Kosin, Fred: Saturate Yourself With The Word-02 ~ Fairhaven Bible Chpl Ministry

Hebrews chapter four verse twelve. The word of God is living and powerful. Living. When we say the word of God is living, it knows you. It knows what you're thinking. Why is it that when you get away from the Lord that you stop reading your Bible? Because you know that if you read your Bible, God's going to say something to you about the very circumstance that you are in, the very sin that you're dealing with. It's because the Word of God is living, and it's powerful. It's the most powerful message on the face of the earth. And you and I have it, and we have it in order that we might communicate it, that we might know the Word of God, and we might communicate its message. So we want to look at the subject of, I'm going to be very practical, methods of memorizing the scripture. Okay? We want to do a very practical list. I've got ten things to do. ten methods you can choose among them. And if you're a, uh, surrealist, you can, um, buy the Bible on tape, put the microphone under your pillow and sleep. But I can tell you, it don't work. It's hard work, and you say I can't memorize? You are denying what the Bible says you must do. Don't tell me you can't memorize. I won't memorize. It's a matter of the will. Oh, but I didn't do too good in school. Neither did I. If I can do it, hey, you can do it. And so we want to talk about scripture memory because soaking our soul, marinating our mind in the word of God demands, if you are not memorizing, you are not growing. Nobody said amen. It's true. Rumination, if you're a farmer, rumination is the cow eating some grass, chewing it up a bit, throwing it down into the first stomach, bringing it back up, chewing it some more, sending it down to stomach number two, bringing it back up, sending it down to stomach number three, and then bring it up, and finally it goes on its way into that green black grass in a black cow gives white milk and yellow butter. Do you understand that? I don't understand it, nor do I understand... memorizing, meditating on the word of God. I want you to know, how am I going to do it? You have to determine you're going to do it, okay? That's the issue. The first is to record it yourself. Record it in your voice. You got an MP three with a microphone or whatever it is, record it on a tape. You record the book of Philippians, and you listen to yourself. And you will then, because it's your voice rather than somebody else, you begin to hear your pauses, your mispronunciation, and your intent in listening is much greater if you record it yourself. Very simple. These little things, they cost a hundred dollars, and they got, what, ten or twelve hours that you can put it on there, right? Nobody, no reason why we cannot do that. You get in a quiet room and you read it. If you want to read it and do it in the King James, do it in the a- the, no, don't do it in that, in the, uh, in the New American, in the New American Standard. I hope you'll outgrow the NIV. No. No? I hope you will outgrow the NIV. Amen, amen. You can edit those a- that, that part out, okay? Record it yourself, okay? On tape, M P three. Listen to the M P three in the car. Listen to it while you're dressing, listen to it while you're walking. Now, you're not gonna like what I'm gonna say, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Turn off your music. Turn off your music. Turn off the radio. When you turn on your music and you turn on your radio, you are surrendering your thinking processes to somebody else. So it's great is thy faithfulness. That's okay. But if you want to control what you think, you've got to turn off your music and turn off your radio and turn off your television, and you've got to listen to the word of God. Now that's diametrically opposed to the philosophy of our young people today. They can't study unless the music is playing. They can't study for an exam unless the thing is just rattling their ears. But I'm telling you that when you choose to listen, even to hymns or to popular music, you are surrendering your thinking processes to somebody else who's going to control what you think. And this is going to be hard for some of you. It will be very difficult for you to turn off the music and in absolute silence determine what you're thinking. It's a huge discipline, and it means a choice. But it's so much easier to turn on popular music or unpopular music and surrender your mind to listen to something else. It's not all bad. They're hymns. Okay, choose that time when you can do that, but the, but you must learn, you must discipline your mind so that you have the opportunity of listening to the truth of the Word of God. It's living, powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and you must choose what you're going to think about. And the Word of God, if this is our subject, the Word of God is the most important thing to fill your mind with. But it, it's tough, because if you are not in, in the, in the habit of listening to the Word of God, or even in the habit of listening to nothing and ordering your mind in prayer, in adoration, in thanksgiving, in scripture memory, it will be a huge choice for you to not be directed by somebody else. It is a huge, huge error. And you may say, look, for five minutes I can sit in silence. No input except what I have from my mind. Some of you won't be able to survive five minutes that way. And as you do this, you are training your mind to choose to think the mind of Christ. We have the mind of Christ. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. We have that mind. It is the ruling power of that mind that is necessary in my life. My wife and I travel a lot. We drive for three hours and don't say a word to each other. Our marriage is strong. But there are, there is scripture memory, there is truth, there is prayer, and I, we, we do not need that exchange. And it is a discipline of your mind to choose to think about the Lord, about the word of God, and to review, to pray. You can do that as you walk, you can do that as you drive, you can do that as you're dressing, you can do that as you're undressing. Number three, you can put it on your computer. They have text to speech, and you can go to some Bible program, bring up the text, push a couple of buttons, and it will read to you. It will read the text to you, and you can listen to it. You can listen to it in a voice from Australia, then a voice from, uh, from England, and then a voice from America, and they have a dozen different voices, and you can hear somebody else do it. And your computer has that capacity, doesn't it? Where are my computer people? Of course it does, you know that, right? And you are listening, you're taking, you know, five minutes, ten minutes in the morning, you turn it on, and it speaks to you while you're getting dressed or something, a computer. Put it on your PDA. You buy a PDA, you buy a, uh, an Apple, whatever you call it, and you've got five or six different translations of the Bible. You know, this boom, boom, boom, you know, and there it is. I don't have one, you can tell. But the, it's an amazing thing. You can take it with you. Now, if you're not high tech, write it on cards. That's what we used to do, was to take a verse from our study every day, and we had a group of cards. If you were the navigators, you had the wheel, and the wheel was a selection of verses that helped you share the gospel. We memorized one of those when I was a kid. I still have some of those. Take a group of cards this size, write the verse out on there, put the reference on the other side so that you can look at the reference and quote the verse. You are filling your mind with the word of God, and it is an analog, you know, a personal analog, whatever you call it, because you're writing it out with your pen. And writing it out will help you make that verse yours, and it makes it possible for you to take it out. You go on the bus, you take it out, you review it two or three times, put it back in. Coffee break, you bring it out again. And if that verse that you have memorized for that day, I believe the Spirit of God will bring somebody into your mind, into your heart, into your life that needs that. I'm a firm believer in that. I had that experience this morning. I prayed yesterday that when we had lunch with, uh, with Ron and his wife this morning, that there would be somebody that would serve us that wore a cross. The first guy that came up and, um, served us didn't have a cross. I felt like saying, where's your cross? A few minutes later, the guy comes with a coffee, and here he's got a cross around his neck. He served us two or three times. I asked the Lord to provide somebody to serve us this morning that was wearing a cross. So I said to him, I said, why are you wearing a cross? He didn't know why he was wearing a cross. And I said, you have the Lord Jesus on the cross. I said, he's not on the cross. Oh yeah, I know. And the guy from through three tables over said, he's Roman Catholic. But the Lord arranged that in answer to my prayer so that I could at least begin a conversation and say, look, he's not on the cross. And I wanted to go farther, but um, he had to go serve coffee to a few other people. He'll do it. And I have taught this and teach it again and again, that if you commit yourself to share the gospel with somebody, God will bring somebody into your life. We were sharing this in South Africa a few years ago, and every person, young person, had an assignment to share the gospel with somebody on the train. And I said, God will provide somebody, some way, somehow, for you to begin a conversation. And this girl gets on the train, sits down next to somebody, and they have exactly the same pair of shoes on. And she said, oh, you've got the same kind of shoes I have on. And she struck up a conversation, turned it to the Lord Jesus Christ, and shared the gospel before she got off the train. And so there is this idea that we have the word of God with us in our mind. It must be in your mind. So it's hard to memorize. It's amazing how well you can know all of the, uh, NFL teams, but you don't know the twelve apostles. You don't know the twelve tribes of Israel, but you know, uh, everybody on American Idol. You know, why is that? It's because that's our interest. That's where we have devoted time to. That's what we've devoted effort to. And so that is a way. What do I do? I take a little piece of paper. I like little squares, okay? I take a little piece of paper like this, okay? And what I do is I take it and I write across the top of it the book that I'm wanting to memorize, like the book of Philippians, okay? Then what I do is write one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten all the way down here, and I put the first word of each verse. My mother in love taught me this, and I don't know of anybody in this world who knows the word of God like she. And so we write number one, two, three, and we put the first word of each verse, and then eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty one, twenty two, and put the first word of those verses. And so here in this little thing, this little piece of paper, I have the whole book of Philippians, because I have the first word. And if I'm going for a walk and I take this with me, it begins with Paul or the book of Hebrews, it takes a few more pages. God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the Father by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son, verse two, whom, you know, and so forth. And I just need the first word. And as a result of that, I have the whole book of Hebrews in a nice little pad like this. And as I look at it, and I have to look at it, and I'm in chapter eleven or twelve, and man, it's getting tough. I still have a summary of tho- of that book in a little piece of paper like this. And I have them for Philippians and for a number of other, for the book of Hebrews and for John thirteen through seventeen. And in that little piece of paper, if I take it with me and go for a walk or whatever, it's right there, the whole book. I can look it up, chapter four, verse five. chapter six, verse one. And so it's, it's a way in which I can do it. I can do a chapter, and I can do a book. And in that little piece of paper, I have a significant guide to help me get through the scriptures. And because