Now we just read Proverbs chapter one, which is a chapter that talks a lot about the importance
of knowledge, learning, wisdom, understanding.
And the title of my sermon this morning is How to Learn.
How to Learn.
You see, our knowledge and understanding is extremely important to God.
God wants us to be wise and to increase learning, to gain knowledge.
And unfortunately, foolishness, stupidity is epidemic today in our society.
There's a dumbing down that's happening today.
And the famous verse in the Bible says, my people is destroyed for lack of knowledge.
And he talks about people rejecting knowledge or hating instruction, hating knowledge, not
wanting to learn.
But we as God's people should seek to increase learning and to gain knowledge and wisdom.
There are some people who it seems almost think that stupidity is next to godliness.
Even amongst Christians where they think, well, I'm just a simpleton and I'm just going
to stay that way.
But hold on a second.
That's not what the Bible teaches.
The Bible says we should be constantly learning and growing and gaining knowledge.
And sometimes there's an anti-intellectual strain amongst God's people and it is not
biblical.
Look at verse one of Proverbs chapter one.
The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, to know wisdom and instruction.
That's the purpose of the book of Proverbs.
To perceive the words of understanding.
To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice and judgment and equity.
To give subtlety to the simple.
To the young man, knowledge and discretion.
Watch this in verse five.
A wise man will hear and will increase learning.
And a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels.
Why?
To understand a proverb and the interpretation.
The words of the wise and their dark sayings.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge but fools, fools despise wisdom
and instruction.
People who think that learning isn't important, it isn't important how much we know.
And there are all kinds of little slogans among Christians that seem to downplay the
importance of learning the Bible or learning anything for that matter.
And they'll say things, well, it's not how much you know, it's who you know.
No, it's both.
It's who you know and then it's how much you know because you've studied to show yourself
approved unto God a workman that needed not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word
of truth.
It is a fool that despises wisdom.
It's a fool that despises instruction.
A wise man will hear and will increase learning.
Are you wise today or are you foolish?
If you are one who desires to increase your learning, you are wise.
If you are one that thinks that you already know enough, then you are a fool this morning.
That's what the Bible teaches.
Well, they don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.
You know, that's all great and fine and dandy.
We should love people and we should care about people.
And if we don't have charity, then we're nothing no matter how much we know.
I get that.
But let's not downplay knowledge and learning to the point of oblivion.
No, God wants us to study.
God wants us to read his word and learn more.
Go to Proverbs chapter 9.
And this is all kind of by way of introduction.
I want to show you the importance of learning and I want to show you the importance of
learning a variety of things, learning in all aspects of our lives.
And in the process, I'm going to show you some things about how to learn.
But then after I get through this introduction, I'm going to go into great detail and give
you a list of ways to learn, how to learn new things.
Look what the Bible says in Proverbs chapter 9 verse 8, Reprove not a scorner lest he
hate thee.
Rebuke a wise man and he will love thee.
Give instruction to a wise man and he will be yet wiser.
Teach a just man and he will increase in learning.
Now, one of the things that we see here, first of all, is that one of the great obstacles
to people learning new things is that they think that they already know everything.
They don't want to be corrected on anything.
Someone comes to them with teaching and information and they basically don't want
to be told that they're wrong about anything.
They feel that they already know everything.
But the Bible says if you rebuke a wise man, he'll love thee.
If you give instruction to a wise man, he'll be yet wiser.
If you teach a just man, he'll increase learning.
It says don't even bother trying to correct the scorner because he will hate you for it.
Why?
Because that type of a foolish person can't be corrected and that is an obstacle to
their learning.
The Bible says in verse 10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and
the knowledge of the holy is understanding.
For by me, thy days shall be multiplied and the years of thy life shall be increased.
If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself.
But if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it.
What the Bible's saying here is that if you walk out of this sermon today and say, well,
you know what?
I'm not really interested in learning anything else.
I'm pretty happy with my level of knowledge.
The Bible's saying the only person you're really hurting is yourself at that point.
It's really no skin off my back or off anybody else's back.
And I remember people would say in school, you know, if you cheat, you're only cheating
yourself because you're the one who's not learning.
You're the one that's going to get passed through the class and graduate and not have
the knowledge that was supposed to be imparted.
And that's going to be something that you lack for the rest of your life.
That's what the Bible's teaching here.
Go to chapter 16, if you would, Proverbs chapter 16.
So we should not be the type of person that thinks we already know everything or
that thinks we already have enough knowledge.
And if you talk to the smartest people, they're the ones who are learning the most new things
and they're the ones who have a humble estimation of their own knowledge because
they realize how much knowledge is out there.
Whereas when you talk to people who aren't that smart, they tend to think that they
know everything.
Now, when the Bible says we should be ready to be reproved and corrected, we should be
ready to be reproved and corrected by people who know what they're talking about.
This isn't saying, oh, well, you're not humble if you won't let some buffoon correct
you on something that they're wrong about.
Obviously, we have to use the sermon here, but none of us knows everything.
All of us should constantly be learning new things.
And I guarantee you that if you were to go back over a year of my preaching, let's
say 2015, you're going to find errors in my preaching because of the fact that
I'm a human being and no one's perfect.
And thank God I've changed very little since I started the church over 10 years ago.
I'm preaching the same stuff and I can point people to my sermons from 06 and 07 and you'll
hear all the same doctrines, all the same teachings.
But you know, there are some smaller points that I have changed on where I would look
back and say, you know, I don't quite agree with that anymore because I've learned
more since then.
I've grown past that.
That was a mistake at that time.
So we should always be ready to learn and gain knowledge.
Look at Proverbs 16, 21.
The Bible says, the wise in heart shall be called prudent and the sweetness of the
lips increases learning.
Understanding is a wellspring of life unto him that hath it, but the instruction of
fools is folly.
The heart of the wise teacheth his mouth and addeth learning to his lips.
And just for sake of time, I'm just going to leave it there in Proverbs.
We could literally go through every chapter in the book of Proverbs and God is just
grabbing us in every chapter and shaking us and saying, you need to learn more.
You need to get smarter.
You need to gain knowledge and wisdom.
Stop being a fool.
Stop being simple.
Find people who know something and learn it from them.
Read, study, learn, grow.
Don't be a fool.
Don't be a simple type person.
Now next I want to show you the importance of learning in all areas of life or learning
a variety of things.
And I want to show you a few great men of God in the Bible who had a balance in
their education, a balance in their learning.
Go if you would to 1 Samuel chapter 16.
And we'll see first of all David.
David is the man in the Bible who was called a man after God's own heart.
One of the greatest characters of the Old Testament, a Bible figure that's pretty
much universally known.
And what were some of the things that made him great?
Well I believe that one of the things that made him great is that he was a balanced
person.
Now today we live in a society that wants everyone to be specialized.
For example, you go to a factory and it's like an assembly line and one guy just puts
on one part all day.
That's all he does.
One part.
Well let me ask you this.
Do you think that guy is going to be very smart if all he does eight hours a day is
just put that one part in the same.
He's not learning anything, is he?
He's not growing.
He's not adapting.
And I'm not against that type of technology.
I'm just pointing out the fact that when you get that specialized you're learning less
than the guy who builds the whole thing on his own.
He's much more intelligent.
He's learning more.
But we live in this society that wants everything to be very specialized when I believe that
we'll be a better Christian and a better person if we actually work on growing in
all areas of our life.
Being a man like David.
Now look at this scripture on David.
