Alright, we're here in the book of Psalms, and this sermon is about Bible memorization.
The name of the sermon is Hiding God's Word in Your Heart. Hiding God's Word in Your Heart.
Now turn to Psalms 119. Psalms 119.
And so, Psalms 119 is actually our main chapter we're going to focus on today.
We're going to go back to Psalms 1 later on.
But Psalms 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible,
and so our custom is to read the entire chapter, so I kind of had to make a choice.
We'll be part of Psalms 119, or we'll pick just kind of a different opening chapter.
So I decided to pick a different opening chapter.
But this month, you know, we're trying to memorize 3 John as a church,
and finish it on July 28th as the deadline, the last day to do that,
and everyone who does it is going to get, you know, a prize.
And, you know, Bible memorization should be an important part of our lives.
And it's a good thing for us, it's a valuable thing for us.
And I kind of have two purposes in this sermon.
One is I want to convince you on the importance of memorizing the Bible,
but then I want to convince you that you have the ability to do it.
Because a lot of people, they might think it's important,
but they just don't think they have the ability.
And so I want to try to give you the confidence
and show you kind of some tips of what you can do.
Now, in Psalms 119, I want you to notice verse number 11.
And this is the most famous verse on Bible memorization.
It's a great verse, it says,
Thy word have I hidden mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.
Now, this morning's sermon was kind of a long sermon,
and this sermon is not meant to be as long.
And I decided instead of just, obviously we're going to show a lot of Bible,
but we're really just going to look at this one verse
and see three points from Psalms 119, verse 11,
really break down what's being said and see what the Bible says.
And what it says is, Thy word have I hidden mine heart.
The first thing I want you to notice is it says,
Thy word have I hidden mine heart.
See, you must make a personal choice to hide God's word in your heart.
Thy word have I.
So everybody, when you read the Bible,
or you're memorizing the Bible, you see this verse,
you have to have the attitude, thy word have I.
This is something you're deciding to do.
I can't memorize it for you,
your parents can't memorize it for you,
your brother can't memorize it for you, your sister can't.
Nobody can force you to memorize it.
Your husband can't, your wife can't,
you've got to make that choice.
Thy word have I hidden mine heart.
Okay, now turn to Proverbs 2, Proverbs 2.
Now look, we in life,
we memorize a lot of different things.
We memorize people's birthdays,
we memorize their names,
we memorize facts about sports or entertainment,
and all of these other things, okay?
So you might not have the capacity
to memorize as much as somebody else,
but you still have the ability to memorize some, okay?
Look, we're not competing against one another.
It's not me versus you or somebody else versus you.
No, it's just you personally deciding
you're going to take this on yourself
and do the best you can and memorize God's word.
Thy word have I hidden mine heart.
The things we memorize in life,
we memorize things that are important to us.
Now there are things that we have to memorize,
like for your job or certain facts
or things you just have to know,
or daily things in your lives,
just certain facts and things that you need to know
on a daily basis for your life.
But look, we also memorize a lot of things
that we make a choice to memorize.
And it's like, you know, we ought to make a choice
to memorize the Bible, and that's what's being said
in Psalm 119, verse number 11.
Notice what it says in Proverbs 2, verse 1.
My son, if thou wilt receive my words
and hide my commandments with me.
It says if thou wilt receive my words.
And see, there's a choice that's being made
when you hear the word of God,
you can make a choice to receive the word of God,
if thou wilt receive.
Now notice how thou is singular.
This is being said to basically one person, okay?
He's saying if you're going to receive my words,
this is a choice that you must make,
that you've got to decide.
Look, I can't force you to read the Bible.
As much as I try to motivate you to read the Bible,
I mean, I preached a whole sermon,
and then of course the last 10 minutes,
I'm trying to motivate you to read the Bible.
But I can't force you to do it.
I can't force you to wake up and turn off Facebook.
I mean, I guess they could knock on your door
six in the morning, and then just hide your computer.
I can't force you to do that.
I can't force you to memorize the Bible.
I would like to, and if I could force myself
to just do it every single day
without having to always not get distracted
with other things, but honestly,
it's a personal choice to make.
And every single one of us would make the decision
every day to put off the old man,
and to put on the new man.
There's the old man, and there's the new man.
These are different from one another.
The old man wants the things that are wrong.
The new man wants the things that are right.
And by the way, when you get saved,
your old man doesn't start desiring what's right.
No, you get indwelt with the Spirit of God.
Because see, the Bible says,
didn't we see in the first sermon
as newborn babies desire the sincere milk of the Word?
If desire was automatic,
God wouldn't have to command you to desire.
He says the newborn babies desire
the sincere milk of the Word.
Why? Because the fact is not automatic.
When you get saved,
you still have to make that choice
to desire the Word of God, okay?
And what he says here,
my son is thou wilt receive my words.
This is a choice we make to receive his words
and hide my commandments with him, okay?
He hears this from his father.
He's got to make this choice to memorize this,
keep it in his heart, keep it in his mind
to permanently have it locked away.
And so the first thing we see
in us making a choice to hide the Word of God in our heart
is simply that you must make the choice
to memorize the Word of God.
But I want you to turn to Deuteronomy 30.
Deuteronomy 30.
What I want you to realize
is that God does not hide the Word of God from us.
