How God Prods His Children

Context and Purpose of 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

0:03 Morning, 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, I'll ask you to follow as I read the first 11 verses. But of the times and seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you, for yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light and the children of the day.

1:15 We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep, sleep in the night, and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for an helmet the hope of salvation.

1:44 For God hath not appointed us to wrath. But to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. Wherefore, comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.

2:13 Just to set the thoughts of this passage in the general context, it's been several weeks since we... studied in this area.

2:24 You remember the apostle introduced the theme of the return of Christ in the latter part of the fourth chapter, in the light of the problem that these Thessalonians were having with regard to their dead loved ones. They somehow felt that perhaps they would be second-rate citizens in the kingdom of Christ if they weren't alive at his return, and so he tells them in chapter four in verse thirteen, I don't want you to be ignorant about their condition. And then he declares to them the facts concerning God's dealings with dead Christians at the return of Christ. Having introduced the subject of the return of Christ as incidental, really, to the main problem of their sorrow and ignorance concerning the state of dead loved ones, he now deals more properly with that subject, particularly as it relates to the times and seasons as he introduces the subject. The subject here in the fifth chapter, and he says if you know that that day will come as a thief in the night, then basically you know all you need to know. The problem is you must live in the light of that knowledge. And so the main thrust then of chapter five, verses one to eleven, is not information, but it's exhortation to the sorrowing saints who were ignorant in chapter four.

3:52 He gave primarily information, facts. This we say to you by the word of the Lord, and then he gives the facts. Those who are alive will have no niche on those who are dead. When the Lord comes, the dead in Christ caught up first.

4:08 We who are alive and remain caught up together, meet the Lord, we're with him. Facts, information to the mind. But in chapter five, he does not so much give information as he gives exhortation. Exhortation.

4:22 He says, now you have all the information you need to know regarding the times and seasons. My concern is, verse six, therefore, don't sleep. Verse eight, but let us, since we are of the day. Verse eleven, wherefore, comfort one another.

4:39 So you have this contrast between the informing of the saints in chapter four, regarding some details of the return of Christ, and in chapter five, you have this exhortation, exhorting of the saints to live commensurate with their knowledge. And as we study the structure of this exhortation, which is all we're going to do this morning, God willing, next Lord's Day, we'll look at the substance of the exhortation. What do the words sober, watch, mean? But we find in the structure of this exhortation, something that is common to many of the portions of exhortation in Holy Scripture.

The General Structure of Apostolic Exhortation

5:22 And as we come to grips with how the apostle exhorts believers, how he seeks to prod them into action, we can glean some very valuable lessons for our Christian experience. So if we were titling the study this morning, it would be how God prods his children, as found in this passage of exhortation. Now, consider with me in the first place, the general structure of this exhortation. The apostle now is concerned to stir them up, to live in the light of what they know.

5:57 Chapter 4, he told them things they needed to know. It's not his focus to stir them up. Now he wants to stir them up. How does he do it?

6:06 Notice in the first place, he reminds them of what they knew by divine revelation. Verses 1 and 2. But of the times and seasons, brethren, you have no need that I write unto you, for yourselves know perfectly, that is, with great action, that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. He reminds them of what they knew by divine revelation.

6:31 The only reason that they knew perfectly that the day of the Lord would come as a thief in the night is because God had revealed this in the very words of his own dear son, and these had been preserved by the apostolic tradition and had been passed on to the Thessalonians. For this is almost, of course, a verbatim quote from the passage in Luke 21, 34, where Christ speaks of his return and the analogy of the thief in the night. So the first thing he does as he's going to exhort them is to remind them of what they knew by divine revelation. Secondly, he reminds them of what they were by the operations of sovereign grace.

7:15 Notice verses 4 and 5. Verse 3 is just a digression, dealing with the world, the world of the unconverted. But as he returns to the brethren in verse 4, but ye brethren are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are the children of light.

7:35 First of all, he says, now this is what you know. Verses 1 and 2. Now in verses 4 and 5 he says, this is what you are. Now he hasn't exhorted them yet.

