 All right, let's pray together. Could somebody please lead us in prayer. Then we get started Father we want to say thank you this money because you are the Almighty. You are the Alpha and Omega of our lives Thank you for what you have done throughout yesterday. Thank you for today and thank you for tomorrow in advance Thank you a lot because we have some years once again Be that glorified in the mighty name of Jesus The Almighty God we thank you for the life of our lecturers Father we thank you for the strength over their lives. Be that glorified in the name of Jesus The Almighty God we set today lecturing to your hands because I know whatever thing committed into your hands This is secured and safe. We commit to this lecture into your way as all our father Brits on our brains on our minds in the name of Jesus I decree today all are shall be for thanks and wonders in our lecture in the name of Jesus Christ Lord Father we thank you because you are there with us in Jesus name. We pray Thank you, thank you everyone good morning once again, so we are in this course BC 106 interpreting scripture I just to quickly review a few things our goal in this course is to learn how to correctly study Understand interpret and apply The scriptures, so that's what we're doing in this course but before we get into the actual The rules of interpretation so to speak or how to correctly interpret scripture we are reviewing a very very important part of it Important aspect, which is the place the scriptures have in our lives The word of God The script the place the word of God has in our lives and how to have the word of God produce in our lives Because our goal is not to just Intellectually understand scripture Of course, we have to use our minds to correctly interpret scripture But our goal is to let the word of God change our lives the word of God produce in our lives and for that We've we started reviewing or going through The book God's word the miracle seed I'll just quickly review the things we covered last week and then hopefully we'll finish this in this other or We'll try to and then get into and the other aspects So we said that God's word and I'm just quickly reviewing. Let me go ahead and share my screen So we said this is this PDF has been made available For us in the coursework section the book God's word the miracle seed So we said that the word of God is foundation for our faith You know that we said even that the incarnate word that is Jesus He himself lived according to the written word. He used the written word. He preached the written word He taught the written word that he had and that's that's very powerful We talked about that the fact that God has chosen through the preaching of the word To save people who believe that even God's saving work comes into people's lives through the ministry of the word we said we believe and we Recognize that all of scripture has been given by the inspiration of God and it's useful for Reprove for correction for instruction in righteousness and the scriptures are a window to God so we Get to know God through his word The scriptures are our standard and our patterns We live by the word of God and the word of God teaches us how to live life And God's word is final authority in our lives We submit to the authority of God's word and we therefore come under obedience to God's word And God wants his word to be in us richly That means the word of God should go from the pages of the book and be written on the tables of our heart that's what we want to see happen in our lives and Another aspect we we spent time on is the purity and power of the word We said that you know God's hand was involved in the assembly of the holy scriptures the 66 books God was involved in directing and Bringing all of that together for us. God has exalted his word about his name That means God considers his word Higher than his name or his teams at higher than his own name, you know, so that's that's how important the word of God is to God And God's word is as strong as his character. He's backing it up with all of himself And so the word of God is completely trustworthy reliable and dependable His words are pure words And the word of God is a carrier of the very power of God So God's word brings the very power of God into our lives. So we recognize that And therefore we build our entire lives on the word of God. We rest upon it We stand upon his word and we rely on it But then the big question is, you know, how do we get the word of God to release its power in our lives? what what how do we Let the word produce in our lives and bring about change in our lives And so for that, we said we're going to look at the parable of the sova and We we began this last last class last week Just gave us a parable of the sova, which is a parable of the kingdom And in this parable are hidden the secrets That we can learn on how to have the word of God produce in our lives Because and he used this a very simple analogy or comparison of the farmer and the sea to teach us about the word of God and He clearly stated that the word of God is like the sea the sova source the word So we said, you know, we could You know, if you want to outline that whole parable From the three gospels. So he we see the parable in Matthew 13 mark 4 and Luke 8 If you want to outline that parable, we can put it in, you