After the Sermon Part 3

The Duty to Take Heed How You Hear: A Recap

0:02 Luke chapter 8 and verse 18, Take heed therefore how you hear.

0:13 In these words of the Lord Jesus, setting forth the duty of paying constant, conscious, careful attention to the manner of our hearing, we established the duty of these words. That when Jesus said to his apostles with the commission that extends to the end of the age that they were to teach, profess, baptize disciples to observe all things whatsoever he had commanded them, among those commands is this command given to them that they were to take heed how they heard. I said before you, that in fulfilling the duty, take heed therefore how you hear before the preaching of the word, that this will involve consciously cultivating a fresh awareness that in the preaching of the word we will be confronted with the very words of the living God himself. But then we ought secondly to consciously repudiate by fresh repentance, all that would hinder our joyful reception and effective assimilation of the word of God.

1:39 And then thirdly, we are consciously to cultivate a meek and an eager disposition of heart towards the word which we anticipate hearing. And then in the fourth place, we are consciously to cultivate a disposition of dependence upon the Holy Spirit, for His ministry as we anticipate the preaching of the Word. Then we move to the matter of what does it mean to take heed how we hear during the actual preaching of the Word. And I set before you two categories of concern, that there's a sobering fact to be faced.

2:21 Every time a man of God stands to open up and preach the Word of God to us, a sobering fact to be faced. And what is that fact? It is the fact that the insidious and soul-destructive influences of our remaining sin and of the devil himself are neither suspended or negated under the preaching of the Word. We must here determine to render the appropriate responses of heart.

2:52 It is the living God speaking through His Word. It is the response. It is the response. It is the response.

2:57 It is the response. It is the response. It is in Christ present among us by the Spirit exercising His role as the great prophet of His people when the Word is preached and applied in the assembly of the people of God. And therefore, we are not simply dealing with ideas.

3:14 We are dealing with the living God whose Word demands responses of us so that when His Word addresses our sin, there is to be an immediate response of tenderness and repentance and brokenness before Him. When His promises and provisions are set before us, there is to be the response of faith, lest it be said of us as was said of the wilderness generation, the Word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those that heard. And when we are confronted with high mysteries of the being, the ways and works of God, we are to respond. We are to respond with chastened silence and holy awe and remember that in the presence of those mysteries, who art thou, O man, to reply against God? What is a worm to rise up and question the ways and the works of the Creator of the universe? But then our task is not done. We have not adequately taken heed to how we hear, simply when we have made due preparations for the preaching of the Word, and by the grace and enablement of the Spirit of God during the ministry of the Word,

4:40 we have faced the sobering fact, we have followed out those directives to be implemented. Our work is not done. We have a task after the preaching of the Word, and I suggested that that task, at least the major lines of it, according to the Word, is to be done. And to my present life can be subsumed under the four simple words, repetition, supplication, meditation, and implementation.

The Privilege and Responsibility of Meditation

5:09 Now we come this morning to take up the subject of meditation. After the preaching of the Word, we are to take heed to what we have heard, repetition, repetition, repetition, by which we seek to fasten the substance, of the Word, to our minds. Supplication, in which we ask God by the Spirit to write the Word upon our hearts in the seat and citadel of our inner being, and pray that our hearts may be inclined unto that Word, and in the words of the psalmist not unto covetousness. But our task is not done with repetition and supplication.

5:54 We have the privilege and responsibility, of meditation. The duty is set before us in the description of the blessed and godly man. Psalm 1. A reference was made to this portion in the previous hour, but now I want us to turn to it and look at it afresh.

Psalm 1: The Blessed Man and Meditation

6:17 And if we would know the blessedness of the man described in Psalm 1, God is saying the path of that blessedness is before you. Now let me be careful to add that Psalm 1 is not answering the question, How do I initially become a blessed man from having been an unblessed and a wicked man? That's a question concerning the way of salvation. Psalm 1 is not explicitly addressing that question.

6:52 When the question is asked, What must I do to be saved? The answer is not, No longer walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers, but start delighting in the law of God, and meditating on His law day and night. No, the answer to the question, What must I do to be saved? is, Repent and believe the gospel.

7:16 The answer is, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. But here in Psalm 1, while we do not have an explanation of the way, to heaven we have a description of the man who having entered that way is now walking upon it. And how is he described? He is described first of all in terms of the things he will not do and does not do as a pattern of life.

