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The last two Wednesdays we've gone through the books of the Old Testament. Today we're going to be finishing off this mini-series within the series of Rightly Dividing. And we're going to be going through the books of the New Testament. So the title for the sermon tonight is Books of the New Testament. I really had to edit down my notes. There's a lot of information and I'll try to get it done within about 40 minutes as best as I can here, okay. Books of the New Testament. But when we look at Psalm chapter 12, we were given a promise by God there in verse number 6. So there are two promises there. The words of the Lord will be purified over time, okay. And this I believe obviously is a great example of the King James Bible which we hold and believe. We believe it's the pure Word of God. We believe it's preserved. We believe it's without error. We believe it's a perfect English translation of the original languages, okay. And so of course when it comes to, you know, in the time of Psalms the entire Bible is not written yet. It required a time of purification of building from, you know, as time progressed, as the Lord saw fit to have people write the Bible. But now when the Bible was completed and all six books of the Bible were completed, the promise that God gives us there in verse number 7, thou shalt keep them, O Lord. Thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever. You know there are some that believe or they call the Old Testament writings the Scriptures. But when they think of the New Testament books, they don't think of them so much as the Scriptures as much as the Old Testament. There are some Christians that feel that way. And some think, well that's just, because a lot of the New Testament are the writings of Paul. That's just how Paul felt, you know, at that particular point in time. That's just his opinion. No, the New Testament is the preserved word of God as much as the Old Testament. In fact, the New Testament tells us all about Jesus Christ and tells us, now that we have received salvation by Christ, how we ought to live our lives in accordance to that new covenant that God has brought in. But notice what it says there at the end of verse number 8. The wicked walk on every side when the vilest men are exalted. It's not something we like to think about, but this is a common theme of the New Testament books. That yes, the Gospel's been preached, people are getting saved, men are growing in the faith, men are being holy, they're overcoming sin, they've been instructed by God how to live righteous lives, how to set up churches, how to be organized and orderly and all those kinds of things. But then around these churches there's always going to be wicked men walking on every side as was prophesied here in the book of Psalms. There's always somebody wanting to come into the church and defile the word of God, defile bringing false doctrines. And that's another major element of the New Testament, how to deal with heresy, how to deal with persecution from those that seek to hurt us. So we're going through the books of the New Testament. We're going through the books of the New Testament and just like the Old Testament could be broken up into different groups, so can the New Testament. So of course most people know the first book of the New Testament. In fact everyone's very familiar with the first four books of the New Testament. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And these four books are known as the Gospels, the Gospels of Jesus Christ. And they are great books. I mean these are the core, the main books that you would really want to get your head into, the books you really want to study the most. You know, read through them, understand what Christ was like, God manifest in the flesh, walking on earth some 2,000 years ago. You know, we see Christ honoring the Old Testament, him keeping himself perfect, but also bringing in New Testament teaching and of course giving that ultimate sacrifice for all men. Now when we start with the book of Matthew, it is the author of the book of Matthew of course is Matthew the Apostle. One of the disciples that followed after Christ. We know him also by the name of Levi in the book of we studied the book of Luke as a church. He was known there by the name of Levi and Matthew was a publican. He was a tax collector which gave up his full time job to follow after Christ. And many say that the book of Matthew is tailored for the Jews, for a Jewish audience. I'm of agreement in that in general for two reasons. Number one, the book of Matthew does highlight Jesus Christ. Now if you guys go to Matthew chapter 1, go to Matthew chapter 1 verse 1, it does promote and highlight Jesus Christ as the King of the Jews, as the King or as the Messiah. And of course this was a promise that was given to Old Testament Israel, the coming Messiah, the King that would come to restore all things through the line of David. But Matthew 1 says, the book of the generation of Jesus Christ and of course Christ is Messiah, the Son of David the Son of Abraham. So of course the Son of David referenced in him as the King, not just the King, but the Messiah, the Christ that was promised to come into the world. So that is the focus of the book of Matthew. The second reason why it is, you know, I would agree that it's tailored toward a Jewish audience is because out of all the other gospels it references the Old Testament more than any of the other gospels that I had. I had to kind of look this up, I mean I recognise this just by reading the Bible that the book of Matthew is full, just constantly going back to the Old Testament prophets. But some suggest that there is over 60 times, some suggest even over 100 times the book of Matthew references, not necessarily directly but indirectly Old Testament teachings. So I do believe it is tailored toward a Jewish audience, you know those Jews that were newly saved and kind of like the book of Hebrews, trying to understand how do we behave from the transition of the Old to the New Testament. But nevertheless it's for all. You can't just say this book is for one group of people and that's it. The Bible has been given to all and the dangers of just saying it's just for the