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Series Code: TDY
Program Code: TDY220059A
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00:05 ♪ I want to spend my life mending broken people ♪ 00:15 ♪ I want to spend my life removing pain ♪ 00:26 ♪ Lord let my words heal a heart that hurts ♪ 00:36 ♪ I want to spend my life mending broken people ♪ 00:56 ♪ ♪ 01:07 Hello friends. Welcome to 3ABN Today. This is our Today program 01:11 and we're excited that you're joining us at this time because 01:15 we have Steve Nelson with us today, Pastor Steve Nelson, I 01:19 guess I should say. Pastor Steve, where are you from? 01:21 Tell us a little bit about yourself. 01:23 We're from Wyoming actually. We pastor a great district up 01:25 there in the northern part of Wyoming near Yellowstone. 01:28 All right. Ah man but I love Yellowstone. That's one of my 01:32 one of my favorite places. And so in Wyoming but I understand 01:35 you guys used to work here. You were telling me you used to work 01:37 here at 3ABN so a familiar face I guess to some of the folks 01:41 around here. 01:42 It's been a while but it's good to come home and see family and 01:44 friends and meet new friends. 01:46 Amen, amen. So we brought Pastor Steve Nelson here today my 01:50 friends and we're going to be talking about a powerful, 01:54 powerful opportunity for you to get involved in Bible study. 01:56 We're going to be talking about a special study series that God 01:59 has led Steve to write. This is called the Study Marks Bible 02:03 Study Series and we're going to be talking about these today and 02:06 how you can get your hands on these and you can spread these 02:08 and help share these with as many people as possible and how 02:11 you can amplify your personal Bible study. So we're going to 02:15 be talking about these in-depth when we come back in just a 02:17 moment but before we get into our interview we have a special 02:22 musical number. It's brought to us by Martha Jhoana DeLuna and 02:27 she's going to be playing for us Amazing Grace. 02:31 ♪ ♪ 06:23 Amen. Thank you so much my sister Martha. That was 06:26 beautiful. The harp. I mean it's one of those instruments you 06:29 don't see a lot of people play but yet she does it so well, so 06:33 beautifully. Thank you so much my sister. That was a beautiful, 06:36 beautiful song. [Ryan Day] All right Steve, Pastor Steve from 06:41 Wyoming. I'm a little jealous my brother because you're up 06:44 thereby Yellowstone. That's one of my favorite places in the 06:46 world to be. 06:47 You should be it is awesome over there. 06:50 Yeah I mean it's just a gorgeous gorgeous state so. It's a 06:54 blessing to have you here my brother. I'm excited to talk 06:56 about these Study Marks. I have the whole pack here. He gave me 07:00 the whole pack as we were preparing today. I mean this 07:03 thing is just packed with so many great study topics and 07:06 we're going to talk about those during this time. In fact, I 07:09 would encourage you to maybe get something to write with if 07:14 you're encouraged to perhaps give a Bible study. Pastor 07:16 Steve's going to lead us through a couple of these studies today 07:19 in a general sense just to kind of give us an idea as to the 07:21 flow, the ebb and flow to these things and how it works and so 07:25 get your writing utensils out your pens, your paper, and get 07:29 ready to take some notes because we're going to be talking about 07:31 this study series. It's called Study Marks. I'm going to ask 07:35 you about this. Study Marks. How in the world did you come up 07:40 with the idea, how did you become inspired to create and to 07:45 write this study series called Study Marks? 07:49 Very good question. At one time I used to work at Amazing Facts 07:54 At that time I was kind of in a situation where I wanted to know 07:59 more about these different topics. I grew up in the church, 08:02 I knew a lot about the bible but you know it's a little different 08:05 to be able to explain it yourself than to just know what 08:08 the evangelist is talking about. And so we started with just four 08:13 of these at that time. We had second coming and death and 08:16 Sabbath, those things. And it kind of branched out from there. 08:20 I sat down one day. I said okay let's go through the Bible and 08:24 let's see what are the key texts that talk about this subject the 08:28 Sabbath or the Second Coming? And went through those, pulled 08:32 them all out and said okay how can this be more than just 08:35 scripture because someone gets this they're going to want to 08:37 know how does this all tie together? And that's how we can 08:40 trust the theology of what's going on here because the Bible 08:43 interpreted itself. And so we went through and started making 08:48 notes on it and ended up being our bookmark. We went to the 08:51 publisher and said hey what do you think of this idea? Could we 08:53 use this as a bookmark. That way someone could just carry it 08:56 around with them in their Bible, share it and it makes it easy. 08:59 Anybody can do it. 09:01 That's right, that's right. So I have to ask how do you when 09:04 you're taking on a project like 09:06 this, multiple topics, how do you come to the conclusion of 09:09 which particular topics to choose because there's so many that you 09:13 could choose to do a study on and I notice here I think 09:15 there's what, 28 in this particular set here so how did 09:20 you come up with the individual topics to focus on? 09:24 Well the first ones were kind of what I thought were key subjects 09:26 that any Christian would maybe want to know: What happens when 09:30 you die? What's going to happen when the world ends, the second 09:34 coming of Christ, salvation, how do I know I'm saved? I mean a 09:37 lot of people still grapple with that one. And so we went 09:40 through and started looking at those subjects and then as we 09:43 expanded what ties into that and it just kind of naturally 09:47 progress. Now there's 28 so they're actually close to what 09:49 the Seventh-day Adventists have the 28 beliefs of their core 09:55 tenets of faith. But they're not all exactly parallel to that. It 09:59 went a little different direction. Lifestyle was one of 10:02 them and music and those sort of things. Things that were 10:05 interesting to me as well. 10:07 Oh absolutely. That's great, that's great. So in what ways 10:11 can people use the Study Marks to help in their Bible study so 10:15 in this case how would some use this Bible study system? 