ARME 2: Canby, OR - May 2010

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ARME Bible Camp

Daniel Vis

Sacred Responsibility for Bible Memorization

Father in heaven, we thank you so much for your word.

We thank you for the Bible, the power it has in our lives, the wisdom and instruction it gives us.

And we pray, Lord, as we study the scriptures this morning, that you would grant us a rich measure of your Holy Spirit, that you would make things simple and clear, that you would make just the right impressions, make the right influence on our hearts.

And we thank you and pray this in Jesus' name.

I would like to talk about Bible memorization.

I suppose in some ways I'm kind of preaching to the choir, so to speak.

If I were to ask most of you whether you thought Bible memorization was a good thing, I'm sure most of you would probably raise your hands and say, yeah, Bible memorization is important.

You know that when we have the Word of God internalized, it helps us be able to make decisions.

We're faced with a choice and a verse just flashes right into our mind at just the right time.

Or maybe someone will ask us a question and the Holy Spirit has a beautiful way of doing it, just flashes the verse that answers their question right into our mind.

Or maybe we're praying and as we're wrestling with God, a promise will come to our mind to strengthen our faith.

Or maybe we're dealing with some temptation and a verse will just flash into our mind just exactly the words that we need to resist that temptation.

Probably all of us recognize that memorization is a positive and a helpful thing.

But what I'd like to suggest this morning is not just that Bible memorization is a blessing, that it's beneficial, but that it's actually commanded in Scripture.

And so what I'd like to do is trace the path right down from the beginning to the end of the Bible and just look at various places where the Bible talks about the importance and the need for the memorization of Scripture.

I'm hoping that our commitment to memorization will be deepened.

It's 1 thing to say, yeah, it's a good idea.

It's another thing to be committed to memorization.

You know, sometimes I think we have in the back of our mind this idea that it's just 1 good activity among many and you sort of pick and choose which 1 you want, which activity you want to be involved in.

Or maybe sometimes we'll say something like, well it's good for those that have a good memory but if you're like me, my memory's no good, well it doesn't apply to me.

Or maybe we'll say it's something I'd like to do 1 of these days, maybe I'll get around to it, or maybe I started in the past, but I've kind of drifted away, and 1 of these days I'll get back to it.

You know, what would happen if we treated another commandment of God, like say the Sabbath, the same way?

Oh, Saturday's a great day to keep the Sabbath but if you want to pick another day or do something different that's fine too.

Or yeah if it's convenient for you if it's easy for you to keep the Sabbath then you keep the command but if it's not then well you know that's okay doesn't apply to you.

Or 1 of these days I'd like to keep the Sabbath, but right now it doesn't fit into my life, or it doesn't work for me.

So 1 of these days, what if we treated the Sabbath the same way?

I'd like to suggest that if we, when we come to the place where we understand what the Bible really teaches about Bible memorization, the importance of hiding God's Word in our heart, all of these excuses and things that we use for not memorizing will just vanish away.

If God asks us to do it, then we can have every confidence He'll supply the power that we need to be successful in our memorization.

Well, I want to give you a few reasons why I believe Bible memorization is actually commanded in the Bible.

First 1 is that in the Old Testament we see repeatedly instruction to hide God's Word in our heart.

Follow me, I hope you have your Bibles, I hope you didn't come to Army without a Bible.

Turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Deuteronomy.

There's many, many verses we could look at.

Don't have time to look at all of them, but we'll cover a few maybe.

Deuteronomy chapter 6, starting with verse 4.

You may remember Jesus was once asked which commandment in all the law was the most important.

And this is actually the verse that he quoted, Deuteronomy 6, verse 4 and 5.

Here, O Israel, the Lord our God is 1 Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart.

And in fact it goes on to say in the next verse, I now shall teach them diligently to your children.

Talk of them when you sit down, when you rise up, when you're walking, when you're constantly talking about how can we constantly teach the Word of God to others unless we have it first internalized.

So it says if you really wanna love God with all your heart, the way we do that is to take the things He's given us in His Word and to hide them in our heart, lay them up in our heart.

And then we can talk about them constantly, every situation, every opportunity, the Word of God is just constantly coming into our minds.

The command to memorize scriptures actually directly linked with what Jesus said was the very most important command in the entire Bible.

To love God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our might, and the words that he gives us, we're going to hide in our hearts because we love God so much.

Another verse just a few chapters later, Deuteronomy chapter 11.

Look at Deuteronomy chapter 11, verse 18.

Therefore, the Bible says, shall you what?

Lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul and bind them for a sign upon your hand that they may be as frontlets between your eyes.

Take my word and lay it up, lay it up, hide it inside.

It's not just a suggestion, it's a command.

God says, I want you to take my word and hide it in your heart.

And notice that the language here, when it talks about binding them on your hand and as frontlets between your eyes, does that ring any bells in any of your thinking?

Think about in the New Testament, in the book of Revelation, we have the seal of God in the hand and in the forehead.

God wants His Word in our thoughts and in our actions.

This is a picture, really, with end time implications.

At the very end of time, God's going to have a people who have allowed the Word of God to sink so deep down into their experience that they cannot be moved.

And if we had time to study the context of the passage, It's in the context of obeying God so that we can receive the latter rain.

Just read a few verses up, it's talking about the latter rain, receiving the latter rain, coming into such oneness with God through His Word that he can pour out his spirit.

I like this particular book, Joshua 1 verse 8.

Again these are all familiar verses but sometimes we just sort of skim over them and we're not really taking them at face value, what they're saying.

There's a wonderful promise here, Joshua 1 verse 8, This book of the law shall, what?

What does it mean, not depart out of thy mouth?

It means to have it so internalized that it's always there on the tip of your tongue.

So that anytime you need it, the verse is right there.

It's just right there in your mouth, fitted in your lips, like it says in the book of Psalms.

This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein, how often?

Now, we can meditate for a few moments in the morning when we study our Bibles and we have its pages open.

But many times we study and then we go away and we completely forget what we read about.

We go through most of the day without really thinking about scripture.

But Joshua says if we'll internalize His Word, if we'll keep it inside, then we'll be able to meditate on Scripture constantly all through the day.

We meditate on it day and night, we'll be able to do according to all that is written therein, and God will make our way prosperous and we'll have good success.

How many of you want good success in your life?

If we'll take His Word and internalize it and meditate on it constantly, applying it to every situation as we go through the day-to-day situations and the challenges that we face.

If we're constantly meditating on the word through all of those situations.

And God says, I'm gonna give you the wisdom you need to make the right choices.

In fact, it says in Psalms 1, a similar passage, if we delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on it, we'll be successful, prosper, in whatever we do.

Fantastic promises to those that will take the Word of God and internalize it, hide it in their hearts.

Lots of verses, look in the book of Psalms, chapter 119, another few verses very quickly.

By the way, 1 of the most familiar verses that talks about memorization, probably most of you already have it memorized.

Hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.

Here David is saying when we hide God's word in our heart, it gives us power to resist temptation.

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Sacred Responsibility for Bible Memorization

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