Part One a couple months ago. After that first one, a couple people asked for some more information. And even when Pastor Jason gave me a, hey, I'm leaving in two weeks, can you cover? I go, yeah, I did over-prepare the first time. If you remember, I said, okay, I'm gonna literally skip 60 slides. So I'm hoping today we can get to those 60 slides. I will give a very brief overview, but if you have not listened to Part One, it is gonna be worth it to listen to that. Of course, if you're here live, You know, don't walk out and go listen to it, that'd be rude, but with that, let's do a scripture reading, a quote, and we will pray. Psalm 1, 1 through 2 reads, how blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law, he meditates day and night. Psalm 119, 15 through 16, and note all these bold words, and also FYI, all the quotes and scriptures I put up there, if you ever see bold or italics, it's always just my emphasis, so don't think like, oh wow, God put bold in that text, that's me, that's just me emphasizing our subject here. I will meditate on your precepts and regard your ways. I shall delight in your statutes. I shall not forget your word. Thomas Hooker, Puritan, said, As the goldsmith with his metal, he heats it and beats it, turns it on this side and then on that, fashions it on both that he might frame it to his mind. Meditation is hammering of a truth in our mind. Let's pray. Oh Father God, we do pray that as we come to this subject, we would take it with that seriousness and that fervency that the Puritans had for it, and also the joy and the delight of it, that it is to be in your word and to meditate on it, to be like that blessed man, is ultimately pointing to our Savior, Christ. Help heap the truth in our minds, help us to hammer it out from those different angles, and to shape it internally to conform our hearts to your will. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Well, as I said, our previous Sunday School on this topic If you haven't listened to it, I encourage you to do that. It's titled Christian Meditation, Mind Renewal for Soul Strength. Here's a very brief overview. And due to time and the amount of stuff I have and kind of where I want to go, I may be selectively kind of editing on the fly. So I may be like, all right, I'm going to skip over those next three or next five. So just bear with me. First, we looked at it in three parts, and we're doing the same three parts today. Why should we practice meditation? What exactly is Christian meditation? That sounds weird. And how do we do it? When we looked at the why, we looked last time in depth at how it's assumed you meditate, much like fasting. A lot of church commentators throughout the ages would argue that this is one of the ways you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We saw plenty of commands and examples, particularly from the Psalms. And those are all up there for reference, again, brief review. And we kind of found how we have a plethora of information. We have so many resources at our hands. But why doesn't it stick? Why, if I can listen through hundreds of sermons, am I not getting this one thing? The Puritans would argue, even though they didn't have podcasts and sermon audio back then, that it's worth more to meditate on one sermon than to listen to a hundred. And they said that is not to disregard the word, that is to highlight it and show its depth and the riches that are in it. Gonna jump a few slides here, talking about kind of modern Christianity and kind of the shallowness of it. Jeremiah 6.16 outlines a different approach to deal with it, you know, returning to those old paths. This advocates for the church's return to true biblical spirituality. serious focus on putting God's Word to practice in one's own experience. We must wholeheartedly integrate doctrine with living. This necessary wetting of doctrine and practice destroys superficial Christianity and but it only comes through a careful and serious consideration of God's word. Unfortunately, over the last century, believers have lost a regular focus on Christian meditation. The reformers and Puritans regularly wrote, taught, and exhorted people, God's people, to a life of meditation. Sadly, in recent years, many associate meditation with false religion of the Far East, right? Emptying of the mind, the meditation process of emptying the mind, rather than, as scripture commands, and I believe we showed this last time, it's filling the mind with divinely revealed truth. Without a return to the delightful duty of biblical meditation, the believer will continue to handle God's word merely intellectually. he will fail to digest the scriptures, to make them his daily walk and practice. So that was the why. When we looked at the what, we looked at some deep word studies of the way that meditation is used throughout the Bible. We looked, for example, at all these scriptures. We read through every one. We explained every one. We ultimately came to the conclusion that meditation in the Old Testament seems to be exclusively an internal brooding over something in the heart, musing, an internal incubating, dwelling on something over and over and over again, whether that was for good or whether that was for bad, right? The wicked are the ones that scheme against God, they devise evil, but the righteous are those who meditate on God's word, they muse, they delight in it. And because of that, as Thomas Watson would point out, meditation manifests what a man really is. By this, he may take a measure of his heart, whether it be good or bad. As Proverbs 23.7 reads, for as he thinks in his heart, so he is. What we argued last time was everyone meditates. What do you meditate on though? Another summary of meditation in the Old Testament, it's presented as a spiritual activity of the heart and mind that characterizes a God-fearing saint. So here we're talking about positive meditation. It characterizes a God-fearing saint. He loves God's word and prizes it as gold or honey. When we looked at the New Testament in depth, lots of various verses and ways that it encourages you to meditate on God's word, to study it out, to remember it, to recall, to think on these things. Conclusion we came to there, and a lot of this material, again, as you can see, comes from David Saxton's excellent book, God's Battle Plan for the Mind. He reads, meditation is presented in the New Testament as a key aspect for the godly renewing of the mind. It also used It is also used as a primary means to comfort