TV Program

Current Episode

Just a Closer Walk

2006-05-21

PRODUCTION #: 1049

SPEAKERS: Shawn Boonstra, Mark Finley,

It's five o'clock in the morning. The alarm clock rings and it's time for your morning devotions. So you wipe the sleep out of your eyes, reach for the Bible on your nightstand and peruse a couple of verses from the book of Psalms.

But you got to bed a little late last night and so it's kind of hard to focus on what you are reading, and five minutes after you've finished, you can hardly remember what you read.

Ever felt like you are not getting enough out of your devotional life? Then go get your Bible, because today, on It Is Written, we are going to tell you what you can do about it.

George Hensley was a preacher who liked to add a little dramatic flair to his sermons. One day, back in 1910, as he was almost done preaching on the last chapter of Mark, he came to this verse: "They shall take up serpents and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover."

It was an electric moment. After a dramatic pause, he reached into a box and pulled out a big rattlesnake with his bare hands.

"Unless you handle this snake," he said, "you run the risk of being doomed to eternal hell."

Now instinctively, we all feel there is something wrong with that kind of reasoning. It's tough to believe that God expects us to handle deadly snakes.

And yet George Hensley did get his material from the Bible. Now obviously, Mr. Hensley was reading his Bible incorrectly. But how can you be sure you are reading your Bible correctly? And do you really have to resort to something sensational like snake handling to bring a little zip to a lagging devotional life?

Today, Pastor Finley joins me in studio to talk about something we both love to talk about. It's the Bible. I'm glad we are together again.

MARK: I'm also glad we can be together again, Shawn, and we didn't bring a box of snakes to the studio today.

SHAWN: No, I thought we'd get more accomplished if we didn't have them around. You know, as we are talking about those snakes, though, and Mr. Hensley, what exactly was wrong with his reasoning?

MARK: He used the Bible selectively, Shawn. If you look at the whole passage of scripture, it says something quite different than that preacher said. Mark, chapter 16 and verse 15.

SHAWN: Mark 16 and verse 15 through 18.

MARK: Jesus is speaking and He says (Mark 16:15-18):

"Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved. But he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe. In my name, they will cast out demons. They will speak with new tongues. They will take up serpents and if they drink any deadly thing, it will by no means hurt them. They will lay hands on the sick and they will recover."

Now, what Jesus was saying is this: He was saying to His disciples, as you go out and preach the gospel, you have my assurance of divine protection. He wasn't leading them to reach their hand into a nest of snakes and pick it up. But He was assuring them of His loving protection. He was saying, there's going to be power. You will meet people that are possessed with demons, by the power of God they will be delivered. You will meet people who are sick and by the power of God they will be healed. You'll meet people who are afflicted and at times you will come across very difficult circumstances. But my hands are going to be there to protect you. So it was an assurance, not an act of presumption.

SHAWN: So this is not a command of God, go find a snake?

MARK: Exactly.

SHAWN: This is a promise of God, of His divine protection.

MARK: Exactly.

SHAWN: Well, I know that many people watching today aren't handling snakes and they've got the issue of context and reading the Bible in context pretty well down pat. And a lot of them have all the modern study tools. They have search engines on their computer to help them read the Bible. But still, they'll spend a half hour in the Bible and when they are finished they can't remember what they have just read. They are not getting anything out of it. What does a person do to prepare their hearts, to have a better time in the Bible?

MARK: Shawn, I think there are a number of things that we can do. The first is pray for guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Bible itself encourages us that the Spirit of God is our guide when we study it. The same Holy Spirit that initiated the writing of the Bible, the same Holy Spirit that impressed the hearts and minds of the disciples when they wrote. That same Holy Spirit impresses us as we study.

So I think the first thing is to seek God. John, chapter 16.

SHAWN: John 16?

MARK: And verse 13.

SHAWN: OK.

MARK: It says, John 16, verse 13:

"However when he the spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth?"

So the Bible is a divine book. It is to be approached not like any other book. So that as we open the pages of the Bible, before we do, we pray, "Dear Lord, open my mind to see what you have in your word."

There is an amazing story that Jesus tells regarding the Pharisees and He says to them in Matthew, chapter 11, verse 25 He says (Matthew 11:25):

"I have not revealed these things to the wise and prudent, but unto babes."

So, if you approach the Bible, trying to prove other people wrong, if you approach the Bible from the perspective of arguing, if you approach the Bible with a sense of egotism in your own life, that you want to approach the Bible to prove your own ideas, then you'll misunderstand what it says.

