Bible taught, it's not just teachings from the Bible but teaching the Bible, it absolutely impacted my life.  When I looked at that and I heard it, I remember for the first and then the second time I thought, "That is so awesome.  I wonder if I could ever do that.  I wonder if God would ever use me to do that.  Naah."  But I just saw the impact and I wanted to be of impact to others as well.

Well, let me tell you what we're up to tonight.  As you turn in your Bibles to Psalm 119.  You will forgive me actually I hope, usually we have a Bible study, that's what this church is all about.  Sunday morning, Sunday night, Thursday night, and usually Monday, Tuesday and the other nights we have Bible studies here or in homes, but what I'd like to do is talk about how to study the Bible on your own.  Now I've done a series some time back, it was actually I think our most popular series, not only here but around the country on how to study the Bible.  It's old, it's outdated, I think I sounded like Mickey Mouse when I recorded that and so I wanted a second crack at it.  And I thought not only would I update it but this a whole new group of people this time.  And so we want to talk about tonight and in the next several weeks how we can personally study the Bible.  Now, we're going to open up in a word of prayer, we're going to look at some things in Psalm 119 and other places.  If you don't think you can hang with us for the remainder of the evening, while we're praying you could slip out to the foyer or the very back row so if you had to split, nobody would notice.  Except God but that's okay, you might have other commitments, I can't speak for you.

Let's pray.  Rather we thank you tonight that we do have a fellowship of warmth, of love, based upon the freedom of what Jesus did on the cross two thousand years ago for us.  We have a book not filled with ancient stories with no relevance but the living word of God, principles by examples, poetry, narrative, parables, predictive prophecy; all meant to nourish us, to teach us that grand message that You have loved us from the foundation of the earth.  Lord I pray that you would create it us a thirst, a hunger to know your truth and to know you personally through knowing your truth.  Teach us Father tonight and the next several weeks to get an excitement for the Word of God.  And so that we can on our own study it, that we might show ourselves approved, workmen that need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.  For we ask it in Jesus' name.  Amen.

Today is a special day for me.  It's my anniversary.  In fact (applause), it's my fifteenth anniversary.  I love you.  Fifteen years ago today, my wife and I met down an aisle, it wasn't in a church, we got married on a golf course.  It was a beautiful southern California day, actually it was heat wave, it was in the hundreds, but it was an awesome day, I'll never forget it.  This morning as I got up and I thought about these fifteen years, I wrote a love note to my wife.  I'm not going to read it to you, it's private.  And as I  wrote it I thought of the other love notes that we had written to each other through the years and especially the letters that we wrote each other before we were married.  Most of them we have kept.  We've saved them in a file and from time to time I like to dig them out and read them.  The correspondence that sort of nourished our relationship until we finally got together in marriage.

I remember when I would get a letter from my wife, when she wasn't my wife.  She lived in Kona, Hawaii and I lived in Huntington Beach, California.  And I would write her and she would write me.  And we would usually write because you know, you can't go out on a date Friday night, it's a long distance drive and the phone calls were expensive, so we would write most of the time.  When I would read her letter, I would read it, I would read it again.  I'd come home after dinner, late at night after work, I'd read it again.  I would look at phrases and sentences and kind of imagine her writing it and I would hang on every word because they were love letters.  Do you remember, if you're a husband or wife, being a newlywed and how awesome it was to spend time together?  It was like the ultimate, you couldn't wait to get off work, to spend time with that date, or that spouse.  That newlywed time is so wonderful.  Do you remember being newly saved?  When you first came to Jesus Christ and the ultimate experience of spending intimate time and you opened up this book and you thought, "Wow.  God is talking to me in it, I'm understanding some of these wonderful things."  You hung on every word.  It was wonderful.  You didn't always know what it meant.  But you were just jazzed that God was speaking to you in that book. 

Paul the apostle writes to the Corinthian church in his second letter to them and he says, "oh that you would bear with me in a little folly an indeed you do bear with me for I am jealous for you with godly jealousy.  For I have betrothed you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.  But I fear lest somehow as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted by the simplicity that is in Christ."

Now when you came to church tonight, you brought something with you, most likely, most of you did, you brought a Bible, right?  Lift your Bible up if your brought it tonight.  Let's have a show of, wow, look at all those leather-bound books.  We could start a Bible store.  Now, why'd you bring it?  Because you love it, you've grown to love it.  It's the word of God.  It's not just a history book, you never carried your history book around like that in high school.  You never took it wherever you would go and just kind of secretly open it up every morning, every …, underline it, memorize it. It's something more to you than just a moral guide or a book of poetry or old stories or a literature book.  It's a love letter to you.  And as you've grown more in love with the author whom you've come to know, God himself, the book becomes more precious to you as the years go on.  It's a love letter.  God speaks to you encouragement, guidance, sometimes in rebuke.  But always done in love, isn't it? 

