SUNDAY SERMON - Pagan Meditation & The FALSE Gospel of Disney
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1 hour and 9 minutes
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15
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44
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Summary
In this episode, we read from Psalm 1: "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, neither stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither in all that he does; he prospers the wicked; the wicked are not so but like chaff that the wind drives away; therefore, therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the Lord knows the way to the righteous, but the way the wicked shall perish."
Transcript
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In less than a year, our podcast has gone from an average of 10,000 downloads a month
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to 50,000 downloads. What made the difference? You leaving us a five-star review. The more
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positive reviews, the more the algorithm picks us up, and more people are confronted by the law
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and gospel of Jesus Christ. Help us press forward the crown rights of King Jesus by leaving us a
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five-star review on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks. Our text for today is Psalm chapter 1
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verses 1 through 6. If you would, please stand with me for the reading of God's Word. I'll read
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our text in its entirety. When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say, this is the Word of
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the Lord, at which point I would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying, thanks be to
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God. One final time, our text for today is Psalm chapter 1 verses 1 through 6. The Bible says this,
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blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners
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nor sits in the seat of scoffers but his delight is in the law of the lord and on his law he
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meditates day and night he is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its
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season and its leaf does not wither in all that he does he prospers the wicked are not so but like
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chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners
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in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the
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wicked will perish. This is the word of the Lord. All right, please be seated. There's two main points
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by the grace of God I hope to make from the text today. The first is this, an introduction, or maybe
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you could call it a primer, or if you're from England, a primer, a primer to Christian
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meditation. What is Christian meditation? What's a synopsis, an understanding of the practice
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and the discipline of Christian meditation? The second point is this, a meditation on Christian
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meditation. And that's where I'll focus exclusively and specifically on our text, because I believe
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that in many ways that is what psalm chapter one actually amounts to psalm chapter one is a
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meditation on meditation or a christian meditating on christian meditation and so there will
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meditate will actually think about and draw out principles and applications and understandings
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of psalm chapter one so psalm chapter one is about christian meditation and by the grace of
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God, we will seek to meditate on a text about meditation. But first, I think we need to have
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a general understanding of Christian meditation. And sometimes it is often helpful in order to
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understand something, to properly understand what it is not. So I want to begin by comparing and
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contrasting the biblical principle and discipline of Christian meditation and how it contrasts with
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pagan meditation eastern meditation mantra meditation and all other kinds and forms of
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meditation christian meditation is good righteous holy beneficial fruitful and right but all other
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forms of meditation in our culture and society and other false religions today are wrong so let's
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compare the two in your notes i've written the following one very popular form of meditation in
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today's culture is called mantra meditation. Think yoga. I've talked about this a little
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bit before, but we're going to do some more detail today. In mantra meditation, participants
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repeat a word or a phrase until all rational thought has been eradicated. Let me stop there
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for a moment. The purpose, you might, you know, this has seeped its way as many pagan, you know,
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false doctrines and pagan practices, many of them, not just this, but many have, you know,
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kind of slowly seeped their way into christian thought and christian practice and yoga is no
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exception mantra meditation is no exception often what sadly happens is compromise and
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an attempt at a synthesis between pagan idolatry and the actual biblical christian faith once and
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for all passed down to the saints but sadly we try to synthesize we say hey this other thing
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that's directly opposed to jesus christ hey maybe there's some common ground uh there's not what
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fellowship does light have with darkness it's like oil and water the two do not mix but
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sadly we continue to try again and again and again tale as old as time for these last two
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thousand years that's what we see every false teacher every major heresy is an attempt at some
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kind of synthesis between the christian faith and some other pagan religion that's you know
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arianism and docetism and all your isms are some kind of attempt to take this norse you know
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mythology or this roman greco mythology or or this philosophy you know or this ideology and say
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hey you know what instead of just repudiating this and pointing out that it's poison without
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apology, maybe it's great, you know, and maybe it really works with the Christian faith, you know,
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and maybe we can worship Yahweh and Baal. And the entire narrative of the Bible is that that
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doesn't work. That's what Israel did throughout the entirety of the Old Testament again and again
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and again. And it doesn't take, you know, that high of a reading level, you know, or that high
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even of an IQ to be able to read the Old Testament and say, idolatry is bad. That's a deep, profound,
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you know, exposition there. So I know that, you know, many of us are not theologians. And so I'll
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say it again in case, you know, anybody, you know, it was just you missed it. But big moral of the
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story in the Old Testament, idolatry is bad. Worshipping Yahweh in the temple, but then
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maintaining and reserving the high places, the Asherah poles, the temples of Baal, the temples
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of Molech, that's bad. And the good kings, and for the most part, just a brief synopsis of the
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history of Israel, you got about three or four bad kings for every good one. So most of them are bad.
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But whenever you had a good king, most of the good kings, what would make them good
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is that they had a certain level of fidelity to the one true God, to Yahweh, and to worshiping
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him rightly, and advocating for the worship of Yahweh, a faithful worshiping of Yahweh,
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when it came to the people, encouraging the people to worship Yahweh. That's a good king.