and encourage Christian perseverance. If you've read through the book of Hebrews, you will find that all throughout it. Remember this so that you can do this. If you're having this trouble, remember what Christ has done, so forth and so on. So what then was our ultimate definition of meditation? We looked at several Puritan definitions. My favorite one, I think, covers the whole orb, the whole gamut of it. was Edmund Calame, he said, There's a purpose behind it, right? So meditate on the truths of God, of the truths of God, as to be transformed into them. and so meditate of sin as to get his heart to hate sin. So there's both, as you can see, this is very much vivification, trying to cultivate the godliness in your life. Down here you see this is really more talking about mortification of sin, wanting to take out that sin. Or you think of that beautiful passion tree we have, or passion fruit plant, whatever it is in the front, it's growing and it's thriving, it's being transformed, hopefully it bears fruit, hopefully we get passion fruit. The sun shining on it. It's been raining. It's drawing nutrition from the dirt. But if weeds come up and start choking it, we're going to have to take care of those weeds so that it can continue to cultivate. That's really that second part. Vivification, mortification. All right. As Beakey described, for the Puritans, meditation was a daily duty that enhanced every other duty of the Christian life. As oil lubricates an engine, so meditation facilitates the diligent use of means of grace, such as reading the scriptures, hearing sermons, prayer, etc. It deepens the marks of grace, repentance, faith, humility, and strengthens one's relationship to others, love to God, to fellow Christians, and to one's neighbors at large. My own attempt at a pithy definition to kind of sum all this up was as follows. It's scripture anchored rumination for transformation, much as that Puritan calumny was explaining It wasn't just to be up here in the mind. I want my heart inflamed with the love of Christ. I want to be transformed by this doctrine. This is the true marriage of that doctrine with our living. It's not just for head knowledge. It's so that we can actually go out and do something. Scripture anchored rumination for transformation. Okay, so that was kind of what we went over last time in about 50 minutes. It's a very brief summary. Any questions? Sorry if you're brand new and you haven't been listening to the series because you just jumped right in. This is the one point you need to see here. Scripture meditation, when we look at the biblical evidence, the pithiest way to say it, it's scripture-angered rumination, kind of chewing the cud like a cow, getting all that good nutrition out of it, bringing it back up again, digesting it, back up again, digesting it, for the purpose of transformation. Not just wanting to be hearers of the Word, but becoming truer so that we can become doers. Meditation is kind of that halfway house, as Dr. Joel Beeky had been explaining in our series. All right, with that, here is the part that we completely skipped over. So this is all the new material here. Two kinds of meditations. Of course, the Puritans aren't just going to give you one definition. They're going to break it down. They're going to have all these long lists. But this is pretty simple and straightforward. The first kind is occasional or spontaneous meditation. And then the second is deliberate, or planned meditation. And they would, of course, argue you can do the occasional if you've done the deliberate, planned meditation. If you've already filled up your mind with God's word, you can have these spontaneous moments throughout life where you can do that kind of meditation. Just to show one example of these categories they used, there is a sudden, short, occasional meditation of heavenly things. Kind of just pops up in your daily living, And there is a solemn, set, deliberate meditation. So we're taking time out purposely to do this. So let's start with looking at occasional meditation, which was, again, typically short, triggered by any occasion. Just like last week, several people were looking at that beautiful little butterfly garden, the fruits, and seeing, wow, we see little scary-looking caterpillars, we see little chrysalis, and now we see butterflies. What a picture of transformation. And the purist would argue, This wasn't to take you away from God's word at all, but it was to help explain it, to help you see an illustration of it. They were always trying to make sure you weren't going off into like Romanist mysticism or other kind of Far East mysticisms, but the Christian, true Christian meditation, filling up your mind so that you can understand God's word better and better. I love how this one Pearson describes the purpose of this occasional meditation. William Bates reads, Occasional meditation brings this advantage to us. The world, which is the house of man, is made the temple of God. This is really where they start getting into saying, you become a spiritual alchemist because you have this ability. This is probably the nerdiest part of this. I loved this part. It was like so nerdy. Edmund Calamey says this. Occasional meditation is this. When a man takes an occasion by what he sees or by what he hears or by what he thinks of, to raise up his thoughts to heavenly meditation. Using the creature as a footstool to raise him up to God, as a ladder to heaven, herein lies the excellency of a Christian, that he is able to spiritualize natural things. Isaac Ambrose gets the Pithy Award. He says, occasional meditation ariseth from such things as God and his providence offers to our eyes, ears, and senses. This is really God speaking through his other books. So we all agree that God speaks through his word, direct revelation, but he also speaks through providence and creation, right? We see his glory, majesty, power, et cetera. George Swinock referred to occasional meditation as the labor to spiritualize earthly things. He that hath learned this mystery is the true spiritual chemist. He hath better than Midas's wish. He turns all he toucheth to better than gold. I kind of want to put on my signature like Jason Delgado, spiritual chemist. I think that'd be like so cool because this is something I hadn't thought about to really digging into the Puritans deeper on this. And unlike Midas's touch, which turned whatever he wanted into gold, Of course, that also had its drawbacks. He couldn't take that apple and eat it, get the nutrition from it. And this is one reason Swinnick argues this is better than Midas's touch, because occasional meditation uses any experience in life to glean spiritual fruit, and we can have that fruit, as Saxon will argue, converting the mundane activities of life into jewels of divine thoughts. If you didn't know, Saxon was a modern-day pastor. He learned under Dr. Joel Beakey. That is very Puritan-esque language. I love it. You could tell he's been engulfed in the Puritans. Thomas Watson explains, a Christian, by divine chemistry, can extract golden meditations from the various earthly objects he beholds. Bates again, Christian or occasional meditation distills something from everything it sees and views for the good of the soul. This is that spiritual chemistry that turns all metals into gold. I found it fascinating how they all kind of use that same illustration of a Christian alchemist, I suppose. Saxon concludes that thus in occasional meditation, Puritan pastors encourage God's people to receive benefit for their souls. by thinking spiritually throughout their long work week. They weren't, I mean, they were being realistic. When we read the Puritans, sometimes we can be like, man, they were so lofty and high. How can I ever obtain to that? Well, don't forget, they were pastors. This was their main occupation. They were preaching to people. Like, if you read their sermons, you'll see they're bringing down those cookies from the top of the fridge. I don't think they had fridges back then. From the top of the whatever kind of Puritan cabinet they had down to the people. They made it accessible. And they realized, you don't have the same resources and time that I have. Some of these people probably don't even have a Bible, most likely. So they encouraged them to, you know, take notes of the sermons, memorize scripture, study these things out throughout your work week. They did not want you to neglect your work to be spiritual. Like, no. were some of the hardest workers. You've probably heard of the Protestant work ethic, et cetera, et cetera. But anyways, I digress. Let me just, let me speak for themselves, or Saxon. Occasional meditation must have been a great encouragement for the average person who wanted to grow spiritually, yet had to carry on the long hours of wheat harvest or domestic chores like cooking and cleaning, right? You just, you have to do stuff. I can't spend 24-7 studying God's word as wholly as that might sound. No, I need to sleep, I need to eat, I need to take care of things, I gotta work. he or she could benefit spiritually from heavenly truths while doing mundane tasks here on earth. So looking at some brief examples, and I think we're doing pretty decent on time. If I can get four weak readers, that will give me a nice opportunity to take a little tea break. If you have a Bible and you can just read loud, just raise your hand. These are very simple verses. It's one or two verses. I see that hand back there. Psalm 77, Joe Psalm 8. Did I see a hand right there? Oh, Reuben, Proverbs 6, 6. Jeff, John 4, 13 through 14. Ready, Psalm 77, 12, nice and loud. Again, the Puritans viewed it worthy to meditate not on just on God's word, but on what he created, his works as well. They would argue there's actually three books. God's revealed revelation here to let us know about his gospel, his salvation, the world at large to see his power, great majesty, et cetera, and the book of conscience, they would argue, so that you could truly know yourself. Two of those things are not always interpreted correctly, how we see things and how we judge our own conscience, but nonetheless, in a fallen world, of course, those were still things God has given us. Joe, are you on Psalm 8? Bust it. David here, I guess is like in an astronomy class or just hanging out by his campfire, like looking up, looking above, when he's just considering the heavens, the works of his fingers, he's considering God's works, what does it lead him to? Look at what it leads him to. It leads him to God's thoughts. I mean, how much higher can you get to be uplifted by a created thing than to be taken up to God's thoughts? This is that great psalm that starts off, O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. Just spawned off just him being outside, looking at the heavens. Of course, this is the purpose of creation, right, to give glory to God. This is one way we see directly in the psalms that it's happening right there. Proverbs 6, Reuben bust it. Yes. Yes, Solomon, the Dean of the Almighty University of Wisdom, is your professor. And what assignment has he given you first? Well, the first class you have is being industrious, being a hard worker. And your first teacher is the ant. Like, this always cracks me up. Like, the wisest man given godly wisdom says, go to the ant. It sounds so mundane, almost offensive, But it's like, no, he has created these things for you to observe. This is that spontaneous, occasional meditation we're talking about. You can learn things from God's created world. And lastly, John for Jeff. Yep. And so there you see, we're I think very familiar with the woman at the well scenario, just a normal thing, normal water. It will make you thirst again, but the water of life that Christ provides, look at all that it does. And this is The Pearsons didn't just throw out a couple proof texts to kind of prove this point. They would argue this was really the life and ministry of how God has always done things, particularly our Lord Jesus Christ. Thomas Mattin reminds us, God trains up the old church, that is Israel, by types and ceremonies that upon a common object they might ascend to spiritual thoughts. Showbread, lamps, bulls being slaughtered, things like that. and our Lord in the New Testament taught by parables and similitudes taken from ordinary functions and offices among men, that in every trade and calling we might be employed in our worldly business with a heavenly mind, that whether in the shop or at the loom or in the field, we might still think of Christ and heaven. There is a parable, for example, of merchant men, a parable of the sower, a parable of the man calling his servants to an account, In all these similitudes, Christ would teach us that we should still think of God in heaven. So small a matter as a grain of mustard seed may yield many spiritual applications. And then to take it even further, of course, the Puritans never left any corner unturned. Swinock reminds us, he instructed his disciples by lilies growing and seeds sown in the field, by trees and vines in the orchard and vineyard, by pearls, treasures, tares, leaven, mustard seed, water, bread, nets, fish, salt, oil, lamps, end quote. So that's occasional meditation. Any questions on that or comments? Yes, sir. Mm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, if anything is the ultimate example of occasional meditation, it's the Pilgrim's Progress. So many mundane things to show wonderful spiritual truth. And of course, Paul, John Bunyan, I wanted to say Paul Bunyan, but that's, we were talking about Johnny Appleseed earlier this week, so I'm thinking of American Legends. John Bunyan, it was said of him that he bled biblene. You pricked him, and it's like Bible verses started flowing out. That's how much he knew the Bible. He can only do that if he had done, and you see this in their autobiographies and biographies, if they did things like deliberate meditation. Or you think of the wonderful illustrations of like Spurgeon or Jonathan Edwards, you know, the spider hanging over, you know, as a spider's web, you're hanging over God's judgment. Or just read anything Spurgeon, and it's all there. Like these guys spent time just walking out in nature, just enjoying creation, and God gave them so many wonderful examples and whatnot that they wound up using in their sermons. Yeah, Jeff. Hmm. Yes, yes. Yeah, I do remember when he brought up that book, there was a lot of, somehow I wound up getting a copy of it. Yeah, it is marvelous. And it's just the mother teaching the son just general truth from God's word, you know, essentially, yeah, just general truth from God's word through nature. Just in that same school of Solomon, go to the aunt, learn from her ways. Okay, moving on to deliberate. meditation. This is something really planned and the Puritans would always argue this is more important because you're not going to really benefit from kind of an occasional one unless you've already got these things in your mind. Isaac Ambrose penned that deliberate meditation is when we purposely separate ourselves from all company and go apart to perform this exercise more thoroughly than occasional meditation. All throughout the writings, you see him mentioning both of these kinds of meditation. Some of them even had different books on different topics, like one on occasional meditation, one on this deliberate. Thomas Hooker wrote, as the goldsmith with his metal, this is the quote we read earlier, Fuller quote, he heats it and beats it. He turns it this side and then on that, fashions it on both that he might frame it to his mind. Meditation is hammering of a truth or point propounded. It's one thing in our diet to take a snack and away, just to grab a little, some chips and salsa, that's what I always do in the middle of my day, I'm just getting a little chips and salsa, and make a thing, but it's another to make a meal and to sit at it on purpose until we have seen all set before us and we have taken our fill of all. So we must not cast a glimpse at the truth, but we must make a meal of musing. This is a very typical illustration they use. They would also talk about, it'd be like if you make, when you make tea, like, okay, I have my little bag, I can just dip my tea bag in the water for three seconds. It's gonna, yeah, you would laugh, because it's gonna be pretty lame, but like, if you steep it how it's supposed to be steeped, 175 degrees for green tea, 220 for this tea and that tea, for the right amount of time, you're going to have a full, robust flavor. You're extracting all that good stuff from that tea. So yeah, you could dip it in there, but you may as well not. Take time. When I think of this myself, I'm like, man cannot live off chips and salsa alone. You need to have a full, complete meal, all the parts. I don't think that's a Bible quote, by the way, so don't write that one down. All right. A chorus of Puritans had more sub-genres to this. So there's two kinds of meditation, right? We have occasional and we have deliberate. Remember, our definition of it in general is it's a God-centered or a scripture-anchored rumination for the purpose of transformation. Under deliberate, they had two kinds. Direct, this is talking about things outside of us. Maybe I'm studying out the doctrine of providence or the doctrine of the word or the spirit, something like that. And reflective is really asking the question, okay, now that I know that truth, what have I done with it? This is where it really gets into the transformation part. Direct, I kind of think about it, it's in the head. Reflective is hammering it down in the heart. Henry Scudder contrasts the two saying, the first, that is direct meditation, is an act of the contemplative part of the understanding. The second, reflective meditation, is an act of conscience. The end of the first, direct meditation, is to enlighten the mind with knowledge. The end of the second, that is reflective meditation, is to fill the heart with goodness. Again, there's always a purpose behind this. Of direct meditation, William Bates said that it is the understanding that fixeth itself upon some truths and draws from it those advantages which may be proper to itself. That sounds a lot like chewing the cud, drawing out all the nutrition from it. Therefore, it is said, the law shall talk with thee. It shall give thee direction how to manage the course of thy life. God's truth via God's word. By it, we are able to have that lamp in front of our feet, the light before our path. This is how God makes wise the simple. This is one of those methods. Now, turning to reflective meditation, this is really where we're taking these truths we learn. And really, I think you see this modeled if you're under any kind of decent preaching. I think you see this modeled. The preacher generally opens up the word, he teaches it, and then what does he try to do? He tries to apply it to you. Of course, you know, if I'm thinking of Pastor Jason, he can't be like, okay, the application for you is this, and for you is that, and that would actually probably be pretty inappropriate if he made it direct to every single person out here. The Puritans would argue, you know, we have that book of conscience, no one knows your heart, even though, yes, it can be deceitful and you need outside help a lot of times, no one knows your heart better than you. And so you are going to be the best one who knows how to apply those truths, like, you know, maybe the pastor, if we're thinking of a sermon, has given in general, directly to your own heart, your own situation. Of reflective meditation, then, William Ferner gives four ways to kind of do it. And we'll look at some more practical ways I've summarized some, but this is just some partly direct quotes. He had so much on this. He says, how to follow meditation on home to the heart. First step, weigh and ponder all these things in thy heart. Consider them. Compare and contrast. Reflect seriously. is ultimately what he's saying. Reflect seriously. Step two, strip sin and look upon it stark naked. Sin covers and disguises itself with pleasures, profit, ease, and many a whorish garment, and so entitheth the hearer. Essentially what he's saying is, unmask sin's deceit. It is exceedingly deceitful. Three, dive into thine own soul and heart. There is a tough brawn over thy heart that it feels not its sin. Examine your own heart's resistance. No one is going to know that better than you. You may not even know it that well because, man, your heart can build up some spots and some ramparts that don't want to be broken down and wants to cling to that sin in your fallen nature. Don't let it. Step four, anticipate and prevent thine own heart. Meditate on what thy heart will one day wish if it be not humbled. Essentially what he's saying is, Forecast your soul's future regrets or future joys. If I don't humble myself in this area, whatever you're talking about, or if I don't believe this truth from God's word, what will it be like in a day, a week, a year, in 50 years, on my deathbed? Anticipate that. Forecast your own soul in that manner. This can be a very, this is probably what the Pearson's would argue is the most painful process. This is one reason it's not highlighted. It's not, you know, you don't usually see conferences about this topic. It's tough. Oops, I just hit the wrong button. Take two. Okay, we're gonna click that in here. Presenter, present. I'm a tech guy, so I really can't mess this up. That'd be very embarrassing. All right. Appreciate that chuckle, Jeff. All right. So Thomas Manon argues that Psalm 4, so I think we're all familiar with the verse, be angry and do not sin, as Paul brings up in Ephesians. That's taken from Psalm 4.4. When you look at the context there, that psalmist is, it seems like preaching to a sinner, sitting on his bed. He's got instill, this is like a time of meditation like we talked about. He's thinking about these things. Yeah, tremble at God's word, be angry, but don't sin, obviously. wanting it to lead you to repentance. But still, it causes that, it brings that up. It is hard heart work. He writes, of all the parts of meditation, this is the most difficult. For here a man is to exercise dominion over his soul and to be his own accuser and judge. It is against self-love and carnal ease. And as hard as it is, I am reminded that we do this kind of stuff throughout our day. Obviously we are supposed to take care of ourself and in a fallen world that means sometimes we have to go against nature. For example, usually I wear contacts. I have to open up my eye and stick a piece of plastic in there. That's weird and that's not normal. Normally when you start going like this to your eye, feel free to do it to yourself, like you usually start blinking and your neck is craning as far back as you can and It's a natural reaction. But I do it for my own good, or eye drops, or things like that. Or myself, pills, taking pills. You put something in someone's mouth, usually they're gonna chew on it, or if it's gross, they spit it out. But usually they chew it before they swallow it. Well, no. Take this in your mouth, and some of these pills are like horse pills, they're huge, and swallow it. It's not natural. It's against nature. It's against ease. I didn't personally learn how to swallow pills until after I was 21. I could drink before I was able to swallow an Advil. I also grew up in a word of faith house, so we weren't supposed to do that kind of stuff. It was very hyper word of faith, so that was a practical outcome of it. I can take pills now. Anyways, yeah, it's against those things, but that doesn't mean that it's wrong. It just means it is an exercise, as I talked about. It's work. Okay. Henry Scudder wrote that this kind of reflective meditation must be a persuasive and commanding act, charging the soul in every faculty, understanding, will, affection, yea, the whole man to reform and conform themselves to the rule that is the will of God, right? That's the ultimate purpose—conforms to the will of God. The difference between direct and reflective is that the first is for the head, the latter for the heart, as we talked about, And while this quote doesn't exactly, he doesn't use the exact same words, I think it's a nice pithy way to sum up this section. He writes, the fruit of study, think direct meditation, is to hoard up truth. But the fruit of meditation, think more of that reflective, is to practice it. The fruit of study is to hoard up truth, but the fruit of meditation is to practice it. It's really the difference, I think I explained this last time, between the man who is digging for gold or learns about this vein of gold. Maybe he has some cool technology where he's able to x-ray through the ground or do some kind of sonograph thing. They have some crazy stuff now. It's the difference between a man doing that and the man who actually goes down and is mining for that gold to extract it for himself. All right, so review of everything we've looked at. Meditation is a God-centered rumination for transformation. There's two kinds, occasional, spontaneous, just triggered by life. There's the deliberate, that's planned. Within that, we're really direct meditation. We're studying out some kind of doctrine, something external to us. And then we're asking, how does it affect me? What do I personally do with this truth in reflective meditation? Pause, questions, comments. It's a lot to think about. But it is on meditation, so you're supposed to think. Yes, Mary Jane. Yeah, and that was another point I was wanting to make last time as well was, even though some of these categories may be foreign to us, you know, they're not talked about a lot. These have kind of been lost through time, if you will. It doesn't mean that—I don't think people don't do it completely at all. I think your pastor models it for you a lot. Like I talked about before the Lord's Supper, what does Pastor Jason usually do? He usually Well, he's obviously been mulling over that sermon