I believe God rises free, what a wonderful Savior!
What a wonderful Savior!
Jesus, my Jesus!
What a wonderful Savior!
Jesus, my Lord!
I praise Him for the cleansing, but what a wonderful Savior!
That practice of my soul to God, what a wonderful Savior!
What a wonderful Savior!
Jesus, my Jesus!
What a wonderful Savior!
Jesus, my Lord!
I praise Him for the cleansing, but what a wonderful Savior!
And now He waits and rules therein, what a wonderful Savior!
What a wonderful Savior!
Jesus, my Jesus!
What a wonderful Savior!
Jesus, my Lord!
What a wonderful Savior!
Number 248, on the first ready, sing!
Jesus, my Jesus!
I long to be my home, but for eternity!
Well, we're going to have soul winning here this afternoon.
So as I said, this next sermon I plan to be shorter.
You know, I guess a Baptist sermonette, which still means probably 30 minutes.
But we'll try to cut down on the sermon so we can get started earlier.
We're going to go soul winning nearby so we have more time.
And so we do have our children's day here today.
So everybody had a great time in Pampanga yesterday.
It was a great time.
We're going to have a jump house here and a lot of games.
I do want to thank my wife for organizing and getting everything ready.
She did a lot of work for this event.
And so everyone had a great time yesterday.
She did a great job.
And so I would ask if some of the guys can help me after lunchtime.
We're probably going to have to move chairs out of the way and stuff.
I'm assuming they're going to put the jump house here.
I'm pretty sure.
But we're going to try to put stuff out of the way because we've got a lot of games.
And we're going to have three food carts and stuff like that.
So we need to have some room.
And then other than that, the only other thing to mention is tomorrow we do have our All Saints Day Soul Winning Marathon.
So if you would like to come to that, you know, let me know.
Or depending on where you live, talk to your group captain.
And I think that's it for announcements.
Well, Brother Marlon leads us to another song.
Amen for our next song.
It's song number 250.
Let's sing the song,
Burdens are Lifted at Calvary.
Song number 250.
Burdens are Lifted at Calvary.
If you do the song, please sing it out loud.
On the first ready, sing.
Days are filled with sorrow and fear.
Hours are lonely and fear.
Burdens are Lifted at Calvary.
Jesus is very near.
Burdens are Lifted at Calvary.
Calvary, Calvary.
Burdens are Lifted at Calvary.
Jesus is very near.
Ask your hear on Jesus today.
He who is holy and near.
Burdens are Lifted at Calvary.
Jesus is very near.
Burdens are Lifted at Calvary.
Calvary, Calvary.
Burdens are Lifted at Calvary.
Jesus is very near.
Come, O Lord, receive your mercy.
Mary, are they with me?
Burdens are Lifted at Calvary.
Jesus is very near.
Burdens are Lifted at Calvary.
Calvary, Calvary.
Burdens are Lifted at Calvary.
Jesus is very near.
Calvary, Calvary.
Jesus is very near.
Calvary, Calvary.
Amen.
Second Timothy, Second Timothy, Chapter 2.
And as our custom, we will be reading the entire chapter.
Second Timothy, Chapter 2.
Near the end of your Bible, the T-books cluster together.
Second Timothy, Chapter 2.
Please say amen if you are there.
Amen.
Second Timothy, Chapter 2, Verse 1.
Thou, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus,
and the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses.
The same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.
Thou, therefore, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
No man that warth entangles himself with the affairs of this life,
that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.
And if a man also strive for masteries,
yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.
The husband-man that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits.
Consider what I say, and the Lord give the understanding in all things.
Remember that Jesus Christ, in the seed of David, was raised from the dead,
according to my gospel.
Wherein I suffer trouble as an evildoer, even unto bonds,
but the word of God is not bound.
Therefore, I endure all things for the elect's sakes,
that they may also obtain the salvation which in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.
It is a faithful saying,
for if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him.
If we suffer, we shall also reign with him.
If we deny him, he also will deny us.
If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful, he cannot deny himself.
Of these things put them in remembrance,
charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no prophet,
but to the subverting of the hearers.
Study to show thyself approved unto God,
a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
But shun profane and vain babblings,
for they will increase unto more ungodliness,
and the word will eat us doth a canker,
of whom is I Meneus and Philetus,
who concerning the truth averred, saying,
that the resurrection is past already,
and overthrew the faith of some.
Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure,
having it sealed, the Lord knoweth them that are his.
And let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity,
but in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver,
but also of wood and of earth, and some to honour, and some to dishonour.
If a man therefore purge himself from these,
he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the Master's use,
and prepared unto every good work.
Flee also youthful lusts, that follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace,
with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strives,
and the servants of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men,
apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves,
that God their adventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth,
and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil,
who are taken captive by him at his will.
Blessed be God's word, let us pray.
Lord God, in heaven, we thank you, Lord, for this day that you've given to us.
I pray that you would bless us, Lord, with a good word today,
for our soul winning, and also our fellowship for this day.
We love you, and Jesus, let me pray.
Alright, we're here in 2 Timothy chapter 2,
and the name of the sermon is Reasons to Memorize the Bible.
Reasons to Memorize the Bible.
So, kind of the goal today with our kids' day is,
one sermon is against kind of the dark holidays, Halloween, All Saints' Day, something related.
And the other sermon is geared toward children,
and this sermon is primarily geared toward children.
Of course, all of us should memorize the Bible,
but you say, why is it geared more toward children?
Well, because quite honestly, kids have more free time to memorize the Bible.
Kids have more of a mental ability to memorize the Bible as well.
Kids can pick up things so quickly at a young age,
and you know what, the truth is, as we get older, it's just not as easy.
Many of us that are adults are like, man, I love this memorization competition.
I wish I had the time.
I wish I had the ability, but we would love to see our kids memorize this.
That would be great.
Now, of course, if your kids are very young,
maybe it's going to be either too young.
Our son, I don't think, is yet at the point to memorize the Bible,
but I hope that when he's five, six years old,
he can start digging in and memorizing things of the Bible,
and they might not understand everything,
but I don't understand everything I memorize either.
I mean, I memorize these chapters.
I don't understand everything.
A lot of us understand everything, but we understand some,
and it helps us understand other things as we're reading the Bible.
So memorizing the Bible is vital, it's great,
and you know what, it's great for you in this room that are kids
that at a young age decide to do this
because it will stick with you your entire life,
and many of us wish we hadn't spent so much time on Super Mario Kart as a kid
or on Halo or on, I don't know, what other games there are out there.
Not so much time on video games and movies and music.
We wish we had spent it reading the Bible and memorizing the Bible
or just things that are more productive.
So you that are kids in this room, this sermon's for you.
You that are young in this room, you that are younger,
I mean, if you're 10, 12, 14 years old,
look, you have more time and more ability.
Look, when I was a teenager,
I had more mental ability to memorize things than I do now.