Jews and that's what many people do, many preachers that hold to dispensationalism will say it's just for the Jews and the reason they say that is because we have the clearest and most detailed teaching of the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 with the coming of Christ. And of course our church believes that's the rapture but they'll say no, no, no the book of Matthew is for the Jews, Matthew 24 that's just for the Jews, it's got nothing to do with believing Gentile churches or anything like that. Also another thing they commonly teach is the book of Matthew has the phrase the kingdom of heaven, it's the only book that uses that phrase the kingdom of heaven, the other books reference it as the kingdom of God, when you study it out there's no difference, God uses that word interchangeably but the dispensationalists say well this is a Jewish book and the reason it says the kingdom of heaven is because the kingdom of heaven which strangely is on the earth, not even heaven, but anyway is just for the Jews. So you've got to be careful, yes we can always say certain books like the book of Romans it's tailored to a group of people, it's tailored to the Romans, but you can't just go down the deep end and just leave it there, no the Bible is written for all, it's for believers so we can know more of Christ. After the book of Matthew we've got the book of Mark now Mark is a man that you'd be familiar with if you've been reading through the book of Acts, but Mark is the man who joined Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey but for whatever reason he returned home and Paul wasn't happy with him, the apostle Paul wasn't happy with him but then Paul and Barnabas if you remember the book of Acts they would have a dispute they would go their separate ways, they would go and continue on their ministries to visit churches and things like that and Barnabas would take Mark later on with him on his journey and if you guys can just, no actually don't turn there, you go to Mark chapter 10, go to Mark chapter 10 and it kind of sounds bad, you can't see the personalities there between Paul and Barnabas Barnabas is the nice one, he gets Mark to go with him Paul didn't want anything to do with him, but at the end of one of the last letters that Paul writes in 2 Timothy chapter 4 verse 11 he says only Luke is with me, take Mark and bring him with thee for he is profitable to me for the ministry. So even though Paul wanted nothing to do with Mark for a while he started to realise Barnabas got him right, Barnabas got him back on board, got him back on track and now he sees the prophet of Mark and he wants Mark to come and be with him in fellowship and minister with him so there is a good story with Mark at the end of all that disputing that went on but in Mark chapter 10 verse 45 it kind of gives us the idea one of the key themes of Jesus Christ in the book of Mark it says for even the son of man came not to be ministered unto so the book of Matthew is about him being the king, being the Messiah and of course the king is usually the one you would minister to so there's a bit of a difference here where it says for even the son of man came not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. So many would look at the book of Mark as thematically describing Jesus as a minister, describing Jesus in other words we're saying that is a servant, he was our servant and this is why the book of Mark is heavy on miracles it's probably the book that has the most miracles that Jesus Christ did because as he was performing miracles, he was healing the sick, casting out devils, making the blind to see making the lame to walk, all these things, he kept being a minister, a servant to the people. So that's kind of what the thematic picture of Jesus Christ in the book of Mark is, is him as a servant then we've got the book of Luke, the gospel of Luke and Luke, we don't know much about Luke but he is mentioned in the book of Colossians, don't turn there, Colossians 4.14 which says Luke, the beloved physician, so that's all we know about Luke that he was a physician, he was a doctor, as we would term them today and he wrote the book of Luke but the book of Luke, as we've studied as a church, is not a book that is in strict chronological order, it is in general chronological order from a big picture, but many of the stories sometimes are not in the same in the right chronology, Luke wrote in a more topical style gospel, so he kept many of the same stories together, even though they might have been separated by many months or many years, but he brought many of the stories close together that were related toward one another, and generally speaking Jesus is thematically portrayed in the book of Luke as a man, the man Christ Jesus, the son of man talking about his humanity, Jesus Christ wasn't just 100% God, he was also 100% man, and that's kind of the theme of the book of Luke there, then of course after the book of Luke we have John please go to John chapter 13, go to John chapter 13 please, John chapter 13 verse 23 John chapter 13 verse 23, and we know John as another apostle that was taught by Jesus Christ, and it says here in John 13 23, now there was a leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples whom Jesus loved so John would speak of himself in this book as the disciple whom Jesus loved, he didn't name himself, he didn't call himself by his name he referred to himself as his third person, and that's who John is and you know the book of John predominantly represents Jesus, not as the man, but predominantly as Jesus our God, you know, the deity of God, and through that as the son of God as well, and of course John 1 very clearly in the beginning was the word and the word was with God, and the word was God of course that later on takes us to Jesus Christ, and so the big picture the big theme of Christ in that is that he is deity, that he is God Almighty, and that he is the son of God instead of starting with the birth of Christ in Bethlehem he starts off from the beginning, you know, not only is he God he's the creator of all things, and please go to John 20 John 20 verse 31 it's quite a good book in the sense that it gives us the reason why this book is written, I mean many of them do, but