After the Sermon Part 3

Introduction: The Importance of Completing a Task

0:02 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, September 10th, 1995, at the Trinity Baptist Church of Montville, New Jersey. Our Father, we do indeed praise you, the living God, and for your grace to this people. We thank you, our Father, that in spite of all of our sin, and all of our ignorance, and all of our waywardness, and all of our tendency to folly, that you have established and preserved in this place a framework where your worship is regulated by your word, and where those who lead us in worship seek indeed to be the mouthpiece, of the deepest yearnings of our hearts, and where we are privileged to sing psalms and hymns that have their taproots in Holy Scripture, and in the deep heart experience of your true people. And we thank you for those who minister the word of God to us, who do not seek to flatter us, who do not seek to entertain us, but who seek to instruct us, and to appeal to us, to have deeper dealings with you, and a more intimate relationship to your Son,

1:27 and call us to abandon the sins that would damn us, and embrace a willing and a mighty Savior who stands ready to receive us. O God, we thank you. I thank you for bringing me to a renewed appreciation of the privilege that you have given to us, and we pray that...

1:50 that together we may cherish those privileges, and that by your grace we will be more zealous to seek to bring others within the orbit of those privileges. And even now as we come to the ministry of the word, O Lord, instruct us, we pray, move us into that place where with all of our hearts we are determined to say with the psalmist, I will run. I will run. In the way of your commandments, when you shall enlarge my heart, meet with us, we plead, our Heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

2:32 Amen. Now, many of you know that it was my unspeakable privilege to be born and reared in a Christian home. And while I am most thankful that this privilege placed me in contact with the gospel of the Lord Jesus, in a very real sense, with my mother's milk from my earliest dawning of consciousness, the great themes of God's grace to sinners and man's great need as a sinner were a part of the whole world of my thought, I say, from the very dawning of my consciousness. And while I am most grateful for that privilege that came out of God's sovereignty, and my sovereign purpose to cause me to be brought into such a home, I am no less thankful that my parents were committed to the cultivation of those character traits essential to stability and usefulness in this life. And in pursuing that goal, many of you have heard me say that many times,

3:50 particularly my mother, though my father is well, would say to me, and repeat to me that adage that a job worth doing is worth doing well. You've heard me repeat the adage most often spoken to me by my mother, doing things you don't like to do develops character. And hardly a week passes but that one or the other or both of those adages does not come to me in some facet of my character. Labors, a job worth doing is worth doing well.

4:32 And the reminder that doing things you don't like to do develops character. Well, there was another saying that was constantly pressed upon my consciousness in the years of my development within the walls of that home, and it was this, that a job worth beginning is a job worth completing. A job worth beginning is a job worth completing. You say, Pastor, your vacations affected your head.

5:05 You're standing up there quoting adages from your family. No, I'm introducing what we're going to be doing this Lord's Day and, God willing, next Lord's Day and then for one more Lord's Day, the second Lord's Day in October, and that is completing a job that I believe was worth beginning. We began in the summer the task of seeking to come to grips with a full-orbed biblical perspective on the words of our Lord Jesus given to us in Luke chapter 8 and verse 18 in which he said to his disciples, Take heed, therefore, how you hear.

Recap: The Duty to Take Heed How You Hear

5:53 And 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 a commission that extends to the end of the age, that they were to teach, profess, to 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. And so the duty that he laid upon them they were to lay upon others and that duty is to be laid upon the people of God in perpetuity until the consummation of the age. Amen. And establishing from this text that it is the duty of disciples to give careful, constant, conscious attention to the manner of their hearing, we then turn to the rest of the Bible, what the theologians would call the analogy of the faith, in order to understand precisely what this duty entails

7:24 as we consider, consider it in relationship to the preaching of the Word. And so having established the duty, we then began a course of describing that duty as it relates in the time sequence of our relationship to preaching. The duty as it touches our preparation for the preaching of the Word, our spiritual and mental activity under the preaching of the Word, and the disciplines that should follow our hearing of the Word of God. And considering a number of passages from both the Old and the New Testaments, I set 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. And that being so, we should assume the posture described by Isaiah in chapter Isaiah 66 and verse 2, where God says to this man will I look, even to him who is of poor and contrite spirit, and who trembles at My Word.

8:53 But then, 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. And this is precisely what Peter addresses in 1 Peter 2.1 and James in James 1.21, where we are told to lay aside certain things that we might receive the Word, with meekness.

