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.