Trusted with God’s Words VII: Our Great Example, pt 2

Jesus as the Pattern for Trustworthy Speech

Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast. I'm Jon Snyder and Teddy James is with me forever. All right, Teddy. I told Teddy that if he would just do this short series, then he could get behind the camera.

Supposed to be three episodes.

Yeah, he could get back behind the camera and not be uncomfortable in front of the camera. And and so I have drug it out like the, the, the never ending podcast because I have said more than once, well, for our final, so this is our final, final, the final of the final.

Finals.

Yeah. The end of the end. And we've been looking at the pattern of Jesus Christ, uh, last week. And then we'll look at it again today. How is Jesus the ultimate pattern for the believer when it comes to being a trustworthy messenger from the Lord?

Um, is his pattern a pattern that we can follow when it comes to teaching? I think we, we would say, yes, we're to be followers of Jesus Christ when it comes to things like, uh, holiness, avoiding sin, loving the father, loving, you know, loving people around us, but teaching to speak as it were, Peter says, the utterances of God, you know, to speak in a way that you can say, as best as I understood, I spoke as God would have me to speak, um, to walk as Christ walked.

Yes. But in, in teaching, we think, well, I can't do that because he's God. But we've said before, and it's very important as we're looking at the life of Jesus of Nazareth, he is the, he is true God.

He is fully God. He possesses fully identically, eternally, uh, at, you know, in harmony with this father and the spirit, he possesses the divine nature and that's been united to our humanity. So he's not less God.

He's not one third God. And he hasn't laid aside his Godness, but in taking on our humanity and doing the work of our rescue, he has lived that perfect human life as a human. And he doesn't, it doesn't just appear to be a human life, but he keeps punting, you know, he keeps leaning back on his, his Godness.

So it's an effortless kind of walk through life. It is a real perfect sinless human life lived as a human has to live it doing the will of the father, depending upon the spirit guided by the word. So it is a pattern that a Christian can follow, and we won't be perfect imitators, but we can be genuine imitators of that pattern.

So we, we talked about that a lot last week. So Teddy, let's pick up this week. We, we saw that Christ's desire was to glorify the father. That's why he could be trusted to speak what the father would have him speak in a situation.

He brought what the father gave him to bring, and he said things that God had taught him. So they were experientially known and not just things that he had read that someone else said, but the question still remains, where do we see the pattern of Jesus in exactly how did he know what to say?

You know, at, at, at, in general and in specific moments. So we're going to go back to the gospel of John and John chapter eight, we find three verses that speak about how he learned these from the father.

So Teddy, why don't you read those for us? 26, 28 and 38.

Yep. So 26, I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true. And I declare to the world what I have heard from him. Verse 28. So Jesus said to them, when you have lifted up the son of man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing of my own authority, but speak just as the father taught me.

And then was it 32? 38. 38. I speak of what I have seen with my father and you do what you have heard from your father. All right.

In those passages, and those, those aren't the only ones, but they're all clustered together. So I think it's very helpful. In a conversation with the Jews who doubt his claims, he gives evidence, uh, that what he's saying is from God and not just his own crazy ideas.

And they are rejecting their God that they say they love the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when they're rejecting his son and what he teaches. And again, it's one of those strange windows into the person of our Lord that, that come to us because his enemies are attacking him.

And God so kindly uses the enemy, the enemies attacks on his son through these, uh, Pharisees. He uses that plan for evil and he makes it a thing of good. And so we can read 2000 years later and see, uh, again, some autobiographical statements of our Lord.

So he says, the things he says are things which verse 26, I heard from the father. Second verse 28 things the father taught me. And third verse 38 things I have seen with my father. So we can, we can clearly say that as a man, he heard, he was taught and saw things.

And these metaphors, hearing, being taught and seeing, I think that they describe, uh, the way that the son as a true man, the dynamic of him relating to the father through the word and prayer. And he, as a perfect listener, uh, receiving everything the father is teaching.

And we are not perfect listeners, but it's the same path. We see, of course, we see this in certain spots in the new Testament. Um, so again, if someone were to ask you, well, Teddy, where do we see the son hearing from being taught and seeing with, where do we see any, any times that we could say, clearly this would be one of those times.

Uh, what would you say?

Well, I mean the, uh, when Jesus prays in the garden of Gethsemane would be one instance for.

