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All right, so thank you again
for coming. I'll introduce myself to you a little bit because I
know some of you know me and some not so much. So my name
is JR Remelgado. My wife and I, that's my wife
Morgan there, have been coming to this church for about five
years. I've had the privilege of being born into a Christian
home and getting saved at a very young age. So even before the
time I was saved, my parents and many people in my church,
Sunday school teachers and others, were teaching me God's Word and
instilling in me scripture memory from the time that I was, as
early as I can remember. I can remember reciting certain
verses. And I can't tell you how valuable
that has been to me over the years in many different ways.
And I'll give you an example of one way that learning God's
Word and being able not just to read it and to study it, but
to memorize it was really important. When I was 17 years old, there
was a guy who I met and kind of became
friends with in my community. And we met at the gym and worked
out together. I know looking at me now, you
don't, you wouldn't imagine that I ever worked out, but I did. And anyway,
so afterwards he found out that I was a Christian. He was a Jewish
guy. He says, oh, okay, you're a Christian.
Let me start asking you some questions. How can a good Jewish
lady who does a wonderful, lives a wonderful life and does wonderful
works, but she never believes in Jesus, how is it that she
goes to hell, but a murderer on his deathbed prays and accepts
Jesus and he can go to heaven? Is that fair? And he starts really
questioning my faith. Again, I'm just 17 years old. And at the time that he's doing
this, there's another guy who comes into the room. And he's
not trying to be part of this conversation, he's just trying
to get his stuff and leave. But he happened to be married to
a long-time member of our church, and he was not a believer. He
had been witnessed to many times, and we are praying for his salvation.
So here he comes, and here's this guy asking me questions
about my faith. And praise the Lord, again, this
is not to brag on me, this is really to brag on the godly people
who invested a lot into my life and my mom from the time I got
home from the hospital. read the Bible to me just about every
single day. So I was able, and I don't have
a Bible there, obviously, but I was able to just recall enough
of God's Word and explain what I believed and what I believed
in and quote scripture. And I saw, really that time,
I saw the power of just quoting scripture. It was quoted this
morning that the word of God is quick and powerful, sharper
than any two-edged sword. When I use man-made arguments
and try to rely on science, try to rely on archeology to try
to convince someone Christianity they always have comebacks and
it just ends up being this this crazy circle of you know conversation
that doesn't really go anywhere but when I start quoting scriptures
and well this is what the Bible says the Bible says this you
know and particularly on that day that guy did not know what
to say brought him back to the Ten Commandments because he was Jewish
and he believed said he believed in the Ten Commandments and said
you know your whole premise about the idea of good people and bad
people is wrong because the Bible says all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God and kind of Talk I got him to admit
certain commandments that he broke and and kind of got him
to the hour and the judgment day You admit to breaking all
these commandments. How can God then allow you into heaven unless
there's payment for that sin and he started just changing
the topic and changing what about this and what about that eventually
he just kind of gave up and told me to have a nice day. But I
found out, you know, that really taught me important lesson about
spiritual warfare. We are in a spiritual warfare, and you
know, the thing with spiritual warfare is that the enemy does not attack
at your convenient time, doesn't announce it ahead of time. It's
not going to attack on this day, right? So be prepared. No, it
attacks whenever you will especially look for the times when you feel
that you are weakest, most vulnerable, and then attack at that time.
Not that that gentleman was the enemy, but he was being used
by the enemy to really get me to stumble, to question my faith,
and to not have, to not be a good testimony, but not being able
to give basic answers, and being prepared to give an answer, as
it says in Peter. So, you know, praise the Lord
for the people who invested into me, who was able to, and I, as
a 17-year-old, I was not confident in a lot of things. There was
a lot of uncertainty in my life, just as all teenagers have, they
have uncertainty. But praise the Lord for godly
people invest in me who, I was certain of two things. I knew
what I believed, I knew why I believed. Not that I have all the answers
about the Bible, none of us do, but certainly knew enough scripture
to be able to show people and explain the basics of the gospel
and the basics of our faith. So since that time, the Lord's
used me a lot and Bible memory has been very important to me,
not only in just trying to know God's word myself, but also in
teaching it to others. Now I'm a father, I have a two-year-old,
So that's very important, getting my daughter to memorize verses.
