All right let's pray. Dear Lord, I just pray that you'd fill Brother Dave with
your spirit and help us all to learn from the sermon how to better serve you
and to be better Christians and love one another. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
Amen. Good morning everybody. Thank you all for joining us. Thank you for being
here. Let's get right into the title of this message. Title of this sermon this
morning is the Bible in a Nutshell. We've been here now for almost a year. It's
been about eight or so months since we've been here. We're very thankful that
you guys see the preaching of the Bible, the reading of God's Word as very
important in your lives and we want to help you guys grow in your Christianity
because here's the thing the primary focus of us being here remember was to
show you salvation. Raise your hand if you've heard of the term the Great
Commission. This is a term that Jesus Christ used right before he ascended on
into heaven when he resurrected from the dead and he says go ye therefore into
all the world and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father
the Son and the Holy Ghost and teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I've commanded you and lo I am with you always even under the end of the world
even so Amen. So Jesus Christ wants us as preachers to go around and proclaim the
truth of the gospel salvation by faith alone in Jesus Christ but the Bible also
teaches in Romans chapter 1 we live from faith and to faith as it is written the
just shall live by faith so we need to realize that the Bible is very big hence
the title of this sermon the Bible in a nutshell you guys got to realize that
your walk with Jesus Christ is unique to you I cannot grab you by the hand and
force you to read your Bible we're here once a week and we have to help you with
the time that we are here and I understand that this book is
intimidating for the first time reader it could be very like daunting to be
like man it's a big book and this is not just for you guys but also for staff
I've noticed in the time that we've been here when we say turn here in the Bible
some people just boom they know exactly where to go and some people they're like
I don't know where that is and that's okay we're not expecting you guys to be
proficient in the Bible but over time it would be good for you to be proficient
in the Word of God because here's the thing I guarantee you I can ask someone
in here right now and say what's the starting lineup to the D backs and
somebody would be oh I know the entire starting lineup to the baseball team in
Arizona I know every injury that every player has I know their future stats and
where they're coming and where they're going but if I ask you guys a question
on the Bible where is this book in the Bible found who is this character I'm
not gonna ask for a raise of hands I'm sure some of you have been raised in
church and know the characters of the Bible know the stories of the Bible but
not everyone was raised in that setting I wasn't raised in the setting of being
knowing the scriptures from a youth now just because we start later in life does
not mean we can't finish strong our race with God because the first sermon I
preached when I got here is that the greatest days can still be ahead of you
and I believe that and you guys need to know that God used characters in the
Bible in their later half of their life to do the greatest works moving forward
so what do I mean by this look down at your Bible if you would in Hosea chapter
4 verse 6 notice what it says my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge
because thou has rejected knowledge I will also reject thee that thou shalt be
no priest to me seeing thou has forgotten the law of thy God I will also
forget thy children I'm sure you guys who have read your Bibles normally or
have heard Bible preaching to you there seems to be a theme throughout the Bible
where the people of God serve God and do good and then the next generation comes
in and forsakes God and wants nothing to do with them and then there's a collapse
and then there's a rise and then there's a collapse and then there's an upward
spiral and a downward spiral and that seems to be the history of mankind as a
whole so I want to help us to understand in a nutshell the Bible okay so what I
mean by this is I'm not gonna preach the whole entire Bible to you but if you
would turn to the very first page in your Bible to the table of contents I'll
let you guys take a second if staff Corbin if you can help them get to the
table of contents anyone I'm sure this is not a hard area to find the table of
contents the first book or the first page we're gonna be parked here for the
rest of the sermon because like I had mentioned a moment ago I want you guys
to know the Bible in a nutshell I can't go into the deep specific stories of
every single book I mean you know there are 66 books in the Bible now one of the
first things that may come right out the page to you is you notice there's a
division right from Genesis to Malachi and from Matthew to Revelation this is
what's known as the Old Testament or the Old Covenant and then there's what's
known as the New Testament or the New Covenant the Bible is composed of all
66 books from Genesis to Revelation now if you didn't know this God is
actually sectioned out of the Bible in a way that's easy for us to palette if you
just take the time and look at it so the first four books in the Bible are what
are known as the law of God or what some people call the Torah and it is the
books of Genesis Exodus Leviticus numbers and Deuteronomy so once again
