Memorizing Scripture

Before we begin, let's go to the Lord and ask His blessings upon our time here together. Let's pray, if you'd pray with me. Our Father in Heaven, how thankful we are as we look back upon this past week to see your hand in our lives, for us to know that you've been merciful to us, you've been faithful to us, your mercies were renewed to us every single day, and you've given us life, and you've given us breath, and then you've given us all things to physically maintain us.

And spiritually, Lord, the Holy Spirit helped and guided and convicted and led us so that we could choose right for you, empowered us to be able to worship and to serve Christ this week, and we thank you for that.

Now, the beginning of this week, this new week, this first day of this week, we look forward with an anticipation of what you would do in our lives. You are a great God who does great and wondrous things, and we thank you for the way that you go before us and that you straight cut our paths.

The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in His way. Lord, you care for us, you think upon us, we can cast all of our cares upon you because you do care for us, and we praise you for being our great God and Savior, our Father in Heaven, and we come to you now and ask that you'd bless us this day in the house of the Lord, that we would grow, that we would learn, that we would see the Word of God in such a way that it would help us as the Spirit teaches us, and that Christ Jesus would be magnified and lifted up in the midst.

We pray that you'd just help us, Lord, that we might be a people that peculiar, that special people because we've pressed on to know the Scriptures, to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord, and we just ask that you'd bless this time as we study in Jesus' name.

Amen. There are a lot of different spiritual disciplines that we need to check every once in a while and that we need to maintain so that we can maintain our spiritual growth. One of the books that I'd recommend to you, if you have not read it yet, is Don Whitney's book, The Spiritual Disciplines of the Christian Life.

Don Whitney has come here and taught out of that book and taught other subjects. And it lists in there, and of course we know this from Scripture, that it's so important for us to stay in fellowship with God, so one way that we do that is we pray.

That's a spiritual discipline as given to us in the Scriptures, something that we ought to do to communicate, to talk to our God. And then Him talking to us, of course, is through the Word of God, and an intake of the Word of God is important.

There are other things that we ought to be doing in our lives, as far as pressing on in our sanctification to grow, as I was praying in the grace and knowledge of the Lord, just to keep growing. And what would the Lord have us to do?

And consider the Word of God and how it is that we should take each step in our lives, in making decisions. Evangelism is a part of our service for the Lord, and so on. But part of the Bible intake, I mean, if you think about it, what can we do with the Bible?

I mean, other than the subject matter this morning, what can we... Tell me what we can do with the Bible. We can teach it. We can read it. We can... Well, other than the class today, but that's good, Tom.

You're reinforcing. That's a good thing. Practice and live it. We can read it and then desire to live it. Right? Anything else? Meditate on it is a good one. Sing it. Amen. And do you know singing is an excellent way to memorize the Scripture?

In the church that we belong to in Texas for many years, we sang hundreds of verses. I know we did. And that's how we memorized lots and lots of verses. And when I was pastoring in West Brookfield, we used to kind of do that too.

And it was me, it was a cappella, but it worked. We memorized Scripture and we worshiped the Lord. Excellent. Singing. What else? Pray through it. Excellent. Yes, you can pray through it. You can... I don't know if anybody's said it, but you can study it.

Right? You can study the Word of God. Here this morning, what we're going to look at is memorizing the Word of God. If I... There are folks who have done studies and analysis and they say that, how much can you remember when it comes to things?

What do you think the percentage is when you hear something? You just hear it and that's it. What do you think the percentage might be? Fifteen, right on the money. Did you read that study? All right.

How about if you read something? If you read it, how much can you retain? What do you think? Give me a number. Anybody? Twenty. Twenty, a little higher. It's 30%. Now, what about if you write something out?

If you write it, what percentage there may be? You can notice they're going higher. Almost 50, but it's 40%. If you study something, what do you think? That's over 50, so that's 60%. But if you memorize something, and, of course, what is important with memorizing is reviewing.

But if you truly memorize something, what is your retention rate? One, zero, zero. 100%. If you memorize it, you've got it. If you review it and you keep working on it, you've got it. Now, some say, wait a minute, I thought that Christian life was supposed to be joy and happiness and peace, and you want me to memorize the Word of God?