We're commanded to hide God's Word in our hearts.
God doesn't hide it from us.
Now the Catholic church,
yeah, they try to hide it from us.
We saw a whole sermon on that.
What they tried to do for over a thousand years,
they did everything they could to hide the Word of God.
Eventually they gave up and said,
okay, we'll give you an English Bible here
and it's doing around us.
So the Catholic church tries to hide the Word of God.
God doesn't try to hide the Word of God from us.
He wants people to have the Word of God.
Deuteronomy 30 verse 11.
For this commandment which I command thee to stay,
it is not hidden from me,
neither is it far off.
See, God's commandment, it's not hidden from us.
It's not that God has it locked away someplace
and it's hard to find.
It's not that you have to go to Bible calls for four years
and then all of a sudden you found the magic key
after four years.
They give you the diploma and it's like,
oh, there we go.
Now I can have the Word of God.
Now I'm smart enough to understand the Word of God.
You know, before I wasn't smart enough.
I needed this four-year Bible call,
but finally it's unlocked because you hid the Word of God
from me for four years.
Isn't that what Baptist churches say?
If you really want to know the Word of God,
you've got to go to Bible college.
I don't know about you,
but I thought if I really wanted to know the Word of God,
I just opened it and read it.
I mean, I'm saved.
I've got the Holy Spirit of God inside of me,
so why would I need to go to Bible college
and waste all of my money for a degree that is useless?
And look, I understand people who have been to Bible college
in this room, I'm not calling them for that
because when I first got saved,
I was asked for the things of God,
I almost went to Bible college because I was like,
man, I want to serve God my whole life.
And what happens?
Well, Baptist churches try to guilt you into it.
They try to make you feel like, man,
if you're really a good Christian,
you're going to go to Bible college.
Sacrifice the world.
Sacrifice your degree.
Sacrifice your money to serve God.
Just go and serve God.
At least give God a couple years of your life.
You know what they say?
And look, when I was newly saved,
my plan was originally to get my degree
and then go to Bible college.
And then, thankfully, during that time period,
I learned, as I read the Bible more,
that actually the Bible doesn't even talk about Bible college.
Because quite honestly, what happens is
Bible college is usually very expensive,
and it gives you a useless degree.
You can't apply to be an engineer
and then just say, well, yeah,
I want to be a mechanical engineer.
Here's my Bible college degree in theology.
It doesn't work that way.
And so the reason why they have this system
is it kind of locks you into their Baptist system
of your life.
Even if you want to depart from it,
you really can't.
Because you put in money,
and you've already made that sacrifice.
They make it difficult.
That's the way Bible colleges work.
And by the 80s, I can tell it's no different
here in the Philippines than in America.
It's the same way that it works.
But look, God's Word is not in from us.
And a new believer can read the Word of God,
and they can learn the Word of God.
And I don't care if that person
is a five-year-old child.
If that five-year-old child picks up the Word of God,
they're going to learn from it.
I say, well, they're not smart enough.
Look, you don't have to be that smart to understand
in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.
Now, I understand that, obviously,
the more you learn the Bible,
there's things that you can learn,
and it takes some time.
I'm not saying a new believer
should just open up the book of Ezekiel and say,
man, I'm going to town on this thing.
It's like, that's going to be pretty difficult.
You obviously started at the more basic ones.
The book of John is what I recommend.
New people read the Bible.
The book of John, the book of Romans,
or just through the New Testament.
You're not going to get everything,
but you're going to get some things.
And here's a secret.
There's plenty.
I don't get in the Word of God now in my life.
As I read the Word of God, there's a lot of chapters
I'm thinking, I don't know what that's talking about.
I don't claim to know everything,
and nobody knows everything.
So it doesn't matter what stage you're at.
You're not going to know everything.
And so say, well, I've got to go back to the Hebrew
to figure this out.
In English or Filipino languages, God's Word is here for us.
We have the Word of God.
We can learn the Word of God.
Turn back to Psalms 119.
Now, no Baptist church is going to tell you
the Word of God is hidden from you.
But they act like it is.
And so they're not going to admit to the fact
that we don't believe that you can actually
learn the Word of God.
That is what they believe.
They believe that you can't actually learn the Word of God
unless you go to Bible culture.
What they're really concerned about
is that you're going to read the Bible
and come to your own conclusions.
That's true.
Look, I'm not concerned of you
reading the Bible and coming to your own conclusions.
Now, if you read the Bible on your own
and you walk away with a conclusion
that you have to be baptized to be saved,
well, here's the thing.
You don't have the Spirit of Truth inside of you guiding you.
And so go ahead.
You're not going to probably last that long at this church.
You go out sowing, and you start quoting Acts 2 and 38.
And Acts 2 and 38 is like, whoa.
Do you think we have a problem here?
Look, as a saved person, you're not going
to just believe crazy things.
You're reading the Bible as a saved person.
You read Luke 16.
Oh, I think it's a parable.
I don't think hell's real.
You're never going to come to that conclusion.
Now, you'll come to some conclusions
that are different than me.
There's different interpretations of verses.
But you're not going to come with different doctrine.
So there's verses that people have different opinions on.
Well, you know, look, James 2, people
are going to have a lot of different opinions.
I have my opinion on it.
And within like-minded pastors we respect,
I know at least three different opinions.