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So you got a few good kings, lots of bad kings, but you got about two great kings, David and Josiah.
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And they also tore down every high place built to idols.
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They didn't just say, don't go to the prophets of Baal.
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So technically, I just say Baal because everybody knows Baal,
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as the idolatrous nations that surround you do but rather worship Yahweh that's a good king
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a great king would say let me help you out let's take a little bit of fire maybe an axe
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and we're going to destroy these false temples built to false gods I'm going to help you out
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and ensure that there's no temptation in the land toward idolatry because we're going to take these
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puny gods and we're going to kick him out of town and that was a great king david was a great king
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even though he committed great sin he was still a man after god's own heart he was jealous for the
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lord and that was a wonderful wonderful thing so again one popular form of meditation in today's
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culture is mantra meditation where participants repeat a word or phrase until all rational thought
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has been eradicated and this has there have been many attempts to to synthesize this pagan form of
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meditation mantra meditation or eastern meditation with the christian faith one of the ways or the
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attempts that you might be familiar with is centered prayer goes by that name or contemplative
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prayer would be another term or lectio divina would be another term the goal in these kinds
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of methods that are pagan and have nothing to do with the christian faith but have found their way
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into the christian faith the goal of these methods is to take a phrase or a word like what i've just
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read in your notes but the point of the phrase this is the irony the point of the phrase is not
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that there's something of the utmost importance a simple truth the demands are full focus and
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attention now the phrase repeating the phrase again and again is not to focus on the phrase
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but rather it's to repeat the phrase over and over to where it becomes so repetitive and monotonous
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that the repetition of the phrase is used then as a tool not to think about the phrase but to think
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about nothing. So it's not to focus on this simple yet profound truth. No, it's to use it as an
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incantation, as a repetitive mantra, until I've completely vegged out. That's the goal.
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Seven-syllable phrases, if you've been a part of these practices as they've found themselves in
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the Christian church with, you know, completely pagan, but with a little, you know, like lipstick
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on a pig, right? You know, or a gold ring in the snout of a bull, you know, to use a biblical
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example, or the snout of a pig, right? That's what it is. It's kind of dressing up a corpse.
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There's no life in it. In fact, there's only death and poison, but we'll put a thin Christian
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veneer on it. So what we'll do is a seven-syllable phrase, but we'll make it a Christian phrase,
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right i i let me think it's hard to count the syllables um i am the son of the king nailed it
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boom that's pretty good right uh you know how i did that extreme intelligence no um i did that
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because i fell for this trick once upon a time most of the things that by the grace of god i
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teach you guys from the Bible. I've come to the truth in two ways. Understanding God's word
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through studying and being incredibly stupid when I was younger and doing it wrong. Just for the
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record, just if anybody is ever wondering, I, nobody comes out of the womb with perfect theology,
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right? You know, spoiler, shocker. I've held to plenty of bad doctrine, plenty of bad doctrine.
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So all that being said, I am a son of the king.
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And it's not to focus, again, your attention on the doctrine of adoption
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or the royalty, the nature and role of King Jesus, the triune God,
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or to understand rightly sonship as co-heirs with Christ.
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Well, this practice is meant to transcend a person
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The goal is to become no longer aware of any words, ideas, images, or concepts.
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Instead, the participant attempts to reach a point of nirvana, you might call it.
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Attempts to reach a point of being aware of only awareness itself.
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That's the goal, to be aware of nothing, but only awareness itself.
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It is believed that from this state, other forms of consciousness can be achieved that can lead
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toward a sense of being one with everything that exists in the world and the universe, and therefore
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one with God who exists in everything, which is not the Christian faith, but a damnable heresy
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known as pantheism. Pantheism is a pagan mythology. So you're trying to get rid of all rational
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thought. Clear the mind. And what you're focusing on is not knowing. And I'll spell this out very
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clearly in a moment. The goal is not to know. The goal is to be. It's not to know, right? Because
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knowing requires rational thought. Knowing requires the mind. Knowing requires, to put it
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into biblical terms, loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. To love the Lord
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with your thoughts but it's not the goal to know God the goal is simply to experience God
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and to experience in some sense not only experience God relationally as a son would experience his
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father but to experience not only God but experience what it is like to be God to become
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one with everything and therefore one with God who is in everything. It is a sense of trying to
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achieve at least, if not objectively in reality, at least subjectively in experience and feeling
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to achieve an experience of what it is to be God. Not to know God, but to be God. Now in order to
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accomplish this goal of knowing God, that's the goal of Christian meditation, in order to accomplish
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this goal of knowing God, Christian meditation does not seek to empty the mind of rational thought,
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but rather to fill it with sound biblical truth. Sound biblical truth. Christian meditation, it
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seeks the experience of knowing God, whereas mantra meditation seeks the experience of being God.
