Dialoguing The Discipline Of Truth

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Is it Chastening or Pruning?[1]

JOHN 15:1-2

Do troubles and trials push you toward God – or away?

Transcript

This morning, you will want to open your Bibles to the Book of Acts. We’re looking at the exercises for biblical health. We’re looking at the disciplines, actually, how Paul was instructing Timothy. Timothy was a young pastor in a very vast and needy church. Paul was the Bible teacher, Apostle, and starter and planter of so many churches. But he was training his son in the faith. He said to him, you need to nurture your soul in the Word of God so that you can give the truth of God for the issues of life and teach the doctrine of God. In chapter 19, Paul, actually, before Timothy was pastoring, was doing that very thing in the church where Timothy was going.

In Acts 19, starting in verse 8, this shows us how you put reality to the concept. When we talk in 1 Timothy 4, for many people, it’s vague. What’s the discipline of truth? How do you defend, and how would you do this? Paul shows this in verse 8. It says he went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months. Now, look at the very next part of verse 8, reasoning and persuading. Reasoning is the word we’re going to look at this morning. Actually, it was Paul interacting and explaining; this is explanatory, preaching is what he’s doing. He was explaining what the people wanted to understand about the things of God, and he reasoned, dia is through logizomai, which means to explain or talk. He talked through their questions about God, about salvation, about truth, about what the Bible says about this and this, and look at the result. He does this with unsaved people. It’s a wonderful way to share the Gospel with people, asking what the Bible says about that. What does God think about this? How do you know that? And we explain it.

Now, look at verse 9, but when some were hardened and did not believe. See, those were religious people attending the synagogue. They wanted to be around all of the mechanics and the reading and the singing and everything going on, but they didn’t really want to know God, and they were hardened and did not believe, Acts 19:9, but spoke evil of the way. Now, what is The Way? That’s one of the earlier descriptions of what the Church was; they were followers of the Way. Who is the Way? Jesus Christ. What is Christianity? It’s not a liturgy and it’s not a religion. It is a person. It is a follower of Christ the Way. These people didn’t want to follow Christ the Way. They didn’t want to know Him. They spoke evil of the Way before the multitude. So, he, that’s Paul, departed from them. He left the synagogue and withdrew with the disciples.

Now, students follow a teacher, disciples are the ones who are actually learning the way of the one who is the master that’s discipling them. Then, Paul was teaching them the way of Christ. So, they weren’t just there for the lecture. They actually wanted to follow that way of life. So, look what Paul does. He takes those disciples, those pupils of Christ, and he reasoned with them daily. Verse 10 says, this continued for two years.

Now, what I’d like to do this morning is underscore in your minds the necessity of going from being a spectator to actually being in the game. The game is, we’re all called to go into all the world and make disciples. Look down at verse 9. He took the disciples out of; he took those disciples and withdrew them and began to teach them. See, we’re all supposed to be making disciples just like Paul was, but we live in America, where the Church basically has become a spectator sport. It’s just like all the other sports. Football, you pay people millions of dollars, and they do their thing, and they do it well. Baseball, same thing. The Olympics, same thing. You don’t pay them, they just get sponsors and they do it, and we watch and they do.

Did you know that’s crept into the Church? The Church has highly educated, highly paid professionals, and they’re supposed to do it, and we watch. If you go to a basketball game, do you ever expect to touch a basketball? Not unless one gets thrown, and you get to keep it as a souvenir. You don’t want to be in the game. You watch it. That’s what the Church has become in the 21st century. Most people come for the lecture, maybe go for a little fellowship, and they’re out of there. Are they individually, as a part of their lifestyle, making disciples? Mostly not. So, Paul is demonstrating how you do that, and how you do it is right here. You reason, you explain the Bible.

I am discipling right now, eight or nine different people. They’re all at different spots in their life, and basically, I meet with them, most of them once a month, and I explain the Bible to them. I explain how to pray, how to read, how to study, how to lead someone to Christ, how to defend their faith, and how to understand the Holy Spirit. You just go through one point after another, and you interact with them. That’s what explanatory or dialoging is. Now, let me just show you. An example of that, because I get, and I have here this morning, I get tons of these questions. On Sunday nights, I actually do this. We actually have a question, answer service every Sunday night, a dialogue, an explanatory, doctrinal discussion. Usually, we have microphones and people just ask their questions. But I get a whole bunch of people who write them down on all different slips of paper. These are copies of them, but they’re emails. They’re backs of cards.

I’ll just read you some of these. It says in Matthew 5:32 that the innocent party of divorce is committing adultery at remarriage, but in 1 Corinthians 7:15, we’re told we’re not bound if an unbeliever departs. How do you reconcile these two verses? That is a very good question. Here’s another one. Most Christians know Jesus’ birthday is not December 25th, but Constantine said it was. Why don’t we just start a service on the right day? Here’s another one. God is not willing that any should perish. If He prefers, He states that anything we ask in His name, according to His will, He’ll do for us. Does it stand to reason that if we pray long enough, someone will get saved? Aren’t those good questions? How about this one? If a Christian falls into sin, has he or she fallen from grace? Fallen close to grace, or fallen into grace? Now, every one of those are a tremendous opportunity to take those pieces and other scriptures and connect them and help.

So, what I did this morning was I just actually took the top of the pile, and here’s the top of the pile. Pastor, while you were addressing the subject of chastisement, could you also touch in a way to distinguish between the trials, and they cite James 1:2-4, and chastisement? Basically, I think I know when this was. It was in the middle of a communion service, and I was talking about the fact that we were disciplining someone and praying for the Lord to chasten them. Basically, and I shortened their question down to this, what are the differences between chastisement and trials? And remember, they cite James 1:2-4. Do you know what that says? And you can just turn there. In fact, let’s not be spectators, okay? We’ll get engaged.

In fact, if you have never had the opportunity of going off to Bible school and taking a year of Bible college, did you know you can get the equivalent of a year of Bible college if you come to church long enough and if you actually get active and engage and don’t just sit? Most people, what they hear, 95% of it they can’t remember the next day unless they hear and participate in some way, taking notes, following along, having various kinds of ways to engage our minds so that we get engaged in it, and it seeps in.

In fact, when I was in seminary, they told us to do a little test. They said, preach exactly the same sermon two weeks back-to-back and see if anybody says anything. They said what you’ll find, and the professor had done it, he said, about 10% will come up and say, boy, that was really familiar to me, and the other 90% won’t even know that you’d said the exact same thing. Do you know how many times I’ve done that here? None. Okay. Just checking. Some of you are really nervous.

But look at James 1:2-4. It says, my brethren, count it joy when you fall into trials. Then, verse 3 describes trials. The testing of your faith produces patience. Patience, let it have its perfect work that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing. So, basically, trials are described in the Bible as positive. They are helping advance us in growing in faith, in maturing, but they’re painful. In fact, the word that’s often used for this means to be squashed. It’s the word thlipsis, and it’s even used for tribulation. It speaks of being in a vice, and everything is just squashing the daylights out of you. You know what? Even though it’s painful, God says trials are positive, but chastisement.

Now, turn back, and this is where the question came from. Turn back to Hebrews 12. Back one page. It goes Hebrews, James, and the 12th chapter of Hebrews. Hebrews 12, and what I was talking about was chastening when they, let’s see, start in verse 5, and it goes down to verse 11. I was in the context of the Lord’s supper, talking about chastening. Now, notice what it says, verse 5. You’ve forgotten the exhortation, which speaks to you as sons. My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked. So, we have chasten, then we have rebuke, but it gets worse. Look at the words. Keep reading down from verse 5 to verse 6, for whom the Lord loves, he chastens. There it is again. But look at the end of verse 6, and scourges. Whoa! Scourge? We call a disease a scourge, like polio is a scourge on humanity.

Scourge? Remember Jesus with the cat o’ nine tails and the Romans and cutting open? And if you scourge someone long enough, it would kill them. That is negative. Do we like to be rebuked? No. Chastening, which is disciplining, it’s like getting a spanking. Or, do you remember when I was little, it used to be a whipping. My mother would find anything she could grab and chase us around until she got us. Boy, the further we ran, the worse we got it. Nobody knows about that anymore because it’s passe. But these terms used to be very clear to people. But look what it says. Keep going. Verse 7, if you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons, for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? If you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.

Whoa! Chastening, chastisement is evidence of salvation. Did you catch that? Everybody that’s saved, the Lord says, you know that you’re saved if you slip off into sin and God comes after you with a switch. You say, oh, God doesn’t switch Christians. No, but he chastens and rebukes and scourges them. I’d rather be switched than scourged. That is very strong language. But it says, verse 8 of Hebrews 12, if you are not being chastened when you’re off the track, then you are illegitimate. Now, Old King James uses the old English word for an illegitimate child, and an illegitimate child was called a bastard. Boy, that’s strong language. That isn’t usually a word you hear in church, but that’s how strong this underlying Greek word is. You are not in the family. You are not a Christian. If you can live in sin, slogging through life in sin, and there’s no interdiction in your life by God, He doesn’t rebuke you, chasten you, scourge you, then you’re illegitimate, He says.

Verse 9, furthermore, we’ve had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Don’t you thank them someday? All kids are great by the time they’re 25. That’s what a wise grandmother told Bonnie and me when we were barely making it with our eight. She said, oh, they’ll all turn out by the time they’re 25 and by the time they’re 25, they usually say thank you. You don’t hear it much for them, but they’ll say thank you, and it says that they corrected us and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? Verse 10, for they indeed, for a few days chastened us as it seemed best to them, but he, for our profit.

Do you see that Chastisement is also to help us? It’s to help us what? Repent. The purpose of chastisement is to get us to repent, and the Lord will keep rebuking, chasing, and scourging until we repent, until we allow what He wants to happen in our lives to happen. Why? Look at verse 10, that we may be partakers of His holiness. See, we have to repent so that we can partake of holiness. Holiness is living a life that is pleasing to the Lord. When we’re not pleasing Him, He lets us know. If we persist in not pleasing Him, He chastens and rebukes and scourges. Now, verse 11, no chastening seems to be joyful for the present. See, that’s why this person asked this. Chastening and trials are both painful.

So, the question is, how do you know the difference between them? Okay? So, let me just do this. I’m going to throw in something. Everybody turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 11 now, because the context, remember, if you really want to understand a question, you have to listen long enough until you understand what they’re saying. Part of understanding what they’re saying is knowing why they asked this question, and it was because of the Lord’s Supper.

Now, look at verse 23. Starting in verse 23 is where we get the New Testament celebration of communion or the Lord’s Supper. So, Paul said, I received from the Lord. I wasn’t one of the apostles, one of the disciples. I wasn’t there on the first communion, but He gave me a special, personal description for me to share with the Church. And he tells, in verse 24, about take, eat, this is My body. Verse 25, about the cup. This cup is a new covenant, which we always celebrate those words. But now look at verse 26. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes. So, 23 to 26 is the description of the Lord’s Supper or Communion.

But now starting in verse 27, look what preparation is needed. Therefore, whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. So, you can partake of communion in a negative way, in a guilty way, in a way that the Lord says doesn’t please Him. Whoa, we wouldn’t want to do that, right? So, what is it? Verse 28. This is how we don’t displease the Lord at communion. Communion is a time, verse 28, that we examine ourselves, and so we eat. So, verse 28 says, we need to do a self-exam. You know, when you live in certain parts of the country and you go out hiking and you come in, you look for ticks, you go, oh, I don’t care. They’ll go away. No, they won’t. They’ll bury, and if they have Lyme’s disease, you’ll be sorry. So, you do this self-exam.

So, what he’s saying is there are, as believers, ticks, spiritual ticks that we have to look for and get rid of. What happens if we say, ah, I don’t need to. Verse 29, for he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner. What’s unworthy? Someone who doesn’t do a tick exam for spiritual ticks. In an unworthy manner, eats and drinks judgment. Ooh, no self-exam equals judgment. Whoa. Judgment. When’s the last time you heard about being judged as a Christian? We’re safe and secure forever. Mm-hmm. We are eternally, but there are consequences for sin while we live on Earth if we’re a born-again Christian. This is heavy-duty stuff. He eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning. In other words, this negative, partaking without a self-exam, leads to judgment. What is that judgment?

