The NXR Podcast - SUNDAY SERMON - Pagan Meditation & The FALSE Gospel of Disney

00:00:00.000 In less than a year, our podcast has gone from an average of 10,000 downloads a month

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00:00:16.360 and gospel of Jesus Christ. Help us press forward the crown rights of King Jesus by leaving us a

00:00:23.480 five-star review on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks. Our text for today is Psalm chapter 1

00:00:30.220 verses 1 through 6. If you would, please stand with me for the reading of God's Word. I'll read

00:00:34.620 our text in its entirety. When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say, this is the Word of

00:00:39.140 the Lord, at which point I would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying, thanks be to

00:00:44.220 God. One final time, our text for today is Psalm chapter 1 verses 1 through 6. The Bible says this,

00:00:50.780 blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners

00:00:56.920 nor sits in the seat of scoffers but his delight is in the law of the lord and on his law he

00:01:03.760 meditates day and night he is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its

00:01:10.380 season and its leaf does not wither in all that he does he prospers the wicked are not so but like

00:01:17.360 chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners

00:01:23.660 in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the

00:01:28.860 wicked will perish. This is the word of the Lord. All right, please be seated. There's two main points

00:01:36.820 by the grace of God I hope to make from the text today. The first is this, an introduction, or maybe

00:01:42.940 you could call it a primer, or if you're from England, a primer, a primer to Christian

00:01:51.220 meditation. What is Christian meditation? What's a synopsis, an understanding of the practice

00:01:57.440 and the discipline of Christian meditation? The second point is this, a meditation on Christian

00:02:03.640 meditation. And that's where I'll focus exclusively and specifically on our text, because I believe

00:02:11.860 that in many ways that is what psalm chapter one actually amounts to psalm chapter one is a

00:02:18.520 meditation on meditation or a christian meditating on christian meditation and so there will

00:02:25.680 meditate will actually think about and draw out principles and applications and understandings

00:02:31.400 of psalm chapter one so psalm chapter one is about christian meditation and by the grace of

00:02:37.580 God, we will seek to meditate on a text about meditation. But first, I think we need to have

00:02:43.820 a general understanding of Christian meditation. And sometimes it is often helpful in order to

00:02:50.740 understand something, to properly understand what it is not. So I want to begin by comparing and

00:02:58.280 contrasting the biblical principle and discipline of Christian meditation and how it contrasts with

00:03:05.860 pagan meditation eastern meditation mantra meditation and all other kinds and forms of

00:03:15.380 meditation christian meditation is good righteous holy beneficial fruitful and right but all other 0.71

00:03:23.400 forms of meditation in our culture and society and other false religions today are wrong so let's

00:03:30.440 compare the two in your notes i've written the following one very popular form of meditation in

00:03:35.020 today's culture is called mantra meditation. Think yoga. I've talked about this a little

00:03:40.660 bit before, but we're going to do some more detail today. In mantra meditation, participants

00:03:46.280 repeat a word or a phrase until all rational thought has been eradicated. Let me stop there

00:03:52.440 for a moment. The purpose, you might, you know, this has seeped its way as many pagan, you know, 0.72

00:03:57.720 false doctrines and pagan practices, many of them, not just this, but many have, you know,

00:04:02.840 kind of slowly seeped their way into christian thought and christian practice and yoga is no

00:04:09.760 exception mantra meditation is no exception often what sadly happens is compromise and

00:04:17.600 an attempt at a synthesis between pagan idolatry and the actual biblical christian faith once and

00:04:26.540 for all passed down to the saints but sadly we try to synthesize we say hey this other thing

00:04:32.100 that's directly opposed to jesus christ hey maybe there's some common ground uh there's not what

00:04:38.620 fellowship does light have with darkness it's like oil and water the two do not mix but

00:04:43.120 sadly we continue to try again and again and again tale as old as time for these last two

00:04:51.160 thousand years that's what we see every false teacher every major heresy is an attempt at some

00:04:57.920 kind of synthesis between the christian faith and some other pagan religion that's you know

00:05:05.900 arianism and docetism and all your isms are some kind of attempt to take this norse you know

00:05:12.780 mythology or this roman greco mythology or or this philosophy you know or this ideology and say

00:05:20.900 hey you know what instead of just repudiating this and pointing out that it's poison without 0.79

00:05:27.040 apology, maybe it's great, you know, and maybe it really works with the Christian faith, you know, 0.74

00:05:33.660 and maybe we can worship Yahweh and Baal. And the entire narrative of the Bible is that that

00:05:42.640 doesn't work. That's what Israel did throughout the entirety of the Old Testament again and again