10:20 Over the years I've heard a lot of different examples. When we 10:24 originally started a guy did (StudyMarks.com) some musical 10:27 little advertisements. We still have them on our website 10:31 StudyMarks.com and you can hear those and he was just a way that 10:36 he says introduce the topic. My wife and I, we used to live in 10:39 California and one of the ways we used to do is we would take 10:42 one of these topics and we'd go around on the mountain where we 10:46 would put them on bulletin boards for people to find. We 10:52 did Bible studies where we lived at an apartment complex at one 10:55 time and it's just kind of very simple as you'll see when you go 11:00 through this. I've heard of people who have shared them when 11:03 they're just traveling with people because the subject may 11:06 come up. It's not something that I would recommend you just stick 11:08 it in someone's face and say hey you need to know this. But you 11:12 know if you pray God will open those divine appointments. When 11:14 you hear something happen and someone will be talking about a 11:18 crisis in their life, someone died and they just want to know, 11:21 have peace with that and you have a tool right here to help 11:23 you kind of guide you through that. 11:26 Gotcha, gotcha. Praise the Lord. Wow. So when you're creating the 11:31 theology for these, because I know that's probably one of the 11:33 bit questions is you're tying all of these different verses 11:37 together and I know we're going to go through a few of these 11:39 here in just a moment. How do you come up with the particular 11:43 sequence of scripture or the flow of thought for your 11:46 particular scriptures theologically? 11:48 Very good point Ryan. Um originally we started with just 11:53 starting with the Old Testament flowing through the New 11:56 Testament. So if you look at one of these you'll see like in the 12:02 front it says Old Testament references and on the back, it'll 12:03 switch to New Testament or maybe on the front. And then there's 12:06 additional scriptures to look at down there. So theology really 12:09 came out of the word of God's structure. In the Old Testament 12:16 what did they think about this subject. How did that migrate. 12:17 Some topics Jesus spoke largely to. The Sabbath is one of those. 12:21 And what did He say about it? And then what's the final 12:26 picture. What does Revelation say about these subjects. That's 12:29 kind of the flow theologically. Let the scripture interpret what 12:32 what the scripture says. 12:33 Absolutely. I love how you included the Old Testament texts 12:37 because again we live in a day and age where many evangelical 12:41 Christians are led to believe that only the New Testament text 12:44 matters. But yet we can see a harmony of what the entire Bible 12:49 teaches on these particular subjects from Old into the New 12:52 Testament. So as I was glancing over these, I really appreciated 12:54 that you included the Old Testament texts into the New 12:58 Testament text to kind of create a flow of thought that shows 13:01 that the Bible, the entire Bible not just one section because I 13:04 mean when we're looking, there maybe someone watching today 13:07 that never had really considered this but if you go all the back 13:09 just to Matthew here, I mean you're talking about you know a 13:13 relatively small section of scripture compared to a larger 13:19 section of scripture that many people feel is for us today but 13:23 yet what does all the rest of that say about these particular 13:26 subjects. So I really liked as I was glancing through these 13:28 that you included the Old Testament texts as well. And I 13:32 really, really like how...you know I've been looking at these 13:35 particular Bible Study Guide and we're going to go through one in 13:38 just a moment, but as I'm looking through these I'm 13:41 thinking man you really covered the bases, the general bases, 13:44 for all of the major topics. But I love how you know it's not 13:48 overwhelming. I mean it's something simple. It's something 13:50 clear that someone can hold in their hand and as I said use as 13:54 a bookmark. And I love how the text you actually instead of 13:57 just the reference you have the text printed onto the bookmark 14:02 as well which is really awesome because someone who is learning 14:05 how to do Bible study for the first time or starting to get to 14:07 know their Bible that may not have that text memorized or may 14:10 not you know may not be able to quickly flip to that particular 14:14 subject but someone puts them on the spot and says what does the 14:16 Bible say about that. They could look right onto this card and 14:18 say, Well the Bible says...and Malachi chapter 3 here's what it 14:22 says. I really like how you designed this. It's really, 14:25 really nice. So let's do one of these here for a moment. So I'm 14:29 just going to assume there's probably someone watching at 14:32 home right now that says you know what, I've been looking 14:34 at this world. This world is crazy, everything that's going 14:37 on around us. It just seems like something big is coming. The end 14:41 of the world is upon us and I thought to myself, you know what 14:45 someone may be hungry to know how this world is going to end 14:47 what that big event is going to look like. And so I'm holding in 14:52 my hand the study that Pastor Steve has written on the second 14:55 coming. So, Pastor Steve, you want to kind of lead us through and 14:59 show us how this would be used as a tool for Bible study. 15:02 Absolutely. And this is a great opportunity if someone's 15:06 listening or watching to pull out their Bible and say hey you 15:08 know I can do this. So if you and I just met, say you know 15:12 nothing about me, I know nothing about you and we started that 15:14 conversation and I say hey let's get 15:17 together maybe some night this week and I got something I think 15:20 might be interesting to you. And you say sure. So I come over, we 15:25 sit down...This is real simple Ryan because you can do this 15:30 as well as I can do this. Let's see what the Bible says. So we 15:34 start like you said in the Old Testament and we go right to the 15:38 first verse so I get one of those cards and I say hey look 15:40 at that first Bible passage there. What does it say on the 15:43 second coming in that first passage? 15:45 Absolutely so this is from Job chapter 19 verse 25 and 26. It 15:50 says: For I know that my Redeemer liveth and that He 15:54 shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. Yet in my flesh 15:58 shall I see God? 15:59 So this goes back to that important you just iterated a 16:03 few minutes ago. The Old Testament. What is Job saying? 