the one is next to it, and I learn it that way, then I have a reference. Can't always get the reference, but that's one way of doing it. It may not fit you. You know, may say that's crazy. It works for me, and it's something that I have used again and again. Next, pray these. Pray these verses. If you look through the New Testament, you will find that God's order is the word of God followed by prayer. George Müller spent seventeen years of his life spending an hour in prayer getting ready to read the word of God. After seventeen years of doing that, the Lord said, you got it reversed. The word of God first, then prayer. Why is that? Which is more important, what you're saying to God or what God is saying to you? It's that simple. In Fili- in uh, Jude verses twenty and twenty one, building yourselves up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. What's the order? Building yourselves up through the word of God, followed by prayer. Ephesians chapter six, Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, comma, praying always. What's the order? The word of God, followed by prayer. It is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. What's the order? The word of God, followed by prayer. You want to memorize that verse, pray that verse. Look up the words and see what they mean in Vine's dictionary. Look at the concordance, you know, look at a commentary out, but find out what that verse means and pray it back. Part of it will be adoration. A-C-T-I-S. I couldn't spell X like everybody else. Adoration. When you read a verse that you're memorizing, portions of it's going to respond, you're going to respond by adoration. If I'm talking to, uh, to Ruth, and she's, um, she's into red roses, and I'm into red cars, and so she and I are talking to each other, and she says the red rose just has a lovely fragrance, and I say, wow, a sports car that is red, the leather just smells so wonderful. And she says, well, the, the, the beauty of the rose, the way it just unfolds is wonderful, and I say, no, the way the, the lines go in that Lamborghini is just great. She says, no, the fragrance. And I said, no, the exhaust. Is that a conversation? No. So as I read the word of God, he's talking to me. Don't you suppose God wants me to talk to him about the same thing that he's talking to me about? What do most of us do? We read our chapter, close the Bible, and say, okay, God, I'm finished hearing you, now you listen to me. And we go through our prayer list. Prayer lists are okay. But if God says something to me, don't you suppose he wants me to respond to him? So I read the verse I'm memorizing. Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. What's your response to that? If we were in class, I would say write it down. Let not your heart be troubled. Confession? How many of you would confess, my heart is troubled? Or intercession. I pray for so and so. She's troubled in her heart. I pray for her that she will rest in you and enjoy the peace that passes all understanding. And you respond in prayer to the ver- to God because he's speaking to you. That's a command. In fact, it means stop letting your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my father's house are many. No, no, no, no, no, no, you know it's not that. Dwelling places. And that verse is only used twice in the Bible. The other one is in verse twenty. We will come and make our mansion with him. Is- are you a mansion? For God? Can you imagine you being a mansion for God? I can look at you, and some of you kind of, you know, that that's not so mansiony. But you respond and say, Lord, you are dwelling in me. I need to realize it's not a always a clean house. And adoration, confession, thanksgiving. In my father's house are many dwelling places. You know what that really is? It's not a mansion, gold, silver, and precious stone. It's a body like his own glorious body. By virtue of his resurrection, he gives you a dwelling place because he comes to take up his residence in us. Isn't that amazing? Can't you thank God that he's got a house for you that's better than the one you're living in now? Wouldn't you like to trade it in? The day will come when you'll be absent from the body and present with the Lord. And we pray that verse that we're learning, and the message, we're not just, just rote memory, we're getting the meaning of it. And as we do that, we are being prepared to share that which we've learned. And every day, our prayer life is different because we're memorizing a different verse. You don't have to get through your, um, through your prayer list just because you have to do that in fifteen minutes. Adoration, worship, confession. What? Thanksgiving. That's the easiest one. Intercession, praying for somebody else. Let not your heart be troubled. Who does the Spirit of God bring to your mind? Sister so-and-so who's going into surgery, and I pray that she'll rest in the Lord. I pray that her heart will not be troubled because she accepts the truth of your word, and she believes it, and it's transforming her. And then A C T I, uh, P. That's praying for yourself. You won't have time to do that because you'll be so occupied with the first four. And the trouble is that most of the things you ask for yourself, the Lord has already given you. And you just don't know it. And so we pray over it. Okay, what else do we do? You all do horizontal exercise? That's sleeping. As soon as you lay down, you start reviewing scripture. You start going through the scripture. The light is out. You start with chapter one of Hebrews, God who at sundry time, you go as far as you can. Then you go to chapter two. Then you go to chapter three. and by then the devil has put you to sleep, because he doesn't want you memorizing the scripture. First, you, you hit this pillow and you put your head down, and your mind starts reviewing the scripture, because those are times of special temptation in some of your lives. And so you review scripture. Paul, an apostle, Jesus Christ, and so forth. And what area, what verses you are, you see already I'm telling you, I'm suggesting to you that we memorize a whole book, right? Because that's a good diet. If you just take selective verses, then