The verse I wanted to focus on was in verse 17 where the Bible read,
Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, and knowest his will,
and approvest the things that are more excellent being instructed out of the law,
and art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness,
an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes which has the form of knowledge, and of the truth in the law.
Thou, therefore, which teaches another, teaches thou not thyself?
Thou that preaches a man should not steal, dost thou steal?
Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery?
Thou that abhortest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?
Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonors thou God.
Now, in this passage, he's bringing out the hypocrisy of the Jews.
He's bringing out the fact that, hey, they say one thing, but then they do another,
or they condemn people for doing the same thing that they say is wrong, that the law says is wrong.
He has an interesting phrase, though. In verse 21, the Bible says in the middle there,
teaches thou not thyself.
He's saying, look, when you're out there preaching the Word of God, when you're reading the Bible,
are you not learning what you're reading?
Are you not paying attention to what the Bible just clearly said?
And the title of my sermon this evening is Teaching Thyself. Teaching Thyself.
This is a very important principle. This is something that I don't think, you know, mainstream really teaches anymore.
The public school system does not teach you how to teach yourself.
They teach you what they want you to learn. They just teach you, hey, this is what we want you to know.
We don't want to teach you how to teach yourself.
We don't want to teach you the tools and the abilities and the things of how you can learn on your own.
We just want to feed you the information. We just want to tell you that learn what we just tell you.
You don't question it. You just believe it.
Now, what is Jesus saying? He's saying, look, when you read the Bible,
are you not teaching yourself what God's Word says? Are you not learning for yourself?
Are you not realizing the words that are coming out the page? Do they have no meaning to you?
Are you just a robot? Do you just quote scripture? But you don't really believe what it says.
Do you really not know what it means?
Go, if you would, to Matthew chapter number 11.
Jesus, when he was confronted with Nicodemus.
Nicodemus was a Jew. Nicodemus was a Pharisee.
He was a chief ruler. Well, he wasn't a chief ruler, but he was a chief of the Pharisees.
And when he comes to him, Nicodemus answered and said, how can these things be?
And Jesus answered and said to him, aren't thou a master of Israel?
And knowest not these things.
He was rebuking Nicodemus for being stupid, for being ignorant of the law,
being ignorant of the things of God.
He's saying, look, you're the top guy and you don't even know what the Bible says about salvation.
I mean, think about it. Think about going up to the pastor and saying,
hey, how do I get to heaven? I don't know.
I don't know. I don't know what's going on. Look, you're like, aren't you the pastor?
Aren't you the guy that's supposed to know? Aren't you the one that's supposed to teach us?
You're a master of Israel and you don't even know salvation.
Look, salvation is a baby step.
Salvation is the first step in Christianity, and he's rebuking him because he didn't know.
And look, the Jews, they didn't know the Bible.
They didn't understand the Bible.
They could quote it. They read it, but they didn't know it.
And look, unfortunately, today, this is how many people are in their education.
They just don't know things. They're just ignorant.
They think ignorance is bliss. And in a sense, that's true.
But look, according to the Bible, ignorance is a sin.
Ignorance is being a fool, and being a fool is a sin.
And the Bible makes it clear we should be wise. We should be intelligent.
Look, a Christian should be one that's very wise, knows very much information, is very knowledgeable.
God is a God of knowledge, of wisdom, of instruction.
Look, they always want to attack Christians as being somehow, you know, stupid and being ignorant and being bumpkins.
And we just believe in God. We're so dumb and we don't know anything.
Look, no, the Bible teaches that Christians are supposed to be the most, you know, intelligent people walking on this planet.
The wisest people that we see on the earth throughout the Bible are Christians.
We see, look, Job, he was a very wise person. He was one that instructed many.
He was a great man. We see Solomon, the greatest, the wisest person to ever live at the time, a Christian.
People were so astounded at his wisdom, at his preaching, they would come from afar just to hear him preach.
They said, man, I've never heard anybody preach like this.
I've never heard somebody have so much wisdom, so much knowledge, and not even just the Bible.
Solomon knew about trees. He knew about animals. He knew about beasts. He even understood where homosexuals come from.
I mean, he knew it all. If he wanted to learn some wisdom, you'd go to Solomon.
He said, Solomon, teach me. Please instruct me. I want to know about the world. I want to know about God.
I just want to know truth. Will you please teach me things? And we see the great men, according to the Bible, are ones of wisdom.
So you say, I want to be a great Christian. Well, grow in wisdom. Grow in knowledge.
You know how you're going to do that? By teaching yourself. By teaching yourself things, okay?
Look at Matthew 11, verse 28.
Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me.
For I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest in your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Jesus Christ, he says, learn of me. He wants you to learn.
Jesus Christ is one who's telling you, I want you to learn. I want you to know the Bible.
I want you to have wisdom. I want you to have knowledge.
Look, that's where it all comes from. Knowledge comes from God. Wisdom comes from God.
He wants you to have that information.
So I have five ways this evening of how we can teach ourselves.
Five ways that the Bible emphasizes how you're supposed to teach yourself.
And you say, is it going to be radical and things I've never heard?
No, they're going to be really basic, really simple.
But they're things that people just don't do.
People just wholesale reject what the Bible teaches.
Go to Luke chapter 10.
Go forward a couple of books.
Matthew, Mark, Luke. Luke chapter number 10.
What's the first way? What's the primary way?
What's the easiest way for you to teach yourself?
Well, let's look at Luke chapter 10, verse 25.
And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tempted him, saying, Master, what should I do to inherit eternal life?
He said unto him what is written in the law.
How readest thou?
And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength, with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself.
Now he gave a good answer, but what is Jesus' first response?
Well, hey, what did you read?
He's just expecting it.
He's not saying, have you ever read before? Do you know books?
He's just saying, well, what did you read?
What does the Bible say?
You say, I want to learn things.
Well, guess what? You need to read.
Reading is such an important essential in all of life, especially in the Christian life.
If you want to know God, you've got to be able to read, because it's right here.
It's this book.
If you don't know how to read, you're going to have a hard time learning about God.
God expects every single person to be able to read, to be able to read God's word so they can talk to God,
so that they can learn what he wants them to do.
He's not saying, well, hey, do you know how to read?
No, he's just saying, hey, what did you read?
What did you learn in law? What's written?
Tell me what's going on.
Look, this is a thing that all people should have, and we see there's lots of bad times in the world.
It's when people wouldn't allow them to read, when they weren't taught to read the dark ages,
when they're withdrawing education from certain people.
We see certain countries sometimes don't allow their people to read, or they don't put emphasis on reading,
and it becomes a very dark place, a very wicked place, lots of poverty, all kinds of bad things.
Reading is very essential, and you know what?
If you're not good at reading, you're going to have a hard time at your job.
Virtually every job on this planet requires reading to some degree, whether reading the instruction manual,
reading the company policy, reading about your job description, reading and learning how to do your job better.
If you don't know how to read, you're going to struggle in this life.
