Thursday
Evening Bible Study
August
16, 2012
Introduction
Do people see Jesus? Is the gospel preached? Does it speak to the
broken hearted? Does it build up the church? Milk – Meat – Manna Preach for a
decision Is the church loved?
I hear that
this week is “Shark Week”, and so as a public service, I want to give you some
important tips on …
How to survive a shark
attack
1. Don`t swim in the
ocean.
Ninety-nine percent of all shark attacks take place in exceptionally large
bodies of water also known as oceans. The way to determine if you are currently
in an ocean is to taste the water, which should be salty.
2. Listen out for the
music.
In the event that you are foolish enough to swim in an ocean, listen
carefully for the music, as demonstrated in the marvelous documentary film
Jaws. All shark attacks are preceded by the "daah-da,
daah-da" chords, which will gradually become
more rapid as the shark gets closer. This is due to the Doppler Effect.
3. Swim with fat
people.
Try to surround yourself with more appetizing companions. If you know them
well, you might even try to switch their suntan lotion with A-1 Steak Sauce.
This will definitely improve your odds.
4. Don`t go into the
water without a knife.
This is not to defend yourself but to stab the person (a.k.a
the decoy) closest to you in the case of a shark attack. Once you are sure the "decoy"
is bleeding profusely.....then swim for your life. And finally.....
5. Don`t panic.
In the event that a shark actually bites you, try to remain calm. This really
won`t help you survive, but everyone else on the beach will appreciate you not
shrieking madly, as this is quite unsettling and can really spoil a wonderful
day out! Remember it's not always about you ..!
Jesus also
talked about surviving, not shark attacks, but LIFE, and the difficulties that
we will all face from time to time.
(Mt 7:24–27 NKJV) —24
“Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I
will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: 25 and the rain
descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it
did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. 26 “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who
built his house on the sand: 27 and the rain
descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it
fell. And great was its fall.”
As lovers of God’s Word, we sometimes can get caught in the trap of romanticizing
the life of the believer and think that if we just pay attention to God’s Word,
we will never experience difficulty.
When we go through difficult times, we get confused. We wonder what we did wrong? We wonder what the magic thing is that takes away all
our problems.
Yet that’s not what this parable teaches. It teaches that difficulty comes
to everyone.
Life is not about learning to have fewer troubles.
Life is about learning how to survive the troubles that come your way.
One of the key
components to what Jesus is teaching about surviving trouble is the
relationship you have with the Word of God, the Bible.
The key to survival is not just having a Bible. It’s not just reading your
Bible.
It’s what you do with your Bible that will allow you to survive.
I want to look at various individuals or groups of people through history
that have had a connection with God’s Word, some good, some bad, and pull out
some principles to help us get an idea of what it looks like to build our house
on the rock … and survive…
Abusing of the Word
The Pharisees
The Pharisees were a sect of the Jews, sort of like a denomination.
They had a very high view of God’s Word. They believed that the entire Old
Testament was the Word of God.
They believed in the supernatural. They believed in angels. They believed
in life after death.
They were very concerned about obeying the Word of God, being very
particular and careful to do everything just right.
In a sense, they were very much like us.
Yet Jesus didn’t often have many good things to say about the Pharisees.
(Mt 23:23–24
NKJV) —23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin,
and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy
and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. 24 Blind guides, who
strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!
The problem with the Pharisee movement was not the importance they placed
on God’s Word.
The problem was that they were concerned about the exterior of their lives,
the parts that others could see, and they neglected the inner part of their
lives, the most important part, the heart.
Lesson
Surface only
The person who values the Word of God, but only allows it
to affect surface issues, is not one who will do well when trouble comes.
We call this kind of a person, a “hypocrite”.
The roommate is a hypocrite because he says one thing to
girls, but acts a different way.
The Pharisee is
the person who pretends to be one thing in front of others, while being
something different when they are alone or with different friends.
This is the
fellow who is concerned about internet pornography, but really only concerned
with not being caught.