00:05:47.700 and again. And it doesn't take, you know, that high of a reading level, you know, or that high

00:05:54.420 even of an IQ to be able to read the Old Testament and say, idolatry is bad. That's a deep, profound,

00:06:03.320 you know, exposition there. So I know that, you know, many of us are not theologians. And so I'll

00:06:08.600 say it again in case, you know, anybody, you know, it was just you missed it. But big moral of the

00:06:13.820 story in the Old Testament, idolatry is bad. Worshipping Yahweh in the temple, but then

00:06:22.040 maintaining and reserving the high places, the Asherah poles, the temples of Baal, the temples 0.94

00:06:29.080 of Molech, that's bad. And the good kings, and for the most part, just a brief synopsis of the 0.94

00:06:35.760 history of Israel, you got about three or four bad kings for every good one. So most of them are bad.

00:06:42.040 But whenever you had a good king, most of the good kings, what would make them good

00:06:46.720 is that they had a certain level of fidelity to the one true God, to Yahweh, and to worshiping

00:06:54.800 him rightly, and advocating for the worship of Yahweh, a faithful worshiping of Yahweh,

00:07:01.600 when it came to the people, encouraging the people to worship Yahweh. That's a good king.

00:07:07.760 So you got a few good kings, lots of bad kings, but you got about two great kings, David and Josiah.

00:07:16.720 And what they did was they advocated

00:07:19.460 and encouraged the worship of Yahweh.

00:07:22.500 And they also tore down every high place built to idols. 0.60

00:07:28.860 They didn't just say, don't go to the prophets of Baal. 0.52

00:07:33.980 So technically, I just say Baal because everybody knows Baal,

00:07:36.460 but it's technically Baal.

00:07:38.040 Don't go to the prophets of Baal. 0.96

00:07:39.860 Don't go to the Asherah Poles. 1.00

00:07:42.100 Don't go to Molech as the pagans do, 1.00

00:07:45.100 as the idolatrous nations that surround you do but rather worship Yahweh that's a good king 0.96

00:07:51.240 a great king would say let me help you out let's take a little bit of fire maybe an axe 0.94

00:07:58.040 and we're going to destroy these false temples built to false gods I'm going to help you out

00:08:04.740 and ensure that there's no temptation in the land toward idolatry because we're going to take these 0.99

00:08:10.660 puny gods and we're going to kick him out of town and that was a great king david was a great king 0.97

00:08:19.780 even though he committed great sin he was still a man after god's own heart he was jealous for the

00:08:26.480 lord and that was a wonderful wonderful thing so again one popular form of meditation in today's

00:08:33.760 culture is mantra meditation where participants repeat a word or phrase until all rational thought

00:08:39.180 has been eradicated and this has there have been many attempts to to synthesize this pagan form of

00:08:47.280 meditation mantra meditation or eastern meditation with the christian faith one of the ways or the

00:08:54.240 attempts that you might be familiar with is centered prayer goes by that name or contemplative

00:09:01.060 prayer would be another term or lectio divina would be another term the goal in these kinds

00:09:09.800 of methods that are pagan and have nothing to do with the christian faith but have found their way

00:09:13.740 into the christian faith the goal of these methods is to take a phrase or a word like what i've just

00:09:20.060 read in your notes but the point of the phrase this is the irony the point of the phrase is not

00:09:25.640 that there's something of the utmost importance a simple truth the demands are full focus and

00:09:32.360 attention now the phrase repeating the phrase again and again is not to focus on the phrase

00:09:38.180 but rather it's to repeat the phrase over and over to where it becomes so repetitive and monotonous

00:09:45.020 that the repetition of the phrase is used then as a tool not to think about the phrase but to think

00:09:52.620 about nothing. So it's not to focus on this simple yet profound truth. No, it's to use it as an

00:10:00.760 incantation, as a repetitive mantra, until I've completely vegged out. That's the goal.

