Last month we used our message here in the Rugby Register, together with the with the associated article on our website,  http://www.searchthescriptures.co.uk, to find out what the purpose of the Bible is and how a genuine seeker of knowledge about God and His plans for our future can find reliable answers to important questions.

So we are now ready to consider the Bible’s message to mankind and the good news it contains relating to the purpose of life and God’s solution to the many problems that afflict the world at the present time; a purpose that includes great reward for those who seek God’s Word and follow it’s teaching.

Note: Bold Green text is a link to its description

We have given ourselves two tasks. First to show you that God does care and has a plan for the world, men and women, and second how to investigate it yourself.

Taking the first task it is a fact that reading the Bible carefully, regularly, and extensively shows very clearly that God created the Earth and we have published two articles demonstrating the Bible is a book of truth.  So, we are not going to repeat that here.

However, proof that the Bible is true is a fundamental question and if it is currently a more important subject for you, we suggest you go and read at least one of the following articles. Hopefully, when convenient, you will then be ready to return to this article.

How can Israel be God’s witnesses? – April 2021

Who knows the future? – February 2021 

Here we will continue to demonstrate why God says He has created the Earth and everything on it.

He directed the prophet Isaiah to present Him to Israel like this.

¹¹  Thus saith the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me. ¹²  I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.                Isaiah 45

And this revelation to Israel is equally relevant to all humanity as is shown throughout scripture.  Here, for example, is a description of God by the Apostle Paul.

¹⁵  …, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; ¹⁶  Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.           1 Timothy 6

We are sure it won’t surprise you to know that the Creator is all wise and powerful since the whole universe is His work.  Furthermore, it is wholly logical that the Creator would have some object in mind in doing so great a work which, He declares through the prophet Habakkuk this time,

¹⁴  For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.           Habakkuk 2

So He created the planet Earth to be full of glory and beauty for His satisfaction, but He wanted more than this.  God wanted it to be “filled with the knowledge of” His glorious work.  That clearly means He wanted people to exist that would see and appreciate His work.  What sort of creatures did the Creator design?  He tells us from the start that He had decided they should be like him in many respects calling them ‘man’ as he confirmed in his word.

²⁷  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.             Genesis 1:27

So what was it that God wanted men and women to do in response to the knowledge of His work and purpose?

²⁹  And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: ³⁰  And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. … …

It did not stop there for the next verse goes on …

… … ³¹  And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.         Mark 12   

God wanted the Earth to be filled with men and women that have read His word, understood His purpose, seen His creative work in the world, and grown to love Him and want a place in it.  Aah, you say, then He has miserably failed.  But wait a minute. Think about this.  What must go with love for it to exist?  It requires free will.  For love is a person’s response; they need to be able to choose and therefore they must be to free not to love.  Free to reject others, to hate one another, to be unkind, to be selfish, and much more as well as to exhibit the good attributes that are love. The contrast between love and the uninhibited freewill of man in action, called in the scriptures “the works of the flesh” are clearly to be seen in the world today and plainly described in the scriptures. For example,

¹⁹  Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, ²⁰  Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, ²¹  Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.      Galatians 5

The “works of the flesh” can be very ugly in the extreme as can be seen today in the many trouble spots around the world, and, if we are honest, are in evidence in some measure, in all of us. But when men and women listen to the “Spirit” through the words of God, the teaching of the Lord Jesus, and the example of faith men and women in the Bible, we see a total contrast.

²²  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, ²³  Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.                                                                                      Galatians 5

Thus we see that men and women at large have a choice.  They can live a life focused on their own will, guided by their own judgement, or they can look around at the amazing natural world from the tiniest creature to the vast universe and be moved by the wonder of it all as was the Apostle Paul to live as God wanted us to live according to His wishes.

¹⁸  For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; ¹⁹  Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. ²⁰  For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.                               Romans 1

The Great, all-powerful, wise God is invisible to us and we cannot see His power.  But His work of creation, when seen by an unbiased mind, is the evidence that He is there and His amazing mind and wisdom designed and created everything; setting the unchanging myriad of rules that enable the Earth to support the multitude of life forms, amazingly dependent upon one another, so that men and women can live there and fulfil His purpose.

We rejoice that God cares for those who recognise there is a God having learnt from the Bible His desire and purpose, and strive to please Him and has instructed the Angels to support them.