Now in Psalm 119 which I've asked you to turn to, it's a long chapter.  Notice, turn the pages until you get to the end of it, 176 verses.  That's a long chapter, it's the longest in the Bible,  It is an alphabetic acrostic psalm.  Notice that each heading begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet.  The Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters, to there's 22 stanzas with eight lines in it.  Twenty-two sections with eight stanzas or lines that are written in it.  Do you know what the theme is?  The theme is, "I love the Bible."  The love of David for the word of God, for the precepts of God, for the law of God.  He talks about it in so many different ways.  There are some people who see the Bible as this outdate antiquated book.  It's sort of, not relevant, but there are some moral precepts that do have values for our time.  That's not how David saw it.  David loved it because God spoke to him in it.  He opens up by saying, "Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the Lord.  Blessed (or happy) are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with the whole heart."  One of David's most distinguishing characteristics is that he had a love for the word of God and thus a love for the God of the word.  Now in Psalm 119 he sort of mixes terms.  He uses eight different terms or titles for the word of God or for the law of God.  Twenty-five times he speaks of the law and it's the Hebrew word torah.  Generally it's all of God's revelation.  Narrowly it means the first five books of Moses.  He could have meant both.  He also uses the term word, your word, and that's the Hebrew word devar.  It means any word that comes from the lips of God is precious to him.  A third word he used is the word laws which is the Hebrew mishpatim which means literally, legal issues, case studies.  "Oh Lord, how I love your case studies."  These were the legal studies because the law came from God to govern the nation.  It was not a democratic nation.  It was not a republican nation.  It was a theocratic nation, God gave the law, He was the judge and because those laws were given to govern the land, they were precious.  He uses the term statutes which is the Hebrew word egot which means a witness or a testimony because God and I have a covenant.  A fifth term is the word commands, mishvot.  Any command that God gives, any time that God tells you to do something because he loves you, this word comes into play.  The sixth word he uses is the word decrees, the Hebrew hukim.  The root means to engrave or inscribe something.  It's when God inscribes his laws in nature or in our hearts, David woul duse this term.  Then he uses the term precepts, hukadim, which is synonymous with a covenant or an agreement that I make with God.  And finally, the eighth word is the word promise, imrah, sometimes translated word.  It means anything God says or commands or promises, He uses this word.  Now he uses all of these in this psalm.

And we're not going to read it all because it's just too long.  But let's read a portion of it.  Beginning in verse 2, since we read verse 1, "Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with a whole heart.  They also do no iniquity.  They walk in his ways, you have commanded us to keep your precepts diligently.  Oh that my ways were directed to keep your statutes, then I would not be ashamed when I look into all you commandments, I wil praise you with uprightness of heart.  When I learn your righteous judgments, I will keep your statutes.  Oh, do not forsake me utterly.  How can a young man cleanse his way?  By taking heed according to your word.  With mty whole heart I have sought you.  Oh let me not wander from your commandments.  Your word have I hidden in my heart that I might no t sin against you.  Blessed are you O Lord, teach me your statutes.  With my lips I have declared all the judgments of your mouth.  I have rejoiced in the way of your testimonies as much in all riches.  I will meditate on your precepts and contemplate your ways.  I will delight myself in your statutes, I will not forget your word.  Deal bountifully with your servant that I may live and keep your word.  Open my eyes that I may see wondrous things from your law."  That is a scripture that I pray every morning when I have my quiet time.

"I am a stranger in the earth, do not hide your commandments from me.  My soul breaks with longing for your judgments at all times.  You rebuke the proud, the cursed who stray from your commandments.  Remove from me reproach and contempt for I have kept your testimonies.  Princes also sit and speak against me but your servant meditates on your statutes.   Your testimonies also are my delight and my counselors."

Would you turn now over to verse 97, "Oh how I love your law.  It is my meditation all the day.  You through your commandments make me wiser than my enemies.  For they are ever with me.  I have more understanding than all my teachers for your testimonies are my meditation.  I understand more than the ancients because I keep your precepts.  I have restrained my feet from every evil way that I may keep Your word, that I have not departed from Your judgments, for Your yourself have taught me.  How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth, through your precepts I get understanding.  Therefore I hate every false way.  Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.  I have sworn and confirmed that I will keep your righteous judgments.  I am afflicted very much.  Revivoe me O Lord according to your word.  Accept I pray the freewill offerings of my mouth.  Oh Lord, teach me your judgments.  My life is continually in my hand.  Yet I do not forget your law.  The wicked have laid a snare for me, yet I have not strayed from your precepts.  Your testimonies I have taken s a heritage forever.  For they are the rejoicing of my heart.  I have inclined my heart to perform your statutes forever to the very end."  Thus goes the entire psalm.  And the theme that David harps on over and over and over again is "I love the Bible.  I read it, I understand it, and I dig it or I enjoy it.  I'm really into is.  Thank you, Lord for your precepts, for your judgment.