7:45 Blessed is the man, O the blessedness of the man that does not walk in the counsel or advice of the wicked, nor does he stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers, nor sit in the seat of scoffers. The man who is blessed is the one who does not allow any of the avenues of influence that would mold or shape his life to come to him from sources of evil and wickedness. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and there the law of the Lord is broader than the epitome of the moral law in the Ten Commandments or the book of the Lord, or the revelation of God given in the early chapters of our Bibles. It is a synonym for all of God's revealed will as found in the scriptures. His delight is in the law of the Lord. And because he is determined that his life will be framed not by the counsel of the wicked who reject that law, and pushed along, and sucked along with the way of sinners who are indifferent to that law, and who is determined that his thinking will not be shaped by the spirit of scoffers,

9:10 his delight being in the law of the Lord, he manifests that delight in this way. And in his law, or on his law, doth he meditate day and night. On that law in which he delights, he meditates day and night. And so in setting before us the path of the blessed man, God is saying to you and to me, would I be increasingly the blessed man, the blessed woman, the blessed boy, the blessed girl, the blessed teenager, then I will be such only to the extent that I deliberately and constantly, consciously seek to be insulated from having my life framed by the advice of the ungodly. However that advice may pummel me from the advertising media, from the pressure of my peers, from the general climate of society, I am determined in every fiber of my being, my life will not be framed by the advice of those who hate my God, and hate his ways. You'll never be anyone who makes progress in grace, and be truly blessed,

10:37 unless that's your disposition. So God is commanding you and me, not to walk in the advice of the wicked, not to stand in the way of sinners, not to sit in the seat of scoffers, but he is commanding us by commanding this pattern, to find increasing delight, in the law of God, and on that law to meditate day and night. Turning to Psalm 119, notice first of all verse 15, I will meditate on thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways. Here the focus is upon the Psalmist determination, to engage in meditation, as an act of his own will, of holy determination. I will meditate on thy precepts. We turn to verse 23, and we find the Psalmist saying, Princes, the great ones of the earth, influential ones, have sat and talked against me.

Psalm 119: The Psalmist's Commitment to Meditation

11:56 How do most of us feel when people talk against us, especially, when they make up stories about us, and pass them around as though they are truth? We're hurt. Few things grieve us more. Few things take the spirit of a little child, or the spirit of an old man or woman, and batter it more fiercely, than vicious, false, insistent, slanderous reports.

12:24 Now if you're a prince, and you've got all the stuff of royalty at your disposal, to float your lives, and stories about your kingdom, I mean, that's pretty influential. And the Psalmist is conscious that the great ones, influential ones, who can have their messengers, if necessary, go from town to town and speak against him, if ever one would be vulnerable to go into the horrible, deep, dark sea of a paralyzing pity party, it would be such a man. But what was he determined to do? Look at his language.

13:01 Princes also sat and talked against me, but thy servant did meditate on thy statutes. Thy testimonies are my delight, and literally the men of my council. Let the princes and the great ones of the earth say what they will. My God is worthy of the full outpouring of my love and devotion to have my life, framed by his word, so regardless of the dark clouds of unjust slander that may gather over me, and out of which may come lightning bolts that strike the sensitive tables of my heart, I am committed that I will meditate upon the statutes of my God. Verse 48. I will lift up my hands unto your commandments, which I have loved. Verse 17.

14:01 Verse 78. Verse 78. Let the proud be but to shame, for they have overthrown me wrongfully, or as the marginal reading has it, with falsehood. Here again, proud men are opposing the psalmist, and in their pride they have overthrown him.

14:25 We don't know what the circumstances were. It could be a situation that had parallels to that which David knew when Absalom, in the pride and ambition of his own heart, usurps the throne of his father David. If anything would cut a man to the quick and cause him to leave off, as it were, the discipline of meditation, a man in such circumstances, we would surely excuse him, but listen to the language. Let the proud be put to shame, for they have overthrown me wrongfully, or with falsehood, but I will meditate on my precepts, here again.

15:06 There is that fixed commitment to the discipline of meditation. And then verse 97, familiar to many of us. Oh, how love I thy law! And what is the expression of that love?

15:18 It is my meditation all the day. Now again, it doesn't mean that's all he did from morning till night, but he means that throughout the day, whenever the mind was legitimately free, to be released from the total preoccupation of some other biblically mandated duty, it went immediately to this fixation upon the word of the living God. I will meditate my meditation all the day. And one final text from this psalm, verse 148, verse 148.