all week, but he extracts a little bit of it and shows us how it relates to the giving of the bread and the wine. And he makes that connection for us. You know, this is an excellent example of what I know your pastor's praying for you to be able to do on your own when you read the word and things like that. They're always modeling it. And that's one reason I believe last time, Boone, you had asked like, you know, how can I do this in my family? during family worship, just model it. Just show the way you think, ask the questions of the text that you would ask, and just model. I think that's the best way. So we will get into some of those questions and kind of the, I wanted to title it like the Puritan method of, what did I want to title? It was something really goofy, and I had to take that thing out of my mind. Like the Puritan model of interrogation, but I thought that might sound like witch hunting or something like that, so I changed it. But of course, I said it, so now here we are. All right, so we looked at why should we practice meditation? What exactly is meditation? Now let's look at the how we do it. Any other questions before we move on? One last chance. There's no more. I'm just kidding. All right. So the how. Here's the part where I'm going to need to be making sure I can kind of get through everything I want to get through. Last time we did look at this part, so I'm going to go over this very briefly. When we looked at frequency and time, the Puritans, there's like a large spectrum of what they recommended. Some recommended once a week. They all recommended like definitely take advantage of the Lord's Day. Do it at that time. You should have more time. to dwell on things above. Of course, they assume you're working six days a week, very busy, farmhands, things like that, having your own farm, very different time period. Although we've gotten busy with our own things as well, as much convenience as we have, it seems like we just keep getting busier and busier. So he's saying, find a time, find what works best for you, and aim to be consistent with it. As William Bates mentioned, if the bird leaves her nest for a long space, the egg chills and are not fit for production. But where there is a constant incubation, then they bring forth, then they bring forth. So when we leave religious duties for a long space, our affections chill and grow cold and are not fit to produce holiness and comfort to our souls. And unfortunately, I could probably say, at least in my own life, I know I've had those times where it's, if I just kind of stop doing some of the disciplines I know I should be doing, And I think, well, everything's fine. I'm not, like, in any deep sin. There's no huge trials coming my way. I feel like I'm just kind of drifting. And, you know, it's a Christian walk. We should always be moving forward. There should not be, like, yes, we may stumble and fall. Things will come. but we should work on these disciplines for our own soul's sake. So when trials and temptations do come, we've already put on the armor, we're already spiritually minded, we've already stopped walking with the flesh. Even if it's like, ah, just a little bit of flesh here and there, like, no, we're dealing with all those things at all times. Yeah, so they encourage you to aim for consistency. One of the things was they talked about what's the best for your constitution? I was actually surprised here, they said, Are you a morning person? Find some time in the morning. Are you one of those night owls, those weird night owls, which I don't understand? Do it then. Maybe while you've put the kid to bed, during your lunch break, find a pocket of time to do these things. And of course here, they're talking about that deliberate meditation. Take advantage of Sunday. We looked at that last week. Think of special occasions. Sermons was one of those special occasions they brought out. One thing we try to do, we don't do it every Sunday, but some Sundays, you know, when we're driving home, we'll just go over and review the sermon that Pastor Jason preached and try to do that. Last time I taught this, I had to go to a coworker's brother's funeral, and on my mind was not like, the blessings of life or this or that. It was the reality of death. And it was hard. But I guess my spirit was already kind of in that mode. So OK, let me study out those things, like through Ecclesiastes or the reality of death. We all fade away. Brought up several examples of that. Maybe if you're new with child, I hear there's a lot of new babies popping out very soon. Maybe you go and study Psalm 139, how you're knit, how that wonderful miracle in the womb is being knit by God, fearfully and wonderfully made, newly wed, things like that. There's so many places you can go to, so many different topics that the Bible gets into. With the preparation, we talked about clearing your heart from things of this world. You know, try to find, they encourage you to kind of get away, go to a quiet place if you can. Some of them encourage, like, go take a walk. That was their happy meditation time, if you will. Nowadays, we kind of call this maybe your devotional time or things like that. Have your heart cleansed, then stirred up. approach with utmost seriousness, and find a place and a posture. We went through all that last time, so I kind of want to just move on. So here's kind of the summing up all the various ways they encourage you to do this. First, they encouraged you to begin with prayer. So step one. I kind of have this summarized in six steps. So begin with prayer. Humble the heart. Acknowledge dependence on the spirit. Seek his aid for focus and fervency. And I think this quote will come up small here, but I wanted to keep all these on one slide. I love this quote because, I mean, you can probably tell by just the way I'm talking, I get squirreled and I'm like, ooh, shiny light. Oh, that person over there. I get so squirreled. Beg the assistance of the Holy Spirit. He that is able to stop the sun in its flight, he is able to fix thy thoughts. and to stop their motion." Ooh, that one was like, oh, I don't have that excuse anymore, William Bates. Like I said last time, if you have some kind of excuse and you need me to, like, dispel it, I have a Puritan quote for you. Don't worry. They got him. Okay, and a small little verse on that. Open my eyes that I may behold wonderful things. A simple prayer from the psalmist. Thomas Boston explains, of solemn meditation, confess your inability to do for