You say, why? Your mind is just sharper at that age,
and it's harder as you get older.
That's just the way it works.
So what are some reasons to memorize the Bible?
Well, obviously, number one is to get the candy and chips, okay?
But that's outside the scope of this.
That's its whole sermon by itself.
No, I'm just kidding.
Reason number one is because memorizing the Bible teaches you the Bible.
When you memorize the Bible, you learn.
It's not like it's some pointless activity
where you can just say you memorize the Bible.
No, actually, memorizing the Bible, you're going to learn the Bible.
If you memorize a chapter, it's really going to make sense.
You're like, man, I've read this several times, but I get it now.
I understand what the Bible is trying to say.
2 Timothy 2, verse 15.
Study to show thyself approved unto God,
a workman that needeth not to be ashamed,
rightly dividing the word of truth.
Now, the Bible tells us to study to show ourselves approved unto God.
Now, look, I'm not saying this is the only way to study the Bible.
What I am saying is most ways to study the Bible
can also lead you astray.
I mean, if you read a bunch of commentaries,
you can learn a lot of false information.
But see, if you memorize the Bible,
what false information are you going to get?
I mean, it's just the Bible.
You study from any other method,
and you're getting opinions from men,
you can be led astray.
But you know what?
When you're memorizing the Bible,
you're comparing spiritual with spiritual.
You just have the Word of God, the Holy Spirit of truth teaching you.
I believe it's the best way to study the Bible and learn the Bible.
Now, there are times I memorize a chapter,
and there's something I'm confused on,
so I'll look it up in other times in the Bible
to try to figure out what I'm confused on.
I'm not saying I never do that.
You know, sometimes I'll memorize something,
and I'm still a little bit confused.
Sometimes I'll listen to a sermon from a pastor I respect.
I'll just skip to that part of the sermon
to see what did he explain here,
because maybe it could shed some light.
But I would say those are secondary things,
and I would say starting with memorizing the Bible is the best thing.
I'm not saying it's the only thing,
but I am saying it is the best way to study the Bible is to memorize it.
Turn to Hosea 4, Hosea 4, Hosea 4.
I'm sure if you talk to anybody
that has done our memorization challenges in our church,
they would say they learned a lot when they memorized those chapters.
Things just jumped out at them,
and they understood things better and more clearly.
It impacted them more.
Memorizing the Bible will teach you the Word of God.
You will understand chapters
that you did not understand that well before.
It forces you to meditate on every word
and not just kind of read over it.
Because, you know, sometimes in your morning Bible reading,
you read for 30 minutes,
and your mind kind of wanders,
and you get to the end of the chapter,
and you're like, what happened?
Right?
And you're like, should I just start over?
But see, when you're memorizing, you really have to pay attention.
Otherwise, you know what, you're going to miss it.
So it really forces you to just stay engaged when you're memorizing.
Hosea 4 verse 6,
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee,
that thou shalt be no priest to me.
Seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God,
I will also forget thy children.
The Bible says God's people are destroyed.
Why lack of knowledge?
Why isn't Israel went into so much sin?
Because they were ignorant.
They didn't know what the Scripture said.
Even though they grew up in the right religion,
they didn't know what the Bible said.
They didn't know what the Word of God said.
The Bible says we're destroyed for lack of knowledge.
People screw up their lives,
and they have no idea why they're screwed up.
Isn't that true?
If you were to leave this church and just talk to random people,
and they would tell you their life story,
you'd hear mistake after mistake after mistake,
and it's not because they're trying to do bad.
They just don't know any better.
They literally just don't have knowledge of what the Bible says,
and they destroy their lives simply due to lack of knowledge.
And see, the Bible says that if we don't have knowledge,
we're going to destroy our lives.
Well, what better time to learn knowledge than at a young age?
Because this is a crazy world that's coming,
and this is 2021.
Does anyone want to take a guess what 2031 is going to be like?
I don't know. I mean, maybe voodoo is going to be the common thing.
Maybe everyone's going to be dressed in skulls every day.
I have no idea.
It's a scary world coming, and I'll tell you what,
it was a lot more normal of a world when I was a kid than it is now.
Who knows what it's going to be?
And I'll tell you what, these kids, if we want them to fight against the world,
they need to at a young age understand all the problems with the world
and understand what the Scriptures say.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
And you know what, it would be terrible to grow up in this church.
I mean, I would feel terrible if you grew up in this church,
and your life got destroyed due to lack of knowledge.
I'd be like, man, I mean, I felt like I spent so much time teaching the Word of God,
but honestly, if you don't have an active walk with God,
you could end up screwing your life and making the same mistakes that everybody else does.
Go to 2 Peter 3, 2 Peter 3, 2 Peter 3.
Now look, of course, I believe you should read the Bible.
I'm not saying memorize the Bible and don't read the Bible.
I believe that you should have basically a Bible reading schedule.
I read the Bible based on a Bible reading schedule, and it's very effective.
It just kind of makes you just stick to what's on the schedule every day.
And if you get behind by a day, you catch up, it just kind of keeps you on task, okay?
What I'm saying is in addition to reading the Bible,
in addition to praying and reading the Bible,
I think you should try to memorize the Bible as much as is possible.
Maybe you're able to do the Bible memorization challenges, maybe you're not,
but I still believe you can memorize the Bible to some degree.
2 Peter 3, verse 18.
So the Bible says we should grow in grace and in knowledge, both of these things.
Now look, of course, if you're coming to church three times a week, three sermons, you're learning.
But you can only learn so much in a few sermons.
And see, here's the thing, you should be learning more than just a couple hours of preaching a week
because I use a lot of verses, but it's not like I go through everything.
And if you're doing a Bible reading schedule, you're going to be reading more than what I cover in a sermon.
And if you're memorizing the Bible, you are really digging in to exactly what I'm talking about.
And here's the thing, if you memorize a couple verses in the Bible,
sometimes the Bible outlines itself into a sermon, if you've ever noticed that.
Well, here's the thing, I might spend an hour preaching that sermon to try to make it impactful
and for you to remember that, but if you just memorize those couple verses,
you would get it in your Bible memorization in a much shorter amount of time.
Right, now I believe the sermons are great, they impact us,
but what I'm saying is you memorizing the Bible can get everything that I'm preaching to you,
especially as we go verse by verse through Psalms.
These are things that I've memorized those chapters, so I'm preaching a sermon on what I've memorized.
Many of these things you would get in your personal memorization
and you want how much better to memorize and hear the sermon
because it's really going to stick with you and you're not going to forget it.
Go to Acts 16, Acts 16, Acts 16.
You say, Brother Stuckey, but I don't have the time to memorize.
I don't have an hour free a day or whatever, 30 minutes free.
Well, that might be true, people are in different situations,
but even if you can't memorize the chapters, there's some verses you could memorize.
How about starting with the salvation verses?
Look, if you're a soul winner, you should have the verses memorized.
You should have all the soul winning verses memorized that you're going to use.
