Right, is it? Ready.
Excellent.
Raul always flatters me when he kind of looks, decides, and then puts his earpiece in.
Sometimes I'll start and I'll see him take it out and throw it away.
Or my favorite, my favorite is, I'll start telling him some of my best stories and I'm about a few seconds and he'll say, is this a long story? Because I'm already bored.
I did that to me in surgery.
Oh God.
It's pouring out my heart.
Raul, this is a long story.
Okay team, I don't, if you can't see that.
If you're upset and you care, feel free to shift.
All right team, well, we have taken up in our series on scripture several questions which commonly suggest themselves to thoughtful inquiring minds.
Questions concerning scripture's authority, clarity, historicity, canonicity, transmission.
And if you are just joining us and these are questions of interest to you, the recordings are accessible on Trinity website.
I was supposed to say that.
Okay, well, we want to conclude our series on a most practical note.
Come on in, come on in team, you're making it.
Perfect timing, we're just beginning here.
We want to conclude this series on a most practical note.
Taking up not so much a further doctrine or belief about scripture as a practice with regard to scripture.
For as vital for disciples of Jesus as are their right beliefs about scripture or anything for that matter.
Having the right beliefs as James disturbingly reminds us will not necessarily distinguish us from demons.
As James says in James 2.19, even the demons believe.
As Jonathan Edwards glosses this, Satan himself is educated in the best divinity school in the universe, the heaven of heavens.
So we must put these beliefs into practice.
That's going to be what we want to focus on in this final session, to explore a practice together.
Namely, how do we engage the scriptures that we now hopefully appropriately esteem.
How do we engage the scriptures to our spiritual prophet?
Or, to use the language of the Apostle Paul in Colossians 3.16,
how do we get the word of Christ to come to dwell in us richly?
And sisters and brothers, I can think of few more vital and practical subjects as this.
And this topic is, for me, one that is kind of mingled with wonderful nostalgia and memories.
For I want to take as my guiding text a passage of scripture that my dad opened up to me when I was a young man.
In fact, actually just a little boy.
I can remember it so vividly.
Just opening up the scripture and saying, hey, let's work through a passage, son.
And what he did, I knew from his life that what he was giving to me was not incidental,
but at the heart of his own life and walk with God.
Dad lived in the word.
My earliest memories are running through the woods, memorizing scripture with him.
We even had this arrangement that if I memorized a verse, I was a really little guy.
If I memorized a verse, he would memorize the chapter in which it was contained.
We would do that together.
I really got him once, and I memorized one in Psalm 119.
He memorized the whole thing.
And if I memorized the chapter, he'd have to memorize the book.
But, yeah, it was a good arrangement.
Start with the verse.
Exactly.
And countless times over breakfast, I would see him kind of with boyish delight.
Just he'd open up his Bible and say, look what I found in the word today.
Isn't this fantastic?
Look at this.
And his engagement with the word was not episodic.
There was really no ebb or flow.
It was really consistent.
In fact, the day that he died, he died in a bicycle accident.
And he was rooting the word.
Maybe that's why he crashed, because he had his little verse pack with him.
He's memorizing scripture.
He was riding his bike.
But the Lord took him.
And so, all this to say, this model came to me with the credit of a godly life, which bore much fruit.
And I want to pass it on.
That's what I want to do today.
And he took this outline from the book of James.
James 1, 21 to 25.
Let me read that.
Read that for us.
James 1.
James 1, verse 20.
Picking up in 21.
Therefore, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
For if anyone is a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like one who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.
For he looks at himself and goes away, and at once forgets what he was like.
But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts.
She will be blessed in all she is doing.
All right.
There we go.
The context of this is the role of the word in bringing spiritual life.
So verse 18, just before, we have been brought forth by the word of truth.
So now James goes on to explain how that word sustains the life that it has inaugurated.
And so I'm going to adopt the outline that dad gave me, and illustrate the truths with profuse and delightful reference to the Puritans, particularly.
I'm rather fond of the Puritans.
So here are the four steps that dad drew from this passage.
First, when we come to the word preparation, verse 21, preparation.
Putting aside all filthiness.
Or in the inimitable King James Version, superfluity of naughtiness.
What a phrase.
Put away all superfluity of naughtiness.
You know, often we dive right in to scriptures.
But it's fitting and needful to prepare our hearts for the engagement.
As Thomas Watson, these people that I'm naming, they're all just famous Puritans.
As Thomas Watson put it, many come rashly to the reading of the word.
And no wonder if they come without preparation, that they go away without profit.
Or Thomas Manton.
They that look for the bridegroom had need trim up their lamps.
In agricultural metaphor, weed before you seed.
Weed before you seed.
Jeremiah 4 tells us, plow up the fallow ground, sow not among thorns.
Sometimes, you know, if I haven't dealt with my heart and I just dive right into scripture,
it's like I'm trying to sow good seed among thorns.
We don't want to do that.
So how do we put aside all this superfluity of naughtiness?
Well, we check to see if we're cherishing any sin.
And David's prayer is a good model here in Psalm 139, 23, where,
Search me, O God, and know my heart.
Try me and know my thoughts.
See if there be any wicked, hurtful way in me.
And if the Holy Spirit reveals anything, well, we confess it, according to 1 John 1, 9,
and he will cleanse us.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
So we just simply repair to the fountain.
In those wonderful words of Zechariah, that fountain opened for sin and impurity.
Or as I told our girls as they were growing up, you know,
you wash your hands before the meal.
And that's what we're doing with respect to scripture.
We're just washing our hands before our meal.
The second part of preparation concerns our attitude or our disposition.
Notice how it says there, in humility.
In humility.
So we place ourselves under the word and recognize its authority.
It judges us.
Not we it.
So we need to drop our defensive guarded posture.
And rather read with a readiness to submit to it.
And where does God disclose himself?
Well, the highest heaven, it says, but also to the humblest heart.