I'm not gonna ask for a raise of hands of how many people have read their Bible
cover to cover but most times people end at this section of the Bible they get
excited they're ready to go I got a new Bible read the year in a the Bible
reading plan in a year I'm gonna go for it here we go
Genesis Exodus Leviticus numbers I'll get back to it later so most people have
read these first four books or five books of the Bible because it's the
beginning the word Genesis simply means the beginning and the book of Genesis
teaches that God created everything now here's a side note that I'll get into in
a later sermon that the universe and the creation of mankind to now is about
six thousand to sixty five hundred years ago if you reverse engineer the
math of the numbers that are found in the Bible you'll notice Adam begets
children you know Cain and Abel Cain and Abel have children those children
have children then we have the time to Noah and the flood and if you just take
the numbers that are already there in the existing chapters you'll notice so
and so was so old when he had his son and then his son with so-and-so when he
had his son and you take those numbers and from the time of creation to the
flood we're about sixteen to seventeen hundred years of history then the flood
happens God put a flood in the world to destroy all of creation because they
were to be punished for all the violence that they had accumulated in the world
and that included all the animals as well now little do you know not only we
all descendants of Adam and Eve were also descendants of Noah Noah had three
sons sham ham and Japheth and these are what known as the the starting of the
nations these three brought all the nations in the world together and what I
wanted you to realize is that from Genesis 1 to Genesis 7 is about 16 to
1700 years worth of history and I know this is a lot to kind of understand but
realize this if everything is about six thousand to sixty five hundred years a
lot of human history is crammed into seven chapters of the first book of the
Bible now that's important and we'll get to that later because you'll see a
reverse engineering at the end of the book of Revelation there's what's known
as the millennial reign of Christ which is a thousand year period where Christ
will reign on this earth but all I'm trying to get you guys to understand is
that the Bible teaches clearly that our world the universe everything is about
six thousand to sixty five hundred years old I'm not dogmatic on numbers I don't
you know some people try to pinpoint through the exact year and date I don't
think it's possible for us to know that but for sure we do not believe in an
atheistic perspective of the Bible we do not believe in the gap theory where
people think that you know from day one of creation to date two of creation that
those are thousands and millions of years the Bible clearly teaches in
Exodus that actually the Lord created the world and everything in six literal
24-hour days and that's the first point I wanted you to realize that the
first four books of the Bible five books of the Bible Genesis Exodus Leviticus
Numbers Deuteronomy are what are known as the law of God the word Exodus think
about the exit sign right it just means the leaving the going the children of
Israel from Genesis from the beginning to the ending of Genesis we get the
nation of Israel being founded then we go into Exodus we have the story of
Moses raise your hand if you've heard of the story of Moses or even if you heard
of the character Moses there are three characters in the Bible in the Old
Testament that are seen as the most significant characters Abraham well he's
a he is an important character but the three most known characters would be
Abraham Moses and King David but we get into Exodus they're leaving you know
Egypt to go into the Promised Land then we have the book of Leviticus which is
this God portraying all the rules and laws that he has for the people and the
Levitical priesthood were designed to expound on those laws numbers is the
numberings of the people and then we have Deuteronomy which is simply means
second law which just is a reiteration of the story and we're following a
chronological storyline it's not like it's all jumbled up and
we're following a clear history of the story of mankind then we get into the
next section of the Bible and if you'd like if you want to if you have a pen
you could write or make marks in these parts of your Bible to help you
understand because in the future when we say turn here or turn there it'll help
you to know where about in the Bible are we going some but some people have like
tabs on their edge of their Bible raise your hand if you have a tab on your
Bible it may say like an abbreviated you know this book or that book but some
people don't have that and if you just know the Bible as a whole in a nutshell
if we say turn here you'll know oh that's about halfway through or it's
about three-quarters of the way through or about a quarter of the way through
and then you can look for the specific books now the next section is what's
known as the historical books this is the books from Joshua all the way to
Esther now basically this section can be a long section I'm not gonna go deep
into the history but I just want you to understand a couple of things notice in
the Bible in the Torah or in the law right we had Genesis Exodus Leviticus
numbers in Deuteronomy Deuteronomy means second law in the Bible there's a good
rule of Bible interpretation and that is emphasize what God emphasizes and be
silent where the Bible is silent so the Bible is reiterating the law in
Deuteronomy and you'll notice when you go through the historical books you'll