Me. Yeah. So the prayer life. Yeah. So not just the, the, the, uh, the, you know, the crisis moment at Gethsemane, but the many times that we see in scripture where it says he rose early and he got alone with the father, that would be a time that even in the busy ministry of Christ, we could say Christ in prayer with the word of the father in his hands, he is meeting with the father and the father is teaching him.

And that's the same pattern that we have. You know, it's not a spiritual antenna that we don't have. It's the same means. Yes. It's the same means. It's the same tools. And we, we don't use them as well as he used them, but it's the same tools.

And he enables us to follow that, to wake up, to meet with the father, to be taught through his word so that we could say also what he's taught us. That's what we say to our kids. That's what we say to our neighbors.

Uh, but there, there is also another glimpse into, um, how Christ used that tool.

What would you say that would be? We see all the way from, uh, you know, really from Jesus being left in the temple, um, where he, we know that he had taught and memorized scripture.

Yeah. And so it's, again, we understand when we read what the Bible says as a whole about his humanity. And then we, we import that into what we're reading in each section. We understand that Jesus of Nazareth, uh, as a true human, as a boy, as a little boy, as a teenager, as a young man in his twenties, he would have had to have memorized scripture the same way every other Christian has to memorize scripture, you know, to read it or to listen to it over and over, to write it out, to write it out again.

And again, you know, obviously he didn't have scripture memory apps on his phone, but he could have used other means, the old fashioned,.

Which I prefer, you know, writing, writing, writing. And also, we also can't say, well, he didn't have as many distractions as we have. He may have had different distractions available. Um, but you know, he still had to have the same discipline that we require.

Yeah. I think all the excuses of, well, I'm, my life is different. I think that those fall flat. The truth is that he gave all the effort and energy of heart and mind, uh, to memorization of scripture that the father wanted him to.

And I can't say that I have given all that the father wants me to, to that. Now, I think it would be wrong for a Christian to memorize scripture 16 hours a day. I mean, there are other things we have to do.

And so it would,.

It would be disobedience. Well, and Jesus didn't do that.

Right. Yeah. We know that he was active. We know that he helped his stepfather, you know, in work. Um, so when we see the life of Jesus, we see evidence that he also memorized scripture. He, he's alone with the father long before anyone else wakes up as a child, as an adult, uh, you know, there's evidence of his memorizing and reviewing scripture.

I mean, he had a human brain and though it was a sinless human brain, that doesn't mean that he never needed to review. Um, so.

And I think one thing just to keep in mind is that I think when Jesus had an understanding, he was actually meeting with the father. And if you were to tell me John, or if we were to, you know, say on this podcast, if you do this, we guarantee you a meeting with God, the father we would run for, for it.

You know what I mean? We would, we would yearn for that. Every believer would. And yet here is Christ telling us, this is the path where I meet and commune with the father. And I think so often we neglect and ignore it.

Yeah. Yeah. Now, Teddy, we've given.

Some examples from the new Testament, but that's not the only places that we see descriptions of the pattern of Jesus. And we've talked about some of these, uh, long ago in previous episodes, but I think we probably need to go over them quickly.

Again, there are places in the old Testament where in messianic prophecies, prophecies of the coming of the Messiah, uh, there are even in the old Testament, there are, it's like windows that we look out of, and we see scenes in the life of Jesus, scenes to come 600 years, 800 years before he's here, where, you know, Isaiah or David, um, you know, explain to us what kind of Messiah will the Messiah be?

How will he live? And there are times where there are glimpses into the path that he's walking or the tools that he's using to know what, uh, to say. So let me give, um, a couple of those, um, and I'm going to get you to read them for us, Teddy.

So the first one is one that we've mentioned before. It's an, it's a picture of Christ, uh, 600 years before he comes in Isaiah chapter 50. And I'll set the scene as Teddy's looking that up. It's the, um, third of the songs of the servant song.

So it's the third description in poetry in song of the servant of the Lord. So we're not surprised that he gives us in this song, uh, an explanation of how the servant of the Lord knew what to say since so much of Christ's service was teaching the truth about the father.

Now, he contrasts that to Israel who should have been a servant of the Lord that was faithful. And they weren't, uh, they were unresponsive. And he even gives this picture of, you know, you act like God has divorced you.