I mean, I remember in school, two times two is four, and two times three is six, and all the geography, the maps, and the capitals of the United States, that wasn't fun. That was drudgery. That was just too much work.

And in doing that, it's just not for me. I'm not interested. I don't see the value in it. I hope by the end of the class, you'll see the value in memorizing scriptures. And other people will say, and I've kind of touched on this already, some people will say, well, Brother Dave, you don't understand.

There's something different between my ears than what's between your ears. I have a bad memory. Well, that's an excuse, but it's a poor one, because I would ask everybody in this room, you don't have to raise your hand, but do you know what your name is?

OK, sure. I would imagine that on a given Sunday, you could name five people who come in that front door. You could name five by name. You know your address. You know your phone number. Some of you know your children's birth dates.

Some of you men know your anniversary, and you better get better at that. You know that. You know your URL on the web. You're going out to the Internet. I want to get to that site. I've got it, www. And you've got it.

You've got it memorized. Some of you know the lyrics of songs, the whole song, and it's not even a Christian song, but we won't go there. It's not even a hymn, but you listen to it on the radio or whatever.

You've got a golden oldie that you know, and you know, or the tune comes on the radio, and you can sing along with it. You've memorized it. Something was in place for you to memorize that. Don Whitney said in his book, what if I offered you $1 ,000 for every verse that you could memorize in the next seven days?

$1 ,000 for every verse that you could memorize. And then he went on to say, do you think your attitude towards scripture memory and your ability to memorize would improve? I think so. I think it would.

And any financial reward would be minimal. As he goes on to say, would be minimal when compared to the accumulating value of the treasure of God's word deposited within your mind or within your heart.

The money wouldn't matter. It would be what is it that's profitable with the word of God in your heart. In March of 1978, John 15, 7, if ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you.

John 15, 7. And you notice I quoted the reference and where the verse is. That was my first memory verse that I can remember that I used with the method that I'm going to show you as I hand it out. And since then, the Lord has blessed me to be able to memorize verses.

Now, some folks when you, and I know it's just terrible to toot your horn, but I don't know other way to do this. I'm not trying to toot horn. I'm just trying to say this is how God has favored me. Some of you may know that when I preach, I quote scripture.

I don't look at it. I just know it. And it wasn't that this is not my method. I go home at night and Deb can tell you this. This is not my method. I take my Bible and I put it on my pillow or under my pillow, and it just kind of goes from there to there, right?

That's not how it happens. It does take work. It does take an effort, but so does prayer. So does evangelism. It's an effort. It is struggling. It is striving in the Christian life. By the grace of God, by the strength that God gives us, we can do these things, and memorization does take an effort.

So it doesn't, now for some will have a better ability than others. Some can easily retain things. I can retain numbers more than I can retain letters or words. I can tell you phone numbers of all of my kids, and I can tell you phone numbers I don't even want to know.

I mean, they're just stuck in my head, and numbers get stuck there, but some of you might be better with words and phrases, and some will be able to retain more, but everybody is capable of memorizing, and I hope that as we kind of look at a few verses, we're going to see the benefit, the profit of it.

So it's not a lack of ability that keeps people from memorizing Scripture. It's really a lack of motivation or a lack of seeing the benefit or the profit of memorizing. I will attest in my own life, it has been life-changing.

It is powerful. It is helpful. It has preserved me many a time. It has helped me, as the Scripture says, to be ready always to give an answer to any man for the reason of the hope that is within you. For me to be able to go into a situation, even just last night speaking to some folks in a living room about doctrinal issues, to be able just to quote Scripture.

Sometimes you won't have your Bible with you, and you're in the midst of a situation. Maybe you're tempted. Maybe you're in a counseling situation, a one-on-one ministry experience. Somebody attacks the Gospel, and you've got a verse that's ready to be pulled out, just like part of the armor of God is the sword of the Spirit, Ephesians 6 .17, and you're ready at a moment's notice to be able to pull it out and to wield the Word of God and let God take that Word, which is what?

