after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance For this reason I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may know with all the saints what is the hope of his calling and what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. And what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He worked in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come. And He gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. and you, he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once is workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Therefore, remember that you were once Gentiles in the uncircumcision of your flesh, that you were alienated from God, being strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace. who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in his flesh the enmity that is the law of commandments contained in ordinances, thus making peace, and that he might reconcile them both in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and to those who were near, for through him we both have access by one spirit to the Father. So now, therefore, you're no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building being fitted together in the Lord, being fitted together in the Lord, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. For this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus, for you Gentiles, if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God, which was given to me for you, how that by revelation he made known to me the mystery, as I have briefly written already, by which when you read, you may understand my knowledge and the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Holy Spirit to his holy apostles and prophets, that the Gentiles, should be fellow heirs of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ through the gospel, to which I was appointed a minister according to the gift of God, the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of his power to me, who am less than the least of all the saints. this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God, who created all things through Jesus Christ, to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him. Therefore, I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. For this reason, I bow my knees to the Father. from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his grace, to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works within us, to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever, amen. I therefore, The prisoner of the Lord beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you are called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long-suffering, bearing with one another in love, striving to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all. But to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore he says, when he ascended on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts to men. Now this, he ascended, what does it mean but that he also first descended? He who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. And he himself gave some to be apostles, some evangelists, some prophets, some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints, for the edifying of the body of Christ, that we should no longer be children. tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine. But speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by whatever joint supplies, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. Therefore I say that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened. being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their hearts, who being past feeling have given themselves over to lewdness to work all uncleanness with godliness, but you have not so learned Christ. If indeed you have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus, that you put off concerning your former conduct the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lust, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which is created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore put away lying, let each one of you speak truth with one another, for we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil. Let him who stole, steal no longer. But rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give to him who has need. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. And do not grieve the Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another just as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness Let it not even be named among you as is fitting for saints, neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving a thanks. For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, or covetous man who is an idolater has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words. For because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience, therefore do not be partakers with them, for you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth, finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them, But all things that are exposed by the light are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore he says, awake you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light. See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit. Speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church, and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let wives be to their own husbands in all things. Husbands, love your wives. just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blame in the Lord. So husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of his flesh and of his bones. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, Let each one of you so love his own wife in particular, nevertheless, each one of you in particular, so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and your mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth. And you fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath. but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. Bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling as to Christ. Not with eye service, let's see. Bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling Somebody following along, help me. I'm leaving that. What's that? in sincerity of heart, not with eye service as men pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of the Lord from the heart. With good will, doing service as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free. And you, masters, do the same things to them, giving up threatening, knowing that your own master also is in heaven. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand. Stand therefore. having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith with which you may be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication. And for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth in the defense of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains, that in it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. but that you may know my affairs and how I am doing. Tychicus, a beloved brother and servant of the Lord, will make all things known to you, whom I have sent to you for this very purpose, that you may know our affairs and that he may comfort your hearts in the Lord. Peace to the brethren and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, amen. If I could... If I could just qualify that recitation by saying I made 113 mistakes in that recitation, and it's okay that when you recite, if you're gonna stumble, stumble forward, as a great reciter of scripture once told me. So God forbid that any of the things I left out or minced my words on would mislead, but what a treasure. Can you imagine yourself as a slave in Ephesus, or as a young wife, and in my preparation for this recital, it dawned on me that the wives and the slaves get more instruction than anyone, and that archeologists and early church historians will tell you that the church was majority women and slaves. and that they were set free to serve the Lord side by side with their masters, with their husbands, with men. And it's not a coincidence. And I find it ironic that in our day, the Bible is sometimes accused of being, you know, racist or anti-slave or anti-woman. And the early church was told quite a different story. They found in the gospel of Christ, freedom and liberation. Jesus said that when you are hearing the word, you need to, like the good soil, hear it with a noble and good heart. And he uses the word keep after that about what the good soil does with the word. They keep it. I believe that he is echoing back to his knowledge of the Psalms, and in particular Psalm 119. And we're gonna touch on just the highlights of Psalm 119, so don't lose heart. But Jesus said that, yeah, it's gonna be a long message. I'm not quoting that. But Jesus said that the one non-negotiable thing you have to do with God's word is keep it. Aren't you glad how simple that is? What is characteristic of the soils that are non-productive? On some soil the word finds no root at all. Some soil is shallow, there are stones there that prevent the word from becoming fruitful. Some soil is infested with thorns and they choke the word and make it unfruitful. But those that fell on good ground are those who having heard the word on a noble and good heart, keep it. It's interesting when you watch the baseball the way it used to be played when a guy is charging down from third base to slide into home plate and the catcher who has received the throw from the outfield has one job, really two, he's got to tag the guy but he has to hold on to the ball. If he loses the ball, it's like a fumble in football, there's There's no out there at the plate. We are to keep the word. Now, I don't know if you can see this little feline, but this is our cat Varda. And I took this picture of her because I heard a scrabbling on the garage door, and I looked out the window, and she was savagely clawing at the door. And actually, she got her claws stuck in the weatherstripping and couldn't get down. And so when I took this picture, she was hanging from there, but she looked so savage, it made me think of David's mighty man, Benaiah. In 2 Samuel 23, he had a very nasty confrontation with a lion. That's bad. In a pit, that's worse. On a snowy day, that's the worst. And when you are faced with confrontations in life, you're gonna face situations that aren't fair. You're gonna face situations where everything is against you. And Benaiah prevailed and so attained a name with those mighty men as one who defeated a lion in a pit on a snowy day. How will you fight and prevail similarly. Well, holding on to God's word will help you. Psalm 119 has 176 verses, 8 verses and 22 stanzas, and it's an alphabet poem, and it's David's heart on display. It builds off Psalm 1 and Psalm 19 that we know are written by David. It's like, and this is a picture of the ring I gave Susan on our wedding. No, not quite that big. But it's a multifaceted diamond of the splendor of God's Word. And David has all these words, these synonyms for God's Word. He says, Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who keep the testimonies, His testimonies, who seek Him with the whole heart. They also do no iniquity. They walk in His ways. You've commanded us to keep your precepts diligently. Oh, that my ways are directed to keep your statutes. Then I would not be ashamed when I look into all your commandments. I will praise you with uprightness of heart when I learn your righteous judgments. And there are the seven facets. the law, the commandments, the statutes, the precepts, the testimonies, the judgments of the Lord. Those things that refer to his word are words like judgments that speak of the decisions of an all wise judge about human situations. His statutes has a reference to those things that are written in stone. never forget that the first scripture memory quiz and by the way this church does so well and you almost don't need to have this sermon this morning so should I sit down you're doing so well and memorizing God's Word and a long ago when we had a recital of the whole New Testament in Hannibal Missouri and then the year after that we had some