You act like you've been sold off as, uh, you're no longer the servant of God. You belong to somebody else now. And when God comes and knocks at the door, you don't even get off the couch and answer it.

You know, the prophets have come. You don't even pay attention. Contrasted with that is the perfect responsive listening of Jesus of Nazareth and the perfect obedience. But in the midst of that verse four, which says.

The Lord, God has given me the tongue of those who are taught that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary morning by morning. He awakens, he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.

The Lord has opened my ear and I was not rebellious. I turned not backward.

Yes. So wonderful, simple picture there. First in the, in verse four, first, we have a description of the effect, not the cause. So it's a little strange to us. The Lord has given me the tongue of a learner of a disciple.

Okay. So I know he says how to sustain the weary one with the word. I know how to speak to a soul that is needy in a way that brings exactly what they need to them. How does he know that we say, well, he's God, he's, he's the God who, you know, he is the second person of the triune Godhead.

He's the author of the Bible. Well, yes, but as a man, how does he know that? And he goes on to give us the cause of that effect. What causes that? He awakens me, the father awakens me, the Messiah morning by morning.

He awakens me to listen as a learner. And I did what he said. So what a simple portrait. If we want to speak as Christ spoke, if we want to speak for God's glory, if we want to be trustable, here's the path for us.

God wakes us up. We wake up. We make, we carve out time wherever it is in our day. We carve out time to be alone with the father and to listen to what he says in this book. And when he speaks, we don't sidestep things that he has to say to us and say, oh, I don't want to talk about that right now.

I just want to talk about this. And you know, if you treat the Bible that way, if you treat the author of the Bible that way, then we've talked about it in previous weeks. Then that conversation is finished.

You know, God doesn't shift topics because we don't like the topic, but the Lord Jesus never shifted the topic. He never in the Hebrew, he never sidestepped and he never rebelled those two ways of wrong response.

He didn't act like I didn't hear that. And he didn't raise his fist and say, no way am I doing that? He is taught by the father day by day through the word and whatever the father says to him, he applies it.

He's obedient. And that's the pattern for us. That is not a pattern that a human who has the spirit of God.

Working in them can't follow. Not perfectly. We will still see those areas, but that is the.

Overall path. Like we've been talking about. Yeah. That is the pattern to listen, to learn, to obey again in Psalm 40. Now here, David 200 years before gives us a description of the Messiah. And this is a passage we know is about the Messiah because it's quoted later in Hebrews, where the writer of Hebrews is saying, it's not the death of hundreds of thousands of, of, you know, birds and, and sheep and calves, uh, that ever removed sin.

Those were all object lessons of the sacrifice, the lamb of God, Jesus of Nazareth, whose perfect obedience and sinless death, uh, together, these are what make a person right with God. And so he quotes from the old Testament from Psalm 40.

So why don't you read Psalm 40,.

Verse six through eight. In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear, burnt offering and sin offering. You have not required. Then I said, behold, I have come in the scroll of the book.

It is written of me. I delight to do your will. Oh my God, your law is within my heart.

Simple picture again, what God really delights in is not the death of an animal, but the son of God's open ear, a listening ear, and then a heart that delights to do what the father is teaching him that day in the word of God, a law that is such a delight to him.

It's, it's like, it's written on his heart. All right. When we look at Psalm 40, Teddy, that might seem like, um, the bar is way too high for an average Christian. Okay. I, I, I, maybe, maybe my ears can be opened by God day by day and he can teach me, but I don't know that I could really delight in his will.

And I don't think I could say, God, your laws within my heart. And if someone says to you, Teddy, that that's like, you know, super Christianity, that's not for the average Christian. How would you respond to that?

By looking at the promises of God in the old Testament, God says that there will come a day where I will write the law on the heart. In the new Testament, we are told God has written the law. He will write the law.

He will delight, write the delight of the law on the heart of the believer. It does not mean that we will have this, you know, constant mountaintop experience, but the question is, do you believe that God is true in what he says?

So when he promises us that he will give us a delight in the law, that he will give us a love for him, do we trust that he will deliver on that promise? Yeah. And that promise comes in the,.

You mentioned Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 31, 33, where Jeremiah is describing to a people who are breaking covenant frequently and are being taken into Babylonian captivity. Jeremiah tells them about a new covenant, an everlasting covenant that is coming that will replace the old covenant that Israel had.

