Eat This Book (Part Two)

From The Christian Reader:

Eat this Book (Part Two)


by Brian Carpenter



As I mentioned last week, Wilhelmus a Brakel, a 17th century Dutch Puritan, gives us a wonderful explanation of the practice of spiritual meditation in the fourth volume of his work The Christian’s Reasonable Service. This practice is, I believe, a critically important factor in growing in godliness. To meditate is to learn to “let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly.” (Col 3:16)





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Brakel defines holy meditation or spiritual reflection as “a spiritual exercise in which a godly person—having a heart which is separated from the earth and lifted up towards heaven—reflects upon and engages his thoughts toward God and divine things with which he was already previously acquainted. He does so in order to be led further into divine mysteries, to be kindled with love, to be comforted, and to be stirred up to lively exercises.”



It is first of all, an active process. We do not sit idly by with blank minds and wait for the Holy Spirit to come and give us a little spiritual truth. We choose a subject upon which we would like to fill our minds. My own means of choosing a subject or a scripture involves a careful examination of my own behavior and an inquiry into why I do what I do.



Very often I find that I do what I do because I believe things are true which are actually lies. For instance, very recently I began to struggle with a sin which had not plagued me much in some time. Suddenly my appetite for this sin became, periodically, ferocious. As I sat in my armchair one morning and pondered what had changed inside of me that this sin had suddenly become so attractive again, I was led to several conclusions. Most of the time sin is fun, so there was a component of pleasure in it, but I often find that it really isn’t that much fun at all when I’m in the middle of it. There was a component of fear in it, too. I seemed to be assuming that if I didn’t commit this sin, there would be other bad effects in my life which were related to this sin, and which this sin seemed to promise to head off.



There was also a component of “passive-aggressive” revenge on another person in my life, even though this person knew nothing of my activity, and probably wouldn’t feel that wounded if they had known. They might be angry, but it would be an anger at me for hurting myself, not an anger because they were particularly hurt. But those were mostly tangential issues; reinforcing a proclivity generated from deeper down in my sinful heart. As I struggled to identify that proclivity, that appetite, and the assumptions upon which it rested, it occurred to me that I really had a deep and almost unexamined assumption that God was somehow keeping me from something good in forbidding this particular sin, and that my resistance towards it was only half-hearted, because I didn’t really want to be delivered from it that badly. I sort of wanted to obey God, in a begrudging way, but I also wanted the pleasure of “sin for a season” (Heb 11:25), and was more than halfway convinced that it wasn’t such a big deal to do so.



Well, obviously this is not good. More importantly, this is not in accord with the truth. Lies are the currency of the Devil. Lies and deception are the sins behind all the other sins we commit. Lies give them their energy and direction and power. What God forbids is, by definition, soul-destroying. We are taught in the Scriptures that He withholds no good thing from His child. (Ps 84:11, Rom 8:32)



As I sought the Lord’s help and asked Him to speak a seasonable word to me from the Scriptures, I came upon 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2. In this particular passage, Paul describes the nature of the Antichrist. He is one who comes (of course) in “accord with the activity of Satan” with signs and wonders to deceive. (2 Thess 2:9) The mark of the reprobate is a receptivity to this deception, especially concerning wickedness. They ultimately perish because they will not receive the truth and be saved. (v.10)



For this reason, God sends upon them a “deluding influence” so that they continue to believe and embrace what is manifestly false. (v.11) God does this “in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.” (v.12)



That last phrase arrested me. The reprobate do not receive and believe the truth. Instead they are deceived. They are deluded. I was deluded. They take pleasure in wickedness. I was taking pleasure in wickedness. Here, in the midst of my life of grace, was a little slice of hellishness.



The next few verses are a golden contrast:



But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. (vss. 13-14)



The mark of the saved man is a deep, abiding belief and faith in the truth, and a Spirit empowered transformation of life in accordance with that truth.



It did not take very many minutes of turning these verses over in my mind, applying them to my soul, letting their truths and the implications of them sink down into me, and drawing nourishment from them, and I wanted to be rid of this sin the way a cancer patient wants to be rid of her tumor.



Now, I cannot say that I will not be tempted to this sin again. As a matter of fact, I have been. But the temptation has lost much of its force and power simply because I now recognize this sin for what it is. It is a care package from Hell. It is a magnetic mine with a delayed fuse, set just below the waterline, while I’m steaming into a crowded, strategic port. John Owen, in his book The Mortification of the Flesh said, “You must be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.” This is exactly what he meant.



It is a fact about human beings that we are motivated to action by our feelings. That is well understood in our day. As a matter of fact, we can scarcely conceive of doing anything that we don’t feel like doing, and we doubt the value and sincerity of any action we do when we “really don’t feel like it.” Thus we are at the whim of our feelings and sit passively by, waiting to be “moved” so that we can act. That is what is behind our idolatry of music, sports, and images. Those things influence our feelings. They empower us to act, often in ways that are at odds with God’s revealed will.



What is not widely understood in our day is that we can choose, indirectly, what and how we will feel. We do this by carefully deciding what we will think upon and what we will believe to be true. Our feelings will always eventually follow our thoughts. If we are diligent in applying our renewed mind, with the help of the Spirit of God, we can experience significant life transformation. We can become more godly. This is why Paul instructs us to “set our minds on things above, not on earthly things,” (Col 3:2) and in Philippians 4:8 he says: “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”



Meditation is not simply a good way to deal with temptation and sin. It is a good way to deal with anxiety. It is a good way to deal with anguish and pain. It is a good way to deal with loss. It is a good way to intensify your times of happiness. It is a good way to learn to love the Lord for who He is and to stand in awe of Him. It is a good way to simply enjoy the sweetness of your salvation and draw close to God. It is a good way to strengthen your faith and deepen your prayer and win great things from His hand.



Next week, Lord willing, we will go a little further with Wilhelmus a Brakel on this subject.





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Brian Carpenter is the pastor of Foothills Community Church (PCA) in Sturgis, South Dakota. He and his wife Laura have two lovely daughters, Evelyn and Jordan, ages 2 and 3. His interests include automotive and motorcycle repair and rebuilding, welding and metal fabrication, economics and monetary theory, philosophy, classical education, church history, and really expensive Scotch whisky. Brian blogs at TheHappyTR and AFiresideChat. His sermons are available online at SermonAudio.com.





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