Hebrews 4 .12. It's quick. It's powerful. It's sharper than a two-edged sword. You can use it in a moment's notice. So memorization, I believe, is important. I would like to look at some verses, if you would with me.

Memorizing Scripture as a Spiritual Discipline in Proverbs

Turn with me to Proverbs 3. Now, if you have your sheet here, some of you might say, Brother Dave is going to give us a quiz today. No, I'm not going to give you a quiz. We're not even going to fill out all of this whole sheet, most likely.

But what we're going to do is, I wrote this many years ago. As a matter of fact, let me give you the corrections on this sheet. There are some mess-ups. Over on the right-hand side, about the sixth or seventh one down, Jeremiah is spelled wrong.

It's supposed to be an E instead of an I in the middle of there. Where was the other place? Number 14, I changed that to be victory over this evil world's system. Victory over this evil world's system.

Number 14 on the left-hand side. And then over on the right-hand side, about two-thirds of the way down, do you see Amos chapter 8? I studied this again for the first time after a long time, and I said, I have no idea why I even wrote that on there.

It just didn't make sense. So cross Amos 8, 11 and 12 out, and put Psalm 19, verse 7 and 8. Psalm 19, verse 7 and 8. Some of these that we're going to be looking at right now, and this one in particular, we are on Proverbs 3, 1 and 2.

Do you see the second one down on the right-hand side, Proverbs 3, 1 and 2? And if you'd like to, write these to the right of Proverbs 3. Write chapter 4, 20 and 21. 4, 20 and 21. Chapter 6, 20 to 23.

6, 20 to 23. And chapter 7, 1 to 3. Chapter 7, 1 to 3. And then chapter 20, 17 to 19. Chapter 20, 17, 19. If you didn't get that, don't worry. You can come ask me afterwards. I'll give them to you. Proverbs chapter 3, though, I'd like to look at this first one.

And if you look at Proverbs 3 and verse 1, My son, forget not my law, but let thine heart keep my commandments. For length of days and long life and peace shall they add to thee. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee.

And notice what it says here in verse 3. Bind them about thy neck or bind them around your neck or tie them around your neck. Write them upon the table of your heart or of your mind. So the Bible here is saying to us and saying to young people, and I think these are principles for anyone, that we are not to forget the law of God.

We're to remember it. We're to keep it at hand for immediate use. And the best way that you can do that is to get it close. And so the analogy is used here, the writer in verse 3, he's saying as if you would tie something around your neck.

I mean, how much closer could you get? I mean, it's right there for you. And he's not saying literally tie it around like the Orthodox Jewish folks do with the flackeries and they have the little case and they tie it around their neck and they have it there thinking that because it's there, it's going to do something for them.

I believe what he's saying here, if we go on to the next phrase at the end of verse 3, he says, write them upon the table of your heart. Now, there are other verses that says that God puts his law in our hearts.

That's not what this is talking about. This is our effort. This is what we're to do. We're to take the word of God and to write it upon our mind or to write it upon our heart so that it's in there and it's permanent.

And with it being in our heart, it's immediately available for our use at any given time. I can tell you there are times at night when I cannot go to sleep. And after I've prayed for everybody that I could possibly think that I could pray for, and I've exhausted that list, I just start quoting scripture.

And Lord willing, I fall asleep and I usually end up doing that. But it's a good way, and it's just a good way to go to sleep. I remember when I was having issues before I was saved, one of the most difficult things for me was to go to sleep because I had a fear of death.

Satan had this wield over me before I was saved that I was just afraid, even as a young, brutish teenager, had no problem overpowering my friends physically, but I had this great fear of death. And when I was first saved, one of the verses I remember was Psalm 4 -8, I will both lay me down in peace and sleep for thou, Lord, only makest me to dwell in safety.

I can lay my head down and be in peace and safety because God is the one who keeps me. God is the one who guards me just like an army guarding a garrison. God is keeping me. It's a great way to go to sleep.

Well, it was there ready for me. As I said last night, it was there ready for me. There are times when I'm preaching, and it's there ready for me to be able to utilize. Also, there are times when I pray.

