It. It. It. There's it. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm glad to see everybody welcome. Everybody's chit chatting and enjoying the holiday time. You know. You know. Yeah. You know. Good morning, everyone. Good morning to you. Good morning to you. You look like a monkey. You look like a monkey and smell like one too. Okay, ladies and gentlemen here, we're going to. We're going to sing Joy to the world. Come on up. Our. Our singers. We've. We've recruited a few and I have one really important announcement. I have one really important announcement. I have one really important announcement. I have one really important announcement. Nathan's working on the sound. We need these fed directly into people's hearing aids, Nathan. That would fix us up. Okay, so you know, for Christmas Eve we set up extra chairs. All of you are in the extra chairs. For Christmas Eve we set up extra chairs. All of you are in the extra chairs. Which means while we sing Joy to the world, move on up front. Here we go. Come on. Come on, choir. Hey, did you know? Did you all people know? Did you all people know? How's that? 181 is where we're at. Did you know that Joy to the World was not written as a Christmas song? It was written to celebrate the second coming, the millennium actually. And so we look forward now that we are reminded that the Lord has come in nativity. We're going to see when he comes. And the earth will receive her king. We're glad. Let's scoot over just this way a little bit. We got to get everybody in the, in the, in the camera. Come on over, ladies. There we go. We're glad Linda's back here. We're glad Dan's back here. We're glad my sister in law is back here and the rest of us here more faithfully than you all do. Now let's all sing Joy to the world. The Lord has come. And wonders of his love. And wonders of his love. And wonders, wonders of his love. I have a word of prayer, heavenly father. Thank you. That that day is coming in which the Lord will come. And the earth will receive her king. And the wonders of his love and his truth and his grace will be made known. And the nations will have the proof that the everlasting son, the righteous one has come reign. We rejoice in this, dear heavenly Father. And we are blessed to be here this morning on this last Sunday of the. Of the year. And pray that it would be enjoyable for us, honorable for you and that we would go away having learned Something as well. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. You may be seated. Choir, thank you. We'll call you back up here in just a moment. But I do want to welcome everybody. We are glad you're here. Oh, maybe so. We just had a little suggestion. So we're glad you're here. Hey, I tell you what. At least one lady in the front row was having a birthday today. We have any other birthdays this week? Oh, Lynn, I was. I knew there was another one today. Okay, so I knew that. I remembered last year. Somebody else. So we have Linda and Linda. This Linda goes more by Kay, but it's the Linda day for birthdays. And anyone else having a birthday? Anybody else want to have a birthday? Okay, let's sing. Well, Linda K won't mind. Let's sing. Happy birthday, dear Linda Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, birthday dear Linda Happy birthday to you and many more to both of you. God bless you. Happy birthday to each one of you. Glad you're here today. And as you're here today, we do have a. A little gift to give to our guests. And that is one of these little coasters. That's what it is. It's a coaster with a picture of our church. And it says, America's greatest tiny church. Taos First Baptist Chur. Taos, New Mexico. Isn't that nice? And we. Let's see, we have. We, we, we. Did y'all get one of these last year? Well, stand and introduce your family so you can get one. Okay, go. Go for it, Meyer. We're glad the Bennett's are here. Shelley's brother and sister in law and niece, Jack. Stand and introduce your family. I'm Jack. This is my wife Hannah, daughter Leila, son Jackson and daughter. Excellent. And I'll tell you what we've got back with us from Tuesday night. How come I can remember Lori and not Hunter? As I was about to say, Laurie. And stand and introduce yourselves. This is Lori. And we came here on Christmas Eve and enjoyed it. Where are you from? Beautiful spot out there. Very glad you're here. Thanks for making the drive again today. What is it, 45 minutes on Sunday when there's no traffic? Yeah. And on Monday when there's no traffic. It's still 45 minutes, right? Yeah. Okay. Glad you're here. Thank you. And let's see, we got Nathan back here. Stand and introduce your family. Nathan and then Whitney, Miles and Hallie. We got a. We got a nice collection of kids here today. We're, we're glad that the Wades are back here and as I mentioned, the Johnsons and the, the, what's your names? The. The Davises, Dan and Leslie. And let's see, the rest of us are. Are. Oh, Stephanie, glad to see you here today, too. Thank you for, for being here. So we're going to give those out in just a moment. Why don't, why don't you stand and greet someone and let's just get together for some worship here in just a moment. Those of you online, we're glad you're here as well. It. Welcome, welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Let's. Hey, kids, come on up here. Let's, let's bring all the, all the pretty boys and girls up here and. Come on up, Jackson. Come on up, Miles. Come on up, Layla. And who else? I tell you what, these kids don't know this, but they are about to. They are about to sing away in a manger for us. We'll help them. All these beautiful boys and girls. I just thought we need to. We need to sing a little song. Here we go. Didn't they do a great job? Now, this is our