know, maybe these seven statements That God's word is like seed Of a heart is the ground where the seed of the word is to be sown The seed must be protected and nurtured if it has to produce And we must understand the word So that Satan will not be able to take the word away from us number four And number five We may face hardship and persecution because of the word But we've got to hold on to that word so it can produce in our lives And number six, we've got to protect our heart from Things that can choke the word the cares of this world the deceitfulness of riches and the desire for other things and the pleasures of life And we can say that when we understand receive and retain The word it will produce in our lives. So the word is like seed And Jesus has taught us How for how to have the seed produce in our lives And he's also warned us About things that prevent the seed from producing In our lives and we want to understand that so ultimately in our study of the word of God in our Learning of you know, how to interpret the scriptures and so on we shouldn't forget that ultimately We are doing it so that the word of God can produce in our lives Or when we preach and teach the word, of course, we want to interpret it correctly and Preach it correctly to the people But why are we doing it? Ultimately, we want the word of God to produce in the lives of the people we are serving And because God is working through his word the word of God is a carrier of the power of God And he's working through his word and we want to see his word Produce in the lives of the people we are serving So we began to look at these things, uh, you know break it down step by step So the seed is the word of God. So when you think about the word The scriptures think about it like seed You know now what can we say about seed? We say that Every seed Has been designed to produce You know, so when you have a seed in your hand Whatever seed, you know the seed of whatever plant or tree It may be very small and some seeds are so tiny But inside that seed is everything that's needed For it to grow into a plant or even grow into a big tree which will produce so much more fruit So every scripture Every word Is like a seed It has it has been designed to produce It has the potential to produce You know, so the word of God Will produce What it has been sent for So the word that God spoke concerning healing will produce healing the word of God concerning Bonus will produce bonus The word of God concerning Confidence will produce confidence in our lives The word of God concerning deliverance Will bring deliverance in our lives every seed will produce after its own kind The word is like seed it has within it The potential the power to produce And so every scripture when you when you think about scripture versus and You know the words of God think of it like seed this will produce in my life If I saw it correctly into my heart And if I nurtured it in my heart it will produce in my life The same thing if we saw that word into the lives of people And we helped them nurture it it will produce in their lives And every seed will produce after its own kinds So every word concerning What God has spoken Will produce exactly that In our lives and in the lives of people So We also went over this that the word works effectively In you who believe right When we receive the word of God correctly It will work effectively It depends If you receive the word So paul told that there's a lot and you know you received the word of God Not as the word of men, but as the word of God Which effectively works in you So if you receive the word of God correctly the way it's supposed to be received It will work effectively the word effective simply means to put out divine energy effectively You know, so the word will release divine energy In us If we receive it correctly you received the word of God So how we receive the word Will depend will determine How effectively it works in us But it's carrying divine energy It's carrying the very power of God every seed of the word every you know every chapter every verse is carrying the word power of God and If you receive it it will work effectively it will release its power It'll bring about changes to produce In our lives. So that's That's something very very powerful So let's move forward here We reached till that point last week and i'm going to go forward Let me see if there are any questions so far any questions Everybody's together Okay Let's go forward so We want to learn How to sow the seed into our hearts so that it can produce in our lives so The Jesus taught us in the parable of the sova That the word must be sown in our hearts So the heart That means the spirit of man Is the place where That the the seed that the seed of the word has to be sown So it's the inner person. It's in our Inner person where the seed of the word has to be sown Or we also said in james. He talks about the implanted word. So the word has to be Implanted in us. It's got to Take root in us, you know, it's like the word implanted has the idea of a seed Rooting itself and growing into the ground. That's the word implanted So james is saying you know with humility You receive the implanted word and then it'll save you it'll do something in you, right? So the seed of the word has to be implanted in our hearts Then it's going