And I do hold one of those opinions.
But here's the thing.
We all hold the opinion that salvation is by grace and faith.
So yeah, you can have a different interpretation
of what's the point of this chapter,
but you're not going to walk away saying, man,
I think I got to quit drinking to be saved.
I think I got to quit smoking to be saved.
I think I got to speak in tongues to be saved.
You'll never have that conclusion.
Because the spirit of truth is inside of you, guiding you.
Now, will you believe some wrong things?
Yeah, when you first start reading the Bible,
you'll have a thought, and you're like, man,
it looks like this is what it's saying.
And then all of a sudden, like 10 pages later,
it's like, oh, whoops.
I was wrong on that.
So yeah, you're going to be wrong on some stuff,
but you're still going to learn stuff.
God's Word is not hidden from us.
Now, Psalm 119, notice what it says in verse 18.
Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out
of thy law.
I am the stranger in the earth.
Hide not thy commandments from me.
What does he say?
He's like, don't hide your commandments from me.
I want to know the Word of God.
I want to learn the Word of God.
Don't hide it from me.
And the good news is this.
God doesn't hide a word from me.
Amen.
Now, look, people will try to hide it from you.
And it's not a common church here,
but the Orthodox Church is a common church worldwide.
And I remember I mentioned something in a sermon
about a long time ago before this church started back
in Sacramento.
And I looked online at this Orthodox website,
and they had a Bible reading plan.
And their Bible reading plan was in a chapter in Isaiah.
I think it was in the book of Isaiah.
But it wasn't every single verse.
It was like verse 1 and 4 and 8 and 10.
They just have you skip half the verses.
And it's like, what in the world kind of?
I mean, I've seen a lot of Bible reading charts.
But I've never seen, hey, turn to Isaiah 55
and read verses 1, 3, 7, 8, 12, through 14.
I mean, what kind of a Bible reading chart is that?
You say, why do they do that?
Because they want to make you think that they're
encouraging you to read the Bible.
What they're actually doing is restricting versus the thing
I want you to read.
Yeah.
So they don't even give you a chart.
As long as the fact, Leviticus 20's never ended.
Yeah.
As long as Genesis 19's never ended.
As long as Judges 19 is never ended.
They'll make you think that they want you to read the Bible.
But they don't.
Now, look, at the beginning of our church,
right after the missions trip in February,
we had reading through the New Testament come recovery.
Look, I didn't say, well, you know, skip, you know,
Jude, verse number 11.
No, it's like, read the whole thing?
Yeah.
And guess what?
You know what?
If we could all get through the Old Testament in a month,
we would do that.
Maybe we'll have a Old Testament challenge sometime.
Why?
Because you need to read the whole Bible.
Old Testament, New Testament.
It's all good.
It's all perfect.
It's pure.
God is not hiding anything from us.
Amen.
Now, I want you to notice also in Psalms 119, verse 11.
So this is a personal choice that you're making.
But I want you to notice in Psalms 119, 11, where it says,
thy word have I hid.
I want to focus on that word, hid.
When you think about the word hid,
hid implies that it's something that's really deep down there.
OK?
Like, for example, in the Dark Ages,
you had to hide the word God or you could be killed.
What does that mean?
It means it's not on top of your couch where it can be seen.
Yeah.
It means it's going to be in a spot
where you've got to put it away so nobody else can find it.
OK?
And see, God is telling us to put effort
to hide God's word in our hearts and hide it in your minds.
That's right.
X is 2.
We'll see this from the Bible.
And so when it comes to Bible memorization
and God telling us to hide his word in our hearts, yeah.
He wants us to get it down deep in there,
to memorize it and have it memorized.
And as much as we can, try to keep that in our minds
because it's going to help us.
OK?
In Exodus 2, notice what it says in verse 2.
And a woman conceived and bare a son.
And when she saw him that he was a goodly child,
she hid him three months.
And so this is Moses' mom.
And he's being hid.
You say, why is he being hid?
Well, because Egypt is going to kill every single child.
So basically, if you have a child,
you have to hide your child.
OK?
Otherwise, their government is worse
than hiding the Bible.
They're just killing all the children.
Now, it says she could only hide him three months.
You say, why is it that she could only hide him three months?
What happens after three months?
Well, here's the thing.
Babies, throughout their entire lives, they cry.
But when they're newborn, their cries aren't that loud.
After three months, those cries are getting louder and louder.
And she's saying, oh, they're going to hear the cries
and basically go take our baby away and kill him.
And so she can only hide it for three months.
Because, look, children are loud.
And they're crying when they're first born.
But their cries aren't that loud.
And as they get a little bit stronger,
they get even louder with their cries.
And so she can only hide it for three months.
Because after three months, she's
not going to be able to hide it.
They're going to hear it.
And so she's not hiding it because they're
aware that he's there.
Her goal is that nobody's going to be aware that Moses is there.
But after three months, they're going to be aware of it.
Because he's going to cry aloud.
He's going to go through the house.
People are going to hear.
Neighbors are going to report or whatever.
They're going to be aware of it.
So she can only hide it for three months.
So notice what it says in verse three.
And when she could not longer hide him,
she took from him an ark of bull rushes
and docked him with slime and with pitch
and put the child there.
And then she laid it in the flags by the river's bank.
So she takes great effort to try to protect Moses.