When I was first a believer, I was 18 years old when I gave my heart fully and surrendered to Jesus Christ.  I again was brought up in a religious home, went to church every week, did my little church thing but I didn't know God.  Once I did, I carried a Bible to church.  Now this is a church that, they didn't read out of the Bible.  So I walked into the foyer of the church that day with this big hunkin' Bible.  I come walkin' and you know what?  Everybody noticed me.  They looked at me like, "What are you doing with that thing?"  In fact, one persons said, "Well what did you bring that thing in here for?"  Can you imagine hearing that question in the church?  "Why'd you bring this thing in here for?"  This is a church."  "I don't know, I guess I thought you were supposed to bring a Bible to church.  What do you bring, a coloring book?"  They thought I was sn extraterrestrial because I brought a Bible to the church.  But I started reading it and I had a real love for it. 

This series I'm calling "How to Study your Bible and enjoy it."  Again it's something I've done years ago and sort of a simplified fashion, recently Word for Today has published a book on it and we're kind of revamping it on our own to get it out.  What I want to do in the next few weeks is talk about how you yourself can feel confident whenever you open this book in virtually any place, some basic rules for understanding the Bible.  We're going to talk about tools for Bible study, in terms of commentaries, in terms of dictionaries, or computer software.  Versions of the Bible, which are good, which are not, what use they're for.  How to observe the Bible and observe a text to find out what it's saying; how to interpret the text to find out what it means; how to look at figurative language and parables; and then finally how to apply it personally to your life after you've extracted that information and I'm doing that because I have a hunch that I'm pretty sure about.  My hunch is that you really, like David, are learning to love this book like you've loved no other book, because it is to you the very word of God, and yet like all of us, we struggle with certain parts of it. we have trouble with certain parts of the Bible, sometimes it's tough.  But exposure to the Bible, a consistent exposure to the Bible, and I would add on a daily basis, with a consistent desire to obey it will do more for you than any other thing that I can think of in your Christian walk.  It will teach you everything that pertains to life and godliness because it says it comes through the knowledge of Him who called us.  So as we know God's word, we'll get in touch with the author of the book Himself and it will make us strong and wise and equipped. 

Last century in London, England, there was a guy by the name of George Mueller who founded an orphanage, the Bristol Orphanage.  Now here was a guy, a simple man who read the Bible, and because he read the Bible he saw that, goy a lot of times God does miraculous things in the Bible.  And every time I read of somebody in the scripture, they're always trusting this unseen God.  I wonder if I could do that.  And so we begin trusting God for provision of all these orphans he ahd taken in London.  And he has incredible stories in his autobiography, if you can find it, get it; about how God moved miraculously, times when they all sat down to the table for food and there was no food to be served.  But he put plates and he put silverware and napkins and he said, "Lord, thank you for this food that you have provided (there was no food on the table, no food in the house) In Jesus' name."  He has so many stories of when he would close his prayer or during the prayer he'd be interrupted, there might be a knock on the door where a milk truck had stopped, the milk would spoil so he would give it all to the orphanage.  Or somebody would have donated food or a food truck would break down; all sorts of wild stories of faith.  This what he said (quote) "The vigor of our spiritual life will be in exact proportion to the place held by the Bible in our life and in our thoughts.  I solemnly state this from experience of fifty-four years.  The first three years after my conversion, I neglected the word of God.  Sine I began to search it diligently, the blessing has been wonderful.  Great has been the blessing from consecutive diligent daily study.  I look upon it as a lost day when I have not had a good time over the word of God.

Tonight, I just want to kind of introduce some thoughts to us.   First of all, the possibility of Bible study.  I other words, you can do it, all of you can study the Bible and understand it and enjoy it.  It's a book for the common person, for every Christian not just for the scholar.  Let's say you have a friend, I'm not supposing that you don't and I'm sure you do, let's say your friend writes you a letter.  You see who it's from, you're familiar with this friend, you open it up, anxiously finding out what the deal is.  And the letter opens up, "Dear friend," and all of a sudden after Dear friend is sort of cryptic language, uzza wuzza jazza mazza furfus murphus calorex flex.  You look at that and you go, "Hmm, now what could this mean?  A. It's a joke, it means nothing, B. It's some kind of cryptic code, I have to kind of, maybe it's Pig Latin or it's something I've gotta break the code.  C.  My friend has learned a new language.  Either way it's gibberish to you unless somebody who's enlightened comes and interprets it to you.  You need someone to tell you what it means.  A lot of people look at the Bible just like that.  It's some secret code, it's some mystical language, from heaven, from God to man.  We don't know what it is, we need an expert to crack the code, to decipher it for us.  We can't on our own learn whet it is and if we ever want to know what God is saying, we have to go far away to some school, some university, some foreign study place or we have to get a course on how to study it, it's for the expert, it's not for the common person.  That's hogwash, it is written for every single person of every time period.