Isn't that wonderful?
Isaiah 66, 2.
But to this one I will look.
To him who is humble and of contrite spirit and who trembles at my word.
Or Luke 1 puts it this way, 52 and 53.
He gives grace to the humble.
He hath filled the hungry with good things.
So we want to come to the word hungry and humble.
Hungry and humble.
And then in the final phrase of our text in James here.
Receive the word.
Notice, able to save.
This highlights our dependence upon the scriptures.
We need to welcome the scriptures work in our lives.
For the Bible's work in our hearts is God's saving work.
Recall that receiving the word is a condition of salvation.
I want to be really careful here.
Not for salvation, but of salvation.
In other words, if we are being saved, we are necessarily receiving the word.
These things just are correlates.
They will go together.
So there's our preparation.
That's the first step.
Preparation.
Any questions or comments about preparation?
You seeing this in the text?
Emerge from the text?
Okay.
Yeah, pretty straightforward, I guess.
All right.
So, with heart prepared, we turn to the second step.
And that is, again, borrowing from my dad, meditation.
Meditation.
And this is suggested by the word that we have in verse 25.
What's rendered in our text?
Looks intently.
Parakupsis is the word.
It's kind of like the image of bending over and peering.
It's the same word that's used of John, you know, at the tomb.
Bending over and peering in and looking with all your strength.
Referring to the disciples of the sepulchre in Luke 24, 17.
Or, wonderfully, that marvelous phrase in 1 Peter 1, 12, about the angels desiring to search out God's saving actions.
They longed to look into salvation.
Same thing.
So, what is it that we intently look into?
What is the object of our meditation?
Meditation.
Actually, let me add a little sidebar here.
And because as evangelicals, oftentimes we narrow the scope of our meditation.
But then we're kind of parting company with a long and hallowed tradition of Christian sisters and brothers
who also believe that we can meditate on nature and providence.
So, Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God.
Or, Acts 17, God is the shaper of history.
So, these are also areas where we can meditate.
It does have a long and faithful pedigree.
As Thomas Manton puts it,
A gracious heart, that is a believing heart,
A gracious heart is like an alembic.
An alembic, it's like an apparatus of distillation.
It distills things.
A gracious heart is like a distillation apparatus.
It can distill useful meditations out of all things it meeteth with.
As it seeth all things in God, so it seeth God in all things.
Isn't that wonderful?
As it seeth all things in God, in the framework of God.
For from him and to him and through him, or through him and to him are all things.
We see all things in God, therefore we see God in all things.
Wonderful, wonderful thought.
And again, John Owen and his great work on spiritual mindedness.
He actually, the first one that he takes is a characteristic of a spiritual person.
is that they are able to discern God's hand in providence.
Interesting, isn't it?
Jonathan Edwards' work, Divine Emblems.
Everything has a stamp of their creator.
So he turns to nature to distill some meditations from.
John Bunyan's Divine Emblems, too, is another.
In fact, probably the first book of poetry for children in the English language.
John Bunyan's Divine Emblems, wonderful, where he says, go to the ant and you'll have a little
poem about an ant and some sort of useful meditation for children and for grownups, too.
Those are the book, the stripe of books that parents love to read to their kids because
they're so good.
So, but nature or history cannot be an adequate supply of any new content to revelation.
Okay?
All it can do is really, it cannot inform, it can just impress.
So we know what we know from Scripture, from his revelation.
But then this bright, wonderful world and the motions of history can illustrate and impress
these truths that we've got from Scripture.
And what a wonderful gift that is, that he surrounds us with all these things because
we need impression.
We need impressing if we're going to walk a godly life.
So, I just add that because sometimes that's new for this most recent generation.
Oh, we can meditate on nature and history and stuff, too?
Yes, we can.
But, but the chief object of meditation is Scripture.
And this is the object that James, in our passage, is indicating.
Notice, he refers to it as the perfect law.
Parallel to where else in Scripture you would see the law of the Lord in Psalm 1 or Psalm
119.
Okay?
Does this just refer to the laws of the Bible like the Ten Commandments?
It might seem so, the law of the Lord?
No.
James here, and this is the common biblical idiom, is not speaking of a particular portion
of God's word.
Rather, all of God's word considered authoritatively.
That's why it's very natural to refer to all of God's word is the law.
It's not all law per se, but all of it is authoritative.
It comes to us that way, and it highlights that aspect.
So, that's what's going on there.
And the term is a helpful one, for it reminds us that we need to accept its authority completely.
If you get rid of what you don't like, you can't wrestle with God.
God can't challenge you and correct you.
It can't then be a life-changing encounter.
As we consider meditation, let me enforce how vital it is for the disciple, but alas, how
commonly neglected.
As Richard Baxter writes, why so much preaching is lost among us.
And professors, not university appointments, but those who claim to have faith, professors,
you know.
And professors can run from sermon to sermon, and are never weary of hearing or reading,
and yet have such languishing, starved souls.
I know no truer or greater cause than their ignorance and unconscionable neglect of meditation.
Isn't that interesting?
And pretty scary.
So, there we are running from sermon to sermon to sermon, getting all this stuff,
and yet our souls can still be languishing, languishing, starved souls.
And he says, it's the lack of meditation.
The lack of meditation.
Yeah.
But I'm sure that the reason for that is because they were much more distracted by media than
we are today.
So, I'm sure we don't have these sorts of problems.
It is helpful to consider meditation in relation to, first, the dynamic, how it works, and then
the discipline, how we work at it.
Okay?
How it works, and then how we work at it.
So, first, the dynamic.
How does it work?
Psalm 1 tells us that the one who meditates is like a tree.
And just, you know, running with a better word.
Water comes in one end and fruit at the other.
Okay?
Unlike a pipe where it's water in, water out.
Okay?
A change, a change takes place in the substance of the tree.
And this is what meditation does.
Meditation.
Here's an important phrase.