And obviously, God basically works a miracle here.
Where the child is fine.
And she actually gets to nurse that child and everything.
And it's an amazing story in the word of God.
And that just shows you put your trust in God
and he can protect you.
But I want you to understand when it says she's hiding,
what is she hiding her son from?
She's hiding him from an Egyptian empire.
See, if you're hiding something,
it means you have something you don't want somebody to find.
So the question is, if we're hiding God's word in our hearts,
what are we hiding the word of God from?
Well, there's two things that I thought of
that we're hiding the word of God from.
One thing that we're hiding the word of God from is time.
Say, what do you mean by that?
I mean that as time goes by, you forget things.
And so you're supposed to really hide it deep down there.
So even if it's five years from now,
you don't forget it.
See, when you learn stuff,
you know it really well at that time.
But look, after time goes by,
you don't know it that well anymore.
Now look, I used to preach the gospel in Spanish,
and honestly, I don't know that many Spanish verses now
because I've forgotten them.
I haven't preached the gospel in Spanish.
I know, Romans 3, 10,
como estas grito, no hay fusto y anor.
But that's about the only verse I remember
because that's at the beginning of the gospel presentation.
It's like, I don't remember all the verses anymore.
You say, why?
Because as time goes by, you lose your knowledge.
You forget about it.
And so when the Bible says, hide the word of God,
basically you know it so well
that as the long time goes by, you don't forget it, okay?
Now look, when you get married,
you memorize your wife's birthday,
you memorize your kid's birthday,
and the reason why you don't forget it
is because every year you get a reminder of it.
But if there's something you don't know
for a long period of time, you forget it.
Look, when I was in college,
I was really good at calculus.
I used to tutor calculus.
But if I took a calculus test right now,
I probably wouldn't score that high.
You say, why?
I don't remember all the things that you have memorized.
I used to know how to do them.
I don't know how to do all that stuff anymore.
I mean, I know how to do derivatives,
but that's about it.
After that, it's like,
I don't remember how to calculate the area
of a three-dimensional cylinder.
It's like, I don't know.
It's not like in my daily life that's important, okay?
So you have to hide it from time
because as time goes by,
you won't forget stuff automatically.
If you know something really well now,
it doesn't mean you're gonna know it in five years.
I learn things.
Sometimes I hear things in sermons.
I'm thinking, man, that's great.
And then all of a sudden I hear a preach
like six months later,
and I'm like, oh, I used to know that.
I said, what took place?
Well, I heard something.
It was interesting.
And then you forget about it.
The facts from this morning's sermon
about the Bible and the history of it,
hey, it's really interesting.
In preparing the sermon, I learned it.
And quite honestly,
I'll probably forget some of those names
of those Bibles off the top of my head
in another month or two.
Now, it's still useful
because it still makes the sermon more impactful.
You're still learning.
You're seeing the authenticity of the Word of God.
But you're gonna forget stuff over time.
You're not gonna memorize everything forever.
You forget stuff.
So one thing we're hiding the Word of God from,
we're hiding it from time
because time will take away knowledge that you have.
But the other thing
that you're hiding the Word of God from,
you're hiding the Word of God from other knowledge
because there's only so much knowledge
you can get inside of you.
And so if you learn some knowledge,
then it's gonna cause you to forget
some of the other knowledge that you know.
That's the way it works.
And so you gotta make a choice in your life,
you know, what do you wanna memorize?
Okay?
Because look, we all memorize lots of different things
and oftentimes we have things we can memorize
and we wanna keep it memorized
and we don't wanna sacrifice that knowledge.
Hey, we focus on that, we think about that,
but the truth is this,
you're gonna have to make a choice.
Are you gonna memorize the Word of God?
Are you gonna memorize a lot of pointless things
that are gonna do you nothing in life?
Right.
Now, I understand there's things that aren't useful,
but we memorize.
But there's a lot of things that are not that useful
that we memorize.
A lot of times people know lots of facts
about some celebrity, some musician.
You know, I've memorized lots of sports facts
because that's what I was really into as a kid.
You know, this guy had this batting average
in 19 whatever year.
Look, that's not very useful information.
Yep.
And you gotta make your choice
because you're hiding the Word of God
from other knowledge
because as more knowledge comes in,
what's it gonna do?
It's gonna discard some of the knowledge
that you have.
Right, yep.
And the knowledge that gets discarded,
you don't want it to be the Word of God.
You would rather it be something like a stupid fact
about, you know, what day, vice conduct.
Just forget about that, okay?
Maybe memorize the day you die,
but not the day he's born, okay?
Don't memorize.
You know, we have pointless information.
Look, you don't want the Word of God
to be something that gets lost out of your mind.
You wanna keep that permanently in your head.
Okay, now turn back to Psalms 1.
Psalms 1.
And so you have to understand
when you're memorizing the Word of God,
the way it works is that if you're memorizing a verse,
you get it memorized, you can quote it,
and then what happens?
Well, 20 minutes later, you can't quote it anymore.
You memorize it short term,
and see, the goal is to get it into your long-term memory
because there's stuff that you memorize
in your short term, and you got it,
but then it kind of fades out.
The goal is that you can start, what?
Because time takes away knowledge, right?
That's one thing you're hiding the Word of God from, time.
So you gotta get it really hidden
so as more time goes by, it still happens.