00:10:15.120 Seven-syllable phrases, if you've been a part of these practices as they've found themselves in 0.73

00:10:20.560 the Christian church with, you know, completely pagan, but with a little, you know, like lipstick

00:10:24.900 on a pig, right? You know, or a gold ring in the snout of a bull, you know, to use a biblical 0.96

00:10:30.000 example, or the snout of a pig, right? That's what it is. It's kind of dressing up a corpse. 0.95

00:10:35.860 There's no life in it. In fact, there's only death and poison, but we'll put a thin Christian 1.00

00:10:40.280 veneer on it. So what we'll do is a seven-syllable phrase, but we'll make it a Christian phrase, 0.92

00:10:44.980 right i i let me think it's hard to count the syllables um i am the son of the king nailed it

00:10:55.180 boom that's pretty good right uh you know how i did that extreme intelligence no um i did that

00:11:04.240 because i fell for this trick once upon a time most of the things that by the grace of god i

00:11:10.280 teach you guys from the Bible. I've come to the truth in two ways. Understanding God's word

00:11:17.140 through studying and being incredibly stupid when I was younger and doing it wrong. Just for the 1.00

00:11:24.600 record, just if anybody is ever wondering, I, nobody comes out of the womb with perfect theology,

00:11:31.180 right? You know, spoiler, shocker. I've held to plenty of bad doctrine, plenty of bad doctrine.

00:11:37.740 So all that being said, I am a son of the king.

00:11:41.180 And what you would do is close your eyes.

00:11:43.620 Maybe you light a little incense, right?

00:11:45.400 Just a pinch, just a pinch.

00:11:47.720 God's okay with that.

00:11:49.020 And, you know, and have a few candles.

00:11:51.740 And I am a son of the king.

00:11:54.220 I am a son of the king.

00:11:55.960 And it's not to focus, again, your attention on the doctrine of adoption

00:11:59.660 or the royalty, the nature and role of King Jesus, the triune God,

00:12:05.880 or to understand rightly sonship as co-heirs with Christ.

00:12:11.800 That's not the point.

00:12:13.240 It's, I'm a son of the king.

00:12:14.660 I am the son of the king.

00:12:15.740 I am the son of the king.

00:12:16.820 I am the son of the...

00:12:17.600 Until you think about nothing, nothing.

00:12:21.620 Now let me go on in your notes.

00:12:23.140 Why?

00:12:23.520 Why would you try to think about nothing?

00:12:25.740 Well, this practice is meant to transcend a person

00:12:28.740 to an effortless state

00:12:30.360 where focused attention is completely absent.

00:12:33.780 That's actually the goal.

00:12:35.880 The goal is to become no longer aware of any words, ideas, images, or concepts.

00:12:41.440 Instead, the participant attempts to reach a point of nirvana, you might call it.

00:12:46.920 Attempts to reach a point of being aware of only awareness itself.

00:12:52.420 Right, that turn of phrase, it must be true.

00:12:55.900 It sounds very mysterious, profound.

00:12:59.060 That's the goal, to be aware of nothing, but only awareness itself.

00:13:02.880 It is believed that from this state, other forms of consciousness can be achieved that can lead

00:13:09.900 toward a sense of being one with everything that exists in the world and the universe, and therefore 0.75

00:13:15.820 one with God who exists in everything, which is not the Christian faith, but a damnable heresy

00:13:22.980 known as pantheism. Pantheism is a pagan mythology. So you're trying to get rid of all rational

00:13:30.720 thought. Clear the mind. And what you're focusing on is not knowing. And I'll spell this out very

00:13:36.860 clearly in a moment. The goal is not to know. The goal is to be. It's not to know, right? Because

00:13:43.880 knowing requires rational thought. Knowing requires the mind. Knowing requires, to put it

00:13:50.460 into biblical terms, loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. To love the Lord

00:13:56.680 with your thoughts but it's not the goal to know God the goal is simply to experience God

00:14:05.940 and to experience in some sense not only experience God relationally as a son would experience his

00:14:14.260 father but to experience not only God but experience what it is like to be God to become

00:14:22.320 one with everything and therefore one with God who is in everything. It is a sense of trying to

00:14:29.320 achieve at least, if not objectively in reality, at least subjectively in experience and feeling

00:14:35.880 to achieve an experience of what it is to be God. Not to know God, but to be God. Now in order to

00:14:46.540 accomplish this goal of knowing God, that's the goal of Christian meditation, in order to accomplish

00:14:53.920 this goal of knowing God, Christian meditation does not seek to empty the mind of rational thought,

00:14:59.240 but rather to fill it with sound biblical truth. Sound biblical truth. Christian meditation, it

00:15:06.920 seeks the experience of knowing God, whereas mantra meditation seeks the experience of being God.