have Joshua which is them going into the Promised Land and conquering the Promised
Land Ruth which is a short story just of what happened in that era then we have
first and second Samuel I'm sorry we also had judges which is the God
ordained leadership that God designed for the children of Israel so next time
you hear somebody say don't judge me realize God put a book in the Bible
called judges so look there's a time to judge and judging isn't a bad word it's
not a cuss word we need to judge righteous judgment as the Bible teaches
but then we go into first and second Samuel right now Samuel was a judge he
was somebody judging the nation of Israel and at that time period he
ordained a king the children of Israel did not like the system of the judges
they wanted to have a king like the other nations this was not God's plan
God did not want them to have a king God wanted them to be under the system of
the judges but basically to placate the children of Israel to help them out I'm
paraphrasing in this statement but he's saying they've not rejected you Samuel
they've rejected him the Lord so remember that God can use our faults for
his glory and it was a fault of the children of Israel to try to set up a
king but God utilized that to further his plan into salvation so Samuel
ordains a king Saul after saw the next king of Israel was David after David was
his son Solomon and after Solomon the kingdom of Israel got divided Solomon
did some bad things in the tail end of his ministry or while he was a king on
this earth and because of that God said I'm going to judge you and I'm going to
divide the kingdom of Israel into two separate kingdoms the northern kingdom
of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah now side note a lot of people
don't know this a lot of people have never heard this but you've heard the
term right somebody who's a Jew right this person is a Jew right but the thing
is there is a difference between Jewish people and Israeli people what do I mean
by this now I know this is hard for some to understand Jews are what are known as
the people of the southern kingdom of Judah when the ten the twelve tribes got
divided during the time of Rehoboam and Jeroboam the northern tribes of Israel
the ten tribes of Israel became what's known as this the current nation of
Israel and then the southern kingdom of Judah maintained what's known as a
divinic kingship they were still following the Bible they were still
following you know the commandments of God the northern tribes kind of went
astray and did bad things there were some good people in Israel at that time
but by and large the leaders by and large the leadership and most the people
were following after the other nations and I just wanted you to understand this
is where the nuance change happens in the historical books of the Bible we
have the law the first five books we have the historical books which bring
us to the point of the New Testament right then there's another section that
the Bible cuts up if you would look down at the table of contents you'll notice
after Esther there's what's called Job Psalms Proverbs Ecclesiastes and Solomon
these are what are known as poetic books or also known as timeless books meaning
these books are breaking from the chronological story of the Bible and
just kind of giving you deep philosophical truths the book of
Proverbs was written by Solomon the book of Psalms was written primarily by King
David it's music and did you know the biggest by the biggest book of the Bible
is the book of Psalms it's a musical book it is what God wants from us
remember emphasize what God emphasizes and if he made the biggest book of the
Bible a music book realize that God it brings him honor and glory for us to
sing praises unto him and then you have you know Song of Solomon and Job and
even these poetic books follow a chronological order because the book of
Job is arguably older than all a lot of these other books Psalms is King David
Proverb and Ecclesiastes is Solomon and also Song of Solomon then we go into
another section we have the law we have the history and then we have the poetic
or timeless books but the next is the prophets or the major prophets raise
your hand if you heard that term the prophets in the New Testament constantly
you hear Jesus saying go back and look at the prophets what did the prophets
say about this look at what Moses in the law said about this Jesus is referring
back to the Old Testament a lot because he wants them to realize that he is not
come to destroy the law or the prophets he's come not to destroy but to fulfill
now the prophets the word prophet unfortunately has a weird like meaning
to some people some people think profit means a future teller like oh I can see
the future that guy's a prophet it's not true now it is true that if you
understand the truths of God you can guess what the future will be and the
prophets were given revelation from God to see the future to come but the term
prophet in general just means someone who proclaims the Word of God thus
saith the Lord the Bible says this so the prophets were people that did what
God told them to do write what needed to be said now remember up to this point in
history right we're going back into the historical narrative and I'm not gonna
go into like the categories of where they line up right now for sake of time
but the prophets follow the chronological history of Israel and the
first prophet that we have major prophet is the Prophet Isaiah then we have
Jeremiah then we have the book of Lamentations which I kind of cut in half
because it's statements of Jeremiah but it could also be seen as one of those
