A Word Hidden
“Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You” (Psalm 119:11, NKJV).
When asked about this verse, the great Baptist evangelist, Charles Hadden Spurgeon, once remarked, “An old preacher, in a sermon on this text, divided it thus: “The best thing: ‘thy word.’ In the best place: ‘have I hid in my heart.’ For the best of purposes: ‘that I might not sin against thee.’” He thus gave in a few words the very gist of the text.”
The word translated “hidden” literally means to hide something with an intended purpose. Sometimes this purpose might be sinister, like an assassin concealing a weapon in an article of clothing. However, sometimes this purpose might be simply for safekeeping, like a traveller burying his treasure before heading off on a long journey. In both cases, the hiding is purposeful. So it is with the Christian hiding God’s Word in his heart. It brings many benefits. Let me list a few:
Hiding God’s Word in your heart helps a Christian to stop sinning. “Thy word I have hidden in my heart so that I might not sin against you.”
Hiding God’s word in your heart is one of the key ways that God grows a person to maturity as a Christian: “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation . . .” (1 Peter 2:2, ESV). How frequently do newborn babies long for their mother’s milk? Every 2-4 hours all day and all night!
Hiding God’s word in your heart is also a sure way to become a fruitful Christian. “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:7, ESV). Notice the parallel relationship between abiding in Christ and abiding in Scripture. I’m not so sure that Jesus is saying two separate things (remember Jesus is the Word incarnate); I think He is actually saying the same things in two different ways. How do you abide in Christ? You abide in Scripture! There is an organic relationship between the Word which came down in the flesh and the Word written down in the Bible. Isn’t this the same truth that is taught in Psalm 1? “(Blessed is the man whose) delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers” (Psalm 1:2–3, ESV).
Hiding God’s word in one’s heart helps the Christian obey God. “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success” (Joshua 1:8, ESV). Notice that thinking deeply about Scripture leads to careful obedience. It’s hard to have one without the other.
The word of God brings with it transformative power, power to turn a fool into a wise man and a dead man into a living saint. “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving (or literally, turning the soul around in repentance) the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple” (Psalm 19:7, ESV). It stands to reason, therefore, that hiding such a power in the heart serves only to multiply its effectiveness.
The same could be said for the Word’s ability to generate faith in the souls of men and women and boys and girls. “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17, ESV). Scripture is like a mother’s breast milk which serves to grow the soul in godliness.
Hiding God’s word in your heart also leads to a lifestyle of worship that profoundly affects all those around it: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Colossians 3:16, ESV).
Hiding God’s word in our hearts is a powerful stimulus towards personal holiness: “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17, ESV). To be sanctified is to be “holy-fied,” to be set apart for God. Jesus’ prayer shows that Scripture is a vital tool, in fact, the principal tool that God uses in this process.
The church grows as we speak the truth in love: “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,” (Ephesians 4:15, ESV). How are we to obey this command if we don’t have command of the Scriptures? We need to know the truth before we can speak it. There is surely no better way to do this than to hide the Scriptures in our hearts so that we have a ready reserve of just the right Scripture to deploy at just the right time in the lives of just the right people.
Let me close out this passage by giving some practical pointers in this regard:
Which verses should I memorize? That depends, I suppose, on the need of the moment. If, say for example, a person wanted to grow in his ability to pray, I would encourage him to memorize Scriptures that would help him think great thoughts of God. (The Psalms are a tremendous resource here). Or, let’s say, if a Christian were struggling with this or that particular sin (and, let’s face it, which of us do not?), then I would encourage him (or her) to memorize passages that deal with that particular issue. Or maybe you want to fill your mind with verses that would help you share your faith. Well then you might want to memorize verses that would help you talk meaningfully about God our Creator, how He has revealed Himself to us in the books of nature and Scripture, what sin is and how sin entered the world, God’s certain judgment that awaits all men after death, and Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation.
In general terms, I would encourage you to be ambitious. Don’t just memorize a verse or two here and there, but rather memorize paragraphs, chapters, and even whole books of the Bible. Don’t let the devil tell you that you are too old to start. A lady in our congregation, who is just a little older than I, began memorizing Scripture several years ago, and she has already memorized Romans chapters 1-15, John chapters 1-17, Ephesians, Philippians, James, and is about to start 1 John.
Another strategy is to speed read through a book with your finger (say the book of Proverbs, Matthew’s gospel, or the book of Revelation) and circle in pencil all the key verses that you really want to memorize.How do I start memorizing? It seems so difficult! Well like anything, at first, it is. Our memory is a mental muscle, and just like our fleshly muscles, it strengthens with use but is often painful initially!
I have found two main strategies helpful:Write or print out the verse on a card or use an app like https://biblememory.com, which I highly recommend. Our brains like to tag things spatially, so it really does help to see the verse in the same place on a page every time that we work on memorizing it.
Say this verse over and over again until you can begin to say it without looking. Then gradually add the next verse to the one that you’ve just learned.A strategy that the Navigators recommend (and it is basically the system used in the above app) is to write out only the first letter of every word in the verse. This is an ingenious method that relies on neuroscience. You see, the reading center and the memory center reside in different parts of the brain. That explains why just reading a verse again and again isn’t enough to memorize it. However, having the first letter of every word in the verse stimulates both centers at the same time. The first letter prompts the reading center, but it’s not enough, so the memory center has to provide the missing letters, thus its effectiveness.
What about review? This is where I find https://biblememory.com so helpful. The app contains an algorithm that adjusts the review pattern in accordance with how well you know the verse. Thus, you spend most of your time every day reviewing new verses together with the old ones that cause the most trouble.
For the type A diehard Luddites among you, who really hate the thought of using an app to memorize God’s holy Word, I suggest the following system:Take no more than a 2-3 verse chunk of Scripture and say it every day for 7 weeks.
After seven weeks, it drops into a weekly review list, and you say it once every week for 7 months.
At the end of 7 months, it drops off the weekly list onto a monthly list, and you review once a month for 7 years. After 7 years, you can throw the card away because you will NEVER forget it. (I have an Excel spreadsheet for this pattern. Email me and I will happily send it to you).
Following this system at the end of seven weeks, you will have 7 chunks which you are saying every day. Each subsequent week, the most “senior” chunk will graduate into the weekly review list to be replaced by a new chunk at the other end of the stack.
The genius of this system is that apart from one day each week (your weekly review) and one day each month (your monthly review), you are never saying more than 7 two- three verse chunks per day, which is very manageable.
I have said this before, but it bears repeating; namely, if I could recommend one discipline that would make the most radical difference in the lives of every member of our church, it would be to memorize Scripture. In fact, I think I would go so far as to say that if I could do only one thing in my study all week, I would do this: I would trade Scripture memory for all my other reading. It makes that much of a difference. Why don’t you try it and see?