Now, this is fascinating. The content of verse 30, look what it says; for this reason, many. How many people were in the Corinthian church? It met in a house. How big were the houses in Corinth? Not a house in the whole city, they’ve excavated the whole place, could fit more than a hundred people. Paul spent 18 months pastoring a church of under a hundred. I just came from a conference with 3,400. I don’t know how many there were, standing room only. Most of the men in there feel bad if they don’t have a church that’s a good size. 80% of all churches in America are the size of Paul’s church, under a hundred. But many. Paul was the founding pastor; many are weak.

Now, look at the weak, sick. See, many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. Now, I’m not talking about this service because, by the way, I can see quite well. There was someone four weeks ago who fell asleep while I was speaking; they were so relaxed and comfortable. 15 minutes after the service, they were still sound asleep, and the deacons came up and said, excuse me, it’s time to go, we’re turning the lights out. I think that it’s good to sleep. We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about death. This is a euphemism for dead.

Now, did you catch what Paul is saying? He’s saying that there are three levels of God’s chastisement that come for believers who do not repent. Some of them are weak, and what that means is there’s this spiritual lethargy that comes, and they don’t have any spiritual power. They just have no joy. There’s no awareness of the power of the Holy Spirit, and then they get sick. This is both physical and spiritual weakness. The sickness appears to be not only spiritual, but it also becomes a physical sickness because it leads to death. You say, oh, come on. Yep. Do you know what it says in James 5? That you can, if you get someone to repent of persistent sins, you save a soul from death. Do you know what is said in 1 John 5? Are there sins that lead to death? Do you know what it says in Revelation chapter 2? The Lord threw people in the Church into beds of sickness, and some were dead. Never will you hear that in pop Christianity, but that’s truth from God, and most people are operating, bumping along in their spiritual lives, unaware of this.

So, what is chastening? Let’s turn now to chapter 15 of the Gospel by John, because you should always attach these to portions of Scripture, and that’s how Paul reasoned with the people. Basically, one of the clearest examples of the Lord’s chastening, trials, or pruning is in chapter 15, and chapter 15 is totally talking about believers. Starting in chapter 14, in my Father’s house are many mansions. Chapter 15, abiding in Christ. In Chapter 16, all the workings of the Holy Spirit are discussed. In 17, the great prayer that Christ offered in John 17.

But look at 15, I’m the true vine, Jesus said, My Father is the vine dresser. Boy, this becomes dear to me. We live in Lawton. Looking out our windows, grapes in every direction, and you watch how they’re working on those things. They work on them all the time. Do you know what’s happening right now? They’re out trimming, in the winter, trimming very severely. They just cut off everything unnecessary for next year’s crop or this summer’s crop. But He says, My Father is the trimmer, the vine dresser, every branch in Me. Now, that should allay any Armenian thoughts that someone’s going to get lost here because this is only for believers. The branches are in Me that do not bear fruit, He takes away.

Now, if you have a marginal note, my Bible has a little note at the bottom, a little A, and it goes down to 15:2, and it says or lifts up. That’s really a much better description because what this is talking about is chastening. If we are cast down in the mud of sin, some branches in the vineyards of 1st century and in the vineyards of the 21st century, get down in the path and they get trampled and in the mud when it rains, it splatters on them and those leaves, coated with mud and dirt and down in the dark, will not have vibrancy in life and they’ll never bear fruit down there. So, if we get cast down in the mud of sin, see chastening is always disciplinary. It’s negative. It has to do with sin in our lives.

What the Lord does is He is going to reach down wherever we are and lift us back because He loves us with an everlasting love. If you are His child, He will never let you persist. He will never let me persist in acting like an unsaved person. That’s what chastening is all about. He’s saying, you cannot act like that. No longer is your father the Devil. You are My child. You are a child of God, and I am not going to let you persist in the dark. I’m going to lift you up into the sunlight of fellowship. Chastening is something you feel. You know that weakness; you feel it as emotional anxiety.

The Christian life is supposed to be peace that passes understanding, and you say, oh, ugh. That’s a sound you make, ugh. Everything is frustrating, distressing. None of those describes the life of Christ in us. Can you imagine Jesus going around? Ugh! No, uncharacteristic of Christ. Christians are Christ in us. Every branch in Me, verse 2 says. We got saved by crying out and reaching out to a person who got our attention and reached out to us first. But we respond in faith to Him, and we invite Him to live within us and to live through us and to be our life. You know how Paul said it? When Christ, who is your life, shall appear. He’s our life.

But when we are not acting like Him, we feel it. What used to bring us joy now doesn’t, and look at this many, remember 1 Corinthians 11? Many are sick, weak; that weakness is Christians bumping along at this level of discipline, this chastening, and yet they fail to read the signs. They feel unfulfilled at church. They come to church, and do you know what their main thing is? You can always tell. I didn’t get anything out of it. You’re not supposed to get anything out of it. As soon as they say that I know they’re totally disconnected. When you come to church to get something, you think you’re going to Meijer or something, or Walmart. You don’t come to get something at church. You only come to give. We give. We come here as slaves of God to give to Him. We don’t get. What we find is when we give, we receive more than we ever realize is possible of joy and peace and purpose and everything else, but we don’t come to get. We’re supposed to be self-feeding.

Do you come here to eat once a week? Do you eat at any other time? Physically, yes. Spiritually, many Christians come to church for their meal to church. They’re anorexic basically. They’re just going through life spiritually unfed because they think they come here like to the mess hall. This is a place where we exercise, encourage, and look at how we can help one another. We give; we don’t come to get. So, they don’t get anything out of church. They’re unfulfilled, and what they do is they look for a church where they get something. And usually, it has to be loud and lights flashing and smoke, then they feel they got something. But it only affects them emotionally for a while. They become critical of their Christian friends.

In fact, there’s a note in here if, oh. They changed the clock. I can’t believe it. I joked in the first service. Now, it’s the right time. I was going to tell you we could go all morning, but we can’t. They become critical of their Christian friends. I have another question right here on the pile that says, this person said that they’ve come to Christ and they’re really growing in the Lord. Now, they’re mentioning to their church friends that there are certain things they don’t do anymore, and their Christian friends from this church are criticizing them because they’re too serious about the Lord. That’s a sign of this bumping along spiritual life. They feel on the outs with God, and when they pick up their Bible, it feels like a lead weight instead of a welcoming relief. That’s a sign. If you feel uncomfortable here this morning, you think the believers are too crazy, and you just don’t feel close to the Lord, and the Bible is not a joy to you. That’s a sign of chastening.

