and welcome to you all. Let's allow me to go to the word or go to the Lord in prayer for us before we start this morning. Lord, thank you for this beautiful day. Thank you for this opportunity to gather with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Lord, please help our hearts to worship you through this study this morning and through our communion and through the preaching of your word as well this morning. May everything that we do glorify you and conform us to the image of your son Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen. Okay. Well, if you happen to have been here the last time I had the pleasure of teaching Sunday School, you'll remember that we talked about biblical meditation. This morning we're going to talk about solitude, but as we'll see here in a few moments, the two are closely related. If you didn't hear that presentation, I'm going to summarize it for you right here. So you'll remember this chart. I think it was a different color. I can't really remember. But what we concluded about for biblical meditation, we focused on the object, the method, the reason, and the purpose. And the object, as we concluded, was God's Word. his revelation to us, both in his words and in his deeds, but we focused primarily on his word. Then we concluded that the method of meditation was just deliberately, consistently prioritizing his word in our thinking, in our consideration. We said that the reason that we did this meditation was because his word is lovely. It was a delight. And then we did dive in just a little bit to the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, and we concluded that if the scripture truly is sufficient for everything in life and godliness, then what other motivation do we need to prioritize that in our lives, our thinking, and our consideration? And then we concluded also that the purpose of meditation was to instruct us and to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ, or in other words, conform our lives to God's will. We compared this to the Puritans, who lined up fairly closely to this model. Then, if you remember, we compared this to what some call contemplative prayer or mindfulness, the practices that are similar to this with Eastern roots. We showed how the object was the main difference, and that's how we can ensure that when we go to meditate, we're doing something that is valuable in accordance with God's Word, rather than being diverted by some other technique. Now, if you had to pick the number one Sola Scriptura passage that comes to mind, you would probably end up here, if you thought about it. I'm going to point out the elements here, and then I'm just going to read it, so you can think about it here. This passage encapsulates that previous chart. You'll see the object there is what you have learned. You'll see all scripture down there. You'll see that the method is continuing in, prioritizing what you have learned in the scripture and your actions and your consideration. You'll see that the motive there is that the scripture is breathed out by God and it's profitable. And you'll see that the purposes are for training and righteousness. and for every good work. So now that we have that in our mind, let me just read it to you, and I think that'll get to my intent there. So Paul says to Timothy, you, however, have followed in my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness. Then a few verses later, that as for you, continue in what you have learned and you firmly believe, knowing from who you learned it and how from childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for proof, correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." So that pretty much sums up what we talked about in biblical meditation. Just as the Puritans did, I mean, the scripture doesn't lay out like you should meditate and this is how you should do it. We kind of get the idea that biblical meditation is a spiritual discipline from the Puritans, but of course they're just going to Scripture and they're saying, if the Word of God really ought to be the priority in our life, if it really does the things that Scripture says it does, then of course we should chew on it. And I actually think that's the best figure of speech to think. If you want to say, how do I describe biblical meditation in a phrase or a sentence, it's chewing on God's just like when you eat food, you don't just swallow it, you chew on it, you use it, you taste it, you figure out what the texture is, all that business, that's a good way to summarize biblical meditation. So now, solitude. Solitude is similarly described by many as a spiritual discipline or a biblical practice. I put silence up here because frequently folks will marry the two together and explain them. You'll see here the differences, but we'll mostly talk about them as one thing. So these definitions here are from Donald Whitney, and I guess that Professor Whitney talked here at some point. A couple years back. Oh, great. Okay, great. This is a guy I trust. I don't necessarily agree with him, even with these paragraphs and everything, but he's definitely trustworthy. He comes up with some fairly common definitions for solitude and silence. You see there, and I'll let you read the whole thing. I won't read all of it to you. Solitude is the discipline of withdrawing and