BIBLE BASICS!--THE BASIC COURSES!        DFO1381          Malta, 19/9/78

         1. SOMETIMES WE TAKE IT FOR GRANTED that everybody already knows these things, but it would be interesting to find out how many of you have had what we call the Basic Course. In our early days we considered those lessons very important because they were designed to give every single one of the Family the very basic absolute minimum Bible knowledge that you ought to know & you need to know in order to be a good witness for the Lord.
         2. The Bible is pretty well known & is a fairly well-recognised authority. Most people have at least heard about it & a lot of people respect it & there are millions of people who even believe in it! So if you can quote the Bible to them, or even just find the verse you want & show it to them, a lot of people will believe it. And for the people who pretend not to believe it, the Word is powerful just the same & very convicting!--"Sharper than any two-edged sword!" (Heb.4:12)
         3. So I hope you're not neglecting your Bible reading & Bible studies, & reading only the Letters. Because if you limit yourself completely to that & neglect the Bible, then you're missing something, because these were given more or less with the understanding that you already knew the Bible & were at least familiar with the already recorded Word of God.
         4. WE USED TO REQUIRE OUR FAMILY MEMBERS TO MEMORISE IMPORTANT BIBLE VERSES WHICH WE THOUGHT WERE VERY ESSENTIAL, primarily verses on salvation, a few Psalms, Isaiah 53 & some Messianic Prophecies, which we required you to learn by heart & quote from memory. Someday the only Word of God you've got might be what you've implanted in your heart!
         5. If you get the Word down in your heart & you know it, it's going to be a great help to you.--But if you don't even know it, how can you believe it? You say, "I believe the Letters, I know them!" Well, praise God, that's the Word too, but you've missed a lot if you don't know the Bible, because that's really the basics. The Bible is your Basic Course, in a way.
         6. The Letters, in a sense, are a commentary or an extension or an enlargement or greater detail, but it's all based on the Bible & you should know your Bible. It would even help you to believe the Letters better if you knew your Bible well, because the Letters are based on the Bible & they are in harmony with the Word.
         7. The Bible is an absolutely inexhaustible source of wisdom & knowledge, out of which you constantly find "treasures new & old", beautiful! (Mt.13:52) So the Bible is a marvellous Book & I hate to think that you neglect it & confine & limit yourself just to the Letters, because the Letters are based on the Bible.--The Word, the Scripture, the Bible is their foundation.
         8. So we considered SCRIPTURE MEMORISATION virtually the most important course! It's not that hard to do, especially only one verse a day, & you ought to be doing that now. Even Davidito does that! We expect our children to do it--are you doing it?
         9. ANOTHER COURSE THAT I LOVED TO TEACH & THAT I THOUGHT WAS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT WAS WHAT WE CALLED GENERAL BIBLE KNOWLEDGE, in which we simply studied the Bible as a whole: Its general contents, its construction, its make-up, the major dates--just what it says, General Bible Knowledge. So that's the second course.
         10. We considered the most important Bible Study course of a Book was a study of the BOOK OF ACTS, verse-by-verse from the 1st through the 13th Chapter. We considered that the first 13 Chapters of Acts were not only a history of the Church, but a blueprint for the Church, God's Plan & the way He intended the Church to operate & act. He calls it the Acts of the Apostles, & He expects the Apostles of today to still act like that!
         11. Another very simple course usually taught by somebody with a simple mind was the BOOK OF JOHN, & that was simply a study of the basic teachings of Jesus & His life & what happened & so on, very interesting.
         12. Then I also taught BIBLE PROPHECY. That was a pretty heavy course which consisted of a verse-by-verse study primarily of two Books, the Book of Daniel & the Book of Revelation, & we went over those in pretty much detail.
         13. The sixth course was WITNESSING, what witnessing is all about, how you should witness, how you shouldn't witness & so on.--Simple little lessons like I told you about in the "Four Steps of Witnessing". (See ML No.527.)
         14. And the seventh course was what we called the SPIRITUAL LIFE COURSE. It was a course on the Holy Spirit & the things of the deeper Christian life, such as healing, gifts of the Spirit & all those things which we thought were very important.
         15. I WONDER HOW MANY OF OUR MEMBERS HAVE HAD THOSE COURSES & KNOW THOSE THINGS? I got to thinking about it the other night, & I thought, "Well, Lord, where did we fail?" Somewhere along the line it seems like these Seven Basic Courses sort of got lost. That's the trouble with trusting others & the old oral system we used to have when we began. I taught those Basic Courses for years, over & over again, but we never recorded them & never put them in writing, so where are they now?
         16. I sometimes wonder when I hear you ask questions if you guys even know much about Bible Prophecy! I think about all most of you know is that the Lord is coming & that we believe the Tribulation's going to come before He comes, but how can you prove it?--What Scriptures can you give me? We know a few things generally, but we seem to be a little ignorant on a lot of things specifically.
         17. I was thinking about some of those things & wondering, "When is David ever going to get that sort of thing?" Has Sara had these Basic Courses? She should be passing them on to the children in children's form. My Lord, if the parents don't even know the Courses, how are they going to teach them to their kids?
         18. Well, the Letters are the Leaders & the Letters are the Teachers now, & I presume that what they're giving them is the Basic 144 which is good & comprehensive & gives them a lot of what they need to know, but it's not the simple basic little Courses that we used to teach to get them started. I would hate to think that you've never even had these simple little basic Courses which we considered the bare minimum essentials that every soul-winning Christian should know!
         19. (Prays:) You know what's best, Lord, & what they need, & we do want to ground these in Thy Word & in the faith & make sure they know all they need to know. We just want to make sure, Lord, that they know all the basic things they need to know. So help us, Lord, to be able to go over these things & try to make sure that they have all the tools they need to do the job. In Jesus' name, amen.
         20. "STUDY TO SHOW THYSELF APPROVED UNTO GOD, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."--"For whom shall He teach knowledge? And whom shall He make to understand doctrine? Them that are weaned from the milk, & drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, & there a little." (2Ti.2:15; Isa.28:9,10)
         21. (PTL, THE 7 BASIC COURSES WILL BE COMING SOON, Lord Willing! Pray! Meanwhile, read the Letters! GBY!)