We already got her to memorize several at two years old. Got
to teach Bible at a Christian school for a few years, and that
was a privilege. Got to be a youth leader along with my wife. And
now I get to lead our Bible quiz team, and that's the whole purpose,
is just to memorize scripture, get to know more about God's
word. This year we're going into Hebrews
and 1 and 2 Peter, so I'm very excited about that. As a matter
of fact, most of the kids who got baptized, the young people
who got baptized this morning, part of our Bible quiz team,
so I really enjoy working with them. So this week, we're going
to just look at the importance of Bible memory. Why do we need
to know God's Word? And then next time we meet, we'll
be looking into more of the how-tos. I think it's good to kind of
light a fire under all of us and get us motivated to want
to know and memorize and study God's Word. But then we get into
the question of, well, I'm just not someone who likes to read
a whole lot. I don't like to study. I have a bad memory. I
forget stuff all the time. What are some tips and some tools
to help us all better retain? God's Word. And since I'm a teacher,
I'm looking at it a little bit from an educational standpoint,
because that's something I think about a lot, how to get kids
to remember what we teach. Obviously, Bible's most important,
but even other subjects as well. For many people, it's just in
one ear and out the other. So, we'll be looking into that.
So, this week, we're looking into the importance of Bible
memory. And reason number one, Knowing the Bible keeps us from
sin. So I'm going to have you turn
to two passages and the rest of the passages I'll put up on
the screen. So if you have your Bibles, if you could turn to
me to Genesis chapter 3. We start in Genesis chapter 3 and
after we look at Genesis 3, we're going to be looking at Matthew
4. So just to give you a heads up
of where we're headed. So Genesis 3 is interesting because
this records the first temptation that ever happened. And it also
records the first question that ever gets asked in the Bible.
And I want to look at some similarities in how Satan goes about tempting
people. Because what's interesting is
from the time of Genesis until now, Satan's tactics don't really
change very much. He starts off with a question.
In Genesis chapter 3, in verse 1, it says, So it is interesting
that, first of all, he starts asking a question. He knows what God says, but he
twists it. In Genesis chapter 2, And verse 16, I'll just read
this to you. This is what God actually said. So God did certainly not
say you cannot eat of any tree of the garden. But Satan twists that, and that's
a very common tactic. Satan knows God's word, too,
and he uses it and twists it and gets it out of context in
order to deceive other people. And he's doing that here. Another
big tactic that he uses, he just likes to ask questions. And I
find that to happen a lot with false teachers, false prophets,
people who are have a worldview that is against what the Bible
says, they'll start asking questions. Oh, can we really believe that
Jesus was born of a virgin? Can we really believe that all
those miracles in the Bible are true? Can we really believe in
light of all these things we learn in science that the earth
was created in six literal days and evolution is not true? So
really, we gotta be mindful of that. People who are just posing,
asking questions, because that's a big way that people get their
faith undermined. And the answer to that, as we'll
see with what Jesus does, is quoting God's word and saying,
I have an answer. It's not based on my own thinking,
my own intelligence, my own knowledge of certain subjects. It's based
on what the word of God says. But unfortunately, Eve does not
respond quite in the way that we would hope for. It says in
verse two, in the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat
of the fruit of the trees of the garden, But the fruit of
the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said,
ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
So she got most of God's commandment right. But it's not, even then,
it's not quite right. Anyone notice the difference
between what God actually said and what Eve said? Some of you
nodding your heads. Feel free to call it out if you
see it. And God didn't say that. So it's
interesting, and I did not realize this until I was studying and
preparing for this. God gave this to man and to madam
in Genesis 2, 16 and 17, and it wasn't until later on in this
chapter that he creates Eve. So Eve was not there to actually
hear directly from God. Presumably, I guess that was
Adam's responsibility to teach her what God said, and she doesn't
seem to have a good grasp. Why is that important? Well,
it says in 1 Timothy 2, 13 and 14, that Adam was not deceived.