And he says this, Jeremiah 31, 33, but this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after these days, declares the Lord. And we know he's talking about the new covenant because in the new Testament, it frequently says, this is promised in.

The new covenant. Well, we also know not every Jew had it. Right, right. In the old covenant,.

Every Jew had privileges by being linked with the old covenant head, Abraham, genetically. But Paul explains they were not all saved because they were not all linked with Abraham spiritually. They weren't all believers, but they did have external and many sweet privileges, which of course makes their idolatry all the more worse.

But in the new covenant, Jeremiah says that he goes on to say this, God says, I will put my law within them and on their heart, I will write it and I will be their God and they shall be my people. And that's a description of every member of the new covenant.

As we see from the new Testament, if you are in the new covenant, it is because God has given you a new heart. And of course, faith is how we respond. You know, we return, we turn in repentance and faith and we grab hold of Christ and the spirit unites us to this savior.

And in him, we have everything. He's the covenant mediator, not Abraham. He's the one that represents us. He's how we have all that we have in the new covenant. But the promised gift of the new covenant includes not just forgiveness, not just a knowledge of God, but of a heart that has the law written on it.

So again, back to Psalm 40, your law is within my heart. That is what is promised to every member of the new covenant. So there's no reason we can't follow that pattern. But again, while those are wonderful, there are other places we can look.

We could call those a direct glance, a direct look at the pattern of the Messiah, new Testament gospels, old Testament prophecy. But there is also another area that I find very exciting because it opens up all of scripture for us as we're studying the person of Jesus.

And we could say, this is the indirect look at Christ. In other words, passages throughout our book from Genesis to Revelation, which describe the right way of responding to God's word. How does the father, how does God want us to respond to his word?

Every one of those we know was perfectly fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth because he did all the father's pleasure. So whatever pleases the father in how to study and respond to the word of God and how to speak those things you're learning, we know that the God man did that.

So that means we can go to any passage in scripture where God says, this is how I want my people to respond to my word. We know that that is in a sense, a mirror image of the Messiah who as a boy would have read those passages and perfectly fulfilled them.

So when God is describing in a sense, the ideal of obedience, we see like a pencil sketch of Christ. That is how my Lord, he would have studied that passage and he would have perfectly been or done all that that.

Passage describes. You know, I, as you're talking about that and I just, I had this kind of thought of Christ as a boy, delighting in the law of God as a boy would, you know, I mean, can you, can you imagine, you know, little Jesus as a boy in the way that my young sons now when they, you know, um, or even my daughter who's two and yesterday, you know, spring is here.

And so the butterflies are coming out and she looked out the window and she said, Danny butterfly, you know, she's so excited about this yellow butterfly. And I just met Christ as a child, delighting in the law of God.

Just that, that thought of Christ, you know, really delighting the law of God and taking such delight in it. Psalm 119 is filled with, I delight in your law. Yeah. So let's think about.

Someone 19. We've talked about someone 19 before. Psalm 119 is 176 verses. It's the longest portion chapter in the Bible. And it deals with how a believer, the dynamic of a believer walking with a living God who speaks the only God who speaks and he speaks to us through his written word.

And how, how does that dynamic look? And we have 176 verses describing that. And 172 of them are direct prayers that mentioned the word you speaking to God, you, you, you. So there are 172 prayers that a believer can pray along with the Psalmist because we have a Bible in which God speaks.

And these prayers show a dependence on God, but also the determination of the believer to respond wholeheartedly to God's word in all the facets. There's just so many. And few of them, there are some, but few of them really speak of the believer having to cry out to God, God, because of my sin.

Now there are some thankfully, or else we would think that passage doesn't apply to me. You know, the very final verse of the entire Psalm seems anticlimactic, but it isn't. It says, I have gone astray like a lost sheep, seek your servant for, I do not forget your commandments.

So there's a picture of a believer who at the end of 175, you know, versus the 176th. After all those wonderful statements of treasuring the word and loving the word and delighting in the word and clinging to the word and hoping in the word, he says, the final verse, I stray and I stray so badly.

You're going to have to come find me. I'm like a sheep that can't find his way back. And I think every believer, if we've been a believer for some, some time, we can say, I have been there. Shamefully.