it's like eating Twinkies all the time. It's like eating steak all the time, but if you memorize the book of Philippians, then you got all kinds of meat and vegetables and milk and whatever else, and you get a balanced diet. And you are providing a resource by which the Spirit of God is able to reach down into the reservoir of your mind and give a verse that is directly needed by the person he's bringing into your life. But if you don't put it in, you can't take it out, any more than I can go to the bank, go to your bank and take my money out. Okay? So we begin by quoting a chapter. We lay down to sleep. We begin the day with a review of some verse. Okay? It has to do with these kind of things. If you want to be selective, take a group of, of, of issues that you think will, will be brought up in, in the gospel, in your sharing the gospel, and memorize those. Memorize the text. Memorize the reference, so that if somebody says, well, I don't believe Jesus is God, how are you going to prove that he is? What verse would you use that would say that Jesus is not Jehovah when you're talking to a Jehovah's Witness? You can go to John chapter five, and before you go there, you ask them, what kind of honor do you give to Jehovah? And they'll give you a list of five or six things. Well, he's this and this and this and this and this. Would you mind, uh, me using your Bible? So you take the New World Translation and you open it to John chapter five, and it says... What does it say there? It says, if you do not honor the Son even as you honor the Father, you don't honor the Father. And so I'm saying to you, Mr. Jehovah's Witness, it says in your Bible, in John, that you must give the same honor to the Son that you give to the Father. Well, it's time for us to leave, but we'll, we'll, we'll see you again. And they're off because they don't have an answer to that question. They don't. And there are a bunch of others. But if you don't know where those verses are and you haven't got them in your mind, the Spirit of God cannot take them and use them to bring the gospel to somebody. It is so significant in the gospel, in the Christian life. Somebody says, yes, I believe in Jesus Christ. You know that they're a believer. Well, let me tell you, may sh- share some issues with you, or turn it around and say, you say you're a Christian? How would you share the gospel with me if I wasn't a believer? Have you done that? Well, brother, well, um, you see, and he can't even explain the gospel, but he says he's a believer. He can say, I believe in Jesus Christ. Well, how would you share the message of Jesus Christ to me if I was, you know, if I was needing to hear Christ? And you expect that they, in some way, somehow, would be able to put together the gospel, and you almost immediately know they're really not believers because they don't know the gospel. You say, you know, I see you're stumbling with that. Let me share with you how you can truly be be be sure you're a believer, because you turn it around. If you say you're a Christian, then you should be prepared. Would you go with me to the neighbor, and let's share the gospel with them? Okay? There are a number of reasons. Conflict, spiritual conflict. As we looked at, uh, chapter sixteen, in spiritual conflict, we need to know the word of God. Now, how are we going to employ it? Okay, we've talked about ten ways. I don't know how many showed up on your notes, but we talked about ten ways in which the truth, nine. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. You get a ninety. um Okay? The- I'm gonna want to just take a few minutes. How do we employ this? Let us never forget that God is speaking through the word of God. David said, teach me thy way, O Lord. You don't need to pray that. Because he is. When I was in school, um, the teacher was waiting on me to sit down so she could start class. I wasn't sitting down and saying, look, okay, it's time to teach me. This room is filled with terrible garbage. Did you know that? Terrible garbage. I mean, just the most yuck stuff you'd ever want. Why? Because the airwaves are filled with all that stuff that comes from San Francisco. Hmm? But we don't have a radio tuned to that garbage. When I'm overseas, I always apologize for the garbage that's imported to those countries. But if we were to take a radio and turn it to some of those stations, you would hear the most ungodly, wicked stuff, right? You don't turn on your radio and say, okay, uh, I'm about ready to turn on my radio. Would you start? They say we broadcast twenty four seven. God does too. God is broadcasting his truth. Every time you read the word of God, he's speaking. Every time you review a scripture, he's speaking. Every time the preacher preaches, he's speaking. Every time you read a verse, he's speaking, and you say, thank you, Lord, for speaking to me. You don't have to say, look, I'm ready to listen. He says, he that has ears to hear, let him hear. God is speaking, and the word of God is living. It's powerful. That's why we don't like it when we're sinning. That's why we stop going to, uh, reading the Bible and stop praying and stop going to church, because we know that God knows what we're thinking, and he does. Even you do it in a random way, and you put your finger on a verse, and you want to know the way back. God can put his your his your finger on a verse that tells you exactly where you are, but that's not the primary way of God speaking to us. Remembering that God has verses for every circumstance in your life. I believe that God speaks to me in every circumstance of life. When a couple come to me and ask me to marry them, I ask them a question. I say, you want to be happy, or do you want to make somebody happy? That's one of the questions I ask them. If they say they want to be happy, I say, don't get married. Because if you say I want to be happy, that's selfish. Because you're going to take out of the marriage everything you can. If you're going to say I want to make somebody happy, then you'll be happy too, because you're pouring yourself into that marriage. And I believe, and I say to them the second day, I said, what verse has God given you that indicate