this one's a very good reason John 20 verse 31, it said but these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ the son of God, and that believing you might have life through his name, very clearly why the book of John was written to give you faith, to cause you to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ okay, he's the son of God, specifically there, and one thing that, you know, with our gospel presentations, we go door to door be sure you include references to John, because that's the purpose behind it, okay, and many of us would use some type of variation of the Romans road, and that's a good book to go through as well, to describe salvation, but never forget to use John, obviously John 3.16 many of us use that, I use John 3.18 sometimes, John 1.12 and I'm trying to close their need to receive the free gift so make sure you also add references of John to your gospel presentation, that was the purpose it was written for the four gospels, what they represent, and how they show Christ and it's always nice to have these four, you can compare scripture to scripture, spiritual to spiritual and get a better, a greater view of the work of Christ on this earth but then, just like the Old Testament books, had a lot of historical books, the New Testament also has a history well, it doesn't have historical books, but it has one history book okay, and that's the next one, the book of Acts, the book of Acts is known as the history book, or the church, about the church history of the first disciples and the apostles, after the ascension of Jesus Christ it's also known as the Acts of the Apostles, that's why it's called Acts it's the Acts, the works, the things they did after Christ ascended up into heaven, please go to Acts 1.1, Acts 1.1 Acts 1.1 the Bible says here, the former treatise have I made of Theopolis, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, so notice that the writer of Acts says, look, I've written a former treatise, O Theopolis to Theopolis, okay, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach so the author of Acts says, look, I've written one of the gospels, I've written one of those where Jesus began to do and to teach, and it's very easy to work out who the author of the book of Luke is, of the book of Acts it's Luke, because in Luke 1.3, Luke 1.3 it says It seemed good to me also, having made perfect understanding of all things, from the very first, to write unto thee in order most excellent Theopolis, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed. So you see, Luke's writing to this Theopolis, you know, both the book of Luke and then the book of Acts, and in the book of Acts he references the former writings that he wrote before of the works of Christ, and so many, you know, see not just Luke as the author, but the book of Acts as a continuation I mean, it's basically, it picks up straight where the book of Luke left off and it's just a pure continuation of what he had written before The book of Acts covers a period of about 30 years of church history again, from the ascension of Christ, and it's a really interesting book so obviously it starts with a lot of the work in the church in Jerusalem and the first, what was it, the first 1 to 12 chapters deal with primarily, you know, all the disciples, but it focuses on Peter the Apostle, and Peter would have, you know, work in Jerusalem but also in Samaria, ok, he was focused in the local areas a lot, and of course, God had instructed them, Jesus Christ had instructed them to go throughout all the world and preach the gospel, so we have those first few chapters dealing with Jerusalem and Samaria, and then chapters 13 to 28 follows the ministry and the work of Paul, Paul as a missionary being sent out by the church in Antioch to go to other places in the Roman Empire other place, other Gentile cities, other places, you know, in Asia and things like that, and he went out starting churches, you know winning people to the Lord, preaching the gospel, starting churches and those are chapters 13 to 28 and this is a book where, I don't know if you guys, when you read it, it just seems to end abruptly like you have Paul getting arrested, being taken as a prisoner being taken to Rome, and he's talking about how he's going to bring his, what's the word I'm looking for, he's going to bring his his appeal, his appeal to Caesar in Rome, and if it's the first time you've read through the book of Acts, I'll never forget the first time I read it I'm like, oh man, I can't wait to see him deal with Caesar, what's he gonna say? What's gonna happen? But then it doesn't happen, you know, it just cuts off it kind of leaves this to be continued feeling in the book of Acts and I was like, oh man, what happened to it, you know, but I think it's done like that on purpose I think it's done like that to be continued feeling on purpose so we don't feel like the Acts are done, it's not like a book the Acts of the Apostles, the Acts of the disciples are finished, it's a we read it and we go, man, it hasn't finished, we gotta keep going, you know, we're the ones that have to pick up after Paul and all these Apostles and disciples and continue the work of preaching the Gospel, continue the work of planting churches, continue the work of shining a light to this lost world, and I think that's why it ends so abruptly, so we know it's not ended, the work is still to be continued, alright, so that's the book of Acts, then we get onto the epistles, the epistles are another way of saying letters, okay, letters to specific churches, specific groups, or specific people and most of these epistles were written by Paul the Apostle so we start with the first epistle, Romans, okay, so obviously tailored toward the Romans, but applicable to everyone and if you go to Romans chapter 1 verse 10 Romans chapter 1 verse 10, he's writing to a people that he's never met so at this point in time he had not met them, even though we know historically he's on his way to Rome, but when he wrote this letter he hadn't yet reached there, okay, so whatever that timeframe is but in Romans 1.10 he says making requests if I by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you so Paul's desiring to go and meet these people, to meet this church, but he's not yet