Keeping the Heart With All Diligence (Academy Lecture)

Introduction: The Demands of Ministry and the Centrality of the Heart

0:00 As I read from the fourth chapter of the book of Proverbs, the book of Proverbs, chapter 4,

0:14 and may I remind you if I assume some unusual postures in preaching, I am not setting you an example to follow. I am simply trying to relieve some of the pressure of that bad leg. Proverbs, chapter 4, beginning with verse 20 and reading through verse 27. My son, attend to my words, incline thine ear unto my sayings, let them not depart from thine eyes, keep them in the midst of thy heart, for they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.

0:54 Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. Put away from thee a wayward mouth. And perverse lips put far from thee. Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee.

1:13 Make level the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand, nor to the left. Remove thy foot from evil. Now those of you who are second and third year students are very much aware of some of the tremendous and amazing things that are happening in the world today.

1:35 And intensive demands that are going to be made upon you in the coming months within the framework of your studies here in the academy. You first year students will soon have your baptism, and will be dripping wet from that baptism. And you also will know something experimentally of the demands that will be made upon you. We've tried to make that plain in our interview and in the prospectus.

2:02 But it's one thing to look at that. But to look at baptism from afar, it's another thing to feel all the waves and the billows breaking over your head. And so it will not be long before you will feel yourself torn by many strands and pressures of responsibility. For in addition to all the demands that will be made upon you as students, those demands which are presently upon you, most of you as husbands, some of you as fathers, as providers for your families, some of you engaged in various forms of ministry, you will find yourself, as it were, pressured by a multitude of responsibilities, a multitude of tasks, none of which can be relinquished, without, in a real sense, relinquishing or disobeying a clear precept of God's word. Now in the light of all of these things, all of these areas of duty which must be performed, all of the precepts of God's word, all of the precepts of God's word, all of the precepts which must be guarded and cherished, it is in the midst of all of that that I would direct your attention this morning to verse 23 in the passage read in your hearing. Keep thy heart with all diligence, or as the marginal reading of the 1901 renders it, keep thy heart above all that thou guardest,

The Duty Commanded: Guarding the Heart

3:28 for out of it are the issues of life. And as we attempt to open up this text this morning, I would first of all direct your attention to the duty commanded in the text. Here we are commanded to keep, or literally to guard, our hearts. Our hearts, of course, being the seat of all of our religious life, the seat of the soul, the citadel of what we are as men before God, and the command is one which puts us under control, and the command is one which puts us under control, puts us under solemn obligation to place our hearts under strict and under constant guard.

4:11 Now we grant that ultimately only God who knows the heart can guard the heart, but Bridge's comments bringing together the command, which obviously makes this our duty, and the parallel biblical teaching, which clearly indicates that it's only within the power of God to do this, which clearly indicates that it's only within the power of God to do this, his comments, I think, are very helpful. his comments, I think, are very helpful. Though it be God's work, it is man's agency. Though it be God's work, it is man's agency.

4:40 Our efforts are his instrumentality. He implants an active principle and sustains the unceasing exercise. And then he gives his parallel passages, Philippians 2, 12 and 13, work out your own salvation for it is God who works in you. work out your own salvation for it is God who works in you.

5:00 work out your own salvation for it is God who works in you. And Jude 24, parallel with Jude 21, where we are told to keep ourselves in the love of God, and then the prayer is that God would keep us in his own love. And then further on he goes on to say, the greatest difficulty in conversion is to win the heart to God, and after conversion to keep the heart with him. And so in the light of this passage, So in the light of this command, nothing is of greater importance at any point in the entirety of your time within the framework of the academy and this period of intense formal instruction.

The Relative Importance of this Duty

5:43 And throughout all the days of your life in ministry, no duty is of greater importance than the duty commanded in these words, keep thy heart. And that moves us very naturally then into the second element of the text, the relative importance of this duty. Having seen the duty commanded, which is the guarding of the heart, notice the emphasis upon the relative importance of this duty. Kyle renders the text, above all other things that are to be guarded, keep thy heart.

6:21 So this duty is placed in relationship to other things. Legitimate duties that involve the conscious engagement of our guarding or our protecting faculties, above all that thou guardest. In other words, there are many things that fall within the orbit of the legitimate, conscious, guarding work of the child of God. We who are husbands are to guard and to protect our wives, our children, our homes.

6:56 We who are the servants of Christ are to guard our minds from error. We who have responsibilities of oversight are to guard the flock of God from the intrusion of heresy, from the outcropping of ungodliness. In other words, the scriptures lay upon us many legitimate spheres where it is proper for us to regard ourselves as spiritual sentinels. But now the text says, There is a relative importance to this duty of guarding the heart that places it, head and shoulders, above every single other legitimate act of being a spiritual sentinel.

7:41 Guard thy heart above all else that thou guardest, or, as I previously rendered it, above all other things that are to be guarded. Guard thy heart. And so we not only...

The Reason for the Duty: The Heart as the Fountain of Life

7:57 We not only have the duty commanded, but we have the relative importance of the duty laid before us. And then, thirdly, from the text we see the reason given for the performance of this duty.

8:12 Guard thy heart above all that thou guardest for. There is a rationale, both for the command and the relative importance of the command, for out of it are the issues of life. And so the reason given for the performance of this duty, and then the emphasis upon the relative importance of this duty, is the fact that the heart is the central fountain of life. All of the streams of life flow from the heart, both sin and virtue.

8:50 Our Lord, in describing the origin of sin in that well-known passage in Mark chapter 7, words familiar, I'm sure, to most of you. For from within, Mark 7, and I believe beginning with verse 19, for from within, out of the heart of man, verse 21, proceed evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, covetings, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, railing, pride, foolishness. All these things proceed from within. And if...

9:28 But it's also true of virtue. In the Matthew 12 passage, where our Lord says, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, he says, either make the tree good and the fruit good, or the tree evil and the fruit evil, for he says the tree is known by its fruit, but you must deal with that which is the source of the fruit. And so the heart is viewed then as the seat, as the origin, as the ultimate fountain, both of sin, and of virtue. And so the reason why this duty is placed above all other responsibilities is because of the very nature of what God has constituted our hearts.

Implementation Part 1: Spiritual Assimilation of God's Word

10:12 Now then, in the fourth place, consider with me the implementation of this duty. It's all right for Solomon to say, my son, keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. But how in the world does one perform so...

10:29 a vast and important duty? Well, I would like to suggest that in the context, there are two major activities which form the God-ordained means to implement this duty.

10:45 One precedes the command, and the other follows the command. The two great means by which we are to implement this duty of keeping the heart are, first of all, the spiritual assimilation of the word of God, verses 20 through 22, and then, secondly, the specific mortification of the major streams of sin, verses 24 to 27.

11:13 All right, first of all, then, this spiritual assimilation of the word of God. My son, attend to my words. Incline thine ear to my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes.

11:27 Now notice the emphasis. Keep them. In the midst of thy heart. And the word keep here literally means to hedge them about.

11:39 And it's a beautiful picture. That once the words of God find their entrance to the heart, we are to hedge them about and hedge them in that they may be regulative of all the springs and the impulses of the heart. If it is from the heart that the issues of life proceed, then the impingement of the influence of the word of God must be at the center of the fountain. You see, if the influence of the word of God is removed from the heart, then you see the heart left to itself under the impulses of remaining corruption will spill forth much that is dishonorable to God even though the mind may be retaining a conviction concerning the authority, the authority of the word. It may be retaining much of the substance of the word, but unless the word itself is kept hedged in to the midst of the heart, it will be utterly impossible to guard the heart as Solomon here commands us under the inspiration of the Spirit. And perhaps many of you have already thought of that which is the best inspired interpretation of this principle, Psalm 108, in 19, verses 9 through 11.

13:05 Wherewith shall a young man cleanse his way? The answer, by taking heed thereto according to thy word. With my whole heart have I sought thee, O let me not wander from thy commandments. Thy word have I laid up in my heart that I might not sin against thee.

