All right, well, we will begin if you have your Bible. I've got to stop saying that. Let's turn our attention to God's Word, specifically to 2 Timothy 2. We're going to continue talking about meditation. We're going to move on to this little article, this book from Chapel Library, titled Meditation. This is the Free Grace Broadcaster, issue number 245. Anybody needs one or would like some extras, I think we have a couple. But I just want to kind of found this This specific section, I did not get to spend as much time in it as I would have liked to, so we'll go through it at pace together. But I do want to found it in the Scriptures themselves, not to make an excuse for the fact that this doesn't begin with a particular text, but there's going to be a lot of texts referenced. And very often we just read the reference and move past because the connection is so plain. But what I want to do is kind of read a text that implies what we're going to talk about in this section. This comes from 2 Timothy 2, beginning in verse 3, Paul says, Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. Think over what I say. The Lord will give you understanding in everything." Now what we see here is the Apostle Paul begins with a command. Share in suffering. That is, do not avoid the necessary and the consequential suffering that comes from following Christ. Do not try to live an easy Christian life. Do not order and structure your life in such a way that you avoid suffering. or that there's no possible threat or likelihood of suffering. Why? Well, because Paul's already told him in his first epistle to young Timothy, all who desire to live a godly life, or actually rather he says it later in this one, 2 Timothy 3, all who desire to live a godly life will suffer persecution. So he's admonishing Timothy here. And we've walked through this whole book together before on a Wednesday evening, to know the truth, to teach the truth, to protect the truth, to preserve the truth, and then to suffer whatever consequences come from holding to that truth. So he gives this command, share in suffering. It's a command. And then He's going to give an analogy. He's going to paint a picture. He's going to give a simile. Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. Now He's bringing in this imagery of a soldier. And He's going to open up that analogy and paint the picture a little more fully. He says, No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. That is, if you think, put it in our own context, those soldiers who are still serving on the front lines in the Middle East, they're not concerned with litter on the side of Highway 901. They're not concerned with keeping Union Grove Spring Fest Day up at the school every year. They have an immediate concern that deals with the one who enlisted them and the cause for which they've been enlisted. And they understand, especially now, people aren't drafted anymore, they enlist willingly. They understand the nature of the conflict in which they have enlisted themselves. They understand this may cost me my life. And they go and they suffer whatever comes from that. Now, Paul paints another picture. An athlete, he says, is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. That is, cheating will get you nowhere. And this time in an Olympic competition. You can hit the other guy in the head when the race starts, That may knock him out of the race. Even if you're the only one running, you still won't win. You will have disqualified yourself. There are rules by which you abide by. And he gives a third picture. It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. Implied in that is, the lazy farmer doesn't get to come and partake in the crops first. It's the one who put in all the work. Now he takes these three pictures together and he gives this conclusion. Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything." He doesn't tell Timothy what the application of these things are. Here's the command, share in suffering. Here's some examples, like a soldier does, like an athlete obeys the rules, like the hardworking farmer labors and then gets the crops. And now what are the consequences of those? The soldier who suffers, he pleases the one who enlists him. The athlete who obeys the rules is crowned. The hard-working farmer gets his first share in the crops. Now Timothy, you take this command and you take these pictures, And you meditate on them, you think, you stew over them in your mind. That, hailing back to our beginning analogies when we started talking about meditation, you steep these truths. You take them and you press them down into the boiling water again and again. You take the spoon and you press it against the side of the cup and you steep and you squeeze all the flavor out. or you take the diamond and you look at it from all of its different ways, you put it in different light, you get a microscope, you do all of these things so that you can grow in your understanding. That is the purpose of meditation. And for the believer, he's not doing those things alone. Think over what I say, the Lord will give you understanding and everything. So, all of this to say, If we are not doing what Paul commands Timothy to do here, if we are neglecting the thinking, if we are neglecting the meditation, and not just intellectually, but remember what we've talked about, in the affections, in the soul, and in the life, if we are neglecting to do