Now, pruning, this is the positive one. It’s affirmative, but it is painful. I used to, in fact, it’s so embarrassing. When we lived in Tulsa, it was really fun. We were living in this little tiny apartment with two bedrooms. We had the kids stacked in bunk beds. It was a step-saver apartment. You could stand and sweep half of the duplex from one, you just pivoted, and then you just move, and you could do the other half. It was really nice and everything was neat and fun, and someone came to us and said, you shouldn’t… Tulsa Bible Church is too big a church for you to live in that little tiny place. This builder built us a house. It was too much to take care of.

So, it had this backyard, and so he said, put in some gardens and he helped me. We had the local paper come and take pictures of my roses because we have eight kids, and I made them all help me. We just had this huge rose garden, and here’s this picture. The caption said, local pastor has giant gardens. I thought, yeah, they think I lie out there all day and play in my flowers, but actually, what I did was I trimmed the roses. That’s why they grew so well. Pruning. You don’t prune with a hedge trimmer. You don’t prune with a brush hog. You use little Fisker sharp things, and you look at your roses. In about December to January in Tulsa, I do it more in October or November here, you look and you pick the three or four main branches you want to keep, and you ruthlessly get rid of everything else so that the roots are ready to burst through those three or four main rose stems. What you have is not a green bush. You have beautiful roses. Pruning is painful, but it promotes fruit.

If we’re flourishing with external growth, he goes back to the grapevine thing, grapes will grow a mile long and have no grapes if you let them. They’ll spend all their time just traveling, and you have to intercept them, cut them off. That’s what they’re doing right now, making them short so that they’ll produce much fruit. Back to John 15. Look what it says, every branch of Me that does not bear fruit, He takes it away, He lifts it up. Every branch that does bear fruit, now that’s where we are in verse 2, He prunes it that it may bear more fruit. God wants us to have more fruit. He wants us to be more into giving, not getting, more into walking in tune with the Spirit instead of with the world, more in denying our flesh that we were born with, the way we were, and He wants to make us live out Christ. That’s God’s goal. That’s fruit. The more Christlike we are, the more Christ-responsive, the more reflective of Him.

Did you know that people took notice of the early believers and came to them because they saw how different they were? Do you know that in America, in the 21st century, you almost can’t tell a Christian from a non-Christian anymore? That’s because we are not learning to deny, walk in the Spirit, and have a life of giving. So, God helps us; He prunes us. He cuts away our rambling growth. We’re involved in so much activity that we’re not growing spiritually. The pruning knife is always painful, but it’s always worth it.

What exactly is our Father’s pruning knife? Is it pain? A lot of times, pruning is accompanied by pain and troubles and trials and loss and suffering and sadness. Is that His pruning knife? No. His pruning knife is in verse 3. Look what it says. You are clean because of the Word, which I’ve spoken to you. Do you know what a pruning knife is? It’s us saying, hey, God says that doesn’t please Him. I ask you, Lord, to do whatever it takes to get that out of my life. That thing has become too important. That person has become too important. That activity, that pursuit of security or wealth or comfort, is too important. We ask, Lord, to take it away.

Now, back to the question that’s on that sheet. The person said at the communion when I was talking about chastening, so, how do you know if you’re being pruned, which is affirmative and positive, or chastened, which is disciplinary, scourging? How do you tell the difference? Chastening is derived from the Greek word, meaning to instruct or train, and it has its roots in the Greek word for child. In fact, when we read Hebrews, you notice nine times it is talking about children and fathers, and training. We have troubles and problems in our lives. In chastening, we have a growing frustration with our problems. This is how you know it’s chastening; it’s negative. As the problems come, as the job loss, as the health loss, as the relational troubles, as all of these things happen, we get more and more frustrated. We find ourselves going away from the Lord, and people say, oh! It just drives them away from the Lord. Why? Because the Lord is going to keep up the chastening until they repent of the cause of the chastening. The only way to stop chastening is to repent.

Remember, that’s where this started. We were in the discipline of someone, and we were putting him under the Lord’s chastening, and they said when will it end? When they repent, when they forsake the sin, and turn and ask for forgiveness and grace to not go back. That’s the only way to stop chastening.

What’s pruning? It’s very good and it’s lifelong. God pinches away. Did you know all summer Bonnie loves these little herb pots that are on our deck, and being the grower, the gardener, as soon as I see the basil starting to go toward seeds, I just pinch. I come in from the car with my suit on, and I’m just pinching those things because you just don’t let them go to seed. You don’t want it not to be properly. God is pinching away any part of our life that, in the present or in the future, will be unproductive. In fact, the Greek word for pruning actually means to literally cleanse.

It’s like our hands. If our hands get extra stuff on them, defilement, dirt, grease, whatever’s on them, we want to cleanse that away. We don’t want to get rid of our hands. We want the stuff that doesn’t belong on them to get out of there. That’s what pruning’s about: getting rid of whatever is in our life that hinders us from Christ’s likeness. We have troubles and problems in our lives, and when it’s pruning, while we’re going through those losses, those pains…. I find this all the time on hospital visitation. I visit two kinds of people in the hospital, the people who are growing in their frustration, it’s like they are just fighting against everything going on. I see the others; they have growing peace. They say, you know what? When I’m weak, that’s when the Lord is what? Strong.

Now, it’s normal human emotions that we have fears and struggles and everything else, but the overarching direction of chastening is down. They’re just plummeting, and their feelings and emotions and spirituality, everything is just going away. But in pruning, they have a growing peace saying, wait a minute. God is sovereign, so this couldn’t happen without Him. God is wise, and He’s orchestrating everything for the best part of my life. God is always right here with me. He’s the one that’s pinching and pruning away, and He’s so loving and good that this couldn’t possibly be anything but His wonderful plan. There’s a growing peace through the struggles, and we find ourselves drawn closer to the Lord by them.

You understand, this world is not our home. We’re just passing through. Some people think it is their home permanently. God has to do a lot of pinching and a lot of trimming. As I told you before, we are prone to pounding our stakes too deep. We’re living in a tent, and yet some people are putting footings in. They’re laying down foundations like they’re going to be here forever. So, the Lord doesn’t like that. He works on us.

