Welcome to the 52 greatest chapters of the Bible study. This is week zero, which means we're part of the introduction. As you can see here in this slide, it's the introduction to the 52 greatest that I would encourage you to memorize. For me personally, as I sit here today, just finished a class on Proverbs and now I'm doing this 52 chapters today, I have this zipper holder for my verse cards. This little carrier and these cards, which I have one in my pocket that I'm actually, after this class am going to go out and work on memorizing. These travel with me everywhere around the world. Bonnie and I flew 125,000 miles last year. What I always pack in our suitcases, my Bible, my journal, and my verse cards. Those together this is my emergency kit to survive everything you need for life and godliness.

Let me just out of this super pack talk to you about the MacArthur scripture memory system. Now that is my favorite of all. You can see that this cost about $7.00. I saw one for $6.50 this morning. They're all used, they're out of print. No longer does John MacArthur sell these, but because we're using the MacArthur Study Bible as a part of our backdrop for the 52 key chapters of the Bible, as well as the systemic theology, I just wanted to add this dimension to you. I personally, every day work on these 52 passages. I use these every day. If you buy the MacArthur scripture memory plan system that you see on the screen. It comes with these pre punched cards. If you tear them all apart, they look like this.

You should see me on the airplanes. I sit with these, and I've had so many people look over my shoulder and say what is that? What are you doing? It's a great witnessing opportunity, but it's even greater for doing what God promised.

These verses, and here is the actual passage list, I would encourage you right now if you're at all interested in memorizing scriptures, take a screenshot of that. I don't think anywhere online is posted the contents of this scripture memory system. This set of verses, there 52 of them, they're exactly in the order that come in these cards. Week 26 is 1 John 4:9-10. If you look at this, week 26 is 1 John 4:9-10. Looking on, 1 John 4:9-10, this is what it says. "In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him." Wow. "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

Now, this 52 key chapter study that we're going through is a year long to master the key chapters, the key doctrines, and the key attributes of God. Now, the key chapters are on the list, and you can get that of course, they're posted right here on Facebook at the 52 greatest chapters of the Bible. You can also find them if you go to our website, discoverthebook.org. Also, you'll see them often right here on our channel DTBM.

To go through the key chapters, you need that list to go through the key doctrines and attributes of God. That's what we use Grudem for. In fact, many of you have asked what Grudem for? Each week I will show you how we referenced back to the Grudem Systematic Theology. Right here the 52 greatest verses, take a moment to look at one of these verses. The one that really touches my heart is 2 Corinthians 5:21. Here is that verse, 2 Corinthians 5:21 on my card. I have what looks like gibberish. Here's an enlargement of it over here, it's the words. See, the card says, "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Those are the 15 greatest Greek words in the Bible, in the New Testament. I would say in the whole scriptures. The whole Bible is about God the Creator, Genesis 1 and 2, becoming God the Redeemer, Genesis 3 all the way through Revelation chapter 19, so that He can be God the Judge, Revelation 20 and 21 and 22. So basically, all of the Bible except for the first two chapters revealing the Creator and the last three chapters revealing the Judge, is about our Redeemer.

What is the essence of redemption? 2 Corinthians 5:21. He has "made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us." What does that mean? Here's how I illustrate it. I share this everywhere I go in the world, here in America and anywhere in the world I'm sharing the gospel. I say, my Bible on my hand is a picture of you with a weight of sin. Salvation is Jesus Christ. When we call out to Him, calling the name of the Lord, you shall be saved. He comes to us, takes our sin on Himself. We have all the debt of our sin, the record of our sin, the penalty of our sin, all put on Christ. So, what does that mean? It means God treats Jesus, with my sin, like He committed all my sins. The record, the punishment, the guilt, everything of my sin is on Christ. Then this verse says, "that we might become the righteousness of God." He imputes to me His righteousness, as my sin is imputed to Him.

Now back to this verse, you can memorize the English. It's only 15 words in Greek. I use the first letter method. "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." Those little letters that are here on my verse card helped me not to miss any of the words. Remember, every word of God is pure. Every word of God is inspired. Every word of God has the very power of God. Jesus said, sanctify them through the truth. "Thy word is truth." That is why we need these verses to be memorized. Here's the list. These 52 key passages can become for you the essence of understanding all of God's plans for us. It has what Dr. John MacArthur has concluded after his lifetime of study, one passage for every week of the year. If you learn these verses, you have learned what is the group of most vital. These are the most vital verses in the Bible.

