Looking at our world from a theological perspective, this is the Theology Central Podcast, making theology central. Good evening, everyone. It is Wednesday, March the 12th, 2025. It is currently 6.32 p.m. Central Time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now, whenever you see a Christian book being sold, a devotional Bible study guide, whenever you see any, we'll say Bible study resources, devotional resources are being sold in the Christian world, if you see on the cover, on the back, a review or anything, an advertisement for the material, if it says something like this devotional, this book, will deepen your faith. It will strengthen your faith. Does that have any impact on you at all? Do you go, you know what? I need this to deepen my faith. I want my faith to be deeper. I want my faith to be stronger. I want to grow. Is there certain words that would have an impact on you on deciding, am I going to buy this one? Or am I going to buy this one? Or does it have no impact at all? I think for many of you, you'll say, oh, it doesn't impact me in any way, shape, or form. A lot of people say advertising doesn't impact me at all. Well, if advertising did not impact you, they wouldn't spend millions of dollars advertising. So there's gotta be, there's at least enough studies to demonstrate that advertising has enough impact in some way, shape, or form to make it worth spending all the millions of dollars companies spend on advertising. I don't know if it impacts you. I think when I was a younger Christian, when I was looking, you know, especially I know it dates me back in the olden days when we went to bookstores. I would walk into a Christian bookstore and, you know, you got rows and rows and rows of stuff. Now, anything that I was like, okay, this is charismatic, this is charismatic, I didn't bother, you know, I didn't even look at it because I'm like, those people are crazy. Everything else could get my attention. And a lot of times if I saw something that, you know, oh, this will deepen your faith, this will change your understanding of scripture, this, a lot of times that would have at least some form of an impact on me. Now, if I'm being honest with you, after all of these years of being a Christian now, when I see anything, I've got a devotional guide right here, I've got study guides, I've got Christian books, I've got stuff all around me, and a lot of this will say, will strengthen your faith, will revolutionize your Christian life, will change, will help you understand a passage that you haven't been able to understand in 10 years, whatever the case may be, whatever it's promising me. If I'm being honest now, I look at all of it and I'm extremely skeptical. I'm extremely skeptical. I look at them like, whatever. Because a lot of times, the material that says, it's going to deepen my faith, it's going to give me understanding, even when pastors promote their sermon series, oh, you need to be here every week. This will transform your marriage. This will change your life. This will revolutionize your Christian life. This will help you understand this passage of Scripture that you probably have never understood. Whenever I hear any of that, to me it's nothing more than meaningless propaganda because most of the time when I buy the book or listen to the sermon series, in fact, I walk away more irritated and more frustrated because not only did it not deepen my faith, not only did it not strengthen my faith, it didn't give me a deeper understanding of the passage. In most cases, it gave me a complete wrong interpretation of it. Now, why am I asking all of these questions? Why am I talking about all of this? Well, I'm going to take you through the steps to how we end up here on this Wednesday evening, March the 12th, 2025, right? How did we get here? Well, three, four in the morning. It was somewhere around that time. There were things going on, not sleeping. And so I was like, well, let me listen to something. So I opened up the Sermons 2.0 app. And if you have the Sermons 2, well, it's not the Sermons 2.0 app anymore. It's not the Sermons 3.0 app anymore. It's the Sermons by Sermon Audio app. Okay. I think that's what it's called now, but it's still, it says Sermons now. The Sermon Audio app, do we just call it the SA app? I don't know what we call it anymore. Because depending on where you look, some things show Sermons 3.0, some say Sermons by Sermon Audio. We're just gonna call it the Sermon Audio app. If you'll open the Sermon Audio app. Okay, you'll open the Sermon Audio app and you go and you're under the Home tab. And if you'll just kind of go down a little bit, you'll see Radio. You'll see two radio feeds. The first one is Radio 24-7, that's Sermon Audio Radio 24-7. And the other one is VCY America. VCY America. Now, if you're ever up all night, you can't sleep, VCY America has overnight programming that really works for overnight. I think it just kind of gets the right vibe. It's kind of, it really works. Maybe it will help you sleep, or if you can't sleep, give you something spiritual, very devotional-like. They may read from something, you know, just everything has a perfect overnight feel. That's the VCY America tab on your Sermon Audio app, right? So you should make use of it sometime. You can listen to it. It's 24-7. You can listen to it whenever you would like. And you may find something that you like better than the overnight programming. But because I was up at, what, 3, 4 in the morning, whatever time it was, I was like, OK, I'm going to just click on this, and I'm going to start listening. So I'm listening and they start talking about storms, not physical storms, but the storms of life. And I'm like, oh boy, where are we going