Don’t panic and don’t say, “I can’t do this,” and put everything down. Just start. Most things you have to do one step at a time. I’m going to suggest to you that a lot of these verses you’ve probably heard over and over again already. Don’t panic. My goal is to help get it in you—that’s my job, to help equip you for works of service. If you struggle, just let me know. It’s not a big deal; we’ll work it through for your own good and for your own benefit.
When that stuff begins to dawn on your heart, all of a sudden you’re just like, all you can do—sometimes I’m glad no one else is here because I’m in my office shouting, “Hallelujah! Thank you, Jesus!” It’s amazing. And one little thing, I tell you, you can chew on it all week. Good piece of steak there. You get stuck between your teeth and you get stuck on it later.
God’s Word doesn’t change. It’s the same yesterday, today, and forever. So He had a meaning when He wrote it. I don’t get to put my meaning into it. When you speak to someone, do you like your words being taken out of context? Do you like someone twisting what you’re saying to make it mean something very different than what you said? You don’t like that. Can I say it? God doesn’t like it either.
If He’s done it for me, then guess what? He can do it for you. I’m just trying to be as honest. Listen, I understand that sometimes it can feel overwhelming at times and everything else, but if you persevere, don’t quit. Keep going. Grab hold of Him. Cry out to Him because He can meet you. Do you think anything’s too difficult for Him? So you’re not too difficult of a case. Don’t insult Him that way, because you’re not too hard of a case for Him.
Sometimes people talk about the Bible being old-fashioned, it’s out of date. You know what? I find that just isn’t the case. I find so many people don’t know where to belong. They say, “No one accepts me, no one wants me,” and yet He says, “I chose you before the foundation of the world. I paid a cost for you. I redeemed you with the blood of my Son. The Father says, ‘I’ve adopted you into my family, now you’re sons in Christ. I wanted you,’ He says, ‘before you did anything good or bad, I chose you before the foundation of the world to be mine.’ He says, ‘I’ve got something waiting for you as well, an inheritance that you’ll get in the right day and in the right time. I’m giving you my Spirit to seal you until I come back.’” Boy, it sounds like something everyone needs, doesn’t it?
All we did is make a list of what it means to be in Christ. In Christ, every spiritual blessing has been given to you. In Christ, you’re chosen before the foundation of the world. In Christ, you’re adopted as sons. In Christ, you’re accepted. In Christ, you’ve been forgiven of all your sins and you’ve been redeemed by His blood. In Christ, He’s gathered all those in Christ—heaven and earth—together. In Christ, you have an inheritance. In Christ, you are to the praise of the glory of God. In Christ, you are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. That’s quite a list, isn’t it?
Context rules. This is very important now, because context tells you what the words mean. If I said to you, “I have a trunk,” what does that mean? The context would be important. If I said, “I was out on a safari and I saw a trunk,” you’d know it was an elephant, because the context tells you the meaning. This is extremely important—I don’t get to read into it. Always keep the verses in the context. What context means is what surrounds it.
Would you give a sword to a child? Why? They might hurt themselves, might hurt someone else too, unintentionally. The Word—you can hurt people with it if you’re not careful. That would be using the Word of God like a sword and hurting someone and messing them up. That’s twisting Scripture. We don’t want to be like that. So we want to let the Word of God speak for itself.
God’s Word is inspired—it’s breathed out. So when it says “all,” it’s in reference to all the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation. It’s also verbally inspired. God chose specific words, even whether they were singular or plural. The whole text is equally inspired, so it’s the written text, the graphe, the writings. That’s why we can go back and study it. What you have in your hands are God’s holy words. That’s why we can study it.
It is so worth putting God’s Word in your heart, because then the Holy Spirit can get it out of you. When you memorize Scripture, you’re not just storing up words—you’re giving the Spirit something to work with, to bring to your mind when you need it most. I know from experience, verses I learned decades ago still come up when I’m preaching or facing a challenge. The Holy Spirit is faithful to remind you of what God has spoken, but you have to put it in first.
The greatest thing is the Spirit of God comes to help you. It’s a lot more basic than what you think. Now, the further you go, the more you’re going to build on it. But the basics, they really are that—they’re basic. And the more you press in, the more God will give to you. There are stories of people who couldn’t read very well, who had no education, and yet God used them as tremendous preachers in their generation. Not because they were eloquent, but because the Holy Spirit living in them can handle the Word. He knows it by heart, and He can bring it back to your mind. He can show it to you. He can make you understand it—not just here, but in here.
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When you preach God’s words, when you proclaim it, God is breathing those words out through your lungs. That’s amazing—God is literally breathing those out through you as you preach. That is the Word of God being proclaimed. It’s incredible, and God gives you and me the privilege to do it. So I just want to encourage you that according to Scripture, and that’s our final authority, it gives us instruction on the right way to go, it brings us correction when we start stepping out of line, but it’s that which equips you, makes you complete, mature for every good work.