He sinned, he knew what he was doing, he knew what he was gonna
do was wrong, but he did it anyway. And that's a problem. But it
says that the woman being deceived was in the transgression. She,
because she thought that maybe what she was doing was a pretty
good idea. And we see evidence of this deception,
I believe here, by the fact that she doesn't seem to have a firm
grasp on what God actually says. And then Satan goes on to say,
in verse four, servant said unto the woman, you shall not surely
die, for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then
your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God's, knowing
good and evil, And this is interesting because in 1 John it says that
there are three main areas of temptation that we face, the
lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
That is all that is in the world, things that we need to avoid.
And it says in verse six that the woman saw that the tree was
good for food, so you got lust of the flesh there, and that
it was pleasant to the eyes, you got lust of the eyes there,
and a tree to be desired to make one wise, and that's the pride
of life, she took the fruit thereof and did eat and gave unto her
husband, with her, and he did eat." So you see here just these
strong temptations, seemingly a not quite a firm grasp on what
God actually says, and she is deceived, as it says in 1 Timothy,
and she fell into sin, and then Adam decided to sin as well.
So here we got a big, we see here what not having a strong
grasp on God's word can result in. Not that knowing God's word
will, you know, we can still sin anyway like Adam did, but
certainly that is an important way for us to fight temptation
and certainly to not be deceived. Now let's contrast this with
Christ's temptation in Matthew 4. So if you guys can turn with
me there to Matthew chapter 4. We see a very similar pattern.
So even though thousands of years have passed, Satan is still tempting
the same way that he tempted Eve. It says in verse three,
we'll start in verse three, Jesus is in the wilderness, just to
give context, he fasted 40 days and nights, he was hungry. It
says, and the tempter came unto him and said, if thou be the
Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. And so
we got, and I'm not gonna read this entire passage, but we got
in verse three, temptation according to the three same main ways described
in 1 John. We got lust of the flesh, saying,
hey, turn these stones into bread. We got lust of the eyes, where
later on it says, all these things, all these cities I will give
if thou won't fall down and worship me. We got the pride of life,
where he takes him up to the pinnacle and says, cast thyself
down. Another interesting thing is that Satan is similarly twisting
God's word. In verse 6, when he's taking
Jesus up into the pinnacle and trying to get himself to cast
himself down, it says, and in their hands they shall
bear thee up, lest at any time thou shalt dash thy foot against
a stone. You know what Satan is doing? He's quoting from the
Psalms. That is a passage from Psalms that Satan is taking and
misusing in an effort to try to deceive Jesus. So that should
really alert us to the fact that we need to know God's word very
well, primarily because Satan knows God's word and can use
it to deceive us, to get us to sin, to get us to go into error,
perhaps even to get us to use, influence others to go into error
and to sin if we do not have a strong grasp on what God's
Word actually says. But you know what's interesting
is Jesus resists that temptation. Unlike Eve who fell into sin,
He resists it and He does not resist it in some way that we
cannot, using some method that we cannot use. I mean, He's God
in the flesh. He could have called down legions
of angels, right? He could have just cast Satan
into the bottomless pit right then and there. He could have
done all kinds of things, called down fire for heaven. What's
interesting is when he met certain demons, the demon says, art thou
come to torment us before our time? So they knew that Jesus
had the power to just cast them right into hell right then and
there, but he doesn't do that. He does something that we can
all do, which is he quotes scripture. The first time in verse four,
he quotes from Deuteronomy 8.3. Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. The
second time in verse eight, It says, oh, I'm sorry, verse seven.
