Exodus 24:1-8
I’m going to focus on the commandments from God that tell us to read and study the Bible. We have to go back to the basics of reading and studying the Bible daily. If everything else is more important, things aren’t going to turn out very well.
We need to know what’s in the Bible. We need to know the organization of the Bible. We need to know the structure of the Bible. We need to know the doctrines taught within the Bible. We need to know the books of the Bible. We need to know how many chapters are in each book. We need to remember what’s in each book. We need to know how to find verses within the Bible quickly.
We need to memorize verses. We need to know how to explain the Scriptures. We need to know the Bible. If not, we will be led the wrong way. We will fall for false doctrine if we do not rely on the Bible alone.
Falling for False Doctrine
For example, just over the last couple of years, I was falling for a false doctrine being taught about the Trinity. I was starting to believe, based on preaching that I heard that God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit all have different wills. God, because there is one God, has a single will. God has one will.
Now, Jesus Christ came in the flesh and became a man with flesh and blood. Jesus, as a man, had a different will than God because he became a man, but Jesus, because he is God in the flesh, stayed perfectly obedient to the Father’s will or God’s will.
That’s the only time that there’s a difference in the will of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But Jesus didn’t follow that will of his flesh or his man.
The Son of God, Jesus, became flesh. He became just like us. He has a body, a spirit, and a soul just like you and I. He has a will, as a man, just like you and I. But the Holy Spirit and the Father never differ in wills. They have one will. Jesus, as God, has that same will.
So, it’s easy to fall for something when you believe a man is something better than he actually happens to be. A man is not good. If I am not teaching the Bible correctly, it’s because I am not relying on the Bible only. That’s why I do my absolute best to compare Scripture with Scripture throughout the Bible.
Always go with the word of God over the word of a man.
An Introduction to the Books of the Bible
Today, I want to give an introduction to the Books of the Bible. You might think this is very basic. But it’s not. The vast majority of people don’t know how many books are in the Bible. They don’t know that the Bible is split into the Old Testament and New Testament.
They don’t know how many books are in the Old Testament or the New Testament. And then they definitely can’t tell you all of the 66 books of the Bible.
So, to start out today, I’m going to ask each one of you to come up here, without looking, and recite the 66 books of the Bible. Who’s first? Just kidding. I’m not going to do that. Yes, that was a bad joke. Sorry.
We need to know the books of the Bible, their order, the number of chapters they have, old or new testament, their category, and how big each of the books are in size. For example, if I asked you how big the book of Elijah is in the Old Testament, what should you tell me?
You should tell me there is no book of Elijah in the Old Testament. Yes, another bad joke. I might keep doing that.
A Handout That Will Help You
A need some volunteers to help hand these out. This handout will help you. And I want you to keep this handout over the next days, weeks, and months. This is going to be your cheat sheet.
For the next several Sunday night sermons, I am going to ask some questions and the first person to answer correctly, first hand raised and called upon, will get a treat.
And I’m going to throw it at you. This is going to be like Lambert’s the Home of the Throwed Rolls, my absolute favorite restaurant in the country. This is going to be True Words Baptist Church, the church of the thrown candy.
So, if you take this home and study all throughout the next days, weeks, and months, you will be able to win some candy here at church. One per person per Sunday night service. If you win a second time, you get to give the candy to the person of your choice.
So, you all have your handouts there with you now. You will see the Old Testament on the front and the New Testament on the back.
I am going to go over a summary of the Bible and then later I will ask questions and throw candy at the winner of each question. So please listen closely so you can win.
Starting With the Old Testament
We’re going to start there with the Old Testament on the front of the handout there. There are 39 books in the Old Testament. The Old Testament makes up 77% of the entire Bible. In other words, the Old Testament is the big majority of the Bible. 77% or more than ¾ of the Bible. You will see the percentages over on the far right column of the table.
Within the Old Testament, we have five major categories of books that will help you understand the Bible. You’ll see that in the table heading at the top under Category. You’ll see: Law, History, Poetry and Wisdom, Major Prophets, and Minor Prophets.
I don’t want you to miss the column that’s labeled size. That column gives you the ranking of each book of the Bible by the number of characters within the book. We use only the King James Version of the Bible here. We will never use any other version here as long as I’m alive. So, if you take a look down that column there, you’ll find the book ranked number one in size.
The Biggest Book in the Bible by Characters = Psalms
What’s the biggest book in all of the Bible? The book of Psalms is the biggest book of the King James Version of the Bible by characters. Psalms has 223,709 characters. In a close second place with 223,703 characters (just 6 characters less than Psalms) is which book? Which book there in the Rank column is #2? Do you see it?
Yes, it’s the Book of Jeremiah. Third is Ezekiel. Fourth is Genesis. Fifth is Isaiah. The Category of Major Prophets has some very big books. Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah all in the top 5 biggest books. Numbers is sixth biggest. Exodus is seventh biggest. Deuteronomy is eighth biggest. 2 Chronicles in number 9.
And you won’t find the tenth biggest book of the Bible within the Old Testament as that rank goes to the Gospel of Luke which is the biggest book in the New Testament.
The five major categories within the Old Testament, in order, are the books of the 1) Law, 2) History, 3) Poetry and Wisdom, 4) Major Prophets, and 5) Minor Prophets. When we say Minor Prophets, this doesn’t mean they aren’t as important. Minor simply means the books aren’t as big as the Major Prophets, in general.
These are just some more sample questions to help you prepare for later. This is not a part of the questions for candy yet. If I asked you what’s the third book in the History Books category of the Old Testament, what would you say? That book would be Ruth.
What are the first five books of the Bible? Could you tell me that without looking? Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. How many chapters are in Exodus? 40 chapters.
How Will You Learn to Fear the Lord?
Deuteronomy 17:19
And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them:
That’s what we need to be working on more and more and more. Listen, you need to put the phones away. You need to put the video games away. You need to put the Hollywood movies away written by depraved minds. You need to put “The Chosen” series away as it lies about the Bible and changes the word of God.
You need to put all these other things away that simply waste time. Do you really want to waste the precious time God give you here on this earth to do all these wasteful things? If you can’t give me the books of the Bible in order, you need to get to work on the Bible.
If you don’t know how many chapters are in the book of Psalms, you need to get to work on the Bible. If I don’t tell you that, who is going to tell you that? You should know the books of the Bible like the back of your hand.
The Men, the Women, the Children Should Know The Bible
Joshua 8:34-35
And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law. 35 There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not before all the congregation of Israel, with the women, and the little ones, and the strangers that were conversant among them.
We’ll spend time getting our kids to the evil public schools. We’ll drive them every morning and wait in lines to drop them off to the wolves. We’ll drive back in the afternoon to pick them up and wait in lines that are a mile long.
But we won’t dare pick up a Bible, filled with God’s words, and read it to them. We’ll spend time taking them to churches who won’t even tell them how to get to heaven. We’ll watch 2 hour movies filled with trash with them, but we won’t teach them the first five books of the Bible are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
Most kids don’t even know there’s an Old Testament and a New Testament within the Bible. If I asked most kids what are the four Gospels in the Bible, they wouldn’t have a clue. And they don’t.
If I asked most adults, in churches, to name the 66 books in the Bible, they can’t do it. Imagine God giving you this life. He did. Imagine God leaving you here with one thing. He left us with his words. He gave us this Bible. And we don’t even know what’s in there. Instead, we would rather look at our phone all day long.
If I were you, I wouldn’t look at your phone again until you know the 66 books of the Bible. I wouldn’t watch another movie until I knew the 66 books of the Bible. I wouldn’t watch another basketball game or football game until I knew the books of the Bible. I’m serious.
Learn the Books of the Bible
The sheet I gave you will make learning the Books of the Bible much easier for you. If you will read and study your Bible, memorizing the books of the Bible will become easier. You will remember, that after the death of Moses, Joshua takes over. When Joshua is dead, the Judges come next. After the Judges, you see Ruth who happens to be the great grandmother of David.
You know 1 Samuel comes next in which the kings are coming after the Judges. King Saul, king David, king Solomon. The kingdoms split because of king Solomon. Israel is destroyed. Judah is destroyed. You’ll have a sense of what’s happening in each of the books of the Bible.
You should be able to look at the books on that sheet and remember things that are happening in each of the books. If not, you need to get to reading and studying the Bible. Life isn’t a game. Life is real. Stop wasting time on things that don’t matter. And spend time on things that do. The Bible matters. It is the word of God.
And see, you don’t have the fear of the Lord, to do what he commands, because you aren’t reading the Bible and you don’t know the books of the Bible. And you don’t care. So there is no fear of the Lord because you don’t see what he warns you of in the Bible.
When I speak up here, most of it goes in the one ear and right out the other without any processing at all. I’ve said what the four Gospels happen to be hundreds of times in church since we started here. Hundreds of times. And some still won’t know them. It’s just 4 books.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But we know the TV shows. We know the cartoon characters. We can name all of them. But not Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Hey, that’s a serious issue.
Candy To Learn the Bible
So I have to get the candy out to get someone to actually try to read the books of the Bible. It’s going to be sad when you get to heaven, and you don’t know the 66 books of the Bible. He knows you don’t know them. That’s sad. He died for you, suffered for you, and you don’t know the Books of the Bible. He left you with this great gift of his words.
