One Book, One Author, One Story

Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church — Dardanelle, Arkansas

Pastor Chuck Trusty — Sunday evening service, September 6, 2026 Route 66 · On-Ramp 1 · Luke 24:27 · 2 Timothy 3:16 · 2 Peter 1:21 · Proverbs 9:10

Watch this lesson on video (28:12)

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This morning we learned that the God who made everything has the right to make the law . . . and this evening we are going to begin a rather lengthy series - we are going to look at the Book - where He wrote that law down. Now this is going to take, oh, about two years. We will do other things off and on - so it will not be a steady diet of this and nothing else . . . but tonight is the start of it - and the one point of our lesson this evening is this:

One Book. One Author. One story - and the story is Jesus Christ.

Why We Call It Route 66

I have named this series Route 66, and the reason is simple . . . there are 66 books in the Bible.

Now some of us are old enough to remember when Route 66 was THE road. They called it the Mother Road, according to some articles I read. One highway, Chicago to Los Angeles . . . eight states, three time zones, a little over two thousand miles. It ran through farms and deserts and mountains . . . through little towns with one stoplight, and through big cities that never went to bed. You could stand on that road in Illinois or stand on that road in Arizona - SAME road - different scenery - depending on where you were . . . but no matter where you were standing on it - that road led to the same place.

Well - what I am leading up to is this - we hold Route 66 in our hands EVERY service. Sixty-six books . . . written across fifteen hundred years - on three continents - in three languages - by some forty different writers. There were kings and shepherds - King David was one of them. Part of it was written by a doctor - remember Luke was a physician. There was a tax collector - Matthew. There were fishermen - most of the disciples made their living that way - and a tentmaker - the Apostle Paul. There was Daniel - one of the big wigs in Babylon . . . and does anybody know who the fig picker was? I learned this one myself . . . Amos. The man who wrote Amos made his living picking figs.

Genesis does not look like Psalms. Leviticus does not read the way Luke reads. But this Book is ONE ROAD - and every mile on this road is going to the same place. Brother Ken touched on it this morning. No matter where you are - no matter what the scenery looks like - no matter what book you are in - it all points where? To Jesus Christ.

So here is the plan . . . starting sometime in October, we are going to drive the whole highway. On Sunday mornings - not every Sunday morning, but every six weeks or so - I will have a sermon that introduces a particular BLOCK of books. I have divided them up . . . the history - the poetry - the gospels - the letters - blocks like that. And then on Sunday evenings - just about every Sunday evening - we will actually get down into one of the books that morning introduced. Morning gives us the MAP of the block - evening gives us the MILES.

So what is the one point of our lesson this evening? One Book, one Author, one story . . . and the story is Jesus.

One Author Behind Forty Writers

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:” - 2 Timothy 3:16 (KJV)

Now think about what we have said so far - forty writers, fifteen hundred years . . . put that in perspective. Fifteen hundred years ago from today would be the year 526 . . . a long time ago . . . a thousand years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. The point is - most of the men who wrote the Bible NEVER met each other . . . Moses never read Matthew - and David never heard of the Apostle Paul. You have a shepherd somewhere around 800 BC and a prisoner in Rome around 60 AD - and they could not compare notes - they could not coordinate their stories - they could not agree on a plot.

And yet we have ONE story. One unbroken story that tells us in Genesis about a paradise lost - and tells us in Revelation about a paradise restored. A promise made in the Garden of Eden - the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head - Genesis 3:15 - and that promise was kept on a hill outside Jerusalem some four thousand years after it was first penned. Then there is the picture of a sacrifice - the ULTIMATE sacrifice - running all the way through . . . the coats of skin God made for Adam. The ram caught in the thicket on Mount Moriah in Abraham’s day. The lamb whose blood was spattered on the lintel and the doorposts in Egypt. Every one of them a picture, and every one of them pointing to the DAY John looked up and said, “Behold the Lamb of God.”

No committee wrote that . . . no group of men sat down and put that together. Forty men across fifteen centuries kept one story straight - and they did not do it by accident. There is one AUTHOR behind all the human writers.

“For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” - 2 Peter 1:21 (KJV)

So - the unity of the Bible is one of the standing proofs - if you are looking for proof - that this Book really is what it claims to be. It is not sixty-six books that men collected over the years - it is ONE Book that God gave to reveal Himself to mankind.

Now we talk about landmarks in this church a lot - those things most surely believed among us - and there are twenty-one of them. If you have them numbered - I believe this one is the second… We believe in the infallible, verbal inspiration of the whole Bible, and that the Bible is the all-sufficient rule of faith and practice. There is nothing else NEEDED . . . we do not need some new program to supplement what God has already given us in the Book.

Somebody will say - “Well, what about the Old Testament? We don’t do the sacrifices anymore.” It is not that the Old Testament is no longer valid - and the OT is certainly not some afterthought tacked on to the New. The Old Testament - like Brother Ken was saying this morning - is FULL of pictures. The Bible calls it a shadow of good things to come. The Old Testament way of worship is NOT what we practice today . . . but the pictures the Old Testament gives us of what worship looks like - those are still good.

And that is one of the reasons I thought it proper to preach through all sixty-six books. A church that believes the Scriptures are the all-sufficient rule of faith and practice - ought to know SOMETHING about all sixty-six of them. So let me ask - no show of hands - how many of the sixty-six books have each of us actually read? By the end of this series - if the Lord does not come back first - this whole church will be able to say - “Well - I may not have read every one of them front to back . . . but I have at least read part of every one.”

The Story Is a Person

Now the story we are talking about is not just a story . . . it is a PERSON. You go down the highway and you pass the mile markers, and every mile marker on this road points to the person Jesus Christ.

“And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” - Luke 24:27 (KJV)

This was on the road to Emmaus. Jesus had been raised from the dead - and two of the disciples were walking that road - about seven miles, I think – discouraged - and Jesus fell in beside them and they had no idea who He was. And what did He do for seven miles? “Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in ALL the scriptures the things concerning HIMSELF.” ALL the scriptures - things concerning HIMSELF. Jesus Himself testified that this whole highway – Moses - the prophets - all of it - is about Him.

Jesus is the seed of the woman in Genesis. He is the Passover lamb in Exodus. He is the offering in Leviticus. He is the brazen serpent in Numbers - and the prophet like unto Moses in Deuteronomy. He is the kinsman redeemer in Ruth. He is David’s greater Son . . . He is Job’s living Redeemer. He is the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 and the Sun of righteousness in Malachi. And then Matthew opens - and the shadow of the Old Testament becomes FLESH - flesh that can be seen and touched.

We are going to fit another little series in betwixt and between all this - First, Second, and Third John. John testifies that he has seen and touched this Christ. There was false doctrine going around in his day that said anything holy could not be made flesh . . . if God was perfect and holy - He could not be flesh and blood. That is one reason John says - “I have seen Him - I have touched Him - I have handled Him” - and the rest of those three little letters chase that error down. We will get to that LATER.

So - on Sunday evenings we will have sixty-six lessons - but not sixty-six subjects. One PERSON - seen from sixty-six different angles. Every lesson - and I have most of them at least roughed out - takes ONE key verse - a particular verse in that book that unlocks the reason the book was written. In the gospel of John it would be, “these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.” That is the key that unlocks John . . . you find that verse - and it explains the purpose of everything else in the book. And we are going to do that sixty-six times.

When those two disciples got to Emmaus and found out who had been walking with them - they said, “Did not our heart burn within us, while he opened to us the scriptures?” Well - that is the goal . . . my hope is that as we go through these sixty-six verses - we will have that same kind of burning in our hearts - as we open the Scriptures and see things we never really noticed before.

Let me say it again. One Book. One Author. One story - and the story is Jesus.

The Trip Rules

You go on any trip and there are usually a couple of rules. “We are not stopping every ten minutes for the bathroom” - that kind of thing. So here are the rules for this one.

Rule number one - every lesson stands on its OWN. They are connected - but you do not have to hear this Sunday’s lesson to understand next Sunday’s. You can miss a Sunday and not be lost. Every book has its own key - its own verse that opens that particular book.

Rule number two - the morning lessons and the evening lessons work TOGETHER. October the 4th - I believe - is the first of what I am calling the landing sermons. That Sunday morning introduces the first block of books - and then that evening - and the evenings after it - we actually take the trip through them. Morning says - “Here is Matthew - here is Luke - here is John.” Evening asks, “Now what was the purpose of Matthew? What was the purpose of John?”

Rule number three - bring your BIBLE . . . sixty-six books means one Sunday night we may be in Obadiah. Anybody ever read Obadiah? Another Sunday we may be in Nahum - or Philemon - books a lot of us have never really read. And when we are done - there will not be a book in this whole Bible that we have not opened together - and gotten something out of.

Now here is one thing I decided while I was laying this out. I thought, well - do we just start in Genesis and drive straight through to Revelation? And I thought - no . . . we are not going to drive it in that order. Remember the staircase in Second Peter? Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance . . . all the way up. We are going to take these books in STAIRCASE order - following the tools we need to climb that staircase. So - it will not start in Genesis and end in Revelation.

What do you suppose the first lesson will be, then? Think about Proverbs. If we do not have wisdom – knowledge - and understanding - we really do not have anything - do we?

Closing

Our first REAL stop on this road is going to be Proverbs.

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.” - Proverbs 9:10 (KJV)

You see, Genesis shows us where the WORLD began . . . but Proverbs shows us where WISDOM begins.

“The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.” - Isaiah 40:8 (KJV)

So - you have one Book - one Author - and one story. And who is the whole Bible about? It is about Jesus Christ.