It says, it is written, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy
God. That's a quote of Deuteronomy 6, 16. And then in verse 10,
he quotes Deuteronomy 6, 13 through 15. For it is written, thou shalt
worship the Lord thy God and only him shalt thou serve. So there's some lessons for us
to learn from this. So, We learn here that God's
word is the essential tool for resisting the devil. In James
4, 7, it says resist the devil and he will flee. Well, how do
we resist? Do we just do it by our own strength and just have
enough willpower to just, ah, I'm just not gonna think about
that, I'm not gonna go there? Do we have a certain workout
routine? Do we act like how certain monks did where you just cut
yourself off from society and live in a monastery or perhaps
even live in a cave by yourself to just try to avoid any types
of temptation? No, that does not work. We need to resist the
devil the same way that Jesus has resisted the devil, which
is knowing God's word and quoting it during those times of temptation. The other thing that we need
to know is that simple head knowledge of the Bible is not sufficient. I'm gonna go into this a little
bit more in the next week when we meet, but like I said before,
Satan knows God's word too. And false teachers know God's
word. But what's interesting is Psalm
119.11, which is a verse that's quoted often when it comes to
the importance of memorizing God's word. The psalmist says,
thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against
thee. It's interesting, he doesn't say thy word have I hid in my
head. He says it has to be in our heart. So it's good to start
in the head, we need it there first, but then it needs to take
root in our heart, become a fundamental part of who we are, what we believe,
what guides us in our day-to-day decision. It says by hiding God's
word in our heart and not just our head, then we might not sin
against God. Reason number two, knowing the
Bible is the key to success. It's interesting that there's
only one time when the word success is mentioned in the Bible. So
let's look at that time. This is Joshua 1.8. What's interesting
in Joshua 1.8, Joshua is getting ready to lead the children of
Israel into the promised land. Could you imagine being Joshua? And here you've been following
under Moses' leadership for the past 40 years, right? You were
there when he came into Egypt, Told pharaoh the the greatest
ruler of the greatest nation of that time let my people go
and then bring in all these miracles and doing all these wonders and
then Bringing the children of israel out and then parting the
red sea and and obviously it's not those doing but god Doing
it through moses, but god using those in such a mighty way, you
know, joseph was known as the meekest man who ever lived He
was the one who actually got to be so close to god that when
he came down from the mountain his face glowed They had to put
a veil over his face No one could see God's face and live, but
Moses got to see God's backside. That's how close he was to God.
And now you're Joshua and you gotta step into Moses's shoes,
right? And on the flip side, Moses also
had to deal with a lot of craziness, right? There were times when
they wanted to kill Moses. There were times when people
wanted to organize and go back to Egypt. There were times when
God was angry at the Israelites and wanted to wipe them off,
and said at one time that he wanted to make of Moses a great
nation. And because of Moses' intercession,
he was able to, first of all, keep the Israelites from really
rebelling and doing all that stuff, even though there were
some minor rebellions that God had to deal with. But it also
interceded for the Israelites to God and kept God from completely
wiping the Israelites off the face of the earth. So here's
Joshua, and he's getting ready to just do a huge thing, and
I'm sure he's very uncertain, but God gives him the recipe
for success, and it says, That's key. We need to always have the
Bible on the tip of our tongue being
able to recall it to be able to speak about it talk about
it at a moment's notice and it says but thou shalt meditate
therein day and night it's also very key i'm going to get into
this more in the next uh lesson about the importance of meditation
uh not just reading god's word for a few minutes each day and
hoping that that's enough but thinking about it daily day and
night it says Why? It says that thou made us to
do according to all that is written therein. We don't need to memorize
God's Word and learn God's Word just to become big, snobby, prideful
people who have all these fancy degrees and all this knowledge
and we write books and we speak and whatever, but have just a
bunch of head knowledge. Like it says in Psalm 119, it
has to be hidden in our hearts. So we have to act upon it, not
just be hearers of the word, as it says in James, but be doers.
It says that thou mayest observe to do all that is written therein,
and then it's gonna lead to something good. It says, for then shalt
thou make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good
success. So here we go, the recipe for
success is meditating on God's word, knowing God's word, hiding
God's word in our heart, so that way we can observe to do it,
learn to do it, Obviously, it's very difficult. Obeying God's
Word is much easier said than done, right? We come into difficult
times, we come to times of temptation. We know the right thing to do,
it's pretty straightforward, but actually acting on it, that's
hard. And that's why, again, we need God's Word to convict
us and the Holy Spirit to bring those verses to my mind. I can
think of my own personal life, times when, certainly as many
times when I yielded to temptation, but I do remember a good number
of times where really tempted to sin, And if it weren't for
knowing certain verses, I would have just gone ahead and did
it. Holy Spirit bringing certain verses to my mind that convicted
me enough and got me to not go ahead and sin. And I know that
was the only thing that kept me. Were it not for that, I would
have just gone headlong into sin. Reason number three, knowing
the Bible is essential for evangelism and discipleship. We're gonna
look here at the Great Commission. Jesus, after he rose from the
dead, but before he ascended to heaven, gave this famous command
to the disciples, and obviously this applies to us. And he says,
go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching
them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you. And Lo, I am
with you always, even to the end of the world. Amen. So you
have a huge emphasis on teaching others, teaching all nations,
teaching people to observe all things whatsoever God has commanded
us. And that does apply to everybody.