grandson, Jackson. He's eight years old now. Right. And this is his sister Sophia. She's four years old. And this is their sister Layla. She's two years old. And this is Hallie, and she's four years old. And this is Miles, and he's two years old. And these are the grandchildren, Dylan and Stephanie's children. And we're glad that they're here. Four years old, Kelly. And thank you, Emily. And how old's Emily now? Emily's two. So we got. We got fours and twos right here. They're beautiful, aren't they? I'm glad to have my grandkids here. Miles is one and a half. You're right. Not quite the two there. Y'all tell them hi. God bless you, grandkids and grandkids. Glad you're here. And now let's come back and sing a little bit more. Hey, you know, I did the bulletin this week. Guess what that means. That means nothing is right. We are going to sing these songs, but the, the numbers are wrong. Let's start. I. I wanted to pick some songs that would celebrate, hey, we're ending the year, we're starting a new year. What do we want to sing about? So we're going to celebrate being saved. Saved. Saved. We're going to pray about having a closer walk with him. And we're going to remind ourselves that without him, I would be Nothing. Hymn number 469. Save. Save, save as we sing and our choir come and join us here and what his grace came to for you sing to new life to new life Sublime life now is sweet and my joy is complete For I'm singing sa po and needy and all alone with lovely to me Come unto me and I'll give you hope to live with me eternally say to you divine save to new life, to new life Sublime life now is sweetened My joy is complete For I'm saved. Save. Save. And now our prayer is just a closer walk with thee. Number 473. Just a couple of pages back. And we'll sing the first and the last on that one as well. Satisfied to thee Let it be, dear Lord Let it be Jesus. And now we're. We back up just a couple pages. 470. And we are reminded without him I would be nothing it without him I should be free without him I would be drifting like a ship without a shame Jesus, oh Jesus, you know him Today I would be Without Him I would be Without Him I would be. O Jesus, Thank God I saved Jesus oh Jesus, do you know him today? Please. I'll turn him away. O Jesus, my Jesus without him how most I would be. Amen. And you may be seated, choir as well. Thank you. And as we come to a short time of offering, we are reminded here, at the end of the end of one year and the beginning of the next, that we are so needy on him. Right. And dependent upon him. And isn't it also nice to have a wonderful church family to say, hey, without you all we would be. You know, I don't know if we'd be nothing, but we sure would be lonely on a Sunday morning, wouldn't we? And it's nice to gather together with a beautiful church family like this. Thank you and God bless you for that. This is the last Sunday that the cressmeyers are our missionaries. Their pictures back there, they are going to be missionaries in Mexico. We're helping them through the. Through the use of the church van and through some monthly support for this coming year. And so if you give marked missions, it goes to the Crestmeyers. If you give unmarked, it goes to the work of our church, right. Right here and around the world. And there is an offering box. It got moved. It's over there. And you can give either now during the offertory time or any time. And. And it's always a blessing whether go to our missionaries or to our work right here. Let's have a board of prayer and then we'll have a little offertory and the go with Kamali and she and Yona are back there and would be thrilled to take you boys and girls to go learn a little something. What are you learning today? Daniel in the lion's den. Do we have real lions? Oh, okay. Daniel in the lion's den for the kids today. Let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for our church family, for those who join us in our extended church family, for the blessing and love that you give to us for the Crestmeyers. And we pray for them as they prepare for their work in Mexico and that we could be a blessing to that for all who are away from us today and our own church family and then those who have come from other places. We're grateful for the, the safety and the blessing that this Christmas season has been to us and into this next year, into the new year. We pray that we would always remember that without him, we were really nothing. We turn to you in grace and find mercy and grace to help in time of need. We pray this in Jesus name, Amen. Let's take just a few moments before the sermon here with some offertory. It sa now if you wouldn't mind taking your Bible and go to second Timothy, chapter 2, verse 15, second Timothy 2, 15. I want to, on the close of this year, give a, a sermon about what to do with the Bible. I know it comes the beginning of the new year and of course, all of you have a resolution, right? You've already made your list of New Year's resolutions, 15, 20, 30 things that you are going to do, right? Okay, maybe not. But we think about it every now, you know, this year I'm. I'm actually going to this year. I'm going to this year. And we make those concepts or those ideas of something that we're going to carry out. And many times there are people who come along and say, hey, this is the year I want to really understand the Bible. I want to work on the Bible. And I might even. I might even use the words. I'm going to borrow this from my friend E.W. bollinger, who died long before I was ever born. But Bollinger wrote a little book called how to Enjoy the Bible. And I like that title, Enjoy the Bible. Not often I talk about how to understand the Bible or that's something that we work to. But to really enjoy the