The Bible Summarized
Now
we know we all should find time to read the Bible. Some may believe they
are too busy to read the Bible. In the interest of saving you a lot of time
and convincing you that you should read the Bible, here below is an outline of
many of the important Bible teachings. In about ten minutes you will have
a preview of the entire Bible. You can read the Bible in a little more
than eighty (80) hours. If you read every day that is less than fifteen minutes
a day to read the Bible in a year. The Bible, in summary, follows.
Creation: The Bible begins with God’s beautiful story
of the creation of the universe but focuses on Earth’s creation, under a canopy
of water. It narrates God’s relationship with man and woman. Man and
woman are created perfect and without sin. They unfortunately listen to the
creature or creation of God, who lied to them in Eden. They took fruit off of the only
tree forbidden to them. Sin entered the world and death by sin.
Death passed on all men, for that all have sinned. Since death did not
come into the world until the fall of man and sin and there can be no death
before sin. This rules out Theistic evolutionists and those who call
themselves “progressive creationists,” or who hold to the “day age”
theory or the great “gap theory.” All of these fail since they all claim death
came before ‘the first man Adam’ (I Corinthians 15:45). There was no
death until the first sin. There was no sin until Adam and Eve sinned by
listening to the creation instead of the Creator in the Garden of Eden.
Adam & three deaths of man: This sin of man
caused man to be separated from God. Once man is separated from God, man
is separated from the source of eternal life. Man has experienced
“Spiritual death.” Without the source of eternal life, man will no longer live for ever. Thus because of the separation from God, the Source of Eternal Life, physical death follows the Spiritual death and enters the world. Finally, if one isn’t “hooked back up” to the Source of Eternal Life before he experiences physical death, he will experience eternal death in the lake of fire (Revelation 20 and 21).
The Bible, after the sin in Eden, tells of God’s attempted
reconciliation with sinful, rebellious man. Why did God try to reconcile?
So man would not have to experience eternal death in the lake of fire.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, through
Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23)
Noah: God selected certain men to use them in His overall
purposes, based upon God’s foreknowledge of them. After about seventeen
hundred (1700) years, when the whole world was full of sin, God purposed to
destroy the world by ‘the’ flood. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. God
used faithful Noah to save those in whom was the breath of life: animal and
human life, on the ark. They were saved from the total devastation of the
world wide flood. Noah obeyed God and built an ark. This saved Noah
and his family. No other human joined Noah’s family. No one else on
Earth survived.
After the flood, man came off the ark and began repopulation
of the world. Man began to sin almost immediately again. (We never
seem to learn.) Then man wanted to build a tower so high that he could
survive a flood and God’s wrath. All me spoke the same language. But God
confused their languages, and people separated into language groups.
ABRAHAM After the tower
of Babel and scattering
of men, God chose Abram, whom He later renamed Abraham. Abram was God’s
choice to be founder of the people of God (nation of Israel).
Abraham, Isaac & Jacob: God took Abraham, at
age 99, with a wife whose womb was long past child bearing and produced a
miracle son. His name is Isaac. When Isaac was age 60, God gave to Isaac
twin boys, Esau and Jacob. Jacob was renamed by God: to Israel.
This was after Jacob married two Syrian women, Leah and Rachel. By them
and their hand maids, (four women) he became the father of twelve sons and one
daughter. These boys became the founders of the twelve family tribes of
the nation Israel.
Jacob of Israel had a favorite son, named Joseph. Joseph, the son of Jacob-Israel, was sold by
his older half brothers into slavery in Egypt. In Egypt, Potiphar’s
wife falsely accused Joseph. Joseph is thrown into prison (the royal
guard house).
Joseph and Egypt:
God allowed these evil events in Joseph’s life to place Joseph before
Pharaoh. God gave Pharaoh a troubling dream. God gave Joseph the
interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream which was a severe famine to come.
Pharaoh placed Joseph second in command of Egypt. There was, as foretold
by God, at least a region wide great famine, of which Pharaoh had been
forewarned in the dream which was interpreted by God using Joseph. Joseph was
able to preserve his father’s family (Israel)
and to bring them into Egypt
and sustain them. Later, Joseph died. There arose Pharaohs who did
not remember Joseph or what he had done for Egypt. These Pharaohs put the
children of Israel
(Joseph’s brethren) into slavery.
