Are they to be followed? Is this something Christians should engage in? When we scratch below the surface we find that usually the sort of meditation being advocated is of the eastern Buddhist or Hindu sort. We should not engage in TM as they call it or anything like it. That sort of meditation advocates emptying the mind, rather than filling it. Rather than mental passivity, Christian meditation calls on us to actively exert our mental energy. We should do that.
It is said of the nineteenth century Princeton professor Archibald Alexander
From our earliest recollections, he had been accustomed to sit and muse in the evening twilight, often prolonging these hours far beyond the time when lights are usually demanded. These moments, though solemn, appeared to be pleasurable. In these he pursued his most fruitful trains of thought. As he grew older, this sort of exercise was more frequent and protracted; and in no instance did it seem to merge into any thing like slumber. It was a period to be gratefully remembered, as one of singular peace.
Meditation of that sort is not always easy but we should seek to do it frequently and in a focussed way. Adequate time must be set aside for it. it is encouraged in Scripture. For example in Psalm 119:15 David says that he meditates on God's precepts and considers his ways. In Philippians 4:8 Paul encourages us ... 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. Use your mind to go over these things.
Lots of pictures are used by Christian writers wanting to encourage this sort of thing.
Spurgeon says it is not enough just to gather grapes we need to tread them out so that the juice is preserved and can be used to make good wine. He likens it to a wrestler putting embrocation on his body to warm him up for the match. It is like a cow ruminating - passing its food through all four stomachs so we must slowly meditate on God's Word and on similar matters.
It is important that we take time not only to pray and to read God's Word but also to meditate.
The Puritan William Bates says our meditations are like eggs which need to be kept warm in the nest, ‘if the bird leaves her nest for a long space, the eggs chill and are not fit for production’ but ‘holiness and comfort to our souls’ will be the result of regular time with God. At the beginning, meditation is like trying to build a fire from wet wood. He encourages us to persevere ‘till the flame doth so ascend’.
Subjects
Another Puritan, George Swinnock, makes a list of subjects for meditation and I thought it might be useful for the next few Sunday mornings to take some of his suggestions and give you a meditation on each one that hopefully will get you thinking and meditating too on similar lines.
His first subject is the nature and attributes of God. A Christian should not only love and serve God but should think about him, meditate on him. That would in turn, under God, make us love God more and serve him better.
But how do I begin to meditate on God? Well, first, you have to know what God is like. That is something found in Scripture and experienced in life.
One big help in this is what you will find in good catechisms. So, for example, The famous Shorter Catechism has a sits fourth question "What is God?". The answer it expects you to give and learn is in 11 parts. It says "God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth."
The Larger Catechism (Question 7) expands the answer so that it includes 20 terms.
God is a Spirit, in and of himself infinite in being, glory, blessedness, and perfection; all-sufficient, eternal, unchangeable, incomprehensible, everywhere present, almighty, knowing all things, most wise, most holy, most just, most merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.
I notice that if you look up Attributes of God in Christianity in Wikipedia there are 28 different things listed - Aseity (God is one not made up of parts), Eternity, Goodness, Graciousness, Holiness, Immanence (nearness), Immutability (unchanging nature), Impassibility (he is without passions), Impeccability (he cannot sin), Incomprehensibility, Incorporeality (he doesn't have a body), Infinity, Jealousy, Love, Mission, Mystery, Omnipotence, Omnipresence, Omniscience (he is all powerful, in all places and is all knowing), Oneness, Providence, Righteousness, Simplicity, Sovereignty, Transcendence, Trinity, Veracity and Wrath.
If you took something like the Shorter Catechism and learned the answer (God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth) you could very profitably spend time thinking about God's nature and attributes for a good long time. God is a Spirit. That deserves some thought. He has no body and yet he is the living God. He is infinite - there is no end to his qualities. He is beyond our measuring. He is eternal - without beginning and without end.
What I want to do rather this morning is to take a psalm - Psalm 145 - and meditate together on four aspects of God's character that come out in this place - namely, God's greatness, goodness, glory and grace. So four things, four Gs
1 Meditate on the fact that God is great
The psalm is A psalm of praise and it is Of David. One of the aims of meditation is to lead to praise. David begins (1, 2) I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever. Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever. What an example David is here to us - he wants to exalt God and praise his name and extol him always and forever.
The first reason he gives as to why God should be praised, extolled and exalted is that God is great (3, 4) Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom. One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts. There is something amazing and great about God. No matter how long you meditate, you will never get to the bottom of his greatness. Down the ages people have spoken of his greatness.
In his Confessions, Augustine says "What art Thou then, my God? Most highest, most good, most potent, most omnipotent; most merciful and most just; most hidden and most present; most beautiful and most strong ..."
Calvin says "Men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God."
The Puritan Stephen Charnock says this "Nourish right conceptions of the majesty of God in your minds. Let us consider that we are drawing to God, the most amiable object, the best of beings, worthy of infinite honour, and highly meriting the highest affections we can give; a God that made the world by a word, that upholds the great frame of heaven and earth; a Majesty above the conceptions of angels; who uses not His power to strike us our deserved punishment ... a God that gave all creatures to serve us, and can, in a trice, make them as much our enemies as he hath now made them our servants. Let us view Him in His greatness ... that our hearts may have a true value of the worship of so great a majesty, and count it the most worthy employment with all diligence to attend upon Him."
One last quote from Spurgeon "There are no measures which can set forth the immeasurable greatness of Jehovah, … Notes of exclamation suit us when words of explanation are of no avail. If we cannot measure we can marvel; and though we may not calculate with accuracy, we can adore with fervency."