Bible is, hey, I sit down and I begin to dig into it and I begin to enjoy it. I don't know if I'M supposed to say everything my son in law said while he was here. But the other day he got a Christmas gift and it was a book. And he said, if you'd have told me last year that I would have asked for a book for Christmas, I would have told you you're crazy. But he said, you know, I opened a book this year and I read it and I was like, whoa, that like takes you. Well, like the kids used to say, reading is the magic key. That takes you where you want to be. It just takes you into another world and you get to enjoy that world a little bit. So I want us to enjoy the Word of God. Now, anyone who's been around here very long, or for those of you new, it won't take very long to see that I teach the Bible just a little bit differently than others teach the Bible. I teach it well. One, I teach it. That's a little bit of joke. But a lot of churches out there and it's a mile wide and an inch deep. You don't get much. And so I tend to go verse by verse, chapter by chapter, let's look into the Word of God. But then I, I do it in a way that you say, hey, that makes sense. Hey, I like that. Hey, how come I've never heard that before? Hey, what's up with this? You know, all that whole gamut of things. And so I wanted to speak here at the beginning. I started, say, the beginning of the year. It's sort of the beginning of the year, isn't it? At the end of the year, the beginning of the year. I want to talk about the one great requirement of the Word. If you're going to enjoy the Word, what is it going to be? By the way, I'm going to begin next week a little series of sermons on the various divisions of the Word of God. So that we can understand when we jump into the book of Leviticus, where were they? When we get into the Book of Job, where were they? How do. How does the Bible divide? But today I want to talk about the one great requirement of the Word, and that is to rightly divide it. Let's read second Timothy, chapter two, verse 15, a familiar verse to many of you, a great verse. If you want to memorize a little Bible verse, go with this one. Here it is the the commandment study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. Rightly dividing the Word of truth. Simple and yet, I would say, ignored and so necessary. The one required the one great requirement of the word is to rightly divide it. Now let's move on and talk about what is rightly dividing. I've got a picture here of the. The School of Athens done by raphael in about 1509. And this is one of those. Every time I use this picture, and I've used it a number of times, every time I use it, I say, I'd like to study that in picture more. I would like to get a big copy of it and learn all about it. Because every one of these people here and by the. I cut off both edges. Every one of these people is somebody, somebody that you know. There's Plato, there's Aristotle, there's Socrates, there's all the great thinkers of the world. And Raphael put them together and said, okay, here is the School of Athens. Now, why do I pick that picture? I picked, I picked that picture 1. Because there's not a whole lot of pictures of 2nd Timothy 2, 15 and 2. This does give us a picture of. Hey, we've got to study, we've got to think, we've got to. To put one set of knowledge over here and another set of knowledge over here and systematize this and understand it. And so the School of Athens will make a good backdrop for us here. But we have this back to, back to our scripture. The, the. The one great requirement now. We're to study. And then it tells us how to study. We'll come back to some of those other words in a moment. But, and how to study. We are to study by rightly dividing. Rightly dividing the word there. I've given the actual what is actually in the text in your bulletin there if you want. But I'm going to give you the root word. Greek has a way of spelling and adding things on that tell you, you know, whether it's past, present or future, whether it's third person or second person. So the actual textual word is right there in your bulletin, but the root is ortho tameo. Ortho tameo. You've heard me mention that before. It is actually not used anywhere else in the New Testament. This is the only time that we have it in a verb, in a participial verb that is right now, as you study, here's what you should do. You should be rightly dividing the word of Truth. This, this word rightly dividing, we of course would want to say, okay, well, what does that mean? You know, the interesting thing is the Bible doesn't say. Bible doesn't say what that means. Just tells us to do it, which means we have to come along and put our heads together and put some logic together and put some sense together and say, okay, how am I going to study rightly dividing the word of truth? How am I going to put that together? Usually when it comes to scripture, what we will say is that scripture is its own dictionary. The Bible is its own dictionary. So find another place in the Bible in which that term is used and bingo, you got it. But what do you do when that play that word is not used anywhere else? Bingo, you don't got it. Right here we can get kind of close, kind of. You know, of course, that what we call the New Testament was originally written in Greek. You win the prize. And you know that what we call the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew. Okay, now orthotomeo is a Greek word. So you can't find the Greek word in the Old Testament. That's Hebrew. Different language. But there are two places in the scripture in the Old Testament written originally in Hebrew which when they came to translate into Greek, they used the term, the word orthotomeo. And so we, we can look at