The Power Of Memory

You can see how important it is to put the Word of God into the computer of your mind, so that the Holy Spirit of God can bring it to your remembrance.


Scripture: John 16:1-3, Colossians 1:27

Transcript

Alright. Thank you very much. And hello again, dear radio friends. How in the world are you? Yes, that greeting establishes the fact that this is indeed your good friend, Bob Cook, and I’m back with you once again for some precious moments which we invest together in studying the Word of God, verse by verse, going through a book of the Bible. This time the Gospel of John. 75 years ago my mother turned to my father, Charlie Cook, and she said, “I guess I’ll have to leave you, Charlie.” She closed her eyes and slipped away. Post-operative complications of one sort and another. I don’t really know what happened 75 years ago, except that we lost her. And I, of course, was too young to know, and kindly people took care of me, and later on my own sister helped to raise her baby brother. And here we are, three quarters of a century later. I feel so young. How in the world could it have been so long ago? [chuckle] Well, that’s how it is. My father never quit carrying the torch for his Daisy. When I was chief cook and bottle washer for him during high school years, lived in a rented room there in Toledo, and after supper he would sit down in his old rocking chair, and maybe he had the blues. I would ask him, I’d say, “What’s the matter, pop?” And he’d look at me and say, “Oh, I guess I’m just lonesome for your mom.”

But he’d reach over and get one of his 100 song books that he cherished, and thumb through the pages, and find a song, tune up his little cracked voice, he sang in between the pitches. It always drove me wild because I have, not absolute pitch, but I think I have relative pitch. I can always reason from A440. [chuckle] And he would sing in between the notes, but he’d sing, “Do, so, me, do.” He’d tune it up and then finally he’d be singing, “Does Jesus care when my heart is pained to deeply for mirth or song.” Ah, yes. He’d sing, and then by and by he’d look over at me and he’d smile and he’d say, “One of these days, my boy, we’re gonna walk the streets of glory, and I’ll look up your mother, and we’ll walk down the street together, and we’ll sing again the song she sang 10 days before she left us, “I shall know him by the print of the nails in his hand.” Then he’d look at me again, and he’d say, “Hallelujah, my boy.” Now, [chuckle] that’s part of what made Bob Cook what he is. The atmosphere of being brought up by loved ones who lived in the genuine reality of God’s presence now, and God’s heaven hereafter. It’s a great heritage to have.

Well, that really isn’t all that important to you, but I like to share it. Now, we’re going into John chapter 16. Jesus said, “These things have I spoken unto you, that you should not be offended.” That word, offended, it’s Greek word, “skandalizo.” And it means be offended, it also means be stumbled, and in some uses it means stumbled in so much that you fall away from your position, your relationship with God. He said, “They’re gonna persecute you, they’re gonna throw you out of the synagogues, they’re gonna kill you, and who kills you will think that he’s doing God’s service.” This, of course the record of the persecutions that ensued later on, and through the centuries, certainly is a fulfillment of that. And he says, “They’ll do it because they haven’t known my Father or me. They’re not after you, they’re after me.” Now that’s what he said, but he said, “I’m telling you, so that you won’t be stumbled or fall away.”

Now, we’ve all… Some of us have been the victims of the experience, and others of us have observed it in our friends and acquaintances. That is to say when trials, and troubles, and persecutions, and pressures begin to multiply, you have, I think, the option of either of two reactions to it. One is to say, “Why does this all this happen to me? Oh, this is terrible. It isn’t really worth it to go through all of this.” And you quit. Now that happens unfortunately. People back off from their commitment to Christ, too much. It’s what Ananias and Sapphira said, “It’s too much.” So they kept, hung on to part of that which they were about to give as an offering. John Mark, he said, “It’s too far.” Acts 13:13 says, John Mark returning from the evangelistic campaign with Saul and Barnabas, said, “Returned back to Jerusalem.” I don’t know whether he was scared of the violence that was about to ensue, or whether there were a pair of brown eyes waiting for him back in Jerusalem. Whatever it was, he quit. Too far. Too much, too far. Demas of course said, “It’s too narrow. Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world and is departed unto Thessalonica.”