Even in a pastoral prayer, you'll hear verses because they're just there. And I thank God for that because it's by the grace of God that we can do anything as believers. I'm not taking the credit for that.

I give the glory to God that he's given me a mind, but he's also given you a mind. And what are you going to fill it with? What are you going to memorize? What is it that you take and do with your time to memorize?

Now, some of us have to memorize things for work, right? I mean, there's certain protocols and procedures and things that we have to know. And we do that because we're held accountable to that. And I would say that we need to be held accountable to also memorize the word of God before the Lord, if anything, because his word says it.

I mean, when we look at this, does not the word of God advise us, encourage us, show us that if it's important, for a length of days, verse 2, for a long life, not a promise that you'll live long, but if you heed the word of God, you'll be safer, you'll be more protected, you'll have longer days as a general statement, long life and peace, peace in our lives.

Shall they add to you? He's talking about the commandments that are passed down from the father to the son, commandments that come from God, the word of God to us. And so he says, mercy and truth, don't forsake them, the truth of God, don't forsake the truth, but bind it about your neck and write it on the table of your heart.

And the way that you do that is to memorize. I believe that's speaking specifically to Bible memorization. Notice what it says in verse 4. So thou shalt find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man.

Divine favor and human favor are also a result of being a person who has a powerful, crisp testimony that not only do you own the word of God and study the word of God and listen to the word of God, but you've memorized it.

And it's a part of the woof and wharf of your life. It's the part of the fiber of your being. It's just there in your life. How about Proverbs chapter 4? Turn there if you would with me, please. Proverbs 4 and verse 20.

My son, attend to or give attention to my words. Incline thine ear unto my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes. Keep them in the midst of your heart. Keep these sound words. Keep the word that the father teaches the son.

And, of course, what is being implied there is as God has taught the parent, the parent teaches the child, like back in Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses 6 and following, is that it's important for us to have the word always with us and always around us.

And a way to do that here, it says again, just another way of saying, keep them in the midst of your heart. Keep it close. And it gets there by Bible memorization. How about chapter 6? We're just going through the verses that I had given you earlier.

Chapter 6 and in verse 20. Very kind of similar words as you're going to see these. These are just repetitive, but I want you to see if it's important enough. It's repeated. It means it's important for us.

My son, 620, keep thy father's commandment and forsake not the law of thy mother. Bind them continually upon thy neck. Now it adds another word here, not just to do it once or twice and then forget about it, because if you memorize something and you forget about it, you'll forget about it.

It's gone. And I know that I've done that because there's times when I haven't reviewed in the past and I get to the verse and I just can't remember it, so I have to rework it in. It takes less time, but you rework it and get that hidden back in your heart again.

620. I mean, 621. Bind them continually upon thy heart and tie them about thy neck. You just have this vivid wording that's used here just to make it straight. Notice where it says, make it very clear to us.

Verse 22. When you go, it will lead you. When you sleep, it shall keep you or guard you. And when you awake, it will talk to you. For the commandment is a lamp and the law is light and reproofs of instruction are the way of life to keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman.

Of course, this is for a young person hearing this, but, of course, for anybody. The word of God can be a lamp on our feet, Psalms 119 .105. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. And what better way can we have that light to shine upon our path if it is hidden in our heart and it is available for the Holy Spirit to take and bring to our remembrance in a time of need when we have to make that decision, when it comes time to what church should I go to or where should I move to?

Well, what's important? Matthew 6 .33, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. Those verses come to our remembrance. We've got to make sure that we make the right decision.

What job should I take? What person should I have as my life's partner? What should I be looking for? And you think about different verses in the Scripture, maybe some that you've even memorized that you keep there or in an area where you will not compromise in your life and you say, I'm going to memorize this verse and it's going to be something where I take a stand and I'm resolved to obey God and to please the Lord and be obedient to God.

And a lot of it, help comes to us when we memorize the Scriptures. I can't tell you how many times when it came time for memorizing Scripture, making a decision. I'll give you another example in my life when we were early in our marriage and Deb carried a baby and the Lord took that baby home after about five and a half months.

