The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs
By Dan L. White
Copyright ©2018 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.
Chapter 50
Studying God’s Word – 780,000 of Them
What if God spoke to you?
As He did to Samuel.
One evening, tired Eli lay down in the Tabernacle. The night drew on and the darkness grew deeper. Eli could feel the dark as much as he could see it because he was so old, his eyes were dim, and they were tired, too.
The boy Samuel also lay down.
Before Samuel went to sleep, though, he heard –
“Samuel!”
“Here I am!” Samuel answered quickly.
Then he quickly ran to where Eli was and answered again, “Here I am! You called me.”
“I didn’t call you,” Eli responded drowsily. It was late. His eyes could hardly see anything, anyway, when he kept them open, so he wanted to keep them shut. “Lie down again,” he told Samuel.
Samuel lay down again. Then again he heard –
“Samuel!”
Again the boy hurried in to Eli. “Here I am! You called me.”
“I didn’t call, my son. Lie down again,” Eli answered.
But Eli was not quite as sleepy as before.
Samuel went back to bed –
“Samuel!”
That was the third time that Samuel had been called. But that third time Samuel jumped up just as quickly as he had the first time, and the second time, and he ran to Eli the same way, and again he said, “Here I am! You called me.”
Now Eli was wide awake.
He knew that he had not called Samuel.
But someone had called Samuel. Three times.
Who?
The Ark of the Covenant was in the Tabernacle, in the innermost chamber, the Holy of Holies. Inside the Ark of the Covenant were manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the Ten Commandment tablets. Above those was the top of the ark, which was the Mercy Seat, Yahweh’s throne.
Eli realized that Yahweh had called Samuel.
Eli was the priest; the older man. Samuel was not a priest; he was just a boy. Yet Yahweh did not call to Eli. He called to the boy Samuel.
Eli was excited, as excited as an old man can get. Yahweh had actually spoken again. The Word of Yahweh was precious in those days. But Eli was also a little sad. God had not spoken to him, but to the boy.
Eli knew what to do, though.
Eli, with his eyes that could barely see, looked Samuel straight in the eye. “Go, lie down,” Eli told Samuel clearly. “If He calls you, then you shall say, Speak, Yahweh; for your servant hears.”
So Samuel went and lay down in his bed –
But he wasn’t sleepy at all! –
…and waited for God to call his name again. He had never spoken directly with Yahweh before. No one he knew had. No, he wasn’t sleepy at all.
But Samuel was an obedient boy. He didn’t run for the door. He didn’t hide under the bed. He just went back and lay down again, a little boy on his little bed.
And lying in his bed, in the dark of night, Samuel quietly waited for God to speak to him.
In his mind, Samuel remembered –
Yahweh had spoken to Noah: “Make an ark of gopher wood!”
Yahweh had spoken to Moses: “Take your sandals off your feet!”
Now Samuel waited for God to speak to him…
. . .
“Samuel!”
“Samuel!”
Samuel served at the Tabernacle. He knew the presence of Yahweh was in the Holy of Holies, in the rear of the big tent. But right then the presence of Yahweh was there, with him, by his little bed.
Samuel really paid attention. He wasn’t bored at all. He did exactly as he had been instructed by old Eli. He didn’t argue. He didn’t run away. He didn’t hide. He just said, “Speak; for your servant hears you.”
Then Yahweh heard Samuel, too.
Yahweh said to Samuel, “Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of everyone who hears it shall tingle.”
Samuel’s ears were tingling a little already. His whole body felt like it was tingling. But he listened carefully.
Very carefully.
God went on, “In that day I will perform against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from the beginning even to the end. For I have told him that I will judge his house forever, for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons did bring a curse on themselves, and he didn’t restrain them.”
Then Samuel told Eli what Yahweh had said against Eli, and Samuel didn’t have any trouble remembering, because he had paid very close attention when God spoke to him.
What if God spoke to you? Would you pay close attention to His words?
God did give you His words. In fact, more than three quarters of a million of them, in the King James translation.
WEB Ps 12
6) The words of Yahweh are flawless words, as silver refined in a clay furnace, purified seven times.
