Hold Fast That Which is Good

Returning to Normal Study: The Context of 1 Thessalonians 5:12-22

0:02 The excitement of the past week and the blessing of those meetings is behind us. And those of us who were privileged to share in them have all had this testimony. Did not our hearts burn within us as the scriptures were opened unto us and we saw in a new way the glory of Christ as the Savior of sinners. You don't have too many weddings and honeymoons in a lifetime.

0:35 Life is made up of facing each other in the morning, bleary-eyed over that first cup of coffee, going off to work, going to the dishes, to the other mundane things of life. And though we thank God for those wedding times and honeymoon times in the life of the church, you can't live on them. And so without apology I ask you to return to this more normal, bleary-eyed look over the cup of coffee this morning.

1:07 As I say, I seek to open unto you the word of the living God. Don't despise the honeymoons and the marriages, but don't try to live on them. And if God can help us as a church to open our hearts to those special festive times and drink from them all that God holds before us, but then not despise the day-by-day, week-by-week, sort of homely and homey life and ministry of the church, then we are a blessed people. We are a blessed people indeed.

1:42 May God help us then to so return to our normal study and life as a body of his people. That brings us then to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, and this last paragraph bounded by verses 12 and 22, the last paragraph of a series of commands in this great epistle, dealing with the general theme enunciated in the beginning of chapter 4, as to how we may walk so as to please God. This is a manual of Christian conduct. This is setting before us the things that please God in the walk and life of his people,

2:26 covering the whole range of the matter of our sexuality, which he touches in the beginning of chapter 4, to our emotional response in the face of death, the end of chapter 4, to the whole subject of... of our thinking in the light of the Lord's return, our responsibility to exhort one another, our responsibility to submit to our spiritual overseers, to maintain a spirit of joy and prayerfulness and thankfulness, all the way down to the end of this paragraph, where we find the apostle dealing with issues that are particularly related to the common life of the assembly of God's people, and in particular, the activity of the spirit, and the...

3:10 exposure to truth. These two things, the word of truth and the spirit of truth, operative within the assembly of God's people, are vital issues. And so the apostle would not have us ignorant as to that which pleases God with relationship to these activities. So he says, don't quench the spirit, verse 19.

Don't Quench the Spirit, Despise Not Prophesying, Prove All Things

3:34 Give full reign to the spirit's activity in your assembly. Don't quench him. By...

3:40 an imposition of some kind of ritual that gives him no room to break forth and to do what he would do. Don't quench him in terms of setting a specific pattern as to how joy should be expressed, as to how true grief or sin should be expressed. Don't quench him. And in particular, he says, don't quench him with respect to his ministry of setting the truth before you.

4:08 So he moves into verse 20, The Holy Spirit's activity is always hooked into and grows out of the truth. We cannot have the spirit without the truth. We can have the truth without the spirit. But you can't know that it's the activity of the spirit without the judgment of truth being cast upon it.

4:30 And so he says, despise not prophesying. Give full reign to those inspired utterances of God's truth which will lead to your edification, edification and consolation as we read in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. But now, he says, though I want you to give full reign to the activity of the spirit and in particular to his activity in bringing forth the truth, don't be gullible. So, we have the next command, prove all things.

5:00 Don't just be open to anything that claims to be truth. Don't just be open to anything that says, this is the activity of the spirit. Learn to give full reign to the spirit, it's true work. Learn to embrace the spirit's true voice, but you better learn what it is to discern whether or not it is the activity of the Holy Spirit and the voice of truth.

5:22 Therefore, all God's people are commanded to prove all things. That is, put to the test every proposition that says, I am truth. Every activity that says, this is the work of the spirit. Put them to the test.

5:39 To the test. To the test. To the test of that infallible revelation of the mind and will of God, even that which is bounded within the pages of Holy Scripture. Prove all things.

The Command: Hold Fast That Which is Good

5:50 Well then, what do you do after you've proven something? Well, that leads us to the next two commands, a positive and a negative. And that's where our study takes up this morning. Once you have sought to discern and are convinced that something is true, then he says, hold fast to that which is good, positive.