00:15:13.620 that's the primary difference going a little bit further in your notes i've written this

00:15:18.400 mantra meditation seeks to suppress the analytical side of the mind it sees it merely as a hindrance

00:15:24.120 as a stumbling block that pesky thinking oh thinking thinking always gets in the way

00:15:31.620 now if that were true i i would have to concede and say that the vast majority of evangelical

00:15:37.700 church churches in our day are doing a wonderful job if thinking is a hindrance if thinking actually

00:15:43.320 is a mere distraction, then evangelicals have nailed it. Some of the most thoughtless people

00:15:48.780 I've ever met, they're doing great. There's no thinking or rational thought or substance in the

00:15:55.540 preaching, in the pulpits, in their worship through song, in their liturgies, in their small groups,

00:16:01.740 in their ministries. I mean, they have truly, in the same way Josiah drove out the idols,

00:16:08.000 the Baals, the Asherah poles, so too evangelicals have rid the land of any temptation toward 0.80

00:16:17.300 rational thought. But I don't think that that's the win that it is often described as being.

00:16:27.400 I don't think that that is a victory. Mantra meditation, it seeks to suppress the analytical

00:16:33.160 side of the mind and focus on the feelings of the heart. While Christian meditation is in fact

00:16:40.360 so rational by design, it is intended by God to be so, so rational that it can actually cause us

00:16:48.160 to regularly contend with our hearts. Not to merely follow the heart, but contend. Christians

00:16:55.460 are not called in scripture to follow, or to put it another way, listen to their hearts,

00:17:02.200 but rather we are commanded by God to preach to our hearts.

00:17:08.120 That's another way of just plainly stating it.

00:17:11.180 The Christian life, this process and progress of sanctification, 1.00

00:17:18.060 is not a listening to or a following of our hearts,

00:17:22.480 but rather it is a daily battle of often contending with our hearts,

00:17:28.980 preaching to our hearts.

00:17:30.580 so the christian doesn't quiet his mind and quiet himself and say heart what do you have for me

00:17:39.240 today heart where should i go and what should i do no the christian rather in a sanctified way 0.97

00:17:48.440 says shut up heart stop that heart that was dumb heart bad idea heart right if you just want to say 0.98

00:18:00.100 very, very plainly. Disney, follow your heart. Christianity, preach to your heart. That's the 0.99

00:18:09.480 difference. The Christian preaches to his heart. He doesn't say, how do I feel, and therefore,

00:18:16.660 how then must I live? Instead, he says, what is true? Not how do I feel, but what do I know?

00:18:27.680 What do I know from the word of God to be objectively true regardless of how I feel?

00:18:34.980 And so what we find in scripture, particularly the Psalms, King David, inspired by the Holy

00:18:40.860 Spirit, was a master of this particular art of Christian meditation and Christian preaching

00:18:46.560 to himself, to his own heart.

00:18:48.700 What we find is not following of our heart, but rather arguing with our hearts, contending

00:18:56.140 with our hearts preaching to our hearts setting our hearts in line now here's the point i want

00:19:03.520 you to notice this what i'm about to read i'm going to give just two examples and more could

00:19:07.040 be cited but two examples from the scripture psalm chapter 42 verse 5 as well as psalm 103 verses 1

00:19:14.240 through 5 but here's what i want you to notice both of these texts are not actually if we are

00:19:20.560 to be accurate. They cannot be categorized as examples of prayer. This is why. They cannot be

00:19:29.040 properly categorized as biblical examples of prayer because prayer is conversation. It is

00:19:37.440 speaking. But to who? To God. But notice that the psalmist in these two examples is not speaking to

00:19:46.600 God primarily, but he is speaking to himself. So let's use these examples now. Psalm 42, verse 5.

00:19:56.840 Why are you cast down, O God? No. Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you speaking to

00:20:05.900 himself, his heart, his soul, his center, his emotions, his feelings, saying, cut it out, heart?

00:20:11.560 Why are you downcast, O my soul?

00:20:14.400 Why are you in turmoil within me?

00:20:17.000 Hope in God.

00:20:19.620 He gives himself a command.

00:20:22.080 Stop it.

00:20:23.740 I don't care how you feel,

00:20:25.320 and I don't care what circumstances

00:20:27.060 outside of you look like.

00:20:30.280 Hope in God,

00:20:32.860 for I shall again praise him, my salvation.

00:20:36.420 Or Psalm 103, verses one through five.

00:20:39.420 Bless the Lord.

00:20:41.560 He's not telling the Lord to bless the Lord in this instance.

00:20:45.620 Who's his audience?

00:20:47.060 Who is he speaking to?

00:20:48.380 Prayer speaks to God.

00:20:50.160 This is not prayer, brothers and sisters.

00:20:52.100 This is preaching.

00:20:53.580 It is simply self-preaching.

00:20:56.300 His audience is one, namely himself.

00:21:00.500 Bless the Lord, myself, O my soul, and all that is within me.

00:21:05.980 Bless his holy name.

