Why Study the Bible (3D Bible Part 1)

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Welcome to Out of Zion with Susan Michael, an exploration of the Bible and the land of

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Israel.

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From ancient biblical sites to the story behind the stories, join Susan on a journey through

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the most exciting book on the planet.

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Hit the subscribe button for future episodes, which will deepen your faith and bring the

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Bible to life.

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And now here's our host, Susan Michael.

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Well, hey there, and welcome to Out of Zion.

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I'm Susan Michael, your host, and we are going to begin today our series called the 3D Bible.

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I'm the director of the United States branch of the International Christian Embassy, Jerusalem.

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And over the years, I have had the privilege of traveling to Israel many times.

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But my first trip was when I was just 19 years old.

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I was a university student, a Bible studies major, and I had heard about people studying

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abroad during the summer.

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So I went to one of my professors and I asked if he knew of any study programs in Israel

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since I was a Bible major.

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And he said, absolutely, and go if at all possible, because it will change your life.

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He knew what he was talking about.

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And I can attest to you that if you will come with me on this journey and let your Bible

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come alive, it will also change your life.

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And yes, maybe one day you can travel with me to Israel and you can experience that for

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yourself.

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But in the meantime, I invite you.

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Join me here each week and let's take this journey together.

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This is not a Bible study.

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It's a study about the Bible.

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And this study is going to make every sermon and every Bible study you've ever participated

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in make so much more sense.

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Now before starting this series, I looked around to see what was already available for

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you to teach how to read the Bible.

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And I ordered a number of books and I looked at YouTube videos.

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And what I found is that most of them started at about a third grade level, maybe a fifth

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grade level.

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But none of them actually taught you how to read.

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They didn't teach the ABCs that you get in the first grade.

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So what I want to do is I want to teach you the ABCs.

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And then as you progress through your education of the Word of God throughout your life, you're

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going to understand what it is that you're reading and you're going to have that wonderful

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experience of your Bible coming alive.

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So in this series, we're going to talk about how to read the Bible, the land and people

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of the Bible.

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Should we read the Old Testament?

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Proof that the Bible is true.

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And what does this all mean for you?

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But before we start, let's talk about you.

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I imagine that I have both believers and nonbelievers that are listening today and maybe even some

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pastors and some church leaders.

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For those of you who may not be a believer, you may have some doubts, you may have lots

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of questions, I want you to know you should feel free to ask any questions.

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There are no wrong questions.

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A wrong question is a question that's not sincere.

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So if you really want to know the truth, then this is the right place for you.

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And for you that are believers, and you may go to church regularly, but yet you didn't

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grow up in Sunday school.

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And in fact, today you're growing up in a society that is post-Christian and moving

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quickly to being anti-Christian.

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A lot of accusations are thrown at Christianity, especially at evangelical Christianity and

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at the Bible.

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So you've just got questions.

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I'm so glad that you're here.

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This is a safe place for you.

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Together, let's find the answers to your questions.

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To the pastors and the leaders that may be listening, well, I'm humbled that you're here,

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but let's learn together how to make the Bible come alive for our congregants and our members.

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Let's learn how to teach the ABCs and build a firm foundation for future generations.

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And to all of you, please give me feedback, make comments, send in your questions, and

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I will try to answer them in future episodes.

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So let's get started with our first question.

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Why study the Bible?

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I mean, you may be thinking, why does it matter?

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Or you may be saying, I go to church every Sunday.

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I listen to the sermon.

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Why do I need to study?

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Great question.

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So let me be very biblical here and answer your question with a few questions of my own.

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Well, do you want to understand the universe and the purpose of life?

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Do you want to understand your purpose in life?

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Do you want to know God better?

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Do you want to have more power, his power in your life?

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Well, then this is the place to be.

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The point is this, that the Bible contains everything you need to know to live your life.

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Psalm 119, 105 says, your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light to my path.

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A few verses later, the psalmist says, I love your commandments more than gold.

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Wow, more than gold.

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That's how valuable this book is and the words of wisdom that are in it.

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But the Bible is more than just a book that's going to give you knowledge or even spiritual

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insights.

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It's a book that's inspired by the Holy Spirit.

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And as you spend time in its pages, you're actually fellowshiping with the Lord.

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And you're making yourself available to Him to work in your heart, to speak to you about

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your life, and to give you direction.

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You know, when I was 16 years old, and I was just, I didn't even know the Lord yet really,

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but he was beginning to work in my life and I was a bit curious.

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And so I went to the pastor of our church and I asked if he knew of a Bible that was

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in a more modern translation that was easier to read and easier to understand.

