1. Romans 15:4 (NKJV) 4 For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.

3. Digging In The Attic Our lesson this morning is designed to help us focus on our theme for 2016 Do you have an attic in your house? If so, what do you use that attic for? What is in your attic?

5. Digging In The Attic In a similar way, the Old Testament contains things that are useful and needful for us as Christians It helps us understand where God’s great plan came from However, we realize that we do not live under the Law given to the Israelites

6. Digging In The Attic Too many times we neglect the past and the value it can contain In our case, the Old Testament is full of valuable information That information is many times the key to unlock our understanding of the things contained in the New Testament

7. Nature of God The Old Testament is worth digging into because it teaches us about God’s very nature Think about the attributes you learn about God through the Old Testament In Genesis 1 we learn of God’s great power in creation

8. Nature of God We learn about the idea of the Godhead in Genesis 1:26 We see God’s plan for marriage that has been around longer than any other institution in Genesis 2 We see God’s love and His plan to redeem mankind in Genesis 3

9. Nature of God We learn about God’s love, holiness, mercy, justice, longsuffering and His grace We see that He is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent When we dig deep into the Old Testament, we appreciate God more

10. Jesus in OT We have spoken before about seeing Jesus in the Old Testament There are occasions where it seems that Jesus has made appearances in dealings with man It shows us that Jesus was active in the Old Testament as well

11. Jesus in OT Not just that, but the prophecies concerning Jesus in the OT are very important They teach us why Jesus was to come and what He was to do while here It also shows us who they were to be looking for in the NT times

12. Jesus in OT Isaiah contains a great deal of prophetic scriptures looking to Jesus Isaiah even gives us great detail of His suffering and death in Isaiah 53 It shows us that Jesus was active in the Old Testament as well

13. Types and Shadows The Bible speaks in various places of types and shadows These types and shadows are not the real thing, but they show us what those real things are to look like One example is found in I Peter 3:21 regarding baptism

14. Types and Shadows The flood was a type of baptism, in that it washed the wickedness from the earth Paul describes Adam as a type of Christ in Romans 5:14 Death and sin came through Adam, life and forgiveness came through Christ

15. Types and Shadows Hebrews speaks about shadows In chapter 10, the law provided a shadow of good things to come (animal sacrifices were a shadow of the ultimate sacrifice that was to come) Hebrews 8:5 speaks again about the shadow or copy of heavenly things

16. Apocalyptic Language One of the books most struggled with is Revelation One of the reasons it seems so hard to understand is because we are not as familiar with the Old Testament Writers like Daniel and Ezekiel used this same type of writing

17. Apocalyptic Language Revelation 9 speaks of locusts and the harm they would cause Joel spoke also of locusts, which gives us some assistance in understanding Revelation 9 Compare the scene with the creatures in Revelation 4 with those in Ezekiel 1