This is when we're introduced to David when he's a very young man.
This is before David slays Goliath.
He's just a young teenager or young man, however old he was.
Look what the Bible says about him starting in verse 16 of chapter 16, let our Lord now
command thy servants, they're talking to King Saul, which are before thee to seek
out a man who is a cunning player on a harp and it shall come to pass when the evil
spirit from God is upon thee that he shall play with his hand and thou shalt be well.
And Saul said unto his servants, provide me now a man that can play well and bring him
to me.
Now they're going to bring him a cunning harp player in order to play music before
the king.
Look at the description of David when we're first introduced to him in verse 18.
Then answered one of the servants and said, behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the
Bethlehemite that is cunning and playing and a mighty valiant man and a man of war
and prudent in manners and a comely person and the Lord is with him.
Now that's a pretty great resume right there.
This isn't just a guy that just all he does is music.
He just eats, breathes and sleeps music.
He just plays that harp all day long and that's all he does and he's weak and soft
and sissy.
No.
The Bible says not only is he a cunning player of the harp, but he's also a mighty
valiant man.
That's saying that he has physical strength and he also has great courage.
And then it says he's a man of war, meaning that he's a skilled fighter.
It doesn't mean that he's one who goes and seeks war.
It just means that he has the ability to fight.
It says then that he is prudent in matters, meaning that he has wisdom, meaning that
he has good social skills where he's prudent and he knows what is appropriate and what
is not.
But aside from this one scripture that gives us all these different facets of David's
personality, we also know from the book of Psalms that he memorized much scripture
and meditated in God's law.
He knew the Bible very well.
We also know that he's a great man of prayer and we also know him as a great leader
and a great general and a great organizer of man and leader of God's people, a great
ruler and king of the nation of Israel.
You see, David was a man who did not just seek to specialize in one thing and just
fail at everything else.
He sought to have physical strength, to be able to praise the Lord through music, to
pray, to read the Bible, to memorize the Bible.
He had all these different skills and not only that, he's a shepherd.
He knows how to care for livestock.
I mean, it goes on and on with David that this man was a knowledgeable, intelligent,
well-studied man in all areas of life.
Go if you would to the book of Daniel.
Let's see another example.
Daniel is another perfect example of someone who understood the importance of knowledge
and understanding in a variety of subjects and the importance of learning.
Now in Daniel chapter 1, there's a scripture that talks about, first of all, how Daniel
and his three fellows, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were even chosen in the first
place to dwell in the king's palace.
Look at verse 3.
The Bible says, and the king spake unto Ashpenaz, the master of his eunuchs, that he should
bring certain of the children of Israel and of the king's seed and of the princes, children
in whom was no blemish but well favored and skillful in all wisdom, not just specializing
in one aspect of knowledge, but skillful in all wisdom and cunning in knowledge and
understanding science and such as that ability in them to stand in the king's palace and
whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans.
This is the type of person that Daniel was where he understood all these different things.
You see, it wouldn't really do them any good to have someone who understood science
but was not able to stand in the king's palace, meaning that he's so backward and
his social skills are so undeveloped that he can't even function in society where he's
just like, oh, you know, let me explain to you the science.
He had to be able to carry himself in a way where he could be among the wise men and
the Chaldeans and be respected as a fellow.
So not only did he have to understand science, but he also had to have the ability in
him to stand in the king's palace.
He also had to be skillful in all manner of wisdom.
He also had to have language skills and speaking skills and things like that.
You know, these are the things that he cultivated.
Look what God did for him in verse 17.
As for these four children, the Bible says, God gave them... and by the way, this is
a great sermon for children.
Even the book of Proverbs specifically says it's geared toward the young because
when you're young is when you need to start developing habits of learning and growing
intellectually and getting smarter because for some people it's too late.
You've heard the saying, you can't fix stupid, all right?
But it's not too late for you, young people.
It says in Daniel 1.17, as for these four children, God gave them knowledge and skill
in all learning and wisdom.
And Daniel had an understanding in all visions and dreams.
Look at verse 20, and in all matters of wisdom and understanding that the king inquired
of them.
He found them 10 times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were
in all his realm.
And Daniel continued even under the first year of King Cyrus.
Look at chapter 2.
Daniel chapter 2 verse 20, Daniel answered and said, blessed be the name of God forever
and ever for wisdom and might are his and he changeth the times and the seasons.
He removeth kings and seteth up kings.
He giveth wisdom unto the wise and knowledge to them that know understanding.
He revealeth the deep and secret things.
He knoweth what is in the darkness and the light dwelleth with him.
I thank thee and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers who has given me wisdom and
might and has made known unto me now what we desired of thee, for thou hast made known
unto us the kings matter.
Now, do you see in the scripture that it's clear that knowledge and wisdom are things
that God gives?
So don't tell me that the pursuit of knowledge and the pursuit of wisdom is some kind of
a carnal pursuit when the Bible says that God gave wisdom unto Daniel and it wasn't
just about spiritual things.
He gave him wisdom and knowledge in all learning and wisdom.
Not only that, we could turn back, we're not going to, we could turn back to Bezalil
the son of Uri and see where God gave him skill in working with metals and working
with brass and woodworking and with textiles and so forth.
And again, Bezalil the son of Uri was not a man who was a specialist.
He was a man who was skillful in all manner of workmanship.
And that didn't take away from his expertise in metal works.
It actually enhanced it, the fact that he was skillful in all manner of wisdom.
God gives wisdom to the wise.
God gives knowledge to men of understanding.
God is the fountainhead and source of all these things.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
It's the beginning of wisdom.
It's the beginning of understanding.
And the Bible teaches that God will cause us to learn more if we desire and seek after
knowledge.
If we seek knowledge, we'll find it.
Now listen to this from James chapter one, famous verse, you'll have to turn there.
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God.
They give it to all men liberally and it shall be given him.
And upbraideth not and it shall be given him.
God gives to all men who ask wisdom and understanding.
Ask and you shall receive.
Seek and you shall find.
Knock and it shall be opened unto you.
Of course, Daniel didn't just ask God for wisdom.
He also put in the work and study and reading and learning.
Go to Daniel chapter nine, Daniel chapter nine.
And I'm starting out the sermon like this just because I want to make sure you understand
how important this is.
I don't want you to just think, well, this isn't really that important of a sermon.
You know, I'm waiting for the next rah rah scream and yell about sin sermon.
But here's the thing about that though.
It's knowledge that's going to preserve you, the Bible says.
It's understanding that's going to keep you.
It's wisdom that's going to guide you.
And if you go through life foolish and childish and simple, you will be deceived, you will
be led astray by the cunning craftiness and the slight of men whereby they lie and
wait to deceive you.
You must gain the knowledge to be steadfast and unmovable and always abounding in the
work of the Lord.
You have to have knowledge so that you will be firmly planted and not be tossed to and
fro with every wind of doctrine and carried about with divers and strange doctrines.
Look at Daniel chapter nine and look at verse number two.
In the first year of his reign, I Daniel understood by books.
Now there's a concept.
You know, he understood by books.
He was a man who read books.
The Bible says in the first year of his reign, I Daniel understood by books the number
of the years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet that he would
accomplish 70 years in the desolations of Jerusalem.
And I set my face unto the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplications and fasting
and sackcloth and ashes.
Now he understood by books what?
Well, Jeremiah had talked about the fact that they would be captive for 70 years.
That they had missed 70 Sabbaths of the land for the year and that there were going
to be 70 years accomplished.
