How to Study the Word

[Guest]

How to Study the Word

By Marshall J. Grosboll

A master deception

The prophecies foretell of a coming master deception to the Christian world: “He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do” Revelation 13: 13, 14. (Texts are from either the KJV or NKJV.)

In Acts 2, when fire came down from heaven, the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the disciples. In the last days, there is going to be a counterfeit outpouring of the Holy Spirit (fire from heaven) that is going to deceive the world. Even many Christians will be deceived, for Satan will “deceive, if possible, even the elect” Matthew 24: 24.

That is why Satan will use Christian ministers to be his agents— he would not deceive Christians with witch doctors! Satan's ambassadors come “transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness” 2 Corinthians 11: 13– 15.

The coming of the false outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the counterfeit Christ will be with “all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved” 2 Thessalonians 2: 9, 10.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warned that many Christians who call Him “Lord, Lord,” who think that they are saved, who have known and taught the prophecies, who have had spiritual gifts and have done many wonderful things in His name, will find out too fate that they are forever lost. Jesus will say to them: “1 never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!” Matthew 7: 21– 23.

It will be among God's professed people that “Satan will take the field and personate Christ. to deceive, if possible, the very elect” Testimonies to Ministers, 411. Anytime God's people begin to seek for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, without a corresponding interest in knowing and following the truth, they are in danger of having their prayers answered by the wrong spirit. If most of the world is going to be deceived, how can we keep from being deceived ourselves?

Only Bible students saved!

The answer comes from the following insight, taken from one of the greatest books I have ever read, The Great Controversy:

“Only those who have been diligent students of the Scriptures and who have received the love of the truth will be shielded from the powerful delusion that takes the world captive. By the Bible testimony these will detect the deceiver in his disguise. To all the testing time will come. By the sifting of temptation the genuine Christian will be revealed. Are the people of God now so firmly established upon His word that they would not yield to the evidence of their senses? Would they, in such a crisis, cling to the Bible and the Bible only? Satan will, if possible, prevent them from obtaining a preparation to stand in that day. He will so arrange affairs as to hedge up their way, entangle them with earthly treasures, cause them to carry a heavy, wearisome burden, that their hearts may be overcharged with the cares of this life and the day of trial may come upon them as a thief”— pp. 625, 626.

This brief passage summarizes the teaching of the Bible on this point. The word that jumps out at me in this passage is the word “only.” Is it true that only those who have been “diligent students of the scriptures,” and those who have “received the love of the truth,” will be saved from delusion and found ready when Jesus comes?

To be continued...

[Guest]

Why only a few will be saved

Many will find out too late that the prophetic warnings are all too true. Many who have been professed followers of Christ— faithful in tithes and offerings, leaders in various departments of the church, preachers of the Word, and who truly believe that they are saved because they “know the truth,”— will find out, too late, that they have been sadly deceived because they never had time to become “diligent students of the Word.”

“Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” Matthew 7: 14. While only a few will be saved, many will think they have been saved because they have been a part of the church and active in supporting the Lord's institutions and spreading His message (see Matthew 7: 21— 23). “But a small number of those now professing to believe the truth . . . [will] eventually be saved— not because they could not be saved, but because they would not be saved in God's own appointed way” Testimonies, vol. 2, 445.

Why only a small number? Because the majority have not been diligent students of the Word nor received the love of the truth. Thus they have been deceived into thinking they are saved, into thinking they have received the Holy Spirit, when they are yet in their sins.

Note again these two essentials: (1) We must become, not just surface readers, but diligent students of the Word, and (2) we must study it with the right attitude (because we love the troth). The scribes and Pharisees in Jesus' day were great students of the Word, but they studied it for argument's sake and to support preconceived ideas. They did not crucify the lusts of the flesh nor the pride of opinion, but rather they studied the Word to elevate themselves and their ideas.

To be continued...

[Gordon1]

Marshall Grosboll, RIP.

Why do all the faithful get taken out?

[Guest]

Yes, he was a good one. But we still have his brother...

[Guest]

Ways to study the Word

Though we must be willing for God to teach us new truth, we must not study the Word in order to find something new and exciting (to show our superior wisdom). One of the things that led the early church into apostasy during the first few centuries was that they “had become wearied of the oft- repeated truths. They desired a new phase of doctrine, more pleasing to many minds” Seventh- day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 7, 958.

Nor is our study to be primarily for the conversion of other people, although our study will help enable us to witness better. We are not to study in order to earn merits with the Lord. We are not to study in order to prove our opinions right. Neither are we to study in order to appear pious to other people. “How many are lost by their effort to keep up a name! If one has the reputation of being a successful evangelist, a gifted preacher, a man of prayer, a man of faith, a man of special devotion, there is positive danger that he will make shipwreck of faith when tried by the little tests that God suffers to come. Often his great effort will be to maintain his reputation” Ibid.

But rather, we are to study in order to learn the will of God for our own lives, personally. We are to study in order to allow the Holy Spirit an opportunity to change our characters into the likeness of Jesus' character. Unless we spend this personal time with the Word so that this character change can happen, we cannot be saved!

Of course, God makes up the difference for those who are blind or who have no access to the Bible or who have some other handicap that makes it impossible to study on their own. But for those to whom God has given the abilities to read and has provided them with the Word, He will not make up the difference. Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” John 6: 53— 56. Thus Jesus warned that only those who eat His flesh will have eternal life, and He identifies that flesh in verse 63 as, not His literal body, but the words which He speaks.

Peter describes how the Christian can receive the new life in Christ in 2 Peter 1: 3, 4. He says, “As His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” Thus we receive the “divine nature” through the promises of the Word and the knowledge of Jesus Christ. As Jesus said in John 17: 3, 17: “And this is life eternal, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent... Sanctify them by Your truth, Your word is truth.”

How could anything be more plain? We cannot expect to reach heaven unless we are spending serious, diligent time in the Word! I may decide that I am a solitary exception to this rule, but like millions of others, I will find out too late that I am no exception. There is no amount of tithe or offerings that can be given to make up for our need of personal Bible study. It cannot be done by proxy. There is no preacher we can pay to do it for us. There is no profession or church activity that can make up for this need of personal devotion with the Lord.

To be continued...

[Guest]

How to increase your intelligence!

Before entering the gospel ministry, the Lord graciously showed me the need and blessings of Bible study. I had always felt a call to the pastoral ministry and was starting out my freshman year at a Christian college in preparation for this calling.

My brother had graduated from the same college the year before and had made good grades, so they thought I would be a good student also. Thus they allowed me to choose however heavy a study load I thought I could handle. I took Theology I, History, Freshman Composition, five hours of Greek and a few other courses that equaled 17 hours of credit— a fairly heavy load.

Now, while “the spirit was willing” to handle this much study, the flesh was weak. While I wanted to do well, I had never really learned how to apply myself to study. I was much more adept at playing tennis and other enjoyable things than I was at sitting at a desk. I was also working part- time to help defray the cost of my tuition. As the weeks passed, my grades got further and further behind.

Two weeks before the end of the first quarter, many of the teachers gave preliminary grades to the freshmen to help them know how to study for their final tests. They displayed the cumulative points for the quarter for each student on the board and each student was given their points so they could see where they ranked in relationship to all others. Lines were drawn between certain numbers on the board indicating grades of A, B, C, D and F. To my horror, out of 17 hours I had accumulated 11 hours of solid F, and in two of those courses, including Greek, I was the lowest F in the class! My doom was nigh! I felt sure that my college career was nearly over. I said, “Lord, I'm sorry! You called me into the ministry but I have failed You. Look what a miserable job I have done.”

But the Lord brought to my mind a statement on page 90 from another favorite little book of mine, Steps to Christ. The statement reads: “There is nothing more calculated to strengthen the intellect than the study of the Scriptures. No other book is so potent to elevate the thoughts, to give vigor to the faculties, as the broad, ennobling truths of the Bible. If God's word were studied as it should be, men would have a breadth of mind, a nobility of character, and a stability of purpose rarely seen in these times.” With this statement in mind, I decided to do an experiment. I made a covenant with the Lord. I said: “Lord, I've failed You and I'm sorry. But starting today, I would like to make a covenant with You to spend at least an hour every day with Your Word. I am not asking You to do anything specific, except to help me keep my part of the covenant. You do whatever You want with my life.”

I thought I had always spent some time with the Word each day before, but it must have been very little. I guess if a person spends 10 or 15 minutes a day with the Word, he thinks he has accomplished a great feat. But when I tried to spend a whole hour with the Word, I found it was the hardest, most boring thing I had ever done in my life! I could have spent two or three hours with the television or playing basketball without any problem— but an hour with the Word! Yet I had made a covenant and I was determined to keep it, even if it killed me! Day after day I forced myself to sit and study my Bible. I could hardly sit there for that whole period of time, but I stuck it through.

After a month or two, the strangest thing began to happen. The Word began to be interesting! Pretty soon I found myself spending two hours and even three hours at a time with the Word, just like other people do with television, not realizing how the time had gone by. Something else was also happening. The Lord worked a miracle in my studies— in the two- week period I had remaining before the close of the first quarter, the Lord helped me to bring every grade up to a C! Now a C may not be anything to write home about, but for me, coming out of the pit I was in, it was a miracle! I could hardly believe that Scripture study could actually make that much difference!

I kept on studying an hour a day, and by the next year the lowest grade I made was a B. I continued to spend the time studying the Word systematically every day and my grades continued to climb right through graduate school. I was not doing a lot more studying than before, but I had learned to study more efficiently and my mind was retaining and comprehending more.

To be continued...

[Gibs]

I have been to many meetings with Marshall Grosboll and His brother who is still heading up the ministry. I liked Marshall because he came to the point much quicker and that I haave always liked in a preacher

I want the punch line out front then go about giving me the substaniation and Marshall was A # 1 at it.

Many believe his death was no accident. It could be true I don't pretend to know.

Here is an admonition worth reading and hearing, HMS Richards Sr. used to give this one a lot.

Re 1:3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.

The same goes for all the Words in that Holy Bible there is absolutely no doubt. This is expecially true of the salvation issue that has taken on a very lax see these days.

Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[Naomi]

Excellent study ... Thank you!

[Dr. Rich]

I have been to many meetings with Marshall Grosboll and His brother who is still heading up the ministry. I liked Marshall because he came to the point much quicker and that I haave always liked in a preacher

I want the punch line out front then go about giving me the substaniation and Marshall was A # 1 at it.

Many believe his death was no accident. It could be true I don't pretend to know.

Here is an admonition worth reading and hearing, HMS Richards Sr. used to give this one a lot.

Re 1:3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.

The same goes for all the Words in that Holy Bible there is absolutely no doubt. This is expecially true of the salvation issue that has taken on a very lax see these days.

Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

Yes Gibs, I do agree with you as I knew him and most of the Grosbolls who went to Campion Academy. My dad sold the land to Grosbolls to form Eden Valley just west of Loveland Colorado.

Thanks Richard for posting this!

[Guest]

Glad ya'll like it..

[Guest]

The discipline never ends

I found something else very interesting. Over the years I have tried to keep that covenant with the Lord, but after more than two decades I find that it is just as hard to get into the Word every morning today as it was the day I began. The only difference is that once I sit down to study the Word now, it is even more interesting than I found it after those first few months of study. As David said, God's word is “sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb” Psalm 19: 10. The Word becomes more enjoyable every day it is read, but I still have to discipline myself to begin my study each morning.

There is a determined foe who works every day to prevent me from finding time to do what I know I must. As the earlier statement from The Great Controversy says, “Satan will, if possible, prevent them from obtaining a preparation to stand in that day. He will so arrange affairs as to hedge up their way, entangle them with earthly treasures, cause them to carry a heavy, wearisome burden, that their hearts may be overcharged with the cares of this life and the day of trial may come upon them as a thief'— p. 625.

I am convinced that Satan must spend hours dreaming up schemes just to keep me from finding time to read the Word. I find if I do not get it done in the morning, generally things become so complicated during the day that there is never a moment to sit down and read the Word until I am so tired I cannot concentrate anymore on what I am reading.

So over the years, I have had to make sacrifices and decisions as to whether I would study the Word or not. I remember taking a college Biology class which was very difficult. I thought the teacher must be trying to weed out some of the pre- med students. With 204 students in his class, he gave only four A's— just two percent!— which I thought was far too low. I was working four hours a day, taking a full class load and was spending that hour a day with the Word. Yet, though I concentrated as hard as I could in class, I found out that I had very little time to prepare for the final exam. After I got off work the day of the exam, I had one hour and 45 minutes before test time, and I had not yet studied for the final. So I faced a decision: Would I put my Bible study off until after class or some time that evening and spend my hour and 45 minutes preparing for the test, or should I spend my hour with the Bible first and then a mere 45 minutes preparing for my final exam? I chose the latter, by faith.

A close friend of mine, who was not working or spending consistent time with the Bible, studied hard for two weeks in preparation for that exam. I had but 45 minutes! I asked the Lord to make my mind as clear and sharp as possible, and to help me know what I should study during that short period of time. When the exam came, my mind was able to recall nearly everything we had covered in class, and I received one of those four A's. My friend could not understand what had happened since he had spent much more time studying than I had but ended up with a lower grade. Another difficult time I remember was when I was taking Anatomy and Physiology. It was a college summer course where a normal half- year course is crammed into just six weeks, with four hours of lecture a day. If you missed a day, it was like missing a week in a regular college course. My uncle died during the middle of the course and I was one of the pallbearers. Because of the funeral preparations, I had not had a chance to prepare for my mid- term test. I got back from the funeral just one hour before I was to take the test. Again, somehow I had not spent the time in my devotions that day and I had a choice to make— Bible study or Anatomy and Physiology. I told the Lord: “Lord, I may have to take this course over again. I may flunk. But I would rather flunk Anatomy and Physiology than my course for eternal life! Help me with my devotions over this next hour.” I went to that test without having prepared one minute, yet the Lord helped me in that emergency to get a very good grade. The Lord promises: “Those who honor Me I will honor” 1 Samuel 2: 30.

These experiences are miracles which the Lord performed. He will not make up for our willful negligence, but if we make Him first, and then do the best we can, He will help us out of every emergency. On the other hand, if we should spend an hour in Bible study and then watch television the rest of the day, hoping God will somehow help us in some assignment we may have, we would be utterly disappointed. I am sure that had I not been doing the best I could at all other times in my studies, the Lord would not have helped in these emergency situations. But the Lord was also testing me to see what I would put first— my earthly schooling or my heavenly schooling.

I wish I could say I have passed every test of the Lord like those two, but too many times I have had to learn the same lesson by failure— putting the Lord last never works.

Every day you are also being tested. There are a thousand things to keep you from the Word if you allow them to. In fact, there is probably only one way you can get in the daily, faithful Bible study that you need for salvation, and that is to make it the highest priority of your life; to be willing to sacrifice anything and everything in order to spend that time with the Lord.

God is not looking for hermits or monks. He is not asking us to spend eight or ten hours a day with the Word. That would be fanaticism. Studying the Word is like our daily food; if we spent eight hours a day eating our physical food, we would be bloated and useless. And so it is with our spiritual food. If we did nothing else but study, we would be useless Christians.

But though we are not to eat all day long, we should spend some time every day eating. And we should eat the best food available. When we combine good food with exercise, sunshine, fresh air, rest, pure water, temperance, and trust in divine power, the Lord blesses us with abundant health. Thus it is with our spiritual food— the Bible— and our spiritual health. Eating is not the only thing we need, but if we do not eat, we will die.

To be contimued...

[Gail]

I like this, too, Richard! Thanks for sharing it! :)

[Guest]

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[Guest]

What should we study?

First of all, it should be realized that there is no supplement for God's Word. The Word should remain the basis of all our study.

Although there are a number of profitable magazines and books of a spiritual nature, some of which I try to read in my spare time, devotional time itself should be dedicated to the Word alone. During my covenanted hour of devotional time with the Lord, I allow myself to read and study nothing but the inspired words of God. Nothing else counts as a part of that time, and nothing else is read or studied until that time is over. I try to read from both the Old and New Testament in a consistent manner, and when studying a particular subject, I try to read everything of seeming importance from the Bible about that subject, instead of just skipping from one passage to another with no definite plan or goal in mind. I find this method of consistent study gives a balanced spiritual “diet.”

To be continued...

[Guest]

How should I begin?

There are two basic ways of studying: The first is to read and study certain books of the Bible, such as Matthew, Isaiah, Revelation, or even the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation. The second method is to pick out certain subjects, such as the “second coming of Jesus,” “baptism,” “how to overcome sin,” “law and grace,” et cetera, and to look up everything the Bible says about that subject, comparing text with text.

I try to do both. I generally like to pick out two books of the Bible to read— one from the New Testament and one from the Old Testament. I will spend part of the time on one book and part on the other. As I come upon a subject that I am not sure of or would like to know more about, I look up everything else in the Bible about that subject. I may thus spend several days on one verse. To do this, you need a good concordance, such as Strong's Exhaustive Concordance or Young's Exhaustive Concordance, or one of the new computer Bible programs that helps you to find all the verses on any subject or word in the Bible. The concordances in the back of most Bibles are rather worthless because they are so selective in what they are able to list that they often do not list the very texts that explain the subject best.

We must do more than just read the Bible. We must study it. Do not worry about how far you get into the book each day. Do not set yourself a goal to read so many pages or chapters a day. But rather set yourself time goals and go no faster or further than the mind can comprehend and you can put into practice. “There is but little benefit derived from a hasty reading of the Scriptures. One may read the whole Bible through and yet fail to see its beauty or comprehend its deep and hidden meaning. One passage studied until its significance is clear to the mind and its relation to the plan of salvation is evident, is of more value than the perusal of many chapters with no definite purpose in view and no positive instruction gained” Steps to Christ, 90.

How much better would it be for one who is reading the Bible to come upon one of God's holy commandments that he is not obeying and spend days, or weeks if necessary, on that one passage until it is understood in relationship to the rest of the Bible and in relationship to his obligation to the Lord, and to choose to obey it, than to merely hurry on and finish reading the Bible in some prescribed length of time with no real benefit gained?

Be careful not to rush through your study, but on the other hand, do not allow yourself to get bogged down in trivia. There are elements of Scripture that are comparatively unimportant for salvation. Some people specialize on minor points and overlook the major points of the Bible. Paul says to give no “heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith” 1 Timothy 1: 4. Even in Bible study there are a thousand things, which may not be the most important, to absorb one's time. One person I know began to study everything the Bible said about “dogs.” That may be interesting, but is it profitable?

We should read the Bible and know what it contains from Genesis to Revelation. Yet, if we simply read the Bible without any deeper study than mere reading, we will never understand the deeper messages that God has hidden in it for us. Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field” Matthew 13: 44. God intends for us to dig deep, to search for treasure, to be diligent students. We must study “line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little” Isaiah 28: 10.

If an individual has not studied the Bible before, I recommend this plan of study: Spend a half- hour a day reading the Bible through. Read it through from Genesis to Revelation the first time so that you have at least read everything it contains. Then spend a half- hour studying the Bible by subject. Purchase a good concordance to help you in this study. Steps to Life has an excellent, free Bible course that categorizes many important subjects of the Bible and gives you the Bible texts to look up on each subject. Thousands of people have been helped by these lessons. Like others, you may find it profitable to spend a half- hour a day reading the Bible through, and then a half- hour in studying the Bible by subjects, using the Steps to Life lessons as a help in finding the different subjects. All you have to do to receive these important lessons for your own personal study is to write and ask for them and we will begin to send them to you with no obligation whatsoever. This is a part of our ministry for the Lord. The address and phone number are on the back of this booklet.

It is important to do both kinds of study: To study certain subjects in detail as well as to find out what the whole Bible says. When Satan quoted the Scriptures to Jesus in the wilderness, Jesus replied that “Man shall live. . . by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” Matthew 4: 4. So we need to know the whole Word. Yet there are certain portions of the Scriptures to which we must give special attention. Two of these are the life of Christ and the prophecies for the last days. One author says: “It would be well for us to spend a thoughtful hour each day in contemplation of the life of Christ. We should take it point by point, and let the imagination grasp each scene, especially the closing ones.. . . If we would be saved at last, we must learn the lesson of penitence and humiliation at the foot of the cross” The Desire of Ages, 83.

As you begin your study of the Bible, ask God to guide you; He has promised to do so. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened” Matthew 7: 7, 8.

To be continued...