Bible Study #736

The goal of Bible Study is not just learning, but living If you are saved, you will have a desire to be holy, a hunger for the Word, the inner witness of the Spirit, and a desire to share Jesus. These are the birthmarks of the believer. #736 14 July 15 Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Gal. 6:1-3 Grateful for . . . . THE WORD OF GOD ! (\0/) (\0/) (\0/) (\0/) (\0/) (\0/) Greetings! In other words, "If someone is your group does something wrong, you who are spiritual should go to that person and gently help make him right again. But be careful, because you might be tempted to sin,too. By helping each other with your troubles, you truly obey the law of Christ. If anyone thinks he is important when he really is not, he is only fooling himself." Caught: This word may imply the person was actually seen committing the sin or that he was caught or snared by the sin itself. you . . . spiritual: Those believers who are walking in the Spirit.. [All believers have the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit as the personal power for living to please God], filled with the Spirit and evidencing the fruit of the Spirit. restore: Sometimes used metaphorically of settling disputes or arguments, it literally means "to mend" or "repair," and was used of settling a broken bone or repairing a dislocated limb [see Heb. 12:12-13). The basic process of restoration is outlined in Matt. 18:15-20. looking: Also "observing." The Greek form strongly emphasizes a continual, diligent attentiveness. May God bless you this week! ♥ Memory verse for this week: Phil 3:20-21 This week's Trivia's: [answer's below . . ] 1. Of Noah's three sons, which one saw him uncovered when he had become drunk with wine - Ham, Japheth or Shem? 2. What Jewish feast is used to remind the Jews of the time God spared the lives of the children whose parents put lamb's blood on doors? * * * * * * * * * Worship is an outward expression of an inward submission * * * * * * * * * BIBLE MEDITATION: “And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also.” Luke 6:29 DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT: Someone asked an army officer, “Why are you a Christian?” He said, “One day we went out on a march. We slugged through the mud all day long. Our boots were dirty, and our clothes were heavy. When we came into the barracks, we were cross and irritable.” “There was a young man who had already come in, cleaned up, and was kneeling down by his bed saying his prayers. I became so irritated I took one of my muddy boots and hit him in the head with it.” He said, “The young man paused for a moment and then continued praying. But when I awoke the next morning, my boots were beautifully polished and set by my bed by that young man. That’s what brought me to Christ.” ACTION POINT: You know, it is when God’s people suffer as Christians that this world begins to look at us. Now we may not want it. We may not ask for it. Certainly I’m not asking for it. But if it comes, let us suffer as Christians, as the Bible says. Oh dear friend, from the human viewpoint it is misery. From the Satanic viewpoint it is mystery. But from the divine viewpoint it is ministry. from the Ministries of Love Worth Finding . . . by Adrian Rogers * * * * * * * * * Our attitude toward the Word of God is our attitude toward Christ * * * * * * * * * We have begun another journey and will learn from the book "Hard To Believe" written by John MacArthur. In his book John helps us to understand the high cost and infinite value of following Jesus. GBY . . . . . . . . . . HARD TO BELIEVE . . . . . . . . . . . . BUT SOME WILL BELIEVE . . IGNORANCE IS NO EXCUSE . . God will not leave those who have never held a Bible in limbo or some neutral position. There are no free passes. Look at 1 Corinthians 10:20 to shatter this heresy; Paul said that an idol itself wasn’t really anything: “Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons.” Nothing the whole heathen world sacrifices to their supposed stone, silver, and gold idols is engaging the true God; it is engaging the forces of hell. They are linked with Satan and demons. You might say, “Oh, those poor well-intentioned pagans! They’re working their way toward God the best way they know how.” No, they’re working their way toward hell. They’re connecting with demonic forces impersonating idols that don’t exist. There are no other gods than the true God. People believe there are, because demons impersonate the gods they worship and do enough tricks to keep those people connected to their false deities. It’s not just a case of “Too bad they’re ignorant.” They’re not in limbo, they’re hell-bound. Ignorance is no excuse. Natural reason seeking God ends up ignorant, idolatrous, and demonic. Demons are behind all false religions. They are behind all philosophical and religious systems. They are behind every lofty thing lifted up against eh knowledge of God. Any unbiblical, anti-God idea is demonic. There’s a dramatic illustration of this teaching in 2 John 9-11: “Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. If anybody comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive do not receive him into your house nor greet him; for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.” If you deviate from what the Bible says about Christ—His birth, nature, life, substitutionary death, resurrection—you don’t have God. If you don’t know Jesus, or if you’re even wrong about Jesus, you cannot know God. You’re just engaging with demons. People have asked me, “Is there a lot of satanic religion in our society?” Yes. Everything but true Christianity is satanic, to one degree or another, and in one manifestation or another. It’s not that everybody worships Satan directly, though some do. But anybody who doesn’t worship the true and living God through Jesus Christ, in effect, worships Satan. I don’t think you want to do that, because God gets very jealous. In Deuteronomy 32:21, God said, “They [Israel] have provoked Me to jealousy by what is not God; /They have moved Me to anger by their foolish idols.” You don’t want to provoke the Lord to anger, because you’re not as strong as He is. You will lose. Again, the best that man can do through his own reason comes up as foolishness, ignorance, and idolatry, and it engages the forces of hell. Romans 3:10 is the universal indictment of humanity: “There is none righteous, no, not one.” Man’s religions are “bad good.” They may be good on the human level through emphasizing kindness or being charitable. But they are “bad good,” because the motive is not to glorify God, and anything less than that is a wrong motive. People don’t do good in the sense of righteous good that pleases God. In fact, they’re wretched on the inside; their throats are like open graves. They open their mouths and out comes the stench of death. Paul says of the law that “it stops every mouth” (see Rom. 3:19). Don’t open your mouth and try to defend yourself. Don’t say, “But . . . God . . . I tried. I’m a pretty good person, and You know I’m certainly better than the people over there.” All that natural revelation does for you is make you accountable to god, and inexcusable. It shuts your mouth, and you have nothing to say, because in verse 20, your deeds, your works of the law—meaning your good deeds, your religious deeds—will never be justified in God’s sight. You can’t be good enough to get there on your own. If you can be saved without the gospel, then salvation is by works. Nobody is going to be justified before God that way. There’s only one way to be justified, and Paul went on to describe it in Romans 3:22: “The righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe.” You have to come to Christ; you have to believe in Christ. The only way of salvation comes in verses 23-24: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” The only way to be saved is by faith in Jesus Christ. next week: . . REWARD AND RETRIBUTION . . [Coming soon: "Agents of the Apocalypse"] * * * * * * * * * Don't worry about tomorrow, God is already there * * * * * * * * * PERILS OF THE DRAGNET, PART 1 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . . . and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Matt. 13:50 THE DOCTRINE OF HELL IS undoubtedly the most difficult one for Christians to accept emotionally. Yet Scripture mentions it too often for us to deny or ignore it. Jesus gives several warnings of it in the Sermon on the Mount. “It is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell” (Matt. 5:22, 29; 11:23; 23:33; Mk 3:29; Lk 12:9-10; Jn 15:6) God’s Word teaches us some basic truths about hell-what this parable calls “the furnace of fire”—that aid us in partially grasping its terror. First, it is a place of constant torment and pain. Jesus called its torment darkness (Matt 22:13), which means no light penetrates and nothing is visible. Our Lord also called the torment a fire that never goes out (Mk 9:43), from which the damned find no relief. Second, hell includes the torment of both body and soul. Contrary to some teachings, neither is annihilated at death and never will be. Just as believers’ souls will receive resurrected bodies to enjoy heaven forever, unbelievers’ souls will receive resurrected bodies to experience hell forever (cf. Matt. 10:28; Jn 5:29; Acts 24:15). Jesus further called hell a place “where their worm does not die” (Mk 9:44). Once the bodies of deceased believers are consumed by worms, no more harm can be done to them. But the resurrected bodies of unbelievers will never be consumed. Such sobering reminders ought to prompt us to pray for the lost with greater urgency. ASK YOURSELF We do try to avoid thinking of things so gruesome and unending. Even though we don’t treat it as a myth or analogy, we still bristle at the thought of it. But how does a proper understanding of the truth of hell benefit you in your own worship and in your interactions with others? * * * * * * * * * Christianity is not a religion- its a relationship, not only with God . . with other brothers and sisters in Christ * * * * * * * * * What Did Jesus Mean by the “Bad Eye”? . . . by John Piper What does the bad eye refer to in Matthew 20:15? It refers to an eye that cannot see the beauty of grace. It cannot see the brightness of