that, we will not understand And the blessing of understanding and illumination that comes from the Lord is not ours to claim, because we haven't put our hands to the plow, right? God has given us, the scripture says, everything necessary for life and godliness. through the knowledge of the One who has called us. Now it's our job to take these tools and work. It's our job to take the charge of the One who enlisted us, carry out that charge, suffer whatever comes as a consequence that we may please Him. He's given to us the rules. It's our job to take those rules, to train and compete and strive according to the rules He has set forth in hopes of obtaining the crown. He's given us the field, He's given us the tools we need to labor. It's our job to be fervent, to go out and work hard so that we can share first in the crop. That's where He's bringing all of this together. So, if you're not doing that, there are significant dangers. And so this is the subject of this little article given here by Edmund Calamey, the dangers of neglecting meditation. Now, we'll be honest with you, some of his analogies are going to be lost to time, things that are very unfamiliar with us. And so we will do as we would do with any work of history prior. We'll take what we can and not labor over the things that we cannot. So, just his introduction here, he says, I shall show you the woeful inconveniences and the intolerable mischiefs that come from the lack of practicing this duty of meditation. I will show you that the lack of practicing this duty is the cause of all sin. And I will instance it in particulars, that is, He'll give specific examples. Now, we know that sin comes from the corrupt human heart. Temptations, lusts, sin, the corruption that is within. And that's not how He means it here. What He's referencing is specifically, if you can recall that definition, from George Swinnock, that the purpose of meditation is not to just stir up our affections, but also to increase our awareness and our averseness and our ability to combat sin and to be equipped for and spurning on toward righteousness. So that's what he's getting at here. So, Brendan, if you want to take number one there and then we'll interact with it and then we'll just move through this together. The reason why people harden their hearts in sin and do not repent of their sins, but go on obstinately, is for lack of meditation. I hearkened and heard, but they spake not aright. No man repented him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? Jeremiah 8, 6. They did not repent because they did not reflect upon what they did. They did not repent because, yeah, they did not bethink themselves, so the phrase is, if they shall bethink themselves and repent, 1 Kings 8, 47. They did not say, I am undone, what have I done? I have lost God in heaven by what I have done. And if I do not repent, I am an undone creature forever. No man repented of his wickedness, because no man considered what he had done. For did you consider the evil that is in sin? Did you dwell and abide upon it? Did you commune with your own hearts and seriously consider what an evil and bitter thing it is to sin against God? You durst not willingly sin against God. The reason why men go on rashly, heedlessly, obstinately in sin is for lack of meditation of the evil of sin." Okay. What's he saying there, Brandon? Pretty much the lack of thinking and pondering on the the wickedness of their own sin, not having their eyes open to seeing what they're falling into. Therefore, they just continue. They don't reflect upon it. They continue in the way of simplicity. Why do you think that is? Yeah, that question's open to anybody. Yeah, it's interesting. When you do evangelism and you introduce to someone who thinks themselves neutral that they're actually in rebellion against God, they're surprised at that because they don't understand the implications of their decisions. They don't understand that the decisions that they make speaks to what they think about God. And it's because they don't think about those implications, because they don't ponder their decisions or their sin. Yeah. There is, across the board, if you ask someone, We'll just take Ray Comfort, for example, because everyone here is familiar with how he interacts with people and takes them to the commandments. And more often than not, when he'll ask someone, have you ever told a lie? People say, well sure, but everybody has. So what that reveals about them already is they've never given any serious contemplation to who God is and to what it means to sin against him. No, no serious contemplation of those things at all. I would encourage you men to get a hold of John Bunyan's autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. And I've said this before to Blake, I'm just struggling to get through it. I said to Blake a couple weeks ago, I said, I'm just really hoping John Bunyan gets saved by the end of this book. Because, I mean, it's page after page. I'm like 120 pages in. and it's paragraph after paragraph of him being overwhelmed with the wretchedness of his sin, unable to find any comfort at all, even in the promises of God, even in the Gospel of Christ, because his sin is so monumental, looming over him. And as you read that, you think about, I can understand how he has this great picture of Mount Sinai in Pilgrim's Progress as this looming mountain about to fall and crush his head. That was