After the Sermon Part 4

The Centrality of Meditation on God's Word

0:02 Now may I encourage you to turn with me in your Bibles, please, to Psalm 119, and follow as I read, without comment, seven of the 176 verses of this, the lengthiest chapter in all of the written Word of God.

0:29 Psalm 119, first of all, verse 15. I will meditate on thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways. Verse 23. Princes also sat and talked against me, but thy servant did meditate on thy statutes.

0:58 Verse 48. I will lift up my hands unto thy commandments, which I have loved, and I will meditate on thy statutes. Verse 78. Let the proud be put to shame, for they have overthrown me wrongfully, but I will meditate on thy precepts.

1:30 Verse 97. O how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day. Verse 99. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for thy testimonies are my meditation.

1:53 And finally, verse 148.

2:04 I will meditate on thy word. Now it should be quite obvious to all of you who listen to the Scriptures read in your hearing, that the activity of meditating upon the Word of God is in some way to be central to our consideration of the Scriptures in this morning hour of worship. In the course of seeking to open up the practical demands, of the words of the Lord Jesus in Luke 8 and verse 18, Take heed, therefore, how you hear.

The Exclusive Focus on God's Word and the Need for Discrimination

2:47 We have been considering the duty of the right hearing of the Word of God as it relates to what we do before we come to the preaching of the Word, what we do during the preaching of the Word, and what we do after that. And that word has been preached in our hearing. Now there is a crucial issue that I have alluded to several times in the course of the previous 13 studies together on this theme of taking heed, how we hear,

3:24 but an issue that I want to emphasize with even greater intensity and focused concern. And that issue is this, that in all of these direct, directives concerning taking heed how we hear, the reference is to our concern in conjunction with hearing the Word of God itself. In the context of the original duty articulated by our Lord, He had given the parable of the sower and the soilers. And in His interpretation of that parable, He says the sower sows the Word.

4:05 And therefore in our taking heed how we hear, we must remind ourselves again and again that it has distinct and exclusive reference to the Word of God, and not necessarily or everything or anything that one may say about that Word. As we make due preparations for the preaching of the Word, and come in dependence upon the Holy Spirit, in eager anticipation to confront the very Word of the living God Himself,

4:47 we must both during the hearing of that Word and after it, exercise both discrimination and discernment. And what do I mean by that? Simply this, while we are listening to the Word, with that resolute fixation of mind, and with that determination to give to it its appropriate demanded responses, we must always be mindful of a text such as 1 Thessalonians 5 and verse 21.

5:24 Paul having just said that the Thessalonians were not to despise or regard lightly prophesying, they were nonetheless to put everything to the test, and to hold fast only to that which was good. Or in the language of 1 John 4, 1 and 2, John said, Believe not every spirit, for there are many false teachers gone out into the world. Every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God. So when he says, Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits,

6:04 he is speaking of a trying of the spirits in terms of listening to the utterances of teachers that claim to be the utterances of the spirit, and they are to be assessed constantly as we listen with discrimination and discernment. It is the duty in conjunction with having heard the Word of God coming to us, not in our private reading, not in listening to Alexander Scorby reading through the Old or the New Testament, a wonderful discipline from which I continue to receive great benefit,

Defining Meditation: A Spirit-Aided Activity of Mind and Heart

6:47 or the Word of God coming to us in our reading of a commentary. What is meditation upon the Word of God? Having heard that Word taught and preached, it is that spirit aided activity of the mind and heart in which we focus our thinking faculties upon a serious consideration and application of a scriptural truth with biblical ends in view. And in that definition, the emphasis falls on the fact that it is a spirit aided activity.

7:28 In other words, believing that the Holy Spirit is the only infallible teacher of God's Word, that it is His unique ministry to illuminate our minds in the understanding of the truth and to be our internal instructor as Jesus promised He would be, then meditation must of necessity be a spirit aided activity, and therefore one into which we enter prayerfully, and in conscious dependence upon the Spirit, with earnest prayer for the Lord grant us the aid of the Spirit

8:11 that our meditation might be profitable. But it is a spirit aided activity that focuses upon the mind and the heart. And in using those terms, I'm not seeking to make some hard, fast, categorical distinction any more than the Scriptures do. But I'm simply seeking to underscore that the mind must be totally engaged.