a little bit, it's, it's a, it's a bit removed, but we can look at a little bit and say, oh, okay, here. When they, when they were looking for a Greek word, this is the Greek word they used, orthotomeo. Let's look at a couple of those. Let's go in the scripture. If mind in your Bible, we'll probably come back. Second Timothy, 2, 15. So that's what that little ribbon is for. Or your bulletin, either one to hold that place. And let's back up to Proverbs chapter 3, verse 6. Proverbs chapter 3, verse 6. By the way, I have long said I don't fully understand the Proverbs. And I don't, I don't. You know, everybody makes New Year's resolutions that they don't fulfill. But I'm thinking 20, 25 might be the year that I dive into Proverbs and try to figure it out. We'll see. Don't hold your breath. We'll see what's going to happen. But here's a, here's a familiar one. Proverbs chapter three, verses five and six is actually in verse six. But let's start with verse five. You know, it, it says, trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not into thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall what direct thy paths. Now again in the Greek translation, the Early Greek translation of the Old Testament. It's called the Septuagint. If you, if you Google it, they'll say the Septuagint was done in like, 2nd century BC 200 years before Christ. I think the Google is wrong. I think it was. I think it was actually done maybe, probably 2nd century, actually AD not BC long after the time of Jesus. A translation like the Septuagint, you know, do they get it right? Do they not get it right? All that we could pack into another day. But let me say they used the word orthotomeo here, the, the root orthotomeo, when they said, direct thy paths in all your ways. Acknowledge him and he will. Orthotomeo, that is, he will rightly divide. Follow him, Acknowledge him, and he will rightly divide. Have you ever come? Well, I know at our neighborhood, we have several live up in our neighborhood. And you come in and for most of us, it's not a problem. We know where we live for most of us. But tell someone how to get there. We come to a fork in the road, and the problem with this fork is it has three prongs. So I have to say, when you get to the fork in the road, go right, but not far right. Don't go all the way right. Just kind of right there at the fork of the road. Now, it's nice when you get to a fork in the road to have the paths divided. You know, they're divided, but which one are you supposed to take, right? I took the one less traveled. And that's why I have been lost ever since. Boy, I messed up on that one. So in, in this passage, in this proverb, trust the Lord, lean not unto thine own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will rightly divide your paths. Could be a very literal translation. That is to say, he will say, wrong path, right path. He will. He will designate that for you. Now, let's turn over just a page or two in the Proverbs also to Proverbs, chapter 11, verse 5, and we see the second time. Orthotomeo is used in the Greek translation, the Old Testament, to try to figure out what this is again. Proverbs, chapter 11, verse 5. It says, the righteousness of the perfect shall what? Direct his way? Anyone want to guess what Greek word that is? Very good Orthotomeo. Ursula, you've answered two or three questions, right? Do you have one of these? I didn't think you did. I wasn't really sure. Oh, you do have a beautiful brand new Bible. Yes, There you go. You must have got a Christmas present. I knew nothing about it. Really? Yes. Orthotomeo is the word. It was a simple question. That's why you only got a coaster and not a new pickup truck. Okay, back to chapter 11, verse 5. The righteousness of the perfect shall direct his ways. Now, this is a little bit different context because earlier, of course, it was the Lord shall direct. Here it is. The righteousness shall direct. Okay, that is to say, you're going to be able to figure out how to divide the paths. Which way do I go? Now, think about it here at the beginning of this year, how many of you know all of the decisions that you're going to need to make in 2025? I didn't think so. But here in the Old Testament, we have these two passages of scripture which says, hey, there's the ability to get ways directed. Now, what we tend to want in the Christian world is some mystical experience. You know, you come, you have to make a decision. You close your eyes. You. You walk a labyrinth. You, you know, you. You go in a. In a prayer closet and close the door, and God reveals to you what you're supposed to do. Now let's go back to. With that in mind, let's go back to the New Testament, second Timothy, chapter two, verse 15, which actually tells us, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. I'm going to say, when we. Right, we know which paths to take because the Lord has shown us through his word. Here's, you know, I'm not a mystical guy. Strange enough for living in Taos. I'm not a mystical guy. I am a. A concrete thinker in all of this. And so I have discovered. Well, let me keep on that story just a moment. Everybody else is mystical. Have you noticed that everybody wants this still small voice. Everybody wants this warm feeling in their heart. Everybody wants a vision. That's what people are in love with. And so I feel a little lonely sometimes, you know, that I'm not a mystical guy. I'm not really all that interested in, you know, the vision you had or any of that. I want, you know, rock solid. Give me that. But what I've noticed is that, well, first of all, birds of a feather flock together. So a lot of people, you know, once we get to know each other, you. You're not mystical either. Now I would say I used to be mystical. You