7:44 Now his whole goal is to exhort them, but first of all, reminds them of what they knew by divine revelation. Secondly, what they were, what God had made them in his grace. And in our previous study, we considered what those words meant. To be in darkness in a scriptural sense is to be in a state of ignorance of the truth of God, alienation from the life and fellowship of God, and rebellious to the holy law of God.

8:15 To be in the light in the scriptural sense is to be brought by the operations, of grace into a state where we are illuminated by God's truth, where there's an impartation of the life of God, and where the heart is brought subject to the will of God. Now he says of these people, he doesn't say now you ought to be this. He says you are. You are not in darkness.

8:41 You are the children of the light. You are the sons of the day. Hasn't exhorted them yet. This is his whole end.

8:50 He's going to, stir them up to action, but first of all reminds them what they knew. Secondly, what they were. Then, and only then, does he remind them of what they should do by conscious endeavor. Verse 6.

9:07 Therefore, in the light of what you know and what you are, therefore, let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober. Verse 8. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for an helmet the hope of salvation. He seeks to stir them up to a conscious endeavor to be watchful, to be sober, to be prepared for their spiritual enemies.

9:40 Then, he caps this all off by reminding them of what they have in the gracious provisions of God. Verse 9. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. He enforces the exhortation by speaking of the great privilege of being under divine appointment to salvation, a salvation that was wrought by the divine purchase of Jesus Christ.

10:21 Now, can you put those four ingredients together in your mind? Here are some people that the apostle longs to see stirred up to new action in practical Christian experience. How is he going to do it? He starts with what they knew by divine revelation, what they had been constituted by divine grace, then what they should become by conscious effort, and then he enforces it at all with these reminders, of their tremendous privileges in the grace of God.

10:56 Now, that pattern, I submit, is followed more or less throughout the main portions of exhortation in Holy Scripture. Another classic example, of course, is Romans chapter 6. He's going to deal with the relationship of justification to practical sanctification. And in verses 13 and following, he's stirring up the saints of God to a more vigorous degree, or a greater degree, a more vigorous involvement in the process of sanctification.

11:30 And how does he start? He says, Are ye ignorant of? And he gives them some facts. And he says, This is what grace has done to you.

11:37 When Christ died, you died. These are facts. And after giving the facts, then he says, In the light of this, present yourselves unto him as those that are alive from the dead. And he closes the chapter reminding them of their great privilege.

11:52 The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. There is a peculiar structure to the exhortation of Holy Scripture that sets it apart from all other kinds of exhortation.

Practical Lesson 1: The Proper Place of Knowledge

12:08 And if you and I, as the people of God, are to be moved by the exhortations of Scripture, and we ought to be, we must take note of that structure. So much for the structure as we see it. Now in the second place, and this will be the bulk of our study this morning, what are the practical lessons that God intends us to learn from this structure? Well, in the first place, God wants us to know the proper place of knowledge in the life of the child of God.

12:39 What is the place of knowledge and understanding of the Scriptures in the life of the child of God? Well, this passage in Thessalonians tells us what it isn't and what it is. It's obvious from this passage to state the negative first. Knowledge is not an end in itself.

12:59 Paul did not say, verse 2, ye yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord comes with the thief in the night, period. Since you know that, fine. End of chapter. No, no.

13:11 He says, you know perfectly, you know accurately. There's nothing more I can tell you about this basic issue of the time of the Lord's return. However,

13:22 God did not reveal those facts as an end in themselves. Since you have that knowledge, it ought to lead to this experience. Therefore, see, what is He telling us? He's telling us, as Scripture tells us from Genesis to Revelation, that knowledge was never intended of God to be an end in itself.

13:49 God informs the mind that He might, He might transform the life. God is interested in lives that are conformed to His revealed will. But God doesn't come directly to the hands or directly to the feet or directly to the tongue. He comes to the mind with information.

14:09 But He never has the mere information an end in itself. Several statements of Scripture that are so clear on this. Romans 12, verses 1 and 2. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

14:30 And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed, how? By the renewing of your mind that you may prove, that is, experimentally work out what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. How does a person keep from being squeezed into the world's mold? Is it by carrying around his little evangelical checklist and pulling it out every time and going down through the alphabetical order and saying, no, that's not in, that's out, that's in, that's...

15:00 No, no. He says, as your mind thinks God's thoughts after him, your life will walk in God's ways. The end of the transforming of the mind is experimental outworking of the will of God in practical experience.