6:10 Reject that which is good, positive. That which is not good. That command, avoid all appearance of evil. The King James has it, abstain from all appearance of evil.

6:19 Could be translated, abstain from every form of evil. In particular, that form of evil which comes to light in a so-called activity of the spirit and a so-called pronouncement of truth, but they do not stand the test of the objective revelation of God, reject them, he says, as you hold to that, that which is good, so you must learn to reject that which is evil. Now, we will only get as far as the first part of that command, the positive, hold fast that which is good. Now, first question, what is good?

Defining 'Good' as Apostolic Doctrine

7:01 Now, the use of the word good must be determined by the context. The Bible says much is good. God alone is absolute good. He is the source and fountain of all that is truly good.

7:14 But in its context, that which is good is the thing that stands the test of the scrutinizing of this proving process. Prove everything, put it to the test, the same word used of proving whether gold was pure, and whatever stands the test of fire, whatever stands the test of scrutinizing, of an examination, that's the thing that's good. It's genuine. You've got the real thing.

7:41 You haven't been given, fool's gold or bogus gold. You have the genuine product. Now, in practical terms, what is good as we put things to the test? And I would like to give you a little rule of thumb to work by.

7:59 Everything that stands the test of apostolic doctrine and teaching. Now, follow me closely. Much error comes under the guise of Bible terminology, and Bible language, and the very text of Scripture. But God ordained the apostles and the inspired penman of the New Testament to be the final interpreters of everything else.

8:28 Now, the apostles are not the sole source of truth. Thy word is truth. From Genesis to Revelation, all that God has revealed is true. But now, who is the final interpreter of this book?

8:43 The gospel writers tell me Christ died. They don't tell me much as to the meaning of His death.

8:50 The apostles come along and say, I'll tell you the meaning of His death. He died, Peter says, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. Paul says in Romans, He died in order that God might be just and the justifier of Him that hath faith in Jesus. He, God, hath made Him, Christ, to be sin for us, that we might be the righteousness of God in Him.

9:15 So the meaning, of the truth of Christ's death is infallibly interpreted to us by the apostles for Jesus said, the Holy Spirit will come and He will lead you into all the truth. There is a progressive revelation in Holy Scripture. Everything in Genesis 1 is just as inspired as everything in Hebrews 1. But God, in unfolding His truth, has given to us in Hebrews 1 that final statement which is, the infallible interpreter of all that has preceded.

9:51 God, who in times past spake unto the fathers in many ways, says the writer to the Hebrews, hath spoken unto us in this last day in His Son. And so John says in 1 John 4, 6, they that know God hear us. Who are the us? We, His apostles.

10:10 And whoever does not hear us, whoever says, well, I've got the words of Jesus and this is my meaning that I put upon them, John says, no. If you do not hear us and the meaning we put upon the words of Jesus, the meaning we put upon the saving acts of Jesus, that spirit is not of God. So that which is good is that which will stand the test of the final interpretation of the apostles and the inspired penman of the New Testament. Now this is so necessary because all kinds of so-called truth is being paraded in biblical terminology under biblical parables, under biblical prophetic visions,

10:53 under biblical types and shadows, but they flatly contradict the explicit and implicit statement of the apostles and the inspired interpreters. John says, no. They that know God hear us. Hereby know ye the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

11:11 So much then for the question, what is good? What is good? Whatever path, cast the test of apostolic doctrine. Paul says, ye are built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ himself the chief cornerstone.

11:27 And as the church is erected, it is erected upon that foundation. Now don't make your own mind the arbiter of what's good and not good. Some people say, I just can't believe it be good, this doctrine of election. It can't be good that God should choose some and not others.

11:44 And so they say, prove all things, and they bring it to the bar of their own idea of what's good, and so they throw out the doctrine of election. No, no, don't do that. Some people say, it can't be good that God would bruise his own son. That's unthinkable.

11:56 That a holy God would crush his own son in judgment and pour our hell upon him? Unthinkable. Therefore, they bleed away the apostolic statements concerning the fact that Jesus Christ gave himself up as a propitiatory sacrifice. He was satisfied in the demands of justice in order that sinners might go free.