And he actually got books together and figured out when that 70 years would be up.
He looked at the events of his day.
He looked at the things that had happened in the past.
And when this king was anointed, you know, he figured it all out by books and he understood
the timing of Jeremiah's 70 years that was being prophesied.
Then the Bible talks about him praying and fasting and so forth.
What was he praying for in verse 3?
We'll jump down to verse 21.
Yea, while I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the
vision at the beginning, being caused to fly, swiftly touched me about the time of
the evening oblation.
And he informed me and talked with me and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give
thee skill and understanding.
At the beginning of thy supplications, the commandment came forth, and I am come to show
thee, for thou art greatly beloved.
Therefore understand the matter and consider the vision.
The Bible is saying here that when Daniel first started praying, when he first started
asking God to help him understand, you know, he was reading books and he was studying
and he was learning about the book of Jeremiah and what the 70 years would mean.
And basically, he's praying and the moment that he prayed, God sent the answer to
the prayer.
There's no delay in the answer getting there.
But the Bible says that he was a man greatly beloved of the Lord, which is why when he
asks God for knowledge and wisdom, the answer is dispatched immediately.
So gaining knowledge and skill and understanding of the scripture or of any other subject
is actually a blessing from God.
It's a way that God blesses us in our lives.
We often talk about how if we sin in our lives, bad things are going to happen.
God's going to bring chastisement upon us.
And that if we do right, God's going to bless us.
And we say the path to God's blessing is through the door of obedience.
What is one of the ways that God blesses us?
One of the big ways is that he'll give us knowledge.
He'll give us understanding.
He'll give us skill.
I believe that people who are right with God and serve God and love God and do things
with God are going to understand the Bible more than the people who are displeasing in
the sight of God.
Why?
Because he's not going to open things up for them as much.
You know, David prayed over and over again, open now mine eyes that I may behold wondrous
things out of thy law.
It's a privilege to learn wisdom and knowledge and understanding that will preserve us and
help us in our lives.
That's one of the ways that God blesses us in our lives.
So those are two great examples.
If you would go to Ephesians chapter 4.
Those are two great examples of men in the Bible who sought after new knowledge and skills.
They sought to learn in all areas of life.
And I'm going to get into how to learn in a moment, but what areas do we need learning
in?
You know, a lot of people just, they just write off whole areas and just say, oh, I'm
no good at that.
I, you know, I, I'm not interested in that.
I don't want to learn anything about that.
But in order to be a wise and understanding person, you need to have a basic knowledge
in all areas of life.
I'm not saying you're going to be an expert on everything, but you need to have basic
knowledge in all areas of life.
Here's some key areas while you're turning to Ephesians 4, some key areas where you
should have some knowledge, okay?
Where you should have some understanding, obviously we need to know the Bible, okay?
But let's go simpler than that.
You should be able to read and you should be good at reading.
You should be good at reading.
I mean, Jesus asked the question, how readest thou?
How are you reading?
You should read and you should be good at reading.
That should be a basic skill that, I mean, how can you read the Bible?
How can you preach the Bible?
How can you understand the Bible if you're a poor reader?
That is a key important skill that we as God's people need to have.
Now there are so many people today who just will say, well, I just don't like reading.
And I'm not going to ask for a raise of hands of who would say I don't like reading
because then I don't want to humiliate you when I say that you're a dumb person
if you don't like reading.
And I'm not saying that lightly because reading is how you learn.
That's how you gain knowledge.
That's how you get smarter.
And people who don't like reading don't read.
And people who don't read are not smart.
It's that simple.
And you say, well, I can't believe you said that.
But it's the truth.
And so one of the greatest things you can do for your children is to teach them how
to read.
But not only is reading an important and essential skill, but what about just basic
math skills?
I mean, that's something that everybody should have.
I mean, how can you go through life without knowing basic math?
I mean, how can you even be a wife or a mother or run any kind of business or be
a pastor of a church or do almost any job without having a basic understanding of
math or just function in your daily life without knowing some basic math?
You know, I believe that everyone should have a basic knowledge of music.
And you say, well, give us scriptural authority on that.
Okay, how about if I show you the hundreds of places where God commands you to praise
the Lord and sing unto the Lord and to play skillfully with a loud noise and to
praise him on the trumpet, praise him on the instrument of ten strings, sing unto
the Lord.
Look, you should at least know how to sing hymns to the Lord.
That's a basic skill that God wants you to have as a Christian.
And you know what?
Learning how to read, learning math, learning some basic music and singing, this will make
you a smarter person in all areas of life because we have all these different parts
of our brain and we need to use everything that God has given us here, not just one
little part of our brain that we use that's the part that makes you good at video
games or something, you know, or the part that makes you, you know, good at riding
a skateboard or something.
I mean, look, you need to broaden your understanding a little bit there.
So let's read Ephesians chapter 4.
What does the Bible say in Ephesians chapter 4?
Verse 11, he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors
and teachers, watch this, for the perfecting of the saints.
Now, when the Bible says the perfecting of the saints, that's not talking about
a sinless perfection.
You know, when we see the word perfect, a lot of times we misunderstand it because
in our modern vernacular, when we talk about being perfect, we would say that something
is just without error, without fault, without flaw.
But in the Bible, the word perfect means complete or entire.
There's nothing missing.
There's nothing lacking.
The Bible says in the verse that we already looked at earlier, if any of you lack wisdom,
let him ask of God to give it to all men liberally and it breadeth not.
That's not the verse I was looking for.
It's right before that in James, right?
Let me find it here.
I don't want to misquote here.
He says in verse 2, my brother encountered all joy when you fall into diverse temptations,
knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
But let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting
nothing.
What does entire mean?
You know, if we said the entire pizza, we're talking about the whole thing.
He's saying be complete.
And if you look up every time the word perfect is used in the Bible, you'll see it often
defined right there in the context as complete or entire, the whole thing.
So when the Bible says here, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry,
for the edifying of the body of Christ, the goal is to give you that which you
are lacking in your life.
Now you may be a great Christian in certain areas of your life, but in other areas you
might be severely lacking.
And the reason that you have pastors and teachers to help you with that is to fill
in the gaps and to help you with what you're lacking in, not to just keep beefing
you up on what you're already good at.
And a lot of people just want to go to a church that's just going to keep patting
them on the back for what they already do, instead of challenging them to do something
that they're not doing, to perfect them.
I mean, think about it.
How many Christians do you think are out there that do a great job of reading their Bible
and do a great job of prayer, and they do a great job of praising the Lord, but they
never go out soul winning.
They never preach the Gospel to anyone.
No evangelizing.
No soul winning.
I mean, is that really the perfection that God wants for our Christian life?
Absolutely not.
That's a major blow.
Something is majorly missing in that person's life.
Or you could have a person that, oh, man, they fervently pray, and they're praising
the Lord, and they're out soul winning.
They're constantly preaching the Gospel.
I mean, they know the Romans wrote like the back of their hand, but you know what?
They don't know anything else about the Bible because they don't like reading.
Now they're lacking in knowledge.
Now they're wide open to be deceived by false doctrine.
Now they're making all kinds of mistakes in their lives and doing all kinds of foolish
things because they don't know any better because they're failing in the area of knowledge.
I mean, God wants us to grow and learn things and to be edified and to be perfected,
meaning that we have the whole package in our lives.
Not just that we read the Bible and go soul winning, but that we also pray, but
that we also sing praises under the Lord.
He wants us to have the whole package.
