In this sermon, Kay Arthur teaches on how to study the Bible effectively. She emphasizes the importance of engaging all of our senses when studying, as it helps with memory retention. She shares a story of a Japanese woman who learned to observe, interpret, and apply the Bible without speaking the same language. Kay encourages marking key words and phrases in the Bible to aid in understanding and transformation. She also highlights the need for knowledge of God and addresses the societal issues of faithlessness, unkindness, and lack of knowledge in the land.

The following Stealing the Mind Bible Conference presentation is by Kay Arthur and is entitled How to Study Your Bible, Part 1. For a free catalog of all of our Bible study DVDs, CDs, audio tapes and books, call Compass at 1-800-977-2177 or on the web at compass.org. I want us to go to the Lord in prayer, if you don't mind, because I want God to do a work in your life that will have a lasting result for the rest of your days. And so let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we bow before you now. And we bow before you because God, there is none like unto thee in heaven or in earth or under the earth. You alone are God. You are the sovereign ruler of all the universe. You are alpha and omega, the beginning and the end and everything in between. And Father, as Chuck was teaching us, and I thank you for that man and for his brilliance. I'm just blown away by that and by his sweetness and his compassion and the call that he gave us to do and be about your business. But Lord, as he was just explaining to us, that it is so important that we know truth. And we thank you, Father. We thank you that when your son prayed for the disciples and prayed for us in John chapter 17, that his prayer was that you would sanctify us through thy truth. Thy word is truth. Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord. How incredible that you would give us a book, a book of 66 books that has pure unadulterated truth. Words that are breathed by you and recorded by men, not of their own devising or their own interpretation, but being moved and writing as your spirit moved them. Father, if you gave us 66 books, surely you intend for us to know 66 books. And Father, we just confess that the church as a whole has ignored your word. There has been such a syncretism in our worship of you. And Father, we have found ourselves so entangled with the affairs of this life that we have forgotten that man doesn't live by bread alone, but he lives by every word that comes out of your mouth. And Father, I just ask you now as your servant to so fill me with your spirit and so fill these people with your spirit. Give us the spirit of wisdom and understanding and the knowledge of you. And Father, just show us how we can handle your word accurately and remind us, Father, that we are responsible for that, that we are to exert ourselves, that we are to study, to show ourselves approved unto you workmen that do not need to be ashamed. And Father, your son is coming and his reward is with him to give to each one of us according to our deeds. And so we are to be workmen that needeth not be ashamed. Why, Father? Because we have handled your word accurately, because we have cut it straight, because we have honored it and esteemed your words more precious than our necessary food. So, Father, now fill me with your spirit. In these two sessions that we have, I'm asking you, Lord, to keep us awake and alert and just to put the sword of your spirit into us and let it do its work so that, Father, when we see you, when we see you, we will not be ashamed because we have held faithfully to your precepts. For it's through your precepts that we get understanding and rightly that we hate every false way because it's false. So I thank you now for what you're going to do, and I pray that your word would go forth in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction and by example. In Jesus' name, amen. It is such a privilege, and I'm so glad to see your faces a little bit with the light up, but I want you also, we're going to, I want you to get out a pencil or a pen, it doesn't matter, because I want to show you how to observe the word of God, how to read, open the word of God, and how to study it in such a way that you don't forget what you read, that you don't forget what you saw, but that as you learn to honor God's word as God's word, then what God will do is take it and put it together and weave it into the warp and woof of your life so that you will become living epistles known and read of all men. Now I'm going to take just a minute to give you a quick testimony. I didn't come to know Jesus Christ until I was 29. I was raised in the church, I was baptized as an infant, I was taught by the church that I became a child of God when I was baptized. I was taught by the church that when I was confirmed, I received the Holy Spirit. Now I didn't know the Bible, so I didn't understand that there's a way that seems right unto man, but the end thereof is the way of death. How could I become a child of God when I'm baptized and then not receive the Holy Spirit, which they said I got when I got confirmed? Because the Bible says if any man has not the spirit of Christ, he's none of his. So there's a way that seems right unto man, but the end thereof is the way of death. He says, I bear them