yourself what you wish to have. Petition for the Lord's working it in you, right? It's the Lord who is our righteousness. It's the Lord who is our help. You are not gonna be able to do these things on your own. This should lead you to more prayer. That's one of the purposes behind this. This is, well, deepen your fellowship with God. So that's okay. Admit you can't do it and you need help. He who stopped the sun can stop Jason's wandering scrolls in his brain. Stephen Sharnock, with his glorious locks, I love that picture, look at those locks. He says this, Spirit is the fire that kindles the soul, the spring that moves the watch, the wind that drives the ship. The swiftest ship with spread sails will be but sluggish in its motion unless the wind fills its sails. Depend on the Spirit's work in your life, your prayer life, your Christian life, meditation life, whatever it may be. Second step, select a suitable subject. Select one verse, a phrase, a doctrine that is specific, timely to you, and personally relevant. So this is for you, right? We're not doing a conference, we're not having some kind of like Sunday at my home Bible study where I'm kind of picking a topic or something. This is something for you, for your growth. You should know best what that's gonna be. As one quoted, meditate but of one thing, at once, and at one time. The Puritans were, every single one, when they were talking about how to do this, they were always, don't get, maybe one thing that will help Jason Squirrels is focusing on one thing. Don't go to all these things, we wanna take this time to study out one thing. I think I've stressed that enough. Number three, think deeply, obviously, right? Use guided questions like, again, these are guides. I'm not trying to make a new law. These are just helps that you can use. Some questions you can ask when studying this out. What does this teach about God? What does it reveal about me? Whatever scripture you're studying out. What sin or duty does it touch? What affection should it stir? Love, zeal, some kind of hatred for this sin, some holy zeal for this or that. What are its causes, its effects, its opposite, right? This is all thinking is. We're just asking questions. We're interrogating whatever the thing is that we're thinking about. We're just asking questions. What are the promises or warnings that it holds? Meditation is hammering of a truth, turning it on this side and then on that, as we saw from Thomas Hooker. As Beaky would help explain this part, he says, Use your memory to focus on all that scripture has to say about your subject. Consider past sermons and other edifying books. I'll kind of pause this quote there. I'll also encourage you to, this is a good time to just have a very boring Bible with no study notes and it's just pure Word. There are some apps, Literal Word is one app where it's just, it's a beautiful app too. It's just Bible. It doesn't have all the little pictures and dings and dongs and all the crazy stuff with giving you the answer for everything. This is the time where you want to Use your own brain to think deeply of it. You don't want to be like the chat GPT, what's the answer? Boom, it gives you the answer. Bible study, what's the thing? Boom, it gives you the answer. Like, this is for you to grow in your mind, in your faith. So don't look for just the answer, quote unquote. Hopefully you've already studied it by that point. What you're trying to do here is how do I apply this to my own heart, my own soul? Okay. Continuing on, he says, consider various aspects of the subject, its names, causes, qualities, fruits, and effects. Like Mary, ponder these things in your heart. Think of illustrations, similitudes, and opposites in your mind to enlighten your understanding and inflame your affections. Then let judgment assess the value of what you're meditating on. You're the best judge of what's going on in your head. One example Calamy gives, so he's giving an example of how you might do this with a sin. He says, begin with a description of sin. Proceed to the distribution of sin. Consider the original and cause of sin. the cursed fruit and effects of sin, the adjuncts and properties of sin in general, and of personal sin in particular, the opposite of sin, that is considered grace, the metaphors of sin, the titles given to sin, and all that the scripture saith concerning sin. Fourthly, you're seeking to stir up the affections. Don't stop at cold logic. The goal is to awaken spiritual feelings. This is why we have to start with prayer, reliance on the Holy Spirit. Stir up love, sorrow, gratitude, joy, zeal, et cetera. Meditation hatches good affections, as the hen her young ones by sitting on them. We light affection at this fire of meditation. Thomas Watson. He said that quote based off this psalm, my heart was hot within me while I was musing the fire burned. That is not burning in the bosom, by the way. Next, stir up the affections. He talks about this. Hold soliloquies with yourself. We looked at that. Include complaints against yourself because of your inabilities and shortcomings. and spread before God your spiritual longings. Believe that he will help you. You want examples of this? Read through a psalm. You'll see plenty of this. Lord, here is my complaint. O my soul, why are you cast down on my soul? Hope in God, for I shall yet again praise him. Fifthly, apply the truth personally. Ask, how must I change? Where must I repent? What do I need to believe more deeply? If you remember when we were looking at adherence, we were explaining how the first thing you got to know is just the basic doctrine of what is, or the answer to, what is the gospel? But with assurance, you're asking, what does that mean for me? Do I personally believe this gospel? It's the difference in knowing Jesus was crucified on a Roman cross, this time, on this hill, et cetera, et cetera, and knowing Christ has died for me. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. It's that simple, childlike faith that really, it owns it. That's applying that truth personally. Closed with the resolution of the heart, to spend thy life as becomes one that hath been meditating of holy and heavenly things, Epanchalomy would say. And this is just the question of, after I've been saved, these are the questions I ask. What sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness? 2 Peter 3 11. Now following the arousal of your memory, judgment, and affections, apply your meditation to yourself, Beaky explains, to arouse your soul to duty and comfort, and to restrain your soul from sin. As Ferner describes, I love, this is great for Halloween too, dive into thine own soul, anticipate and prevent thine own heart, haunt thy heart, but with various kinds of things, promises, threatenings, mercies, judgments, and commandments. Let meditation trace out thy heart. And if you recall in our own confession, the chapter that talks about the word, it says we tremble at the threatenings. We cling and hold on with comfort to those promises. Like this is just what we're supposed to do with God's word. You see that through Isaiah and various other prophets as well. Examine yourself for your own growth in grace. Reflect on the past and ask, what have I done? Look to the future asking, what am I resolved to do by God's grace? Do not ask such questions legalistically, but out of holy excitement and opportunity to grow in spirit-worked grace. Again, this is all bookended by prayer. Last thing you wanna do, pray and praise. Conclude, respond with prayer and praise. confess where convicted, thank God for revealed light, pray or sing a related song. The Puritans were big on, you know, have a good psaltery with you. find a psalm that is related to whatever topic you were talking about, and make a joyful noise to the Lord if you can. They would argue that, and I think I have this quote, yes, seeking God's praise is a work of the most meditation of any we perform in public. It keeps the heart longest upon the thing spoken. Prayer and hearing pass quick from one sentence to another. This sticks long upon it. God, the creator of music, has really made it to really stick in our brains, that's why we get those music and why we can recite lyrics we heard, depending on your age, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. Just someone names that phrase, and boom, that song's in your head. Or someone hums at the dinner table, and that song is stuck in your head. The rest of the, not gonna say who, but front row. Anyways, is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises, as James reminds us. Again, we want to bookend this with prayer, reliance on the Spirit. Pray over your meditations, Watson would encourage us. Prayer sanctifies everything. Without prayer, they are but unhallowed meditations. Prayer fastens meditation upon the soul. Prayer is a tying a knot at the end of meditation that it doth not slip. Pray that God will keep those holy meditations in your mind forever, that the savor of them may abide upon your hearts. Oh, just kidding, there's a seventh step. But it's really just an encouragement. Build the habit. Start small. Last time we talked about Joel Beeky's kind of encouraging small little plan, nine minutes. Three minutes Bible reading, three minutes meditating, three minutes praying. And then build to richer and fuller times as you can. This is Beeky's recommended start. My encouragement was, can you find in your calendar 10 minutes? mark it in your calendar, make time for it. I think you can. Can I stop playing that little app for 10 minutes and do this? I probably can. Can I abandon some social media for 10 minutes and do this? I probably can. And I think you can, too. So it's much more beneficial to you. Not that every now and then we need a break, and I'm not saying those things are evil or completely wrong, depending on how you use them. But this is the more important stuff we don't want to skip. And again, Psalm 1-1 as the reminder there. Closing quote here, meditation is the key to the banqueting house that lets us unto him whom our soul loves, Thomas Watson would explain. Well, with that, one thing I wanted to do, depending on which people were here, because some people were asking, like, I want to do a practical this or that. We don't have time for this, but actually, Twins, if you want to help me pass these out to everybody, I just want to show you these. You could take these home. This is, what I was going to do was just, we don't have time. What I was going to do was just have a simple six minute exercise in this. And let me, I think I can show this by doing this maybe. What this is is a guide taking Beaky and some of the Puritans. So if you don't know where to start, the very top there, you can see it just has pick a topic, something relevant to you. I want to say probably the easiest thing you could do, if you look at that right hand or whatever side column that is, that you're facing, right-hand side column, that's a psalm. Psalms are usually self-contained. They're a lot easier, a lot more accessible. If you're kind of like, oh, the Bible's kind of daunting, there's a lot of words in there, maybe just start there. Pick a topic, pick a verse, select one. And then this will kind of just show you how to go through Beakey's guide if you look at the bottom of that first page. Obviously, start with prayer. I didn't put that here because I kind of wanted to do this. Oops, I got a little late start. Three-minute scripture reading, read whatever that scripture is, maybe even read the context, kind of just mull over it. He even encourages you to maybe just start memorizing it if that's what you need to do. Looking on page two, flipping it over, the actual act of meditation, that's where you do that kind of interrogate like the Puritans would, ask questions of it. This just has a very simple list of questions you could use for yourself. Optionally, you can write these things down, journal them. Not a lot of words here. right, your main takeaways from it, looking at some of those examples we looked at. responses, I will do this. I need to confess this, et cetera, et cetera. And then lastly, close with prayer. So this is just for you. It's a very simple, straightforward, if you clocked yourself at 10 minutes, I think you could easily do that. So with that, it is time. So let's pray and we will close. Well, Lord, we do thank you for this time. We do thank you so much for the heritage we have. of such godly pastors and men and writers who encouraged us to delight in your word, delight in you, and not just for the sake of our own minds. but for our soul's sake and for the benefit of those around us, that we would ruminate so that we would have transformed lives, be more and more conformed into the image of Christ. Lord, as we prepare for our worship service here in about 15 minutes, let that be a great means towards that end, to be conformed more and more in Christ, his likeness, giving you the glory. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.