12:20 No, the final standard of what is good is not our own presuppositions. It isn't our own feelings about what is good. It is the final interpretation of the mind and will of God as given in the apostolic teaching. Now, don't you be lazy and allow someone else to be the judge.

Understanding 'Hold Fast'

12:41 You are commanded to prove all things, determine what is good, and then hold it fast. Well, having asked and answered the question what is good, next question is what does it mean to hold it fast? Now, this is an interesting word. It's used in Luke 4.42

12:58 in the following way. I'm reading now from Luke 4.42. And when it was day, Jesus departed and went into a desert place, and the people sought him and came unto him and stayed him that he should not depart from them.

13:16 Now, get the picture. Jesus is about to leave them and they grab hold of him. And they say, Lord, don't leave us. Stay with us a while.

13:24 Teach us some more. We want to hear more from you. They lay hold of him. They constrain him to stay with them.

13:31 Same word used. They held him fast. It's the word used in Philemon, verse 13. That oft-neglected book and seldom-quoted book of Philemon, after Titus, speaking of this servant whom I have sent again, verse 12, thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels, whom I would have held fast, whom I would have retained with me.

14:06 Now, do you get the meaning of the words? He said, oh, I long to have this man who's just been converted stay with me. Paul knew something of the thrill of being in someone's presence who's in the flush of his newfound faith in Jesus Christ. That's that holy contagion, that almost reckless abandonment to the newfound Savior.

14:27 He said, I would have retained him with me. I would have held him close by me, but I'm going to send him back to you because he belongs to you. That's the word. You get the idea now?

14:37 Prove all things. Put things to the test. And when you're convinced in the light of the final authority of the apostolic doctrine that this is good, this is what God, God has revealed, take hold of it, draw it alongside of you and don't let it go at any cost, even life itself. Prove all things, hold fast that which is good.

15:09 We could use the analogy to make it clearer of the whole idea of currency. Here's some money passes through your hands. You say, well, is this the real thing? So you scrutinize it or you take it to a bank.

15:21 And you have them examine it. And they say, yes, this is the real thing. Well, if you've got a handful of hundred dollar bills, you just don't stuff them in your pocket and use them like Kleenex. You put them in a place where they're going to be safely deposited.

15:34 Some bank that's a member of the FDIC, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and you hold it fast. If it's no good, if it's bogus, you get rid of it. Now, there's all kinds of currency in the religious world. All kinds of currency being passed around saying this is truth, this truth, that truth, this truth, this truth.

15:53 What are you supposed to do? Just accept anybody's money? No, no. He says, you prove it.

15:58 Scrutinize it. Put it to the test. And when it's proven to be the real thing, put it in the bank and keep it. Hold fast to it.

16:05 Don't just carry it around in your pocket. Don't put it in your dresser drawer where fees can break through and get it. Some of you snicker because you know about our recent experience with our house being broken through. But they didn't get it.

16:16 We had our tithe money in there for the week. The only cash in the house, the Lord let them overlook it and they couldn't get it. But generally speaking, they would get it. So he says, you hold it fast.

How to Hold Fast: Vigorous Mental and Spiritual Activity

16:26 Now, so much for the meaning of the two key words. That which is good, hold it fast. Now, the very core of our message this morning, how do you do it? It's all right and well, Paul, for you to say, prove everything, hold it fast.

16:41 But how do you do it? I know how to hold fast money. Or maybe we don't. Maybe some of us have the problem we don't know how to hold it.

16:48 It slips through our fingers. But in theory, I know how to hold it fast. You take it and put it in the bank and deposit it and say, I won't take it out. I know how to hold fast to a person, someone I love, someone whom I long to retain with me.

17:01 But how do you hold fast the truth?

17:05 May I suggest some very practical answers to that question that are in keeping with the rest of the teaching of the Word of God? Number one, by receiving that truth into the mind with vigorous mental and spiritual activity.

17:22 In this sense, holding fast the truth is like eating, eating good food.