9:25 And then thirdly, we are consciously to cultivate a meek and an eager disposition of heart towards the Word, which we anticipate hearing. And Peter again speaks to this very issue when he says, as newborn babes long for, crave, yearn, desire, desire, desire, desire, desire, desire, desire, desire, desire, desire, desire, desire, desire, desire, desire, desire, desire, desire, desire, desire, desire, desire, desire, desire, After the pure milk of the Word, we are to have the disposition of the Bereans who receive the Word with all readiness of mind. 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, for we saw from the scriptures that, Jesus opened the minds of his disciples that they might understand the scriptures so it is the unique ministry of the Holy Spirit in the heart and life of the believer to take of the things of Christ and to give us understanding in them and therefore with the psalmist we ought continually to take heed how we hear before the preaching of the word crying out in the language of

10:54 Psalm 119 and verse 18 open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law 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 is a sobering fact to be faced 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 and we looked at a number of passages that clearly teach this Romans 7 Galatians 5 Peter chapter 5 Luke chapter 8 where the activity of the devil in conjunction with those places where the word is preached is very clearly understood the very passage we read in our consecutive reading Paul is conscious that there in that assembly at Corinth that group to which that letter came was an assembly vulnerable to the subtleties of the devil himself he said I fear lest

12:23 as the serpent beguiled Eve your heart should be beguiled there in a Christian assembly where a letter from a was being written gone on a vacation and that sobering fact must constantly be faced during the preaching of the word of God and then there are two simple specific directives to be implemented we must hear with resolute fixation of mind and while I exhort the men in the academy when we come to the subject of preaching to be preachers who in the substance and the manner of their preaching make it easy for people to listen to you make it almost impossible for them not to listen in spite of all that the preacher may do to give himself in the entirety of his redeemed humanity to preach as interestingly as captivatingly as earnestly and passionately and clearly as he is capable of doing no man can so preach that you can just shift your mental furniture into neutral and be carried along no we are to love the Lord our God with all the heart and with all the mind we are

13:50 language of second Timothy to think upon these things we must hear with resolute fixation of mind and then we must hear determined to render the appropriate responses of heart it is the living God speaking through his word it is the risen 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 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 with patient silence and holy awe and remember that in the presence of those mysteries

15:18 who art thou O man to reply against God what is the worm to rise up in question the way in 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 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 my present light can be subsumed under the four simple words repetition supplication meditation and implementation and I preached a sermon on repetition and we looked at a number of passages in which the scriptures themselves themselves set before us the duty of repeating to ourselves and to one another the words that have come to us in the preaching of the word of God and then we looked at a number of passages in our last meditation together showing that

16:46 supplication after hearing the word of God we must supplicate God and particularly for two things that God would take the word we have heard in the preaching and write it upon our hearts and that God would incline our hearts into the path of obedience to that word which he has written upon them one is a prayer that God would do something in our hearts with respect to that word he would write it upon our hearts and that he would do something in our hearts in our response to that word now some may say pastor just hearing you go over in 15 minutes what it took you 13 hours to preach seems like you're laying a tremendous task upon us my simple answer is have I gone beyond the word of God have I fairly handled the scriptures which address this issue if so then I've not laid anything upon you but your savior who says my yoke is easy and my burden is light has laid upon you this duty to take heed how you hear your savior speaking through his apostle John who said his commandments

18:14 are not grievous or burdensome he has said take heed and the implications of it as I've outlined them in this brief resume of a dozen sermons are part of his easy yoke they are part of that corpus of his revealed will which are not burdensome or which is not burdensome and his commandments which are not grievous and I remind you if you look upon those things as something optional and say well for people that are determined to be some kind of a first class Christian they may be prepared to go through such disciplines but as for me I'm prepared to go to heaven third class my friend I remind you of the words of Jesus not everyone who says unto me Lord Lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven but he that is doing the will of my father which is in heaven my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give unto them they shall never perish if we say that we know him and keep not his commandments we lie and do not the truth this gracious command of the Lord Jesus originally given to his

Defining the Limited Focus of Meditation

19:43 own disciples in the intimacy of his relationship to them take heed therefore how you hear and that duty as we have looked upon it as it were under the magnifying amplifying light of the entirety of scripture that duty is not optional to us as the people of God nor has it been given to be burdensome to us but to the end that we might know our God more and more and enjoy him as we were reminded in the previous hour that his purposes of grace might more and more be realized in us and through us 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