00:21:07.300 bless the lord oh my soul and the implication the assumption is that he is downtrodden and

00:21:15.360 distraught in this moment so what does he do and forget not in this moment of anxiety

00:21:21.880 of depression of sadness of fear forget not all his benefits what are they he now begins to list

00:21:35.120 them to himself one by one who forgives all your iniquity who heals all your diseases

00:21:43.160 who redeems your life from the pit who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy

00:21:49.600 who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagles

00:21:55.480 but I'm unemployed who forgives all your iniquity who heals all your diseases who redeems your life

00:22:07.360 from the pit who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy who satisfies you with good

00:22:13.700 so that your youth is renewed like the eagles but one of our children is sick

00:22:20.400 who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit,

00:22:29.100 who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth

00:22:35.320 is renewed like the eagles. But I've been profoundly betrayed. Who forgives all your

00:22:44.220 iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with

00:22:51.340 steadfast love and mercy, and who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the

00:22:58.900 eagles. The wicked are like chaff. Back to our primary text. And the wind drives them away.

00:23:10.200 Therefore, the wicked will not be sustained.

00:23:15.340 They will not prevail.

00:23:18.440 They will not stand in the judgment,

00:23:21.760 nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

00:23:25.460 For the Lord knows the way of the righteous,

00:23:28.780 but the way of the wicked will perish.

00:23:35.060 This is happening.

00:23:36.440 but god this is how i feel but god this is what my enemies are currently doing to me but god

00:23:50.780 what david does is not listen to his heart and in this instance it then turns to prayer

00:23:59.060 speaking to God and worship praising God but before prayer David preaches so he does not

00:24:09.300 listen to his heart follow his heart give way to his heart but rather he preaches to his heart

00:24:14.960 and the preaching of David to his heart becomes the priming of the pump to then pray

00:24:22.220 here's the point christian meditation is the preparation for prayer many of us to our shame

00:24:33.820 pray far too little that is we talk to our fellow man about our problems far more than we go to talk

00:24:43.100 to the only one in all the universe who could actually do something about it he is more powerful

00:24:49.420 than our friends and our family and our spouse.

00:24:52.780 But he is also, here's the really neat part,

00:24:56.240 the one who actually is more powerful, all powerful,

00:24:59.380 and has therefore the ability to do something

00:25:01.440 about our problems, our challenges, and our fears.

00:25:04.540 He is also simultaneously the one

00:25:07.300 who cares more deeply for us.

00:25:10.140 The one who is not only able,

00:25:13.120 but also more willing and eager and earnest

00:25:18.300 to come to our aid because he cares for us more than we care for ourselves and more than those

00:25:25.880 around us care for us. And so we spend often far too much time speaking to man when we should be

00:25:33.300 speaking to God. Prayer. Speaking to God, aka prayer. That's all of us. Yet it is even far

00:25:45.100 more rare not only is it sadly rare that we speak to God in prayer but it is exceedingly rare

00:25:53.680 that we prepare ourselves for speaking to God in prayer and that is precisely what Christian

00:26:01.520 meditation serves to do it is the preparation for prayer that before we speak to God we speak

00:26:11.200 to ourselves before we go to god in prayer we preach a sermon to our own hearts and we align

00:26:21.820 ourselves not with our constantly fluctuating and fleeting feelings of the heart but rather

00:26:28.980 we align ourselves with what is immutable that is unchanging what is constant what is infallible

00:26:36.500 what is true namely the word of god and what we see in the psalms is moments that cannot again be

00:26:46.660 properly categorized as prayer because the audience is not god the psalmist is not speaking to god

00:26:53.380 but rather speaking to himself but what always follows these instances in the psalms of preaching

00:26:58.980 to himself the psalmist immediately what follows on the heels of preaching to the self is then

00:27:06.400 the speaking to god so david what he'll do is he'll say soul heart get it together

00:27:14.580 this is who god is this is what he's done this is his covenant these are his promises and now

00:27:22.800 father

00:27:24.360 that's christian meditation christian meditation i'll say it once more as plainly as possible

00:27:32.820 Christian meditation is the priming of the pump to prepare the heart to then go to God

00:27:41.680 before his throne in prayer. Many of us do not pray at all or not nearly as often as we ought,

00:27:50.640 but almost all of us, to our shame, even when we do pray, we often presumptuously and prematurely

00:28:00.380 enter into prayer. Praying before preaching. Praying to God without preparing first and

00:28:10.480 preaching to ourselves. Richard Baxter, the late great Puritan, not fantastic on the doctrine of

00:28:19.520 justification, which I'm not going to say that's a small thing, you know, but certainly worth the

00:28:24.120 read. Many good things about Richard Baxter should not be cast into a pile of heretics.

