12 FOUNDATION STONES - CLASS 6A KNOW THE BOOK BIBLE KNOWLEDGE, PART 1.1 ------------------------------------------ Section 1: Why Study the Bible? ------------------------------------------ > You should study the Bible for your own benefit It's important that you know your Bible, first of all for your own benefit! - So you know where to find what you're looking for and what you want to study and what you want to read, etc. The Lord is the Author! Remember, the people who "wrote" the Bible were merely tools in His hands. The Lord inspired them to write what they did. If you want to get to know His views, His explanation of history and His outlook for the future, read what He has to say! The Author made me! A learned Chinese scholar was employed by some missionaries to translate the New Testament into Chinese. At first the work of translating had no effect upon the man. But after some time he became quite agitated and said, "What a wonderful book this is!" "Why so?" asked the missionary. "Because," said the man, "it tells me exactly about myself. It knows all that is in me. The One Who made this book must have made me!" > Reading the Bible, you get closer to the Author Psalm 119:9 - How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your Word. Psalm 119:15 - I will meditate on Your precepts, and contemplate Your ways. Psalm 119:27 - Make me understand the way of Your precepts; so shall I meditate on Your wondrous works. Psalm 119:42 - So shall I have an answer for him who reproaches me, for I trust in Your Word. Psalm 119:97 - Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. Psalm 119:99 - I have more understanding than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation. Psalm 119:100 - I understand more than the ancients, because I keep Your precepts. Psalm 119:104 - Through Your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way. Psalm 119:105 - Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Psalm 119:144 - The righteousness of Your testimonies is everlasting; give me understanding, and I shall live. Psalm 119:151 - You are near, O Lord, and all Your commandments are truth. Psalm 119:160 - The entirety of Your Word is truth, and every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever. Psalm 119:165 - Great peace have those who love Your law, and nothing causes them to stumble. > You should study the Bible for your witness The Bible is well known and is a well-recognized authority. Most people at least have heard about it and a lot of people respect it, and there are millions of people who even believe in it! If you can quote the Bible to them, or if you can even find the verses and the proof you want in the Bible and show it to them, a lot of people will believe it. But if you don't even know how to find the verses in the Bible, how can you purport to be wise enough to tell others how to find Heaven, if you don't even know the names of the Books or where the passages are and how to find them! Even for the people who pretend not to believe it, the Word is powerful just the same! - "Sharper than any two-edged sword," full of the power of the Spirit and very convicting. Hebrews 4:12 - For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. > To know the future: The Bible tells us what's going to happen! The Bible contains hundreds of specific prophecies about people, nations, places, times, and events that have already been fulfilled down to the smallest detail. Some of these were fulfilled almost immediately, others took hundreds of years, but each came to pass exactly as God said they would. (There are also many other prophecies in the Bible that are yet to be fulfilled, which will be fulfilled just as surely.) Fulfilled prophecy is one of the greatest proofs of the Bible! Who else but God could have revealed the future thousands of years before it would unfold? Who else but God could have foretold the future in perfect detail, long before it happened? A lot of these prophecies haven't happened yet, so they're not yet proven, but there are hundreds and hundreds of prophecies in the Bible that have already been fulfilled and are already proven! They say there are over 300 prophecies about Jesus alone and His first coming that have already been fulfilled in detail! In the book Understanding God's Word (Get Activated series), pages 80–87, you'll find over sixty of the most outstanding fulfilled prophecies, arranged into two groups: 1) those fulfilled by Jesus and 2) others from both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Take the time to study these. For now, we'll look at one example. ------------------------------------------ A place for fishermen's nets - The fall of Tyre Tyre was a city in ancient Lebanon which still exists today. In the years when the prophecy was given, Tyre was part of a country called Phoenicia. This was about 600 years before Jesus was born. In the year 590 B.C., God spoke to the prophet Ezekiel and told him what was going to happen in the future to the city of Tyre. From Ezekiel chapters 26–30 - Son of man, because Tyre has said against Jerusalem, ‘Aha! She is broken.' And hast said, ‘I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas - I am of perfect beauty!' Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Behold, I am against you, O Tyre, and will cause many nations to come up against you. And they shall destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers; I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock. It shall be a place for spreading nets in the midst of the sea, for I have spoken,' says the Lord God; ‘it shall become plunder for the nations. I will make you a terror, and you shall be no more; though you are sought for, you will never be found again. I will make you like the top of a rock; you shall be a place for spreading nets, and you shall never be rebuilt. Behold, I will bring against Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: … and they shall know that I am the Lord [when] I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; yet had he no wages, nor his army, for Tyrus. God told Ezekiel that because the city of Tyre was proud and rebellious against God, then God was going to allow the king of another country to come and destroy the city. He said that the city would end up in ruins, just piles of rocks for the fishermen to spread their nets over. If you were living in Tyre in those days, you would have thought this was a silly prediction. Tyre was the great city of the Phoenicians, built on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean Sea in what is now the modern nation of Lebanon. The Phoenicians were a great seafaring and trading people - "all the ships of the sea" came to Tyre. The Phoenicians were one of the outstanding civilizations of ancient times. Ezekiel 27:9 - Elders of Gebal and its wise men were in you to caulk your seams; all the ships of the sea and their oarsmen were in you to market your merchandise. But just look what happened to Tyre! Nebuchadnezzar was the heathen king of Babylon. He went out conquering many countries. God even allowed him to conquer His people in the land of Israel because they had turned their backs on God's ways. In 586 B.C. four years later, Nebuchadnezzar's armies went through the cities of Tyre and Sidon. Just like God had told Ezekiel, Nebuchadnezzar tore down ancient Tyre and leveled it to the very ground, but left the ruins there. The whole prophecy still had not been fulfilled because the old city of Tyre had not been scraped "as bare as the top of a rock" and its ruins were not yet "a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea." Nebuchadnezzar received no wages for destroying Tyre - no jewels or gold or loot - because the people of Tyre fled to a little island that was a half mile offshore. There the people built a new city and took all of their wealth with them. Nebuchadnezzar was not a seafaring man. He had no ships or navy and he was unable to cross that little half mile of ocean between him and the island to conquer them. So on the mainland lay the ruins of ancient Tyre, while a new city of Tyre was built on the island. The prophecy was still not completely fulfilled. But what God says, eventually comes to pass! Sometimes it takes a long time, but God's prophecies never fail! And that's what happened. About 250 years later a Macedonian king named Alexander the Great came along sweeping the world with his armies, fighting great battles with minimal losses on his side. In 332 B.C., Alexander came to Tyre. He heard all about this wealthy city out there on the island. Alexander was a very smart general. He looked out across that half mile of water and said, "How can I get there? I want to get all that money they have out there!" So he began looking around for something to use, and he saw this big pile of rubble that used to be the ancient city of Tyre - all those bricks and stones and mortar and timbers. So Alexander's army got it all together and they scraped everything they could find right into the Mediterranean Sea. They scraped the area bare and used the materials to build a causeway right across the shallow floor of the Mediterranean to the island city! And soon Alexander captured and plundered the island city of Tyre. And do you know what? Along the sides of that road the fishermen spread their nets exactly like God had prophesied! Tyre was thrown into the sea! This exact end of ancient Tyre was predicted over 250 years before it happened! Only God could have predicted that so many years before! ------------------------------------------ In the next class we'll be looking at fulfilled prophecies about Jesus, which is an amazing study all in itself. In later classes we'll look at prophecies concerning the time we are now living in. ------------------------------------------ > Quick summary of reasons to study the Bible: For our own benefit and spiritual growth To get closer to the Author and to know His mind For the sake of our witness to others To know the future: The Bible tells us what's going to happen! ------------------------------------------ (continued in part 2)