Meditation makes the word flesh.
It takes the principles and truths and works them into our being.
Meditation.
Emotionally.
Affectively.
Actively.
The word becomes us.
Meditation is a way to make the Bible like the burning bush before Moses.
out of which God speaks to us
directly and arrestingly.
Meditation is the descent of the mind
into the heart.
And as with the Mount of Transfiguration,
the truth begins to shine.
And as with the Mount of Transfiguration,
you remember,
as the truth is transfigured before us,
that's what transforms us.
Truth in its transfiguration,
that's what transforms us.
Truth works into and explodes in the heart
like a combustion engine,
kind of imparting the soul with speed and strength.
Or think of the heart like photographic film.
I don't know.
Remember that ancient thing that we happened so long ago?
The photographic film,
chemically treated to make it sensitive to light.
Okay?
And that's the Holy Spirit working on the heart
to make it sensitive to the impressions.
And then meditation brings the truth like light,
impressing itself upon the heart
that's prepared or sensitized by the Holy Spirit.
And the corresponding images that it creates,
that are produced,
are these new affections.
What then our heart longs for
and is delighted with.
That's the change.
It's a wonderful one.
And meditation actually reworks
the affectional currents of our heart
such that they can start flowing
in different directions.
Like they did with the Chicago River.
I don't know how they do this,
but they actually got the river
to start flowing in a different direction.
And that's what meditation does to our hearts.
And oh, do we not have a need for that,
for some change in the currents.
And simple Bible reading,
even Bible study,
and I'm really a fan of Bible reading
and Bible study.
You know, don't get me wrong here.
But even these things will not achieve this.
Such inner working really requires meditation.
As Thomas Watson writes,
study is the finding out of a truth.
Meditation is the spiritual improvement of a truth.
The Puritans would use improvement,
that it changes us,
it makes us different people.
That's what they meant by improvement.
The spiritual improvement of a truth.
The one searcheth for the vein of gold.
The other digs out the gold.
Study.
Oh, listen to this metaphor.
Study is like a winter sun
that hath little warmth and influence.
Meditation melts the heart when it is frozen
and makes it drop into tears of love.
What a wonderful metaphor.
A winter sun.
Or again, with a similar metaphor.
This is Thomas Watson.
There is as much difference between the knowledge of a truth
and the meditation of a truth
as there is between the light of a torch
and the light of the sun.
Set up a lamp or a torch in the garden
and it hath no influence.
The sun hath a sweet influence.
It maketh the plants to grow
and the herb to flourish.
So, or likewise,
knowledge is but like a torch
lighted in the understanding
which hath little or no influence.
It maketh not a man the better.
But meditation is like the shining of the sun.
It operates upon the affections.
It warms the heart and makes it holy.
Meditation fetcheth life in a truth.
That is, pulls life out of the truth.
If we would experience real change,
we must give ourselves to meditation.
A man shall as soon live without his heart,
writes Thomas Brooks,
as he shall be able to get good
by what he reads without meditation.
Wow, I mean, this is really forceful claims.
But these people have credibility.
They really do.
A man shall as soon live without his heart,
as he shall be able to get good
by what he reads without meditation.
Excellent.
You say that study is like looking at a meal,
but meditation is eating it.
Excellent.
And in fact, I'm going to use,
Baxter's going to use a metaphor
just like that in just a moment.
That's excellent.
Saints have a lasting rest
or the Reformed passage?
Saints have a lasting rest.
Yeah, yeah, that one.
No, yeah.
So these are some vaunting claims, friends.
You know, do you feel like it overstates the case
or do you feel the ring of truth to this?
So how may we practice this vital discipline?
Okay, so we were looking at the dynamic,
you know, how it works.
Now, the discipline that we must practice,
how we work at it, okay?
Meditation is the essential discipline
of all of the disciplines.
And really, it's a compound discipline
involving both study and prayer.
As Thomas Manton explains,
meditation is a middle sort of duty
between word and prayer
and hath respect to both.
The word feedeth meditation
and meditation feedeth prayer.
And the prayer that arises
is what we might call answering prayer.
Okay, this is distinct from calling prayer.
Okay, Peter steps out of the boat.
Help me, Jesus, I'm drowning.
Okay, that's calling prayer.
Okay, really great.
And we want to do it all the time.
All right.
But in answering prayer,
God chooses the subject.
He sets the tone
and he commences the conversation.
You see, meditation begins with Bible study
but proceeds to prayer.
But see there, but God is choosing
what the subject matter is
of the conversation with that.
In the wonderful phrase of Richard Baxter,
meditation is taking the truth
and praying it down into your soul
until it catches fire.
Praying the truth down into your soul
until it catches fire.
Helpful on the meditation process,
I find Augustine.
There are a few of them I'm talking about.
Augustine of Hippo, 354 to 430.
And he speaks of meditation
as the ascent of the soul into God
and breaks down the discipline
into three steps.
Okay, three steps.
The first he calls retentio.
Retentio.
Okay.
And this is the distillation
of the truths of scripture
and holding them centrally
before our mind.
Basically, Bible study.
And here, observational skills
are really key.
So pray with David
for powers of observation
as we do this.
Psalm 119, verse 18,
open my eyes.
And you grow in this,
we grow in this,
by forcing ourselves to do it
and just staying at it.
Kind of like what we know to do
with our kids
when we're teaching them
to eat a meal.
Good, take a bite.
Good, good.
Okay, take another one.
Yep, lift the fork,
open the mouth,
put it in.
Chew, chew, chew.
Good, okay.
Now take another one.
You just have to keep at it.
We don't do this naturally.
Louie Agassiz,
19th century Harvard naturalist,
would have his students observe
a fish in a bowl
for two whole days.
Graduate students would come up
and he was the most,
you know,
father of natural science
in America,
Louie Agassiz.
I mean, you'd study with him,
you were going to be great.
