SPEAKER_01: Amen, church family.
SPEAKER_01: If you guys can remain uh standing in honor and gratitude for the reading of God's word.
SPEAKER_01: This morning's text is going to be out of Deuteronomy 30.
SPEAKER_01: So if you guys want to go ahead and grab your Bibles and turn there, I'll be reading out of that passage starting in verse 11.
SPEAKER_01: But before I do, so if you, if this is your first time here to the orchard, we have been doing a series that we're calling the Five Foundations of the Orchard.
SPEAKER_01: And we have an awesome opportunity today to hear from somebody who probably needs no introduction.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, the founder of the Orchard Church, Mr.
SPEAKER_01: Sam Shaw.
SPEAKER_01: Um, so we are just over the moon to be able to have him here during this series specifically.
SPEAKER_01: Just talk about the Lord's unique providential timing in this moment.
SPEAKER_01: So, Sam, we are, man, so thankful for you, so happy that you're here with us.
SPEAKER_01: All right, if you guys could read with me.
SPEAKER_01: Uh starting in verse 11.
SPEAKER_01: For this commandment that I commanded to you, uh commanded you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off.
SPEAKER_01: It is not in heaven that you should say, Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it?
SPEAKER_01: Neither is it beyond the sea that you should say, who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it?
SPEAKER_01: But the word is very near to you.
SPEAKER_01: It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.
SPEAKER_01: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Would you pray with me?
SPEAKER_01: So, Father, we thank you for your word, and we ask right now that your Holy Spirit would come, that you would send your Spirit of truth.
SPEAKER_01: As we have heard your word read, Spirit, we ask that you would open our eyes to behold its wonders, that you would open our minds to understand its truth, and that you would open our hearts to receive it with faith and obedience.
SPEAKER_01: Through Christ our Lord, we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You guys can take a seat.
SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning, everybody.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you didn't close your Bible.
SPEAKER_00: If you did, go ahead and open it once again to Deuteronomy chapter 30.
SPEAKER_00: What a privilege for Ruthie and me to be here.
SPEAKER_00: Um I know some of you, some of you I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to meet you uh after the service.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, what a wonderful thing the Lord is doing uh here at the orchard.
SPEAKER_00: It is a really joy uh to be here.
SPEAKER_00: You heard that we're in a uh a series of five foundations of the orchard.
SPEAKER_00: What makes this church distinct?
SPEAKER_00: What are the convictions that drive this church?
SPEAKER_00: And Cody, two weeks ago, began with the first one that God intends to be enjoyed.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, let me read to you what he said in that message.
SPEAKER_00: Joy in God is the engine that drives everything else.
SPEAKER_00: We are passionate about missions, theology, adoption, because we are passionate about people knowing and enjoying God as he revealed himself.
SPEAKER_00: And when I heard that, I was watching online, I thought of an old catechism, the Westminster Catechism, that begins with one question.
SPEAKER_00: It was used to train up children uh years ago to understand God, understand his word.
SPEAKER_00: And the first question is this What is the chief end of man?
SPEAKER_00: In other words, what's the purpose of human life?
SPEAKER_00: Why are we here?
SPEAKER_00: And here's the answer: the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
SPEAKER_00: So God wants us to enjoy him.
SPEAKER_00: That was two weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00: Last week, Cody talked about life is meant to be shared.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, we're we're better together.
SPEAKER_00: And as I listened to that one, I thought about a question that was asked me uh not too long ago.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, Sam, you're 74 years old.
SPEAKER_00: Why are you still a Christian?
SPEAKER_00: Why are you still walking with the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Why are you are you still in love with Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: And of course there are many reasons.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord keeps us and holds us, the ongoing presence of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: But humanly speaking, humanly speaking, the reason I am still walking with the Lord is a group of men and women who have stood with me and encouraged me and spoken truth and love into my life.
SPEAKER_00: Some of them are here, some of them in this service.
SPEAKER_00: So life is meant to be shared.
SPEAKER_00: And today I was asked to speak to the question the Bible can be understood.
SPEAKER_00: Really?
SPEAKER_00: The Bible that you hold in your hand carries the speech, the word of the creator of the universe who loves us so much, he decided not to remain silent.