with this? Where are we going with this? Well, it led me, well, it led to them giving me or anyone listening a web address. Now, if you can open up a web browser right now, and go to LWF, that's L as in Lincoln, W as in whiskey, F as in Frank, okay? LWF, LWF.org.org.org.org. lwf.org forward slash vcy vcy that's lwf.org forward slash vcy now once the page opens you should see something like spiritual journey at the top then underneath that you'll have the VCY America logo, and then underneath that you'll have Love Worth Finding. Now that's the ministry of the late Dr. Adrian Rogers. Love Worth Finding and VCY America are partnering together to help deepen your faith. And I'm like, oh boy, Here we go. They're going to deepen my faith. And I'm just going to be honest with you. I, you know, I get skeptical immediately. I'm like, okay. Then underneath that, it says, our gift to you. I'm like, Oh, what gift am I about to receive? Then it says this, everyone faces storms. Face yours with faith. Now, immediately I know they're not talking about a physical storm, like right now here in West Texas, we're in a sandstorm, okay? It's not talking about the sandstorm. It's not talking about a thunderstorm. It's not talking about a hurricane. It's not talking about a tornado. It's talking about the storms of life. Now this is perfect to be advertising at 2, 3, 4 in the morning because a lot of times people are awake at 2, 3, 4 in the morning because they cannot sleep because of the things going on in their life, right? They may be overwhelmed with worry, anxiety, depression, discouragement. They may be going through a difficult situation. They may be trying to provide care for someone who's sick or dying. Whatever the case may be, there can be lots of reasons someone can be up at night. many cases, then they're alone, they're isolated, and they're just overwhelmed. Well, here's okay. You don't need to face the storm alone, because we're here, and we're going to try to give you something that'll help deepen your faith. And we're going to try to show you how to face these storms with faith. Right underneath that, it says, in this seven-week study, learn how to navigate live storms through powerful lessons from Paul, Noah and Job. I'm like, oh boy, oh boy. Now, already now I'm getting nervous, right? Because, okay, they're going to talk about my storms and my life, but they're going to point to Paul, Noah, and Job. And I'm like, now wait a minute. we read about things they go through in their life, Paul, Noah, and Job, is that prescribing then how I'm supposed to deal with things or is it simply describing? So is this, are they going to take descriptive historical narratives and then prescribe to me that if I do A, B, C, D, E, then I get, I'm gonna, what's going to happen? So already From a hermeneutical standpoint, I'm already like, oh boy, here we go, here we go, here we go. Then they have these three paragraphs, here we go. And again, you can look this up right now. You can go to lwf.org forward slash, I always have to look at it, always get the letters wrong, V-C-Y, that's V. V as in victory, C as in Charlie, Y as in why. Right? Okay. I'm forgetting the phonetic alphabet. Okay. All those years in the military and I'm forgetting it. All right, here we go. All right. All right. Here we go. Three paragraphs. You ready? Learn practical steps to handle burdens and fight spiritual battles during life's challenges. So I'm going to learn practical steps to handle burdens and fight spiritual battles during life's challenges. All right. They're going to give me the practical steps. All right. 2. Gain reassurance that God is always with you and has a plan for your life, even in the midst of storms. Could it be that God's plan in my life is to be in the middle of the storm? Okay, all right. I'm trying not to get too skeptical here. Next, understand how to apply lessons from scripture to navigate the storms we all face, whether self-created or unexpected. Discover how God's word equips us to face trials and fight spiritual battles with unwavering faith. Now, they want your first name, your last name, your email, and then you can download the Bible study. Now, if you wanna download the Bible study, you don't have call letters there, so you just have to type in sermon audio is what you have to type in because I don't have call letters from the sermon audio radio feed, right? So I just, that's what I put down, it worked. And then what they will do, they'll email you a link, then once you get to the email and you open up the link, what it will open is hang on here that's not what i need where is it i have it here somewhere here it is um it will download so a download a file basically it's a pdf and then you open it and i have it right here it's 121 pages long a 121 page long seven week study and this is what it's entitled how to weather the storms of life how to weather the storms of life. So you can already hear my skepticism. You can already hear my not liking this in any way, shape or form, because this goes against probably every hermeneutical principle that I can probably imagine is going to happen in this seven week course. But what I'm thinking is maybe we start working through it. we'll start working through it, okay? Maybe, I don't know how many episodes we will do. I challenge everyone to download it and we'll work through it together. Now what we're gonna be able to, we're gonna look at it from a hermeneutical, like we're gonna challenge it from a hermeneutical perspective, right? Now what a lot of people do, they're gonna go and they're gonna be looking for, like, especially if you hear about it at three or four in the morning, you're alone, isolated, going through some difficult