And look, I'm not just saying this, it's like not only do I have them memorized in Tagalog
for people that go soul winning with me.
If you've gone soul winning with me, you've heard me quote the verses in Tagalog.
You say, why?
It's the first thing I did when I was trying to learn was memorize the verses.
I don't just state that as a soul winning tip, like you should do this.
I actually do it.
Now, here's the truth.
When I first memorized those verses in Tagalog, I'm thinking,
I don't really know what this means, right?
I mean, I know roughly because I know Romans 3.23,
but I memorized them because I knew that is vital to being able to preach the gospel
is to have the verses memorized.
And here's the thing.
Some people, they struggle to be good at soul winning
because what they're trying to do is memorize the explanations.
And then you could forget.
If you memorize the verses, it makes sense.
It's like trying to take a math test and let me just memorize all the steps.
But what if it makes sense?
Well, you don't have to memorize the steps because you understand how to do it.
It just makes sense.
And see, if you memorize the verses, you know what happens?
The explanations just make sense.
And so basically, here's the thing.
You say you want to understand how to preach the gospel.
Well, memorize the verses if you want to get good at it.
Just as a basic example, if you memorize John 3.36
where it says, He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life,
that teaches you that you have everlasting life the moment you believe
because hath is a makalumang word for has, present tense.
It says you have everlasting life now.
And see, that's something you might not even think about,
but when you memorize the verse, you're saying, oh, I get what God's saying.
You believe right now you have everlasting life,
and so you could never go to a kalawang kamataion because it's everlasting life.
It just makes sense.
Then it's very easy to actually explain it because the explanation makes sense
because you have the verse memorized.
And look, all the soul-winning verses, you should have memorized.
Or another thing, what about if you're trying to preach the gospel
and you don't have a Bible with you?
Now, you go soul-winning, you should bring a Bible,
but what about if you're just out and about
and you don't have a Bible with you, but you have the verses memorized?
Well, you can still preach the gospel.
You say, why?
Well, you can preach the gospel because you quoted it's still the Word of God.
They need to hear the Word of God to be saved,
so you can still preach the gospel if you have those verses memorized.
And you know what? It's going to give you boldness to preach the gospel.
You won't be scared to preach the gospel when you have the verses memorized
because you're going to know how to defend what you believe.
You're not going to be afraid.
Well, what if something comes up?
Well, if something comes up, you know how to explain it.
You're already prepared.
Acts 16 verse 30.
And brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?
So here's this Philippian jailer asking Paul and Silas,
what do I have to do to be saved?
Now, he's asking to be saved from what?
Well, saved from hell, okay?
And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved in thy house.
So what the Bible's saying here is this.
If you believe right now, presently you're saved from the future penalty of hell.
Do you see how salvation happens immediately?
Well, what are you saved from?
Well, not physical death, right?
But he's saying spiritual death.
You're saved right now. You have that promise.
So right here we see that salvation happens the moment you believe,
which is synonymous with everlasting life.
So here's the thing.
This verse is teaching that if you believe right now, you're spiritually saved.
But it's not just you that has this promise.
The same thing to those in your house.
If they believe, they'll be saved.
And this is kind of the technique Paul uses
to get the opportunity to preach to the rest of the house,
and it works because he gets them all saved, right?
You know, I got somebody saved yesterday,
and I mentioned to him after he got saved,
and this was 45 minutes.
And, you know, I don't normally preach for 45 minutes,
usually 15, 20 minutes,
but it's just like this person had a lot of questions.
He wasn't sure, and he was still struggling with eternal security.
He got it at the end.
But then I said afterwards, I said, well, what about, you know, your Catholic family?
You know, what about if they don't believe?
And if they don't believe, he said, that's what I'm thinking about right now.
Because he was scared about his family.
And my thing was, you know, I was hoping I'd get to talk to his family,
but he said, you know, they wouldn't be available right now.
But he said, I'm going to talk to them, right?
I hope he can get them saved.
He's got the invitation.
He's got some verses, the Gospel's simple and everything.
Well, at least he can plant a seed at the very least,
but I wanted to leave him with a motivation to preach the Gospel to his family,
even if he never comes to church, right?
This is taking place in Acts 16.
These are only two verses, but, you know, when you memorize that,
you're like, oh, wow, I really understand what is taking place in this story.
It's not just something you read over, but you really understand.
You know, it's like memorizing the Bible kind of puts you in that situation
where you're really thinking about the situation.
Turn in your Bible to Proverbs 6, Proverbs chapter 6.
Number one, memorizing the Bible teaches you the Bible.
Honestly, you know, and if you say, Brother Secchi,
I don't feel like memorizing the Psalms, it's not my favorite book.
Memorize whatever you want.
Here's the truth.
We'll give you a candy prize if you memorize a chapter, okay?
I mean, I'm trying to make it organized and everything,
but if you come up to me and say, hey, you know what,
I memorized this chapter of the Bible, it's like, hey, we'll give you a prize.
You memorize, you know, Proverbs 6, which we're turning to,
we'll give you a candy prize for that, right?
I mean, if you can memorize a chapter in the Bible,
I'm just trying to make it as organized as possible and I'm preaching through Psalms.
But look, if you're memorizing chapters of the Bible, we'll give you a prize for it
because anything you're memorizing in the Bible is going to be helpful.
You're going to learn.
Even if it's the book of Ezekiel and Zechariah
where so much of it goes over our heads,
some of it's going to make sense when you memorize
and you're going to start to learn it better than you did before.
That's just the way it works.
I mean, I understand the book of Hosea and Romans
where he did these memorization challenges a lot better than before.
Now, the truth is I could memorize it again in ten years
and there would be a lot of stuff and I'm like, man, so much I missed
when I preached through it a decade ago.
What I'm saying is anything you memorize.
Hosea is not the most common book,
but if you did that memorization challenge, it's like, okay, I'm understanding it.
It makes sense what's taking place in this story, in these chapters.
Number one, memorizing the Bible teaches you the Bible.
Number two, it teaches you hard work, discipline, and patience.
It teaches you hard work, discipline, and patience.
Proverbs 6 verse 6,
Go to the ant thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise,
which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,
provideth her meat in the summer and gathereth her food in the harvest.
This is a very famous chapter I like to go to
about how the ant is an example unto us
because the ant is always moving.
Do you ever see a time where an ant's just kind of relaxing and doing nothing?
They're always moving.
The only time they're not really moving is if they have a big object
that they're trying to push and they're barely going,
but they're putting in a lot of energy, right?
Now, look, there's really no animal I can think of that's like this
because a lot of bugs will move really fast when you get near them,
but if not, they're just kind of hanging out.
Now, you see an E piece in your house,
you're slowly going to the E piece because it's not moving,
and then it just scurries away when you get close, right?
But the ant is just always moving.
It's always moving. It's always working.
The Bible says the ant is an example unto us that is always working hard.
Well, you know, here's the thing.