If you loved him like you should, you would get to know Jesus and his words. You would put away all that other trash. Do you actually love Jesus or not? His words are written in the Bible. Do you want to get to know Jesus or not?
Luke 12:48
But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.
God gave you much. “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required.”
Luke 16:10
He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.
Bible basics. The least we can learn about the Bible is the basics of the Bible. 66 books. 39 in the Old Testament. 27 in the New Testament. Name them all in order. Understand the order of the books. The Bible isn’t that big. 66 books of the Bible. If you can’t learn the names of the books, you definitely aren’t going to understand the Bible when you read it.
Be Faithful in the Little Things Too
“He that is faithful in that which is LEAST is faithful also in much.”
So, in the Old Testament, we have the Books of the Law: Genesis to Deuteronomy. We have History Books: Joshua to Esther. You should remember what’s in these books. Then we have Poetry and Wisdom Books that are very important to your life. The keys of life are within the Bible. The secrets of life are in there.
Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. Poetry and Wisdom. Next are the Major Prophets. This is a huge section to read. Put the effort forth.
That section starts with Isaiah and goes to Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, and then Daniel. Read the prophets and see all the warnings given in those books. If you want to get the fear of God, read these books. And don’t give up. Read them. Listen to them over and over again.
Then we have the longer list of Minor Prophets that most people won’t learn. There’s just 12 books there. Put them in smaller groups of 4 and you’ll have them memorized in a few minutes. And then repeat them over and over again.
First group of 4. Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah. Second group of 4. Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk. Third group of 4. Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. It’s that easy. Split them up into groups of 4 and you only have 3 groups to memorize. 12 minor prophets.
Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. 12 books. 12 minor prophets. Now, how many minor prophets are there? There are 12. I just said 12 minor prophets 4 different times. We must learn how to concentrate and listen.
Train your brain to concentrate, listen, and learn. That’s what the Bible does for you. The Bible makes you very smart. 39 books in the Old Testament. Now we flip the page over and see the New Testament on the back. 27 books in the New Testament. If you cannot add 39 plus 27 very quickly and get 66, you need to do some work with math. God created math. It’s good for you.
Stop watching the TV. Stop looking at your phone. Stop playing games. Learn math. It will benefit you in your life. Learn how to read faster and better. That will benefit you. Knowing how to quote some dumb movie doesn’t benefit you at all.
Ending With the New Testament
Now, take a look at the categories over there to the right. You’ll see the Gospels, Church History, Letters to the Churches, Letters to Leaders, General Letters, and Prophecy there at the end. Knowing these categories and what’s within these books will help you remember the order and vice versa.
4 Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These are all about the first coming of Jesus Christ. You can read all about what he did and said while he was here on earth. The Gospels make up about 1/10 of the entire Bible.
We then see the Book of Acts. Most church goers only know one verse in all the Bible and that is Acts 2:38. They don’t know anything else. They think Acts 2:38 says to repent of all your sins, stop sinning, get baptized in water, receive the Holy Ghost, and then speak in babble (what they call tongues) to be saved. And the same people think you can lose everlasting life too.
And those same people come to me calling me a liar because I repeat the verses in the Bible. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. They say, “You liar. You false prophet. You devil.” They call the words of the Bible this. Very dangerous. They take a stand on the sand while I stand on the rock of Jesus Christ. I preach Jesus.
I know the Bible from the front to the back. I don’t just know Acts 2:38 and “Faith without works is dead.” I know what’s in the Old Testament and the New Testament. I know what’s in each book. Could I mess up at times? Yes, I am only a man. But the parrots who parrot Acts 2:38 and Faith Without Works is Dead do not change my views because the Gospel is simple.
I am the strongest on the Gospel because it’s the simplest thing in all the Bible. The harder doctrines will take more study, more faith, more work. We can be tricked on other doctrines so we need to know the Bible well. Be a student of the Bible. Be strong in the word of God. You’re going to need his words forever.
The Book of Acts is what happens with the New Testament churches once Jesus has ascended into heaven. We then see the books written to the churches. Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians.
The Apostle Paul Wrote to the Churches
These are all letters written by the Apostle Paul to these churches. They are named by the city they are located within. For example, the book of Philippians is written to the church at Philippi.
You’ll see Jerusalem down on the lower right of that map. You will see Rome up at the upper left of the map. The Book of Romans was written to the church in Rome. You see Corinth for the books of 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. You see Galatia there for the Galatians. Ephesus for the book of Ephesians.
