Transcript

During our time today in the Word we’ll be doing a survey of the Bible. This is the first of a two part message. Thank you for joining us.

Van Morris writes this: One of my hobbies is treasure hunting. When I purchased my first metal detector 15 years ago, the salesman, a treasure hunter himself with a huge display of goodies to validate his prowess, gave me two pieces of helpful advice.

First, he told me that once I found something buried in the ground, before filling in the hole, I should always scan the hole once again. He insisted that oftentimes where there was one coin, there would be others.

He was right, and I have proved this time and time again.

Secondly, he told me never to believe that a place had been “hunted out,” meaning that all the treasure had been taken. “For the patient hunter,” he said, “there will likely be another treasure waiting.” Once again he was right.

On one such occasion I was given permission to hunt the site of a home built in the late 1700s, a property that I was told had been hunted out. I started scanning early that morning, and hunted for six hours without finding a thing.

Just when I was ready to give up, I started getting signals—one right after the other. I dug out so many coins they were literally running out of both of my pants pockets. One of the coins I found that day was an 1865 3-cent piece, worth about $70.

In the same way, new believers desiring the milk of the Word can sweep over the Scriptures and find a host of marvelous treasures.

And veteran students of the Bible can be sure that, no matter how much we dig, as we patiently give ourselves to the learning and studying of God’s Word, it will never be hunted out.

There is always more to learn with God’s Word. We should never sit back and feel like we’ve learned or know enough. There is always more treasure and truth that the Holy Spirit wants to show us and teach us through His Word.

And there is always more room for growth with our faith and with our maturity in Christ in growing to be more and more like Him. And the Holy Spirit works through His Word in our lives to transform us more and more into Christ’s image.

The Bible should be read like a book. If you go to the library and pick up a book and flip it open to the middle and read, it won’t make any sense. You won’t have any idea what’s going on. You need to start from the beginning to understand it.

You need to know the whole story as it unfolds. Unfortunately, many treat the Bible like this. They don’t read the Bible like they do other books.

Many often open their Bible to the middle and have no idea what’s going on, it doesn’t make sense to them, so they cast it aside and give up on it. Many don’t give it the patience or time that it needs and demands for us to grow in our understanding of it.

The Bible needs to be read from the beginning to be understood. You need to follow the story and allow God’s revelation to unfold in doing so. And as you read the Bible needs to be understood literally, because that’s how God meant it to be understood.

So to lay groundwork for you and a basis of understanding, here’s a brief overview of God’s Word, a 30,000 feet view of it if you will.

The Bible says in Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” I believe those days of the creation week were literal 24 hour days. It says there was an evening and there was a morning to each of those days.

The Lord Jesus Christ created all things in heaven and in earth, in 6 literal 24-hour days. He rested on the seventh day. You must understand God’s Word literally right from the beginning. You must take it by faith right from the beginning.

If you question the creation account right away, like many do, then it can lead you to question everything else in it, like the virgin birth or Christ’s resurrection from the dead.

God says He created all things in 6 literal 24-hour days. He meant what He said, and by faith we know it’s true and we believe it. Knowing God, who is all-wise and all-powerful, we know that this was simple for Him.

He could have created all things in a moment of time, but He did it over 6 days, and rested the seventh day, to establish our 7-day week, that we still have to this moment.

On the sixth day of creation, God created man. In Genesis 1:31 it says that when God saw everything that He had made, that it was very good.

I believe at that point, Satan had not yet fallen, since everything was “very good.”

But when you go ahead into Genesis 2:15, you see that God tells Adam to dress the garden and to “keep” or to guard the garden.

Obviously, there was something to guard the garden against. Then God tells Adam about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

I don’t believe that there was evil up until that point. But somewhere in between Genesis 1:31 and 2:15 Satan fell during that time.

And there was now a reason for man to have to guard that garden and there was a knowledge of good and evil because there was now evil in the universe.

In Genesis 3, Satan comes into the garden through the serpent and he tempts Eve with Adam right next to her.

