Accessing the Scriptures: The King Is Coming

By John Pennington

Large-print Bible-study workbook, useful for senior communities, church or neighborhood groups, families or individuals. Easy to read and understand.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Feb 24, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512722390

Book preview

ACCESSING

THE Scriptures

THROUGH STUDY AND PRAYER

The King Is Coming

TWO BIBLE WORK STUDIES

FOR - INDIVIDUALS - COUPLES - GROUPS

THE PROPHESIES OF

THE BOOK OF DANIEL

THE BOOK OF REVELATION

JOHN PENNINGTON

LARGE PRINT BIBLE STUDIES

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Copyright © 2016 John Pennington.

Earth Photo by Gene Cernan available by National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Hand sketches by Kieran Seitz

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

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Andrew Murray - 199 Treasures of Wisdom on Talking with God used by permission of Barbour Publishing, Inc.

Poh Fang Chia, Our Daily Bread, © 2015 by Our Daily Bread Ministries, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Bibles

New International Version Fully Revised Copyright 1985, 1995, 2002 Zondervan

New King James Version 2nd Edition Copyright 1997, 2007 Thomas Nelson

Life Application Study Bible NIV Copyright by Tyndale House and Zondervan

The Narrated Bible Chronological Copyright secured from Zondervan by Harvest House

The Amplified Bible Eighteenth Printing 1979 Zondervan

Commentaries

Thru The Bible J. Vernon McGee Thomas Nelson

The Bible Exposition Commentary/Prophets Warren W. Wiersbe Victor/Cook

The Bible Exposition Commentary/New Testament Vol. 2 Warren W. Wiersbe Victor/Cook

The MacArthur Bible Commentary, Unleashing God’s Truth, One Verse At A Time Copyright 2005 by John MacArthur, Printed by Thomas Nelson

Heaven Randy Alcorn

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-2240-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-2239-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015920158

WestBow Press rev. date: 02/24/2016

CONTENTS

From the Author

Acknowledgments

Jesus Is

Foreword

The Bible

Using These Studies

Twelve Lessons The Book of Daniel

About Daniel

Daniel 1 Trial, Trust, Faithfulness

Daniel 2 Crisis, Trust, Prophecy

Daniel 3 A Testing of Faith

Daniel 4 Sovereignty - God is in Control

Daniel 5 A Prophecy is Fulfilled

Daniel 6 Deja-Vu All Over Again

An Urgent Message

Index of Illustrations for Daniel 7 - 12

Daniel 7 Vision of Four Beasts and the Second Coming

Daniel 8 Vision of a Ram and a Goat

Daniel 9 Prayer and Prophesy

Daniel 10 Two Visitors

Daniel 11:1-32 Sixty-Nine Weeks of Years or 483 Years

Daniel 11:33 – Daniel 12:13 Daniel’s Seventieth Week

Twenty One Lessons The Book of Revelation

Congratulations

Introduction to Revelation

Revelation 1 Hope for Tomorrow

Revelation 2 Christ Evaluates His Church

Revelation 3 Church Evaluation Continued

Revelation 4 Adoration

Revelation 5 Worthy Is the Lamb

Revelation 6 Approaching Hoof Beats - The First Six Judgments

Revelation 7 Grace Does Not Take a Rest

Revelation 8 The Lord Turns Up the Heat

Revelation 9 Divine Judgment, Two Woes, Stubborn Unrepentance

Revelation 10 The Angel and the Little Scroll

Revelation 11 Two Witnesses and the Seventh Trumpet

The Timing of a Holy God’s Justice

Revelation 12 The Woman and the Dragon

Revelation 13 The Dragon and Two Beasts

Revelation 14 The Lamb, Israel and a Parade of Angels

Revelation 15 – 16 Seven Bowl Judgments

Revelation 17 The Church that is Not

Revelation 18 Where Are You Invested?

Revelation 19 King of Kings, Lord of Lords

Revelation 20 "Thy Kingdom Come"

Revelation 21 Paradise Regained

Revelation 22 Water of Life and Epilogue

Concluding Dissertation

In Memory of Bob Jefferson

FROM THE AUTHOR

Upon receiving a Music Education Degree in 1959, my university advisor advised me not to teach because I was not the teacher type. As providence would have it, I taught public school music thirty-five years! This was God’s way to prepare me to teach His Word. There was a problem, I never had a Bible nor attended church.

Being the product of an environment that cursed church and Jews alike pretty much sums up my early development. Fortunately, Christ was introduced to me by a Boy Scout leader. At age seventeen, an armed standoff with an enraged stepfather drove me from home. By God’s grace, I was given the gift of music which gave me the means to sustain my family. I eventually did attend church but never stepped foot in any system of Bible study. It simply would be too embarrassing; my biblical illiteracy would be exposed. I did hear many a good sermon but never wrote anything down. Sermons enforced my sense of morality and that Jesus saves but still, I was totally unaware the Bible had sections. Worse, I thought NIV was a medical term.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." I once would have said this was about working three jobs. A Bible study class provided me keys to identify this verse as freedom from any form of religious straight-jacket.

It is a joyful delight to become biblically literate. Being a believer and biblically illiterate is very unsettling. Believe me, a great deal of leg work was required in the dozen years of creating Bible studies. Oh how I have loved every minute of it! Connecting the dots and discovering the depths of the Creator of all things became a passion. I thank God my lone A in the ninth-grade was typing. Becoming biblically literate is like a breath of fresh air. The more you know of God working in the lives of men, nations and prophecy, the more you will come to treasure the Savior.