prophets recited. It was a member of Rock Springs Evangelical Free Church, Andy Bastian, who came and thundered, he didn't quote, he thundered Amos 1 through 9, which is probably the only way to recite Amos 1 through 9. But I was just amazed to hear, I'd never heard that quoted and it was someone from this church who did that. But these things are written in stone and when Satan comes to the human couple, and Adam is silent and Eve answers. He asks the question, has God indeed said? These are precepts. These are statutes. They are testimonies. They're God's witness in court about what is acceptable and true. They're God's precepts. In other words, the instructions of a supervisor is what a precept is. These are the flying rules. These are the guidance. You know, you men who never read instructions, when you put things together, this is for you. Precepts, the instructions of the supervisor, and commandments are God's revealed will. They are not human opinions. They are the 10 commandments and David takes all these facets of God's law and he says what we should do with those things. You are to keep them and in Psalm 119 he has all these prayers and many times he repeats himself. These five times he says give me understanding. Do you ever find scripture hard? You know I sometimes think that memorizing it is the easy part. Understanding it is harder than memorizing it and living it is even harder than both of those things. But you can pray this prayer, Lord, give me understanding. Or you can pray this prayer, Lord, teach me your statutes. He says that six times. Lord, I need you, all the good and godly teachers I have, I need you to be my teacher as I take your word in my heart. He says that he loves the testimonies, he loves God's commandments, he loves God's precepts, and he says three times in the psalm, I love your law. Now, you are at a fantastic church and a fantastic association of churches, but if in the providence of God, like our family moving to Wisconsin here, you find yourself looking for a church, here is a litmus test for you to run on that church. Does that church echo with Psalm 119? And Athanasius said, you don't have Christ if you don't have doctrine. You don't have Christ apart from the scriptures. So away with that nonsense. It's not a matter of head. Your 12-year-old can memorize circles around you. Can you just accept that? Remember, and I, for one, think that the truths in Ephesians one through six and John nine that we heard so wonderfully exposited this morning, now. Do you realize what Ephesians 1 talks about when it says that in the age to come, God is gathering together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth? Do you realize the consummation of human history is headed toward that destination in Christ that you have an inheritance? that has been predestined for you, that will turn my life upside down in a good way. Recently, and they were not in this good of shape, and so an artist took the archeological fragments and put them what they look like when the Roman soldier put them on. What do you see studding the bottom of the sandal? Spikes, nails. You know what those are? Those are traction. You know what those are in your life? God's promises. Because you're gonna get knocked down. You're gonna get knocked off your feet. And when that lion attacks you, you need to be able to stand. And the Roman soldiers' feet had these spikes so that when the enemy came, he could take his stand. You notice what it says in Ephesians 6, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day. This is a good day. Coming to this conference is a good day. We're among friends who love us. We're among people who encourage us, but the evil day is coming. I wonder how many traction points my life has relative to the kind of testing, the kind of temptation, the kind of attacks I'm going to face. You see, when you're against a lion in a pit on a snowy day, you need to be able to stand. And God's promises, God's truth, God's word. Why does he call it the shoes of the preparation of the gospel of peace? The word means readiness. That if you have the gospel that makes you right with God and right with others, you are ready for the battle. So I walk, I meditate, I gaze, these are all from Psalm 119, I cling, I hide it in my heart, I long for it, I hope for it, I trust it, I remember it, I praise you for it, I find salvation in it, and preeminently, I keep your word. There are two words translated keep. Now, my Hebrew font did not translate, so disregard those strange spellings that look like Serbian last names. There. But the two words are shemar and natsar, and they are synonyms. Shemar occurs 21 times, natsar 10 times, and psalm 119. And they both mean the same thing, to protect or guard or preserve, revere, store, to not let go. As a matter of fact, when the New Testament or when the language Greek is used on this psalm, they use phalaso, which is a word that means guard, like a guard outside of a fort. It's the idea of holding on to something and Psalm 119 says it 31 times. Don't let it go. Keep it. Guard it. Preserve it. It's interesting when Abraham is praised by God. It says, I've known him in order that he may command his children in his household after him that they may Here's the word, Shemar, keep the way of the Lord to do righteousness and judgment that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has spoken to him. Because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge. There's our word, Shemar, again, in the Old Testament. How about some more concrete examples of this word? The Lord took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend, and here's Shemar again, to tend and keep, So think of your heart like that garden. What are you cultivating there? What are you planting? Now, praise God, when it comes to the parable of the sower, my pastoral experience tells me that God has the ability to plow up wayside soil, to remove rocks with great surgeries from stony soil, and to uproot the thorns in the soil of my heart for the thorny soil. We plant, we water, but God gives the increase and he can do things with the