13:30 And brethren, there is no way to guard the heart above all that you guard apart from this spiritual assimilation of the word of God. Now what do I mean more particularly and practically by this spiritual assimilation of the word of God? Well, I mean first of all the kind of consistent devotional interaction with the word of God in which we come to the scriptures primarily and essentially as humble disciples to be taught of our Lord Jesus Christ. We come to the word not in order to fulfill an assignment in Systematic Theology Unit 3 or in Old Testament Biblical Theology Unit 1, but we come to the word of God with this element of holy desperation that God would so implant its truth and power into the world of God. And we come to the word of God in the synodal of our beings for no other reason than that we may be disciples of Jesus Christ worthy of that name and worthy of that calling. And brethren, you have heard it many times before and you'll hear it many times in the future. Perhaps the greatest battle both in the period of your formal preparation

14:58 and right on through every passing year of the Bible ministry is right here to maintain a relationship to the word of God that is non-professional. If you ask me where is the greatest point of conflict after 27 years in the ministry, I answer without any reservation it is precisely here. And I'm sure if we were to ask the question of Pastor Chantry, I'm quite sure he would affirm that that's where the battle lies. Keeping the heart means that the commandments, the precepts must be hedged in in the midst of the heart.

15:39 And with all of the pressures that are upon you to handle the word of God in other ways other than this, necessary pressures, legitimate pressures, there must be conscious, concentrated effort if we are to spiritually assimilate the word of God by that kind of devotional interaction. And it may be, that where in other periods of our lives we've been able to have an hour, two or three hours for such interaction with the word, the amount of time for that may of necessity be limited. It may be cut back and we would not be legalistic in saying unless you have your one hour a day. But brethren, giving all due allowance for the great diversity and spectrum of responsibilities, there is no way that you will keep your heart, in terms of this commandment, apart from keeping, hedging in the word of God in the midst of your heart. Another way in which we do this is to come to our studies both publicly and in private in a prayerful mood.

16:55 There is no reason why reading theology at home should not get you shouting and weeping happy at times.

17:05 What is theology? But the attempt to bring into sharp focus the total witness of the word of God concerning any given aspect of divine revelation. And if you're approaching the study of systematic theology, whether sitting here in one of the classes or at home with one of your books, if you're approaching it with this perspective dominant in your mind, Lord, I want my heart to be kept. I want to assimilate the word of God.

17:38 I want this dimension of your truth to become meat and drink to my soul. I want it to become part and parcel of the very fiber of my being.

17:50 Then there is no reason why there should not be times when you find yourself as it were moving from the most intense concentration upon the meaning of a given author's sayings and words to bowing your head in worship and adoration and in praise. If you're to guard your heart and guarding the heart means the spiritual assimilation of the word, then there must be given time for devotional assimilation of the scripture. But we must add to that a prayerful approach to our formal studies. And then thirdly, there must be an immediate yielding to the implications of every truth as its ethical and moral demands become clear to us. You see, the word of God has as its target the heart, never the head. Now you can't get it to the heart except through the head. So in that sense, the word of God is always a bent arrow.

18:55 It's got to come through the understanding, but its aim is always the heart. And in touching the heart, there is no truth that does not have moral and spiritual demands and implications. Now, the moment the truth, then, touches the heart with its attendant moral, ethical, and spiritual demands, you've got to do one of two things. You've either got to bow to the pressure of that truth or you've got to try to remove the arrow.

19:28 One or the other. I mean, once the arrow's there, you either got to yield to its pressure or you've got to try to remove the arrow. And the minute you start removing arrows, you see, you are no longer keeping the words of God in the midst of it. You see, you are no longer keeping the words of God in the midst of it.

19:43 You see, you are no longer keeping the words of God in the midst of it. You see, you are no longer keeping the words of God in the midst of it. You see, you are no longer keeping the words of God in the midst of it. But you are deliberately pressing the words of God out of the heart.

19:51 Now, you may still get an A on your Systematics course, but you've started down the road to apostasy. When a man can traffic in the word of God without yielding to its moral and spiritual demands, he's put himself on the high road to apostasy. You who were here last year will remember how Pastor Chantry addressed himself specifically to that issue in a way that caused all of our hearts to tremble afresh before that awesome reality. And so I admonish you, my brethren, as I admonish myself afresh, as I face my spectrum of responsibilities and think of the demands upon my time and all of the rest and know all of the pat rationalizations for everyone. If you have, I could give you ten. But the command is still clear. Above all that thou guardest, guard thy heart, for out of it are the issues of life.