witness. They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge, not according to truth. And so I was raised in the church. I had a religion, but not a relationship. I had a strong sensual focus as a young girl. I can't go into it. My testimony is out there and we can go in. If you want to go into it in depth, then you can go into it by getting the CD and listening to it. But just all this to say that by the age of 20, I walked down the aisle. I was a virgin physically. I was a harlot mentally. I did not understand that as a man thinketh or a woman thinketh in his heart, in his mind, so he is. And that we're to guard our heart, we're guard our mind. They're one in the same in the Jewish thinking with all diligence, because out of it come the issues of life. As a man thinks so he is. And where do all these things begin? They begin adultery, murder, all of that. It begins in the heart. So at the age of 20, I walked down the aisle. I got married and I thought this is it. And I had my little plan for my wonderful marriage because I saw my parents live in a wonderful, wonderful marriage. I was married six years. On my honeymoon, on my honeymoon, in a beautiful ideal setting, and I was married to a man who was offered contracts by the Yankees, the Pirates, the Indians, and the Phillies to pitch ball for him because he was just an outstanding natural athlete. Casey Stengel pursued him and others. And so, but on my honeymoon, this man that was voted most likely to succeed, this outstanding athlete, this guy that seemed to have it all together, sat me down in Bermuda and looked at me and said, you are now Mrs. Frank Thomas Goetz Jr. and these are the things I don't like about you and I want them changed. It wasn't exactly what I planned on discussing on my honeymoon. I didn't realize it, but bless his heart, he was manic depressive. He was, that's what we called it in those days, he was bipolar. I'd just gotten out of my psychiatric training, I'm a nurse, and I didn't even recognize it. So that marriage was going like this, and I went, after six years, Tom went to seminary. He went to seminary, he would bring home the Bible, he would begin to underline the first five books of the Bible, the Torah, and he'd put a J and he'd put a P and he'd put all these letters and I'd say, what are you doing? And he'd say, we're trying to discover who wrote the Pentateuch. Duh. It was called higher criticism. It was God, but they didn't know it. And so he would just take the Bible and they would take it apart. And so that short time in seminary, anyway, we ended up and he dropped out of seminary and he moved, he was an engineer by profession, and we just weren't getting along because of these drops and that. And so I said, will you go to counseling? He said, no, I've had the training in seminary, etc. He says, if you want to go, you can go. I went to two priests in our denomination, and I went to two priests for counseling. Neither of those men opened the word of God. Neither of those men explained to me marriage and what it means to be glued together and all of that. One, when we finished, came up, put his arms around me, whispered in my ear, you sure are a good looking gal, Kay, and kissed me on the neck. That ended up in everything short of going all the way with the man. And he was a priest, a married one, you know, in that denomination. I left Tom on the advice of those two men. I stood there in my, I moved to Washington, D.C. and back to where Tom had gone to seminary in Virginia, in Arlington, Virginia. And I shook my fist at God and I said, to hell with you, God. I'll see you around town. I'm going to find someone to love me. Now, later, studying Ephesians, I would discover that before the, this is the foundation of the world, before the foundation of the world, I just wanted you to know what it looked like since you've had all this creation stuff, but before the foundation of the world, that God had said to heaven with you, Kay. And he could say to heaven with you, Kay, because he planned before the foundation of the world to send his son to hell for me, that he, Jesus, who knew no sin would be made sin for me, that I might be made the righteousness of God in him. I walked away. I became what I thought I would never become. The Bible says the heathen have sunk down into a pit that they have dug with their own hands. And what happened was this, was I became, yeah, there is somebody on the cameras. I didn't know if it was automatic, but what the Bible said, I like to see your faces and pat you. And the Bible says this, that the heathen are sunk down in a pit that they have dug with their own hands. And I went deeper and deeper into sin, becoming this immoral woman, going from man to man, to man, looking for someone to love me. Until July 16th, 1963, I was working on a research team at Johns Hopkins. And that morning I got up and I was so sick. And I called the doctor and I said, I can't come to work. I am so sick. And I thought, I am so sick because I have a sickness that you can't heal because it's not physical. And I said, I won't be in and I'll see you on Monday. And I was baking a cake and my son Mark was hanging onto my skirt. And he's my second son. And so hungry for my love and my attention. And I was so hungry for the love and attention of a man. And so anyway, I, all of a sudden I looked at him and I ran upstairs and I said, honey, mommy's