MOSES: Set MY people free: The
Israelites cried out to God. God heard them and raised up Moses to
deliver them. Moses had been adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter, when Pharaoh
was ordering the death of all Hebrew males. At age 40, Moses tried,
in his own strength and ability, to deliver the people. Moses
murdered an Egyptian man in the defense of an Israelite. Moses had to
flee to Midian. He married the priest of Midian’s daughter and tended
sheep for 40 years. At age 80, God called Moses to be used of God as
deliverer. God then delivered His people by Moses with ten miraculous
wonders; the last was the death of the first born of all children and animals
in the land of Egypt on the first Passover. Egypt then
allowed the Israelite people to depart. Shortly after, Pharaoh pursued and
trapped Israel against the Red Sea. God parted the Red Sea for Israel.
God delivered them across the Red Sea on dry
ground. When Pharaoh chased after them into the same sea, Pharaoh and his
army was drowned.
The wilderness: More than six hundred thousand (600,000) men of war, age
20 years old and upward, able to go to war were numbered (603,550 - Numbers
1:46). In addition to the men of war, were the wives, children and elders,
together with flocks and herds. All these went into the wilderness. God
fed the people with manna from heaven
for forty (40) years. God supplied water for them and their flocks.
God gave Israel The Ten Commandments by which to live. God taught Israel and
forgave them over and over. God set apart, as His high priest, Aaron the
Levite and his sons. God allowed Moses to build a tabernacle, a place for
man to meet with God. Aaron had sinned and he died without going
into the Promised Land, as did all of the generation of those who did not
believe God could give them victory over the inhabitants of the Promised Land.
Finally, after he went to the top of the mountain and viewed the Promised Land,
Moses died without going into the Promised Land.
Promised Land: God dried up the Jordan River to
show that God was using Joshua to lead His people across Jordan into the Promised Land.
God used to Joshua to capture Jericho, Ai and
all the city kingdoms of the land
of Canaan. God kept
His word. Israel
possessed the land. The people did not fully obey God. Next Joshua and the
elders of his generation died. Then the people began to do what seemed
right in their own eyes.
Time of Judges: When sin abounded, God allowed the
enemies of Israel
to prevail and take them into captivity. When they cried out to God, God
delivered Israel.
This happened over and over during the time of Judges, until the days of Samuel,
the last Judge. Then the Lord gave them the king they wanted (Saul) so they
could be like “the other nations.” They wanted to be just like the world.
Saul, David, Solomon: Israel was given handsome, tall
Saul. Saul turned from God and failed to fully obey God, so God took from
Saul the kingdom. David was anointed king long before Saul died. David
was loyal to Saul as God’s anointed. David became king after Saul’s
death. Although David also sinned, when David was confronted, he
repented. David was a man “after God’s own heart.” David believed
God could do anything. David’s son, Solomon, reigned next and God allowed
him to build the first great Temple to God in Jerusalem. God gave
Solomon wisdom. Solomon reigned over a national, strong, world
power. But Solomon took hundreds of wives and multiplied unto himself,
horses and chariots, and gold, this had been forbidden by God. Because of
Solomon’s sin, God split the kingdom in two parts.
Divided kingdom: The northern ten tribes departed from Solomon’s
son Rehoboam. (David and Solomon’s offspring ruled over only the two
tribes of the south). The northern kingdom never again worshiped God in
the Temple at Jerusalem. They sinned by worshiping
golden calves in Samaria.
The nation never repented and returned to God. Thus, after a long period
of sin, the northern kingdom was taken into captivity in Assyria. The
southern kingdom did not learn from the northern kingdom’s going into
captivity, for not repenting. The failure of the southern kingdom to
repent of sin led them into captivity into Babylon.
Captivity: Jeremiah and Isaiah both foretold
of the captivity and of the seventy-year period. Daniel was the
great prophet and a political figure during the period of captivity.