16:06 So here's Job, long time before Christ, long time before our day 16:11 and he says something affirmative about what he 16:14 believes is going happen at the end of time. He says I know it. 16:17 I know my Redeemer lives and he hasn't even met Jesus yet. And 16:22 he says he's talking about in his own flesh he's going to see 16:23 God. I mean it tells us Job had faith that somewhere along the 16:28 line at the end of time, he was going to be resurrected back to 16:32 life and he was going to see Jesus. It's beautiful when you 16:35 think about it, the hope that he had. That's the hope people 16:39 want today. It's like we need this hope. The world is crying 16:43 for this hope. Jesus is going to come back to take care of this 16:45 mess we're in. 16:47 Absolutely and I love the emphasis of that verse as well 16:49 because as an evangelist it stands out, he said in my flesh 16:53 shall I see God? You know there's a lot of people today 16:55 that have the idea that their spirit is going to go to heaven 16:59 you know. I know this isn't the topic of death but yet their 17:01 idea is their spirit's going to go to heaven. They're going to 17:03 be in the presence of God in spirit form, but you know be in 17:07 the presence of God in a spirit form before the second coming of 17:11 Christ or even at the second coming of Christ some believe 17:13 that they're going to be there in their spirit form. But I love 17:16 how the text brings out yet in my flesh and I love how it shows 17:19 that we're going to be standing here. We're going to behold the 17:21 Lord in our very bodily presence which is really, really cool. 17:25 Amen. That's so exciting when you think about it. How 17:28 encouraging to know that you know that's an event that's 17:31 really going to happen. Not spurious, not mythological. 17:34 This book 17:36 isn't just full of nice stories, fairy tales, or whatever you 17:37 think. It's full of truth to give us hope. 17:39 Absolutely, absolutely. 17:41 So I would take you through the texts. You know if you had any 17:44 questions you say so what does that mean. We'd talk about that 17:47 and I say let's look at another one. And so let's go down to the 17:50 next one. What does that say? 17:51 All right. Psalm chapter 37 verse 29 says: The righteous 17:55 shall inherit the land and dwell therein forever. 18:00 Forever. Again it's a prophetic verse when you look at it. The 18:04 righteous shall. Hasn't happened It's going to happen. They're 18:07 going to inherit the new earth, the earth made new and they're 18:09 going to dwell there forever. So we know this was not 18:12 fulfilled in the Old Testament. This is still a prophetic future 18:15 for us speaking of a time that something's going to happen so 18:19 that points us to when, how is that going to take place. 18:22 Absolutely. Yeah, that's great. Great point, great point. And I 18:25 love how the point you made here is coming from David. So this is 18:29 some you know probably a thousand years or so before 18:32 Jesus but yet it's future right. So you know even if they were 18:35 dwelling in what was called the promised land at that time He 18:38 is still talking about how the righteous shall inherit the land 18:40 which was to your point there. I like that, very good point. 18:43 Yeah you're right Ryan because it says who's the righteous 18:46 there. It's those who've overcome in Christ's strength 18:49 It's His, by His power they're the righteous. So we want to be 18:53 part of that group. It's important to be in that group. 18:57 Absolutely, praise the Lord. 18:58 So if we go down to the next verse if you want to read that 19:00 one. 19:02 Yeah, Isaiah chapter 25 verse 9. I love the flow of thought 19:04 you're using because this is actually not your traditional 19:07 flow of thought when you come to this subject. Many times we'll 19:11 dive right into the New Testament and we'll get right 19:15 into some New Testament texts which is again another approach 19:17 that you can use, but again I have to just emphasize if you're 19:20 just now tuning in and you're watching here the 3ABN Today 19:23 program, we have Pastor Steve Nelson with us from Wyoming and 19:28 he has created these incredible Study Marks. Okay, they're 19:33 basically like a giant bookmark but they're an actual step by 19:39 step-guided Bible study on each and every one of these book 19:42 marks here and they're called Study Marks and I love that 19:46 because literally, they can serve as a bookmark or they can serve 19:50 as a study guide as well. That's what Pastor Steve is leading us 19:53 through right now is a guided study on how these Study Marks 19:57 work. Anyone can do them. You don't even have to have a 20:01 previous knowledge of scripture but you can pick this mark up 20:04 for the first time and say okay you know and start with the very 20:06 first text as we have been working our way down. So if you 20:09 are just now tuning in he's taking us through this study on 20:12 the second coming and showing us how this Study Mark works and 20:16 we've just come to Isaiah 25 and verse 9 and I love how you've 20:20 taken kind of a non-traditional approach to this study because 20:24 you take us first through what does the Old Testament teach us 20:26 on this subject because we know the Old Testament text came 20:30 before the New Testament text. He's showing us the harmony of 20:33 the entire Bible on this particular subject. So we've 20:36 made our way to Isaiah 25 and verse 9 and this is what it says 20:39 And it shall be said in that day Lo this is our God, we have 20:45 waited for Him and He will save us. 20:48 Amen. I mean just think about that. The hope that we have but 20:55 Isaiah's pointing us forward. It shall be said in that day. It's 20:57 a future event again. It's something that he knows is going 21:01 to happen. It isn't just, again, a fabrication or a fairy tale. 21:06 This is saying we're going to know it. It's going to happen 21:09 and we're going to know it because once we know God and 21:11 I mean those are going to say He is our God. It's certainly those 21:14 who are His children. Those who don't want to follow Him sadly 21:18 that's not their experience. They won't be looking forward to 21:23 that day and so I would encourage, I'm sure there's 21:26 somebody may be watching or knows someone who doesn't believe in 21:28 God and your heart aches because you love your family member, 21:32 your friends. The world we've been talking about is going 21:36 crazy. As Christians, we should be praying for the lost 21:41 seriously and saying okay I want them to be in heaven with us. 21:44 And so this has to be your experience first before you can 21:48 share it. But if you know this is your God you're looking 21:50 forward to that day. We've waited for Him. We're in this 21:54 waiting time. Like it seems like it's going to take an eternity 21:56 but we're close and He's going to save us. We look around at 22:02 all the trouble going around. Don't look at the trouble too 22:04 much because God has promised to get us eventually out of this 22:08 mess. 22:09 Absolutely brother, absolutely. Beautiful point. Great, great 22:12 point there. So this next one brings us to Malachi Chapter 3 22:15 and this is a text you usually don't hear especially in an 22:20 evangelistic setting. As an evangelist I'm familiar with 22:23 this text but I don't really usually use these texts but this 22:26 is a great text for this particular study. Malachi 22:30 chapter 3 verse 17 and 18. It says: In that day when I make up 22:34 my jewels and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son 22:38 that serveth him. Then shall ye return and discern between the 22:44 righteous and the wicked (Okay separation) between him that 22:47 serveth God and Him that serveth Him not. All right. So what does 22:52 this text say to someone who is wanting to know more about the 22:55 second coming of Jesus. 22:58 Your choices matter, what you believe matters, what you do 23:01 with your life matters. If you want to be a jewel in God's 23:05 crown in His kingdom it matters what you believe, it matters 23:09 what you say, what you do. Sadly a lot of Christians don't get 23:15 that one. My wife just read to me a study that was done by 23:20 Barna group I think it was and nearly 38 percent of pastors, 23:23 mainstream pastors today kind of believe that you can get to 23:27 heaven by your own works. You know there's a lot of things 23:31 that have been lost in our world in the past decades that need to 23:36 be brought back to our understanding. If I want to be 23:39 in God's kingdom, I've got to give my heart to Him, I've got 23:41 to let Him change me. I want Him to turn me into one of these 23:45 jewels as it were. But in that day He's promised If I have 23:50 your heart you'll be with Me. 23:51 That's amazing, that's amazing. And you can even see you know 23:54 all the way through scripture Christ makes this 23:58 differentiation many times in the New Testament where He talks 24:01 about you know the righteous and the unrighteous; you know, the 24:03 wheat and the tares, the sheep and the goats. You know the 24:08 10 (sic) wise virgins, the 10 (sic) foolish virgins and here 24:10 even in the Old Testament again makes that separation between 24:12 those who serve Him and those who do not. Those who from 24:15 Paul's words in 2 Thessalonians 2 those who love the truth and 24:18 those who do not. And so this text is clearly showing us that 24:21 when Christ comes back He wants you to be a part of that group 24:24 who serves Him, that group who loves truth, that group who's 24:28 found among the wheat, found among the sheep, those who are 24:31 found among the wise, that's who He's coming back for so I really 24:34 appreciated this text for that purpose. Amen, amen, praise the 24:39 Lord. I also do have to point out here, I love this because 24:42 below each text on this particular card...this little 24:45 card is jam-packed my friends. I'm holding it in my hand and 24:49 they keep pulling it up on the screen, if you can pull that up 24:51 on the screen there one more time you can see below each 24:54 Bible text there's a commentary and this particular one might 24:58 be a little difficult to see on the screen but you can see the 25:00 yellow words underneath each black text and that is a little 25:04 small commentary to kind of help explain how this text applies 25:09 to the overall subject that we're studying. For instance we 25:13 just read Malachi Chapter 3 verse 17 and 18 and I love it 25:17 says here right below the little commentary says at His second 25:20 coming the true followers of Christ will be given eternal 25:23 life while those who have rejected Him will be destroyed. 25:26 And so it kind of gives a little bit of an understanding for 25:28 someone who may read this and say what is this saying to me? 25:31 The little commentary below tells you exactly what the text 25:35 means. I appreciate that my brother. Thank you for adding 25:38 that. So then it leads us on to Malachi chapter 4. And by the 25:42 way we're going through this and we may even go through one or 25:45 two more of these not to just give you just an idea of what 25:49 these cards are like or what it's set up to do but also 25:53 Pastor Steve is giving an example of how you would use 25:56 these cards. So there may be someone home watching this who 25:58 says you know I don't have a clue, I don't know what it means 26:01 to give a Bible study. I've never given a Bible study. I 26:04 don't know how to give a Bible study. So Pastor Steve is 26:08 showing us how you can use this card and after reading each text 26:11 what you might say in leading someone or taking someone 26:16 through a flow of thought from one text to the next and 26:19 communicating each and every one of these particular Bible texts. 26:22 So I know he's speaking to me the evangelist but yet I 26:25 appreciate how you're talking because we want our viewers to 26:28 see how you would give this Bible study to someone who 26:31 perhaps may have never heard the subject before. So I'm going to 26:35 take us on here to Malachi chapter 4 verses 5-6. Malachi 26:40 chapter 4 verses 5-6. It says: Behold I will send you Elijah 26:44 the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of 26:47 the Lord and He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the 26:51 children and the heart of the children to their fathers. 26:54 This is a beautiful verse because it really applies to our 26:57 day, right, when you think about it. Elijah the prophet, Jesus 27:01 spoke of John the Baptist as fulfilling that role of Elijah 27:05 the prophet. He told his disciples that and today God's 27:09 word is telling us in the Old Testament that before Jesus 27:13 comes that Elijah message, what was it? The commentary talks a 27:18 little bit about it like you were mentioning. The call to 27:22 repentance. That's what John the Baptist did. A call to return 27:25 and repair the way of the Lord. Make straight the path. And so 27:30 this message is something we ought to be thinking about 27:33 especially today. How do we do that? The viewers watching this 27:38 you mentioned this is a perfect opportunity for you as a viewer 27:41 Take one of these cards and say God, what do I do with this? I've 27:45 never given a Bible study before The good news is you don't have 27:48 to have the experience you just have to be willing. Because I've 27:52 given many Bible studies. My wife and I have given many Bible 27:55 studies using this and it's amazing. Every time it's a 27:58 little different. When you ask the Holy Spirit to speak through 28:01 you to orchestrate what's said it'll always come out different 28:05 but it'll always be right and hearts will always be turned to 28:07 God. The turning of hearts to God has to happen with the Holy 28:12 Spirit filling us and working through us to reach others. And 28:16 there's a lot of people who are hungry right now. This world is 28:21 getting darker. People are seeing it. They're questioning 28:23 it. In our church we have people coming in a different times who 28:27 we've never met because we're praying them into the church. 