00:28:29.100 I don't believe that. Wonderful things that he said, especially in the Reformed pastor, one of his best works.

00:28:40.400 He says this, plead thyself from a clod to a flame. Not talking about praying to God, but talking about preaching to yourself.

00:28:49.200 plead thyself from a clod to a flame from a forgetful sinner to a lover of the world

00:28:55.240 of the world i'm sorry forgetful sinner and a lover of the world to an ardent lover of god

00:29:01.360 from a fearful coward to a resolved christian from an unfruitful sadness to a joyful life

00:29:07.680 in a word till thou has pleaded thy heart from earth to heaven he is extolling the benefits

00:29:16.100 and the vital necessity of preaching to ourselves,

00:29:20.380 of preaching to the heart.

00:29:21.880 Preach yourself from earth to heaven.

00:29:26.600 When worldly, when vain, when shallow,

00:29:30.300 when enslaved by fleeting pleasures

00:29:33.580 or constantly fluctuating emotions and feelings

00:29:37.580 and subjective status of the heart,

00:29:40.640 preach thyself is the word that could be used.

00:29:43.200 plead thyself from a mere creature of the world to a citizen of heaven.

00:29:51.920 Preach to yourself until you are in the right frame of mind, and then go to the Lord in prayer.

00:30:00.960 Lastly, let's look at some of the specific tenets of our text today, namely Psalm chapter 1,

00:30:07.480 which is, I believe, a meditation to Christian meditation, and others have said that as well.

00:30:13.200 I am not that original, which should give you guys a sense of peace, because if you are regularly 0.91

00:30:20.780 and entirely original, you're usually a heretic. A meditation on Christian meditation. That's what 0.84

00:30:29.920 Psalm 1 is. It's the opening chapter of the book of Psalms, and it's saying, let's think about,

00:30:35.200 let's draw out applications and interpretations and understandings about what it is to practice

00:30:44.740 Christian meditation. That's Psalm 1. It is a meditation on Christian meditation.

00:30:52.520 And what we find from our text is many things, but we'll focus our attention on two.

00:30:58.700 Christian meditation promises us at least two things. Stability and fruitfulness. Stability

00:31:07.660 and fruitfulness. First, stability. Meditation provides stability because trees that are

00:31:16.540 planted by streams of water, as we find in our text, will thrive even when there is little rain.

00:31:23.020 the streams of water represent the word of god and to put roots down into these streams as a

00:31:29.960 metaphor for meditation on god's word not mere memorization but meditation now if we're wondering

00:31:39.640 again well what does it mean to meditate here's one question that the person who is meditating

00:31:45.300 on the truth of God's Word will inevitably ask, how does this apply? How does this apply?

00:31:56.200 There are three things that we must do when it comes to study of the Word of God. First,

00:32:02.520 you cannot study the Word of God lest you read it. So first, we must be diligent, disciplined

00:32:10.680 readers of the Scripture. You must read the Word of God. Secondly, though, there is a distinction

00:32:17.920 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,

00:32:33.160 is not just meditating for a moment,

00:32:36.620 but I meditate upon thy law day and night.

00:32:41.580 It is a continued and constant continual meditation

00:32:45.000 that is thinking deeply upon the word of God,

00:32:48.480 which is in fact impossible

00:32:50.660 unless the word of God has first been committed to memory.

00:32:55.360 You cannot meditate day and night

00:32:57.960 on that which you do not memorize.

00:33:00.620 So you must read the word of God

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.

00:33:29.520 it was profoundly relevant for me at the time

00:33:35.520 talking about purity

00:33:40.060 and avoiding temptation

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

00:35:20.940 how is it used that is its application

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 0.93

00:37:43.660 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.

00:38:34.240 Ooh, bad.

00:38:39.300 Colonization.

00:38:41.180 Ooh, bad.

00:38:44.180 Terrible.

00:38:45.940 Terrible that Great Britain went to India and said,

00:38:49.940 I'm sorry, when a man dies,

00:38:52.380 you have to stop burying his wife alive with him in the dirt. 0.99

00:38:57.140 I'm sorry to colonize you.

00:39:02.160 Was there sin?

00:39:03.340 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

00:39:30.780 with the worst elements of that history

00:39:34.420 as though that's all that has ever been done.

00:39:37.360 And every good and every virtue and every blessing

00:39:40.600 is trampled underfoot and forgotten.

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

00:39:59.360 and therefore all societies and all kingdoms

00:40:02.100 and all governments.

00:40:03.860 But God has blessed Western civilization

00:40:07.080 for centuries, not because of their sin,

00:40:11.200 but in his mercy, despite their sin,

00:40:13.880 because of all the ways by his grace,

00:40:16.780 they have been faithful.

00:40:19.940 Not in every way, but by God's grace in many ways.

00:40:25.200 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. 0.97

00:41:40.840 You're not. 0.99

00:41:42.460 I'm sick and tired of the ridiculous false dichotomy 0.76

00:41:46.900 of I love God and I love his word 0.56

00:41:49.020 and I love his truth

00:41:50.100 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,

00:41:59.760 would reap mass destruction.

00:42:03.200 Then just connect the dots

00:42:04.640 and admit the conclusion.

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 0.73

00:42:43.300 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.

00:43:32.660 We have blasphemy laws.

00:43:34.700 There are things outside of the reigning dogma,

00:43:37.420 the reigning orthodoxy that you may not say.

00:43:41.020 Not just with cultural,

00:43:43.360 cultural implicit consequences,

00:43:47.740 the firing of a job,

00:43:50.100 the shunning and banning of your friends and family.

00:43:52.760 But no, I'm saying even civil legal penalties.

00:43:58.820 If I say out loud, for instance,

00:44:02.000 in the nation of Germany,

00:44:03.980 that I'm a little bit suspicious

00:44:07.840 and I think that it was perhaps 5,900,090 that died,

00:44:15.180 I go to jail. 0.76

00:44:19.080 I am now a Holocaust denier. 0.94

00:44:22.760 You are not even allowed to question. 0.93

00:44:27.280 There is a dogma.

00:44:28.580 It's not whether but which.

00:44:29.640 Here's how it works.

00:44:30.560 Here's the formula.

00:44:31.180 Very simple.

00:44:33.320 Will there be a God?

00:44:34.400 Yes.

00:44:35.100 Not whether but which. 0.70

00:44:37.320 It will either be the triune God or a false God.

00:44:40.480 There's always a 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? 0.67

00:44:51.340 Not whether but which.

00:44:52.220 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 0.59

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

00:48:01.940 can outright steal and rob anyone they want.

00:48:07.820 All we have to do is have one more poor person

00:48:11.460 than rich people.

00:48:16.140 Before that, it was called theft.

00:48:18.500 Once you get that one person

00:48:20.020 that knocks you over into a simple majority,

00:48:22.420 it's now called wealth redistribution.

00:48:26.720 It's now called democracy.

00:48:29.380 Did you know all of our founders

00:48:30.580 had nothing good to say about democracy

00:48:33.520 insofar as it being a raw democracy?

00:48:36.760 Not one positive thing.

00:48:38.860 Did you know the Bible has nothing good to say about democracy?

00:48:43.200 The voice of the people.

00:48:45.860 Give us a king.

00:48:47.420 Bad idea.

00:48:49.900 Pilate.

00:48:51.140 An elected official.

00:48:52.040 Well, you know, I really love democracy.

00:48:56.000 I don't want to just, you know,

00:48:57.400 be an authoritarian and make a decision

00:48:59.360 even though I'm a representative who's been duly elected.

00:49:03.780 I'll let the people decide this one.

00:49:05.600 And what are they going to decide?

00:49:06.680 The people together in the power of democracy

00:49:08.560 choose the righteousness of God?

00:49:10.260 Nope. Crucify him.

00:49:12.600 Crucify him.

00:49:18.420 It's not just democracy.

00:49:21.000 It's a constitutional republic.

00:49:23.160 That's what we have.

00:49:24.740 And the only reason I like it

00:49:27.160 is because I really do believe

00:49:28.540 that the Constitution is biblical.

00:49:31.060 I would love to see,

00:49:32.520 in my perfect ideal theonomic society,

00:49:35.360 I would like to see adopted to the Constitution 0.51

00:49:39.440 a distinctly Christian preamble, 0.99

00:49:42.260 like what Zambia has done,

00:49:44.140 that doesn't just name God in an abstract way,

00:49:47.040 but names the triune God

00:49:48.280 as the God of these United States of America.

00:49:52.740 I would like to see not a revision,

00:49:54.760 no revision at all,

00:49:55.940 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 0.97

00:51:13.400 Historically, I would encourage you to read the Age of Entitlement.

00:51:16.080 Christopher Caldwell, on your own time,

00:51:17.780 if you're looking for something riveting to do over the Christmas holidays,

00:51:21.100 read the Age of Entitlement.