Ezekiel played an important role as a prophet. But after the seventy-year
period of southern kingdom captivity, God had raised up Cyrus of Persia to be
His fulfiller of the word of Jeremiah the prophet. In the first year of
his reign Cyrus had captured all of Babylon’s
power and had taken over that empire’s control.
Return: Cyrus, who had been foretold by God, by name,
hundreds of years earlier, through Isaiah, sent the Israelites back to the city
of Jerusalem.
The second temple was built by Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah, as Israel returned
from the captivity. Daniel is told by God in a dream of all the future
kingdoms who will rule the world or be the powers. As predicted these powers
rule. Without names being given historians agree that the Selucian kings, Cleopatra,
Alexander of Greece and the Roman Empire are
clearly distinguishable.
Silence: There is much history of the land of Israel
and the Middle East. Persia gives
place to the Phoenician. The Greeks defeated the Phoenicians; then later
the Greece
falls to the Romans. But from God (Biblically) there is a period of
silence. The last great prophets were Haggai, Zachariah, and Malachi. God did not raise up any great prophets for four
(400) hundred years. Malachi spoke of a future prophetic voice that would
prepare the way for the Messiah of Israel.
Messiah (Jesus):
After the period of silence, God sent arch angel Gabriel to a priest in
the temple to tell of the birth of the prophet John and to a virgin in Nazareth. Gabriel
announced to the priest in the Temple
the birth of a prophet, the first in the time of Jesus. John the Baptist
was born to the priest and his wife of she had been called barren. Gabriel had also gone to the virgin Mary
(Miriam), a Jewish girl. Gabriel told her God had selected her to be the
birth mother to Messiah: God (poured into flesh) of a man. His Name was
to be called Jesus as He would “save His people from their sins.” Mary
questioned how this could be as she was a physical virgin. This Child was to be
born of her, but was conceived of the Holy Ghost.
Life, Death, Resurrection, Holy Spirit: Then came the
birth and sinless life of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus was born
in Bethlehem to
a virgin mother. Jesus was Lord from His birth. HE was the Lamb of
God to take away the sin of the world. He was Savior of the world.
Jesus did not sin. Father God used His Son Jesus to do many signs and
wonders. Jesus was ‘the second Adam.’ Adam had sinned, saying (by
his actions) not God’s will, but Adam or man’s will was done. Jesus
surrendered in the Garden
of Gethsemane to go to
the death on the cross. Jesus said to God the Father, “not My will, but
Thine be done.” Jesus then allowed Himself to be crucified under Pontius
Pilate. Jesus was crucified, died and He was buried. The third day
He arose from the dead. He was seen by several hundred people after He
had risen from the dead. JESUS is the only person to be raised physically
from the dead to eternal life to never die again. No other founder of a
religion makes this claim. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all wrote of His
life, death and resurrection. WHY did Jesus die on the cross? Each man
has sinned. With that first real sin, each man earned for himself eternal
death, the second death in the lake of fire. God loves each one. God allowed
Jesus to come and pay the eternal death penalty that each one of us owes. THE
MOMENT HE DIED your eternal death penalty was paid. Now you can go avoid the
lake of fire and eternal death if you accept Jesus and His death in your place.
You turn form sin to Jesus. You ask Him to come into your heart and life and
you will escape the penalty of eternal death in the lake of fire. To prove HE
had the authority to do this for you, Jesus rose from the dead on the third
day. He was seen of many alive again
from the dead. Then, as His disciples watched, Jesus ascended into
heaven. Jesus had told His disciples to pray in the Name of Jesus,
according to God’s will, nothing doubting and they would receive those things
they asked of God the Father. God the Father now sent God the Holy Spirit
to dwell in all who believe.
Acts of Apostles: The Bible then reports the spread of the good
news that Jesus had arisen from the dead and was Lord. Peter, Paul.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Barnabas, Silas, Apollos and others preached the
gospel throughout the then known world. Finally, John the beloved was
given a Revelation.