soil, but we have a responsibility to cultivate our hearts and to keep God's word there. Cain asks about Abel, am I my brother's keeper? What's the answer? Yes, you are. You're supposed to be. You're supposed to shamar your brother. And Jacob says, I will again feed and keep your flocks. I will watch over them, is what this word has the idea of. So this is what Psalm 919 says. in so many places. We won't go through all 31, but just a few. You have commanded us to Shemar, to keep your precepts diligently. Oh, that my ways were directed to keep your statutes. And again, it's not how many verses you know. My dad was saved, he was from a nominal Catholic family in Manitoba, and someone challenged him to memorize verses from the Gospel of John. and he gave his life to that ministry for 65 years. And when I would ask or others would ask, how many verses do you know? He would never even attempt to answer that question. I knew that he knew a lot, but he would always answer, that doesn't really matter. What matters is what am I feeding on today? What am I meditating on today? What's nourishing my heart and guiding me today? Better a child who knows a few verses than a scholar who knows thousands and doesn't believe them, a child who knows a few verses and lives them. I remember years ago when I was representing Scripture Memory Fellowship at a homeschool fair, we had this game where we would spin this wheel, and it had different books of the Bible, and we had a prize if you could recite a verse from that book of the Bible. And one of the prizes was this very nice ESV graphic Bible, very beautifully illustrated, so you could use it as a journal. And this little boy, who I'll call Huck Finn, walked up to the booth. And he did not want to be at the homeschool fair. And he did not want to be at the scripture memory booth. And everything in his body language and trying to talk with him, he wouldn't look in my eyes at all. But his mom said, go ahead, Huck. I don't remember what his name was. Go ahead, Huck. Spin the wheel. And the boy spun the wheel and it landed on 1 John. And I thought, I don't think this boy's mind could warehouse John 3.16, let alone anything from 1 John. And his mom said, all right, 1 John, do you know anything from 1 John? And I thought, oh, please, let's just let this end. And the little boy said, but if any man have this world's good and sees his brother having need and shuts up his heart of compassion from him, how does the love of God dwell in him? And I wanted to weep actually thinking about it today and I thought, if you live out that one verse, I don't care how dyslexic, learning disabled and squirmy you are, you will change the world. I thought there is a nail that would give this boy attraction. That my ways were directed to keep your statutes. How can a young man cleanse his word? By taking heed. It's the same word, shamar. By guarding his heart according to your word. This is a illustrated version of Pilgrim's Progress that you may be familiar with. It's called Dangerous Journey, and this is one of my favorite scenes in the whole book. That dragon-looking thing is named what? Apollyon, which means the destroyer. And Bunyan says that he was a little bit like a dragon, a little bit like a bear, had jaws like a bear, out of which flame belched. And he says to Christian, I have come hither to spill your soul, which means you're dead. I have come out here to kill you." And Christian recalls that he has no armor for his back, and so he decides he better stand. And Christian has a pretty long fight, and he is doing pretty well, until what happens? He loses his sword. And he's knocked down. He loses his traction. He's knocked on his back. And Bunyan says, is Apollyon prepared to make a full end of that good man? Christian's knuckles grazed against the hilt of his sword. And he quotes Micah, rejoice not against me, O my enemy, for if I fall, I will rise. And he grabs that sword and he makes Apollyon run. He makes Apollyon depart because he's keeping God's word and he recovers his sword. As we think about this word shamar, the psalmist says, I remember your name in the night, O Lord, and I keep your word. You are my portion, O Lord. I've said that I would keep your words. Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word. I hope we don't have to learn things the hard way, but learning them the hard way is better than not learning them at all. I got punished, I got chastened, and now I'm holding on to your words that I used to let go. Oops, sorry, too much. We're almost done. So shall I keep your law continually forever and ever? Give me understanding, and I shall nazar your law. Indeed, I shall observe it. There he uses them in one verse, with my whole heart. I remember your name in the night, O Lord, and I keep your law. You may know this next picture as the man who dared to stand up to Vladimir Putin. His name is Alexei Navalny. And they decided that he needed to be dead. And so secret agents of the Russian government put the nerve agent, Novichok, in his underwear. Why? Because when you sweat, your body would take in this nerve agent. And he felt the world going dark. He felt his thoughts coming apart. And he went into a coma. And they flew him to a hospital in Germany. And they nursed him back to health. And you know what he did when he got well enough to leave that hospital? He did something incredible to me. He went back to Russia to say, this government does not represent us. This, what this government is doing is tyranny. You're silencing dissent. And so they killed him again. They put him in a concentration camp. They starved him nearly to death and put cooking chicken right outside his room to torture him further while he was being starved to death so he could smell it. And he asked for a Bible at the end of his life. And he asked for a book of Russian theology. I'm not so keen on that. But he asked for a Bible. And in his memoirs, which were smuggled out of that concentration camp where he died, he said this, if you are a disciple of the religion whose founder sacrificed himself for others, paying the price for their sins, what is there