situation, you may look to this to give you some sense of hope. some sense of peace. But let me state it again, if someone offers you hope and offers you peace from scripture, but that's not what those scriptures are literally giving you, it's not even for you, then you're giving people false hope, a false sense of security, a false sense of peace, and that is wrong. And pastors do it all the time. Oh, you're going through this? Well, let's open up a scripture, nothing to do with you, promise is not even directed to you. then people walk out claiming said promise only to find out that God's not going to do what you think they're going to do just because God does something for Noah or does something for Paul or does something in a specific historical setting that is no guarantees going to do anything like that and it's not even a promise. It's a descriptive historical account. It's not prescriptive. And I get fed up with this. So because I happen to hear this at three or four in the morning, I know others may hear of it at three or four in the morning. And so I wanna be able to put forth maybe a counter argument. Now I may end up agreeing. I may end up disagreeing. We're gonna walk through it together in real time. All right, so all I've done is look at the cover. It's got a lighthouse. on a rock, it's storm clouds behind it, the waters and the ocean are, you know, you've got the waves. Oh, and what's it entitled? How to Weather the Storms of Life. Now, how are you supposed to weather the storms of life? I almost want to stop right now and say, well, if I was probably in front of a live audience right now, if I was at church, maybe Sunday school hour, I would even do it in the middle of a sermon. All right, everyone, let's stop, grab a piece of paper, write down five ways that you think, as Christians, we should weather the storms of life. Now, typically, I know what people are going to say, well, read your Bible more, pray more, go to church. It's the same thing. I mean, you know, For Christians, that's the answer for everything. Hey, I just got my arm chopped off. Read your Bible more, pray more, go to church, join a small group. Okay. Hey, I just got shot three times. Read your Bible, pray more, join a small group, go to church. Hey, my kid is paralyzed. Read your Bible more, pray more. I mean, it's all, it's like the standard answer for, it's like, do you guys have anything other than that? And that's supposed to fix all of your problems. So I think that's probably what people would put down. It'd be interesting to know what you would put down. But how to weather the storms of life. Underneath that, it says, a seven-week Bible study to help anchor you in God's truth. So remember, this is supposed to deepen my faith. This is supposed to anchor me in God's truth. This is supposed to give me the principles. I think what we're going to try to do is we're going to try to determine, is this basically spiritual malpractice? Or is this one of the greatest Bible studies ever put together? I don't know where it's going to fit in between those, right? Spiritual malpractice or the greatest Bible study ever. Those are two dramatically different options. It may be somewhere in the middle. I'm leaning towards spiritual malpractice, but that's just because I tend to be jaded and cynical on these things. So I'm gonna scroll down, and the next one, right underneath that, page two, says, Guide to Studying Your Bible. Five Simple Steps from Pastor Adrian Rogers. I call him Dr. Adrian Rogers. He may not have had his doctorate. Pastor Adrian Rogers, the late Pastor Adrian Rogers, whom I would not have agreed with. Philologically, he was definitely not a fan. of what would be referred to as Calvinism. He did not like that in any way, shape, or form. And the way he handled scriptures, oh, for crying out loud, it bothers me. So because this study comes from his ministry, I have a feeling that this is going to be a train wreck of epic proportions. But hey, let's see what happens. All right, so guide to studying your Bible. Number one, pray over it. Begin with prayer, ask for God's cleansing and His and the ability to receive what He wants to teach you. Now, you can pray over the Bible all day long. You can pray for 74 hours. Your praying for 74 hours is not going to help you understand that text any more than the person who doesn't pray. I know that goes against everything you've ever been taught. Look, Christians have been praying for 2,000 years. before they preach, before they teach, before they study, and after 2,000 years of praying, Still, no one can agree on baptism. No one can agree on the Lord's Supper. No one can agree on the word repentance. No one can agree on how we are saved, whether it's a Pelagian system, an Augustinian system, a Calvinistic. Is it this? Is it this? Is it Provenient Grace? There's just never-ending disputes and debates. All these people claim that they pray, all of them claiming God is going to help them understand, and no one has any better understanding. Because our understanding of the Bible comes from picking up a Bible and studying it like we do anything else that's in a written form, all right? And we have to understand genre, literary genre. We have to understand syntax, context. We have to understand definitions of words. We have to understand all the basic principles of interpretation and reading comprehension. That is how you understand it. I know that goes against everything anyone has ever—to me, when you say, well, what's the first step in understanding the Bible? Reading comprehension. So instead of praying, how well did you test in school when it comes to reading comprehension? How well? How great did you test on reading comprehension? Were you way ahead? Were you just average? Were you below average? Well, if you were below average, guess what? When you became a Christian, you did not get some magical ability to increase your reading comprehension. I don't care if you pray for 3,000 hours, your reading comprehension is not going to get better because you prayed. So if you want to know how to study the Bible, do remedial training on reading comprehension. Oh, I know that's not, that's not gonna make me a lot of friends. All right, number two, ponder it. Okay, well, I'm all for pondering. All right, let's see. What did it mean then? Okay. What did it mean then? I don't know if you just simply ask that question, what did it mean then? I think you're going to have to give some people some kind of a system to try to figure out what it meant then. Again, I think wouldn't you first have to ponder what does it say by the words that are used? But OK, what does it mean then? What does it mean now? Now, is that implying that what it meant then and what it means now are two different things? Isn't what it meant then is the same thing it means now? And if what it meant then is different than what it means now, then who gets to change the meaning from the meaning from then to the meaning already? That's a little confusing. What does it mean to me? That's irrelevant. You should never ask the question, what it means to you? Nobody cares what it means to you. And first and foremost, you shouldn't care what it means to you. What the Bible means to us is irrelevant. What matters is what does it mean by the words that are used? Who cares what it means to you? Nobody should care. If you're ever in any group and it says, what does it mean to you? You should get up and walk out because what it means is that they're not approaching the Bible in any correct hermeneutical framework. What it means to me doesn't matter. It's what it means by what it was said. So already this guide for studying the Bible is a disaster. Pray over it? No. Reading comprehension tests. Number two, ponder it. What does it mean then? Okay, that's a good question to ask, but about just what does it mean? What does it mean now? I don't get that then now thing that already bothers me. What does it mean to me? Should never be asked. Put it in writing, oh boy. Write down what the Holy Spirit is revealing to you. Oh boy, here we go. The Holy Spirit isn't revealing anything to you because guess what? This is what happens. If you're studying the Bible and you claim the Holy Spirit's revealing something to you, then whatever he reveals to you about that text, then it's infallible, infallible. So then the minute you say, well, this is what the Holy Spirit revealed to me when I was studying this text, everyone would be bound by it because it comes from the Holy Spirit. You're receiving divine information and studying the Bible. If we're receiving divine information and studying the Bible, then ladies and gentlemen, we should not have 50,000 different interpretations. or what the Holy Spirit is revealing to you. You know what I wish the Holy Spirit would start revealing? Is eliminating all of the wrong interpretations so that we could have one right interpretation of every verse in the Bible, but he's not doing that. And people say, well, the Holy Spirit was revealing to me, and they'll say some nonsense. How about the Holy Spirit just reveals to you what is the right belief about baptism? What is the right belief about speaking in tongues? What is the right belief about the Lord, about, of the Lord's Supper? What is the right belief about the structure of the church? What is the right belief about this? And I can make a list. All right, so then practice it. Find ways you can incorporate the truths you've just been shown into your life. Now, this is the idea. Live it. Well, now this gets into a whole law gospel thing that we won't even get into. And then proclaim it. Contemplate ways to share the knowledge God has given you. All right, then it says six questions. to ask yourself while reading scripture. Now, this is just page two, and this whole thing to me is an unmitigated disaster already. And this is setting up, I guess, how the Bible study is going to go. So, I went into this skeptical, now I'm into it just already like, what is going on? Here we go. Here are the six questions. These are the six questions you're supposed to ask yourself when reading the Bible. Number one, is there a promise to claim? Okay, now let's just make this very clear. That sounds good. Is there a promise? I got no problem for people looking at promises, but you see, you have to say more than just telling people, is there a promise to claim? Let's remind ourselves, in the Bible, there are promises that are unconditional. You don't have to do anything. It's just promise unto you. It's unconditional. There are promises that are conditional. Here's the promise, but this has to be done. And then there's the promises that are not applicable. And those are promises that are given to specific individuals or to a specific nation by the name of Israel. Primarily those promises are given based on the covenant that was given to Israel. You can't claim any of that. I think most of the promises are not applicable in most cases. So that's the first question they want is, is there a promise to claim? Second, is there a lesson to learn? All right, that's a good one. Is there a lesson to learn? Next, is there a blessing to enjoy? Again, you cannot take blessings given to other people and claim them for yourself. Number four, is there a command to obey? right? That's a decent one. I have no problem. Now, this gets into how do you understand the commands of scripture. Remember, the commands