(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Now, in Acts chapter 7 with the sermon that we just read from Stephen, we see basically kind of an overview of the history of the nation of Israel, which is most of the history of the Old Testament. He just kind of gives us a little synopsis where he hits the main events and explains the whole thing. And the great thing about that is that it allows us to kind of step back and see the big picture. You know, often when we're reading our Bibles and we just read a few chapters, we're just looking at one small little episode in the history of mankind and the history of the Bible. And often in a sermon, when a sermon is preached from one or two chapters, again, you're looking at a very small piece of the picture. But sometimes it's good to kind of take a step back and just get an overview of the big picture and understand how these things all fit together when we read our Bibles. A lot of people when they read the Bible don't understand the whole big picture of what the Bible's teaching. Now this is especially true when people have not read the Bible cover to cover. And if you've never read the Bible cover to cover, that should be a very high priority for you to get on track to start reading a little bit every day, checking it off either in the table of contents or some kind of a chart that you check off, and make sure that you read the Bible cover to cover at least one time and then read it again. I mean, I don't want to ask for a raise of hands to embarrass people. But if I ask for a raise of hands of who has never read the whole thing cover to cover, there are hands that would go up in the building that would say, I've never read the whole thing cover to cover. And it's a shame if you've been saved for longer than a year or two and you haven't read it cover to cover. You need to get on that. It's very important. The Bible says man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Now we need to read our Bibles not to just get spiritual strength and spiritual meat, but also in order to grow in knowledge. Over and over again the Bible tells us how important it is to gain knowledge, wisdom and understanding. And these things come from the Word of God. The Bible says but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Today many churches and denominations will de-emphasize knowledge and just focus on feelings and things like that. But we ought to know the Bible. We ought to know what the book is about. We ought to know what it teaches. We ought to know the biblical stories. Our children that are growing up should grow up with the knowledge of who the Bible characters are, what books they appear in, who the key players are in the story that is the Bible. Today we go out soloing and we talk to young people that don't grow up in church and even some that do grow up in church. And they don't know who Samson is. They don't know who Noah is. They don't know anything about the Bible. A lot of people get saved as adults. They didn't grow up with that foundation and so forth. So tonight, believe it or not, what I want to do tonight is I want to tell you the whole story of the Bible just in one sermon, okay? And the idea is to explain every book of the Bible in one sermon. It's not going to be a super long sermon or anything. But I want to put this together. I hope you guys don't have anywhere to go tonight because we're doing the whole Bible tonight. Honestly, though, I just want to give you an overview because I know some people in here that have read the Bible a lot probably already have an understanding of this. But I guarantee you that even those who've read the Bible a lot, if you pay attention, you will learn things tonight. But for those that are newer to the Bible, haven't read the whole thing cover to cover, I think this will be very helpful for you to put things in perspective. So while I'm teaching this tonight, you might want to just kind of have a finger in the table of contents of your Bible so that you can see the list of books there. Because the way I'm going to explain this tonight is in the order of the books, the way that they appear in the table of contents, not necessarily in a strictly chronological order because all of the books in the Old Testament are not in chronological order. And so starting with the book of Genesis, and I don't want to talk about the book of Genesis for too long, because that's probably the book that people know the most. Because people get really excited about reading the Bible and they turn to Genesis and they read it and they're like, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, you know, no more, and they kind of get bogged down and that's as far as they get. So I just want to say a few things about Genesis, but go to chapter 6 of Genesis. The book of Genesis, in a nutshell, basically takes us from the creation of the world all the way until the nation of Israel is formed. That's the purpose of the book of Genesis. So we start out, of course, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, and the Bible describes God creating all of the plants and all the animals, the heavenly bodies, all these things. And it's very clear that it took place in six literal days because of the fact that it says over and over again, the evening and the morning were the first day. And it also says in Exodus chapter 20 that in six days God made the heaven, the earth, and everything that is therein. So there's no gap, you know, between Genesis 1-1 and 1-2, as some would put forth. So God creates everything. He creates Adam and Eve, the first man and the first woman. They're in the Garden of Eden, of course, they sin, and as a consequence, they are cast out. They have children, Cain and Abel, and many other sons and daughters. People often ask the question, you know, hey, where did Cain get his wife? Well, you know, he married his sister, folks, deal with it. In those days, you know, that was allowed because they were, it was the only game in town, okay? But when Adam and Eve had children, the Bible makes it clear that they had a multitude of sons and daughters. And obviously it would be different than marrying your sister today because back then, of course, the DNA, the gene pool would have been very diverse because if you think about it, Adam had all the DNA and all the different traits for every type of person since they all came from Adam and Eve. So there was a lot of diversity. The problem today with marrying someone who is a close relative is that your genes are too similar. There's not enough diversity in the gene pool. That's why we're supposed to branch out and the Bible tells us not to marry anyone that is near of kin unto us. You know, don't marry your sibling, don't marry your cousin, et cetera. But because this is the very early days of mankind, that was different. So that's what happened. They populated the earth and the Bible tells, of course, the story about how Cain killed Abel. He murdered Abel because his own works were evil and his brothers righteous. Now he was not given the death penalty. The death penalty did not exist at that time. So he gets away with it, as it were, without being put to death for murdering his brother Abel in cold blood. But what happens is a little bit later, one of Cain's descendants named Lamech, he ends up murdering someone and he is also unpunished. And he says, well, if Cain is going to be avenged sevenfold, well then, you know, I should be avenged seven times, or what is it, seventy-sevenfold because of the fact that, you know, I was justified in what I did, okay? So as a result of this murder going on and being unpunished, the next thing that we see is in Genesis 6, the whole earth is filled with violence, okay? So first Cain kills Abel, then Lamech kills a guy, and then pretty soon in Genesis 6, the Bible tells the whole earth is filled with violence. Look what the Bible says in chapter 6 verse 5. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all the flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, the end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them, and behold, I will destroy them with the earth. So notice the thing that he keeps bringing up about the earth, the violence. That's the problem, okay? They're harming each other. There's killing and murder and violence. That's what he's saying. He says, I'll destroy them with all the earth, verse 14, make thee an ark of gopher wood, room shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. So Noah builds the ark. He gets on with his wife, three sons, and their wives. The whole rest of the earth is wiped out in a flood, so all those descendants of Adam and Eve that had overspread the earth for about 1,650 years are all wiped out, and it's just Noah and his wife, three sons, and their wives, they get on the ark, eight people. So they're on the ark for about a year. Once everything's dried off, they get off the ark, and at that time, they're told to be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth. So everything starts over. So basically, every person on this planet not only descends from Adam, but you could say every person on this planet descends from Noah, because everyone is from those eight people that were all Noah's family. So when they get off the ark, instead of spreading out throughout the earth and filling the earth and replenishing the earth, what they decide to do is to all stay together and stay united, and they say, we're going to build a city, and we're going to build a tower that's going to reach to heaven, and we're going to make us a name, and we don't want to be spread across the earth. And God didn't like that. So God comes down and confuses their languages at the Tower of Babel so that they cannot live together, and by doing that, he divides them into different nations, and they head off in different directions, because they couldn't communicate with one another. So they split off into different directions. Then that's in chapter 11. That's the story of the Tower of Babel. Now go to Genesis chapter 12. This is a key event in Genesis 12. So up through chapter 11, we basically have the creation, we have Adam and Eve, we have them sinning, they bring the curse on mankind, we have the story about Cain and Abel, and then of course the whole world is populated, it's filled with violence, and so then God sends a flood, destroys mankind, Noah and his family are saved. When they get off the ark, in order to prevent the same thing from happening again, just a total breakdown into violence, God institutes the death penalty. When they get off the ark, he says, who so shedeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. Then instead of spreading out and filling the earth, they all remain united at Babel. God separates them by confusing their languages, and so now that's where we have all the different nations of the world beginning to take shape based upon the grandsons and great grandsons of Noah. So that event of the Tower of Babel took place exactly 100 years after they got off the ark. That's where things were confused and they were scattered. So what God decides to do, because now there's a multitude of nations, is to basically pick one man that will found a nation that will be the chosen nation to bring the word of God to the rest of the world. That's the goal with Abraham. God calls Abraham in Genesis 12 verse 1. Look what the Bible says. Now the Lord had said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house unto a land that I will show thee, and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee, this is the key, shall all families of the earth be blessed. So the purpose with choosing Abraham to found this great nation, which would of course be the nation of Israel, was not just to exalt one group of people and say, hey, these people are better than everybody else. Hey, everybody, worship these wonderful people and they're the special chosen ones. No, they were chosen for a job. The job was, according to the Bible, to be a light to the Gentiles. And they were to bring the word of God to the world. The Old Testament scriptures were delivered through the nation of Israel. The Bible says, unto them were committed the oracles of God. And not only that, it would be the nation that would bring forth the savior of mankind, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why it says that in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. That is quoted in Galatians 3 when it says that the gospel was preached to Abraham, saying unto him, in thee shall all nations be blessed. For seeing that the heathen would be justified by faith in Jesus Christ, it was said unto him that in him all families of the earth would be blessed. So God creates nations in Genesis 11 and then in Genesis 12 he picks one nation. In fact, he picks a man who is not yet a nation, but he says I'm going to make you into a great nation that's going to be the pattern nation, that's going to be the nation that is a light to the Gentiles. Now in the book of Genesis, we follow the life of Abraham, his son Isaac, his son Jacob. Jacob's name is changed to Israel and then Israel has 12 sons and those 12 sons of Israel become the 12 tribes of Israel. That's what Genesis covers. Basically from creation to the formation of nations, Abraham is chosen to found a special nation. His grandson Jacob becomes the one that will produce that nation and his name is changed to Israel and then the 12 sons of Israel become the 12 tribes of Israel and that's where we're at at the end of the book of Genesis. Those 12 men are alive at the end of the book of Genesis and we see them go down into Egypt because of a famine in the land of Canaan. That's where we leave off at the end of the book of Genesis. Now they end up staying down there in Egypt for 400 years and during that 400 years, they multiply and become a great nation instead of just the 70 people who go down at the end of Genesis, by the time they leave, there are millions of them. So they multiply into a great nation. That's where we get into the book of Exodus. So in the book of Exodus, we skip forward hundreds of years to where they're now a great nation and they become enslaved in Egypt and the Egyptians make their lives bitter with hard bondage and so then God sends them Moses as a deliverer to bring the enslaved nation of Israel out of Egypt and to bring them back to the promised land where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had lived in tents hundreds of years before. So in the book of Exodus, we see them leaving Egypt and then for the second half of the book of Exodus, we basically have the building of the tabernacle, a physical building where they would worship God, but it was a portable building. It wasn't like the temple, it was a great tent that could be taken down and set up in different places and then also in Exodus, we get some of the rules and regulations of the Mosaic law. Now if you would look at the table of contents in your Bible and I'm just going to kind of break down what some of these books cover, but of course we know Genesis takes us from the creation to the founding of the nation of Israel. Exodus teaches about the nation of Israel multiplying and then coming out of Egypt and heading toward the promised land. Some of the rules are given and the tabernacle is built. Then we get into Leviticus, it picks up where Exodus left off, but Leviticus doesn't really carry the story forward very much. There's very little story in it. It's about 90 some percent, just more rules. It's the laws of God. Then when we get into Numbers, we do have more of the laws of God, but mainly we pick up the story in the book of Numbers. Now what the book of Numbers covers would be the time that they spend wandering in the wilderness. So they leave Egypt in Exodus, okay. Again Leviticus doesn't really move the story forward. When we get to Numbers, they head into the promised land and when they get there, they're scared and they do not enter into the promised land because of their unbelief, because of their lack of faith in the Lord, they end up having to wander in the wilderness for 40 years. That's the period that is covered in the book of Numbers, that wandering in the wilderness. A lot of stories there, Balaam and different events that happen. Then when we get into Deuteronomy, the next book, the word Deuteronomy literally means second law. And