21:11 and supplication we have the privilege and responsibility of meditation now let me first of all state what is the precise and limited focus of our concern this morning and God willing again next Lord's day as we consider meditation in conjunction with taking heed how we hear the word of God in directing your mind to the word of God in our minds and hearts to consider meditation in this series of sermons I am not hear me carefully now I'm not addressing the broad biblical doctrine of meditation in general there is a general doctrine of meditation in the scriptures let me state it this way if we were approaching the subject of meditation as we approach any subject in systematic theology we would take our concordance and our references and we would look up all of the references to meditation and any other words and activities that are in the field of meditation and we would look at the total witness of all of the relevant text and examples from Genesis to Revelation we would seek to put them into their various categories and then make summary statements about those categories and then we would set forth what we would call the biblical doctrine of meditation

22:38 that's how we would do it if we were addressing it as a subheading under some element of systematic theology that is not my purpose to address the general comprehensive broad biblical doctrine of meditation in general secondly this is the negative now I am not addressing the narrower biblical doctrine of meditation upon the word of God in particular a broad doctrine of meditation would reveal that meditation takes in far more than that which focuses upon the word of God that meditation involves far more than I will be touching but you would see that there is a category in scripture of meditation that is related exclusively to our interaction with the word of God written that which God has embodied in holy scripture God breathed scripture as Paul describes it in 2nd Timothy 3 16 but I'm concerned only and exclusively with the discipline of meditation where it is connected with our response to the preaching of the word of God not meditation as it relates to the subject of the previous hour our private devotional reading

24:07 our private devotional reading of the word though some of the principles will overlap and interpenetrate I'm concerned with this very limited focus namely the meditation that is to be undertaken in conjunction with the command of Jesus take heed how you hear the meditation it is our duty to engage in after we have heard the preaching of the word of the living God now having identified the precise and limited focus of our concern for the remainder of our time I want to establish but one thing the biblical foundation for the duty of meditation as part of taking heed how we hear the biblical foundation for the duty of meditation as part of taking heed how we hear now if you expect that I'm going to come up with a text that somehow you overlooked hidden away in one of the minor prophets or tucked away in one of those lists of names and people and genealogies in chronicles or kings you're going to be disappointed because I do not know of any statement from Genesis to Revelation that

Biblical Foundation for Meditation: The Blessed Man (Psalm 1)

25:34 says thou shalt meditate upon the word of God which is set before you in the preaching of the word of God I know of no such text in the Bible if there were such a text you can be sure it would be there before you this morning and I would labor to open it up and unpack it in your hearing rather what we see in the scriptures is a clear witness to the duty of meditating upon the word of God and since one of the primary means by which the word of God comes to us is in the preaching and teaching of that word the whole includes all of its parts isn't that right you mathematical students so if we can establish from the scriptures that there is a biblical duty to meditate upon the word of God then we've established that when that word comes to us in preaching as well as when it comes to us in our private devotion when it comes to us as we speak that word one to another Colossians 3 16 that we are to meditate upon it the whole includes all of its parts and under three very simple categories I want to set before you the biblical foundation for this duty of meditation as part of taking

27:02 heed to how we hear and the first pillar in that foundation is in what I'm calling the description of the blessed and godly man 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 in a very real sense and many of the commentators that I read in preparation for my series of studies at the Mid-America Conference on the use of the Psalms in the devotional life are careful to point out that in a very real sense Psalm 1 introduces for us the whole framework of the Psalter or the book of Psalms it sets before us the way of blessedness in terms of contrast it starts out by saying blessed is the man and then it describes him and then by way of contrast verse 4 the wicked the unblessed the cursed are not so blessed is the man the wicked are not so and if we would know the blessedness of the man described in Psalm 1 God

28:31 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 when the question is asked what must I do to be saved the answer is not no longer walk in the council 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 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 blessed is the man oh the blessedness of the man that does not walk in the council or advice

29:58 of the wicked nor does he stand in the way of sinners 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 he does not take the counsel of the wicked he doesn't stand in the way with them to absorb their ways to be bullied along by peer pressure into their ways he doesn't take the posture of the scoffer who sets himself up as a judge over the mind's of God revealed in the word of God he rejects all of that with every fiber of his being but you see it's not only described in terms of what he does not do and will not do but in terms of what he does 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 law or the revelation of God 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

31:24 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 sinners who are indifferent to that law and who is determined that his thinking will not be shaped by the spirit of scoffers 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 obviously it does not mean that he sits on a log somewhere with his eyes closed or looking up to heaven fastening his mind upon one phrase of scripture after another and from morning till night does nothing but sit on his log or on his rock and think about his Bible you see he couldn't do that long before he'd be off his rock doing what his Bible told him to do such as fathers nurture your children and the children of God with the chastening and admonition of the Lord such as six days shalt thou work and do all thy labor that's part of the fourth commandment

32:51 as much as the sacred day of rest is to be set apart but it means that in every dimension and facet of his life he seeks by conscious association of any part of life with the word of God to have it framed by that word in his law doth he meditate day and night but someone says that's a description of the blessed man it's not a commandment no God's revealed will comes to us not only in the form of explicit commands but God reveals his will by describing what pleases him and bound up in any description of any grace any pattern of life that pleases him is an implicit command to the people of God be that, do that perform after that pattern 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 consciously seek to be insulated from having my life framed by the word of God framed by the advice of the ungodly however that advice may pummel me from the advertising media

34:18 from the pressure of my peers from the general climate of society I am determined in every fiber of my being my love 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 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 commending this pattern to find increasing delight in the law of God and on that law to meditate day and night on that law to have not just a concentrated exposure to it in our devotional lives a concentrated exposure to us to it in the public preaching and teaching of the word but to have a continuous impress of that word upon us by means of meditation so I say the biblical foundation for the beauty of meditation as part of taking heed

Biblical Foundation for Meditation: Concentrated Teaching (Psalm 119)

35:47 how we hear is to be found in this description of the blessed and godly man when we come into the place where Christ the head of the church has deposited pastors and teachers whose function it is in the language of scripture as apt teachers to exhort us in the healthy teaching as well as to convict the gainsayers when we sit under the ministry of those whom Christ gives for our perfecting unto works of service surely if ever meditation upon the word is appropriate it is appropriate when we have been exposed to that word through the ministry of those whom Christ has given to us to be our guides not our lords but to be our guides in the understanding of his holy word but then the second category of biblical ministry biblical witness to this duty is what I'm describing as the most concentrated teaching on the believer's relationship to the word of God found anywhere in the bible now you kids where do you think you have the most concentrated teaching on the relationship of a believer to the word of God in all of the bible where do you have a section of scripture that like no other is taken away taken off verse after verse

37:15 after verse with the believer's relationship to the word of God are you thinking somewhere in the psalms let me ask another question that may help you what is the longest chapter in the bible it has 176 verses by now the whole class has pretty well got the answer I'm referring to psalm 119 now isn't it interesting and here I've been a Christian all these years and I've never felt the force of this until now my preparation of all the things that God could have done in giving to us the one complete written revelation of his mind and will of all the areas that we wish God had said a lot more and all the areas we wish he'd said something on which he's chosen to be silent it's interesting isn't it that in one concentrated pool of divine revelation there is to be found in the longest chapter in the bible this theme of the believer's relationship to the word of God as some of you know this is Hebrew poetry and you have your 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet and in order to help a little Hebrew boy or girl learn this psalm from memory the psalmist under the guidance of the Holy Spirit penned this psalm

38:42 taking the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet for the first eight verses and began each of the verses with one of those letters now there are one or two exceptions throughout the psalm it's called an acrostic but when you do the multiplication eight verses in every section for the 22 letters 176 verses all dealing with the believer's relationship to the word of God now it is called by different things in this psalm it's called the law of God the precepts of God the statutes of God not statues but statutes of God the judgments the commandments the ways the words the ordinances of God those are all synonyms for the revelation of God's mind given to us in this blessed book we call the Bible now in that most concentrated section in all of the Bible dealing with the believer's relationship to the Bible surely the Bible is the Bible surely the Bible is the Bible surely the Bible is the Bible surely the Bible is the Bible surely if meditation upon the Bible is a duty we should find it illustrated here shouldn't we? and we're not disappointed turning to psalm 119 notice first of all verse 15 we will

40:07 precepts here the focus is upon the psalmist determination to engage in meditation as an act of his own will of holy nation 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 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 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 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 that's pretty influential and the psalmist psalmist is conscious that the great ones influential ones who can have their messengers if necessary go from town to town

41:36 and speak against him if ever one would be vulnerable to go into the horrible deep dark of a paralyzing pity party it would be such a man but what is he determined to do look at his language princes also sat and talked against me but thy

