No Master Key

Introduction: The Problem of 'Master Key' Teachings in Christian Living

0:04 The following message was delivered on Sunday morning, October 4th, 1992, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. What is my duty as a Christian who desires God's best for my life and for my service? Should I seek a baptism in the Holy Spirit that will be manifested by the ability to babble in unintelligible gibberish? Should I seek to be so totally and fully surrendered to the indwelling Christ that my mind, my will, and my emotions are no longer under my control? No. But Christ will so live His life through me, thereby thinking, willing, and feeling on my behalf? Or should I believe that until I reach a level of spiritual grace where I no longer consciously struggle, agonize, and wrestle and war with sin,

1:23 that I am failing to appropriate dimensions of grace? Yes. Okay. Okay.

1:28 Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

1:28 Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

1:28 Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

1:29 Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

1:29 Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

1:30 Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

1:30 Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

1:30 Okay. These are not mere speculative questions. There are books written, conferences convened, and seminars held which would passionately answer each of the above questions in the affirmative. And such forums of teaching and preaching would aggressively seek to bring you and me to such experiences.

Threefold Objective for Studying the Christian Life

2:00 experiences, and states of existence in our Christian lives. And it is for this reason that in our present series of studies, entitled A Manifesto of Trinity Baptist Church, that we are concentrating our attention upon the ninth affirmation in that manifesto, which has been expressed as follows. We in this place are determined to maintain a balanced New Testament perspective in our teaching and expectations concerning conversion, the Christian life, and the mission of the Church. Having spent several months of Lord's Days addressing the life and death issue of the necessity, the nature, and the fruits of life, we began in our last study to focus our attention on this issue of a balanced New Testament perspective and expectation relative to the Christian life. And in that initial study, I sought to set before you the three-fold objective that I would have as long as we were engaged in focusing our attention now upon this subject of the Christian life.

3:29 And that three-fold objective is this, to help some of you to recognize and to repudiate false notions concerning the Christian life, which you may have already imbibed. We saw from the New Testament that under the very eye and influence and care of apostles, false teaching on the Christian life, had nonetheless infected the churches. Asceticism, legalism, escapism, perfectionism, antinomianism, and a host of other isms. And then there is a second objective, and that is to immunize you against false views of the Christian life, to which you may now, or in the future, be exposed. No little part of pastoral duty is described in Ephesians, No little part of pastoral duty is described in Ephesians, No little part of pastoral duty is described in Ephesians, Ephesians 4 and verse 14, in that pastors are to be used of God to help the people of God no longer to be like little children tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. And any genuine pastoral concern is a concern that will find an echo in the words of the apostle who said in 2 Corinthians 11, 3, that he feared,

4:55 lest as the serpent beguiled Eve, the minds of the Corinthians would be beguiled from the simplicity that is in Christ. If Satan's attempts to hide from you the narrow way have failed, and by God's grace you have found that narrow gate, I mean his attempts to hide from you the narrow gate, and you have found the gate and entered it, having lost the battle on that front, having lost the battle on that front, he will do all within his power to create fog upon the narrow way, to create nests and to put in your hands a stack of inaccurate maps as to how to make your way on that narrow way unto life and into the celestial city. And so my purpose is not only to help you to recognize and repudiate false notions, and so my purpose is not only to help you to recognize and repudiate false notions, concerning the Christian life, which may have found their way into your thinking and practice, but to immunize you against such false views, to which you may presently or in the future be exposed. But then thirdly, and more positively, my objective is to lay in your hearts and minds the major foundation blocks of a biblical doctrine of the Christian life.

6:22 For the sake of your own growth in grace, 2 Peter 3.18, written in the context of Peter's warning against false teachers, he says, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and also that you may then have an enhanced ability to minister to others. For God gives pastors and teachers to His church, for the perfectionist, for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of service. And no little part of that service is the God-given ability, as we come to increasing maturity, to exhort one another, to admonish one another, to do with one another, what Priscilla and Aquila did for Apollos when they taught him the way of God more perfectly. Now with that threefold objective set before us in bold relief, we shall proceed. We take up our subject essentially following the outline of my little booklet published by the Banner of Truth entitled Living the Christian Life. And I will be following that outline not because I am lazy and not because I do not want the labor of bringing forth fresh material,

Methodology and Stating the First Basic Principle

7:45 for today's message has cost me much labor and the subsequent messages will cost me, much labor as well. But I have followed the basic outline of that booklet so that you might have in print something that will both reinforce what you hear from the pulpit should you choose to purchase that booklet and also that you would find an instrument, a tool that was a workable tool in your hands to use with others. So then with that review behind us, and announcing what the basic structure will be, the teaching and preaching method will be essentially the same as we work our way through this aspect of this ninth affirmation, namely our determination to have a balanced New Testament doctrine and expectation concerning the Christian life. I will first of all state a basic principle of the biblical teaching, on the Christian life. Secondly, I will explain the meaning of the principle stated. Thirdly, I will demonstrate the biblical basis for that principle.

9:03 And then fourthly, I will conclude with some practical observations, applications and entreaties. We start then this morning with the first of these basic principles. And the basic principle stated is this. There is no single master key to living the Christian life with success and vigor.

9:32 There is no single master key to living the Christian life with success and vigor. Now I believe all of you, even the children, know what a master key is. Here is my own personal key ring. And there is one key here, that has a key.

9:51 Here is my own personal key ring. Here is my own personal key ring. And there is a key here that has, stamped on it, M.K.1.

9:56 And I happen to hold apparently, the first of the most recent set of master keys. M.K. for all of the doors of this Phase II building, and the front doors of the foyer.