17:29 And I have scriptural warrant for saying that for we read in Jeremiah 15, 16, Thy words were found and once I was sure it was God's words, what did I do with them? I did eat them. And Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart. He said, Thy words were found and when I was convinced they were the words of God, they were good, what did I do?

17:54 Did I admire them? Did I put them in the refrigerator to preserve them? No. I took them into myself and assimilated them until those words of God became a part of my very system.

18:10 I would suggest to you that the way this is done is by receiving the truth into the mind with vigorous mental and spiritual activity.

18:22 Just as a man prays for his daily bread and then rolls up his sleeves and goes out to labor to obtain it, so the person who prays O God, teach me your truth must roll up his mental and spiritual sleeves to attain a grasp upon that truth. A beautiful picture of this is given in Proverbs chapter 2. How do you hold fast God's truth? Well, the answer is given very beautifully in Proverbs 2 verses 1 to 7.

18:54 Notice these words of action, these verbs of vigorous mental activity. For these words are speaking not of physical activity but of mental and spiritual activity. Notice. My son, if thou wilt receive my words and hide my commandments with thee, so that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom and apply thy heart to understanding, yea, if thou criest after knowledge and liftest up thy voice for understanding, if thou seekest her as silver and searchest for her as for hid treasures, then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord

19:39 and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord giveth wisdom out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous. Oh yes, God gives wisdom just like he gives daily bread.

19:54 Out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding just as out of his hand comes all of his gifts. But listen, you pray, Lord, give me this day my daily bread and sit home and just wait for God's hand to drop it out of heaven and you'll starve and you ought to for scripture says if any man will not work let him not eat. It's no indication of faith to sit home and not use the appropriate means to get daily bread and it's no indication of unbelief when the man gets up off his knees having prayed, Lord, give me this day daily bread and goes out to sweat and labor to obtain his bread for he knows the God who's ordained that end has ordained the means and it's mere presumption to expect the end without the means. So we come to church and we say, Oh God,

20:39 only your spirit can open up the truth. That's true. Lord, only you can open my eyes. That's true.

20:45 Lord, only you can give me insight. That's true. But how does he do it? This passage tells us.

20:51 If you receive the words, if you hide them, if you incline your ear, if you cry after knowledge, if you seek her, if you search for her, then you'll understand.

21:04 The clear implication being you can pray all day, but if you will not apply yourself to vigorous mental and spiritual activity to assimilate the truth of God, you never will get it. And that's the problem with many of us. I say it not irreverently, the Lord Jesus himself could come and preach in this pulpit for six years and some of you wouldn't know another thing more than you know this morning.

21:31 Why? Because you're spiritually and mentally lazy.

21:36 You come not to engage your total being to receive the truth, but you come to have your mind and your spirit played upon by the preacher so that he becomes like the guitarist and you're the guitar and he plucks the strings. And so there's a nice little tune, but when we go home the guitar has nothing more in it than before the concert.

21:57 No, no. No, no. You're to come as a hungry person to a table acknowledging that only God can give you bread, but I say it reverently and I'm going to chew it and swallow it for you. Nor is he going to digest it for you.

22:09 You've got to do it.

22:12 Prove all things. When you've examined the pronouncements of a preacher, when you've examined the contents of a book and you've tested it by the apostolic doctrine and you're convinced that's true, those are the words of God. How do you hold them fast? By that vigorous mental and spiritual activity that lays hold of them, that eats them, that assimilates them until the mind has some clear, clear concept and the spirit has felt the warmth and the grip of that truth.

22:43 There is no other way to hold fast the word of God. For you remember in the parable of the sower, it says, those by the wayside are these who, having heard the word, understand it not, and then the fowls of the air come and pluck it away. It would be terribly embarrassing, wouldn't it, to ask some of you at three o'clock this afternoon to do a survey. I could get a number of you, to work with me on this and call every home where people were present and say, what did the pastor preach about this morning?

23:15 Well, it was, it was in Thessalonians. I know that. Yeah. Well, what was it?

23:20 It was chapter five. Yeah. What was it about?