SPEAKER_00: He actually spoke.
SPEAKER_00: And he speaks through his word, and he wants to be understood.
SPEAKER_00: And you say, well, wait just a minute, Sam.
SPEAKER_00: Let me get this.
SPEAKER_00: If the Bible is so clear, why are there so many interpretations?
SPEAKER_00: Why can't Christians agree on things that are in the Bible?
SPEAKER_00: That's a fair question.
SPEAKER_00: It really is.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've had that question.
SPEAKER_00: Why are there so many denominations that think differently or interpret the scripture differently?
SPEAKER_00: You can drive from this church to another church somewhere, probably within driving distance, who give an entirely different interpretation to the scripture.
SPEAKER_00: How do you know yours is the interpretation that's true?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, isn't it arrogant to think you're the one who has the correct understanding of the Bible?
SPEAKER_00: How can we even be sure what the Bible means?
SPEAKER_00: That's not a scriptural problem only.
SPEAKER_00: That's a human problem.
SPEAKER_00: Republicans and Democrats cannot agree on what the Constitution says and what it means.
SPEAKER_00: For 2,000 years, Christians have disagreed at just about every single verse, every single doctrine in all of the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: And we disagree about just about everything in life.
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting.
SPEAKER_00: In everyday life, we don't say, well, that's just your interpretation.
SPEAKER_00: You go to a doctor, he runs a series of tests, he says, I had the results, he shares them with you.
SPEAKER_00: You don't say, well, that's just your interpretation.
SPEAKER_00: If you blow through a stop sign and a policeman pulls you over, just try that line on him.
SPEAKER_00: It's a human problem.
SPEAKER_00: And yet we wonder if God wants us to know him, if he has revealed himself in the Bible, he wants us to enjoy him.
SPEAKER_00: Why can the Bible sometimes just be so confusing?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've seen this sign.
SPEAKER_00: I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
SPEAKER_00: You ever felt that way reading the Bible?
SPEAKER_00: I have no clue what I have just read.
SPEAKER_00: I don't understand.
SPEAKER_00: If God wants us to know Him and enjoy Him, why can the Bible be so confusing?
SPEAKER_00: Didn't the church in the South use the Bible to justify slavery?
SPEAKER_00: Don't the Mormons use the Bible to justify polygamy?
SPEAKER_00: Didn't the Catholic Church for many, many years say that the earth is flat because of the Bible?
SPEAKER_00: So if the Bible is so important and it's so clear, why is it sometimes so hard to understand?
SPEAKER_00: So that's a really great question, and Cody will be glad to answer that for you.
SPEAKER_00: So we'll let him do that.
SPEAKER_00: But it shouldn't surprise you.
SPEAKER_00: You've got the mind of God, and the fact that you have problems reading it or problems understanding it really ought to enthuse you, it ought to fuel curiosity in you, and seek out answers for that.
SPEAKER_00: It's not surprising that parts of the Bible are mysterious and complex.
SPEAKER_00: So, what do we mean when we say the Bible is clear?
SPEAKER_00: The Bible can be understood.
SPEAKER_00: Theologians use a big word.
SPEAKER_00: It's a word that they use to describe the clarity of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Perspicuity.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone say perspicuity.
SPEAKER_00: Say it again, perspicuity.
SPEAKER_00: That word means clarity.
SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting that it's not a very clear word in that sense.
SPEAKER_00: But what does it mean?
SPEAKER_00: What do we mean when we say the Bible can be understood?
SPEAKER_00: Let me let Kevin DeYoung, a pastor out in North Carolina, give an explanation.
SPEAKER_00: He says this perspicuity or clarity of scripture means ordinary people using ordinary means can accurately understand enough of what must be known, believed, and obeyed for them to be faithful Christians.
SPEAKER_00: One more time.
SPEAKER_00: Clarity in Scripture means ordinary people using ordinary means can accurately understand enough of what must be known, believed, and obeyed for them to be faithful Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just take that apart for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: Three statements.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the first one.
SPEAKER_00: Some parts of the Bible are clearer than other parts.
