5 Ways to Teach the Word, Part 3

Greetings friends and new listeners and welcome to this R.G.

Hardy Ministries program. I'm Sharon Knott and I'm happy you're listening today because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. If you are a lover of God's Word, then you know how important it is to not only hide it in our own hearts but to get the Word into the hearts of our children and our grandchildren.

Today's message is just what we need to succeed. Five ways to teach the Word of God. I love to teach and have a natural propensity for teaching, but God has given five specific tools in Deuteronomy 6 for His people to use to get His Word into the hearts of our children. I have subtitled them, Teach, Talk, Walk, Write and Recite.

They are five ways to teach the Word of God. So first we teach and then we talk and then we walk. And walk is talk, it's a broader sense than just talking. You know how we say, do you walk the talk? You know a lot of people can talk it but they can't walk it. So do you do, do your children see you doing and living what you preach?

Do the people on your job see you living when you get in a place where you're put in a position where the natural man wants to be? The natural man wants to get ugly and retaliate and get even but instead you smile and you pray for them that despitefully use you and you bless and you don't curse. That's walking the talk. How many say amen?

Not saying that devil, I hope he falls and breaks his leg. What kind of talk is that for a Christian? That sounds like when James and John got upset and he said, Jesus, shall we call fire down on the Samaritans and burn them all up because they didn't like your message? Jesus looked at them and said, brothers, you don't know what spirit you're of.

I didn't come to destroy men's lives, I came to save them. And when people got the devil in them, they're going to talk like the devil talks. You're not supposed to talk like them, you're supposed to talk like your father.

So do you walk it out? Do they see that you applied the word of God in your everyday life? In your finances, do they see that you are disciplined? Do they see you pay your tithes? And then do they see the blessing of God on your life? Do they see that before you go out and make a major purchase that's going to be thousands of dollars maybe for years that you've got to pay something back? Do they see you agree in prayer and say, Lord, lead us and guide us to help us to get the right car at the right price that we don't get somebody's junker, that we don't get bamboozled by some sharp-talking salesman?

Lord, just lead us and guide us, give us favor, give us favor before we get there, give us favor with the bank, give us favor with everything. Do your children see you do that? Or do they see you just run out there and say, today we're buying a car. We don't know anything about what kind of car, how much we can afford, we're just going to buy one, we'll worry about paying it later. And then you can't make the payments.

And then you got bad credit. How many say amen? Do they see you live it out? Do they see you that you say, Lord, you said in Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he will direct thy path. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not on thine own understanding. Do they see you, quote James 1, 5, If any man lacks wisdom, all he's got to do is ask God, and it shall be given unto him. Amen. Do they see you do that in your life? How many say amen?

So, if they see that, then you're walking out what you're talking. We're on number four, write. And thou shall write them upon the post of thy house. Now, like I told you, I showed you some examples that we had the Word of God, but we're to literally to write it on our hearts.

The Bible talks about us in Psalm 119, it talks about thy word, if I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. And Psalm 119 is a beautiful Psalm for you to try to remember and memorize as many of them as you can. All together, it's 176 verses, but it's broken down into sets of 22, because there are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. And every set of eight begins with one of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

Why did they do that? Well, if you've got to remember 176 verses, that's a lot to remember. But if you can think alphabet, and you can think that, well, A is for apple. Isn't that how we teach our children? How do we teach them A, B, C? We give them a word picture that they can see in their mind while they say that letter, and they begin to learn it. And when you're going to learn the Word of God, this was one of the ways they taught them. They wrote this psalm was written according to the Hebrew alphabet so that they would get the word picture. And it would make it easier for them to remember this psalm. And it's all about the importance of the Word of God. That's the whole story of Psalm 119, how important God's Word is.

For instance, you take the first Hebrew letter is Aleph, and the word picture originally for that was an ox. And because the letter's kind of made like this, and it was the picture for it was an ox. Now, an ox to them in their day meant strength. You know, when we buy a car, we say, how many horsepowers it got under the hood, right? Because it equals, in the old days before engines, how many horses you could go that fast. Well, over there, the idea was strength. It wasn't speed, it was strength.

You want speed by a horse. You want strength by an ox, okay? So the ox meant strength. So you have the word Aleph, which is like our A, meant strength. B, baked, that was a house.