being alone, effectively, and silence is voluntarily not talking. So there's nothing crazy different about the normal definition. But the point is for some spiritual purpose, obviously, that's where these practices differ from the normal definitions that we would use in daily speech. Now, the problem with the spiritual disciplines of solitude and silence is that the reasons for doing them are very, they're on shaky ground. And here is just a fairly complete list of the reasons I could find that folks who promote these practices give. But before I get into saying how we ought to be careful, I mean just think about it. Is there benefit to periodically or frequently withdrawing and being alone? Of course there is. Nobody's saying you should never go to be alone. Nobody's saying that. What I'm proving or just helping you think about, because I was benefited by thinking about it, is first of all, whether it's a command, and there's really no evidence that going off and into solitude as a command from scripture in any sort of way. Nobody's arguing that it's not going to be beneficial in some sense, but to say that it's a spiritual discipline, that's just what we're evaluating for the next couple of slides. So you can evaluate it with me here. So here are some of the common reasons offered as to why we ought to practice silence and solitude. We ought to practice solitude because Elijah fled Jezebel. OK, we ought to practice solitude because Hannah prayed silently. We ought to practice solitude because Abraham's servant, when he saw Rebecca, gazed at her in silence to learn whether the Lord had prospered his journey or not. Because God sent Abraham into a desolate land. Because Moses was alone when he saw the burning bush. Because David was a shepherd and shepherds, sorry, misspelling, shepherds spent a lot of time alone. Because part of Jesus' temptation included isolation. Because John wrote Revelation while he was in solitude on Patmos. So, I don't know all of you very well, but I know us as a group, we probably can see the recurring misstep here in this reasoning. First of all, many of them are simply descriptions of what happened. If there were contextual clues that the author was trying to insinuate this is a normative practice for God's people in the future, then you would point to those passages rather than just the fact that some of these folks ended up in solitude in the Bible. So this is the reason that the issue is debated whether or not solitude and silence are what rightly might be labeled as spiritual disciplines. Of course, again, nobody's really arguing that those things aren't going to be helpful in some way. We're just trying to iron out exactly what's going on here. Okay, so now, here's a little bit better one. I'm still gonna leave it up to you whether or not you think it's a good one. I'll probably tell you my opinion here at the end, but Jesus usually prayed alone. Okay, well, that's definitely true. Matthew 6, 6, Jesus actually instructs prayer to be in secret. But if you remember, and I think you will when I say it, Jesus was actually contrasting praying in secret versus praying in public and the hypocrisy of the Pharisees of trying to earn God's favor with their prayers. And Jesus says, instead of doing that in public, why don't you do that in secret? So even in this verse, Jesus isn't really instructing prayer necessarily to be in private because of the privacy of it. Right? So Mark 135, Jesus rises very early in the morning and he goes to a desolate place and prays. This is Jesus' pattern throughout his adult life. Matthew 14, 23, he goes up on the mountain by himself to pray. This is after he fed the 5,000. And then Matthew 26, Garden of Gethsemane, he takes some of his disciples and he takes them up to the mountain to pray. And he gets partway up the mountain and says, you stay here, I'm going to go a little bit further. So again, nobody's arguing that Jesus prayed alone many times. But is this an argument for we should practice the spiritual discipline of solitude? Maybe not. Of course, Jesus did not always pray alone. He frequently took some of his disciples there on the Mount of Transfiguration. You can see he took the three up there to pray as well. So again, the justification for the folks who are seriously promoting the spiritual disciplines of solitude and silence, this is their reasoning. And again, I don't want to say that this is just not helpful at all, but the reason to do it, we want to be clear that's exactly what we're doing. Some of these are from Dr. Whitney's book, so you may have heard some of them. Some of them are just kind of common, other reasons to practice solitude. So Jesus' example, yeah, we just talked about that. And of course, he frequently was alone when he spoke to the Lord to hear the voice of God better. Does anybody want to postulate the liability of going into solitude to hear the voice of God better? Right, exactly. That's a good first question for any of this stuff, right? What do you mean by hearing the voice of God? Yes, ma'am? Right, so Persis said the liability there to hear the voice of God better is what do you mean by hearing the voice of God or what do you mean by the voice of God, right? Ann, were you going to say something? Okay, great. Yeah, so the liability there is that first of all, if you constrain