what this is is basically just a recap. Deuteronomy is a recap of a lot of the commandments that we already heard in Exodus and Leviticus. He recaps them and puts it together and it's also a recap of the story of them wandering in the wilderness. That's why it's called second law, Deuteronomy, because it just kind of reviews all that. And at the end of Deuteronomy, Moses dies, okay. So then we get into the book of Joshua. Joshua is where they go into the promised land now. They've wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. Everybody who is at least 20 years old has died in the wilderness. It's now a new generation that believes the Lord and they follow Joshua into the promised land and for about seven years they're fighting battles to take over the land in the promised land and to kick out the inhabitants. Now they were supposed to completely wipe out the inhabitants and just live there by themselves, but they failed to do that so they ended up having to live amongst a lot of the nations that they were supposed to drive out, namely the Philistines and also the Jebusites and many of the other Canaanites that lived there. So in the book of Judges what we see is a 400 year period of them living in the promised land and following the law of Moses. They have the system that God gave them of laws and judges that we find in the books of Genesis through Deuteronomy. But during the book of Judges we see them constantly failing to keep the law. What happens is there will be a righteous generation that follows God because of a great leader. Now that first great leader is Joshua, but then after the death of Joshua there's a great leader named Ophniel the son of Kines, but whenever these leaders will go off the scene then the children of Israel will fail to teach their children and train their children right and without strong leadership they end up turning away from the Lord. So in the book of Judges there's this cycle of them just constantly getting right with God under a powerful leader, then that leader dies, that generation dies, and then another generation rises up of just these spoiled little brats who kind of grew up without having to fight any battles or without having to take a stand for anything and then they end up worshipping other gods and going into sin and then God puts them back into bondage, He punishes them, He brings in the enemies, He brings in the Philistines, He brings in the Moabites, the Midianites, and then when things go bad for them then they're crying out to the Lord, Lord save us, we're sorry, we shouldn't have done it. Then God sends them another great leader. You know whether that's Ehud, whether that's Barak, whether that's Gideon, Samson, you know all the different judges, 12 in all that are listed in the book of Judges, that come in and save the day and lead the people back to worshipping the Lord and also lead them into battle to kick out the foreign invader and to bring peace to the land. And then in that generation they'll have peace. So that's what we see in the book of Judges. Well when we get into the next book, if you're looking at the table of contents there, the book of Ruth, Ruth is just a short story and that story the Bible says takes place in the time of the judges. So so far you can see everything's really in a nice chronological order isn't it? I mean it makes sense, you know Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua leads into Judges, Judges leads right into 1 Samuel, everything's chronological for the most part. So we get into 1 Samuel, we start out they're still under the judges. So the judge that they're under at the beginning of 1 Samuel is Eli who's not mentioned in the book of Judges, he's a new guy. Even after Eli they're under Samuel. But then they look at Samuel's children and Samuel's children were ungodly. And so the children of Israel said, make us a king like all the nations. You know we don't want to be under the system of judges that God laid out anymore. We want to have a king to be like all the rest of the nations. And God told them that they shouldn't have a king. And Samuel told them that they shouldn't have a king. And God even said, Samuel don't feel bad, this is a paraphrase, he said it's not you that they've rejected, it's me that they've rejected, that I should not reign over them. Now the problem that these people had is that they're deciding do we want the sons of Samuel to rule over us or do we want a king to rule over us? Well here's the thing, this was never supposed to be hereditary, this thing of judges. So it shouldn't have been just automatic that Samuel's sons are going to be the next judges and hey if they're not living for God then let's throw out the whole system. No they should have just rejected Samuel's sons and chosen someone else to be a judge, someone who was a powerful man of God. It shouldn't be hereditary, it was never supposed to be that way. But anyway they don't take God's advice, they don't take Samuel's advice, so they end up choosing a king to be like the rest of the nations. Actually God chooses the king for them. He says okay we'll all choose the one who's going to rule over you. Then God chooses King Saul to be their leader and King Saul reigns over them for 40 years. Now the book of 1 Samuel in a nutshell basically covers the last days of the judges, Eli and Samuel and then it takes us through the entire reign of King Saul and at the end of 1 Samuel King Saul dies. That's kind of what ends 1 Samuel. So then when we get into 2 Samuel we have the story of the next king of Israel which would be David. David's reign is covered in the book of 2 Samuel. It starts with the events leading up to him becoming king and it ends with him dying. It talks about his last words and so forth, he's about to die at the end. Then we get into 1 Kings, we pick up with the next king, King Solomon. And 1 Kings and 2 Kings together will take us from King Solomon all the way through all the rest of the kings until the children of Israel go away into Assyria and Babylon and their nation is destroyed. Now let me stop and talk a little bit about these books for a moment. Now first of all we see right away that we have the book of 1 Kings and 2 Kings and then we have the books of 1 and 2 Chronicles. So the question is why do we have both? Why do we have 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles? What's the difference between the two? Well first of all God often repeats things in a different way to help us understand so that we can compare Deuteronomy with Exodus or so that we can compare the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and learn things that way. But there is actually a big difference between 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles and here's the difference. 1 and 2 Kings focuses more on the northern kingdom of Israel, that's the main focus. It talks about both Israel and Judah but it focuses on the northern kingdom of Israel whereas 1 and 2 Chronicles focuses on the southern kingdom of Judah. Now here's how these books work together. Basically 2 Samuel is an exact parallel with 1 Chronicles, those are the two that cover the same events and then 2 Chronicles is parallel with 1 and 2 Kings. Basically the events of 1 and 2 Kings are crammed into 2 Chronicles. But 2 Chronicles is focusing on the southern kingdom of Judah, 1 and 2 Kings is focusing on the northern kingdom of Israel. Now let me explain to you why that is. After the death of Solomon, because Solomon had worshipped false gods in his old age and had turned away from the Lord, God told him that as a punishment the kingdom would be divided. His son would not rule over the whole thing. So in the days of his son Rehoboam, they lose most of the kingdom. Ten of the tribes are taken away and they break off and form another country. Sort of like in our nation with the civil war, except it's the exact opposite. In our nation it was the south that broke off and declared their independence from the north. This is the exact opposite, it was actually the north that breaks away from the south. But the difference is that they actually won and they actually remained separate. Of course, King Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, tried