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that's the primary difference going a little bit further in your notes i've written this
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mantra meditation seeks to suppress the analytical side of the mind it sees it merely as a hindrance
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as a stumbling block that pesky thinking oh thinking thinking always gets in the way
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now if that were true i i would have to concede and say that the vast majority of evangelical
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church churches in our day are doing a wonderful job if thinking is a hindrance if thinking actually
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is a mere distraction, then evangelicals have nailed it. Some of the most thoughtless people
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I've ever met, they're doing great. There's no thinking or rational thought or substance in the
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preaching, in the pulpits, in their worship through song, in their liturgies, in their small groups,
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in their ministries. I mean, they have truly, in the same way Josiah drove out the idols,
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the Baals, the Asherah poles, so too evangelicals have rid the land of any temptation toward
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rational thought. But I don't think that that's the win that it is often described as being.
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I don't think that that is a victory. Mantra meditation, it seeks to suppress the analytical
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side of the mind and focus on the feelings of the heart. While Christian meditation is in fact
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so rational by design, it is intended by God to be so, so rational that it can actually cause us
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to regularly contend with our hearts. Not to merely follow the heart, but contend. Christians
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are not called in scripture to follow, or to put it another way, listen to their hearts,
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but rather we are commanded by God to preach to our hearts.
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The Christian life, this process and progress of sanctification,
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is not a listening to or a following of our hearts,
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but rather it is a daily battle of often contending with our hearts,
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so the christian doesn't quiet his mind and quiet himself and say heart what do you have for me
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today heart where should i go and what should i do no the christian rather in a sanctified way
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says shut up heart stop that heart that was dumb heart bad idea heart right if you just want to say
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very, very plainly. Disney, follow your heart. Christianity, preach to your heart. That's the
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difference. The Christian preaches to his heart. He doesn't say, how do I feel, and therefore,
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how then must I live? Instead, he says, what is true? Not how do I feel, but what do I know?
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What do I know from the word of God to be objectively true regardless of how I feel?
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And so what we find in scripture, particularly the Psalms, King David, inspired by the Holy
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Spirit, was a master of this particular art of Christian meditation and Christian preaching
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What we find is not following of our heart, but rather arguing with our hearts, contending
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with our hearts preaching to our hearts setting our hearts in line now here's the point i want
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you to notice this what i'm about to read i'm going to give just two examples and more could
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be cited but two examples from the scripture psalm chapter 42 verse 5 as well as psalm 103 verses 1
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through 5 but here's what i want you to notice both of these texts are not actually if we are
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to be accurate. They cannot be categorized as examples of prayer. This is why. They cannot be
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properly categorized as biblical examples of prayer because prayer is conversation. It is
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speaking. But to who? To God. But notice that the psalmist in these two examples is not speaking to
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God primarily, but he is speaking to himself. So let's use these examples now. Psalm 42, verse 5.
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Why are you cast down, O God? No. Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you speaking to
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himself, his heart, his soul, his center, his emotions, his feelings, saying, cut it out, heart?
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He's not telling the Lord to bless the Lord in this instance.
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Bless the Lord, myself, O my soul, and all that is within me.
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bless the lord oh my soul and the implication the assumption is that he is downtrodden and
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distraught in this moment so what does he do and forget not in this moment of anxiety
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of depression of sadness of fear forget not all his benefits what are they he now begins to list
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them to himself one by one who forgives all your iniquity who heals all your diseases
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who redeems your life from the pit who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy
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who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagles
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but I'm unemployed who forgives all your iniquity who heals all your diseases who redeems your life
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from the pit who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy who satisfies you with good
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so that your youth is renewed like the eagles but one of our children is sick
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who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit,
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who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth
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is renewed like the eagles. But I've been profoundly betrayed. Who forgives all your
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iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with
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steadfast love and mercy, and who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the
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eagles. The wicked are like chaff. Back to our primary text. And the wind drives them away.
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nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
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but god this is how i feel but god this is what my enemies are currently doing to me but god
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what david does is not listen to his heart and in this instance it then turns to prayer
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speaking to God and worship praising God but before prayer David preaches so he does not
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listen to his heart follow his heart give way to his heart but rather he preaches to his heart
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and the preaching of David to his heart becomes the priming of the pump to then pray
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here's the point christian meditation is the preparation for prayer many of us to our shame
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pray far too little that is we talk to our fellow man about our problems far more than we go to talk
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to the only one in all the universe who could actually do something about it he is more powerful
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than our friends and our family and our spouse.
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the one who actually is more powerful, all powerful,
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about our problems, our challenges, and our fears.