timeless books because it's poetic in nature the word lamentation just means
to cry or to lament to weep to mourn for a people and then we have Ezekiel and
Daniel so these are the major prophets after that we have what are known as the
minor prophets now the minor prophets are not minor because they're less
significant they're very significant the text that we read from today was from
the first minor prophet Hosea and remember what it said my people are
destroyed because of a lack of knowledge I can guarantee you across
pulpits all across the United States and around the world most people are not
preaching the whole entire Council of God and because and because of that the
world is toiling downhill people are confused what's going on what's gonna
happen and you know it's it's it's unfortunate that preachers or pastors
wouldn't take it upon themselves to preach the whole Council of God because
that is commanded of preachers to preach the whole Bible now I'm giving it to you
in a nutshell today you know cuz like I said I want you guys to further your
education in the Bible I mean there's a statement in the Bible that clearly
teaches in 2nd Timothy 2 5 study to show thyself approved in the God a workman
that needeth not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth so the Bible
is divided in these sections for a reason and God wants us to know these
reasons so as we approach the minor prophets you'll see that there's a lot
of minor prophets we got everything from Hosea to Malachi and for sake of time
I'm just gonna mention this the minor prophets coincide with the major
prophets and both these groups coincide with the history if you read your Bible
and study your Bible you'll see where the coinciding comes together and it's
significant and it's important because God portrayed it that way there's a
statement I don't know if you've ever heard this nothing in the Bible is
incidental coincidental or accidental God is very deliberate when he speaks
amongst this prophet or that prophet there's another passage in the Bible
that says holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost that the
whole concept of why God did this was to bring people to salvation now in the
last book of the Old Testament Malachi I'm gonna cut this last book into two
different sections yes it is a minor prophet but it is also a book of
revelation now what I mean by that is that one of the last statements found in
Malachi is Malachi preaching to the nation of Judah saying the Lord whom ye
seek he will come to his temple and then we go into what's known as the 400 years
of silence from the old to New Testament God stopped revealing his word
to people because Malachi he told Malachi understand they have not
rejected you they've not rejected all the prophets they've rejected the Lord
so because that the Lord will come into his temple and portray these things and
then lo and behold we get into the New Testament and right off the bat in the
New Testament who do we see hit the scene the Lord Jesus Christ the Lord
Jesus Christ is the Son of God God manifested in the flesh the Lord come
into his temple to proclaim salvation to let alone the lost sheep of the house of
Israel but to the whole world now his mission his work was to show the Jews
who he was the nation of Israel that he was the Messiah the chosen one to come
and this was prophesied all the way back in Genesis that the Messiah will come
and save his people so when we hit the New Testament think about the term
covenant you make an agreement with somebody right you do your end and I'll
do my end the children of Israel did not hold up their bargain so God had to make
a new covenant and that new covenant was made with believers in Jesus Christ and
that new covenant is not to any one ethnic group God doesn't care if you're
red yellow black green purple or anything God cares if you're a believer
in Jesus that is what the Bible is teaching you want to know the answer to
racism in this world it's the Lord Jesus Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek
there is neither bond nor free but we are all one in Christ and that's what
the Bible clearly teaches now for sake of time I don't want to hold you up we
just got to the New Testament notice the Bible as a whole is three quarters Old
Testament and then one quarter New Testament right but did you know that
this one quarter is the pinnacle of the Bible this is what God wants us to know
and we get into what's known as the Gospels the good news Matthew Mark Luke
and John now remember God reiterates things right like in Genesis Leviticus
Numbers Deuteronomy and the word Deuteronomy means second law there's
1st Samuel 2nd Samuel 1st Kings 2nd Kings there's 1st Chronicles 2nd
Chronicles and in the New Testament we have Matthew Mark Luke and John they're
the same story of Jesus Christ in this world told from different perspectives
for us to understand then we go into the historical books of the New Testament
and if you see the New Testament follows the same pattern as the Old Testament
but the Bible clearly teaches that we use the New Testament to understand the
Old Testament and then we get into what's known as the book of Acts this is
the term the actions of the Apostles what did the Apostles do with the
information Jesus gave them and then we get into what are known as the Epistles
and we got everything from Romans all the way to Philemon now I'm going to
give you one little caveat just like we had the major prophets the Apostle Paul
wrote all these epistles Romans 1st 2nd Corinthians Galatians Ephesians
Philippians Colossians 1st and 2nd Thessalonians 1st 2nd Timothy Titus