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And so he recommended one and I bought it.

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It was just a New Testament.

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And a few weeks later, a friend of mine asked if I could fill in for her at work while she

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went on a two-week vacation.

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She was working at the local YMCA.

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She was managing the gym, the gymnasium there.

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So it was a small town, a small Y, and a small gym.

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And but her job was to just be there so if someone came in to use the equipment in the

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gymnasium that she would oversee it, make sure they used it properly and they were safe.

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Well, I filled in for her and there was really not much to do.

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Very few people used the gym and if they did, it was only for about 10 minutes.

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So I brought this New Testament to work and over the next two weeks I read the entire

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New Testament.

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And I will tell you, when I put that book down, there was a power at work in my life

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that just had not been there before.

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I knew it, I felt it, and I just had an inner resolve.

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This was the direction that I needed to go in.

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Within a month from that, at a church service, I then gave my life to the Lord.

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And there's no looking back.

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But I remember very, very vividly that after two weeks of spending time in the Word of

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God, fellowshiping with Him in that Word, that I was a stronger person.

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I was a different person.

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But don't take my Word for it.

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Find out for yourself.

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So take this journey with me and I promise you, you will never be the same.

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Now along those lines, another reason to read your Bible is the whole person concept.

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Now you might be saying, what is that?

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Well, I went to a Christian university and it was really founded upon this concept of

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the whole person.

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And it was found in 1 Thessalonians 523.

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Let me read that scripture to you.

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It says, Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely.

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And may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved until his coming of the Lord Jesus

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Christ.

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Now what I want you to take from this is spirit, soul, and body.

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We are a tri-part being.

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We're not just a body.

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We're not just a spirit.

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We have a spirit.

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We have a soul, which is your mind and your emotions.

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And we have a body.

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And they all need to be tended to to be a whole healthy person.

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You know, we understand the concept of taking care of our body.

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We have to feed our body.

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We have to take care of it.

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We have to exercise it and keep it strong in order to stay healthy.

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So here I was in university and we were feeding our minds every day.

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And so the university said, well, you're building your mind and you're building your intellect.

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Do not neglect your body.

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And therefore they had a mandatory exercise requirement.

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Yes, we had to exercise every week and report on it.

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And it was the best thing.

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It was really wonderful.

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But they also said, don't neglect your spirit.

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So they had chapel services and worship services and Bible studies.

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After four years of hearing this concept over and over, spirit, soul, and body, it built

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such a great firm foundation in my life of that understanding.

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Don't neglect your spirit while you're building your mind, while you're exercising and feeding

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your body.

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Don't neglect your spirit.

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So how do you feed your spirit?

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But by spending time in the Word of God, letting that spirit speak to you, direct you, and

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then going forth and living your life in the power of the spirit.

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So last reason to read the Bible.

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We've talked about the spirit, soul, and body.

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We've talked about that it's a spiritual book.

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We've talked about the knowledge that you're going to gain.

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But honestly, the Bible is such an amazing and unique book.

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It's all in a league of its own.

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I call it the most exciting book on the planet.

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I mean, what other book has 66 different books in it written by 40 different people over

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a period of like 1500 years that it all comes together as one narrative?

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It all makes sense.

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It's all inspired by the same Holy Spirit and teaches us about the same God.

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And the oldest of those writings is now today, it's probably 3500 years old.

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And yet it contains prophecies that are being fulfilled in our day.

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Just think about it.

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You know, America is 250 years old.

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So we think 250 years, that's a long, long time.

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Think about a thousand years.

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Think about 2000 years.

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Think about 3000 years.

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4000 years ago, things that God spoke to Abraham are coming to fulfillment in our day.

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You know, when you go with me to Israel, you're going to find one of my favorite places is

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an old gate way up in the north of the country to the city of Dan, which in the time of Abraham

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was known as Laish.

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This gate, it's a red mud brick gate, 4000 years old to this ancient city.

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And you stand there and you look at this gate and the steps leading up to it and you think,

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our Father Abraham probably walked right up these stairs and threw that gate into that

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city because in the book of Genesis we find that he went to the region near that city.

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It's very, very possible he went into it.

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That's how old that gate is and I stand there at all every single time thinking, 4000 years.

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How long is that?

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And here we are today.

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What was written and what was said then is just as true, just as accurate and as being

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fulfilled in our days.

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The Bible is also exciting because it is so accurate.

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But we often don't realize this unless we're reading the Bible at what I call the 3D level.

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Now next week we're going to talk about how to get to the 3D level.