So here are two major principles. First, before you come to the Bible, pray. Secondly, come to the Bible with an open mind, the spirit of a child. And say, "God, I'm coming to you today, not to superimpose my will on the text, but I'm coming to you so that you can speak to me through your Word."

SHAWN: So you aren't coming to the Bible to teach, you are coming to learn.

MARK: Exactly. You are coming as a student to learn. There is a third principle that to me is extremely critical, and that is not to take one text and make a doctrine out of that one text. For example, let's suppose that I was a farmer and I was building a fence, and I put a fence pole here. Shawn, if I put the fence pole right here, you couldn't tell whether the fence was going to come this way, you couldn't tell whether the fence was going to come this way or you couldn't tell whether the fence was going to be diagonal.

SHAWN: Now, from where you and I sit, we are looking at that fence post differently. I imagine it running one way, you see it running another.

MARK: Exactly, but what if I put another pole here?

SHAWN: Well, now you've got two points and you can draw a line between them.

MARK: What if I put another pole here?

SHAWN: Well, then there's no mistaking where that's going.

MARK: What if another pole went here?

SHAWN: Sure.

MARK: So when you study the Bible, you line up each text as a fence pole. For example, if I am studying about heaven, I don't want to read one passage on heaven, but I want to read 50 on heaven. If I'm studying about death, I don't want to read one passage about death, but 50. If I'm studying about prayer, in fact, this is the way the Bible itself says that it should be studied and we have two great examples of this, one in the Old Testament, one in the new. Isaiah, chapter 28.

SHAWN: Isaiah 28.

MARK: Isaiah, chapter 28, this is a great one, Isaiah 28. And Shawn why don't you go ahead and read Isaiah 28, verses nine and 10.

SHAWN: OK, verse nine says (Isaiah 28:9, 10):

"Whom shall he teach knowledge and whom shall he make to understand doctrine. Them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breast. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little."

MARK: Yeah, that's a great question. The question says: Who is God going to teach knowledge to? In other words, how do you learn? And that's the question we are addressing. Then it says, those that are weaned from the milk. In other words, it's not spiritual infants or babies. God wants to teach you something deep and here's how He does it.

Precept, that is principle must be upon principle. Line must be upon line, here a little and there a little. It's like making a puzzle. If I'm making a puzzle and it's a nature scene and I make a puzzle of a boy walking down a dirt road in the country with a fishing pole over his shoulder. And then, I'm putting that puzzle together and I put together his foot and right next to his foot there is a viper, a rattlesnake coiled, you may get the impression if the puzzle is only partly made, that the snake bit the boy and the boy died. That's what the puzzle's about.

SHAWN: But you are only looking at the one little piece.

MARK: Right, but what if, right behind the snake, the boy's father was slaying the snake and the whole point of the picture wasn't the boy being bit by the snake, but the father protecting the boy.

SHAWN: Amazing.

MARK: You have to have all the pieces of the puzzle together. So when you read the Bible, if you are reading about death, if you are reading about the Second Coming of Christ, if you are reading about how to be saved, how to be a Christian, you take many texts together on the same subject.

Now, there are some great concordances. There is Young's Analytical Concordance of the Bible. There is Cruden's Concordance of the Bible. There are concordances in the back of your Bible. There are some good Bible study tools.

SHAWN: Now, I have noticed though, as we are talking about those concordances, I use the one in the back of my Bible. Sometimes, as a preacher, you are scratching your head, where is that passage again? I can admit that happens, and you go back there, it doesn't quite have it all. Is there a difference between this concordance and say something like Young's?

MARK: Shawn, the concordance in the back of your Bible is very limited. You will have few texts on each topic. Young's Concordance and Strong's Concordance are exhaustive concordances. In other words, they will take every time the word faith is mentioned in the Bible, and list it for you. Every time the word Jesus is mentioned and lists it for you. Every time the word doubt is mentioned and lists it for you. Every Bible student who is serious about studying the Bible should have one good concordance in their library.

SHAWN: OK, it's just basically, an exhaustive concordance.

MARK: It is.

SHAWN: And I know why they call it that because when Dr. Strong was done making that, he must have been exhausted. It is a big book.

MARK: It is.

SHAWN: But one of the best tools that I have on my shelf. So, we approach the Bible with an attitude of prayer and with an attitude to be learning something and an attitude not to look at just one text and build our doctrine on it. What else is right?