We are chastened because we’re doing something wrong. That’s the simplest way to say it: chastening is something wrong; there is sin. We’re pruned because we’re doing something right, and the Lord wants to make us increase in Christlikeness, and both are painful. But the result is, during chastening, joylessness fills our hearts and our minds and our lives. If uncorrected, our relationship with the Lord seems distant and blighted by sadness and lethargy; the Word of God seems unimportant.

In fact, this is the acid test right here. This is called; the Word of God is more than our necessary food. This week, the last 168 hours, has the Bible seemed unimportant? Do media, music, games, sports, finances, and social media do all those things just absolutely, or one or two of them, rivet you? But the bible…oh, it’s Sunday. I have to go find my Bible. Hope I get something out of the service. You won’t. I can assure you. If you come with that attitude, you won’t. Boring. Oh, it was so boring, dull. There are no action packs, Dolby surround sound, and whatever, and our hearts become cold. The fire goes out on the altar of our living sacrifice.

When that happens, we need to see and turn from our sin. We need to say, Lord, I’m spiritually sick. My appetite, remember, with children when they’re little, you call the doctor over the weekend. You say, oh, little one is really sick. He goes; do they have an appetite? Come in on Monday if they do. If there is still an appetite, they’re going to make it. If they don’t have an appetite, we’re in trouble, we’re sick, which leads to weakness, sickness, it leads to the ultimate, what God calls, an untimely death.

During pruning, even though it hurts, we remain joyful. It doesn’t mean we say that we’re not having problems, but we see the Lord’s hand in the problem. We read God’s Word with hunger. People, they say, boy, the Bible just comes alive when I lost my job, when I found out I had cancer, when we had this great loss. And we start talking to Him often in prayer. See? See what He’s doing? The Lord is pruning stuff out of our lives, and all of a sudden, we find out, wow. Now that I’m not doing that, I have so much more time and desire and everything for the Lord. We have a growing sense of the nearness of our Heavenly Father pruning us. A gardener is never closer than when they’re trimming their favorite plants, and we respond to God’s challenge for increased growth. We start saying, Lord, what else? That’s the last two verses of Psalm 139. Search me and try me. See if there’s any wicked way in me. Lead me in the everlasting way. Search my heart, and we need to even more turn. We say, Lord, any flesh and self that you find, get rid of. So, that was the first question. Oh, we’re going to do three.

Here’s the next one. You see why we do this on Sunday night? Here is the next one. It just came in. With the Arab Spring having turned into Arab chaos, with the weakening military will and capability of several Middle Eastern nations that Ezekiel mentions is being aligned with Gog when Israel is invaded, coupled with the what seems to many the sudden Russian show of strength on the world stage, Crimea, and a weakened U.S. military, and support for Israel, what are your – I was waiting for the question here – what are your thoughts on the probable timing of Ezekiel’s Russian invasion where God shows Himself supernaturally protecting His people?

Immediately, see this is what the discipline of truth is. Where in the world would it say anything about that? See, that’s what we’re supposed to know, not the professionals, we’re supposed to know that. That’s what the discipline of truth is. When you hear of something, it should draw your mind to some portion of the Bible because you’ve read the Bible enough, you know it better than your sports statistics, more than the latest goings on of the world.

Bonnie and I were trapped in traffic going between two points in Los Angeles, and finally, we found out what it was. We were actually cutting between two places and ended up on Hollywood Boulevard, and it was a premiere and all these black limousines and people were getting out in their little gowns, and police were everywhere. And I said, wonder what that is? We’re so out of touch. It was some premiere of some movie, but boy, if you talk about this, I know where it is. See, where is your treasure? Is it in Heaven? Then you know the Word of God? Is it on Earth? Then you know what premiere it was in Hollywood last week. The two places you look are Ezekiel 38 and 39 and Daniel 9.

So, quickly open your Bibles, and we have exactly eight minutes, and I’ll try and answer this fast. When I was little, they used to have 16 1/2, 33, 45, and 78, I think, were the speeds of the record player, which was a flat pancake thing that spun with a needle. So, we will go from, I’ve been going at 16 and 33, and we’ll go to 45 and 78 soon. So, the question is, do Russia, the Arab Muslims, and the current events fit anywhere in Daniel 9? First of all, what is Daniel 9? Here’s Daniel 9. I printed it out for you, Daniel. 9:24, 70 weeks. I would add that the Bible shows us that actually it is not 77-day weeks, but it’s 70 heptads of 490 years, and I’ll show you why. Upon thy people, little interpretation, that’s the Jews, thy Holy city, Jerusalem. So, God says, basically, I have 490 years planned for the Jewish people in the city of Jerusalem to do all these things.

Okay, now look at the next verse. Now, therefore, understand from the going forth of the command to restore. And if you know anything about history, you know that in about 445 B.C., the Persian, Iranian king made a decree. You can read about it in the last chapter of Ezra; you can read about in the first chapter of 2 Chronicles. But this decree goes out to rebuild the city of Jerusalem’s walls and the temple. From that point, 445 B.C., and you can look that up. By the way, I checked, I always say this, and I checked this morning, went to Wikipedia. The first thing right there in that collection of a lot of junk, they had the right date in there, raise the Lord. Unto Messiah the king. We know that’s about 30 A.D. Jesus was crucified. Now, look at this set. We have to do a little math within sets and closed sets. Okay? Three score is 60 and 2. So, 60 plus 7 plus 2. So, something is going on for 69 of these weeks. And what’ll happen is the streets will be built of Jerusalem, the wall of Jerusalem, and troublesome times.

Now, we go to 26. Oh no, before we go to 26, how would we possibly know that Daniel is not talking about 70 weeks, which is one year and 18 weeks, one year, four months, and two weeks? How do we know he is not talking about a year and a quarter? Just plug in, just do a little math. The command to restore Jerusalem was in 445 B.C. Messiah, the king, was heralded on Palm Sunday in 30 A.D. If you do a little math and take those years, actually, that is 475 years if you look at that. But, if you take 360 days, which is what Hebrew calendars were, a lunar calendar, and divide that time period down today, you find exactly 483 years, which is just what the Lord said. The 60 plus 2 plus 7, right up to the time of the Messiah.