You're going to struggle in this world.
Reading is so crucial. Go to Deuteronomy chapter number 17.
The Bible emphasizes reading. You say, well, I don't like reading. You're going to be stupid.
You want to know why people are dumb and why people are smart? Because of reading.
Really smart people like to read. They read a lot. They read all kinds of different books.
They have a good vocabulary. They read all the time. These are very smart. They're bookworms.
They say hello to those bookworms. Yeah, they're really smart. They do really good on the essay.
Teas, they just have a lot of information in their head. If you don't read, how are you getting information?
You know that adage, you are what you eat? Well, guess what? If you never read, you're not going to have very much.
These are people with limited vocabularies, limited education, limited knowledge.
God's saying, look, you need to start feeding yourself more. Feed more pure words into your mind.
That's how you renew your mind is by reading God's word.
If you're not reading, you're not going to be transformed by God's word.
Look at Deuteronomy 17, verse 18.
And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law
and a book out of that which is before the priest, the Levites.
And it shall be with them, and he shall read therein all the days of his life,
that he may learn to fear the Lord his God and to keep all the words of this law and these statutes to do them,
that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment to the right hand or the left,
to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel.
So the Bible's saying, look, when you have a king, it's really important that he reads.
Not only that, he reads every single day. What? God's word. Every single day.
And if you read Revelation, the Bible says that Jesus Christ has made us kings and priests unto his Father, okay, unto God.
So guess what? If you're in the New Testament, you're a king and you're a priest, so guess what?
You need to read the Bible every single day. Every single, what day? Every day that ends in Y.
Every single day that ends in Y, you should open up God's word and you need to read it so it'll humble you.
Not only that, you'll get knowledge, you'll get wisdom, you'll get instruction.
Look, Jesus Christ constantly rebukes people for not reading. We'll get there.
But every great man of God, they're constantly reading. Moses, he reads the Bible to all the children of Israel.
Joshua, he reads the Bible to all the children of Israel. All the kings, they're supposed to read every single day of their life.
Ezra, a ready scribe, he reads to all the people. He reads the book of the law.
We have Baruch, he reads Jeremiah's letters to the kings. We have Daniel, he reads the writing on the wall.
That would have been kind of awkward. Oh, I can't read. Hey, can you tell me what's on the wall I can't read?
No, he doesn't even know, he doesn't only know just his language, he knows other languages.
He's very well educated. He's very studied. Even Daniel, the Bible says that he had understood by books
the number of years that they would be in captivity. He knew they were going to be in captivity for 70 years because he read Jeremiah.
He read the books, he studied the books, and by reading he gained information about prophecy.
He knew what was going to happen in the future because of God's word. Not only that, Jesus Christ read.
We have Jesus Christ getting up in the synagogue reading the law. Not only that, the Ethiopian eunuch.
He's reading. He's reading and Philip comes along, he says, what are you reading, Isaias?
And then guess what, he gets saved. He gets saved because he's reading God's word.
Look, everybody in the Bible is constantly reading. There's reading everywhere.
All these men of God are reading and reading and reading and reading.
You get to Revelation, John gets caught up into heaven, then he starts crying and you say why?
Because nobody was worthy to read the book that was in the Father's hand.
Think about that. How many people today are crying because they don't know what a book means?
Because somebody's not reading them a book.
Look, it's really important to read the Bible. Go to Isaias 34.
It's in the middle of your Bible.
Isaiah is right after Ecclesiastes.
In Song of Solomon you have Isaiah, major prophet.
Isaiah 34. Look at verse number 16. This is really good information.
Verse 16, seek ye out of the book of the Lord and read.
No one of these things shall fail. None shall want her mate for my mouth.
It hath commanded and his spirit hath gathered them.
He's saying, look, you need to get God's word and read it.
That's what the commandment is. He's saying read it.
You know why? So they know all the judgments that were coming upon them.
And look, we can sin in ignorance, but God is not going to always be long suffering to that.
Obviously God is more merciful and more long suffering, but you can't just keep sinning in ignorance and getting away with it.
God's saying you need to open up the book of the law, figure out what his sins are and get it right.
Before those judgments come upon you.
Go to Matthew 12. Matthew chapter number 12.
Look in Isaiah 34. It starts out and says, come near ye nations to hear and harken you people.
Let the earth hear and all that is there in the world and all things that come forth of it.
For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations and his fury upon all their armies.
He had utterly destroyed them. He had delivered them to the slaughter.
He's saying, look, you need to find God's word because there's judgment against you.
You're in trouble. If you'd read the word, repent, you could have been delivered from that trouble.
Look, we could be delivered from a lot of the suffering and the afflictions that we go through if we would just open God's word and do what it says.
But because people don't want to know, I don't want to know what the Bible says.
Look, I had a family member tell me if it's not salvation, I don't want to hear it.
That's a dumb way to live your life.
Look, you're going to have a lot of judgment from God's word when you decide I'm not going to read it.
I'm not going to know what he told me. I don't want that information.
Look at Matthew 12, verse three.
But he said unto them, Have you not read what David did when he was a hungered and they that were with him?
Go to chapter 19. Go to chapter 19.
He's saying, look, haven't you read the Bible?
He's never going around saying, hey, have you read the Bible before?
He's just rebuking and saying, haven't you read it?
I mean, what's going on here?
You're the children of Israel.
How come Christians, they go to church and they never read their Bible?
They just don't read it.
Look, Jesus Christ is saying, have you not read?
It's a shame when you haven't read God's word.
Look at Matthew 19, verse four.
And he answered, he said to them, have you not read that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female?
Skip over to chapter 21.
Chapter 21, look at verse 16.
And he said unto them, Hearest thou what these say?
And Jesus saith unto them, Yea, have you never read?
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, thou has perfected praise.
I feel like I'm getting a consistent message from Jesus Christ.
He's constantly rebuking these people because what?
He's like, I don't get it.
How do you have all this false doctrine?
How do you not understand all these things?
It's like you haven't read it.
It's like you just don't know what the Bible says.
Look at verse 42.
Jesus saith unto them, Did you never read in the scriptures the stone which the builders rejected, the same as we come, the head of the corner?
This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
Go to chapter 22.
Chapter 22.
Look at verse 31.
But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying?
Look, I could go through all the gospels.
We could read this over and over and over and over, and maybe we do need to.
But look, Christ is saying the same thing.
Have you not read? Have you not read? Have you never read? Did you never read?
Why aren't you reading? What's going on?
What's going on? You're not reading.
This is why you have so many problems.
This is why you rejected the Messiah.
Did you not read? I was coming.
I'm in the scriptures. They talk of me.
And then you think you have eternal life, but he wrote of me.
Moses wrote of me.
And if you don't believe that I am he, you shall die in your sins, is what the Bible says.
Look, we need to read our Bibles.
This is a commandment.
And look, this is just a good area of life.
You need to read.
Not just the Bible.
You need to do a lot of reading if you want to have information, if you want to be wise, if you don't want to be ashamed.