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But that's what happened when I first went to Israel on that study trip.

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I was there studying the Bible in the very land where it had taken place.

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And I was surrounded by that hebraic, eastern Jewish culture.

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I was surrounded by Jewish people, the descendants of the very ones that were written about in

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this book.

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The book stood up.

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It took on flesh and bones.

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It was about real people and real places.

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It's not made up stories.

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It's not mythology just to give you some moral to the story.

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It is absolutely true and it is absolutely accurate.

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And you realize that when you're reading it at the 3D level, we're going to talk more

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next week about how to get to that 3D level.

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But you might be asking yourself, okay, but how can we really know that it's true?

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You're saying it's true, but how do we know these documents weren't changed over the

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year?

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I mean, you said it yourself, 4,000 years.

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That's a long time.

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How do we know that these stories really took place?

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Well, there's two answers I can give you.

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One is the Jewish commitment to keeping the law to the absolute extreme detail.

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So the ancient Jewish scribes, and even still to this day, but the ancient scribes, when

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they were writing out a new manuscript, a new scroll, if they made one mistake, it had

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to be thrown away and they started all over.

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That's how committed they were to complete accuracy.

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But there's another reason I can give you that we can be really very assured about the

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accuracy of our manuscripts.

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And that is because of the absolutely ground shaking find in 1947 of what's called the

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Dead Sea Scrolls.

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They had been kept in safety of a very dry desert region for 2,000 years and a shepherd

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boy found them.

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And today we are able to, they've done testing, carbon testing on these scrolls, and they

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know that some of them date back 2200 years.

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They're from 200 years before the time of Christ, some of them.

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And yet they match the words that we have in our Bible.

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They match the manuscripts that our translators have been working from.

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So what a boost it was to knowing the sure authenticity of our Bible.

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Okay, I have one final thought for you about the importance of the Word of God.

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You know, one of the first stories in the Bible we find in Genesis 3.

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It's a story we all know very well.

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It's about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and God says to them, you can eat of

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any tree except this one.

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You cannot eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

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So what happens?

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But the evil tempter in the form of the serpent comes to Eve and he begins to ask this question.

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Did God really say that?

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Is that really what God said?

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Is that really what God meant, and he begins to put doubt into Eve's mind?

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And she nurtures that doubt, and before you know it, she's also doubting whether God

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really meant that or said it.

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He must not have really meant it.

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She eats from the tree.

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We know the rest of the story.

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That was a serious decline in mankind after that.

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But isn't it interesting that today many people think that there's so much more enlightened

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and so much more intellectual than all those people throughout the generations that believed

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the Bible was the Word of God?

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And so they're questioning.

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You really think God said that?

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Well, I hate to tell you, but you actually haven't progressed any beyond Adam and Eve

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and the serpent.

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That question, and that has been around from beginning, and it's intended to trip up mankind

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and to draw us away from the Word of God because it is so powerful in our lives.

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I tell you that story because I want you to, if you go to the end of the Bible, of the

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Christian Bible, the book of Revelation, we find in Revelation 19 that the Word of God

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is victorious.

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It describes Christ's return on a white horse, victorious, and it says that his name is the

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Word of God.

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So the Bible begins with this question.

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Is this really what God said?

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And it ends with proof of the power of the Word of God and that it is true and it's victorious.

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Wow.

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Now that's a story worth reading.

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The Word is living and breathing.

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And I want you to imagine for a minute this book, just as when we talk about Jesus.

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Jesus was fully human and he was fully divine at the same time.

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This Bible is fully human.

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It was written by men.

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It was written by human beings.

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It's written in their words.

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It was written from their thoughts.

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It was written with their pen or spoken by their mouth.

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It's fully human.

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But yet it was inspired by the Holy Spirit and therefore it's infused with the Holy Spirit.

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It's living.

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It's alive and it's powerful.

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You know, Jesus said in John 6.13, he said, it's the spirit that gives life.

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And he says, these words that I speak to you are spirit and they are life.

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Hebrews 11 tells us that the very world was created and formed by the Word of God.

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God spoke and the world was created.

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That's how powerful his Word is.

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It's a part of him going forth.

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So that's why we need to spend time in this book letting it infuse our lives with his

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spirit and with his power.

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We will never be the same.

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So I ask you to join me next week.

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We're going to talk about how to read the Bible.

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So be sure and subscribe to the Out of Zion podcast or on YouTube so that you can join

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us again here next week.

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And until then, may God bless.

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We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael.

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Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, CPNshows.com, YouTube, or

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wherever you like to listen and learn.

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Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJUSA, All Rights Reserved.