Time and Spiritual Maturity

The Brevity of Life and the Urgency of Spiritual Matters

0:04 This sermon was preached by Pastor Albert N. Martin on Sunday morning, January 7th, 1990, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. This is the second sermon in a series entitled Meditations on the Passing of Time, and the title of this sermon is Time and Spiritual Maturity.

0:25 As I am sure that most, if not every one of you, is very conscious, it is that last Lord's Day, December 31st, was the final day of the calendar year 1989. And today, January 7th, is the first Lord's Day of this new calendar year, 1990. And these facts are forceful reminders to us that each one of us is a creature of time. And the Bible again and again reflects on this fact that we are creatures of time and summons us soberly to consider the great issues which this fact presses upon us. For example, in the fourth chapter of the Epistle of James, James says to his readers in verse 14, For what is your life? He wants them to consciously reflect on the brevity of life. He says, what is your life?

1:39 And then he answers his own rhetorical question in this way, It is a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. What he's saying, kids, it's like that white, billowy, smoke-like stuff that came out of the car in front of you on the way to church this morning. Vapor. Vapor coming out the exhaust pipe.

2:04 You saw it and then you didn't see it. It was there and then it was gone. James says, that's your life. A vapor that appears for a little time.

2:18 Oh yes, it does appear here on earth. You have a birthday, but we have a death day. It appears for a little time and then vanishes away. And in the light of the...

2:35 These realities and the biblical emphasis touching them, I chose to speak to you last Lord's Day and again today on the theme, some sober observations on the passing of time. And in our study last week, we had occasion to note that while many things happen automatically with the passing of time, there are some things which do not happen automatically, with the passing of time. And we illustrated the former by noting that the process of development from infancy to adulthood and from adulthood to the grave, these various processes all happen automatically. But the things that are essential to live now as we ought, to die in peace and to go to the day of judgment in triumph, not one. Not one. Not one.

3:36 Not one. One of those things happens automatically with the passing of time. In fact, given the reality of the extent and nature of human sinfulness and the reality of a vicious, real devil, the things that really count to make life what it ought to be now, to make it safe for us to die and go to judgment, not a one of those things happens automatically. In fact, unless they become the focal point of conscious concern and diligent and deliberate application of mind and heart, they will never occur. In our brief lifespan, it is like that puff of vapor coming out of the exhaust pipe that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. Now, last Lord's Day, we had time to touch only on the first of those three concerns that are on my heart. In seeking to set before you some sober observations with the passing of time,

Time Does Not Automatically Lead to Repentance and Faith

4:59 we considered last week that the passing of time does not, it does not, automatically, move us closer to repentance towards God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ. And we addressed that observation with four very simple but crucial questions. How important is the issue of coming to repentance and faith within our own little divinely appointed bracket of time? We saw from the Scriptures it's a matter of life and death, and we saw from the Scriptures it's a matter of life and death, and we saw from the Scriptures it's a matter of life and death, we either repent or we perish, we believe or we are damned.

5:44 Then we asked the second question, what have we been doing with respect to this issue? And I sought to demonstrate that if anyone is under the sound of the Gospel and yet has not repented and believed, there is going on in his mind this constant process of saying, well, yes, sometime, in some other more favorable sense, in certain circumstances, I will attend to the issues of repentance and faith. And so while there has been no settled, resolute determination to dismiss these things as unworthy of consideration or else you would not be here, there is the manana mentality tomorrow, the next day, of seeing my vapor disappear, seeing the day of my death come, having my name etched on a tombstone as one who died impenitent and unbelieving and sinks into hell. I have no such intention of coming to that end. I just want to delay the issues connected with coming to repentance and faith. Then we addressed the third question, how important is it?

7:02 What have you been doing with this issue? What is God's interpretation of what has really been going on? And we saw from the Scriptures, rather than being closer to repentance and faith, God says that every time you hear the Gospel and you hear the marvelous news of God's salvation in Christ and the gracious overtures inviting you to Christ and graciously commanding you to repent and believe, and yet you do not comply with those overtures and embrace those commands, that you are hardening your heart, you are treasuring uprightly, you are resisting the path, you are resisting the Spirit, and you are tempting God. And I proved every one of those from the Scriptures.

7:47 And then we concluded by considering the fourth question, what ought you to do about this matter? And the answer of Scripture is clear. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near.