23:26 Well, I, it was something about the Lord. Yeah, that's right. Well, a little more specific. Well, it was something about,

23:35 I'd say, did you have your Sunday dinner? Oh, sure I did. What did you have? Oh, I had steak, roast beef, ham.

23:42 You'd know what you had. Why? Because you came to that table hungry. You saw the food.

23:47 You cut it. You masticated it. You assimilated it. It's in you.

23:50 You went through a conscious activity of making that which was there, yours, and because you did, you knew it. And my friend, in the same way, if you're finding the words of God and eating them, you'll know what you've eaten.

24:05 You'll know what you've eaten. I don't say that you'll know six weeks from now what you ate any more than I ask you what you ate six weeks ago at Sunday dinner.

24:13 But certainly, you'd know three hours afterwards. Unless there was definitely a problem with your memory. Now, there may be some of you who because of age or because of some physical infirmity, the memory isn't functioning and I wouldn't want to bind the conscience of any dear child of God who comes with a hungry heart and assimilates all they can, but perhaps the mental faculties are beginning to break down. God knows that and I understand that, but I'm talking about those who've got all your faculties.

24:38 You can remember the television program you watched yesterday. You can remember the football game you watched yesterday. You can remember other events. Why?

24:46 Because you were involved in them.

How to Hold Fast: Allowing Truth to Encompass All Life

24:49 And when you and I are involved in proving all things and then going the next step and holding fast that which is good, we'll know that which we've held fast to. How do we do it? First principle, receiving the truth into the mind with vigorous mental and spiritual activity. Secondly, by allowing that truth to wrap its tentacles around every area of life that it touches.

25:16 This passage, in Proverbs 2, says, God lays up sound wisdom for the righteous. He's a buckler to them who walk uprightly. You see, the reception of truth and the way I walk stand or fall together. To hold fast the truth can't be a purely mental activity because God's truth always has a view to what?

25:40 Making demands upon my life. You see, God's truth is not just something theoretical here. It makes demands upon me where I live, how I think, how I act to mom and dad, brother and sister, fellow classmates, on my date, in the shop, on the highway, the thoughts of the heart, the attitudes of the spirit. You see, God's truth doesn't come to us just as a bunch of theory.

26:03 So if we're to hold it fast, the first step is by vigorous mental and spiritual activity to assimilate it. But if you stop there, you'll lose it. The next step is to allow that truth to have its tentacles wrapped around every area of life that that truth is. That's what it encompasses.

26:24 Hebrews 5 and verse 14 is the best commentary in scripture I know on this principle and I want us to turn to it and let scripture interpret scripture this morning. Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 14.

26:39 Why is it that some of you haven't held fast to more truth than you have? Why is it in this given assembly I can think this morning that some have only been converted a year or a year and a half and they've held fast to more truth than some of you who've sat in the same place under the same ministry for seven years? Why? What's the difference?

26:59 Is it basically a matter of mental ability? No. Notice carefully what the writer to the Hebrews says. Hebrews chapter 5 verse 11.

27:09 Of whom, that is, Jesus Christ, a high priest after the order of Melchizedek, we have many things to say and hard to be uttered seeing ye are dull of hearing. For when the time ye ought to be teachers, he said, you people have been exposed to enough truth. You ought to be able, to stand in the place of instructing others. You have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God and are become such as have need of milk and not of strong meat.

27:40 Well, that's a terrible state of affairs. People who've been exposed to enough truth that if they had been proving it and then holding it fast, they'd have a tremendous cupboard full of great spiritual goods to spread the table for other people. Instead, he says, I've got to come around with a milk bottle. And stick it in your mouth.

27:59 And you go goo-goo-ga-ga and suck your milk.

28:04 You don't have your baby prepare the meal and set the table this afternoon. He says, some of you ought to be preparing meals and setting tables. Instead, we've got to put you in the crooked arm and stick a bottle in you.

28:16 Now why? Here's why. Notice. For everyone that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness for he's a babe.

28:26 But strong meat belongs to them who are of full age. Now, what makes a man of full age? Here it is. Even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

28:42 The word they heard they took hold of with mental activity. Then they said, Oh God, let this truth wrap the tentacles of its implication around my life. And then they said, if that's so, then this has to go. This has to come.