28:29 God brings people that you know want to be part of our 28:34 fellowship so we can witness so we can show Jesus' love. And if 28:38 you're willing to do that sit back and just be amazed at what 28:42 God will do for you. 28:43 Absolutely, absolutely. And you know in my experience of giving 28:46 Bible studies you know it doesn't take a pastor, it 28:51 doesn't take a theologian, it doesn't take a scholar to lead 28:54 someone through a Bible study. In fact, I've learned that when 28:57 you are preparing to lead someone else through the Bible 29:00 study it helps you yourself to capture these texts and capture 29:04 this message even better in your mind. I remember I've gotten 29:07 the question over and over through the years...Not that I 29:09 claim to be a scholar or a theologian because I'm not in 29:12 any way. The Lord knows that I have still a lot to learn myself 29:14 but I've had many people ask me all the time how do you remember 29:18 all those texts, how do you remember...Because sometimes 29:20 when I'm preaching the text will just pop into my mind and I'm 29:22 able to just verbatim quote it, give the reference, or over here 29:26 the Bible...And this comes not just because I've just sat and 29:30 memorized and memorized and memorized and memorized but yet 29:32 I've given a lot of Bible studies in my time before I was 29:36 an evangelist I was a small group Bible study leader in the 29:39 middle of my home in rural Arkansas and so this is 29:44 something like this is what I would have used. If this had 29:47 been available for me or I had known about this when I was back 29:50 home in Arkansas, this would have been something I would have used 29:52 and the more you learn this material the more you lead 29:56 someone else and guide them through a Bible study like this 29:58 it sticks in your mind because you're reading it, you're seeing 30:03 it, you're hearing it, you're speaking it and it even more 30:06 settles into your mind that much more. 30:08 That's a very good point. I want to just make a note here. These 30:12 sets were created when I wasn't a pastor. I was in technology at 30:16 the time. You know, computer programming, graphics. This was 30:21 not my skill set. It was God's skill set though. So it was 30:25 developed from someone who had no theological training. I mean 30:28 since then I've gone to seminary but the reality is this was all 30:31 done before that. Nothing has changed since I went through the 30:36 theological training. It's all the same, it's still truth and 30:39 it's the Holy Spirit who orchestrated that. He wanted to 30:43 do this.. 30:45 Amen, I love that, I love that. So we've just read through on 30:47 the second coming card. We've just come through our Old 30:49 Testament texts and now we're going into the New Testament 30:52 references which brings us to Matthew chapter 24. Matthew 24 30:56 verses...We're going to read verses 23 to 27 and also verse 31:00 42. And the text says and this is Jesus speaking: For there 31:04 shall arise false christs and false prophets and shall show 31:06 great signs and wonders. For as the lightning cometh out of the 31:10 east and shineth even unto the west, so shall also the coming 31:13 of the Son of Man be. Watch therefore, for you know not what 31:18 hour your Lord doeth come. 31:21 What is this text saying to us? 31:22 You know there's a lot of information going around. If you 31:25 Google you know prophets today you're going to get a plethora 31:28 of stuff. My wife and I met a "prophet." 31:32 Okay "prophet." 31:36 We sat down at a table like this we're at lunch with a friend. I 31:39 was in technology like I said at the time and he wanted to 31:43 introduce is to his pastor. And so his pastor came and his 31:45 pastor called himself prophet so-and-so. He had the I should 31:52 say the aura of being a theatrical person more than 31:57 what I would picture the Elijah prophet. How do we know what 32:03 people are saying is true. And there's a lot of opinions out 32:05 there. There's a lot of things that don't align themself with 32:07 God's word. A lot of people believe that Jesus' coming is 32:11 imminent and a lot of people think it's after a thousand 32:16 years of all kinds of things going on. I mean what does God's 32:20 word telling us? False prophets are going to be one of the 32:24 greatest deceptions that take place in the last days. So 32:28 knowing what is true is vitally important for God's people 32:33 because that's the only way we're going to navigate successfully 32:35 through what's ahead of us. What does God's word say? So 32:38 false prophets is a sign that Jesus is on His way. 32:41 Yes, yes. I love that and Matthew 24 is notorious 32:44 for being that 32:45 great Olivet discourse that Jesus told to His disciples atop 32:48 the Mount of Olives about a week before He went to the cross. 32:50 And He lays out all the signs there, many of the signs that 32:55 all of us can look forward to prior to the second coming of 32:59 Jesus. So the text that we just read there in Matthew 24 33:01 highlights that. That we need to be looking for these things 33:04 being aware that these things will happen just immediately 33:09 preceding the second coming of Jesus which I appreciate the 33:12 text that you provided for that purpose. I'm going to read one 33:15 more from this and maybe if you'd like to we can go on to 33:17 one of the other two here that we have prepared just so you can 33:20 kind of get an idea of what these other cards look like. But 33:24 this next text here, I love this text. It's found in Luke 17 33:27 verse 26 and it says: And as it was in the days of Noah so shall 33:32 it be also in the days of the Son of Man. Some people read 33:35 that text brother and they say what in the world does Noah have 33:38 to do with the last days prior to the second coming of Jesus. 