Implementation Part 2: Specific Mortification of Major Streams of Sin

20:57 How are we to do it? On the one hand, Solomon says we are to do it by this spiritual assimilation of the word of God, but then, secondly, by the specific mortification of the major streams of sin. Notice verses 24 and 25. Notice verses 24 and 25.

21:14 Notice verses 24 and 25. Notice verses 24 and 25. No sooner does he say, guard thy heart above all that thou guardest, but what he speaks of three of what we might call major streams of sin that both flow out of the heart and in a sense are like the tide can flow back in. Keep thy heart with all diligence immediately, then, he says, put away from thee a wayward mouth.

21:43 Verse 25. Let thine eyes look right on. Verse 26. Make level the path of thy feet.

21:53 And so he speaks of the mouth, of the eyes, and of the feet. And if we are to guard our hearts, there must not only be this positive assimilation of the word of God, there must be the specific mortification of the major streams of sin. Or everything we do in attempting to guard the heart will be neutralized by our carelessness at the level of mortification. First of all, then, notice what he says concerning the mouth.

22:29 Put away from thee a wayward mouth and perverse lips put far from thee. It's graphic language. It's as though you're actually taking your mouth and putting it at a distance from you. And he says that's precisely what we must do.

22:45 With respect to all speech that does not fit the category of Ephesians chapter 4, let no corrupt speech proceed out of your mouth but that which is good for edifying as the need may be. Some of us were present a few weeks ago when Mr. Garlington spoke with such blessing of the spirit upon that text. If you were not here, I would urge you to get the tape for more details as to what that means.

23:15 But to suffice, suffice it to say that particularly in our interaction here, much of the guarding of our hearts in the manner previously prescribed can be undone by lightness of speech as we get to know one another and we get familiar with one another. It's so easy for a relationship of intimate familiarity to drift over into a realm of carnal lightness.

23:46 And with that, often, comes elements of sarcasm, elements of criticism, and sometimes talk that has perhaps double innuendo. May I remind you of the words of James, If any among you seemeth to be religious, while he bridleth not his tongue, this man's religion is vain. There is a sense in which what comes out of our mouth not only flows out of the heart, according to Matthew, Matthew 12 and other passages, but it also flows back in to defile the heart because the words are remembered by us and by those to whom we have spoken them. And so, brethren, I would admonish you that if you're dead in earnest about the keeping of your heart, then there must be a conscious effort to mortify this first major stream of sin, that which has to do with our mouths. For those of you who are new amongst us, one of the things that has been such a delight to us in the last couple of years has been the tremendous sense of trust and openness that has been cultivated as we've fellowshiped and prayed together. But as our numbers grow, the mathematical, from the human side, the mathematical possibilities of maintaining that climate become fewer and fewer. In other words,

25:15 the ratio becomes higher and higher that we'll not be able to maintain that. But God's grace is able to help us so that instead of being instruments of defiling one another, we can be, by the grace of God, instruments of upbuilding as the need may be. And then there's this matter of the eyes. Verse 25, Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee.

25:44 The eye is the inlet to the soul. The eye is the inlet to the soul. All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes. So if we're to guard our hearts, we've got to make sure that we've got good, well-working shades over our eyes.

26:09 And I don't mean dark glasses when I say shades. There's got to be some opaque shades over our eyes. The eye being the inlet to the soul. We must in a very literal sense let our eyes look right on.

26:25 Right on to what? Right on to the goal of holiness that we are pursuing. The goal of becoming able ministers of the new covenant. And let our eyes look right on at anything that would beckon them to materialism.

26:39 Anything that would beckon them to hedonism. Anything that would beckon them to anything contrary to those goals. We pray that God will give us the few, the vision of the top five cervical vertebrae that we cannot turn the head to the left or to the right, but that the eyes will look straight on. But not only is this true with regard to the literal use of the eye, but certainly spiritually, our goals, our ambitions.

27:08 Jesus said, the light of the body is the eye. If thine eye be single, the whole body shall be full of light. And oh brethren, if we would keep our hearts, we must guard our spiritual eyes. And there will be many things to beckon us to this or to that.

27:26 And we must cry to God for that singleness of eye without which the heart will become cluttered with all kinds of mixed ambitions and mixed motives. But then God talks about our feet. Verses 26 and 27. Make level the path of thy feet and let all thy ways be established turn not to the right hand nor to the left.