Right, yeah.
So that means sometimes you memorize it,
and then the next day, you memorize it again.
You keep memorizing it to get it fully locked in, okay?
Now, we'll talk about that a little bit more later on,
but notice what it says in Psalms 1, verse 1.
Blessed is the man that walked not in the counsel of the Godly
who are standing in the way of sinners,
who are citizens in the seat of the scornful,
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and in his law that he meditate day and night.
Now, the law of the Lord is in reference to the Bible itself.
Yeah.
All the Bibles, okay?
You know, the series, the way of the Master,
rain comforts, you know, evangelism techniques,
he quotes, you know, the law of the Lord.
He says the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.
Therefore, tell them, you know, it's wrong to commit adultery,
and just use the Ten Commands.
That's not what the law of the Lord is talking about.
The law of the Lord is in reference to the Bible itself.
Okay?
It's not telling you in Psalms 1, verse 2,
hey, just delight yourself,
and thou shalt not kill any other nine commandments.
It's like, you know, there's a lot to memorize in this book, okay?
There's a lot of stuff to know.
All of this is the law of the Lord.
The book of James is the law of the Lord.
The book of Hebrews is the law of the Lord.
The book of Revelation, the book of Daniel, the book of Genesis.
It doesn't matter what book it is.
It's part of the law of the Lord.
Now, I understand that we refer to the first five books as the law,
but in what the law of the Lord is,
when you look up that phrase in the Bible,
it's in reference to the whole Bible.
Oh, yeah.
Because this is Psalms 1.
It's not Genesis or Deuteronomy.
People say Genesis or Deuteronomy is the law,
but when you look up the law of the Lord in the Bible,
that's the whole Bible itself.
All of the Bible.
Every single one.
Okay?
And so we're supposed to delight in the law of the Lord
and meditate on day and night.
How can you meditate on God's Word day and night
unless you have something memorized?
Because, look, when you're going to sleep at night,
and you have your head on the pillow,
and you're supposed to meditate on the Word of God,
if you don't have anything memorized,
what are you meditating on?
Life.
You're meditating on,
well, the name of the first book in the Bible is Genesis.
No.
The actual words is what God wants you to meditate on.
Right.
And so, look, you're going for a ride in Egypt,
meditate on the Word of God.
That's what he's telling you.
Meditate day and night, throughout the day.
Now, I understand that, obviously, we're doing other tasks.
I'm not saying it's always possible to just,
you know, my old job,
when I was on Microsoft Excel all day long,
back when I worked in Maryland,
and, you know, oftentimes,
I would do some sorts of projects
where it was really just copy and paste.
I had done it so many times
that I was like a robot.
It's just like,
type, copy, paste,
just without even thinking about it.
So I could meditate on a lot of other things.
But then there were other times
I'm working on a project,
and I really had to stop and think about it.
And I really couldn't meditate on anything
except the project I was working on.
So I understand
that, you know, depending on what you're doing,
you might not be able to meditate
just on the Word of God.
I'm not saying if you're driving,
there's heavy traffic.
Just think about the Word of God
and just trust God to take the wheel.
It doesn't quite work that way.
What I am saying is,
to honestly meditate on God's Word day and night,
what's implying is
that you have something the Bible would memorize,
that you can meditate on.
Now, turn back to Psalm 119.
Psalm 119.
And so the last point that we have here
in Psalm 119, verse 11,
notice how it says,
Thy word have I hid mine heart,
that I might not sin against thee.
What is the Bible saying?
If you memorize the Word of God,
it will help you not to sin against God.
Now, what if I told you that,
hey, if you spend 30 minutes a day doing this,
it's going to help you not sin against God.
Doesn't that sound like it's worth it?
It's going to help you not sin against God.
It sounds pretty important to me.
Because when you sin against God,
you reap what you sow.
It's not going to be worth it.
And so if memorizing the Word of God
helps you not to sin against God,
it sounds like it's something
that's pretty valuable to do.
You say, why is it that it would help me
not sin against God?
Well, turn to John 14.
Now, if we really believe this,
it would motivate us to memorize the Bible more.
It would motivate us to put aside other distractions
because we'd obviously see real value
in not sinning against God
if we realized the judgment that comes.
Yes, as a believer,
you can deal with the judgment of God in this life.
You reap what you sow.
But oftentimes, we just don't have enough faith
in what the Bible says.
Now, notice what it says in John 14.
And one reason it's going to help you
not sin against God is
because you'll remember what's right and wrong
when you're in a moment to commit a sin.
John 14, verses 25 and 26.
Notice how it says,
bring all things to your remembrance.
The Holy Spirit will help you remember
what the Bible says.
That implies that you already know what it says.
It will bring it to remembrance.
Look, if you don't know what the Bible says,
if you've never read the book of Ezekiel
and you've never heard it quoted from,
the Holy Spirit can't bring it to your remembrance.
If you don't know what it's even talking about,
it can't come to your remembrance.
It's something you already know.
And so what happens in life is
we read the Bible, we hear sermons,
we hear lots of great things.
It doesn't mean we remember everything.
It doesn't mean that we remember,
hey, in John chapter 5, verse 24
is a great verse to use for soul.
Now we remember some of those things.
We don't remember all of them.
But you still kind of have it down there.