met them, okay, now please go to Romans chapter, well actually in the same chapter verse number 16, it is, the book of Romans is the best epistle in terms of explaining the Gospel in great detail and it breaks down in a lot of detail, and in Romans 1.16 it says for I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek, so at the very beginning he outlines his reason for writing to the Romans, he wants to explain this Gospel of Christ that he's not ashamed of, and he wants to educate them in great detail, so chapters 1 to 11 is basically this Gospel presentation in detail, okay, he speaks of our sinfulness, he speaks of God's plan for redemption, he calls on people to believe on the Gospel, to call upon them the Lord, and then those are chapters 1 to 11 okay, then the next chapters, chapters 12 to 16 is about how we ought to live in response to salvation, once we have been saved, once we have now believed and called upon the name of the Lord, how should we live as Christians, so it's to have the right response as saved people, now if you go to Romans chapter 11 please, Romans chapter 11 verse 36, Romans chapter 11 verse 36, some people, those that want to teach a workspace Gospel, will see the end of Romans as yes it's work and living godly, and tie that in to the Gospel of salvation, and say well see, it's not just faith it's works as well, but the Gospel presentation finished at the end of chapter 11 and if you look at chapter 11 verse 36 right at the end, it says very clearly, for of him and through him, of course Christ, and to him are all things to whom be glory forever amen, I love the end of that at the end of chapter 11, because he's finished the Gospel presentation, and then just reminds everyone it's because of Jesus, it's because of Jesus, not because of you, right it's of him, it's through him, and it's to him, all things salvation is available to us by the finished work of Jesus Christ so that's kind of the end of that chapter, when you get to chapter 12 okay, now that I've got there, now I understand it's all Christ, what do you want me to do God, how do you want me to live in your way, so we've got to make sure we separate those chapters from those beginning chapters, okay, then we have 1 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians, go to 1 Corinthians chapter 5, please, 1 Corinthians chapter 5 and we've studied 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians as a church, and even though it's called 1 Corinthians, it's not the first letter that Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, it's the first letter that God saw fit to canonize for us, as his inspired words, okay, but look at 1 Corinthians 5, 9, it says, I wrote, this is obviously Paul to the Corinthian church, I wrote unto you in an epistle not to accompany with fornicators, because I've already written you an epistle not to accompany with fornicators, okay, so this is now another epistle talking about the other epistle that he had written, okay, so of course, Paul was very familiar with the Corinthian church, he had spent some 18 months in the city of Corinth and had many people saved, and he basically established this church so this is one of those churches that was very, very familiar with the people that were there and unfortunately, even though he was there for so long, it's one of the worst churches, maybe the worst church you're going to read about in the New Testament and this is why I studied with 1 Corinthians, I said man, if we get this bad, at least we know what we need to do to fix ourselves, right, and if we're not this bad, praise God, you know, we're doing something good, and you know what encourages about me when I see these really bad churches is I think I would give up on that church, but then I see how God still is able to work with them, that God was able to use them and get them back we'll look at that in 2 Corinthians later, but yeah, it's probably one of the worst churches, a lot of divisions within the church just carnal believers, babes in Christ, lack of knowledge you know, they've been infiltrated by false doctrine and false teachers those kinds of things, they even had somebody in such wicked sin in the church, everybody knows about it, and when Paul hears about it, he goes, what are you doing? Kick this guy out of the church and again, I'm thankful, yes, it's a really bad church, a really bad situation but I'm thankful we have these stories, so then we can read this and go, well now we know what we need to do to kick someone out of the church, we know the sins that are so wicked that are committed, that we would then need to step in and remove that person from the congregation, so even though it's sad for that church, hey, we get the blessing of learning from that, and hopefully not having to go through those same errors that they went through, and so Paul's goal in 1 Corinthians is to bring this divided church back into unity then we have 2 Corinthians, and it's basically a continuation of 1 Corinthians, and Paul had not yet visited the church he had planned to Paul had lots of plans to visit lots of people, he just can't always make it there he can only do so much as one person, but he had heard good reports from others from Timotheus and others, that the Corinthian church had turned a corner they had improved, they had taken to heart the letter that he had written to them, and they had done many improvements, so Paul encourages them to continue to keep working toward those things and even to accept the person they kicked out of the church that the guy had repented, and as a church to forgive him to bring him back to the fold, and continue on as a church so it also talks about resolution, resolving issues with people that have been kicked out of the church 2 Corinthians also deals with sending financial aid to other churches other believers, other brethren in need, if you remember the Corinthian church were lacking in that area so Paul's encouraged them, hey, you know, you had made a promise basically to send some money, you better complete that, it doesn't look good on you if you don't do that and it also, 2 Corinthians also helps the church identify remaining false teachers that were within the church so this is what I'm talking about, a lot of great