that this is God's will for your life? I had a couple of graduates from Bible college, and they asked me to marry them. I asked that question, they said... They don't have an answer. Graduates, certificate, you know, parchment on the wall. I'm, I did four years, and I asked him, I said, what verse has God given you to indicate that this is God's will for your life? I believe that. And I believe that in the circumstances of life, God is going to speak to us through his word, but he's not going to speak if we don't know the truth. If we don't know the word of God, I can't expect that he's going to find the name of the person I'm supposed to marry in the Bible. And if you're supposed to ma- ma- marry Mayor Shalah Hashbaz, you'll find it in Isaiah. But you may not find that name, but you may find, and you will find, something that confirms what God wants in your life, and you need that scripture because if you're going to get married to that person, and then you're going to have three kids, and the car won't start, and two of them are sick, and the plumbing is leaking. You need a verse. You need a verse, I'm where the Lord wants me to be. And if you're going out as a missionary, and you're going out there, and you're lonely, and you have problems and difficulties, and you say, I want to go home, you need to have a verse that says, I'm supposed to be in, I dare not say the country, because you'll think I'm talking about you. But I do believe that I have guidance from the word of God, and the circumstances of my life, the verse that I learned this morning, God will bring somebody into my life that needs that verse. And so I surrender myself to him and say, Lord, I want to be your spokesman. Bring somebody into my life that needs a word of comfort, encouragement, or rebuke, and I'm willing to, to listen to the spirit. He- here's the person. I wasn't surprised this morning when this man came up to give me coffee, which I don't drink, and uh, he had a cross around his neck. And I said to him, I said, uh, I see you're wearing a cross. Why are you wearing a cross? Well, he didn't know. But I would like to have spent about fifteen minutes with him and helped him understand, you know, why the cross is so important. You see these guys on, on television, these, you know, awful looking guys, you know, that, uh, hip hopper or whatever, they all, they all got a cross around their neck. For what? I mean, let's go up and talk to him and say, look, why are you wearing this cross? Is it good luck? Why? It's a wonderful opportunity to start a conversation. And we've got to think of the circumstances in which we ha- which, which God brings into it and turn the conversation to the Word of God. But if we don't know the Word of God, how are we going to be prepared to answer their questions and deal with the things? Okay? Expecting the Holy Spirit to bring a verse to your mind. Expect the Holy Spirit to bring a verse to your mind to meet that need. But I'm just starting memorizing the verse. That's fine. The Spirit of God is working with you where you are. He doesn't expect you to know the Gospel of John from memory. When August Ben Ryan thought he was missing, losing his eyesight, he memorized the whole New Testament. Our friends on the other side of the globe memorized the Quran, and they know that better than we know our book. And so it's important for me to believe that as I'm sharing the gospel, the Spirit of God will bring to my mind, help me find the verse, if I have a Bible, that meets that person's need. It is a crucial area of faith. And I am dependent upon the Holy Spirit to bring to my memory the things that I have studied. But if I haven't studied, how can I expect that he's going to bring it to my mind? Again, the Spirit of God is convicting that person of sin, and he's guiding me in meeting their needs. It's a wonderful marriage. It's a wonderful union. It's a wonderful relationship. And he will do this. If I'm a new believer, he still will do it. And you've got to trust him to do that. And it makes sharing the gospel and the minister and the, and the message of the word of God so exciting, because we are workers together. The Lord and myself, the spirit of God and myself. Guard against temptation. Psalm one hundred nineteen eleven. Your word have I set, hid in my heart that I might not sin against you. One of the results of memorization is it keeps me from sin. The Word of God that says that. Wherewithal shall a man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to his word. It is a choice that I make, what I think about, and I either soak my soul and marinate my mind in the Word of God, or I choose something else. Of course you've got a job. Of course you have time that you have to be at your job, and that's fine. God understands that, and he expects you to do that job and do it well, to be on time in the morning and be not be early leaving. Give eight hours for eight hours pay. But there are times in there which is your time, and it's time to refresh your soul and strengthen your knowledge of the word of God. It is imperative. Believe God guides through his word. Psalm seventy three twenty four. You're going to buy a refrigerator? Do you think God is interested in that? I think he is. He un- he's interested in what you do with your time? Yes, he is. He's interested in, uh, counsel that you will receive, or you're going to give. You're sitting down beside somebody who's in deep tears and there's sorrow, and God will give you a verse to comfort that person in the area in which they have need, because the word of God is living. You are just a communicator of the word of God. That's all we are. We are just a straw to take the goods that come from the vine and produce the fruit. What did the Lord Jesus say to the disciples when the five thousand men besides women and children came? Give them something to eat. It was a test, John says in chapter six, It was a test. Their first answer was, we don't have enough money. Let's take up an offering. I mean, that's what we would do, right? Let's take up an offering. Here's a need, let's take up an offering. The Lord arranged that there wouldn't be enough money in the treasury. Then he