Time Does Not Automatically Lead to Spiritual Maturity

8:04 The answer of Scripture is today is the day of salvation. And I trust that even this week, some of you laid to heart that word, and you sit here this morning no longer indifferent, no longer impenitent and unbelieving, but as one who has embraced the Lord Jesus Christ as your own Savior and Lord, having turned from your sin and unto God through him. Now I wish to take up these two remaining very simple but vital concerns under this heading of sober observations on the passing of time. As certainly as the passing of time does not automatically bring us closer to repentance and faith, we may assert with equal conviction that the passing of time does not automatically make us more mature in Christ. The passing of time does not automatically make us more mature in Christ. Obviously now I am speaking to those who by the grace of God have come to initial repentance and faith. You have passed out of darkness into light.

9:31 You have been born and entered the kingdom of God. You have been united to Christ. And in the language of Scripture, in Christ, you have become a new creation. You have put off man and have put on the new.

9:51 That you soberly reflect with me upon this reality that the passing of time does not automatically make us, though we are in Christ, it does not automatically make us more mature in Christ. Now as with the first observation, let's take this statement and pry it open with several questions. Once again we ask the question, how important is this issue of becoming mature in Christ? If I am a child of God, saved by the grace of God, how important to me should this issue of coming to greater maturity with the passing of each day, how important should that be to me? Well, once again we are driven by the Scriptures to see that this matter of those who are in Christ becoming mature in Christ is not a secondary issue in the word of God. For example, we are commanded in 2 Peter 3 and verse 18 to groan in grace

11:15 and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. There is a divine mandate for us to be continually growing in grace in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For me to pass wonder and not to grow in grace is to be guilty of sin. Now does that shock you?

11:47 Well, it shouldn't. If it is the will of God for me to continually grow in grace to be guilty of sin, I am disobeying the revealed, revealed will of God. Furthermore, the Bible makes it plain that I am marked out to be like Christ. Romans 8, 29.

12:17 Whom He did foreknow, He did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son. It is God's eternal purpose in Christ that I should be made more and more into the moral likeness of His Son as a child of God. And in keeping with that purpose we read in 1 Peter 2, 21 such words as these. He has left us an example that we should follow.

12:46 John 2, 6. He that saith he abideth in Him ought, word of duty, ought himself to walk. He walked. Come, Mormont.

13:07 We are commanded to grow in grace. We are marked out to be like Christ and we are told to follow His steps to be like Him. Furthermore, Scripture says we are placed in the church in order to grow. Ephesians chapter 4 in that marvelous chapter dealing with the church in its identity as the body of Christ.

13:38 Paul says that the ascended Christ has given a diversity of gifts to His church. To what end? Well, we are told very clearly in verse 14 and following that we may be no longer children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, but speaking the truth, we may say that the ultimate overarching concern of God in placing us into the fellowship of His church is that we might, by the dynamics of grace within the church, grow. If we are not growing in grace, we are frustrating the very purpose for which God has placed us. He has placed us in His church. And furthermore, God has given us time to increase Christlike virtues.

14:49 2 Peter 1, 3 and following, the word of God here clearly teaches us that God has given us time and one of the major purposes for which He has given us time is to increase the stock of Christlike graces. Seeing His divine power has granted unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of Him that called us by His own glory and virtue, whereby He has granted unto us precious and exceeding great promises that through these you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world by lust. Yea, and for this very cause for part all diligence in your faith supply virtue and in your virtue knowledge and in your knowledge self-control and in your self-control patience, etc. You see, He is saying God gives us that we might increase Christlike virtues and He's given all that is necessary for those virtues to be increased. Well, we could go on giving other lines of evidence but surely these four are enough to convince your judgment if you're a Christian that the issue of becoming mature in Christ

How One Becomes Mature in Christ

16:15 is not a secondary issue. It is a matter of deep concern to God and ought to be to us. Well, question number two. If it is the will of God that we become mature in Christ, does one attain to that maturity in Christ?

16:37 Well, in one sense that could be a series of 30, 40 messages. But to distill the teaching of the Bible into its bare essential categories, the answer of Scripture is we become mature in Christ by a diligent prayer of all means of grace public and private. Those means of grace are the meat and the potatoes, the air and the water of the development of spiritual life. And as there is no one who will come to his proper physical maturity without nourishing food and good air and a modicum of health giving exercise, so likewise, the person who does not avail himself of all the means of grace public and private, he will not come to his maturity in Jesus Christ. That's why God describes the blessed man in terms of the one who meditates upon the law of God day and night. Or in the language of Peter as newborn babes, crave the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. In the language of Hebrews 10, forsake not the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is.