Go to 2 Timothy chapter number 2.
You know what?
I did a lot of reading in high school, junior high.
I read different books here and there.
But as I got older, I really decided, you know, I don't like reading.
It's not very much fun.
And you know what?
If I just get the spark notes, I can still, you know, breeze by on the test.
You say, what's the spark notes? Or they call them cliff notes.
It's basically where someone did read the book.
They just kind of summarize the book and maybe a few paragraphs and just kind of tell you some key things that happen in the book.
Give you the overview.
You know, you can just read like a few pages and it gives you kind of what happened in the story.
You just got a general idea.
So then maybe you can kind of take the test.
You can kind of, you can kind of get a B or, you know, low A if you're still kind of smart or whatever.
Look, this is what Christians do.
And you know what?
This is what church is.
If you only, the only time you read your Bible, okay, is by going to church, you're getting the cliff notes.
You're getting the cliff notes.
You're getting the spark, even a good church.
I'm not talking about, let's talk about good churches for a moment, okay?
If you come to church three times a week, you're going to a good church.
Look, you're still only getting the cliff notes.
You're only getting the spark notes.
And when someone writes a good test, you're going to fail with the spark notes version, with the cliff notes version.
You got to read in between the lines yourself.
Look, it's going to be a shame if the only reading you get is in church.
You need to go home and read your Bible.
You say, why are you emphasizing reading your Bible?
Because if all of y'all read your Bible, I know that you'll still want to go to a church like this.
You know why people don't want to come to a church like this?
Because they don't read their Bible.
They go to Joel Osteen's church because they don't read the Word of God.
They don't know what it says.
If they knew what it says, Jesus Christ, you know what he said to all those people in that room?
Have you never read?
I mean, look, why are you listening to this guy preach all this false doctrine?
Have you not read?
But they just get the spark notes versions.
Now these false churches, okay, they're like the guy that only does read the spark notes.
And that he's telling you.
So it's not even the guy that actually read it giving the spark notes.
It's someone that only read the spark notes is going to get up and try to teach you the Bible now.
Okay, going to teach you the Word.
And there's a lot missing.
They don't really know what happened in the story.
They just got the overview.
So they have to fill in the gaps.
Well, what do they fill in the gaps with?
Their own imagination, their own ideas, their own traditions.
This is what church is like today.
They just have a cliff notes version of the Bible.
That's all they really kind of know.
So they just fill it in with their own version, with their own things, with their own ideas.
And then people on the pew, okay, what do they really gravitate towards?
They gravitate all that filler stuff.
That has nothing to do with the Bible.
It's not even in the Bible.
It's not anything that they said.
They're just learning all this stuff.
It's junk.
And the person that actually read the book, they're like, that didn't happen in the story.
You know, if you ever go, if you've ever seen a movie, okay, and you'd read the book before,
and you're like, well, that didn't happen in the book.
This isn't anything like the book.
It's like a joke.
You're like, I don't like that.
I wish they'd just done it like the book.
This is what happens when you actually read your Bible and you go one of these joke churches.
You go one of these fake churches.
You're like, that's not what the Bible says.
That's not what's going on.
I don't want this.
You reject it.
You don't like it.
But, you know, the people that never read the book, they go see the movie.
Oh, it's great.
I loved it.
Everything seemed great in it.
You know, this is what people are like.
They walk into these churches.
They don't know the word of God.
It's a shame.
Look at 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 15.
Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed,
rightly dividing the word of truth.
Look, God's saying you need to study your Bible.
You need to read your Bible.
You need to know what the Bible says for yourself so you won't be ashamed, so you won't believe
lies, so you won't get things wrong, so you'll know all the judgments of God.
Now, I'll give you some statistics on reading.
I looked it up.
It says 85% of juvenile offenders have problems reading.
That's interesting.
85% of the people that are juveniles today, they don't know how to read very well.
They have problems reading.
It says 3 out of 5 people in American prisons can't read, not even have problems.
They're illiterate.
3 out of 5.
That tells me there's something correlating there.
Why?
Because they're dumb because they don't understand the judgments because they have problems.
Look, reading is going to solve a lot of problems.
Not only that, reading, along with completing puzzles and playing chess, may lead you to
being 2.5 times less likely to develop Alzheimer's according to PNAS.
You say, what's Alzheimer's?
Alzheimer's is a horrible disease where old people, they completely lose their mind.
They completely lose all memory.
They can't remember anything anymore.
They only have short-term memory, so the fact that who their wife is, who their husband
is, who their children are, where they grew up, what they did last year, gone.
They get intimidated.
You go and see them.
You're like, hey, grandma.
And she's like, I don't know who you are.
Why are you talking to me?
Get away from me.
You're a stranger.
It's one of the most heartbreaking, devastating things.
My mother's mother went through this for years until she finally passed.
My mom and my dad and me would go visit her all the time.
She didn't know who we were.
She didn't know our names.
She didn't know anything.
She didn't know where she was at.
It was sad.
It's depressing.
It's horrible.
This is saying, look, if you read, you're 2.5 times less likely to even develop that
kind of a disease.
Why?
Because you lose things that you don't use.
And if you don't use your mind, if you're not using your mind to read, you're going
to lose it, is just an obvious thing from the Bible, from what we see in reality.
Now, go to Exodus chapter 17.
Look, if you say, I don't want to read, you're basically saying, I want to be stupid, and
I want to lose my mind early.
I don't want that for you.
I want you to go to a good church.
I want you to be educated.
I want you to be smart.
The Bible instructs us and commands us to read, and to read God's words especially.
Here's my second way that we can teach ourselves, writing.
Look at Exodus chapter 17, verse 14.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the
ears of Joshua, for I will utterly put out of the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.
So he's telling Moses, look, you need to write what I just told you.
And look, writing is going to go right in hand with reading.
What are like the two most primary things that are supposed to be taught in school?
Reading, writing, and arithmetic, right?
Isn't that like usually the core?
There's a reason why.
Look, God says it's the core too.
God's saying, look, reading is super important.
Writing is super important.
And if you don't know how to write well, you're not going to succeed on the job.
I constantly have to write things.
I have to write reports.
I have to write documentation.
I have to write emails to my boss.
There's a lot of writing that goes into being successful in life.
And look, if you're going to teach your children, you've got to show them how to write.
You have to know how to write well.
Look, writing is very important.
Go to Deuteronomy chapter number 11.
Deuteronomy chapter 11.
You say, oh man, these are some radical ideas.
Reading and writing, huh?
Yeah, but sometimes we need those basics.
Sometimes we need to understand why we do these things.
Look, God's word commands it.
God's word demands it.
God's word teaches this.
Look at Deuteronomy 11 verse 18.
Therefore, shall you lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul
and bind them for a sign upon your hand
that they may be as frontlets between your eyes
and ye shall teach them your children.