SPEAKER_00: Not every passage has a simple meaning or an obvious meaning.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I heard not too long ago, I heard a Bible teacher say this.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that captures what we're trying to say.
SPEAKER_00: Some things are not very clear, and some things are not very plain.
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting that Peter, who walked with Jesus for three years, the chief of the apostles, preaches at Pentecost, filled with the Holy Spirit, writes two books of the Bible, probably is the source of information behind the gospel of Mark.
SPEAKER_00: He says in 2 Peter 3.18, there are some things that Paul says that I don't understand that are not clear.
SPEAKER_00: And he doesn't blame Scripture, he doesn't blame Paul for that.
SPEAKER_00: He blames people who distort what Paul is trying to say.
SPEAKER_00: So some parts of the Bible are clearer than other parts.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a second statement.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Can you understand fully every drop doctrine?
SPEAKER_00: How many of you understand how predestination and free will can be both true?
SPEAKER_00: Can you understand it perfectly?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: But you can understand it sufficiently.
SPEAKER_00: What we need to know.
SPEAKER_00: How to become a child of God, how to be forgiven, how to relate to a spouse.
SPEAKER_00: What are some things for raising kids?
SPEAKER_00: How to be a good steward of the resources that God puts in our hands, how to know the will of God, why a church is important.
SPEAKER_00: Those things are very clear in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: The things we need to know to walk with Jesus that can be understood sufficiently.
SPEAKER_00: So some things are clearer than others.
SPEAKER_00: We don't understand perfectly, but we understand sufficiently.
SPEAKER_00: And here's a third statement.
SPEAKER_00: What is necessary for our salvation or what is necessary for us to become like Jesus can be understood by uneducated people if they just use ordinary means.
SPEAKER_00: Like a study Bible, or like a teacher, or like conversation in a small group you're sharing life with.
SPEAKER_00: Even uneducated people.
SPEAKER_00: Book of Acts tells about an Ethiopian eunuch or an Ethiopian official, actually he was the treasurer, the finance minister of Ethiopia.
SPEAKER_00: He's gone to Jerusalem at Pentecost.
SPEAKER_00: He's picked up a copy of Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: He's going back home on a desert road in his chariot.
SPEAKER_00: He's reading Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: A Christian named Philip is hitchhiking.
SPEAKER_00: He's picked up, sits in the chariot with this Ethiopian, and he notices him reading the scroll of Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: And so Philip asked him, Do you understand what you're reading?
SPEAKER_00: And the man said, How can I understand unless someone explains it to me?
SPEAKER_00: And Philip explains the passage that he's looking at.
SPEAKER_00: It's all about Jesus and his death on the cross for sinners like me and like you.
SPEAKER_00: The man believes, says, Can I be baptized?
SPEAKER_00: They stop the chariot.
SPEAKER_00: He is baptized and goes on.
SPEAKER_00: And many people in Ethiopia think that was the beginning of what, of the, the Christian movement in Ethiopia because someone just took ordinary means and explained it to him.
SPEAKER_00: When I was a 12 years old, I was a part of a Sunday school class in the church where we attended, and we were a pretty wild group of 12-year-olds.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, we ran one teacher after another out of our class.
SPEAKER_00: So a guy named Charlie Farmer decided to take the class.
SPEAKER_00: Charlie had been a marine sniper in World War II.
SPEAKER_00: He was also a martial arts instructor.
SPEAKER_00: He'd been injured, you know, and he smoked, he didn't smoke cigars, he chewed cigars because the nicotine helped kill the pain that he sustained from the injury that he had.
SPEAKER_00: So he came into our class and we kind of looked at each other and smirked.
SPEAKER_00: We'll run him off also.
SPEAKER_00: The first day in Sunday school, he taught us how to kill a person in four seconds.
SPEAKER_00: We were hooked.
SPEAKER_00: This is awesome.
SPEAKER_00: And he taught us the scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Charlie was uneducated.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think he ever finished eighth grade.
SPEAKER_00: Went into the Marines at age 17.
SPEAKER_00: A very simple, ordinary guy living with injuries.
SPEAKER_00: I heard that he was dying, actually, happened to be in Tulsa at that time, and I went by to see Charlie.