Psalm 145:5, 6 They speak of the glorious splendour of your majesty - and I will meditate on your wonderful works. They tell of the power of your awesome works - and I will proclaim your great deeds. Each time David heard others speak of God's greatness - the wonderful splendour of his majesty, the power of his awesome works - he too meditated on God's amazing works so that he could proclaim his great deeds. We must do the same.
2 Meditate on the fact that God is good
Then in verses 7-10 David says They celebrate your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of your righteousness. The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made. All your works praise you, LORD; your faithful people extol you.
So think too of what people say not only about God's greatness but also about his goodness (and his righteousness) - about the fact that he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love, that he is good to all and has compassion on all he has made David also wants to join in the praise for these things. All God's works praise him in one way or another and his faithful people should also extol him.
Think of the goodness of God also then and meditate on it. Creation itself is urging you to praise him for it.
Augustine tells us that "God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them." Writing on the incarnation the church father Athanasius says "God is good - or rather, of all goodness He is the Fountainhead.”
Puritan John Flavel writes "He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all; how shall He not with him freely give us all things” (Romans 8:32)? How is it imaginable that God should withhold, after this, spirituals or temporals, from His people? How shall He not call them effectually, justify them freely, sanctify them thoroughly, and glorify them eternally? How shall He not clothe them, feed them, protect and deliver them? Surely if He would not spare this own Son one stroke, one tear, one groan, one sigh, one circumstance of misery, it can never be imagined that ever He should, after this, deny or withhold from His people, for whose sakes all this was suffered, any mercies, any comforts, any privilege, spiritual or temporal, which is good for them."
John Owen says "Men are afraid to have good thoughts of God. They think it is a boldness to eye God as good, gracious, tender, kind, loving. I speak of saints. They can judge Him hard, austere, severe, almost implacable, and fierce (the very worst affections of the very worst of men, and most hated by God). Is not this soul-deceit from Satan? Was it not his design from the beginning to inject such thoughts of God? Assure yourself, then, there is nothing more acceptable to the Father than for us to keep up our hearts unto Him as the eternal fountain of all that rich grace which flows out to sinners in the blood of Jesus."
A W Tozer in the last century wrote "The goodness of God is infinitely more wonderful than we will ever be able to comprehend."
Give praise to God for he is good.
3 Meditate on the fact that God is glorious
In verse 11 David says further of the different generations that They tell of the glory of your kingdom and speak of your might. They do it, he says (12, 13) so that all people may know of your mighty acts and the glorious splendour of your kingdom. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures through all generations.
We can think of God's greatness then but we can also speak of God's glory, his glorious nature. His attributes all flow one into another and we only distinguish them to help us think about them. Here David is thinking of God's might, his mighty acts and the glorious splendour of his kingdom which is an everlasting kingdom in which he exercises a dominion that endures through all generations.
What doe we mean then by God's glory? John Piper has attempted to define it like this. He begins by saying that the word is more like the word beauty than the word basketball. You can describe a basketball and easily get the idea across but you can’t do that with the word beauty. Some words are like that and glory is one.
So what he does is to contrast it biblically with the word holy. He suggests that God's holiness is God's being in a class by himself in his perfection, greatness and worth. In a class by himself, God has infinite perfections, infinite greatness, infinite worth.
He then quotes Isaiah 6:3 where the angels cry to each other Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts and The whole earth is full of his ... As he says, you might expect holiness, but it says glory.
God is intrinsically holy, and the whole earth is full of his glory. And so Piper suggests that God's glory is best thought of as the manifest beauty of his holiness. " ... the glory of God is the holiness of God made manifest." Leviticus 10:3 confirms it. God says that he will be shown to be holy among those who are near him, and before all the people he will be glorified.
So think not only of God's greatness and goodness but also his glory - his holiness and the splendour of it.
4 Meditate on the fact that God is gracious
The last thing I want us to meditate on this morning is God's graciousness - his grace. Now you could think of this as an aspect of his goodness, of course, but it is worth looking at separately. From the end of verse 13 to verse 21 we read The LORD is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does. The LORD upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time. You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing. The LORD is righteous in all his ways and faithful in all he does. The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfils the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them. The LORD watches over all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy. My mouth will speak in praise of the LORD. Let every creature praise his holy name for ever and ever.
The word grace is not used it is true but that is the subject - the undeserved love of God. He upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down. That is why everyone looks to him and depends on him. He opens his hand and satisf(ies) the desires of every living thing. He is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfils the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them. That is the God of grace we worship the one we should all praise forever.
In the New Testament it is revealed that God's grace comes to all who put their faith in Jesus Christ.
There's a hymn that begins
Wonderful grace of Jesus, Greater than all my sin;
How shall my tongue describe it, Where shall its praise begin?
Taking away my burden, Setting my spirit free;
For the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me.
Wonderful the matchless grace of Jesus, Deeper than the mighty rolling sea,
Higher than the mountain, sparkling like a fountain,
All sufficient grace for even me, Broader than the scope of my transgressions,
Greater far than all my sin and shame, O magnify the precious name of Jesus, Praise His name!
Wonderful grace of Jesus, Reaching to all the lost;
By it I have been pardoned, Saved to the uttermost,
Chains have been torn asunder, Giving me liberty;
For the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me.
Wonderful grace of Jesus, Reaching the most defiled,
By its transforming power, Making him God’s dear child,
Purchasing peace and heaven, For all eternity;
And the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me.
So here is a meditation - God is great, God is good, God is glorious, God is gracious. Praise his name!