Speaking of them, when thou sittest in thine house
and when thy walk is by the way,
when thou liest down and when thou risest up,
and thou shalt write them upon the doorposts of thine house
and upon thy gates, that your days may be multiplied
and the days of your children and the land which the Lord swear
unto your fathers to give them as the days of heaven upon the earth.
So according to the Bible, not only are you supposed to read God's word,
you're supposed to write them on your house.
He's saying, you want to know how to decorate your house?
Write God's words.
He's saying, I want you to literally write my laws,
write my words, write my commandments on the walls of your house,
on your gates, on the doors.
Write it. Why? For you and your children.
So your children, they see that verse and they get it in their heart.
They realize what God's word says.
They see the importance of God's word.
But people, what do they want to put?
They want to put like mottos of these celebrities, don't they?
They want to have celebrity mottos and celebrity phrases
and all these dumb things that some 19-year-old kid
that can't even read and write that's a rapper thought up.
Oh, he's super cool, man.
I'm going to put his slogan on my wall.
Why don't you get God's word on your wall and get a little more educated?
Get a little bit more of God's stuff going on.
What about Ezra chapter 7? Go to Ezra.
It's right before the book of...
There's Nehemiah and then there's Esther and then there's Job.
So it's kind of right in the middle of your Bible a little bit before
the major Job and Psalms.
Ezra, look at chapter 7, verse number 6.
The Bible says,
This Ezra went up from Babylon,
and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses,
which the Lord God of Israel had given.
And the king granted him all his requests
according to the hand of the Lord his God upon him.
So you know who God uses?
People that are using his word.
You see, Ezra, he was a ready scribe.
And then God uses Ezra greatly to go and rebuild Jerusalem,
to go and rebuild the house of God,
to do a great work for God,
to stand up behind a pulpit of wood,
to teach the people the word of God.
And look, if you prepare yourself in God's word,
if you're reading God's word,
if you're writing God's word,
if you're following God's commandments,
he's going to say,
I'm going to take that guy,
and I'm going to use him greatly for my kingdom.
I'm going to use him to do great things for God.
You know he's not using the guy playing Xbox all day.
The guy just sitting around,
rotting his brain,
never reading,
never writing,
never doing anything educational.
God says, well, I can't use this guy.
He's too stupid.
He's too dumb.
He doesn't have anything of any value.
Why don't you actually open up a book and learn something?
Now look, I'm not against you having fun.
I'm not against you doing leisure.
I'm not against you resting.
That's fine.
You do whatever.
But if you're going to spend all your time on leisure
and fun and whatever,
you're going to be stupid.
You're going to be an idiot.
You're going to be ashamed,
and God's not going to be able to use that.
God wants to use the guy,
hey, I'm actually writing God's word constantly.
Hey, I'm actually reading God's word constantly.
Go if you would to Revelation chapter number one,
Revelation chapter number one.
Not only that, Habakkuk chapter two says,
And the Lord answered me and said,
Write the vision,
and make it plain upon tables that he may run that readeth it.
And let me point you out a really obvious fact.
If the men of God never wrote,
you wouldn't have this in your hand today.
Look, all the men of God,
guess what, they wrote the Bible down for you
so that you could actually read it.
That seems like it was pretty important.
Not only that, there was scribes.
You say, what's a scribe?
Well, the scribe's job was to preserve God's word.
Because here's the thing.
They didn't have machines to copy the Bible for them,
so they had to copy it.
There had to be people whose literal job
was all day to sit there and just copy the Bible.
Just copy the Bible.
Why?
So they'd have good manuscripts
so the word of God would constantly be preserved
so they would continually have it.
So that was people's jobs.
And then when Jesus runs into these people,
think about it.
This guy literally, his job is just writing the Bible
day after day after day after day,
and they're asking him these basic questions.
He's like, have you not read?
I mean, like, how are you coming to me
and asking me this question
when you're literally writing the answer
on a piece of paper over and over and over?
It's ridiculous.
And you know what?
People that come to church their whole life,
they had the Bible in their hands their whole life,
and they don't know what it says.
They don't know what salvation is.
Look, we run into people all the time.
I'm 50.
I was raised in the church.
My dad's a pastor.
My wife's a pastor.
My sister's a pastor.
Like, everybody's a pastor, you know, except for them.
And it's like, so what does the Bible say to be saved?
Be a good person.
Like, have you not read?
Did you not read John 3.16?
Did you not pay attention to what you were quoting,
what you were writing down?
Look at Revelation chapter 1, verse 11,
saying, I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last,
and what thou seest, write a book
and send it unto the seven churches
which are in Asia, unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna,
and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, unto Sardis,
and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.
So what is John supposed to do?
He's supposed to write the word of God to seven churches
that he sends it out.
The book of Revelation is a letter
written to seven churches.
Now, how would that work out if he couldn't write?
Oh, Christ, I can't write.
I don't know how to write.
Well, I guess you better pick somebody else, huh?
You know why you can pick John?
Well, John knew how to write.
John knew how to write Revelation,
and he made seven copies of it,
so he must have been pretty good at writing, huh?
He's like Ezra, that ready scribe.
He's ready to do the work of God.
And now, obviously, today, we don't need people
to physically make copies of the Bible.
We have plenty of copies that we have today.
But how other ways could you apply this?
Well, look, how about writing sermons?
How about writing out God's sermons, you know?
If you want to be a great preacher of God,
why don't you just start writing a bunch of sermons?
And then God says, man, this guy, he's loaded up.
He's ready to go out and preach the word of God.
I'm going to find him a place to go out
and tear up this world with the gospel,
to go tear up this world with a bunch of sermons
that he's written up.
That's a good skill to start working on.
And look, when you start writing and you do these things,
it's going to imprint things in your mind
that just reading won't do.
Look, you've got to take reading to the next level.
That's writing it up.
When you start writing it,
it does something different in your brain.
Look at verse 19.
Write the things which thou hast seen
and the things which are
and the things that shall be hereafter.
So again, he's saying, look,
you've got to write these things down.
Go to verse three.
Blessed is he that readeth
and they that hear the words of this prophecy
and keep the things which are written therein
for the times at hand.
So you see a couple of things here.
He's saying, look, you're blessed if you read.
You're blessed if you read God's word.
You say, I want to be blessed today.
Well, read the Bible.
That's what Jesus said.
Jesus said, hey, you want to be blessed?
Read the word of God.
Not only that, you've got to keep those things
which are written.
So we see the writing was important,
but then we get our next point.
Hear the words of this prophecy.
So what have we learned so far?
Well, if you want to teach yourself,
the best way to teach yourself is to read.
Just read lots of different things.
Read the Bible.
Read the Bible over and over.
Read other books.
Read other information.
That's how you become wise.
That's how you become intelligent.
That's how you increase your vocabulary.
That's how you know things, okay?
Not only that, writing is another great way
to teach yourself.
You know, sometimes the best way to learn a topic
is to write a sermon about it and teach it.
That's usually how you actually learn something really well.