33:41 Tell us what this text is sharing with us. 33:43 It's an amazing passage because Jesus uses two references, this 33:47 one and in the days of Lot. And so we look at Noah's day and we 33:52 realize that the world was in serious moral decay. God had to 33:57 put an end to that otherwise you and I wouldn't be sitting 33:59 here today. If that world didn't come to an end and God didn't 34:03 start over everything would have been over long before Jesus 34:07 could have stepped on the scene. I believe. So He's telling us 34:10 it's going to be a problematic world and so we look around the 34:13 world today we see some of the same issues. I mean the moral 34:19 issues that Noah struggled with I think we're struggling with 34:21 many of those today. Sexuality is being transformed into 34:24 something that's not biblically recognizable People's hearts are 34:29 becoming more and more corrupt, violence. All of those things we 34:33 see. And so this is a sign. I've talked to a lot of people, you 34:38 probably have too and they're seeing the transformation of our 34:41 world in the last decade. You know looking back what happened? 34:45 Where are we at? We should be distressed by that because we 34:50 don't want to see it going on but we should be also encouraged 34:52 that Jesus is coming. That's a sign of His coming. 34:55 Absolutely, absolutely, wow, praise the Lord. So what we just 34:59 went through is the second... the study on the second coming 35:00 of Jesus Christ, which is...We just read the first full side of 35:04 this one card here. Then there's another whole back side full of 35:07 many, many more New Testament references and even at the 35:10 bottom there it has additional references for if you want to 35:14 continue to study and add more texts to your study overall. And 35:17 this is just beautifully designed brother, I really 35:18 appreciate this. So which one do you want to take us to now. 35:21 Which one would probably be an important one that you would 35:25 give in a study to someone. 35:28 I think if I was new to the faith we'd probably start with this 35:30 one first. (Okay, all right) Because the three angels is a 35:35 little more theologically in depth and we'd probably have 35:37 time today. But I'm sure there's people watching who are still... 35:40 either they're worried about own salvation or someone they 35:44 love and they need to have that assurance and God wants us to 35:49 have that assurance. His word gives us ample assurance, I say 35:53 that word again, but we can know that salvation can be ours. 35:57 All right, all right, praise the Lord. I'm going to let you start 36:00 us off and lead us into this. If we go to the Old Testament we 36:03 look at Psalms chapter 32 verse 5. It says: I acknowledge my 36:07 sin unto Thee and my iniquity I have not hid. I said I will 36:14 confess my transgressions unto the Lord and thou forgavest the 36:19 iniquity of my sin. That's the King James. It's a little more 36:22 poetic in nature but you can get the emphasis here. He's 36:25 acknowledging something isn't right. He acknowledges that he 36:29 has sinned. This is the experience of David and he's 36:33 showing us now he can't hide his sin. So I have not hid it. He's 36:37 also saying I'm going to confess so it's a process It's important 36:42 to get through that process because much of those little 36:46 steps the assurance of salvation really is iffy to you. 36:50 That's right, that's right. 36:51 You need to know that I have confessed and the Bible, we'll 36:55 look at that. That's the process God takes you through. It's not 36:58 a process you choose. It's one He's chosen for us. He took 37:01 David through that. David had to go through that experience 37:04 otherwise, David would have been...Seriously he would have 37:07 been in jeopardy. His spiritual life was in jeopardy. His 37:10 kingdom was in jeopardy. But God brought him...because Nathan 37:13 came to him and brought him to that point of confession and 37:17 repentance, turning away. 37:19 Absolutely. Yeah I love that we started with this text in the 37:21 Old Testament because you know that opening line there, I 37:25 acknowledged my sin unto Thee. We have to be able to 37:28 acknowledge before the Lord my friend. We have to first admit 37:29 we got a problem. That's kind of one of the first steps to many 37:33 different programs that you might be familiar with in order 37:36 to you know set yourself on a path of victory and in this case 37:42 of forgiveness and salvation. And so how can we get 37:44 forgiveness of our sins? How can we set ourselves on that 37:48 salvational path if we first don't recognize you know what 37:51 I have a problem. I have sin in my life and this sin is 37:53 separating me from God and that's what that text in Psalm 37:57 Chapter 32 brings out. Really, really nice text. All right so 38:00 then from there, you would take us to man to a text that could 38:04 be a heavy hitter for some but this is to Proverbs chapter 28 38:08 verse 13 which says He that covereth his sins shall not 38:14 prosper but whosoever confesseth and forsaketh them shall have 38:20 mercy. So what is this text saying to us? 38:22 Well the wisest man who ever lived give us counsel on how to 38:25 have mercy. Covering your sin. I think everyone understands 38:29 that one. There's times you may have said a half-truth even. You 38:34 know for a husband and wife you're confronted with something 38:38 Honey, did you do that? You know the husband's like Oooh really? 38:42 You know and you kind of want to not look like you did it but you 38:47 know say Oh did I forget to do that? You know you just plain 38:52 didn't do it. That's a minor case but the reality is if you 38:57 cover your sin you're not allowing God's forgiveness for 39:01 one. You're not receiving repentance and you're making 39:04 excuses. Eve did in the very beginning, Adam did in the very 39:07 beginning, covering it and it's not going to prosper. It says 39:10 right there. But if you confess, you forsake, God is a God of 39:14 mercy. Never forget that. No matter how far you've gone from 39:17 Him, no matter how bad you've been, no matter the heinousness 39:21 of your actions, God is a God of mercy. If you're listening to 39:25 this right now and you can hear His voice takes advantage of that 39:29 He's calling to you. Confess, turn to me. I'll forgive you 39:33 freely. 39:35 Right, right. You know I just have to make a point here as I'm 39:37 hearing you speak those words it's, you know, touching me and 39:42 this is that card SALVATION. This is probably one that many 39:47 people would as they're thumbing through all of these different 39:49 Bible study topics here on all of these cards here, these Study 39:53 Marks that Pastor Steve has written, has just compiled for 39:57 us. As you're going through all of these different cards here 40:00 this might be the one that your I would say all Seventh-day 40:05 Adventists, but many Seventh-day Adventists might take this card 40:08 and go Uh that one's a simple you know. That's elementary. I 40:12 don't need to go through this one because we want to get to 40:13 the good stuff. We want to get to you know the Sabbath and the 40:17 three angels' messages and the second coming, what happens to 40:19 us when we die and all this. But yet I have found very clearly 40:22 that many people they jump past, I'm thinking this from a 40:25 sanctuary perspective, they jump past the courtyard into the 40:30 Holy Place. They want to have that Holy Place experience or 40:32 that Most Holy Place experience but they haven't spent some time 40:35 at the foot of the cross yet. (Good point) And nothing really 40:38 begins to unravel and make sense and flow appropriately in their 40:43 life because they haven't spent time at the foot of the cross 40:45 and this is what this card, the one we're going through right 40:47 now, this Salvational Card, many of us need to spend some time 40:51 at the foot of the cross and realize that there's something 40:56 still, that's hindering us from being reconciled to God. And 40:58 this salvational message here is one of utmost importance. Never, 41:02 never, never even today in my evangelistic series my first two 41:08 or three messages are a compilation of this message 41:12 right here. In all of my evangelistic series because we 41:15 can't expect people to understand and comprehend and 41:19 get the fullness of the Sabbath, the law and all of these other 41:23 messages if they first don't know the Lord of the Sabbath. 41:26 They first have not surrendered to the Lord of the Sabbath and 41:29 so in that sense I really appreciate that this study is in 41:33 your compilation because some people might just toss this one 41:35 and say Ah people know they've got to come to Christ, you know, 41:37 let's get to the good stuff. You know this is the good stuff this 41:40 is the foundation, this is the beginning. We have to start here 41:43 before we can go anywhere else. And so I appreciate this study. 41:45 Amen. You know that was the Jewish nation's biggest problem. 41:48 They didn't know their Savior when He was right in front of 41:52 their eyes. They heard His voice and said never a man spake as He 41:56 spake. Yet they said Crucify Him So I mean to know God is the 42:04 first step in the relationship and sometimes people that are... 42:06 remember you got to go back to that because the Devil's very 42:09 good at getting us off track, side-tracked onto things that 42:13 are taking us away from Him and we got to as Paul says die daily 42:19 We got to come back to the cross daily. We got to have that 42:21 salvation experience over and over again to renew our covenant 42:26 with Christ. 42:27 Absolutely brother, beautiful point there, beautiful point. 42:29 All right, so this takes us on to Isaiah chapter 45 verse 22 42:34 which says look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the 42:41 earth for I am God and there is none else. 42:47 This is a beautiful passage. Because look at the hope there. 42:49 Look at the grace there. Look He says, just look at me. You can 42:53 be saved. You just got to look you know. You know Moses lifted 42:56 up the serpent in the wilderness Jesus said everyone who looked 42:59 on that serpent received life. It was as simple as that but it 43:04 was still an act of faith. But God wants us to exercise our 43:07 faith. Salvation is a faith experience. Some people are 43:13 probably very well-tested right now. Just listening to this and 43:16 thinking if you're an atheist listening to this and you're 43:19 going what you know. This doesn't make any sense but it is 43:24 as simple as open your heart, open your eyes, trust Him, He 43:27 has grace to save you. 43:29 Absolutely, Wow. Beautiful point there. All right. So Pastor why 43:32 don't you take us on to Jeremiah 13:23 and read that for us. 43:35 This is a beautiful passage too. Can the Ethiopian change his 43:40 skin or the leopard his spots? Then may ye or you also do good 43:46 that are accustomed to do evil? This is Jesus's words based on 43:52 You think you got it all together? You think you can 43:57 save yourself, you think you're a pretty good person. Look at 44:00 yourself through heaven's eyes God doesn't want you to walk 44:04 around in shame, the devil wants that, but He wants us to have as 44:07 realistic a picture of who you are. And while it's discouraging 44:11 to the person who thinks they're pretty good, it's encouraging 44:15 the person who realizes that God's grace can do this for me. 44:19 The Ethiopian can't change his skin. The leopard can't change 44:22 his spots. I can't be good but God is good and He can do this 44:27 through me. I don't have to do what I can't do. Jesus never 44:30 asks us to do something we couldn't do. That would be the 44:33 ultimate formula for insanity. You make yourself perfect Ryan 44:39 And you'd go off and try. I know I've done that. 44:42 All of us have, all of us have yeah. 44:44 And you failed and you fall and you give up and you say okay 44:47 this doesn't work. And you focused in the wrong direction 44:50 instead of upward. Inward and it will never work. 44:53 Right, right, absolutely man, great point. And this last Old 44:57 Testament reference that we have on this particular card of 45:02 salvation that Pastor Steve compiled for us here. Let's take 45:04 Jeremiah chapter 31 and verse 3. This is one of my favorite texts 45:08 It says: The Lord hath appeared of old unto me saying Yea I have 45:13 loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore with loving 45:18 kindness have I drawn thee. Oh! Tell us what this text is saying 45:23 to us brother. 