Hard work, discipline, and patience are things that we need to learn at a young age.
Kids need to learn hard work at a young age.
Anyway, one of the great things about Bible memorization
is you will fail at Bible memorization.
If you memorize the Bible, you will get frustrated
because you mess up and you're struggling
and it takes time and effort.
One of the best things is to learn how to lose at a young age,
learn how to fail. You say, why?
Because when you have kids at a young age
and you give them an assignment to do
and they can't figure it out after 15 seconds,
they're like, oh, I don't want to do it.
Isn't that how kids are?
They don't want to do it if it's hard.
Well, here's the problem with that philosophy.
Life is about failing over and over and over again
and rising up and doing it again.
I mean, that's the secret to being successful
is you fail, but you get back up as a just man and go on.
And look, memorizing the Bible,
everyone in our church that has memorized chapters of the Bible
or memorized large portions of the Bible,
you know what, they would tell you, you know what,
they failed quite a bit.
They would go to chapters and try to quote it
and they still made mistakes.
And you know what, it's frustrating.
Sometimes you think you're at the end of the chapter,
you go to quote it, you miss it,
and you're like, I hate life, right?
But see, here's the thing, you know what,
that's a good thing for kids to learn at a young age,
to learn how to fail.
And you know what, it's good for us to do things
that we're not always successful at.
And in life, you get used to going soul winning,
then you know how to preach the gospel.
It's good to always step out on the water
where you have to fail sometimes.
And isn't that what life is about?
You make mistakes and you learn from those mistakes.
What's the best method to learning in math?
Guess and check.
What takes place?
You guess, you guess wrong, and you don't forget the next time.
Isn't that the way it works?
That's the way it works.
Guess and check, you fail and you learn from your mistake.
It's good for kids to learn at a young age
something that they have to work very, very hard at.
Because here's the thing, you know what,
if you're going to memorize Proverbs 6
or whatever chapter in the Bible,
you're not going to do it in five minutes.
You're not going to do it in ten minutes.
You're going to take some real time.
Even on a short chapter, you're going to be taking an hour
for a chapter that's, I mean, Psalm 23,
it's still going to take you some time.
Even a chapter that's only six verses.
And you know what, with most of these chapters,
you don't just memorize in one hour sitting,
you memorize and then you go to sleep
and then you have to do it again the next day.
You know what the problem is with that?
Well, you've already forgotten some that you had memorized.
And then you've got to re-quote.
And you know, one of the frustrating things
is re-quoting what you used to have memorized.
It's kind of like when you work out
and let's say you get a little bit out of shape
or you get an injury and then you're lifting weight
that you used to be able to easily lift.
It's very frustrating.
It's like three months ago I was benching 240.
Now I'm benching 220 and it makes you want to quit.
It's frustrating to re-tread the same ground you used to have.
Well, that's a great thing for kids to learn at a young age,
something that takes hard work and discipline
because they have to be disciplined every single day
and committed to it.
And it takes patience to get to the finish line.
Sometimes in life it's just too easy for young kids.
You know what, we need to teach them hard work,
discipline and patience at a young age.
Go to 2 Corinthians 5.
2 Corinthians 5.
Nothing that you're successful at is going to take place by accident.
It's like, man, how did you learn to know so much about the Bible?
What's your secret?
It's like, oh, I just woke up and just I knew everything.
Isn't that the way it works?
It's called waking up every day and reading the Bible
and memorizing the Bible.
Those people that are good at preaching the Gospel
and are very clear with their Gospel presentations,
you know what, they preach to a lot of people.
They've memorized the verses.
They've taken a lot of time.
That's the way it works.
How do you become a good parent, a good father and mother?
Hard work, discipline.
And I don't mean discipline as in disciplining the kids,
although that is part of being a good parent,
but I'm saying you're being disciplined just every single day.
And patience because you screw up as a parent.
You make mistakes and you learn from your mistakes
and you don't give up.
How do you become good at marriage?
You want to be a good husband or good wife?
Hard work, discipline and patience.
How do you become successful at your career?
How do you get a good job?
Well, I mean, you work hard.
If you go to college and you want to get a good degree,
you've got to work hard for it.
It doesn't just magically happen, okay?
Life, to be successful at anything,
hard work, discipline and patience.
And one of the great things we can do with kids at a young age
is get them to memorize the Bible
because they're going to start to learn those characteristics
that they can pass on to other areas of their life.
And look, I think the prizes are a great way to motivate people
and there's nothing wrong with that.
The Bible says one of our things
we should look forward to serving God
is the rewards we're going to get in heaven.
So there's nothing wrong with the fact that you say,
man, I want to go to Sony.
I want to get a lot of rewards in heaven.
Well, there's nothing wrong with that.
That is one of the things with serving God,
you are going to get rewards in heaven.
And it's something that the Bible says to look toward
as one of the reasons to serve God is for rewards.
And so, look, if that's something that motivates people to memorize the Bible,
well, you know what?
They're going to learn the Bible.
They're going to learn hard work, discipline and patience, right?
2 Corinthians 5, verse 9,
Wherefore we labor,
that whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,
that everyone may receive the things done in his body,
according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.
Now, it says in verse 9, we labor.
Now, labor really means like hard work.
It doesn't just mean working,
but someone who's working really hard.
Now, I know in the U.S.,
they don't typically call a white-collar job a laboring job,
even though if you're behind your desk, you can work very hard,
you know, whatever you're doing, computer programming or whatever.
But usually when they say someone's a laborer,
they're saying someone who's working out in a field or sweating a lot,
someone who's putting in a lot of energy.
And see, labor means very hard work.
Well, the Bible says we get rewarded if we work very hard,
because the Christian life is about work.
I mean, how do we get people saved?
We don't just have one altar call
that just brings 5,000 down to the altar.
It doesn't work that way.
It comes from just countless hours of going out and preaching the Gospel.
How are you going to get rewards in your personal life?
Well, you're going to do it by putting in a lot of work.
Memorizing the Bible takes time.
Reading the Bible takes time.
Going soul-winning takes time.
And to get rewards, it's going to take time.
But anything you're going to be successful at in life,
it's going to be hard work.
It's going to be labor that gets the job done.
Turn your Bible to Joshua 1.
Joshua 1.
Not only does memorizing the Bible teach you the Bible,
not only does it teach you hard work, discipline, and patience,
but it will teach you or cause you to meditate on God
and His Word throughout the day.
The Bible says in Joshua 1, verse 8,
Joshua 1, verse 8,
This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth,
but thou shalt meditate therein day and night.
So the Bible says we ought to meditate on God's Word day and night.
Now, look, that's a very hard thing to do.
I mean, if you actually paid attention to what you think about during the day,
I daydream or my mind wanders a lot
on things that don't matter and are a waste of time.
Yeah, there's just something about memorizing the Bible,
and you know what?
Something about that causes you to just think about the Bible throughout the day.
You say, why?