When Eve fell she was completely deceived. She was completely taken in by the Serpent’s deception. But when Adam sinned he sinned knowingly. He willfully sinned against God.

As a result, Romans 5:12 says, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” Sin and death entered the world through Adam’s fall, and is the reason we all die.

Now when Adam and Eve partook of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they now knew good and evil. They had a conscience that God placed within them to know what was right, what was wrong, what was good, what was evil.

That’s what was supposed to govern man from that point on. They were to be governed by their consciences to do what’s right and not do what’s evil.

But instead what you see in Gen. 4 is the account of Cain & Abel. Cain rejects his conscience and knowledge of good and evil, and sins against God and kills his brother Abel.

Cain brought that offering of the fruit in the field. By this, we see man placing his own wisdom above God’s, and man attempting to do what he thinks is best for acceptance with God instead of doing what God asks. Man still does this to this very moment by religion.

Abel brought the blood offering that God required, and his offering was accepted by God. Cain then in his jealousy kills his brother.

And in Genesis 4:10 the Lord said to Cain, “What hast thou Done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me from the ground.”

Evil and wickedness escalate from that point with Cain and Abel to the point of Noah’s flood in Genesis chapter 6 where things got continually worse and worse.

God says in Genesis 6:5 that man’s thoughts were continually evil. Wickedness pervaded throughout the world at that time. Man’s conscience did not curb man’s desire to sin against God and do what was evil continually.

Things get so bad in the earth that God in His righteousness decides to destroy the earth with the flood. But in His mercy, He gives all an opportunity to be delivered from it.

1 Peter 3:20 says, “…the longsuffering of God waited in the day of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.”

Genesis 6:8 says that “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” For 120 years, Noah preached and warned that God was going to destroy the world with water.

But his message was rejected and Noah and his wife, his three sons and their three wives; eight people board the ark and are saved and spared the judgment of God, by their trust in God in by building the ark and entering it on the day the Lord told them.

This account is a picture of salvation. There is a judgment that is coming in the Lake of Fire for those who die in their sins and do not trust God’s provision of salvation. Like Noah, we, the Church, are called to warn others of this judgment to come.

We have God’s message, His good news, which tells of our deliverance from hell by faith in Christ. The gospel of grace for today says to just trust that Christ died for our sins and rose again, and when we do, we are saved from hell and have eternal life.

The moment we trust Christ as our Savior, we are placed into Christ. The Ark is a picture of being in Christ, and being in Him we are safe and saved from God’s judgment.

Because Noah and his family trusted and obeyed God’s message and built the ark and got into it they were saved. And anyone who trusts and obeys God’s message of deliverance to trust Christ alone and do nothing, they are saved from the judgment of hell.

After Noah and his family lands on Mount Ararat, one of the first things God does is to tell Noah about capital punishment for murderers.

In Genesis 9:6 the Lord tells Noah, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made He man.”

God thus institutes human government. God ordained that man was to govern himself and for man to punish the sins that man does.

In Genesis 11, we see that with the institution of human government man became corrupt and prideful in it because of sin.

Not much has changed. Pride and corruption still mark governments today.

Genesis 11:4 says: “And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”

At the Tower of Babel, they want to make a name for themselves. They band together to make the Tower of Babel reach up high unto heaven. They build it to their own greatness.

They did not want to “be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” Genesis 11:4 says. So we see a one-world government being established at that time.

What happens in the past in the Bible, many times is a foreshadowing of something that’s going to happen in the future.

Nimrod was the leader of all of this. It’s a good name for the guy. He was a nimrod. He leads this anti-God, One World Government.

In the future Tribulation, the Anti-Christ will also lead an anti-God, one-world government which will be great in their own eyes as well, a government based out of Babylon.

Genesis 11:7,8 reads: “Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language…So the Lord scattered them abroad upon the face of all the earth.”

At the Tower of Babel, God then comes down and confounds their language. As a result of their language being changed, they scatter and cluster into different people groups and become nations, and they spread out all over the world as a result of this.