28:58 This has to be taken out of me. This has to be brought into my life. The word of righteousness became the instrument of enabling them to discern good and evil. It had moral implications.

29:12 And when I say moral, don't think just of sex. And when I say moral, I mean that which has to do with the will and the conduct, the life, the practice, the experience. See it? He said, now the reason you people are babes is because you didn't exercise yourself in terms of the application of the application and implications of the truth upon your life and your conduct.

29:36 Let me illustrate.

29:39 Take a truth like the deity of Christ. Jesus Christ is true God as well as true man. Prove that truth. Put it to the test.

29:48 Does it stand the test? Yes. Well, if it does, now he says, hold it fast. I must think upon that.

29:55 Meditate upon the wonder of it until my spirit, as it were, flies upward in worship and adoration. But then, listen, if he's God, who in the world am I to strut around running my own life? If he's God, who in the world am I to make my own choices? If he's God, who am I to think I've got rights?

30:19 So I begin to think of all the areas where I'm playing God. When I balk at mom and dad. When I make my own plans for my life's work. When I refuse as a husband to take my scriptural place.

30:31 When I refuse as a wife to take my scriptural place. Or when I begin to think of the implications of the deity of Christ. I say, wait a minute. If he's what I say he is, this has got to change.

30:42 This has got to come into my life. That's got to go. This pattern of life must now emerge. This pattern of life must be submerged and purged.

30:51 This idea must go. This lust must go. This attitude must go. This duty must be performed.

30:57 They're the implications. See?

31:01 And listen, if you don't carry that truth into its implications, it won't be long before your old wicked heart will begin to think of some reason to justify the way you're living. And you can't live that way and hold for long that he is God. So what do you do? You begin to say, wait a minute.

31:16 Do you know that verse? The Father is greater than I. And suddenly that verse begins to get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And you say, well, you know, that's right.

31:25 The Father is greater. He is something less than God.

31:29 And when a man or woman relinquishes a cardinal doctrine like the deity of Christ, the problem didn't start in the head. It started in the realm of the heart and the will and the life. That's where it started. See?

31:42 That's where it started. And listen, my friend, if you don't learn to hold fast the truth in this way, not only receiving it with vigorous mental activity, but allowing its tentacles to wrap themselves around your life and submit to its demands, mark me, some of you are going to end up being heretics. You'll end up throwing over the faith of Christ. For Scripture says of certain ones who having cast off faith and a good conscience have made shipwreck concerning Christ.

32:11 Concerning the faith. The first step, the first step to apostasy is always in the realm of moral issues. God makes some demands and you don't want to bow. Then your old wicked heart wants to conceive some justifiable reason for that rebellion.

32:31 See the implications?

How to Hold Fast: Continual Remembrance

32:33 So how do we hold fast the truth? Receive it with the mind, mental, spiritual activity. Secondly, allowing that truth to wrap its tentacles around the life. Third, by continually stirring up our minds in the remembrance of that truth.

32:51 When you turn to 1 Peter chapter 1, one of the greatest proofs of our original depravity and the remains of corruption is in this whole area of what we remember. There are things that I remember to this day I've made no conscious effort to remember for 25 years. And yet at the times when I don't want it, they come flashing through with all their vividness. I've spent almost 20 years trying to put down some of those thoughts and yet they come.

33:22 There are other things that I want to remember. With every fiber of my renewed being that seem to be like quicksilver, I can't pin them down. They seem to be gone off on a lost weekend. I can't find them.

33:36 Why? Why should the mind be so keen to remember that which the new man in Christ would utterly forget and so hard to remember and retain that which the new man in Christ longs to retain? When the greatest proofs of depravity originally and the remains of corruption still with us. So, if we're to hold fast the truth, it's got to be in the realization that the truth naturally doesn't cling to us.

34:03 It'll always be saying, I pray thee have me excused. It'll be going away on a lost weekend. And when it starts to turn, you've got to grab it. Bring it back.