MARK: The other thing that I think is extremely important is that you may be reading a book that is apparently excellent on the Bible. But as you are reading it, you notice something not in harmony with the Bible. You may be studying with a Bible study aid, and many of our viewers, I am sure, have varying Bible study aids, because there are so many Bible study aids out there. And you come across one and you see something that is majorly not in harmony with what scripture teaches. The Bible does give us some counsel on that in Proverbs, chapter 19.

SHAWN: Proverbs 19?

MARK: Proverbs 19 and verse 27. And what if you are reading a book and you find a few chapters that are certainly not in harmony with scripture. What if you are taking a Bible course and it's not in harmony with scripture? And you begin to feel a little nervous, you have this little queasy feeling inside. Well, the Bible tells you what to do.

Proverbs 19, verse 27. It's pretty straightforward counsel. It says (Proverbs 19:27):

"Cease listening to instruction, my son, that will lead you to stray from the words of knowledge."

SHAWN: So, as you build that library of Bible study tools, what's this telling us?

MARK: It's telling us to be very careful of that instruction that leads us away from knowledge. We have to be very careful of following instruction that's not in harmony with scripture.

SHAWN: OK, well that makes really good sense, because all of those study tools, as wonderful as they are, are man-made.

MARK: They are.

SHAWN: And so we have got to have that in the back of our minds as we are studying the Bible.

MARK: Exactly, Shawn, there's one other thing that to me is extremely vital. Understanding truth and understanding God's Word is not merely a matter of the mind, it's a matter of the heart. Some of the most brilliant people in the world come to the Bible and they are confused by it. When you look at Jesus' day, you have the scribes and Pharisees.

SHAWN: They were no dummies.

MARK: And they weren't. They spent hours every day pouring over scripture, but they were confused by it. They didn't recognize even that Jesus was going to come, and that the Messiah was there before them, and so they rejected the Messiah.

The Bible says in John, chapter seven and verse 17, that understanding truth is as much a matter of the heart as it is the mind. John seven and verse 17. Would you like to read it?

SHAWN: Yeah, I've got that one underlined in my Bible. It says (John 7:17):

"If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself."

MARK: Yeah, a willingness to do God's will. So, when I approach the Bible, I come with a prayerful heart saying, 'Lord, please guide me through your Holy Spirit as I study. I come with an open mind, willing to do whatever God wants me to do. I come taking all of the scriptural texts on varying topics, putting them together. I come ceasing to listen to knowledge that will lead me away from God's book, but I come with a willingness to do whatever God wants me to do."

SHAWN: Fantastic. OK, Mark, I've done all that. I've got my Bible on my desk. I have an open mind. I am willing to learn. I'm willing to make changes with my life. I've been careful about my Bible study tools. Now what? How am I going to get the most mileage now as I sit down to study with all of those attitudes and all of those preparatory things?

MARK: I encourage people who are beginning, Shawn, to study the Bible, and I'm sure that some of you who are viewing today are new Christians and you are saying, "How can Christ live inside of me? How can I really grow as a Christian?" Christ lives inside of us through His Word.

Jesus said in John six, verse 63 (John 6:63):

"the words that I speak to you, they are spirit in their life."

So as I read God's Word, my mind is changed. The same Holy Spirit that inspired the Bible inspires me. The same God at creation who through His spoken Word brought life into the world, brings life into my heart through His written Word.

Now Shawn, I have found a little acrostic helpful. It's something I've developed over the years and I call it "vim."

SHAWN: V-I-M.

MARK: I get it from the word vitality. You know vim means vigor, it means vitality, it means life. So how do you put vigor and vitality into your Bible Study? Vim is "V-I-M." V is for visualization.

SHAWN: Visualization.

MARK: So, let me give you an example. I'm reading the story of Jesus in the boat crossing the Sea of Galilee. The wind comes up, the boat's going up and down. The thunder is crashing, the lightning's flashing, waves are filling the boat, and the first thing I do is visualize that. I visualize the darkness of the night. It's like somebody threw a cosmic switch and turned off the stars. You know, the clouds cover the moon. It's dark and I feel that darkness. I see the boat, in my mind, going up and down. I watch the whitecaps as they crash over the boat.

SHAWN: As you are doing this, I'm there.

MARK: Right, exactly. I see the disciples trembling in fear. I watch the wind blowing in their face and blowing their hair. I see the rain pelting down on their faces, you know. With those disciples, I take the next step. "V" is visualization.

