06_01 Bible Study Method

Introductions to Chapter 6.

Again, this Chapter continues from Chapter 5, dealing with the practical application of Holy Spirit’s prescription for real Bible Study with the full help of the Comforter sent by Jesus to lead us into all Truth.

This Chapter opens with document #06_01, Bible Study Method. The emphasis here is on the overlapping time-lines of Daniel and Revelation, that are unveiled by applying HISTORY to the prophecies. “Prophecy is history before it happens!” The very history of the Seventh-day Adventist Reformation Movement came from the principles shared with you in this document.

Scripture Text: Daniel 12:4

Title: Bible Study Method

In our approximately weekly seminar on Our Message, from the Three Angel Messages of Revelation 14, I have been supplying you with photocopyable pamphlet studies of a number of things that make up Our Message. Last time, you received one on Daniel 2’s great metalic image of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, and one on Daniel 7’s “beasts” and how they lead us to know who the “beast” is that we are warned not to worship in The Three Angel’s Messages given in Revelation 14.

The prophecies of the latter part of Daniel, from chapter 7 on, and the prophecies of all of the book of Revelation, are to be unveiled by one understanding. Imprint this on your memory as a very important understanding. Here it is again.

From Daniel 7 through to the end of Revelation, all of these prophecies are going over the same earth-history as the metalic image, but with increased information about sections of the history that are brought into special focus. (Re-read above paragraph.)

With that understanding, and the realization that “Prophecy is history before it happens,” we were able to plug in the history of nations that fulfilled each symbol, right up through Revelation! By looking back from the “time of the end,” even “the hour of His Judgment,” where we are today in prophetic history, we can accurately name each “beast” AND know what to look out for!

As introduction to the materials for the Seminar that I will give you at the end of today’s study, I ask that you turn to Daniel 12, verse 4. We want to note it’s meaning.

Daniel was told to “…seal the book, even to the time of the end:many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.”

As you probably know, for the benefit of mainly secular audiences, our evangelists point out that travel world-wide, and tremendous increase in knowledge, are real signs that we are in the “time of the end” spoken of in this verse. The unintended result is that very many Adventists believe that that is the meaning of this text! If that is not the meaning of this text, then what is its true meaning? What do you think? Here’s a clue. I have been teaching you to apply prophetic history to your interpretation of Scripture. What history applies here? When does the “time of the end” begin? What date?

Daniel 12, verse 7 tells us. From the middle of the verse, “…it shall be for a time, times, and an half.” – at the end of the 1260 prophetic days time prophecy, which ended at what date? 1798.
So, what prophetic history applies here? What happened in 1798? The Papacy was taken out of the position of power to persecute God’s people, by Napoleon’s general Berthier. The “man of sin” being thus “taken out of the way,” through God’s direction, allowed that by 1805 the Bible Societies began to distribute the Bible freely in England and the United States.

Therefore, the real meaning of Daniel 12, verse 4, has to do with the resurgence of Biblical knowledge as the Bible became easily available to other than the priests of Catholicism.

And what does it mean to “run to and fro?” Rather than referring to travel, which has nothing to do with God’s Providence, especially of the Bible after 1798, it refers instead to Bible Study Method, by which knowledge is increased!

What breakthrough in Bible Study Method did William Miller use that subsequently many thousands of ordinary Christians have used?

Friends, I cannot emphasize enough to you the importance of the Bible Study Method God has provided, that is written in the Bible itself! God caused William Miller to find the text and proclaim the amazing efficiency of God’s own Bible Study Method. By using Holy Spirit’s prescription for Bible Study Method, William Miller unsealed Daniel’s book; and knowledge of the mysteries of the prophecies and of the gospel has been terrifically increased!

Where is this prescription for Bible Study Method found in the Bible? Isaiah 28, verses 9 and 10. Please, turn there now. I want you to see how God Himself feels about the fact that so many people don’t use His prescription for real Bible Study. Isaiah 28, verse 9. (read). The “he” spoken of here is God. (see v.13.), and He Himself, Holy Spirit, shall teach knowledge to and make to understand doctrine those who use His study method prescription.