got to be by herself. Will you let me be alone for just a minute? And so I ran upstairs and fell down on my knees and I said, God, you can do anything you want with me. Now the night before at a party, a man said to me, why don't you quit telling God what you want and tell him that Jesus Christ is all you need. And I thought you are so crass to talk about God at a party. And I threw my mink over the show over my shoulder. And I thought, I, I, and I told him, I said, God is not all I need. I need a husband. I need this. I need that. Goodbye. I'm going home. July 16th. I said, God, you can do anything you want with me. I don't care if I never see another man as long as I live. I don't care if you paralyzed me from the neck down. I don't care what you do to my two boys. There were three worst things I could think of that could happen to me. I said, if you'll just give me peace. And there on my knees, he gave me the prince of peace, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, come now and let us reason together though your sins be as scarlet, yet show you be as white as snow. And later on, I was reading and I was in Romans and I came across this verse and it was in the Phillips translation and it says, and he called her beloved when there was nothing lovely about her. I was absolutely transformed. I was so hungry for the word of God that I would prop it on the steering wheel and my lap as I drove to work. And I don't advise that, but anyway, and, and I would read it. And I remember when I came across second Corinthians five 17, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. And I thought, God, you put that in the Bible to describe me. And, and, and I, I didn't know it was for everybody, but I knew I was so changed anyway, to make a long story, a long story short, I wanted to be a woman of God. I wanted to be obedient to God. I wanted to be pleasing to God. Paul says that his ambition was in second Corinthians five nine, whether in the body or out of the body to be pleasing to him. We were created for his pleasure as revelation tells us. And so I wanted to be pleasing to him. So I said, I don't love Tom, but you changed me. You can change Tom and I'll go back to him. Now, what you have to understand is that before I came to know Christ. And in that day, my husband would call and he would threaten to kill himself. And I would say, we'll do a good job. So I get your money, which is awful. I mean, just absolutely awful. But in those days you bluffed them out of them, or you made them mad. You know, it was man's philosophy instead of what God says. And the Bible says that the tongue is a little member and it set on fire of hell and it can change the course of a person's life. One day I got a phone call and it was my father-in-law and he said, Kay, Tom is dead. He's hung himself. My husband was 31 years old. And you know, I ran upstairs and I fell down beside my bed and I picked up the phone to call my pastor and I could not get him. And I'm so thankful. And I hung up the phone and I cried to the great shepherd of the sheep. And I said, Oh father. And he brought to my mind, now listen carefully, three scriptures. Three scriptures he brought to my mind. In every, I didn't know where they were. I was a new Christian. In everything give thanks. This is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. First Corinthians 10 13, there is no temptation, trial, or testing. The word is periosmos and it means all those things taken you, but such as common demand. God is faithful and he will not permit you to be tried or tested or tempted above what you're able to bear, but he will make a way of escape. And the third one was, we know that, and I didn't know the tense of the verb and I didn't know what no, the Greek word for no and that, but we know that God, and in the Greek it's keeps on causing all things to work together for good to those that love God, to those that are called according to his purpose, for whom he foreknew he predestined, he marked out beforehand to become conformed to the image of his son. Well, that's enough of my testimony, just so that you know where I've come from. But since I've been saved, I've been in the word of God. And since I've been saved, I have a hunger for the word of God. And I just want to tell you that if you don't have any hunger for the word of God, or there's no conviction in your heart about not being in the word of God, I would, if I were you, I would go back and examine myself as first second Corinthians 13 says, and see if I'm really in the faith. Because when Christ comes in, the Holy Spirit comes in, he becomes your teacher. He gives you the mind of Christ and he puts within us a hunger and a thirst for righteousness. And so I would just examine myself. Now I'm telling you all that to tell you that May 28th of this year, I got a phone call and I can't go into the details simply because I don't want to in the time that we have. But I got a phone call that my son, our second son, that Mark that was hanging onto my skirt, who was our COO of our ministry, our ministries in 125 countries in 65 languages. It's, it's, it's, you know, and he works right under his father and myself, my husband and I, my husband's the president, and, and we're co CEOs. And so anyway, I got home from Israel, and three days and he had been vomiting and he didn't feel well and he hasn't