his personal experience. As he grew in his understanding of what sin was and is and who God is, his awareness of his own sinfulness was overwhelming. And I'm not talking about he sat in the chapel after the sermon and thought about it for a little while. I'm talking about years Years, like you'll read just the most depressing paragraph you've ever read and the end of it or the beginning of the next one will say, thus I continued in this state for a space of nearly two and a half years. And when you read that you think, I don't know what sin is. Because we have been taught for so long, well, we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins. And the mercy of God towers over the holiness and the righteousness and the justice of God in the minds of so many that we don't think sin worthy of contemplation. And because we don't contemplate it seriously, We harden our hearts against repenting and turning from it, because grace and mercy have been cheapened down to something God owes the sinner. And because of that, you can speak to people of their sin all day long, and they snicker, they roll their eyes, they laugh, they whisper afterward and quiet into one another, They've never given any serious thought. It's been said, the central question that's answered in the Scriptures is the question, how can sinful man be justified in the sight of a holy God? If that is the central theme of the Scriptures, and that is the very revelation of the mystery of God, that God can be both just and justifier. If that is the quintessential essence of the gospel, what does it say about people's grasp of the gospel itself when there's no serious contemplation or meditation on sin? It's no wonder we see the church, and I use that term loosely here, the professed church, it's no wonder we see it walking hand in hand with the world merrily along life's way. No concept of the fear of God, knowledge, any of that. So we don't know what sin is, and therefore we don't understand what is sin. If you read the Old Testament prophets, the major prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, you should engage in this exercise sometime before the years end. Read Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and look for how many times God pronounces woe on them for profaning the Sabbath day, doing their pleasure on God's appointed day of rest and worship. You think how seriously God takes that day. And there is an entire theological system in modern day Christianity built around the desire to prove that we don't have to keep the Lord's Day holy. It just goes to show, and really the foundation of that is we want to watch football and NASCAR and go to the mountains on Sunday or whatever. Anything that we can do to excuse, well Christ died so now the fourth commandment's been stricken from stone. That goes to show us this evidence of this last sentence. He says, the reason why men go on rashly, heedlessly, obstinately in sin is for lack of the meditation of the evil of sin. This is what would cause Joseph in a position to abuse his power, in a position to satisfy his flesh, in a position to really take over his master's house. when Potiphar's wife is trying to seduce him. His response is, what if I lose my job? His response is, how can I do this thing and sin against my God? That's the response of a man who had spent time thinking about who God is and what it meant to sin against Him. So, that is a danger of neglecting meditation. It's just specifically, or his particular example as it relates to sin. Anybody have anything else on that? Okay, Justin, you take number two. Just take the first paragraph. I know this one has a couple. The reason why all sermons we hear do us no more good is for lack of divine meditation. For it is with sermons as it is with food. It is not having food upon your table that will feed you, but you must eat it. And not only eat it, but concoct and digest it, or else your food will do you no good. So it is with sermons. It is not hearing sermons that will do you good, but digesting them by meditation. Pondering in your hearts what you hear must do you good. One sermon well digested, well meditated upon is better than 20 sermons without meditation. Now meditation is that which will digest all the sermons you hear. There are some men sick with a disease that once whoever they eat comes up presently, the meat never does them any good. So it is the custom of many of you, you hear a sermon, you go away and never think of it afterward. This is just like food that you vomit up. You guys want to interact with that a little bit? Very straightforward. Yeah, pretty straightforward. But just think about that. How often, by Tuesday morning, could you recall five of the particular aspects of the sermon? And that's because there's no serious meditation on it. There's no, and he's going to go on to talk about how in his day people would hear four and five sermons on a Lord's Day. We hear one. Or two. Even in the church I pastor, there's a few that take notes that I believe could recant. It's not about quantity of how many preachers you listen through that week. I think that churches today are doing a great disservice. There can be a lot of harm done by sermon audio and other things when there is a sermon that is supposed to be catered to that congregation, to that church, that needs to be meditated upon. digested in too much of the time. Even the preachers will get up from the pulpit and brag that they can't even remember their own points. So how do they expect the churches to? Yeah, and that's something to be on guard against, brothers, is just thinking that because the sermon's going in the background that you are exercising your spiritual muscles and training yourself for godliness. I find it very often, I like to listen to audio books while I'm driving back and forth to work. And in preparation of where we're going in this study, I've been listening to Holiness by J.C. Ryle. And a lot of times I'll get to work and I'm thinking, I don't even remember what I just listened to. And so he says, one sermon well digested, that means interacted with while it's happening. And then we'll meditate upon. That's revisited. We'll do you better or we'll do you more good than twenty sermons without meditation. Meditation is that which will digest all the sermons you hear. There are some men sick with the disease that whatever they eat comes up presently. So there is I'm eating a lot, lot, lot, taking a lot, but then I just throw it all up. Now, I've done a whole lot. There's been a lot of interaction, but it hasn't profited me any. And this is the danger. Beware of confusing busyness. with growth, with progress, with meditation. Just because, this is something I struggled with very early on, not just as a Christian, but even as a pastor, there was this need to, I felt this need to, if I was going to preach a sermon, I needed to read 15 commentaries on that text and listen to six sermons. I needed to have this whole wide spectrum of perspectives on it. But then what happened is, I had all these guys, what they had said about it, but I had never had any experience with this passage myself. took in a lot of stuff, was busy, but there wasn't anything of substance to sustain me." And that's when you talk about presenting it to other people, there's probably not going to be much substance there to sustain them either. So, he gives two more analogies there. One is about, he says, there is a disease that some men have, all the meat they eat goes through them, it never abides with them. Now this meat never nourisheth. So it is with the sermons you hear, I am sure, on the weekday. And I'm afraid the sermons you hear on the Sabbath day go through you. You hear them and hear them, and that is all you do. You never seek by meditation to root them in your hearts. That is the reason why you are so lean in grace, though you are so fully fed with sermons." So having good food is not enough. if there is a refusal to prepare it and digest it, or if there is unsoundness in the body. It doesn't matter, you can have the best food. You'll still be lean and sickly. And it's even worse in our own present context, where the food isn't healthy, and it isn't good, and much of what is put forth from many pulpits is unhealthy food that couldn't sustain you even if you meditated on it for a month. And so when you put that together with the lack of meditation, you see the spiritual leanness of so much of what calls itself Christianity. And likewise, you see the averseness and a total lack of interest in healthy food when it's presented. One thing that's helped me in listening through, like if I'm listening through a sermon you've preached or one that Bodhi, or washer or someone else has preached, I'm trying to pronounce his name right. But like when I'm at work, if I've got my headphones on and something strikes me, I'll screenshot it and I'll just keep on working. And I'll keep screenshotting and later in my study, I'll bring them screenshots back up and I'll pull up that time and I'll jot that down. And then as I'm going later, you know, pit that with scripture, make sure is this in line with scripture and it's, It's interesting when listening, just listening through, I don't want to be passive and want to listen to it. So, I have a question. It might turn into a question. Much of the way that I learned theology was doing this thing that we're talking about not doing right now. was not listening to lots of sermon. And I can understand that because of some of my deficiencies that I'm now becoming aware of. But at the same time, for a long period of time, when I thought about this, I thought it was probably not good to listen to a lot of sermons. But then I've actually started doing it again during work hours. Because when the time's available, It's the best way for me to redeem the time. And even if it's, you know, I listened to five sermons today, I might have gotten, I could probably tell you about three things between the five of them. But if there's nothing, if there's no better way for me to do, or there's no better thing for me to do at that time, it's not wrong to listen to sermons that way, I should also not deceive myself into thinking that I've grown spiritually because I listen to five sermons. Right. If you ate five crackers at work today while you were working, a cracker every hour, you'd be foolish for you to get home and say to your wife, no thanks, I've already ate today. You do that for a week. You're going to be pretty sick and you're going to be pretty weak because you're not getting enough. Yeah. Right. So he's not saying necessarily that listening to sermons is bad. He's saying don't confuse it and conflate it with meditation. Because they're listening to five sermons a day and he's not saying that's bad. He's saying don't misunderstand what that is. You need