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to come to our aid because he cares for us more than we care for ourselves and more than those
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around us care for us. And so we spend often far too much time speaking to man when we should be
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speaking to God. Prayer. Speaking to God, aka prayer. That's all of us. Yet it is even far
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more rare not only is it sadly rare that we speak to God in prayer but it is exceedingly rare
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that we prepare ourselves for speaking to God in prayer and that is precisely what Christian
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meditation serves to do it is the preparation for prayer that before we speak to God we speak
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to ourselves before we go to god in prayer we preach a sermon to our own hearts and we align
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ourselves not with our constantly fluctuating and fleeting feelings of the heart but rather
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we align ourselves with what is immutable that is unchanging what is constant what is infallible
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what is true namely the word of god and what we see in the psalms is moments that cannot again be
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properly categorized as prayer because the audience is not god the psalmist is not speaking to god
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but rather speaking to himself but what always follows these instances in the psalms of preaching
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to himself the psalmist immediately what follows on the heels of preaching to the self is then
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the speaking to god so david what he'll do is he'll say soul heart get it together
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this is who god is this is what he's done this is his covenant these are his promises and now
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that's christian meditation christian meditation i'll say it once more as plainly as possible
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Christian meditation is the priming of the pump to prepare the heart to then go to God
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before his throne in prayer. Many of us do not pray at all or not nearly as often as we ought,
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but almost all of us, to our shame, even when we do pray, we often presumptuously and prematurely
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enter into prayer. Praying before preaching. Praying to God without preparing first and
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preaching to ourselves. Richard Baxter, the late great Puritan, not fantastic on the doctrine of
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justification, which I'm not going to say that's a small thing, you know, but certainly worth the
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read. Many good things about Richard Baxter should not be cast into a pile of heretics.
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I don't believe that. Wonderful things that he said, especially in the Reformed pastor, one of his best works.
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He says this, plead thyself from a clod to a flame. Not talking about praying to God, but talking about preaching to yourself.
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plead thyself from a clod to a flame from a forgetful sinner to a lover of the world
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of the world i'm sorry forgetful sinner and a lover of the world to an ardent lover of god
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from a fearful coward to a resolved christian from an unfruitful sadness to a joyful life
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in a word till thou has pleaded thy heart from earth to heaven he is extolling the benefits
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and the vital necessity of preaching to ourselves,
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or constantly fluctuating emotions and feelings
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plead thyself from a mere creature of the world to a citizen of heaven.
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Preach to yourself until you are in the right frame of mind, and then go to the Lord in prayer.
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Lastly, let's look at some of the specific tenets of our text today, namely Psalm chapter 1,
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which is, I believe, a meditation to Christian meditation, and others have said that as well.
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I am not that original, which should give you guys a sense of peace, because if you are regularly
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and entirely original, you're usually a heretic. A meditation on Christian meditation. That's what
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Psalm 1 is. It's the opening chapter of the book of Psalms, and it's saying, let's think about,
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let's draw out applications and interpretations and understandings about what it is to practice
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Christian meditation. That's Psalm 1. It is a meditation on Christian meditation.
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And what we find from our text is many things, but we'll focus our attention on two.
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Christian meditation promises us at least two things. Stability and fruitfulness. Stability
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and fruitfulness. First, stability. Meditation provides stability because trees that are
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planted by streams of water, as we find in our text, will thrive even when there is little rain.
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the streams of water represent the word of god and to put roots down into these streams as a
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metaphor for meditation on god's word not mere memorization but meditation now if we're wondering
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again well what does it mean to meditate here's one question that the person who is meditating
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on the truth of God's Word will inevitably ask, how does this apply? How does this apply?
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There are three things that we must do when it comes to study of the Word of God. First,
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you cannot study the Word of God lest you read it. So first, we must be diligent, disciplined
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readers of the Scripture. You must read the Word of God. Secondly, though, there is a distinction
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between the reading of God's Word and memorizing God's Word, hiding it in our heart. It's difficult
00:32:27.100
to meditate on something throughout the day, because that's what we find in Scripture,
00:32:41.580
It is a continued and constant continual meditation
00:32:50.660
unless the word of God has first been committed to memory.
00:33:03.060
If you are to study it deeply, you also must memorize the word of God.
00:33:08.000
That doesn't mean memorize verbatim the entire Bible.
00:33:12.820
But finding a particular text that is particularly relevant for you and your weaknesses and struggles in that season and saying, I'm going to memorize this.
00:33:24.700
I remember as a young man in the season of my life memorizing 1 Corinthians 6.
00:33:43.200
I memorized it so that I wouldn't only be mindful of the words of scripture
00:33:49.460
as I was sitting down with an open Bible before me
00:33:53.300
but so that I would have the words of scripture hidden in my heart
00:33:57.720
in my mind, able to access God's word day and night. And then not only have it memorized, but
00:34:05.480
using memorization of the word of God as a springboard into meditation on the word of God,
00:34:12.480
drawing out deeply its meaning, that is the interpretation of the text, and
00:34:19.700
its use, that is, the application of the text. So we must read God's Word, if we are to study it
00:34:30.040
diligently, memorize God's Word, and then meditate upon God's Word. Again, meditating on God's Word,
00:34:40.260
I think, I truly believe, is one of the rarest practices amongst Christians.