In fact here in Psalm 119 look at verse 27, David says, "Make me understand the way of your precepts.  So shall I meditate on your wondrous works."  In verse 100 he says, very confidently, "I understand, I understand more than the ancients because I keep your precepts.  The word understand in the Hebrew word means to separate or to differentiate.  I can distinguish what this is and what that is and what that means.  I can perceive it and thus I can gain wisdom because of it.  That's what it means.  I understand, I really get it as I read it.

The next few weeks we want to give you some basic tools as we've said so that you can feel at home in any portion of the Bible.  You don't have to be afraid of the Bible.  "Oh, but it was written so long ago."  But the real author is the Holy Spirit and guess where He lives, inside of you.  And because the Holy Spirit is the author and because he live inside of you, the Bible is not for some elite group of scholars, it's for the infant, that is the infant Christian, the baby Christian, to the full mature Christian, from every age.  Deuteronomy 29:29 is actually one of my favorite scriptures.  It says, "Those things which are hidden belong to the Lord our God.  But those things which are revealed belong to us.  And to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law."  There are certain things that God can keep to Himself but what things God has revealed are for all of us and for our children, forever and ever that we might keep the word of God.

You might have heard the story of Sir Walter Scott, that British statesman, when he was dying and he had his secretary and his own group around him as he was on his deathbed.  He had an incredible library and as he was dying he turned to his secretary and he said, "Bring me the book."  And his secretary said, "Sir Scott, uh, with all respect, you have such a vast library with thousands of volumes, which book shall I bring you?"  and he looked at him directly in the eye and he said, "Bring me THE book, the bible," the only book for a dying man.  He was right, the Bible indeed is the only book for a dying man because of the hopes and promises.  But it's also a book for the living man, the living woman, the living child.  Whether you're past retirement age or you're a young person.  Now there's a number of reasons for this, I'm just going to cover a couple:  the language in the Bible is simple, it's earthy.  The people who wrote it were simple people, the illustrations are simple illustrations.  Peter was a fisherman from Galilee, Luke was a doctor of the Gentiles, Amos was a herdsman from Tacoa, Nehemiah was a cupbearer in the court of a Persian king.  These were just people from various walks of life.  And they wrote very simply for the most part, for the most part.  They wrote about simple subjects, they wrote about water sources, they wrote about farming, sowing and reaping, they wrote about the city gates; all of the things that the common person would be familiar with.  David himself who wrote Psalm 119 and most of the psalms, was a simple shepherd, who became a musician, who became a warrior who became the king of Israel but he writes very simply in his language.  In fact in verse 3, notice that he speaks of following God aw walking in his ways.  The idea is simply walking along a path but I'm walking in God's path.  In vrse 9 he speaks of living morally pure life as having his way cleansed.  In verse 25 he speaks of depression as "my soul clinging to the dust," very picturesque but very simple.  In verse 61 he speaks of being harassed by his enemies as "the cords of the wicked have bound me."  Verse 70 he describes one who's "insensitive and indifferent to truth as there heart is as fat as grease," they would have all understood that.  To express being withered by sorrow and burned out by life," in verse 83, "For I have become like wineskin in smoke," as it would get drier and drier.  In same psalm but verse 103 he speaks of the delight of studying the Bible and we already read it, "How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth."  Simple stuff, analogies, words that the commoner would understand.

Then we get to the New Testament and the New Testament is written in Greek.  Of course we understand that, if you've gone to any Bible study for very long, usually the people who teach it will say, "Now in the Greek it says.."  We get the idea, oh the Greek, what a lofty language that is, it's the scholar's language."  Well that's where you're wrong because the New Testament language is called koinai Greek where we get the word common, we get the word koinonia which means fellowship in the New Testament.  It's from the word koinai, it's common, marketplace, street stuff.  Peddlers would use it, housewives would use it, common simple Greek.  Not classical Greek, not primitive Greek, not Byzantine Greek, not modern Greek; but it was koinai Greek from the time of Alexander the Great to about five hundred years after him.  Now that doesn't mean, as I say that, that the Bible is always a breeze to understand.  That doesn't mean, "oh it's written in simple language, "I can just pick it up and figure it all out quickly."  I think you can understand it but it doesn't mean every part of it is that simple, it's not always breezy, there are difficult parts.  There's a lot of times I don't understand the Bible.  I'll read commentaries, I'll pray, I'll do word studies and I'll come out of it and I'll go, "I don't know."  And many times people will ask me, "Well what does this mean?"  And I'll say, "I don't know."  They say, "Well I already had that answer, I thought you'd have a better one than that."  Well the Bible says we know in part and when that which is perfect (Jesus Christ) comes we're going to have fullness of knowledge.  But until then I'm waiting for that time.  I have a little file I've created in my mind, I hope you have it too, "waiting for further information" file.  Do you have one of those?  It's a good file to keep.  And there's a lot of open files in there, waiting for further information.  And every now and then I'll pick up a tidbit of truth and I'll, "Oh I remember, that fits right over with that verse and that with this verse."  There's a lot I don't know but that's all right there's a lot I do know. 