And the Holy Ghost can help you remember it.
Now you don't want it to be gone from your memory, though.
You want to know it as well as you can
so it's easier to be brought to your remembrance.
Because if it's something that you only kind of barely know,
there's a good chance you're going to forget.
I've had those times where I'm looking at a verse in the Bible
and I'm like, man, I know there's a great explanation
for this verse, but I don't remember it.
And you can't remember what the verse is talking about.
You want to, as well as you can, remember things.
And that's what the Holy Ghost does.
It brings to remembrance.
But it does not teach you new things that you don't know.
Now when you read the Bible, it can teach you,
it's the spirit of truth.
But if you're just sitting here, not reading the Bible,
and then all of a sudden the Holy Ghost is like,
hey, this is what this verse is talking about.
And you don't even know the verse.
That doesn't take place.
It's not a Pentecostal church.
No, you read the Bible, you learn,
and the Holy Ghost can help you remember what you've learned.
Now turn to Matthew 4.
And so what takes place?
Well, let's say for example that you struggle with drinking
alcohol.
And if you know the verses about alcohol,
what's going to take place?
As you're tempted to commit that sin,
you're thinking, wow, this is not for King Zolimion.
It's not for you.
Give strong drink on him that is ready to perish.
Woe to the death and be given to one.
When you remember these verses in the Bible,
it basically makes it a lot harder to commit that sin.
You say, why?
Well, the word of God is quick and powerful.
A sharp-headed, two-edged sword.
And so you're having those times where you're just like,
man, I just don't feel like reading the Bible.
But wait a minute.
Read therein all the days of thy life.
And all of a sudden, you're like, whoa, man,
I need to read every day.
I don't feel like it.
I'm tired.
I've got to do it anyway.
Why?
God's word tells me to do that.
And so when you have verses in your mind,
the Holy Spirit will help bring those to remembrance
to make you feel guilty about doing what's wrong
or choosing not to do what's right.
But you have to actually know those verses
and what it says at the beginning.
Now notice what it says in Matthew 4.
So the Holy Ghost will help you remember things.
But also, what you see Jesus do in the Bible,
he actually quotes the word of God to fight off temptation.
And obviously, Jesus was sinless,
but he gives us a pattern of what he did.
Matthew 4, starting at verse 1, then
was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness
to be tempted by the devil.
And when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights,
he was an after-order in hunger.
And when the tempter came to him,
he said, if thou be the Son of God,
command that these stones be made bread.
Now, when you cross references in the Bible
and the stories and all the gospels,
he's not getting tempted after the 40 days only.
He's getting tempted during the 40 days as well.
What Matthew 4 is highlighting is the temptation
after the 40 days.
So it doesn't highlight that he was tempted the whole 40
days.
Look, the devil always is trying to get you into sin.
He's just going to kind of turn it up
at certain points in his life.
And he's gone 40 days, and the devil's coming to him.
And he says, if thou be the Son of God,
notice how he casts doubt on the word of God.
The devil does the same thing today.
If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones
be made bread.
So he's saying, if you're really the Son of God,
then you have the power to make these stones bread
because you're hungry.
Well, what does Jesus say?
But he answered and said, it is written,
man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceeded out
of the mouth of God.
So when he says, it is written,
man shall not live by bread alone, what is he doing?
He's quoting the word of God.
It is written.
He's not saying it's written by Confucius.
He's not saying it's written by Zoroaster, Zoroastrianism,
or some other religion.
No, it's written in the Old Testament.
It's written in the law of the Lord.
So he's quoting the Bible.
He says, man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceeded out
of the mouth of God.
Verse number five.
Then the devil taken them up into the holy city
and set them on a pinnacle in the temple
and saith unto them, if thou be the Son of God,
cast thyself down.
For it is written, he shall give his angels
charge concerning thee.
In their hands, they shall bear thee up,
lest at any time thou dash thy foot against the stone.
Now, what the devil's doing here
is actually misquoting the Bible.
It's very close, but just a little bit of change
changes everything.
In the Jehovah's Witness false translation of the Bible,
what's the name of it?
I can't think off the top of my head.
What's the name?
New World.
New World translation, not New World.
New World translation.
But they take John 1-1, and instead of saying,
in the beginning was work, in the beginning was the word,
and the word was God.
The word was a-God instead of the word was God.
They changed the word was God to the word was a-God.
Now, that's only one letter.
But all of a sudden, you just
taught that Jesus is a-God, not he-God.
Right.
So it doesn't take much to change what the word God says.
It only takes moving things around a little bit,
adding a little letter here, adding a word here,
adding no here, or something like that.
And it changes everything.
Right.
And so the devil has always done this.
So he's misquoting the Bible here in verse six.
But notice what it says in verse seven.
Jesus said unto him, it is written again,
thou shalt not tempt the Lord by God.
So once again, he quotes the word of God.
Verse number eight, again, the devil
takes them up into an exceeding high mountain
and showeth them all the kingdoms of the world
and the glory of them.
And saith unto him, all these things
will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
Then saith Jesus unto him, get thee hence saith,
for it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God,
and him only shalt thou serve.
So three times Jesus quotes the word of God.
He said, where is he quoting from?
He's quoting from the book of Deuteronomy all three times.
Yeah.
Now look, the book of Deuteronomy
is probably not the number one book on the list
that you'd say to memorize.