If you've been saved for any length of time, you should be
not just learning God's word yourself, you should never stop
learning about God's word, but also teaching it to others through
evangelism, teaching our unsaved neighbors and friends the gospel,
where we are, our status, and where we are in God's eyes as
sinners. There is no hope of saving ourselves. There's no
works of righteousness that we could do, but only God's mercy
that he saved us and teaching them about the gospel. But certainly
some of us might have the opportunity to teach believers and help them
grow in their faith as well. It could be family members, it
could be friends. Joel here has just finished his studies and
he's looking to, you know, teach others and actually already involved
in that, right? And I know that we're very grateful
for people like Pastor Caleb and Joel and others who are willing
to go and travel halfway around the world or travel to other
places and teach others God's Word. But how can you teach something
that you yourself do not know? And again, we're not going to
know everything there is to know about the Bible, no matter how
hard we study, but certainly we need to know the basics. And
as a teacher, I'll tell you this, the biggest, the fastest way
that you can lose credibility and you can lose respect is to
not know what you're talking about. You get put in front of
a certain subject, you're called to teach a certain subject, put
in front of students, and it becomes very obvious that you
can't answer some basic questions, and you know what? The discipline
and the, they start checking out mentally, that just all goes
up, because they think, why should I listen to you? You obviously
don't know what you're talking about. And again, as a teacher,
I taught mainly English. It was fine to not know everything,
for me to say, you know, I don't really know, I'll study and get
back to you. That's fine, they can respect that, because they
don't expect you to know everything, But I've seen some people, and
unfortunately, in Christian education, this happens a lot, where perhaps
you have a certain background in history or one subject, but
there's a need to teach another subject. You just get thrown
in there, and that person obviously doesn't know a whole lot about
that subject. So that could be a big struggle, oftentimes, for
them to teach that subject. So we can't fulfill the Great
Commission and teach others unless we first know what God's word
says. Here's an interesting illustration
If you look and you read Acts 2, obviously we don't have time
to read all of it, but I encourage you sometime throughout this
week to read all of Acts 2. We have Peter's very famous sermon
that he preached on Pentecost. And it says at the end of this
chapter that there were 3,000 people who came to know the Lord.
Now, could you imagine that type of response? I know we don't
even have 3,000 people attend on any given day, right? If we
have over 1,000 at our church, we're very happy. Our church
is considered to be a big church. Imagine not just 3,000 people
attending and listening to your sermon. 3,000 people respond
and hear the gospel. We know that Peter was filled
with the spirit because this is when the Holy Spirit came
down. It were as tongues of fire above their heads and they were
given supernatural abilities. They were speaking in tongues,
right? They were able to speak in languages that they themselves
did not learn. And Peter's able to get up and
through the power of the Holy Spirit, give this sermon. What's
interesting is, Even with all that, he still does not rely
on his own words. He points people back to what
God's word says. What did God say in the Old Testament?
What were the prophecies in the Old Testament? How has Christ
fulfilled those prophecies? So the passages that he quotes
in verses 16 through 21, he's quoting Joel 2, 28 through 32.
In verses 25 to 28, he quotes Psalms 16, eight through 11.
Verses 29 through 30, he's quoting Psalm 34 11 and Acts 2 34 35
and quote Psalm 110 11 So by quoting those verses quoting
a variety of scripture all over the Old Testament The Holy Spirit
is able to use the Word of God and convict those people of their
need for a Savior and that Leads to the success that we read about
the end of 3,000 people coming to Christ. That's right again.
It's so important, especially where evangelize and we're discipling
I know I enjoy studying apologetics, and that can be fun, but really,
just giving people facts about science and facts about archaeology
that back up the Bible, that may have its place in certain
conversations, but that is certainly insufficient in and of itself.