Well, because even though you're going to wake up the next day
and forget some of what you memorized,
you don't want to forget a whole lot.
Let me look over this verse again.
Let me see if I can quote that perfectly.
And you're just thinking about it throughout the day,
or even if you're just walking down to get something
and instead of just thinking about pointless things,
you're actually kind of quoting the Bible in your head
because you want to keep it memorized.
Because when you're memorizing the Bible,
if you memorize a chapter and really have it memorized,
you can quote it without looking at it
and you know you got it right
because it's so ingrained in your head.
And so when I'm quoting the Bible,
I memorize it,
sometimes you're just going for a walk or something
or you're going somewhere, going to the grocery store,
and you're quoting it in your head.
You don't have to even look at the Bible.
You know you're getting it correct,
but you want to keep it correct
because if time passes by, it's going to fade out.
So you're kind of keeping it in your head to understand it.
And look, it's just going to cause you to meditate on God's Word
throughout the day, which the Bible says we ought to do.
Go in your Bible to Psalm 37.
Psalm 37.
And even in the first Psalm in the Bible,
it talks about meditating on God's Word day and night,
and that's the person that's going to be successful
and be like a tree planted by the rivers of water,
bringing forth his fruit.
So basically, soul winning until the day you die.
And you know what?
This is a fact that if you memorize the Bible every day
and take some time to memorize it,
you are never going to majorly backslide in your life.
How can you majorly backslide
if you're meditating on God's Word day and night?
When people commit major sins,
it's because they're not meditating on God's Word.
But if you are actively memorizing every day,
because the Bible says if you meditate day and night,
you will be like a tree planted by the rivers of water,
and you're bringing forth your fruit and your season.
The indication is you're never going to fade out of serving God.
Right?
And honestly, the same is true of just having a personal walk with God.
If you're reading the Bible every day,
the likelihood of you fading out from serving God is not very much.
I mean, if you actively have that walk with God,
you're actively growing,
because that's how you grow is by God's Word.
So if you actively have that every day,
you're going to be growing. Right?
Now, I understand oftentimes our lives are busy.
Maybe you don't have time to sit down and memorize the Bible.
But I'm saying if you do have time
to give 20 minutes to God every day of memorizing the Bible
where no distractions whatsoever,
you are going to stay in the things of God until the day you die.
I'm not saying you won't have down seasons,
but what I'm saying is you're never going to give up
or completely fade out,
because you're constantly growing by memorizing the Word of God.
That's what the Bible said in Psalm 1.
Now, Psalm 37, notice this.
Verse 30.
Psalm 37, verse 30.
The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom,
and his tongue talketh of judgment.
The law of God is in his heart.
None of his steps shall slide.
But what does it mean by none of his steps shall slide?
Well, think about backsliding.
Right?
Is a modern way we say backsliding.
What it's saying is that if you're serving God
and the law of God is in your heart,
what does it mean to be in your heart?
It means you're memorizing the Word of God.
You have it memorized by heart.
And it says if you memorize God's Word inside your heart,
none of your steps are going to slide
if you're meditating on God's Word day and night.
That's what the Bible says.
Meditating on it, having God's Word in your heart.
You're never going to majorly backslide.
Go to Psalm 119.
Psalm 119.
See, when you look at characters like David in the Bible,
David was a man after God's own heart.
I'm sure David had many portions of the Bible memorized,
but I promise you that when he was committing adultery with Bathsheba,
he had already been fading out of the things of God.
Because if he was actively reading the Bible
and memorizing the Bible and serving God,
he wouldn't have committed such a major sin.
Those things take place when you start to backslide
and get out of the will of God.
If you are reading your Bible and memorizing your Bible,
none of your steps are going to slide.
You're going to be like a tree planted by the rivers of water
if you're meditating day and night
that's going to bring forth his fruit in the season.
Meaning week after week, you're here for soul winning.
Week after week, you're serving God.
But the sad thing is this.
If you're here serving God week after week,
month after month, year after year,
you know what you're going to see?
People come and people go.
And people go.
Is that not true?
People come and go.
Look at our original church.
When you look at the very beginning,
half of people are here, half aren't.
This is the way it is.
People come and people go.
That's just the way it works.
You say, what happens to people that go?
Well, people that go,
they're not having an active walk with God.
Because if they were actively walking with God,
none of their steps would slide.
And I'm not saying that if somebody was at church
and they got a job in a city with a great church.
I'm saying somebody who just gets out of church,
then you know what?
It's because their steps are sliding
because they don't have that active walk with God.
That's what the Bible says in Psalms 37.
That's what it says in Psalms 1.
Psalm 119 verse 98.
That through thy commandments
hast made me wiser than mine enemies,
for they are ever with me.
I have more understanding than all my teachers,
for thy testimonies are my meditation.
And the psalmist says,
I understand more than the people teaching me.
Why?
Because I'm meditating on your Word.
Testimony, statutes, rules, judgments are synonymous.
He's saying, I'm meditating on your Word.
Here's the truth.
If you are at a church
and you are constantly meditating on God's Word
and reading God's Word and memorizing the Bible,
you could know more than some of the people that preach sermons.
If you spend more time with God than me,
then you could know more than me
because you're meditating on God's Word more than me.
The more time you spend with God,
the more you're going to know.
Isn't that common sense?
So, look, if you spend more time reading the Bible than anybody else,
you memorize the Bible more than anybody else,
you could know more than anybody else
because you spend more time meditating.
And that's what the psalmist says.
Hey, I know more than my teachers
because thy testimonies are my meditation.
Now, he's stating this as a fact.
I think it would be pretty arrogant if you have this attitude, though.
You're like, hey, I know more than everybody at this church
because I meditate more than anybody else.
Well, the Bible says if you're reading God's Word,
you're not going to be arrogant, so something's not matching, right?
But it's a true statement, though.
If you're reading the Bible more than anybody else,
you're going to know more
because although you might have various teachers at our church,
you ultimately have the Holy Spirit as your teacher.
So if you're meditating on God's Word,
you're going to know more than anybody at this church
because you're spending more time with God than anybody else.
Verse 100, I understand more than the ancients
because I keep thy precepts.
So one part of actually knowing
is also that you're obeying God's commandments
because otherwise, if you're not doing what's right,
then you can learn things,
but they're just going to slip behind you.
That's what the Bible says.
Kind of like in James 1, you're looking at a mirror.
Now, go to Psalm 119, verse 11.
Psalm 119, verse 11.
You say, Brother Stuckey,
these memorization challenges are so difficult.
Some of these chapters are so long.
I've never asked you to memorize Psalm 119, right?
It's like some of these chapters are long.
Psalm 37 is long.
Psalm 37, I think, is the one that's 40 verses.
That's long.
Psalm 119, that's really long, okay?
I'm not ready to tackle that one yet.
I'm not really sure what my strategy is going to be for that one.
Maybe memorize a song that's like 20 hours long or whatever, right?