Philemon these are all written down by the Apostle Paul which could be seen as
like a major prophet but in that subsection of the last couple of
epistles that he wrote you have what are called pastoral epistles 1st 2nd
Timothy Titus and Philemon these are instructions to pastors to how to become
a pastor to ordain pastors to have leaders and churches to move forward
with the message of salvation and you'd be surprised how many people I've
explained to about the concept of the pastoral epistles they asked me a lot
are you a pastor and I say I'm not a pastor I'm a preacher I preach the Bible
why aren't you a pastor why don't you become a pastor I said well I'm not
qualified to be a pastor because in the pastoral epistle there's a list of
qualifications for a pastor and you'd be surprised how many pastors I've told
that to and they're looking at me with a dumbfounded face like what do you mean
there are qualifications to be a pastor yes yes there is is there a
qualification to becoming a firefighter yes is there a qualification to becoming
a lawyer a cop how much more a person who preaches the Bible and teaches the
counsel of God to the people of God the pastor is a very high position held with
much reverence so people can self profess themselves to be anything can I
say I'm a firefighter walking around take my water hose and just start
shooting down fires does that make me a fighter fighter can I just call myself a
pastor does that mean I am a pastor no but you know what I am I am a preacher
and I do preach the Bible and the Bible teaches that there are many offices in
the church there are pastors deacons missionaries evangelists there are many
positions for the work of God but the the office of a pastor is a very high
position to be esteemed the word pastor means shepherd you worry ambassador of
Jesus Christ on this earth Jesus Christ is the Great Shepherd then basically the
pastor has very important strict rules that they need to follow and I don't
mean strict as in like you need to do 50 jumping jacks you need to do 25 push-ups
it's nothing like that but you can't be a novice you can't be some random guy
off the street who has a lot of problems you need to be a man who has shown to be
faithful and we'll not go into that for sake of time but there are what are
known as the pastoral epistles in this book of the epistles and the last part
I'm going to go into are what are known as the general epistles so from the book
of Hebrews to the book of Revelation these are what are known as the general
epistles so we have the Paul epistles which includes the pastoral epistles and
then we have the general epistles kind of mimicking like the minor prophets and
they're not once again general like they're less significant everything in
the Bible is important but they're called the general epistles because if
you notice we have Hebrews James first second Peter first second third John
Jude and then the last book of the Bible is Revelation and the last book of the
Bible like the book of Malachi is a foreseeing of the future to come to
reveal unto us what will come the book of Revelation God is trying to show us
this is what to expect next now in the beginning remember at the ending of the
Old Testament Malachi the Bible says look for the Lord to come and then Jesus
came and you know what it says in the ending of Revelation look for Jesus
Christ the second coming he is coming back to rapture his saved and to put
judgment on the earth like he did back in the flood remember earlier I said
from the creation to the flood the first seven chapters of the Bible it spans
about 1,700 years well then we go into the millennial reign of Christ and in
that time period Jesus Christ is gonna be on this earth judging the world with
a rod of iron and then after that towards the end we go into eternity but
God needs to clean house like he did in the flood basically there will be a time
that the Bible calls which is the great white throne judgment and that the new
heaven and new earth will come into this world and that we will go with Jesus
Christ into eternity he says he'll wipe all tears away from all our faces and we
can rest assured that we're saved we're in good standings with Jesus and loved
ones who've also believed what's the title of this message this morning you
guys I know it's a lot to go through we preach the whole Bible in one message
but just realize this the Bible is broken down for us to understand don't
worry so much about the football game don't worry so much about the baseball
game don't worry so much about the rock and roll worry about the Bible and if
you can't physically grab your book and navigate it if you ask us we can help
you get an audio Bible the Bible read to you out loud some you know person who
has a really good voice can read the Bible to you it won't be me because my
voice isn't that good and listen to music that is godly the hymns spiritual
song songs that matter why cuz we're gonna be singing them for an eternity
anyways let's start now to live from faith to faith title of this message
this morning is the Bible in a nutshell spout our heads and have a word of
prayer dear heavenly father thank you so much for allowing us to gather together
this morning thank you so much for your word for salvation the gospel you taught
us that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth
out of the mouth of God thank you so much for preserving your word and giving
it to us so that we could know your heart and your thoughts help guide us in
our week help us to realize the importance of seeking to please you and
be there for those who are in need of you and in Jesus Christ name we pray
amen amen