slept. And I sent him home and I said, we'll talk later. You get some rest and then we'll talk. Well, I got a phone call May 28th and they had taken him to the hospital. I ran to the hospital with my husband and the doctor said, lady, I don't know if he's going to make it or not. Lady, this is very, very great lady. I want you to understand. I've got to get your son to surgery immediately and he could die. And I said, because I know the sovereignty of God and I want you to know, I don't know all 66 books, but I intend to, as long as God gives me breath, press on to that, knowing all 66 books. I mean, really studying them inductively. But I said, God, if my son cannot be a value to the kingdom of God, and he's just turning 48, if he cannot take him home, but if he can, if he can be used of you to further your kingdom, then I'm asking you to spare him. I went through that. My mother's dying. My husband is, is, is 80. He's going through something. We can't figure out what's wrong with him. He gets so weak. It's awful. And all of these things. And I want you to know this. I know the book and I know the God of the book. And I have been able to live as more than a conquer. I determined, God, I have known, I have studied your work. I know that it's true. And I know you and Daniel 11 32 B says the people who know their God can stand firm. They can take action. And God, I am going to live by everything I know from this book, everything I know about your character. I'm going to count it all joy and everything I'm going to give. Thanks. I'm going to bring every thought captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ. And, and I am going to be everything you want me to be in this trial. And I want you to know that it is the word of God, because the word of God tells me of the character of God and the attributes of God and the ways of God. It is the word of God that has held me. I know my God and God intends for us to so know him that no matter what happens, we can live as more than conquers through him and know that his power is perfected in our weakness. And we can glory in our infirmities and our necessities and our reproaches, et cetera. For when I am weak, then I am what strong because I'm leaning on him now in the light of that testimony. And just so that you know me and just so that you know this, that I am, uh, I am, uh, dyslexic. Uh, I am, I have no education. I mean, I'm a nurse, but I don't have any degrees, but I do have a temperature. Okay. And, and, and that, but I am not naturally intelligent. I mean, Chuck just goes over my head and, and I, unless we're Bible. I mean, if we're right in the Bible, I'm okay, but all this other stuff, he just blows my mind. But anyway, I, I am not naturally intelligent. And, and a friend of mine says, I want you to stop saying that because you are. And I said, I'm really not. She says, you're being a hypocrite. Yes, you are. And so she gave me an intelligence test and she says, nevermind, you can tell him. So what I want to say to you is any old Bush can study the word of God. Any old Bush will do to set on fire with the fire of God. I want you to open your Bibles to Hosea. Hosea is in the minor prophets. And I just usually pray and hope I'll find him in a hurry. And we're going to look at just a couple verses in Hosea. And, but I want you to, to understand just the setting of Hosea. It's always important to look at the scripture in context. Context is that which goes with the text con text. You look at the context, you look at the historical context, and you look at the biblical context. And as we look at Hosea, it's important. If the book tells you why it was written to understand why this prophecy from God through Hosea, Hosea chapter one, the word of the Lord, which came to Hosea, the son of Barai during the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. And during the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. So what he's doing us is he is giving us in the very beginning, the historical setting of the book. Now the historical setting is to put you into context. He's putting you into context so that you will know who the kings are that were reigning in the Northern kingdom and in the Southern kingdom at that time. So one of the things that you might want to write down as you study is that you want to understand context. You want to understand the historical context. You want to understand the grammatical context and the textual context. Okay? So this is the historical context. Verse two, when the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, go and take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry for why am, why is Hosea to do this? He says, for I've got a purpose in this for the land commits flagrant harlotry forsaking the Lord. And he says, this is why I want you to do this because the land, the land, what land, the land of Israel is committing flagrant harlotry, flagrant harlotry. How are they committing flagrant harlotry? Look at your Bible. Did you not bring your Bible? If I'm ever teaching, you always need a Bible. All right. Because why Lord, because they're forsaking, this is my brother and get close to him and hug him. All right. And because they're forsaking the Lord. All right. So this is the message. Now, if we would go into it, what we would see in chapter one, chapter two, and chapter three, we would see Hosea being married