things in the New Testament but many times just those false teachers, those false prophets, they're always there they're always the wicked, you know, just trying to get into the church, trying to influence them in a bad way, and as I think about these, you realise how important it is to have good leadership in a church, how important it is to have good, faithful men in a church because these wicked people come in when people aren't ready for it and they can be easily misled, and that's not the only church the next church, Galatians, Galatians is the next epistle that we read about and Galatians contains some really great teaching on salvation on faith, on the finished work of Christ, and the reason for this book is that the church, it's probably strange for us to think about but the church had fallen away from a clear gospel presentation they had, again, infiltrators coming to the church, beguiled them deceived them, they started to think of the works of the Old Testament as a possible necessity of their salvation, so the gospel was getting muddied in the church and Paul had a great concern, that's why he has such great teaching on salvation by grace through faith it also is a great book for those that are on the fence on replacement theology and dispensational theology, I mean, the book of Galatians just rips the book of Galatians just rips apart dispensationalism I mean, it just does, it is so clear that the physical nation of Israel has been replaced by a spiritual nation of Israel and our dispensational brothers, they panic over that, they say, oh, what do you think of look, the spiritual nation of Israel is made up of Jews and Gentiles those that have believed on Jesus Christ, okay the Old Testament physical nation was made up, yes, of believers and also non-believers, okay, the spiritual nation is better it's made up of 100% believers, the Old Testament nation was made up of some believers and some non-believers, I mean, the spiritual nation is so much better and it's very clear that that spiritual nation is the Israel of God, you know, since the New Testament has come into effect alright, let's keep going, the book of Ephesians, go to Ephesians chapter 4 verse 1 Ephesians chapter 4 verse 1, Ephesians is I think the first letter, I'm pretty sure it is, I mean, he was definitely in prison when he wrote this letter, but I think it's the first letter he wrote while he was in prison, and he doesn't rebuke this church, this church seems to be doing things right, he's not there attacking them, rebuking them about anything, if you look at Ephesians 4, 1, it says, I therefore the prisoner, so there it is, he's in jail, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called so he's trying to encourage this church to live a life worthy of the calling, ok, they're doing well, it's like, keep going you know, keep going, keep serving the Lord, and not a lot of this book is about salvation directly, though it does touch on salvation, it's primarily about just living holy, blameless lives, you know, going strong for the Lord, standing strong for the faith, that's what it's about, and it's really unusual when I see preachers take the book of Ephesians and try to make it about the Gospel, now of course it contains Gospel in there Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, we love to quote it, right, but it's not just 8 and 9, verse number 10, and it's almost like Paul preempted this you know, knowing that this book is about works and walking in accordance to his ways, and so at the beginning he says in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God not of works, lest any man should boast, so it's like he just preempts it let me make this very clear, salvation is not by works, but you should be working ok, you should be doing this thing, and that's why in verse number 10 he says for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God before ordained that we should walk in them, that's the purpose of Ephesians, so you know, it's like he knows that people are going to use that and teach works based salvation from that, and so he puts that in there, like just that little nugget of truth to destroy their false theology, alright, so let's go to Philippians now look at the Philippians, and this is the second letter that he's in jail, he's in prison and Paul spent some months I think maybe 3 or 4 months in Philippi, so we also know of the Philippian jailer, we quote this a lot when we go in Acts chapter 16 verses 30 and 31 you know, it says what must I do to be saved, well that was in Philippi you know, when Paul was over there, and so the book of Philippians is basically an epistle of thanksgiving and affection, you know, Paul's saying to the church, I love you guys, thank you for your support they've been sending him financial assistance and necessities for him as he's been going out in the ministry, did I tell you to go to Philippians 4? sorry, go to Philippians 4.15, Philippians 4.15 and just to sort of support that, it says here so you see the Philippian church is just very conscious of Paul and his work and his needs and they're constantly making sure he's provided for and so the Philippian church is also a church that Paul never had to rebuke in the pages he's just showing them his thanksgiving, appreciation and love for their service, alright, Colossians so I hope you can see, all these books have a different flavour, they're all yes different churches but there's a different flavour to each of these epistles so the book of Colossians, again Paul is in prison Paul never met this church, go to Colossians 2.1, Colossians 2 verse 1 Colossians 2 verse 1, Paul writes so he has never met these guys, right, and so the Colossian church unfortunately had been infiltrated by false teachers quite severely, had been infiltrated, so look at verse number 8 there, Colossians 2.8 and he warns the church, he says and one thing you notice in the book of Colossians, he's always talking about the deity of Christ so we saw there that in Christ was the fullness of the Godhead bodily go back to the previous chapter, Colossians 1.17 Colossians 1.17 speaking of Christ, he says and again, just reinforcing his deity, reinforcing him as the creator of the world so what I believe by looking at the big picture, is