left for you to worry about? Navalny. had spikes on his shoes that stood up to the worst tyranny you can imagine, and it will help you stand as well. Jesus and the rest of his family, I'm not sure if he's talking about the church there, but I don't know, won't let me down and will sort out all my headaches. As they say in prison here, they will take my punches for me. Having done all to stand, stand therefore. And if you need some help, here comes the infomercial. at the end. But this doesn't cost anything. This is an app that will let you memorize any verse you choose in any collection you make, in any translation that you'd like. It'll play it out loud for you. It'll scramble the words. It'll blur them. And I highly recommend it. I didn't build it, but our friend Dakota Lynch made it, who's the director of Scripture Memory now. Different tools, collections, review, and it's completely free. And if you can translate this, you can have it. Take a picture of that and it'll take you to the website to get that. I just want to pause and say, I know that this is a hard discipline, but it's kind of like having a chainsaw. You know, keeping a chainsaw sharp is incredibly, it's a pain in the neck, I've discovered. You touch a chainsaw to dirt, what happens? Instantly dull. I mean, come on, can't they make those blades any better than that? You gotta put bar oil on it. You gotta have gas oil mixed. You have to add the chain at the right tension. But you know what you can do with a well-oiled, sharp chainsaw? An amazing amount of work! It's such a joy to have a sharp, well-prepared chainsaw. Well, scripture memorizing is a spiritual power tool. It is hard. But when you have it, You're ready for the lion in the pit on the snowy day. Any questions or thoughts or comments? Corrections? Parts of Ephesians left out. I say stick with one translation. When you're young, when you're 25 or 30 and younger, you can keep translations separate, but after that, it's hopeless. So get one. I think more literal translations are helpful for memorization because, you know, when they paraphrase and going thought for thought, they're doing a little interpreting. I'd rather let that be the Holy Spirit in me rather than New King James. I was raised in the King James. I switched to the New King James when I was 12. I had to memorize the New American Standard when I was in college, but I just can't keep them straight anymore, so I only do New King James now. Yeah, thank you. Praise God. Ephesians? Well, I probably knew about 25 verses of it from memorizing topically on salvation and different things and then I probably I I'm gonna say I've spent 180 hours. That's why it's not impressive you know, but I use this app a lot now because if I hear it I it gets into my thoughts better. And the app will give you the first letter of each word. And, you know, I use a lot of memory tricks. Like when I was trying to memorize what the Bible says to bond servants, it tells bond servants seven things. Well, as I'm reciting, I'm going one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. You know, you get different tricks. And what I've learned is that maybe 2% of the population has a photographic memory. The rest of us go by sound more. And so I think listening to it is the second most important practical thing. The number one most practical thing is accountability. I have somebody who hears me on Thursdays. I get most of my memorization done on Wednesday night. I'm serious. I'm not proud of that, but if you tell somebody okay, I'm gonna memorize Colossians 3 and I'm gonna do it within these six months, and I'm gonna ask you to hear me add one verse to it every week. This week, I'm gonna recite verse one. Next week, I'm gonna do one, two. Next week, I'm gonna do one, two, three. If you have a faithful friend who will hear you, that is the number one practical hint I give, to my experience. Some people are so self-disciplined, they don't need that, but that's the minority. Yeah. Yes, sir. Yeah, any other? Yes, sir. I try to spend about 10 to 15 minutes a day on memory work, about two-thirds of it being review, about five minutes on something new. And some days I get a little more than that. You know, sometimes when I'm doing a long project of some kind, I give a little bit of each hour. But that's not many days. That's maybe once every 10 days I have that. So a good goal is to go through rapidly something that you know for about 10 minutes and spend about five minutes on something new. And if you use an app like VerseLocker, you can listen to something that you're working on and you can set it to 1.5 speed so it goes fast. If you have a 10 minute commute, you could listen to the Sermon on the Mount. You know, you could listen to it. I know a guy, Markey Laughlin, who quotes the whole book of Revelation. He's an actor. He's an African-American guy who was mentored by Morgan Freeman. He quotes the book of Revelation dramatically. And he said he learned it because he had a 45-minute commute. And he listened to Revelation 1 through 11 on the way to work. And he listened to Revelation 12 through 22 on the way home from work. And in a year, he knew it. Now, he's an actor, he memorizes things for a living, but listening really is powerful, because our minds, I think, are made to, you know, when you think about when you're a child, how do you learn the whole language that you're learning to speak? Well, you learn it, first of all, by listening, and I think our minds do better with that. So, if you can take advantage of driving time, or time when you might be, you know, unable to read with listening, Yeah, 10 or 15 minutes a day, five days a week, you'll make dramatic progress. And I'm going to mention one more thing. Start with one verse. I think John 9 would be an excellent chapter. Another thing is, never underestimate. I work with intellectually disabled adults. And I have a young man in his early 30s, and his parents taught him scripture. And he can't speak really well, but I'm saying, God so loved the world that it has only gotten sun and clouds. Who do you think is going to have the most fun as a child?