Now, they didn't live in houses like we do, they lived in tents. So the word picture was like a tent. So if you take AB and put it together, you come up with Ab, or like we know the form Abba. How many know what Abba means? Jesus said Abba, Father. So AB or Abba means Father.

Why? Because the Father is the strength of the house. And you see, that's how that you could get the Word of God into your children by doing this with the alphabet. Do you know that when this nation was begun, when our nation was first founded, that our children learned their ABCs by God's Word?

They had what was called the New England Primer, or the New England Primer. And it was filled with scriptures, and they learned the alphabet by the Word of God. For instance, for the letter A, this is what they learned for A. In Adam's fall, we send all. Isn't that pretty heavy for kindergartners?

That's pretty heavy for kindergartners, isn't it? But that young, that's how they didn't say A is for apple. They said, in Adam's fall, we send all. So already at the age of five years old, they got the message, we're all sinners. And that's okay, because if you know that you're a sinner, you know that you need a Savior. When you know that you need a Savior, you're on your way, because Jesus can say, I am He. But if you don't know that you're a sinner, you don't think you need a Savior. Do you think those kids out there in the world today think they're sinners? They think they're doing what they ought to do. They're pure in their own eyes, and yet they're not washed from their filthiness.

Nobody told them, in Adam's fall, we send all. For B, this is what they learned. B, obviously the Bible. B, thy life to mend, this book attend.

So now, in other words, they were saying, you got problems, you got things going wrong in your life. Anytime you got, hey, little five-year-old, whenever you grow up and you get big problems and you don't know what to do, how to fix them, go to the Bible. C, obviously, Christ. C is Christ crucified, four sinners died. So in A, B, C, I've got the whole three little letters, they had the whole gospel. I'm a sinner, God's Word's got the answer, it's Jesus Christ.

And they've only learned three letters. Do you see how far we've come? How far we've come from the Word of God?

Getting that Word of God in their hearts. And today, they don't even want you to have the Ten Commandments up on the wall somewhere. Today, you're not even allowed to say Christmas.

You've got to say winter solstice. How far we've got away from the Word of God? You've got to at home, you've got to get your kids in church.

You've got to get the Word of God in them. There was a time that they learned it in school, but not anymore. When I first started teaching, the first grade, I mean, I've taught everything from two-year-olds up. I started teaching two- and four-year-olds back on William Street. At the time, I was only 11, but I taught two-, three- and four-year-olds.

Now, there's not a whole lot you can do with them. You give them some crayons and you tell them to draw Joan in the whale. And you've got Daniel in the lion's den and you've got about five stories you tell them when they're that little. And yes, but you know, I really was trying to get the Word of God in them.

But we taught them songs like, I mean, how many know it? Oh, the B-I-B-L-E, yes, that's the book for me. I read and pray and then obey the B-I-B-L-E. The B-I-B-L-E, yes, that's the book for me. I stand upon the Word of God, the B-I-B-L-E. Oh, God's Word shall never fail, never fail, never fail.

God's Word shall never fail, no, no, no. Now, you get that into little two-, three-, four-year-old kids. And I know that's a silly, silly song, but it's right. It's just perfect for two-, three-, four-, five-year-olds.

It's just right for them to do their little stuff. But they're getting that Word down in their heart. How many say amen?

I mean, how precious is this thing? Jesus loves me, this I know. How many kids know that Jesus loves them?

How many kids are out there being mistreated and abused and starved and sold into sex slaves at nine years old? They don't know that Jesus loves them. How many say amen? We've got to get the Word of God in them. So we write it, and these are some of the ways that we do it.

And then I said you have to talk, walk. I'm going to teach, talk, walk, write, and last of all, recite. And recite dovetails with write.

They kind of go together, because just like I just brought out about memorizing the Word of God and in songs, because that is exactly how you learn things is by writing them down and then reciting them. Do you know that when you hear something, when you hear something for the first time, I mean information, detailed information, that when you hear it, if you do not either repeat it out loud or write it down within 20 minutes, you'll lose it. I'm talking about if somebody was going to give you some details about how, you know, you call somebody up on the phone and say, how did you make that cake? Can I have that recipe? Oh, well, you put two cups of this in, three teaspoons of that, one teaspoon of that, and then you put it in the oven and you bake it.