15:22 Jesus said in John 13, 17, If ye know these things, fine, now, blessed are ye if ye do them. The end of knowing is doing. So what's the place of knowledge, understanding of, say, this very matter of the factors related to the return of Christ? I always get a bit disturbed when I, every time I go through one of my periodicals, it has an ad in there by someone who puts out a periodical on prophecy and it says, for all prophecy lovers, well, you know, most prophecy lovers I've met, they love facts of prophecy as an end in itself.

16:02 And I've been emphasizing all the way through our study in this portion, God never gives prophetic insight merely as an end in itself to titillate our itch for knowing the future, to make the Bible some kind of a sanctified crystal ball. No, no. The end of information, whether it's of the past or present or future, future is the transformation of the life of the child of God. Therefore, you and I need to periodically ask ourselves, what is my learning doing for my living?

16:38 Here I am, exposed to information two or three times a week through the ministry of this church or whatever church I am associated with. I'm getting these facts and I need to get them. I need to ask myself, what are these facts of information doing? What's my learning doing for my living?

16:56 What's my learning doing for my living? Is it doing anything? And if you find it difficult to assess it, ask your wife.

17:06 Do you see what I am hearing doing anything in the way I'm living? Are you increasingly living with a better husband? Better father? Maybe wives ought to ask the husband.

17:19 We've got to remind ourselves, the end of knowledge is not knowledge. We need to ask the question, what is the light in my mind doing to increase the heat in my affections?

17:34 Are your affections any hotter today because of the light that has come to your mind in the past week? God informs the mind to heat the affections. And we need to constantly ask ourselves that. So we learn that practical lesson from this passage, the place of knowledge.

17:53 Negatively, it's not an end in itself. Positively, it is foundational to validation. It's an experience. Paul does not say, now that's the trouble with you people.

18:05 You know perfectly some things about the day of the Lord. And if you'd only forget what you know and just throw your mind into neutral and let your spirit just run after the Lord and everything be alright. No, no. That's the attitude some take.

18:17 I remember hearing a tape by someone who was speaking on the subject of the fullness of the Holy Spirit. And this was one of the emphases that this individual made. That's the trouble. He says, you Christians, you know too much.

18:28 You've got too much doctrine and your mind is all... all cluttered up with doctrine.

18:32 Just sweep all of that out of your mind and just let yourself open up to the Holy Spirit.

18:38 You'll get open to a spirit, but it won't be the Holy Spirit.

18:42 It'll be some other spirit. Some other spirit. You see, Paul doesn't minimize the place of knowledge. He says, alright, you know perfectly that's not an end in itself.

18:52 But because he longs to stir them up to activity in the life, he doesn't mock knowledge. He says, no, you know perfectly and good because right knowledge is foundational to right experience.

19:06 Hear those people grieving over the death of their departed loved ones. How does Paul correct the problem, their emotional problem? He gives them a good dose of doctrine as we saw in previous studies. And this is done throughout the length and breadth of Holy Scripture.

19:22 That's why in the epistles, no matter what the problems the churches may be having, for the most part, the apostle begins by great sections of doctrinal teaching. He starts with the great facts of redemption when he prays for Christians. What does he pray? He prays above all else for the grace and gift of illumination.

19:44 For this cause I bow my knees, Ephesians 1, that the Father may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation that ye may know.

19:56 That's the focus of his prayer. Jesus says, Father, sanctify them by the truth. Thy word is truth and truth has no magic. Truth has no magic.

20:04 Truth has no magic. Truth has no magical power. It's only as the truth comes to the mind and under the illuminating ministry of the Spirit is understood and grasped that there will be valid sanctification in the realm of experience. What's the first work of God in the heart of the sinner?

20:21 Acts 26, 18. To open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light. Illumination. Begin to see things as they really are.

20:32 And so the proper place of knowledge in the Christian world in the Christian experience is negatively, not an end in itself, but positively, it is foundational to valid experience. We must think right to be right.

20:48 And I say, therefore, by way of implication, beware of any ministry which minimizes the place of solid instruction of the great facts of the Christian faith. Beware of any such ministry. Beware of it. Beware of any attitude of mental laziness no matter how spiritual it sounds.