probably used to be mystical. But we put that aside after A while. And so here there's this group of people that I know and you know, that we say, hey, we're not mystical. Here's what I've discovered. Those who are not mystical, but take the Word of God and rightly divide it. It directs their paths. Just they know what the Word of God says. So all of those decisions out there, they can handle them because they've done this one great requirement of the Word, and that is to rightly divide it. So here in back, back to second Timothy 2:15, when it says study, rightly dividing, the way to study is to cut it. Orthotomeo actually, as you may know, means to make a straight cut, like orthodontist will make your dentures straight. So we, we. We're to take the, the Word of God and we're to where to cut it? We're to divide it. That tells me you can't take the Word of God and read it and apply it all exactly the same, or you're just going to be utterly confused. Have you ever been utterly confused by the Bible? It was, I don't know, last, last week, two weeks ago, maybe right before Christmas, I gathered the youth group. We had a little Christmas party, and we talked and I talked about some of these very things. And I went through some passages of scripture which look like, if follow the Word of God, you are going to be rich. I gave them a number of passages which showed them, you know, be careful to do all that is written in this book, meditate upon it day and night, and you will have prosperity and success. That's a little bit my paraphrase, but I promise you, that's what it says. Joshua 1:8. If you want to check me or go to Psalm 91, you know, a thousand fall at your right hand, ten thousand at your left hand. No evil will befall thee. And so I said to those kids, I said, how many of, for how many of you just on these two verses is that. Has that been true in your life? And none of them raised their hand. I said, it's because you're not very righteous. If you live righteous like it says, this would be true of you. So then I said, how many of you know somebody for whom this is true? And nobody raised their hand. And to make a long story short, I went through and I said, you know what truth is? It's not true for me either. And it's. I've never met anyone who's true, who. It's true, for they, they obey the word of God and everything they do they never have anything bad happen to them? They don't even get a cold because no evil shall befall them. Everything is perfect. I don't know anybody. You don't know anybody. Nobody's ever known anybody. That. That's true. So then I said, you can either go to college and hear the professor say, see, it's just a bunch of myths and legends. It's not true ever. Or you can learn to rightly divide and say, wait a minute. Is that promise true for me? Is that promise true for us? Should I apply this directly? When we begin to rightly divide the word, it will direct our paths. Now, with that, let's look here a little bit more at division. What are. At this particular verse, I'll give you a picture of St. Jerome that was named by the artist, not by me, but St. Jerome in his study. Y'all know who Jerome was? Geronimo. That's who we're talking about. Actually, Geronimo got his name from Jerome. It's a. Goes back to Europe. Jerome was the guy that translated the Greek and Hebrew into Latin, the first one to get it in Latin. And. And Latin, vulgar means something a little bit different than it does now in English. And so he put it into the vulgar language, that is the everyday, common people's language. And so it's called the Latin Vulgate, and still is called the Latin Vulgate. Anyway, here he is in his study, and I thought, okay, we're going to talk about study to show thyself approved. It's there a couple of things. Legends, by the way, about. About Jerome. I don't know if it's true or not, but one, you see the skull right there? The legend is he kept a skull in his study to remind him, death is coming. You better speed it up, get this job done. There is a deadline. I don't know if he did that or not. The one I'm pretty sure is not true is this lion right down here in his study. There was a. There's a legend that he was attacked by a lion, but he talked the lion into being nice and made it a pet. Okay, that part probably is not true. I'm just guessing here, but I don't know. There's Jerome in his study. Two things that go legendary with him, and so much that Jerome brought into. Into our theology, both good or bad. You. You'd. You'd be amazed how much Jerome affected what we believe and teach and talk about today. But that's for another time. It's just a backdrop now let's look at what we've got here. And we've got study to what? Nobody wants to say it. Show. You weren't looking at your Bible, which is why you said that. Yes. If you're looking, it looks like shoe. If you got the King James shoo in our youth group, we'd use the same verse. And I brought them in here and they used the Pew Bibles and they were reading steady to. And. And I have them, you know, take turns reading because this is what you do. I should do that to you all too steady to shoe. One of them pronounced it shoe. Shoe thyself. So we talk. It's just old English. It's different, actually, even then they pronounced it show. So present if you want that word study to present thyself approved unto God as we come and we say, okay, I want to enjoy the word. What do I need to do? I need to come to an understanding of it that is approved of God. That is to say, I'm not really concerned whether man approves it or not, but does God approve it or not? I can't tell you how many times I've come across this theology or that theology. And I look at it and I say, you know, I know that everybody says this, but it can't really