The backdrop of these studies are the result of being AARP eligible. My wife and I were drawn into senior community living. From the beginning, we planned to form a community within the community by starting a Bible study. Considering people have little in common except gravity and geography, the power in the name Jesus was the best path to assemble a group of like-minded people. It would be these folks with whom we would enjoy residential association for years to come. The first group was launched in 2005 and a second followed in 2012. In addition to class, the groups enjoy Christmas banquets and other social functions. My wife and I have in fact, taken some of our class-members water skiing.

LOOK IT UP! WRITE IT DOWN!

I spoke of hearing marvelous sermons yet remained biblically illiterate. All of us learned core subjects such as grammar, math, history and biology by means of a pencil and a workbook. I believe heavily, a workbook in combination with an overview is superior to lecture alone. There is no substitute for cementing information than to look it up and write it down! And, a workbook affords the opportunity for interactive discussion. It is amazing how much we learn from others.

Do older adults want to go back to school and prepare lessons? NO! Now you know why I prepare the workbooks we use. The pedagogy, and this is important, for a residential Bible study must fit to keep the group returning year after year. We briefly tried studies that provide answers in the back of the book but found they discouraged discussion and required little in the way of looking up related Scripture. Looking up Scripture is invaluable to discovering the geography of your Bible.

A pastor once told me, a study that does not require some page turning is too dumbed down to be of much value. Even though these studies are relatively brief, they require examining other parts of your Bible apart from the subject being studied.

NEVER CEASE LEARNING

"Ask and it will be given to you;

seek and you will find;

knock and the door will be opened to you."

This verse is my favorite to encourage people to attend a Bible study. Like piano lessons, weekly accountability pays dividends.

Some see this verse as relating to necessities. Others errantly relate the verse to God being a vending machine dispensing material goodies. For me, it is for God to open His Word up to me. Beloved, He has done this for me and our class members. They feel blessed when making new discoveries about God and about themselves.

As you study God’s Word, do so with the intent to grow your relationship with your Lord and Savior. For certain, Bible study should never be viewed as a means to earn brownie points with God.

BE A TEACHER

Do you understand what you are reading, Phillip asked?

How can I, he said, unless someone explains it to me?"

Truly, none of us can pass on information we ourselves do not possess. A young believer often looks to an older believer for clarifications. We either give it to them or we know our way around the Bible to tell them where to look. If a skeptic asks why you believe in Jesus and you reply ‘well I just do, this is no witness to the lost! To them, faith and belief are foolishness. Skeptics need reasons and we need to give it to them! Faith is fitting when around other believers. But regarding the lost, we must be equipped to know why we have faith. If anyone ever told you faith is blind, they are wrong. Fulfilled prophecy is a reason to believe. Eyewitness accounts of the Apostles is another. Creation is yet another. The writers of the Bible were separated by centuries, yet all point to Christ. Isn’t that just simply amazing? Absolutely, faith is on solid ground! To be an effective messenger of Christ requires the principles of

2 Timothy 4:2 and 1 Peter 3:15.

AND FINALLY

Life’s path takes many turns. If God wishes to use you, sometimes He will relocate you. There are numerous examples in Scripture where God relocated His servants. My path to biblical literacy and therefore usefulness to God was a matter of geography, literally. It began with meeting my wife Mary in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She gave me a leather-bound Bible. It was my first. What an amazing gift to receive! Now possessing my own Bible with my name imprinted on its cover, I was charged! I cannot describe the feeling of seeing my name inscribed on the cover of that Bible.

It was as if I were actually viewing my name written in the Lamb’s Book of Life! But who would teach me? I was as the Ethiopian of Acts Eight, who needed a Phillip to get him up to speed. God responded to my willingness to learn. To God be the glory! My Phillip was a godly man named Bob Jefferson, a learned lay leader and Teaching Director of a Community Bible Study, to whom this book is dedicated.

Give the gift of a Bible to someone.

Inscribe their name on it.

Some will be offended,

But no matter,

You may save a soul.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For a Longsuffering Creator, full of Patience and generous of Grace. For Bob Jefferson, a godly man and gifted CBS Teaching Director whom God placed along my path. His tragic death in an automobile accident is still troublesome to understand. The men and women of Heritage Ranch and Villas in The Park communities of Fairview Texas who faithfully attended Tuesday night Bible study classes my wife and I established. And finally, my loving and supportive wife Mary, who literally forced me to attend a CBS Bible study while living in Albuquerque. Always at my side, she is the spark for every class. For the commentaries of gifted men and women whom God granted so much insight. And the Word itself, it is the teacher’s teacher. Oh how it motivates those who assist others, such as Phillip in Acts 8, to better understand the faith and why we believe!

I mustn’t forget music and all who make worship music available. Being a music person, we begin each class with music to set the tone from the toils of the day. We end each class singing As We Go. A soft, gentle and beautiful way to end every class. This song is published by LifeWay Press.

These studies were prepared by a lay person for general enlightenment. They will not require the preparation time rigorous in depth studies demand.….. John Pennington

Because of where Jesus is today, you have a hope for tomorrow

Jesus Is

Jesus is, God Invisible now seen by men.

Jesus is, Savior, Teacher, and Friend.

Jesus is, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Bow Thy Knee.

As Mary and I walked the stone paths of