to keep the kingdom together but God came to him and told him and said, no, this is a punishment, this is a judgment, it's supposed to be divided and I'm just going to let the northern kingdom stay separate. And here's the thing, they're never reunited. They never were reunited, ever. There is a prophecy about them being reunited, but that's talking about the millennial reign of Christ. In Ezekiel it talks about, hey, Judah and Israel are going to be reunited someday. It's talking about the millennial reign of Christ when they would be reunited and no sooner if you actually study the context. That's another sermon. So here's what happened. The nation of Israel is broken into two parts. The northern kingdom is called Israel. So the one that's named Israel is not the one with Jerusalem in it. It's the northern kingdom that basically totally turns away from the Lord and never has a righteous king ruling over it. So when they break off the southern kingdom of Judah where Jerusalem is and so forth, that's the one that's reigned over by the sons of David and they kind of go back and forth. They'll have a good king, then they'll have some bad kings, then they'll have a good kings and bad kings, whereas the northern kingdom is just always ruled over by bad guys all the time. They're always worshipping golden calfs or at their best and then at their worst they're just worshipping Satan in the form of Baal. So that's the northern kingdom of Israel. Now in that northern kingdom the capital city moved around a few times, but for most of their history leading up to Omri and Ahab, the kingdom has Tirzah as the capital. But then there's a guy named Zimrai who kills his master and takes over the throne for himself and he rules for a whopping seven days. This guy's Zimrai, okay? Well, as he rules for seven days people are saying, you know, we don't want this guy ruling over us and they really like this general named Omri. That was the guy that the people wanted. So Omri rallies the people and they go to overthrow king Zimrai and when Zimrai sees them coming he realizes that he has no chance. So he decides to just kamikaze the whole thing and just light his palace on fire and just burn the whole thing to the ground with him in it. Basically, you know, if I can't rule over this thing no one can. He just burns the whole place down, himself included. So after that the capital was no longer in Tirzah. That new king Omri, he goes out and buys a new piece of land to make it the capital and he buys it from a guy named Shimer. And so that place ends up being called Samaria after the name of Shimer. So Omri sets up the capital in Samaria. So for most of the scriptures that we read in First Second Kings, First Second Chronicles and then when we get into the prophets that go along with those, Isaiah, Jeremiah, etcetera, you'll often see reference made to Israel with the capital of Samaria and Judah having the capital of Jerusalem, okay? That's how things end up being. Now in that time period, if you would go to Second Kings chapter 16, Second Kings chapter 16. So in that time period, like I said, there's a lot more worship of the Lord going on down in Judah than in Israel. Most of the time in Israel they're worshiping false gods, they're worshiping Satan and the leadership is always leading them that direction. They never have a good king, they never have a godly man like a Hezekiah come in or a Josiah come in and straighten things out. That's all happening in the southern kingdom of Judah. Well over time, the people living in the southern kingdom of Judah begin to be referred to as the Jews because it's called Judah so they're called Jews. Now that word is first used in Second Kings chapter 16. This is the first time the word Jew is ever used in the Bible. It says in verse number 5, then Reason king of Syria and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to war and they besieged Ahaz but could not overcome him. At that time Reason king of Syria recovered Elath to Syria and drave the Jews from Elath and the Syrians came to Elath and dwelt there unto this day. So Ahaz sent messengers to Tilgath-Pileser king of Assyria saying, I am thy servant and thy son. Come up and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria and out of the hand of the king of Israel which rise up against me. So let me just explain these verses to you here. King Ahaz is the king of the southern kingdom of Judah and king Ahaz is attacked by the Syrians and Israel working together. So the king of Israel and the king of Syria they team up and they say, let's go fight Judah and let's go take some of these cities away and incorporate them into our nation. And this is the first time the word Jews is ever mentioned in verse 6 where it talks about how Reason king of Syria recovered Elath to Syria and drave the Jews, first mention of the word Jews in the Bible, from Elath. So what's interesting about this is that the first time the word Jew is ever mentioned in the Bible, Israel is fighting against the Jews because it's Israel and Syria fighting against the Jews, driving the Jews out. And then the next verse, the king of Israel is going to Tilgath-Pileser saying, help me against these people. Help me fight back. I'm sorry, the king of Judah is saying, help me fight back against Israel. So this is where people get mixed up. People think that the word Jew is synonymous with Israelite. This is false because of the fact that the word Jew is only ever used in the Bible to refer to those of the southern kingdom. That word is never used until the kingdom is divided. And the first time it's used, the context is that Israel is fighting the Jews. So how can they be one and the same if Israel is fighting the Jews? It doesn't make any sense. That's what the word Jew means. Now a lot of people will lie about this and say, well Pastor Anderson teaches that only the tribe of Judah are Jews. Now is that what I just said? Did I say the tribe of Judah is the Jews? Did I ever say that? Anything like that? No. But people will lie and create that straw man because they want to have this pro-Zionist, pro-Israel, pro-Judah mentality. They want to basically ignore scripture because scripture teaches that the Jews are the southern kingdom. I just showed it to you. And by the way, when you study the Bible, if you want to get the definition of a word, it's always great to look up the first time it's mentioned because God will often give you the definition right there. And the first time Jews are mentioned, they're in contrast with Israel. Here's Israel. Here's the Jews. Now why is that important? Well the important thing is to understand that the Jews are of the southern kingdom of Judah. Notice I didn't say the tribe of Judah. I said the southern kingdom of Judah. What's the difference? The southern kingdom of Judah includes more than just the tribe of Judah. It also includes the tribe of Benjamin. And it also includes most of the Levites. And it also includes very few stragglers from the other ten tribes that basically made their way down into Judah in the days of Hezekiah because of the fact that Hezekiah brought the nation of Judah back to God and he put out a call to northern Israel saying, look, if you want to worship the Lord, come on down. So obviously there are going to be people of the ten tribes in the north who are sick of all the Baal worship and sick of all the worshiping of golden calves that are going to come down into that southern kingdom of Judah and join the nation of Judah. So the southern kingdom of Judah is predominantly 90-some percent made up of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi. That's the vast majority of the southern kingdom. But it could also include some stragglers from the northern kingdom, people who are righteous people who came down in the days of Hezekiah or at other times just because they want to worship the Lord, they came into the southern kingdom. And also the southern kingdom could even include people from all over the world who'd come to Judah. It could include some Ethiopians. It could include people from Canaan land, the former inhabitants, the Canaanites like Simon the Canaanite, people who