42:31 lightning bolts that strike the sensitive tables of my heart I am committed that I will meditate upon the statutes of my God no excuse for allowing how others treat us to move us aside from the duty of meditation we may come on any given lords day our hearts buffeted and battered by a thousand different influences but if we're to take heed how we hear we may be we must be able by the grace of God to say but the psalmist regardless of these external pressures your servant is committed to meditate on your statutes verse 48 I will lift up my hands unto your commandments which I have loved now children I'm going to use a word some have never heard before bibliolatry that means making an idol of the Bible and there are people who hate God and hate his word but they are not but they are religious and they call themselves Christians and theologians and they say ah you people that believe the Bible is the inspired inherent word of God you are bibliolaters you worship a book we worship God sounds so pious well if having a high inspired word such a high regard that you actually lift up your hands

43:59 in praise to God for his commandments is bibliolatry he was guilty of it I will lift up my hands unto your commandments which I have loved and how do we know he wasn't just indulging in excessive sentimental language look at the last part of the verse and will meditate on my statutes his love in his commitment to the word which he praises may I say it's my own experience it's relatively easy to praise God for what we believe to be a graciously sovereignly deposited revelation of his mind and will in an inerrant Bible it's much easier to praise God for his statutes than to meditate upon them but the psalmist expresses his commitment to the latter verse 78 verse 78 let the proud be but to shame for they have over the marginals the psalmist

45:26 and in have overthrown him 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've overthrown me wrongfully or with falsehood but I will meditate on my precepts here again 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 it is my love it is my love it is my love it is my love it is my love it is my love 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

46:55 my meditation all the day and one final text from this psalm verse 148 verse 148 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 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 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 now it's obvious that if David were the author of this psalm his meditations went beyond just the word for he says in another psalm when I consider the heavens the work of thy hands he considered in the night watches as a shepherd no doubt David often in his meditations would contemplate the vastness of the heavens it's one of the curses of living in metropolitan areas

48:24 you never get to feel the pressure that you feel when you lie on your back in a place in a field miles away from any artificial light on a clear night and you feel the canopy of the heavens pressing down upon you until you feel as insignificant and small as a worm that's somewhere buried in the sod beneath your back well David knew what it was to feel that when I consider the heavens the stars the moon the work of your hands what is man that you are mindful of him when I consider no doubt in the night watches as a shepherd as a soldier his meditations went beyond the word but our concern is to see that here he specifies the focus of his meditation I anticipated the night watches in order that I might meditate on thy word you see the generic duty of meditating upon the word established first of all from the description of the blessed and godly man someone who is here in this most concentrated teaching on the believers relationship to the word of god found anywhere in the scriptures no fewer than six explicit references to meditation upon the word of god then the third line of evidence that I lay before you very quickly

Biblical Foundation for Meditation: Directives to God's Servants (Joshua 1)

49:52 is in the specific directives given to the servants of god in both the old and the new testament in the specific directives given to the servants of god in both the old and the new testaments in joshua chapter one perhaps some of you already anticipated this as joshua is about to be god's instrument to lead the people of god into the land of promise in the opening verses of this chapter joshua is given a clear directive as to his duty in verse two he's given gracious promises in verses three to five and then notice joshua one and verse seven and verse eight joshua chapter one verses seven and eight only be strong and very courageous to observe to do according to all the law which moses my servant commanded you do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left do not turn to the left that you may have good success wherever you go joshua i am pledging my presence for the task before you i am committed that none shall stand before you verse five as i was with moses i will be with you

51:20 i will not fail you nor forsake you be strong and of good courage followed with a promise for you shall cause this people to inherit the land now the same command be strong and very courageous now followed not with a promise but with a directive be strong and courageous to observe to do according to all the law you see your overtones of our joshua saying to the disciples make disciples of the nations baptizing teaching them to observe all things whatsoever i have commanded you and lo i am with you always even unto the consummation of the age but now in the outworking of that directive what must joshua do if there's any hope that he will fulfill the directive of verse seven verse eight is the answer this book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth but you shall meditate there on day and night that you may observe to do according to all that is written therein for then you shall make your way prosperous and then you shall have good success have not i commanded you be strong and of good courage do not be afraid neither dismayed for the lord your god is with you whithersoever you go