But number one, memorizing the Bible,
it will teach you the Bible.
Number two, memorizing the Bible is going to teach you hard work,
discipline, and patience.
It's going to teach you character, basically.
Number three, memorizing the Bible is going to teach you
and cause you to meditate on God's Word day and night.
And number four, memorizing the Bible is going to teach you to be obedient.
It will cause you to obey God's commandments.
Psalm 119, verse 11,
Thy word have I hidden mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.
The psalmist says, I memorized your word so I wouldn't sin.
According to the Bible, memorizing the Bible will cause you not to sin.
Isn't that a great reason to memorize the Bible?
It's going to cause you to obey God's commandments,
that if you memorize God's Word,
you will be able to help.
It will help you overcome sin.
Of course, you're never going to be perfect.
We understand that.
But it's going to drastically help you in your life.
Now go to Matthew 4, and let me give you an example of this.
And as you're turning to Matthew 4,
let me quote you from Psalm 40 where it says,
I delight to do thy will, O my God,
yea, thy law is within my heart.
And see, the reason why the psalmist delights to do God's will
is because God's law is within his heart.
Memorizing the Bible will cause you to want to do what's right.
Many people in life are waiting for the feeling.
Brother Stuckey, I'd love to go soul winning,
but I just don't feel like it.
If I did feel like going soul winning, I'd go soul winning.
Brother Stuckey, I know I should read the Bible,
but I just don't feel like reading the Bible.
That's why I don't read the Bible.
Brother Stuckey, I know I should memorize the Bible,
but I don't feel like doing it.
If I start to feel like doing it, I will.
You know what the secret is?
Start doing it, and you will feel like doing it.
You know why I started going soul winning?
Not because I wanted to, but out of obligation.
Because I believed in hell.
And I was like, you know what? I have to.
You're like a firefighter.
You're a full-time firefighter.
There's a fire. You've got to go to the fire.
And it's interesting because some people,
when they get saved, have this inside of them.
Some don't, which is very strange to me.
Because when I got saved,
my first thought was like that guy got saved yesterday.
I thought, what about my family?
What about my friends?
What about people I know?
What about if they don't believe this?
That was the motivation for me to change everything.
Because here's the thing.
We have this idea when we're at a church like ours
that people we get saved,
they'll be like, man, I want to serve God
and do all these exciting things.
What motivated me was just the fact
that I didn't want my family and friends to go to hell.
I didn't have an interest to change my music when I got saved.
I'll be honest with you.
Brother Stuckey, you didn't repent of all your sins?
No, I didn't.
I didn't have an interest
to start reading the Bible all the time and everything.
I started doing that because of the fact,
and the person who got me saved,
he was a Baptist and I was friends with him in college,
so he helped teach me.
I didn't really learn.
My biggest thing, though, was I was afraid for my family
and friends that weren't saved,
and I was like, I want them to be saved.
And then I was like, well, how do I talk to them?
So I started to try to learn things
so I could talk to my family,
and it just kind of changed my heart slowly over time.
But honestly, I would say that with most people
that end up serving God,
it's really that fear of hell that drives them
to actually decide to serve God.
And it causes you to be obedient.
But it wasn't that you got saved
and I don't even want to listen
to my rock music anymore.
I just want to listen to psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs.
Look, if you show someone who just got saved
that they should sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
they're not going to do it
because they don't desire to do it at that point.
What causes people to change
is they start to do what's right,
and it will change them.
That's the way it works.
Your feelings follow your works,
and that's one of the big things the world is confused on.
Well, your heart's going to follow your actions.
Just change your heart by changing your actions.
Right?
So Matthew 4, let me give you a great example.
And obviously our Lord and Savior Jesus,
He was perfect, He was sinless, He was never going to sin.
But in Matthew 4, He gives us a template
for fighting against sin in our lives.
Because many times we are tempted to do wrong.
Well, how do we overcome that?
What do we do?
If we're under a temptation where we're tempted to do wrong,
what do we do?
Well, notice what it says in Matthew 4, verse 1.
Then was Jesus led up with the Spirit into the wilderness
to be tempted of the devil.
And when He had fasted 40 days and 40 nights,
He was afterward 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.
But He answered and said,
It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
So what is Jesus doing?
Quoting the Bible.
If you are tempted to do wrong,
you know how you overcome that?
Quote the Bible.
You say, What are you saying?
Here's what I'm saying.
If you're tempted to lust after someone that you shouldn't,
quote, I have made a covenant with mine eyes
that I might not sin against thee.
The verse from Job.
You say, Why?
Because that's a verse that's basically speaking against your wrong desire.
And Jesus is giving us a template.
So if you're tempted to do something wrong,
you're tempted to dress up like, you know,
the Baron from Voodoo tonight,
or for All Saints Day,
quote, Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.
You're tempted to go to All Saints Day with your family,
you know, for celebrate the dead relatives or whatever,
but you know what's wrong?
Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.
And what happens when the Word of God is inside of you
is you feel guilty if you disobey it.
And so by quoting it,
the guilt causes you to sometimes say,
No, I'm not going to do it because it's wrong.
Whatever your struggle is,
there's so many things, so many sins,
so many commandments in the Bible.
Whatever you struggle with,
how about memorizing a verse
that would speak against the exact thing you struggle with,
and whenever you're tempted,
quote that verse,
and it will help you overcome that temptation.
I'm not saying it's going to be perfect
because we still sin.
We make mistakes.
But I would say whatever is your personal besetting sin,
memorize some verses on that
that you can quote
when you're tempted to do wrong.
And it can help you overcome that.
That's the template we're seeing in Matthew 4
because Jesus says, It is written.
Then it says in verse 7,
Jesus said unto him,
It is written again.
Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
What is he doing?
He quotes the Bible again.
Verse 10,
Then saith Jesus unto him,
It is written,
Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God,
and him only shalt thou serve.
So three times he quotes the Word of God.
He gives us a great template
on how to fight sin in our lives.
If you are underneath a temptation,
quote the Word of God,
and that can help you overcome that temptation.
What's interesting
is he quotes three times.
Does anyone know what book he's quoting from?
Anybody know?
Deuteronomy.
All three times.
Deuteronomy?
Because that wouldn't be the first book.
And yet, memorizing the book of Deuteronomy,
there's three examples,
and he overcomes.
Obviously, Jesus is not going to sin.
We understand that. He's our Savior.
What I'm saying is three times with the book of Deuteronomy,
anything you memorize is going to be profitable unto you.
Look, if you memorize a chapter in Deuteronomy,
you'll get your prize.
And when we're out of prizes, we'll get more.
If there's a book you want to memorize,
you say, brother, I really want to memorize this book,
then, yeah, go for it.
We'll give you a prize for that.
Now, if you are taking like Esther 10,
which is two verses,
then you're trying to cheat the system.
Why is Esther 10
the chapter you felt was going to be useful?
But what I'm saying is this.