be true because the Bible says such and such. There are so many times when you have the theology built off a scripture that doesn't actually say what the theologian says it said. And did you follow that? That is to say, you and I carry. I, I'm, I'm convinced every one of us, we carry a lot of baggage that we heard that we think, ah, this is solid theology. And the truth is, if you get down into it, it's not really so solid. We want to study to show ourselves approved of God, not approved of man. I, you know, maybe it's part of living in Taos, I'm not sure. But I have come to the point in my life where I'm really not all that interested whether or not I get, you know, the bozo button from the theological guild. Do they invite me to, to share the great wisdom? Because I've seen the papers and heard it over and over and read the books, and I'm like, you guys got your blinders on? You are. You've heard something and you repeated it and you repeated it and you repeated it and you repeated it. And it is, I'll use a Latin term so I sound sophisticated. Prima facie dumb. How's that? A little. A little Latin, a little Vulgar common people, prima facie a dumb. I. I think I mentioned this a couple weeks ago in our mark study, but if you, if you have. In the NIV it says it was the sixth hour, and Pilate said, behold your king. Is what the King James says, the sixth hour. The NIV says at noon, Pilate said, behold your king. And the NIV also says that at 9am he was crucified. You mean three hours after they crucified him, Pilate presented him to the crowd and said, behold your king. That is what the NIV says. I'll show it to you if you need it. You say, no, my preacher uses the NIV that's because he's dumb. Yeah, he reads these. The thing is, it doesn't have it on the same page, and so he's already forgotten by the time he gets to another page because he doesn't study. He doesn't stop and read it. He doesn't stop it. And, and we could go into, I would say, major theologies that are. Are near and dear, that you're not supposed to say. I don't believe that. But you look at it and you find it really doesn't have any scriptural foundation or grounding whatsoever. So what we're supposed to do is to study to show ourselves approved by God. Now I jumped ahead. Let me back up there to the actual word study. Study to show thyself approved the word. The actual Greek word. I want to say it's. Pardon me if I get this off just a little bit. Spuadi. Spuadi. Does that sound right? Jack, you took Greek and it doesn't sound like a word, so maybe I'm making it up. But. But anyway, I tell you, I do know it's the same word from which eventually into English we get the word speed. Go fast. Now, don't make the etymological fallacy that is a word's root original. A word's original meaning. It doesn't necessarily mean. That's what the word means today. So it's not saying go fast. Even though I'm sure a lot of you have, you know, tried to read the Bible through in a year. And what you. You mainly accomplished was that you read the Bible through in a year. I'd say study the word spoetti. It's a word to be diligent, to really look at this, to actually come to comprehend it, to get there. So study with a diligence. I think study is probably the best single word that we have to bring across what that word is. Trying to convey. So we are to study, being diligent in study, to pursue God's approval. Studied to show thyself approved of God. A workman. There's that part of that study. There again, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. You know, it is nice, isn't it, to know that your position is well grounded, that you don't have to bat an eye or back up an inch on it. You can stand and say, look, there it is right there in the word of God. Needeth not to be ashamed. Rightly dividing again is what we're supposed to do. Rightly dividing the what? The word of truth that tells us that, hey, what we've got right here in our hand, it is God's word. It is God breathed, it is truth. We're going to study to. To show ourselves approved of God. Rightly dividing the word of truth. Now, with that, let's talk about the neglect that comes to it. Let me give you a different picture here. Here is a picture of the fall of Icaria, Icarus. And it's an old Greek myth. Legend. Myth or legend, you probably remember it. This painting was done in about 1560. Does anybody remember the fall of Icarus? Yes, you do. And you do. What happened? Got too close to the sun. You got it. Now some of you are saying, oh yeah, I remember that story. His dad said, careful, boy, get too close to the sun, your wings will melt. Okay, this happened to several of us. This is a picture of the fall of Vicarious. Do you see him? I'll point over here, too. See, right there. In fact, I will. I'll put the. I'll put the arrow. There you go. That's the fall of Icarus. He. He just plopped into the sea. You know what I think is kind of interesting about this picture? I had to cut some of it off, but you got a guy here, he's fishing. You got the boat sailing on. You got this guy, he's watching over his flocks. This guy you can't see, he's. He's planting some sort of grain. And the idea is Icarus falls. And the world didn't stop. He just plopped. There he goes down into the bottom of the deep blue sea and the world goes on. Now take that thought a little bit and think about neglecting this great requirement to rightly divide. I'm convinced the world, the theological world especially, has neglected it. And in doing so, probably not best to use a Greek legend on this, but in doing so, they got a little too close to the sun and their wings melted and they plopped down. But guess what? The church kept going. It kept going with the wrong division. It kept going with everything