SPEAKER_00: Went by his little frame house.
SPEAKER_00: His daughter Coral walked into the bedroom where Charlie was in a bed, just emaciated.
SPEAKER_00: And she said, Dad, Sam Shaw is here to see you.
SPEAKER_00: I walked into the room and Charlie looked up and he said, Sam Shaw, give me John 3.16.
SPEAKER_00: He understood the main thing.
SPEAKER_00: And I was prepared to give him Galatians 2.20 and Philippians 1.6 and Romans 8.28, all these verses that he had taught us.
SPEAKER_00: Those verses still resonated in my mind because an ordinary, very simple, uneducated man who loved 12-year-olds helped us understand the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, four or five of the guys who were in that class 60 years ago meet every month on a Zoom call just to check in with each other, see how we're doing, pray for each other, love on each other.
SPEAKER_00: We're sharing life together because a very simple, ordinary man helped us understand the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: So even uneducated people, when we say the Bible can be understood, we're saying that even the simplest person can understand it.
SPEAKER_00: We're saying the Bible is not just for pastors and Bible teachers and professors.
SPEAKER_00: Lay people can be trusted with the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're saying.
SPEAKER_00: Now, does the Bible actually teach this?
SPEAKER_00: Have you had your Bible open to Deuteronomy chapter 30?
SPEAKER_00: Let's see what it says once again.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the background.
SPEAKER_00: The people of Israel have come out of Egypt in the Exodus.
SPEAKER_00: They have spent 40 years wandering in the desert because of unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: An entire generation has died off.
SPEAKER_00: Their adult children now are standing at the very edge of the promised land, the border of the promised land, and Moses is giving them final instructions.
SPEAKER_00: The first 30 chapters of Deuteronomy is one long sermon that Moses is giving them, and then he's going to wrap it up.
SPEAKER_00: He comes to the conclusion.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 11, Deuteronomy 30.
SPEAKER_00: For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off.
SPEAKER_00: It is not in heaven that you should say, Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it?
SPEAKER_00: Neither is it beyond the sea that you should say, Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it?
SPEAKER_00: But the word is very near you.
SPEAKER_00: It's in your mouth, it's in your heart, so that you can do it.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying you can know what God wants.
SPEAKER_00: You can understand that.
SPEAKER_00: It's not beyond you.
SPEAKER_00: It's not too hard.
SPEAKER_00: You can understand God's word and you can obey it.
SPEAKER_00: And let me be real clear.
SPEAKER_00: I'm giving you this commandment.
SPEAKER_00: You're to keep it.
SPEAKER_00: He is not saying the way we're justified before God is by obeying all the rules and keeping God's word.
SPEAKER_00: No, the Bible is clear from beginning to end.
SPEAKER_00: People are saved, people are justified by God's grace through faith.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the order of it is this you put your faith in Christ, then you obey.
SPEAKER_00: You're saved, then you obey.
SPEAKER_00: You don't obey in order to be saved.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't come to the people of Israel and say, okay, you're in Egypt, you keep all of my rules and I'll set you free.
SPEAKER_00: Moses is talking to people who have been delivered.
SPEAKER_00: They are God's people.
SPEAKER_00: They've received God's covenant.
SPEAKER_00: And now he's saying, now that you are God's people and you have his covenant, here's how God wants you to live.
SPEAKER_00: And he's giving these instructions.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, you don't have to go across the ocean to find out what God wants.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to ascend into the heavens to find what God wants for you.
SPEAKER_00: You can, it's in your mouth.
SPEAKER_00: You can talk about it.
SPEAKER_00: It's in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: You can think about it.
SPEAKER_00: You can understand God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Not perfectly, but sufficiently.
SPEAKER_00: And you can obey God's word, not perfectly, and sometimes it's not easy to obey.
SPEAKER_00: It's not hidden, he says.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible is not written in code.
SPEAKER_00: It's right there.
SPEAKER_00: You can think about it.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the clarity of the Bible is such that Deuteronomy 6 says to parents, these commandments I give you today are beyond your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Impress them on your children.