You memorize the Bible, it will help you fight against sin.
It will help you be successful.
Go to John 15. We'll close up John 15.
John 15.
John chapter 15.
And notice what it says in John 15, verse 7.
And this is a very famous parable here.
And this parable, it's not a salvation parable.
It's a soul-winning parable about how to bear fruit and be successful.
So some people read this and say, well, how do you know
that they're still saved if it's burned?
Well, it's about winning souls to the Lord.
It's not about getting to heaven.
John 15, verse 7.
His words abiding in you is indicating
someone who's meditating on God's Word,
memorizing God's Word, reading it a lot.
Herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit,
so shall ye be my disciples.
Do you see how having God's Word inside of you
is going to help you bear fruit, according to verse 8?
Memorizing God's Word is going to help you win souls to the Lord.
Now, here's the thing.
Memorizing the Psalms challenge,
you're probably not going to use those verses out soul-winning,
or at least not very commonly.
But just the fact that you're meditating on God's Word
is going to give you boldness,
is going to cause you to be filled with the Spirit,
is going to cause you to want to do right
and want to obey God's will because His law is in your heart.
It's going to cause you to want to serve God.
Anything you memorize is going to cause you to want to serve God.
Anything in the Bible that you memorize will cause...
I mean, if you memorize the AA, bumba, vin, vin,
or hen hen from voodoo,
that's not going to cause you to want to serve God.
But you memorize anything in the Word of God,
it's going to cause you to want to serve God.
It's going to cause you to want to do right.
It's going to cause you to just love God and want to serve God.
That's a fact. So what does it do?
Well, it teaches you...
It teaches you, number one, it teaches you the Bible.
You'll learn the Bible by memorizing it.
It's like anything.
You put time into studying something, you're going to learn it.
It's going to teach you hard work, discipline, and patience.
It's going to teach you meditation or cause you to meditate on God's Word,
and it's going to teach you obedience.
It's going to cause you to obey God's commandments.
Now, let me just give you a couple practical tips
on memorizing the Bible.
Some things that I think are very effective that work for me,
and let me just say this.
I'm not trying to say this to try to brag.
I'm just trying to let you know this
because I want you to realize this is actually effective for me.
I'm not telling you, here's some great tips,
but I never memorized the Bible.
I've used these things to memorize the Bible.
When we did the Hosea challenge, or any challenge we've done,
every challenge, I've memorized those chapters
before I've preached on them, every single one.
Before, my goal is every time I preach through a chapter,
verse by verse, that I already haven't memorized.
All the things I've preached in Genesis,
I memorized those chapters before I preached that sermon.
And what I do is I memorize the chapter,
and I immediately write a sermon on it
because it's fresh in my mind.
And so sometimes I go back to look at my sermon that I wrote a couple months ago.
Whoa, that was a good point. I didn't even realize that.
Because sometimes you forget things.
So if you memorize something, by all means,
write down some notes, try to have it as organized as possible,
because otherwise, it works for me because I just write a sermon.
But if you memorize, you might forget some of the stuff, okay?
So one thing I do is this,
is I set aside a time and a place apart from distractions.
If you're going to memorize the Bible,
it's going to be easier to do when there's no distractions.
What that means is when you memorize the Bible,
you should not be near your computer or your cell phone.
Or you should have them definitely turned off
where they're not going to distract you,
because once they start distracting you,
you're going to be out of the rhythm,
and then all of a sudden you're going to be randomly on YouTube watching whatever.
So set aside a time apart from distractions,
a time and a place, a time and location.
Now, depending on where you are in life or where you live or whatever
or your work schedule, that might be different.
It could mean going to work early to memorize the Bible.
I used to do that at my old job in Maryland.
I would just show up to work early
because it was the best place to be away from distractions.
But set aside a time and a place.
For me, I try to routinely do it early in the morning.
I wake up very early,
and so I try to do it very early in the morning away from distractions.
Now, when I lived here in Metro Manila,
it was a little bit more difficult
because our place we lived was very small,
so there's not a lot of room and space.
So when I memorized the Bible,
what I would do is I would go somewhere to memorize the Bible.
I'd go out for a walk somewhere and just memorize the Bible
because it got me away from distractions,
and I would just walk and memorize the Bible.
I remember one time I walked by Brother Mateus.
He was out soul winning. I was out memorizing the Bible.
He's like, hey, how you doing?
We just kept going, right, because we were both on a mission.
We got something to do, right?
It's like we see each other for like 30 seconds,
and then it's like, boom, because we got to get stuff done, right?
And so I always, I try to always when I'm memorizing the Bible,
I'm usually walking when I memorize the Bible.
Now, one reason why I do this is just
I trust what they've said in general about science
that when you're having light exercise,
it increases your capacity to memorize and to learn.
So supposedly, this is why many people you'll see at a gym
that are memorizing something for a class,
and they'll be on the bike or whatever just memorizing these cards.
If you ever saw that in college,
it always happened in West Virginia
where people would be working out on the bike
and just doing something where you don't have to think,
and then they're just memorizing
because, number one, they're multitasking,
but for two, it just keeps your mind focused on the memorization,
and it's just helping you memorize.
It's actually very effective.
When I do my memorization, I'm always going for a walk pretty much.
So when I lived here in Metro Manila,
I would leave the house because there was no room to walk around in.
Now, you got to be careful here
because you don't want to get hit by a car.
So take this advice logically.
Go to a place that's kind of secluded,
a park where you can just kind of walk back and forth
and just, you know, memorize, right?
Now, at our new place, because we have two floors,
so I just kind of do it downstairs.
If it's early in the morning, I just kind of walk back
from the kitchen to the living room, just back and forth,
memorizing the Bible for an hour sometimes,
just memorizing and memorizing and memorizing,
no distractions, no cell phone, no computer,
and you will learn.
You'll be surprised how much you can memorize
if you're just repeating it over and over and over again.
I'm able to learn a lot that way.
It's very effective for me.
Now, I'm not saying this will be the exact same way with you.
Maybe you've got a different technique.
I'm not saying one size fits all.
Maybe it's different for people.
People have different techniques.
Another thing I would suggest is this.
Start with short chapters.
Start with the short chapters.
On this challenge, just pick the shortest chapters
in 23 through 41.
Don't feel guilty about getting the snack.
Man, I just went to the shortest chapters.
That's what I would suggest.
Because if you start memorizing for the first time,
look, if you start working out for the first time,
what's going to happen after a couple months
is your body gets used to it, and you get better at it.
Your body's used to doing the motions.
You get stronger.
That's just the way it works.
It's the same thing with memorizing.
It works the same thing with your mind.
When you first start, it's going to be harder.
If you haven't done any memorizing since, like, 10 years ago
or 20 years ago when you were in school,
it's going to be very hard at the beginning.
Here's the thing, though.
As you start, it's going to be hard.
It's going to get easier.
It's going to get better with time.
So start with the short chapters.
