Memory. Do you have trouble remembering things? Of course you do, we all do. Most studies on adult learning will tell you that people will remember only about 20% of what they hear in a lecture class like this one, and they will remember that for only about an hour, maybe two, after the class. Stretch that out to two or three days, and the amount they remember is down to about 1%. If they have an outline to read while the lecture is going on, the amount they remember goes up slightly, and if they write down notes, its goes up a little bit more. I am no better, sometimes my wife will ask me what the preacher’s sermon was about today when we get home, and to be honest, I have to really stop and think about it.
Memory is both defective and selective. We don’t remember things like they really were. If we are honest, the good ole days were not really as good as we remember them to be. Remember, the race riots of the 60’s and 70’s, the free love and drug movements, Watergate, and the war protests. The good ole days had their own issues, but we remember the good things that we want, like how things used to run at a slower pace, we weren’t bombarded with so much of the media constantly blaring at us. Families actually sat down at the table and ate together, and books were for reading, instead of just being used as decorations. Our memory is both defective and selective, but we don’t have to base our faith on our memory, for we have the Word of God to put us in remembrance of what Peter, and Paul, and the other apostles taught.
God knows we have a poor memory and so He has given His Word in the form of the Bible so that we can remember it, and in spite of all man’s efforts to change it, God’s Word survives. Peter is gone, Paul is gone, the great evangelists of the past are gone, but the Word of God survives human memory.
Listen to this podcast to learn how God wants us to know we have the wonderful promises of salvation written down in the inerrant, infallible, and Holy Spirit inspired Word of God.