I have been there. I have been so far from God that if someone said, well, why don't you go back? You feel like I don't even know where to start. So we start where the Psalmist did. We cry out. You are my God.

You're my shepherd. I belong to you. I will not forget you. I don't even forget your word, even though I'm shamefully far from you. Come get me, set me back on the path of obedience. Well, that passage, that verse doesn't apply to the Messiah because it deals with a sinner.

But most of the 172 prayers in Psalm 119 are prayers that do not involve a direct statement of our sinfulness. And so everyone that doesn't involve a direct statement of sinfulness, the Lord Jesus, as a boy, as a 20 year old, as a, as, as the Messiah in the midst of busy ministry would have read those and would have been the perfect embodiment of those principles.

So I can read Psalm 119 and every verse that doesn't describe sinfulness, but rather describes how God wants us to respond to his word. I can read and say, there's a picture of Jesus. And now there's, I'll give you a couple, uh, early on verse four, you have ordained your precepts that we should keep them diligently.

The Messiah could have read that and his heart would have been in whole agree, wholehearted agreement. The father has given us his commands and we're to keep them diligently. Then verse five, the cry of the believer there.

Oh, that my ways may be established to keep your statutes. It's the cry of the Messiah as well. Ours is imperfect. His is perfect. A perfect, wholehearted, undiluted, undivided, undistracted desire of his heart is that every moment, every choice and thought and response and word, every imagination, every memory, every act would be part of establishing his life in obedience, firmly rooting it in the path of obedience.

I read that. I imagine what it would have been like for Christ to read it the first time or the hundredth time. And to know that is a picture of my Lord, because he would have done that. What kind of a savior is Jesus?

How did he use the Bible? So to speak, how did he approach the word of God? Well, he saw that it was God's desire that all of his word would be done. And he cried out, oh, that my life might be established in a path of obedience.

And it was. So I can follow Jesus because I can pray the very same prayer.

Any that come to your mind? Yeah. So I was looking at verses 97. Oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. So again, as we've been talking about in this whole section or this, uh, this entire series, our meditation all the day being God's law, being, being who God is, but he goes further because he explains also the results of that.

Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies for it is ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers for your testimonies or my meditation. I understand more than the aged for I shall keep your precepts.

I hold back my feet from every way in order to keep your word. I had to stop there because I thought, you know, how amazing is it that he actually details the result of all this meditation? It's not just giving wisdom, which Hebrews one talks about, you know, how God has given him a wisdom above his, uh, above his peers.

But it's also that because he's meditating, he is able to keep his feet off of the elf of the evil path.

Yeah. And so someone 19, I think we just have so many portraits of the God man, perfectly responding to the father. And if you want to know, well, how did Jesus know what to say? How did he, what pattern did he give us that would ensure that by the grace of God, we would be people who could be trusted.

And again, though our feet will not be perfect on this path. This is the path. And someone 19 gives you what feels like unlimited glimpses of what the God man would have lived like. Um, and so wonderful, wonderful things to pray and to study one at a time and to say to the Lord, you promised that you would mold me into the image of your son.

So father, I'm trusting the work of your spirit to help me take this passage. I'm reading, like you said, Psalm one, 1997, how I love your law. It's my meditation all the day. God give me that kind of heart, help me to cultivate that kind of habit to, to frequently return to God's law in his word.

As I go throughout the day, whatever is required, you know, writing it down on a note card, sticking it in your pocket, putting it on your phone, having reminders, sticking it on the, you know, the refrigerator and on the bathroom mirror and on the steering wheel of your car.

I want to frequently turn my heart back to treasure what you're saying throughout the day. That's the pattern of my Lord. So that's what I'm called to do.

One thing, if I could add, John, I was looking at this because in the very beginning, um, you know, the psalmist talks about loving you with my whole heart and I kept reading and I noticed whole heart and whole heart is a theme throughout Psalm 119 and the ESV is 21 times.

And, and so it's just that, that emphasis of loving the Lord your God with all your heart. And that is what Christ did. That is the pattern for us. And to make that into our prayer throughout Psalm 119.

Other places that, uh, we talked about before the podcast that this shows up, you know, and we'll just give two examples, uh, in the Proverbs, oftentimes we see the life of perfect wisdom described, particularly in the way that the believer is responding to the word of God.