I hope I have whetted your appetite a little . . . it will take a long time to get through sixty-six books - and there will be some pauses along the way so it does not get stale. But if the good Lord has laid anything at all on your heart this evening - I encourage you - while you have the time - to take advantage of it.

Scripture Used

2 Timothy 3:16 · 2 Peter 1:21 · Luke 24:27 · Proverbs 9:10 · Isaiah 40:8 (all KJV)

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Every lesson is kept on the Lessons page, and this series has its own home on The Route 66 Journey.

How to Read the Bible — Lesson 4: Let the Bible Define Its Own Words

HOW TO READ THE BIBLE — a short course from Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church • Pastor Chuck Trusty • Lesson 4 of 13 • a new lesson every two weeks

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Last Time

Last lesson you took Proverbs 9:10 home:

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding." — Proverbs 9:10

We asked three plain things. Where does wisdom begin? Right there — the fear of the LORD. Not a school, not a degree — the fear of the LORD. Read the whole verse, and the second half adds to it: to know the Holy One is understanding. Then, who is this wisdom for? Read the three verses just above it (9:4-6), and Wisdom calls out to "the simple" — the untaught, the beginner. That is good news: this wisdom is not held back for a few — it is for whoever will come.

And that word fear — hold it once more. It does not mean God will turn on you; you are held by a gift you cannot lose. It means reverence — standing small before a great and holy God, and that reverence is where all real learning starts. Now, one more tool.

The Verse

"Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching." — Hebrews 10:25

The Question

Most of us have heard this verse used one way: do not skip church. That is not wrong. But look at the word it turns on — FORSAKING. Is that just missing a Sunday? Let us do something new: let the Book tell us what its own word means.

The Tool — walked together

Bring the tools you already have, and ask your five questions — all five, every time. WHO? The writer of Hebrews, to Hebrew believers. And since this is a command, the last lesson's tool speaks up — every command has an address. Who is it spoken to? Look at the words: "the assembling of ourselves together." The writer counts himself in. It is spoken to believers — the gathered body, the church. WHAT? A command: keep meeting together, and stir up one another. WHEN? The verse gives no clock time, but it points ahead — "as ye see the day approaching": more and more as that day nears. WHERE? Here the verse does not say — and an empty box is our shovel. Scripture digs it up: the saved gathered in real places — the church we met last lesson. WHY? Because that day is coming, and we need one another more, not less.

You have now brought every tool you own to this verse — you read it whole, to its last word, and because it is a command you asked its address, and found it: the gathered body, the church. Only three tools so far, and all three fit; none rests yet. And the whole sentence leans on one heavy word: forsaking.

So here is this lesson's new tool. TOOL #4: let the Bible define its own words. When you hit a word you are not sure of, do not reach for your own idea of it. Find where the Bible uses that same word somewhere else, and let Scripture set the meaning. The Book is its own dictionary. Let us do that with forsaking.

ONE WORD

The word behind FORSAKE is a strong one. Watch how the Bible itself uses it.

Paul, near the end of his life, writes: "Demas hath forsaken me" (2 Timothy 4:10). Demas did not miss a meeting. He abandoned Paul — walked out, and left him alone.

And from the cross, the Lord Himself cries: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46). There is the word at its heaviest — utterly left, deserted.

So "not forsaking the assembling" is not a small rule about a missed Sunday. It is "do not abandon the gathering — do not desert the body." That is a bigger and a warmer thing than attendance.

And here is the sweetness. The very same word comes back one chapter over, in a promise: "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" (Hebrews 13:5). He will never desert you — so we do not desert one another. One word, and the verse grows a whole size larger.

Try It This Week

Here is your verse. It has an odd word in it. Bring your questions, and read the whole thing to its last word:

"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." — Matthew 6:24

Read it to the end, and the two masters are named: God, and mammon. Now — what is mammon? The King James kept the old word as it stood, rather than turning it into English. Do not guess at it. Ask what the verse sets it against: God. Whatever stands opposite God here — one master against the true Master — that is mammon. (Hold that word; we will dig it up in a later lesson.)

Your Toolbox So Far

1. Start with the questions — WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY.   2. Read the whole verse — all the way to its last word.   3. Every command has an address — ask who it was spoken to.   4. Let the Bible define its own words — the Book is its own dictionary.

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Next lesson, in two weeks: when one verse is hard, stand a clear one beside it, and let the plain light explain the deep.

‹ Lesson 3 — Every Command Has an Address  •  The Course Index — all lessons

The Authority of God to Make Law

Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church — Dardanelle, Arkansas

Pastor Chuck Trusty — Sunday morning service, September 6, 2026 God’s Law, Lesson 1 of 4 · A3 D9 · Genesis 1:1 · Colossians 1:16-17 · Ezekiel 18:4 · Romans 14:11

Watch this lesson on video (43:51)

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This morning we start something NEW. Over the next four lessons - just a little short four-lesson series - we are going to look at something most people think they already understand . . . but most people have never really thought it through carefully. We are going to talk about God’s LAW. Now when I say God’s law, I do not mean just the Ten Commandments, and I do not mean just a list of dos and don’ts . . . because before we can understand WHAT God has commanded, we need to understand WHO is doing the commanding - and why God’s word carries the kind of weight that it does. In other words, the most important words we know of are what? God’s words. So the one point of our lesson this morning is this:

The God who made everything has the right to make the law.

In the Beginning God

The Bible opens with four words - “In the beginning God” - and that is the FIRST and the most important fact we will ever come across.

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” - Genesis 1:1 (KJV)

“For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” - Colossians 1:16-17 (KJV)

Now the first sentence in the Bible starts with a FACT - and it is actually the most important fact in the entire universe... We talk a lot around here about wisdom – knowledge - and understanding . . . so which one of those three does a fact fall under? “God created everything” is classified as KNOWLEDGE... We always say them in that order - wisdom, knowledge, understanding - but that is not necessarily the order they come in - because we have to have knowledge of a thing - before we ever gain wisdom or understanding about it. So - the most important piece of knowledge we will ever learn or hear is this . . . in the beginning God.

And notice the Bible does not say God created SOME things… It says all things - visible and invisible… He made the trees and the rocks that you can see… He made the stars . . . He made the wind - anybody ever seen the wind? We see what the wind does - but nobody has ever seen the wind… God made that… He made gravity - you cannot see it either - but you can sure see the effects of it - and magnetism - and all these invisible things… They are not just freaks of nature… God created every single one of them.

Then Paul says all things were created by Him and FOR Him - and that by Him (through Him, because of Him) all things consist... What does that mean? It means God is HOLDING everything together… The universe is not holding itself together . . . God is the power that holds the universe together… Now I understand the laws of physics - and gravity - and the earth going around at just the right speed so it does not fly off into the outer parts of the universe… I understand it is all put together- like a fine watch… But that is not by accident - and it is not holding itself in one piece… It was DESIGNED that way by a Creator - and it stays in one piece by design…

Think about a man who builds a house - a carpenter . . . the man who builds the house has the right to set the RULES for that house… A builder does not have to walk up to a 2x4 wall and explain why he is putting a door here instead of there - or a window here instead of over yonder… He owes that building no explanation at all . . . because the building did not exist until the carpenter built it...

Well - God built EVERYTHING… God is CREATOR - He brought everything into existence - literally from nothing… It was spoken into existence - not evolved into existence - and I am not going there this morning - but if you stop and think about it - believing in evolution actually takes more faith than believing God spoke it… God is SUSTAINER - He holds all things together by His power… And God is OWNER - everything that exists belongs to Him.

Now I have heard all kinds of explanations… “Okay preacher - I will compromise a little bit - God spoke everything into existence - and then He just sat back and let the chips fall where they may…” No . . . God is not some politician making rules so he can look important... This is the God who MADE us - who SUSTAINS us - and who KNOWS us - better than we know ourselves…

God’s Authority Is Not Assumed . . . It Is Absolute

God’s authority is not something that is assumed... God’s authority is absolute - which means no argument allowed.

“Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.” - Ezekiel 18:4 (KJV)

Every person who has ever drawn a breath - belongs to God - by right of creation . . . and that means God has rightful authority - over ALL of our lives.

“Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?” - Romans 9:20-21 (KJV)

Do we not think God has the right - to put a door or a window wherever He chooses? He is the one putting the building together . . . a lump of clay does not NEGOTIATE with the potter - and the clay does not have the right to question the potter’s decisions.

Now some of you kiddos may not know what a potter is… A long time ago you could not go to Walmart and buy a vase or a glass or an ashtray… There was a man called a potter - and he had a wheel that he pedaled with his foot - and he would take a lump of clay and set it in the middle of that wheel - and as it spun around - he would wet his fingers and form that clay into a shape… He actually MADE the vase . . . that is a potter. And the potter is the one who decides what that lump of clay is going to be . . . the clay does not get to say - “Now don’t make me into a commode - make me into a cereal bowl.” One vessel unto honor and one unto dishonor - and the potter decides which.

That is our relationship with God - we did not make ourselves… And the Creator who made everything has the right - the absolute - unquestionable right - to define the terms under which His creation operates.

Somebody might think at first, “Well - that seems a little harsh . . . a little narrow-minded.” It is not harsh . . . it is JUST - and we are just being honest... The potter looks at this lump of clay and says - “That one will not make a very good chair - and it will not make a very good bowl . . . but it will make a perfect vase.” Do we not believe God loves us enough to give us ONLY the things that are best for us? And are we naive enough - to think WE KNOW what is best - better than God does?

Without faith it is IMPOSSIBLE to please God - and faith requires us to humble ourselves before Him - and accept the decisions He makes - because if He loved us enough to die for us - He loves us enough to say NO when a thing is going to hurt us in the long run… I have said it before . . . He does not ask for our understanding - He simply asks for our obedience.