Instead of dealing with the heart issues that drive him
the wrong way, he simply tries to cover it up and hide it.
This is the person
who is criticizing other people because they aren’t obviously trying as hard to
cover up their problems as he is.
Instead of being concerned about people who are struggling with sin, he is
critical of them because they aren’t doing as well as he is in faking it.
(Mt 9:10–13
NKJV) —10 Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the
house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down
with Him and His disciples. 11 And when the
Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat
with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 When Jesus heard that, He said
to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are
sick. 13 But go and learn what this means:
‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come
to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
Of course God is concerned about your actions and the things that you do
outwardly, but the way to fix problems is not just about cleaning up the
outside, but working on the inside.
When the inside is dealt with, the outside takes care of itself.
Job’s friends
Job is the fellow
in the Bible that had everything go wrong at once.
His children were all killed.
He lost all his possessions.
His health was falling apart.
One of the things I struggle with in the book every time I read it is the
way that Job’s friends treat him.
At first, when word gets out about his troubles, his friends show up and
they just sit with him in silence.
But when the silence is broken, Job begins to complain about his terrible
life (which is indeed really, really terrible), and then Job’s friends begin to
attack Job by claiming that it’s all obviously Job’s fault that these things
have happened.
They say things to Job like this (Zophar):
(Job 11:13–20 NKJV) —13
“If you would prepare your heart, And stretch out your hands toward
Him; 14 If
iniquity were in your hand, and you put it far away, And would
not let wickedness dwell in your tents; 15 Then surely you could lift up your face without spot; Yes, you
could be steadfast, and not fear; 16 Because you would forget your misery, And remember it
as waters that have passed away, 17 And your life would be brighter than noonday. Though
you were dark, you would be like the morning. 18 And you would be secure, because
there is hope; Yes, you would dig around you, and
take your rest in safety. 19 You would also lie down, and no one would make you afraid; Yes, many would court your favor. 20 But the
eyes of the wicked will fail, And they shall not
escape, And their hope— loss of life!”
Zophar is saying that if Job will just repent of
his sins (whatever they are), then life will be okay.
Another friend (Eliphaz) tells him that he is
being disciplined by God:
(Job 5:17 NKJV) “Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects; Therefore do
not despise the chastening of the Almighty.
What I find so hard about these passages is that they actually contain
truth.
The phrase by Eliphaz (Job 5:17) is quoted by
Solomon (Prov. 3:11) and the writer of Hebrews (Heb. 12:5).
Lesson
Misapplied
The problem with Job’s friends is not that they didn’t know the truth of
God’s Word, but that they were mis-applying it to
Job’s situation.
They some truth, but they didn’t know the truth about Job’s situation.
I see this in the lives of those who have been believers for a year or so,
and begin to think they now know the Bible, but not enough to know that they
really don’t know all the answers.
This is the person who knows the verse:
(Heb 4:12 NKJV) 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.
They
like to use the word as a “sword”, to wound others, rather than as a scalpel to
bring healing.
This is one of the reasons why the church is often called “the only army
that shoots its own wounded”.
Listen to some of Job’s response to
his friends:
(Job 12:1–3 NKJV) —1 Then Job answered and said: 2 “No doubt you are the people, And wisdom will die
with you! 3 But I have
understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you. Indeed, who does
not know such things as these?
Do you hear the
sarcasm?
And yet, even while Job's friends "abused" the Word, Job still clings
to it
(Job 23:12 NKJV) I have not
departed from the commandment of His lips; I have treasured the words of His
mouth More than my necessary food.
Using the Word
Jehoshaphat
Jehoshaphat was one of the good kings. He was one of the kings of the southern
kingdom of Judah.
While he was king, he faced a huge challenge. Three enemy nations had
joined together and their armies were on the march to attack.
Jehoshaphat
gathered the people together and they prayed, asking God for help.
God responded by giving a message to one of the musicians, and he shared
what God had to say:
(2 Ch 20:17 NKJV) You will not need to fight in this battle. Position
yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, who is with you, O Judah and Jerusalem!’ Do not fear or
be dismayed; tomorrow go out against them, for the Lord is with you.”