You get it really imprinted into your brain
when you're able to teach it,
when you're able to write it,
when you are able to actually do these type of things.
So we see it's going to increase you.
You're going to help teach yourself different things.
Not only that, though, if you want to learn,
hear from others.
Hear the words of this prophecy, okay?
So what would be another way to teach thyself
is hearing other people.
Now, I don't want you to get away from the fact that,
look, obviously we're talking about being a self-learner,
but the reality is pretty much everything you need to know,
somebody is teaching it.
Somebody is out there that's already an expert at it,
that already knows everything that you want to learn.
Why not just find those people and then learn that information?
Look, how do you learn a lot of information?
From books that were already written by somebody else.
You're just going and finding good information
and you're bringing that good information inside.
Look, being a self-learner doesn't have to be a solo sport.
I'm not saying go out in the woods and meditate by yourself
and, hmm, I'm going to find the meaning of life.
I'm going to find the meaning of life.
No.
Look, all the information is already out there.
You just got to find it and then apply yourself.
Look, there's so many videos today.
There's so many books.
There's so much instruction.
You can learn anything and everything you want to learn,
but apply yourself.
But what's really important?
To find people that have good information.
There's so much information today,
now you got to figure out what's the good information.
Where's the good sources of knowledge?
Is it God's word?
Yeah, that's your best resource, okay.
But then there's other areas.
How about for your job?
You know, me being a software programmer
or a computer programmer,
there's like a thousand ways to solve any problem.
I mean, you can solve a computer program problem
a hundred different ways.
Usually what makes someone a good programmer
is knowing the best way to solve the problem,
a way that's very flexible, very maintainable,
very scalable.
There's a lot of different considerations about a solution
and so you got to find the right information.
You got to find good information.
You got to find reliable information.
So you find somebody that's succeeding in an area
and you say, hey, how are you succeeding?
Teach me.
I want to learn.
No, it's a good way to do that.
Go to church.
I mean, go to a church where a pastor
actually knows the Bible, is actually succeeding
and say, hey, I want you to help me learn the Bible.
That's a good start.
How about for your job?
Find someone that's succeeding,
get their book and learn what they're doing.
That's how you're going to succeed in any area of life.
Hey, this guy is succeeding in marriage.
I want to learn marriage from him.
Oh, this guy, you know, has been divorced five times.
He's only been married for five minutes.
Let's figure out how to get, you know,
marriage advice from him.
Bad idea.
Never get advice from somebody that's failing,
that's not doing it right,
or that just a new Johnny on the block.
Okay.
Hey, you know, there's so many college professors.
They teach subjects like business.
Oh, how many businesses have you ran?
Zero.
I've never ran a business, but I'm a college professor.
I'm the dean of business at such and such school.
Let me teach you how to run a business.
Bad idea.
Learn from people that are successful,
that have actually done it,
that have actually experienced it.
Let me tell you how to raise your children.
I myself have none,
but I'm going to tell you all the best ways to raise them,
and this is how you should discipline them,
and this is how I would speak to them.
Bad idea.
You should get information from people
that actually are successful.
Now go to Deuteronomy again.
Go back to Deuteronomy.
We're learning a lot from the law this evening.
Hearing instruction is a great way to teach thyself.
It's a great way, because why?
You're in control of your time.
You're in control of what you do.
You're in control of what you listen to.
This is why I don't like the TV,
because the TV kind of controls what you're listening to,
but you know what?
You have the ability to turn things on and off,
to apply things in front of you.
You can get on the computer, and Google just says,
hey, what do you want to look at?
What do you want to search?
What do you want to know?
Click on YouTube.
Search bar.
What do you want to know?
What do you want to learn?
Teach yourself.
Teach yourself good things.
Find good information, and fill yourself with good knowledge.
Look at Deuteronomy 4, verse 10.
So he says, look, I want you to hear my words.
You know what's a good way to learn?
Hearing.
Listening to others.
Look at chapter 5, verse 1.
You know what's a good way for all the children of Israel to learn?
Hey, Moses, you're talking?
I'm going to listen.
Hey, Joshua, you want to teach me the law?
I'm going to listen.
Hey, Ezra, you're going to teach me something?
I'm going to listen.
Oh, Jesus Christ, yeah, I'm going to sit there at Jesus' feet,
and I'm going to open up my ears wide,
and let him fill my mind with his wisdom, with his knowledge.
Proverbs chapter number 1.
Go to Proverbs chapter number 1 also.
Proverbs chapter number 1.
Such an iconic chapter of the Bible.
It's talking about the Proverbs.
Proverbs is where we get a lot of the wisdom of the Bible.
There's so much wisdom in the book of Proverbs.
Look at verse 5.
Get that just in your heart.
A wise man will hear.
You say you want to learn stuff.
Well, here.
And will increase learning.
And a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels.
To understand a proverb and the interpretation,
the words of the wise and the dark sayings,
the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,
but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
My son, hear the instruction of thy father,
and forsake not the law of thy mother.
Children, listen up.
You want to be wise?
Listen to your parents.
Listen to your father.
Listen to your mother.
Learn from them.
They have wisdom that they want to teach you.
They've been there.
They've done that.
They've had every struggle you've had.
Listen to the advice they have for you.
They love you.
They want what's best for you.
You need to hearken under the instruction of your father.
You need to hearken under the instruction of your mother.
Now, this is a great article.
I think everybody should probably read it.
It's not about the Bible, but I did some research.
And the Bible constantly tells you to listen, to hear.
Now, I did some research.
This is the 50 top literacy statistics from this website.
It says, number one, the greatest amount of brain growth
occurs between birth and age five.
In fact, by age three, roughly 85%
of the brain's core structure is formed.
In contrast, the majority of investments
are made in the traditional education,
years of K through 12, which begin at five.
So he's saying, look, the most important developmental time
of any person is from zero to five years old.
And he's saying it seems kind of idiotic
that the only time we supposedly give them education
is from five to 12th grade.
He's saying, look, one of the most important times
of a child's life, we don't even give them instruction.
Now, obviously, I'm not for the public school system,
but I'm just saying that's how most people do it.
Most people don't really start trying to teach or to train
or educate their children until five years old.
Says the second point.
He says cognitive processes develop rapidly
in the first few years of life.
At birth, your baby's brain is only 25% of its adult size
by age three, your child's brain will be 80%
of its adult size.
So we see those first few years, I mean,
there is a lot of growing and learning
and education happening.
Number three, the developing brain triples
in the first year alone and is virtually fully formed
by the time a child enters kindergarten.
So he's saying, look, by the time five,
they've pretty much fully developed their brain.
And it's interesting because before I'd ever read this,
I always thought five-year-olds,
they can pretty much understand everything.
They can get everything from a very simple perspective.
Everything in life can kind of make sense.
I think, really, five-year-olds can get saved.
Five-year-olds can know a lot of things.
They just don't have a lot of information yet.
Now, as they get more information,
they can make better conclusions and draw different things.
But a five-year-old, they're pretty smart.