16:01 This is an amazing statement. My eyes anticipated, the night watches. Here is a man who knows that he is going to pull in order, in some kind of a rotating sequence, he is going to pull the night watches. When from 12 till 4 in the morning, or from 4 till sunrise, whatever was the apportionment of those watches, he would have to keep awake in the night hours when he and others would normally be sleeping.

16:35 And he says, I anticipated, I looked forward to the night watches. Why? That I might have additional opportunity to exercise my mind in holy meditation upon thy word. When our Lord said, take heed how you hear, bringing to that injunction the broader witness of scripture, then surely it involves, after hearing the word, that we not only engage in repetition to fashion it upon the mind, engage in supplication that God would write it upon the heart, and incline our hearts unto obedience, but that we engage in meditation, that by means of meditation, it might be assimilated into the entirety of our spiritual constitution. As I close, I'll close with my word to my fellow believers by reading what is one of the choices, paragraphs on this subject I have ever found. It's in the book that has become a household book for many of you called Heart Treasure by Oliver Haywood. And in chapter 17, where he deals with the subject of meditation, listen to the helpful words of Pastor Haywood.

Meditation as the Chief Agent for Fastening Truths (Oliver Haywood)

17:55 Meditation is the chief agent in fastening divine truths on the mind. The knowledge of these truths we receive by hearing, reading, and social interchange of pious thought, that is, conversing with spiritually-minded Christians. But it is meditation alone that gives them a permanent dwelling place in our memories and makes them our own. It is the digestive process by which spiritual food nourishes the soul and promotes its growth in holiness.

18:31 The lack of meditation. Here's a man writing in the 16th century. In the 1800s. The lack of meditation is the grand reason why such numbers of professing Christians, notwithstanding the most ample teaching, still remain ignorant, unstable, and unfruitful, ever learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

18:59 Instruction flows in upon them from all sides, but their heads and hearts are like sieves, out of which everything runs as fast as it is poured in. The impressions which truth makes on their minds are as fleeting as are the characters traced in the sand that are totally obliterated when the next wave breaks upon the shore. Meditation alone imprints truth deeply upon the conscience and engraves it on the tablets of the inner man as with a pen of iron, and the point of a diamond. It thus becomes incorporated into the soul, forms as it were a part of it, is ever present with it, to regulate its affections and to control and guide all of its movements. There are some of you sitting here who say, Pastor Martin, the last thing I want to do is to think about anything in God's word. I could not care less about having anything, anything fastened on my mind. In fact, I do my best to drive out everything that the preaching puts into my mind.

A Warning to the Unconverted: Forced Meditation in Hell

20:20 There's a thought that almost overwhelmed me this morning and brought me to tears sitting on this platform as I thought of some of you of whom this is true. Listen to me, my unconverted friend, boy or girl, man or woman, you hear me in these closing moments. You say, I have no use to meditate on the law of God. I don't want to be the person described in Psalm 1, verses 1 and following.

20:46 I gladly acknowledge I'm one of those, the wicked or not so. My life is shaped by what I want to shape it and by what the world says ought to shape it. I don't want the word of God to shape it. Who is the Lord to rule over me?

21:02 Meditate, come off it. Every spare minute I'm going to use to fill my mind with the music that pleases me, with the TV programs and the videos and the VCRs, that please me. I could care less about meditation. Listen to me, unconverted friend, hear me carefully.

21:21 You will be forced to meditate. You'll be forced, if you don't repent, to meditate for all eternity in hell upon what a fool you are. Because you remember the words to the rich man in hell? He cries out, a drop of water!

21:44 I'm tormented in these flames! Send someone to my grave! Send someone to my brothers! What's the word of Abraham?

21:53 Son, remember that in your life. Son, remember! Son, meditate. Reflect on what was.

22:11 My unconverted friend who hates God and hates His word and therefore would hate the thought of going home to meditate upon it today, remember, you'll meditate in hell if you don't repent and meditate for all eternity. And God will bring back this very morning when you were told that unless you repent you'd be forced to meditate. And you'll meditate on the sermon you heard on meditation that you despised along with a thousand other sermons. Why don't we have clowns in the pulpit that make us laugh and performers that make us cheer?

22:56 Because there's a real hell and nobody was ever giggled into repentance. Oh, my unconverted friend, man, woman, boy or girl, become one of those blessed ones. Go to the Lord Jesus who can take your meditation-hating heart, your God-hating heart, your scripture-hating heart, and He can change it and pardon all the sins that have flowed out of that heart and make you white as snow and cause you to be accepted. And give you a heart that'll love the things you now hate.

23:35 May God grant that you go to the Lord Jesus.