Holiness: Its Nature, Part 2

Introduction: The Challenge of Progressive Sanctification

0:04 I'm sure there are many of you who are very conscious of the fact that this is about the most unenviable time in which to speak to any group of men and women gathered for serious thought. You've had lunch, the sun is at its zenith, and it seems to say with every forthcoming ray, take a nap, sit back, relax, and it tests the mettle both of the listener and of the preacher. But I trust that in mutual dependence upon God the Holy Spirit and by the engagement of all of our faculties, we will give ourselves with alertness to the word of God.

0:46 If you begin to go off into the land of Nod, let me encourage you to push your lower back against the pew, throw your shoulders back, draw in a few deep breaths, and hang in there until the conclusion of the hour. At least the sound of my own voice will keep me awake. And I hope I will find you awake with me.

1:12 Now in the development of this vast and comprehensive biblical theme of holiness or sanctification, thus far I have sought to underscore from the scriptures the importance or the necessity of gospel holiness. And then earlier this morning, something of the nature of gospel. And in the previous exposition, I suggested that the biblical materials force upon us a view of sanctification that breaks it down into three fundamental categories, or three dimensions.

1:54 Sanctification begun in the radical cleavage with sin, the breaking of sin's dominion, the putting off of the old man and the putting on of the new, and then sanctification continued in the gradual process and then sanctification completed in the final crisis. Now what I propose to do this afternoon is to go back to that second dimension of sanctification, namely, sanctification continued by the gradual process and to open up some fundamental lines of biblical teaching with respect to this final crisis.

2:35 And so if I were to give a title to today's or this afternoon's message or lecture, whatever you want to call it, it would be cardinal issues relative to progressive sanctification. Issues without which I sincerely doubt that any material progress can be made in the nurture of sanctification unless we do have some clear biblical understanding of some fundamental issues. And if time permits, there are three categories of thought that I will open up in your hearing under this general heading of cardinal issues relative to progressive sanctification.

The Necessity of Progressive Sanctification

3:20 First of all, the necessity of the process, and then the agent in the process, and then the pattern for the process. First of all then, just a word about the necessity of the process. We saw in our study this morning that the New Testament gives us abundant materials with respect to the fact that there is a process. And when we ask the question, why must there be a process, the answer is twofold.

3:53 Number one, because the new man in Christ is not a perfect new man. The new man in Christ is not a perfect new man. Though sin no longer reigns, sin does remain. Though it no longer exercises dominion, it does exercise constant guerrilla warfare.

4:22 And so because the new man in Christ is not a perfect new man, there is this necessity of process. And it is in the very context in which the New Testament is written, and it is in the very context in which the New Testament is written, that a radical cleavage with sin is set before us, that the necessity of a subsequent process is also understood. For instance, it is in Romans 6 and verse 13 that we are told, Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. The indication clearly being that it is possible for someone in whom the dominion of sin has been broken, still to yield his members to sin.

5:05 To yield his members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin in given areas. Again, in Romans 8, where that radical transformation from the realm of the flesh to the realm of the spirit is clearly taught in verses 5 through 9. Just a few verses later in verse 13, we are commanded, or we are instructed, But if ye by the Spirit do put to death the deeds of men, ye shall live. Paul is thereby indicating by the direction of the Spirit, that though we have been brought out of the realm of the flesh, we have been brought into the realm of the Spirit, we are not perfect men in that new dimension of the Spirit.

5:50 And that emphasis could be drawn from many texts. Suffice it to say, the necessity for this process is rooted in that fundamental reality, that as new men and women in Christ, we are not perfect new men and women. And then the second reason which necessitates the process is that God has decreed and revealed that a gradual process is His will in dealing with the problem of remaining sin. That His salvation would be as radical in the complete dealing of the internal dimensions of sin

6:34 as it is radical in dealing with the objective problems of sin. That God has decreed and revealed that it is His will to deal with remaining sin by a gradual process. So that the concepts of growing in grace, increasing in knowledge, walking in the Spirit to death, the deeds of the flesh, and the fear of God, our faith, virtue, and I've just been quoting texts from the New Testament, those by God Himself,

7:14 and therefore every attempt to concoct a fear-conscious sin ideology is in reality an affront upon the wisdom and the sovereignty of God.

7:56 decreed with sin and the breaking of its dominion, sanctification or sanctification will advance by a process until the time of Christ. Granted, in that points and high points, there are plateaus when we seem to take three steps at a time, other times when we seem to be taking about one millimeter of a step at a time, other times when we take two steps backwards.

8:30 In some places, walking down a person is always concerning the necessity of the process, and it is for this simple reason, to every truly regenerate person, that it would be otherwise. You see, God has given us, in the language of the New Testament, the earnest of the Spirit, the down payment of the Spirit,

9:13 and because the Spirit has been given to us as the down payment of what we shall be, there is a panting and a longing and a commitment to perfection in the heart of every single Christian. When John says, my little children, these things I write unto you that ye sin not, the heart of every true Christian says, oh God, would that it were so. And it's because we're stamped for perfection, that we're sitting ducks for any teaching that says we can have perfection here and now. And it's only the earnest Christian that gets ensnared in perfectionist teaching with regard to the subject of sanctification.

The Agents in Progressive Sanctification: Avoiding Extremes

9:56 And so I give that material not as filler, but because I would preserve some of you from the agony and the disillusionment of being attracted by any form of perfectionist or semi-perfectionist teaching. So much then for the necessity of the process, now that which is the real heart of my burden this afternoon, the agents in the process. In that initial definitive sanctification, that radical cleavage with sin, God acts monergistically. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,

10:38 are operative to break the bondage of sin. In the process of sanctification, the agents are the agency of the Triune God, of the renewed believer. And so consider with me then, this matter of the agency in the process of sanctification. Now why is it important for you to have a clear grasp upon this aspect of biblical teaching?

11:14 Well, for the simple reason, that the Church in its history has been plagued with dual views of sanctification, which basically fall into two categories at the opposite end of the extremes. There is a polarity. On the one hand, there is sanctification by unaided human effort. People see that dimension of biblical teaching in which human agency is involved in the sanctifying process.

11:47 And completely overlooking the necessity of the divine agency, they so give themselves to the process of sanctification by naked human effort, that they always drift either into legalism, phariseism, or asceticism. And the history of the Church is strewn with the wreckage of men and women, and whole movements that have attempted to get on in the process of sanctification without a full appreciation of and commitment to the necessity of the constant

12:29 divine agency in the process. But then on the other end of the spectrum, you have in the history of the Church the wreckage that has come from the theories of sanctification that I call sanctification by complete passivity. These people take up the words yield, abide, and other such vocabulary from the New Testament and they say, aha, there is the secret of the process of sanctification. To get old self out of the way.

13:05 And if you can just get yourself so utterly yielded, so utterly surrendered, as to be nothing but a funnel, then Jesus Christ will live his life through. And the process will go on with wonderful success to seek to live to the glory of God. Now that teaching, I say, has brought such things as quietism, mysticism, and not strange, the worst form of antinomianism. For you see, if it's Christ who lives through me, and that's the essence of the process, then whatever I do, or I do not do,

13:49 ultimately Christ is to take the credit or the blame. I am neutered in the process. So you see, it is essential for us to understand and constantly to hold in proper biblical tension that the aims in the process are not only the triune God, but the entire redeemed humanity of the new man or new woman in Jesus. Consider the agency in the process of sanctification.

The Agency of God the Father in Sanctification

14:25 Now here again, we are tempted to say, well, surely God who regenerates, God is the one who justifies, God is the one who adopts. We have a legitimate part. The process of sanctification, we can lose sight of the fact that ultimately sanctification is as much the work of God as any other redemptive privilege. It is the work, first of all, of God the Father.

15:01 Some of the pivotal texts which clearly teach this. In John 17 and verse 17, our Lord prays, Father, sanctify them in the truth, thy word is. In the 15th chapter of John, Jesus says that his Father is the caretaker who is active in the proving process of all those who are in him. As the vine.

15:31 I am the vine, near the branches. My Father, he says, is the husband and the caretaker. Every branch in me that is bearing fruit, he prunes it. So in the process of sanctification, the Father is very active as the divine husbandman pruning away that which would not be conducive to our increased fruitfulness.

15:57 Furthermore, in 1 Thessalonians 5 and verse 23, the apostle prays, now may the God of peace sanctify you wholly. And obviously this is a reference to God the Father. And you have a similar context or a similar emphasis in the context of Hebrews 13 verses 20 and 21. It is the God of peace who brought again the Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep from the dead, who is to perfect and work in his people.

16:34 The classic passage in Hebrews 12, the whole question on the fatherly discipline of God which has as its ultimate goal our... He says, you have forgotten the exhortation which dealeth with you as son.

16:55 The Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. And why does he do it? That we might be partakers of his holiness. I don't want to labor the point of just piling text upon text, but I want to give you enough text so that you feel something of the pressure of the New Testament witness to this.

17:16 The Father, he is asked to understand this. Well it is important to understand it so that we may be kept from any do-it-yourself moralism. The idea that God broke sin's dominion but now he's patting me on the back like the...

17:49 He's going in with the next play to get him and now I'm on my own. No, no. The Father who broke sin's dominion is constantly active in that mortification and in the active and positive dimensions of the cultivation of the graces. We need to understand that if we are to make any progress in this process, we are to render praise and thanksgiving to the Father that he has enabled us to make that.

18:27 Feel uneasy when people talk about Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. There's something fishy somewhere. Because he is always addressed in the worship language of the New Testament either as our Lord, our Savior, Jesus Christ and he is always presented as the one through whom we bring our worship which terminates essentially and pervasively upon the Father.

19:11 In the language of Ephesians 2 we have access through Christ the Spirit unto and though I second place to none in asserting that as through God Christ is the rightful recipient of praise and adoration and worship and prayer and confession, the climate of the New Testament is a climate in which we are worshipers of the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. And then of course it will also keep us understanding the place of the Father

19:54 from a Spirit-only mysticism. Our religious life begins to terminate upon the Spirit and there is a preoccupation with the Spirit. We're moving into the fringes of mysticism that can lead us in the most tragic forms of deviation from the norms of the New Testament. On the very threshold of the Christian life, Trinitarianism is dominant in the religion of the New Testament.

The Agency of God the Holy Spirit in Sanctification

20:26 When men undergo the initiatory ordinance it moves with Trinitarian implications made to send into the name singular the name of that God who is to develop. If you've never read Warfield's article on the Trinity, I urge you to read it, to ponder it, to chew it over as he demonstrates that the Trinity

21:10 is not so much a doctrine of magics in the New Testament as it is to understand the agent in a peculiar sense. He sanctified by, to my knowledge, he only found one of the phrases we looked at yesterday in sanctification of the Spirit

21:52 in Thessalonians and in Peter, but the glories of the New Covenant are described by the Apostle in terms of particularly in 2 Corinthians chapters 3 and 4. The administration of the Apostle describes the transforming process in 2 Corinthians 3. The Holy Spirit is central in his description. As in a mirror the glory of the Lord are transformed into the same image

22:36 even as from the Apostle Paul concerning the distinction between the Lord, the exalted messianic Lord and that which is his crowning gift, even the gift of the transforming process.

23:20 Now with regard to this, now with regard to the mortification of sin, his activity is essential. Romans 8.13 I say, if ye mortify unto the body ye shall live, ye shall live. He is absolutely ascended in the process of remaining sin.

23:50 Galatians 5.22 and 23 that these are the fruit of the Spirit, not the fruit of our gring that appears like love but truly manifested.

24:20 They are the fruit of emphasize the sense of on the Holy Spirit ye shall not know

24:48 what is our cursed creature confidence and one of the most humbling remains in the human heart found in that precise area.

25:26 True direct proportion to the earnestness that is the language of dependence. Pernous is the eloquent testimony of creature confidence. Now it's easy to learn the language of dependence. Oh, without the Lord we can do nothing.

25:53 But the man or woman who believes that cultivates the attitudes that perhaps is most deficient and I confess mine was for as the indwelling

26:31 in its progressive dimensions

26:38 holds no little place

The Agency of God the Son (Jesus Christ) in Sanctification

27:39 in that activity of sanctification that Jesus says in John 15. Vital communion with me new commandment to abide might be filled to a variance you prefer is that the reference is to Christ

28:17 I can do all things

28:33 and if I do not believe in Christ I will all things and if process

29:17 not reservoir out of whom all are but he is active in terms of his indwelling and in terms of his intercession. Now examine those things with me briefly. In Romans 8 in verse 10 the apostle tells us that the spirit who indwells us is the spirit if any man hath not the spirit of Christ he is none of his

30:01 verse 10 and if Christ is in you in the great mystery of the indivisibility of the one God in the three persons where the father is the son and the spirit are the only way you can sort out the language of John 14 to 16 Jesus says I'll pray to the father he'll send a comforter he comes come my father comes well who's coming he's coming and though in the economy of redemption the unity of the spirit is central we must never regard it as divisible from the presence and communion with the father and with the son and so

30:45 the New Testament sets before us a doctrine of the indwelling of Christ if Christ is in you Galatians 2 20 I have been crucified with Christ nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ liveth he now that text has been great we shall see in a few moments allow the abuse of it to rob us of the preciousness of what it does teach Christ text in Galatians 1 27 and possibly Ephesians 3 17 but these suffice to demonstrate you see that in the process of sanctification

31:30 I'm not left to make it unaided human effort there is not only the direct agency of the father in his pruning and disciplinary work there is not only the direct agency of the spirit stirring me up to long after holiness giving me the grace to put to death the deeds of forming the grace likeness in me went to the cross and died and cried

32:09 peccalus my religious life is not never be robbed to vacation as the one who indwells me in dealing with progressive sanctification

32:53 the first thing I write unto you that ye sin if any man's affection is introduced these things I write that ye may not sin but if any man's

33:38 sin that is no indication he's forfeited his advocate it is at that brisk advocate is to fill his soul in all the liberty and filial delight of a conscious sense of adoption I can come

34:21 even when my conscience with the conscience is laden of our of his intercession as it relates to the whole subject of progressive sanctification Romans 8 in verse 34 the apostle asked the question who is he that condemneth in the face of the reality of sin

35:04 through the in the best of believers in Romans 6 and 7 he says who is he that condemneth and then his answer comes it is Christ that died yea rather that is risen from the dead who is also at the right hand of God and he goes on to ask the classic question in the light of that who shall separate us from the love of God if we have one on the basis of his once for all and atonement and by that intercession in the language of Hebrews 7

35:49 25 he is committed to save true uttermost all who come unto God by him we appreciate the function in our progressive sanctification we have a couple of hints of how it works out in the realities process for instance you remember in the 22nd chapter of Luke our Lord said Simon Simon Satan has desired you to sift you as wheat I have

36:33 prayed for thee then when we read on in the gospels that Peter having cursed and sworn three times that he did not know Christ and he went out and he wept what made the look of Christ efficacious to break the heart of Peter it was the intercession of Christ there was nothing in that look that held inherent power to break his heart those were the same eyes that looked into the face of Judas and said betrayest thou the son of man with a kiss they hardened

37:18 his heart and he went out and hanged himself and sent himself to hell those were the very eyes that looked into the face of Pharisees and they said say we not well that thou art a Samaritan and hast a demon there was no magical mystical power in the look of Jesus to break anyone's heart and so when it says that Jesus looked upon him and Peter went out and wept Peter's heart was his intercession for thee that thy faith fail not again not if but when oh my friends what a

38:02 story will be told us when we get to the other side can you think of those times when you've been negligent in your devotional life and your hunger for the word of God has been shriveled until it was almost non-existent and when there rose up in its place conscious after the leeks and the garlics and the cucumbers of your past Egyptian life when you felt as it were a raging fire of carnal passion within your breast and then it seemed out of nowhere the word of God into your mind

38:47 felt from a believer unexpectedly across your path and in conversation with him the deepest springs of what you are as a new man or woman in Christ were suddenly opened again and the answer to that the intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ you would be kept in the way of holiness read John 17 conscious that you are in a world in which the devil is seeking as a roaring lion to devour you he prays Father keep them from the evil one I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world but preserve them you see this is one of the great fallacies of so much

39:31 our progress is in direct proportion to our faith I wouldn't be standing here today if that were so here today subtlety of Satan and the corruption of my own flesh I've had very little conscious desire for God very little conscious longings after holiness but I tell you I've had conscious passions and temptations to every form of sin imaginable yet I stand today kept and preserved and in the way

40:15 of God not because of some super duper no wrecking yield abide ability I have but because I have an intercessor committed himself in the gory baptism of God to take this sinner all the way from a state of nature to a state of glory blessed be God for the intercession of our Lord Jesus Christ and we need as the people of God to understand that He in this process now for He shall from their sins and His part

40:59 in the salvation is not just the initial but He is there in our process and it will be there at the consummation we are said to be glorified with Him the dead in Christ shall rise even death cannot dissolve our union with Him and the consummate glory will be but the manifestation of all the dimensions of that union to the wonder of an opportunity on looking universe well God is the active agent in the process may let me seek to expound the other side of that but the second agent

The Agency of the Believer in Sanctification: Rejecting Passivity

41:43 in the process for Himself second agent in the process is the believer in the entirety and as a new man in Christ now I say by way of repetition that much harm and confusion has come failure has come to grips with this fact there have been those and they exist to this day who so emphasize the activity of God as to lead to quietism passivity and some people take that teaching seriously I did

42:27 and well can I remember standing in front of the fridge at night and I don't want you to laugh because it isn't a laughing matter and I'm not saying it to be funny as to whether or not I should take was it the indwelling Christ urging me to take that glass of milk or was it carnal gluttony in front of the refrigerator spending hours I mean hours sometimes two three four hours on my face to make a decision about what to preach because I wanted the answer to choose

43:11 my text trying to get in the way and so I kept pushing it into neutrality waiting for some kind of celestial fluttering the precesses of my thought processes so that I could stand confident the indwelling Christ was preaching through me some of us took that teaching seriously my friend and it's a wonder we didn't end up in a nut house living his life through there is not one verse in the New Testament that uses that terminology

43:55 and that's what liberated me I took my New Testament and my Greek Testament and I started in Matthew this is an apostle I will not speak of that which Christ brought through me it has nothing to do with the Christian life there is not one text in the New Testament that says Christ lives through anyone and that opens the door he lives in us by the Spirit discovered in Galatians 2 20 there is more I than Christ crucified with Christ yet not I but Christ liveth in me but in what way

44:40 notice the next phrase and the life which I now lives in the flesh in the full of my humanity by the grace of God it is that I which lives this Christian life but lives it in the context of faith faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself and if we do not understand and come to grips with this fundamental issue we are doomed to be vulnerable on many many fronts with regard to the Christian

45:24 world the most important part in the world is the spiritual life and the spiritual life and this reality is that there is no religion any religion any religion I don't think I have any religious principles I believe in the Bible from the Bible and that the scripture of Christ

45:58 Behold, in Romans 8, 13, 4 is mortified or put to death the deeds of the flesh ye shall live. Ye to death activity does not negate my agents.

46:26 In the process of sanctification, are there defilements of the flesh and the spirit to be put away? Then who's to put them away? Am I to say, O Lord, put them away from me. Take 2 Corinthians 7, 1 says, Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves of all defilement of the flesh and the spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

46:53 John gives the same emphasis in 1 John 3, 3. Every man that hath this hope in him allows the Lord to purify him. That isn't what the text says. It says every man that hath this hope purifies him, even as he is pure.

47:11 So, if there is defilement, if there is to be the putting away, what did Jesus say? If thy hand offend thee, pray that the Lord will put you to sleep and give you a painless amputation. In some mystical experience, know, if thy hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee. If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee.

47:43 Figurative language, yes. But the point is clear. We do the amputating and we do the casting. Not the Lord. You do it.

47:51 And he says, if you don't, you go to hell. Read the passage.

47:56 That's strong language. That's the language of the Son of God. It's the language of the Apostle. Is there a tendency for bodily appetites to get out of hand and to lead us to sin?

48:06 Notice, I did not say that the appetites are sin. But is there a tendency through the adherence of remaining sin with respect to bodily appetites? Is there a tendency for these things to get out of hand and to jeopardize us spiritually? What are we to do?

48:23 Paul gives us the example. 1 Corinthians 9 and verse 27. He said, I buffet my body. I literally bruise myself under the eye and keep it in some place.

48:39 Lest in preaching to others I myself should be abdachimos. And that doesn't mean put on a shelf. Abdachimos in its standard usage in the eight times it occurs in the New Testament means reprobate. Pride and boast as I keep my body under.

48:59 Lest in preaching to others I should end up reprobate. Who keeps it under? He says, I do it.

49:07 Fight. I didn't say the Lord did it for him. He didn't go to the Lord and say, Lord, I've got a problem with getting up in the morning. Won't you please just come and gently stroke me on the cheek when I ought to get up and pray?

49:19 Nothing too violent, Lord. I'm just a character, you know.

49:24 He says, no, I buffet my body. Whatever that meant for him, he did it. And he used pretty graphic language in the original. Are there positive graces to be cultivated and developed?

49:38 Yes. Well, Peter says, 1 Peter 1, verses 5 to 8, besides all of this, adding on your part all to your faith, virtue and the virtue, knowledge and the knowledge, so I thought they were the fruit of the Spirit. Well, if you want one that blows your mind, what's the last of the ninefold fruit of the Spirit?

50:04 Self-control. And that brings it all together, you see. Never is the Spirit more active than when I am more active.

50:17 Activity is not given to negate mine, but to secure it and make it efficacious.

The Coextensive Working of God and Believer (Philippians 2:12-13)

50:27 And perhaps what is the classic text, and with this I must close, Philippians 2, verses 12 and 13.

50:37 And as Mr. Akin has reminded you, so much of what we bring on occasion such as these is biographical, whether we acknowledge it or not.

50:45 This, again, was one of the texts that God used to liberate me from the bondage of quietism and passivity in the process of sanctification. Philippians 2, 12 and 13. So then, my beloved, even as ye've always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation. He doesn't say work for your own justification.

51:15 No, no. That would be a complete negation of everything in the immediate context in which he describes Christ going in the obedience of death to the cross that we might be justified. It would contradict everything in chapter 3 in which he says, I have no desire but to have a righteousness that is found in Christ and Christ alone. No, he's saying work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

51:42 For it is God who worketh, in you, now notice the language, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

51:54 Notice what the text says. Give you just a few of the principles. Our working and our working in the outworking of salvation are coextensive. You see it?

52:08 Work is not suspended because we work, nor is our working suspended because he works. Seriousness, because God is working in. His working and your working are coextensive. Coextensive.

52:30 His working does not negate ours. Ours does not negate him. His. Second great principle.

52:37 God's working is the incentive and motivation for our working. Out with fear and trembling for, because, here's the rationale, it is God who is working in you not to bypass your willing or your working, but to secure it. He works in you not to negate your willing and working. That's what he does.

53:01 That's what quietism and pietism and higher life teaching propagates. Your will is out of the way. No, it's in the way of his working. And it's God who energizes the renewed will to make the choices that please him and then gives us the power to perform them.

53:25 Working then is the incentive for our working. I need never fear that my working will outstrip his.

53:33 The third great principle is our working is the only certain evidence of his working. If he works in me to will and to do of his good pleasure, if I'm not willing and doing his good pleasure, what proof do I have that he's working in me? You see, the evidence of his working in me is that I'm willing and working that which is pleasing to him. And then the fourth great principle is God's working is to be the focus of our trust.

54:07 Work out with fear and trembling and it is all the Philippians say, but Paul, the issues are so grave and sin and the devil and the world are such massive and mighty enemies. How can we be a success? He says, let your comfort be that it is God in the glorious Trinity of his being. It is God who is at work in you.

54:31 Let that be the focal point of your trust. But the final principle is let your working be the focal point of your effort. Work it out with fear and trembling. It's serious business being a Christian.

54:48 It's serious business putting sin to death. It's serious business being conformed to the image of Christ. And I say in those five principles which inhere in this text, there is a theology of the progress and process of sanctification that is so balanced and so guarded from errors on the left hand and on the right. I close with a choice quote from Kuyper.

Concluding Affirmations from Kuyper and Owen

55:15 That speaks to this very issue and then one brief quote from John Old. When we are called upon to speak, to act, or to fight, we do so as though we were doing it ourselves, not perceiving that it is another who works in us both to will and to do. But as soon as we finish the task successfully and agreeably to the will of God in Scripture, as men of faith we prostrate ourselves, before Him and cry, Lord, the work was thine, as were the prayers in which we sought thy help, and the praises which we now render

55:59 for what you have enabled us to do. That's it. Kuyper understood it. And John Owen in his classic work, Volume 6, and I urge upon you to make this book your lifetime companion.

56:14 If you want to make progress in the matter of putting sin to death and dealing with temptation, next to your Bible in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, nothing will be more helpful than Volume 6 of Owen. He says, He does not so work in our mortification as not to keep it still an act of our obedience. The Holy Ghost works in us and upon us as we are fit to be wrought in and upon. That is, so as to preserve our own liberty and free obedience.

56:47 He works upon our understandings, our wills, our consciences and affections, agreeably to their own natures. He works in us and with us, not against us or without us, so that His assistance is an encouragement as to the facilitating of the work and no occasion of neglect as to the work itself. And you see that then in turn spins out so many implications. You see that there is never any kind of a wooden uniformity.

57:20 You see, wherever people take the deeper, higher life teaching seriously, they are all cut out of the same mold. Because their humanity is being negated. Imagine me trying to preach when I believe that stuff. I felt any time I felt a beller coming and a motion coming.

57:39 Well, that was flesh, I had to keep it down. Imagine me trying to talk in a monotone voice with my hands in my side. I took it seriously, folks. And when God was pleased, in grace to show me a better way, oh, how liberating it was, not only with my glass of milk before I went to bed at night, but to proclaim the blessed word of the living God and to proclaim it the way God ordained it should be proclaimed in my redeemed humanity, so that I am fully me.

58:16 The longing and a passion that He should be praised in the proclamation of His truth. These are some of the fundamental aspects of this process, my friends. Don't treat them lightly. We didn't get to the pattern, but you read Professor Murray, you can get all that material better said than I could say it anyway.

Prayer and Benediction

58:34 But may God be pleased to write these things upon our hearts, for our profit now, and for the benefit of our people, who desperately need clear biblical instruction in these aspects of practical Christian experience. Let us pray. Once again, our Father, we are brought to that point of amazement as we contemplate the magnitude of Your grace and kindness to us in the Lord Jesus. We cannot fathom why You would commit Yourself so thoroughly to the salvation of the likes of us.

59:16 We praise You, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for each particular dimension of Your work on our behalf. We worship and magnify You, great Triune God. And in this very sensitive and yet vital area that we've touched upon today, O Lord, whatever has not been true to the great outlines of Your Word, bring it to naught in our thinking. Whatever has been an accurate reflection of Your mind is given to us in the Scriptures.

59:51 Seal it to our hearts and enable us to work it out in our experience. And to Your name and to Your name alone be praise, honor, and glory now and forever. Amen. Amen.

Amens and Seminary Information

60:07 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

60:11 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

60:15 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

60:19 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

60:23 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

60:27 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

60:31 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

60:35 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 and institution of academic excellence.

61:14 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, conserving and presenting, clearly and positively, the growing heritage of the Presbyterian and the Reformed tradition. 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.

61:50 All who are associated with it 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. Should you desire further information regarding the Reformed Theological Seminary, your request to write to the Reformed Theological Seminary, Jackson, Mississippi, that is 5422 Clinton Boulevard, Jackson, Mississippi.

62:30 Mississippi. Zip code 39209. Permission to reproduce this tape for the purpose of distribution should be requested of the Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi.