Our book here, we've been discussing on meditation. Today, specifically, like I said, the chapter is titled Occasional Meditation. So does anybody remember from the book what we would call the meditation that we've been reading about thus far, up until this point? There's occasional, and then there's, anybody remember? The word he used, he referred to it as deliberate. In other words, deliberate meditation would be where there's a planned time in your life or your day, the schedule of your day, where you spend time with the Lord. And that could be a set time every day, reading the word, praying, and then thinking about the things of God. occasional meditation, does anyone want to try and give me an idea or give me a definition of what occasional meditation would be? Go ahead, Phil. I think it would be essentially allowing the providence of God in your life on a daily basis to direct your thoughts Right. Right. In our book, it uses the term spontaneous meditation. I came up with my own term As long as it's used in the proper context, I think it would work. But I would also say it would be situational meditation. Because as you are in different circumstances, where you're not maybe sitting there reading your Bible, or you're not praying, things happen in the course of life that would give us cause to take that and use that as an opportunity to meditate on the things of God. Now, I asked Peter if he would read Psalm 77, verse 12. I will also meditate on all your work and talk of your deeds. Okay. Oh, okay, of thy deeds, okay. I think the King James says, talk of thy doings. So, what this is talking about is where the psalmist was writing about the events of life, or as he was, not the events of life, but as he was going through life, different things happened, which caused him to meditate on the things of God. So, We would say the occasional meditation on the word of God that the Puritans spoke of would be more spontaneous. Now, I'm going to ask you if you can think, because I've written down a couple things, if you can think of some areas where things happen in your life that caused you or that could be used to cause you to reflect upon God and his providence and his goodness. Anybody have any thoughts? Go ahead, Oscar. Situations. Could be at your work. Or to reflect on him in all facets. Right. That was one of the ones I had in depth. One of the things that I see as I've gone to, sure, everybody's gone to their share of funerals, But it's especially apparent when you go to the funeral of an unbeliever. And there's many times just such desperation that you see. And that has given me cause to reflect upon the goodness of God and why he would save me, a sinner, and give me the hope of heaven. I went to a friend of mine who died unexpectedly, even though from our standpoint, from God's standpoint, it wasn't, but, but he was not a believer and he was happened to be, he liked fishing. And so they had him dressed up in the coffin with his fishing rod and his hat and his lures, and they were laying on him and everything else. And it just, it was, it was, it was really profound to me because I look, these people are desperate. They have, No hope. So things like death, funerals, they cause us to reflect upon the goodness of God. On the way over here this morning, I got a phone call from Hone Phillips, and he told me that his stepson, Jason, who's 47 years old, had a massive stroke yesterday in the parking lot of Tractor Supply in Holmwald, and they found him slumped over the steering wheel. And so he's at Vanderbilt Hospital today, and they do not expect him to live. But in talking with Hone, he said the comfort in reflecting or meditating upon that is that it is his belief that his son-in-law or stepson was a believer. So he's getting a promotion. An unbeliever can't think that way. An unbeliever can't see those things. An unbeliever thinks this is it. And I've often gone to those funerals of unbelievers that I don't think I could make it as an unbeliever. I mean, I know I couldn't make it. I'm saying that as a gesture. But I could not, it would be devastating to me. So anyway, that's an example of Occasional meditation anybody think of another one. I've got a couple others. I've written down here Well was comparing the providence of God creating Eden, particularly for Abbey, and the reminder that God's providence is personal and specific to each one of us. The property to which he's brought you, the home that he's given you, the particular life that you have, the children that he's given you. But even when you take a walk, this tree is put here to providence of God for me. but occasional meditation is more along the lines of remembering that the one who created all things did so in part to turn our thoughts to him as directed by his word, right? So, the Lord Jesus taught upon the word of God and was teaching the word of God So that whenever we whenever we eat physical food, we remind, we remember that god nourishes also nourishes us also spiritually. I sit and hear uh Dave teach the congregation and pray for um for us all to come into a life in which we receive providence as a personal moment by moment. Every single It's it's coming from god, right? You hear people who have you know, something of a view of providence. You hear them say things like that was a god thing and they'll get really excited