And they'd show up,
you know,
pretty confident
that they were the cat's pajamas
and he'd say,
here, stare at this fish
and make some observations.
And he would make them do it.
He would hold their head
to the bowl
for two days.
Two days.
And they'd go crazy.
But they'd get to be good.
You know,
one time he was asked,
what was your greatest
contribution scientifically?
And this guy had a CV
and he said,
I have taught
men and women
to observe.
That was his greatest,
that's what he felt
to be his greatest contribution.
And lingering
is required.
This is not cursory,
but protracted.
Thomas Manton writes,
the Christian
is like some heavy birds
as the bustard,
I guess the buzzard,
and others
that cannot get upon wing
without a run
of a furlong or two.
Have you seen those things?
What a great image.
You see him kind of flapping,
trying to get up
off the ground.
And we're like that.
Manton again writes,
content not thyself
with the surface
of the truth,
like a swallow
skimming the water
of a lake.
But get into
the bowels of it.
Puritans are a real model here.
They would see the text
like a multifaceted diamond.
And they'd kind of hold it up
and gaze at it
for a long, long time,
make observations,
and then just slightly turn it,
look at another face of it,
then slightly turn it,
keep looking at that.
Often they would write
entire books
on a single verse.
On a single verse.
A common phrase
that is always spoken
with this thrill and delight
is,
ah,
this verse is full of matter.
It's full of matter.
Here's perhaps
my all-time favorite
Richard Baxter quote.
Okay?
57thly.
Unbelievable!
57thly.
He's given you a list
of his observations.
You know in his sermon,
57thly.
You know,
even the most stalwart
preacher today
will never get to 57 points.
But they did.
Routinely.
57thly.
Ah.
Yeah,
that has a savor
of heaven about that.
And we need to,
we need to break
these observational barriers.
You know what I mean?
Well,
you're staring at the Bible,
you think you've got everything,
but you stay at it,
and then suddenly,
boom!
And then so much more
comes in.
I used to do this
with disciples
in the early days
where we'd take
John 3.16.
They'd even memorize.
They thought,
I know it!
Say,
all right, men,
we're going to make
100,
and women,
I did it with my daughters too,
we're going to make
100 observations.
And, you know,
it was agony
keeping them there,
you know,
just like eating.
Take another bite of peas,
you know,
there's nothing more,
no, no, no, no, no, no.
You know,
I'd physically hold their head,
you know,
so they can't move.
You know,
we'd fetter them.
But it was one of the most
exciting experiences they had.
They'd get to 100 observations
on a single verse,
and it changed their lives.
It changed their lives.
They couldn't believe it.
Oh, my goodness.
Well,
some practical aids
for the process.
You know,
when you're looking at a text,
paraphrase it.
You think you understand it?
Try to put it
in your own words.
Whoa,
pretty challenging.
Outline it.
Forces you to discern connections.
Here's one.
Isolate one word.
What is this ad?
What if I take this word away?
What goes missing?
Just one word.
Bombard it with questions.
The journalistic questions.
These prompt observations.
Just like reading a book.
You know,
you want to,
you know,
before you go into a book,
go into a book with questions,
or else you're not going to
end up with answers.
You know,
like,
oh, wow,
I just,
I just read War and Peace.
Wow,
well,
what was it about?
Oh,
Russia?
Start with questions,
or you're not going to end up
with any answers.
Here's a leaf
from Jonathan Edwards.
This is a discipline
that he had.
He took a Bible
and broke open the spine,
and then he would put blank pages
between the pages of text,
and it was already one
that had the massive margins.
And then he would just,
he would just make observations
all over this blank Bible.
And this is what I'll offer to you.
If I need to preach on something,
or if I need to meditate on something,
I'll just take a big piece of paper,
just write the verse out
in the middle of the thing,
and then there's just white,
and then just fill it
with observations.
Fill it with observations.
And clearly,
this is not the kind of
through the Bible
in a year approach,
but it's very,
very rewarding.
When you slow down,
you will see things
that you would have missed
kind of with the flyover
or the drive-by technique.
It was like that's
when we talked on the phone
or on our ride,
Psalm 119, 36 and 37.
Turn my heart from,
incline my heart to your testimonies
and not to covetousness.
Turn my eye away
from looking at worthless things
and revive me in your way.
And all those first words,
me and you,
I found out that it was God
who turned my eyes.
Yes.
It was God who revived me.
Yes.
It was God who inclined
my heart to his ways
and not me.
Yes.
He was doing it.
That's how you find,
oh, I don't do anything.
It's him who does everything.
Excellent.
It's the glory of scripture.
That's a great idea.
I never saw that.
Yeah.
I'm like, oh, I don't do this.
He does it.
Yeah.
Fantastic.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
I mean, you will go away
laden with riches
if you linger and meditate.
Absolutely.
It seemed,
writes Jonathan Edwards,
it seemed,
or sorry,
I seemed
often to see
so much light
exhibited
by every sentence
and such refreshing
food communicated
that I could not
get along
in reading.
Often dwelling long
on one sentence
to see the wonders
contained in it.
And yet almost
every sentence
seemed to be
so full of wonder.
Don't you
hear that confession
beckoning you?
Come on and see.
So there's the first step.
Retentio.
This is kind of Augustine's
how do we do this.
Second step.
Contemplatio.
Contemplation, I guess.
Here, we seek
to gaze at God
through the truths
that we have distilled.
Okay, we move
from breaking down
the truth,
analysis,
to gazing at it
as a whole,
intuition,
so to speak.
Okay?
And the Puritans
would draw from
gemology
to elucidate.
You know,
they would say,
well, the first is
cutting the diamond
painstakingly.
And then the second
is holding it up
and admiring its beauty.
Admiring its beauty.
Or if you're a musician,
you're moving
from studying the score
to actually hearing
the music.
And so,
we take the truths
from our study
and,
says Samuel Ward,
oh,
I love this.
We roll them under,
roll them under
thy tongue.