what you mean by the voice of God to what He communicates to you in the Word, do you need to be in solitude to hear that? Well, maybe. So just hold that thought. But is that the reason that we're going into solitude? Because otherwise we can't hear it. Probably not. So maybe better is the key word there, but we'll continue to evaluate here. To express worship to God, to express faith in God. Sorry, that should be a second bullet there. And of course, these are similar. Of course, these are noble things. If solitude and silence helps you do that, you know, carry on and go ahead and do those things. But is solitude really the thing that's going to make those happen? Perhaps. Okay. to be physically and mentally restored. Now this is an interesting one because it's kind of, it maybe should have made the other list here. Mark chapter 6, this is before Jesus and his disciples get in the boat to go across the water to where Jesus will end up feeding the 5,000. The reason he says they're getting in the boat and going over there is to take a break, effectively. He says, we've been working, let's hop in the boat, we're going to go over there and rest. Well, what do they end up doing? The crowds follow them and they feed 5,000 people with very little food. So, again, using Mark chapter 6 to say we ought to practice solitude may be a little bit of a stretch, but then also again, of course, solitude will physically and mentally restore you. I can attest to that from personal experience. To regain a spiritual perspective. Persis, do you want to just say it? What do you mean by spiritual perspective? OK. Yeah, right? So to seek the will of God, to learn control of the time. Now, this one is distinct, one, because it's mainly focusing on silence. And so far, we've just kind of smushed the two together. But this one is different, because the practice of silence, meaning I'm going to voluntarily just not speak for a period of time, Many will promote this as, this is training. This is training to say, you know, I am going to practice so that when somebody says something, instead of immediately responding with words, I'm going to practice controlling my immediate responses. And of course, who's going to argue with that? That's a great thing to practice. Now, whether or not it's commanded is a whole other thing, and whether or not it's something that you need to just not talk to practice, perhaps. So again, there's debate on these issues, but it's not like people are dying on these hills, because it's just a matter of labeling and definitions for the most part. OK, so now, we talked about meditation, or we recapped that at the beginning, because I think these things are related. Ultimately, here's my conclusion. Silence and solitude are the handmaid to biblical meditation. So just like meditation, if we keep the right object in mind, we keep the right method in mind, we keep the right motive in mind, and we keep the right purposes in mind, we won't stray off into some Eastern religion based version of meditation or silence or solitude. And therefore, that silence, that solitude, and that meditation can actually serve the purposes that God gives us for His Word. And I'll just read this one to you because it's the main point, at least to this portion of my presentation. Because the practices of silence and solitude are neither an object nor a goal in themselves, it is best to view them as in connection to meditation. These practices are methods whereby we can address the object, God's Word, towards the purpose of meditation, which is to conform our lives to the life of Christ. So, if we keep these practices in their proper place and we bound them properly by that chart that I showed you, the object, the method, the motive, and the purpose, I say carry on and try to find as much solitude as you can. I know I would enjoy that thoroughly myself. So, I think this is actually the meat that goes on the bones is the common truth that, surprise, surprise, I'm not telling you anything new. Our lives are busy. Our lives are busy schedule-wise. Our modern times have made it to where we intake information constantly. non-stop. Some people even leave their phones on at night. I don't know how you do that, but some folks do that. And so we're constantly intaking information. And so that constant intake competes with the object of meditation, which is God's Word. It's noise that can drown out the thing that we want to intake. And our busy schedules can squeeze out the time that we would like to carve out for intentionally chewing on God's Word. So I think, you know, I mean, I kind of feel sad I'm not giving you something you don't know. You all know this, but of course it helps to remember our lives are filled with so much noise and activity that the noise can drown out our intake of God's Word and the activity can squeeze out the time in our schedules where we focus primarily on God's Word. both that noise and the busyness shall allow, in general, the consideration that we give to how God's words play out in our lives. So, there's my main point. I'm sorry that it's something you don't know, but of course we are benefited by reminding ourselves about it. Now, the Puritans agreed. They... I mean even Dr. Beeky didn't cite any sources, and I could not find any myself, where Puritans wrote specifically on silence