There's a story of a clergyman years ago riding a train on the East Coast from New Jersey to New York.  As he was in the train, across from him was an agnostic who noticed that the clergyman was a clergyman because he had a little white collar and he had a big black book next to him.  As they served up lunch, which was New England codfish, one of the preacher's favorites, filled with bones however, picking the bones throwing them off to the side.  The agnostic kind of smiled and said, "I'm going to have fun with this guy."  He said, "Hey preacher, that a Bible you got next to you?"  The preacher said respectfully, "Well sir, yes it is."  "Yeah (ahem) do you believe everything in it?"  "Well yes I do.  I believe it's the word of God, infallible and inerrant."  The agnostic king of smiled and said, "Really?  Well, have you ever found any difficulties in the Bible?"  And he started to name a few.  He said, "Oh yes, there are many difficulties in the Bible."  Then the agnostic said, "Oh great I got him now."  He said, "Okay, you say it's the word of God.  But there's all of these difficulties that I have discovered, that you've discovered that are in that Bible.  What do you do when you come up to all these difficulties?  Does it rattle your faith a little bit?"  The preacher turned to him confidently and he said, "Well it's sort of like this fish here that I'm eating.  I just eat it and I leave the bones for some other fool to choke on.  And if you want to choke on them, fine.  But I'm just going to eat this fish and be nourished by it."

I think the lesson behind what he was saying is this, "Never give up what you know for sure for things you don't know for sure."  It's not worth it.  There's a lot of things I don't know for sure.  There's a lot of problems in life.  I know in part, and if I could know everything, I'd be God.  And if you could know everything, you'd be God.  And there comes a point where yes God condescends to meet us by writing it in our language but yet God is transcendent above mankind. 

As God told Isaiah the prophet in Isaiah 55, "my ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts.  They're higher than your thoughts.  As the heavens are above the earth, so far are my ways above your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. 

Mark Twain said this, Most people are bothered by those passages in the scripture which they cannot understand.  The scripture which troubles me the most is the scripture I do understand."  Can you relate with that?  Listen, there's a lot you can't understand but what about all those convicting scriptures that just penetrate your heart.  "oh," Mark Twain says, "Those are the ones that really bug me.  They trouible me." 

Now it brings up a question that people often ask me, "What about human teachers?  If I can understand the Bible on my own and if God wants to by his Spirit reveal it to me, He's written it in a very condescending way so that I can understand it with very basic idioms by basic people in a basic language, why do we need human teachers?  In fact, look at verse 99, David says, "I have more understanding than all my teachers for your testimonies are my meditation."  Well if that's the case then why do we even need teachers?  Why do we need guys like me?  Why do we need churches where somebody will teach people the Bible if we don't need them?  John wrote this in I John chapter 2 verse 27, "but the anointing which you have received from him abides in you.  And you do not need that anyone should teach you.  But the same anointing teaches you concerning all things and is true and is not a lie, just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him."  So John said, "You don't need anybody to teach you.  So you say, "Well David said I know more than all my teachers and John said, ‘You got the same anointing, you don't need anybody to teach you.'  Does that eliminate human teachers?"  Not at all.  What John is getting at, let's tackle that first, is the group that he was writing to were up against a group of teachers called Gnostic teachers who said, "We have a special knowledge and you can't really know God like you should unless you come through us with our special anointing and our special teaching."  And John says, "That's a bunch of baloney.  You've got the Holy Spirit living in you.  You don't need to go to any of these special anointed Gnostic teachers who think they know more than anybody else.  The Holy Spirit can reveal to you what is truth and what is error."  That was his whole point.

Now, the Gnostics were guilty of that.  At times, I've got to admit, the church of Jesus Christ has been as guilty as the Gnostic teachers.  We have said, "Well you can't really understand it until you take a course in Greek or Hebrew or Aramaic."  "Well you can't really understand it unless you go through this method of Bible teaching."  Or, "Unless you listen to me and do this in my way."  It's unfortunate, when Wycliffe made his English translation, or the Bible into English, the church opposed him.  They didn't want the Bible written in English.  They thought, "No this is for the clergyman to tel you what the Bible says,  You can't discover it on your own, who knows what might happen?"  And when Wycliffe presented his English Bible so that the average layman Englishperson could understand it, the church said this, "By this translations the scriptures have become vulgar and they are now more available to the lay, even to women, who can read, than they were to learned scholars who have a high intelligence.  So the pearl of the gospel is scattered and trodden underfoot by swine."  These were church leaders who said that.  Wycliffe said this in reply, "Englishmen learn Christ's law best in English.  Moses heard God's law in his own tongue and so did Christ's apostles."  And so he gave them an English translation of the Bible."