Now, let’s go back to the text, verse 26. After these three score and 2 plus the 7 that have already been mentioned, after these 69 weeks or 483 years, something is going to happen. After that, the Messiah will be cut off. What’s that? That’s the crucifixion. The Messiah was crucified and not for Himself. It’s a substitutionary atonement, and the people of the prince who shall come will destroy the city. Who crucified Jesus and who destroyed Jerusalem in A.D. 70? What nation of people? Romans. Okay, so the Romans. See, all of this is very historically validated. The people who destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the Temple were the Romans. But notice what it says, the people, the Romans of, whoa, who’s that? The prince that shall come. We know him. We meet him in Revelation 13, the beast. He’s the Anti-christ. This is where we get the concept of the revived Roman Empire. It’s not that Hal Lindsey thought of that. God thought of that. God said the same people who destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple are going to produce a prince who shall come.

What is he going to do? And he, this is the very next verse, so the antecedent is the prince, that shall come, shall enforce the covenant with the many. There’s the last week. Remember, we have 69 accounted for, but in the future, there’s one left, and it’s right there, and oh, in the middle of it. So, if a week is seven years, in the middle of the week, three and a half years, he’s going to cause, and this little line right here, Jesus, Paul, and John all believed that was true, that there was a future time that this bad guy, the Anti-christ is going to stop the sacrifice and the oblation. Is there a Temple in Jerusalem today? No, there hasn’t been one since A.D. 70. But Jesus, Paul, John, and Daniel in the future for one week saw this Temple, and he’s going to make it desolate.

If you’ve read the rest of the book in chapter 13 of Revelation, it says that he sets up an image of himself and wants to be worshiped as God. This Anti-christ savior of Israel that defends them at their darkest hour comes in. So, that’s the backdrop. A picture is worth a thousand words. Okay. Here’s verse 25 of Daniel, 69 weeks, 7 plus 62. It ends with Christ being cut off and the desolation. There’s this period that’s not determined how long it is until this final section, this last week, that is bisected by a half. And at the halfway point, the Anti-christ shows his true colors and turns on Israel.

Now, what does that have to do with Ezekiel 36 to 39? Are Russia and Iran a part of this? Let’s go to Ezekiel 38. Look at verse 1. The Word of the Lord came to me, saying, by the way, who’s the me? It’s Ezekiel. Babylon came, and in 605, they took Daniel out of Jerusalem. In 597, they took Ezekiel, and in 586, they wiped out the place and decimated it and moved around the people.

So, Ezekiel is writing sometime around the 6th century B.C. The only reason I told you that is to give you a little number. Hesiod, who was 200 years before Ezekiel, said that the Magogians were the Scythians. Herodotus, who lived a hundred years after Ezekiel, said that the Scythians were the Magogites. Philo, Josephus, in fact, there are references to the Wall of China, and they called it in ancient literature, the ramparts of Gog and Magog. In other words, Gog and Magog were coming toward them, and they built a wall to stop them at the ramparts. They stopped them outside the walls; whoever is outside of China is the Magog people.

By the way, the killer is, if you go to the Kremlin today, I wouldn’t suggest it. Today is not a happy day for us to go there because they’re not happy with us. But if you did, the first building inside the Kremlin is the Russian kind of Smithsonian. The Smithsonian has all kinds of exhibits about the Scythians. Now, let me just show you this real quick, because we have one minute till we’re late.

If you were a Roman in the 1st century, right here, this would be the whole world, the red, this is the Roman Empire. So, they didn’t think much about it, but if you were in the East, if you were a Chinese person, you knew where Scythia was because you had built your wall to keep them out. The Scythians were basically in this area, north and east of the Caspian and Black Sea.

By the way, there is a problem point in the world right now. That’s Crimea. There was a war in the 1850s over that, too. It’s just old stuff. So, the Chinese would’ve known who the Scythians were.

Basically, this is the Persian and Greek Empire, and they don’t mention them that much, but boy, the Russians do. These are the camps where the Scythians were. They were nomadic people in what are called the Steppes of Russia. See, the Caspian, Black Sea, there’s Crimea again. They were fierce horseback riding warriors who chopped people’s heads off, cracked their skulls, and drank their blood from their skulls as their cup. They were bad guys, in other words. They were very accomplished, and they conquered all the way down to right there.

That’s Israel. There’s a city there called Scythopolis. That’s the city of the Scythians right there. That’s how far down they came, and then they were pushed back. So, the Russians know exactly who they are.

Now, let’s go back to this. To answer the question, does Ezekiel 38 and 39, the Magog invasion, happen before the Tribulation? That’s one view. Or does it happen near the end of the Tribulation? Some people equate it as equivalent to the battle of Armageddon, but that’s a real problem because the battle of Armageddon you can read it. It’s different. A lot of points are different. Here’s the main crux. Is this seven years in the future, or could it happen any moment? I think that’s what the person was asking. Basically, Joel Rosenberg would be more here. The view at the end would be more of MacArthur and Dallas and others, but all of them say, really, the Bible doesn’t tell us.

Basically, what’s amazing is if you look at the lineup, the countries mentioned are Persia, that’s modern-day Iran, Kush, and Put. In fact, let’s just look at these on a map here. Here’s Put, Algeria, and Libya. There’s Kush, Sudan, and Ethiopia. What happened last week if you’re reading the news? A boat was going from Iran to Sudan filled with missiles, long-range missiles to fire on Israel from the Gaza Strip, and it was going to dock down in Sudan, down below Somalia here, and they were going to smuggle them up into hitting poor little Israel, which is right there with that blue dot. Here’s Gomer, Turkey, on and off. Here’s Persia. No question. All of these in this final event are going to unite with, interestingly, Meshech and Tubal, which is the old northern nemesis Togarmah, which is probably the Stans, the Muslim, old Soviet breakaways, who join with Persia and come down with Turkey, and up from below, come all the others. They all come down, and there’s poor little Israel right there.

So, basically, that’s why they asked the question. I would say, I don’t know. Okay, but it’s time to go. So, let’s all stand. The lesson is this: since you don’t know the day or the hour that your Lord is coming, He said be ready. Be found by Him doing what He wants you to do. Just for you to see where we’re going to go tonight, how do you like this? This is the one I didn’t get to. Wait till you read the note. I’m going to read it tonight. This is the new believer, and he says, I come home and my family is watching things that displease the Lord. I say, what are you doing that for? And they say, all things are permissible to us. It actually says that, 1 Corinthians 6:12 and 10:23. How does all things are permissible and forgiven fit with holy living? That’s going to be a fascinating talk, and that’s just an example of all these amazing questions.