00:34:47.320
to meditate on god's word is not again the mere reading of his word or even the mere
00:34:54.560
memorization of his word but it is to think deeply upon the word of god and ask at least
00:35:01.600
two questions i listed one of them in your notes but at least two questions that are raised begged
00:35:07.240
from the the goal of meditating on god's word the two questions are as follows number one
00:35:13.460
what does it mean what does the text mean that is its interpretation number two
00:35:26.200
for a long time christians especially in the west and likely at least one factor contributing to
00:35:35.880
this phenomenon for a long time in the west christians have not thought about the word of
00:35:42.260
God in its application, at least not deeply. And one of the contributing factors, perhaps
00:35:48.640
lending towards our lack of deep, serious thought about the application of Scripture is because
00:35:56.220
we've had things well. Things overall have been well. Do you know why things in the West have been
00:36:04.420
well? Because the founders, the covenanters, the Puritans, the pilgrims, all of them gave their
00:36:16.720
lives towards application of scripture. That's all they did. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
00:36:25.640
All day they sat there thinking about Deuteronomy and Leviticus and this text and that text and
00:36:33.860
this text and that text and they did not merely take these texts of scripture and apply them as
00:36:40.040
spiritual shallow vain platitudes for their private precious hearts they said god's word
00:36:48.860
says this and it applies to all of life to civil laws to governments to markets to economies god's
00:37:01.020
word says this and it doesn't just mean that this will now inform my 15 minutes of quiet time in the
00:37:08.420
morning as i take pictures of my open bible and coffee and share it on instagram no what it means
00:37:13.840
is that in this case me and the rest of the town need to build a gallow because if we are to honor
00:37:20.360
the lord as holy this dude over here needs to hang with a fair trial of course which also requires
00:37:28.980
scripture of two to three witnesses to see what fairness is. But in every case, that is what was
00:37:35.100
done in the West. And not only in the origins of our country, but tracking back all the way to King
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Alfred in common case law a thousand years ago in England and tracking back before even him another
00:37:51.940
600 years, give or take. All the way back to Constantine. Now you have been taught history
00:38:02.980
poorly. Because that's what victors get to do. To the victor goes the spoils. And one of the
00:38:13.000
spoils is not just land and wealth and plunder, but one of the spoils of victory in war is
00:38:23.940
authority. Authority to write history. To say, this is what happened. The Crusades.
00:38:45.940
Terrible that Great Britain went to India and said,
00:38:52.380
you have to stop burying his wife alive with him in the dirt.
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of course we're talking about men not God we're talking about fallible men there's always sin
00:39:08.920
but what we have done for decades now what we have done for decades is we take the exception
00:39:16.120
and make it the norm we take the footnote and make it the headline it exists it's real it's included
00:39:21.200
and it should be spoken of but what we do is we shout and we we completely define our history
00:39:37.360
And every good and every virtue and every blessing
00:39:48.580
The West has been blessed by God, immensely blessed.
00:39:55.260
It has been riddled with sin as all human beings are
00:40:19.940
Not in every way, but by God's grace in many ways.
00:40:26.920
we have been taught history in such a way that we say well if god's law was applied outside of the
00:40:37.720
privacy of our little personal hearts or maybe our family worship behind closed doors in our home
00:40:44.560
if we were to apply god's law in practical meaningful ways in society at large crusades
00:40:52.420
the salem witch trials that's a fan favorite right probably heard that one a million times
00:41:03.060
all these this would be the norm that's not the footnote that's not the bad things that happen
00:41:10.200
that's all that happened everything else is just you know irrelevant the only thing that has ever
00:41:18.080
come of societies using God's word as immutable and universal standard of truth and justice for
00:41:26.620
the land. The only result of that has ever been injustice. Well, if that's your view, then just
00:41:33.800
come on, be honest and say, I hate God. I hate the Bible. And I'm not a Christian because you're not.
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I'm sick and tired of the ridiculous false dichotomy
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when it comes to private spiritual application.
00:41:52.980
But I believe the principles that God has set forward
00:41:55.280
in scripture, if ever applied beyond my private little heart,
00:42:07.400
You believe that God's principles are bad because ultimately you believe God in his character is bad.
00:42:18.520
You believe that it is good for societies or at least better improved for societies to blaspheme the triune God.
00:42:28.960
Better to do that, to publicly blaspheme the triune God, the sisters of perpetual indulgence.
00:42:35.980
we'd rather allow for that even encourage must much less accommodate we'd rather encourage and
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allow and tolerate that than dare risk the potential of saying no you can't blaspheme
00:42:52.640
jesus publicly on the streets in front of children
00:42:55.700
it's not whether but which you've heard it said many times by many people
00:43:03.260
but that old adage has legs it works there is an immense truth to it every society will have
00:43:14.820
blasphemy laws it's not whether but which you can quickly get arrested from your speech alone
00:43:24.280
without committing any physical act of violence whatsoever.
00:43:34.700
There are things outside of the reigning dogma,
00:43:50.100
the shunning and banning of your friends and family.
00:44:07.840
and I think that it was perhaps 5,900,090 that died,
00:44:37.320
It will either be the triune God or a false God.
00:44:41.820
Stimming now from that God, that will determine the orthodoxy.