More verses from the book of Deuteronomy.
But Jesus obviously knew the Bible really well.
He's quoting from the book of Deuteronomy.
Right.
But see, knowing the book of Deuteronomy,
it's giving us a pattern of what we can do in our lives.
See, this is what I'm saying.
If you have a sin that you struggle with,
memorize verses about that sin.
That's what you should do.
You say, why?
Because the Holy Ghost will bring it to remembrance
when you're tempted to commit that sin.
And quoting the word of God is
going to help you not commit that sin.
Doesn't the Bible say that?
That I might not sin against it.
So actually, memorizing the word of God
is going to help you not sin against God.
Because the Holy Ghost will bring it to remembrance,
when you use the word of God to fight off the devil.
OK?
And so quote the word of God when you're struggling.
You say, man, I'm tempted to commit this sin.
Memorize verses about that.
Yeah.
And look, we all struggle with various things.
I don't stand up here saying that I'm perfect
and I never struggle.
No, you know there's verses I need to memorize
because they're helpful to me.
Yeah.
And so yeah, memorizing the word of God,
that is going to be helpful in your life.
It's going to help you not sin against God.
Now as I said, this is not the longest sermon.
I want to go to the conclusion now, Will.
It's kind of a basic sermon, just really applying
Psalm 11911.
Because that is the most famous verse
about memorization.
And it's a great verse.
And it's something we can definitely apply to our lives.
But I want to talk about a few things here in closing.
One is the I can't do an attitude.
Because a lot of people have the attitude,
I can't memorize the word of God.
I don't have that ability.
I can't memorize chapters.
I can't memorize verses.
And people say this all the time.
Sometimes if you have some of the Bible memorized,
people say, wow, isn't it great that God's given you
an ability to memorize the word of God?
And I'm thinking, man, I spent like five hours
this past week working on it.
It's not like I was just like, boom,
I have the word of God memorized.
It's like, no, I spent a lot of time.
Obviously, some people can memorize better than others.
Something about better memories.
But we're not comparing ourselves to one another.
It's unwise to compare yourself versus someone else.
Maybe you don't have the ability
to memorize different chapters.
That's fine.
You're not trying to compete to know more about the Bible
than anyone else.
You're just trying to learn yourself.
Yeah, I understand that you might not
be able to memorize as well as other people.
But you're able to memorize something.
You all have things memorized.
Now, Third John is very doable in memorizing a chapter.
I intentionally picked a chapter that's not like Psalm 119.
We didn't have a two month challenge
to memorize Psalm 118 as a church.
We've memorized Psalm 119 as a church before.
But if you're really extra motivated
and you memorize Third John, we want to do another one.
That's fine.
That's great.
But it is something, the Third John,
that I believe anyone can do.
Honestly, I believe the kids that are willing to do it.
You know, depending on the ages, obviously, my son,
I don't expect to memorize.
But I think some of the kids can definitely
memorize depending on their age.
And so, look, I do believe it's something
that we do have the ability to do.
OK?
You say, well, for a second, I learn, and then I forget.
Well, I mean, all of us learn.
That's the way it works.
I mean, I mentioned that.
We all learn things, and we forget them.
But what you do along the way is you learn something.
And what I want you to understand
is that when you memorize the Bible, even if you do forget it,
it was still useful.
You say, what?
You still learn some things that you take away with you.
Look, I preached a lot of sermons
because I was memorizing the Bible,
and I found something.
Look, I once had, I don't have this memorized now,
Leviticus 14 verses 33 through 57 memorized.
It's worth it.
And I don't know what motivated
me to memorize that passage, but I
preached sermons on that passage.
I learned a lot.
Now, you can't quote it word for word,
but it was still useful.
I can tell you what that section is about,
both the literal and spiritual applications that were,
or symbolic applications when you pull from it.
And so what I want you to understand
is if you memorize the third John with us,
it doesn't mean you're going to have memorized
six months from now.
But even if you forget it, you learn something.
You still learn something that you can take away.
And so look, there's some sections
of the Bible that are more important to have memorized
than others.
But I love the book of Leviticus.
There's a lot of verses I love in there,
but I don't necessarily think that every single chapter
of Leviticus is the most profitable for you to memorize.
But I promise you, you still learn something
if you memorize it.
And so I've memorized sections of the Bible
and then forgotten them.
A lot of the verses, they're not necessarily
things that you need to fully memorize
on a daily basis and have it done.
Now, I personally, I memorize chapters of the Bible,
but I also memorize verses.
And I have a sheet that I print out every month.
There are certain verses that I memorize
every single month, the same verses,
because I don't want to forget those verses.
Now, when you go soul winning, you're not
going to forget Romans 6.23.
You're not going to forget John 3.
But there's a lot of verses that are really great verses
that you don't use solely.
And then you might forget those verses.
So I believe it is profitable to have certain verses that you
think are great.
Just decide, I'm going to permanently memorize these.
Every month, I want to have it at my disposal,
just permanently memorize.
Now, with chapters, I have the strategy
to basically memorize chapters and then
basically forsake them.
And I'll tell you why I do this.
Let's say, for example, you're playing a video game.
Now, I don't play video games anymore.
But let's say I played them when I was young.
When you play a video game, the first time
you beat that game is a lot of fun.