descended from those tribes that they were supposed to have driven out and so forth. So that's the difference between the Jews and Israel and the reason I say that is that the term Jew is not used until after they're split. So when the Bible talks about the twelve tribes of Israel, it would be better to refer to them as Israelites or Hebrews. That would be more accurate than to call them Jews because Jews are of the southern kingdom. So we have these two kingdoms that have been split, right? What happens to these two kingdoms? Well, like I said, the northern kingdom was worse than the southern. So eventually God brings the Assyrians in to come in and take the nation of Israel captive. Now obviously they didn't take every single person captive but they took a lot of the people of Israel captive and then they repopulated the nation of Israel with people from other nations. They gave them the land and redistributed it to them. And those people who lived in the northern kingdom of Israel after the ten tribes were taken captive, those people became known as the Samaritans. Why? Because the capital of Israel is Samaria. So that's why that northern kingdom, eventually the people who lived there became the Samaritans. Most of them are not even descended from Israel but they become mixed in with some of those northern Israelites which is why when you get to the story of the woman at the well in John chapter 4, she's talking about Jacob our father. So that shows that the Samaritans did have some ties to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But they'd become so intermingled that they'd mostly lost their tribal identity. They don't know what tribe they are, they're mixed in with all the heathen of the land. They weren't really looked at as being Jews, they were looked at as being Samaritans. And then the Bible even tells us that Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans. So there's a distinction there. Then what happens to the southern kingdom? Well the southern kingdom of Judah ends up being invaded by the Babylonians and they're taken captive to Babylon as a punishment for serving other gods. They're in Babylon for 70 years and then after 70 years they come back from Babylon and they rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, they rebuild the temple, and so forth. Now let's go back to our table of contents and understand where we're at with these books. We understand 1st, 2nd Kings, 1st, 2nd Chronicles, that's basically giving us all the kings of Israel and Judah and the stories that are therein. Another notable thing to mention about 1st Kings is that 1st Kings is where we find Elijah the prophet and 2nd Kings is where we find a lot of stories about Elisha the prophet. And these guys are mainly preaching in the northern kingdom which is why they're in 1st and 2nd Kings. So after we finish up with the story here of the Israelites being carried away captive to Syria and the Jews being carried away captive to Babylon, then the next book that you see is the book of Ezra. After 2nd Chronicles is Ezra. What's Ezra about? Ezra is about the children of Judah coming back from Babylon and building the temple. Then the next book Nehemiah is about the children of Judah coming back from Babylon to build the wall. So first they build the temple, forty and six years was the temple and building according to the Pharisees, and then in Nehemiah they build the wall around the city. And then the book of Esther is a story about Jews that are scattered throughout the world and obviously that story takes place in Persia and Shushan, the palace. So up through Esther the Bible is in chronological order, more or less. Basically 1st and 2nd Chronicles overlap with 1st and 2nd Kings. But pretty much from Genesis to Esther we have the entire story of the Old Testament. I mean that gives us the whole chronology, the whole history of the Old Testament is from Genesis to the book of Esther chronologically. Then after that we're no longer in chronological order because we enter a new section. Now if you want to take a pen and do this you can, but basically here's how the Old Testament divides. If you draw a line between Esther and Job, that's one division, then after Song of Solomon would be another division, and then after Daniel would be another division. And the reason why this is important is because Genesis through Esther, that's a chronological story being told. Then we get into a new section which would be the section of the poetic books. So these 5 books, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon, these are the poetic books. And these books are also roughly in chronological order because if you think about it the book of Job is an old book, probably written, well we know that the events in the book of Job take place pretty much between Genesis and Exodus, but the book was written later, hundreds of years later the book was written. So we have Job and then we have Psalms, who is the primary author of the book of Psalms? David, right? And the Psalms are written by some other people as well, but primarily by David. And then after that we have Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon which are all written by Solomon. So those are our poetic books. So notice, each section of the Old Testament is in order within that section. So we have the 5 books of Moses known as the Torah or the Law books. Then we have Joshua to Esther, which we call the historical books. Joshua to Esther is the story, the historical books, and those are in roughly chronological order. Then we get the poetic books, they're roughly in chronological order. Then we get to the major prophets. Now the major prophets, and if you would flip over to Isaiah chapter 1, the major prophets are also in chronological order, okay? Now the 4 major prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. Now look what the Bible says in Isaiah chapter number 1. It says, the vision of Isaiah the son of Amos, which he saw concerning Judah, is that northern or southern kingdom? Southern kingdom, and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. So Isaiah is preaching during the reign of 4 different kings, he has a long ministry, and this is basically long before the children of Israel, or the children of, I'm sorry, this is long before the children of Judah go into captivity, he's preaching, okay? Then the next book, go to Jeremiah chapter 1, Jeremiah chapter 1. So when is Isaiah preaching? He's preaching during the reigns of these 4 kings, okay? So he's preaching during the events of 2 Kings, and he's preaching basically long before they go into captivity in the nation of Judah. Now look if you would at Jeremiah chapter 1, it says, the words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah, the son of Amon, king of Judah. Now notice, this is a totally different king than when Isaiah is prophesying, this is a later king. This is the king that is basically reigning very shortly before they go into captivity. So Isaiah is long before they go into captivity, Jeremiah is basically leading up to the captivity. So in the book of Jeremiah, it describes them going into captivity. So Jeremiah is leading up to and going into captivity, right? Then the next prophet Ezekiel deals with them already in captivity, flip over to Ezekiel chapter number 1. So we have Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, which Lamentations is just more from Jeremiah, and then we have Ezekiel, okay? Look at Ezekiel chapter 1. Now it came to pass in the 30th year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives, see he's among the captives, by the river of Kibar, that the heavens were open and I saw visions of God in the fifth day of the month, which was the fifth year of king Jehoiachin's captivity. The word of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans, by the river Kibar, and the hand of the Lord was there upon him. So he's already captive, he's in the area controlled by Babylon, and he is part of the captivity, so that shows you that these prophets are in chronological order. Isaiah, before, Jeremiah, leading up to the captivity, and Ezekiel, he's already captive. Okay, the next major prophet, Daniel, is also during