We might call
this a word of “prophecy”. This is God’s Word. In a sense it’s just like God’s
Word in the Bible, only it was being spoken through a specific man standing
before them.
When Jehoshaphat heard God’s response to his prayers, he gathered up the
people and they went out to watch what God would do. But first, Jehoshaphat had
this to say:
(2 Ch 20:20 NKJV) So they rose early in the morning and went out into the Wilderness
of Tekoa; and as they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and
said, “Hear me, O Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem: Believe in the Lord your God,
and you shall be established; believe His prophets, and you shall prosper.”
Lesson
Believe
One of the first things that are important if we are going to survive the
storms of this life is to believe.
Now the clip is
a little confusing if you are trying to apply it to my point here because in a
sense we’re a little like the track coach who “believes” in his athlete like we
are supposed to “believe” in God. But
we’re not God’s “coach”, and there’s a sense that we’re more like the “athlete”
who is progressing and growing.
God doesn’t need to progress. God doesn’t need to get any
faster.
Yet
as we learn to believe more in Him, His work in us grows and develops.
We need to believe in God and His Word.
We won’t even understand what God’s
Word is trying to say to us unless we learn to believe, unless we learn to
trust Him.
(1 Co 2:14 NKJV) But the natural man
does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to
him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
We won’t even be on the same page as God is we don’t learn to trust Him.
(Heb 11:6 NKJV) But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for
he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
The
first step in surviving in believing.
(Jn 3:16 NKJV) For God so
loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but
have everlasting life.
Jehoshaphat and
his people expressed their trust in God by giving Him thanks and praising Him
BEFORE the battle even took place.
(2 Ch 20:22–23 NKJV) —22
Now when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushes against the people of
Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against
Judah; and they were defeated. 23 For the people of Ammon and Moab stood up
against the inhabitants of Mount Seir to utterly kill
and destroy them. And when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, they helped to destroy one another.
Daniel
We call Daniel a “prophet” because God spoke some amazing things through
him, but in reality, Daniel
was trained as a government official.
Daniel lived during the time of the great Babylonian exile when the people
of Judah had been carried off to live in Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, king of
Babylon.
Daniel was not only a prophet, a guy who God spoke through, but he was also
a student of the Scriptures as well.
(Da 9:2 NKJV) in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books
the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet, that
He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.
What Daniel understood was that his people would continue to be captives in
Babylon for seventy years, and that time was almost up.
What did Daniel do when he realized this?
(Da 9:3 NKJV) Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer
and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.
Lesson
Prayer
Daniel responded to God’s Word with prayer.
His prayer involved confessing the sins of the nation – probably because
God’s Word told him that if the people were ever carried off captive to a
foreign land because of their sins, and if they prayed and confessed their
sins, God would restore them.
But I think it’s also because that’s a great way to respond to God and His
Word – pray and ask God for help and direction.
As you go through life, you will be finding things in God’s Word that deal
with the things you need to change.
It might be in your daily Bible reading, it might be listening to a
message.
Sometimes the things you hear about are things that are quite deeply rooted
in our lives.
They need you to respond more than just by nodding your
head at a message, or whispering to your spouse a quick “I’m sorry”.
Sometimes they are deep character traits that are going to
take years to change and develop.
Handle them with prayer.
Illustration
I have been
learning over the years the value of having a list of specific things that I
feel I need to be praying for. There are things I know I need to be praying a
lot and regularly for, and I don’t want to forget them.
My prayer list has a section for my family, for our church in general, for
leaders in our church, fellow pastors … and a section for me.
I am learning that if I am really serious about something
changing, that I need to be praying regularly for it.
A few years back I was struggling with a person close to
me who was constantly being critical of me and others at church.
As I learned to deal with this person, I realized how much
I needed to learn “grace”. I realized that my concept of “grace” was pretty
shallow. I also felt as if God was encouraging me that I needed to be an
example to this fellow of what grace was all about. It was a tough couple of
years, yet praying every day for grace not only opened up God’s grace to me in
new, fresh ways, it also helped me as I was reading my Bible every day, to see
instances in the Scriptures of grace being displayed.