Then we began to pray about what we ought to be doing and we kept reading in the Proverbs about having mercy upon the poor. In James 1, pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

And just the idea of an example of true Christianity is to take care of the fatherless. And you see that throughout Scripture. God is concerned with the fatherless and in those verses, that prompted us, that led us, God used that for us to adopt children.

I mean, that was just a testimony in our lives. But it came not only from studying but also from memorizing Scripture like that. And I'm sure that if I was to pull all of you here today and ask you, you could probably say there were times when I needed to make a decision or I was in a peril or there was a temptation that I was in and God used the Word of God to help me, to lead me, to guide me.

What is one of the best ways or one of the best examples in the New Testament that you can think of in a time of temptation where somebody used the Word of God to thwart the devil? Jesus' temptation, Matthew chapter 4.

You know what's very interesting about that, I was thinking? I don't know, we don't know, but when Jesus is in the wilderness, it seemed as if He was fasting, He had nothing. He was just Jesus with His Father, fasting and communing with the Father in preparation of His ministry that was coming.

I don't get any indication and we're not told that He had scrolls. He didn't have His Bible with Him. And when Satan came to attack Him, to tempt, and He comes back with, you know, man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

I believe it was quoted scripture. I believe He had memorized that. Even from a youth, He was in the synagogue and He knew scripture and that was what went back. That was the sword of the Spirit. He was enabled to overcome with the Word of God that was memorized.

And I think that's very powerful in our lives if you think about it because memorization supplies spiritual power in our lives and we can experience, I believe, the same spiritual victories that our Lord did when we used the Word of God that way.

And I'm going to bring you to a verse that will be very helpful for us, but let me finish up with Proverbs. I digressed and went elsewhere. How about chapter 7? Proverbs 7. Kind of similar, I'll just read them, verse 1 through 3.

My son, keep My words and lay up My commandments with thee. Keep My commandments and live, and My law is the apple of thine eye. Talking about the Word of God. Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart.

There you see it again. And then in Proverbs chapter 20. If you turn with me to Proverbs chapter 20. I don't think I have the right chapter. I'm sorry, that was Proverbs 22. Proverbs 22. For those that took notes earlier, it's Proverbs 22, 17 to 19.

I'm going to find my pencil and change it because if I ever look at this again, I'll be wondering what I was doing back in 2009. Proverbs 22, verse 17. Bow down your ear or incline your ear and hear the words of the wise and apply your heart or apply your mind unto My knowledge.

For it is a pleasant thing if you keep them. Notice, it's a pleasant thing if you keep them within you. Now, in verse 17 it says, apply your mind. It's dealing with our minds. Your translation may say heart, but it's the same thing.

It's talking about using your mind when it comes to this exercise. And it says, in verse 18 though, where it is supposed to be when it comes to your mind. It's a pleasant thing if you keep them within thee.

Well, earlier he was talking about the words of the wise or the knowledge that comes from God. And the idea is that we're, again, have it with inside of us. Have it within us, verse 18, that they withal be fitted unto thy lips or they'll be ready on your lips.

If it's in there, it's ready to come out. And notice verse 19, I love this. Here is another result of memorizing the word of God. That thy trust may be in the Lord, I have made known to thee this day even unto thee.

You see, there's a reason, verse 19, that says here's the result of what you just did earlier, what you're supposed to be doing earlier, in inclining your ear and applying your heart and keeping the word of God within you.

Not only will you have it ready on your lips to be able to speak, but a reason to keep the wise words of scripture within you is that it strengthens our faith. It increases our faith. It keeps the truth before us and it keeps reinforcing the truth to us.

Not only is it joyful for worship, you can sing it, like somebody said earlier. Not only will it give you answers to life's questions, but it increases our faith. It reinforces the word of God to us, the truth to us, especially when we need it the most in difficult times or times of decision.

In serious times, the word of God is there with us. Okay, let's look at a couple of other scriptures. How about Psalm 37? Just go backwards to the book of Psalms and go to chapter 37. I'm only going to look at a couple of more.