to produce In our lives And uh, you know the the emphasizing in our heart, you know, god says in pros 4 20 to 23 says my son I want you to pay attention to my words My sayings Keep don't let them depart from us. Keep them in the midst of your heart So what does god want? He wants his words and his sayings To be alive in our heart. Keep them the midst of your heart You know, so you're saying, you know, take these bag of seeds And saw them into your heart You know, keep my word in your heart Why because he says From there it's life, you know, it's life. God is saying my word My words my sayings, you know, it is life Um, my sayings just keep them in the midst of your heart. It's life and it's health You know, so the word of god is will release life It release healing and Out of there out of your heart come the issues of life or the forces that shape your life You know, so out of our heart come The forces that actually shape our life. And so god is saying you put my word in your heart Because from your heart are the forces that shape your life and imagine if we have his word in our heart Then his word is releasing the power of god to shape our lives so the question is How do I get the word of god into my heart? How do I keep his word in my heart? You know, what is uh, what has god taught us? You know, what has he got taught us? In the old testament In the old testament and this passage is one repeated for us in the new testament. So Paul quotes this passage in romans 10 But it's on the old testament He tells us people he says, you know The commandment that means the word i've given you It's not far away. It's not somewhere in heaven That you should say who's going to get it for me It's not very beyond the sea who's who's going to go and get it. But he says the word Is very near you the word is very near you Where is it in your mouth? And in your heart In your mouth in your heart so that you may do it. Okay, so God in the old testament Give a very simple instruction to his people. He said, you know the word Keep it in your mouth Keep it in your heart Then you'll be able to follow it. You'll be able to live by it So if you have a more bibles The word of god But this bible this word of god god says it has to be in you in two places It has to be in your mouth It has to be in your heart And the apostle paul quotes this passage In romance 10 Verse 6 through 8 and he says The word has to be in our mouth and in our heart and he explains what it means He says but the heart man believes But the mouth confession is made So To understand his further God's word is in our heart. We must believe it It's in our mouth. We must say it. You must speak it So god wants his word to be operating in our lives like that Keep it in your heart. Keep it in your mouth. Keep it in your heart. Keep it in your mouth Keep it in your heart. Believe it. Keep it in your mouth. Say it Then you're going to be living by this word And this word will bless your life So How do we get God's word into a heart? The most important thing that I really want us to learn is the process of meditation Through meditation We're able to get the word of God into our hearts And we see meditation in the word of God God taught his people how to meditate in his word And he taught them what to do How to meditate, how to put it into their hearts So that's what we focus on in the next chapter And this is one of the key things I want you to take away from this part of the course That is For all of us as people, as believers We must practice meditating in God's word Now When we talk about meditation, we're not talking about some mystical practice That people do up in the mountains No, no, no We're talking about biblical meditation So we find that in the Bible It's a discipline in the Bible Example, you know, Isaac, he went out to meditate in the field So what would he be doing? So you notice he went out in a quiet, solitary place By himself So that he could focus his thoughts on, obviously, on God And what God had spoken to his family, to Abraham and Isaac So part of our meditation is to go to a place Where we can focus Now it might be sitting at your desk So this very desk that I'm speaking to you from Is the place where I meditate Almost all the time I sit here with my Bible And I meditate in the word of God So this is a very quiet place And I can meditate here Now God taught meditation as people For example, he told Joshua I want this book of the law He's talking about the scriptures He had given to them at that time He said, you meditate in it day and night You know, you meditate in the word of God Day and night That means, you know, as much time as you can Whenever you can Meditate in my word Day and night Then what will happen is You will follow the word The word is in your heart Becomes in your mouth Then you will start doing it And when you do it You will make your way prosperous You will have good success Obviously if you're living by the word of God You'll be blessed in all your deeds You'll be blessed in all your ways And you'll make your way prosperous You'll have good success So God was telling Joshua Meditate in my word Another Or some other scriptures he says There's no nation here Who has the word of God Who calls upon him Who has been given his word And he tells them This word Must be laid up in your heart And in your soul He's