or solitude. They always married silence and solitude up with meditation. So, as we talked about last time, and I'm just going to expand this again. In fact, I'm going to show you that same video from Dr. Beeky again because it's good. The Puritans divided meditation into what they called deliberate meditation, which would be the kind that is married with solitude, so private, distraction-free. And then the occasional meditation that they promoted was the kind of meditation you can do out in your normal business of life, so not married up with the solitude, but still meeting the same purposes. So here are the steps, and these I got right out of Dr. Beeky's, It's like a 37-page paper, and if you want to know what the Puritans thought about meditation and all of this stuff, that paper is available online. Dr. Beeke Meditation Journal probably will get you there on Google. Or if you ask, I can help you find it. But here are the steps that he summarized from the Puritans about deliberate, that in-solitude kind of meditation. Of course, ask the Holy Spirit for help. Read a passage or select a topic for meditation. We'll get to the question here in a moment. Memorize a verse or the doctrine. They use the catechisms a lot. So, have the object of your meditation clearly and readily in mind. And then, think, consider, focus, chew on that doctrine or that passage. Now, stir up affection. he's using the word affections not in the modern sense. A little bit more robust use of the word affections. So, this is the kind of thing why we, how we got to the motive of because God's word is lovely, because God's word is, because it's beneficial. These are the kinds of affections that he's talking about here and that the Puritans were talking about. Now the Puritans used meditation to from affection. I have the motive now. I look at God's word. I see how lovely it is. I see how beneficial it is. I'm stirred to action. I'm not just going to walk out and get the cracker barrel and forget about it. I'm going to write down exactly what I'm going to do about this. That's what they meant by making resolutions. They wrote them down and then they concluded in worship. Occasional meditation, as I said, is just part of daily life. So, they took an idea and an object and they analogized it. Analogized it? Analogized it? What do you think? Analogized it. Alright, great. We'll go with that. So, you'll hear Dr. Beeky. He gives an example of a door. So, you're just walking through life or you're waiting in the doctor's office for an extensive period of time and you see the door and you think, you know what? I know an analogy about a door. I'm going to sit here and chew on. what it really means for Christ to be the door. And so, taking normal everyday things and thinking them through, and I would even go a step further to add to the Puritan. I mean, you can take any idea or object, and if you ask something like, you know, how does the world think about this idea? And how does God think about this idea? Am I closer to what the world thinks about this idea or am I closer... I mean, if you just take any idea or any object, you can get somewhere beneficial recalling in your mind what God has said on the subject. So, before we get to a couple of ditches we want to avoid, I'm going to let you re-look at Dr. Beeke's video here. Here they try every day in what they call deliberate meditation. What they do deliberately is only after you have done at least that process. When they first read scripture, they memorize something, they meditate on it, they go about it, they go to prayer, and then they go to their resolution on the things that are important to them, things they desire, and then they sing a song before they go to their meditation and pray to God. of that kind of person, that user-informed person. In a way, it's like a prolonged, more focused, personal growth period. But we've also got this, what we call, dehumanization. So that was a learning day. I'm sitting here, and I never go to the airport, and I'm starting to think about how I'm going to do it. I didn't know how I was going to do it. I didn't even see the sentence that was happening. I thought, well, I'm just going to do it. In the two minutes I have, I can't get anything done. I was always involved in paintings, so I was always confused. Maybe I need to have them, maybe I need to do something with them. And it's in my soul, in my thoughts, and that's very important for us as well. But the fear comes in when you're close to God, these spontaneous, occasional meditations. Well, naturally, he started out with me. I mean, he could feed me with money, and he could feed me with literature. So, he used to kind of meditate for a while. He was a meditator at the time. I spoke with him at the time. So, they'd be training other people to meditate. Meditators. We've got such a deluge of the digital element within us that I've said to the many of us, don't you, we must remember things we didn't use. There's a lamp sign that you set down in the chair that meditates for five minutes on heaven. You have to use it more. You can't be meditating more. You can't be going to the next thing you need to do. You go for all eternity. Crazy. What I've given, I've given to all 21 of those books, and I've recorded all the offers, all the subjects they've said they need to learn something about after they've tried them. I've discovered that there's more books on Kentucky than there is in 17th century, and I'm going to talk in very nice and powerful English. Heaven, hell, death. Okay, so There are a couple of ditches we want to avoid as we're doing this. I don't think I came up with these first. I can't remember whether I read that the Puritans came up with these or I came up with them first. But it kind of goes in line with what we talked about concerning meditation, which is selecting a topic. What is the correct object of our meditation? Even some of the Puritans were a little bit nervous to say, I'm going to look at a tree and I'm just going to conjure up everything I can think about a tree. Because some of that stuff I want to be thinking about a tree, the things that are in accord with what God would have to say about trees. But some of those things could just be my imagination. Some of those things could be things I wish I wouldn't be thinking about trees and I need to conform to right thinking about trees. Even John Bunyan struggled a bit over whether his Pilgrim's Progress was prone to give folks opportunities to analogize too much. So if we analogize everything, I mean analogies usually help us understand something, that's why we use analogies. you can make a bad analogy and then that's the thing that you remember and so actually you have a wrong doctrine because your analogy fails. And we all have, I mean, if I made you raise your hand, everybody would raise their hand. How many of you have tried to give an analogy and then realized at some point it fails and you're like, oh, that's a horrible analogy. Analogies are just that way. They usually are only good for so far and then if you try to take them all the way to the end, they usually fail at some point. The danger there, the ditch, is to analogize too much and not to give due consideration to which are the things that I know God has said about this idea or topic or object and which are the things that I'm bringing to the table on my own. Not that you can't think about, hey, what is it that I do think about doors? Or what is it that I do think about the analogy that Christ is the door? I mean, as long as you subject that to what God says about the analogy, you're on safe ground. Now, I thought this was helpful, and so, here you go, it's helpful, I think, so I'm giving it to you, I guess that's the introduction. So, we saw that in Puritan meditation, at least the middle bullets there, were reading a passage, selecting a topic, memorizing the doctrine, thinking on it, stirring up affections and making a resolution. Now, in a completely different topic, but by way of comparison, the Puritans had a fairly strict model of preaching. If you read Puritan sermons, in fact, they usually even put subheadings. Subheading 1, text. Subheading 2, doctrine. Subheading 3, reasons. Not exactly in those words all the time, but this is the model they used. It happens to be because a guy wrote a preaching textbook in the 17th century, and the Puritans all learned from him, and this is kind of how he taught them to do it. But just notice the similarities. What does the Scripture say? What is the idea that we're going to talk about? What doctrine do I conclude from that idea or that topic or that subject? Why? Why is it important? What affections? What affections marry up to my reasons for believing this doctrine, for employing this doctrine in life? And then the resolution and the application. So my point here is that the Puritan method of meditation and the Puritan method of preaching wasn't so far apart other than the audience is the audience of you when you're doing this by yourself. And the preacher was trying to do the same thing. I can't remember if I've... I would say this, too. Your pastor is a very good preacher, I would think most people would agree. I know, because I've tried to preach before, that when it comes to applying the Word of God, it's difficult because he doesn't know you all as intimately as he probably would like. He doesn't know the things that you just don't tell him. And so he doesn't know your lives well enough to really apply it specifically to your exact personal situation. And this is just about preachers in general, but the preacher is speaking to a group of people and he's got to make some generalizations in his application so that it applies to everybody. And so his applications are going to be a little bit more generalized, a little bit more broad, a little bit more universal. But when you are taking that same Word, and you know your situation, and you know your struggles, and you know you, you're going to be able to apply God's Word more specifically to your own situation. And this is why we shouldn't just say, well, Brian preached a great sermon, I'm going to apply that Word of God, without chewing on it. Right? Because he's only going to get so far. He's only going to get to the point where he knows you. And he's only going to get to the part where he knows you and you're part of the larger group. Right? So this is the point. It's the same effect. We're trying to use God's Word to sink it deep within us. He's doing it in a group context. And the more he knows you, the better he is. And I think you'll find that to be true about all creatures. But the Word of God is applicable to you even more specifically than you will be able to do, generally speaking. So, if you remember Hebrews chapter 4, the writer gets done talking about the Israelites who followed God, who followed Moses out of the exile, and here they are standing at the door of the Promised Land, and some of them fail to enter the rest, due to disobedience. There's a lot there, but I'm going to summarize it at that point. Then the writer says, let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one, meaning his current audience, no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. Now, he says this about the Word of God. It is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of the soul and spirit, of joint and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. The Word of God exposes us and lays us bare before God because it divides into our intentions and our motives and what is really inside. The Word of God is a sword. And then we read on the other side of the spectrum, How sweet are Your words, the Word of God, to my taste sweeter than honey, to my mouth. This, as you know, is not a contradiction, but it's a spectrum of what the Word of God does. So, as we meditate, we can apply it, or we think that it is sweet, not fearing that when we apply it, it will expose us. And the underlying premise there is that we know God is good and God is merciful and he has purposes for his word. And that even though his word lays us exposed and leaves us exposed and bare, that that is actually for our benefit and for his glory. And that is why we can say both of those and not be speaking out of both sides of our mouth. We've got a great hat. Maybe we talked about this last time, but it's just good to chew on. Hey, that's probably where that figure of speech comes from. This is the final slide and then we'll take questions and maybe have some discussion. whether in solitude, which is what the Puritans called deliberate, or not, which is what they called occasional meditation, is meant to clear away hindrances. In these practices we take opportunity to minister God's Word to ourselves, both as the sword that exposes us and the honey that delights us. That is the end. Any questions or comments? Yes, ma'am. Well, as I just shut it off, I'll have to read it to you. Yeah, I will. So she asks exactly how do you go about meditating? So because we say that the Word of God is the object, and that the method is to prioritize the Word of God in our thinking and our consideration, and that the motives are because it is lovely, it is beneficial, and it is sufficient for life and godliness, and that the purpose of it is to conform ourselves to the image of Christ. After that, the method is not as important. Wherever and however and whenever you can do that, effectively you would be doing what I would call meditation. The Puritans were a little bit more specific and I'll just summarize what Dr. Beeky said on the video. He said first of all they went to solitude. They created some sort of environment in a closet or in a field somewhere where they were free from distractions. They asked the Holy Spirit for help. They selected a passage or a topic to talk about or to think about rather. And then they would memorize a verse or a catechism answer or a doctrinal statement so that it was fresh on the top of their minds. They would chew on it, think about it, consider it, meditate upon it. And they would think about how that was, that doctrine was supposed to stir their affections towards obedience, towards conformity. And then when they thought of, hmm, what does this doctrine implicate for my life? How should I respond? They wrote that down. and they made that resolution to themselves and then they ended in worship, praying, or singing as an act of worship. So those were the stuff that they used. Did you get all that? I can give you this piece of paper at the end if you want it. I'm sorry, say that again? Well, yeah, you could pray out loud, but now praying is something distinct. I mean, praying is speaking to God. This exercise of meditation is to ponder, consider, and to chew on what God has said to us, right? Whereas in some of the other popular forms of meditation, the purpose is to empty our minds, right? Well, when we try to empty our minds, who knows what's going to come in at that point. But we are trying to specifically, in Biblical meditation, we're trying to specifically put into our minds something that we know is the right object of meditation, which is God's Word. Yes ma'am? Right. I could, so I'm going to stumble on, what do you know the actual phrase? Lectio Divina. Lectio Divina. Okay, so yeah, I'm not, I don't know if I could explain that particularly. We did address in the last discussion about meditation we did address what the Catholics call contemplative prayer and this is a form or a subset perhaps. I would say instead of trying to understand each version, which is why that chart at the beginning is helpful, if we remember the right object, method, motive, and purpose, that will separate the wheat from the chaff as far as meditation goes. All the lesser forms or all of the aberrant forms of meditation will make something prick in your mind if you think, what is the right object of meditation, God's Word, what is the method, considering it, prioritizing it in my thinking, what is the motive, because it is lovely and because it is sufficient, and what is its purpose to conform me to the image of Christ. Right, so now I can't speak particularly to the Lectio Divina because I did not study that for my last presentation. But yeah, so for the, oh I'm sorry to interrupt. Right, absolutely. So now I would disagree with you to the extent you said that it's about the motive in this Catholic case because I do think the motive is coincident with our motive. What I would say is different in the Catholic forms of contemplative prayer that I do know about is that this They're trying to get to the emptying of the mind, or what they do is they say, we're going to pick a spiritual word like peace. And we're just going to think peace. And whenever any other thought comes into my mind, I'm just going to push it out by saying peace. Peace. I'm not going to consider what peace means, how peace applies, what God says about peace. I'm not going to think about that. I'm just going to use the word to push out thoughts. Well then what is, if you're doing that, what is the object? The object is emptiness. What you're actually trying to get to is nothing. And so now, it's not really the motive. Like the motive, let's just give them the benefit of the doubt. The motive is that they're trying to get closer to God, right? But how are you going to get closer to God? And this Surprise, surprise, here we are in the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. This is a Solus Centura thing. If Scripture is sufficient, there is nothing else that I should try to be seeking in order to get closer to God. Not emptiness, not silence. There's nothing else. The thing that is wholly sufficient to bring me as close to God as God wants me to be is the Scripture. And, of course, we differ with councils on that point. We have for 500 years or more. But it's all rooted in the same kind of thinking as family. Precisely. So the object, in your example, would be what God has said about peace, rather than just using the morpheme, peace, to push out ideas. Right, you could use any word. So now they say to use a spiritual word, but again, why are you using a spiritual word if you're only using the word to push out other ideas. Yes, sir? going to fail at some point. So the Navigator, really, I still remember the day, we were walking in the classroom, and we were walking off Old Street, and I said, oh, they meditate, so that they, you know, those are part of the Recycling Program, the program of education, so they get to experience the day. And as far as the Navigator, we were saying this, I did not practice this, but as the kid got older, there was this thing called couch time. And as you were saying, I was thinking of the relationships with buskies in life, and how they could busk and die. Because at the end of the day, buskies have come home. It is clear out in my mind what is important, the reason why you have communion with earth, and that's important for the relationship of emancipation. It's the same thing, when we talk about God, He is God, and these words are sort of an outline of what God is, and relationships with others in life. We've got time for one or two more. Anybody else? Well, I have now. I don't remember them, but I think the most famous list is Jonathan Edwards' resolution that he made when he was 19. And I'm just recalling from memory, but here's Jonathan Edwards at 19 and he's saying, I resolve that I'm not going to waste any time in my life. I know what is the most important thing and I'm just going to go after it with all abandon. And I'm not going to let myself be bogged down by trifling youthful pleasures, you know, like those sorts of things. Like, I mean, the thing was, of course, uh, yeah, I'll say that loud because it is a compliment. I don't know what you all thought about Neil's proclamation the other day or last week at the meeting. I thought it was beautiful. Uh, but he put that in, he put his, his very simple point of, we want to thank our pastors and elders into a formal declaration. And that's the kind of thing that the Puritans did. Not just, yeah, I'm going to live by that, but no, this is exactly how it, and whereby God's word is lovely, I resolve that I am going to daily appeal to it for life and God, like, I mean, they just put it out there as strict and formal as they could make it so that it was binding, you know, on their conscience. I think it's kind of like, when Paul and I were up and putting off and going on, you know, as they were conveying to me my description, I was kind of put off by it, because I was never involved in the field, but the fact that it was a book on marriage, it was almost saying to me, I need to stop marriage, or I'll lose all of my family, and there's people, I mean, the book itself is helpful, but it really was all over there, and it was all in front of me. Wow, the idea that I don't want to involve too many people in it. And if you really want to scare yourself, write those down and then hand them to somebody who knows you. Because then they're not just binding on your own conscience, but they're binding on somebody who knows you. Especially somebody who knows the bad parts of you too. Yes ma'am, this will be the last one. Sure. Yeah, okay. Alright. Final shot. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you.