generosity. It cannot see unexpected blessing to others as a precious treasure. It is an eye that is blind to what is truly beautiful and bright and precious and God-like. It is a worldly eye. It sees money and material reward as more to be desired than a beautiful display of free, gracious, God-like generosity. That is exactly what the bad eye means in chapter six of the Sermon on the Mount. And that meaning gives Matthew 6:22-23 a perfect fitness between a saying on true treasure (Matt. 6:19-21) and the necessity of choosing between the mastery of God and the mastery of money (Matt. 6:24). So the flow of thought would go like this: Don’t lay up treasures on earth, but lay up treasures in heaven. Show that your heart is fixed on the value that God is for you in Christ. Make sure that your eye is good not bad. That is, make sure that you see heavenly treasure as infinitely more precious than earthly material treasure. When your eye sees things this way, you are full of light. And if you don’t see things this way, even the light you think you see (the glitz and flash and skin and muscle of this world) is all darkness. You are sleepwalking through life. You are serving money as a slave without even knowing it, because it has lulled you to sleep. Far better is to be swayed by the truth—the infinite value of God. So if you are emotionally drawn more by material things than by Christ, pray that God would give you a good eye and awaken you from the blindness of “the bad eye.” * * * * * * * * * Just like God was in Christ, Jesus is in us * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * My true brother and sister and mother are those who do what God wants Mk 3:35 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Answers to this week's Trivia's: 1. Of Noah's three sons, which one saw him uncovered when he had become drunk with wine - Ham, Japheth or Shem? A. Ham Gen. 9:22 2. What Jewish feast is used to remind the Jews of the time God spared the lives of the children whose parents put lamb's blood on doors? A. Passover Exo 12:27 * * * * * * * * * Answers to Questions about Heaven . . . David Jeremiah Q. Who are heaven's inhabitants? In Hebrews 12:22-23 we find a list of some of heaven’s residents. Believers are going to spend all of eternity with “an innumerable company of angels,” all of the “just men made perfect” (the Old Testament saints), the people who are of the firstborn (the Church), and above all, we’re going to spend eternity with our God. * * * * * * * * * Always pray to have eyes that see the best in people, a heart that forgives the worst, a mind that forgets the bad, and a soul that never loses faith in God. Until next time remember, "Keep looking up!" God loves you and yours, He really does! Nancy <\\\>< Remember: A man may go to heaven….. Without health, without wealth; Without fame, without a great name; Without learning, without earnings; Without culture, without beauty; Without friends and without ten thousand other things---- But he can NEVER go to Heaven without Christ. ~ This is a FREE e-mailing ~ This Bible Study is sent to subscribers only according to our strict NO SP*M policy. If you appreciate the information contained in this letter, please forward it to your friends. If you have acquired this letter from a friend and want to subscribe: Send an e-mail with Subscribe on the subject line to: hisfootprints4us@comcast.net If you do not want to receive these Bible Studies, please send an email with 'unsubscribe' on the subject line to hisfootprints4us@comcast.net No hard feelings This week's Quiz: Names of the Lord . . Romans 10:13 says, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” The Lord tells us many of His different names because each of His names speaks to a different aspect of His character. Knowing His names helps us to know God better. How well do you know these names of the Lord? 1. To whom was God speaking when He said, “Say unto the children of Israel, I AM has sent me unto you”? Exo. 3:14 a. Aaron c. Joshua b. Moses d. Elijah 2. Who called the Lord “Thou God seest me”? Gen. 16:8, 13 a. Sarai c. Hagar b. Abram d. Ishmael 3. To whom was God speaking when He said, “I am the Almighty God”? Gen. 17:1 a. Moses c. Abram b. Aaron d. Pharaoh 4. When Moses told the children of Israel to remember the days of old, he referred to the Lord as: Deut. 31:30; 32:8 a. the Most High c. the Lord of Lords b. the Ancient of Days d. the Lord above all 5. Which of the Ten Commandments tells us not to take our Lord’s name in vain? Exo. 20:7 a. 1 c. 3 b. 2 d. 4 6. Which of the following names is not in the list found in Isaiah 9:6? a. Bright and Morning Star c. Mighty God b. Prince of Peace d. Counselor 7. “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS” was written on Jesus’: Rev 19:16 a. vesture and thigh c. sword b. shield d. breastplate 8. Which of the following names means “God with us”? Matt. 1:23 a. Jesus c. Emmanuel b. Elohim d. Elyon 9. Philippians 2:9 says that God gave Jesus: a. the name Jesus c. a secret name b. the name above every name d. b and c 10. Who said, “I know that my Redeemer lives”? Job 19:1, 25 a. David c. Moses b. Job d. Isaiah