He doesn't want us to become imbalanced.
Look what the Bible says as we continue here.
It says in verse 13, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge
of the Son of God unto a perfect man.
Again, it's not saying we're going to become a sinless man.
It's saying you'll be a perfect man like Job was a perfect man, where he fears God
and eschews evil and he's upright in his ways.
He prays, he knows the Word of God, he's intelligent, he loves people, he gives to
the poor.
I mean, he had the whole package.
That's what it means when the Bible says that Job was a perfect and an upright man.
It means that he wasn't just imbalanced and majorly lacking in some area of his
Christian life.
He had it all together.
Was he sinless?
Of course not.
There's not a just man upon the earth to do with good and sineth not, the Bible says.
Everyone is a sinner.
He says unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with
every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie
in wait to deceive, but speaking the truth in love may grow up.
That's the opposite of being a child.
Grow up into him in all things which is the head even Christ.
And so today, because we have an epidemic of foolishness, an epidemic of not reading
the Bible, of not knowing just basic learning of this world even, because we have this,
we have Christians that are easily led astray by false prophets and false teachers.
That's why in the last days, there's a great falling away and there's a great delusion
and mass deception going on because people are foolish enough to fall for it because
they haven't studied, they haven't learned.
I mean it's sad today.
You know, thank God there's much more wisdom and knowledge amongst God's people.
But if you go to the secular colleges today, I go into these colleges and speak and
it is mind-boggling, the foolishness in the classroom and the reason he just said
yeah is because he was there with me.
He knows what I'm talking about.
I mean literally, we're in a college class and the teacher says, does anybody know what
the word creative means?
What it means to be creative, silence.
He said, well okay, is there anybody here that would say that you consider yourself
a creative person?
You're creative.
Two hands go up, okay.
The teacher asked one of the students, you know, well what does that mean when you
say that you're creative?
You know, I mean, I know what it means but I just can't really explain it though.
And the teacher says, well, you know, why don't you try and explain it?
And he said, well, you know, I mean, I just kind of, I imagine things, I got to think
about things.
I mean I'm not exaggerating.
This is a real life scenario.
I mean I could give example after example of just really basic words where he said,
hey, what does this word mean?
And nobody in the class knows, nobody understand.
He's calling people, putting them on spot.
They don't have a clue.
I mean you're preaching to them and sometimes the thought just enters your mind like I don't
know if they even understand a word that I'm saying right now.
You know, and this is a college class.
I mean these students have supposedly gone through the whole elementary, junior high,
high school and they get this point and they can't even articulate what it means
to be creative.
I mean that's just one, I mean lots of examples, okay.
But go to 1 Timothy chapter 4 and I want to start giving you some tips on how to learn,
how to learn.
We need to know how to learn because a lot of people have a lot of really crazy
ideas about learning today.
I mean people are going to school every day for seven hours a day and then they come
out of high school, in many cases dumb as a brick.
Somebody's got some weird ideas about how to learn.
Stop and think about that.
I mean how can you go through 12 years of being in school for seven hours a day and
you walk out and you can barely read.
And there are even some that graduated from high school and they can't even read.
It's true.
I've known these people.
They're called functioning illiterates and they just fake their way through and they
can graduate and they can't even read the diploma that they're handed when they
graduate from high school.
It's out there.
Look it up.
But even the ones who can barely read, there are a lot of other areas where they just severely
lack knowledge, where they couldn't even do basic math or anything.
And I'm not trying to be down on anybody today if you struggle in math or if you
struggle in reading or if you struggle in science.
You know what?
If you're a wise man, you'll say, well Pastor Anderson's rebuking my lack of knowledge
and I love him for it.
Because the Bible says rebuke a wise man and he'll love you.
He'll increase learning.
He'll get smarter.
Hey, Pastor Anderson's trying to perfect me right now.
He doesn't want me to be lopsided and imbalanced and a cake not turned as Ephraim
was.
He wants me to grow.
I mean isn't that why you come to church?
If I came to church and I never was challenged to do something new or if I was never taught
a new doctrine, then what in the world am I even doing in that church?
I would ask myself.
I'd rather go somewhere that's going to edify me.
It's going to build me up.
It's going to help me grow.
So I'm not trying to hurt any feelings.
I love you today.
If you can't read, I love you.
If you fail at math, I love you.
I want to help you.
I want to teach you how to learn today.
That's why I'm here.
I'm not here to insult you.
I'm not here to drag you down.
I want to help fix the problem.
That's all.
Now number one, how do we learn?
Number one, we learn by reading and I know I already talked about that but I'm saying
it again.
Look at 1 Timothy chapter 4 verse 13, till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation,
to doctrine.
Jesus, 11 times, rebuked people for not reading.
He said, have you not read the Bible?
Have you not read the scriptures?
And he asked the man, how readest thou?
That was important to him.
Already criticizing people for getting false doctrine as a lack of not reading.
The best way to learn about any subject is reading.
Oh, watch educational DVDs.
No.
Reading.
There's no substitute for it.
Now let me say this about reading.
Let's get a little bit more specific.
You need to learn how to read through phonics, not the see and say method.
Okay.
So here's why I bring this up.
There is so much foolishness in the government schools now where they teach people these
foolish ways of reading the Bible or of reading anything.
They don't teach them how to read the Bible period but they teach them this see
and say where you look at words and you learn to recognize the sight words, the
sight words.
Now yeah, there are a few words that defy phonics in the English language that you have
to learn as sight words but they just teach all sight words, sight words, see and say reading
like it's a Chinese character or something.
We need to teach our children how to read and we need to teach them how to read through
phonics.
Now this is why the Bible is the best book to teach anyone how to read.
The Bible is the ultimate reader and I'm going to explain to you why after I take
this sip of water.
Here's why the Bible is the ultimate reading textbook.
Okay.
First Chronicles.
First Chronicles and let me ask you something and this is just one example.
You know and I know that the Bible, especially the Old Testament, the New Testament only
has two chapters really that are like this but you know and I know that the Old Testament
is filled with lists of names in certain places, aren't they?
Now a lot of people, they'll shy away from this part of the reading and say, oh, I'll
just skip that.
I'll just skip that part of the reading.
That's too hard but this is why people are poor readers.
You see, the reason that the Bible is the ultimate reading textbook is that it forces
you to use phonics because it would be impossible to see and say these lists of
names because you've never heard of these names.
So how can you see and say them?
No, you know what reading the Bible does?
It forces you to sound things out and you can listen to somebody read out loud and
you can tell whether they learn through phonics and they learn to sound things out or whether
they learn see and say because the see and say people are constantly guessing and getting
a word wrong on almost every line or they'll substitute house for home or home for
house and they're just constantly guessing, constantly mixing things up and not able
to read effectively.
Now if we were to look into First Chronicles for example and let's say we were to just,
somebody hit me with a random chapter somewhere between one and nine.
Eight?
All right, there we go.
Let's go with eight.
No, we didn't stage that before the sermon.
Let's go to chapter eight, okay?
Now here's just a random list of names.
You're not going to be able to see and say this.
You're going to have to sound these out.
You're going to have to actually look at the letters that make up the word and sound
them out, right?
Now Benjamin begat Bela his firstborn, Ashbel the second, Ahara the third, Noha the fourth,
and Rafa the fifth and the sons of Bela were Adar and Girah and Abihood and Abishua
and Naaman and Ahola and Girah and Shufufan and Huram and these are the sons of Ehud.