telling them, look, I've given you my word But I want your word To be put into your heart And into your soul So How do we Break down the process Of meditation As we know Also, Psalm 1 verse 2 Is this man He delights in the law of God And in his law he meditates Day and night He's constantly meditating In the word So how do we break it down? There are several scriptures On meditation here that I've listed Now When the Hebrews Practice meditation And if you look at the meaning of that word Meditation It means To Reflect To Imagine To ponder It also means with it To Get a quiet sound To contemplate something As one repeats the words There is another Hebrew word Siak Used in Psalm 119 It means to ponder To talk to oneself To commune with oneself To declare To pray To talk So all these words Mean from Siak So in meditation What the Jewish Person would do is He would sit in a very quiet place And He would Maybe put his prayers all So that he covers of all the distractions You know And then He would go back and forth And he would recite The scriptures His eyes are closed His mind His thoughts His imagination Is on the scriptures Which he's reciting Which he is saying And he's meditating Example, you know The Lord is my shepherd I shall not Be in want He makes me to lie down In green pastures In green pastures He leads me beside The still Waters He restores my soul He leads me in the paths of righteousness For his name's sake So while he is reciting His thoughts And his imaginations Are focused On those scriptures On that word He's meditating He's pondering He's thinking He's imagining What those scriptures are meaning As he's speaking He's meditating And he may go over that some once Twice Trials He may pray about it to God Oh God, you are my shepherd You are the one Who provides for all my needs Oh God, you are the one who leads me By the green past Leads me to the green past So he's engaging with the scriptures He's thinking about it Imagining it Reciting it Praying it And through that meditation The word of God is in your heart In your mouth The word of God Becomes a part Of you If we want to put it in simple words You know, just for our Explanation's sake We can break it down Into three words Contemplation Visualization Confession Or Recitation So meditation Involves contemplation You're thinking within yourself No So the psalmist said I remember the days of old I meditate On all your works Amuse Meaning I'm thinking I'm pondering I'm remembering I'm meditating See those words I'm remembering, I'm musing I'm thinking on your words On your works and what you've done You know, so You know, for example If you're meditating on healing scriptures So you want to sow the seeds Of healing into your heart If you want healing, what must you do You sow healing, seeds of healing And so example If you want tomatoes You sow tomato fruit So seeds, if you want tomatoes If you want You know, you want Chilies You put green chili seeds You'll get chilies You know, whatever So you're sowing the seed For a particular harvest So if we want healing In our bodies Or in our minds We sow the seed of God The word of God concerning healing So you take the healing scriptures And you meditate in it Right, so you could start example In Exodus chapter 15 verse 26 God says None of these diseases will come on you Because I am the Lord Who heals you So you just meditate on it Exodus 23 24 and 25 You will serve the Lord your God And he will bless your bread And your water And he will take all sickness away From your midst And he says there will be no one Who will be barren Or suffer miscarriage in your land And the number of your days I will fulfill You draw me 7 verse 15 I will take sickness away From your midst So like this you can keep going Through the scriptures And just meditate in it God, this is what you said Thank you God You're the God who takes all sickness away from my midst Your word is health to my body It's nourishment to my bones Proverbs 3, 7, 3, 9 He says, Lord, the fear of the Lord Is health to my body It's nourishment to my bones My bones are strengthened Then you continue to go through the scriptures Like that, you meditate in it You're thinking deeply On those scriptures And many times During the process of contemplation You receive revelation That means the Holy Spirit Will take you Into new realms of understanding I've never seen that before I've read that same verse many times But now I'm seeing something What's happening During contemplation You receive revelation You see something you've not seen before Oh God, thank you So when you're contemplating The Holy Spirit will take you Into new areas In that scripture Oh, look at this Because he's the one who inspired it Now he is illuminating it He's shedding light on it He was the one who gave the inspiration Now he's giving you Illumination That gives you revelation Oh, I didn't see that before Oh, when does that happen? Illumination Illumination Usually happens during contemplation When you're contemplating On the scriptures The Holy Spirit gives you an illumination He opens your eyes To see what you've not seen We call it revelation, it's happening The same Holy Spirit Who inspired the scriptures Is now illuminating it For you and me So during contemplation That happens You get revelation Okay, and also During contemplation Our mind is