21:15 One of the most subtle diseases of the Christian life is that of hyper-spirituality. When someone just acts carnally like a goat and sounds like one, it's pretty easy to say, now look, fella, you're just acting carnally. But when someone drips and oozes a hyper-spirituality, that is the most subtle thing, difficult thing to deal with. And I found this hyper-spiritual attitude when people begin to downplay the place of knowledge and they say, oh, what really matters is our heart's relationship to Christ.

21:50 How in the world can you fight that?

21:53 You can't fight that. I mean, you've got to say, that's true. That's true. That really matters.

21:59 Yeah, but the question is, how do you deal with your heart's affection to Christ? Does God, as it were, come directly to the realm of the affections? Or does He set before us the great truths of redemption? And as the mind focuses upon them and the spirit illuminates that truth to us and we're enabled to take hold of it in faith, did not our hearts burn within us?

22:25 How? While He talked with us in the way. And what was He doing in the way? Opening up the scriptures.

22:33 The hearts burned when the facts came by the illuminating, the ministry of Christ. So beware of any ministry that minimizes the place of knowledge. Beware of any attitude in yourself or others that justifies mental laziness under some kind of a hyper-spiritual garb. The third place, beware of any ministry which aims directly at the life or the affections without informing the mind first.

Practical Lesson 2: The Relationship of What We Are to What We Should Be

23:08 It's a terrible thing to see a group of professors professing Christians who are dead.

23:14 If you don't believe me, some mornings when I think maybe you're in that state, I'll call you up here and ask you to say a few words and you see what it feels like. When there's a heaviness, as we spoke about it several weeks ago, upon the people of God. When they're not moving through the courts of Zion with a lively step, but dragging one foot behind another. And you'd love to see them just infused with new life.

23:39 Now, how are you going to do it? Some people say, well, get a good quartet in that can get them stomped. See?

23:46 See? Others would say, well, get someone in who can really rouse them with a good sermon to action or something else. You see, they go directly to the problem of the waning affections. Directly to the problem of incorrect living.

24:01 That is not the way Scripture deals with it. When there's a problem in the realm of the life or the affections, God comes first of all addressing truth to the mind. Somewhere we've relinquished our grasp upon truth. So, as Paul wants to stir them up to action, where does he start?

24:19 By reminding them of what they know. And this is a very valid and necessary principle. And I face it constantly. Let me just let my hair down.

24:29 You know, when I preached those two evangelistic sermons a couple of weeks ago, a number of you came up and said, boy, our hearts were blessed. It was great. Christians got refreshed and the rest. And I kind of got a sneaking suspicion that somebody would not not only like that once in a while, but you'd like a full dose of that for a while.

24:47 You know why? Because you didn't have to think as hard. I had a very simple outline, wasn't involved with the close reasoning of the apostle in the passage, but took a simple text and laid it out and illustrated it. And it was pretty easy to listen to, wasn't it?

25:00 Huh?

25:03 Now there's a legitimate place for a change of pace. And I plan to do that, the Lord willing, once every two months now. I believe the Lord spoke to my heart and some of the men on the board.

25:15 But you see, if we ever get to the place where we refuse to think and follow through the close reasoning of the scriptural writers and get a hankering for the other, you know what's going to happen to us? It won't be long. It won't be long before we're going to find ourselves attracted by the kind of ministry that is something less than 16 ounces to the pound solid biblical ministry.

25:40 And churches are filled with people fed on that kind of ministry. And their spiritual weakness is all the testing and testimony one needs of the fact that this is not a biblical ministry. You see, it'd be much easier for me in my preparation, this kind of preaching through verse by verse, chapter by chapter, is the most exacting discipline upon a minister.

26:04 There are some passages I read in my own devotion and they just break open and they cry out, preach on me! And I have to say, shh, you be quiet. I'm over there in Thessalonians. See?

26:18 It'd be so easy. And if you understand that, then together, as we seek to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, there will be this appreciation of the place of knowledge. So that's the first practical lesson I see in the structure of this exhortation. The proper place of knowledge in the Christian life.

26:42 Second lesson I see is this. Something concerning the proper relationship of what we are to what we should be. Now it's interesting that before the apostle tells them they ought to be awake and they ought to be sober and they ought to be armed, he tells them what they are in verses 4 and 5. But ye brethren are not in darkness, verse 5, but ye are the children of light.

27:12 Now he doesn't say you ought to be, he says this is what you are. So his exhortation in reality becomes simply this. Be in the light. Be in life in ever increasing measure what you are in reality by the grace of God.

27:30 You are a child of the day. Now be that in every relationship of life. Be what you are.

27:40 Now you say that's strange talk, isn't it? Well that's Bible talk. The great problem with the Christian much of the time is that we are not being what we are. Are you a child of the light?

27:54 Of the day? Then what are you doing in that little area of gray and darkness? What are you doing dabbling with that which is characteristic of a life lived in ignorance of God? That which is characteristic of a life lived in alienation from God.

28:10 A life lived in rebellion to God. When you and I sin in that measure, we move into that realm of darkness. He says now, what are you doing? You're not a child of the darkness.

28:21 Why are you in any way partaking of that which is darkness? Why are you partaking of that which is characteristic of darkness? You're of the light. Be what you are.

28:30 Be what you are.

28:32 Like a soldier. He is duly sworn in to the armed services of his country. He stands as a protector of the liberties and values of that country. He stands in a more personal sense as the protector of his own personal and domestic liberties.

28:52 And he's out there in a certain strategic battle. And the commandment of the commander gathers his troops together. What does he do to stir them to action? He reminds them of what they are.

29:04 He says, now you men are. And then he tells them and reminds them of their wives and children and mothers and fathers and the liberties at home. And he says, now be on the battlefield what you are. Be in experience.

29:19 One who reflects what you really are.

29:23 That's what God is saying to us. And he says this again and again in scripture. Let me just take several other examples. There's that example in Colossians, the third chapter,

29:40 verses 8 and 9. But now put off all these anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another. Why?

29:51 Seeing the old man with his deeds and put on the new man. He says, look, in your conversion you put off the old man with his deeds. You put on the new man. Now be what you are.

30:03 Are you new men? Be that. You are. What has the new man in Christ to do with lying, with anger, with wrath?

30:15 Those are characteristics of the old man. The man in his state of unregeneracy. He says, you put that off. Now be what you are.

30:26 Peter says, I beseech you as pilgrims and sojourners abstain from fleshly lust. You are a sojourner. You are a pilgrim. Be what you are.

30:37 I don't know if I'm communicating. I can't read you on this. But as you read through the epistles you'll find this again and again. Now what does that say to us?

30:49 It reminds us of the great error of humanism that says, well, be good, be nice, but gives no basis for being good or being nice.

31:06 How can you tell a man to be something he isn't? God, first of all, makes him something. Now he says, be what I've made you. I've made you a new man in Christ.

31:15 I've made you a new man on that, on that basis indwelt by the Spirit, vitally joined to my Son. You have the power. You have the ability. You have been constituted something that can now be a reflection of my glory and of the image of my dear Son.

31:33 So when the public school system tries to inculcate in our children values, on what basis can they do it? Be nice, be good. Why? They can't say because you are nice and good by nature.

31:47 Why? That's a lie. You aren't nice and good by nature. They're little rebels by nature.

31:53 Right? So on what basis can you say it?

31:57 There's no basis. So this generation of kids has finally caught up and said, that's right, there isn't, so we're not going to be nice and good according to your standards. We'll set our own.

32:10 You see, you can't teach ethical, moral conduct and hang it on a sky hook.

32:17 You won't hold it. The Apostle Paul never hangs exhortation to conduct on a sky hook. He says, grace has made you this. Now, by the exercise of that grace imparted, this is what you ought to be.

Practical Lesson 3: The Relationship of Conduct to Redemptive Privileges

32:35 Then the third lesson I see in this passage of Scripture. First one, the relationship of knowledge to the Christian experience. Secondly, the relationship of what we are to what we should be. And last of all, I see a lesson concerning the relationship of conduct with conduct and I don't know what else to call it so I'm going to use this term to the redemptive privileges of the child of God.

