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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