said, there's not enough money. The second wa- the second answer on their paper was, we've only got five loaves and two fishes. Who arranged that? The Lord, because he's a teacher. The teacher doesn't give a test to get answers. I mean, I thought so, but, uh, that's not why. He just wanted to know whether we know the answer. And so the second answer was wrong. We've only got five loaves and two fishes, and that's not enough. We don't have enough money, we don't have enough food. And the third answer? Tell the people to go home and shop for themselves. Right? It was a test. And he gives us that test as well. And he brings us to the place where we want to have the word of God to counsel us, to in comfort, encourage, a word in season and out of season, to be prepared to speak. I cannot tell you how many times I've sat where you are, and they announced that I was a speaker, and between the time I was there and here, I had to decide what to speak about for forty five minutes. But the Lord comes, and the Lord gives, and he pours it out, and I'm just a straw. The disciples went to the Lord Jesus and said, give us the bread, and they took it to the people. That's all they did. They didn't, he didn't ask them to multiply it. He said, you just bring me what you have. And so they went, got the bread, took it to the people, got the bread. That's what we're here. We are here to get the bread from the Lord and take it to the people. The sad thing is that we're feeding the front row a thousand times, and the people in the back aren't getting anything. And we need to go into all the world, and that repentance and remission of sin should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. We must believe that God guides. We must believe that God comforts through the word of God. The tears that fall on Psalm twenty three in so many Bibles proves that it brings comfort. The Lord is my shepherd, sorry about yours. It's the only chapter in the Bible written by an animal. It's true. Is there any other chapter written by an animal except Psalm m twenty three? It's not the words of a shepherd, it's the words of a sheep. It's a sheep talking. Believe that he controls the opportunities. This is key ingredient to s- to just believing that every circumstance that you go into is either arranged or pro- or provided by God. If you have a wreck, it's in order that in that circumstance you will learn something, you will talk to somebody, you will share the gospel. Every circumstance in life, I believe, is either allowed or determined by God. Even if we stumble and fall, he has allowed it. And therefore, I can say, thank you, Lord, for this wonderful wreck. I can thank the Lord for this storm that has washed away my garden because my neighbor doesn't know the Lord, and if my response to my garden washed away is the same as his, well, what have I got to say to him? But if my garden is washed away and I'm still rejoicing in the Lord, then my neighbor says, how can you rejoice in the Lord when your m- garden is all washed away? Because I have something, I have the word of God, I have a person who lives in me, and my life then becomes a testimony. My life is an example. Who started the argument in Job chapter one? Who? Who? You don't know. Job. Satan didn't start that argument. Have you considered my servant Job? Imagine God starting an argument over Job. Why? Because God wanted somebody to point to that shows how a believer suffers. And some of the choicest saints of God suffer the most, so God can point to them and say, look, this is how a believer suffers. Some of it is educational, like Jacob. Some of it is restorative, like, um, like Jonah. But I believe that the circumstances are provided for me to worship, to witness, to walk, to war. Well, there's four W's. That would preach, wouldn't it? I believe that God creates those circumstances in order that I will be prepared to live for Christ, different from the world, to speak for Christ words that they do not hear, and to manifest through my life, through my behavior, through my words, the evidence that I am filled with the word of God. It is that I might worship, fellowship, and evangelize. I said last night, the three primary purposes of the church. Worship, that's what God gets from his church. Fellowship, that's what I get from the church. Evangelism, that's what the world gets from the church. Everything the church does fits into those three categories. I don't care what it is. Worship, my relationship with God. Fellowship, my relationship with you. Evangelism, my relationship with the world. That order is important. You find it repeated again and again. Read through John fifteen. The first part is my relationship with God. Secondly is producing fruit, Christ-likeness, and thirdly, it is, uh, my, uh, it is the fruit of, uh, of, of unbelievers coming to Christ. We see it over and over again. Worship, fellowship, and evangelism. And the circumstances of my life are in order that I might respond in one of those three ways or in all of those three ways. We have ten minutes for questions. Fred, could you just briefly go over the ten? again, please? He wants to make a hundred on it, on the test. Record the verses yourself. Read the verses into your microphone so that you hear yourself. You will become far more familiar with it if you do it in your own voice. Listen to it in your car while you're dressing, as you walk. Listen to, um, to to to your recording. That's number two. Number three, uh, play it on your computer. Put it in your computer somewhere where, uh, it can be recorded, and the text-to-speech part of your computer will read it to you. It is another way. It means technological way ahead of me. I'm glad a computer has an on and off button. That's about as far as I know. Write it on a card. Get a series of card that will fit in your pocket, in your purse, in your wallet. Each day, as you read your portion, write out a key verse. Begin with verses that have to do with the gospel, that answer the doctrine of justification, explain what redemption means. Find verses that explain the gospel, why substitution is so important. What does God do with my sin? And go through a long list and write those on cards. Put the reference on the opposite side so that you can see the reference and you can automatically quote the reference. Okay? Number four, add the verses your- to your PDA, whatever that stands for, personal... Oh, thank you. Mine's analog, not digital. That's my pencil. So put it on your PDA. You can do that. You can get half a dozen different translations. You can do a Bible study, and on your way to work, you got a coffee break, put it in there, okay? Number six, put the first word of each verse in, um, a little, um, piece like this. Where was it? It's gone. Somewhere. A little, um, a little piece of paper like this. Put the first word of each verse and of each chapter and of each book, and you'll have the whole thing in just a little piece of paper like this that you can carry with you and pull it out. Number seven: pray the verses in your time of communion. Listen to what the God says, pray it back to him. And we had, uh, adoration, thanksgiving, I mean confession, thanksgiving, intercession, and if you have time, pray for yourself, but don't worry about it. Don't worry about praying for yourself. You'll take care of it all under thanksgiving. If you don't believe that, read my book. Begin quoting verses when you lay down at night. If you're an insomniac, whatever that word means, you'll get much farther than I do. I get through about three verses of a couple of chapters, and I'm gone. But begin by quoting the chapter when you lay down to sleep in the morning. Number nine, begin the day by reviewing some scripture. And the Spirit of God will begin a, begin that day with a verse. It may be there a specific temptation that you're going to face. Temptation is not wrong. It's submitting to temptation. God allows temptation to come. The Lord Jesus was tempted. Okay, so begin the day with a review of the verse. And number ten— I think we put this down as number two, but that's number ten— Turn off your radio, turn off the music, choose your own thoughts, order your own thoughts. Choose to turn all the noise off. If you can't do that for more than five minutes, start there. Take a special time to listen to music. If you want to listen to Rush Limbaugh, okay, whatever, but, um, take times in your life, in your daily experience, where you have no direction for your mind except what you choose it to be. Nobody else outside is going to tell you what to think. Another question? Yes. Did I get the impression that you memorize a verse every day? No, I wish I did. I did in the past. At the moment, I r- I I memorize each text I'm speaking on, and therefore I don't speak on on uh Hezekiah 2 or, um, First Chronicles chapters eight, nine. and... Um, I memorize a portion, but I usually go through a book. And do you try to review what you've memorized in the past? Before I go to bed. Okay. But I do believe that once I put it in there, I mean, God's got a far greater thing than a computer up here, and I believe that if I once put it in, the Spirit of God can bring it out. So you don't try to re- you don't try to keep everything fresh and reviewed. That'd be, I wouldn't be doing anything else all day. Yeah. Well, Thank you. The quest- the question was you don't try to review everything. The answer No, and and I don't always, I don't always, I'm I I am, I don't have, I cannot have a a schedule like some of you have because every day of my life is different. And if I'm speaking five times in a day, um, my sh- quiet time might be a very short, loud time, actually. I don't think it should be a quiet time. I think it ought to be a loud time of saying hallelujah and praise the Lord and singing the hymn, and why should it be a quiet time? The Lord isn't quiet. Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord, the cymbals, the high cymbals, amen and hallelujah. Okay, so yeah, it varies. I read a, I read a, a sermon every day, um, from some great man so I can learn how to do it. I think my teacher probably would flunk me in some, in, you know, in homiletics, but I try and do that every day. I try to read a portion of scripture. I try to review some, some scripture as well, uh, but my days vary every day. I- I'm not a good example of what I'm teaching. Sorry about that. Yes. You said a while ago that we needed a verse for both our missions and our marriage, so I was wondering what yours was. Yes, my wife and I, who, uh, have been married for forty seven years and a month and a few days, um, the verse the Lord gave me came out of the book of Hebrews, and the verse says, he taketh away the first that he may establish the second. You're laughing at the Bible. This girl I had dated in high school. I can't believe you guys. We, um, we had dated for, uh, some time. She's a lovely Christian girl, played the piano, and we... Shame on you. And, um, and so we landed up, I came to Emmaus Bible College, Bible School, somebody corrected me, and, um, these two girls came to Emmaus at exactly the same time, and they were roommates. One was my previous girl, and one was Jenny, in the same room. They were roommates. And so you can imagine the conversation that went on in that girl's dorm, as my old girlfriend told about Fred Cozen. The Dean of Men said that my wife should stop dating me because I would drag her down. I've actually dragged her to eighty five countries. And so, um, I was a, I was ins- You got time? I was a printer, and both of these girls were nurses. And, um, so because I worked three to eleven and the nurses worked three to eleven, the Emmaus authorities said you could go to the dining hall and you could get a snack at eleven o'clock, after eleven o'clock at night. So there I was with about a dozen nurses, Two of which, one I had dated, and one was Jenny. And so as Jenny and this girl began to talk to each other, this girl that I had dated convinced Jenny that she should get me back together with my first girlfriend. And so I invited Jenny to go out for a hamburger, which was within the rules. And, um, I don't know whether her intention was to talk me back into dating the girl that I was not dating, but in any case, um, I was far more attracted to Jenny, who is a pianist and a nurse and many other things. And, uh, the Lord was