I mean, they can understand most things of reality.
They understand a lot of things.
And we see, even in this article,
I mean, the whole brain's pretty much formed at that point.
They have the capability
of learning a lot of different things.
Number four, it says,
given the course of brain development,
it is not surprising that young children
who are exposed to certain early language and literacy
experiences usually prove to be good readers later.
Just as a child develops language skills
long before being able to speak,
the child also develops literacy skills
long before being able to read.
So he's saying, look, before a child can speak or read,
they're actually learning a lot that's going to dictate
how well they speak and how well they read before that.
Not only that, it says the average child
from a professional family
hears 215,000 words per week.
A child from a working-class family
hears 125,000 words per week.
And a child from a family receiving welfare benefits
hears 62,000 words per week.
So they're saying, just based on their study,
they're saying the more a person provides
as far as their income,
typically those children hear a lot more words.
Their parents are talking to them more.
They're giving them more instruction.
Now, the next few points
are the ones that really caught my attention, okay?
It says in number six, researchers found
that when mother frequently spoke to their infants,
their children learned almost 300 more words by age two
than did their peers whose mothers rarely spoke to them.
So it's saying something that's really important
is the mother speaking to the child constantly,
constantly talking to the child
and the child listening to their mother.
It's saying at age two,
when they compare other two-year-olds,
the ones whose mothers are constantly speaking
to their children will know 300 more words.
They're just that much better at communicating.
They have that much more knowledge.
They have that much more instruction.
Look, the Bible's constantly saying,
listen to your mother, listen to your mother,
harken in your mother, harken in your mother.
And then what science comes along and says,
man, it's a pretty good idea for mothers to speak to their kids.
Shocker.
You read these verses in the Bible and Proverbs,
and it'll be like harken, hear, open up your ears.
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
And you're like, why are they putting these verses in here?
God put them in there for a reason,
because it's really important to listen to your parents.
Verse number seven.
The most important aspect of parent talk is its amount.
Parents who just talk as they go about their daily activities
expose their children to 1,000 to 2,000 words every hour.
It says in the first three years,
infants and toddlers begin acquiring
the first of thousands of words
they will use throughout their lives,
simultaneously children are learning the rules of grammar
as well as absorbing the social conventions
that exist around communication in their community.
So it's saying, look, they're learning so much more
than you give them credit for.
Children are complete sponges, they're constantly learning,
and would use vocabulary, sentence structure,
proper grammar, children pick up on these things.
They learn these type of things.
So it's not only that.
While good early experiences help the brain develop well,
poorer experiences can literally cause
a genetically normal child to have a lower IQ.
Scientific evidence shows that maltreated children
who receive little stimulation,
children who are exposed to fewer colors, less touch,
little interaction with adults,
fewer sights and sounds, and less language
actually have smaller brains.
They're saying, man, when they make these studies,
not only is there benefits to doing this,
there's consequences to not doing it.
That's why I love the fact that my wife, you know,
will sit down and color with our two-year-old.
You know, sit down and explain,
they're having school with my four-year-old,
and my two-year-old still gets to be a part of it,
still gets to hear the same books,
still gets to do the same activities.
Why? Because I want my kids to have a big brain.
I want them to have as big a brain as possible,
and we see if you don't use it, you lose it.
Hey, if you don't use that brain, it's gonna be taken away.
Your body reacts to the environment
and the situations it's in,
and when you're exposing it to lots of information,
lots of knowledge, the brain will pick up
and adapt to that information.
It says children's academic successes at ages nine and 10
can be attributed to the amount of talk they hear
from birth through age three.
By age two, a child's brain is active as an adult,
and by age three, the brain is more than twice as active
as an adult, and stays that way for the first 10 years of life.
It's saying not only are kids almost as active as a parent
at age two, by age three, their brain is more active.
It has more capacity to adapt.
That's why you look at kids and you're like,
you're so hyper, you're so excited.
You're like, how do you have all this energy?
That's just how God made it.
They're just this constant sponge trying to soak up information.
Now that experts are nearly unanimous in stating
that babies should routinely experience shared books
as soon as they experience shared talking,
that is during the first weeks and months of life.
I'll read a couple others real quick.
Early literacy encompasses all the child's experiences
with conversations, stories, oral and written books in print.
Reading aloud to young children is not only one of the best activities
to stimulate language and cognitive skills,
it also builds motivation, curiosity, and memory.
Look, the Bible is true as the day is long.
It's so important to listen, to hear good instruction.
It's so important for parents to teach their children
and for children to hearken unto their parents.
Go, if you would, to Romans chapter 16.
Romans chapter 16.
I'm going to read for you.
Proverbs 13 says,
He that spared this rod hated the son,
but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.
Now, it's interesting how the Bible uses this word betimes
because the word betimes means,
early, means young.
Children are so impressionable.
There's so much importance on the first few years of life
that people just reject.
They just put them in front of the TV.
They just give them the snacks and the crackers
and give them a nap and don't want anything to do with them.
And look, they're raising dummies.
They're raising idiots.
They're raising people that don't have an attention span.
They're raising people that don't have vocabulary,
that can't speak.
And look, the first two years of life are just as important as any.
Maybe even more so.
Train up a child the way he should go
and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Look, once you get past certain ages,
it's much harder to change.
It's much more difficult to be influenced.
It's much more difficult to learn.
That's why the Bible says,
Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father.
Hear me now, therefore, all ye children.
Hearken unto me now, therefore, all ye children.
Give instruction to a wise man
and he will be yet wiser.
Teach a just man
and he will increase in learning.
There's a lot of opportunity to learn
and we need to be ones that will seek it
and find it and teach ourselves
information that we need
by hearkening to others,
by finding someone that's a good teacher
that has information
and learning from them.
Look at Romans 16, verse 17.
Now I beseech you, brethren,
mark them which cause divisions
and offenses contrary to the doctrine
which ye have learned, and avoid them.
Now here's my question.
If you never heard anybody get up and teach a doctrine,
if you don't know the doctrine,
how can you avoid them?
You can't.
You had to have read it.
You had to have learned it.
People had to teach you.
Then once you get the doctrine,
now, hey, I need to avoid these type of people.
Now I can follow God's commandments.
Now I can do what he actually said.
But if you don't learn,
you're gonna be constantly in sin with God.
Now go, if you would, to Psalms 119.
Psalms 119.
Look, the reality is
every single person
is solely responsible for their salvation.
I mean, how did you get saved?
Can you get your child saved?
Can you force them?
Now obviously you can preach them the gospel.
The Bible says faith cometh by hearing
and hearing by the word of God.
So we need a preacher.
Look, you want to teach yourself?
Look, find someone that has the gospel.
When someone comes and knocks on your door with the gospel,
you know what a wise man will do?
He'll hear.
He'll hear the instruction of that preacher,
and then you'll make what?
The decision, hey, I heard what the Bible says.
I need to believe this.
I need to get saved.
Every single person has to make a decision in their life,
am I gonna believe in Jesus Christ and be saved?