00:44:47.100
What is permissible, right, true religion?
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every society is religious that's what a culture is culture comes from the latin word cultus which
00:44:58.380
means worship people are worshipers inevitably unavoidably every culture every society and
00:45:08.940
therefore every nation at every level even in the civil realm has implicitly at minimum implicitly
00:45:16.920
a reigning God. There is a theos. Did you know that every society and every nation on earth
00:45:24.040
throughout all of human history has been and always will be a theocracy?
00:45:31.680
Now, I have never advocated, nor do I plan on advocating for an ecclesiocracy.
00:45:39.380
Note the distinction between the two. An ecclesiocracy would be a church-run state.
00:45:46.920
I don't want the Pope, be he Roman or Protestant for that matter, I don't want the Pope in charge
00:45:56.940
of the state with actual civil levers in his hands and with objective powers and authority.
00:46:06.500
I don't want a church-run state. I also certainly do not want a state-run church, statism.
00:46:16.920
I believe from the scripture, not just from prudence or nature, but from the scripture,
00:46:25.380
I believe in the separation of church and state. With Jacob's sons, the scepter was given to Judah,
00:46:33.620
the state, whereas the sacraments and the priesthood was given to Levi, the church.
00:46:42.540
I believe from a biblical standpoint, with many other examples that can be named and given,
00:46:50.120
that it is a biblical principle. It is God's principle, God's idea to have a separation of
00:46:55.320
church and state. It is not God's idea, nor is it biblical to have a separation of Christ and state.
00:47:04.360
That's the difference. Separation of church and state? Great. As two separate branches of power
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00:47:11.620
with two different realms of responsibility and jurisdiction yes and amen love it call me an
00:47:18.460
american separation of christ and state no way because neutrality is a myth and if there is no
00:47:28.800
christ connected to state over state then either the state itself will ascend to the level of god
00:47:38.000
and become a god or there will be some pagan god replacing christ every single government
00:47:46.160
nation culture society is a theocracy there is a god whether he be demos we the people
00:47:54.700
the voice of the people the voice of god where 50 of the population plus one
00:48:38.860
Did you know the Bible has nothing good to say about democracy?
00:48:59.360
even though I'm a representative who's been duly elected.
00:49:35.360
I would like to see adopted to the Constitution
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but I would like to see an interpretation that is universally understood of the authorial intent
00:50:03.940
of the First Amendment, that Congress can make no law regarding religion, and that there will not
00:50:12.340
be a federal or national church, and that religion will be free and tolerated, but not
00:50:20.620
pantheism or polytheism, that's what I meant to say, not false gods, but as we see in other
00:50:30.060
writings of the founders, all those denominations of our common Lord.
00:50:37.480
The authorial intent and heart behind that was Baptists and Presbyterians and Anglicans,
00:50:44.100
Episcopalians it was not Satanist and Hindus and no so I'd like to see a little bit of work
00:50:56.500
but my point is for the most part the constitution is beautiful because
00:51:00.300
the constitution is biblical the problem in our nation is that the constitution has become a joke
00:51:07.200
it's not that the constitution is bad it's that well this I don't have time for this but
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Historically, I would encourage you to read the Age of Entitlement.
00:51:17.780
if you're looking for something riveting to do over the Christmas holidays,
00:51:23.500
In the 1960s, what happened is that the Constitution wasn't changed,
00:51:35.400
becomes the default Constitution of our nation.
00:51:39.540
And I think, in some sense, there were really good intentions
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but it opened Pandora's box and led the way for all of a sudden anyone claiming to be a minority
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class such as LGBT and then by force of law rather than through free markets right here's
00:51:58.380
the thing you you want to you want to have uh businesses that aren't racist great then then
00:52:05.100
just let them go out of business for being racist and praise God for it I hope they go out and they
00:52:12.280
would that would have it would have been slower to be fair but eventually all of a sudden uh you
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know what i'm not going to go to your pancake house because you guys are a bunch of bigots
00:52:22.200
that would have happened but the force of law now opened the door to be applied beyond something
00:52:29.500
that is outside of a man's control namely his ethnicity but now has been applied to
00:52:36.880
well I think today I'm you know we have kids in the room so I'm always that's why it's not that
00:52:44.220
I can't talk it's just I know how I know words I know how to speak words I'm just being careful
00:52:50.080
but things that are not a part of nature like ethnicity became categorized as something as a
00:52:57.560
part of nature namely perversion and things that God would say clearly are sin and that are a choice
00:53:21.080
So all that being said, every nation is a theocracy,
00:53:32.720
or whether it be some other pagan false religion.
00:53:45.620
But we do want a theocracy with the proper theos,
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That's why the Bible says he is the king of kings.
00:54:07.460
The kings of this earth have a king above them,
00:54:24.480
has very little, if anything, to do with our text.
00:54:27.880
I think I can reconcile this as we land the plane.
00:54:30.900
all of what I've just done, I'm biased, you know, so take it with a grain of salt. But I think it was
00:54:37.420
at least a decent example of meditation, Christian meditation. Notice what I did not do.