to Gomer and the children that they're having and how he sends her away and how he brings her back. So this is the first part of the book of Hosea. Then he turns from this physical illustration of Hosea and Gomer to chapter four. Now, this is what I want you to do. I want you to take your paper now. And I'm going to just tell you that inductive study, as I see it and understand it, has basically three parts to it. OK. Inductive study begins with observation. Observation is discovering what does it say? OK, so it begins with observation. So many times we open the Bible, we read it and we want to know what does it mean? And the way you're going to find out what does it mean is to find out what does it say? And so we jump to interpretation. We read it. We can't figure out what it says. So we go to a commentary. But if you go to a commentary now, watch what's happening. You're getting man's interpretation of the text. It may be right. It may be wrong. You don't know. You don't know if you don't know the text yourself. So observation is discovering what does it say? OK, now I want to ask you, how game are you? Will you will you cooperate? Will you make me happy? OK. All right. If you'll make me happy, this is what I want you to do. The first point of Bible study is or the first step in Bible study is observation. All right. And observation. Put your hands up here like you got glasses on. Observation is finding out what does it say? OK, so let's do it. Observation. What does it say? All right. So that's the first. The second part in all of this weaves in together. But the second part is interpretation. Interpretation is duh. What does it mean? OK, interpretation is what does it mean? What does it mean? OK, so the first skill of Bible study is what? Let's do it. Observation. What does it say? The second one is interpretation. What does it mean? All right. Now I'm finding out what it says. I'm finding out what it means. But there's more to Bible study than that, because I need to know how I am to live in the light of it. So the third part of it, of Bible study is application, application. And if you do, you remember Jackie Gleason, any of you old enough or you've seen it on Nick at night or something? He was that great big man. And it's a and a way we go. All right. So application is I've observed it. What does it say? I've interpreted. I know what it means. So now it's a way we go. It's application is how am I going to live? How am I going to walk? But it's also something else. And see, we are so quick. We want to read the Bible, apply it and get rid of our problem before we ever understand what it's saying or what it means. But application is not just doing something. Application is also sometimes changing your mind, because let's say I wish I wish Bill had asked me to teach on prophecy. I love it. And I've written inductive study courses on Daniel and revelation and and and that and they're inductive so that you will know whatever you hear from anyone else on revelation, whether they're right or wrong, simply because you what observe the text and find out what what does it say? What does it mean? And then sometimes you have to go. You have to change your mind because you see, oh, I thought the wrong thing. So application is either got it. Can you do it? Don't spit on the person next to you. Okay. It's either changing your mind or what? Applying it, living it out. All right. So application, let's say it. Application is how am I to believe and think? Can you do that? Good. That's application. Now, I want to commend you. I want to commend you because I want to tell you something in a learning device. The minute that you do something, the more you use your senses when you're studying, the more you will remember it. I was teaching and let's see where I was. I was in Japan and I was teaching. Afterwards, I was teaching how to say the Bible. This Japanese woman came up. She wanted to eat with me. She told me this. She didn't speak English. I didn't speak Japanese. I could just say hello and goodbye. And and so we were sitting there trying to talk with our hands and all of this and that. And our time was up. She says, I go. I got it. I knew what she was going to do. She was going to observe and she was going, she was going to observe. She was going to interpret and she was going to apply. Where does all this lead? Observation, interpretation, what application leads to transformation. Okay. So it all leads to transformation. Now they told me you've got to stop doing that now that you're older, because when you pull it down, it takes too long for it to get back up. When you observe the text, you want to ask the five W's and an H. You want to write it down unless you know them already. The five W's and an H are who and what and when and where and why and how. This is observation. Who was speaking to whom? Who was doing this? Who were they talking about? You want to find out the who's the people. And this is the place where you start in observation. You start with the obvious. You start with that, which is easiest to see. And people are the easiest things to see. So you want to find out the who, then you want to find out the what, what is happening? What event is taking place? What is being said? Right? What is going on? So you ask who, what, when? Does it tell me when? One of the things when you study Matthew chapter 24, if you