33:03 How is Paul going to bend over the nail of his exhortation? He's driven it into the board and now he wants to bend it over and fix it. How does he do it? He says in verses 9 and 10, notice his wording, For God hath not appointed us to wrath but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ Jesus Christ.

33:25 Who died for us that whether we wake or sleep we should live together with Him. We'll go into a detailed study of those at a subsequent time but just for our purposes this morning he says this exhortation should come home with weight to you because you people have been in the purpose of God from eternity. He takes them back to the doctrine of election. You've been appointed to salvation and then he takes them to the doctrine of the atonement speaking of Christ who died for us and then the purpose of the atonement that we should live together with Him.

34:07 In other words, having given the exhortation he now wants to motivate them and the way he motivates them is by these distinctively redemptive privileges. You see, mere moralistic preaching says be watchful, be sober because it's good, period. Not the apostle. He says be sober, be watchful because this is a part of the very salvation to which God appointed you and which Christ has purchased for you.

34:43 He always roots his exhortation in distinctively Christian and redemptive concepts. You remember in Thessalonians, in Corinthians he's dealing with the problem of immorality. How's he going to deal with it? Here are people abusing their bodies, making a playground of their bodies and abusing their God-given faculties of sex.

35:03 How's he going to deal with it? Does he say, now this may lead to social ills and social problems? No, no. How does he deal with it?

35:11 He says, what? Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which ye have of God and ye are not your own? Ye are bought with a price? Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are his.

35:27 He says, this is the motive that moves the Christian. Here's that person at Corinth in that terribly pagan, immoral city and some of the patterns of his own life are constantly passing before his eyes and being in a state of imperfect sanctification and having in the file drawers of memory some of the past escapades and there is some inducement to evil, some temptation to move aside from that absolute inflexibility and the invincible standard of sexual purity. Paul says, what motive should grip the child of God who is being tempted? Is it, well, if I do this I'll ruin my reputation?

36:07 If I follow this course I may bring upon myself some terrible social dis... No, no.

36:13 He says, I want you to think in that moment of temptation. Listen, your body is purchased property. It's purchased property. It's not your own.

36:24 And it was purchased not with silver or gold. Bring before your mind the price of that purchase. Behold your Savior writhing in agony upon a cross. Behold your Savior.

36:37 The heavens shrouded in blackness. The Father's face turned away. Hear His cry, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?

36:48 And remember that He did all of that among other reasons that your body might be His to move within the sphere of His revealed will, its purchased possession. And I say, if that motive doesn't pry a professing Christian from the jaws of his lust, what will?

37:13 What will? No motive that focuses on the harm it may bring to him will move him like that motivation. See? He does this with the very mundane responsibility of husbands to wives.

37:29 He doesn't just simply say, wives, be subject to your husbands, period. He says, as the church is subject to Christ. He doesn't simply say, husbands, love your wives, but as Christ loved the church. He says, forgive one another.

37:45 How? Even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. In all of those exhortations, there is woven in with them these distinctively Christian, redemptive privileges. These are the motivation.

38:00 Now, why? Well, I've already given a hint, I trust, you've caught it. For the child of God, nothing moves him like these considerations.

38:14 What is the motive of personal injury to a child of God compared with the possibility of bringing reproach to the name of his Savior?

38:25 Our names! What are they worth?

38:29 His name? Did he not teach us to pray daily, hallowed be that name? How can I pray hallowed be thy name and contemplate a course of action that throws mud upon that name? That motive moves the child of God when nothing else will move him.

38:49 The raging fire of lust within and the inducements of evil without may consume every lesser motive. When the child of God thinks consciously for a moment, can I heap reproach upon my Savior? Can I, as it were, rub fresh salt into his mouth? His open wounds.

39:10 You see, that moves the child of God. That's why God wants you to arm yourself with those considerations. See? As you arm yourself with them, then in the hour of temptation or in the hour when you want to rest on the oars and you don't want to be stirred up.

39:25 You don't want to be watchful. Who wants to be watchful? It's not easy to sleep.

39:30 It's hard being watchful. Any of you who have been a night watchman anywhere, everything around you is sleepy. The sun's gone to sleep in the west. Everybody else is sleeping in the dormitory.

39:43 Birds have gone to sleep.

39:47 It's hard to stay awake.