You're solely responsible for your soul.
And look, you're solely responsible for a lot of other things too.
Your education, your knowledge.
You have to study to show thyself approved unto God.
You don't study to show your family approved
or your kids approved.
You study to show thyself approved.
You're responsible for your actions.
You're responsible to hearken to your father.
You're responsible to hearken to your mother.
You're responsible to hearken to a good preacher
to what God's word says.
You have the power to influence yourself.
So why don't you do it?
Why don't you find some good people and listen to them?
Here's my fourth point.
Fourth way you can teach yourself, memorization.
Memorization.
Look at Psalms 119 verse 99.
I have more understanding than all my teachers
for thy testimonies are my meditation.
You know what?
You say, well, if I only hearken unto others,
how could I ever be smarter than someone else?
Aren't you only capped at what that person knows in a sense?
But here's how you can do it.
You start memorizing God's word.
David said, hey, I'm smarter than anybody that taught me.
You know why?
Because I just kept quoting God's word.
It was my meditation day and night.
I just constantly was quoting God's word
and it made me wiser than anybody that's ever taught me.
That's not to downplay teachers.
David had teachers.
David hearkened unto his teachers.
But you know what?
He said, because I just decided I'm going to memorize
all your word, God, I became wiser.
I had more understanding than all my teachers
because thy meditations.
Why?
Because thy testimonies are my meditation.
You say, how do you do it?
How do you memorize God's word?
Let's make it practical, OK?
Quote it over and over and over and over and over.
Quote it and quote it and quote it.
You say, what about this verse?
Well, just take a phrase of it and just quote it 10 times.
Say, I have more understanding.
I have more understanding.
Then you take the next part, right?
Then all my teachers.
I have more understanding than all my teachers.
I bet most of you could quote this verse at this point.
All right?
Then you keep going.
For thy testimonies.
Every verse is just like a quote from somewhere in the Old Testament all put together.
You know when you memorize Romans chapter number 10 and then you start reading the Old Testament,
you're like, oh that verse is in Romans.
And you're like, oh that verse is in Romans.
Oh that verse is in Romans.
It'll change the way you read the Bible.
It'll change the way you look at everything.
Look, memorizing God's Word has such great value.
You want to be good at your job?
Memorize the functions of your job.
You want to be a good parent?
Memorize the things that you're going to teach your children.
You want to be a good child?
Memorize the instructions of your parents.
Look, this is a great tool to be used in every area of life and our meditation should be God's Word.
I want God's Word in my heart.
I want to be a good soul winner.
Memorize every verse that you give.
Every single verse.
Virtually every single time I'm soul winning, I'm showing them the verse.
Why? Because I want them to be able to read it.
But I can't read it at the same time, so you know how?
I know the verse by heart.
That way I don't have to worry about what it says.
Hey, if I don't have my sword handy, I can just start quoting it.
Hey, if I'm flipping to the verse and I'm getting stuck on a page, it's not turning just right,
I can just start quoting the verse that I was going to read them and then when I get there I'll just show, emphasize the point that I wanted.
Look, memorizing God's Word has so much value.
It has so much importance.
It's going to change everything.
Look at verse 12. Go to verse 12.
Blessed art thou, O Lord, teach me thy statutes.
Look at verse 26.
I have declared my ways, and thou hurtest me.
Teach me thy statutes.
Look at verse 33.
Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes, and I shall keep it unto the end.
Verse 64.
The earth, O Lord, is full of thy mercy.
Teach me thy statutes.
Look at verse 66.
Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe thy commandments.
Verse 68.
Thou art good and doest good.
Teach me thy statutes.
So he keeps asking me, like, teach me, teach me, teach me.
You say, how do you want to learn the Bible?
Memorize it.
You know, there's been a lot of parts of the Bible that I didn't understand that I thought, I don't know what this is saying.
Like, I have no idea what's going on here, so then I just memorized it.
Now, I'll say this.
Just because you memorize it doesn't mean you understand it.
Let me make it real clear, okay?
Even myself, there's been parts I memorized that still didn't quite understand it.
But, you know, once you memorized it and you really meditate upon it, then later, when you're reading other parts of your Bible, the Holy Ghost will say, hey, this is what that means.
Hey, comparing spiritual to spiritual, this is what James 2 actually means.
This is what 1 John means.
This is what all these hard passages in the Bible mean.
Look, you really want to learn the Bible, you got to memorize it.
You got to get it in your heart.
Look at verse 48.
My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments, which I have loved, and I will meditate in thy statutes.
Look at verse 78.
Let the proud be ashamed, for they dealt perversely with me without a cause, but I will meditate in thy precepts.
Look at verse 148.
148.
Mine eyes prevent the night watches that I might meditate in thy word.
We see the guy that loves God's word, he wants to know God's word.
He's not just sitting around, just saying, God, I want to know the Bible.
Will you please teach me?
No, he's memorizing it.
And he's saying, please teach me.
He's actively practicing God's word, he's memorizing it, he's getting in his heart, and he's saying, I want you to teach me.
And you know what God's going to do?
He's going to say, I'm going to teach that guy.
He's got all my word memorized, I'm going to tell him what that means.
I'm going to teach him how to apply that into his life.
And look, there's a lot of deep things of God.
You can't just know them all like this.
The Bible is deep.
The Bible has deep meaning.
That's why we've got to memorize it and study it.
I'm going to go to my last point.
Go to James chapter one.
We'll hurry up.
The Bible says in Joshua chapter one, the book of the law shall not depart of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do all, or do according to all that is written therein.
For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.
A very famous verse, a very verse that's quoted by a lot of people.
But he's saying, look, you've got to meditate day and night.
Psalms chapter one.
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
It just starts off the book of Psalms saying, you know what?
Blessed is the guy that memorizes God's word, that meditates in God's word day and night.
He's constantly memorizing God's word.
First John chapter number two says that the abiding which was, you know, is inside you, you need not any man teach you, but is the same anointing teach you that of all things and is truth and is no lie, even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
The Holy Ghost will teach you the word of God.
But you have to understand something about the Holy Ghost.
He does not speak of himself.
What does he speak?
He speaks Christ's words.
So if you don't have any of his words memorized, he's not going to be speaking to you very well.
You want him to speak to you a lot?
Get his words in your heart and then the Holy Ghost has all these things to talk to you with.
He'll bring up verses into your remembrance.
He will teach you the word of God.
You don't need a man.
We're talking about teaching thyself.
Teach thyself how?
Memorize God's word and the Holy Ghost, he will teach you the Bible.
I want to know what the Bible says.
Memorize it.
That's the key.
You come to church, you'll learn a lot, but you want to learn more?
Go home and memorize God's word.
Look at James chapter one, verse 22, my last point.
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 whoso 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.
Now listen to me very carefully.
You coming and hearing this sermon is not going to do a squat for you.
You knowing that I should be reading, I should be writing, you know, I should be hearkening to good instruction,
I should be memorizing God's word will do nothing for you.