So - when God makes a law - when God says “this is right, and that over there is wrong” - God is not overstepping - and He is not being controlling - He is simply exercising His rightful authority as Creator - as Sustainer - and as Owner of all things - He is putting the doors and the windows where He wants them... After all - it is HIS house.

And here is something to slow down and think about . . . if God made us - and if God is the one holding us together this very minute . . . what claim could we possibly have to run our own lives?

Now freedom is a WONDERFUL thing - one of the most precious blessings God has given us - but let us not push that idea of freedom further than it ought to go... It is true we have freedoms - and I suppose we even have the freedom to rebel . . . but that is not a wise thing to do. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap… We can let our freedom run right up to the edge of God’s will and stop there - and that is a good thing. Or we can push a little further - “I am going to set God’s will aside on this one - because this is important to me - and I am going to do what I want regardless” - and yes - we have the freedom to do that... But understand there are CONSEQUENCES when we take our freedom further than it was meant to go.

A Law Is Not a Suggestion

God as Creator is a fact - that is KNOWLEDGE… How we USE that fact is what decides whether we are walking in wisdom - or walking in foolishness. And connecting ‘pride and disobedience’ with the consequences of rebelling against the laws of our Creator . . . that is the beginning of understanding. Understanding is basically knowing there is a price to pay for a particular action - connecting the dots. “Oh, THIS consequence is tied directly to THAT behavior.” Knowledge is what we should do . . . understanding is knowing what is going to happen if we do not do it.

A law is NOT a suggestion... A suggestion is something we can take or leave - and nothing much happens either way… A law is a rule that carries consequences - and the consequences come - when the law is ignored - when it is forgotten - when it is disobeyed - or when it is rebelled against…

Think about driving on the interstate . . . the speed limit is 75 I believe. Now that speed limit was not set by US… Nobody ever called this preacher up and said, “Preacher - what do you think the speed limit on the interstate ought to be?” Anybody ever call you and ask your opinion on it? No . . . so if we are running 90 or 100 and the blue lights come on - what happens when we tell the officer - “Well - I never did agree with that speed limit anyway”? We still get the ticket - because our agreement was not required. And what happens when we say, “Oh, I am sorry – officer - I did not know it was only 75”? We still get the ticket - because ignorance is not a defense against the law. A law does not need our awareness or our agreement to be valid. A law requires our OBEDIENCE.

God’s law works EXACTLY the same way . . . “the soul that sinneth, it shall die.” That is not a guideline and it is not a suggestion . . . it is a LAW. The law has a rule about sin - and the law has a consequence when sin is practiced - and that consequence is death. And this law applies to every person in every nation in every generation - whether they have heard it - agreed to it - or believe it… The law is not going to change - and the consequences are not going to change either… That is God’s PRIMARY law - universal and unchanging - and every other law God ever gave - is built on top of it.

Now to die in sin is to be separated from God in hell for all eternity - that is another fact of knowledge - and a pretty important one - would you not agree? So let us connect the dots again… Knowledge says, “If I die in sin - my eternal destiny is hell.” Understanding says - “Then I need to avoid that - and let Jesus save my soul.” A man who is void of understanding - will never make that connection - and he will never turn to God and ask forgiveness of his sins.

Go back to the traffic stop . . . we are pulled over for speeding - and here comes Jesus - who was NOT speeding - and He pulls in behind us - and agrees to pay our ticket for us. That is what it means when we say Jesus paid for our sins. To keep us from the consequence of spiritual death - God sacrificed His Son as payment for our sin.

The Garden - Where Authority and Consequence First Met

Let us go back to where authority and consequence first came together - the first time knowledge and understanding ever met.

“And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” - Genesis 2:16-17 (KJV)

The first law God ever gave a human being was SIMPLE - it was clear . . . and you would have to admit it was generous. God said - “You can eat from ANY tree in this whole garden . . . except one.” One boundary - one rule - one consequence . . . and the consequence was stated plainly - in advance - before anything ever happened. God told Adam exactly what the rule was and exactly what it would cost to break it.

That brings up a property line. When you buy land they put up survey markers showing exactly where your ground ends - and the neighbor’s begins. The line is clear - the boundary is set - no problem . . . UNTIL the day somebody decides that line does not apply to them. “I am going to plant my corn across that line - because the dirt over there does a little better than the dirt over here.” Put the fence up on the wrong side. Claim ground that was never his to claim. And that is when the conflict starts - not because the line was unreasonable - but because somebody decided to cross it.

The Garden of Eden had been surveyed . . . God set the markers - and God told Adam EXACTLY where the line was. And Adam crossed it - not by accident - but by DECISION. And the consequence was real because the law was real.

Let me say it again. The God who made everything has the right to make the law.

“It Seemed Right to Me” Is Not a Defense

Now this next part has human logic written all over it.

“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” - Proverbs 14:12 (KJV)

I sat and thought about that - and I believe that this is one of the most DANGEROUS ideas we will ever run across - the idea that every person has the right to decide what is right for himself. That was the ORIGINAL sin back in the garden. “Don’t you want to decide right and wrong for YOURSELF?” That was Satan – and that is basically what he told Eve.

Here is why it is so dangerous . . . the Bible says the soul that sinneth shall die. Well - who decides what sin IS? If God has pronounced death on the soul that sins - then it stands to reason - that God has to be the one who defines sin. Because if I were allowed to define right and wrong - I would look at my own life and - naturally - everything I do would be right. Then I would look over at Brother Kenneth and say - “Well - you do most of what I do - and that part is right . . . but you deviate here and there - so you are wrong. You are going to die and I am not - because I am right.” If God did not define sin - every man would define his own righteousness - and draw his own boundaries. Nobody would ever sin . . . and there would be as many “right ways” as there are people.

Last time I checked - how many truths are there? “One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” One truth - not many . . . seems right is not the same as IS right. That IS WHY God does not let man define righteousness . . . because every man would declare himself righteous - and every man would be wrong. We could all be driving at different speeds and every one of us think we were right - but only one speed would actually BE right. God defines the speed limit - God defines the boundary - God defines SIN. And “it seemed right to me” will not hold up in a court of law in this land - and it will not hold up in the court of God’s law either.

So - let us get PERSONAL . . . I do not want anybody thinking about Brother Ken right now, or about Sister Annie Mae. Think about SELF - Where in my life am I still driving at a speed - just because it seems right to me?

The X-Ray Shows the Break - It Cannot Set the Bone

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” - Romans 3:23 (KJV)

“The thought of foolishness is sin: and the scorner is an abomination to men.” - Proverbs 24:9 (KJV)

Paul hands down a universal verdict - ALL have sinned . . . not most of us - not just the bad ones - not just the ones in this country - ALL. And then Solomon goes further… We usually think of sin as bad behavior - but Solomon says even the THOUGHT of foolishness is sin - not the act - the thought - an attitude we should not have - a leaning toward something God does not approve of… Even THAT is sin . . . which tells us God’s standard is set so high - perfect holiness – sinlessness - righteousness in God’s eyes – set so high that nobody can reach it alone. If that kind of perfection were a physical height - we would not need a ladder - we would need a SPACESHIP. That is how far out of reach it is for every one of us.

Now think about an X-ray . . . if I break my arm - we go to the emergency room and they take an X-ray - and that is a wonderful thing - it shows exactly what happened. “Preacher, there is your crack right there in the bone.” But nobody ever healed a broken arm with only an X-ray. The X-ray shows the break . . . the X-ray does not heal.

God’s law is the X-ray - the law shows us EXACTLY where we are broken . . . but the law cannot set a bone any more than an X-ray can. That is why God gave the law - not to make us righteous - but to teach us two things. ONE - where the boundaries are - so we know what sin actually is. TWO - that we cannot keep those boundaries on our own - so we know we need His mercy and His grace - and something a good deal taller than a ladder.

The law is not the cure - the law is the DIAGNOSIS . . . and the X-ray points us - to the only Physician who can heal what the X-ray reveals. The Bible says plainly - that no man is justified by keeping the law . . . by the law is the knowledge of sin. The law shows us where we are broken . . . have we ever THANKED God for the X-ray? Have we ever thanked Him for loving us enough to show us - where we are broken?

Four Things God’s Authority Settles

As we come to the end this morning, there are four things God’s authority ought to settle in our minds and hearts.

One - God has the right to make laws. He is the Creator - the Owner - and the Sustainer. In the beginning God.

Two - God’s laws have consequences. Let me say that again. God’s laws have CONSEQUENCES. They are not suggestions and they are not guidelines. God is not mocked . . . whatsoever a man soweth - that is exactly what he is going to reap - and maybe worse.

Three - we have ALREADY crossed the boundary. Do not sit there and pat yourself on the back - “Well - I got close a time or two last week – preacher - but I never went over the line.” That is pride… If we say we have no sin - we make God a liar - and His truth is not in us. We have crossed it - not because we are especially bad people - but because we are human. The Bible says straight up - there is none good, no, not one.

Four - the law points to God’s GRACE. God did not give the law to condemn us and leave us lying there . . . “You are broke - too bad.” He gave the law to show us our need for a Savior - to show us we need more than a tall ladder - and more than a set of rules. The X-ray leads to the Physician - and the Physician is Jesus Christ. For God so loved the world that He GAVE His only begotten Son - to heal the broken bone - the law shows us is there - in every one of our lives.

Closing

“For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” - Romans 14:11 (KJV)

Every knee WILL bow . . . that is not negotiable, and it is not a maybe.

God’s law is not His way of being cruel to us. God’s law is His way of being HONEST. He tells us the truth about who He is – Creator – Owner - and Judge. He tells us the truth about who we are - sinners who have crossed the line. And He tells us the truth about what He offers – mercy – forgiveness - and a Savior who has already paid what we owe. The authority of God to make law - is not a burden. That authority is a gift . . . because a God who tells us the truth about our condition - is a God who loves us enough to point us to the cure. God made the law - God revealed the sin - God provides the remedy . . . because that is who He is.

So the one point of our lesson this morning was this: the God who made everything has the right to make the law. Are we willing to submit to His authority?

I have been guilty of this - BIG time. I will submit to about 97 or 98 percent of what God says . . . but there is this one little corner over here - I want to keep for myself. Willing to submit to ALMOST everything - but not quite everything . . . well, that does not count. God wants all or nothing. I am not talking about salvation - we are not going to lose that. I am talking about our relationship with the God who made us - and serving Him after we are saved. God wants TOTAL commitment. And if it is not total commitment . . . it is not commitment at all.

Scripture Used

Genesis 1:1 · Colossians 1:16-17 · Ezekiel 18:4 · Romans 9:20-21 · Genesis 2:16-17 · Proverbs 14:12 · Romans 3:23 · Proverbs 24:9 · Romans 14:11 (all KJV)

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Every lesson is kept on the Lessons page.

Does Prayer Really Work?

Taking James 5:16 apart a piece at a time . . . including the piece we usually skip.

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A note on the Scripture in this study: every verse is printed WHOLE. The words set in ordinary type are the ones this lesson leans on and emphasizes . . . the words in italics are the rest of the verse, printed so that nothing is ever handed to you as a fragment with the remainder missing.

Nobody asks this question who has never prayed.

I have never had a lost man walk up and ask me whether prayer works . . . but I have had church members ask me – and I have asked it myself. This is the question of a man who has knelt down beside a bed at two o'clock in the morning . . . and then got up and went to work and wondered on the drive over whether anything at all happened while he was down there.

So let us be honest about it . . . and let us start where the Bible starts – which is not with how we feel about prayer, but with what the Bible says prayer actually DOES.

James 5:16 — “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”

Now I want us to take that last sentence apart a piece at a time . . . because there are three things sitting in it and most of us only ever notice one of them.

“EFFECTUAL FERVENT”

In our English Bible that looks like two words . . . but in the Greek it is only ONE word – energoumene – and we already own a piece of it, because our English word energy comes right out of it. It means in-working . . . operating . . . engaged . . . running. So this is not prayer that is recited out of habit while our mind is somewhere else . . . this is prayer that is turned ON.

“AVAILETH”

The word behind “availeth” means IS STRONG . . . it has force, it prevails – it is a wrestler's word. This is not the language of a wish that we send up and then hope over . . . this is the language of something that pushes against a thing and gets somewhere.

Put those two words back together and James is telling us that prayer which is actually engaged is prayer that actually prevails . . . and now notice what he did NOT say. He did not say that prayer helps . . . he did not say that prayer comforts . . . he did not say that prayer is mostly good for the man who is doing the praying – and every one of those three things is true, and not one of them is what James wrote down. What James wrote down is that it AVAILETH MUCH.

“OF A RIGHTEOUS MAN” — the piece we skip

Now here is the part of the verse that we quote right on past. I have preached “availeth much” for years . . . and I do not know that I have ever once stopped on the four words sitting in front of it.

Because James did not say that the effectual fervent prayer of anybody availeth much. He said the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much . . . and that ought to stop us cold, because of what the Bible has already told us about three chapters into Romans:

Romans 3:10 — “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:”

So how can James turn around and promise anything at all to the prayer of a righteous man . . . when the Bible has just finished telling us that there is not one of them anywhere on this earth?

The answer is that the Bible uses the word righteous in two different ways . . . and we have got to keep those two separate or we will get this wrong in one of two directions. We will either decide that prayer is really only for the spiritual giants and that we might as well not bother . . . or we will decide that how a man lives has nothing whatsoever to do with his praying. And both of those are wrong.

The righteousness that is GIVEN to us

The first one is the righteousness that gets put to our account. We did not work it up . . . and we could not have:

Isaiah 64:6 — “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”

2 Corinthians 5:21 — “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”

Philippians 3:9 — “And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:”

Paul says it about as plain as it can be said – not having mine own righteousness. Whatever Paul is standing in, somebody handed it to him . . . and this is the righteousness that gives a man the right to open his mouth to God in the first place.

The blind man in John 9 had a hold of this before the scholars in the room did:

John 9:31 — “Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth.”

A lost man is not standing on any ground at all at the throne of God . . . and he has exactly one prayer that God has promised to hear, and it is the publican's prayer:

Luke 18:13 — “And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.”

And God heard THAT one . . . the very next verse says that man went home justified. So let nobody read this and go away thinking the door is shut, because the door is NOT shut – but a man has to come in through it before he can start asking for things inside the house.

The righteousness that is LIVED

The second one is the righteousness of a man's walk . . . how he is living, today. And this one goes up and down:

Psalm 66:18 — “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:”

Proverbs 15:8 — “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD: but the prayer of the upright is his delight.”

1 John 3:22 — “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.”

The first kind of righteousness never moves . . . it was settled at Calvary, and how we behaved on Tuesday does not add one thing to it and does not take one thing away from it. But the second kind moves all the time . . . and it is the second one that James has in mind here.

And we know that – because of the first half of the verse

Look at where James put this promise. He did not set it out by itself somewhere . . . he hung it on the back end of a verse that starts out like this:

James 5:16 — “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”

Confess your faults. James put the confessing and the praying in the same breath . . . and he put the confessing FIRST. So the righteous man of James 5:16 is not a man who HAS no faults – he is a man who has DEALT with his faults . . . because if this promise had been written for men with no faults, James would not have opened the verse by telling us to go confess ours.

Then James settles it for us in the very next verse

And here is where this ought to quit being frightening to anybody, because James turns right around and gives us his own example of a righteous man . . . and he gives it in the next breath:

James 5:17 — “Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.”

Let the Bible define its own words. When James wrote “a righteous man” he did not have some rare saint in mind that none of us have ever met . . . he had ELIJAH in mind – and then he went out of his way to tell us that Elijah was subject to like passions as we are.

James knew exactly what we were going to do with Elijah. We were going to file him under “great men of faith” . . . admire him from a good safe distance . . . and then quietly decide that whatever that man had, we do not have any of it. So James shut that road off before we could get very far down it.

And if we doubt him, all we have to do is read what Elijah did about one chapter after he called fire down out of heaven. A woman sent him a threat and he ran for his life:

1 Kings 19:4 — “But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.”

The man who out-prayed the weather sat down under a juniper tree and asked God to kill him. Same man . . . very nearly the same week.

Now let me guard this

Because this will go bad in a hurry if we are not careful with it. Righteousness does not BUY the answer . . . because if our righteousness bought the answer then the answer would be wages and not a gift, and we already know better than that:

Titus 3:5 — “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;”

Righteousness does not purchase one thing from God. What righteousness does is CLEAR THE LINE.

The water is still on out there at the faucet . . . the hose is just kinked. And that is not God being stingy with us – that is us standing on our own hose and then wondering why nothing is coming out the far end of it.

So who is the righteous man whose prayer availeth much? A saved man . . . standing in a righteousness that was handed to him and not earned by him . . . who is keeping short accounts with God about his sin. That is the whole list. There is not one thing on it about how long a man has been saved, or how well he prays out loud in front of other people.

NOW LET US LOOK AT THREE PRAYERS THAT WORKED

The Bible does not make a claim like “availeth much” and then walk off and leave us to take it on faith. It hands us cases.

A prophet's weather

We have already met Elijah. Three and a half years of a whole nation's weather hung on one man's knees . . . and then he prayed again and the rain came back . . . and that man had the same passions we have.

A prisoner's chains

Acts 12:5 — “Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.”

Peter's execution was set for morning . . . sixteen soldiers were assigned to him . . . and he was sleeping between two of them, chained to both. That night the chains fell off.

Now do not miss the order that Luke wrote down, because he wrote it down on purpose. The church prayed – and THEN the angel came. Luke could have told that story either way . . . and he put the praying first.

But the part of this that ought to encourage us the most is the part we usually laugh at and go on past. Peter, free, walks over to the house where the prayer meeting is going on . . . and knocks on the gate:

Acts 12:13–16 — “And as Peter knocked at the door of the gate, a damsel came to hearken, named Rhoda. And when she knew Peter's voice, she opened not the gate for gladness, but ran in, and told how Peter stood before the gate. And they said unto her, Thou art mad. But she constantly affirmed that it was even so. Then said they, It is his angel. But Peter continued knocking: and when they had opened the door, and saw him, they were astonished.”

They were praying for Peter to be let out of prison . . . Peter's release knocked on their door . . . and they told the girl she had lost her mind and left the answer standing out in the street.

Now think about what that means for us. Their answer did not hang on how well they were expecting it. They prayed better than they believed – and God honored the praying anyway . . . because if God only answered prayers that were offered up with perfect faith, then Acts 12 would have ended at the execution. That is not permission to pray careless . . . but it is a good reason to keep on praying when our faith felt awful thin while we were doing it.

A church's missionaries

Acts 13:2–3 — “As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.”

The greatest missionary campaign in the history of this world did not get started in a business meeting . . . it got started in a worship service. They were not planning – they were MINISTERING TO THE LORD – and the call came while they were doing it.

WHAT “AVAILETH MUCH” DOES NOT PROMISE

Now I have to be careful right here, because a half-truth about prayer will wound somebody. “Availeth much” is a promise about the weight of praying . . . it is not a promise about the shape of the answer – and the same Bible that tells us prayer prevails tells us some other things just as plain.

It does not promise that we get what we name.

James 4:3 — “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”

A father who hands a child every single thing that child names is not a good father.

It does not promise our timing.

Luke 18:7 — “And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?”

“Though he bear long.” The Lord put the waiting right into the promise . . . and Elijah himself sent his servant to go look toward that sea SEVEN times before there was ever a cloud out there the size of a man's hand.

It does not promise that we will understand it.

Isaiah 55:8–9 — “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

And sometimes the answer is a NO that turned out to be better than the yes would have been.

2 Corinthians 12:8–9 — “For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

Paul asked three times and God told him no three times . . . and then God told him why, and told him what he was getting instead of what he asked for. And Paul spent the rest of his life glad about it. Whatever that thorn was, the no was the better gift – and Paul could only see that afterward, looking back at it.

So we keep both halves of this thing together. Prayer prevails . . . and the One that it prevails with is a great deal wiser than we are. Take only the first half of that and the first answer that does not come our way is going to crush us . . . take only the second half of it and we will quit asking altogether.

Part Four of this series is given entirely over to the hardest form of that question – when the answer is no and the loss is real. It is not answered here because it deserves a great deal more than a paragraph.

WHY THIS ONE HAS TO BE SETTLED FIRST

Everything else in this study is leaning on the answer to this one question.

If prayer is mostly just something we do to look religious – something to settle our nerves down before we go handle the real problem ourselves – then we are going to keep right on doing exactly what most of us already do. We will work it ourselves . . . run clean out of options . . . and then pray about it when there is nothing left in this world to try.

But if prayer AVAILETH MUCH . . . then reaching for it last is not being humble. It is waste.

So before you go on to Part Two, sit with this one a minute. Not “do I believe prayer works” – every one of us would say yes to that one without even thinking about it. The better question is this one:

If prayer availeth that much . . . then why is it the last thing I reach for?

BEFORE YOU LEAVE

The Bible's answer to the question in the title is not that prayer works sometimes . . . and it is not that prayer mostly works on the man who is doing the praying. The Bible's answer is that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man AVAILETH MUCH – and then it hands us a man who wanted to die the week before, and a church that would not open the door when the answer knocked on it.

And the righteous man in that promise is not a better man than you are. He is a saved man who has kept his accounts short with God . . . and that is a door standing wide open. God has put the blessing on the other side of the asking.

TRY IT THIS WEEK

Two things.

ONE. Get the line clear before you ask for anything at all. Confess what you already know about . . . because James put that first for a reason.

TWO. Then pick out one thing you have been handling all by yourself – not the biggest thing, just one thing – and ask God for it out loud, by name, on purpose, before you do anything else about it.

Then write down the date somewhere. We are going to be at this for thirteen parts . . . and it helps to have a mark to look back at.

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NEXT — Part Two: How Prayer Works, the Appointed Means. If God already knows what we need, and He has already made up His mind what He is going to do, then what is my praying actually doing? The plainest answer in the Bible comes out of God's own mouth in Ezekiel 36:37 . . . and it is not the answer most people expect.

Daniel 11 and the Ships of Chittim

Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church — Dardanelle, Arkansas

Bro. Ken — Wednesday evening service, September 2, 2026 Daniel 11:30-45 · Ezekiel 37–39 · Genesis 10:2-5

► Watch this lesson on video (37:10)

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Bro. Ken brought the lesson this Wednesday evening. What follows is his lesson written up from the recording — his order, his words, and the places where he offered a thing as his own reading are marked as his.

What the Lesson Was About

Bro. Ken worked straight through the last half of Daniel chapter 11, verse by verse, and tied it back to Ezekiel 37, 38 and 39 — with the whole evening hanging on one phrase in verse 30 that most folks read past without stopping: the ships of Chittim.

He opened by saying he hates to think about doom and gloom, and then said plainly that this is not doom and gloom — “we should anticipate that with much longing . . . the time we will go and be with the Lord, and His coming back.” That set the tone for everything after it. He talked about the flood the church had all seen on the news that week, and about how a wall of water can take out a five-story building, two bridges and a dam, and no man can stand in front of it. Mankind is puny. We can build an atomic bomb, we can build a hydrogen bomb, we can make a big show — but nothing we make is going to compare with the power of God when the Lord Jesus Christ turns His wrath loose in the seven vials. He read that against the Lord’s own words, “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened” (Matthew 24:22), and asked the question flat out: what flesh? His answer, offered as his own reading and not as settled doctrine, is the flesh living on the earth under the wrath of God at the end time — and the elect for whose sake the days are shortened is the remnant of Israel driven into the Negev.

Ezekiel — The Bones Live, But They Have No Breath

From there he went to Ezekiel 37 and the valley of dry bones, where God tells the prophet plainly, “these bones are the whole house of Israel” (Ezekiel 37:11). Ken’s reading of it is that the bones came together and stood up as an exceeding great army by physical means — the act of the United Nations in 1948, and then in 1967 an army strong enough to retake Jerusalem — and that the nation stands today with a mighty army and no spiritual life in it. Physical life in the sinew, he said, but no breath. That comes on the day of atonement, when “they shall look upon me whom they have pierced” (Zechariah 12:10) and the whole nation is born in a day.

He allowed here, the way he usually does, that there are men who know a great deal more Scripture than he does who think all seven of the feasts of Leviticus will yet be kept, and he does not — he thinks what remains is the feast of tabernacles, and said he would come back to Zechariah to make that case.

Then Ezekiel 38, and the prophecy against Gog. Ken pressed hard on the wording: Gog is not the chief prince of Magog. “Set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal” (Ezekiel 38:2). Where are Meshech and Tubal? Western Turkey — Asia Minor, where the seven churches of Asia stood, and where Pergamos was, which is where the seat of Satan was, and the seat of Satan is given to the antichrist. And it is God who moves him: “I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth” (Ezekiel 38:4). He read on into chapter 39 — “I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand” (Ezekiel 39:3) — and marked Ezekiel 39:14 to come back to next time.

The Clock

Back in Daniel 11, Ken laid out how he understands the timing. The antichrist is the king of the north. The king of the south pushes at him, the king of the north finally overruns the king of the south and pushes him into the Negev. The division of the Greek empire into four pieces is where the kingdom of the north and the kingdom of the south come from in the first place. He comes down, he goes back, and when he comes the second time God puts the hooks in his jaws and drags him down. He will have no choice.

His count, if a man could ever set his clock at the right moment: 1,335 days to the end of the seventieth week (Daniel 12:12), the abomination set up on the temple mount, then 1,290 days (Daniel 12:11), then Israel pushed into the Negev with 1,260 days left — forty-two months, three and a half years — which is the span of the seven trumpets, and the same span the Gentiles tread Jerusalem underfoot.

He said the honest thing about all of it in the middle of the count: “I don’t know how I’m going to get out of that if I don’t die. I’m either going to live through that or I’m going to die.” And then that he has believed since he was twenty-five years old that he will see it happen.

Exploits — And Who Sides With Him

Reading verses 31 and 32 — “And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate. And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits” — Ken took exploits in its plain sense: heroic acts. When that thing is set in a fixed position where it ought not be, some of the Jews will fight it. Others, the ones that forsake the covenant, will side with him and be drawn in by flatteries — and the word, he said, carries the sense of special treatment.

He turned that on the room without softening it. We know exactly how flatteries work, he said. Vote the right way and we keep what we have; vote the wrong way and we are cast aside. He left the application where he found it — “I’ll leave it to you what to decide to do. But we don’t need to vote the wrong way” — and then went after the price we are willing to pay: it bothers him greatly that a nation will walk away from what is right over thirty or forty or fifty cents on a gallon of gasoline.

Verses 33 through 35 he read as the furnace: they shall fall by the sword, by flame, by captivity and by spoil; they shall be holpen with a little help; and some of them of understanding shall fall to try them and to purge them and to make them white. That is what fire does. And he pointed to the early church for the pattern — the more they were killed, the more they were persecuted, the more they stood fast, and their persecutors were flabbergasted.

Which brought him to the part of the evening that had the least to do with Daniel and the most to do with the people in the pews. When we get under dire straits and turn to God, we can stick it out. If we trust our own faith and our own words, down we go. He said God knew before He ever spoke the earth into existence that we would be sitting in this house in Dardanelle, Arkansas, on the second day of September, 2026 — He knows what happens in the morning, and we do not. “What I got to do is trust Him.” And then, on whether he would rather be taken early or stay: either is all right, “because what Jesus will do, He will give us the strength to go through what we need to go through, if we avail ourself of His strength.”

He put his own praying into it, and this was the sharpest thing he said all evening. He used to pray get me out of this. Now he prays, “Lord, how long is this going to last? Help me endure. Help me get past — not get me out.” If we know the time, we will know how long it is going to last, and we will not be scared to death when things start coming undone. He was honest about which man in him wants which prayer: if he lets the flesh man overrule, he will run like a scared jack rabbit and bail out so fast you would not know what happened.

Verses 36 Through 45 — Where He Ends Up

The king does according to his will, exalts himself above every god, speaks marvellous things against the God of gods, honours the God of forces with gold and silver and precious stones, and divides the land for gain. At the time of the end the king of the south pushes at him and he comes like a whirlwind. Edom, Moab and the chief of the children of Ammon escape out of his hand — which is modern Jordan, Ken said, and he bypasses it going south. Egypt does not escape. The Libyans and the Ethiopians are at his steps, protecting his flanks.

And then verse 44: “But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him.” Ken has heard people say the antichrist turns north to tear up Russia and China. But look where he is standing. He is in Egypt. What is north of Egypt? The Mediterranean. Not Russia, not China. And straight east of Egypt is the nation of Israel, bottled up in the Negev. North is the sea — and the ships of Chittim.

The Ships of Chittim

Here is where he spent the most time, and where he clearly most wanted the church to think.

“For the ships of Chittim shall come against him: therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation against the holy covenant . . .” (Daniel 11:30). Ken traced the word — spelled with a C or a K, an old word hardly used, denoting Cyprus, the general meaning being an islander, i.e. Greeks or Romans on the shores opposite. And he made no secret of not knowing which it is. Is it a group of ships out of Cyprus, which has a treaty with Israel? Is it the Greeks or the Romans? Or, as he put it, is it “a flotilla of American warships that finally got their act together and sent some warships into the Mediterranean”? He did not say. What he said was that whatever it is, it grieves the antichrist, and that the antichrist’s answer to being grieved is indignation against the holy covenant.

What is the holy covenant? Ken believes with all his heart it is the covenant — the one God made with Abraham, that in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed (Genesis 12:3), and confirmed at the cross. It was made long before, but it was not confirmed until the death of the testator. God could have backed out, and He would not have; God held Himself to His own standard, and when Jesus Christ died the covenant stood confirmed forever.

Then he asked the question that the whole lesson had been building toward, and asked it about the man’s character rather than his politics: who made that covenant? God did. So why would any nation set itself against it? “Bless your heart. He doesn’t serve the God that we serve.”

For the source of the word itself he went back to Genesis 10 and read the table of nations: “The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah. And the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands . . .” (Genesis 10:2–5). There is Chittim, and there are the isles of the Gentiles — and Japheth went north and east, and most of the Gentiles alive today, if not all of them, came out of Japheth.

Where He Plants His Palace

Verse 45: “And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.”

He is not setting up a temple, Ken said. He is setting up a command post on Mount Moriah — whether the stronghold is the Dome of the Rock or a statue standing there or some combination of the two, he does not know. But between the seas is between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, and he tries to run his war from up there, and he comes to his end, and nobody helps him.

Why can nobody help him? Because God is going to destroy him. Ken went to Revelation 19:11 and the white horse, and the armies of heaven coming out with Him to make war on them that dwell on the earth — the ones of Revelation 6:16 crying for the mountains to hide them from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. He put that in the vials, and his own view is that the pull-back to Mount Moriah happens between the sixth and the seventh. He marked the fifth seal to go with it, where the souls under the altar cry “How long, O Lord” (Revelation 6:10) and are told to rest yet for a little season — and then the seventh trumpet, where the angel swears “that there should be time no longer” (Revelation 10:6). Judgment is not delayed past that.

He is coming back to Ezekiel 39:14 next time.

The Close

He ended nowhere near Daniel.

“Let’s pray our country does not turn his back on Israel.” I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee (Genesis 12:3). He said he wants to be on the side that loves Israel, because that is God’s side — they are the apple of God’s eye, they are God’s chosen people, and He will come and fight for them as when He fought in the day of battle (Zechariah 14:3). He named the error he was pushing against without dressing it up: if a man preaches that Israel has been replaced by the church, he needs to go back to the Bible, and study, and pray, because he is not preaching the truth from the Bible.

And then he turned it on the lost man sitting there, and the last three minutes of the lesson are worth reading exactly as they came.

He said he used to tell the Lord, this is Wednesday — I’m going to play Thursday and Friday and Saturday, and I’ll serve You Sunday. It won’t happen. “I can’t do anything about yesterday, and I may not have tomorrow. What I have is right now. That’s all we have is right now. The only time you could do anything with the Lord, for the Lord, about the Lord, is right now.” He may not have 8:30 that night, when he was planning to be at home eating beans and taters.

“Well, preacher, I’m going to get right with God tomorrow.” Do you know whether or not you’re going to have tomorrow?

“Preacher, I know I’m lost. I’m going to get saved tomorrow, or next week.” Do you know you’re going to have tomorrow, or next week? And if you’re not willing to do it today — what is going to change to make you willing to do it tomorrow?

“Even if you do survive — if the Holy Spirit’s dealing with you at all, right now is the time to take advantage of that.”

He gave the invitation on number 399.

Scripture Used

Daniel 11:30–45 · Daniel 12:11–12 · Ezekiel 37:10–11 · Ezekiel 38:2, 4 · Ezekiel 39:1–3, 14 · Genesis 10:2–5 · Genesis 12:3 · Matthew 24:22 · Zechariah 12:10 · Zechariah 14:3 · Revelation 6:9–11, 16 · Revelation 10:6 · Revelation 19:11 (all KJV)

What Does the Bible Say About Reading It Yourself? (Chapter 7)

📚 New here? Start at the beginning.
This is Chapter 7 of a free seven-chapter booklet, What Does the Bible Say? — A Simple Foundation for New Believers. You can start at Chapter 1 or see all seven chapters on The Basics page.

📘 CHAPTER SEVEN — What Does the Bible Say About Reading It Yourself?

Not one more answer — the tools to go find your own

⭐ Introduction

At the end of the last chapter I sent you off with four words: keep your Bible open.

That was easy for me to say . . . now let me be honest with you about something, because you have come six chapters with me and you have earned it.

Six times in this booklet you have read the same little sentence: Let us ask the Book. Six times I asked it . . . and SIX TIMES I handed you the answer — what the Bible says about salvation, about prayer, about worship, about the church, about Christian living. You took my word for it, and you were right to . . . because every answer came straight out of the text.

But here is the question I owe you before I let you go: HOW WOULD YOU KNOW IF I WERE WRONG?

Not because I am trying to be . . . but because one day I will NOT be standing there, and you will still have a Bible in your lap and a question in your heart. So there is one more thing left to ask the Book about . . . and it is the Book itself.

Let us ask the Book — one last time.

I. God Is Not Offended When You Check

Some new believers think it is disloyal to look something up behind the preacher . . . so watch what the Bible does with a group of people who did exactly that:

"These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so." — Acts 17:11

Read that slow, because it is remarkable. The man they were checking was the apostle PAUL . . . and Luke, writing it down, does not call them suspicious and he does not call them difficult — he calls them MORE NOBLE, and he says so right there in the Bible.

Notice they did TWO things at once, and you need both of them. They received the word with all readiness of mind — open, glad, and not looking for a fight . . . and they searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. Warm hearts and open Bibles . . . and that is not doubt at all — that is how an honest man listens.

And the Book asks the very same thing of you directly:

"Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." — 2 Timothy 2:15

A WORKMAN . . . and not an audience — somebody who handles the tool with his own hands.

Illustration — The Borrowed Lantern. A neighbor can walk you home through the dark with his lantern, and you will get there safe every time . . . but some night you will have to go somewhere he is not going. And you will stand out there at the edge of the yard, in the dark, waiting on a light that is NOT COMING. For six chapters now I have carried the lantern and you have walked along in the circle of it . . . and that was right for the walk we were on — but it is not enough for the rest of your life. You need a lantern of your OWN.

Simple truth: Checking is not doubting. The Bible calls a man more noble for it.

II. You Have Already Been Doing It

Here is the encouraging part of it . . . and I want you to feel it before you go one step further.

You are NOT starting from nothing. Four times in this booklet you watched a way of reading being used, and nobody ever told you it had a name . . . so look back with me.

In Chapter Five, we asked what the word church means . . . we did not point at a building and we did not wave at the sky . . . we let the New Testament's own word — ekklesia, a called-out assembly — say what it meant. And that way of reading has a name: let the Bible define its own words.

In Chapter Five, we asked what the Rock was . . . we did not settle it out of Matthew 16:18 all by itself . . . we looked over at verse 16, sitting right next door, where Peter says "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" — and the Rock came CLEAR. That has a name: a verse has neighbors.

In Chapter Five, we made sure of it . . . we stood another verse right beside it — "other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 3:11) — and the two AGREED. That has a name: the Bible agrees with itself.

In Chapter Six, we asked how a Christian actually lives . . . we did not hang it on one verse . . . we set "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature" (2 Corinthians 5:17) beside "it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do" (Philippians 2:13), and we read them together. That has a name: weigh the whole counsel.

Four tools, used right in front of you, without a single label on any one of them . . . and you followed every last one of them without a bit of trouble.

Simple truth: You have been reading with tools already. The next course simply puts the names in your hand.

III. Why This Matters More Than It Sounds

The Bible warns about young believers who never learn to stand on their own feet:

"That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine…" — Ephesians 4:14

Tossed to and fro. A child in a boat goes wherever the water takes him . . . and he is not wicked — he simply has no way of knowing which way is SHORE.

Now hear me carefully, because this one is EASY to twist. I am not telling you to walk into your own church looking for something wrong . . . that is a miserable way to live and it is not what this verse is after. Most of what you will hear from a faithful pastor is straight, and you ought to receive it gladly, the same way the Bereans did.

But you are going to hear this Book handled in a great many ways over the course of your life — on the radio, on a screen, at a family table, by people who mean well and by a few who do not . . . and the man who only has answers is at the mercy of whoever hands him the next one. The man who can turn there himself is NOT.

Illustration — The Grocery Sack and the Garden. A sack of groceries feeds you this week . . . a garden feeds you every week that you are willing to work it. These six chapters were a sack of groceries, and there is no shame in that at all — a hungry man needs a meal before he needs a hoe . . . but you are past that now, and it is time somebody showed you the GARDEN.

Simple truth: Learning to check is not distrust of your church. It is what keeps you steady.

⭐ What Comes Next

There is a second course waiting on you . . . and it was built for exactly the place where you are standing right now.

How to Read the Bible — thirteen short lessons, one every other Monday . . . and each one teaches a single tool, proves it on a single verse, studies one word from the original language, and then hands you a verse of your own to try it on. And the four tools you just met in this chapter are in there . . . with NINE MORE beside them.

It is not seminary . . . and it is not hard — it is the same plain way of asking the Book that you have already watched work six times over.

And here is what I would love for you to do when you finish it: come back to Chapter One of this booklet, and CHECK ME. Take every answer I gave you and go find it for yourself. If I have handled the Book straight, you will see it for yourself instead of taking my word for it — and what you see for YOURSELF is what you will still believe when the storm comes.

🕊️ Try It Before You Begin

You do not have to wait on the first lesson to get started . . . do this much this week:

Turn back to any chapter in this booklet and find one line marked Simple truth. Then go find the verse it came from — and read the WHOLE verse, plus the one just before it and the one just after it.

That is ALL . . . and when you have done it, you will have used two tools that you already own: read the whole verse, and a verse has neighbors.

⭐ Chapter Summary

For six chapters we asked the Book together and I handed you the answers . . . and that was the right way to begin . . . but it was never meant to be the end. God is NOT offended when you check — He calls the man who checks more noble. And you have already been reading well without even knowing it . . . you have let the Bible define its own words, read a verse's neighbors, let Scripture agree with Scripture, and weighed more than one verse before settling a matter. What comes next only NAMES those tools and adds to them, so that you are no longer carrying a borrowed lantern . . . keep your Bible OPEN — and now go learn to read it for YOURSELF.

This chapter is the door out of this booklet and into the next course. What Does the Bible Say? asked the question for you seven times over. How to Read the Bible teaches you to ask it yourself.

The Staircase Is Complete — Now Climb It

Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church — Dardanelle, Arkansas

Pastor Chuck Trusty — Sunday evening service, August 30, 2026 The Staircase, grand finale · A3 D16 · 2 Peter 1:5-11

► Watch this lesson on video (51:00)

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This is the grand finale of our series of lessons on the staircase . . . the staircase is complete — so NOW we are supposed to climb it.

This morning Jesus stood in front of the church at Ephesus and said one word: remember. Remember, because a church can keep EVERYTHING and still lose love. A church can put that transmission in neutral . . . this evening Peter shows us the other side of the same coin — what happens to the believer who forgets, and stops climbing.

A lot of you may NEVER have driven a standard, but if you have - has this standard transmission ever stalled on the side of a hill and got stuck in neutral? If it is in neutral you cannot keep climbing, and you can only hold the brake for so long . . . what do you suppose is eventually going to happen? If that transmission stays in neutral, you are going to start going down.

That is exactly the idea . . . when we stop climbing the staircase, we do not stay where we are . . . we start coming back down . . . in terms of the Christian life there is no such thing as staying the SAME . . . there is no such thing as static . . . we are either growing in grace or we are sliding back down.

The ONE point of our lesson this evening is this:

The staircase is complete — NOW climb it.

Look How Far We Have Come

We began this journey in the 107th Psalm, and that is where we started talking about godliness.

Remember the wanderers — believers who had lost sight of the landmarks . . . the fainters, who collapsed because wandering had become normal in their lives . . . the prisoners, who suffered because they ignored the watchman and ignored the warnings . . . the drifting heart, who resisted correction quietly — no big deal, just a little drift, just keep ignoring it — until the little drift turned into something about to get serious . . . the fools, who stepped over the boundary . . . they did NOT take a giant running leap – they stepped over one little step at a time . . . and the storm-tossed, who were simply overwhelmed and at their wits’ end.

And EVERY single one of them, when they got in trouble, received the same answer.

“Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them out of their distresses.” — Psalm 107:13 (KJV)

That is the foundation of EVERYTHING . . . and then Peter told us what to do next. Peter did not say survive. Peter said add. Peter said climb. Peter said build something on top of what God has already given you.

I often quote the third chapter of First Corinthians — the gold, silver, and precious stones, and the wood, hay, and stubble.

“According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon . . . but let EVERY man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.” — 1 Corinthians 3:10 (KJV)

“If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward . . . if any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved – yet so as by fire.” — 1 Corinthians 3:14-15 (KJV)

A child of God who builds wood, hay, and stubble on his life instead of gold, silver, and precious stones will be saved, yet so as by fire — which means he will lose EVERYTHING except the salvation of his soul . . . and the reason he loses everything is that he never really added anything. He never built anything of value on his saving faith.

If we stop at faith and never add ANYTHING to it, that is the same song, second verse, of the staircase we have been climbing all these weeks. Saved, yet so as by fire, because they stayed at the bottom.

Sixteen lessons ago we were wanderers at the bottom of the staircase . . . EVERY step since has brought us closer to God’s way and God’s will, closer to what God designed us for . . . so which step is each one of us standing on tonight? Are we still at the bottom, or have we made some progress toward the top?

Eight Steps, and What Each One Built

“And beside this, giving ALL diligence, add to your faith virtue – and to virtue knowledge – And to knowledge temperance – and to temperance patience – and to patience godliness – And to godliness brotherly kindness – and to brotherly kindness charity.” — 2 Peter 1:5-7 (KJV)

Step one is faith. That is the foundation. Faith is the decision we make to trust God with our eternity . . . EVERY step that comes after rests entirely on our decision to put our faith and our confidence in Jesus Christ . . . that is one reason we can say salvation is a choice — we are saved by faith, and faith is a choice we make to put our eternity in the hands of Jesus rather than trying to work and earn it ourselves.

Step two is virtue. Virtue is the courage to act on what we believe. Virtue is NOT faith sitting on a shelf. Virtue is faith that gets up and actually does what God says.

Step three is knowledge. Knowledge is first cousin to understanding . . . it is understanding what God has said . . . we do not drift in ignorance — when we begin to drift it is NEVER really a case of “I did not know any better, or I do not know where the straight and narrow is, so how was I supposed to know?” Knowledge is what turns virtue into wisdom . . . it is what turns the courage to act - into acting in the right direction, and that is the evidence of wisdom instead of foolishness.

Step four is temperance. The best way to describe temperance is simply self-discipline — the self-discipline to live by what we know. Temperance is knowledge with a backbone.

Step five is patience. Patience is long-term temperance . . . it is the endurance that holds us steady when EVERYTHING begins to go south . . . and when everything goes south we are tempted to do what? Chunk the whole mess. “Why am I wasting my time serving God when it seems He has forsaken me?” The endurance of this step is what keeps us from following through on the temptation to quit.

Step six is godliness. Godliness is the daily ordering of our lives around God’s priorities instead of around our OWN.

Step seven is brotherly kindness. That is the warm, genuine family love of the household of faith — brothers and sisters, NOT strangers.

Step eight is charity. Charity is the capstone . . . if you look on the website you will find the picture we used for the charity lesson — the stones of an arch all set in place, and the one right in the center is the capstone that holds EVERYTHING together. Charity is God’s love shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit — and shed abroad literally means poured in.

And this kind of love reaches friends and enemies alike . . . now when I say enemy I am not talking about foreign countries we may or may not be at war with . . . the enemy is the one next to us. Who then is my neighbor? When we see somebody in need, that is our neighbor . . . that is the one we are supposed to love — the one whose interest we put above our OWN, regardless of our personal feelings toward him.

When God says to love our enemies, He is NOT telling us we have to feel good and warm and fuzzy about the individual. He is telling us to treat that individual as though he were a friend . . . treat him as though you did enjoy his company . . . that is the commandment.

And notice something about all eight of these steps . . . EVERY one of them is a decision . . . every one of them is a decision we make to add. First Corinthians three says build upon the foundation — that is a decision we make to follow through and build, or a decision we make to ignore and make light of.

What Peter Promises

“For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” — 2 Peter 1:8 (KJV)

Notice two conditions: these things MUST be in you, and they must abound.

They must FIRST be in us. It is like a piece of rental property that has an occupant — somebody living in it, taking up the space . . . these things have to occupy our lives . . . and they must abound, which means to overflow, to increase, to multiply . . . if these things occupy our lives, and if we do not shove them off into a corner where they are barely noticeable but let them overflow, then we will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Barren. Going back again to First Corinthians three and being saved yet so as by fire — barren brings a picture to my mind of going to heaven with hardly anything on at all. Basically naked . . . NOTHING to cover us, nothing to give us any kind of glory, exposed completely and totally for what we are — self-centered and selfish. “Yes, God, I am saved. But I love me more than I love You. I love my way more than I love submitting to Your way.”

If that is us, and we have none of these eight steps in our lives, then our lives are barren in regard to the things of the Spirit . . . to be barren describes a field with no life in it at all . . . NOTHING is growing . . . now that does not mean we lose our salvation . . . but it does mean we can be a spiritual babe in Christ, and remain a spiritual babe in Christ, and never grow into what God desires us to be.

Unfruitful. To be unfruitful is like carrying the bucket with us but never putting ANYTHING in it. It is like carrying a basket that always stays empty . . . we can be active without adding these things — we can carry the bucket everywhere we go, we can carry the Bible everywhere we go. But if we never open the Bible and let what it says soak in and have an effect on our lives, then we have carried an empty bucket our whole life long . . . that is what it means to be unfruitful.

Three Kinds of Field

There are THREE kinds of field a farmer could have.

The fallow field. We do not often use the word fallow. A fallow field is not a dead field . . . it still has dirt in it. Rain still falls on it. The sun still rises over it every single morning . . . but NOTHING is growing, because nobody has worked it, nobody has planted anything in it, and nobody has tended it.

Can you picture a saved, born-again child of God who never does anything in terms of spiritual work? They have their underwear on and that is about all . . . NOTHING covers what they are by nature . . . they are seen by the condition of their heart — and if that heart is worldly, they do not resemble Jesus Christ at all. As far as anyone passing by is concerned, this field shows no evidence of belonging to anybody.

If somebody looked at the description of our life, is there any evidence at ALL that we belong to God? Or does most of the evidence say, “I am independent. I am a runaway slave. I serve myself”?

The busy field. Plenty of activity . . . you might be carrying an empty bucket in BOTH hands . . . this field has been plowed . . . it has been watered . . . the rows are laid out straight as an arrow. Real work has gone into that field . . . but there is no harvest . . . it is like a sail raised on a boat with no wind in it. We hear the truth, but no decision is ever made in the heart because of the truth we heard.

The rows are straight as an arrow, the watering is done, everything looks right . . . but no decision has been made to let this Book change us. Our buckets are empty . . . the seed never goes in, and at the end of the season there is NOTHING to show for all the work — nothing to show for all the worship we supposedly offered, nothing to show for all the time we claim to have spent reading the Book . . . not one decision made to change the direction of our life . . . not one seed of the gospel planted, because we did not allow it.

And that is why the staircase begins with faith. Faith is a decision . . . we decide to put our eternity in God’s hands . . . we decide to humble our hearts before Him. We decide to put God FIRST and self last . . . we decide to treat the person we do not really care for as though we did care for him, and we do not let our prejudices blind us to how we are supposed to treat people.

The fruitful field. Peter says the complete staircase produces a third kind of field — worked, planted, tended . . . and when the harvest comes, the harvest is real, because a decision was made to put seed in that field . . . they are fully clothed, and EVERY bucket they can get their hands on is full.

Let EVERY man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. You can see how that connects straight to the staircase in Second Peter.

So which field describes our life this evening — the fallow field, the busy field, or the fruitful field?

What Peter Warns

“But he that lacketh these things is blind, and CANNOT see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.” — 2 Peter 1:9 (KJV)

Blind. Not physically blind — spiritually blind . . . and again, we are not talking about losing salvation . . . we are talking about losing sight of what is important. Unable to see God clearly. Unable to see our OWN condition accurately.

Cannot see afar off. This is the word behind our English word myopic. Nearsighted . . . the long view is gone . . . and here is the key: eternity is no longer in the picture when the daily decisions get made. Well, if eternity is NOT in the picture, what is? What is motivating those daily decisions? Whatever I can see right here . . . the here and now . . . that is not the way a Christian is expected to live.

Hath forgotten that he was purged. This is the sobering one . . . we can overlook it and think, well, so they forgot they were saved, that is no great matter, they are still going to heaven either way . . . but that is NOT what it says . . . they have forgotten what they were before the grace of God found them . . . they forgot the pit God pulled them out of.

And when a believer forgets how he was purged from his old sins, some things happen to his attitude . . . the gratitude, the urgency, and the hunger that drive the climb up these eight steps all evaporate . . . and then the decision we are talking about becomes no decision at all — which is the transmission put in neutral, the clutch that keeps slipping, the gears that have been stripped out. “I am just not going to do ANYTHING.” Well, making no decision is really making a decision.

There is a particular kind of pride you can find in Hollywood movie portrayals without looking very hard, and sometimes in people we know in ordinary life: a man who has been successful so long that he can no longer remember when he was not successful. He forgets where he started, and so he has no mercy at ALL for somebody who is still back where he himself was not too many years ago.

The moment you and I forget the mercy we received from God, we stop extending mercy and kindness to others.

So what is the one point of our lesson this evening? The staircase is complete — now climb it.

What Peter Calls Us to Do

“Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” — 2 Peter 1:10-11 (KJV)

Give diligence. That echoes “take heed how you build thereupon” in First Corinthians three. Peter’s word means to be in earnest, to be zealous, to make a thing our serious business . . . in other words — build with a purpose.

Make your calling and election sure. We are not told to earn anything . . . we are not told to produce anything . . . we are told to make our calling and election sure — visible, obviously confirmed, so that there is evidence of it in the manner in which we live . . . the staircase is the evidence . . . when faith produces virtue, and virtue produces knowledge, all the way up to brotherly kindness producing charity, the whole trajectory of that life — the overall direction of it — becomes visible . . . and it becomes fairly obvious to anyone watching that this person belongs to God, because the evidence is that they resemble Jesus Christ more than they resemble the world.

Understand this plainly: the staircase is not what saves us. The staircase shows us as being saved.

Ye shall never fall. It says never . . . it does not say you will fall less often, or you will not fall very much. Never . . . so what does falling mean here? A person who is climbing is not falling . . . the staircase itself is the protection . . . if we are going up, then we are not going down . . . the moment we stop climbing is the moment the drift begins. I am halfway up a steep hill and I shove it into neutral, and the brakes will hold me for a while — but pretty soon your foot gets tired, and if that transmission stays in neutral you are going back down the hill . . . when we stop growing in love we do not stay in the same place – we start going backwards.

Now a climber may stumble on a particular step. Peter himself obviously stumbled . . . but falling here is not the stumble. Falling is letting go of the staircase altogether . . . we are only human . . . there are going to be hiccups . . . we are going to stump our toes. None of us has a monopoly on perfection or anything close to it. Stumbling is not falling. Falling is going all the way back to the bottom . . . and the way that is prevented is a decision made in our minds and hearts: I am going to continue this climb.

An entrance ministered abundantly. Look back at First Corinthians three . . . there is gold, silver, and precious stones, and receiving a reward . . . and there is wood, hay, and stubble, and being saved yet so as by fire . . . which one of those do you suppose enters eternity abundantly, and which one enters eternity naked?

Think about a river. I do not care how big the river is — it starts out as a little trickle, a little stream you could hop across . . . but the river gathers as it goes . . . every tributary adds to it. Every mile makes it wider, deeper, stronger. By the time the river reaches the sea it is not the same little stream it started out as.

That is the life Peter is describing . . . we begin with faith — a small stream, perhaps . . . but by the time our life reaches the sea of eternity, we have added some things to that faith, so that by the time we get to the end we do not resemble what we were at the beginning.

What would it take to make that climb our serious business — not starting tomorrow, but starting today?

From Psalm 107 to the Summit

The 107th Psalm shows us what a life looks like when the staircase is abandoned: the wandering, the fainting, the captivity, the foolishness, the storms . . . and every single time one of those people got in trouble they cried out to God, and every single time God answered.

That is where the Second Peter staircase begins . . . not at the top — at the bottom . . . it begins at the cry . . . it begins at the place where somebody who has been through one of those journeys in Psalm 107 looks up and says, “God, I want a little more than survival. I want to climb. I am interested in the gold and the silver and the precious stones. I want to forget all about the wood and the hay and the stubble.”

And Peter says: then climb. Add to your faith, step by step . . . if we add to our faith step by step we will be neither barren nor unfruitful . . . we will never fall back down to the bottom . . . and an entrance into heaven will be ministered to us abundantly — we are not just going to sneak through those pearly gates by the skin of our teeth.

Where does the staircase take us? Faith is what keeps us from the drift, what keeps us from wandering. Virtue and knowledge help the ones who are fainting – they let a man focus on the landmarks again. Temperance and patience keep the prisoner from being taken captive by his own lusts. Godliness is for the Christian whose life is out of order . . . and brotherly kindness and charity are for the storm — because it is there we learn that we are held by God and we are holding the truth, that we are loved by God, and that we have a responsibility to let that godly love pass through us to others.

Four Questions at the Summit

First — which step on this staircase is the most solid in our life right now? Which one is the most natural for us to climb? Which one comes easiest?

Second — if there is a step that is easy for us, there is also one that is harder . . . which of these is the most difficult step in our lives? Which one is where the drift begins? And it is important that we be honest about it, because we cannot strengthen what we will not name, and God will not forgive what we will not confess.

Third — are we barren or unfruitful where we are right now? Are we in a place where there is no growth at all, or a place with plenty of activity but no decision? Because we can hear all this good and wonderful truth, and if we never decide to do anything with it, we are still walking around with an empty bucket.

Fourth — when did we last feel the blessing of the mercy that purged us from our old sins? That thankful spirit we have when we are reminded of what God has done for us — that thankfulness is what fuels the climb . . . are we willing to ask God to give that thankful heart back? Remember David: Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation (Psalm 51:12).

Closing

The staircase is complete, and in a particular sense it now belongs to us. It is not just a lesson we sat through, and it is not just a series of things we listened to. Look at it as a structure we can stand on — a framework for the rest of our Christian lives.

And one more thing before we close. Peter did not write this staircase for a perfect people. Peter wrote it for the person who cried out to God from the bottom and then asked, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do now?”

The answer to what to do now is: climb . . . the climb is not complicated . . . it is not fast . . . it is not particularly easy . . . but it is sure . . . every step upward is a step away from the drift . . . every step upward is a step toward fruitfulness . . . every step upward is a step toward that entrance that will be ministered to us abundantly.

And when we get to the top of this staircase, that is where God’s love is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit . . . and if God’s Spirit pours His love into our heart, do you know what happens? That love is going to spill out over everybody we come into contact with . . . it is not going to stay inside us without sloshing over the sides. If He pours it into our heart, it will go through us to others.

Faith. Virtue. Knowledge. Temperance. Patience. Godliness. Brotherly kindness. Charity.

Eight steps . . . are we willing to stay on the staircase?

The staircase is complete — now climb it.

Scripture Used

Psalm 51:12 · Psalm 107:13 · 1 Corinthians 3:10 · 1 Corinthians 3:14-15 · 2 Peter 1:5-11 (all KJV)

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