00:54:45.700
I did not zone out for the last 15 minutes. You might have. I didn't.
00:54:51.400
I did not zone out for the last 15 minutes and say, ah.
00:54:54.880
what i did was i thought and i thought with the primary substance of what to to anchor my thought
00:55:06.180
in what to latch my thought upon was god's word that's what the practice the discipline of the
00:55:14.420
theologian of theology is and i'm not saying i'm a great theologian because i'm not and in the
00:55:18.940
technical sense, I'm not a theologian. I'm a pastor. And I'm a pastor. And I like to think
00:55:25.520
of myself as an armchair theologian, you know, kind of armchair quarterback. It's like I could
00:55:29.980
never make it in the NFL, but I have some strong opinions, you know, and I think I think I'm right,
00:55:35.400
which, you know, spoiler alert, everybody thinks they're right. That's why you hold your opinion
00:55:39.100
because you think it's the right opinion. There's nothing unique about that. Everyone thinks they're
00:55:42.060
right. So all that being said, but that's what theology is. Theology, it has been said, theology
00:56:00.200
he said he wrote a book, literally by this title,
00:56:17.140
so we all are doing the work of a theologian be it well or poorly and what the work of a theologian
00:56:25.800
is if we were to simply and concisely define it is the discipline of thinking god's thoughts
00:56:32.740
after him that's not thinking original thoughts it's not going to a blank canvas for creative
00:56:39.020
license and freedom and saying what do i want to do today it's going to the word of god which is
00:56:43.960
not blank but written it is written and then taking the thoughts of god immutable and transcendent
00:56:51.660
universal thoughts of god infallible and inherent perfect thoughts of god and then thinking his
00:56:59.180
thoughts after him if this then that if this then that if this then that what does it mean for me as
00:57:12.040
a father? What does it mean for me as a husband? What does it mean for me as a churchman? What does
00:57:18.100
it mean for me as a member of city council? Or perhaps what it means for me is that I should run
00:57:23.100
for city council. What does it mean for me in the political realm, in the realm of vocation?
00:57:31.180
What does it mean for me in investments and all these things? The Word of God applies. One of the
00:57:49.020
with no physical, tangible, practical application.
00:58:09.160
but the fine print is the word of God is sufficient dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot
00:58:15.780
for salvation only for salvation the word of God is sufficient but only for eternal matters
00:58:26.100
the word of God is sufficient but just for the soul the word of God is sufficient for your private
00:58:33.400
life the word of god is sufficient the fine print again and again and again is but only for these
00:58:41.660
spiritual things and here's the neat thing about spiritual things they really really really really
00:58:46.320
matter after you're dead and they have no impact in society you know why democrats don't mind
00:58:55.260
Christians? We've never been a threat. See, God so loved the world, John 3, 16. God loves the world.
00:59:06.140
He cares about the world. He wants the world. He is redeeming through his son the world.
00:59:11.360
God loves the world. He cares about the world. He wants the world.
00:59:15.920
Democrats care about the world. They love the world wrongly, misguidedly, but they care about
00:59:21.600
it. They love it. They want the world. God loves the world. Satan loves the world. He used to be
00:59:28.620
the ruler and the prince of this age. That's a conversation for another time. Think 80, 70. But
00:59:32.840
the point is that Satan wants the world. He wants control of the world. At one point, he was the
00:59:39.660
king of kings in this age, in this world, the prince of the air. He had in his power, in his
00:59:45.800
domain, because Adam, by his sin, he actually transferred it to Satan. And Satan had the
00:59:50.980
kingdoms of the world which is why satan in a valid sense it wasn't a lie he was able to give
00:59:56.860
to christ 2 000 years ago in christ's earthly ministry when christ was tempted in the wilderness
01:00:02.020
satan made a valid legitimate offer to christ said if you worship me i'll give you the kingdoms of
01:00:07.260
this world and what did pietist evangelical say well jesus said my kingdom is not of this world
01:00:13.420
uh-huh you know what that means his kingdom is not of this world does not mean that his kingdom
01:00:18.740
is not in this world. His kingdom not being of this world means that it derives its sense of
01:00:25.280
authority and power. The source of power and authority for his kingdom is otherworldly,
01:00:31.340
meaning that it is greater than the world. But his kingdom is in the world. How do we know this?
01:00:37.560
Ample examples of scripture, but one would be, how did he himself, Jesus, teach us to pray?
01:00:43.500
thy kingdom stay far away amen no said jesus never thy kingdom come
01:00:54.060
to the 17th dimension nope on earth as it is in heaven and jesus of course
01:01:03.400
that trickster he was teaching us to pray something that god never intended to answer
01:01:08.840
no remember everyone's a theologian you're just a good one or a bad one pietism is bad theologians
01:01:19.140
and what happened is that the sufficiency of scripture was hijacked
01:01:23.740
never outright denied oh scripture is sufficient of course
01:01:27.700
but the question that we should have been asking all along is sufficient for what sufficient for
01:01:33.960
what is it sufficient for life in godliness as the scripture itself says because life here's the
01:01:42.040
nice thing about that word life it's a pretty massive category it is an all-encompassing
01:01:47.980
category life scripture is sufficient for life human life heavenly and earthly life eternal and
01:01:56.860
temporal, spiritual and physical, theory and practice, life, all of life, and godliness.
01:02:06.540
Scripture says that scripture is sufficient for life and godliness.
01:02:14.400
And when you start talking like this, like I said earlier, 15 minutes, now it's been probably 25,
01:02:21.200
but that would be an example of Christian meditation.
01:02:25.880
What you're doing is you're thinking God's thoughts after him.
01:02:28.780
You have a starting place, not the heart, not the emotions,
01:02:32.260
not a blank canvas for your creative freedom and license,
01:02:38.560
And you take God's thoughts and you begin to think,
01:02:51.200
interpretation application and the starting place the word of god is the revelation revelation
01:02:58.940
the word interpretation exegesis application obedience obedience and so is the christian life
01:03:09.680
so simple so inarguable no one can argue that point and yet somehow forgotten
01:03:20.180
for decades by pastors, church members, and deacons, and elders, ministers, and priests.
01:03:33.800
There's a reason why we are where we are today. And all that we have abdicated,
01:03:41.500
and all our unfaithfulness by God's grace and his grace alone can only be undone if we,
0.94
01:03:49.660
like Israel under the old covenant. If we go back to the script, Ezra, the priest finding the book
01:03:58.280
of the law, dust it off and says, let's do a theoretical word study of this book. No, they
01:04:07.560
literally build a structure and he stands on the structure. This is where you find the introduction,
01:04:32.840
And we're actually teaching through Ezra next year,
01:04:36.420
But for six hours, it says that he read the book of the law
01:04:44.400
That is, he exposited. He exegeted. And then they applied. They did it. You've forgotten these
01:04:54.320
feasts. Do them. You've forgotten these sacrifices. Do them. And the people wept
01:05:02.920
because this is right after coming back from exile. And they're now realizing this is a new
01:05:09.780
generations, 70 years of exile in Babel, they're now realizing why their mothers and fathers and
01:05:15.260
grandmothers and grandfathers, who they love, their lineage, their heritage, why their heritage
01:05:22.160
was forsaken by the Lord. And they're striving to keep the fifth commandment, to honor thy father
01:05:28.220
and mother, but at the same time having to be honest and say, father and mother, I love them
01:06:00.360
but it required rebuilding literally physically tangibly a city and one of the first things to
01:06:06.820
build was the temple of the lord but also the walls because when god calls his people to build
01:06:13.660
after something has been destroyed something good and precious has been destroyed by wicked men
01:06:19.860
when god brings back his people to the land to rebuild the ruins there will always be massive
01:06:28.480
opposition. And so they did not only hold merely a trowel in one hand, that is to build,
01:06:35.340
but in the other, they held a sword. They fought and built and fought and built and fought and
01:06:43.860
built. And little by little, they got it back. And the same by God's grace can be done here.
01:06:51.620
But we have to go back to the book. We have to read it. We have to understand it.
01:06:57.380
and we have to apply it and asking those questions about the word of God, not merely reading God's
01:07:04.200
word, but thinking upon God's word, reading, memorizing, and then meditating, thinking God's
01:07:10.480
thoughts after him. What does it mean? How does it work? Interpretation application. That is
01:07:17.840
brothers and sisters, Christian meditation, which is the primer for Christian prayer,
01:07:22.980
as I've already said, and what it produces in societies when done as a whole, but also in
01:07:30.640
individuals and in homes, in families and in local churches. Here's the fruit. Final thing.
01:07:37.920
It produces stability and fruitfulness. You will be like a tree. Not you might be.
01:07:44.960
You will. It's a promise. You will be like a tree planted by streams of water.
01:07:50.080
you won't have fruit every day even a healthy tree bears fruit and season but the tree planted
01:07:59.160
by streams of water it produces fruit in time but its leaves notice this tree is not like all
01:08:07.120
trees it's unique in this sense its leaves are evergreen that means that it is not always
01:08:13.840
abundantly fruitful, but it is always verdant. It is always filled with vitality. It is always
01:08:22.380
alive. This is a tree that produces fruit in times and in other times may be barren,
01:08:29.360
but it is always alive. And why is it always alive? Because it is not dependent on the seasons
01:08:36.740
where rain may come and go but even in seasons that are dry and barren where there is no rain
01:08:45.340
at all it has a constant source of life it is not just a tree planted it is a tree planted
01:08:53.600
by streams of water its leaf never withers it bears much fruit in its season it is both stable
01:09:03.100
and fruitful. And so too, by the grace of God, might we be if we meditate upon his word day and
01:09:11.900
night. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Bless it to your people and bring yourself
01:09:16.660
much glory. We pray this for Christ's sake. Amen.