Really, what you need to know is just the Word of God, because,
to be honest with you, science often drags behind the Bible.
For many years, all the scientists, all the experts said that the
Bible is wrong, that that the earth hangs upon nothing, as
it says in Job, because everybody knew at the time, several thousand
years ago, that the earth was really in the back of a turtle,
or it was being held up by Atlas. I mean, that's what every educated
cultured person knows. But of course, now we know that
the Bible is true. For many, many years, critics disproved
the Bible and said that the Bible cannot be true because it talks
about this group of people called the Hittites. And we know through
our culture, through our education, through all the archeology that
we've done, That the Hittites did never existed, but then about
a hundred years ago They made a discovery and guess what they're
a group of people long ago called the Hittites So the Bible was
right and archaeology at the time was not Many people doubted
whether or not King David actually existed. It wasn't till very
recently I think in the past 20 years or so that David's tomb
was actually discovered. So Again, we just got really
what we need in order to give an answer for our faith is ultimately
the Word of God, which Peter uses here to great effect. It's
interesting, in 2 Timothy 3.15, Paul is speaking to Timothy,
and he says, and that from a child thou has known the Holy Scriptures.
Timothy was blessed to have a godly mother and grandmother who taught
him God's Word from an early age, and then having Paul come
to him and disciple him from an early age, and that, Lord
used that so that he can go and pastor in Ephesus as we've been
learning about past year in our studies of 1st and 2nd Timothy
It says from a child that has known the Holy Scriptures which
are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith Which
is in Christ Jesus the Holy Scriptures. That was the key that made him
wise unto salvation that convicted him of his need for a Savior
that was the reason he came to Christ and That was working to
sanctify him and use him so that way he can grow up and minister
to others. Reason number four, knowing the
Bible is the key to winning in spiritual warfare. So there's
a lot of warfare metaphors that are used. The Bible describes
Christian life as a battle. It is not easy. There is a lot
of opposition that we face. One famous verse is in Ephesians
6-17 which says, So God's word specifically often gets compared
to a sword. What's interesting is that we
studied Ephesians in our small groups before the summer, and
I got to lead and teach on Ephesians 6, and what the Lord showed to
me was, yes, the sword of the Spirit is the word of God, and
that is the only offensive a piece of armor that is labeled, you
know, the rest is defensive, but really the word of God was
key for all the other pieces of armor. Because we got the shield of
faith. Well, the Bible says that faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God. It talks about having our loins
girded about with truth. Well, Jesus says, sanctify them
through thy truth. Thy word is truth. And the other
things we read about, such as the breastplate of righteousness
and the helmet of salvation, well, we won't know about how
to live righteously or anything about salvation apart from God's
special revelation through the scriptures. So that is key. Knowing God's word is key to
not only using our sword correctly, but also having the other pieces
of spiritual armor. Similar verse to, compared to
Ephesians, is Hebrews 4.12. It says that for the word of
God is quick, and that is an old word that doesn't mean fast.
We use the word quick to mean fast these days, but quick means
to make a life. In other passages, they'll talk
about, and you hath God quickened who are dead in trespasses and
sin. You have made alive because you
are once dead in trespasses and sin. So the word of God is quick.
It makes alive. Very interesting. It's a little
bit paradoxical, right? Because what are swords known
for? They're known for killing people, right? I got a sword
for my birthday a few years ago and I have it hanging up on my
dresser and I really enjoy it. It's a, I believe a replica of
a Viking sword, right? So it is meant to mostly stab.
It's not a huge sword that's meant to cleave off people's
heads. It's meant to, you know, you have your shield, you get
up close so they can't, you know, have a lot of room to swing their
spears and pikes at you and you just kind of stab at them, right,
in close proximity. I'll tell you what, if I were
to take someone, take my sword and stab someone with it, they
certainly are not going to become more alive. They're going to
become more dead and I will become less free, right, because I'll
be put in prison. and certainly would not work if I go to a funeral
and go up to the coffin and here's this person who's dead and I
take my sword and just stab them with it. No one's expecting that
they're gonna come alive, right? But the Bible is a sword that
actually brings life. It is quick. It makes alive. Yes, it is convicting. Certainly
as an unsaved person, it's convicting. I remember when my parents would
talk about salvation, coming across verses relating to salvation,
before I got saved, I really didn't like those conversations.
