Firing Blanks and Talking Biblically

Tuesday night, Joe McKeever spoke at the George-Greene Baptist Men's Rally. He shared a story about Roy Robertson. (I copied the story from his April 19, 2007 Blog Entry on JoeMcKeever.com.)

On Saturday evening, December 6, 1941, Roy was aboard the U.S. battleship West Virginia as it pulled into Pearl Harbor. They had been on maneuvers--practicing warfare--in the Pacific and were taking the weekend off. Sailors were given shore leave, and most went into town to drink or party. Roy Robertson joined a small group that walked to a nearby church for a Bible study.

"We were sitting around in a circle in the church hall," he reported later. "The leader said, 'Let's all share our favorite Bible verse. We'll start with Bill here and go around the circle.' That's when I panicked. I didn't know a single Bible verse. Now, I'd been in church all my life and considered myself a good Christian. But I couldn't think of one verse. Finally, I thought of John 3:16, and while the others were quoting theirs, I was putting the pieces of that verse together. And wouldn't you know it, about the time I had it ready, the guy to my left quoted it. I was humiliated."

Roy said, "I remember thinking to myself, 'Robertson, you are a fake. You've been in church all your life and you don't know one verse of the Bible.'"

The next morning early, battle stations sounded and Roy ran to his assigned spot on the deck. Overhead he saw hundreds of planes from the Japanese Imperial Fleet bombing the harbor. Roy jerked the cover off his machine gun and pointed it at the skies and commenced to firing. That's when he realized he had no live ammunition. He'd been firing blanks on maneuvers and that was all he had. He yelled for someone to bring some live ammo, but for the first 15 minutes of the battle of Pearl Harbor, Roy Robertson was firing blanks at the Japanese planes."

All the while, Roy was thinking, "Robertson, this is how your life has been: firing blanks. You're not doing your side any good and you're not doing the enemy any harm." That day, he made a commitment: if he survived the war, his life would count for God for the rest of his days. When the war ended, Roy joined Dawson Trotman in the early years of the Navigators and spent his life bringing the Word of God and the Gospel of Jesus to the world.

For me, that story led me to evaluate everything I am doing. Do I talk Biblically? How much scripture can I quote from memory?

Jim McNiel is a vocational evangelist who does not preach sermons when he speaks in a worship service. He quotes entire books of the Bible from memory. He ministered at Wade Baptist on two different occasions.

While Rev. McNiel certainly has a gift, anyone can memorize "some" scripture. I am reminded of a young man who was in the Home of Grace, a Christian based drug and alcohol treatment program in Van Cleave, MS.

An important aspect of the "program" is the memorization of scripture. However, this young man had used drugs for a long time and he said his brain was "fried." He thought it would be impossible for him to quote even short passages of the Bible. But, he prayed that God would heal his mind and help him recollect scripture. Amazingly, that night he quoted the entire book of James without once looking at a Bible.

I am convicted to memorize more scripture. Why not join me? Why not quote your favorite Bible verse to a friend today (make it a verse other than John 3:16)?