So God gives teachers to people.  That's what Paul said,  Paul says that God in Ephesians chapter 4 "gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastor-teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ."  God gives us teachers so rhat we can be equipped to do God's service.

I have about 220 linear feet of books in my library.  I want to find out where others have plowed before me, I'm not arrogant enough to think, "I'm the only one God speaks to, I don't need to read what God has told anybody else."  It doesn't mean that God has told them is right, but I want to compare what God has shown me in the word and I want to read and I want to study to find out what God has given to others since God has given teachers to the church.  Every now and then somebody will say, "Well, you know, you really don't need to think, you know, God isn't interested in your brain, just your heart."

There was a pastor who visited a little country church way out in the sticks.  And after he gave his message ad it was a well-crafted message.  It had depth as well as spirit of conviction and real life to ie.  Afterwards s simple little countryman came up to him and said, "Brother, God can get along without all your learnin'."  And the preacher very humbly said, "Well you're actually right, God can sir.  But I would say also that He can get along without your ignorance as well."  There's nothing with applying your mind.  You're to love the Lord your God with all your heart, MIND, soul and strength.  And love your neighbor as yourself.  You don't have to check your brains at the door when you become a Christian.  Think with them.  The Bible actually commands us to do that.

So, we can learn from others but when we open the Bible on our own, the Holy Spirit can teach us the truths of scripture.  And this is really what I'm getting at in this series because sometimes folks, and you know it's true, we can a little bit conditioned to being spoon-fed the Bible.  It's easy, we're spoon fed.  Or we listen to tapes or we'll just listen to somebody teach it to us.  But not do the same by reading it on our own.  Or we'll just buy a bible with all the notes, it tells us what it says at the bottom.  Nothing wrong with that but we can just rely upon the notes or upon the tape or upon the radio teacher or upon the pastor.  After all, it's great to sit under somebody who's well-versed in the scripture and just soak it in.  You know, he does all the work, he does all the teaching, we doo all the sitting and the soaking.  It's kind of nice.  But the rewards come when you open it up on your own and the Holy Spirit reveals something fresh to your hear.  You'll never forget it.  Have you ever had that experience? You've read the bible, you have read a passage, maybe five or six times.  Suddenly you read it again, it's like new.  You've read it before, but now it's like the fog rolls away, the sun comes in, it's clear.  You get a full cogent clear understanding and picture of what it means.

So there's a balance between listening to those who teach us and studying on our own.  You be open to what people share.  You be open to what those teachers you but you search on your own.  Do you know what scripture I'm about to share?  Maybe you can king of see it coming.  There's a group in the New Testament that had the perfect balance.  They were called Bereans.  They're found in Acts chapter 17 verse 11.  And Paul was traveling to church to church to church and he came to Berea and he said, "Those in Berea were more noble (or fair-minded) than those in Thessalonica in that they received the word of God with all readiness of mind but they searched the scriptures daily to see if those things were so."  I love that.  They didn't walk around and say, "Well, you know, um, this guy on the radio said this so it's got to be true."  They would listen Paul the apostle, Paul the apostle, and then they would scrutinize him.  They would say, "Now I'm going to go home and I'm going to read the Bible or I'm going to look up the texts that are in the local synagogue or that are in the local church.  I'm going to find out if this Paul was right on or right off.  I'll see if things are really so."  So there's a balance between receiving and searching.

And I'll tell you what this means practically to us.  It means that we ought to be reading the Bible every day.  Do you know why?  Because the Bible is taught all over the place, it really is, from the local church to the local cult group.  People will knock on your door and they'll have magazines in one hand and a Bible in the other.  And they'll start telling you what the Bible says and if you don't really know what it says, you can accept a counterfeit.  So the more you read the real thing, like a teller in a bank who studies at $20 bill, the ral thing and can spot a counterfeit because he or she has studied the real thing for long enough.  When you know the real item and somebody passes a counterfeit doctrine your way, you can go, "Time out, pal.  That's wrong because of this scripture and this scripture." 

And the only way I know to do that is to read the Bible all the way through.  You say, "All the way through!?!  Can't I just get a couple Psalms and maybe a little Matthew and a little John at night, you know, and maybe a midnight Proverb.  But, all the way through?  That'll take forever, won't it?"  No it won't.  It'll take you about twelve minutes a day.  You can read the Bible in a year.  If you read the Bible at what is called pulpit speed, slow enough to be read out loud, it takes you 70 or 71 hours, it is thought.  365 days a year, twelve minutes or so a day depending on how fast you read.  It would take you 52 hours to read the Old Testament, eighteen hours for the New Testament.  The longest portion in the Old Testament, like Isaiah or Psalms, about four and a half hours.  The gospel of Luke, less than three hours.  You say, "Well, that's a long time."  Not in a year.  Think of what you do all year long.  Think of how much time we spend making a living.  Forty hours a week, it's about two thousand hours a year.  Or sleeping, about three thousand hours a year.  Or eating, that's about 550 hours a year just eating food.  For some it's a lot more than that.  (laughter)  The average person will spend one thousand five hundred hours watching television and for some people it's a lot more than that.  You see perspective is everything.  We spend our lives doing lots of things but in perspective of eternity and what is really important, we need to be reading the Bible every single day.  And I've quoted this before but I love what Charles Spurgeon used to say about the Bible.  He said, "A Bible that is falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn't."  That doesn't mean, "Oh I'll take my Bible and start really working it over to make it look like I spend a lot of time in it."  But you can see that a tattered Bible is because somebody opens it a lot. 

