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Things We Can Learn from ...… Folks in the Bible
M. T. Vessel
 
 Prologue
We’re living in significant times, and there are those among us who believe that things won’t continueforever as they currently are. While some people, uncertain whether there is a plan and design at all behindthe world we see, wonder, ”If there
is
a God, why does He allow all the wars and killings, etc.?” others, whoare sure of their religion, seem to see nothing wrong with the world as it is, and don’t really see a need for God to intervene at all. After all, they just signed a mortgage deal for a new 5-year building plan for their new church.So, while opinions are divided on whether the Lord should hurry to fulfill His Promises about returning toEarth as its rightful King in the Latter Days, there are certain things which indicate that big changes areimpending, whether we want them or not. Biblical prophecies which have never been fulfilled, nor were their fulfillments possible previous to the 20
th
century, are finally finding their mates in our times, or at least wecan see the stage setting for some, and we find more and more parallels between our lives and those of our heroes and biblical patriarchs we have read about, heard about or watched movies about.It seems as if all that happened to them, happened for a purpose, as if to teach those upon whom the Ends of the World have come, from their own example: Adam & Eve, Noah, Abraham and his heirs, on down to thekings of Israel and their prophets… They all have something to say to those who have an eye to see the parallels between their times and ours, and to those who have an ear to hear the voices of our forefathers,who, far from the primitive ape men as which they are described by our arrogant secular contemporaries,seem to have possessed values and a nobility totally foreign to their 21
st
century descendants.One of the great mysteries of the “Big Picture,” which we, from our individual levels call “life,” and whichthe world of the present day retrospectively calls “history,” and some believers have called “His-Story,” isthat history, as it is, seems to repeat itself.I consider the Bible - at least the part of it that deals with historic matters - to be one of the most reliablesources of man’s history available, no matter how disputed its reliability may be among the secular scholar and Dan Browns of this world. And one of the clues in understanding the Bible is to realize that thingsweren’t really as different back then as they are now.Of course, modern man thinks he has “evolved” from the stage of “primitive men” of biblical times, but I belong to those who choose to doubt that world view and believe that there’s a lot we can learn from thefolks in the Bible, a book I have now studied for over 30 years.The things that will be covered in this book once upon a time used to be common knowledge in what used to be called western or Christian civilization, and certainly there will still be folks around who will not have anyneed of it whatsoever, since they'll be familiar enough with the Bible and its characters to derive the lessonsto be gleaned from them for themselves.However, the majority of young people we come across in our daily lives seem to indicate that on the other hand there's a vastly larger number of folks who don't really have a clue about any of this. First of all theydoubt the veracity of the Bible, since its very first chapter, featuring the biblical account of Creation, is beingundermined daily, as their heads are being filled with "knowledge" about all the millions of years it took for us to evolve from ape men into what we are today. In other words, the Bible is merely viewed as another collection of ancient fairy-tales, similar to Greek mythology, with superhuman heroes, and well, things wedon't see happening in real life, and thus they couldn't have been true.The author of this book however, is naive and childlike to believe that "with God all things are possible," andthat the things described in the Bible actually happened, and that we can learn a lot from them. In other words, I’m not one of those who apply the stories from the Bible as metaphors, but I relate to them as actualexperiences that people in the past had to go through for our benefit, just as we are making our ownexperiences right now which may benefit future generations who might not want to repeat our mistakes.There are many people who share the faith in the accuracy of the biblical account, but they would not dare to believe that any of what happened "back in those days" could ever happen on a similar scale. Not manyChristians believe in miracles. If we are to believe what the Bible has to say about the "time of the End,"though, a time preceding Christ’s Second Coming, which He called a time of "tribulation such as there hasnever been" (Matth.24:21
 
), then we
do
find indications that the people of faith who know their God in thosedays will "do exploits" (Dan.11:32) similar to those of their ancient biblical patriarchs (see Rev.11:5, 6).
 
Furthermore, the great apostle Paul, without whom Europe might have never come to see the light of Christendom, believed and taught that those things which happened to the folks we read about in the Bible"happened to them as an
example
for 
us
, and written for 
our 
admonition, upon whom the
ends of the world 
have come" (1Cor.10:11). In other words, they were not written down, nor did they happen for nothing, nor  by coincidence, but God wanted to teach all of us something through the things that befell them.In my first study of this kind, "The Deeper Meaning of Everything" I talked about the things God wants toteach us through all the things in His creation. Here now is an effort to comprise the gist of the lessons thatare there for us in the lives of the great men and women of God in the Bible, in hopes that others may benefitfrom it to an extent that will enable them to become such a man or woman of God, too. As a great evangelistonce said, "The only Bible the world reads is the one bound in shoe leather." May we all put feet to thelessons that old Book has to teach us.

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