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As you give yourself to His Word and He puts it in you, guess what’s going to happen to you? You’re going to look like Jesus, you’re going to behave like Jesus, you’re going to do the works of Jesus. This is incredible stuff, so this is something I take really seriously. I like to have fun, I like to goof around when I can, but in the midst of it I have an attitude: this is God’s holy Word. I don’t mess around with this.
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Observation is asking the question: What does it say? Most heresies that are taught come because people don’t actually read the text. What they do is they read into the text—it’s called eisegesis. They take what they’re wanting it to say and they read it into the text. Exegesis means you want it to come out of the text. You want God to speak to you from what He wrote. So you want exegesis. You want God to speak to you out of the text.
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When you go to preach something, you don’t want to preach your words, do you? No. “Well, I think you get to heaven by…” I’m not listening to you, right? Jesus said, the Bible said, God said—well, that’s all I need to know. I don’t care what you think, I care what He thinks. And I need to know what He thinks. The same word that causes you to grow, when you preach it and you speak it out, when you share it with someone, guess what? It’s the same word that’s going to cause me to grow too.
[00:43:32]
If you take the time and read it and re-read it, all of a sudden as you start doing it, it’s like, “Oh, I get this,” because the pieces begin to fit together. Literally, you begin to see how it flows, because remember, these are thoughts that are being given. He’s explaining something to you, so it’s all connected. They’re not just words, like arbitrary—it’s like there’s a connecting thought here. He’s actually saying something quite profound.
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Observation is answering the question, “What does it say?” That’s always the first question that you ask. The second one that you ask is called interpretation: “What does it mean?” Sometimes we like to jump right to there. That’s not helpful, because until you know what it says, how will you know what it means? We have to keep the words in context. The words are connected. Who’s speaking? Who’s he speaking to? What’s he saying? When is it for? Is it for me? Is it for someone else?
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Application is not asking, “What do I think it means?” It’s actually helping to answer the question, “What am I supposed to do now?” Am I supposed to think this way? Am I supposed to act this way? Am I supposed to repent of acting a certain way or thinking a certain way? How does it apply to me? Not, “What do I think it means?” but, “How does it apply to me?”
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If you’re born again, you have an inheritance where the baptism of the Spirit, the fullness of the Holy Spirit coming to live in you, He releases your tongue to pray, to praise, and to preach. You know Jesus is God, don’t you? Know that He died on the cross? Know He’s risen from the dead? You know that those who trust in Him, He’ll give eternal life to you. Guess what? You’ve got a Bible study right there. It’s not complicated, is it? Sometimes we try to make it too complicated.
[02:08:00]
When you trusted Christ, it was because He literally took the gospel—now, the gospel in itself is historical. When did it happen? Way back when. The message of it is still for today. It’s still powerful. But what does it say? Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. He was buried. He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. What does that mean then? Well, Christ, Jesus, the Son of God, He died. And He died for my sins. He was buried. And He rose again from the dead. All that’s in the Bible. But what happened is that understanding that now that He did this for me, well, what do I do now? And the Holy Spirit did something in your heart that caused faith to rise. He breathed on it into your life. All of a sudden, you went from being hard and cold to being alive and spiritually breathing. He took you from death to life. It’s called regeneration.
[02:15:08]
When revelation comes, you know what comes next? Transformation. I change. The Word of God is effective for what? Every good work. To make me complete for every good work. To make me a man of God. Complete for every good work. You change. You want to change? Be in the book. Ask the Holy Spirit, “Lord, bring this into my life. What does it say? What does it mean? How does it apply to me?” Please apply it to yourself before you start trying to apply it to everyone else. Before you ever get to a place of proclamation, it needs to touch you first.
[02:16:26]
As you take that on board, you will find that revelation will come. The understanding will come. And you’ll change. And then by all means, tell as many as you can. It’s just simple. That’s what I’m going to teach you to do. Tonight’s just a start. Let’s get it going. And I want you to—the reason I took you through this is so that you can see you can actually do it. It’s not left up to the experts. You can study the Bible for yourself.
[02:19:16]
If you do it bit by bit, all of a sudden it’s like, “Wow, that’s connected to this, which is connected to this, which is connected to this.” And then you begin to see, wow. And it’ll overwhelm your own heart. And that’s what you really want—not just knowledge. Because lots of smart people do stupid things. We want the revelation of it, so it changes me. So I begin to think different. I really realize He really does love me. No, for real. He really loves me. He gave Himself. His blood is what redeems me. And the Father sent the Son to do it. And He wants me. He’s not rejecting me. He wants me. He chose me. I’m in the family. I’m adopted. When that stuff begins to dawn on your heart, all of a sudden you’re just like, all you can do is praise Him.
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