After forty-nine years of enjoying God's salvation, and after forty-five years of radio ministry, and preaching the gospel in many assemblies, on many university campuses, in tent meetings, in prisons, and in many other places both here and abroad, the Lord has taught me much about the importance of Scripture memorization and the presentation of the gospel of God's marvelous, matchless grace.

I was raised in a Christian home where we prayed and read the Scriptures daily. We attended an insignificant meeting place called the "Gospel Hall" where the Sunday School students were encouraged to memorize verses from the Bible, the Word of God. Unfortunately, I rejected the truth of those verses and was not saved until I was 30 years of age. However, it was the learning of those verses that eventually helped me to acknowledge my need for the Lord Jesus Christ to be my personal Saviour.

Before getting saved, I was very religious and even taught Sunday School at a large denominational church. I knew I wasn't saved but thought that I could get saved at a time of my choosing. Needless to say, this was very disturbing to my parents who for many years kept praying for me and sending me gospel tracts, none of which I read. My wife would read the tracts and then place them in a Bible on the bookshelf in our home.

On June 2,1952, I was in a hospital awaiting an operation the following day. Before leaving home I had placed the Bible with the tracts in my travel case and when settled in my room, I started to read the tracts which contained verses that I had heard and memorized as a child and teenager. One of the verses that really hit me hard was Psalm 119:71, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn Thy statutes." Later that day, following the naïve coercion of my wife who was also unsaved at the time, I trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as my own personal Saviour. Those tracts, and the Word of God, used by the Holy Spirit of God, brought both conviction and conversion to my soul.

When I was first saved, I had a desire to tell my learned colleagues at the university where I taught, how that they, too, must be "born again" in order for them to get to heaven. I did my best to tell them of their lost and ruined condition in God's sight, and how that, in love for their souls, the Lord Jesus Christ died, was buried, and rose again, later to ascend to the right hand of His Father, God. But they would sometimes respond "Where do you read that in the Bible?"

I was often frustrated and embarrassed because I knew what I was saying was scriptural, but I didn't know where to locate the chapter and verse to substantiate what I had told them. It was then that I made up my mind that with God's help, I would memorize the Scriptures that relate in some way to the various aspects of the gospel.

At that time I also learned that it isn't what I say that is most important, but rather, what the Word of God says. God may bless my words, but He promises to bless His Word! (Isaiah 55:10,11) That fact, in itself, should be reason enough for us to memorize appropriate portions of the Word of God, so that we have a clear knowledge as to the location and exact wording of verses of Scripture to present to others.

—Minor C. Hawk