Written by Ian Buckley
Illustrated by Leann Buckley
God has spoken
2014 © Ian Buckley
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
| Author: | Buckley, Ian, author. |
| Title: | God has spoken: ten lessons from creation to Christ / Ian |
| Buckley. | |
| ISBN: | 9780992576219 (ebk) |
| Subjects: | Jesus Christ--Biblical teaching. |
| Bible--Criticism, interpretation, etc | |
| Conduct of life--Biblical teaching. | |
| Christian life. | |
| Dewey Number: | 220.6 |
Published with the assistance by www.inhousepublishing.com.au
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We would like to thank our dear friends and co-workers in Christ, Bob and Jan Bagley for their part in proof reading the lessons for us. We would also like to thank everyone who gave financially to enable the God Has Spoken book to finally get published.
GOD HAS SPOKEN
10 BIBLICAL LESSONS FROM CREATION TO CHRIST
HEBREWS 1:1 & 2…“God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son. Whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom He also made the world.”
LESSON 1……Has God spoken!
LESSON 2……Who is God?
LESSON 3……God is good, what about evil!
LESSON 4……Man created in the image of God
LESSON 5……Man disobeys God.
LESSON 6……Man chooses his own way, but God has His way.
LESSON 7……God’s standard for man; God gives man His holy Laws.
LESSON 8……God becomes man.
LESSON 9……Jesus, God’s solution for mans sin.
LESSON 10.…The risen Lord Jesus and His departing words.
LESSON 1
HAS GOD SPOKEN?
YES, GOD HAS SPOKEN !
When did God speak?…God spoke to the first man, Adam, right back in the beginning. His first words to Adam and Eve can be found in Genesis 1:28…‘God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it….”
Why did God speak?…..God wanted man to KNOW Him and have a personal relationship with Him. God wanted to show His love and His will and purpose for man.
How did God speak?….At the beginning of time God spoke to man directly, through His ‘Spoken Voice’, just like He spoke to Adam in the garden. God continued to speak to specific people, to declare His will and purpose at that time. After Adam and Eve, He spoke to different ones such as Cain and Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
How has God spoken to us?…Then in about 1530 BC, God spoke to a man named Moses, who He later gave His Holy commandments to. God got Moses to WRITE down His Words, so that all future generations could know about Him. He raised up others after Moses to continue to record His Words. He did this through His chosen earthly people, Israel.
Today we have the English Bible, which is a translation of these ancient Hebrew and Greek writings. The Old Testament was primarily written in Hebrew and the New Testament was written in Greek.
This means that even today, God can speak to anyone through His written Word, the Bible.
ONLY ONE BIBLE !
We have seen that God started speaking to man through His direct ‘Spoken Voice’, but as time went on, and not wanting to lose His precious Words, He began with Moses to get man to ‘write’ it down. This incredible job took nearly 1600 years of human history, starting with Moses in about 1500 BC, with the first five books of the Bible, till the last book that was written by the Apostle John, ‘Revelation’, in about 96 AD.
There are 39 books in the Old Testament part of the Bible, starting with Genesis, and finishing with Malachi, which is one of the seventeen prophetic O.T books..
There are 27 books in the New Testament part of the Bible, starting with the Gospel of Matthew and finishing with the Book of Revelation.
This makes a total of 66 individual books that make up the ‘One Bible’. God used about 40 different ‘writers’ to record these 66 amazing books, with each book having a message from God, that had a specific purpose for the time that it was written, but is also God’s living Word to everyone for all time.
GOD’S WORDS, NOT MANS.
The Bible is God’s story to us, starting in Genesis with the creation account and finishing in Revelation with the New Heavens and Earth. Since it was God who spoke HIS Words to man, the Bible therefore cannot be mans word, but rather the very Word of God. The Bible makes this claim over and over again. We will look at a few Scriptures which declare the fact that the Bible is God’s Word.
1 THESSALONIANS 2:13…“For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you (the Thessalonian believers) received the Word of God which you heard from us (Paul, Silvanus and Timothy), you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God which also works effectively in you who believe”.
It was Paul who wrote this letter to the Thessalonian believers, so Paul was saying that his letters were not his words, but rather God’s words through him. Paul often quoted the Old Testament Scriptures, which was also the inspired Word of God, which he used to back up what he was saying. This can be clearly seen from the following Scriptures.
THE BIBLE IS THE WORD OF GOD.
2 TIMOTHY 3:16…“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, (literally ‘God breathed’), and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness”. God inspired the forty different writers that He used over those 1600 years, to write down His Words correctly. All Scripture, both O.T and N.T are ‘God breathed’, or literally God’s own words!
Even though there are about forty different writers that God used, there is only ONE Author, God the Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit moved men to write down His Words.