⁶  This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. ⁷  The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them. ⁸  O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.            Psalm 34

However, there is a big BUT.  God, of course, knew the battle those who strive to please Him have to fight against their nature of flesh would be a huge struggle.

⁹  The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? ¹⁰  I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.                                                                                                                                Jeremiah 17

We can see from the scriptures that God clearly understood the kind of creature He was creating in man.  He knew also that He had the power and wisdom to finally free the Earth of wickedness and evil and fill it with His glory, at the same time raising those men and women who love Him and the works of His hands to glorious eternal life.

³⁸  But the transgressors shall be destroyed together: the end of the wicked shall be cut off.  ³⁹  But the salvation of the righteous is of the LORD: he is their strength in the time of trouble.                                              Psalm 37

The faithful followers of Jesus can look forward to the day that Jesus promises …

⁴  … God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.                                                  Revelation 21

As you have been reading this article you may have been aware that not all churches and chapels, religious groups teach and believe these things. That is why in our last article we have been emphasising the need to be sure our beliefs are what is taught in the Bible and we give you many quotations from the Bible in these articles. Here are a few of the reasons the things you read in these articles differ from what some ‘Christians’ may tell you.

The information below (in brown) was collected from various church websites, and is what they believe and teach. Have a read down the column.

Now go back to the first brown and click on it and compare it with the quotation in blue from the Bible (King James translation) – other genuine translations, not paraphrases, would be similar.  Now go down the brown list clicking on them and  comparing them with the quotation in blue.  You may find them surprising even disturbing and you can see why we say read your Bible regularly and keep it handy for checking what you read and hear. 

But you may find difficult to follow the Apostle Paul’s advice on dealing with checking what people say the Bible teaches.

¹³  Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.        1 Corinthians 2

However, searching can be done with the help of a concordance, which for most people is not as challenging as it sounds. You can also seek the help of a trusted fellow Bible reader and work together. 

If you are not familiar with a concordance, it is a kind of index to the Bible. In book form it looks like this. 

There are various Bible concordances – Strong’s is the most used. You can usually borrow or refer to one in a well-stocked library, buy one from a large or Christian book shop, or order one from a smaller book shop. 

This book contains all the words (except words like ‘a’, ‘the’) in the Old and New Testaments in English in the front part of the book and the Greek and Hebrew from the original writings at the end.

Or you can go to the website https://biblehub.com/ 

And you can type in a word and it will list all the verses in the Bible where it occurs, or type in a book, chapter, and verse and it will bring it up for you.

So many people these days have smart phones and use them for all sorts of tasks. You can even download on your smartphone a concordance quite easily, especially if you’re familiar with the way these phones work. Just follow these instructions. 

On your smartphone go to Google Play Store and type in the search bar “Grace Bible Apps” and you should get a page like (A) below Then select and click the first item to get this page (B).

On (B) above select and click ‘INSTALL’ in the green box to bring up (C) below. Finally, click the green ‘OPEN’ button and you will arrive at access to the concordance as follows in (D).

You now have a simple access to Strong’s Concordance. You can type in the search box a book and verse number anywhere in the Bible and it will come up. You can type a word in the search box and it will find it wherever it is in the Bible. We typed “gospel” and here is the list rom the pages of a concordance of the verses where (E) ‘gospel’ occurs.  You will see that you get the whole verse giving you the the context of the use of the word. There are many more instances than can be seen on the small mobile phone screen so you scroll down to see the rest.

This is the result of searching the Bible for the number of times the word ‘gospel’ appears helpfully showing  the whole verses in which it is to be found. Above the quotations we are told that ‘Gospel’ appears 98 times in the Bible.  You can scan up and down using your finger on the text to bring up whichever QUOTATION you want. Furthermore, if you tap on a verse that interests you it opens up the Bible at that point and you can study the whole context.

You will always have a screen with the familiar search symbol there for you to start again with a new word or quotation.

That is the easiest way to be ready to read and search the scriptures and test any Bible or Christian teaching or doctrine you receive from any source.

So the safest place to do your reading is of course the Bible. But to do that on your own is not the easiest task and can be very slow. So a good Bible reading plan can help greatly especially if reading is shared it with others so the portion read can be discussed. A reading plan containing reliable Notes can be a great aid to Bible Study.

As we are a group who study their Bible we can offer both. The reading plan is easiest since we can provide that almost immediately. And anyone interested in a reading group can let us know the area where they live and we can check if there is one available nearby for them.