You're like, what? You go to bake it and you think, did they say two or did they say three? I don't know if I'm supposed to put in butter or two eggs or three eggs or, you can't remember that if you don't write it down. And, I mean, a cake recipe is pretty basic, but what if it's more detailed information? That's why in college the professor stands up there and he talks and he talks and he talks and he talks and them kids are just, we're now the laptop. They're never going to remember all that stuff, but they're going to be required to know when that test comes around. They're not going to tell me, well, you talk too fast.

I didn't hear what you said. They're going to be expected to know it. And that's how we have to get the word of God in us. When I want to learn a long passage of scripture that the Lord's dealing with me about, I write it down. There's something about writing it down that gets it in my spirit.

I don't know what it is. If I write it down, it'll get in my spirit. And then if I do need to refresh on it, there's something about reading my own handwriting that I don't know, I just get it in there, better than just reading it sometimes out of the Bible. So we have to learn to write it and recite it and even, as I said, put it in songs. That's why the worship service is so important, because it's in the worship service. Not only are we worshiping the Lord, but at least it used to be, most of the songs had sermons in them. You could get saved singing songs. You could go get an old-time hymnal and you could get saved reading the hymns, even if you didn't know the tunes, because a lot of them were written by people like Charles and John Wesley, who started the Methodist Church.

I mean, they wrote whole sermons in there. How many songs are about the blood? What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. There is power, power, resurrection power, Holy Ghost power in the blood.

Have you been washed in the blood of the Lamb? So you see, even the songs impart the word of God. This is what God told Moses, and I'm almost done. God told Moses, Moses had been walked with the children of Israel for 40 years, 40 years. Now, I know he had told them everything he knew how many times, and, I mean, he basically told them, there's one place in the Scripture where he says, you have been rebellious since the day I met you.

That's really how it's pretty much worded like that, and every time I read that, I have to laugh. I mean, it's really not funny that they were that rebellious, but I have to laugh at Moses, because I can imagine, how would you like to be their pastor for 40 years in the wilderness? How would you like to be the senior pastor of the first church of the wilderness? And you done minister to these people for 40 years, and they're still murmuring and griping and complaining. That's why he said, you've been rebellious since the day I met you. And he basically told them, he says, the fact is, is because you provoked me to anger, you made me so angry that I struck the rock twice, and now God won't let me go in on the other side. And I prayed to God, and I begged him, and I pleaded with him, and God said, no. He said, Moses, don't even talk about it no more.

The answer is no. And Moses went back to the people. He said, if you people hadn't provoked me like you did, I wouldn't have done that.

It's all your fault. But here he is at the end of the journey, and he's getting ready to turn over his robe, so to speak, like they do today, to Joshua. But God told Moses, he says, I want you to give the people these words. And you know how he told them to give it to him? They done heard so many messages.

They done heard so many sermons. They could probably preach them for Moses. He said, I want you to give it to them in a song.

I want you to write a song. You can read this in Deuteronomy, the 31st chapter. Now ye therefore write ye this song for you, and teach it to your children. Put it in their mouths that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel. And Moses came and spoke all the words of the song in the ears of the people, and said unto them, Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which you shall command your children to observe to do all the words of this law.

And so you can read that song. I think it's Deuteronomy, the 32nd chapter. And the Bible tells us in Revelation, I forget exactly where it is, but when John was seeing some of the saints up there in heaven, he said, And they sang the song of Moses.

You ever wondered what that song is? Go back to Deuteronomy 32, and find out what the song is that they sang. How many say amen?

So even then, singing is going to be important. We find out in the fifth chapter of Revelation that John saw the saints of God. They were raised in the white linen, which is the righteousness of the saints. And he said they sang a song that no other man could sing.

They sang a song that angels cannot sing. We have been redeemed by the blood of the land. He's redeemed us out of every nation, tribe, and tongue, and he's made us to be kings and priests with our God, and we shall reign and rule with him forever.

Hallelujah. Singing the word of God will never, ever go out of style. That's why you need to be in the worship service, and that's why we need to sing more songs that have got more words than just, you know, one word that you repeat 4,000 times. I mean, sometimes that's okay. Sometimes it's what the Holy Ghost wants. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

That's all he wants. Sometimes we need to have a variety. How many say amen? Amen? You know, it's funny because when I'm in church, we start off singing all the hymns out of the Bible, and we mixed them up with the gospels. We mixed it all up.