By the way, don't stick pins in it, it'll just trash it and if you put too much pieces of paper in it, it separates the binding.  We'll leave that for another time, but you can really thrash a Bible but you do want to use it.

Now let's just kind of end with this thought:  the power of the Bible.  And it will probably whet our appetite for future studies to come:  the power of Bible study.  When Paul wrote a letter to the Thessalonians he write a letter to a young church who listened to the word of God, as Paul put it, "the word of God which also effectively works in you who believe."  Have you found that the word of God works effectively in  you as you read it daily?  Let me read that verse to you in I Thessalonians in the Amplified Bible, "The word of God exercising its superhuman power in those who adhere to and trust in and rely on it.  Superhuman power.  One of the most powerful claims of the Bible is that it changes lives, it's effective, it brings results.  This is what God said through the prophet Isaiah, "For as the rain comes down and snow from heaven and do not return there but water the earth and make it bring forth and bud that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from my mouth.  It shall not return to me void.  It shall accomplish what I please.  It shall prosper in the thing for which I have sent it."  You know for me one of the greatest joys I have, when I stand up in a pulpit or a podium, when I speak here or I speak anywhere else in the world, one of the greatest joys I have is knowing that my product will work, for lack of a better term.  I know that when I deliver the goods, it'll work.  It's not going to return void, it's a product that is guaranteed to have incredible results.  It changes lives, when people listen and are open.

You may have heard of the vacuum cleaner salesman, that went way out in the country to that lady's house.  (You know, vacuum cleaner salesmen, if there's any here tonight I'm not trying to pick on you but I have had my share of them.)  Hew went out to the country selling a vacuum and this guy bless his heart he just, he was open, he was aggressive, he knocked in the door.  The little old lady in the country opened the door.  And he did all the talking.  "Now lady I want you to know this vacuum cleaner is the best vacuum cleaner, it beats all other vacuum cleaners…"  And he just went on and on with his spiel, walked, weaseled his way inside the living room.  And said, "Now madam, this thing is so powerful it would suck up your carpet if I didn't control it.  Really, you've just got to trust me on this, madam."  The he walks over to her fireplace, takes dust, ashes, throws it on her carpet, goes outside, takes dust from the garden, throws it down, kind of rubs it in with his feet.  She's just standing there aghast, she didn't even give him permission to walk in the door.  He said, "I know what you're thinking madam but believe me, if this vacuum cleaner won't suck up every bit of this dirt, I promise you I'll eat it all with a spoon."  She looked at him and said, "Sonny, you better start eatin'.  We ain't got no electricity out here."  What could be more frustrating than having a product that has no power.  No power to deliver the goods, to be caught in a situation where it can't produce.

The word of God does produce, it does have power.  It brings salvation, II Timothy chapter 3, Paul said, "From childhood you have known the Holy scriptures, Timothy which are able to make you wise for salvation."  Not only that, it prepares you for service.  A couple verses down he says, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for reproof, correction, instruction, righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped, prepared for every good work."  It'll prepare you for life.  You can go to college, there's nothing wrong with that, and they'll prepare you in their coursework and curricula for a vocation.  But the Bible will prepare you to live the way God wants you to live for all of life. 

It will also give you growth in your life.  I peters chapter 2 verse 2, he said, "As newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby.  Get off junk food, get off a bent or a perspective of a human being, doctrinal trends or whims that sweep through the church that are not founded upon the scripture.  They blow through all the time, there's some new this and some new that that people come up with, some new truth.  Stick with the Word, you'll grow.

It'll give you direction for life.  Psalm 119 verse 105, "Your Word is a lamp to my feet, it's a light to my path."  You know it's amazing, you read the Bible, you know where you're going in life.  I have found personally when I have questions in my life, even before oftentimes I'll have the chance to discuss them with another counselor, that God will answer my questions in his word.  David said, "Your precepts are my counselors."  I find that the need for counseling diminishes as the appetite for the word of God is on the rise. 

It'll bring joy to your life.  David said, "Blessed is the man," Psalm 1 and here verse 1 of Psalm 119, "who meditates in the scripture."  Verse 162 in Psalm 119, "I rejoice at your word as one who finds great treasure."  David said in Psalm 19, "The statutes are the right and they rejoice the heart."