39:50 Everything's against. Everything about you speaks sleep. And like the disciples, the Lord said, watch with me one hour. It was in the wee hours of the morning.

39:59 Everything's sleeping. No little birds chirping in the olive trees in Gethsemane. No lights flickering off in town. It says their eyes were heavy and they slept.

40:10 It's hard in our flesh. What will move us in terms of sleep? In terms of this passage. To obey this injunction, let us not sleep.

40:18 Let us not give over to this spiritual slumber where we become insensitive to our spiritual enemies. What consideration should move us? Here it is. God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.

40:33 We're destined for a full and complete salvation. And our watchfulness now is no little part of the outworking of that salvation. Christ died, what? That He might make us sons of the light who live as sons of the light.

40:49 How dare I pass off irresponsibly into spiritual slumber? It's a denial of the end for which I was purchased. He wants us to arm ourselves with these considerations so that when we feel indifferent to the exhortation, these may move us and motivate us unto obedience. And so I submit in the third place this structure of exhortation shows the relationship of our conduct and our response to exhortation to those peculiar redemptive privileges of the child of God.

41:28 So what do you do if you find you have no heart to obey? Start thinking of the privileges which stand as a canopy over you in God's grace in Christ. Let your mind go out to the great privileges that are yours in Christ that you might be stirred unto obedience.

Self-Examination and Call to Obedience

41:52 And then as a check upon your supposed appreciation of the privileges, ask yourself, you say, oh yes, I am grateful that God appointed me not to wrath but to salvation. Oh, I'm grateful that Christ died for me, that whether I wake or sleep I'd live together with Him. Are you really? Oh, you say, yes, those thoughts of the privileges of redemption have, fully captivated my mind and heart.

42:16 Are they really? Well, if so, how's your obedience doing? Have you been watchful? Are you being sober?

42:24 Are you putting on the breastplate? If not, you're fooling yourself. So this principle, you see, acts both as a spur to motivate us when we acknowledge that we are not pressing on as we ought and then to check us when we think we are, lest we be guilty of delusion. Now we haven't even gotten into the substance of the excerpt but I did feel that the structure of the exhortation was significant enough to spend a whole morning on it.

42:51 I hadn't intended that when I got digging into the passage and the Lord willing next week we shall move on in to the exhortation itself. My closing question to you is this.

43:04 Have you come to appreciate the proper place of knowledge in the Christian life?

43:11 Have you? You see why God has given you not three pages or something like that, but six, but this great book with all the great body of revealed truth. And have you set yourself fully realizing you'll never understand it all? But saying, by the grace of God I'm going to devour and understand as much as my little pea brain can hold between now and the time the Lord takes me home to be with Himself because though knowledge is not an end in itself, it is foundational to all valid experience and I want to know that I might be I ask you that question.

43:49 Have you come to that conscious appreciation of the place of knowledge in the Christian life?

43:56 If not, I hope the Lord will bring you there this morning. Have you come to the place where you realize the relationship of what you are to what you ought to be? God has constituted you in grace if you're His child, a son of the night and of the day. Now you need to remind yourself of that constantly.

44:15 And when the temptation comes to move in the realm of darkness, you say, how can I be? But I'm not. How can I be over there? That's characteristic of the realm of darkness.

44:28 I'm not of the darkness.

44:31 And then the last question.

44:35 Do these things motivate you? The consideration of redemptive privileges. How about you fellas and girls here this morning as well as you adults?

44:44 Does the thought of Christ purchasing you to this end cause you to have a reflex action that says, oh God, help me by your grace. If that's what He died for, if that's what He died for, if that's the thing for which you've destined me, oh Lord, how terrible that I should be anything less. Does that move you? Can you say, oh, Christ died for me?

45:05 If that's your attitude, dear one, it's a clear indication that you're a stranger to grace. If you can't be motivated by these distinctively redemptive privileges and principles, it's because you're a stranger to the power of that redemption in your own heart. And I call upon you in Christ's name today to seek out the Lord, ask Him by His grace to reveal His dear Son to you that all that you'd ever need from here on in to move you is the thought Christ died to make me this. What else do I need to cause me to walk in His ways?

45:44 May the Lord be pleased to so work in your heart if that is your state this morning. Let us unite in prayer as we close.