there were false teachers who were training coming in, and probably denying the deity of Christ you know, that's probably what was going on, so he's reinforcing, be careful of these people reinforcing the deity of Christ in this book alright, the next one is 1 Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians and 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians really go well together again, it's kind of like a continuation, but 1 Thessalonians Paul is preparing the church for trials and tribulations and of course, you know, every church, every believer will go through certain trials and tribulations, so Paul's encouraging them to see it through, but of course, it's the most famous book in terms of the rapture, it has the most famous rapture passage in chapter 4 and so, then he takes that principle and of course applies it to the end times we can apply it to the end times of the coming tribulation, the coming persecution but what's going to get us through these trials, what's going to get us through the tribulations is knowing that Christ is returning, knowing that Christ is going to come back that's what's going to give us the hope to be able to overcome tribulation and difficulty, then we go to 2 Thessalonians and again, like I said, it's just a continuation of 1 Thessalonians and he explains in more detail about the tribulation the coming tribulation, not just standard tribulation, but end times tribulation and that's why in chapter 2 he spends a lot of time speaking of the antichrist the son of perdition, the man of sin all these names that are given to the same person, and so as a church they would be aware of what would come prior to the rapture prior to the gathering of the saints into heaven and so it gives that great awareness of future tribulation again, just holding the hope of Christ's return, and that will get us through those difficulties in those times, then we have other we have other epistles that were written by Paul, this time not to churches directly but to individuals, so we have the next three 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus, and these epistles are also known as the pastoral epistles, these are the epistles that I as your pastor spend most of my time reading, just over and over again and I refresh my memory, what is it that I need to do as a pastor making sure I'm not letting things go, I'm not accomplishing things that I need to do, and at the same time not getting myself too busy with activities that I don't need to do, that's why these are important pastoral epistles if you have a desire to be a pastor one day a bishop these are the books you need to really get your head into, but 1 Timothy he's writing to Timothy as a younger pastor, I don't know how old he was but obviously as a younger pastor he would be less experienced, so Paul writes to him to encourage him in his youth, and he teaches him not just how to lead a church, but how to organise himself and how to behave within the church, okay and he also outlines in the book of 1 Timothy the qualifications needed for the two church officers, that being the office of the bishop and the office of a deacon, because as Timothy grows, as the church will grow, he would need additional men to help him with that church, and then we have 2 Timothy, the epistle of 2 Timothy is about 4 or 5 years after 1 Timothy so you've got now Timothy a lot more experienced, he's a lot more mature, a lot more knowledgeable, and so Paul doesn't write in the same way he writes to a more mature pastor in a sense and yes again he encourages him as a pastor, as a leader in the church, but Paul spends a lot of time sharing to Timothy Paul's own personal struggles, his own personal persecutions and hardships that he's gone through, and if you guys go to 2 Timothy 4 go to 2 Timothy 4 and verse number 6 2 Timothy 4 verse 6, the reason I believe Paul is sharing these hardships that he's gone through, is I believe he's preparing Timothy to go through the same hardships, he's saying Timothy this happened to me, this is likely going to happen to you, okay so he's warning him, he's preparing him for the difficulties, the hardships that Timothy will go through, not only that but here in 2 Timothy 4 verse 6, let's read it, Paul says for I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand, so he's saying to Timothy look, my death's around the corner I'm soon going to pass on, and so what I think is Timothy has had Paul as a mentor as someone that he could go to for encouragement and guidance and he's saying look Timothy this is the time when I'm not going to be there anymore, and you're going to have to continue the work, you're going to have to now stand on your own two feet and just soldier on, get ready for the coming difficulties, so that's what I think 2 Timothy is about, a more mature pastor, someone who needs to learn to realise you just have to now stand on your own faith I'm not always going to be there to help you. Then we have Titus, Titus is another pastor, another pastoral epistle, and look at Titus chapter 1 verse 5, the Bible gives us a reason why Titus is the kind of work that he's doing, but Paul says to Titus for this cause left I thee in Crete, and Crete is an island that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting and ordain elders in every city as I had appointed thee so Titus had a job to not just have his own church but to have other church plants and ordain other pastors other bishops to oversee those congregations now I've been criticised for having a church down in Sydney by a few people just other, not from this church, and not even within that church, just other people that I know, and it's like it's unbiblical to pass two churches, well look at Titus Titus was commanded, obviously there were in all these cities on this island in all these towns, there was congregation of believers, and for now until Titus could ordain elders, and bishops to oversee those churches, guess who was looking after him? It was Titus we don't know how many there were, but I'm assuming there were a couple, there were at least 2, 3, 4, 5 potentially, and so he was overseeing all these churches did he just want to be the main guy in charge? No, he was there to wait for the right person to stand up, wait