But let’s bow for a word of prayer. Father in Heaven, we thank You that You have written history in advance and that if we want to know about moral issues, about life questions, or even about the whole place that this world is going to be heading in the not to distant future, we go to our source of truth and we discipline ourselves in knowing the truth and learning how to explain the truth until people get hardened and turn away. But we’re supposed to be explaining it and finding those who want to be Your disciples, and then we nurture them and take them with us to Heaven. That’s really what You left us for. I pray more and more that, that would be what we live for. In the precious name of Jesus, we pray, and all of God’s people said, Amen. God bless you as you go.

Notes

Today, look back over your week. How is your spiritual health? Has it been a week with any trials, troubles, and struggles? Did pressures increase at work, at home, in your health or finances? And then what happens inside of you? Did you cry out to the Lord, fall upon His grace, turn from any wicked way? Or did you seethe in anger, wallow in self-pity, or worst of all harden your heart to spiritual things?

The test of pruning (which is affirmative) and chastening (which is disciplinary) is in our response.

That is one of the simplest ways to test what is going on in your life.

Pruning always draws us closer, chastening initially can push us away.

TEST #1: When troubles came this week, did you remain joyful, did you read God’s Word with hunger, and talk to Him often in prayer? A fruitful believer that is experiencing the nearness of their Heavenly Father pruning rises to God’s challenge. We move toward the Lord.

TEST #2: Or when troubles came this week, did joylessness fill your heart, mind and life? Did your relationship with the Lord, seems blighted by sadness or lethargy? Did the Word of God seem unimportant, boring, and dull? We often initially move away or grow cold toward the Lord.

OUR FATHER WANTS THE BEST FOR US

With[2] His heart full of love and mercy, OUR Father the Vinedresser is trying to bring into our lives this morning, the greatest possible blessing. Listen to these words from a paragraph entitled “Obedience” from Chastening, a booklet by James H. McConkey. God comes to us in the positive discipline of pruning, or in the negative discipline of chastening. How does He do that?

It may be through the suffering of your seeing carefully made plans replaced by keen disappointment.

It may be through the suffering of bereavements that tear from your presence – precious loved ones.

It may be through the suffering of temporal losses and broken fortunes.

It may be through the suffering that stalks into your life through the willfulness and sin of others.

It may be through the suffering that sometimes seems to bring you to the brink of a broken faith and a broken heart.

It may be that out of your very agony of heart and soul the eternal God of love and mercy is seeking to bring into your life the greatest blessing that can enrich and glorify that life – the blessing of your human will yielded to the will of God.

And to be yielded to the will of God means more than silver and gold, more than gratified desires and ambitions, more than the pleasures of friendship, more than all the praises of men, more than all the prizes of fame, and more than the attainment of all your highest earthly aims and strivings. This is the richest and deepest of all blessings – to be swallowed up in the will of God.

So how do we know if God has been pruning our lives so that they may be more fruitful – or spanking us for not dealing with our sin? The answer is found in God’s Word, as we turn again to John 15.

James Montgomery Boice notes that when Jesus speaks to His disciples and us in John 15, that remaining[3] in Christ is for those who are in Christ already. So abiding refers to conscious decisions or choices in living the Christian life. So the burning describes the believer’s works that are burned if these works are not of Christ, and it is the Christian’s role as a fruit bearer and not his salvation that was discussed in the passage.  Lot would be an example here, as Arthur W. Pink points out in his presentation of this evidence. “He was out of fellowship with the Lord, he ceased to bear fruit to His glory, and his dead works were all burned up in Sodom; yet he himself was saved! [4]

Ray Stedman writes of John 15, “When our Lord says: Abide in me he is talking about the will, about the choices, the decisions we make. We must decide to do things which expose ourselves to him and keep ourselves in contact with him. This is what it means to abide in him.[5]

Sin unchecked is deadly, destructive, and never tolerated for long by our Father the Vinedresser. Sin unchecked in our lives is so virulent in its destructive power that God can’t allow us to stay under its power too long. This morning we must guard from allowing sin to multiply in our lives and destroy our fruitfulness and health.

Look again at our Father the Vinedresser we see at work in John 15:1-2, please turn there with me.

John 15:1-2 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

It is the wise farmer[6] who knows the correct times of the year to cultivate and prune his vines to insure maximum yield. In the Holy Land grapevines first bloom in May, and the fruit will begin to ripen by August. There are two calculated pruning times (as noted in the Gezer Calendar) in the fall before the vines become dormant, the unproductive bunches from the previous year are removed, and at the peak growth time of the year once the grapes appear, excess leaves and tendrils are cut away to encourage greater yield and even ripening. In our lives we also need to be trimmed when things get in the way and when things are going better than ever! Yahweh will thus bide his time until the appropriate moment to make his pruning in our lives.

Does God have a grudge[7] against His children? McConkey again explains: Is He trying to “get even” with us? Is God’s chastening and pruning a kind of parental revenge for childish wrongdoing? Often we may think so, but this is far from the truth. God disciplines us for our own profit so we can share in His holiness. God’s one supreme purpose in disciplining us is purification. He wants to take away from us all that mars the likeness of Jesus Christ within us. It is His own holiness that He wants to perfect in us.

GOD’S DISCIPLINE REFINES OUR LIVES

Think of pruning and chastening the next time you look at anything that shines with the luster of silver.

In nature, silver is usually found in combination with other minerals, principally lead, copper and zinc. The process of refining, or purifying, silver to the point where it is truly a precious metal – and a useful one – involves the use of intense heat and caustic chemicals. What is more satisfying after working hard to polish a piece of fine silver than to look into its gleaming surface and see your face? How would we know what we look like as we face each day if we could not look into a mirror, the reflecting surface of which is a thin layer of silver? But think of what the silver had to be put through in the refining process.

God’s discipline of chastening and pruning is the refining process through which the believer must pass before God can look at him and see His own face. Actually, God is looking for the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. “Whom He did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son” (Rom. 8:29). Is God’s discipline merely an outlet for His wrath? No, it is an undeserved outpouring of His matchless love.