the captivity, same time period as Ezekiel. The reason it comes after Ezekiel is because Ezekiel's a grown man when he's taken captive, Daniel is a child when he's taken captive, so he ends up living all the way through the captivity, and Daniel even goes beyond the captivity. Even after the 70 years is over, Daniel is still preaching, so that's why Daniel comes last of the major prophets. The next section we enter is the minor prophets, and the minor prophets are again in chronological order, with each other, okay? Because we start with Hosea, flip over to Hosea chapter 1, Hosea chapter 1, and we'll notice in verse 1 it says, the word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Berai, watch this, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, king of Judah. Now does that sound familiar? That's the exact list of Isaiah. So Isaiah and Hosea are both preaching at the exact same time, right? And then as we go down through the minor prophets, we're going to chronologically move forward. You know, we don't have time to look at all of it, but in Amos 1, 1 it talks about how he's preaching in the days of Uzziah. It talks about in the book of Jonah, we don't really get a time in Jonah, but if we study second kings, we can see that Jonah was during the reign of Amaziah, okay, also. Then we have Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, okay? Go to Zephaniah chapter 1, verse 1, Zephaniah chapter 1, Zephaniah chapter number 1, and the Bible says in verse 1, the word of the Lord which came unto Zephaniah, the son of Tushai, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amoriah, the son of Hiskiah, in the days of Josiah, the son of Ammon, king of Judah. Now which of the major prophets preached in the days of Josiah? Jeremiah, right? Leading up to the captivity is where we are in the book of Zephaniah. So if you study these, you can kind of figure out, okay, what time period these guys are preaching and put them in the context of the story, okay? Then the last three books that we have in the Old Testament are Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. These three minor prophets are after they get back from the captivity. So these would be during the time of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. These would be during part of the book of Daniel, okay? So look if you would at Malachi chapter 4. And while you're turning to Malachi chapter 4, I'll just give you a quick overview of what we talked about. Genesis through Esther gives us the framework of the story of the events of the Old Testament. We get the whole story, okay? Then we enter a new section, the poetic books, right? The poetic books don't really have anything to do with the story. So they're in a separate section, so as not to interrupt the story, okay? Then we get into the major prophets, and they are in chronological order, taking us from the days of, you know, Uzziah the king and the different kings that are listed there up through Hezekiah. And then basically we get into Jeremiah, which gets us closer to the captivity, right, and into the captivity. Ezekiel, we're already into the captivity. Daniel, we go even further into the captivity. Major prophets are in order. And then we have the minor prophets that are also in order, same order, okay? Now where we left off in the story in the Old Testament is that the children of Israel, namely the children of Judah, have gone into Babylonian captivity, right? They're there for 70 years. Then they come back in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, rebuild the temple, rebuild the wall, and they're going to live there for several hundred years, okay? That's the way things stand when Jesus comes in the book of Matthew in the New Testament. So what we have is we have the children of Judah living in their own land, but by the time Matthew rolls around, they're under the rule of the Roman Empire, so it's now a province known as Judea. Instead of being called the nation of Judah, it's the province of Judea, okay? And then Jesus comes on the scene and so forth. Now let me back up a little bit. Why is it important to know when Isaiah preached? Why is it important to know when Jeremiah preached? Why is it important to know when Ezekiel preached? Well here's why it's important. And by the way, the fact that people don't understand the order, they get into false doctrine, okay? For example, it's very obvious when you're reading a book like Ezekiel, which starts out saying, I'm among the captives by the river Kibar, I'm captive, it's the captivity of Jehoiachin, we're all captive here, we're captive in Babylon, we're in the Babylonian captivity, okay? That when Ezekiel then preaches a lot about how they're going to be brought back to their land, doesn't that kind of make sense since they're in captivity in Babylon for 70 years and he's saying, hey, we're coming back, God's going to bring us back because it's going to happen in their lifetime. Makes sense, right? But here's what people do, they'll take stuff from Ezekiel and say, oh, this is about the Jews coming back in 1948 because they forgot the fact that Ezekiel is preaching to people who were in captivity right then, saying, hey, we're coming back, guys, God's going to bring us back, God's going to bring the children of Judah back. And then they say, oh, that's 1948, no, that happened, you know, in 516 BC, that's when that happened, it already happened. So a lot of times when people point you to stuff in Jeremiah, which there's a big theme in Jeremiah about how you guys are going into captivity but you're coming back after 70 years, you're going to come back, they'll take that stuff and try to warp it forward to 1948. Hey, this is a fulfillment of prophecy. So be careful when anybody's quoting to you from Jeremiah and Ezekiel, trying to apply it to the 20th century, you need to get back into the context and say, okay, here's when the book's written, let's read the whole chapter and he's talking about the Babylonian captivity. And then they talk about, oh, they're going to come back and rebuild the town, it's already happened, okay? So that's one of the reasons why it's kind of important to go into the book of Ezekiel thinking about, okay, when was this written? That's why it's the first verse, folks. Why do you think the first verse of Isaiah says, here's when it was written? Verse one, Jeremiah, verse one, here's when this book is preached. Verse one of Ezekiel, hey, it's in the fifth year and you're like, well, what do I care what year and what month of what? Because it matters to the context of what you're reading, to understand while you're reading Ezekiel what he's preaching about and what the teachings are. So that's kind of important. Now, the book of Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament and it ends with some very important words. Look at verse four of chapter four and remember, chronologically, this is the final prophet of the Old Testament, chronologically, because of the fact that they're all in order. And this guy is after Haggai and Zechariah, this guy is the last minor prophet. Here's what he says in verse four of chapter four, remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel with the statutes and judgments. Now why is that important? Because we're going into what people often call the period of silence or the intertestament period where there's a few hundred years between the Old Testament and the New Testament where we don't have scripture, we don't have prophets of God speaking, okay, like we did in the days of Uzziah, Jotham and Achaz and Hezekiah, you know, leading up to the days of Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, you know, there's a silence where God's not sending prophets to them to speak unto them the word of God in the same way that he was. So he leaves them with this, hey, follow the law of Moses. I mean it makes sense, like look, you're not going to hear from me for a while, so just follow the Bible, follow the law of Moses, just do what you're supposed to do and here's what's coming, verse five, behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. So basically he's saying just keep doing what you're doing, follow the law of