It's not knowing, it's doing it that's going to actually do something for you.
You say, hey, I want to really know the Bible.
I go to this church, they know the Bible.
It's not going to rub off like that.
You got to actually go home, you got to actually read it.
You got to really read it.
You got to really write it.
You got to really hearken to that instruction and you really got to memorize it.
You say, oh, man, I heard there's a lot of great benefits if you memorize the Bible.
Yeah, you got to do it.
You want to learn how it works?
You got to do it.
You got to be a doer of the work.
You want to learn how to do soul winning?
Do it.
I could tell you all day from this pulpit how to do soul winning and you'll fail.
You got to actually go out and actually open your mouth.
It's a lot different to hear somebody tell you how to do soul winning and for you to actually get in the situation,
be confronted with a person and try to actually give them the gospel.
The best teacher in many cases, experience.
You say, hey, how do you teach yourself?
Experience.
Go out and do it.
Go to Proverbs 16.
Last place I'll have your turn.
Proverbs chapter 16.
The Bible says in Genesis 30,
And Laban said unto him, I pray thee, if I have found favor in thine eyes, Terry,
for I have learned by experience that the Lord hath blessed me for thy sake.
Laban, he's looking at his son-in-law and he's saying, man,
I learned by experience how much I got blessed because of you.
I mean, I just because I just saw it.
I just saw how much God multiplied my Fox and multiplied my family.
And I had all these great blessings.
I learned it by experience and experience is a great teacher.
Now, obviously, some people say experience is the best teacher.
We have to be careful there because you know what?
I don't have to experience adultery to realize it's bad.
I don't have to experience fornication to realize it's wicked.
There's a lot of things I don't want to experience.
OK, so we need to balance all of these things.
Reading, writing, harkening unto our parents, telling us,
you don't need to experience that one.
OK, you don't need to experience putting your hand in the fire.
It burns.
Just trust me.
That's a bad idea.
OK, but at the same time, a lot of good things you can really only learn by doing it.
You say, I want to be a good carpenter.
Well, you can't go to school and just read books and become a good carpenter.
You've got to actually get the wood out and get the saw and do the measuring
and cut it and be like, I cut it wrong.
I thought I measured like five times.
I still cut it wrong.
You've got to actually do it and then experience it
and then you can realize how to be very good at it.
You can learn soul winning by instruction only, but it only gets you so far.
You've got to do it.
You could learn how to preach from just instruction.
You know the best way to learn how to preach?
Well, preach.
That's the best way to become a good preacher is just preach.
Just preach and preach and preach.
Find an opportunity to preach God's word.
That's how you get better.
You know how you get really good at singing?
Sing.
You know how you don't learn how to sing?
By not singing.
Nobody learns how to sing by just listening to music.
That's why American Idol, they make fun of so many people all the time
and I guarantee they listen to music all the day.
They listen to music all the time and they can't sing.
You know how you get good at singing?
Singing.
OK.
You know how you get good at playing an instrument?
Playing an instrument.
You could tell me how to play the piano all you want.
That's not going to do a lick.
I'm going to get behind those keys and I don't know what to do.
You know how you learn to be really good at playing the piano?
Playing the piano.
You know how you get really good at building stuff?
By building it.
You know how you're a really good mother and father?
By being a mother and a father.
You know who's not a good mother and a father?
People who are not mothers and fathers.
They're really bad at it.
Don't get advice from these people.
You know how you get really good advice about being a mother?
Mothers that are really good at being a mother.
That's how you get really good advice.
You know how you learn about church?
Going to church.
You want to learn what church is like?
I've had people literally ask me stuff.
He's like, I don't know stuff about church.
I feel uncomfortable about church.
It's like, look, you're not going to feel comfortable about church until you get to church.
You just go to church, learn what church is like, learn the Bible.
You learn by doing.
You've got to do a lot of things in your life.
You say, how do you become a good driver?
Driving.
How do you get good at anything?
By doing it.
And the same thing is the Christian life.
You want to be a great Christian?
You've got to do it.
It's a life of doing.
God is a God of action.
He says faith without works or dead.
That's what he says in James.
He's saying, look, you can have all the knowledge of the Bible.
You could know every doctrine.
You could have read every line, every verse.
You could have written it.
You could have heard all the great preaching.
But if you don't actually go do any of it,
it's pointless.
It's vain.
It's dead.
It has no value.
You actually have to go out and preach the gospel.
You say, look, knowing that that's right isn't going to help anybody.
Isn't anybody saved.
You've got to actually open your mouth boldly and make known the mystery of the gospel.
You actually want to, you know, have godly children?
You've got to teach them the Bible.
You've got to open your mouth, sit them down, be patient, teach them the Bible.
Say, hey, this is what the Bible says, son.
Listen.
Do it.
Let's read it together.
Let's write it on the wall.
Let's decorate our house with it, okay?
Let's listen to good preaching.
These are the type of things that you need to do.
You need to talk to those children.
You should read that article.
If you're interested, I'll give you the link.
I'll give you the information.
You've got to read that article.
Your two and your three-year-olds, they need to have their mother constantly talking to them,
constantly instructing them, constantly doing things with them.
Their minds are developing more than you know.
Not only that, you need to memorize God's Word.
And lastly, please, just do one of them.
I mean, just do all of them, but just start doing it, okay?
Just start memorizing God's Word.
Start reading your Bible.
Start, you know, doing all of these things.
Why?
It's so important.
Why?
We need to teach ourselves.
We don't want Christ to look at us and be like, have you never read?
Have you never written anything?
I mean, have you never hearkened into any of the good instruction?
Have you never memorized any verse?
Please memorize John 3.16.
If you don't have John 3.16 memorized, memorize John 3.16, okay?
Memorize at least one of God's verses so the Holy Ghost can at least remind you of that one, okay?
And lastly, just do it.
Just put it to action.
Say, tomorrow, when I wake up in the morning, I'm going to read God's Word.
Tomorrow, I'm going to memorize a verse.
Tomorrow, I'm going to write something, okay?
Tomorrow, I'm going to hearken under some good instruction of my parents, of somebody,
just somebody that has information and knowledge.
I'm going to teach myself every single day.
Every single day, learn.
You say, I want to learn more words?
Get an app.
I got an app on my phone.
It's like just a vocabulary app.
Just so I could learn more words.
You want to learn a foreign language?
Get the app and start doing it.
Start learning words.
Start memorizing words.
You want to be good at an instrument?
Start playing it every single day.
You want to be a great Christian?
Read your Bible every single day.
Let's go some prayer.
Thank you, Father, so much for your Word.
Thank you for giving us so much information
and so much opportunity to know you
and to learn and to grow and to have wisdom.
I thank you that you're a God of knowledge and wisdom and understanding
and for giving it to us all for free.
I pray that we wouldn't just squander all the opportunity we have
but rather that we'd be a doer of the Word,
not just to hear only deceiving our own selves.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen.