David Berg
—Bible Study with Grandpa! DO 2373 7/86
1. PTL! Are we ready for a quickie? I'll tell you what, we're going to set a time limit and the first time this tape alarm squeals we're going to quit!—When it says "Beeeeeep!" We've had enough! Who wants to pray first? (David: Thank You Jesus for this time to have a Bible Study with Grandpa! Help us to understand it and to get lots out of it, in Jesus' name, amen!)—Amen! PTL!
2. Who remembers what Psalm we were studying last? (David: We finished Psalm 34!) We did! Think of that! We actually finished a Psalm! All right! I think Psalm 37 is one of my favourite Psalms too. I don't think you could sing that one! (Techi: Well, we might be able to!) PTL! TYL!
3. "Fret not thyself because of evildoers." What does "fret" mean? (David: Worry.)—Right! So don't worry because of evildoers. I think you know who evildoers are. Who are they? (Techi, 7 years old: Systemites.) (David: People who do evil.) Not all Systemites do evil, but people who do evil, right.
4. "Neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity." What is it to be envious? (David: You want to be in their place?) You covet the things that they have, like the evil rich etc. Don't be envious against the workers of iniquity.
5. "For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb." Do you understand that verse? What is it to wither? (Children: To die.) Well, what do you do first when you wither? You dry up!—Shrink and shrivel and dry up and finally die. (Techi: You get all brown.) Yes, you also get all brown while you're in the process of it. "And wither as the green herb." What's a green herb‚ anyhow? What's an herb? It's some kind of a plant, isn't it? You sort of drop the "h" when you say it, you say "erb." In other words‚ don't worry about the wicked, they'll soon dry up and blow away!
6. "Trust in the Lord and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed." That's a good verse for us here! We want to dwell in this land and we need to be fed. So what's the prescription of how to do it? (Techi: Trust in the Lord.)—Right!—And do good! "Trust in the Lord and do good." In other words, just trust the Lord He's going to take care of us and keep on doing our good work, and He says we'll be able to "dwell in the land and verily thou shalt be fed." PTL!
7. "Delight thyself also in the Lord." Delight thyself! Not only just trust in Him. Delight is what? (Techi: Being happy!) Be happy in the Lord! "Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart." You know that verse! Can you quote it? (Children quote: "Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.") Very good! (Children: "Commit thy way unto the Lord.") All right, they know the next one too! You do know some of this, don't you?
8. "Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass." What does "commit thy way unto the Lord" mean? (David: Give your will to the Lord and say, "Well, this is what I want to do, but You can do whatever You want.")—Amen! Let the Lord direct your paths, in other words. "Commit thy way," that means to trust your path and your direction to the Lord. "Trust also in Him‚ and He shall bring it to pass." Whatever work the Lord is behind‚ He's going to do it!
9. "And He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgement as the noonday." What does that mean? He's going to bring forth thy righteousness like light! (Techi: He'll tell everybody that you're right!)—Right, He'll show everybody that you were right, eventually. A lot of people think we're wrong right now, a lot of people hate us and criticise us and think we're very bad. But one of these days when Jesus comes they're going to know the facts! In fact, when the Tribulation gets real bad and the Antichrist shows up‚ they're going to know! So He's going to show that we were right, like a light shining! "And thy judgement as the noonday." What we judge to be right and what we did in judging them for being wrong, He's going to show that up like noonday! (David: That's really bright!) Very bright!
10. "Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass." When you see the wicked prosper and they seem to be getting their way and everything, what are you supposed to do?—Get mad and get out there and shoot him and fight a war?—Have a violent revolution?
11. "Cease from anger, and forsake wrath!" In other words, don't get mad about it and grab a gun and go shooting people just because they are mean to you. "Fret not thyself in any wise to do evil." In other words, don't get upset enough to do something bad or do evil no matter what! No matter how bad and mean they are to you, just pray for'm‚ love'm, witness to'm! (Techi: Like Marie did when they threw her in the lion's den!)—Right! (See "Heaven's Girl" Chapter 8) Look at all those soldiers whom she talked to about the Lord, and that's how she won a couple of them! That's been the story many times when Christians were captured by their enemies and put in jail and mistreated. But they showed love and were good to their oppressors and their jailers, they witnessed to them and won them to the Lord! That's happened a lot of times! PTL!
12. "For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the Earth." The evildoers shall be cut off, so don't get upset about them, don't worry about them!
13. "For they that wait upon the Lord shall inherit the Earth"—what kind of waiting does that mean? Does this mean you're just supposed to sit around and wait for the Lord to come? (David: It means trust the Lord.) Yes, in a way. (Techi: Do the things that He already told you to do. That's what it says in "7 Ways to Know God's Will." It says don't just sit around and wait on the Lord, but go and do the things He already told you to do and then when He tells you something new, then you're ready!)—Very good!
14. This verse hinges on the meaning of that word "wait"! But you see, it has two meanings, like lots of words in our language have two meanings, sometimes two or three or four meanings. (Maria: And the meanings are almost opposite!)—Yes, the two meanings here are almost completely opposite! One is a picture of somebody sitting around waiting for somebody else; the other‚ if you put it into one or two words‚ you'll get the real meaning! Can you think of any other word that has the word "wait" in it? (Techi: Waiting.) What else? When you go to a restaurant, what do they have? (David: Waiters.)—Waiters and waitresses! (Techi: Oh, like waiting on people!)—Right!
15. So that kind of waiting means serving, working! This kind of "wait" means be a waiter for Jesus, be a waitress for the Lord, work for it! (Maria: A server or a servant.)—Yes! Be a server, a servant for the Lord!—A waiter or a waitress for the Lord! Get it? That's what that old English word means. When used that way it means that you're serving. You're like a waiter or a waitress, you're working hard to take care of people‚ working hard to make them happy and make things pleasant and make things easy for them and to do good for them. So that way we're waiters and waitresses for the Lord!
16. And what are these waiters and waitresses for the Lord going to get for being faithful waiters and waitresses? What does the rest of the verse say?—"They shall inherit the Earth!" (Techi: Like rule the Earth!)—Right! Like in the Millennium! Pretty soon our next "Heaven's Children" story is going to tell about how we take over the Earth! We've already fought the Battle of Armageddon. (Techi: And then the biggest battle!) Well‚ that's a long ways away, we're not going to worry about the Battle of Gog and Magog yet, that's a thousand years from now! But right now we need to think about how we're going to organise the Millennium! (See "New Heaven's Children!") (Techi: And one of our projects is to organise an English dictionary!)—Oh yes, to try to simplify the English language and all the languages! But anyway, we're going to inherit the Earth! If you serve the Lord now, then you're going to be able to serve the Lord during the Millennium and run the whole World!
17. "For yet a little while and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be." You see some of these bad wicked people ruling big nations like they are today that are fighting wars and killing people, but you just wait a little while, keep waiting on the Lord, wait on the Lord a little while, and pretty soon they're going to be all gone! (Techi: You have to wait a little while for the Lord to come. Do your daily job and then He'll come!) That's right!
18. And where will the wicked be? (David: Gone!) How do you know? Because what happens in the Wrath of God after Jesus comes and takes us out of this Earth? (David: They all get burned up!) In the Wrath of God they get all kinds of plagues and afflictions. How many different plagues do they get in the Wrath of God? (Techi: Seven!) They get seven plagues in the Wrath of God!—Rev.15:1. Then what is the last plague of all? What's it called? It's got a name! (David: Armageddon!) It's the Battle of Armageddon in which we ourselves help the Lord wipe out the Antichrist and all his bad Mark–of-the–Beast people!—Rev.16:16-21. (Techi: But this war is a good war!) Yes, it's a war for good, therefore it's a good war.
19. All wars are kind of nasty and bloody and horrible, but we've got to wipe them out, because we've got to get rid of them! (Techi: After the Battle of Armageddon it will take 7 years to clean up all the mess!) It takes 7 years to clean up the mess and burn the weapons, and it will take 7 months to bury the dead‚ you're right! (Eze. 39:9,12) Think of that! That's a big job! And that's just in Israel alone! (Techi: They don't have to bury them!) Oh, you've got to bury the dead or the whole Earth would stink! (Techi: But make a big funeral for them?) Oh no! We don't make a funeral for them, we don't have a celebration, we just bury'm!