Moses in the land and then I'm going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children of their fathers lest they come and smite the earth with their courage. Isn't it interesting that the last two verses of the Old Testament are prophesying the first guy of the New Testament, John the Baptist, isn't that interesting? So it's getting you ready for what's next, okay? So in Matthew we get into the story of John the Baptist, Jesus, the whole ministry of Jesus. Matthew chapter 17, I've got to hurry, I'm running out of time here, Matthew chapter 17, the Bible says in Matthew 17 verse 10, and his disciples asked him saying, why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? Well here's why they're saying it, because it's in Malachi chapter 4, it says in verse 11, and Jesus answered and said to them, Elias truly shall first come and restore all things, but I say unto you that Elias has come already and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed, likewise shall also the son of man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist. Now let's stop and think about this for a moment. In the Old Testament, what would you say is kind of the key books, the key section in the Old Testament, the most important, and I understand that all scripture is given by inspiration of God, all scripture is profitable for doctrine, but what's kind of the crux of the Old Testament? Wouldn't it be Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy? I mean because everything else is kind of pointing back to that and talking about that, I mean that's where the law of Moses is laid out, and even at the end of Malachi, he's referring back to that. So all throughout the Bible, we're kind of pointing to that as a key part of the Bible, the first five books. Genesis through Deuteronomy is that important section, in fact, that's what the whole thing is named after, the Old Testament, you know, is about the law of Moses. So Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy is kind of the key of the Old Testament, and the key person of the Old Testament is Moses, because the law was given by Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. So in the New Testament, we again start out with pretty much the most important thing, the key books, which are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Does that make sense? So in the Old Testament, we start out with the key books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, right? In the New Testament, we start out with the key books of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Why are these the key books? Because they're the books that tell us about Jesus, that's what the whole Bible is pointing toward. And so Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all give us the story of Jesus, some of them cover his birth, some of them don't, but covers his life, his preaching, his miracles, his death, burial, and resurrection. They're all covered in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I mean, if I could only have one part of the Bible, that's the part that I would have. I mean, that's the key right there, the part about Jesus, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Then what do we have next in the New Testament? Look at your table of contents. What's next? The book of Acts, which is basically the historical book. So remember, in the Old Testament, we started out with the law of Moses, then we got into the historical books, right, from Joshua to Esther, the historical books. Well, when we get into the New Testament, it's actually laid out in a similar fashion, because we start out with the key teaching of the New Testament, which is Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Then we get into a historical book, the book of Acts. It's called Acts because it's the acts of the apostles, the actions that they did. Then after the historical books, what did we have in the Old Testament after the historical books? What did we get into? The poetic books, right? And those poetic books are books of wisdom and teaching. If we think about Proverbs, right, it's really teaching us how to live our lives and things like that. The book of Psalms is a book that teaches us all kinds of Bible stories, kind of interprets a lot of Bible stories from the first five books, and it's a very diverse book in Psalms, covering all kinds of information, okay, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Psalms, and then obviously the book of Job is in there as well. So if you think about it, in the New Testament, we get into basically the doctrinal teaching, okay, kind of in a way parallel with, you know, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon in the sense that it's a doctrinal teaching, okay. Not as much a story, is it? Romans, 1st, 2nd Corinthians, those aren't stories, are they? No, just sort of like some of the poetic books are more of just a teaching, just more of a doctrine, okay. So this is the way it breaks down in the New Testament. First four books are the four gospels about Jesus. Then we have the historical book, the book of Acts. Then from Romans to Jude, we have the epistles. And the epistles are basically letters that are written by the apostles to different churches and different people, and they give us all the doctrine of the New Testament, explaining Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, giving us the doctrine, explaining us how to live our lives in the New Testament. Then we have the prophetic book, Revelation, right. So it's really kind of laid out similar. It's easy to remember because it's laid out similar to the Old Testament, okay. We've got the law of Moses is the key of the Old Testament. Four gospels is the key in the New Testament. Historical books in the Old Testament, historical book of Acts in the New Testament, okay. The poetic books, some people don't call it poetic books, some people call it the books of wisdom or something like that. I like to call it the poetic books because they are poetic, all five of them. So those are poetry, okay. Then over here we have the epistles, and these are both heavy doctrinal teaching, okay. Then over here we have the major and minor prophets, and then over here we have the prophets, right. Revelation, what's it about? What's Revelation about? Prophecy, right, Bible prophecy. So it kind of goes side by side if you think of it as being in those sections, okay. So let's break down the epistles just a little further. If you look at your table of contents there, we start out with the epistles to the churches, okay. And these epistles to the churches are written by the Apostle Paul. And so they're written to Christians in a certain geographic area. Romans is written in Rome, Corinth, you know, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colossae. These are cities and regions where these people are being addressed. So these are letters to specific churches, okay. Then after we get through the letters to the churches, which is Romans through First and Second Thessalonians, then we get into what's known as the Pastoral Epistles. And the reason these are called the Pastoral Epistles is because these are epistles that are written unto pastors. And these are written by the Apostle Paul unto pastors, first of all to Timothy, who's a pastor, to Titus, who's a pastor, and to Philemon, who's a pastor, okay. Then we get into what's known as the General Epistles. And the reason these are called the General Epistles is because they're not written to any specific geographical region or town or person. They're just kind of a general epistle, which would be Hebrews, you know, just to Hebrews wherever they are. And then James is written to the twelve tribes scattered abroad. So it's called a General Epistle. And then you've got First and Second Peter and First John just kind of written to all kinds of people, okay. Second and Third John are written to specific people. Jude is just a general epistle, you know, written to whoever. And then we have the Book of Revelation, which gets into end times, Bible prophecy, and things of that nature. Now in the short time that I have left, let me just give you, just in a quick nutshell, the story of the