Some of you say that's too heavy for me, 52. Some of them are more than one verse, 105 verses total. So, you say that's too much for me. Here's another choice. Look at this, this is the navigators. The navigators are a wonderful scripture memory group started by Dawson Trotman. They have these topical memory cards. They're totally based on topics, and you can get a pack of them for $10 to $15 each. Each packet has anywhere from, I don't know, 15-20 verses. I'll show you what those look like. In fact, right here in my zipper pack to learn navigator verses, I have them all torn up and put on a little clip. This is: Live the New Life. That's one of these topical memory systems.

You need to invest in a plan. Once you invest in a plan, you start learning the verses. Now, always we come back to why. Why should we learn these verses?

Why is scripture memorization so vital to us as believers? The answer is I will tell you from the front lines. That is our prayer card, Bonnie and I live 11 months out of the year all over the world. Now, I know right now we're in COVID and we're basically grounded to the USA. We're here in New England, we've been here three weeks teaching two classes a day, six days a week. We spend all these Sundays recharging and I work even more on my verses. The rest of the time I'm teaching and interacting and answering questions for students all over the world.

I just talked to a young man here in America, online, who said I'm 34 years old; I've been addicted to pornography for 18 years, since I was 16 years old. How can God transform my life?

Another man who lives right on the border between Spain and France said. I'm a new believer in Christ.

A young lady from Brazil says, I believe God led me to see the course online, What is the Roman Catholic Church.

So, bonnie and I are having frontline ministry with people all over the world here in the United States.

Basically, what goes on as we do that is, we experience as those who were equipping frontline servants of the Lord. We experience what I would say is spiritual warfare. The fiery darts of the wicked one. What those do is, they try and neutralize our mind. Satan wants to neutralize us. How do you keep your heart and your mind guarded? That's what this class is all about. What I want to show you is what the Bible says is the reason that we study the scriptures. 

It's the only source of inextinguishable joy and hope. Do you understand? Satan wants to inflame our minds and neutralize us. God says, I will give you inextinguishable joy and hope.

Here's my key verse for all scripture memory, Jeremiah 15:16.

"Your words were found..." So, that's a study in the Bible. Here is memorization.

"I ate them, and Your word was to me..." And this is what happens when we memorize verses and meditate on them, "the joy and rejoicing of my heart." Why?

"I'm called by Your name." That's the confidence we have, we know the Lord.

Now remember, Jeremiah was probably the most depressed, discouraged, hopeless person described in the Bible. If you want to read about that, it's very hard reading, but Lamentations 3 talks about the unimaginable woes he went through.

 His devotion to the word of God, memorizing and meditating on it transformed his life because he learned every day through the scriptures, to identify his standing. That he knew the Lord and walked with the Lord. That's what we need to do.

Here's some tips. What I'd like to say is, that I am 64 years old and yet I work every day on these verses. I'm learning new verses constantly. Now, not as fast as I used to. When I was in college, I memorized a verse a day. For years, a verse every day, for years. I think I was on 1,700 verses when I got done with Bible college. I work on these verses every day because, someone shared with me tips on how to memorize the scripture. So, I'm just going to share them with you.

The first tip is number one, don't discourage yourself. Don't start with trying to memorize five verses a day, 10 verses a day, even one verse a day. Why don't you just start learning a verse however long it takes. See, Satan’s biggest plan is for us to discourage ourselves. Number one, don't discourage yourself. Some of you are married.

Do you know what a great thing to do is if you're married, and your wife is a believer, and you're a believer. These are the verses that you know, these are the verses she knows, and you know what you can do? You can tell your wife, hey, I've started something. I'm learning these 52 greatest verses on the navigator plan. Here are the verses that I know. You just list off all the verses that you know. Then ask her, what are some verses you can quote right now?

You know what most people can do? They can quote something from Psalm 23. Most people know John 3:16. How about John 11, where it says, "Jesus wept." The shortest verse in the Bible. You figure out what verses you know and find those you have in common. That it's where you start getting your mind tuned back into scripture memory. If you haven't memorized for a long time start with review. In fact, you could start looking at that list of 52 verses. John 3:16 or something will ring a bell, you already know it. Start with what you know. Start with review. Once you start reviewing, then you can go on into learning new verses.