mark the then and the then and the then, then you'll see in Matthew 24, the rapture's not there. And yet it was taught for years and years that the rapture is in Matthew chapter 24. It's not, it's not that there's not a rapture, but it's not in Matthew 24, but you've got to find, follow the time freezes or if it is, we don't get raptured, you know? So you've got to mark your thens and your wins and, and the years. Okay. So you do who, let's say it together. Who, what, when? Now, what I do is when I come to a, when I have my own little symbol, I draw a circle for a clock. I know we're in digital age, but I make a little clock and I put two little feet on it and the dinger on top. And that's my mark for a time phrase. So I mark time phrases. So I want to look at who, I want to look at what, I want to look at tick, tick, tick, tick, when, and I want to look at where. Now, when I come to a where in my Bible, I double underline it in green. So anytime I'm reading, I come to a geographical location and I double underline it in green. I choose green because the grass is green. Okay. So I'm going to ask the five W's and a what? H. What are they? Who, what, when, where, and why? Why was this said? Why was this done? Why was Hosea to go marry Gomer? Why was he to take, it doesn't say Gomer in that verse, why was he to take a wife of harlotry? You tell me. Why? You just read it. For the land commits what? Flagrant harlotry. So you're to come go take a wife of harlotry because the land is committing harlotry. Now the land, what land is he? I don't like you. No, that's fine. He's given. He's my time, man. Okay. So the, I do like you. I just don't like what you're about. Okay. All right. So I mark the land. Now let me tell you a secret. If you will start in Genesis and when you come to every reference to the land that God promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as an everlasting possession, and you will double underline it, which is what I do to any geographical reference, but because blue is Israel's color, I color it blue. Then you will understand all about the land and you will understand that that land over there does not belong to the Palestinians. It is God's and he has given it to Israel as a permanent possession. Okay. By covenant. And you will understand that. So anybody that comes along and tells you God's through with Israel and all of that, you can just flip open the book and you can find it immediately. And you say, what does this first mean? What does this first mean? What does this first mean? Observe it. Tell me, what does it say? Oh, guess what? It means what it says. So you mark the, you mark the who, the what, the when, the where, the why, and the what, how, how is this going to happen? How is the rapture going to happen? He tells you very clearly how and what's going to happen to our bodies, et cetera. So if you will learn to ask those questions right now, in the light of that, we're going to get to Hosea. And as we get to Hosea chapter four, and we're just going to look at several verses, I want you to mark the word, any reference, any geographical reference. Okay. I want you to double underline it. Okay. And if there is any time phrase, you're going to shout time. Otherwise, this is what I want you to do. I want you to mark the word knowledge. Okay. And this is the way I want you to market just because I have to do it in a hurry. I color it green, but I want you to put a box around it. Okay. And when I come to knowledge, I want you to say knowledge out loud. So I know that you're putting a box around it. Chapter four, verse one, listen to the word of the Lord. Oh, sons of who Israel to whom is he speaking? He's speaking to Israel. Who is speaking? God is speaking. All right. He says, for the Lord has a case against the inhabitants of what the land, what land, the land of Israel. So double underline it the land there. All right. So he's saying, listen, God is speaking to the word of the Lord. Oh, sons of Israel. Why, why see the why, why is he saying, listen, for the Lord has a, what a case against the sons of Israel, the inhabitants of the land, excuse me. Why? Because there is no, what faithfulness or what kindness or what knowledge of whom God where in the land double underline in the land. All right. Now, what have you learned here? What have you observed? He has a case against him. Why does he have a case against him? You tell me why. All right. Because there's what? No faithfulness. There's no kindness or there's no, what knowledge of God in the land. So how many reasons does he have right here? Or does he give three? So that's right. So you mark it one, two, and three. So when you find a list many times in my Bible, I mark it. God doesn't want you to miss a thing. Every word is God breathe. All right. So there's no knowledge of God. So I want you to mark the word knowledge because it's a key repeated word. And you wouldn't know that until you read it, but I'm telling you ahead of time. All right. There is what is there swearing? You read it deception, murder, stealing, and adultery. Oh, does that sound like any other society? You know, how about America? How about America? Okay. So God has a case because there's no, what there's no, what faithfulness kindness or what knowledge of whom God where in the land, but there is what swearing deception, murder, stealing, and adultery. They employ violence. So that bloodshed follows bloodshed kind of describes us too. Doesn't it? Therefore, when you see a, therefore, find out what the therefore is. Therefore. Okay. A therefore is a term of conclusion. Therefore it says everyone who lives in what it. So is it the land? Yes. Did you double underline it? All right. Did you double underline it in the beginning of verse three? Therefore, what mourns the land mourns everyone in it languishes. Languages means they waste away along with the beast of the field, the birds of the sky, and also the fish of the sea disappear. Now I'm dropping down because of time, because they won't give me six hours to teach you this. Okay. No, I'm kidding. All right. Verse six, but it says my people are destroyed for what a lack of knowledge they're destroyed for a lack of knowledge because you have rejected what knowledge I also, who was speaking God will reject you from being what my priest, hang on, read the rest of the verse. I have to turn the page since you have forgotten the law of your God. I also will what? Oh, wow. Oh, wow. What's the problem? What's the problem in Israel? Just according to the verses that we have marked, we know there's no faithfulness. We know there's no what kind kindness, which is loving kindness. It's hesed in the Hebrew and there's no what knowledge. And so what's happening because there's no knowledge. Look at verse six, my people are being destroyed. That Hebrew word means they're being ruined because of what a lack of knowledge. Why do they have a lack of knowledge? Because no one's taught them. Right? No, you're wrong. Look at the text. They have what rejected knowledge. And because they've rejected knowledge, what's God going to do? He's going to reject them from being his what from being his note. Did it say his children know from being his priest? See, this is why you observe the text, because many times what we do is we take our theology, so to speak, and we put it into the text and the text didn't say that. And remember, we're going to what observe the text. We're going to see what God says. And you got to observe accurately. Observation is the foundation for all solid interpretation. OK, it's the foundation. And so what you see is not only is he rejecting them from being the priest, but what's happening to their children? Yes, I mean, the children, he says, because you've forgotten the law of God, I'm going to what forget your children just so that you would get a heads up on what has happened in the United States of America. It says is a biblical worldview the basis of your decision making. In other words, you have to make a decision when my son, when I was told this about my son, when I've had to do all these things, I've had to make decisions. Is a biblical worldview, a biblical worldview means that you view everything in this world through the word of God. You bring everything up against the plumb line of God's word. And if anybody says anything and it doesn't match what God says, and by the way, it says that God created the heavens and the earth. So you bring if they say no, you bring it up against the word of God and you say that's what God says. And you don't have to be a rocket scientist. You don't have to understand all these things. You just take God at his word. And so you look at this and this is what they said. Only seven percent of evangelical Protestants have a biblical worldview. Only two percent of mainline Protestants have a biblical worldview. 0.5 percent of Catholics have a biblical worldview. They asked the question, and this is in 2003, is the biblical worldview the basis of your decision making? 13 percent of the non-denominational Protestant Christians said yes. 10 percent of the Pentecostals said yes and 8 percent of the Baptists say yes. But they asked pastors, only 51 percent of senior pastors in American Protestant churches have a biblical worldview. Seminary graduates are less likely to have a biblical worldview. Seminary graduates, because they go into the higher criticism. All right. Now, God's people are perishing. You tell me why? For a lack of knowledge. And that lack of knowledge has caused him to reject them from being there for his priests. And because they've forgotten the law, then their children are out in the cold. Now, I want to ask you a question. We've observed the text, not as deep as I want to go, but we've seen who's speaking, who's speaking God to whom is he speaking to Israel? And what is he saying? He has a case against them. Why? There's no what? There's no faithfulness. There's no kindness. There's no knowledge of God and the land. Instead, there is what? Swearing and murder and all those things. Therefore, his people are being destroyed for a lack of what? Knowledge. I want to tell you something. The United States of America has more Bible in all forms and this and conferences and television and radio than any other nation on the face of this earth. And yet we, we are so entangled with the affairs of this life that we don't have time to study the word of God. We are a biblically ignorant people. If you pull the church and we are biblically ignorant because we are not studying God's word. I want you to go to second Kings chapter 22, which is next on your on your list. Okay. Second Kings chapter 22. He says, I have to give you a break. If we were, if we were in Russia or China or Uzbekistan or that you would kill me if I gave you a break because you would be so hungry for the word of God that you would want me to teach you all night. Okay. Second Kings chapter 22 on that note. All right. So I'm going to be obedient to my superior and under authority as a woman under a man take note and give you a break, but in five minutes. Okay. Second Kings chapter 22. We're going to observe this chapter. Okay. We're not going to observe it in terribly great depth, but we're going to observe it. All right. We're going to ask the five W's and a what H what are they? Who, what, when, where, why, and how we're going to Mark any reference to time. And we're going to Mark any, any geographical location. Okay. We're going to double underline geographical locations. We're going to put a circle around time. Okay. Chapter 22, verse one, Josiah was eight years old. What do you, what are you going to Mark there? Time, time. We're not going to Mark Josiah right now. Okay. Josiah was eight years old. So circle either eight or years or old, it doesn't matter. Just mark it. He was eight years old when he became King. He reigned 31 years time. Good. Where in Jerusalem double underline. All right. Now, when you're studying the word of God, it's important. And we show you this to know, okay. The Southern the history, the Northern kingdom, the Southern kingdom at this point, the Northern kingdom has gone into captivity. Okay. So all we have left is the Southern kingdom. The Southern kingdom of Israel is made up of two tribes, Judah and Benjamin. Okay. Their headquarters, their capital is Jerusalem. What's in Jerusalem. That's so significant. The temple. Okay. Now he reigned 31 years in Jerusalem and his mother's name was Jedidiah, the daughter of, and you have to remember I'm dyslexic and, and my mother thought I'd never learned to read and I wasn't hooked on phonics. Okay. And his mother's name was Jedidiah, the son of Adiah of Boscoff. Okay. Now what has God done at this point? He's put us into historical context, right? We know who's King. We know where he's reigning. We know how long he reigned, right? We know how old he was when he became King. How old was he? Doesn't that make you shudder? How would you like to have an eight-year-old as your King? Okay. Verse two, he did right in the sight of the Lord. And he walked in all the way of his father David, nor did he turn aside to the right or to the left. What does he tell you in that second verse about this King? Now, did you catch my question? What does he tell you? He tells you what kind of a man he was, what kind of a King, what kind of a King was he? He did right, which was in the sight of whom side of the Lord. So you can do right in the side of the people, but it's right in the sight of the Lord. Who is he related to? David. It says his father, David. But if you would read this, you would find that his father wasn't David. His father was Ammon, who only lived two years. I mean, I'm sorry, who only reigned two years. It'd be a feat to live two years and have a son, wouldn't it? But anyway, so he only reigned two years. His grandfather was Manasseh, and Manasseh did more evil than any other King. So why is he saying his father David? Because he's jumping over Ammon, who was a terrible, and he's jumping over Manasseh, who was terrible, and he's taking you back and letting you know that this King is from the line of David, David, his father, David. And it says, what do you learn about David? Just from this verse, just from this verse. He did right in the what? Side of the Lord, and he walked in all the way of his father, David. He's holding up David to us. Now, studying David is awesome, awesome thing, but we don't have time. All right, verse three. Now in the what? 18th year. Time, good. The 18th year of whom? King Josiah. The king sent Shaphan, the son of Azaliah, the son of Meshulam, the scribe to the house of the Lord. I dread saying this and reading all this in the presence of Geno. He can even laugh in dialect. He can laugh as a Japanese. He can laugh as a Eurasian. I mean, he's brilliant. So, so ask him how to pronounce these names, okay? All right, so what did we just do in between verse two and verse three? We went from his what? He was eight years old when he became king, and we went to the what? 18th year. All right, so he was eight when he was king. How old is he in his 20 in his 18th year? Whoops. Almost told you he's what? 26. You're observing the text. You're finding out what you can about King Josiah. Who is he? What is he like? So in my Bible, I have written, he is 26. Now, because I have an inductive study Bible, it tells me in the margin that chapter 22 verse one starts in 640 BC. In 640 BC, he's eight years old. Okay, he begins to reign. All right, so then I do my math, and I find out in verse three that it is 622 BC when he's in his 18th year. Now, chronology, you give or take a year or so. I mean, it depends on whose method of chronology you find. Well, that's chronology, and the clock, the chrono, the clock says that it's time to give you a break. This has been How to Study Your Bible, Part One, presented by K. Arthur. To receive a free catalog of all of our Bible study DVDs, CDs, audio tapes, and books, information on upcoming Bible conferences in your area, or details of our missionary outreach, call 800-977-2177 24 hours a day, or on the web at compass.org.