"I" is identification. What would it have been like if I were Peter, James, or John. I feel the chill of the wind. I hear the snap of the sails. I listen to the roll of the thunder. I shake, freezing, as the waves come over the boat. I see the boat filling up. I identify what it must have been like as you are standing there and there's water up to your ankles and you look away and you see Jesus sleeping.

And I scream out with those disciples, 'Lord, this boat is going down. Don't you care, Lord? Where in the world are you, we are perishing?'

And then I meditate on what that means to me. In my life, a lot of times, the sea is raging. It seems like the lights are turned off. It seems like my little boat is filled with water, Shawn, and it's going down. And it seems like I, too, cry out with those disciples, "Lord, don't you care that we are perishing?"

So "V" is visualization.

SHAWN: OK.

MARK: "I" is identification. You visualize the story, you identify with the person in it, and "M" is meditate on it.

And then I see Jesus stand up and lift His hands and say, "Peace be still." And I think about those disciples and how the peace flooded into their hearts as the sea was calm now. As the stars twinkled in the heavens now. As the moon shown on the boat now. And I see the twinkle in Peter's eye and the smile on his face and the confident look of peace in his heart. And as I meditate on that, the storms of my life don't look as great and Jesus says, "Peace be still" to me.

SHAWN: Amazing.

MARK: Take the woman caught in adultery. I say what would it be like to be cast half-naked there. What would it be like to be caught in the act of adultery. Think of the shame, the fear, the guilt. She is trembling. She thinks she is going to be stoned. We visualize, we identify with her. And think what it was like when Jesus knelt down and began to write the sins of the Pharisees in the sand, and think of her confidence, you know.

What would it be like to be a leper? Banished from your family, sores erupting all over your body, an outcast. What would it be like to be that leper? And what would it be like to be healed?

SHAWN: So those are really powerful principles. It is "V" for visualization. "I" for identification. This is where you should plant yourself in the story. This is me, and "M" is meditation.

MARK: Right.

SHAWN: Meditation. So we chew on it. We think about it.

MARK: Right.

SHAWN: We apply it to our lives. Those are powerful, powerful tools. Now, have everything in place. I've got my Bible, I've got an attitude of prayer. I know about "V-I-M" and you have already mentioned we should start with the four Gospels. Where do I start? You know, that's a great place to start is the four Gospels. But I know people that have been Christians for some time and they say, I'm going to read my Bible this year, and they start at Genesis and they start plowing their way through and they get to Leviticus, and then they get to Numbers, and somehow February rolls around and it just kind of peters out.

MARK: Right. Shawn, I know that there are people who start with Genesis and read through Revelation, and I applaud them for that. You know, when you read the Bible through, there is a certain sense that you get of the whole Bible story and the whole Bible history.

But I think you are exactly right. Many people, particularly new Christians, start there. They think every book, you should start at the beginning, and they fail to recognize that the Bible is not a single book only. It is 66 different books, 44 different authors. Of course, one common thread runs through the Bible and it unites it. It is an integrated wholeness. But there are some books of the Bible that are a lot tougher than others, and for people starting the Bible and starting to read it, I recommend the Gospels and the Psalms.

SHAWN: OK.

MARK: Both of those two. You read the Psalms. I like to read the Psalms in the evening. They give me a lot of peace and comfort and strength and security, and if you look at the four Gospels, I would like you to think about them this way. Matthew was a tax collector and he tells about the sermons of Christ. He faithfully recorded the sermons of Christ. Matthew five, six and seven. So, if you want to know the sermons of Christ and read those great sermons, you want to learn about the teachings of Christ, you go to Matthew.

Mark wrote a lot about the humanity of Christ. If you want to see the humanness of Christ, Christ interacting with people, the Christ with the dirty hands, the Christ reaching out and holding people, read Mark.

Luke, you read about the miracles of Christ and the parables of Christ. A lot of parables in Luke. Luke was a physician. His mind thought in stories. So more parables in Luke, some miracles, but more parables than any other book in the Bible. You want to read the stories that Jesus told as parables, you read Luke.

John, is the divinity of Christ. It was written later, it was a later Gospel that was written to prove to the Jewish mind that Jesus Christ is the Messiah.

SHAWN: You can't miss it in John.

MARK: No, so when I suggest people start reading the Gospels, I like them to start with John, because John is an amazing gospel that enables them to understand how powerful Christ was in His life-changing divinity.