messed up here and really hadn't noticed. But back to our verse study. To show thyself approved. Rightly dividing. It is evident that across the world, across the theological world, right division is something that has been neglected. Wouldn't you agree with me? You can even tell this in English, you can certainly tell it in Greek, that this is an imperative. That is, it's a command. That is, you know, it's telling us this is what you are supposed to do. You are to study. How are you to study? Rightly dividing the word of truth. That's what you're to do so that you'll be a workman. No need to be ashamed, so that you'll stand before God without shame. But we treat this command. I say we, the Christian world treats this command as if it were optional. There's not a lot of study that is done. I think. I think this is. This is partially new. I know that many of you growing up, you went to churches that did Bible study. And when they said Bible study, they actually meant Bible study, right? Now, I'll just go ahead and get real ugly here. When was the last time a women's Bible study actually had a Bible study? They all did a book by some, you know, perfect woman, except every now and then she would show her vulnerabilities. And it was really. It was kind of a. Oh, instead of psychobabble, I'll say a psycho Bible study. It was a study of what somebody said. But that when you look at that, it was really about a lot of feeling, a lot of thought. It gets neglected through and through this. And it used to be that you came to church and you did Sunday school, and then you came to church. You know, you came early to Sunday school, and then you came and the preacher would open the Bible and do a Bible study, and you'd come back Sunday night and do a Bible study Wednesday night. You all remember those days, don't you? And there was a lot of Bible study that is done and that is almost completely neglected today. Why should we take this precept to be less important than other precepts? Why even. Even I would say, I think every version except the King James and probably the new King James doesn't even tell you to rightly divide. It says, correctly handled, correctly handling the word of truth. But correctly handling is. That's. It's. It's part of it. But I think we would have to say, hey, to rightly divide it gets so much bigger. You gotta divide it, you gotta cut it, you gotta say, this is for me. This is not for me. That's for them. That's Israel, this is the church. That's prophecy. This is mystery. You know, all of the different things in, in dividing it, that is to correctly handle it. But when you take away the instructions, have you, did you ever have a math teacher that didn't fully explain? Of course, of course that's what you thought about your math teacher. Your math teacher may have explained it very well. I don't know. But, but you know, math is one of those things like, oh, you didn't tell me that. Oh, I didn't. Well, have. If I'd have known this and it's you, you got to have the full picture. Is there any justification for diminishing the importance of rightly dividing? I think we need to come and we need to say, hey, there is an instruction, there is a command. There is this one great requirement when it comes to the Word, and that is rightly dividing the word of truth. We have to rightly divide the Word of truth. Or really we have just set aside this command. Now, let's talk about one more thing here in just a few moments. And that is the four spheres of dividing. And this, this is, I'll give this to you as the free stuff, but in my experience, this is. If you're going to rightly divide, here's what you ought to do. I got a picture of the geographer in 1668, and that's because I didn't know what else to put a picture of. But he's studying his maps, he's trying to figure out the division of, you know, how do I, how do I get there in doing that? I would say divide the Scripture this way. One, divide it as to its literary form. Have you noticed that not all the Bible sounds the same? Not all reads the same? I even mentioned earlier the proverbs. I said, you know, in all my 30 plus years of preaching, I don't really understand the Proverbs, I don't think, because I look at them and it's a list of proverbs. This doesn't seem to be a connection, sort of, you know, you get a grouping, but other than that, it's just sort of these random things that too many times I look at and say, wait, that contradicts with this. And you can't have that. And is it, you know, a lot of times, well, remember It's a proverb and not a promise. And so, okay, what's up with all of this? Well, the proverbs are in a different literary form than most of the rest of the Bible. You take a book like, I don't know, Ephesians, and you would say, well, Ephesians reads a lot different than psalms, and but the Song of Solomon kind of reads like psalms. And you might say, hey, you know, the book of Joshua reads kind of like the book of Acts. These, it seems to be the same literary form. Let me tell you, one of the things that I have seen more and more in the last two or three years is a growing flat earth movement. Have you run across the flat earth people, and almost always they come from a biblical point of view. They believe in a flat earth because of some things they take in the Bible. And what I discovered when I went to look at those scriptures is about 95% of those flat earth supposed flat earth passages are taken from poetry in the Bible. Wait a minute. If you're a right divider, you know that in poetry you don't, you don't build a doctrine on that specific word. Roses are red, violets are. What if you signed up for botany and that's what they taught you, it says roses are red, you can't have a pink one. Poetry has a, an overall point you come to recognize. Ah, poetry. I got to be careful, you know, books of history, books of prophecy, etc. So as to the literary form, second, as to its subject matter, divided as to its subject matter. You know, the easiest division there is, is this talking about Israel or is this talking about the body of Christ that we often call the church? What's the subject matter here? Or is this talking about now or is it talking about in the past or is it talking about in the future? What's the subject matter to it? That'll, that'll just that simple hint right there will solve you a lot of issues when you go to say, well, the Bible says, and you bring up something that's not really in the subject matter. But I don't, I just remembered this. I don't know how it fits in here, but it does. Yeah, it does. On subject matter here, here we go. I mentioned this maybe, maybe Tuesday night, maybe last. Maybe somewhat sometime. I mentioned it last Sunday perhaps that you know the Bible verse, there is none who is righteous. No, not one. That is used to support every kind of theology that you can think of. There's none who is righteous. No, not one. And yet I can Take you to six places in the Bible where it tells me people are righteous. The theologians tell me nobody ever fulfilled the law. It was given so that you could realize that you can't do it. I can go to a lot of places in the Bible that people fulfill the law. Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous according to the law. Ananias, the guy who went to Saul went to after he got blinded. It says, you know, he was in right standing with the law. Just all these things we say to build our theology that are approved of man, but they're not approved of God. The Bible, the word of God is different. So you take again, there's none who is righteous. No, not one. Do you think that has a subject matter or is it just true about everything? We make it true about everything when it has a subject. It's not true about Zachariah and Elizabeth who explicitly says they were both righteous with God and the law. Okay, so there are some who are right. You gotta, you gotta divide according to subject matter going on. Divide as to its times and dispositions. Dispensations. Is this people under the law or is this people under grace? Is this people before the law? Is this people living in the Garden of Eden? What's the times and dispensations that you are dealing with? You. You deal with that. And that's, that's what we're going to spend the next few weeks on is learning those. And then as to its dispensational truth and teaching, that is where does it. What applies to us what is actually ours. And to know that really will help you to rightly divide the word of truth and be like the geographer and actually end up with a map that makes some sense and will actually get a person somewhere. I think what we've got in theology today is the. I'm going to switch that a little bit to a cartographer. That's a person who makes maps. Right? The cartographer has made a map that doesn't get anybody anywhere but it sure is a nice looking map. Has, has, you know, Google Maps or any of that ever led you astray. I, I saw an article the other day. I didn't read this. I. My thinking was there's probably more to this story, but it talked it. I think some people were either killed or injured because they drove off a bridge that, that was not completed and Google Map led him and there they went. I'm thinking there's more to the story, but I didn't get into that. But, but anyway, you get a Map that is drawn wrong, it's going to lead you to the wrong place. So you and I can come in 2025 and say, Hey, I tell you what I know that this map is not drawn right. So I'm going to go by this map instead of the Baptist map, this map instead of the Evangelical map, this map, you know, whatever it is, the Catholic map, the Presbyterian. I'm going to go by this map and I'm going to see where it leads me and I'm going to do the division I need. And I think in the end we will find out we end up in the right place. Amen. The right place of understanding. Fortunately, we're saved by grace through faith, not of works, which includes a Bible quiz. Aren't you glad we don't have to have a Bible quiz to get saved? That's the good news. But I'll go ahead and give you a Bible quiz someday. Let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for the gathering we had here today. As we think of the things that have been in the birth of Jesus Christ, the things that are to come, and the Lord when he comes to be the king of the nations and we live here in between. Help us to understand this in between time, this time that is not not yet into the future, not in the past, not under the law, but under grace. Help us to understand these by studying to show ourselves approved workmen who have no need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you ladies and gentlemen for being here. Those of you online as well hope everybody has a terrific new year. Let's see, because of the new year, we will not meet on on Wednesday night, but we will meet next Sunday at 9:45. We'll have a Bible study class looking on a series on the ministry of the Holy Spirit, kind of seeing what does the Bible actually say. And then 10:45 we'll get into that dispensational study. We'll go in and look at the dispensation of innocence and dig in and see what was. What was life like in the Garden of Eden. How about that? We're not going to have live actors like we did for the Christmas series. Thank you for some of you for laughing at that. Okay, thanks everyone for being here. God bless you. We'll see you next week. Have a safe and happy New year's Eve. It ra sam sar it why it that project? It's anxious 7 it it it goodbye everyone.