34:12 You've got to grab it. Bring it back. Because the remains of our corruption will be such as to continually lead it away from us. 1 Peter chapter 1 is the great commentary on this principle.

34:24 1 Peter chapter 1.

34:28 I'm sorry, 2 Peter chapter 1. I'm sorry, 2 Peter.

34:34 Verses 12 through 15. Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance. That word has to do with stirring up the mind. Put you in remembrance of these things.

34:48 Now notice. Though ye know them and be established in the present truth, yea, I think, it meet as long as I'm in this tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in remembrance. Knowing that shortly I must put off this tabernacle even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me. Moreover, I will endeavor that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.

35:14 Why is Peter so concerned that he stir them up by way of remembrance? That even after he's dead, he knows as he breathes his last breath upon his deathbed or his grave, upon his cross upside down if history is accurate here, that his thought will be those Christians have something to goad their minds. Why is this so necessary? Because it's only in that way that you hold fast that which is good.

35:38 By continually stirring up the mind. You've heard me say it often. I'll repeat it. It's one of the things I want you to remember about me when I'm gone.

35:47 The truth that holds the mind molds the life.

35:52 The truth that holds the mind molds the life. Molds the life. That's why God says it's only the man who meditates in the law of God day and night that shall be blessed in all his ways and whatsoever he does shall prosper because it's by meditation that truth is brought into the consciousness.

36:12 Now I come back to those simple principles. Now do you see the necessity of consistent devotional reading of the word of God? How can you hold fast the truth if the remains of your own corruption as a believer will cause that truth by degree to fade into the background? There must be reading and re-reading.

36:31 Some of you maybe have the terribly proud idea, well, I've already read through the Bible ten times. Well, isn't that wonderful?

36:39 Some of God's servants read it through hundreds of times before they died and their last sigh was, oh, I know so little and I've understood less and obeyed less than that.

36:55 Oh, what a terrible witness of the pride of our hearts. If we think we can hold fast the truth without consistent exposure to the word in private meditative reading of the scriptures, in the consistent exposure to the truth in its preached form, for God is ordained in the exposition and application of the scriptures to stir up our minds by way of remembrance. This is why when we gather in one another's homes, that which we should discuss is what? What God has showed us, what God has brought to remembrance, exhorting one another daily in the light of the word.

37:31 Why? That we might hold fast the truth.

Why We Must Hold Fast: Evidence of Saving Grace

37:38 You and I grasp the truth by meditation and prayer. The truth grasps us by implementation and obedience. And when you have a Christian exposing himself to the word, to that which is good, putting things to the test, learning what it is to come with mental activity and spiritual activity to wrestle with, with the truth. And then he says, now Lord, what's this say to me?

38:05 And then he brings it to remembrance. There's the person who's growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Well, I close this morning with one other question. Having asked the question, what is good?

38:18 What does it mean to hold it fast? How do you do it? Here's the last question. Why must I do it?

38:24 And may I say, you must, for this is a command of God. Why must I do this? Why must I hold fast? This sounds like work.

38:33 It is work. There are no gains without pains in any realm of human experience. Why must I do it? Let me give you three reasons from scripture.

38:43 Number one, because this alone is evidence that you have savingly embraced the truth of God.

38:50 In the parable of the sower, as given to us in Luke's gospel, the mark of the person who receives the word in good ground is this. And I read now from Luke 8 and verse 15, and it's the same word in the original, hold fast. But that on the good ground are they which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it. And that word keep it is they hold it fast.

39:16 And it's in the present tense. They are continually holding it fast. And they bring forth fruit with patience. My friend, if you are not engaged in this activity, you have no grounds to claim you've ever received the word into good soil.

39:31 For this is the mark of a good ground here. If you claim to be a true Christian, this is the mark. So if you're not doing it, you better get with it. If you want to have scriptural grounds of assurance.

39:45 Those that receive the word in the good heart are those who having heard it, they hold it fast. They receive it into the mind. They let it reach out its tentacles in the light. Henceforth, it says, they bring forth fruit.