Within the Millennial Kingdom that’s coming someday in the future to the earth, God’s going to bring that language back to one language with Christ ruling as King, and there will be oneness around the world again with one language, and peace and righteousness with Christ ruling and reigning (Zeph. 3:9).

But here, God confounds their language, which spreads mankind out across the entire world into different nations.

But then after the Tower of Babel, in Genesis 12, God calls one nation out of all the nations, and He creates a nation beginning with Abraham.

Genesis 12:1-3: “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 shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation…And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”

God wanted one nation to reach all the nations. He calls Abraham, separates him out, calls him out of Ur to go to the land of Canaan, tells him that his descendants will be like the stars of the sky and the sand of the sea.

And God promises him a great land, a promised land.

God tells him that his family will be a blessing to all the families of the earth.

That was God’s plan. It was a good plan. Everything God does is good. It was God’s plan to reach the nations through one nation being a blessing to all of the other nations.

This will ultimately be fulfilled through the Lord Jesus Christ in the Millennial Kingdom on the earth.

God calls Abraham. Abraham has a son, Isaac, miraculously thru Sarah in their old age.

Isaac has two sons, Jacob and Esau, twins. Esau was born first. Usually, the older son gets the blessing but instead we find God in His sovereignty choosing to send the blessing through Jacob.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In Scripture, you often find God referred to as “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” and this refers to the covenant that He made with them to make of them a great nation and give them a great land.

He is called the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob because He is the faithful God, and He will fulfill every promise He made to Israel through them completely.

You have Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob then has 12 sons. He has 12 sons through four wives, Leah, Zilpah, Rachel, Bilhah. It was Leah and then Leah’s servant Zilpah, and Rachel and Rachel’s servant Bilhah.

Leah has Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun. Zilpah has Gad and Asher. Rachel has Joseph and Benjamin. Bilha has Dan and Naphtali.

Most of your Bible is about one family that became a great nation. You have this one family and it begins to expand. The 12 sons become the 12 tribes of the nation of Israel.

In Jacob’s wrestling match with the Angel of the Lord in Genesis 32, which was the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus Christ, Jacob’s name was changed to “Israel.” Genesis 32:28: “And He said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel…”

That’s why when we talk about the nation of Israel, we’re talking about the family and the nation that came from Jacob.

One of Jacob’s sons, Joseph, was sold by his brothers to the Midianites who brought Joseph into Egypt and sold him to the captain of Pharaoh’s guard, Potiphar.

Joseph serves Potiphar well. Then Potiphar’s wife makes a false accusation against Joseph and he ends up in prison. Years later, Joseph interprets a dream for Pharaoh about 7 years of plenty and 7 years of great famine.

He rises to second-in-command over all of Egypt as a result of this.

After reconciling with his brothers, Joseph brings his family from Canaan down into Egypt to help and provide for them during the famine. Jacob and his eleven brothers and their families all move down into Egypt and they stay there for 400 years.

As a result of being there for 400 years, the family explodes into one or two million people. Being there over that length of time, a pharaoh arose who didn’t know Joseph.

He did not know about this family being there as a result of Joseph and the blessing that Joseph had been to Egypt. He only saw a multitude of people who were an internal threat to his kingdom because they were so many and mighty.

He saw them as a foreign nation within his nation. So he enslaves them and puts them to work, and afflicts them with hard labor to keep them suppressed and in submission.

This leads to the Exodus when God brings the nation of Israel out of Egypt through Moses, and through the 10 plagues of Egypt. The killing of the first born is what led Pharaoh to finally let God’s people go.

Charles Swindoll tells a story about a nine-year-old who came bursting out of Sunday School like a wild stallion.

His eyes were darting in every direction as he tried to locate either Mom or Dad. Finally, after a quick search, he grabbed his Daddy by the leg and yelled, “Man, that story of Moses and all those people crossing the Red Sea was just great!”

His father looked down, smiled, and asked the boy to tell him about it. “Well, the Israelites got out of Egypt, but Pharaoh and his army chased after them. So the Jews ran as fast as they could until they got to the Red Sea.

