John McDole - Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Wednesday Bible Study featuring John McDole

Transcription:

Good evening. Let's just open in prayer, please.

Thank you, Lord, for your word. Thank you for the anchor of the Lord Jesus, and for the Word of God. Thank you In Jesus name, amen.

I was thinking here, just recently, some of the things that helped me in the past.

When I first got right with the Lord, this is back in 1963. Anyway, I was far from the Lord for many years. I got saved when I was young, and then I got away from the Lord as a teenager. But when I started to grow in the Lord, I thought about some of the things that helped me. And so I'll share them with you. I'm not going to cover, it won't be complete. This is not going to be a complete deal.

But first thing I did, one of the first things I did, I took a course. A correspondence course with Moody Bible, and it was, Survey of the Scriptures, by Alfred Martin. Dan went to moody so he probably had him as a teacher. Anyway. Anyway, that's where I started. And I never actually studied the scriptures much before that.

One of the things I started to do was memorize the books of the Bible. And I think it's very important that you memorize the books of the Bible. And when somebody says turned to Nehemiah or one of the Minor Prophets, Hosea, or something like that, you're not searching all over the place to find it. You know where it is.

What you have to do on that to memorize the Book of the Bible, you have to review them. Especially like all the Minor Prophets, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. If you review them, you'll know them. You know, if you don't review them, you'll forget.

And then one of the early courses I had, had it set up in the Old Testament, 5, 12, 5, 5 and 12. Five is is the books of Moses, twelve are, the historical books from Israel, starts with Joshua. And then the five poetic books and then the five major prophets and the 12 minor prophets. That's the way that Old Testament is setup. I remember memorizing that, and it helped me to kind of see how the Bible all fits together.

And then then in the New Testament, the four gospels, the history of the church, starting there, and the book of Acts got 21, epistles or letters. And the one last one is the Revelation. During that course, I had to read through the Bible. I'd never read through the Bible. And so I started to read through the Bible.

And what I had to do is when I'm studying Genesis, I had to read through the book of Genesis. And anyway, it's three little books on the 66 books of the Bible. So I read through the Bible. If you read four chapters a day, every day, you'll read through it in less than a year. Okay? Four chapters a day.

What I'm doing right now is I read three in the old Testament, (I'm working my way through the Old Testament) and one in Psalms. And you can do it several different ways. But that's what I'm doing right now. Now what I'm doing is, is actually, I have a Bible program on my phone and I actually read it and listen to it at the same time. That really helps a great deal because you're reading it, and you're listening to it.

So next thing I remember was I took a Navigator course. Bible. It was called TMS, Topical Memory System. I think it's 120 verses. It had basic verses. And started going to some of the Navigators meetings and stuff like that, and got involved with the Navigators. So friend of mine, that really helped me.

I laid off for that for many years, and I've come back to the Bible memory on the internet, which is real good. And you can do it about any way you want to. I started off with a Bible memory where I had to speed type. I got kind of frustrated with that. And then then my daughter, she uses the first letter of each word. And you do it that way. And anyway, and you gotta hit 90% in order to go on your next verse. Anyway, it's a really good one, if you want Bible memory.

Then I went into some of the things. When this Old Testament survey course I took it said, when you're reading through the Old Testament, look for Jesus. That's really a clue to help you understand the Bible is to look for Jesus. And so that's what I began to do. And I think some of the important things is Abraham, the Abrahamic covenant. That's covered a great deal. But in chapter 22:18 says, "and in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed," and that seed is identified in Galatians 3:16, as the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so, and then that's repeated in 26:4, to Isaac, the exact same promise: "in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." And then 28:14 it says the same thing to Jacob, so you've got Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Helps you to understand a little bit there.

Then I thought of the verse, that's such a key verse in the Bible, Genesis 15, verse six, that's the first explanation of the gospel. "And Abraham believed God, it was credited to him for righteousness." And that's quoted in the New Testament three times. It is very, very important. "Abraham believed God," the first time the word believed is in the Bible.

"Abraham believed God and it was credited," or, other words you can use there, but that's one that kind of make sense to me. It credited to my account, you know, it's credited to his account. Righteousness. Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness.

And it's the first time that word righteousness is in the Bible too, but that: it's the way people were saved from Genesis: before the law, during the law, and after the law. They're all saved the same way: by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then, in Deuteronomy 18, It says, Moses is talking and he says, "There's going to be a prophet raised up, like me." A profit Like me. And when God does that, you pay attention. Pay attention. And so when you get a New Testament, especially in the book of John, it says, "This is the profit that was promised in the Old Testament," talking about the Lord Jesus. He is the Prophet. And it's talking about Deuteronomy, chapter 18 there.

And then 2 Samuel 7, 1 Chronicles 17, is the covenant of David. And that's what it's called, That Jesus Christ is going to be the son of David, son of David. And the New Testament starts off with Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the son of Abraham, son of David first that's mentioned, and then the son of Abraham, and it worked from Abraham forward. So that was important.

And later as I began to see that And the great commission that really opened up the Bible to me. There in Matthew, Mark, Luke and john and the book of Acts, (the first chapter) where God told us go go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and that's God's heart for the world. That's really opened up my mind for the Scripture and, and actually really helped me.

Later on, I started to make my own cross references, made my own. I didn't worry about anybody else's cross references, I just started making them, and my cross references will not be the same as yours. You know what mean? So this makes sense to me, this, and I put in my cross-references. It may not make sense you, you put the ones in there that makes sense to you.

I'll give you an example of that like the security of the believer. I start out one verse, I pick out one key verse and I make my reference after that. That is in john 10:28-30, where we're in the hands of the Father and in the hands of the Son. Very precious as far as knowing we're safe in the hands of the Lord. The security of the believer. And then I list a whole bunch of verses after that.

And then I have a one on the imminent, imminent return of Christ. That Jesus Christ could come back any day. And then: on that one I have Second Timothy 2:13. Then I take off from there. There's many, many verses that I use, that help me to understand, and what I believe, and I base it upon the Word of God, that one is looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. We're supposed to be doing that every day. Looking for that blessed hope and that glorious appearing of our great God and Savior every day. So that's the key verse I have on that.

There's the free will of man, you know that. I read this book recently. It's really, really good book. And I do know that Calvinism teaching never came in until the fourth century. The first three centuries all the Church Fathers believed in the free will of man. It did not come in until the fourth century. I'm gonna stick with my early church.

Anyway, for the key verse I got on that is, most of you all know that one. Revelation 22:17 "And the spirit of the bride say, Come, let him who hears say Come, let him who thirst come. Whoever desire Letting take the water of life freely."

Another one I have is: a sin unto death, 1 John 5:16, and 17 is the only particular scripture that actually talks about that. But then there's several verses that tie in with that to me, and so I list those. But 1 John 5:16 and 17: "If anyone sees his brother," (talking about believers) "Anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death, there is a sin leading to death. I do not say that we should pray about this. All unrighteous is sin and there is a sin, not leading to death." So that's a key verse I have and then I list under that the particular verses. That. Anyway, that's just an idea, making up your own cross references.

And then I thought I'd mention that I use eSword. It's free. And it's really good on the internet. And then they have particular things that you can buy with it. I bought Bible Knowledge Commentary, I feel it's one of the better commentaries. I bought Vines New Testament Words, and you buy them once in they are yours forever. But those are just some of the things that have helped me in years past and still helped me.

And it's funny, you know, look back, some of the things that I truly believe 15 years ago, I still believe today. Hadn't changed hardly a bit. That's kind of amazing, you know, because you get your convictions from here. Not from somebody telling you. Conviction from the Word of God. Thank you