Learn to respond to God’s Word with prayer.
Josiah
Josiah was the last of the good guys. He was the last of the good kings of
Judah before the Babylonian conquest would come.
He became king
when he was only eight years old, during a time when the people didn’t care
much or know much about God. But as Josiah grew, he grew to know the Lord.
When he was 26 years old, he began to take an interest in the Temple, and
realized that the Temple had been falling into disrepair. He gave Hilkiah the high priest the responsibility of fixing up the
Temple. While Hilkiah and his crew were working, they
made an interesting discovery.
(2 Ki 22:8–11 NKJV) —8 Then Hilkiah
the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, “I have
found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord.”
They had apparently lost track of the Scriptures. Amazing.
And Hilkiah gave the
book to Shaphan, and he read it. 9 So Shaphan the scribe went to the king, bringing the king
word, saying, “Your servants have gathered the money that was found in the
house, and have delivered
it into the hand of those who do the work, who oversee the house of the Lord.” 10 Then Shaphan
the scribe showed the king, saying, “Hilkiah the
priest has given me a book.” And Shaphan read it
before the king. 11 Now it happened, when the king heard the words of the Book of the
Law, that he tore his
clothes.
Why did Josiah tear his clothes? Because he was horrified
when he realized just how far his nation had strayed from God. He heard
the warnings of God for Israel about a time they might stray from God and what
would happen if they did.
But Josiah didn’t just stay sad. He started to respond. He made changes.
Lesson
Change
Josiah had the priests start with the Temple itself, because they had
allowed all sorts of pagan stuff to creep into the Temple.
(2 Ki 23:4 NKJV) And the king commanded Hilkiah the high
priest, the priests of the second order, and the doorkeepers, to bring out of the
temple of the Lord all the
articles that were made for Baal, for Asherah, and
for all the host of heaven; and he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields
of Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel.
After dealing with the horrible things that were happening inside the Temple, Josiah began to work
his way through the land, tearing down everything that was so wrong.
In a way,
Josiah is a picture of the “anti-Pharisee”. The Pharisees only were concerned
with the outward appearance of things. Jesus said,
(Mt 23:25–26 NKJV) —25
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the
outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and
self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee, first
cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean
also.
If Josiah acted like a Pharisee, he’d just paint the
outside of the Temple. But that’s not what he did – he had the Temple cleaned
from the inside out. And then from the Temple, he began to cleanse the entire
nation.
Some people
think that all they need to worry about is changing on the outside.
Illustration
Drinking, Gambling, and Golf
A man was walking in the city, when
he was accosted by a particularly
dirty and shabby-looking bum who asked him for a couple of dollars for dinner. The
man took out his wallet, extracted two dollars, and asked, “If I gave you this
money, will you
take it and buy whiskey?” “No, I stopped drinking years ago,” the bum said. “Will you use it to
gamble?” “I don’t gamble. I need everything I can get just to stay alive.” “Will you spend the money
on greens fees at a golf course?” “Are you NUTS! I
haven’t played golf in 20 years!” The man said, “Well, I’m not going to give
you two dollars. Instead,
I’m going to take you to my home for a terrific dinner cooked by my wife.” The
bum was astounded. “Won’t your wife be furious with you for doing that? I know
I’m dirty, and I probably smell pretty bad.” The man replied, “That’s okay. I
just want her to see what a man looks like who’s given up drinking, gambling,
and golf.”
The changes we need to focus on are a little deeper. They deal with the heart.
How will you
respond to God’s Word?
James says that if we only listen to God’s Word and don’t respond by making
changes, we’re like a guy who gets up in the morning, sees all the stubble,
then walks away and forgets to shave. He writes,
(Jas 1:22 NKJV) But be
doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
Jesus said that if you want to survive the storms that are coming, you need
to not only hear the word, but do it.