Recently, I had the opportunity to speak to a fellowship group of another church on the topic "Listening to Sermons." Two common difficulties were highlighted in my message: Maintaining Attention and Message Retention. Concerning the latter difficulty, I asked the group if they could recall the topic and text of the most recent sermon that they heard in their church. To my surprise none of them were able to recall anything of the sermon they had heard just 6 days earlier, except for one – the preacher who had delivered that sermon (He also happened to be in charge of that fellowship group)!

My message dealt with how to listen profitably to sermons: Diligent effort must be put into: (1) Preparation of the heart, mind and will before the sermon, (2) Staying focused on the preacher during the sermon, and (3) Reflecting on personal application after the sermon. Dear Reader, if you are experiencing difficulties in listening to sermons and perhaps even in concentrating on worshipping the Lord in each worship service please begin to practice these 3 points, and in particular the one on preparation.

Preparation rightly begins the night before by deliberately retiring to bed early, in order to be able to present to God a mind that is most fresh and alert for worship the following morning. As you rise up early on the Lord’s Day, meditate on the words of Psalm 122:1 – "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD." Rising early helps you to get yourself ready to attend church in an unhurried manner, maintaining a calm disposition which is so vital for a meaningful audience with the King of kings. Rising early also enables you to do something that is very important: To come early for worship!

In all my years of attending worship services I have always found that it makes a great difference to come early for worship. When the few minutes before the church bell rings are spent in quieting oneself (Psalm 46:10) and consciously directing one’s heart toward God (Psalm 27:8), the personal expression of praise becomes more intense, the prayers of the heart become more fervent, and the preached Word penetrates deeper into the soul! The extra effort that is invested to come early for worship reaps bountiful spiritual dividends, which in turn motivate us to keep doing this for every worship service.

Having received the church weekly as you enter the church sanctuary, sit down and pray, asking God to bless your time of worship, and confessing to Him your tendency to let your thoughts wander astray. Resist the urge to read through this weekly before the service begins – This ought to be done later on the same day. Resist the urge to greet and talk with others who are seated around you – This ought to be done after the service, and not before. Resist the urge to think about any activities that you will be engaged in after the service or for the rest of the day – Your thoughts should be drawn solely toward one objective: To render unto your Maker the whole-hearted worship that He deserves from you!

Because it is important for us to spend time in quiet meditation before worship, the present practice in Life Church of having the Scripture Memory Session just before our morning services will cease when the New Year begins. While the congregational memorizing of Scripture that we have been doing 15 minutes before each service is good, a recent on-line survey has revealed that the majority still prefer that time to be used for quiet meditation rather than verbal memorisation. Hence, from 7 January 2007 onward we should all arrive in church early on Sundays to devote our time to quiet meditation before the service begins. May this change help to bring us all to greater heights of true worship and of profitable listening to sermons.

The replacement of the congregational memorizing of Scripture with quiet meditation before the worship service should not be taken to mean that the memorisation of God’s Word is given a lesser place in our church. On the contrary, all departments and fellowships of the church will be conducting their own Scripture Memory sessions based on the new booklet of 28 passages for 2007 entitled, "O for a Closer Walk with God." Perhaps we can even start a trend for all families in the church to memorise the verses together during their family devotions. This decentralization of memorisation sessions can actually promote more participation, since more members will now be involved in leading others to memorise the prescribed verses, instead of the worship chairman alone.

Besides the memory verse booklets, free copies of an audio CD are also available at our church front counter upon request. If you are used to listening to music while driving to and from your place of work everyday, why not put that time to better use? Play the memory verse audio CD in your vehicle and let the Word be streamed into your mind as you drive. Those who are used to listening to MP3 players while commuting on a bus or train can do the same by downloading the audio MP3 files for the memory verses from our church website at: www.lifebpc.com/memoryverse2007.htm. Other resources for memorising the verses are available from the same web page.

The Bible tells us what valuable benefits we can gain by memorising scripture verses: Psalm 119:11 – "Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee." Psalm 37:31 – "The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide." These verses tell us that when we face temptations to sin, the scripture that we have memorised helps us to remain firm and stable, to overcome temptation. Christ Himself demonstrated this (Matthew 4). When he was tempted in the wilderness for 40 days He used memorised Scripture to withstand each attack of Satan. For instance, when the Devil asked him to satisfy his hunger by turning stones into bread, He countered the temptation by reciting the last part of Deuteronomy 8:3 – "Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

Another valuable benefit of memorising scripture is given in Psalm 40:8 – "I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, Thy law is within my heart." Throughout the life we have on earth there will be many choices for us to make. Some choices are hard to make, but if we have stored God’s Word in our hearts by memorising it, it will guide and instruct us to make the right choices and decisions in daily life, which are in accordance with the will of God. For example: One useful verse to memorise is Matthew 6:3 – "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." If we memorise this verse, it will remind us to pursue God’s Kingdom first rather than the things of the world whenever we face a conflict of interests.

Another benefit of memorising scripture is found in Colossians 3:16 – "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." Memorising scripture equips us to admonish or help other Christians when they face problems. For instance, you happen to meet a brother in Christ who is feeling depressed and you want to advise him to seek God’s help. But all the advice you give cannot convince him to do this. What assurance does he have that God will really hear and answer his prayer for help? Then you remember the verse Jeremiah 33:3 where God said – "Call unto Me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not." This verse gives the strongest possible encouragement to your friend to call unto the Lord for help.

Memorised verses become immediate remedies that are always available to us to help, counsel, comfort, advise, and even correct the lives of friends, colleagues and loved ones. If we store them up in our minds we can trust the Holy Spirit to direct us to use the verses that are appropriate for each situation.

Memorised verses have also been a great blessing to Christians in times of great persecution. One example of this was the Rumanian pastor, Richard Wurmbrand. In the 1950s the churches in Rumania went underground and were systematically persecuted by the Communist regime. Wurmbrand was arrested and since he refused to betray the whereabouts of his fellow underground pastors and churches, he was subjected to different kinds of torture.

He was hung upside down and beaten with rods and whips. When he fainted, cold water was thrown to revive him so that the beating could go on. Water was poured down his throat until his stomach was bursting, then the guards kicked him and stepped on him. He was branded with a red-hot iron. He was thrown into a refrigerator cell with little clothing on. Prison doctors watched through an opening until they saw symptoms of freezing to death, then the guards would rush in to take him out and make him warm. When he was finally warmed, he would immediately be put back in the refrigerator cell again to freeze – over and over again.

It is truly amazing that Wurmbrand could take all of this and still remain steadfast in his faith. How did he do it? What was his secret? In his autobiography he reveals that he kept his spirits up by reciting Bible verses that he had memorised to himself and by praying. No Bibles were allowed to him, and so he had to depend solely on Scripture verses that he had carefully and painstakingly memorised before.

When he was kept in solitary confinement for 3 years it was these verses that kept him from insanity. As he meditated on them he found himself able to rejoice in the Lord! He also found that by tapping Morse code messages on the wall he could communicate with prisoners in neighbouring cells. Through this, he was able to share the Gospel and his memorised verses with many of them. This eventually led some of them to trust in Christ for salvation!

This true account demonstrates the great benefits of memorising scripture. These things can be very useful to believers especially in times of persecution and great personal trials. Even without having a Bible with you, you can still gain much comfort and strength to endure these trials if you have developed the discipline of memorising Scripture. And you will also "be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear." (1 Peter 3:15)

May the Lord help us to hide His precious Word in our hearts! —CS