for the right pastors to show up to ordain that man, and then he could move on, and help the other churches so it's perfectly biblical to be a pastor of multiple churches, Titus was that way but of course the goal is to instal elders in those congregations as well, and so it's not just dealing with that, but it's also instructing Titus how to conduct himself with a pastor when it comes to dealing with heresies in the church, not just heresies within the church, but heretics within the church, and by and the principle way by dealing with that is ensuring that sound doctrine is being taught behind the pulpit. Okay, then we have Philemon, and this is another where Paul is in prison, and Philemon was a man who had servants under him, and it just seems by chance, and of course nothing is by chance when it comes to God, but Paul met one of his servants, Onesimus, who had run away from Philemon, and so Paul meets this guy gets him saved, and he goes well now that you're saved, you need to go back to your master that's the right thing to do, you need to get back under his authority, go back to work and so he writes this letter to Philemon to say basically look Onesimus, he's got saved, he's a brother in the Lord, please treat him with love, he's coming back, please receive him back to employment basically, okay so it's a very personal letter to Philemon, and I think there's a lot of great truths there with the relationship between employer and employees so if you're having difficulties in your workplace, that's probably a good book to read through okay, then we have other epistles and these are terminally commonly labeled as general epistles, and the first one under this is Hebrews, now I am a strong believer that the book of Hebrews was written by Paul, and I think many of you guys are, many of you guys, we can see the same type of writing, the same type of thoughts, the way Paul writes just seems to come through the book of Hebrews, but we don't know for sure, it's not actually written within the pages of the book, it was written by Paul, so I strongly believe it was, but I'm not going to fight you over it, if you don't believe it was written by Paul, but anyway, most likely it was Paul, and the book of Hebrews is mostly about the replacement of the old covenant with the new covenant showing that the new covenant is superior to the old covenant and he's writing to Hebrews or Jews that are believers, that are saved, that have trusted in Christ, now of course I mean, I can understand if I were in their shoes, I'm used to the Old Testament practices yes I've placed my faith in Christ, yes I'm now in the new covenant, I'm in the New Testament days, and I can understand the confusion, that the pressures they may feel to go back to the old ways of doing things, because there was nothing wrong with the Old Testament practices God instructed them to do those things, right, it's just that well now that Christ has come, put that behind you and follow after Christ that's the key thing, that Christ, and that's what the book of Hebrews is all about is by showing them, look, yes your heart's set on those old ways of doing things but Christ is actually better, Christ has fulfilled all of those things by putting those things aside and following after Christ you are keeping those things in Christ as it were, that Christ had was the picture, was the type, was the illustration of all those things that have come before and so it was just helping them detach themselves from the old ways and going after Christ and being fully, living under the new covenant ways if you want to look at it that way, and so that was basically the purpose of the book of Hebrews, a lot of them were being pressured to basically go back to the old ways and sort of trust that as a way of salvation, not just Jesus Christ, like mixing the law with Christ. Then we have the book of James the book of James, and many believe, we can't know this for sure but many believe that this was written by the half brother of Jesus, it's my belief also that it was written by the half brother of Jesus, so of course Mary after she gave birth to Jesus and Joseph, just like any married couple, had children, one of those was James, and the book of James is a book written about the necessity of believers doing work, okay, just get into the work, right start being productive for the Lord, start working for the kingdom of God, and unfortunately like every book that has to do with works there are always those that come and twist what it's about and they'll say well this is salvation, this is about salvation, you cannot be saved by faith alone but you need works as well, of course that's not what it's about you know, the book of James is about living a holy life a holy life, you know it starts off with the need to overcome temptation overcoming sin, living holy, you know it's not just your faith you've got the faith, now do some works, you know, put it into practice put your faith into practice and get some works under your belt it's encouragement for us to get out there, do the works for Jesus Christ then we have 1 Peter, 1 Peter, of course Peter the apostle, we all know him very very well, and 1 Peter is written for believers and to encourage us to stand out from the world, not to be just worldly and look like the world and be like the world, not that we ought to stand out from the world but the truth in 1 Peter is also the fact that if we do stand out from the world that we will face suffering and persecution and so it's a letter really to prepare us, again, for suffering and persecution to encourage us through those times and go well why has this happened no no no, you should have known this from the beginning, when you start living for the Lord you're going to suffer, you're going to be persecuted by the world, so that's sort of 1 Peter that's what it's about, to warn us of coming difficulties 2 Peter is to warn us, to warn believers of false prophets and heresies that will infiltrate the church so again you see that same thing coming through many of these books and again, how do we overcome these things, how do we overcome the difficulties by holding onto the hope of the coming of Christ and to live in accordance to that promise, to hold onto that promise 2 Peter 1 