52:49 there embedded in the midst of god's directives his promises is this clear command that joshua will fulfill the purpose of god at this point in redemptive history as the book of the law god's revealed will for his people is the specific object of his constant meditation this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth you shall meditate therein day and night would you be the blessed man the man who knows all of the covenant blessings that i've promised then joshua you must be a psalm one man you must be one who in your unique place of responsibility commits himself as a matter of principle to this constant privilege and duty of meditation in the objective revelation of the mind and will of god he doesn't tell joshua you shall meditate i.e. go sit up on a mountain and turn in upon yourself and draw upon your own resources and get in touch with cosmic vibrations and all this other nonsense no there's an objective book of the law spoken god had his words written

54:17 joshua make this this objective written revelation of my mind and will the focused object of your meditation day and night and it's interesting when we ask the question well does that directive apply to us well surely if the promise does and according to hebrews thirteen five the promise made here to joshua is applied in a one to one equivalent to the people of god himself has said i will never leave thee nor forsake thee that text is quoted to god's people this is a case where god is not so much speaking to joshua in the uniqueness of his position as the leader of israel but in the intensified responsibilities he had as an ordinary blessed man a saved man a believing man a covenant keeping man and so this text has been a watershed text throughout the ages and you find it again and again when you read literature that has been written by the servants of god that touch upon the subject of the discipline and duty and privilege of meditation this is one of those first rank soldiers constantly brought forth and rightfully so that as god spoke to joshua and told him that the means at his disposal that he

55:47 would know the blessing of god upon his appointed task was in the way of believing in the presence of god the livingness of god nothing of god died when the man of god moses died all of god in his livingness was there to buttress joshua in his life , in his task and god says to all of his people this is the way you mother would you know success in the task i've laid before you dad workman in the workplace young man young woman in that school in that university in that college setting would you know what it is to be the blessed man woman boy or girl mother father whatever your task is in the will of god here is the way of blessing meditating in the law of god day and night with a view to observing to do all that is written for therein will the blessing of the presence and power of christ be known for he that hath my commandments and keepeth them he it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my father and i will love him and manifest myself to him well time has gone from me i hope to turn to second timothy two one to seven and demonstrate that a new testament john is given a similar command after god is laid out through the apostles certain truths he says to him in a present imperative use of the verb

Summary of Meditation's Role and a Powerful Quotation

57:15 think upon constantly engage your mind in these things and the lord give you understanding in all things timothy is to expect the activity of the lord in illuminating his mind but only in the way of due meditation and reflection upon the words of god but in summary i trust i've persuaded your conscience by the word of god that meditation upon the word is a clear christian duty and surely if it is in terms of god's description of the blessed man in psalm one the emphasis in the central passage in all of the bible on the believers relationship to the word of god and these clear directives to the servants of god then whatever meditation is and i've only hinted at what it is that will be our concern next lord's day to give a practical working description of what meditation is 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 fasten 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

58:44 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 choicest 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 seventeen where it deals with the subject of meditation listen to the helpful words of pastor haywood 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 the lack of meditation here's a man writing in the sixteen hundreds the lack of meditation is the grand reason why such numbers of professing christians notwithstanding

60:13 the most ample teaching still remain ignorant unstable and unfruitful ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth instruction flows in upon them from all sides but their heads and hearts are like siths out of which everything runs as fast as they can 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 fastened on my mind in fact that the preaching

A Solemn Warning to the Unconverted

61:42 puts into my mind 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 one verses one and following i be shaped and by what the world says ought to shape it ought to shape it over me 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 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

63:10 my brothers what's the word of abraham son remember that in your life son remember meditate reflect on what was 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 and make us cheer 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

64:39 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 will love the things you now hate may god grant that you go to the lord jesus let us pray our father how we thank you for your word which is a lamp unto our feet and a light to our pathway thank you for its clear teaching on the privilege and duty of meditating upon your word and in a day when a thousand things constantly clamor for our mental energy for the attention of our minds will you not help us to determine that we shall be those blessed men and women who reject all of the counsel of the ungodly and who find ourselves delighting in your law and meditating upon it day and night have mercy upon those who have sat through their sunday school hour and through this hour feeling as it were their inner being bursting with restlessness and perhaps even resentment to mom and dad who

66:09 brought them here god take these few words addressed to them and oh god make them effectual to cause them to turn from their folly and to flee to the lord jesus and to find rest and salvation in him oh god may none who have heard the word today enter that place the forced meditation for all eternity upon the folly of impenitence and unbelief seal your word we pray and make it effectual in every hearer for jesus sake amen