These are the heads of their fathers, the inhabitants of Geba and they removed them
to Manahath and Naaman and Ahaya and Girah.
He removed them and begat Uzzah and Ahayat and Sheherarayim and begat children in the
country of Moab.
After that he sent them away, Hushim and Beyara were his wives and he begat Hodesh
his wife, Jobab and Zebia and Misha and Malcolm and he said, well that's a boring
chapter.
I don't want to read that.
That's not going to profit me.
How does that edify me?
How's that relevant in the emergent church?
You know what?
It makes you know how to read.
And you know what you ought to do and listen to me, I'm giving you good advice this morning.
I'm giving you sound advice.
You know what you ought to do instead of skipping this or speed reading it, blowing
through it, you ought to read these names out loud when you get to them.
Spend more time on them, not less so that you can learn how to read.
If you struggle with reading, these are important chapters for you.
Now I'm not saying to just live in these chapters for months on end, you might lose
your mind, but I'm saying read the whole book of the Bible.
I'm not saying just to dwell on that one chapter, I'm saying read whole books of
the Bible and when you come to these chapters, why don't you just glorify God
and thank him for giving you the ultimate reading textbook.
Thank you God for teaching me phonics.
Thank you God for giving me this chapter and I've been reading silently in my head,
but now I'm going to read out loud and I'm going to sound out every letter and I'm
going to learn how to get better at reading.
And you know, there are adults who learn how to read, even if they didn't know how
to read as a kid.
You know, the whole, remember the commercial when we were kids, hooked on phonics worked
for me?
Who remembers that?
All right.
God bless you.
I see that hand.
I was, you know, that's my generation.
And you know what?
One of the greatest things that my mother did for me outside of winning me to Jesus
Christ was teaching me how to read.
I didn't learn how to read from school.
My mother taught me to read and she taught me to read when I was very young and I thank
God for that because it helped me in so many areas of life.
And so you say, all scripture's profitable.
Well, how could this crazy list of names be profitable?
It is profitable for doctrine, but not only that, it's profitable to get you some smarts.
It's all profitable.
There's nothing extra in this book that's worthless.
It's all for us.
It's all for our benefit.
And God was smart when he put those lists of names in and they even have an underlying
significance that maybe you hadn't even thought of, of just teaching you how to read.
It's true.
This is why children, and you know what?
Decide that you're going to raise your children in church.
Decide that you're never going to quit the church or that you're going to go to
some Bible-believing Baptist church with your children because even if it's not for
your own sake, do it for their sake.
Because children who grew up in church, you know what they grow up with?
They grow up with reading the Bible.
They grow up with sounding out the names.
And they grow up also singing the hymns.
Remember we talked a little bit about music earlier.
It's been proven in so many studies, it's not even funny, that studying music makes
you a smarter person in all areas of life, period.
It enhances your learning.
I mean, has anybody ever heard of anything like that?
Put it up your hand if you've heard something like that.
Yeah, of course.
So children who grow up in church, they don't just grow up listening to pop songs on the
radio.
And here's the thing about pop songs.
They're usually extremely difficult to sing because it's these expert musicians that
are wowing us with all their vocal acrobatics.
Whereas hymns were written and designed to be easy to perform.
Did you know that?
Most of the rationale behind church music is it's easy.
Easy to sing, easy to perform, and therefore children who grow up with it, they learn
how to sing at a really young age.
That's why you parents, when it's time to sing, especially when your kids are old
enough to be reading, get a song book in their hand and make sure that they're
not going like this during the singing.
Make sure that they're singing along.
And make sure that if they're at a reading age that they're reading out of the song
book.
I mean, I can't even count how many times.
I sat in church growing up as a kid and I started to zone out during a song and my
dad said, open that song book and be singing.
And he'd rebuke you and you'd sing.
And that's why people who grow up in church, they know how to sing at least at a basic
level.
They know how to read.
These are things that God does for us through the church.
God willing.
But not only that, so number one, we learn by reading.
And phonics is important with that.
Number two, we learn by going to the original sources.
Go to the sources.
Now what do I mean by that?
See much of education today doesn't go to the source.
Instead of reading the Bible, people read about the Bible.
See how that's a step removed from the source?
See the Bible is the source document.
And there are many men who go to seminaries and colleges and universities and study Bible,
but they're not studying the Bible.
They're studying about the Bible.
So they read all these theology books and commentaries about the Bible.
Getting removed from the source is a bad way to learn anything, but especially the
Bible.
You know how many books about the Bible I read?
You know how many commentaries I read?
Zero.
And I love reading.
I have lots of books.
I read books every week.
This week I read a book called How Music Works by John Powell.
Okay, it was about the science and psychology behind music and everything like that.
But you know how many theology books I read this week?
Zero.
You know how many I read last week?
Zero.
You know how many I read last year?
Zero.
You know how many I have an interest in reading?
Zero.
Zilch.
None.
Why?
Because I read the Bible this week.
I didn't read about the Bible, I read the Bible.
And all I need is the Holy Spirit and this book and I can learn what I need to
know about the Bible.
And I don't need some dead theologian from 150 years ago to be dug up from his grave
to come tell me what this book means.
You know, I can interpret it through the Holy Spirit and through living, breathing
men of God preaching to me.
Living, breathing, spirit-filled that I actually know who they are and where they're coming
from.
Well, Matthew Henry commented, wasn't Matthew Henry part of some baby baptizing
denomination?
What in the world would anybody want to do with that stupid book except use it for
a doorstop?
We need to read the Bible, not read about the Bible.
And it's not just when it comes to spiritual things.
You know, I have a good friend and I'm not down on him at all.
He's a very smart guy.
He's a very intelligent, educated man.
But it's funny, he has a, I just like to use this illustration because it's so funny.
He has a PhD in philosophy.
But I asked him, have you ever read Plato's Republic, which is considered like one of
the cornerstones of Westmont?
Never read it.
PhD in philosophy.
Because he said, but he even told me.
He said, that's not how it is when you get a degree in philosophy.
You don't read the philosophers, you read about the philosophers, he said.
He said, I read about Plato's Republic.
But he's not going to the source.
So he's getting everything secondhand.
And then he gives it to his students thirdhand, secondhand, thirdhand, fourthhand.
Now I believe that Plato's Republic is a worthless piece of garbage, okay.
But I'm just making the point that you'd think that someone who's studying philosophy,
when that's probably the most famous book of ancient Greek philosophy, that he would
have read it or something like that.
And it's funny, we did an interview yesterday for our movie that we're working on, Babylon
USA.
We were at this Emory University and we talked to this lady that was like an expert on ancient
Greek history.
And it was so refreshing because so many of these experts are not really an expert.
And when you talk to them, they don't know what they're talking about.
They're not with the character.
But it was so refreshing to talk to somebody yesterday who actually was an expert, when
they say that and knew the whole subject and could talk about it intelligently and
knew all about it and had read.
This lady had read all of Plato's books.
Now Plato's books are wicked and they espouse wicked philosophies.
I'm not promoting that.
But I'm showing you that even in a worldly sense, going to the source makes someone
actually know what the book's about rather than just hearing about it secondhand.
So how does that affect, we as Christians need to go straight to the Bible, not read
about the Bible.
But this goes for all areas of life.
And I want to actually expand on that with one other point, not only going to the original
source, number one reading, number two going to the original sources, but number three
also learning the whole subject, learning the whole subject, whatever the subject is.