We had a good mix. And rarely, rarely will there ever come a hymn that comes up that I don't know all the words to it. I'm actually, I surprise myself when I hear the tune, I can immediately sing it with all the words, and I haven't sung those words or songs since I was a little girl. That's because they got in my heart even then. Because even sometimes Benny and Cyril say to me, how do you know that song?

Because it's like to them it came from Mars or somewhere. You know that song too. You must really be old, Mom.

Well, it doesn't matter how old you are. We used to sing them, and they're in my spirit. And I got a library, and maybe it's way back in that file drawer all the way in the back, but all I need is to hear a little bit of it, and it starts rolling out and rolling out. And a lot of times when I'm praying, because I like to walk and pray, a lot of times when I'm praying, honest to goodness, I'll be praying, talking and praying, and I will start singing a song, and I'll be singing a couple lines of it before I realize, number one, that I am singing and not praying, and number two, where did that song come from, and number three, it's what I need to be praying. It's like the Holy Ghost is saying, all right, shut up for a minute. I'm going to give you the answer, and here it is.

And I'll start singing the words to a song that is the answer that I need. It never ceases to amaze me. When the Lord does that, it thrills me to no end because I know that the Word of God is in there, and no matter how dark it feels or how alone I might feel or how hard the test is, no matter what I'm going through, if there's not another living person that I could tell anything, there is something in my soul that's been instilled in my heart from a little girl. And the Holy Ghost can bring it out. That's why we love to read the Psalms. Do you know the book of Psalms is the most read book in all of the world's literature?

Why? Because David was a real person with real problems, with real situations, who made real mistakes, but he knew how to turn it over to the Lord, and all we've got to do is read his words, and we begin to turn our burdens over to the Lord. We begin to know how to praise and worship our God. How many say amen? I mean, how many times we've set the Psalms to tunes and we sing them, He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High. You are my hiding place.

Search me, O Lord, and try me. Know my heart and thoughts. We put those words to songs, those songs to words, because they're so important to us.

How many say amen? So writing and reciting go together, and I said recite because it's easy to remember teach, talk, walk, write, recite, but another word for recite is simply meditate. You all can meditate.

There is no substitution for meditating, but I think it's a lost Christian. I don't even know what the discipline I'm going to say, discipline, because people do not want to get quiet enough to meditate. We are so used to having the TV on, the computer on, this on, that on, that when everything's quiet, we're like nervous, like, oh, my God, it's quiet. Somebody make some noise.

How many know? When we become like that, we've got to have noise, you know, and you can't really meditate with that going on. There is nothing like if I can just get away, whether I'm mad or whether I'm upset or whatever it is, if I can just get away for a few minutes and meditate. Meditate. The Bible says that the man who meditates will be like a tree planted by the rivers of waters, who brings forth his fruit in his season, whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

To meditate on the Word of God, it will enrich your soul. Sometimes your soul wants silence. I can remember when I used to be by myself all the time, all the time, and I used to cry and cry and cry because I was so lonely. I would cry and cry because I was always alone by myself because I was pretty much bedridden, houseridden.

I couldn't get out, and, you know, of course everybody else has got to go on and live their life, and I would cry. I'd be so lonely. And one day the Lord spoke to my heart, and he said, instead of looking at this as loneliness, look at it as solitude. And as I begin to think of it, well, solitude, you know, so what?

It's still the same thing. I'm by myself. And then I begin to realize I'm by myself physically, but in this time of solitude, I can begin to draw nigh to Jesus.

And he was closer to me when I stopped crying about being alone and being by myself and crying and crying when I just thought, okay, it's not doing any good. It's not changing anything, and began to use that time with the Lord. I'm going to close with one scripture, 1 Timothy 4, 13. This is what God wants for us individually, corporately as a church, as parents, grandparents, for our children, for our family. This secret is here, 1 Timothy 4, verse 13. I love these verses. Till I come, this is Paul writing, give attendance to, here's three important things. Give attendance to means today we would say pay attention to.

These are important things. Pay attention to these three things, reading, exhortation, and doctrine. And neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. And I'm not going to go into that, but a lot of you received the Holy Spirit or received the touch from God when you had hands. I know a lot of you have been in this prayer line at least once in your life.

How many say amen? If you came to Faith Tabernacle, I'm sure you've been in a prayer line at some point. And hopefully you got something at least once. So if you got something, don't neglect it. So how do you nurture it? How do you not neglect it? By paying attention to reading, exhortation, and doctrine.