Well now, Jesus said, “I’m telling you this so that what happens to you is not going to make you stumble and quit.” Let me ask you something, do you know how to confront the pressures of life so that you won’t fall, you won’t stumble, you won’t quit? Huh? Do you know how? Well, Paul says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” He says in Romans 8, “If the spirit of him that raised up Christ from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Jesus from the dead will also quicken your mortal bodies.” Now you’re mortal while you’re alive, after you’re dead, you’re corruptible. Mortal means, while you’re still living. God will give you strength for your trials. Back to Isaiah, “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles and they shall run and not be weary and they shall walk and not faint.” Renewed strength. The Psalmist said, “Wait on the Lord, be of good courage and he shall strengthen thine heart.” What is all this? As I put it together with verses from all over the Bible. The simple fact is the successful way to confront the pressures and persecutions of life is not to try to handle them yourself, but to depend upon your Lord, “It is not ye that speak,” Jesus said, “but the spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.”

“I can do all things through Christ, nevertheless Paul says “I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me.” Colossians 1:27 “Christ, in you, the hope of glory.” Do you begin to see the point I’m making here? Yes, we have pressures, yes, we have trials, yes, we have troubles, yes, we have persecutions, yes, people pick on you because you’re a Christian, it’s all true. And they pick on you not because they’re against you, but because they are against what you stand for. Salvation by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ by God’s grace plus nothing. That’s what the world objects to. I heard a talk show host saying the other day with great vehemence, “You mean to tell me that if I’m not born again I’m going to hell?” He did it with such vehemence and such, well I thought, arrogance, but who am I to judge him? But that’s the position of the world. They don’t pick on you because you are you, they pick on you because you are His. And once you get that in your mind and then you determine that you are going to depend upon this living Saviour who is able, Ephesians 3:20, “Able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.”

Once you decide to depend upon this almighty Saviour, to face the pressures and the trials of life, then you see you’re unsinkable, you’re unflappable as we say, you’re not gonna get shook, you’re not going to get offended, you’re not going to quit, you’re gonna keep right on because He will see you through. I’m glad for that, aren’t you? Oh, to be able to live in simple trust, in a Saviour who can do anything that needs to be done for you and who won’t forsake you. For he hath said, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” Thank God, thank God. Now, he says, “These things that have I told you, that when the time shall come you may remember that I told you of them.” Now, why’d he say that? Well, there’s a good reason. You don’t use everything that gets tucked away in your memory, but there will come a time when you use it. Well, for years, I told the students at the college when I was there, but during those years when I was daily interacting with the students I would urge upon them to put the Word of God into their memory and then into their computer, the unconscious mind. I sometimes joke and say “The unconscious mind was named for a college freshman.” [chuckle] But there is between your ears, as you know, a vast and intricate piece of mental machinery that is similar at least to the computers that we have in our day.

And every experience, every sound, every feeling, every word, all that goes through your consciousness is put back into the computer and is cranked out later under the proper stimulus. You can see then how important it is to put the Word of God into the computer of your mind, so that the Holy Spirit of God can bring it to your remembrance. “He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” That was the promise that Jesus gave concerning the Holy Spirit. You see what happens, you memorize a verse, take 2nd Timothy 1:7, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” I memorized that verse and went over it day after day until indeed it found its way into the computer portion of my mind. And then there came a day when I was deeply troubled and I must confess a little bit scared about some circumstances that were facing me.

And as I was mulling over all of this, there came that blessed verse popping right straight into the middle of my stream of consciousness, they don’t use that term anymore, the psychologists have gone to other terminology, but we’ll use it. Right straight into the middle of my stream of consciousness, what was it? “God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” And in that moment I said, “Lord, thank you for that, I abide faith, I take all I need to face this situation.” And I did. God, by His Holy Spirit who dwells within the believer will bring to your conscious attention, the word that you have hid in your mind and heart, and memory. That’s why it’s so important to do that. If you will say a verse with its reference over once a day for seven weeks, you will have the verse and it will have you. I can guarantee that. You try it. Put the Word of God in your mind, and memory, and God the Holy Spirit will use it when you face the pressures of life.

Dear Father, today, oh may Thy Word dwell within us richly so that Thou canst guide us by Thy Spirit. Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!



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