SHAWN: You know, one thing I tried a while ago, I've spent a lot of time in the Gospels, I've spent a lot of time in the Psalms, and I even read the Bible chronologically. I go from beginning to end. I try to do it once a year or so. But you know what I have found is really powerful, to kind of break that habit of getting to Leviticus and stopping, or Numbers and stopping. I tried reading a few books backwards. Have you ever tried that?

MARK: No, I haven't.

SHAWN: You know what I've done? I have started, say in the book of Psalms, because you know you get ambitious, you start with Psalm one and you try and plow your way through. I start with Psalm 150 and then 149 and you work your way back, and now you see things in a different order.

MARK: Sure.

SHAWN: It's really powerful. Listen, I'm a busy guy. I'm the average guy who's holding down 40, 50, 60-hour a week job, and I've got children at home and they have a busy calendar with soccer meets and the whole bit. Where in the world do I find time to study my Bible?

MARK: Shawn, there are some people that say, set aside an hour a day, set aside a half an hour a day. To me, to tell people how much time they ought to spend studying the Bible is not realistic. I think its counter-productive and I think it discourages people. Here's what I like to tell people. It's not the amount of food you eat, but it's how you masticate it in your mouth.

SHAWN: OK.

MARK: And so, when people are starting with a new devotional life, what I suggest to them is take some time every day, even if it's five minutes, 10 minutes, read a few texts, visualize the story, identify with it, meditate on it and apply it to your life. Whether it's five minutes, or 10 minutes, or 15 minutes, be sure that in the time you read God's Word and pray, you connect with God. Bible reading is not a speed-reading program. It's not that we have some card and we just checked off that we have read all these chapters.

The function of Bible reading is to know God. And I'd like to say to our audience today. When you read God's Word, God is longing to communicate with you. As you come to the Bible, come to it with this heart that's passionate. Say, "God I want to get to know you. God, teach me something about yourself in your Word today. God, help me to grow in Christ today," and take that short period of time every day. And you will want, then, more and more, and more time with God.

SHAWN: Mark, thank you so much for the time you've spent with me today.

MARK: It's delightful.

SHAWN: You know, in an age where people work 60 hours a week, have busy families, have access to 500 digital channels, it's getting more and more difficult to carve out a little time for the Word of God. But have you ever thought about why you are so busy. You know, sometimes one of the devil's best strategies is to try and drown out the voice of God with a flood of other stuff.

For example, a few hundred years ago, Satan couldn't do much about the fact that the Dark Ages were drawing to a close. The invention of the printing press and the outbreak of popular education foiled his attempt to keep the Bible out of everybody's hands. So that's when he might have just changed his strategy a little. If he couldn't keep the Bible away from us, maybe he could keep us away from the Bible. Maybe he could flood the market with so many books and so many activities and so much information that the Bible kind of takes a back seat.

To improve your time in the Bible, try a little experiment this week. Turn off everything in your house for one whole week. Get rid of the noise. Turn off the radio, your TV, and even your Internet connection. Just for one week, put away all the other books and magazines, get rid of the noise and I think you'll find your devotional time becomes much more meaningful. You'll actually start to hear the gentle whisper of God's voice throughout the day, long after you are finished reading.

You know, Pastor Mark, I'm excited by some of the ideas we've talked about today. And I know I'm going to apply some of them to my own devotional life. I know somebody out there today would love to get more out of their Bible and I think we should pray for them. Would you do that?

MARK: Let's do it.

PRAYER:

MARK: Dear Lord, thank you that you've revealed yourself to us in your Word. Thank you that you Word shows us what you are like. Teach us to come to your Word, not to debate, argue, or prove other people wrong. Teach us to come to your Word with a humble heart, desiring to know you better. We thank you that no matter how much we want to know you, you want us to know you more. So we come to the Word of God to know the God of the Word. In Jesus' name, amen.

Scriptures Used in “Just a Closer Walk”

"Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved. But he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe. In my name, they will cast out demons. They will speak with new tongues. They will take up serpents and if they drink any deadly thing, it will by no means hurt them. They will lay hands on the sick and they will recover."
—Mark 16:15-18

"However when he the spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth?" —John 16:13

"I have not revealed these things to the wise and prudent, but unto babes." —Matthew 11:25

"Whom shall he teach knowledge and whom shall he make to understand doctrine. Them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breast. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, and there a little."
—Isaiah 28:9, 10

"Cease listening to instruction, my son, that will lead you to stray from the words of knowledge."
—Proverbs 19:27

"If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself."
—John 7:17

"the words that I speak to you, they are spirit in their life."
—John 6:63