about something that they think that god was saying and doing in that god thing but the way the bible teaches us, everything is a god thing and he's filled his but he's made us people who take journeys and need places and you drive to the grocery store and as you drive to the grocery store, you're you of course, are trusting yourself to god that he gets you all the way to Croker without getting killed by a middle Tennessee driver but you're also remembering journey, you know, like that Pilgrim's Progress idea. And you're remembering that He's the one who's getting you from where you are now to the fullness of your sanctification. You're looking for a parking place, and if you haven't got there before 8am, you're looking for a parking place. And you remember that God has a place for each one of His people, that you may be insignificant data point to the rest of the earth. God has a place and space and time for you. He's appointed you now. He has a place for you in his kingdom. You go in, you start looking at the food, and you're resisting the stuff that they've put on the end caps and the Chinese boxes, and they've done all that research for the right to feed you nutritionally disastrous food. And as you are trying to make good choices for yourself and your family, you remember this is true biblically and theologically, too. There's all kinds of rubbish that people put out there and call Bible study. There's all kinds of rubbish that people teach and call theology. You're crying out to God. Let me be as careful with the feeding of my soul as I am with the feeding of my body. So, this occasional meditation idea is that all providence is personal, that everything is a God thing. And interacting with him in accordance with his word, moment by moment, throughout the entirety. So, I see kids who are eating, hopefully God is nourishing our hearts and minds too. We're excited to be with our church family. How much more when we come to glory and the entire true church family are all gathered together forever. And those kinds of things. So, not just one example. It's for you. Okay, so one of the comments James made, Pilgrim's Progress, if you want to understand about occasional meditation and seeing God in all of life, That's a very good book to read. I read it many, many years ago when I was in high school, but I've actually thought that I should read it again. But, so, we talked about some examples. Nature, you know, we look at nature. I was thinking this morning as I was driving over how good God is that I didn't have to go out and saddle the horses and it wasn't cold and, you know, ride in the cold weather, but I got in the car, turned the key on, and had it warm before. There's just all kinds of way and then you can take that where you consider that God would give us such minds that men would develop these things and they would see these different things and be creative. I even see that in music. You see that God has, it talks in the Bible much about the harp and lyre and how music flows from the harp. Even occasionally, as I've said before, if I've listened to a song that maybe I grew up as a teenager that was not a Christian song, and I listened to the lyrics, which I didn't do then, and I think, wow, I am so thankful that God is my Savior, because these people are desperate, you know, in their thought. One thing I would say, especially to the young men, because I was a young man once, but when you use every situation, you know, there are times when I was a young man, I might see a very attractive young lady and my mind might be inclined to go the wrong direction on that. But I would reflect upon the fact that, you know, when God created Eve, Adam said she was beautiful and reflect on the fact that God has made many beautiful things. including the opposite sex. So that's a way, young men especially, to direct your thoughts and to keep them pure in the things that you think and meditate upon God. They use a term in the book that if you only had occasional meditation, it would be like a person getting ready to eat, but he only tastes bits of a meal. He doesn't ever sit down and eat the entire meal. So you're just getting little bits of that. It also says that occasional meditation can be described with adjectives like extemporaneous, sudden, spontaneous, or short. And they also use the term in here, have any of you heard the word the Midas touch, the term? What does that mean when you hear that Midas touch? That's exactly right. Everything they touch turned to gold. So we can, with occasional meditation, we can take all the events of life and turn those into spiritual or heavenly gold, reflecting upon the good things that God has given us and our Savior and what we have been saved from. He that has, it says here, the comment here is, he that hath labor, swinlock, called occasional meditation the labor to spiritualize earthly things. He that hath learned this mystery is a true spiritual chemist. He hath better than modest his wish, that's turning everything into gold, he turneth all that he touches better than gold. He turns it into heavenly gold. And then there's a quote in here, 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, when he takes an occasion of anything that is sensitive to raise up his thoughts to heavenly meditation. Occasional meditation is when a man makes use of 