of scripture are law. You can never obey them. You will always fall short. So this seems to imply, is there a command? Now, again, if you don't teach people, they're going to see a command and say, I can do it. No, you can't. Be holy as God is holy. That is a command. You can't do it. You never will be able to do it. I don't care how long you're saved. You'll never be able to do it. It's law. The commands, the commands demonstrate your inability to do something. That's what the commands are there for. They show you you cannot do it. They show you that you fail, and so therefore you go to Christ who obeys those commands for you. So you need a proper understanding of law and gospel, or this just leads to all kinds of problems. Is there a sin to avoid? Is there a sin to avoid? Well, there probably is, but once again, if you see that there's a sin that you're not to do and you're to avoid, once again, that falls under the category of law. Something to do or not do, you cannot do that, and so it's supposed to be there to show you how you fail it so that you'll run to Christ. So already these are problematic unless you explain to people what this means. Of course, they don't believe in a proper law of gospel distinction, so this is just going to lead to basically turning the Bible into moralism. Basically is what it's going to turn into. And then last, is there a new thought to carry with me? Is there a new thought to carry with me? That may be okay. But this entire page here, page two, if you follow these things, you're not gonna know how to study the Bible. I will argue it will lead you to misunderstanding the Bible. So this thing is a total and complete train wreck. All right, so far we're doing great, right? We're doing great. Now page three. just a white background with black lettering, How to Weather the Storms of Life. Page four is basically empty. Then it gives you some information about this is copyright 2022, when it was published in Memphis, Tennessee. There we go. Then we get the contents. We have introduction, week one, Ride Out the Storm. Week two, live above sea level, S-E-E, not S-E-A, S-E-E. Live above sea level. Number three, be unsinkable. Week four, let go of burdens. Week five, trust God in the storm. Week six, find peace in the storm. Week seven, fight your way out. Listen now is page 100. Then we have a discussion guide on page 101. This gives us to the page 6 introduction how to weather the storms of life. Now so far We clearly know this is all going to be focused on us, us, us, us, us. So wherever it goes in the Bible, whether it's about Paul, Noah, Job, whatever storms it's going to look at, however it's going to approach this, it's going to make it all about us. So we already know we're in for basically this is going to be spiritual malpractice. But secondly, already know we're in trouble, because if this is any way following some of the things that we just read about how to study the Bible, this thing is going to be a total and complete train wreck. So let's look at the introduction. How to weather the storms of life. It begins this way. In Acts 27, We find the story of Paul who boards a ship that rides straight into the teeth of a ferocious storm. In John 6, we find the disciples in a boat in the middle of a storm. In Genesis, Noah floats in an ark during a worldwide flood. These are some of the most gripping stories in the Bible. If you listen, you can hear the booming thunder. You can see the lightning as its finger flash across the sky. You can hear the old ships creak and groan and the moaning and the whistling of the wind. The story of a ship in the midst of a storm captivates our imaginations. But reading about storms and living through them are two different things. All right, very poetic, very descriptive, all for that, okay. Now, my concern is when we read about these storms in the Bible. So, if you've attended church for any length of time, you know what happens when these sermons are preached, right? These storms represent storms of life, and then somehow they're prescriptive, and how you can not write out a physical storm, but how you can write out some metaphorical, allegorical storm or a storm of life, trials and trouble. Now, so you take a story about physical storms, then you turn it into a prescription of principles of how you are supposed to write out or live through a, not a physical storm, even though the story is about a physical storm, but about some spiritual storm or some trial in your life. Now, so immediately, just from a hermeneutical standpoint, Are these stories about physical storms, are they prescriptive to give me principles and how to ride out non-physical storms? Now already, just from a hermeneutical standpoint, anyone should be like, wait a minute, this is ridiculous. You're just going to stories that have nothing to do with me, nothing to do with the kind of storms I'm facing, and you're trying to take principles from this to apply to something completely different. Already, I'm concerned, all right? Next thing they say, so why would God tell us these stories about storms and ships? I wonder, why do you think God would tell these stories about storms and ships? Is it to tell us something about us? Is it to give us principles about how we can deal with them with non-physical storms? Or did they have other specific purposes? It continues. He tells us because they're more than history lessons. The Holy Spirit takes these stories and illustrates valuable spiritual truths to help us navigate. Now this is making a dogmatic assertion that these storms are put in the Bible so that the Holy Spirit can take them and then illustrate to us spiritual truths to help us navigate. Not physical storms, but to help us