You can react two ways to those ~780,000 words.
- That’s a lot of words! I’ll never get through all that!
- My Creator took the trouble to write me 780,000 words telling me how to live! What a gift!
Just as Israel heard Yahweh’s words at Mt. Sinai directly from His mouth, so the words of the Bible are from the mouth of God.
WEB Deut 8
3) He humbled you, and allowed you to be hungry, and fed you with manna, which you didn’t know, neither did your fathers know; that he might make you know that man does not live by bread only, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of Yahweh.
WEB Matt 4
3) The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
4) But he [Yeshua] answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’”
The Ten Commandments were spoken by the mouth of God and written with the finger of God. The Bible is written by the spirit of God.
WEB Acts 28
25) When they didn’t agree among themselves, they departed after Paul had spoken one word, “The Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah, the prophet, to our fathers…
Then Paul quoted from the book of Isaiah, which was the spirit of God speaking through Isaiah.
WEB Mark 12
36) For David himself said in the Holy Spirit, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet.”’
That’s from Psalm 110, written by the holy spirit through David. The same is true of this example, from Psalm 41:9.
WEB Acts 1
16) “Brothers, it was necessary that this Scripture should be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who was guide to those who took Jesus.
And from Psalm 95.
WEB Heb 3
7) Therefore, even as the Holy Spirit says, “Today if you will hear his voice,
8) don’t harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, like as in the day of the trial in the wilderness,
And from Jeremiah 31.
WEB Heb 10
15) The Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying,
16) “This is the covenant that I will make with them: ‘After those days,’ says the Lord, ‘I will put my laws on their heart, I will also write them on their mind;’” then he says,
17) “I will remember their sins and their iniquities no more.”
In the Bible, men of God spoke and wrote as they were directed by the Holy Spirit.
WEB 2 Pet 1
20) knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation.
21) For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke, being moved by the Holy Spirit.
The Bible was written through men by God’s spirit. Those 780,000 words were ultimately written by God Himself.
How precious is it to have the words of God, 780,000 of them, speaking to you?
Back in the days when people did not have a Bible, some were killed trying to change that.
From the article, “Melvyn Bragg on William Tyndale:”
In 1524, [William Tyndale] left England never to return. He led a perilous, often penurious, life finding the means and the time somehow (often helped by family friends in the Cotswolds) to translate the Bible.
…[Tyndale] hunted down printers, he escaped with his life, he saw his work lost and re-did it. This quiet, reclusive English scholar seemed perfectly capable of assuming the character of a 16th-century James Bond. He moved around Germany and the Low Countries, outwitting the spies until a Judas figure from Oxford trapped him. This was Harry Phillips, employed by the Holy Roman Emperor, a wastrel whom Tyndale met in a safe house in Antwerp and took his flattery for friendship.
Eighteen months’ imprisonment followed, during which he practically starved but continued his translation of the Old Testament. Somehow in his exile he managed to find printers bold enough to work with him and the resources to smuggle into London in wine casks and bales of wool the New Testament which had a claim to be one of the founding texts of our language.
The fury of the then Establishment is difficult to credit. The Bishop of London bought up an entire edition of 6,000 copies and burned them on the steps of the old St Paul’s Cathedral. More [Henry VIII’s counselor Sir Thomas More]went after Tyndale’s old friends and tortured them. Richard Byfield, a monk accused of reading Tyndale, was one who died a graphically horrible death as described in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. More stamped on his ashes and cursed him. And among others there was John Firth, a friend of Tyndale, who was burned so slowly that he was more roasted.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/10096770/Melvyn-Bragg-on-William-Tyndale
Tyndale himself was burned at the stake, although the Church mercifully strangled him first. Those 6000 Tyndale Bibles were burned on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and today one of three existing copies of Tyndale’s Bible is on display in that cathedral. How precious is that book today? How precious was that book then!
WEB Ps 139
17) How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is their sum!
The word of Yahweh was precious in Eli’s time. They didn’t have it.
WEB 1 Sam 3
1) The child Samuel ministered to Yahweh before Eli. The word of Yahweh was precious in those days; there was no frequent vision.
Yet we have over 780,000 words from God. What will we do with those precious words?
We are not to study the Bible just to exalt ourselves.
I remember listening to a Sabbath keeping evangelist who always spoke on how the Protestants were wrong. Over and over he said, ‘They say that and the Bible says this.’ Basically all his messages were like that. It seemed that the purpose of his years of extensive Bible study was simply to show that somebody else was wrong. Later he changed his view of the Sabbath and I wondered if all his sermons then were to show how Sabbath keepers were wrong.
The Bible does teach right and wrong. As Paul said, “For through the law comes the knowledge of sin,” Rom 3:20. But knowledge alone is not enough, as Paul brought out, and Bible study is not just to gain knowledge.
The Pharisees prided themselves on their scripture knowledge.
WEB John 7
48) Have any of the rulers believed in him, or of the Pharisees?
49) But this multitude that doesn’t know the law is accursed.”
50) Nicodemus (he who came to him by night, being one of them) said to them,
51) “Does our law judge a man, unless it first hears from him personally and knows what he does?”
52) They answered him, “Are you also from Galilee? Search, and see that no prophet has arisen out of Galilee.”
They thought their knowledge of the law made them righteous — this multitude that doesn’t know the law is accursed. The irony is that after all their study to learn what is right and wrong, the Pharisees and Judaism had no idea what is right and wrong. Search, and see that no prophet has arisen out of Galilee, they mocked, yet they missed THE Prophet, who just happened to come from Galilee.
The scribes and Pharisees missed the biggest event in human history. Knowledge of God did not give them God’s wisdom because they did not receive the word with personal repentance and correction.
Modern Christians sometimes take a similar tack, where their religion is an accumulation of knowledge. This “knowledge” may be a collection of doctrine or a supposed understanding of prophecy, and much time is put into repeated study of such “truth,” often to the exaltation of the possessor of such “truth.” This is usually accompanied by ignoring less esoteric Bible teachings, such as caring for widows and orphans. Nobody ever stands up and announces, “I have new Bible truth. Help the widow down the street!” Probably some who consider themselves Bible savants have never helped a widow in their whole lives.
We don’t want to study the Bible just to accumulate knowledge or to puff ourselves up with how much we know, but we must study the Bible.
KJV 2 Tim 2
15) Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
WEB 2 Tim 2
15) Give diligence to present yourself approved by God, a workman who doesn’t need to be ashamed, properly handling the Word of Truth.
WEB 1 Tim 4
13) Until I come, pay attention to reading, to exhortation, and to teaching.
What is Bible study?
Bible study is reading and studying —
The Bible.
It is not studying what someone says about the Bible. It is not studying prophetic interpretations that someone has about a Bible prophecy. It is not reading books or magazines or commentaries about the Bible. Bible study is reading God’s words, not reading people’s words about God. Bible study is studying only the Bible.
Religions often create other “inspired” works besides the Bible. These “inspired” works are not said to replace the Bible but only to add to it. The Jews did that, as Christ pointed out.
WEB Mark 7
7) But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
8) “For you set aside the commandment of God, and hold tightly to the tradition of men—the washing of pitchers and cups, and you do many other such things.”
9) He said to them, “Full well do you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.
10) For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother;’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death.’
11) But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban, that is to say, given to God;”’
12) then you no longer allow him to do anything for his father or his mother,
13) making void the word of God by your tradition, which you have handed down. You do many things like this.”
Indeed the basic Jewish religion holds that the Talmud, the writings of the “rabbis” about the Hebrew scriptures, are as inspired as the scriptures themselves.
The Jews, though, were not the only ones to set up extra-biblical works as inspired. You may immediately think of the Book of Mormon, the dozens of books by Ellen G. White, and many other lesser known works that some treat as holy writ. Even if a group does not say a work is holy writ, they often study other writings besides the Bible or instead of the Bible, in effect making the Bible of no effect. This happens often in group Bible lessons, where denominational literature is studied, while scarcely opening the Bible itself. Such Bible lessons are almost always written selectively, only citing verses to support a point and avoiding those verses that deny their point. That’s not Bible study.
Perhaps the most common example of works supplanting the Bible is doctrinal statements. People write doctrinal statements based on what they believe the Bible teaches, then point people to that doctrinal statement instead of directly to the Bible. What they have established as orthodox belief, written by ordinary people, is used over and above the Bible.
In fact, it may be that most Christians use some source other than the Bible — a doctrinal statement, an orthodox position, a prophetic interpretation, or some “inspired” book — as the basis of their belief, while they think they’re following the Bible!
There are no God-written works besides the Bible. God is holy and only He writes holy writ. Therefore Bible study is never reading other “inspired” works. Bible study is studying only the Bible.
People seldom respond to God’s words as Samuel did, when he heard “Samuel…Samuel.” Ironically and unfortunately, human nature often does not want to study the Creator’s instruction book. Those 780,000 words are not seen as precious but as prosaic.
A young Christian man once told me that he couldn’t get interested in reading the Bible. He wasn’t defending himself. He felt that he should study the Bible, but he honestly admitted that he had little interest in doing that.
People who don’t want to fast simply don’t believe that their fasting has any effect. They only see physical hunger, not spiritual growth. It’s the same with Bible study. People who don’t have an interest don’t see the value of absorbing God’s words. They see Bible study as a time consuming duty, not a life giving opportunity.
The predicament of the young Christian man who did not want to study the Bible, even though he knew that he should, is not uncommon. People often fail to see the value of the most valuable things in life.
How can we be interested in reading God’s precious words? How can we be like Samuel: “Speak; for your servant hears you.”
First of all, use a readable translation of the Bible. Many have had their Bible reading invigorated simply by using a Bible they can easily read. Instead of having to wade through the Bible, they read through it. Big difference.
Many American Christians have a strong loyalty to the King James Bible, the Authorized Version. The word “authorized” makes it sound very official, but it was authorized only by King James, not by God. King James authorized his Bible to support the church that he headed, the Church of England, begun by infamous Henry VIII. All the KJV translators were from the king’s church and the king ordered that their translation must support his church. The Pilgrims and Puritans who came to America to worship God as they believed best did not use King James’ Bible because it was his church that persecuted them. They used the earlier Geneva Bible.
Most early English translations were simply lifted from the Tyndale Bible, so they are all very similar in content. The King James is a fine Bible translation, and the biggest problem with it is simply that KJV English is not our English. Archaic language hinders Bible study.
“Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias?” Romans 11:2.
Reading that archaic language, you may not even wot who Elias is!
The King James Bible commonly used today is not the original translation of 1611, which used an alphabet of only 25 letters, with no J as in Jesus. A 1769 revision used the 26 letter alphabet and that is the KJV used since then. Its language is more understandable than the 1611 version, but is still much harder to read than a modern translation.
Of course, some believe that the King James Bible was authorized not just by King James but by God, and that God disapproves of using any other English translation. In the same way, I was told by an Amish/Mennonite lady that they should only use the Martin Luther German translation. The 1534 Luther translation preceded the 1611 King James by nearly a century, but even for modern Amish and Mennonites, that is not an easy read.
Christ said that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. In the same way, the purpose of a Bible translation is to convey the message to the reader. The translation is not an icon or end in itself, only the means to an end. Reading the Bible shouldn’t be like doing penance, where you bloody your knees crawling to some cathedral or get bloodshot eyes from deciphering archaic language. There are a number of modern Bible translations that are at least as accurate as the King James and some that are more so. Using one or more of these helps Bible study.
Another aid to Bible study is — studying the Bible. The more you do, the more you want to.
You recall that when Pharaoh caught Israel at the Red Sea, the cloud gave light to the Israelites but darkness to the Egyptians. This is one of the great principles of life. Seeking God gives light. Shunning God gives darkness. When you earnestly make the effort to study His Word, He will then give you more of a desire to do that. If you don’t want to hear God’s words, He’ll give you that, too — a disdain for His word. You have to roll the ball to get it going, but once underway God will help you roll.
I remember when I had first learned all the guitar chords.
I was in my early teens and had been teaching myself guitar for several years. I figured out the chords myself as I learned, a slow, inefficient process. Finally, when I had figured out the twelve major chords and the twelve minor chords, I thought — ‘That’s it! No more chords to learn!’
Actually, there may be a seemingly infinite number of guitar chords, much more complex than a simple major or minor chord. A little further study led me on to 6th chords, 7th chords, 9th chords, diminished and augmented chords, and such chords as B minor seventh diminished fifth, or Bm7-5. Alas! Sixty years later I have not run out of chords to learn!
Reading the Bible helps give you the desire to read the Bible. No matter how many years you do that, spiritual wisdom can always be gained by exposing yourself to the source of spiritual wisdom. You will never run out of chords to learn or spiritual wisdom to be gained from absorbing God’s words. Never!
The biggest factor in Bible study, though, is to understand who you are and who God is. You ain’t nothing but a fading flower with few years left, no matter how young you are. Your beginning wasn’t that long ago and your end is in sight. On the other hand, Yahweh God Almighty is everything — all life, all creation, all existence, with no beginning and no end.
See the difference?
The Bible is the Word of God, written by the spirit of God, to tell us what God wants. Nothing in life is more important to us than those words.
“Samuel…Samuel!”
Paul told Timothy what studying the scriptures can do for a person.
WEB 2 Tim 3
15) From infancy, you have known the holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.
16) Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness,
17) that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Yahweh put the breath of life in Adam and His breath is in the words of your Bible — God-breathed. Those words can make us wise for salvation, to teach us, reprove us, correct us, instruct us in righteousness, and make us complete.
To be spiritually complete, cleansed by the washing of the Word.
WEB Eph 5
25) Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the assembly, and gave himself up for it;
26) that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word,
So how do you control the people?
With all powerful kings and emperors and czars who force people to submit? With popes and archbishops and pastors and rabbis who make our spiritual decisions for us?
No. The complete person is thoroughly equipped for every good work. His human nature is under control.
WEB Rom 10
17) So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Bible study can change our spirits. As we read the words written by God’s spirit, we expose ourselves to His spirit. Remember how Moses’ face shone when he came down from Sinai after visiting with Yahweh? A similar thing happens as we expose ourselves to God’s spirit in reading His words, and our spirits begin to shine and change.
Our spirits are naturally self-seeking. We need that drastic change of spirit, to be like Stephen and Peter and Paul, when they were willing to give all for Him who is all in all. Bible study is not just to find some new doctrine or to parse some real or perceived prophecy.
Bible study is to change who you are.
WEB Heb 4
12) For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and is able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Notice what the Word of God does. It pierces to the soul and spirit and discerns the heart.
Whose soul?
Whose heart?
Yours.
Pierced and discerned, when you study the Bible.
You do not study the Bible just to show others where they are wrong. You do not study the Bible just to show how much you know. You do not study the Bible just to find support for your doctrinal statement or your prophetic parsing.
You study the Bible to change who you are, to pierce your soul and spirit and to discern the thoughts and intentions of your deceitful heart. Bible study keeps you from deceiving yourself, if you apply it to yourself and not just to the guy down the road.
By the way —
The devil is against you reading the Bible.
Satan centralized power over American schools. Then with that centralized power, he put God and the Bible out of those schools. With that as his base of power, Satan is now putting God and the Bible out of America altogether. The same pattern prevails throughout the western world.
The devil is against kids learning about the Bible, he is against you reading the Bible, and when you voluntarily don’t read the Bible, you’re doing the devil’s will.
We are approaching the time when those 780,000 words of the Bible will indeed be precious — they won’t be allowed at all. Even as the Bible is not now allowed in America’s left wing schools and in the socialist schools of northern Europe, when the whole world is under an anti-Christ centralized government, controlling all business and religious activity, this book about Christ will be verboten.
How precious will it be then?
How precious is it to you now?
Bible study is to change your spirit that may not even want to find time to read the Bible at all.
Dan L. White Homeschool Helpers 