So number one, pick a time and place
apart from distractions.
I would even recommend going for light exercise
if it's possible while you're doing it.
Start with shorter chapters.
And the other advice I would have
that is pretty much the opposite
of what a lot of people would say,
I would not try to retain the chapters you memorize.
I never try to retain what I have memorized.
You say, why, Brother Stuckey?
Because you're never going to be able to learn new ones
if you're spending all this time on the old ones.
I'll give you an example of this.
Because our Bible is a pretty big book,
1,189 chapters, I think, if I'm remembering correctly.
There's a lot of chapters to memorize.
I'm not anywhere near 1,189 chapters.
Here's the thing. Let's just use kind of a worldly example.
Let's say you're playing a video game for the first time.
The first time you play it,
you don't know what's going to happen.
You only die a few times because you're trying to figure out,
I'm thinking of like Mario Brothers.
Mario Kart, Mario Brothers.
You're not sure when to jump and all this stuff.
You're not sure which pipe to jump up or jump down with Mario or whatever.
And you're figuring things out and you die and you die and you die.
And when you're first doing it, you learn a lot because it's all new.
It's brand new, so you're learning a lot.
And it's interesting. It's exciting because it's new.
And then eventually you beat the game
and then the next time you play it, it's a lot easier, isn't it?
Because you already know how to beat it.
You learn a lot less the second time, don't you?
And it's not as fun the second time, is it?
What about the third time? What about the fourth time?
If you beat in a game 50 times, is it fun the 51st time?
Not anymore. Do you learn anything? Not really.
What I'm trying to say is this, that if you memorize a chapter,
my philosophy is I'm going to learn so much more
when I first memorize the chapter,
take the notes of the things I learned,
and instead of just reciting something I already have memorized,
I can learn more from a new chapter in the Bible.
I mean, if I've memorized a book,
because the first book I ever memorized was the book of James.
Here's the thing. I learned a lot about James when I memorized it,
but then I realized one day as I kept trying to quote it perfectly,
I didn't learn anything when I quoted it for the 100th time or 200th time.
I was just trying to keep it memorized.
I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but what I'm saying is
you spend all your time on that,
you could have learned a new chapter and learned more.
Because to me, that's the main goal of memorizing the Bible,
is to learn, and I believe you're going to learn a lot more
by going on to a new chapter
than just reciting something that you already have memorized a million times.
Now, I do think that if you memorize something for the first time,
you might want to keep it in there for a short time,
because maybe there's still some stuff you can glean, some wisdom there,
but eventually you kind of suck it dry
where you pretty much have to know other parts of the Bible
if there's other information to get, because you've read it so many times.
And what takes place is you spend so much time just trying to quote it perfectly,
but you're not actually really thinking about it anymore.
You're just trying to re-quote it perfectly.
And you just don't learn that much anymore.
You'll learn more by going on to a new book.
So for me, when I memorize a book now or memorize a chapter, I forsake it.
I mean, I couldn't quote Psalm 24 right now.
I don't even remember what the beginning of it is.
Maybe I could if I got the first words.
But I knew it enough when I quote memorized it to write a sermon on it
and it made sense.
And here's the thing about this.
I haven't tried to quote Hosea in over a year.
It's like, man, that's a hard book.
I'm taking a break.
But here's the thing.
I still understand Hosea pretty well, I think, because I did memorize it.
And see, if you memorize something,
there's going to be certain information that always sticks with you.
So you might not be able to quote it word from word perfectly,
but you gained a lot of information that's going to stick with you your whole life.
But this is just what takes place if you try to re-quote what you have memorized.
You're going to spend 25 minutes on the first two verses trying to say to instead of onto
and you make these small little mistakes that drive you crazy.
And you know what takes place?
You're not motivated to memorize anything else because you're frustrated.
It's not fun.
I want to keep memorization fun.
I enjoy memorizing the Bible.
But I'm not going to enjoy it if I just quote the same thing over and over and over.
It just loses its enjoyment.
It's like beating a video game for the 100th time.
Now, I'm not saying you can't do that, and I know a lot of people try that.
But I'm just saying I believe you're going to prevent your capacity from learning something new
if you spend all your time quoting something you already have memorized.
And it's going to prevent you from learning something new.
You're going to spend all your time.
You're going to get frustrated.
You're going to make mistakes, especially if you're going through the New Testament.
Because Paul's epistles start very similarly in the first couple verses.
And sometimes you're quoting the book of Ephesians, and you're like,
Oh, I accidentally quoted Philippians.
Man, let me start over.
And you literally spend 20 minutes.
You know what?
Honestly, you could have memorized something else for 20 minutes
because I'm not saying it's not good to get that word for word perfectly,
but I'm just saying, honestly, I don't think it's as helpful as just memorizing something new.
So for me, once I'm done with the Psalms challenge, just move on to something else.
Because I'm going to learn more on something else
than something I'm just repeating for the 100th time.
So that's my philosophy.
And I think one of the big reasons why people quit memorization
is because they spend so much time memorizing what they already have memorized.
They're not learning that much, and it gets really frustrating when they make mistakes.
My suggestion is just move on to something else.
Pick a time and a place.
Away from distractions.
Start with the shorter chapters.
And you know what?
Don't spend all your time trying to retain stuff you already know.
Now with verses, it's different.
Because there's some verses you want to keep memorized to use them in your life.
Hosea was great to memorize,
but I'm not regularly going to quote the entire book of Hosea in my personal life.
Now some verses like Hosea 4.6, which you used this morning,
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
It's a great verse, or a great section of a verse to know.
But a lot of the verses, it's kind of like it's not the end of the world
if you don't have it fully memorized.
But by all means, memorizing the Bible is going to help you in your life.
Let's go to the word of prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today
and getting to see your word on this topic.
And help us to have an active walk with you.
Help us try to memorize your word and love your word, God.
Even those of us that are very young in this room,
we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen for our last song. Let's turn to hymn number 149.
Let's sing the song, Trusting Jesus.
Hymn number 149. Let's sing the song, Trusting Jesus.
On the first.
That is all.
Trusting as the moment fly.
Trusting as the days go by.
Trusting in the air before.
Trusting Jesus.
That is all.
Rightly God, his spirit shines.
He is a part of mine.
Why, he needs a hand at home.
Trusting Jesus.
That is all.
Trusting as the moment fly.
Trusting as the days go by.
Trusting in the air before.
Trusting Jesus.
That is all.
Singing in my wisdom.
Pray with a happy ear.
If in winter morning call.
Trusting Jesus.
That is all.
Trusting as the moment fly.
Trusting as the days go by.
Trusting in the air before.
Trusting Jesus.
That is all.
Last.
Trusting him.
What life shall last.
Trusting him.
To earth he passed.
Till within the past.
He passed her home.
Trusting Jesus.
That is all.
Trusting as the moment fly.
Trusting as the days go by.
Trusting him.
To the air before.
Trusting Jesus.
That is all.