navigate non-physical storms. Okay, already this is just a hermeneutical train wreck. But Christians eat this stuff up. And when I was a young Christian, I would have been all over this. I'd have been like, oh, I can't believe they're giving me a seven-week Bible study guide for free. Oh, this is awesome. And I'd be going to town. I'd have notes and notes. And I'd be like, okay, all right, when is the next storm coming in my life? And I think I would have it all figured out. Well, I don't think it works that way. Now, here's where it's gonna start turning this all metaphorical. Life is like a sea voyage. Sometimes the sea is calm and the wind blows softly. Sometimes the sun is shining and we thank God for these happy times. Maybe that's where you are right now, just sailing along. If that's you, enjoy it because it's a gift from God. But sometimes the wind rises, the sky darkens. Sometimes we find ourselves in the midst of terrible storms we never saw coming. And that's the way life is. Every human being is sailing between two eternities. Sometimes things are good, sometimes things are bad. In this study, we're going to look at the storms in the Bible so we can learn how to weather the storms of life. We hope that you will be encouraged as you remember a storm you've already faced. Prepare for the storms on the horizon or sail through the middle of one. God is with you. Do not be afraid! I know, you can hear the cynicism, you can hear the skepticism in my voice. This is just ridiculous. There's just... But you know what? I can't... Look, I think I've already been pointing out some of the problems with all of this, right? I think I've already been able to point that out. But I can't really get specific until we dig in, right? So when you turn to page 7, There's a picture of the sky with some dark clouds and kind of the sun shining from behind the clouds. You see the sun rays. It looks like over an open land, not water, open land. And it says, stop telling God how big your storm is. Instead, tell your storm how big your God is. Man, when I was a young Christian, I would have written down that in my journal. I need to stop telling God how big my storm is, and I need to tell my storm how big my God is. Because, you know, Whenever you're going through a difficult situation in life, you just tell that situation how big your God is, and that storm may respond, well, your God is the one who did not stop this storm and is allowing this storm, so it doesn't really matter how big your God is, since your God is the one who's allowing this to destroy your ever-living life. Okay, now I'm getting very cynical, but okay. But that's the kind of stuff, people love that. You preach that in a sermon? People are gonna be like, oh wow, that's so good. Pastor, that was so good. You know what, this week I've been telling God all week how big this storm is in my life, but now this week I'm gonna be telling the storm how big my God is. All right, well you go do that. You go. I don't really know what that's gonna do for you since... It's your big God who brought this big storm into your life. At the very least, he allowed it. At the very most, he decreed it. But okay, you go tell the storm how big your gut is. I'm sure the storm will be like, oh, what am I going to do? Okay, I'm sorry. I'm going to bring back your mother from cancer. I'm sorry. I'm going to get your child who's paralyzed. What is that going to do? I don't know what that's supposed to do. It sounds good. It's one of those, you know, put it on a Christian t-shirt, put it on the bumper sticker. Stop telling God how big your storm is and tell the storm how big your God is. Oh, I can hear preachers loving that. Oh, that preaches. I mean, that's, everyone's going to be saying amen. In some churches, you may get a standing ovation. Everybody's going to love that. I don't know what you're loving. I don't know what you're standing and applauding. I don't know what you're amening. It's the most nonsensical thing I've ever heard in my life. But okay, page eight, we get to week one. Now, what we're gonna do is kind of just introduce this week one, and then I'm gonna try to invite you to participate in this and see what you can get. So what you need to do again, you need to go to lwf.org, that's lwf.org. w f dot o r g forward slash v c y right v c y got that v c y Once you get there, you're gonna see the page and you're gonna have a place to download this study for yourself. Download it for yourself. Download it for yourself. You say, well, you sound like you're very opposed to it. Yeah, but I want you to see it for yourself. I want you to work through it on your own. I want you to talk to other people. Do it with your spouse, another family member. Just enjoy it and see what you can get from it. Obviously, I have some problems here right now. Here's week one. Here's the introduction. Imagine sailing along in the middle of the ocean on a big ship. All right. Okay, we got this now. Let's all imagine. We're in the ocean. We're in a big ship. All right, got it? All of a sudden, the worst storm you have ever seen rolls in. Waves are crashing, the sky becomes dark, and you're thrown about the boat with no way to keep your balance. You do not know what will happen in the coming hours as the angry ocean wrestles with the ship. You wonder if you will ever make it out of this storm. The Apostle Paul experienced this kind of storm in Acts 27. In Acts 27. All right, now what I'm going to do is I'm gonna reach down here. Grabbing the first Bible I see. All right, Acts 27. I believe Acts 27, I believe I've done some teaching on Acts 27 before. And I think it's a very difficult chapter to try to teach because there's a names of lots of places that you probably won't even say correctly. Yeah, I think you can, oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, just start looking at some of these places. Oh yeah, this is one of those chapters that you don't want to, it's 44 verses. 