Try the first letter method. Remember in 2 Corinthians 5:21? I'll do it for you again. "For He hath made Him who knew no sin to be sin for..." See, the first letter? "...that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." That's the first letter of each English word. The first letter method is what really helps me not forget a word here and there, it helps you be precise.

Again, back on that board behind me, my verse cards. This is a verse card. Has the reference. Has the verse. Then, it has these first letters and it's this 2 Corinthians 5:21, that I've been repeatedly showing you. Here's another verse card. These are actually my Bible doctrines cards.

These are the verses that I had to learn in Bible doctrine class, in 1978. Wow. In 1978, I was in a class where I had to learn 150 verses of all the major Bible doctrines by the branch of theology. So, those cards since 42 years ago, still have them, they are treasures, they're old, and yellowed, and dirty, and written all over, and written on the front, but those verses, those are the treasures. Those are part of this pack that I consistently am working on, memorizing, meditating on, and using.

I love this one, Psalm 19, talking about the sufficiency of scripture. "The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple." You can read it down here. "The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes." Wow. Pause for a minute here. Enlightening the eyes. God says, "if your eye be single, your whole body will be full of light."

Many of you, I want to be honest, if I was sitting across the table from you right now, at Panera or Starbucks, do you know what I would say. If you're not seeing clearly, truth in the Bible. If you're not seeing clearly, the world through the lens of the scripture. Do you know what it is? Look back at this verse. "The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes." That says, that if you regard iniquity in your heart, if you secretly treasure sin, if you don't fear the Lord so much that you seek to be clean, if you don't meditate on truth rather than on the lie, the insatiable lie of the devil, then your eyes aren't enlightened. You see, you're grieving and quenching the Holy Spirit.

You might pause right now, hit the pause button, and take a moment to bow your head and say, Lord, I want to repent of those things that grieve and quench your Spirit. It's the Holy Spirit that opens the word of God. It's the Holy Spirit that's the shield of faith that quenches the fiery darts of the wicked. It's the Spirit of God, who it says in Hebrews chapter 9, verse 14, "how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purges your mind from works that lead to death."

Hebrews 10:22 grow near to God and full assurance of faith. "Having your heart sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water." It's the only way to live the Christian life.

1 Peter 5:8 says, "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he made devour." " Resist him." How do you resist him? "Steadfast in the faith..." That is this shield of faith. The shield of faith is resisting him, resisting the devil in the face saying, I believe the word of God. The shield of faith is saying, I believe God. I resist you, Satan. Extinguish those flaming arrows he's shooting at me by your shield of faith. Satan will not have a place in my mind to cause me to doubt God, to question Him, to not submit to Him. That's the power of the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. The shield of faith, which is part of our armor against the devil.

How about taking the ultimate challenge, grab the most valuable space in your life, at the back of your smartphone? This is the back of my phone right now. Here's the current passage I'm working on. It's Romans 15:13-14. I'll read it to you and then I'm going to pray. "Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." That's why we don't want to grieve Him. He is the power of our life. He's the one that helps us memorize. He's the one who helps us meditate. He's the one that helps us overcome the evil one. And this is what I say to you, "I'm confident concerning you, my brethren, that you are full of goodness..." that's what happens at salvation. "...filled with all knowledge..." that's what happens when we spend time in the word every day. And "...able also to admonish..." that's, placed the word of God in the hearts of others. "Admonish one another."

My challenge to you today is, start memorizing scripture. Is it the back of your phone? Maybe get the MacArthur topical system? Maybe take that screenshot and just make your own cards. Or just put them on your phone. Anything to get the word of God found, eaten, and transforming us. Probably the biggest step you can take in sanctification is getting the word of God from just being in this book, to being in your mind by memorization. To being full of scripture, that's meditation. So, the Holy Spirit can speak through His word and sanctify us through His truth. Because His word is true, John 17:17.

Let's pray and ask the Lord to do that.

Father in Heaven, I thank you for all those that are with us in this 52 greatest chapter journey. I thank you that a part of it is, we can start learning the 52 greatest passages and actually spend a year memorizing these verses, getting them into our minds, getting them into our life, and finding your word. And eating your word. And finding your word to be "the joy and rejoicing of our heart; because we're called by your name, O LORD God of hosts." I pray you'd use your word in the lives of every one of these people that are a part of this class that are joining us, that are sitting across the table. Let your word impact their life as I share from the fullness of all these years that you've taught me your word. Use your word I pray, for your glory. In Jesus name. And all God's people said, Amen. And may God stir your heart to get started too.