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, and I think that's the key, to spiritualize natural things. Thus, occasional meditation uses any experience in life to glean spiritual fruit. Did you hear that? Any experience in life. So, we can have any experience that we may go through, good, bad, or indifferent, to use that to allow the spirit that dwells within to think of God and to bring ourselves up into a level, not of man, but that above. All right, so the Puritans believed that there were three books given to us for occasional meditation. One was the scripture, of course, which should be the foundation of bedrock. we'll talk about this a little bit more, but we should never deviate from scripture, and we'll find out why that's dangerous, the creation, okay, and our conscience, because God gives us, he gives us a mind, and he has, even though it is defiled, and it's been corroded with sin, there still is a residual that God uses to direct us, You know, I used to work with delinquent youth and it always amazed me that, you know, I used to go to this boy's home when they got in trouble, that they all knew they did wrong. You know, even the ones that did it anyway, they all knew, you know, they had a conscience. So God can use the combination of those things. Now, There are a couple references in scripture in the Old Testament, which gives us examples of occasional meditation. I asked someone to read Psalm 112, verse two. Who did I ask to do that? Okay. Okay, can you read that again, projecting your voice, please? His descendants will be mighty on the earth. The generation of Zephariah will be blessed. Generation of upright. How do we become upright? By dwelling on the things of God and knowing the Lord as our Savior. Who has 19-1, Psalm 19-1? Okay, Greg? So, that was David, correct? What was he doing? I mean, David, we always think of David like like he had a great life. He went out, killed Goliath, then he became king, and everything was happy thereafter. But David, there were times where there were people trying to kill him, and he was in great, great despair. And we don't think about that. And as he looked at the sky, he saw the handiwork of God in those things. Who has Psalm 8, 2 through 4? I think that was, OK. Yeah, when I look at the heavens and I see the work of God's hands, They're not just, they didn't happen just like, I like to tell people when they tell me they hold to an evolutionary position on creation, I say, oh, you believe in slime over time, like this piece of slime just eventually became something, right? And I always try and, I'll use a real simple example, I'll say, see this coffee cup here? And let's say it's made out of ceramic. I'll say, how long would I need to let this ceramic in its unformed state stay on the ground before it became a coffee cup? And most of them will look at me and say, well, it's never going to do that. I said, so you're going to take the human body, which is the most intricate machine that ever existed, and say that it was slime over time, but the coffee cup can't even create itself. So it says here, we see the work of God's fingers in what is man that you are mindful him. In other words, God doesn't need us, but he in his graciousness and his goodness, he has revealed himself to his sheep. And that is something that we should reflect on on a regular basis when I was thinking about other occasional spontaneous things. What about a mother when she gives birth to a baby and she looks at that baby and she just realizes that this is a child of God and how it was knit in her womb. I mean, this is profound. And this is what we should be encouraged to think about on a regular basis. I also have one more example in Solomon, I mean, Proverbs 6.6, it was Solomon. You ready? Okay, so how many of you have seen ants at work building a, what do you call it, a house, or an outline, okay? Isn't it amazing? There's no leader. Nobody's saying, okay guys, go over here, I need you to get bread. This group over here, I need you to get mud to build material. It just happens because the creator made them that way. And when we look at that, and we see the end, how much more for us who know the Lord as our Savior, and we see all that we have around us. In the New Testament, we have a couple examples. We have John chapter 4 with the woman at the well, where she was there for physical water, right? But what did our Lord do? He always spoke to people, as Pastor James said this morning. God always used things of this life, of this world, many times to give us pictures. He said, you're here for water, but I can give you the water that will cause you to never thirst again. John chapter 6, we have the bread of life as well. So, just in closing here, what are some of the benefits of occasional meditation? Well, Do you have to be anywhere? Can you be anywhere to meditate upon the things of God, right? You can be in any place. You can be a mom, could be at home changing a diaper. A dad could be at work. You could be anywhere and God through the Holy Spirit can give us the ability to see him in all his glory and all his might through the occasional or the everyday things that we see every day. So it can be any time or any place. Now, it does use the term in here, occasional meditation, and I did use the term spontaneous. But I would also say, I don't think the book said too much about this, but I would say even occasional meditation is really not just spontaneous, like you walk along, oh, I think about that. I think it's a discipline as well. We have to be looking for, as we go through the day and we encounter different things, that we are looking for ways to see God's handiwork and to see God in all that we do. So it's something we develop, just like a craftsman, like Jeff here, who's a woodworker. You could probably have somebody that built a piece of furniture that the average person would say, hey, that looks pretty good. But Jeff might see flaws in that that the normal person who wasn't a tradesman wouldn't see. So we need to discipline ourselves to, be looking and asking God to help us to see him in all of his creation. All right, now, the other thing in closing here is the Puritans were also very careful to make sure and warn people of the possible dangers of occasional, or I say spontaneous meditation. And that would be that the basis of all that we believe is the Word of God. This is God's written Word to us. It's final. There is no special revelation where, I know all of you have run into people that said, well, God told me to do this, you know. I believe the Holy Spirit can impress things upon our heart, but we have to be very careful that as we meditate upon the things of God, that we don't allow it to take us in a place that would be unbiblical. I mean, we have many within our, it uses the example of the Catholic Church with its mysticism or the Eastern Orthodox Church, which, you know, prays to icons or paintings on the wall. I mean, where did they get that? Somebody obviously thought about it and came up with it, but we can't find that in the word of God. So we have to guard ourselves to make sure that we don't go down a path that would be unbiblical in nature. So the word of, as Pastor James had mentioned a moment ago, it's like a boat. When a boat is in dry dock, it's got mooring. It's tied in place. So all our spiritual thought needs to be tied in place or moored by the Word of God. It needs to be the basis for how we approach everything. It says in closing, Puritans clearly prioritize the Word of God as a foundation to all meditation. This is why in his Rules for Meditation, Greenham said, and beware of mingling it with other men's devices. Manton also had excellent words of caution. Do not pry farther than God has revealed. Your thoughts must be bound by the word of God. And then a gentleman by the last name of Bates wrote, treasure up in your souls a stock of spiritual truths. Truths in the soul are like gold in the ore, okay? You know, ore, you don't just find a golden nugget, you have to take the norm, you have to refine it, and your meditation is refining the things of life and showing us the nuggets of God's truth. And brings forth its holy discourse and pious actions. Ignorance is that which doth impoverish the soul and causes us to be barren in the duty of meditation. So, next week, the subject's gonna be deliberate meditation. And I believe that is, is that you, Charlie? Okay, so we have just a minute or two here. Any comments or thoughts before we go today? Yes, Mr. Phil. That would be such things as turning off your radio and separate our voices and music, and replacing that by perhaps recordings of the Psalter being sung. Replace it by the scriptures spoken to you. And even if you're not willing to listen, it's there in the background that you will As you're not really listening, you will still catch a phrase or something and it will spark your mind to think on that thing that was recommended to you from the scriptures. So even being purposeful about our occasional is a wise thing to do. And I have one other verse. I sent it to you a month ago and I'll play it for you again. That verse is Ecclesiastes 7.5, and I'm reading from the New King James. It says, it is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools. And I would recommend to you, if you do just a little bit of research about most of what's on secular radio, you will quickly understand that most of what's being That's very true. And I will say, just go back to that. I remember because that came in just like, as I was concluding and all of a sudden I saw this verse come through and I thought, okay, is Phil trying to tell me something right now? So I, I spent my Sunday morning trying to decipher if this was a code he was giving me or something. So. Yes, and to affirm what you're saying is how many times have you listened to music and you haven't maybe heard that song for years and you start singing the words with it, and you never consciously set out to learn the words. They were just reinforced. So better that we reinforce with the things of God rather than the things of man. Right, right. Okay. Christian, would you close us in prayer? We're getting ready for our worship. in our lives. Thank you, God, for your word which you have given, which is sufficient, and that you have given us your spirit by your grace to solve things which pertain to life and godliness. And thank you, God, for the meditation and minds that you have given us to be directed to your word and to you. But please help us to walk this week, especially this day, rejoicing in You, enjoying You, worshiping You, turning back to Your Word, and savoring our Savior Christ. So please help us to stay in this day.