27:54 Remove thy foot from evil. The foot is the instrument to convey the whole man into his chosen path. When you chose to come to this room, it was your feet that carried you as a whole man or woman into this room.

Practical Applications for Mortification: Television, Pornography, and Spiritual Dullness

28:16 And therefore, in the guarding of the heart, we must know something of the regulation of the feet. For if the feet carry us into paths which result in the heart being bombarded with defiling thoughts, with thoughts and with interests and ambitions that bleed off our spiritual energy, there is no way that the heart can be kept if the feet are not regulated. Now let me descend to particulars. Some of you need to have regulated feet with regard to the use of your television.

28:51 You're sports nuts. You border perhaps on past in being a sports addict.

29:00 Well, you need to pray to God to have feet that are able to walk by your TV, especially on Saturdays when you know you can just get drunk with everything from the first NCAA game at 1.45 right on through to Wide World of Sports at 6.30. I know well the times because many times I've been in the same place.

29:23 I've been in the same place. I've been in the same place. I have to talk to my feet.

29:27 Now are we being legalistic and saying you should not? No, no, no. Simply placing the warning before you. You've come into an area, brethren, that is Main Street Sodom.

29:38 You can't walk into a drugstore without pornography staring you in the face. Some of you perhaps have had problems in this area in the past. Those problems will be increased not only because of the area into which you've come, but because of the peculiar vulnerability as I've talked with men. It seems that there is a pattern that the more intense a man's mental activity is, the more he is susceptible to the vicious attacks of pornography.

30:10 Listen to the word of God. Make level the path of thy feet. Let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand.

30:18 Do not turn into that particular drugstore where you know your mind will be defiled.

30:25 Do not turn to the right hand nor to the left. Remove thy foot from evil. For you will allow by the careless regulation of your feet the defilement of your heart. Then you come and sit in a theology class and instead of your heart being ravished with a new sight of God and his truth, it's all kind of dry and academic stuff.

30:51 And what begins to be held in suspension is dry and dusty. And is no longer held as a matter of deep felt religious conviction is the truth that ultimately will be relinquished or openly denied. Heresy begins with the loss of the love of truth because of the love of sin.

Conclusion: Motivation from Christ's Purchase and the Spirit's Power

31:18 And if we do not keep our feet and make level the path of our feet and establish in these days, brethren, those patterns that will help us to keep our hearts from being unnecessarily bombarded by sinful stimuli because of the places we go and the positions in which we put ourselves, we will make very little progress in becoming the kind of men God would have us to be. Let me say then in conclusion, brethren, this is our great duty to guard our hearts above all that we guard for out of it are the issues of life and what should be the spirit now in which we do all of this having spent a little time on the practical consideration of directives for implementation why of course the great motivation is at least hinted at in this passage when Solomon would speak he reminds his son of that filial relationship My son, attend to my words. This is one of those chapters in which again and again from the opening words hear my sons the instruction of a father verse 10 hear oh my son and receive my sayings and surely it is our father speaking to us not on the basis

32:45 of some nebulous universal fatherhood but on the basis of that adoptive fatherhood wrought in the work of his own dear son he speaks to us as those who are his purchased possessions he died to purchase the whole man he gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity he died to have your heart and so it is from the cross that this appeal comes to us as the Lord's servants this morning guard thy heart above all that thou guardest you are my purchased possession I died to have your heart I've given my spirit that I might have your heart and in the gift of the spirit I have given both the ability and power whereby the heart may be kept brethren it is only in the light of these motivations and in communion and fellowship with Christ apart from whom we can do nothing that we will be enabled to guard our hearts above all that we guard may God grant that the truth of this text will be brought home to us with power again and again and again and when you enter a time when it seems as though the studies have become dry and lifeless ask yourself

34:11 have I been guarding my heart above all that I am to guard and when you find in the chapel times in our seasons of prayer that when some of the brethren are deeply moved in their prayers and you sense that their hearts are aflame with that fire that only the spirit of God can give and your heart is lifeless and dull perhaps you need to ask the question have I been guarding my heart above all that I have been guarding am I calling to morbid introspection of course not but I am calling to that which this text calls the constant guarding and inspection of the heart