“The Egyptian Army was gettin’ closer and closer. So Moses got on his walkie-talkie and told the Israeli Air Force to bomb the Egyptians.

“While that was happening, the Israeli Navy built a pontoon bridge so the people could cross over. And they all just made it Dad!” By now Dad was shocked. And he asked his little boy, “Is THAT the way they taught you the story?” “Well, no, not exactly,” he admitted, “but if I told you the way they told it to us, you’d never believe it, Dad.”

Again, the Bible is a Book that you must take by faith. When God says that the water of the Red Sea divided and Israel went through the sea on dry land, we know it’s true, because God says it happened, and He cannot lie and is absolutely trustworthy.

The nation comes out through the Red Sea and they travel to Mt. Sinai.

God gives the law to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Now God’s Law was to govern man’s conscience, to know right from wrong, according to what God clearly specifies as right and wrong.

While Moses was up on the Mount, Israel was down at the bottom of the Mount constructing a golden idol, just after their glorious deliverance by the true and living God.

Moses comes down and smashes the 10 commandments, because Israel had broken them already by their golden calf.

Moses then goes back up and receives another set of the commandments.

During the next year, the Israelites would spend a year at the base of Mt. Sinai receiving God’s Law and building His tabernacle.

God details Israel’s proper worship of Him in the Law and the means of acceptance with Him and atonement for sin through the blood sacrifices.

After that year, Israel leaves Mt. Sinai and they head for Canaan. Arriving there, the land is completely controlled by many foreign tribes and nations.

The Israelites send twelve spies into Canaan, one from each tribe of Israel, to spy it out. They come back with the negative report that the people there are huge.

They’re giants. They say it’s a land flowing with milk and honey but the people are gigantic. We’re like grasshoppers in comparison to them, they say.

Ten of the spies, full of fear and doubt, say, “Don’t go in.” Two of the spies, Caleb and Joshua, full of faith, say, “We can go in. We should go in because God is with us.”

As a result, because the people agree with the ten spies and their unbelief, God pronounces that Israel would wander in the wilderness for 40 years.

And those ages 20 and up are held accountable for Israel’s unbelief and they die in that wilderness over that 40 year period. Those under 20 years old were allowed to enter into the Promised Land 40 years later.

During that 40 year wilderness wandering, God leads them by the pillar of cloud during the day, and a pillar of fire during the night. Israel packed up and moved the tabernacle with them as God moved.

It’s interesting as a visual picture for all of us, with the tabernacle, that when they set up camp, the twelve tribes had positions all around it but they put that tabernacle right in the middle of the encampment every time.

That showed Israel that they were to put God at the center of their lives. God wants the same for our lives.

After the 40 years are up, they go up to Canaan. Because Moses struck the rock twice to provide Israel with water in the wilderness and did not just speak to it as the Lord instructed, Moses was not allowed to enter the promised land.

The Lord did allow Moses to see it from Mount Nebo before he dies.

Following Moses’ death, Israel crossed the Jordan River led by Joshua. Just like the Red Sea parted when Israel passed through the Red Sea on their way out of Egypt, the Jordan River parts and stands on a heap on two sides. And Israel crosses on dry land.

Jericho is the first city that they come to after they enter the land.

It’s at Jericho that they walk around the city, blowing their trumpets and shouting, and the walls come tumbling down when they blow those trumpets.

Then Joshua, with solid military strategy, carries out a campaign where he cuts the land in half. He goes straight through the middle.

Now he has a north and a south part to conquer. He goes south and conquers Canaan it and then he has a northern campaign where he conquers the northern section of the land.

But they don’t completely drive out the people. They don’t do everything God asked them to do to make the land pure.

This disobedience causes Israel many problems as they go forward.

Obedience to God is always what is best for us. We reap what we sow when we do not. Trust and obey is the principle that you see throughout Scripture that God desires and requires of mankind. If we just trust Him and obey His Word to us, we find life, purpose, blessing, and always what is best for us.