Chew on them
till thou feel
some sweetness
in the palate
of thy soul.
Isn't that great?
I remember
when I was little kids,
missionary kids,
once a week,
we'd go to the candy store
and we'd each get
to get one piece
of candy.
And I'd get the toffee
because it was so good
and it would last
a long time
and I'd find that
part of your tongue
that was most responsive
to sweetness
and I would roll
that thing under my tongue
and it would last me
all five blocks
walking home.
You know,
and that's what he says,
do it with scripture.
You know,
roll them under
thy tongue.
Chew on them
till thou feel
some sweetness
in the palate
of thy soul.
Isn't that a wonderful image?
Oh,
Samuel Ward,
thank you,
dear brother.
And here,
we labor to make
our portion
in meditation
become a window
or an oculus
and we want to
yearn with all
of our strength
to see Christ,
to behold his glory
in that text.
Christ.
So,
I ask myself there,
how can I adore
Christ in this truth?
What here stirs me
to praise?
What attribute
of God
sparkles here?
This is where,
in the wonderful
phrase of Martin
Lloyd-Jones,
the truth
begins to shine.
The truth
begins to shine.
Where you begin
to feel
his reality
pressing upon you
and his attributes
begin to blaze.
Here,
meditation becomes
the bellows
of the affections.
Remember those things?
You know,
on the coal.
That's Thomas Watson.
Like bellows
on the coal
of what we have
taken in
in our Bible study.
So,
meditation is bellows.
This is critical
because our hearts,
are they not?
Our hearts
are like
green wood.
They're like
green wood.
Thomas Manton
writes,
green wood
is not kindled
by a flash
or a spark,
but by
constant blowing.
Wonderful.
Then,
Psalm 39.3,
while I meditated,
the fire burned.
Again,
Watson,
the reason
we come away
so cold
from reading
the word
is because
we do not
warm ourselves
at the fire
of meditation.
And this
takes us to
Augustine's
third step,
dilectio.
delight.
Oh, oh, oh, sorry.
Yeah, yeah, here we go.
Dilectio.
Delight.
And this
is where
your soul
becomes
a palate
and you
taste of the
glory that's
disclosed.
And we can
scarcely,
this can scarcely
be called a step
because we're
not in control
of this.
It's kind of like
whitewater rafting.
Have you done some of that?
Or kayaking
in these
great
Vermont streams
where
it takes
a lot of
skills,
but the thrill
isn't the skills.
It just takes
skills to stay
on the river,
but the thrill
is the river.
It's the river.
And that's
what we're
coming into now.
You know,
just the thrill
of the river.
That's the delight.
Skills are just
to keep you there.
Turn over my canoe
so fast.
And it's often,
you know,
we're not in control
of this.
It's often,
but it is often
the accompanying
experience.
The accompanying
experience.
We can build
the altar,
but the fire
must fall
from heaven.
And sometimes
our hearts
don't glow.
My heart
doesn't glow.
A lot of the time
my heart
doesn't glow.
It's okay.
I'll come back
tomorrow.
And I'll gaze
again tomorrow.
It's all right.
I learned a lot.
You know,
it's okay.
Sometimes,
writes John Owen.
John Owen.
Sometimes.
Sometimes
these meditations
fill us
with joy
unspeakable
and full
of glory.
There is
to us
granted
a relish
and a
savor
in which
lies
the sweetness
and satisfaction
of the
spiritual life.
We taste
then by
experience
that God
is gracious
and that
the love
of Christ
is better
than wine.
John Owen.
Meditations
on the
glory of
Christ.
Or,
as Richard
Baxter
put it,
sometimes,
don't be
discouraged
if it doesn't
happen often,
sometimes
our meditations
be as the
chariot
of Elijah
and take us
up into
heaven.
Isn't that
wonderful?
Again,
that's
saints'
everlasting
rest.
Before we
move from
meditation,
I want to
underscore
one final
time its
vital
importance
in the
life of
the
disciple.
As Thomas
White writes
in his
Art of Divine
Meditation,
1672,
so these are
periods still,
it is
better
to hear
one sermon
only and
meditate on
that
than to
hear two
sermons
and meditate
on neither.
Okay?
Or as
Baxter
quaintly put it,
Raoul
anticipated
him here,
a man
may eat
too much,
but he
cannot digest
too well.
Isn't
that great?
A man
may eat
too much,
boy do I
know that,
but he
cannot digest
too well.
Saints'
everlasting
rest.
Near the
end,
page 549.
In fact,
the whole
point of
eating,
surely,
is to
digest and
assimilate
it.
That's the
whole point.
Every sermon,
writes James
Usher,
is but
a preparation
for meditation.
Every sermon
is but,
nothing but,
a preparation
for meditation.
Which is a
preparation for
the consummation.
Yeah,
excellent.
That's great.
Yes,
that's right.
It will
accustom us
to our
occupation for
eternity.
That's right.
Faith is
lean,
writes
Manton,
and ready
to starve
unless it
be fed
with
continual
meditation.
So,
as Thomas
Watson writes,
a Christian
without
meditation
is like
a soldier
without
arms,
or a
workman
without
tools.
Without
meditation,
the truths
of God
will not
stay with
us.
The heart
is hard,
and the
memory is
slippery.
And so,
without
meditation,
all is
lost.
All is
lost.
Christ,
so let
me leave
you with
this charge
from the
pen of
Watson.
If you
have
formerly,
formerly
neglected it,
bewail your
neglect,
and now
begin to
make a
conscience
of it.
Lock up
yourself
with God
at least
once a
day by
holy
meditation.
Ascend
this hill,
and when
you are
gotten to
the top
of it,
you shall
see a
fair
prospect.
Christ
and
heaven
before
you.
Let me
put in
your mind
that saying
of Bernard.
He's talking
about Bernard
of Clairvaux,
Saint Bernard.