18:01 We must be prayerfully diligent in the use of all the public and private means of grace, but then we become mature in Christ by keeping a good conscience before Almighty God. Acts 24, 16, herein do I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offense to God and man. That means we are not knowingly, deliberately clinging to sin committed, but which we refuse to confess. Wrongs done that we will not make right.

18:36 It doesn't matter how much we use the means of grace if we allow the poison of a defiled conscience to work through our system. It would be like a man having a healthy diet prescribed by someone with his Ph.D. in nutrition and having eaten the food for the day prescribed by the Ph.D. in nutrition than to sit down and have a half an ounce of arsenic, or to drink a half a glass of polluted water, or to eat rancid food as his dessert. You see the taking in of the other will negate all potential for good of the former. And a man, a woman, a boy or girl can be using all the public and private means of grace to neutralize all of their influence. For he that covers his sin shall not prosper.

19:40 He that covers his sin shall not prosper. He that covers his sin shall not prosper. If I regard iniquity in my heart, Psalm 66, 18, the Lord will receive not because you ask amiss. You see it is not enough that we are using the means of grace, but they must be exercised in the context of a good conscience to God.

20:16 And thirdly, we must not only be diligent in the use of the means of grace, be diligent in the keeping of a good conscience, but be diligent to abide in Christ. John 15, to derive all of our strength from Him, all the virtue, all that comes sin to perform our duty. He said our relationship to Him is not a mechanical or an intellectual relationship alone, though it does encompass and bring within its orbit all of the powers of the intellect. He says it is an organic living relationship as that which exists between the branch and the vine.

20:59 A common life flows through them. And he says severed from me, you can do nothing. And I, and that is to be in the way of fruitfulness, to use the term I am using in the way of Christian maturity. That is the language of Colossians 2, 6 and following.

The Reality of Arrested Spiritual Growth (Hebrews 5)

21:24 As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him. Maturity is described of union with Christ. Now entering the calendar year 1989, if you are a child of God, unless the turn of the year found you in a horribly backslidden state, you had every intention of becoming more mature in Christ throughout the past year, did you not? You had every intention that if God spared you and human history extended throughout 1989, that December 31st would find you more like Christ than January 1, 1989. It was your full intention that you would have a greater knowledge of the Lord Jesus at the end of the year than at the beginning. That Christ-like graces would be richer and fuller and more evident at the end of the year than at the first. That in the context of the fellowship of the church, you would grow substantially and really before God and evidently before your brethren.

22:51 You had every intention of taking the exceeding great and precious promises, believing that in them is the divine deposit of His will that you should cultivate all Christ-like graces that Peter writes about. That you would add to virtue more knowledge and to knowledge these other graces. It was every intention of your heart. But alas, you came to the end of 1989 and sit here this morning on the threshold of 1990.

23:26 And what is your real state? Well, my concern is that we recognize that the passing of time does not automatically make us more mature in Christ. Nor will the passing of time with mere good intentions make us more mature in Christ. And I want you to look at a passage that clearly teaches this truth.

23:54 That it does not merely rest on a general observation of the general teaching of the word which it indeed does. But if you turn to Hebrews 5 you will find the teaching even the word time used in the text. The writer to the Hebrews says that he has many things that he would like to say concerning Melchizedek that strange Old Testament creature who was a type of Christ and he said it in essence I have a whole rich cupboard of truth that I would love to open up and out of that cupboard to take these delicious things and set them upon the table for you to feed upon to the end that you might become more mature in Christ. But he had a problem. Verse 11, Hebrews 5, 11 Of whom we have many things to say and hard of interpretation Why? For dull of hearing For, now look at the next phrase When by and for you Greek students you've got the preposition diah with the accusative form of the word time

25:18 For when when to be one that would enable as to give credibility to your words your mind as to give substance for when the time that you ought to be you have need that someone teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God and are become such as have need of milk and not a solid food Now take these two little phrases