44 verses. So Paul is sent to Rome. That seems to cover 1 through 13. You have the storm in verses 14 through 20. And then you have, I don't know how we wrap up the rest of the chapter. I think that's basically. So if you look at verse, yeah, you see the storm, but not long after arose against it a temptuous wind. All right, so you have the storm there in verses 14 through 20. So Acts 27 is where they're going to go. Now, between trying to pronounce all of the places and state them somewhat correctly, all right, and we'll try to work on this chapter. It'll be just more of a personal challenge for me to see if I can even get the names even remotely correct. So maybe I'll work on it. But I want you to read Acts 27, right? And if you get all the names right, congratulate yourself. You can try it, say them out loud, then see how closely you came by looking up how to pronounce them. But I would challenge you to do that. But then just ask yourself, okay, Acts 27. Is Acts 27 descriptive? Is it prescriptive? Is it telling you what to do? All right, now it says, Paul experienced this kind of storm in Acts 27. In the first century, Paul was imprisoned by Roman officials for proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. He was transported by sea to Rome, Italy. On this voyage, the ship sailed into a ferocious storm. By the end of the journey, Paul went from being a prisoner to being the captain of the ship because he chose to trust the Lord through the storm. Now, please note, even here, they're not naming any of the locations or naming anything, which is probably smart, right? As a pastor, this is where you can kind of go, all right, I'm just going to give you a basic overview here instead of trying to name all of the places. Other pastors will try to name the places because if you can state them clearly and authoritatively, it gives you a greater sense It gives everyone in the congregation, oh wow, he really knows what he's talking about. He's pronouncing all of these places clearly. So there can be also a reason why you would want to name all the places, but I digress. But notice what they're going to do here. Acts 27 teaches us how to navigate the metaphorical storms of our own lives as believers in Jesus Christ. Okay, we've now entered into the realm of spiritual malpractice. According to this Acts 27, which is a historical account of Paul in a literal physical storm, somehow this is going to teach us how to navigate the metaphorical storms of our own lives as believers in Jesus Christ. That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. So you're going to take a story about a physical storm and say, oh, this is going to teach me how to navigate metaphorical storms. Oh, man. You're taking descriptive and you're making it prescriptive. Not only that, you're making it prescriptive about something different than what the text is actually about. The text is not an example of how Paul navigated the metaphorical storms of his life. It's about Paul navigating physical storms in his physical life. So then it says this week we will read Acts 27 and find out how God can use the challenges we face in life to grow our faith and bless others. then it says pray over it. Remember, we're going to follow those steps. So, let's see what it says here. Dear God, life is filled with all kinds of storms. I face challenges and relationships, illness, grief, and other hardships. Help me understand how to rely on you through life's storms. Now, remember, this prayer is you're praying over Acts 27. That prayer has Acts 27 has nothing to do with you, has nothing to do with me, and has everything to do about what happened to Paul. So already this prayer, I don't know why we're not actually praying over the text because we're actually praying over the text. We'd be like, dear God, thank you for providing this historical narrative about what happened to Paul and your faithfulness to him. It has nothing to do with me. Okay, it says, help me understand how to rely on you through life's storms. Enable me to be grateful for the opportunity to grow closer to you through hardship. I want to face the storm as someone who knows you and trusts you. In Jesus name, amen. I don't know what that prayer is even supposed to do. It has nothing to do with Acts 27. It has literally nothing to do with Acts 27. And Acts 27 has literally nothing to do with the storms you're going through in your life or the storms I'm going through in my life. So Acts 27 is what's on the agenda. Now, I know we still got our work we're doing on the Salem witch trials. We will continue to work on that, but Acts 27 is what we're gonna focus on. All right, that's what we're going to focus on. We're going to work through it. It's going to be a tedious task, but we're going to use, we're going to kind of work on Acts 27. Then what we'll do, we'll work on Acts 27. We'll kind of work on the Bible study guide. then we'll try to review at least one sermon, maybe two sermons on Acts 27, and we're just going to go through this seven-week study, kind of following that pattern. We'll do our own work on the text, we'll compare our work with what they do with the text, and then we'll compare what they do with the text with other sermons on the text. So, there you have it. Acts 27, I already wanna start, I already wanna start, but I can just tell you immediately, I'm gonna have to do some work here just to ensure that I can come close to saying some of these things correctly, all right? But you