00:51:23.500 In the 1960s, what happened is that the Constitution wasn't changed,

00:51:27.060 it wasn't removed, it wasn't done away with,

00:51:28.940 but placed over it was a de facto Constitution

00:51:32.540 that now, for all intents and purposes,

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 0.99

00:51:42.380 but it opened Pandora's box and led the way for all of a sudden anyone claiming to be a minority 0.95

00:51:48.940 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 0.98

00:52:18.620 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

00:53:03.960 became all of a sudden, I was born this way.

00:53:09.740 And the same rights, same provisions,

00:53:12.600 same laws now apply.

00:53:15.500 And it's been a disaster.

00:53:19.020 It's been a disaster.

00:53:21.080 So all that being said, every nation is a theocracy,

00:53:24.420 going back to my main point.

00:53:26.480 There's always a God, whether he be Demas

00:53:29.360 or whether he be the people,

00:53:31.160 whether he be the state

00:53:32.720 or whether it be some other pagan false religion.

00:53:37.440 There's always going to be a God.

00:53:39.360 We don't want an ecclesiocracy,

00:53:41.460 a blurring of church and state 0.87

00:53:43.120 as two separate spheres, which they should be.

00:53:45.620 But we do want a theocracy with the proper theos, 0.95

00:53:49.460 the proper God, the triune God, 0.93

00:53:51.740 a separation of church and state,

00:53:53.280 but not a separation of Christ and state.

00:53:56.600 That there is a God above Caesar.

00:53:59.420 And that God above Caesar is Jesus Christ.

00:54:02.720 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,

00:54:11.500 a capital K king, Jesus, a Lord of lords,

00:54:16.840 Lord Jesus Christ.

00:54:19.860 This is inescapable.

00:54:23.120 Everything that I've just done for you

00:54:24.480 has very little, if anything, to do with our text.

00:54:27.060 Here's the point, though.

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

00:55:47.140 is thinking God's thoughts after him.

00:55:50.400 Did you know that's what we do as people?

00:55:52.080 That's what we do.

00:55:53.420 And everyone, as R.C. Sproul,

00:55:55.020 who was a theologian and a pretty good one,

00:55:57.760 R.C. Sproul, the late great theologian,

00:56:00.200 he said he wrote a book, literally by this title,

00:56:02.760 Everyone's a Theologian.

00:56:04.660 Again, back to the old adage,

00:56:06.080 not whether but which.

00:56:07.400 Everyone's a theologian.

00:56:08.660 You're either a good one or a bad one.

00:56:10.880 An atheist is a theologian.

00:56:12.620 There is no God. 1.00

00:56:14.200 He's a bad one.

00:56:15.500 But he is a theologian.

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

00:57:39.160 the greatest ploys and deceptions,

00:57:42.740 the play that has been run on you 1.00

00:57:44.880 by pietist Christians 1.00

00:57:46.660 that make everything spiritual

00:57:49.020 with no physical, tangible, practical application.

00:57:52.460 One of the greatest deceptions

00:57:55.000 that has been a play that has been run on you,

00:57:58.700 the evangelical church, is this.

00:58:02.440 That the word of God is sufficient.

00:58:04.280 They wouldn't dare verbally come out and say,

00:58:07.440 denying the sufficiency of scripture.

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,

01:02:35.560 but the word, the book, God's work.

01:02:38.560 And you take God's thoughts and you begin to think,

01:02:41.880 what do they mean?

01:02:43.400 How do they work?

01:02:45.120 What do they mean?

01:02:46.560 How do they work?

01:02:48.120 That is interpretation, application.

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,

01:04:14.400 the first origins in the Bible of a pulpit.

01:04:18.480 And it says, everyone who could comprehend

01:04:21.300 or hear or understand was present.

01:04:24.560 And then for six hours,

01:04:26.420 if anybody ever thinks that I preach too long,

01:04:29.260 I am just hanging my hat on Ezra.

01:04:32.840 And we're actually teaching through Ezra next year,

01:04:35.040 Lord willing.

01:04:36.420 But for six hours, it says that he read the book of the law

01:04:41.000 and gave the sense of it.

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

01:05:31.820 and I honor them.

01:05:33.380 But they forsook the Lord.

01:05:37.520 And they forsook the Lord by neglecting this.

01:05:40.920 And if the Lord's blessing

01:05:42.180 is to come back to his people,

01:05:44.840 we must pick this back up again

01:05:47.240 and be faithful to do all that he has said.

01:05:52.300 All of it.

01:05:54.040 And so they did.

01:05:55.980 And as they sought to do it,

01:05:57.620 it was not just in their private homes,

01:05:59.360 their private lives,

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.

The NXR Podcast - November 27, 2023

SUNDAY SERMON - Pagan Meditation & The FALSE Gospel of Disney

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