SPEAKER_00: Talk about them when you sit at home, when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
SPEAKER_00: Even children can understand.
SPEAKER_00: And parents are told when you just in normal life talk about God's word.
SPEAKER_00: They can understand that.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 119, 105 compares God's word to light.
SPEAKER_00: Your word is a lamp to my feet.
SPEAKER_00: It's a light to my path.
SPEAKER_00: If the electricity goes out, and you have to go outside at night, you have to have something, a flashlight, a candle, some kind of a lamp to guide you.
SPEAKER_00: That is what God's word does.
SPEAKER_00: C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis, in his book, Mere Christianity, said this.
SPEAKER_00: I believe in Christianity like I believe in the sun.
SPEAKER_00: Not because I can see it, but by it I see everything else.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: It's like spectacles that we put on that enable us to see and to understand.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 119, 130 says, the unfolding of your word gives light.
SPEAKER_00: It gives understanding to the simple.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 19, verse 7 says, The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul.
SPEAKER_00: The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
SPEAKER_00: The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to be enjoyed.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to live in his joy.
SPEAKER_00: The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible is given so that we can live in the joy of God.
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, when God's people would wander off from Him, get themselves entrapped in sin or slavery, someone would stand up and read from the scripture at that time, read the law, their hearts would be pricked, they would return to God.
SPEAKER_00: Revival would take place.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Nehemiah 8 says, Ezra read from the book the law of God, and they gave the sense so that people understood the reading.
SPEAKER_00: What about the New Testament?
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus encountered individuals who misunderstood God's word, he never blamed God's word.
SPEAKER_00: He would say things like, have you not read?
SPEAKER_00: He said there are five different times.
SPEAKER_00: Have you not read?
SPEAKER_00: You're wrong because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God, he would say.
SPEAKER_00: One time he said, How foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus expected people to understand the scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, Peter, and the letters they write, they don't write to the leaders of the church, except for the pastoral epistles.
SPEAKER_00: They write to just ordinary people in the church from beginning to end.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says God speaks.
SPEAKER_00: He uses human language, human authors with their own experience and their own background, but what they write is exactly what he wants written, and it uses it to speak to us.
SPEAKER_00: When you hold a Bible in your hand, you hold the speech of the creator of the universe who loves you so much that he will not remain silent.
SPEAKER_00: He will speak.
SPEAKER_00: So it shouldn't surprise us.
SPEAKER_00: I was on a flight to from India to uh Amsterdam.
SPEAKER_00: It was a missionary trip that we were on a mission trip.
SPEAKER_00: And I happened to sit beside a man who was wearing a turban, and we got into a conversation and learned he was the director of the Indian Film Institute.
SPEAKER_00: So we talked about Hollywood and Bollywood.
SPEAKER_00: Talked about Indian movies and why they always have the same script and people dancing and it just we had this great conversation.
SPEAKER_00: Finally he said, What do you do for a living?
SPEAKER_00: I said, Actually, I'm a Christian pastor.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Oh, I'm Hindu.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, We're all trying to figure God out, aren't we?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm listening, and he said, Let me tell you a story from India.
SPEAKER_00: He said, There were six blind men who were told that an elephant had come into their village, and they didn't know what an elephant was.
SPEAKER_00: Never because they were blind, they couldn't see an elephant.
SPEAKER_00: And so they decided, let's figure out what an elephant is by just touching it.
SPEAKER_00: And so some one of the blind men touched the side of the elephant and said, An elephant is like a wall.
SPEAKER_00: And another person touched the tail and said, An elephant is like a rope.
SPEAKER_00: And another blind guy touched the ear of an elephant and said, An elephant is like a fan.
SPEAKER_00: And then the man looked at me and said, We're all just trying to figure God out.
SPEAKER_00: And to be honest, I sat there stumped.
SPEAKER_00: I thought, he's right.
SPEAKER_00: We're all kind of blind.
SPEAKER_00: We're all just kind of feeling around trying to figure this out.
SPEAKER_00: And then a thought hit me.
SPEAKER_00: What if the elephant could talk?
SPEAKER_00: What if the elephant can say, I'm not a wall, that's just my side?