And you're learning things along the way.
There's new things.
The second time's a lot easier.
It's a lot easier, and it's not as fun
because you've already done it.
And so for me, you memorize a book in the Bible.
When you memorize a chapter in the Bible, you learn a lot.
I think it's actually more profitable
after you kind of memorize it and keep it
in there for a little while to move on to another book
because you learn so much the first time you memorize it,
and you keep it in for a little while,
rather than trying to just memorize it
every single month, repeat it.
Now, that's my opinion.
Other people have different opinions on that.
But I think you learn more by just going
to some other section of the Bible and memorizing it
than rather just keep memorizing the same thing.
So I've memorized a lot of chapters in the Bible.
But quite honestly, most of those I've forgotten
because I used to try to just permanently keep
every single chapter in there.
And what ends up happening is, like,
the book of James is the first book I memorized.
And I love the book of James.
It's my favorite book in the Bible.
But basically, you know, you memorize it all the time.
And then every month, you're just like, oh, man, again?
I've read this book like 500 times.
So you keep memorizing it over and over again.
You're like, man.
And it's like there's so much in the Bible.
Because the Bible was small.
And I'd say, hey, definitely go through the whole thing
and retain it.
And if you want to try it, that's fine.
You know, people have different strategies.
But I think it's more profitable
to just go on to a new book, a new chapter.
And even if you forget it, you're not going to necessarily
know word for word everything in that chapter.
You learn a lot when you memorize the Bible.
And anyone who's actually memorized
a chapter of the Bible or sections of the Bible,
you know that you learn a lot along the way.
You understood that very deeply.
And so that's kind of my opinion,
that it's even more profitable to move on.
But you say, well, Brother Stuckey,
I don't know how to do this, though.
How do you even memorize it?
What do you do?
Well, one thing you want to do if you're memorizing the Bible
is get away from all distractions, every distraction.
That means that you can't have your computer playing
a sermon while you're memorizing the Bible.
You're not going to be able to listen to a sermon
and memorize the Bible at the same time.
You're going to have to make a choice there.
And so basically all distractions, whether it's TV, YouTube,
whatever, your cell phone, the text messaging going off,
or every five minutes you're checking your phone,
you're going to have to get away from distractions
if you want to memorize.
If you have distractions around you, it just isn't going to work.
Now, what I personally do when I memorize the Bible
is I always memorize pretty much when I'm walking.
Now, honestly, there's a scientific reason
why this helps.
Because while you're exercising,
you have the capacity to learn more, they say.
As long as it's not some crazy hardcore exercise,
you're really focused on that.
But if you're doing something like riding a bike
or whatever, you can memorize something where it's,
you're not as distracted.
And so I basically will go for a walk.
Now, some people will write out on a four by six card
the verses over and over again.
I personally don't do that.
I don't feel like it helps me as much as it helps me
to help other people.
What I do is I print it off.
And so I'll basically have a sheet of paper,
and I'll print off the chapter.
And I'll basically just go walking.
And I'll take the verse and take five words
and just keep memorizing it over and over again in my head.
When I feel like I know that pretty well,
words to that.
And eventually, you get the whole verse,
and you keep quoting that.
And then you move on to the next verse then.
Now, once you memorize one verse,
there's a good chance you're going to forget
that same verse in 30 minutes.
It takes a lot of time to hide it inside.
Because over time, it just vanishes.
That's just the way it is.
Time really takes away knowledge that you have.
And so what you want to do is really hide it down deep there.
So that's what I do.
I'll basically just go for a walk.
And what I want you to understand is this.
If you just decided today that I'm
going to start trying to memorize the Bible
or memorize a chapter, memorize verses,
or whatever I'm going to memorize,
look, the best way to learn how to do something
is usually trial and error.
Basically, you're going to find out what's working for you.
So quite honestly, yeah, the first couple weeks,
you decide to spend 30 minutes a day memorizing the Bible,
it's going to be a trial and error period
where you're saying, OK, this worked for me.
This didn't work, et cetera, et cetera.
But look, it's not a waste.
And I'll tell you what.
God's not hiding the word of God from us.
He wants you to know the Bible.
He wants you to have it memorized.
You say, why?
It actually helps you grow.
And it helps you not sin against God.
And so memorization is very valuable.
And I would encourage everybody in this room
to try to memorize 3 John.
It's our challenge for the month.
But you say, well, I haven't memorized any of the verses.
It's too late.
It's not too late.
It's not that long of a chapter.
You have four weeks from now.
That's basically three verses a day, a little bit more
than three verses, not a day, per week.
That's not that much.
It's less than a verse a day.
And look, these verses are not crazy long.
In the book of 3 John, it's a pretty short chapter.
You have the ability.
And what I'm hoping is it can generate excitement with you
where you can memorize more things in the Bible.
Now, when it comes to memorization,
anyone who's memorized a lot of the Bible will tell you,
it's like the hardest thing.
Because you learn, and you forget,
and it gets very frustrating sometimes.
But you're still learning along the way.
It's still valuable.
We need to take the word of God seriously.
Let's go to the word of God.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for the last week
of the day and just getting to see your word
and the value in memorizing your word of God.
Help us to apply this sermon to our lives, God.
Including me, God.
Help us to set aside distractions in our lives
and just realize that we're here.