So for example, we shouldn't just read the Bible and just focus on one part of the
Bible and ignore the other part, like just read the New Testament and ignore the Old
Testament, or just read Psalms and Proverbs and the four Gospels and just that's all
we read over and over again.
We need to learn the whole subject if we're really going to know the Bible, right?
I mean, would you consider someone knowledgeable about the Bible if there were whole parts
of the Bible that were just a complete mystery to them and they never looked at,
never even thought about?
No, in order for someone to know the book of Matthew well, wouldn't you say they'd
have to read the whole Bible to fully understand Matthew?
Or should they just read Matthew 200 times and nothing else?
Who's going to understand Matthew more?
The guy who read the whole Bible, right?
Because you got to learn the whole subject.
Here's an example of this.
When it comes to going soul winning in Spanish, you know, I want to win souls in Spanish
and I know a lot of people here, they win souls in Spanish or they would like to
win souls in Spanish and when I first got to the church here and started the church
over 10 years ago, I did not know how to speak Spanish well enough to give someone
the gospel, not even close.
I mean, I'd studied Spanish in the past, but I didn't really know it that well.
But just going soul winning and I noticed how many people didn't speak English and
I thought, you know, I really wish I could give these people the gospel.
There's so many of them.
So I started getting serious about learning Spanish and getting better at Spanish and I
got to the place, probably after I'd been here about two years, I got to the place
where I was able to win people the Lord in Spanish.
And ever since then, I would say that about 50% of the souls that are won when I go
soul winning is Spanish, about half, fully half.
And so, you know, those people wouldn't be getting saved if I hadn't have studied Spanish
and learned it.
But here's what I've noticed a trend amongst people who want to learn Spanish to go
soul winning.
Here's what they say.
Well, just give me a script, give me a Spanish script so I can learn the script.
But here's the thing about that.
You're not going to be ever an effective soul winner in Spanish just by learning a script.
You have to learn the whole subject in order to understand.
It's not just some knowledge of learning one aspect.
No, you have to understand the whole subject.
So you need to learn how to speak Spanish, like actually learn the whole language,
learn the verbs and the nouns and the adjectives and the conversational Spanish,
not just walk up to just...
You know, you have to actually be able to communicate and interact and go back and forth
and learn the whole subject.
That's just one example.
But there are so many examples.
You know, it's sort of like these armchair mathematicians and armchair scientists that
want to tell us that the earth is flat.
And they're like, oh, well, look, they want to learn like one math formula.
And then they just want to be, and it's wrong, it's a wrong formula.
My son Solomon disproved it yesterday because my son Solomon actually knows the whole subject.
He's studying, what math are you in, son?
What's that supposed to mean?
Advanced math, that's what your book's called or something?
It's like pre-calculus or something there.
But anyway, he's learning the whole subject.
So basically, you know, they came at him with the flat earthers gospel, which is like,
you know, the distance squared times eight inches is the curvature of the earth.
And he disproved it.
He applied it to the whole earth and it was just ridiculously wrong, ridiculously off.
And then he actually did the math to derive what a proper formula for the curvature of
the earth would be using trigonometry.
And here's the thing, it was a much more complicated formula.
And if you actually look up the real formulas on calculating the curvature of the
earth that actually worked, they actually involve more complicated math than just
d squared times eight inches, you know, per mile.
Just the distance in miles, you know, squared times eight.
But see, here's the thing.
These people, they don't study the whole subject.
They're not learning geometry, trigonometry, math.
They're not going, okay, I'm going to get to the bottom of this.
So then they went to the library and got an algebra one book off the shelf, an algebra
two book off the shelf, a trigonometry book off the shelf, analytic geometry off
the shelf, and said, I'm going to go through these four books.
I'm going to, you know, brush up on my math.
I'm going to work through all of this and I'm going to figure out the curvature of the earth.
No, that's not what they did.
No, they went on YouTube, how not to learn math.
They Google it.
They go on, there's all kinds of junk out there.
They're all kinds of false.
You know, but if you learn the whole subject, like my son Solomon, he could just look
at that formula and say, that is a flawed formula.
He proved the formula and it was found to be false, ridiculously false.
You know, or they come at you with all these calculations about the earth spin and, well,
since it takes precisely 24 hours to spin, well, no, it doesn't.
It takes 23 hours and 56 minutes.
Learn the whole subject or don't talk about it.
But what I'm saying is that we need to go to the sources.
We need to read books and we need to learn the whole subject.
Now, not only that, fourthly, this is how to learn today.
Fourthly, we need to consider the source.
Consider the source.
Okay, so number one, we need to learn by reading.
Number two, we need to go to original sources.
Okay, number three, we need to learn.
And what do I mean by that, going to original sources?
Well, let's say you wanted to learn about World War II or something.
You know, you could just read something and you're like,
you know, you could just read some book by some guy who says,
well, here's everything that happened in World War II.
Or you could go to actual sources like, you know,
people who've actually documented different diaries of people who actually lived there.
Or, you know, or people say, well, if I wanted to learn what Hitler believed,
right, I'm going to read this book about Hitler.
Well, why don't you read the book that Hitler wrote if you wanted to see what Hitler believed?
You know, or, well, I want to learn about communism.
Well, why don't you read the source?
If you want to learn about that, go to the source, the Communist Manifesto, right?
Going to the actual sources, but no one goes to sources.
For example, I can't even count how many people I've heard talk about
Martin Luther and the Protestant information and Lutheranism and the 95 Thesis,
and he posted that 95 Thesis.
I always ask people, have you ever read the 95 Thesis?
No.
It's only 95 lines long.
Like, how long would it take?
But people talk about it, preach about it, have opinions about it.
I mean, when I heard about it, the first thing I said was, well, I'd like to read that.
And then you read it, and then you realize that it's something completely different
than what everybody's told you it was your whole life, when you actually read it.
I mean, read the Magna Carta.
It's nothing like what they tell you it is in a history book.
I'm talking about going to read the Declaration of Independence, read the Constitution.
I mean, aren't these original source documents?
Magna Carta, Constitution, Declaration of Independence.
You're actually going to the Bible itself, read the Bible, going back into different
sources instead of just taking someone's word for it, getting it secondhand, thirdhand.
Number three, you learn the whole subject before you consider yourself learned in that area.
Number four, you consider the source.
The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 521,
prove all things, hold fast that which is good.
You test things.
You don't just believe every word that you read.
Also, Proverbs 1 5 says, a wise man will hear and will increase learning,
and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels.
Not any counsels, wise counsels.
Bless is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.
Consider the source.
Number, I got to hurry because I'm almost out of time,
and there's a few things that I want to get to.
Number five, you learn by memorizing.
Memorizing, and this is something where they don't do it in school anymore
because it's just so outdated and outmodish and archaic.
You know, just that rote memorization.
What a waste of time.
No, it makes you smarter.
No, you're using your brain.
What did the Bible say?
Go to Psalm 119, Psalm 119, and look at verse 97 of Psalm 119.
I am a strong believer in memorization.
I don't care what you're learning.
I don't care if it's science, history, math, whatever the case.
Memorization is good for your brain, and that is the way that you learn things.
Look what David said in Psalm 119, verse 97,
and this is an addition to the famous verse where he said,
thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.
Says in verse 97, oh how love I thy law, it is my meditation all the day.
Thou through thy commandments has 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.
I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts.
I've refrained my foot from every evil way that I might keep thy word.
I've not departed from thy judgments, for thou has taught me
how sweet are thy words unto my taste, yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth.
Through thy precepts I get understanding, therefore I hate every false way.