O saint,
knowest thou
not that
thy husband
Christ is
bashful,
and will
not be
familiar in
company?
Retire
thyself by
meditation into
the closet
or the
field,
and there
thou shalt
have Christ's
embraces.
So,
we have
preparation,
then
meditation,
and the
third step
is
application.
Application.
Verses
22 through
24 and
25.
Or in
the words
of James
here,
our original
text,
becoming
or being
a doer
of the
word and
not merely
a hearer.
Now,
if we
neglect
this step,
we will
have lots
of company,
for we
will merely
swell a
throng that
no man
can count.
Those who
open the
word and
close it
without effect,
like the
fellow who
looks in
the mirror,
but walks
away and
forgets what
he saw,
the gross
deformity,
okay,
the spinach.
and the
result is
no benefit
at all.
Deluded.
Deluded,
James says.
And this
is pervasive,
but perilous.
Perilous.
Bible study
that stops
short of
response
becomes a
tool of
the devil
to make
us like
the other
denizens
of hell,
full of
truth
and
ungodliness.
Or in
Watson's
words,
reading
without
practice
will be
but a
torch
to light
men
to hell.
Okay,
now this
may seem
an extreme
contention,
but minds
more steeped
in scripture
assert the
same thing.
Jonathan
Edwards
has a
sermon
called
True
Grace
Distinguished
from the
Experience
of Devils.
Okay,
True
Grace
Distinguished
from the
Experience
of Devils
in which
he says,
Satan
is educated
in the
best
school
of
divinity,
namely
the
heaven
of
heavens.
Okay,
so it's
not just
knowledge.
And Jesus
underscores
the necessity
of application.
Matthew 7
from Sermon
on the
Mount,
7,
24
through
27.
Remember
contrasting
the person
that builds
their house
on the
rock
and the
person
that builds
on the
sand.
Do you
remember
what the
contrast is?
What is
the difference
between the
one who
builds their
house on
the rock
and builds
their house
on the
sand?
Was it
hearing the
words?
Anybody
remember?
No.
That's right.
That is
correct.
It is he
who hears
these words
of mine
and
puts them
into practice.
Remember
that's the
contrast.
The guy
whose house
is on
the sand,
oh they
hear all
these words,
they hear
all these
words.
They might
give a
tentative
lunch.
So that's
the contrast
there.
Not an
acquaintance
with Christ's
words but
their application
is determinative.
In other
words,
Mark 4
24 and
25,
Jesus makes
a similar
point.
Use what
you've got
or lose
it.
Use or
lose.
He who
has,
more
will be
given.
He who
has not
even what
they have
or thought
he had
will be
taken away.
Apply or
forfeit.
Apply or
forfeit.
And this
crucial step
naturally
becomes the
sure focus
of spiritual
warfare.
Remember what
Jesus said
in the
parable of
the soils?
The devil
comes and
takes away
the seed.
The seed of
the word
that's been
strewn on
us.
The devil
comes and
takes away
the seed.
That is,
keeps would-be
disciples from
acting on
it.
You're no
doubt familiar
with C.S.
Lewis's
Screwtape
letters,
the correspondence
between junior
and senior
demons,
Wormwood and
Screwtape.
So here's,
the great
thing,
writes Screwtape
to Wormwood,
is to prevent
your,
Wormwood's
Christian client,
who he's
trying to
keep from
becoming,
is to
prevent him
doing anything.
As long as he
does not
convert it into
action,
it doesn't
matter how
much he
thinks about
this new
repentance.
Let the
little brute
wallow in
it.
Let him,
if he has
any bent
that way,
to write a
book about
it.
That's
often an
excellent way
of sterilizing
the seeds,
which the
enemy,
because he's
referring to
God when he
says enemy,
these are
demons,
which the
enemy plants
in the
human soul.
Let him
do anything
but act.
We must
remember that
our aim is
ultimately not,
not really to
master the
scriptures,
but for them
to master
us.
That's what
we want.
We get into
the word so
it can get
into us.
And to
this end,
we must keep
telling ourselves
that God is
addressing me
when we
read it.
Kierkegaard,
in a sermon
on this very
verse,
entitled,
What is
required in
order to
look at
oneself with
true blessing
in the
mirror of
the word?
It's a
wonderful
sermon.
He writes,
the first
requirement is
that you
must not
look at
the mirror,
but must
see yourself
in the
mirror.
Isn't that
a wonderful
observation?
As a result
of meditating
on that
very passage,
you know,
what do we
do?
You know,
just looking
at the
Bible,
that's just
like looking
at the
mirror.
But what's
the point
of looking
at a
mirror?
Not
seeing the
mirror.
It's
seeing
yourself
in the
mirror.
That's
what James'
image is
about,
seeing
ourself
in the
mirror.
Kierkegaard
continues,
and remember
to say
to yourself
incessantly,
it is I
to whom
it is
speaking.
It is
I about
whom it
is speaking.
Let me
briefly touch
upon a few
practicals of
application.
a helpful
question to
ask is,
Lord,
what is it
in this
passage or
this truth
that you
are seeking
to impress
upon me?
And why
do you
want me
to know
this now,
today,
at this
moment in
my life?
Lord,
what is
it in
this particular
passage and
truth that
you are
seeking to
impress on
me,
and why
do you
want me
to know
it now,
today?
in this
particular
moment.
And if
you're having
difficulty
coming up
with an
application,
consider the
categories of
2 Timothy 3.16.
Remember,
all scriptures
inspired by
God and
is profitable
for,
and then
use these
categories.
Doctrine,
teaching
truth,
reproof,
refuting
error,
correction,
reformation
of life,
teaching and
righteousness,
that is,
discipline in
right living,
in other
words,
the road,
how you
got off
it,
how to
get back
on it,
and how
to stay
on it.
It's really
comprehensive.
It's wonderful.
Also,
I find
helpful,
consider each
hat that
you wear.
I'm a
disciple of
Jesus.