8:37 It doesn't shift into neutral. It must marshal all of its faculties, or in the language of Peter, you must gird up all the loins of your mind, all of the loose folds of the mind, tie them up for a concentrated mental activity. However, it is not a purely mental activity. It has to do with the heart, the seat of who and what we are.

9:06 Out of the heart are the issues of life. We are concerned that in the deepest recesses of our being, our hearts will be engaged. And what is the nature of that activity? It is this activity of mind and heart in which we focus our thinking faculties upon scriptural truth.

The Object and Biblical Ends of Meditation

9:33 We focus our thinking faculties upon the truth embodied in the Scriptures. It has come to us in the preaching. It has been read, explained, expounded, applied. Now we are going back to the pure fountain itself, to the Scriptures, and opening them before us.

9:56 Or if we have memorized a phrase or a passage from that which is preached, we are consciously bringing into focus, right into the center of the crosshairs of a focused mind and heart, the very words of God or the truth embodied in those words. And what is our end in view? Biblical ends in view. That is seeing this may say to expand my knowledge of God that I may worship Him more in truth as well as in spirit.

10:34 Seeing what this passage reveals of the glory of my Savior in His person and work, that I may know Him more accurately and intimately. Focusing my faculties upon this scriptural truth that I may know what it may say to me about my duty. That I may know what it is to run in the way of His commandments. That I may know more perfectly the provisions that are mine in Christ to have strength to perform that duty.

11:12 What motives ought to impel me in the performance of that duty. Perhaps the passage has exposed an area of neglect or downright sin, and I have come back to it, that by the light of that word I may be reproved and rebuked and called to repentance. And that I may do what I could not do while the word was being preached. God may have nailed me at the second head under the sermon and an application of it, but because I felt I had a responsibility to follow the preacher as he carried his argument through, in a sense I had to say in my mind, tabled for further activity

11:55 of the heart with God. And you go home and you take that part of the word preached and focusing all of the mental and spiritual faculties upon it, you stay close enough to that truth until the conviction is deepened, the sin is seen in its biblical light, and you go afresh to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness and find the joy of what it is to take afresh the posture of the humble and the contrite with whom the Lord promises to dwell. Those, you see, are the things I have in mind when I say with biblical ends in view,

12:39 that I might be a better worshipper, that I might know my God more, know my duty more, that I might see the harmony of truth with greater accuracy. A whole spectrum of biblical ends can be part and parcel of this meditation upon the word that has been preached to us. Meditation is one of the major elements in the spiritual digestive process. It is not the amount of spiritual food spread on the table in the exposition and application of the word of God in preaching and teaching

Meditation as Spiritual Digestion

13:22 which determines your spiritual growth and health. It is not the amount of food that you merely put into your mouth by carefully listening while the word is preached. You may be a spiritual bulimic who before you get home you stuck your finger down your throat and you vomited out whatever you chewed and initially swallowed by careful hearing. Vomited out by worldly conversation, by a preoccupation of your mind with worldly concerns.

13:56 No, the word that profits you is that which is not only laid out upon the table, taken into the mouth and into the stomach by careful hearing while it is preached, but that which through meditation gets down into the small intestine of your soul and begins to be absorbed and ends up as nothing less than part of the fingernails and the skin and the bone and sinew of your spiritual constitution. And meditation is one of the major elements in that process

14:39 of spiritual digestion. One of the great concerns of any thoughtful and perceptive family physician who knows you well is if you came in for a regular checkup and you seemed sallow and listless and you had obviously lost an excessive amount of weight in a short time, the first question he'd ask is, what in the world is wrong with you? And if you were to lay out what you were eating and it was evident you were eating a well-balanced diet and consuming sufficient calories with balanced intake that this was on your table and in your mouth and initially going into your stomach, he'd say something's wrong.

15:22 Something is short-circuited from here to the rest of your physical well-being. We've got to get to the bottom of this. You see the application, don't you? What have we a right to think when people come to tables well-spread with the wholesome food of the Word of God served up in balanced proportions and who seem to give some measure of serious attention to the initial mastication, chewing and swallowing of that food.