And there are some very specific activities. And we know that Jesus would have read that and would have embodied that without, um, flaw, without exception, those activities would have been his activities as a true human boy, teenager, young man.

So let me read Proverbs 2 verse one through four. There's a long list. It says, my son, if you will receive my words and treasure my commandments within you, make your ear attentive to wisdom, incline your heart to understanding for, if you cry to God for discernment, lift your voice for understanding.

If you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures, then you will discern, or you will know the fear of the Lord and discover the knowledge of God. The fear of God was certainly something that characterized the life of the God, man.

We see that in the book of Isaiah and the knowledge of God, unlike any other man had perfect fear, perfect knowledge of God. Where did it come from? And we see this pattern. Look at the verbs of Jesus of Nazareth's human life.

He was receiving the words of the father. He was treasuring God's commandments. He made his ear attentive. He inclined, he bent the longings of his heart. He inclined his heart. He cried out for discernment.

He lifted his voice. So he prays as he studies, he seeks God's word as silver and searches it for it as hidden treasures. You know, think of digging for jewels, you know, a diamond mind, a vein of gold under the earth.

And that's why God gave his son and through that means perfect discernment of the fear of the Lord and a perfect knowledge of him. So that's a pattern for us. Again, we'll be imperfect, but by the spirit of God, molding us into the image of the son, he will teach us through God's word, what to do, what to say to be trustworthy messengers.

And that will include these verbs. We are receiving, we are treasuring, we are bending our ear and our heart toward the Bible. We are crying out to the father, lifting our voice in prayer. As we study, we are seeking for it and searching for it.

Like a person searches for silver and gold. And by the spirit of God, that path that Christ walked, my feet are on it.

Today. Yes. And also this is the work of a Christian. This is the work of God in a Christian, no matter what age. And so if you've got a young one who, you know, is still learning to read, well, wonderful.

He can learn to read in the scriptures. And if you have an older who it's hard to read because the eyes are beginning to fail, the Lord is still going to give you the grace to study and to delight in the law.

You had a passage from Proverbs. So Proverbs chapter seven, my son, keep your words and treasure up my commandments with you. Keep my commandments and live. Keep my teaching as the apple of your eye. So keeping it the apple of your eye is making it your treasure.

Keep it near you at all times, bind them on your fingers, write them on the tablet of your heart. Say to wisdom, you are my sister and call insight your intimate friend. And so it's just those, I have to have practical things to help me to do things.

So I do utilize a verse memorization app. I found it to be very helpful. I have to have post-it notes. And I have found by the way, if you do the post-it notes and you put it in the same place, every time you kind of become eye blind to it.

So I have to have post-it notes that I move around and I have a whiteboard in my office. Um, and I will write scriptures that I'm memorizing there, but I have to put it in different places on the board because I'll become eye blind to it.

So it's things like that. I have to, and I've learned this, I must keep these things near me because if not the, the, the, the tyranny of the now will crowd it out. And so I have to put forth that effort and plan to put forth that effort to keep it near me at all times.

So verbs that the Lord Jesus.

Would have perfectly, um, embraced and exemplified and verbs that the spirit of Christ for every believer, we have all that we need to follow his pattern. And these are indirect glances, just some of them of what our Lord's life would have been like on earth as a perfectly responsive listener.

So to wrap all these discussions up on what kind of person can God trust with his word? What kind of person can the world afford to listen to, um, when it comes to the serious things, the things that matter.

And it is not just a person that's a church member, not just a person that has good theology and, and good books and quote Spurgeon and you know, whoever your favorite Puritan is, but there are a number of biblical qualities that we see of the kind of people God can trust and the world can trust to listen to or to speak on his behalf.

And in that we find the perfect embodiment of all of it in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have direct glances at him doing that. And we have the indirect, the mirror image, perhaps of our Lord's humanity, perfectly fulfilling every description of the right way to listen to God, to respond to the word.

So the Bible really is wide open. It's like you've been led into, uh, you know, into the palace of the King and you, you know, you're used to going to a few rooms, the gospels and, you know, over here, the epistles.

And now it's like the spirit of God throws open all the rooms in the palace and says, look through every chapter of Genesis to Revelation, and you will see glimpses, portraits, pencil sketches of your King through all the stages of his life.