SPEAKER_00: What if an elephant can say, that's not my tail, that's not a rope, that's my tail?
SPEAKER_00: What if an elephant can say, that's not a fan, that is my ear?
SPEAKER_00: What if an elephant can say, let me tell you what I'm like?
SPEAKER_00: That's what we have in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: God is telling us what He's like, what He likes, what He doesn't like, what He hates, how He operates, what His heart, His character is.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't leave us to try to figure it out.
SPEAKER_00: Now there are things that we obviously that we don't understand when dealing with the mind of God.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, you can understand the Bible if you'll do four things.
SPEAKER_00: You can understand the Bible, not perfectly, but sufficiently if you will do four things.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, if you will ask the Holy Spirit to help you to understand.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, you cannot understand the Bible unless you have the Holy Spirit helping you.
SPEAKER_00: The one who inspired the writers of Scripture can illumine your mind and your eyes so that you can understand.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to 1 Corinthians 2.
SPEAKER_00: The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, considers them foolish, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And it's so interesting to see when someone comes to Christ and they've been trying to read the Bible, and it's like, I think I get it.
SPEAKER_00: I see it.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is helping them understand scripture.
SPEAKER_00: So when you when you begin to read your Bible, pray with the psalmist, Lord, open my eyes that I might behold wonderful things from your word.
SPEAKER_00: Help me understand.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the second thing.
SPEAKER_00: You can understand the scriptures if you remember what God is doing.
SPEAKER_00: What's the big picture of Scripture?
SPEAKER_00: The Bible is like a puzzle with thousands of pieces, and every one of those pieces is like a verse.
SPEAKER_00: And you pick up one piece of the puzzle and look at it, and it you can't really tell what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: You need all the other pieces of the puzzle.
SPEAKER_00: You need the context of the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: You can prove anything by the Bible if you just take things out of context.
SPEAKER_00: Just pull a piece here, pull there.
SPEAKER_00: There's just an old story about a man who wanted to know the will of God.
SPEAKER_00: So he opened his Bible and closed his eyes and put his finger on a verse, and it says, Judas went out and hanged himself.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and he turned the page and closed his eyes and put his finger on a verse, and it says, Go thou and do likewise.
SPEAKER_00: Then he turned another page and closed his eyes and put his finger on the first thing.
SPEAKER_00: It said, What you do, do quickly.
SPEAKER_00: You can make the Bible say anything you want to.
SPEAKER_00: You can use it to prove anything.
SPEAKER_00: So ask yourself, okay, if the Bible is revealing, if God is speaking about himself, he's revealing himself, what is it telling me about himself?
SPEAKER_00: When you're reading the scriptures, what is this telling me about God?
SPEAKER_00: And because he helps us understand ourselves, ask the question, what is he telling me about people, about the human race?
SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you a question.
SPEAKER_00: How do you explain the fact that very good people, very good Christians, can sometimes do terrible things, and that evil people can sometimes do very good things.
SPEAKER_00: How do you explain that?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the Bible helps us understand that.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says we are all made in the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: We all have dignity and worth, even though the image of God has been marred and scratched in us.
SPEAKER_00: Evil people are made in the image of God and they can occasionally do good things.
SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, the Bible says we're all sinners by nature and by choice.
SPEAKER_00: We're all fallen.
SPEAKER_00: So even good people can do terrible things.
SPEAKER_00: As far as I can tell, only the Bible understands and helps me understand the human race.
SPEAKER_00: Why things happen.
SPEAKER_00: So when you're reading the Bible, ask yourself the question: what does it tell me about God?
SPEAKER_00: What does it tell me about people?
SPEAKER_00: The story of the Bible, you have to get the epic story of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: It can be described in four words: creation, fall, redemption, consummation.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 1 and 2, creation.
SPEAKER_00: God creates everything, creates it good and wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 3 through Genesis 11.
SPEAKER_00: People rebel against God, turn their back on God, sin spreads, death spreads everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: Wickedness spreads.
SPEAKER_00: And then beginning in Genesis 12, God chooses a man named Abraham and says to Abraham, I'm going to work through you and through your descendants to redeem the world.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to do something through you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to preserve your people and I'm going to make you promises and covenants.