The next verse, verse 10, uses repetition to show emphasis. Remember that they didn’t use underlining like we now do, for emphasis. (read)

This is the Lord’s prescription for Bible Study Method. Now, let’s see what was happening because of neglect of His method prescription. (read on to v.13.)

By their neglect (or even outright refusal) to use this method, and to share it with everyone who seeks knowledge from the Scriptures, the poor Jewish nation had been snared and taken by Satan. Through Hosea, God proclaimed, “My people are
destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest (teacher of Biblical doctrine) to Me.” Hosea 4:6.

Again I say, friends, that I cannot emphasize enough to you the importance of your personal use of God’s Bible Study Method prescription. There is much yet to be understood from the prophecies regarding our time in the prophetic time line. In the
Great Awakening that began in 1843, many ordinary people searched the Scriptures to see if what William Miller taught was true, and, using the Bible Study Method he proclaimed that God had prescribed, they hammered out the Bible teachings
(doctrines) that became the foundation of this Remnant Church! In the Sabbath Conferences that built that foundation, elder James White focused on the prophecies that were still to be fulfilled and, note this, he brought to the Conferences his 25cent Bible, and his nearly worn out Concordance, that no longer had any covers!

I myself testify to you that God’s prescription for Bible Study Method works so well that I have discovered many things from God’s Word. My special interest is prophecy, as you might know, and I tell you there is much we have yet to know as prophetic history unfolds. I am constantly amazed that the same key-words are used here and there throughout the 66 books of the Bible, even though they were written spanning 1500 years, by over 40 different people! And did you know that scholars have found that the book of Revelation points back to every other book of the Bible so that we can find out the meaning of the symbols?
One major caution: only in the King James Version of the Bible will you find this prescription clearly stated, and only in the King James Version does it work absolutely flawlessly! God was the one who Provided the KJV to the pioneers of the Remnant so that they could unseal the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation. God was the one who taught William Miller to use His Bible Study Method prescription. Therefore, use your KJV as your Study Bible if you desire to be taught of God! I use the other versions to read, and to get some help understanding difficult passages, but have found, by much comparison, that “line upon line” rarely works in them, because they change the key-words! Imagine where we would be today, if William Miller had used the New International Version (the NIV), where Daniel 8:14 says, “It will take 2300 evenings and mornings; then the sanctuary will be reconsecrated.” In a Concordance to the NIV, now available, the word “reconsecrated” is used only once – in Daniel 8:14! How would William Miller have unsealed Daniel’s prophecy of the 2300 days? Or, how about the prescription itself, from Isaiah 28 in the NIV? There it reads, “Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule, a little here, a little there.” Further, the meaning gets completely lost in some versions, such as the New English Version, which says, “It is all harsh cries and raucous shouts, ‘A little more here, a little there!'”

William Miller used his King James Version of the Bible and a Concordance to the Bible, and found a chest-full of gems of truth, besides unveiling Daniel’s time prophecies and the nearness of Christ’s Second Coming. Elder White, and thousands of others, used the same tools to build a Biblical foundation for this Remnant Church. Real Bible Study answers our questions, and God wants to speak His answers to us from His Word. Let us also compare line with line, here a little, there a little, and use a Concordance! If you haven’t one, get one! I recommend Cruden’s Concordance. It
is a simple text finder, not cluttered with stuff you don’t need.

For your Seminar materials for today, I have for you a study called “Christ’s Riddle.” It is a good example of the use of God’s prescription for real Bible Study. Many books have been written trying to interpret this riddle, even one by one of our own Seminary professors at Andrews University. All fail to get it right, because they didn’t apply God’s prescription for Bible Study, “line upon line, here a little, there a little,” using the key-words, and therefore missed out on the blessing of Holy Spirit’s help!

Also for today’s materials, I have for you a study about the state of the dead from a new angle, and a careful study about Antiochus Epiphanes as the “little horn” power, taken from Uriah Smith’s excellent book, “Daniel and the Revelation.”

These complete our Seminar on our Message up to present day. After these, we will study the near future in prophecy, carefully using the principles of interpretation that we have established. I pray for each of you, that you will read, study, assimilate and share the many parts of our Message in preparation for, and even perhaps in fulfillment of the “loud cry” of the Three Angel’s Messages of Revelation 14. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!

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