It will also bring you victory in your life.  You want that, don't you?  You fight battles, you find the enemy coming against you, tempting you, telling you things that you don't want to hear, pressuring you.  Well Paul called the Bible the sword of the Spirit.  And it's like when there are certain times in your life when you're being assailed by the enemy, you can whip out that particular truth from the Bible, particular scripture verse or set of verses that can poke the enemy's stronghold and do damage and you can get victory in your life.

When Satan attacked Jesus Christ, what did Jesus do?  Did he say, "I bind you Satan?"  No, he said, "It is written."  He said it over and over again until Satan left.  He quoted the word of God.

So, when you see the possibilities that you can understand it and you experience the power, the changes of the word of God as you receive it, you're going to enjoy studying the Bible and I think truly you'll enjoy life as a whole.  It's my personal conviction that the joys of life are doubled in the Christian life.  We enjoy all the same air and beauty  that unbelievers enjoy but in our enjoyment we see God which increases our joy.  The unbeliever's joy, there's that hollowness about it, where does it all lead?  What's it all bout in the end?  Therefore it's decreased.  The Christian doubles his joy because he sees God in everything.  The Bible says, "God has given us all things richly to enjoy."

So in the end, it's not how many times you read the Bible, it's not how many times you go through the Bible; it's how many times the Bible goes through you.  And you live it out and it becomes the joy and the rejoicing of your heart.  Remember what the two on the road to Emmaus said when Jesus left them and spoke the scriptures?  What did they say?  "Did not our hearts burn within us as He spoke to us along the way?"  What did Jesus speak to them?  He spoke to them Moses, Psalms, and the rest of the Old Testament, the scripture tells us.  He told them all about what they already knew, the Bible,  But it burned in their hearts.  As they understood it, it brought them joy.

Let's pray.  Father, we thank you that we have the opportunity to own this book.  And we realize that there are many brothers and sisters worldwide that do not have a copy of the scriptures, though they would give anything that they possessed to own one.  People in China, people in Soviet bloc countries, other parts of Asia, South America, Africa, where they share the Bible, one for a whole congregation.  It's a joy to them.  May it be a joy to us.  For to who much is given, much is required.

Additional Messages in this Series

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6/20/1996
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Having the Right Tools
Skip Heitzig
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Message Summary
Any person performing a job needs to have the right tools, whether an artist, builder, or surgeon. It's no different when you study the Bible, but it can be overwhelming trying to find the right tools. In this message, Skip Heitzig shares how you can find the right Bible for you and gives you insight on resources like Bible concordances, dictionaries, and commentaries.
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7/18/1996
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Taking the Right Approach
Skip Heitzig
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Message Summary
How should you study the Bible? Some might study it mystically, looking for hidden meanings, or academically, like it's just another piece of literature. But the Bible is unlike any other book, so we should approach it differently. In this message, Skip Heitzig explains how to study God's Word so you can extract the richness of the text and apply it to your life.
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8/15/1996
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Open Your Eyes: Observation
Skip Heitzig
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Message Summary
The Bible is the best-selling book of all time, with millions of Bibles sold every year. But that doesn't mean there is a corresponding growth in Bible knowledge. You can own a Bible but fail to observe and absorb what's in it, so it becomes part of you. In this message, Skip Heitzig shares a few ways you can observe the Bible in order to enhance your reading and enjoyment of God's Word.
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8/29/1996
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Open Your Mind: Interpretation
Skip Heitzig
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Message Summary
When it comes to interpreting the Bible, many people have a relative approach: they have their interpretation, and you have yours. But it's important to have the right interpretation, because from the Bible, you make decisions on how to live your life. In this message, Skip Heitzig gives you some helpful rules and methods you can follow to correctly and accurately interpret the Bible.
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9/12/1996
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Open Your Senses: How to Study Figurative Language - Part 1
Skip Heitzig
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Message Summary
The Bible isn't a volume of systematic theology; it's full of stories, poetry, and vivid language that appeals to our senses. God wants to capture our attention through His Word, so His truths will saturate our minds and fill our hearts. In this message, Skip Heitzig shares some helpful tips on interpreting the figurative language found in the Bible.
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10/17/1996
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Open Your Senses: How to Study Figurative Language - Part 2
Skip Heitzig
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Message Summary
We often use figures of speech to express something in a way that's not literal. The Bible is full of figurative language, expressing truth in dramatic and vivid ways to unlock the mind and heart to receive that truth. In this message, Skip Heitzig looks at four creative ways that truth is communicated in the Bible, showing you how to read and interpret this type of language.
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10/24/1996
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Open Your Heart: Application
Skip Heitzig
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Message Summary
You can read the Bible, observe what it says, and interpret it accurately, but if you stop there, you've missed the best part. You must take the next step: apply it personally to your life and live out what it says. In this message, Skip Heitzig encourages you to open your heart to the Scriptures and practice its truths, so you can stand firm on the solid foundation of the Word.
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There are 7 additional messages in this series.
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