renewed By the word Our thinking begins to change Because now our mind Is focused on the scriptures It starts, it's being trained To think according to the scriptures So the next time When something happens Your mind automatically thinks In line with the word of God So contemplation is powerful It's part of the meditation process It helps get the word of God Into your heart It positions you For revelation Or illumination and revelation It also renews our mind To the word of God Contemplation Influences our thinking Okay, so this is part Of meditation, you're contemplating On the word I'll explain the next two steps And then we will take questions So along with contemplation Another part of meditation Is visualization Visualization means Your imagining You are seeing with your mind's eye The word of God being Fulfilled So God gave us our imagination He created the ability Of our mind to envision To imagine To paint pictures To see things He gave us that ability It's not a bad thing It's a good thing People misuse their imagination For foolish things But we don't have to We can use our imagination For good things One simple example Is in Genesis 15 Where Abraham Has been given the promise from God That he's going to be the father Of a big nation And at that moment This is about Almost 15 years later Abraham is saying, Lord I still don't have a child Does it mean that somebody born In my house will be This descendant And then God says Abraham Look toward the heaven And count the stars So you can imagine It must have been at night time Abraham looks into the night sky It's all dark But he looks into the heaven He sees all the stars So many And God says So shall your descendants be So God was painting A picture Of Abraham's mind Or imagination Of the fulfillment of his promise Look at the stars That's how many descendants Are going to have You are going to have Somebody who's coming From your own body That's how many That's the fulfillment Of my promise And from that day on We can be certain That your imagination He never forgot the night sky Every time he thought About the promise of God He will imagine the stars in the sky That's what God said So shall your descendants be And it says He believed in the Lord So It helped him Look to God He believed in the Lord So that imagination Is so powerful That happens during meditation So as you're meditating the word You begin to see yourself In the word And the word fulfilled in your life Whatever the word is saying It's fulfilled You see it happen in your life Just like for Abraham See this happen So visualization You're seeing in your imagination The word of God being fulfilled And there are many other examples We can point to How When the spies, 12 spies Went to the promised land To spy out the land 10 of them Came back with this Imagination, you're like grasshoppers But the other said They are bread For us They are like bread We can eat them up They said, they are bread for us We can Go and conquer them So they had a different picture in their minds Of what the enemies looked like So their imagination Was so important The last part of meditation is confession That is The word must be in your mouth You're reciting it You are speaking it So Your contemplation Visualization Confession You're saying the word And as we go through this process Of meditation Right It becomes a part The word of God Gets into our spirit The word is sown into our heart So The word of God is like seed It must be sown in our hearts How do we sow it To the process of meditation We Contemplate Visualize And confess And that word is sown Into our hearts So I want to encourage you Just before I close off this Section Many times Many times when we are Meditating in the word We actually encounter and Commune with God It's a very powerful thing That when we Meditate We are communing with God We are encountering God That's what the Psalm 63 says I meditate on you He longs for God He is desiring for God He's thirsty for God He wants to encounter God What does he do in order to Encounter God Meditates So meditation Leads us into that encounter With God And so much revelation It begins to pour into Our lives And like we said Meditation God is what it really transforms Our mind Our strongholds are pulled down Things in our mind that shouldn't be there Are discarded And our mind is renewed As we meditate In the word of God It's a very important Part of our Christian life Okay Now The fruits of meditation They cause us to prosper Meditating the word But bring us to a place Where whatever we do will prosper God promised that in his word Because we start walking according to the word His word will produce in our lives Prosper Now how do you develop the discipline of meditation One You start to do it every day On a daily basis Keep some time To meditate in the word Then there will be times of special need So maybe you're going through some challenges You know difficulties So here the psalmist says He's facing people Or against him But he goes to the word During that time He says I will meditate On your precepts So he's going through difficult times People are speaking against him But he is meditating On the word of God So there are times of meditation Then you do it as a purposeful exercise Intentionally you keep time aside To meditate The psalmist said you know I'm staying awake