39:58 There's evidence of its sanctifying, transforming power. And this is not in terms of six months or a year when they profess to be converted, but it says they do this with patience. That is, with continuance, with endurance. They bear fruit as the pattern of the life and of the conduct.

Why We Must Hold Fast: Evidence of Persevering in Grace

40:17 So that's the first reason why you must hold fast the truth because this alone is evidence of a saving embrace of the truth. Secondly, because this alone evidences that you're persevering in grace. God says of all his true children that they shall persevere, but he also says they must persevere. Certainty and necessity.

40:38 God puts the two together. Jesus said, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. It's certain. They're going to come, but they must come.

40:48 They're going to come, but they must come. It was decreed from eternity the Son of God should die. It was certain, but it was also necessary. He had to lay down his life.

40:58 You say, I don't understand that. I don't either, but there it is. It's certain that all of God's sheep shall persevere. I give to them eternal life.

41:07 They shall never perish. It's certain. But it's also necessary that they persevere. And how does a man persevere?

41:14 Among other things, he perseveres by holding fast to the truth. Chapter and verse. All right. 1 Corinthians 15.

41:21 He says, this is the gospel we preached unto you by which ye are saved. And then there's the if. If. If ye keep in memory what I've preached unto you unless you have believed in vain.

41:39 He said, if you held fast at one time and you don't continue to hold fast, and you don't continue to hold fast, but through the pressure of your own lust, the cares of this life, through the love of the world or these other things, you relinquish your grasp upon the truth, you're willing to throw off the demands of the gospel. He said, you've believed in vain. Your faith is a vain faith. It's not the faith of God's elect.

42:04 You find the same thing in Hebrews 3.6 and Hebrews 3.14. If we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.

Why We Must Hold Fast: Preservation for Future Generations

42:12 And then the third reason why we must and oh I trust you'll listen now every true child of God. This alone preserves the truth for our present and yet unborn generations.

42:26 How can we preserve truth in this assembly only as there are a people who prove all things and when they put things to the test and they're convinced that they understand the truth of God's word they hold it fast at any cost.

42:45 Do you love the souls of men enough to do what must be done to preserve truth in this place and to preserve it for your children and their children's children?

42:57 You see no church ever went from being a sound Bible believing Bible preaching church January 1969 to being a liberal synagogue of Satan January 1970. You know where it all started? When some people got lazy and came like guitars to be played upon.

43:20 They didn't want to think and they didn't want to think and they didn't want to grapple they didn't want to wrestle they didn't want to examine these things whether they be so. They didn't want to think. Much easier to watch the TV. Much easier to go home and just talk about other who wants to think?

43:34 You must think or you're spiritually irresponsible. Prove all things. That's work. Yes it is.

43:41 Hold fast. Oh that makes demands upon me. That business about thinking is bad enough but then those tentacles they're areas of my life I don't want the Lord to monkey with. In saying that you may be saying I'm willing to cooperate with the devil in allowing these walls someday to be the witness of heresy.

44:02 Oh may God help us to hold fast the truth not only as an evidence of our own interest in grace not only as an evidence of our own persevering in grace but for the preservation of his truth to present and unborn generations.

44:21 There's so many religious movements today that never would have got off the ground if people would prove all things and hold fast that which is good. And there are many movements that have paled into insignificance and into oblivion that would have been a vigorous force for truth if people had taken seriously the command prove all things hold fast to the good. If it means you've got to stand up in an assembly like this when someone in the name of the clergy in the name of truth departs from apostolic doctrine stand to your feet sweetly but say Sir! You've departed from the word of God.

44:57 And as a priest unto God I have access to him and the mandate from him to know his truth. How do you justify this in the light of the word? You've got that obligation whether the preacher's me or anybody else. May God deliver us from this irresponsible laziness that says alright I don't care if unborn generations have a place where pure gospel is preached I just want to have it nice and easy and be a guitar and have somebody play on me.

45:27 God deliver us from that. And give us such a love for himself and his truth that we'll be willing to pay the price of holding fast that which is good. The Lord willing next week we'll consider the negative abstain from every form of evil. May God help us to receive this his word and to embrace it in life and experience.

45:51 Let us pray.