to digest what you're hearing. Because what I'm saying is through this process some of my spiritual weak points are things that are evidence of spiritual immaturity and things that I did not gain because I was not being fed properly. So there were benefits, but there were also great deficits in the way that I learned my theology. Right. It doesn't mean, like, when I stopped listening to sermons altogether because I had, like, oh, that's not right. That's not good either. Like, it's better to redeem that time in that way, but just in the proper understanding. Yeah, so, I mean, you have to take everything that he's saying in light of the heading. The reason why all the sermons we hear do us no more good is for lack of meditation. So he's not saying don't hear sermons. And when you put it in the perspective of spiritual maturity, babies eat a lot more often than adults do. They eat differently. They need less. A baby can eat one thing for nine months of its life. five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 20, however many times a day, it's just eating one thing. And that sustains its life. But if you're 15 and all you're doing is drinking breast milk twice a day, you're not gonna be healthy. So don't read into it more than what he's saying. There's nothing wrong with redeeming that time by filling your mind with spiritual things to keep your affections set on things that are above. Just don't fool yourself into thinking, oh, I'm meditating and I'm being fed because I listened to four sermons while I was at work today. Because you can deceive yourself into thinking, I don't need to do the work of digesting and meditating and stewing on these things because I've listened. Listening and meditating are not the same. So I think that's the distinction he's getting at, is the reason that our sermons don't... He doesn't say they don't do us any good. He says the reason they're not doing us more good is the lack of meditation. And so that's why trying to encourage that, this is one of the reasons why I try to preach axiomatically and keep pushing that big idea, is so that maybe someone can't remember the points of the sermon, but if they can hold on to that big idea as they're thinking and reading the Scriptures through the week and in prayer, or as they see the sermon audio link shared on Facebook, or whatever it is, something that sparks their mind, they have that idea, now they can sit there and chew on that for a while. So, that's important too, making things palatable for meditation. He gives a third analogy here. He says, it is with sermons as it is with plaster. If a man hath a wound in his body and lay a plaster to the wound, this plaster will never heal him unless it abides upon the wound. If he takes it away, as soon as ever it is laid on, it will never do him any good. So it is with sermons. If when you have heard a sermon, you never ponder and meditate on it, it's just like plaster put on and then pulled off again. I am confident the great reason why we have so many hunger-starved Christians that are lean in knowledge and lean in grace, though they hear sermon upon sermon, and maybe on the Sabbath day they will hear four or five sermons, it is because they concoct and digest nothing. They never ponder and meditate upon what they hear. And this is what our Savior speaks of, by the seed that was sown by the highway side is meant a man that hears the word and never thinks on it after he has heard it. but suffereth the devil to steal it out of his heart. As the husbandman that sows the seed in the highway, you know he never plows it, he never looks that it should come to anything. For many of you, the sermons you hear are like the seed sown in the highway. You never cover it by meditation, You never think of it when you have heard it. That is the reason you get no more good by what you hear. That's right. So I've had people, literally had people say this about sermons that have been preached here by myself and by others. I just didn't get much out of that. Well, how much did you put in it? That's right. You know, it's like walking through the kitchen, turning around and walking out and saying, I'm still hungry. Well, yeah. Everything was there for you. Put some work into it. And once it's prepared, then sit down and eat it. And then Christ gives examples of doing that. Right. And also, following that analogy out a little bit, it's Christ as the sustainer of the world, who preserves and upholds the world and sustains all things. It's because of Christ that the food we eat sustains our bodies. So if you follow that analogy, Yauf, when you're putting in the Word, thinking on these things, the Lord will give you understanding, because that's what He does. Just like He causes food to sustain the body, He causes spiritual meditation to sustain and nourish and nurture the soul. So, again, that's not... Don't listen to sermons. That is not what He's saying. He's saying, If you want the sermons you're listening to to do more good for you. And a danger of not meditating on them is not getting anything out of them. Anybody have anything else on that? Well, that's normally where the trouble comes from in a lot of churches is those that don't meditate, don't meditate upon the scriptures, the sermons. I had a recent visit to one of my in-laws house and they're upset with their pastor and a lot of issues going on and I just asked the simple question, what's he been preaching? And the only answer I got was, well, I don't know, he just preaches. I mean, don't tell me about your pastor. I think that's the mentality with a lot. The preacher's a call boy that needs to be there when you die. They're at the hospital to hold your hand because people are not adult enough to do it themselves. They don't realize that the work and effort that goes into the sermon that they need to be meditating upon. Anybody else? Okay. Jeremy, you got number three? The reason why the promises of God do no more affect your hearts and the saints of God taste no more sweetness in the promises is because you do not ponder and meditate upon them. It is with the promises of the Gospel, as it is with the cordial, if a man does not chew his cordial but swallow it, down a hole, he will never taste any great sweetness in it. The way to taste the sweetness is to chew it. So the promises of God are full of heavenly comfort. But you will never enjoy this comfort unless you chew them by meditation. As it is with spices, unless they be bruised, they never smell sweet. And as it is with lavender, Unless you do rub it, you will never smell the sweetness of it. No more will you ever taste the heavenly comfort that is in the promises of the gospel, unless you rub it, unless you bruise it, unless you chew it by meditation. And the reason why the saints of God walk so uncomfortably all their lives long is because they do not chew these promises. That's right. Man. That's good. That is so good. You was just talking about that one week or something? I don't think I've ever said anything that good. That's good, man. That is just good. Promises of God. He's just really basically saying you need to interact with the Word. The Word is the life. Think about Blake's example the other week when we were talking about the people of Israel crossing to Jordan. Right, and so the question was, well now I see how that demonstrates to them that God is faithful, that God hasn't changed, that God has provided for them a new leader, that God is, he's parted the Jordan just as he parted the Red Sea. Now, taking that into meditation, that was the question we were dealing with then. So to revisit that, we would say, so what is God demonstrating about himself to his people? He's faithful. He's keeping his promises. Now thinking about that meditatively would be, what are some of the promises God has made to me that I need to be meditating on right now? How is the faithfulness of God demonstrated in his promises? And how are those promises mine in Christ? And what does that look like in my life right now? So for me, when I think about that, I have the promise that Christ will build His church. I have the promise that the preaching of God's Word never fails to accomplish its purpose. I have the promise that faith does come by hearing, and hearing comes by the Word of Christ. I have the promise that Christ's sheep will hear His voice, and they will follow Him. I have the promise that those who are of God hear His Word. I have the promise that sanctification happens by the Scripture. Now, in my life, I have the testimony, I think, of faithful men who are honest with me and who are also walking with the Lord, who would say that in my preaching and teaching duties, I am being faithful to the Scriptures. But as I look out, it doesn't feel like it's accomplishing what I think those promises mean. So now applying those promises by sitting and thinking on them, what does it mean that it will always accomplish its purpose? Well, I have to get outside of my realm of perception and think, well, what are those purposes? It isn't just sanctification. It's also condemnation. It isn't just an aroma from life to life. It's also one from death to death. Like I talked about the other week, Jesus preached his most Calvinistic sermon ever, I call it, in John 6, about the sovereignty of the Father, about the inability and depravity of man, about God's election, about the effectual call, about the perseverance of the saints. He preaches all the five points and the multitudes leave. And he wasn't upset about it, right? And the Word accomplished its purpose. So when I think, when I apply that into my own life, if God is faithful, What does that look like in my life now? And so that isn't just saying, well, God is faithful. Thank you, Lord, for your faithfulness. Moving on, that's putting the cordial in my mouth, swallowing it. It's like I tell my kids to put this in a common contemporary illustration. My kids have a sucker. They get a sucker and they go, and it's gone, okay? I always tell them, it's a sucker, not a biker. Suck on it. Enjoy the flavor. Put it in the side of your cheek till your cheek feels funny because there's so much sugar in that one spot and then switch it. Put it on your tongue, put it on the roof of your mouth, put it under your tongue. Enjoy that flavor, right? Don't just, you're missing, you're misusing it. So that's the point. Yes, sir. What is it? Cordial. Cordial. A cordial is pleasant tasting medicine. I'm assuming it would be like the 17th century equivalent of a Ricola. I don't know what it is. I'm assuming it's some kind of medicine that's been enhanced with sweetness. You know those little red cherries that they put on cakes and stuff? Aren't those called cordials? I couldn't tell you. That's outside of the purview of scripture, so I cannot speak to it definitively. And so what he's saying there is the promises of God, the sweetness of those promises is found inside. So doing the work to break it down, doing the work to open it up, doing the work of rubbing it in. And I think we are so bad at this. because we know so little of the promises of God. All right, y'all, so I want y'all to go home. I don't think it really was an assignment, but I kind of took it as one. I want you to find a promise for each day of the year. There ain't no way there's 365 promises. Oh, man, yes, more than that. And come to find out, it was like 30,000, someone estimated, or something like that, over 30,000 promises in the Bible. Wow, you know what I mean? You struggle with just finding, I mean, how can anyone struggle with one, you know? It's amazing, but that's what he's saying, lack of meditation, you know, they don't really, obviously, we're not people of God's word, we're not a people of God's covenant. It just doesn't happen. Yeah. And you have to think, too. As long as it's appealed to people, That reality that all the promises of God find their yes and their amen in Christ. So every promise that's ever been given from the covenant-keeping God, there is an aspect of that promise, or there is in that promise a type and a picture of every spiritual blessing that is ours in Christ. That's how we read the Old Testament. That's why it matters that we read the story about the Israelites crossing over the Jordan. That's why it matters that we read God's faithfulness to Israel, even though Joshua listen to the Gibeonites without praying first. That's why it matters that we read those things because that's why it matters that we read those genealogies in 1 Chronicles. And we see that in spite of the people's sin, God was faithful and kept them alive and would not make an utter end of them because He'd promised to bring a Savior through them. So that's how we read the Scriptures. And that's how we read it Christocentrically. It's all about Christ. Every promise of God has been purchased for us by Christ. And that's also how we read the Scripture redemptively. And that's not putting me at the center, because when you see those promises, you realize that Christ had to purchase those for me. And He did for me. And now I am His. All those promises are mine because they're all Christ's. All those covenant promises belong to Christ because He kept the covenant. And I am in Him, so those promises are mine. So that's... I'll preach a sermon on covenant theology. The reason why the saints of God walk so uncomfortably all their lives long is because they do not chew these promises. And that's it. I was thinking today, Blake, what we were talking about last week about demonic possession or the spirit leaving a believer, a saint. Well, Christ promised he would never leave us. He promised that. I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. We talked about that in our family worship this week. We should be content because we know Him who said, I will never leave you or forsake you. So we can confidently say, the Lord is on my side. I will not fear. What can man do to me? What can anybody do to me? The Lord is on my side. He promised He would never leave me. That's a promise that you walk in the gates of hell with that promise. And claim it for Christ and preach His gospel because He said he'd never leave you. He's there. That's what Paul said, was it not? Everyone abandoned me. The Lord stood by my side and delivered me from the mouth of the lion. That's putting those promises in your life. That's the strength to live the Christian life, brothers. It really is the promises of God. David, take number four. The reason why the threatenings of God make no more impression upon our hearts is for lack of meditation. That's right. There are terrible threatenings against sin in the world, but alas, there are few people affected with these threatenings. The threatenings of God in scriptures are like the rattling of hell upon the tiles. They make a great noise, but they make no impression. And what is the reason? It is for lack of meditation. We do not lay them to heart. We do not consider that these threatenings belong to us as long as we continue in our sins. Oh, if a wicked man meditates solemnly upon the threatenings of God, it would make his heart ache, especially when the spirit of bondage comes along with him. That's it. That's exactly what I was saying earlier about Bunyan. He wished. He said he wished and prayed. that if he was accursed and cut off from Christ and could not be converted, he was afraid he had committed the unpardonable sin, that God would go ahead and kill him. Because suffering the horrors of hell could not be worse than the anticipation of it in this life. That is a man, a lost man, who took seriously the threatenings of God's Word. And he speaks in that, he speaks in his autobiography about how he was thinking or meditating or musing on something and all at once these words would be put to his mind and it would be something like, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. The threatenings of God, the terror of God and of the law would come crushing down upon him. And this is a lost man. And it shows that we do not take the threatenings of God's Word seriously. Think about perceived apostasy. I'm under the persuasion that that is the unpardonable sin. That is it in the day in which we live. There is a sin unto death. That is it. And the threatenings of the book of Hebrews, Hebrews 6, it is impossible for someone who has tasted the age to come, and the Spirit, and the gifts, and has turned away, to bring them back. Because they would once again be crucifying Christ to their lusts of their flesh. That ought to terrify every sincere person. That ought to terrify us every time we have a doubt. That ought to terrify us every time we fall into a sin. It ought to cause us to raise up our guard against sin itself. Not just terrify us when we fall into it, but be all the more watchful against it. And there's two sides of that. We're not slaves of fear. We're not walking the chalk afraid that the wrath of Mount Zion is going to fall and crush our heads. That's for the unbeliever. But there is a reality to the threatenings of God, even to His people. That form of meditation, though, I believe does come before true godly sorrow. Yeah. I had repeated a prayer after Denny Costner there at Lenny's Great Baptist Church. They had their little VBS. All the kids, the preacher comes in. Whoever wants to get saved, come in. So I stood up because some other kids stood up. He said, now if you'll say that it's pretty much the repeat after me prayer abomination that's done in so many churches today. All these years playing church is all it was. I was standing in a pew there at Holly Springs and it just hit me like a hammer. I've been playing and playing. I began to tremble. I remember holding on to the pew, just trembling, realizing that I was in the hands of an angry God. Man, that's just in a helpless state in need of the mercy and grace of God. Why would you fly to him if you were not? That seems to be a powerful theme of revival, is that there is a heightened sense of the judgment of God. I've been going through, I think about Spencer's book, what it feels like the last decade, though it's been very enjoyable. You see a lot of that. that I don't feel like we see today. People coming to Him terrified because hell is so real to them. They're seeking, tell me how I can be saved. I cannot endure this torment. This isn't, well, I want to try your Jesus. This is, wash me Savior or I die. Right. And that is the key, I think, not just to what we know as the great awakenings. or to the English Reformation, but you go all the way back to the book of Exodus. When God is thundering on Mount Sinai and the people are so afraid, they ask Moses to go up and speak to them. Lest God speak to us and we die. The site was so serious, Hebrews 12 says, Moses trembled with fear. And when God's glory comes down, Moses is on his face. This is a guy who had talked with God. But when God's glory comes down in the capacity that Moses could experience it, it put him on his face. And that just goes to show that A lot of the nonsense that people think today is the glory of God, it's just emotion, it's just a show. It's just empty promises to naive people. False assurances to make their lives a little more comfortable. Turn up the air conditioner, redo the padding on the pews so people can ride comfortably to hell. Because the threats of God mean nothing to people. They're used to mom and daddy counting to three, five times. So the threats of God mean nothing to them. And Scripture speaks of that. Scripture speaks in Romans chapter 2 of storing up wrath. They're storing up wrath. God's patience and kindness is meant to lead you to repentance. And what they do is twist it to their own demise. And in doing so, they're just storing up wrath, digging the hole deeper and the mountain higher. Long life for an unconverted man is not a good thing. No, it's just keeping up condemnation for himself. Not a good thing. And so that means, and just bringing it back practically, because it's easy to fall into the error of thinking about those out there. Bringing it back in here, this means as we're meditating, on the Scriptures, as we're reading the Scriptures and trying to be intentional about meditation, don't just look for promises. Don't just look for gospel graces. Don't just look for covenant blessings. Take seriously the threatenings. Take seriously the warnings. Take seriously those sections of Scripture where specific sins are reprimanded. And Paul says things like, the next time you're together, hand him over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. Take seriously those passages. You know, in the believer's life as well, I think, like in Ephesians 4-5, where he says, grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed into the neighboring. Pain not, cause not pain. That's a terrifying thing in and of itself, that our sin causes him pain. But I mean, if I step outside the boundaries and I'm not loving my wife as Christ loved the church, that's painful unto him, or unto the Spirit of God. some deep things to meditate upon. Well, I'm talking about promises and threatenings. Correct me if I'm wrong, but… You're wrong. Every promise of God has an implied threat, I believe. Yeah, there is that. You know, Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. There's the blessings of the covenant, but there's also the curses. And they're right in there with it. If you do this, you will have this promise. If you do not, this is your condemnation. That puts us at about an hour, so we'll go ahead and I'm gonna wrap up there. I will pray, and then if you'd like to stay and discuss more, we can do that. You know that that's probably my favorite time. Blake, will you pray for us?