45:24 You hear those words Everlasting love and your heart just goes 45:28 out to God. From eternity He's loved you. From eternity He's 45:34 loved whoever was watching. He knew you before He formed you. 45:38 From eternity I want you to know my love for you is everlasting 45:44 It's His lovingkindness that draws us. It's not the God who 45:48 sits there and goes You horrible sinner. What terrible 45:52 things you've done. And people say those things foolishly I'll 45:56 say. 45:57 Yeah, you're right, you're right 45:58 But it's a God who says no matter what you've done. I'll 46:01 forgive you. I'm drawing you to myself because I want to spend 46:04 eternity with you. Now that's the God's voice you need to 46:08 listen to. 46:09 Absolutely. You know as I was reading the Jeremiah reference 46:13 here the Jeremiah 31 verse 3. Just a couple of chapters before 46:17 in Jeremiah 29 it reminds me of verse 11 where he says: For I 46:20 know the thoughts that I think toward you says the Lord. 46:22 Thoughts of peace and not of evil. And you know often times 46:25 pertaining to the subject of salvation many people think that 46:29 I can't come to God because I'm a horrible sinner and I've sinned 46:34 over and over and over and over and I've spat in God's face and 46:37 I know if I feel this bad about myself 46:39 I wonder how horrible God feels about me. You know Jeremiah 29: 46:43 God says stop telling me 46:45 what to think about you. I already what I think about you 46:48 and He tells us they're thoughts of peace 46:50 and not of evil. In other words exactly what Jeremiah 31:3 is 46:54 saying I love you so much. I am love. God is love, right? And He 46:59 wants to save you no matter how horrible, no matter how far 47:01 you've gone, no matter how far in the pit, you have fallen 47:08 is willing to go to the utmost wherever He needs to go, as far 47:12 as He needs to go to save you. Even to the death of His Son 47:15 Jesus Christ. And that's what this salvational card here, this 47:18 Study Card, this Study Mark that Pastor Steve Nelson has written 47:23 for us so beautifully and designed so beautifully here. We 47:26 just went through the Old Testament texts and we're 47:29 getting down to the last few minutes of our time together 47:31 but Pastor, I just want to tell you brother this is awesome. In 47:35 fact we were going through just the couple that we did, the 47:38 second coming and salvation and he had even pulled out here if 47:41 we had some time left over, which we're not going to have 47:43 time but he'd even pulled out the three angels' messages. Can 47:47 we pull up the graphic for that one so you can see the three 47:50 angels messages there. Just beautifully designed. It takes 47:52 you through the first angel and the message itself. Then the 47:55 first angel's message, the judgment; the second angel's 47:58 message and it outlines that with some texts. The third 48:00 angel's message, How do we worship God? The warning. It 48:05 takes us all the way to Revelation 14 you know 10-11 48:08 there. The warning of the third angel's message. It's powerful 48:11 to see how you've outlined these As we were going through just 48:15 the couple that we did This is an evangelistic series. You may 48:22 be at home right now saying, man not only do I know how to give a 48:23 Bible study, now you do, but you maybe saying I want to be able 48:26 to preach these messages. I want to be able to share these in an 48:28 evangelistic way. Right here, here's your outline for your 48:31 sermons right there. They're powerful, powerful study tools 48:34 and so I got one last question for you Brother before we take 48:39 a short break in just a moment Because we're going to tell you 48:41 how you can get in contact with Pastor Steve's ministry to get 48:44 these Study Marks for yourself. Powerful subject just to mention 48:50 a few, a few of them earlier but the very first card of this 48:54 Study Mark Series that you'll get in the pack, it gives you 48:56 all of the topics that are included in this. You have 49:00 Sabbath, Salvation, which we just went through. You have the 49:04 second coming, death, Sanctuary, the seal and the number 666, 49:08 people wonder about that, the judgment, Sanctification, Hell 49:13 fire, Millennium, the Trinity if you have questions about the 49:17 Godhead, Truth you know what is truth, you know Pilot asked 49:21 Jesus this text or this card Study Mark covers that. Baptism 49:27 creation, health, tithing, faith love, hope, forgiveness, the 49:32 gifts of the spirit. the three angels' messages, prophecy 49:36 in general, fruit of the Spirit, You know amusement, the 49:40 amusement of the world, music, worship, healing. I mean 49:43 my goodness 49:44 you've covered it all here my Brother Really quick here though 49:46 what's your hopes for the future in regards to where these 49:51 Study Marks go. What is the future life or what lies in the 49:54 future for the Study Mark series 49:56 Good question. You know I'd particularly love to see this 49:59 translated into other languages. That would be something that I 50:03 think would meet a real need. My other goal is just to see 50:09 people understand I can do this. Get a copy of these. If you 50:13 can't afford it you know send me an email. We'll send you some. 50:16 We just want people to be able to take this and use it in their 50:22 own life. It'll change you. As you give Bible studies it 50:26 changes you. 50:28 Amen, brother. That's right, that's right. So there may be 50:29 someone watching right now that says man this is really 50:31 encouraged me and inspired me. You know not only do I want a 50:36 copy for myself but they may be saying you know the Lord's 50:38 impressed them to support this effort, to support this project 50:42 In what ways can people support if they want to support the 50:45 Study Mark Series? 50:46 If they go to our website they'll see information about 50:49 this StudyMarks.com. They can find information on how to order 50:54 the Study Mark sets and to support the ministry and share 50:57 with us how you're using these. I'd love to hear that from 51:00 people. I was at the call convention. It was a pastors' 51:03 convention back in June and I was at the booth where we had 51:06 these there and a gentleman came up to me and said Hey have you 51:11 heard of Study Marks. I said yeah. Our church uses these all 51:14 the time. You know. So I would like to hear how you're using it 51:17 if you are and what ways we can share with others. 51:20 Absolutely, absolutely. All right. Well we are going to 51:23 actually, take just a quick little break. We're not quite 51:26 finished yet. But you may be again wondering how you can 51:30 support this Study Marks Series here. You'll get the whole pack 51:34 Perhaps the Lord has laid it upon your heart to support and 51:37 also to get as many of these in the hands of people as possible 51:39 and so to do that we're just going to pull up on the screen 51:42 about right now to tell you exactly how you can get in 51:45 contact with this ministry. 51:47 If you would like to contact or know more about Study Marks 51:51 you can do so in the following ways: You can write to them at 51:55 74 Shining Mountain Rd. Clark, WY 82435. You can visit their 51:59 website at StudyMarks.com or send them an email at 52:07 Info@StudyMarks.com 52:14 ♪ ♪ |
Revised 2023-06-29