I'm also a
husband.
I'm a
father.
I'm a son.
I'm a
friend.
I'm an
employee.
I'm a
cyclist.
I'm a
cyclist.
Exactly.
And if
this is
really what
God is
like,
what I
found here
in Scripture,
what difference
does that
make for
how I
live today
as a
father,
as a
husband?
Then you
put your
different hats
on.
How does
this make a
difference for
me in
these different
roles that I
have?
What
emotions,
attitudes,
behaviors
flare up
in these
different
arenas,
in these
different
roles that
I have?
What
flare up
when I
am forgetful
of this
truth?
How would
my private
life,
my family
life,
my church
life,
my friend
life,
my cycling
life be
different if
I grasped
this more
deeply?
So these
are really
helpful
application
questions.
And here
are six
quick tips
to make
it take.
So one,
be specific
in your
applications.
Be specific.
Not,
you know,
it might be
sincere,
but here my
application is
I'm going to
become a
better person.
That's my
application.
Or I'll be
more like
Jesus.
Great,
but too
vague.
It's too
vague.
Be specific.
Second,
be concrete.
How,
when,
what will
this take?
Okay?
Yeah,
you meet in
the quad.
Oh,
let's do
lunch.
Yeah,
that'd be
fun.
Let's do
lunch.
Oh,
if you
haven't
pulled out
your schedule
book and
figured it
out,
it's just
never going
to happen.
You've got
to be
concrete.
Be
realistic.
Don't be
overambitious.
I'm going
to outline
the whole
Bible in
multicolored,
you know,
no,
start small
and succeed
and then just
build on your
success.
I'm going
to stop
sinning
today.
That's
right.
Sincere,
but you'll
judge.
Fourth,
be
accountable.
Solicit
some support
to buttress
your
resolves.
Hey,
will you
ask me,
this is what
I'm working
on,
will you
ask me
how I'm
doing
on this?
That's
lacking
in our
church,
in all
churches.
Yeah,
often it
is.
Yeah,
yeah,
and having
the relationships,
the thick
fabric of
relationships
where people
will care
enough to
be lovingly
intrusive in
your life
to ask
you,
you know,
write out
the ten
questions you
hope to
God no
one ever
asks you.
Write them
down on a
piece of
paper and
give them
to your
friend to
ask you,
you know.
So,
and fifth,
begin,
begin.
So many
promises are
writing in
the sand,
for they're
just not
acted upon
promptly.
As George
MacDonald
writes,
he observes,
good notions
must take
advantage of
their first
ripeness.
Isn't that
good?
And this
is where
our determined
applications are
so often
scuttled.
I will
not lose,
or he
will not
lose his
loaf,
who has
taken care
to eat it
at once.
That's
Spurgeon.
He will
not lose
his loaf,
who has
taken care
to eat it
at once.
Neither
can he be
deprived of
the benefit
of the
doctrine,
who has
already
acted upon
it.
Most
readers,
look at
this image.
Oh,
my goodness,
metaphor.
Most readers
and hearers
become moved
so far as
to purpose
to amend.
But alas,
the proposal
is a
blossom which
has not
been knit,
and therefore
no fruit
comes of
it.
They wait,
they waver,
and then
they forget.
Till,
oh,
here,
oh,
image,
till,
like the
ponds
in nights
of frost,
when the
sun shines
by day,
they are
only thawed
in time
to be
frozen
again.
Oh,
that fatal
tomorrow
is blood
red
with the
murder
of fair
resolutions.
It is the
slaughterhouse
of innocence.
Spurgeon.
Yeah,
Kierkegaard
Simone writes,
the next
hour,
after one
we call
the quiet
hour,
that's when
you've been
meditating
and you have
the impression,
the next
hour,
after the
one we
call a
quiet
hour,
is the
critical
hour.
Accordingly,
he urges,
the best
thing to do,
therefore,
is promptly
to say to
yourself,
I will
promptly
begin
to prevent
myself from
forgetting,
promptly,
at this
very moment,
I promise
myself in
God,
even if it
is just
for the
next hour
or for
this very
day,
this long,
it shall
be certain
that I
shall not
forget.
That second
of the
critical hour.
So finally,
those were
five tips
to have
it taken,
and the
sixth,
final one,
be sensitive
to the
spirit.
Sometimes
when you
make lists,
it can
sound really
mechanical,
but at
the end,
this is not
a mechanical
thing,
it's a
relational
thing.
It's the
indwelling
spirit who's
in us,
who's
personal.
The spirit
speaks to
our soul.
You can
begin at
once to
be a
disciple of
the living
one,
writes
George
MacDonald,
by obeying
him in
the first
thing you
can think
of in
which you
are not
obeying
him.
We must
learn to
obey him
in
everything,
and so
must
begin
somewhere.
Let it
be at
once,
and in
the very
next thing
that lies
at the
door of
your
conscience.
That's
good.
So,
preparation,
meditation,
application,
and finally,
and briefly,
continuation.
Continuation,
verse 25,
and continues
in it.
And this
indicates
perseverance
in engaging
the scripture
and perseverance
in the
truths that
engagement
prompts.
Our
meditations
and applications
ought not
to be a
mere instance,
a spasm
or an
episode,
but rather
an abiding
lifestyle.
Keep at
it.
Keep at
it.
Here's
William Bates
writes,
if the
bird leaves
her nest
for a
long space,
the eggs
chill and
are not
fit for
production.
But where
there is
a constant
incubation,
then they
bring forth.
So,
when we
leave religious
duties for
a long
space,
our affections
will chill
and grow
cold,
and we
are not
fit to
produce
holiness
and comfort
to our
souls.
notice
verse 25,
not having
become,
but having
become.
So,
it is
your
continuation,
our
continuation
or failure
to continue,
which is
determining
what we
are becoming,
who we
are becoming.
This is
very sobering.
Okay?