Meditate upon these things. Give thyself wholly to them that thy profiting may appear to all. I don't know how many times people come to me and say, Sister Sharon, how do you know the Word of God? How can you preach?

Hey, there's no magic formula. It's given attention. It's meditating. And when you get away with the Lord that when he needs to, your profiting will appear before all because he's got something to draw from. Because you put something down in there, something can come out. You can't bring something out that never was in there.

How many say amen? And it takes time and discipline, and people don't want that. They want you to lay hands onto them and give it to them. But it doesn't come that way. Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine. And I think it's very important that we catch this doctrine business because of the fact like a moment ago I alluded to the fact that this Da Vinci film is going to be coming out.

And when it comes out this summer, you're going to hear a lot of stuff. You need to prepare ahead of time. Don't try to play catch-up when it gets out and you walk around, well, I'll get back to you later on. You never get back to them and you lost your chance to witness. You need to read up on it before ahead of time.

So that when it comes up, you're already ready to answer it. How many say amen? And to the doctrine, because listen to this. Continue in them. There is no substitution for diligence.

Continue in them for in doing this. I love this. Thou shall both save thyself and them that hear thee. Isn't that what we all want?

Isn't that what we all want? We want to be saved and we want to save somebody. We want to be saved and we want to be a witness. We want our life to count.

We want to make it and we want to influence as many people as possible that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, the only door to God, the only door to eternal life. And you cannot do that on a shout and a dance. You've got to know the Word of God.

You have got to teach, to talk, to walk, to write and recite. And when you do that, you'll save yourself. You'll save your kids. You'll save your grandchildren. You'll save your neighbors. You'll save your coworkers. You'll save others.

And you'll have a witness that you need not be ashamed, a witness for the Lord Jesus. I love the Scripture that the wise man said. He said, Thou hast written unto me excellent things of counsels and knowledge, that I might know of a certainty the words of truth, and that I might answer the words of truth to them that are sent unto me.

I'm quoting from Proverbs the fourth chapter, I mean the 20th chapter. I want God to be able to send people to me because He trusts me that I'm going to give them the words of excellence out of this word. That He can send somebody to me because I'm not going to tell them, well, come back next week and I'll let you know.

I'm going to say, oh, I'm glad you asked. Let me tell you what the Bible says. How many say amen? Do you love the word of God?

Stand on your feet. If you've got a Bible with you, lift your Bible up and say, I love the word of God. I'm going to give attendance to it to teach it, to talk about it, to walk it out, to write it down, to recite it, and to meditate on this precious word of God. Oh, I thank you for the word, Lord. I thank you for the word. Thank you for the word. Hallelujah.

Amen. What a helpful and insightful message, five ways to teach the word of God, which are teach, talk, walk, write, and recite. God is going to hold us responsible for getting His word into our children's hearts, to train them in the way they should go, the way of the Lord. It is amazing to me that when God chose one man on the face of the earth to bless and entrust His plan of redemption to, He chose Abraham and said, Because I know He will command His children, and they shall keep the ways of the Lord.

The Jewish people exist today in spite of satanic attacks to destroy them because they are the people of the book, the Bible. And the Bible teaches that since the time of Noah, iniquity has increased in the earth, and with every generation, iniquity gets worse. This is an evil law that compels unsaved people to do worse than their parents, and is why we have come to our day when men call good evil and evil good, when sin and deceivers and evil workers shall wax worse and worse. And Jesus said of these last days, And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. This is why it is imperative that we teach our children the wisdom and precepts that scriptures teach and plant the seeds of God's word in their hearts while they are young. They are not going to get it in public schools, and by the time they get to college and universities, they are bombarded with humanism and atheism, evolution, and a blatant disdain for the Bible.

We have to teach and preach to them, but then we have to walk the talk and let them see the reality of God's truth in our lives, and not just when we go to church. I hope you will order this CD, Five Ways to Teach the Word of God, for a love gift of $10 or more for the radio ministry. Request offer SK128.

That's S as in Sharon, K as in Notts, 128. Our mailing address is Brother Hardy, P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203, or go online at RGHardy.org.

That's RGHardy.org. Again, to order Five Ways to Teach the Word of God, request offer SK128. Send a love gift of at least $10 to P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Until next time, this is Sharon Ott saying maranatha. .