As we undergo God’s discipline, He is removing from us that which dims the image of Christ in us. Therefore we ought not to associate chastening only with chastisement, which generally refers to physical punishment. More properly, we should associate God’s discipline with the idea of “making chaste,” or pure. Spiritual purity is the goal of God’s chastening. Like all conscientious parents, God has a model or pattern to follow as He fashions the lives of His children. That pattern is Jesus Christ. And God’s great purpose is that Christ should be “formed in” us (Gal. 4:19).

OUR FATHER HAS a 3-PART PLAN

Our Father the Vinedresser – He chastens us as needed; He prunes us as needed; He invites us as needed – all so we will be more fruitful. This morning our Father the Vinedresser is here. He is looking at us.

If we are cast down in the mud of sin He chastens us and spiritually lifts us back up into the sunlight of fellowship. Chastening is something you feel as emotional anxiety, frustration, or distress.  What used to bring you joy now doesn’t.  Many Christians bump along in this level of discipline, yet fail to read the signs.  They feel unfulfilled at church, critical of their Christian friends, and “on the outs” with God.  When they pick up their Bible, it feels like a lead weight instead of a welcome relief.

If we are flourishing with external growth but not producing much fruit (by giving, sowing and reaping, spirit walking, flesh denying and so on…as we saw last time) He prunes us by cutting away at our rambling growth until we bear more fruit. The pruning[8] knife is always painful, but it’s always worth it. And what exactly is our Father’s pruning knife? Is it pain, troubles, trials, loss, suffering, sadness, or frustrations? No, because of Christ’s words in John 15:3 which explains that the pruning knife is the Word of God. Jesus says: “You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.” The key to abiding is abiding in His Word. There are no substitutes, no gimmicks, no shortcuts. God’s pruning knife is His Word, and as pointed out above, He seems to use it often during trouble, distress, or setbacks. Charles Spurgeon, master preacher of the nineteenth century, said: “It is the Word that prunes the Christian. It is the truth that purges him.” Have you ever noticed how much more sensitive you are to the Word of God when trouble comes? Have you ever noticed that, when you have a particular need or problem, certain verses will leap off the page? That’s the Spirit of God applying them to your heart.

And finally if we are fruitful and bearing more fruit, at special times He invites us to allow Him to even more prune in our lives until we bear MUCH FRUIT! In his Secrets of the Vine Bruce Wilkerson suggests another truth in pages 50-59[9]: If your life bears a lot of fruit, God will invite you to abide more deeply with Him. His purpose is not that you will do more for Him but that you will choose to be more with Him.  Only by abiding can you enjoy the most rewarding friendship with God and experience the greatest abundance for His glory. Abiding is all about the most important friendship of your life.  Abiding doesn’t measure how much you know about your faith or your Bible.  In abiding, you seek, long for, thirst for, wait for, see, know, love, hear, and respond to …a person.  More abiding means more of God in your life, more of Him in your activities, thoughts, and desires.

A CLOSEUP ON GOD’S PRUNING

Our Father the Vinedresser – He chastens us as needed; He prunes us as needed; He invites us as needed – all so we will be more fruitful.

Our[10] Father’s work with us is the careful trimming away of sins, hindrances, and evil habits so that we gain the maximum fruit-bearing capacity. Among the most effective ways our Father prunes us is with trouble, even pain and suffering. Of course, not every Christian who is ill, or suffering, is necessarily being pruned, but in many cases our Father allows trial and trouble to come our way in order to clean out our lives in certain areas. Unfortunately, pruning has to be done with a knife; and therefore pruning is always painful.

There are times when we wonder if God knows what He is doing because it hurts so much it seems more than we can bear. And sometimes we wonder why God seems to be doing an awful lot of pruning on our branch, while other Christians don’t experience the same type of pruning. But all we can do is trust. The Father knows what He is doing. The valuable lessons He teaches us through suffering, trials, and troubles awaken us to the changes we need to make—what we need to add to our lives and what we need to remove. The Father causes this pruning in many ways.

It can be anything from sickness to hardships, such as the loss of a job.

It can be the loss of a loved one or of a good friend.

Pruning can come through frustration, disappointment, pressure, and stress.

God ordains all kinds of troubles in order to clean off those unwanted shoots—those habits, attitudes, and practices that drain away our energy and rob us of our fruit-bearing capacity. God doesn’t do this pruning with glee or vengeance. He is not the Great Slasher in the Sky, flailing away with His giant blade, snarling, “Bear more fruit, or else!” No, He is right at our side, the Gardener, who carefully prunes each of us at the right spots so we can bear more fruit.

UNDERSTANDING CHASTENING AND PRUNING

[1] 020210AM Chastening or Pruning JIAIN-31

[2] From the paragraph entitled “Obedience” from Chastening, a booklet by James H. McConkey.

[3]  Adapted from comments by James Montgomery Boice, The Gospel of John Volume 4. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1999, p. 166-170.

[4] Pink, Expositions of the Gospel of John, vol. 2, 408.

[5] Ray G. Stedman, Secrets of the Spirit (Old Tappan, N.J.: Revell, 1975), 81.

[6]  Walton, John H.; Matthews, Victor H.; Chavalas, Mark W., The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press) c2000.

[7] From the paragraph entitled “Purification” in Chastening, a booklet by James H. McConkey.

[8]  John MacArthur, Jr., How to Get the Most from God’s Word, (Dallas, TX: Word Publishing) 1997.

[9]  Bruce Wilkinson, Secrets of The Vine. Sisters, Oregon:  Multnomah Publishers, Inc., 2001,p. 50-59.

[10]  Adapted from John MacArthur, Jr., How to Get the Most from God’s Word, (Dallas, TX: Word Publishing) 1997.

[11]  Bruce Wilkinson, Secrets of The Vine. Sisters, Oregon:  Multnomah Publishers, Inc., 2001,p. 96-103.

[12]  From the paragraph entitled “Instruction and Training” in Chastening, a booklet by James H. McConkey

[13]  The Jewish New Testament Commentary, (Clarksville, MD: Jewish New Testament Publications) 1996.

[14]  Adapted from John MacArthur, Jr., How to Get the Most from God’s Word, (Dallas, TX: Word Publishing) 1997.

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