Now let me ask this, how could God's word be his meditation all day,
according to verse 97, if he did not have it memorized?
Because he said he hid the word in his heart that he might meditate therein day and night.
He loved God's word.
He's meditating on it day and night.
That's why he understood more than the ancients.
That's why he understood more than his teachers,
because of the fact that he had memorized and meditated upon God's word.
But then, sixthly, this.
And one more thing on the learning by memorization.
You know, when I was in school, this was normal in Christian school where I went.
We memorized the periodic table of elements.
We memorized all the helping verbs.
We memorized the list of prepositions.
We memorized the date, person, and what they invented
every major scientific discovery of the last 400 years.
And our test, we were given a blank piece of paper.
Write it down.
I mean, literally.
And there were kids who failed and got a D and said it wasn't fair,
and the teacher said, same test again in two weeks.
And if you get an A on it, you'll have a C,
because right now you just got an F.
So do it perfect next time so you can get a C in the class.
I mean, there was no mercy.
Why?
Because they don't want kids coming out of there being as dumb as a brick,
because they just fool around and never buckle down
and actually do some hard work of memorizing something and learning something.
And there are so many things you can memorize.
You can memorize, of course, scripture.
That's the best thing to be memorizing.
Memorizing scripture.
You can memorize lists in the Bible, facts about the Bible.
Memorizing all kinds of things is just a good exercise for your brain.
Part of the way that I learned how to preach was I memorized
preaching of other preachers and would recite it and practice it and preach,
to learn how to preach.
I memorized poetry to recite poetry with feeling
in order to learn how to be a public speaker.
Memorizing scripture, memorizing scientific, just whatever.
Whatever the case is, it makes you smarter.
I don't care what anybody says.
OK.
Number six, you learn by doing.
Learn by doing.
OK.
And that is touched upon also in that scripture we just looked at in Psalm 119,
where he talks about understanding more because of the fact that he's a doer of the word.
OK.
James 1, verse 22.
Last place we'll turn.
James 1 22.
James 1 22 says this.
But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
For if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer,
he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass,
for he beholdeth himself and goeth his way,
and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
But he so looketh into the perfect law of liberty
and continueth therein,
he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work,
this man shall be blessed in his deed.
The Bible says there's the forgetful hearer,
and then there's the doer of the work.
And if you're a doer, you'll actually retain what you've learned.
You know, speaking of memorizing things,
one of the first things my wife did when she got saved
was memorize the books of the Bible.
Why?
Because my wife is a smart person.
And she memorized Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth.
And I remember, she had just gotten saved,
knew nothing about the Bible,
she memorized the list of the books of the Bible the first week,
we went to church the next service,
and the pastor said,
turn in your Bibles, you know, to 1 Chronicles chapter 8.
And she just looked like this for a second,
I could see the wheels turning.
She was like, and then just turned to it.
Why?
Because she's learning.
And she learned fast.
And by the way, she likes reading.
So she read the Bible the first year she was saved,
I don't know, two, three times, cover to cover.
First year of salvation.
Why?
Because she's learning.
She's growing.
She's memorizing things.
She's getting smarter.
But you learn by doing also.
You can't just read about math.
You have to do the exercises.
You have to practice it and use it.
You can't just learn about science.
You'd have to put it into practice.
You can't just learn about the Bible.
You have to do the works that you learn about in the Bible.
Now you say, well, Pastor Anderson,
you're preaching too long.
The sermon is supposed to be over.
You know what?
You're learning.
Okay.
You're here to learn.
Maybe that's why Christians don't know the Bible
because the average sermon today in America
is like 20 minutes.
It's true.
20 minutes sermonette.
And by the way, nobody's learning how to sing either
because they're sitting there silently listening
to some performance singer.
This is important teaching that we need to learn this morning.
And I'm going to take the time to teach it to you.
And I hope that you'll actually put this stuff
into practice and spend the rest of your life
learning new things.
You learn by doing.
Now, one of the reasons why people today
are so bad at math and so bad at reading
is because they don't do it.
Now here's my policy.
I don't use calculators.
I don't use a calculator.
Unless I'm doing some specialized calculation
that would be very difficult to do by hand.
Obviously, I'm not trying to calculate square roots
and logarithms on my own.
But what I'm saying is if you're grabbing a calculator
to do basic math, you're just going to get dumber and dumber.
And if you do math every day, you're
going to get smarter and smarter.
Guess what?
You're going to get better math.
Why?
Because you learn by doing.
And I love the technology.
I love the smartphones.
I love the calculators.
I love the computers.
I honestly, I love it all.
But be careful that it doesn't make you dumb.
Where you just rely on machines so much
that you become completely ignorant.
To the point where I've seen people
where you'll say to them, you know, 100 minus 12,
and they're grabbing a calculator.
It's ridiculous.
I mean, it's just like, what in the world?
I mean, just the most basic.
Or even just the multiplication table is up to 12.
And they're grabbing a calculator.
You know, they're grabbing a calculator for 9 times 8.
And here's the thing.
I'm not trying to hurt your feelings if that's you.
I'm not trying to make you feel bad.
I'm just pointing out to you that if you
want to get better at math, start doing math by hand
or in your head.
Either by hand or in your head.
That's how you do it.
And any time I'm around people and they pull out a calculator,
I'm usually like, put that away.
Let's do this ourselves.
Because we want to grow.
We want to get smarter.
We don't want to get sedentary in our brains.
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
In fact, I mean, we've got a GPS unit.
We don't even have to pay any attention to maps
or how to navigate.
We've got to get, now look, if you're bad at math,
why don't you work the math on your own first
so that you can get smarter?
Then just, if you want to check your answer
with a calculator, then check it with a calculator.
But if you're using a calculator to do basic math,
then you're going to be less smart tomorrow
than you were today.
And is that really how God wants you to live your life?
Is that how you want to live your life?
You don't know what God has in store for you.
You don't know what opportunities.
And you know what?
There's always a prepared place for a prepared person.
And if you don't know basic skills,
you're missing out on opportunities that God has
for you in your life, where he could use you
to pastor a church someday, but he might look down
and say, well, this guy can't pastor a church
because he can't read.
How's this guy going to preach when he can't read well?
Or how's this guy going to run a church
when he can't do basic math?
How's he going to count the offering?
How's he going to run the budget?
How's he going to know how to spend the money?
I mean, how's he going to run things?
He can't be a leader because he fails at math.
This guy can't preach or teach
because he doesn't know the Bible well enough.
All right, I'm ready to go pastor a church.
How many times have you read the Bible cover to cover?
Four?
You're not ready to pastor a church.
So the point is, we need to learn in all areas of life
that we might be prepared to serve God in any way
that he has for us, and that we might excel
in knowledge in all areas.
And the last point I want to make is this.
Lastly, this on how to learn.
Work on your weaknesses.
Don't be a specialist.
Work on your weaknesses.
Now, if we think of a specialist,
what's the industry that we would think of first
if we talk about a specialist?
What?
Yeah, like a doctor, right?
Because, oh, you need to see a specialist.
But here's the thing about a specialist.
Doctor, he doesn't just say,
well, I'm an ear, nose, throat doctor,
and that's all I want to learn about.
See, an ear, nose, throat doctor
can actually treat any manner of illness
because in order to become an ear, nose, throat doctor,
first he studied all medicine.
Oh, your ear, nose, and throat?
Oh, yeah, we won't tell you anything about,
you know, the heart, the lung.
No, he has to know the whole subject, doesn't he?