I wanted them to end, made me very uncomfortable and very much
I felt the word of God was piercing me like a sword, just convicting
me of my need for salvation. Certainly afterwards we can be
convicted about certain sins that we need to stop or about
certain things that we should be doing that we are not doing.
Hopefully we are all convicted at certain points during the
sermon this morning or on a regular basis on Sunday morning. So it
is quick, it stings and it hurts but it ultimately gives life.
And it is powerful. I mentioned before about how
quoting verses, even to very knowledgeable people who are
smarter than me, there's something about God's Word. And again,
this is supernatural. This is not me. This is not you.
It's the Holy Spirit using that to really shut people up. They
just don't know what to say. What's amazing is how many times,
and I know if you've gone to church for any length of time, you've had this
experience where you feel like the pastor is talking right to you and talking specifically
about certain things that you're going through and you're thinking,
well, who told him that, right? No one told him that. He's just,
God is using him and he's using scripture and pointing us to
the Bible and it is the Bible that is piercing and is a discerner
of our thoughts and intents. So the question for you is how
can we really be good soldiers for Christ
if we do not know how to use our sword. Wouldn't it be ludicrous
if my brothers in the army, and I know we don't have swords these
days, we have guns, so let me just switch to the gun analogy,
right? My brothers in the army and they say, all right, I know
we're not in Iraq or Afghanistan, but we're gonna say that's still
going on, we're gonna go to Iraq, we're gonna go to Afghanistan,
Here's your M16. Good luck. How do you clean this
thing? How do you fire this thing? But
they don't give them any type of training. We're not going
to do very well. There are many months of intense training, especially
when it comes to using your weapon. The Army and Navy and all the
divisions in our military are very particular. that. I was
reading in Peter's Digest and I'm not gonna give the whole
story but basically the guy was talking about how he was gonna
be late because the whole unit, his whole platoon was being disciplined
because somebody had a dirty gun. They weren't even in warfare
but they were just so intense that you need to know how to
use your weapon. You need to know always keep
your weapon ready to go at all times that even in times of peace
if one of you isn't ready to then everybody else is gonna
be disciplined. So I found that to be very interesting.
And unfortunately, there are just, I think, too many Christians
who have been saved for a good length of time and don't know
nearly enough of God's word as perhaps they should. What's interesting
is someone from church was telling me about a month ago, that he
just likes to go around, ask people about their salvation
testimony. How did you come to Christ? And one thing he does
as a follow-up is, what is one verse that you can go to and
say, because of this verse, I know that I am saved. I know I'm a
child of God. And he's not looking to trip
people up. He's not looking for any fancy theological answer,
just John 3, 16, Ephesians 2, 8, 9, something, right? He says,
but you'd be surprised how many people don't know, can't give
me an answer, can't think of a single verse. And that's very
concerning because if you can't think of a single verse that
you can go to that gives you confidence and reassurance of
your salvation, how can you really engage in spiritual warfare?
So that's gonna leave you on how can we be effective soldiers
for Christ? We don't know how to use our sword for fighting
temptation, refuting false doctrine, admonishing and edifying fellow
believers, evangelizing the lost. So hopefully I've gotten you
a little bit fired up, a little bit motivated about memorizing
God's word, about studying it out, knowing more about it. So
I hope that you'll come back and partake in part two. I'm
excited about that. Any questions, comments, anything
that you wanna add before we close? Yeah? There's nothing
like witnessing to realize how much of the Bible you don't know. And that'll really get you. And
I've been convicted about that multiple times, because people,
you know, everybody you talk to asks a different question. Everybody you talk to asks a
different question. I'm like, man, I don't know about that.
I'm going to go home and write that down. I'm going to go research
that. And you can tell them, I'm not sure. I don't know. Or
you can just Google it really quick. But man alive, that really
convicted me how much of the basics I need to be a little
bit more refreshed on, or even something a little bit outside
the basics I need to be more refreshed on. And so that was
really nice that I actually walked around and had a track on me.