Your
pattern,
my
pattern,
for good
your
ill,
will
become
my
character,
and finally,
your
destiny.
Remember the
parable of the
soils,
and that
chilling
utterance,
they were
only temporary.
They were only
temporary.
The only
adequate
response to
the word
is to
continue
in it.
but of
course,
to continue,
we must
first begin,
and I
conclude
these
reflections
and our
series on
scripture
with an
appeal to
you.
Oh,
friends,
will we
not commit
ourselves
with fresh
zeal
to engage
God's
word?
Would
not a
fitting
response
to what we
have considered
together
be a
re-energized
practice
of meditation
upon God's
word to
reinvigorate
a once
but perhaps
last fading
habit?
Or perhaps
not renewed
but a new
habit?
Either way,
would it
not be
fitting?
Well,
in the hope
that it may
be so,
may I propose
that we
give it a
try?
Shall we
stick our
toe in the
water together?
concretely,
just take
for your
portion
Psalm 1.
And spend
a dedicated
season.
Steal away
to an
undisturbed
place and
for an
hour of
unhurried
meditation
sometime
this week,
let us
discover if
God does
not richly
meet us
and graciously
work in
us what
is to
his great
pleasure
and ours
too.
Those things
wonderfully
come together
in the realm
of grace.
His good
pleasure
and our
good pleasure
come.
Let us
stick that
toe in the
ocean
together.
Well,
team,
that concludes
our series.
Thank you
so much.
It's been
a joy and
I can't
wait for
the next
series that
we're going
to do on
who knows
what.
Any
questions?
That's for
the elders
to figure
out.
But you
guys can
always pitch
in some
requests.
Any
questions or
comments?
I know I've
run a little
bit late,
but it is
the last
time,
so forgive
me.
Questions,
comments?
Cavils,
scarves,
critiques,
too.
That's
always
fine.
One of
the reasons
why Luke's
telling of
the encounter
of Mary at
Jesus'
feet,
the house
of Mary
and Martha,
I think in
that moment
she realized
just how much
Christ was
meditating on
her and
gazing upon
her.
Yeah,
that's a
great point.
That's a
wonderful
thought.
As much
as we
do this,
as best
as we
can do
it,
he does
this even
more upon
me.
Yes,
it's a
wonderful
dynamic
that we
see.
As we
cling to
him,
his right
hand
upholds
us.
So as
we're
gazing at
him,
that gaze
is right
back,
and that's
what makes
it fruitful.
Absolutely
great,
thank you.
Yeah,
Susie.
So in
terms of
the
application
you mentioned
about asking
God,
what do you
want me to
know and
learn,
and what are
you trying to
teach me in
this season,
how do you
know if that
passage is
really?
Yeah.
Is where
you're going
to find
it?
Yeah.
Yeah,
yeah,
yeah.
So the
wonderful thing
about
providence
is God
is able
to direct
you.
Have you
not noticed
how when
you are
actually practicing
this and
you're
meditating,
you're
spending
time in
scripture,
how those,
what you
get in
scripture,
the things
that are
able to
impress
you,
maybe
even
inscribe
you,
become
for that
time a
lens through
which you
see everything
and how
those are
often the
very things
that God
wants you
to be able
to see
and he's
provided
those lenses
and so
providentially
he works
such that
where he
has guided
you in
scripture
and it
might seem
to be
completely
random
to you
where you're
just,
you know,
I haven't
read this
in a while,
let me just
read this
and God
can take
any number
of things
from his
scripture
and use
them particularly
for just
what our
need is
so we
leave it
to him
and in
some ways
when you
just go
to the
word
he is,
he is
picking,
even though
we pick
the spot
he'll pick
the truth
to impress
you and
the spirit
will do
that,
so you
just trust
him in
that,
don't worry
about oh
no I'm
looking in
the wrong
part of
the Bible,
if I don't
find just
the right
part God
can't speak
to me,
no no he
can,
he can
use all
of his
word to
do this,
sometimes it
takes years
to learn
the lesson,
it could
be that the
lesson is
patient,
you know,
that's right,
some of us
are on the
remedial
program,
I'd say,
I certainly
am,
I just don't
read the
Bible,
open it
up and
then point
and then
think this
is going
to speak
to me,
I never
read the
Bible,
yeah,
you know,
he says,
look,
don't be
like a
horse,
you know,
a horse
or a mule
with a bit
bridal spur,
you know,
in other words,
have some sort
of renewed
sanctified mind
and think
through these
things,
but here's
the good
news,
even if you
don't,
God can
still use
that,
even if you
do,
you know,
you flip
open the
Bible or if,
you know,
I'm not
particularly good,
you know,
we don't,
as elders,
we don't cast
lots,
you know,
we try to have
the mind of
Christ,
we don't cast
lots,
but you
know what,
you know,
if our hearts
were humble
and we were
really seeking
the Lord,
he could
direct us
through lots,
you know,
he did even
the choice
of an apostle,
you know,
so,
yeah,
there's a
nunnery in
southern France
and they've
written out
the entire
Bible on
little slips
of paper that
they have in
a huge
cauldron,
just one
verse at a
time,
and every
day,
you know,
the head
abbess,
she just
reaches in
and she
pulls out
one,
it's like a
fortune cookie,
you know,
but it's the
scripture,
you know,
it's the word,
and she
reads that
and they
approach their
whole day
in light of
that verse
and you think,
good grief,
surely there's a
more fruitful
way to,
you know,
discerning,
engage the word,
but that's what
they do and,
you know,
God blesses it.
He guides them
into some really
fruitful paths,
you know,
and contemplate
on Jesus
wept.
Yeah,
there you go,
yeah,
that's right,
that's right.
All right,
thank you team,
we will,
yeah,
I don't know
what's,
does anybody
know what
we're doing
next week?
I guess this is,
something's starting,
I'm sure we'll hear
it in the service,
I'm sure it'll be
announced in the
service.