can immediately, you see immediately in Acts 27 verse one, it starts with Acts 27 one, and, all right, so that means something in 26 happened. And when it was determined that we should sell into Italy, They delivered Paul and certain other prisoners unto one named Julius, a centurion of Augustus' band. All right, so we have Paul being delivered, sounds as a prisoner, I think that's what we can, and he is to go to Italy, he's going to Rome. All right, so we have the scene set up right there. So what we'll do is we'll do some work on this, try to ensure that we can understand this text, and we're gonna work through it. Before this is over, the goal here is, one, that you know Acts 27 better than you've ever understood it. Two, how a popular Bible study that's being offered to people for free, how it handles it. And then you're gonna hear how modern day preaching handles Acts 27. So, before it's over, you're gonna be an expert on Acts 27, and we're gonna get a good sense of what's wrong with modern-day Christianity, because it doesn't really care about preaching the text. It cares about doing all of this nonsense with the text. It's not about you. It's not about your storms. It's about a historical account about what happened to Paul. All right. There you have it. That took us a long time to get there, but we walked through everything. I think we did okay. I think we did okay. And I'm going to say this, because this is the kind of nonsense in Christianity that really, if I'm being honest, it kind of ticks me off. Because people go through difficult things in their life. They really do. They go through lots of trials and tribulation. I mean, just the last 24 hours has not been easy for me. You know, I have a seizure disorder, and man, I'm having some major issues. And guess what? Acts 27 is not going to give me the principles on how to deal with a permanent disability that I'm going to have for the rest of my life that doctors like to tell me is going to be the thing that kills me. You know, am I going to find some, oh, this is going to bring peace and calm to my life? Not unless I'm ripping things so far out of context. This was what was offered to me at three or four o'clock in the morning when I wasn't asleep because of problems. Hey, this is what you need. Storms of Life, here you go. Get this Bible study guide. This is gonna fix it. And we've already seen that this is a, it's a train wreck, massive train wreck. So we will see. Spiritual malpractice are the best Bible study ever created. Well, it's definitely not the best Bible study ever created. We've already seen our problems. I'm already putting it in the category of spiritual malpractice, but we will wait to be dogmatic about that until we cover week one. So please go download your copy right now. Right now. Let me tell you again, go to lwf.org, lwf.org forward slash vcy. Go download it. Grab your Bible right now, mark Acts 27. We're gonna live in Acts 27 for the rest of this week, all right? Acts 27, we're gonna live in it. May even use some time at church on Sunday to deal with Acts 27, maybe. All right? And you'll get to see, do you think he can make it through Acts 27 and get the name of these places even remotely correct? Probably not. Probably will not. Probably will be a disaster. Right? But, and that's one of the reasons I studied, I tried to do some messages on Acts 27 before because it just makes me mad that I looked at the name of some of these places. I'm like, what in the world am I supposed to do with that? All right? But I think of some of these, I will get right. No, some of these I will not. I can get Thessalonica. I can get Macedonia. Macedonian. Okay, if I can get that right. All right. Asia. I can get that right. I got that one right. Italy. I can get that one right. Okay. Mara. Lycia. I can get that one right. Alexandria. I can get that one right. All right. Let's see. Sindus. I think that's right. Crete. I can get that one right. Laska, I think that is what he said. I'm going to have to look up many of these just to make sure I get them right. I'm looking at all these. Oh, there's... And running under a certain island, which is called Claudia. I think that's got to be right, right? Is that going to be right? I think that's got to be right. See, there's Crete, again, mentioned. Phineas, I think that one's right there. I think I got that one right. Let's see here. You can look through this. Pamphylia? Do you think that's right? Cecilia? Myra? Lysia? I think I'm getting these right. I'm not even going to try that one. I'm not going to try that one. Oh, man. Verse 2, and entering into a ship of ad remitem. Oh, man. I'm going to mess that one up. Yeah. So we'll get those right. But the reason I'm doing that right now is I don't want to, if I do get them right in the next one, I don't want it to come across like, oh, he got them so right. No. I'm going to have to work on it. And probably, no, some pastors may not. I'm definitely going to. All right. There we go. Go download it. Now, remember with this whole year, I've got this blank notebook underneath the microphone. It's blank. There's nothing written in it. I'm keeping it blank because this symbolizes that the podcast this year, we're just kind of like whatever happens. And so what happened was three or four in the morning, I ended up looking at this study guide. So here we are. That's what we're gonna be doing. Acts 27, make it your friend. Let's figure out what it actually says. We'll compare it to the Bible study guide that you now have in your hands, right? You now have it in your hands. And we'll compare it to preaching. Should be an interesting comparison. There you go. Thanks for listening. Everyone have a great night. God bless.