Because then, when you freeze up, which my mind does that all
the time. You're like, I know nothing,
right? You can pull out your track, and you almost use it
as an outline. And then, oh, what about this? Look at this track. And it has
it right there in front of you. You kind of read off of it. And
that's really, really helped me. Because when I'm in the store
or wherever I am without a track, like I said, I can freeze up. And all the scripture I ever
know is just blanking. I know nothing. And so you have
that track on. It's really helpful to reference.
Yeah. That's great. Thank you. I'll
be just going to repeat that in case this wasn't caught on the
recording. So you don't know. or you're
made aware of how much scripture you know or don't know when you
start really witnessing and speaking to people. I'd add teaching to
that. I like to tell people, if you think you know a lot about
the Bible, start teaching it to teenagers. They ask you questions
that you never even thought about before. But they're honest questions,
they really just don't know. And you see even from the baptism
and testimonies we had, a lot of young people, they grow up,
and even though they might be saved at a young age, they have
a lot of questions, a lot of doubts, and certainly we need
to be ready to give an answer for that. Wonderful. Anybody
else? Yes. I am a firefighter, and
I witnessed to somebody, a paramedic, a couple of them. But I want
to know how I can be a witness at the fire station if I don't
know where their background is. Yeah. That's a great question. The first thing that I would
say is Pray for opportunities. Prayer is key. Paul said to,
I can't remember which church, but pray for us that I may have
boldness to preach the gospel. Certainly, if you have the opportunities
to give the gospel and do so, don't be discouraged about getting
immediate results. Paul said to the Corinthian church,
I planted. Apollos, another Christian, he
watered, but ultimately God gives the increase. It's very rare
to talk to somebody who is a valid atheist or Buddhist or whatever,
non-believer, and you talk to them and give them the gospel
the first time and they say, yes, everything I believe my
entire life has been wrong. I'm gonna turn and change. That
happens sometimes, but mostly that takes time. There's a huge
life decision. There's spiritual battles going
on there. So it takes time. I know, how many of us got saved
the first time we heard the gospel? Anybody here? You did? Okay. So we have one, but out of the
whole group, I know certainly I had to hear it a few times
and think about it and get convicted about it. So I would say that. And the other thing is making
sure your life is a good testimony, because Paul talks about how
we are living epistles known and read of old men, known and
read of all men, written not with ink, Nor in tables of stone,
but in the fleshy tables of the heart." So your testimony, Bob
talks about us being ambassadors for Christ. Give the gospel,
and then once they know it, continue just living out the gospel. And
again, people are watching you. And maybe they act like they're
not watching you. Maybe they act like they don't care or whatever.
but I've heard so many people come to Christ who said, and
sometimes they'd say, I purposely gave that guy a hard time. I
remember one of my old pastors in the Coast Guard, he gave his
guy under him a hard time, because he knew he was a Christian, and
he wanted to know, what's this guy gonna do under pressure?
So he was purposefully a very annoying person to be around,
a very difficult person to be around. He says, the more of
a hard time I gave him, the more he smiled, the more he whispered,
until finally he went to him and said, you know what, you
have something that I do not have. I appreciate your concern
for those fellow firefighters and encourage you just keep keep
doing that. Yeah. So that's actually a really
good job to talk to people about the gospel because those people
face death. like every single day that they
have to go fight a fire. Like what a great, like I used
to work in a graveyard, at a cemetery, no joke. That was a great opportunity
to talk about death, and I laugh, because it's kind of ironic,
but it really is, because they see it all. Yeah, those people
are very open. Firefighters, police officers,
soldiers, they've seen death, it's up close and personal, right,
and they see how people die in their arms, perhaps, so absolutely. Well, praise the Lord that he
put you there, And again, we are put in our areas for a reason.
You know, I believe God put us in the neighborhood so he gives
gospel to our neighbors. You know, we could have bought a
lot of houses. We bought 18 regional driveways. So I believe that
it's all for a reason. We just gotta be faithful and
sharing God's word with whoever we come in contact with, whoever
God puts us in contact with. All right, well, thank you again
for coming.
Helps for Bible Memory #1
Series Summer Electives 2024
| Sermon ID | 7224349401329 |
| Duration | 40:08 |
| Date | |
| Category | Teaching |
| Language | English |
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