SPEAKER_00: I will establish them with you.
SPEAKER_00: And you walk right on through the Old Testament on into the New Testament, knowing that.
SPEAKER_00: If someone asks you, can you help me believe there is a God?
SPEAKER_00: You can't really prove it, but can you demonstrate to me that God exists?
SPEAKER_00: You can do that with one word.
SPEAKER_00: Jews.
SPEAKER_00: How do you explain the fact that after thousands of years, Jews basically have their cultures intact?
SPEAKER_00: They're still around.
SPEAKER_00: There are no Gergeshites.
SPEAKER_00: There are no Jebusites.
SPEAKER_00: There's no Hittites.
SPEAKER_00: There's Parasites, but there's these other people.
SPEAKER_00: So why are the Jews still here?
SPEAKER_00: God's promise to a man.
SPEAKER_00: He makes a covenant.
SPEAKER_00: So you got creation, fall, redemption.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord Jesus comes, descendant from Abraham, descendant of the woman, gives his life on the cross, rises from the dead, the word begins to spread, and someday he will return in great glory.
SPEAKER_00: New heavens, new earth, consummation.
SPEAKER_00: You get the big picture in your mind.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it so helps you understand what's going on in Scripture and where am I?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we see these movies about people stranding on a desert island, a castaway alone.
SPEAKER_00: If you were stranded on an island and you could choose one book, what book would you choose?
SPEAKER_00: You say the Bible?
SPEAKER_00: Not me.
SPEAKER_00: I do what G.K.
SPEAKER_00: Chesterton said one time.
SPEAKER_00: He said, if I was stranded on a desert island, I would want Thompson's basic guide to shipbuilding.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: You don't want a book that entertains you.
SPEAKER_00: You want to get home.
SPEAKER_00: You want to be saved.
SPEAKER_00: And friends, if you were a Christian, you were on an island of sin and death, and you wanted to get home.
SPEAKER_00: And so God sent his son the living word and gave us the written word so that we can get home.
SPEAKER_00: So if you just understand and believe, just remember what God is doing.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you a third point.
SPEAKER_00: You can understand the scriptures if you're willing to obey what you understand.
SPEAKER_00: If you're willing to obey.
SPEAKER_00: And so it describes things, it makes it very uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus one time said in John 8, why do you not understand what I say?
SPEAKER_00: It's because you cannot bear my words.
SPEAKER_00: You ever felt like the Bible was reading you?
SPEAKER_00: Instead of you reading the Bible?
SPEAKER_00: If you want to understand the Bible, put yourself under the authority of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Make a conscious decision.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible will be the ultimate authority in my life.
SPEAKER_00: So as you read the Bible, ask yourself questions like this.
SPEAKER_00: What does God want me to think?
SPEAKER_00: What does he want me to believe?
SPEAKER_00: What does he want me to desire?
SPEAKER_00: What does he want me to do?
SPEAKER_00: Because what I understand, I'm going to obey.
SPEAKER_00: And last of all, you can understand the Bible if you will just keep reading it.
SPEAKER_00: Because it was given for a lifetime of discovery.
SPEAKER_00: And so often what happens, we get bogged down somewhere in Scripture, we get bogged down and we just kind of quit.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going back and read the 23rd Psalm or read John.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to stand in the Leviticus.
SPEAKER_00: We get bogged down.
SPEAKER_00: Keep reading.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you make reading the Bible your lifestyle, you're going to come back to that passage, and maybe the fourth time you come back to it, it's going to click and you'll understand it.
SPEAKER_00: God gave us the scriptures for our entire life.
SPEAKER_00: Now let me just tell you a story that kind of wraps up everything that I've said.
SPEAKER_00: Years ago, a man named Hussein Andraya was in Memphis.
SPEAKER_00: I met him.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he ended up going to Afghanistan with him.
SPEAKER_00: But he told me his story.
SPEAKER_00: He was born and raised in a Muslim family, Shiite family from Afghanistan.
SPEAKER_00: When he was 15 years old, he was standing at a bus stop in Kabul, and someone put into his hand, stuffed into his hand, a couple of pages from the Bible in an old Persian script.