There are many of them. I better do this for those of you that really, really need this. All right, you got your seatbelt on, you got your pen or pencil in hand. For those of you who want the numbers down the right-hand side of the page, are you ready?

Now, if you want to do it yourself, fine, that's okay, but here you go. Here's the answers. 10, 16. Oh, you weren't ready. That's okay. I'm going to give you the numbers down the right side, from the top to the bottom.

Top to bottom. Here we go. Top, 10. On the right-hand side, Psalm 119, 105. You with me? Okay, that's 10. Then 16, 19, 2, 24, 8. Sounds like a football game. 22, 3. We're at Jeremiah, spelled wrong, 15, 16 there, 3.

And actually, I looked at that one and I just crossed it out because I didn't even like what I had written there, but that's another thing. After Jeremiah, Psalm 119, 99 is 13, 18, 5, 14, 1, 17, 11. We're now down to the Amos 8, which you should have crossed out and put Psalm 19, 7, and 8.

That's 9. That's 9. Got it? Okay. Then 6, 7, 15, 4, 21, 20, 12, and 23. And if you're either a short one, sorry, come talk to me later. 21 is 20, 12, and 23 at the end. Okay, we're in Psalm 37. If you look with me, Psalm 37 and in verse 31.

The law of his God, this is speaking of a righteous person, the law of his God is where? In his heart. None of his steps shall slide. And when it comes to spiritual stability, not only blessing in doing this, not only favor from God, not only long life, not only peace, not only the ability and power and strength in our Christian life, not only to increase our faith, but stability.

It says here that the person's footsteps shall not slip or shall not slide because God's word is in that person's heart. They're not going to turn to the left nor to the right. They're not going to desire to go down the slippery slope into error because the word of God is so precious to them, and they love the word of God, and they have it close by, and it's going to keep.

The word keep in the Old Testament there is the word guard, just like a soldier would guard a post. And the word of God hidden in our hearts keeps us. It keeps our lives. It checks us. It helps to protect us.

Psalm 40 and in verse 8. Psalm 40 and in verse 8, very similar. Just going to read it. I delight to do thy will, O my God, yea, thy law is within my heart. And again, I only quoted some of those verses because it got there because that person put forth the effort.

If you're going to bind it around your neck, tie it about your neck, if you're going to write it on the table of your heart, it's because you're doing the work. You're putting forth the effort to do that.

And I just encourage you to do it, and you'll be blessed if you do that. Now there's only one other verse that I want to go to for the sake of time, and that's Psalm 119. Psalm 119. And I'd like to look at verse 9, starting in verse 9.

And this one is about three-quarters of the way down the page. It's number 11 if you go across, which says victory over Satan, sin, and temptation. And I've already touched on this. But look at Psalm 119.

I believe this is a set of verses. Verses 9 through 11 are great. A little portion of Scripture to memorize. Psalm 119. Psalm 119. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? Or how can a young person keep his way pure?

Well, first it says, by taking heed thereto according to thy word. To hold to God's word. To keep it yourself. According to the word of God, you hold on to the word of God. With my whole heart have I sought thee, seeking the Lord.

Oh, let me not wander from my commandments. And then one of the ways that can be done is, verse 11, thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. There is a perfect Scripture that talks about us taking the word of God and hiding it.

And some of your translations might say treasure. Thy word have I treasured in my heart. And it doesn't mean, that word doesn't mean to put value on it. That word treasure or that word hide in the Hebrew means to conceal.

So that a thing is secret. It can be secret. It's private. It's inaccessible. To lay something up in private. Have you ever hidden anything in your home where you don't want anybody to go get it? You know, you want to just tuck it away.

Because it's valuable. It's very important. And you don't want it to be accessible to anybody else. That's the idea. You're taking God's word as like a treasure or jewels or money. And you're laying up God's word in your heart or in your mind by memorizing it.

As in a secret place. In an inaccessible place in your mind. God's word there treasured up as the most valuable thing that we could ever put in our minds. A lot of things that are in our minds that we would wish that were never there.