Holiness: Its Necessity

Introduction: The Weight of Responsibility and Principles of Selection

0:05 Surely if any of these things are true, it's because God delights to magnify his grace to unworthy sinners.

0:18 And seldom do I feel more the wonder of God's grace than when it's my privilege to stand and address others in his name, and particularly on occasions such as this occasion, when the awesome responsibility of addressing those who, for the most part, will stand as the instruments of Christ to feed his sheep, to call his own to himself. The tremendous weight of this responsibility does not lessen with the additional and increased opportunities to bear that weight for his namesake, but the sense of awe only increases, and I trust, as I look to him for help, and can say I hope in some degree that my expectation is from him, that that too is the language of your heart. I have been asked to address you, as you have already been apprised through the notices and the previous intimations of Dr. Akin, on the subject of holiness or sanctification, and the announced subject for this conference, the first hour, is the necessity of holiness. Now, it should be obvious to all of us who have any acquaintance with the biblical materials

1:38 that this is too vast a subject to handle in any comprehensive way in one message, let alone in a dozen messages. It would be impossible for me to cover the whole spectrum of biblical materials which, I underscore, the necessity and the importance of gospel holiness. Furthermore, the subject is too complex in order to be exhaustive. It would be impossible to trace any single dimension of the doctrine of gospel holiness to its many ramifications in so short a time.

2:21 And so, of necessity, I've been selective. And in all of the messages, that selectivity will be evidenced. And I think I owe it to you to explain what principles have regulated my selector. In seeking to zero in on certain aspects of this truth, what has pressured my own thinking?

2:45 Well, basically three things. First of all, your own immediate edification. It is my prayer, as I understand the burden of the committee which corresponded to this, that God would use these days for our mutual spiritual profit in the immediate context in which we find ourselves. And so I have tried to select those aspects of this doctrine that would address themselves to our immediate circumstances.

3:17 But then the second principle has been operative in my manner of selection, and that is the realization that many of you, who will have the awesome responsibility of molding the thinking of entire congregations with regard to this vital subject. And perhaps there are few subjects in the entire spectrum of the teaching of the Word of God concerning which mistakes are more fatal and destructive to vital godliness than this subject. A man may have erroneous views, A man may have erroneous views, concerning the Second Advent, and not be materially influenced in the safety of his own soul. If you propagate defective views concerning gospel holiness, you may cooperate with the devil in the damnation of men and women who sit under your charge. And it's in something of the pressure of that realization that I've been selective in the materials, trusting that broad biblical concepts, trusting that broad biblical concepts, will be implanted in our hearts by the work of the Spirit through the Word,

4:38 so that when you men stand in that awesome place of being shepherds of the flock of God, you will be able to impart vigorous biblical view of gospel holiness. And then the third element that has been operative in my selection of materials is that I recognize there is a more popular audience here. We have wives of students, we have apparently visitors from the community, and I want to address myself to those aspects of truth that will be on your level, use as little technical terminology as possible, so that there will be that blessing of general edification according to the mandate of 1 Corinthians 14. Well, so much for that introduction. As to why, I have chosen the materials in the manner in which I have chosen them. Now consider with me in this first hour the necessity gospel holiness.

The Necessity of Holiness in Relation to the Human Predicament

5:45 Consider this subject with me as time permits along four lines. If I can only flesh out two of them, I'll give you the headings and you can work them out on your own. First of all, then consider the necessity of gospel holiness in relationship to the human predicament. The necessity of gospel holiness in relationship to the human predicament.

6:11 The words regeneration, justification, sanctification, glorification, propitiation, reconciliation, these are not fifty-cent words invented by theologians who had to have some coinage with which to carry on the commerce of systematizing and of teaching others. These are the very God the Holy Spirit has chosen to us, something of human predicament brought about by sin. And there is no expressing a provision of grace that is not a dimension of God's answer to some facet of the human predicament in terms of sin. And so when we come to the term holiness or its equivalent, sanctification, we are immediately confronting a term in scripture which is part of the human predicament. In other words, sanctification is a remedial grace. For the fall did not need to be reconciled, he did not need to be redeemed,

7:38 nor did he need to be regenerated, and he did not need to be sanctified in the sense that this term is used in the scriptures. Remedy is perfectly suited to the totality of man's malady. And if we try to reduce the total witness of scripture concerning man's malady to its irreducible minimum, what do we have? Well, we have a situation in which man's problems are basically two.

8:14 He has legal problems and he has personal or practical problems. He has problems with respect to his religion. He has problems with respect to his relationship to the court of heaven. And he has problems with respect and in relationship to his own heart and to his own life.

Illustration: The Drunk Driver's Two Problems

8:33 Let me illustrate. Man is invited to an act for which he is responsible, and he gets himself smashing drunk. Then he has the audacity to get behind his car and stick his key in the ignition, and he has enough coordination to get it in there after a while. And he turns on his car, puts it in gear, and he drives off.

8:56 Well, in his drunken stupor, he drives a curve and smacks into a telephone pole, and he severs the pole. And as he hits the pole, he bounces forward and his head hits the front of the steering wheel and then bounces over and breaks the glass on the windshield. And then he slumps over, unconscious, in his drunken stupor. Now, when the police come, they begin to sort out this situation.

9:28 And as they do, they do so in terms of this man's two categories of problems. Category number one is his head is bleeding. He's unconscious. He probably has some crushed ribs.

9:43 He has a multitude of immediate personal problems. And so they call for the rescue squad to take him to the emergency room and to sort out his personal, immediate, and practical problems. But he's also got some other problems. And it isn't long before he'll become very conscious of those as he is issued a summons or several summons because he has been driving under the influence, he has destroyed public property, and has committed a number of other misdemeanors.

10:16 Now, you see, his problems are basically in two categories. Those which have to do with the civil authorities, the municipal or the county court, and those which have to do with the laceration on his head, the possibility of broken ribs, and internal injuries. Now, if the man is to be completely restored to normalcy in society, he must have both categories of problem resolved. And it's precisely that way with regard to man in his predicament of sin.

10:57 Sin has relationships to exist between man, the creature, and God, the judge of the universe. And in his capacity as judge, God is concerned with everything that man, the creature, does. And every violation of his holy law provokes in God a just and holy anger towards the sin and the sinner. And the great judgment of the last day will be, the visible monument to the entire universe, that God, with what a man does in the privacy of his bedroom, when all the dirt shall be cast into the lake of fire, that God, when a man willfully and wantonly takes another human life, whether in the conditions of the operating room, in a clinical abort, whether he takes the shotgun and blows his brains out and leaves them spattered on the wall beyond him, for all murderers shall have their part in the lake of fire. And the judgment of the last day is the monument that God is indeed, as the moral word of the universe,

12:24 concerned with man's legal relationship to him. And in his infinite grace in the person of his own dear Son, the provisions of justification, reconciliation, and adoption are God's provision, answering to these dimensions of man's sin in the legal realm. But God's not concerned simply to get the drunk out of court and acquitted. He's concerned with the gash on the forehead and the broken ribs and the internal injuries.

13:02 For sin has destroyed, and God is concerned with nothing of that image in remedial grace. Now, there is no basis upon which, he can enter into intimate dealings with man to suture up the stitches and to correct the broken ribs and to operate upon the internal injuries until the legal dimensions are dealt with. And so, in that sense, justification is, to this day, the note of a standing or a falling church. And it is on the basis of all that he's done in Christ to rectify our relationship to him, as judge, that he then performs that internal work and that gracious work of restoring us to his image. ... is biblical or complete,

14:08 that God views salvation as encompassing the entirety of human sin. Now, when we understand that, we see something of the tremendous importance of the doctrine of gospel holiness, of biblical sanctification. For that doctrine encompasses all that God does in us to restore, we say briefly, ... vocation, if you sit here today.

14:50 And you have a view of ... ... in which the legal dimensions, justification, reconciliation, and adoption are not only central and fundamental, but of which they ... The centrality and importance of gospel holiness, you have a distorted and an unbiblical view of God's remedial grace.

15:19 ... justification, reconciliation, and adoption, but it's not equally clear.

Holiness in the Divine Plan: God's Eternal Purpose

15:50 On the matter of gospel holiness, there will be a quality of religious life emerging in your congregation that will not match the quality of religious life reflected in the Bible. Now, do you see then the tremendous importance of this subject, first of all, in terms of the human predicament? But then, secondly, consider the importance, and now we'll begin to grapple with some of the great texts of Scripture, the importance of gospel holiness in terms of the divine plan of salvation. ... and attempt to understand something of the mind and purpose of God with respect to the salvation of sinners. We ask the question, Lord, how may we trace, the purposes and plans to save a people? God answers us in such texts as Ephesians 1, verses 4 and 5. In this language, Paul, as the theologian, has become Paul the eulogizer.

16:59 He teaches theology by eulogy in Ephesians 1. And all of these great doctrines are part of a three. It's the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost for His great salvation. And as he begins that eulogy, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

17:27 He now traces that salvation back as far as God allows Him to trace it, even as He chose in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blemish before Him, in love, and predestinated us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will. Here we see the importance of gospel holiness or biblical sanctification in the divine plan of salvation as it touches the original purpose of God. We were chosen in Christ and coordinate with that choice, were predestined unto sonship. What's central in the mind and purpose of God? Well, the text is the answer in this language. Language.

18:32 He chose us that we should be holy and without blemish before Him. In their next state, and for you theologues, I've committed myself on the intrasupra controversy, and I do so without shame or embarrassment. He chose not because repentance and faith patiently led us to the ground language of this text. He did not choose us because He thought we would be holy, but He chose us in Him and without blemish before Him. And in that coordinated purpose that has to do with adoption, though adoption itself must be understood in terms of a legal and forensic transaction, it is never a part, subsequent, impartation of the spirit of adoption

19:54 and the impress of the family likeness upon the adopted. And so the same apostle can say in a parallel passage, Romans chapter 8 and verse 29, For whom He foreknew, He also foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son. He not only led us unto sonship, He foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He, Christ, might be the firstborn among many brethren. And so as God graciously allows us to peek, as it were, into the secrets of His own eternal counsel, the motions of His own infinite and eternal love to sinners, what is so in those first motions of eternal love to sinners? Holiness! He never purposed a salvation for elect sinners, but a salvation that had holiness at its center. Now then, we move on to the actual purchase of that salvation.

Holiness in the Divine Plan: Christ's Purchase of Salvation

21:12 Where is holiness? Where is sanctification in all of that? Well, consider several pivotal texts with me. First of all, Ephesians chapter 5, in that section in which the apostle is charging husbands with respect to their duties to their wives.

21:34 And the great duty, of course, is to love them, and then he gives something of the measure and the quality of that love. ...sins love your wives, verse 25, even as Christ also loved the church and gave up for it, and bound up in that language is all the agony and the travail of Gethsemane, that horrible, indescribable inundation of all the billows of divine wrath upon Golgotha, gave himself up for it. And what was his heart's design in all of this? That he might sanctify it, having cleansed it with the washing of water with the word,

22:24 that he might present the church to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. Of that, he had something more in mind than merely rectifying and adjusting all of the claims of divine justice against sinners. He was concerned with something more than his mind against those on whose...

23:04 This text informs us that he gave himself with a view to its sanctification and its ultimate perfection and presentation to himself. Central is this matter of holiness. Central is this matter of biblical...

23:31 ...scientification.

23:33 It is as fundamental as the doctrine... It is as fundamental...

23:44 What is the heart of the gospel? Christ Jesus and him crucified. The same emphasis comes through very clearly in the language of the apostle when he writes to Titus. And having had to prepare some lectures and messages on Titus for a recent ministry in Australia, I was struck as never before with the fact that two of the greatest, soteriological statements in all in this very practical epistle full of guidance for practical godliness, and it's in that very context that we have the statement of chapter 3 concerning the work of the Spirit in our salvation resulting in our washing and our cleansing, and right on the heels of enjoining slaves to be obedient and honest to their masters in chapter 2, he says. Here's the rationale behind all of this detailed instruction concerning practical godliness. He's been telling old women how to behave, and he tells Titus, you're to tell the old women to behave this way, and the young women this way, and the old men this way, and the young men this way, and by the way, you're to tell the slaves to behave this way. Why?

25:05 Verse 11. For the grace of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to the intent that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly and righteously and godly in this present world, looking for the blessed hope in the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. Well, why does the grace of God come instructing us negatively that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should positively live righteously, godly, and holy? Why does the grace of God come teaching the importance and necessity of practical godliness? Well, the rationale behind it is verse 14. It is because Christ gave himself for us in order that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a people for his own possession. Boy, attitude is something that seems so mundane, when there is no Trent in the world,

26:32 but the purpose of it is to provide the furtherer with the better. Thus, I continue my teaching. When we sounds the words in the Bible, we come to the moralist life. To be a man of God, we must give what we must get.

27:14 And when the childadi, the child, the child, is named the right person, we should believe in God. We should believe in God. in so doing, this is what listed above the realm of mere moralism. Titus, impress upon them that in this kind of instruction you are seeking to encourage them to dress themselves up in the doctrine of God our Savior in all things. Verse 10. Instant lives, practical godliness in the particulars of their own. I'm saying, live a life. Well, why in the world does the gospel come telling us to dress up that way? Because it's for that purpose

28:12 that Christ died. So for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify to himself a people for his own possession, zealous of good works. Now do you see how central and vital and important is the subject of holiness? Not only important as we observed in God's answer to the basic needs.

Holiness in the Divine Plan: The Application of Salvation

28:55 Of man in a state of sin, the human predicament. But in relationship to the plan of salvation, it was central in the first motions of his sovereign electing love. It was central when our Lord. And as we shall see subsequently, Romans chapter 6 is the watershed of all of this teaching that grows out of our union with Christ both federally and vitally. But then when that. The salvation actually impinges upon elect sinners in time and space. What place does this whole matter of holiness have when God stretches forth his hand in time to arrest the sinner in his downward course to destruction and effectually unites him to Jesus Christ? Well, let's look again at several key texts and we shall see that once more, this matter of holiness is central.

29:59 It is fundamental. We take 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. It is a wonderful thing when a Christian worker, having labored amongst the people, can write letters and say, whenever I think of you I give thanks to God, no explanation for what I saw but that God did something and that God is continuing to do something. And that's precisely what Paul does. We are bound. We are under constraint. Praying to give thanks to God always for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, for that God chose you from the beginning unto salvation.

30:41 Now notice, in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you through our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you want a text that has all that we call the doctrines of grace in a nutshell, in one text, here it is. It's all there. He gives praise to God, that God had marked us from the beginning to a salvation that was indescribable, a salvation that would not stop short of all those who were marked out to receive it, actually obtaining to the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

31:25 None will be lost along the way. But now notice the realm. In which they first partake of that salvation, God chose you from the beginning unto salvation in sanctification of the Spirit, belief of the truth. And how did they come to that belief of the truth and that initial radical sanctifying work of the Spirit when through the gospel, as God's instrument, they were effectually called into this.

32:00 Vital union with the Lord Jesus Christ. But now let me ask a question or two based upon the text. How central is the hearing of the gospel to a man's salvation? Is there anyone sitting here today who believes there is any revealed way of a sinner's coming to salvation apart from the gospel in the case of rational, responsible people?

32:26 I trust you're all convinced of the truth of Romans 10.

32:31 It is wonderfully true that all who call...

32:36 They cannot call an unknown Lord. And the means of knowing him is proclamation through the sent ones. And I doubt there is anyone here who believes that we come to salvation apart from the proclamation of the gospel. But I wonder, are there men and women, fellows and girls sitting here today who believe that there can be a belief of the gospel and an effectual call of God that bypasses the powerful, radical, sanctifying work of the Spirit?

33:09 I can produce books written to defend that very position. That it is not only possible, but it is an act. Because they have not yet yielded to Christ as Lord. Because they have not yet had the baptism of the Spirit.

33:32 Because they have not learned the secrets of the deeper life or the higher life or some other terminology. They have not yet known...

33:39 God never called the person in that situation. This text says, The God in the sanctifying work of the Spirit. Now that will be one of the hardest things for you to come to grips with in terms of that first charge that you take as a preacher. There is going to be all these lovely people up morally in terms of cultural influences. You know what I mean by trust up morally? They fall in psychological heat. They have some sense of identity in terms of cultural continuity.

34:43 They have some sense of worth and dignity in terms of their jobs. But my friends, listen. In many of the...

34:52 But there are... Love to Jesus Christ.

35:10 There is nothing of conscious panting after conformity to His image. There is nothing of that agony and struggle that our brother spoke about in the previous hour. It's...

35:25 But my friends, you will have to face the fact that without playing God, in the judgment of the most... What should we say?

35:44 Overwhelming charity, it will be your duty to say to many of them that they have no biblical grounds to claim they are the children of God. You won't offend them if you say, Well, you're going to make it, but you won't have as big a bag of yo-yos as some others.

36:07 Your heart is someone else's as long as... As long as...

36:17 ...intimidation...

36:24 But when you begin to tell them, No, see the Lord... Suddenly your preaching is too long.

36:33 It's too loud. It's too this. It's too that. It's too much of this.

36:37 It's not enough of this. My friends, don't believe me. If you're preaching out of compassion given by the Spirit of God on your face in the closet, and out of fidelity to such texts as these that we are considering, the issue is that perhaps for the first time, in their lives, they've been told that holiness is not up. It is not some advanced doctrine which only...

37:12 It is rudimentary. It is the very foundational element in a saving work of the Spirit. So in its application, you could bring other texts to bear upon it. 1 Corinthians 6.11, Such were some of you, ye are washed, sanctified, justified. God doesn't separate them all who are justified. And experienced that radical sanctifying work of the Spirit. And then what about its place in the prolonged process?

Holiness in the Divine Plan: The Prolonged Process and Consummation

37:48 What place does holiness and sanctification have? Well, I give you the text quickly. We're told by Peter in 1 Peter chapter 1, that is, He who has called us is holy, so we are to be holy in all manner of conversation, because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy. For I am holy.

38:09 But then a text to which I direct your attention briefly, Romans chapter 6. What place does holiness have in that long process? From the time we are effectually called to sanctification and belief of the truth. Listen now to the language of Paul in Romans 6 and verse 22.

38:31 Romans 6 and verse 22. But now in and become servants to God, he's describing their conversion. Ye have, a present tense, ye are, unholiness, and the end, eternal life. In the case of every person who has known that radical change of masters in a genuine work of grace, that change of masters from sin to this willing servitude to God, holiness, and the end of that, eternal life. So that Paul places the entire of the Christian in that phrase, fruit unto holiness. That's pretty central, isn't it? What awaits my conversion unto holiness?

39:48 What about all the people who say they're in Christ and they're waiting to be glorified with Christ, but there's no fruit unto holiness? Whose salvation do they have? Not this one. He doesn't say some of you, but everyone and has known something of the virtue of union with him, which is the great theme of this chapter.

40:25 There is that change of masters. There is the fruit unto holiness, the change of practice, and then everlasting life, the change of destiny. Well, what about the consummation? What makes heaven heaven?

40:39 I love the language of Robert Murray McShane. He captured it when he said, When I see thee as thou art, love thee with unsinning heart. That was heaven to McShane, to be able to love his Savior with an unsinning heart. That was heaven to the Apostle John, was it not?

41:02 Listen to his language in 1 John 3, Beloved, now are we the sons of God. But it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him goes on purifying himself even as he is pure. You see now from eternity to eternity the place of holiness in the plan of salvation?

41:41 It's central, my friends. It is not secondary. It is not peripheral. From the first motions of sovereign electing love to its consummation when bodies are perfectly conformed to his own glorious likeness, holiness is central.

Holiness as a Personal Requisite and for Office Bearers

42:07 Well, in the few minutes that remain, let me give you the other two heads quickly, alright? How important is holiness not only in terms of the human predicament, in terms of the divine plan, but in terms of the personal concern of every individual? How important is it? Well, Hebrews 12, 14 answers the question.

42:30 Here the Apostle, or the writer to the Hebrews, commands all the executor, tracks down his prey, it's the same word used in the New Testament for persecution, the same verb, follow after, track down with earnestness and with great intensity, track down with all for the sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord. Here the writer to the Hebrews makes holiness and the conscious, deliberate, and constant pursuit of it a condition of seeing the Lord in what the old writers would call the beatific vision. To see him to be quoted, to behold him in horror in the language of Revelation 6, and from the face of him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. If you would behold him with joy, the writer to the Hebrews says

43:59 you must be following after that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Now who are we to believe? Those who tell us that holiness is optional, holiness is desirable, but holiness is ultimately just a matter of lesser or greater degrees of usefulness now and reward. It is a matter of end of death. You're not safe unless you're justified. You're not safe unless you're sanctified.

45:05 For God never justifies a soul whom he does not sanctify. And I would say again to you men who will have the office of proclaiming the word to others, God help you. If under your ministry people receive any other notion than that their only hope for acceptance before the court of heaven is to be found in the doing and the dying of another, even the Lord Jesus. And God help you if they have any other notion that they can legitimately lay claim to true belief in him, who lived and died for them, if they cannot demonstrate the validity of their professed faith by a holy life. And then the final point, and again I just give it to you in a suggestive manner. We see the importance of holiness with respect to the primary requisite for those who would be office bearers in Christ's church. When we turn to 1 Timothy 3 we are told the person who desires the office of a bishop, an overseer, an elder.

46:19 He desires a good work. The bishop therefore, and then you have that little particle of necessity, the bishop day. And as you read 1 Timothy 3 what do we have in that passage? Nothing more or less than a description of a life of vital, balanced, demonstrable gospel holiness.

46:45 And God says it is the indispensable requirement for that holy office. Oh yes, there is a word in there about being an apt teacher. A man with an instrument of edification must have gifts for public ministry, yes. But the great weight of emphasis falls upon the content of that gifted exercise.

47:14 And it must be a life of balanced, vital, demonstrable godliness both before the church and before the world. Brethren, the Lord has not come and scrubbed out of his word the frightening words of Matthew 7. Many, many, many, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not preached in your name, cast out demons, and in your name done many mighty works? Then will I profess unto them, depart from me, I never knew you, ye that work iniquity. They had ministering gifts, they had manifest success, and Jesus does not debate their claim to gift or success. But he puts his finger on the source thought they were devoid of sanctifying grace. They were workers of iniquity, while with impressive credential.

48:27 My dear young friend sitting here with hopes for the work of the ministry, if you are not pursuing a life of holiness, do one of two things. Leave this room and have dealings with God until there is implanted in your heart a hunger and a thirst after holiness, or for the time, give up all thought of the work of the ministry. What is all iniquity in the pursuit of the Greek and Hebrew and systematic and biblical theology? With ministerial success, until you so rashly have a sense of godliness and balance against it, your obvious success will surely God must be pleased or he wouldn't bless that. Many will say, Lord, Lord, if God can open the mouth of a dumbass to be his mouthpiece, who doesn't even have a rational soul, God can use the mouth of any rational human being to call out his elect and even to build up his sheep. Don't you ever rest content that all is well because of the measure of your gifts or the measure of your success.

49:52 God will take you to heaven, only if you're a justified, sanctified and holy man. How important is this thing? I trust if nothing else, our brief overview of this subject has implanted in your heart by the spirit a conviction that will never be approved or shaken, that this great biblical theme is central as God addresses himself to the predicament of man in sin. As he unfolds his plan it actually comes in grace and applies that salvation with power. And as he himself sets forth the standard for the work of the ministry. Oh, my brothers and sisters, let us not shift to a secondary, a tertiary or some other place, that which God has made central to his gospel. Amen.

Prayer and Seminary Information

51:01 Let us unite our hearts in prayer.

51:12 Our gracious God, when we think of the enormity of our crimes, sins that cried as it were to heaven for vengeance, we marvel at your patience with us. How we marvel at your long suffering. And when we think of the vile and polluted state of our hearts by nature, we are led to an even greater dimension of amazement that you would come and cleanse as it were the filthy stable of our hearts and actually take up your dwelling in the person of the Holy Spirit even in the likes of us. Oh, how we bless and praise and magnify your name today for all of the rich privileges that are ours in Christ. We pray that by the Spirit the truths considered in these afternoon hours may be written upon our hearts. We pray the hours between now and our gathering again this evening may our conversation be such as to glorify you and to edify one another and further to prepare us for our evening hour of ministry.

52:36 We wait in your presence pleading that we may be cleansed from all of the deception and the uncleanness that is yet so much a part of us. And for the sake of your beloved Son, hear our cry and continue to draw near to us, we plead in his name. Amen. Our message that you have just heard was produced by the Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi and distributed through the Mount Olive Presbyterian Church tape library in Bassville, Mississippi.

53:14 The purpose of the Reformed Theological Seminary is stated in its perpetual charter to establish, control, and develop an institute of theological knowledge and theological studies established upon the authority of the Word of God standing written in the 66 books of the Holy Bible, all therein being verbally inspired by Almighty God and therefore without error, and committed to the Reformed faith as set forth in the Westminster Confession of Faith and the larger and shorter catechisms as originally adopted by the Presbyterian Church in the United States. Fundamental in the concept of the theological training held by the Reformed Theological Seminary is the dynamic union of doctrinal strength of the Reformed faith with the warmth of evangelistic passion. The Board of Trustees and the faculty are committed to the maintaining an institution of academic excellence. With the help of God, this Seminary resolves to stand as a faithful witness to the whole counsel of His Word. It aims to fulfill an edifying role in preserving and presenting clearly and positively the growing heritage of the Presbyterian in the Reformed tradition.

54:30 It is the expressed desire of the Reformed Seminary to contribute constructively to the life and the work of the Church. As an independent academic institution, Reformed Theological Seminary is free from ecclesiastical control. All who are associated with it, however, are individual, under the jurisdiction of the various church courts of the Presbyterian and Reformed denominations of which they are members. The Seminary seeks to serve all branches of evangelistic Christianity, but especially the churches of the Presbyterian and the Reformed family.

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