2 PETER 1:20 & 21…“Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit”.
NOTE: It is not my intent in these lessons to try and prove God or His Word, because the Bible already makes that claim. The Bible has already established this fact, and everyone has a God given freewill to choose to believe what God has already said. The Thessalonians chose to believe Paul’s message as the very Word of God, and so have I. My prayer is that you will choose to believe God’s Word through these lessons too.
Believing in the Bible is also called ‘faith’. We exercise faith in God, when we believe and put our trust in what God says in His Word. The result of putting our faith in God and His Word, will be clearly seen by our ‘actions’ and obedience to Him, (1 John 5:2-4).
GOD USES MAN TO SPEAK AND WRITE DOWN HIS WORD!
In the Old Testament times, God chose specific people who were called ‘prophets’ to speak His Word to the people. Prophets like Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel and many more. God gave His message to the prophet, who in turn spoke it to the people.
Through His chosen, separated people, Israel, God also raised up people called ‘scribes’, who very carefully copied down on parchments and scrolls, the Word of God. They recorded each portion of the precious Word of God, by following a very strict and precise procedure, to make sure there were no mistakes.
This is why even today we still have an accurate account of God’s Word, carefully put together by the early church fathers from these ancient manuscripts. God has made sure that His Word is still accessible, even all these years later.
GOD’S WORD IS A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION!
God revealed Himself, His character, His plan and His demands, ‘progressively’ to man as recorded in the Bible; little by little the story unfolds, with each book and chapter building on another.
The answers to life can be found within the pages of this incredible book…..
Where did I come from?
Why am I here?
Where am I going?
Only God the author and giver of life can unlock to us the mysteries of life!
HEBREWS 4:12 & 13…“For the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do”.
It is God’s Word that judges us, not us judging God’s Word, picking and choosing what we want to accept to believe in. God’s Word is not merely a collection of academic sayings and rules to live by, but rather the very real and life changing words of God. God’s Word is God’s thinking, which the Spirit of God uses in our lives to change our thinking and ways to His.
GOD’S WORD, A PERSONAL MESSAGE TO YOU!
God wants each one of us to know about Him, and ultimately to come to know him personally, so He has given us the gift of His written Word. The Bible is His personal message to us, desiring to reveal Himself as our loving Heavenly Father, who desires all people to be saved, (1 Tim.1:4).
The Bible is another clear proof of God’s faithfulness, grace and immeasurable love, because He has made sure that we have His words of truth, even after thousands of years of Satan trying to destroy the Bible. The Bible has been translated into more languages, than any other book in the world and has the title of being the world’s bestseller. Why? Because it is God’s Word and He wants you to know Him.
GOD’S WORD IS A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION!
God revealed Himself, His character, His plan and His demands, ‘progressively’ to man as recorded in the Bible; little by little the story unfolds, with each book and chapter building on another.
The answers to life can be found within the pages of this incredible book…..
Where did I come from?
Why am I here?
Where am I going?
Only God the author and giver of life can unlock to us the mysteries of life!
HEBREWS 4:12 & 13…“For the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do”.
It is God’s Word that judges us, not us judging God’s Word, picking and choosing what we want to accept to believe in. God’s Word is not merely a collection of academic sayings and rules to live by, but rather the very real and life changing words of God. God’s Word is God’s thinking, which the Spirit of God uses in our lives to change our thinking and ways to His.
GOD’S WORD, A PERSONAL MESSAGE TO YOU!
God wants each one of us to know about Him, and ultimately to come to know Him personally, so He has given us the gift of His written Word. The Bible is His personal message to us, desiring to reveal Himself as our loving Heavenly Father, who desires all people to be saved, (1 Tim.1:4).
is
HEBREWS 11:3…“By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible”. I can see God’s creation all around me, but I need to exercise faith to believe that God made it all, and actually made it from nothing.
ROMANS 10:17…“So faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ”. The Bible is the true record of what God has said, and faith is ‘believing’ and ‘trusting in’ His words as being true.
HOW CAN I BE SURE THE BIBLE IS GOD’S WORD?
The obvious question that most people struggle with is this one! Yet the only way to be ‘sure’ is to exercise ‘faith’, that is to believe and trust in God’s Word. Maybe a more appropriate question would be, ‘How can I doubt the Almighty, creator God, who loves me and wants the best for me’? If God can’t be trusted, then who can!
As the Apostle Paul said in Romans 3:4…“Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar”. If we want to ‘know’ what God has to say and if we want to ‘grow’ in faith, then let us take a look at God’s Word together.
In our next lesson we will look at ‘Who God is’, according to the creation account, given in the first book and chapter of the Bible, Genesis chapter one.