20. Actually, see, that's why the Lord summons in all the eagles and the buzzards and the birds, the fowls of the air, to come!—Rev. 19:17-18. (Techi: Like the Angel stands on the Sun and calls all the birds!)—Yes! And so the birds come to do what? What does He tell them to do? (Techi: Eat up their flesh!) See, it's the flesh that stinks and gets all full of germs and bugs and worms and pollutes the Earth. So God made the buzzards and He made the eagles and all these birds of prey to devour the flesh of these dead people, so that they won't stink so bad. Then all that's going to be left after the birds devour all the flesh is the bones, the skeletons! So all they have to do is just run and dig holes to throw the skeletons in, or whatever is left of the flesh.
21. And it says it's going to stink so bad it's going to "stop the noses of the passengers," meaning the passers–by.—Eze.39:11. They'll have to hold their noses! The people digging in the ruins for these dead bodies and all in these catastrophes, they wear these little masks to keep from getting polluted or infected with disease germs blowing around in the air and to stop their noses so they can't smell all that dead rotten flesh.
22. So the Lord had to invite in all these birds to come and consume as much flesh as they can! It says, "the flesh of kings and captains and mighty men" of the Antichrist.—Rev. 19:17,18. (David: There are so many birds, they could really eat a whole lot!) Vultures like to eat dead fish and all, that's their favourite, so they like dead flesh. They love worms too. So God made all these creatures and birds to eat that up. That helps quickly dispose of all the garbage. The bones don't stink so bad.
23. They're even going to have to hire men full time to go out and hunt for bones and the remains of these dead people and dig big holes to bury'm all! (David: God could just send a meteor down from Heaven to make a big hole!) Well, He's not going to make it that easy. But that was just in one country alone, Israel‚ which is the main center of the Battle of Armageddon. That's where the Battle of Armageddon is and that's why there's going to be so many dead people there, where the blood even flows to the horses' bridles!—Rev.14:20. Do you know what a bridle is? I'm not talking about a girl getting married, a bridal chamber or bridal feast. The bridle is the reins and the bit‚ the things which turn the horse's head this way or the other way, those leather loops that hang down below the horse's chin. And there's going to be so much bloodshed and blood flowing in the rivers the horses cross and all, it's going to come up clear to the horses' bridles! (David: But didn't you say that the blood is mixed with the river?)—Right! It doesn't mean that it's going to be just a river of blood, but a bloody river! Oh‚ let's get off of that subject!
24. "But the meek shall inherit the Earth!" Who are the meek? (Techi: The poor people.)—Yes, and what does it mean to be meek? What is meekness? (Techi: To be humble.)—Humble, right! The humble people! And who are the humble people? Who are the sweetest and the most meek and the most humble people in the whole World? (Techi: The Family!)—Right, Christians!—Real Christians! (Techi: And the poor people.) Yes, lots of poor people who are starved because the rich are robbing them of their wages and they don't pay'm enough hardly to eat. Some day they're going to inherit the Earth under us! (Techi: The rich people have got their praise now.) That's right.
25. "The meek shall inherit the Earth and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace." How much peace is there going to be? (Techi: Abundance!) What does abundance mean? (David: Lots and lots!) That means a lot, more than you even need, abundant‚ overflowing, all over the World! Peace is going to encompass the Earth! It says, "Righteousness shall encompass the Earth like the waters cover the sea!"—Hab.2:14. How much of the sea do the waters cover? (Children: All!)—All of it, every bit of it! (Techi sings: "Multitudes no man can number, as the waters cover the sea!") That's good it reminded you of that!
26. We've got enough time for prayer! That's a good verse to end on: "The abundance of peace!" PTL! Hallelujah! Wasn't that a good Psalm? We only got about a third of the way through the Psalm. Okay, Techi, you pray! (Techi: Thank You Jesus for this fun Bible Study! Bless Grandpa for teaching it to us and help us to have a good rest of the day, Lord, and help us to do lots of good things for all the children and everybody else. Please give us a good day, Lord, in Jesus' name!) Amen! PTL! TYL! As we pray together the prayer You taught us to pray, Lord: (Prays the Lord's Prayer.) PTL! Hallelujah!
27. One of these days soon these wicked cities will be no more! Instead we're going to have the Kingdom of God! Hallelujah! All right, children, come and kiss me bye-bye and you can do whatever you're supposed to do now! Lord bless and keep you, children!—ILY!