verse 4 2 Peter 1 verse 4 reads whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust so just prompt us, you've got so many promises so much to look forward to, you know, live like you were live after those promises today, you know, so that's what 2 Peter is about then we have 1 John, 2 John, 3 John and of course it's the same John that wrote the gospel of John so 1 John, and these books are very similar in a sense it's a lot about fellowship and love these 3 books, but they're sort of targeted towards 3 different groups and 1 John is a sort of, has a very blunt description of what is right and wrong you know, it speaks of Christ, and it speaks of the Antichrist you know, it speaks of the love of the Father, and the love of the world and it's like, where are you, you're either in one place or you're in another place and so, you know, it's making sure that we understand the difference between what is right and wrong, and of course when it deals with the love of the Father that is the love that John is seeking for us to have in our lives, in order for us to love properly in order for us to have the proper expression of love to God and against that which is wicked, we need to have the love of the Father with us the fellowship that we need to have with the Father, so that's 1 John 2 John is also about fellowship, but in reverse so it warns us not to fellowship and not to befriend false teachers, you know, not to bid them godspeed and, you know, be an encouragement, you know, there are certain people we are to not fellowship with, we've got to keep the difference between light and darkness, and otherwise these people will come in and just influence your life, you know, and turn you against the Lord, so that's 2 John it's fellowship, but not to fellowship with certain people, then we have 3 John and again, 3 John is about love and fellowship, but this time it's more about expression toward the brethren in the church, our brothers and sisters in the Lord, yes, I mean 1 John has a lot of that as well, but 3 John kind of focuses, narrows in on that as well, just having unity, love and fellowship with brethren within your local church, then we have the book of Jude the book of Jude, please go to Jude 3, verse 3 there's only one chapter, Jude verse 3 and I feel sorry for Jude, because he says here he goes, Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, I was about to write to you about salvation, about the gospel, right, and then he goes It was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you, that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints for there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God unto lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ, so he wanted to just write about the common salvation, but then he saw it needful to write about false prophets, to those that are going to creep into the churches and hurt them, so it's like this urgent warning he was going to do something else, but now I need to urgently warn you that there are people in your midst, or there are people that are going to come and teach you false things, and that's the urgency we need to have with false doctrine and when people come in wanting to teach their false doctrines, we need to act with urgency, and get rid of that leaven, before it leavens the whole lump, you know, then we have the final book which is Revelation and of course the Old Testament had a lot of prophets, and they prophesied of the future many times, well we have one book of prophecy, in the New Testament and that's the book of Revelation, and it's called Revelation because it reveals, it reveals the end times, it is a full, concise, and clear presentation of the end times I love it, there was a time when I couldn't understand it, and I just I found it very hard to get through, I'm excited for the time I can actually preach it to this church, because it just shows us so much about the future events, and that's what a lot of people are excited about, a lot of people are just, what's the future hold what does God say, the book of Revelation is full of it, and it's clear and unfortunately so many people misunderstand it, they split it up into so many sections, it just becomes unreadable, no it's actually pretty readable, it's pretty, it's in chronological order almost all the way, just half way, it starts again, but anyway just not going into that, but basically it teaches us about the coming collapse of the world systems, governments and finances and that's going to come through worldwide warfare that will come into this world, and the beast or the antichrist will take full advantage of that situation, set himself up, bring in a new financial system the mark of the beast, and cause tribulation to come upon the saints he'll come and lead persecution against believers, and many many believers will lose their lives for the Lord, okay, that's the coming tribulation that 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians also warned us about and of course it's not just about the tribulation, it's the hope of Jesus Christ's return, that he's coming again, that he's going to rapture his saints at the third seal, sorry at the sixth seal, when the sun and moon are darkened and the Lord comes back, we're in heaven with the Lord forever once he takes us safely into heaven, God's going to pour out his wrath the full measure of his wrath, okay, upon this earth upon the beast, upon those that took the mark of the beast and just totally wipe out the earth as we know it, I mean no mountain will be left, basically standing, and then after that wrath of God Jesus Christ comes back on the horses with all the believers and finally destroy the last armies of the antichrist set up his thousand year kingdom to rule and reign with us forever we'll be there with Christ, you know, maybe having thrones, I don't know the work we put in today guys, will affect our positions in that coming kingdom, and then when that thousand years is over Satan will be finally destroyed in the lake of fire, and God will create a new heavens and a new earth, so there's a great end to the story those are the books of the New Testament, thank you guys for being patient, and I hope that's helped you understand the New Testament a little bit better, let's pray