26:45 For the time to be you are given the time not to be but you are Why? Because the passing of time does not radically result in maturity in Christ I rest my case on that text If being surrounded He never could have written a passage like this But he did write it And here was a problem of arrested growth Here was a problem of people who had not reached the level that it was realistically He was not expecting people to take a leap from infancy to full spiritual manhood in womanhood in three months

28:09 No, he is allowing adequate time for the acquisition of a truth here and a truth there and a perspective here and a deeper understanding there But he said on account of the reality you are and what he tells them they are is that they are still babes not in the proper sense that Peter speaks of it as newborn babes but they are babes as the result of arrested growth One of the most tragic realities in the physical world to see a five year old infant still in arms There is something grotesque and grievous How must the Heavenly Father feel when he looks at the host of his five year olds that are still babes in arms when they ought to be walking on their own when they ought to be learning to read when they ought to be able to take younger brother and sister and teach them the alphabet and they still have to be diapered and bottle fed and at times

How Arrested Growth Sets In

29:37 there is room to see if they even have any vital sign What must God feel when he has surrounded his children with all of the means for their maturation and yet the time they ought to be they are Now question number three How does a thing like this happen Question one How important is the issue We have seen how important is the issue of maturity in Christ We have asked the question How does one become mature in Christ and we have sought to answer that but to show that it doesn't automatically happen Now how then does this process of arrested growth set in You didn't start the last year You didn't start this year You didn't start 88 or 87 or 86 with the intention that this would be true of you when the time you ought to be you are Well something like this happens maybe it was the first Lord's day of 1989 maybe the second maybe the fourth maybe the seventh

31:04 but under the preaching of the word in your private reading of the word in family devotions in your interaction with a brother or sister in just an ordinary conversation in maybe a more formal reproof or rebuke or exhortation You see I am describing the public and private in Christ one of these divinely constructed conduits into the soul of a believer by which God supplies him life and health and spiritual vigor and all of the vitamins and minerals essential to solid growth of spiritual bone and sinuant muscle so that what we have is not the growth and the maturity of the balloons that are blown up prior to Macy's parade they have all air and no substance one stick of a knife and you find out there is no substance so we are not talking about just the semblance of growth but real spiritual growth made of real spiritual bone and sinu and muscle and divinely created tissue by all of those elements of which God constructs that maturity in Christ What happened? Well along one of those lines God by the Spirit may be touched an issue of your priorities and in the preaching in the reading of the word at home

32:32 alone in the family interaction with a brother a testimony God has all of these means but at one point by one of those means you know what God did? From the fact that you were not going to make progress in grace until you began to take seriously Matthew 6.33 Seek ye firm kingdom of righteousness and all things will be added unto you and you went through a wrestling because you said well if I reorder my priorities and I begin to structure my time so that my time alone with God is not the exception but the rule in my life that family worship is not the exception once a week but the rule when keeping a good conscience and respect to my TV is not the exception but the rule somewhere along the line priorities God put his finger on an issue you did not immediately say thank you Lord and do whatever you had to do to readjust your priorities but you said Lord when it's more convenient you tabled the issue then the issue wouldn't go away and every time you prepared for communion and any time the preaching got close to the bone that issue loomed before you so you had to do one of two things either had to deal with it or you had to

34:00 find a way to try to get rid of it so you know what you began to do you began to rationalize and say you know I just had an over scrupulous conscience when that sermon was preached two months ago that wasn't God speaking to me that was the preacher playing God that was the preacher going beyond the scriptures that really wasn't the conviction of the Holy Spirit and so you tried to do a head job on yourself say it wasn't God but lo and behold you found in your own devotions the issue came up and you said well it was just the wrong time of the month I was emotionally vulnerable or things were rough at work and I see what you're doing you're trying to convince yourself that God really didn't pinch that nerve and point to that sore spot and from that point on though you've been using the means of grace you've been surrounded by the means of grace you've not grown in grace why? you've got a controversy with God he that covers his sin shall not prosper

35:17 while precious to you could not testify that they see more of Christ in you hear more of Christ in your lips and see it validated by your life the issue of triumph was set before you and you haven't dealt with it or maybe it was a relationship that you knew was not right an idolatrous relationship to a son or daughter an idolatrous relationship to husband or wife an idolatrous relationship with a man or woman of the opposite sex an idolatrous relationship

36:31 to some thing any time an idolatrous relationship on the screen of your mind and you've spent the whole year trying to rationalize no there's nothing wrong with that but you see the living proof that you're rationalizing is you've not prospered you've not become mature in Christ and you will not become mature in Christ as long as that issue is undealt with your spiritual senses become dull it's a kind of defense mechanism you can only stand spiritual pain for so long before you start putting on a flak jacket you can't stand getting shot at so long and you say I can't take it anymore rather than asking God to extricate the bullets by repentance and faith you come to church some of you clad with a spiritual flak jacket and some of us can shoot thirty-six magnum load hollow pointed bullets right at your heart

37:59 and all they do is flatten on your flak jacket and that scares the liver out of me because when you can sit with a flak jacket under close applicatory loving intimate pastoral preaching and not grow in grace you're in a dangerous place you may be on the beginnings of that slippery slide into apostasy so what's happened instead of growing in grace your spiritual senses have dulled your spiritual appetite has shriveled your enthusiasm has waned that is a headache like a third cousin twice removed on a Sunday morning so you can have an ostensible excuse to not be present with God's people on Sunday night and Wednesday what are all these things they're the indication of a sick spiritual constitution the senses dull and then the rationalization is set in as a pattern of life and then disaffection to God's people

39:26 and his servants of the slightest little defects in your brethren and in your spiritual leaders that's where you are this morning you say pastor I didn't come to you and describe myself no but God knows you and I've just taken the description out of the bible and time is that way how to become mature in Christ on account of the time that you ought to be teachers still a babe needs to have your diapers changed

The Results of Failure to Grow in Grace

40:32 and your burps wiped off your chin and off your elder's shoulders you're still stinking up shirts spitting up on your elder's shoulder when you ought to be preparing food and feeding others the time why because the passing of time does not automatically result in spiritual maturity question four what is the result in your life today we've described how this process takes place well the result is that unruly spirit that marked you a year ago marks you just as much today you've gained no progress in governing your spirit the scripture says he that rules not his own spirit is like a city and its walls broken down the fruit of the than you did a year ago that's the indication you've not grown in grace and in likeness to the Lord Jesus your tongue

42:01 is just as unbridled today as it was the first Lord's day of 1989 it is easy for you to speak sharp sarcastic cutting words now as it was a year ago in fact you've got a year's experience you're a little better at it your credibility with those who really know you is less today than it was a year ago because they've seen you come to church dealing from the clouds public worship and preaching making the soil of your heart to fructify and give forth the fruit of more gentleness more tenderness more forgiveness more willingness to overlook faults they don't see tangible evidence of growth

43:13 if you have the courage to ask your credibility with your kids is no greater they're less likely to just overlook those inconsistencies the unruly spirit the ungoverned tongue still ungoverned the vulnerability to God the false gossip and false reports why is that? in this assembly over the years I've seen a pattern I could chart it you always have about a dozen people who are like gossip vacuum cleaners any gossip in the church just seems to be sucked in their direction it's amazing they generally don't ply their trade with anybody and everybody they hear the whirr and feel the shhh of the vacuum cleaner ears yes they do that he hears the shhh still a vacuum cleaner for gossip why?

44:36 why? the scripture says it's an evil mouth to an evil report not only is it evil to give a false report it's evil to listen to it your lack of credibility all those pounds you said were going to come off that were the fruit of your self indulgence and lack of self control they're still there you've just had another year to figure out excuses they don't lie they're still there and I'll tell you something they didn't get on there nor were they sustained by breathing air no air anywhere what puts on pounds it's the holiday season it's my birthday time some of you on the other end of the spectrum you've been caught up in the thinness idolatry and by degrees you're destroying your body you said oh yes I'm going to put on some pounds you are still starving yourself and destroying that temple of the Holy Ghost that God has made but you see the fundamental bottom line is

46:04 you haven't dealt with the issue growth in grace would mean for some of you regular principle keeping of them all the fruit of the spirit is self control the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty the same thing is true with some of you on the other end of the spectrum your preoccupation and excessive watching of the TV your desires to make an impression to have things one up and ship with your peers the list is infinite but I hope I've said enough so that you get the picture what is the result of failure to grow in grace in spite of the time and the means available those sins that marked you on the threshold of 89 are still as dominant if not more in your life on the threshold of 1990 and those graces that were absent are still absent and those that were just beginning to emerge some who are closest to you have waited and longed to see that little nubby hard fruit grow and become full and lush

What Must You Do? Remember, Repent, Do

47:32 in the monument of God's grace for herein is my Father glorified that you bear much fruit said Jesus well if I'm describing you and you are convinced if no one else is that God sent this word for you that you might face the fact that the passing of time does not automatically make us more mature in Christ my final question under this heading is this what must you do what must you do you sit here this morning and say pastor I don't know what God intended for anyone else but one thing I know constrained in it I'm fearful that those sitting around see the blush on my cheek and the red up the back of my neck preach the very same sermon next Lord's day first Lord's day of 1991

48:55 I would be able to say and have it validated not only in my conscience but by my wife and my kids and those who know me best though I have not grown all I wanted to grow and though I have not grown the grace of God's grace has seen the cultivation of the virtues of Christ to a new degree God's grace I now have the boot of his triumph on the neck of my sin is that what you want you say with all my heart what must I do well let me give you some biblical directives and I can see this is all I'm going to get to this morning but dear people I'm not concerned to just get through my notes

50:14 to a church that not only had they failed to grow in grace in the most fundamental of all graces that which is to use the imagery of a watch that which is the main spring of the watch the imagery of the car that which is the engine of the car that drives the wheels the grace of love to his own person I'm referring of course to Revelation chapter 2 Jesus speaks to this church and commends them for all that his grace has worked in them to give them the fruit of real maturity in Christ they had discernment they could tell truth from evil they didn't have a big ecclesiastical orgy in which they thought everyone that holds a bible and is sweet and nice is for real they had discernment they had ecclesiastical trials and they exposed evil men and they were patient they were bearing much they were perhaps even suffering for Christ and they were bearing up under it therefore I have this against you you did leave your first love rather than maturing in their love to Christ they had regressed

51:39 you've abandoned your first love the love you had at the first in its single eyed simplicity when having it were just been dug out of the quarry of then humanity and brought up the cleansing of my own and the quickening of my spirit you had a heart loved me and that's why you did you loved me and that's why you did not do what you did not do it was love to me burning pure unrivaled that was the main spring and driving motive of your life but you've left that now what does he tell them to do look at verse 5 he tells them to do three things remember remember from whence you are fallen he tells them three things remember repent and do number one is he's saying face reality you see the denial mechanism of a Christian who doesn't grow in grace is his biggest enemy and that denial mechanism in some of you it's almost as though I could hear the wheels whirring this morning oh the denial mechanism we set up

53:08 it's more clever than one of those Rube Goldberg things you've seen them haven't you where you drop a penny at the one end of it and it rolls down and trips this and then another thing and out the other end five different little contraptions something happens on this end that's the way the denial mechanism is Jesus knew that and he said to these people remember face reality remember and what were they to remember remember from whence you are reality infallibility you have left it now you remain until in the deep there is an echo of acknowledgement that my assessment is according to truth face reality remember from whence you have fallen that's the biggest problem with some of you is facing reality but that's what you've got to do that means you've got to go home today and get down before God and say oh I need to remember I need to remember I see my brethren Lord it's true pastor describe me I now can't wait to find the semblance

54:36 of an excuse to miss a meeting my friend if that's reality face it there's hope for you when Jesus said remember he wasn't cutting them off he was drawing them back he says face reality remember and then when you're facing reality then he says repent what's that that's having a change of mind and disposition and attitude and all that it brings with it with respect to those things that have been causing arrested growth repent turn from them turn from them and empower and then he says what for a baptism of the Holy Ghost no he says then do the first works and there's nothing in between he doesn't tell them to seek a deeper experience he doesn't tell them to seek something more as part of the new covenant community they have been endowed with all that they need to be what he requires them to be he doesn't tell them pray for a fresh baptism of the spirit he doesn't tell them pray for something you've never had before claim some experience you've never known before

55:55 he says remember what kind of repentance the Bible knows anything about at the beginning and all along in the Christian life God on his throne and Jesus on his cross remember repent and then do do what you must do to alter the course that's held you locked in the condition that you're in this morning for some of you it may mean you've got to unplug the TV and put the thing away come every time a massive TV watching is mentioned and have a bloody conscience it's not necessary for your life there's plenty of normal healthy people living to never spend a minute in front of the TV it's this mad crazy generation that feeds at that thing and increases its moral madness if you've got to sit down with your family today don't do it tomorrow let the food get cold nobody's starving put the baby down if you need to and say kids I'm tired of putting off to another time some of the things pastor said this morning

57:24 described me and I I don't want to be a piece with his temper but I don't want any growth in me well honestly dad let your kids be a mini judgment day and I'm not asking you to do something I have not personally done and I've got a wife and kids here who could rise up and call me a liar if it were not so ask your wife then when the kids go off to their room say honey don't be a sapphire and lie to the Holy Ghost I solemnly charge you to speak to me with judgment day honesty have you seen any growth in me are you living with a husband that's more like Christ now than he was in the first day of 1989 if so where if not where remember get in touch with reality there's some of you unless you're the most clever hypocrites in the world

58:49 your growth is so evident to us as your pastors and that's biblical to commend people I have no greater joy John says than to know that my children walk in the truth that was read to us this morning the epistle to Philemon you notice how Paul could say I have confidence you're going to do what I tell you that's not wrong and there's some of you we've seen your growth before our very eyes growth in openness growth in spiritual sensitivity and transparency growth in consistency in the public means of grace but there's some of you if someone held a pistol to my head and said give me a judgment day honest answer has so and so grown I'd have to say only God knows there are others I'd have to say well if so it's the funniest kind of growth I've ever seen it's the growth of a man six feet two hundred pounds who's now five six and a hundred and three pounds oh he's still a man he's still breathing but he's only half the size he was a year ago remember face reality that's what we're talking about then repent have dealings with God on his throne and God upon his cross and there sing in forgiveness and then see that same crucified Christ upon his throne as the dispenser of the spirit and plead with him

60:15 for grace and strength and power to do what you ought to do remember repent do another set of biblical injunctions would be to tie together Psalm 139 verses 23 and 24 search me O God and know my see if there be any wicked way in me to the depths said Psalms 340 same words same Hebrew words let us search and try out then a общем accedente my If it goes into gossip, then in edifying conversation, let us search and try.

61:39 And then coupled with that, Psalm 119, 57 and 50 through 59. I thought on my ways, and I turned my feet unto thy statutes. I made haste to keep thy commandments. Three passages together.

61:59 Search me, O God. Then I searched my...

62:03 And then where I see discrepancy between my ways and the word of God, I make haste and delay not in dependence upon Christ to bring my feet into the way of God.

62:20 Now that's no simple little formula.

62:24 But my friend, I don't know of any other way taught in the Bible.

62:30 And that's going to take time. And for some of you, it may be as though you were being stripped naked and stood out in the middle of Bloomfield Avenue. Or...

62:42 Or Route 46. You have so conveniently huddled beneath layer after layer of self-deception and clever deception of your brethren, the thought of being absolutely honest is frightening to me. But my friend, may I say it's the most safe and comfortable place in all the world. Because until you're naked, he can't clothe you.

63:14 Until you're naked, he can't clothe you. But clothed in his righteousness, clothed in that fresh...

63:21 Fresh washing of his blood. What a place of rest and peace and safety and confidence.

Concluding Exhortation and Prayer

63:31 The passing of time does not automatically make us more mature in Christ.

63:41 I've said what's on my heart. The other thing may wait for another New Year's sermon.

63:47 But now where will you be at the end of this year if the Lord spares you?

63:53 May God grant that we shall take his word to heart and do what we must do. Let us pray.

64:08 Our Father, how we thank you for the scriptures, your living, infallible word. And while we are grieved to read such words as we've read this morning, that there were some under the very shadow of apostolic ministry of whom it had to be said that the time they ought to be, they were. And, O Lord, we thank you that you've not veiled this reality. We thank you that you...

64:38 We thank you that you... We thank you that you've infallibly placed it in your own book and set it before us for our profit.

64:46 And we earnestly plead with you, Lord, what else can we do but cry to you that there will be much heart dealings with you this morning. O Lord, for those who could testify that by your grace they have grown in maturity in the past year, may that rate of growth be greatly increased in the years to come. For we know that spiritual maturation is not locked to time, that there are some among us in a state of grace only a few years who are old men and women in grace, while sadly, Lord, others who've been years in grace who are still in their diapers and in their cradles. Will you not be gracious? Will you not, in mercy, deal with each one of us out of your perfect knowledge of where we really are? Lord, seal then your word to our hearts, we pray. And may your blessing rest upon us as we leave this place.

65:47 We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.