wanting to give me a verse, and the verse was, he taketh away the first that he may establish the second. And so he took this one out of my life and gave me Jenny. I don't find Jenny in all the genealogies. Does that answer your question? That's not the answer you wanted. I also wanted one for your mission. Yes, we had began the Lord's work. I- I'll give you a verse for the most recent ministry, and that was in second Corinthians chapter, um, chapter eight and verse five. It says, they gave themselves to the Lord and unto us by the will of God. We had been serving in a, in an assembly. I was an elder and, and speaking in assemblies, and then we began a ministry of ministering to missionaries. And Paul says of the Philippians, he, they gave themselves, not as we had hoped, but they gave themselves to us. And the word us is to missionaries. To us by the will of God. And that verse just came up there and said, look, you know, this is, um, this is, this is what I want you to do. I want you to give yourselves anew and afresh to those, to Paul, as it were, Paul and his associates who were missionaries. And that verse has stood with us in the same way. And there are others. There are verses that the Lord gives us on a, on a regular basis. Um, I can think of a lot of verses that God has given to us to help us understand what he wants us to do in that, and and he adds circumstances to that, and he adds the counsel of godly men and women. Yes. In in witnessing and using scripture, do you always quote it verbatim, or do you paraphrase it to make the truth or the principle easier to understand? Everything except the NIV. No, I'm just kidding. Um, it varies, and again, I think the Spirit of God will guide us in how we present it. If it's, uh, if it's somebody has a Bible, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. Oh. Uh, if they have a... If they have a Bible, I would like them to read it. Particularly my Jehovah's Witness friends, I always say, could I, could I, could I have your Bible? If it's a Roman Catholic, I say, could I have your Bible? We've done that in Romania. I've said, could we have your Bible? Because I want them to see it in their Bible. And even though I can't, can't read what it's saying, but I at least know, uh, where I can find it. So there are times when I quote it. But, as you know, in my ministry of teaching and preaching, I seldom ask you to look up verses, and I would prefer to quote those verses, and not always verbatim, because I don't have a very good memory, but, um, yeah, it varies, and I think the Spirit of God can guide us. But I am a, as you know, I'm a firm believer. I'm, I'm convinced, I'm absolutely convinced that as I try to do the will of God, he will guide me with his word. He will give me a scripture that guides me and helps me understand it. It means I must know the word of God. It must be sensitive to the spirit of God, because the spirit of God is going to use the word of God to bring me to do the will of God. I don't know if, if you do this or not, but do you find it helpful to, in your verse memorization or reciting, to use somebody else, like Jenny or somebody else, to, to, uh, establish accountability or just someone to check you on it? It would be good. Um, we used to do it. In fact, when we were at Emmaus, the only way we could spend time together was to walk to the assembly, and we chose an assembly that was about an hour away. And I was memorizing James, and you were remembering, what, First John, was it? I think First John, and we used to say those verses to each other as we walked through the snow in New- in... And I'm sure the authorities wondered why we went to an assembly an hour away, but I'm sure they figured it out after a while, especially when they told Jenny that she shouldn't date me anymore because I would drag her down. Uh, yes, I think, I think it's good. I think it depends. I have a group of, uh, uh, some preachers and others that we meet with, and we do, uh, do some accountability. We're in a Bible study on Monday night, and, uh, that group also helps us, um, in, in outside of our assembly context. But I think, I think for many people that would be a very helpful thing. I've done it with young men on occasion, uh, but my, it's not my gift or calling to in a discipleship ministry because I'm here for a week and then for a week and here for a month and gone, and and to do that is very, very difficult. We're done, huh? Yes. I'm done. Can you comment on, um, your your your books out there, what what you have out there? Yeah, there's, uh, one book by myself and one by George Berwer. The one by George Berwer is, uh, taking you out of the comfort zone, and you know that I believe that too, because I've tried to drag you out of your com- Comfort zone tonight. The other book is a daily devotional, has three hundred and sixty six devotions, and it has to do with blessings that God has already given us. I am convinced, as I said already, that most of our prayers for ourself are prayers that God, uh, for things that God has already given us. The most common phrase in prayer is Lord, be with us. And when I'm sitting there, and I'm the preacher, and the guy gets up and prays and asks the Lord to be with the preacher, I say, why would they invite an unsaved man to be the preacher? But it's a habit. Lord, be with the preacher. But he is with the preacher. Why is it an exercise in unbelief? Rather an exercise in faith and say, thank you, Lord, for being with us today. Somebody gets up at the Lord's Supper and says, where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them, and let's, and Lord, please be with us. That's a contradiction. It's an oxymoron. So those meditations are in blessings that are God has given to us in Christ. Three hundred sixty six devotions, ten bucks if you can't afford it, take one. Um, I say if you pay ten bucks for it and you read it faithfully for a year and you don't get ten dollars of help in your Christian life, well, write me and tell me I'll send you half your money back and you can keep the book. All right? Thank you. I enjoyed it. Hope you enjoyed it. No, no, no, no, no. Move over. I want to sit by you. I'm so glad to see you.