And he has to learn for books.
And he has to learn by doing.
And he's not just a specialist.
He might have a specialty, but he could see anybody.
You know, it's sort of like we were on the airplane yesterday
coming back from the Sony marathon.
And they said like, hey, we need a doctor.
We need a nurse, like anybody who's medically trained.
And you know, the doctor who got up to help,
and I guess it was like a diabetic shock
that was happening or a diabetic coma.
I'm not sure what was happening,
but I think that's what was happening.
He didn't walk up and say, oh, I'm ear, nose, and throat.
You know, go back and sit down.
Oh, I'm a podiatrist.
No, because even the podiatrist knows the basics
of how to administer first aid, right?
Because he knows the whole subject, because you have to.
So don't be a specialist.
Work on your weaknesses.
Now, often pastors become way too specialized.
I mean, I've known pastors where every sermon is political.
Every sermon's about freedom and liberty
in the United States.
And you can tell them, preach on this Bible story,
and they'll spin it like, this is all about liberty.
This is an anti-government story,
no matter what story it is.
You're like, whoa, how'd you pull that out?
There are other pastors that just,
all they preach on is just family issues all the time.
It's just marriage and child rearing in the home.
It's just family, family, family.
But they're not preaching on the soul winning,
the Bible prophecy.
There's just a lot that they're skipping.
Other pastors just talk about finances all the time.
Other pastors just talk about creationism,
and they just keep beating that evolution,
big bang, creation, you know, that thing.
Bible prophecy, all they preach is Bible prophecy.
It's out there.
Or just, King James only, King James only,
that's all they talk about.
Or there are some that just,
all they preach is the gospel every Sunday morning.
Who's ever been to a church where every Sunday morning
the sermon was about being saved?
And don't you just want to reach up
and grab the pastor and be like, we're saved.
I'm saved.
Everyone here is saved.
Teach us something different.
But it's just like, every Sunday morning,
are you born again, are you born again?
Yes!
I mean, there are people who just,
it's just, they're just anti-homo.
Anti-homo, that's all there.
Or just anti-Muslim, anti-Muslim,
that's all they talk about.
Everything's against the Muslims.
Or everything's the Jews, it's all against the Jews,
and you know, just anti-Jew, or just,
you know, anti-abortion, just,
that's all we're gonna do,
we're just gonna protest the abortion clinic every week.
Look, I like all of it.
I love liberty, I love the family, you know,
I love biblical creation, Bible prophecy,
the King James, salvation, you know,
I'm as anti-homo, anti-Muslim, and anti-Jewish
as the next guy.
I'm anti-abortion, but wait a minute,
is that just all I am?
Is that just who I am?
Is that just all I'm gonna talk about just every week?
Wouldn't that get a little boring?
Just coming to church, it's like,
all right, sermon number 37 on why the Jews
are not God's chosen people.
All right, I found a whole new scripture
ripping on the homos.
No, you go to church to learn all the counsel of God,
to learn the whole subject.
You go and you read the whole Bible,
and then you be a doer of the word.
Don't get so specialized, learn everything.
And you know what, when I'm training guys
to be a pastor, I tell them,
you need to learn every subject.
I said, I want you to know something about music.
I sent a guy out to start a church
that didn't know how to sing at all,
couldn't sing, couldn't carry a tune in a bucket.
I literally hired him singing lessons.
And I called this person and said, can you fix him?
Is there hope, doc?
Because he's over 30 years old and he can't sing.
And he's like, yeah, oh yeah, I can fix him.
You be the judge whether he's fixed, I don't know.
But the point is, why did I do that?
Because I cared about trying to give people
a well-rounded training.
And not to just send a guy out who knows,
oh, I'm the pastor, I know nothing about music.
Or pastors have a Spanish ministry
and they know nothing about Spanish.
And then they have the wrong Bible version
and they don't even know it.
1960 version, hello.
Know nothing about music,
and then all the weird music comes in.
Know nothing about this, that,
know nothing about the finances.
No, if you want to be sent out to pastor a church
out of this church,
you should expect to learn all aspects
of our church's ministry,
every aspect of the church's program, every aspect.
You should know at least on a basic level.
Better yet, on an intermediate level.
So again, the heart of the sermon is this,
not trying to hurt anybody's feelings
or anything like that.
The heart of the sermon is this,
God wants us to grow and be smart and gain knowledge.
We're living in perilous times
and there's so much deception out there,
so many lies.
How are you going to navigate
and figure out what the truth is?
You've got to grow in knowledge
and understanding and wisdom.
And the way that you do that
is not by watching TV,
it's not by listening to the radio.
Oh, I'm learning so much about politics
by watching TV and listening to the radio.
You know, you'd probably learn a lot more about politics,
honestly, just by shutting off Sean Hannity,
shutting off the Fox News,
shut off the CNN and the MSNBC
and all this junk, right?
Why don't you go to some original sources?
Why don't you just say,
well, here's a starting point,
why don't I actually read the Bill of Rights?
That'll take two minutes.
Why don't I actually read the Constitution?
There's stuff in there that'll shock you.
It'll take you 20 minutes to read.
Why don't you shut off your stupid political talk show
and put down your political newspaper even,
and why don't you get out
the Declaration of Independence, read it,
Constitution, read it.
How about, what's that really,
here's some, or you could get some good political books
written by wise political thinkers.
How about The Law by Frédéric Bastiat?
I've got Gregory's approval here.
Why don't you read that book?
I read that book in one afternoon.
You'll learn more from reading that one book
than you will learn in a year
of these stupid talk radio blowhards.
Why don't you pick up,
why don't you pick,
you want to learn about the Soviet Union,
why don't you get the eyewitness accounts
from Alexander Solzhenitsyn in the Gulag Archipelago,
but that's a big, long, thick book
with black ink and white pages
and no pictures in it.
Actually, it does have a couple of pictures of him
like in his concentration camp outfit
with his head shaved and everything.
I'm saying, you can go to original eyewitness sources,
you can go to original documents,
you can actually read intelligent books.
Look, thank God for the library.
The Tempe, we have a great library in Tempe.
It's an amazing library.
And we've got the Phoenix Library,
and it's all free.
You walk in and you can just walk out
with all these books and learn about these things.
Or you can continue to rot your brain
on the TV, movies, and radio and be a fool.
And then wonder why you keep getting dumber
instead of getting smarter.
And people think that education ends
when you get out of school,
but we need to keep on learning
for the rest of our lives.
And we need to teach our children
to be lifelong learners.
I believe in this.
I think I showed you adequate scripture.
And if you don't think I showed you adequate scripture,
then you go home and read the whole book of Proverbs
and then come back and tell me that I'm wrong.
All right, let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord,
and we thank you for loving us
and for giving us the Bible, Lord,
so that we could have all this knowledge
and wisdom and understanding.
And you save us from so many headaches in our lives
when we learn the right way to do things
based on your word, Lord.
Help us to keep growing, Lord.
I know, Lord, that there are whole books in the Bible
that I feel like I don't really have a great handle on.
I need to really dig down and study more.
And Lord, I pray that you'd help me to keep learning.
And God, I pray that you'd help me to learn a lot
in my Bible reading this week,
new things, Lord, that I haven't seen yet.
And I pray that we would raise up a generation of Christians
who are smart enough to see through the false teaching
and that are smart enough to be godly
and effective servants of yours,
to do great works for you and great exploits
and win many people unto Christ.
And in Jesus' name, we pray these things, amen.