Philippi for the Book of Philippians. Colossae for the Book of Colossians. Thessalonica there for the Books of 1 and 2 Thessalonians. We need to know these things. 9 books to the churches written by the Apostle Paul. The first word in all of those books (Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians) is Paul. Remember that.
And you might be thinking, it’s not my job to learn all these things. It’s your job, Josh. Wrong. It’s my job. And it’s your job. You need to learn it. You need to put the work in to learn it. This is a good start.
Then we see letters written to church leaders next. We see 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. Paul wrote these letters to people and not to churches. Paul was close to Timothy. These are all pretty small books but very important books.
For example, the Bible says, not Josh says, the Bible says that a woman cannot be a pastor and cannot lead a church. 1 Timothy says this over and over again. Titus says the same thing. Paul gives us these rules for churches written through the Holy Ghost. People ignore these things, and they do what they want because they think they know better than God.
The General Letters Within the Bible
We need to know the Bible and where things are located. We need to know the doctrines taught within the Bible. Next, we see general letters. Hebrews, written to the Hebrews. James, written to the 12 tribes scattered abroad. James is written to people who are already saved. It’s obvious. But people try to use the words in James to teach a works based salvation.
We have Hebrews, James, 1 & 2 Peter, 1, 2, & 3 John, and Jude. If I asked you right now to look on your sheet there and tell me the smallest book in the Bible, what would you tell me? You need to know how many books there are in the Bible. There are 66. And then you look down the Size column on the right of that table and find the book with a size ranking of 66. What do you see?
2 John is the smallest book in all the Bible by the number of characters. 2 John only has 1,553 characters and is only 0.04% of the Bible or 1 out of 2500 parts. For example, if you read 2 John two thousand five hundred times through it would be like reading through the Bible once. The second smallest book in the Bible is 3 John.
And then the fourth smallest book in the Bible, with a ranking of 63 out of 66 is Jude. So, this last part of the New Testament has some of the smallest books.
The Last Book is a Very Important Book
And to finish up the New Testament, we see a very important book called Revelation. This is a book filled with prophecy of end times events. We need to know this book. Some people who teach lies in Baptist churches will say that we don’t need to know this book. We do need to know this book.
We need to know all the books of the Bible. And we need to know them in great detail. In this church, we’re going to do that. We’re going to learn the books in great detail.
How many chapters are in the Book of Revelation? Find it there on your sheet. You’ll find 22 chapters in the Book of Revelation.
66 books in the Bible. 39 in the Old Testament. 27 in the New Testament. 1,189 chapters in the Bible. 31,102 verses in the Bible. 789,635 words in the Bible. 4,137,818 characters with letters, spaces, and punctuation in the Bible. It is the perfect book written by the hand of God through the hand of men. God shows his greatness and the part that we play in his plan.
Now For The Questions
Now, I’m going to ask you some questions. I am going to ask someone to come up here and be the judge for the person who raises their hand first. Don’t yell out the answer. Raise your hand. Don’t say the answer to the person next to you. Raise your hand please. And don’t get mad if you lose. It’s okay to lose.
Use your sheet if you need help. You don’t have to use it. But it will help you to answer all these questions.
- What’s the only book in the Bible that has 31 chapters?
- What is the 10th biggest book in the Bible?
- How many books of the Bible only have one chapter?
- What is the 10th smallest book in the Bible?
- What percentage of the Bible does the Poetry and Wisdom Books make up?
- What is the biggest category of books in the New Testament?
- What is the sixth book in all the Bible?
- What’s the only book in the Bible with two chapters?
- Which book is bigger? Obadiah or Philemon?
- What’s the biggest category of books in the entire Bible?
Now, we’re going to keep working on learning the Bible, it’s layout, where things are, overviews of Books, and more. We need to start focusing in on these things as no one else is teaching these things.
Learn the Books of the Bible
Please listen to this last set of Scriptures as we close this out. And then take that sheet home with you and actually use it to study the Books of the Bible. First Memorize their order. Then memorize the number of chapters in each book. This is not difficult to do. We all need to work on this, and we all need to keep going over this now and forever.
Isaiah 29:9-10
Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink. 10 For the LORD hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered.
Don’t be like this. Don’t have this spirit of deep sleep where you learn all the foolish things of this world and never learn the important things of God.
Isaiah 29:11-12
And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed: 12 And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned.
When someone comes to you with a question about the Bible, you don’t want to say: “I don’t know.” If I ask you to tell me the 66 books of the Bible, I don’t want you to say, “I don’t know. I never learned them.” We’re going to learn them here.
We’re going to do this together. And we’re going to go into great detail about the books of the Bible. The first step is to know what’s in the Bible. You need to learn the books of the Bible. Memorize all 66 and their order.
Let’s pray.
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