Revelation: Jesus appeared the last time on Earth to John in
bodily form and John fell at the feet of Jesus as if dead. Jesus told him to
write to the seven churches in Asia minor (much of the area of Turkey
in the 20th -21st century. Jesus instructed them on how
to live. Then Jesus told of the time of Tribulation to come on this world. We
need to avoid that time. We are told. Jesus is coming again to receive those
who have reconciled to the Father. (Jesus had said “I Am the Way, the Truth and
the Life, no man comes to the Father, but by Me.”) Those who die shall be
judged based upon their acceptance or rejection of His death for their
sin. Those who die, without having received Jesus into their heart and
life as Savior and Lord, will have (by their action and neglect) chosen the
lake of fire that burns forever and ever. Those whose names are written
in the book of life, shall never die, but shall be with God in heaven for
eternity. It is your choice.
Coming Again: Jesus came the first time, exactly as the
Bible predicted. The Bible says Jesus is coming again with Glory to rule
and reign on the Earth for a thousand years. The evil one (satan, the
devil) and his forces will be defeated and bound for that thousand years in the
pit. Then after the thousand years they will come out for the final test.
Then comes that final resurrection and the heavenly eternal time. Time as
we know it shall be no more. Those who have received Jesus as Lord will be with
Him forever in heaven. It is appointed unto every man once to die and
after this the judgment. If you have not made Jesus the Lord of your life
and reconciled back to God the Father, through Jesus, do it before you go out
and walk the streets or drive on the highways. If you die, before you
make peace, you will face a forever place of torment in a lake their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone:
which is the second death.
God loves you and has a plan for you in this life
and everlasting life in a paradise called heaven. The devil hates you and wants
you dead and in hell right now. YOU MUST
MAKE A CHOICE.
That is a short summary of the almost 1200 chapters in the Bible.
This cannot replace daily Bible reading and study, for in the Bible are the
Words of Life.
The Bible is the book of faith for the faithful
God the Father reveals Himself to us these days by the Holy Spirit. It is the
Holy Spirit’s purpose to reveal the Father, His ways and His purposes and to
testify of Jesus and lead us into all Truth. Thus, one should read the Bible
from cover to cover, or re-read it unless you memorized it all, when you went
through it for the first time ☺ (smile). You can know what is that
good, and acceptable and perfect, will of God. You can know what God
wants us to know and believe. It is all in God’s Word, the Bible.
You can not please God if you do not have faith in Him. Reading the Bible
is not enough. You must apply it to your life. You must accept its author
as God. In reading the Bible and continuing to read it from cover to
cover you will grow in strength and intimacy with God. In the Bible, God
reveals Himself, His ways and His purposes. Thus, the only way one can
KNOW God as HE reveals Himself, is to be familiar with the Bible: God’s
revelation of Himself, His ways and His purposes.
The Bible gives us a logical explanation for the existence
of the universe. The Bible states God created everything in six
days. The Bible is far more than an explanation. In the Bible is
eternal life and “the Way” to peace with God. In the Bible are answers to
questions - problems of this temporary life. If the Bible reveals
the Only Way to eternal life with God what must you do? Find that Way and
accept Him. Then you will not go to the Lake of Fire,
but you will have eternal life with God in heaven.
If you never have surrendered to Christ and accepted what He
did for you by dying for your sins in your place, you may do so now.
Repeat with me.
The Call to Peace:
Dear
Lord Jesus, I know You Love me and died to pay the death penalty my
sins had earned me. You want to cleanse me and save me from the penalty of all
sin, which is hell and the lake of fire. My sins separate me from You and Your
blessings and Your plan for me to have a wonderful life now and an eternity of
peace with You in heaven. I believe Jesus is Lord. I believe God raised Jesus
from the dead. Since I do not want to go to hell, I repent and am sorry for my
sins. I turn from sin to Jesus. Please forgive me, I ask Jesus to come
into my heart and life be my Savior and only Lord. Please change me completely,
I pray in the Name of Jesus Christ, my Lord. Amen and amen.
If you prayed that prayer and meant it sincerely from
within, you have called upon the Name of the Lord. The Bible says the
whosoever calls upon the Name of the Lord, shall be saved. (Romans 10:13)
The BIBLE
Three chapters a day keeps the devil away.
And reading of four gives peace evermore.