in the night Because I want to meditate On your word So intentionally he's meditating On the word Now there are many Different ways you can Incorporate meditation Into your daily life Some of the ideas that I use Is In my mind I have like word seeds And I've given it towards the end of this book Where On different topics I have certain scriptures And so I meditate on those topics So it's more like For healing here are all the scriptures For courage or boldness Here are all the scriptures For anointing here are the scriptures And then I meditate If I want to meditate on a topic I meditate I go to those verses And I meditate So it's like word seeds I'm putting those seeds in my heart In order to experience a certain Harvest Another thing that I used to do Especially in my early days Is I set aside certain days To meditate on certain topics So every Sunday I meditate on certain scriptures On prayer and generosity Monday on faith On family scriptures on the family Thursdays I would meditate On visiting understanding Fridays on success And prosperity and Saturdays On ministry miracles So I used to do that I don't follow this timetable now But I used to do that Especially for the early years For about 5-6 years I used to follow Or much longer I used to follow this kind of timetable That is, I do more of This type, word seeds Meditation, meaning I just go to a topic that I feel like I need At that moment And I just meditate on the scriptures On that topic Anytime, any day I just do it Another last part of Meditation is contemplated Bible reading And I will explain this to you When we get into another chapter Where You take a passage and you just contemplate on it So You're not rushing through it in a hurry You're contemplating, meditating Looking at the scriptures What's happening is that passage Is getting into your heart So you call it contemplative Bible reading And you're meditating in that passage Sometimes I may be on the same passage for many days And I'm in no hurry Because that word is getting into my heart God is speaking, revelation is coming So as long as that is happening I just stay with that passage You may spend 30 minutes, 1 hour It doesn't matter, you're contemplating On that passage And Many much revelation comes through This process of contemplative Bible reading I remember I just shared one personal testimony here I remember in September I spent about 4 days On just one verse Mark 1, verse 1 It just said The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God That's it Mark 1, verse 1 I couldn't get past that I would come in the morning, read Mark 1, verse 1 And just be on it for about 30 minutes And more The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God And revelation Just be pouring in And I preached that sermon During Christmas 2019 It was like, you know During that time of meditation Mark 1, verse 1 Over a 4 day period Just going from the very From eternity Past All the way to where Jesus is today Exalted, eternal Word Just that whole Revelation, that whole understanding I poured into my heart So Contemplative Bible reading Meditation is very, very Powerful So I'm going to stop here I know I'm going to very quickly Try to explain Towards the process of meditation But this is very, very Powerful I just want to ask, do you have any Questions, any thoughts on this In That Okay So That, so In Matthew There's a question here from John In the Pablo Sova In Matthew 1321 Jesus said that There's no, he has no root In himself But endures only for a while So that means What does it mean to have root in him? So that means the seed didn't get Implanted In his heart And so if you compare it with the other parables What happens, Mark 4 explains Right that When the seed goes in, it's the Roots start coming out But the stones around it prevent the Roots from actually getting into the Soil And explains the stones are Persecutions and hardships That come for the word's sake So what's happening is He's hearing the word He hears the word But then he faces difficulty He gives up on the word So the word doesn't take root In his life It doesn't get implanted in his heart And then if the seed doesn't Get implanted and the roots don't go Into the soil It's not going to be able to bear So that's what he's talking about In Matthew 2013 21 So if you want to look in a positive way The word has to Get its roots deep into our heart Okay So Is the process of meditation Clear And how you can practice this Is it kind of clear I've also given some practical ideas Is that something You've understood And you can do Okay All right I hope all of you have understood it And I've gone through it very quickly But I would say This is one of the most important disciplines You and I can have As believers Meditating in the word of God And we practice it throughout our lifetime You know, it's not something we do Once in a while We talk to meditate In the word of God So We're going to take a Break, a 10 minutes break We will come back We will finish the rest of the chapters Very quickly The parable of the soba We'll finish it very quick Then we will get into The next chapter Which I've shared in the course Work section Starting to get into the course on Interpreting Scripture So that's our goal After we come back From the break Let's take a 10 minute break I'll see you in 10 minutes Thank you