SPEAKER_00: He went home, 15 years old, got his little flashlight, sat in bed, and these are the words that he read.
SPEAKER_00: Love your enemies, bless those who hate you, pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.
SPEAKER_00: Now remember where he is being raised and who he is.
SPEAKER_00: For nine years, he tried to understand that.
SPEAKER_00: He became a mujahideen, a freedom fighter in Afghanistan.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he drove a tank fighting the Russians back in that time.
SPEAKER_00: But deep inside, he wanted to be a godly man.
SPEAKER_00: He was chosen from his mountain village to go to Iran to the school of the Ayatollah Khomeini to learn to be a Muslim Imam.
SPEAKER_00: And while he was there studying in Tehran, he was walking through a city park, and there was a man sitting on a bench who stopped him.
SPEAKER_00: His name was Daoud Rabban and said to him, You are one of those Afghanis.
SPEAKER_00: You people are always killing each other.
SPEAKER_00: You people need to learn to love your neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: And that stopped him.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Wait a minute, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_00: That was in that piece of paper that I read when I was a boy.
SPEAKER_00: So those two men began to meet together to look at the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Both of them were arrested because they had a Bible and they were using it as Muslims.
SPEAKER_00: Daoud was murdered by the Iranian secret police for teaching the Bible to a Muslim.
SPEAKER_00: Hussein was electrocuted, then he was beaten for three days, and then a guard came to him and said, We are going to release you because you are not a Christian, because you're a Muslim.
SPEAKER_00: He just continued to try to wrestle in his mind the truth of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: He went to an Islamic university in Egypt, spent 14 months studying the Quran to become a Muslim priest, still trying to refute the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And the question that was in his mind is can God be in this?
SPEAKER_00: Eventually he ended up in India as kind of a refugee.
SPEAKER_00: One day in New Delhi, he's walking to a movie and he passes a hall where a lot of people were gathered and they were singing, and it stopped him for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: He was curious, looked in, and there was a man standing at the front holding a book, and he was talking.
SPEAKER_00: He walked on in and listened to this man preach.
SPEAKER_00: And he told someone there, do you have a Bible that I could have?
SPEAKER_00: And they gave him a King James Version of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And he spoke no English.
SPEAKER_00: He decided at that moment, I'm going to learn English so that I can read this Bible.
SPEAKER_00: He went back the second night, and a man stood up and he talked about how God had delivered him from hating people.
SPEAKER_00: And he used the very verse that Hussein had read when he was 15 years old.
SPEAKER_00: And other passages, love those who hurt you, pray for those who persecute you.
SPEAKER_00: And it clicked.
SPEAKER_00: He understood the gospel, gave his life to Christ, and began to out on the sidewalk try to convince people about the truth of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: He was beat up time and time again.
SPEAKER_00: And he told me here in Memphis, he said, I know one thing, it was worth it to preach this gospel of my Savior.
SPEAKER_00: And then he said this my father, who did not speak with me for 25 years, finally, after my conversion to Christ, hired some men to shoot at me in New Delhi.
SPEAKER_00: Of all things, an open gutter was there in which I fell.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord protected me with that.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, he saved me first from the gutter of sin.
SPEAKER_00: And on that day, he had other plans for that city gutter to be open.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the good news at the age of 95, my father gave his life to the Lord Jesus before he left the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Today, Hussein preaches by satellite in Urdu, Dari, Hazargi, Hindustani, Pashtun.
SPEAKER_00: More Afghans have come to know Jesus through Hussein than any other single man.
SPEAKER_00: And Hussein said to me, All glory to God.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, you can understand the Bible and you can obey it.
SPEAKER_00: Not perfectly, but sufficiently.
SPEAKER_00: So read it and keep reading it.
SPEAKER_00: And keep reading it.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that your Holy Spirit would even take these words that we have read and heard and open our eyes to see things we've not seen before.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, give us the conviction and the decision that we will return and read and read your word as a lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00: Pray for those who are like Hussein and just try to understand that today it will click.
SPEAKER_00: That today someone will give their life to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I pray it in his name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.