New Testament, okay. In the story of the New Testament we have, of course, the life of Jesus Christ. He comes unto his own and his own received him not. But as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. He comes to the nation of Israel. He's born a Jew. He's born and raised keeping the customs of the law of Moses. He's under the law and so forth. And then he, of course, around 30 years of age is baptized and he preaches the gospel of the kingdom of God, preaches the word, chooses 12 disciples. They go all over Israel preaching and he says this, I'm not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He says, go not in to the way of the Gentiles and into any city of the Samaritans and are you not. Go rather the lost sheep of the house of Israel. So Jesus did not travel all over the world. He didn't go to India or Arabia. He didn't go into Europe. He just stayed in Israel, just a small geographic area. He just stayed in Israel and just he sought after the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And he sent his disciples and told them just go to Israel. And then what happens is the Jews by and large rejected Jesus. They end up killing and crucifying him. So after Jesus raises again from the dead, he tells his disciples go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. So he spends three and a half years just reaching his own area. Three and a half years. We're going to go to every town. We're going to go to every city, every village and he spends three and a half years doing that. He finishes the job. His disciples finish the job and he dies. He's buried. He rises again and then he tells them go teach all nations. Now here's the thing. They didn't do that. They did not obey him. He said go teach all nations and most of them hung around in Jerusalem. They hang around. They don't want to go to these foreign countries and everything. So they just hang around there in Jerusalem. So God sends persecution to kind of light a fire under him. Stephen is killed. That first martyr and then that persecution arising around Stephen escalates and they end up being scattered into other places preaching the gospel. But many of them still stayed at Jerusalem even though they're being persecuted. They didn't get the message. You know Jesus told him to go to all nations. That's why it's not going well for them in Jerusalem. So then God ends up picking another guy in addition to them. He picks the apostle Paul and basically I guess God just realized his disciples just aren't going to teach all nations. So he picks another apostle and he picks him as the final apostle as one born out of due time. The final apostle, the last apostle is the apostle Paul and he tells Paul you're going to go to the Gentiles. You're going to bring the gospel to the Gentiles. Basically what the others are failing to do. So in the book of Acts we see those stories first about the other disciples but because they weren't really doing exactly what Jesus told them to do in the Great Commission the focus switches to Paul. Why? Because he's obedient. He's doing it. Paul takes the gospel all over the world and so we follow Paul's missionary journeys through the book of Acts and then most of the letters end up being written by Paul and so on and so forth and then the book of Revelation obviously deals with the future. Things that have not even happened yet even as we speak. So we're in a period right now sort of like the period between Malachi and Matthew. That's kind of where we're at right now where Malachi told him hey remember the law of Moses. We're kind of in a mode of just hey follow the New Testament. Preach the gospel to every creature. Occupy till I come. Stay busy. Follow the Bible. Be steadfast, unmovable. Stay in church. Don't forsake the assemblings of yourselves together as the manner of some is but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching and instead of waiting for the coming of Jesus like they were after Malachi we're waiting for the second coming of Jesus okay which is going to be of course preceded by a fake Jesus, an imposter, the Antichrist you know Revelation and many of the epistles teach us this that there's going to be a decoy first that we need to be aware of. Not to just be waiting for Jesus to come at any moment oh no because there's a decoy. We need to be watching for the Antichrist and the events of the tribulation that will signal us that the second coming of Christ is there. It's an exciting time and here we are. We don't really know where in that period we are you know are we at the very end of that period and we're just about to get into the biblical events? Are we sort of like the generation that was around at the first coming of Christ? I mean that would have been a cool generation right to be living when Jesus first came on this earth. I mean to be on that sermon on the mount you're there at the Sermon on the Mount listening to it live. I mean that would be amazing right? But we could be a generation that's going to see some other stuff live okay. You know we're going to see the two witnesses live or whatever. So basically that's it in a nutshell. I hope that helps you to step back and kind of get the big picture of the Bible so that you don't just look at the table of contents in your Bible and just be kind of overwhelmed by it like oh man I don't know what all this stuff is you know what's going on with this. You know it helps you to realize it is in a logical order. It does make sense and not be like the guy who once told me that the first time he read the Bible he finished Matthew right and then he started reading Mark and he said wait a minute how many times did Jesus come to the earth? Because he thought that Mark was just you know the next visit whoa. So you know it's good to have a basic understanding you know of how these books play out and it's in chronological order you just have to understand the divisions where the divisions are and I pray that you will take it seriously to know the Bible. You know more than ever today it's important that we know the Bible. I don't want to pastor a church filled with people who don't know the Bible. Why would I want to pastor a church full of ignorant people who have no idea what the Bible says who just come to church and say well you know whatever a pastor tells us duh. No you know we need to be studying to show ourselves approved and I hope that we can raise up some men of God too that will be able to be faithful men that will preach and teach others. We need to all be teaching our children. We need to know what we're talking about and not to be ignorant of the Bible. You know you should be able to understand the basic message of the Bible the basic story of the Old Testament and that if somebody flips open the Bible and shows you something you kind of have your bearings. They flip it open Jeremiah they flip open Ezekiel. You have an inkling of hey here's what it's about here's what it's happening here's what's going on and you can kind of put it all in a bigger perspective of you know who the nation of Israel is why they're established. Okay who Jesus is who his disciples are why Paul is involved and what all these epistles that he wrote you know how do they factor in. Are they the word of God. You know you need to understand these things because we could be very well living in the last days but whether we are or not we need to know the Bible and be ready to give an answer to any man and be able to study to show ourselves approved unto God not to just ignorantly follow what we're taught but to study and search the scriptures daily whether these things are so. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father we thank you so much for the Bible Lord it's an important treasure I pray that you'd help every single person here to take it seriously and not to just let it collect dust all week Lord but to pull it out and read every single book 66 books and not only to read them but to retain them to understand them to comprehend them and most importantly to use them to preach the gospel and to teach the people that we went to Christ all the other things that they need to learn to live a godly life and in Jesus name we pray men.