16:01 Alas! You see them week after week, month after month, year after year. And you say, surely there's some dread disease eating at their vitals and neutralizing the influence of all of that wholesome intake when in reality the problem could well be there's a hang-up in their spiritual small intestine.

16:30 They are not meditating. Their minds are being bombarded with the sounds of their radio of their CD of their Walkman of their television of their telephone every waiting hour. And somehow there's supposed to be a magical impact of the Word of God upon their lives. No, dear people, if we would profit from the Word of God we must take heed how we hear.

17:04 And that taking heed how we hear demands that we not only after the preaching of the Word engage in sufficient repetition to fasten a phrase or a whole text or a solid concept from the Word of God upon our minds and give ourselves the supplication that that Word would be written upon our hearts and that our hearts would be inclined to obey it and to believe it. But we must engage in meditation upon that Word. If we would know its profit. Listen to Manton.

Manton on the Cruciality of Meditation

17:46 Three volumes of sermons on Psalm 119. He preached a sermon on every one of those texts and on some of the texts two sermons. I didn't know that till this week when I was for my own benefit. Presently I'm reading through Psalm 119 in the course of my own devotional life and one of the texts I felt I needed light and said I'll read Manton on it and lo and behold he had two sermons.

18:10 One on the first half of the verse one on the last half. But listen to his comments on how crucial is this matter of meditation. As love begets meditation so meditation cherishes love. Meditation is the life of all the means of grace and that which makes them fruitful to our souls.

18:33 What is the reason there is so much preaching and so little practice for lack of meditation. Constant thoughts are operative thoughts. If a hen straggles out from her nest she brings forth nothing. Her eggs chill.

18:52 So when we do not set a brood upon holy thoughts See the concept of brooding again. So when we do not set a brood upon holy thoughts if we content ourselves with some few transient thoughts and glances about divine things and do not dwell upon them the truth is suddenly put off and does no good. All actions require time and space for their operation. If hastily slubbered over they cool.

19:24 If we give them time and space we shall feel their effects. So if we hold truths in our minds and dwell upon them there will be an answerable impression. But when they come like a flash of lightning they are gone. And we run over them in a shallow way.

19:42 That truth may work. There are required three things sound belief serious consideration and close that is careful personal application. And then he goes on in applying what he has said on this matter of Oh how I love thy law it is my meditation all the day. He said it reproves those people who good thoughts are looked upon as a burden and a melancholy interruption.

20:17 And when they rush into their minds they throw them out like an unwelcome guest. These seem to be described by the words they did not like to retain God in their knowledge. Whereas the Psalmist said my meditation of him shall be sweet. And then he says it speaks to those who read and hear but do not meditate in order to feel the pressure of that truth and to see it expressed in practice.

Challenging Modern Distractions and the Nature of God

20:47 This duty must have its turn also. If you will ever manifest affection and increase affection you must take some time to meditate and season your thoughts. Bare hearing leaves but little impression unless we debate and revolve it in our minds. Now I know and as I sat at my desk I thought lo and behold people will think Pastor Martin you may as well advocate that we all give up our cars and go back to horse drawn carriages to get to church.

21:19 To talk about meditation in the media soaked madness of metropolitan 20th century life. You're a madman. No I'm a Bible man. And as long as this Bible says that the blessed man is the one who meditates in this book day and night you seek blessedness any other way and if you think you've got it it ain't from God.

21:47 It's a delusive spirit from the devil. And if you pummel your mind with sounds and concepts from all the trinkets and toys available ready and willing to pummel your mind God will not accommodate himself to your folly but your shallow fruitless stunted spiritual growth will be the monument of your folly and of mine. I am weary

22:28 with the God of modern evangelicals who is not even a toothless tiger. He's a toothless clawless pussycat that can only purr and cuddle up to anyone regardless of the disposition of their heart and they can feel comfortable with God. That's not the God of the Bible my friend. You treat with disdain his holy words and cast them behind you.

22:56 God says consider this you that forget me I will come and deal with you as an angry lion and there shall be none to die. God grants that you flee from your sins and find that that God who says will be an angry lion is the God who also likens himself to a welcoming father to a prodigal son and bids you to come to him through his beloved son. Bids you to turn from your sin and to cast yourself upon the Savior in the promise that he will have mercy upon you.