10:13 And with that particular master key, there is no door from the front doors And with that particular master key, there is no door from the front doors that lead into the foyer, to the outside or inner office doors, to the door to the tape room or to the book room, door to any of the nursery rooms and Sunday school and academy classrooms. There is no door for which this key will not be the answer to its entrance. If any of those doors are locked, armed with this one master key, every door will open to me. And I am asserting that there is, with respect to living the Christian life with success and vigor, no single master key. I am asserting that a balanced New Testament doctrine of the Christian life clearly states that there is no master key. There is no master key. It clearly affirms that there is no one single truth, no one single promise, no one single activity which will unlock all of the doors of a life of maturing, stable, fruitful Christian experience.

Explaining the Principle: Critiquing 'Master Key' Teachings

11:34 That's the basic principle stated. Now, secondly, the basic principle. The basic principle explained. Why would I state such a principle?

11:46 Why is it needed if we are to lay the foundation stones of a solid biblical doctrine of living the Christian life? Well, for this very simple reason. Throughout the history of the Christian church from the very days of the apostles until now, there have been those who have, have taught that there is indeed one master key provided by God, which, if properly used, will unlock the doors to vibrant witness, success in our battle with sin, competence in all of our relative duties in the home, the church, and society. And if we will but grasp and learn how to use, that master key, we shall find ourselves living a maturing, stable, fruitful, Christian life in every dimension which that life entails. In our day, books by the tons are being printed, seminars costing thousands of dollars are being held, conferences are convened,

13:10 to which people will travel over thousands of miles. And the bottom line in each of these avenues of communication is to attempt to persuade Christians that such a master key does exist, and that they ought at any cost to seek to acquire it and use it. As an example, let me describe, several of these master key teachings. There is the one that we might call the Rwanda Revival Key.

13:51 Burundi and Rwanda are a section in present-day Africa, where you have Bantu people living in those two places, and a number of years ago, there seemed to be a genuine work of the Spirit of God in revival. And the dominant, the dominant characteristic of that revival was that in a context where people had been very closed and insulated from one another in terms of confessing their sins one to another when they had wronged one another, going immediately to God for forgiveness when they had sinned against the Lord, the dominant emphasis of that revival centered on 1 John 1 and verse 7, in which John writes, If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. And when meetings were held in that revival, the dominant activity was not preaching, it was not falling down in physical paroxysms, such as has happened in other, so-called, paroxysms, such as has happened in other, so-called, paroxysms, such as has happened in other, so-called, paroxysms, such as has happened in other, so-called, revivals. It was not that people claimed to be speaking in tongues,

15:16 but there would be sessions that would go on for hours when Christian leaders would stand with tears of brokenness confessing their sins of greed, of pride, of ambition, of immorality, and a host of other sins, confessing them to God and to one another. And someone from the English-speaking world by the name of Roy Hession, happened to be involved in that so-called Rwanda revival, and he sought to capture that dominant emphasis and put it into a book called The Calvary Road. And I can remember as a young Christian back in the mid-fifties when, in many parts of American evangelicalism, there was a growing conviction if only we could capture what they do there in Rwanda, and what was embodied in Roy Hession's book, The Calvary Road, we would have the master key to blessing. We would see individual lives overturned. We would see churches revived. We would see the gospel going out with tremendous power.

16:31 And if you met anyone who had read The Calvary Road, and had imbibed that perspective, you met a person, who was convinced that the master key to living the Christian life was immediate confession of our sin to God, and thorough confession of our sins publicly, one to another. Now surely the Bible teaches that anyone serious about living a healthy, vibrant Christian life must know what it is to confess his sins to God immediately. To go, if necessary, a hundred times a day to the fountain open for sin and for uncleanness. 1 John 1.9. Psalm 66.18.

17:25 If we regard iniquity in our heart, the Lord will not hear us. And no Christian acquainted with this Bible would deny that we need to do what James tells us. Confess your sins one to another. That if we're to have a conversation with God, we're going to confess our sins one to another.

17:39 Confess your sins one to another. Confess your sins one to another. If the conscience void of offense to God in man sins against my wife and my children and my fellow believers, it's not enough if I confess them to God. I must confess them to them as well.

17:55 And that which was a dominant emphasis in that Rwanda revival was not an unbiblical concept. But the problem was, it was one facet of one dimension the Christian life solidified and petrified into a master key to the Christian life. And there's all the difference in the world from having a whole ring of keys, each one suited to open a specific door, and saying all I need is one master key that will open all doors. For another example, there is the Keswick Victorious or Higher Life Key. Keswick, spelled K-E-S-W-I-C-K, after the place in England where that convention has convened for many years. The Keswick Victorious or Higher Life Key, associated with the Keswick Convention in England, with teaching such as was given, by Hannah Whithall Smith in her book, The Christian Secret of a Happy Life, William Boardman and other Higher Life teachers, the basic theology is this,

19:23 that as surely as faith alone enables the hell-deserving sinner to lay hold of Jesus Christ as his righteousness, and we agree that it's faith, and faith, and faith alone which God has ordained to be that by which we appropriate Christ's saving work for us, Higher Life, Keswick Victorious Life teaching says, just as in simple faith the sinner receives Christ in his objective work of perfect life and atoning death for the pardon of his sins and acceptance with God, so we must appropriate Christ by simple faith alone that he might live through us his life of triumph and victory in the Christian life. As surely as we do not add our struggle and our efforts and our endeavors to the initial expression of saving faith when we take Christ as our righteousness, so they teach there is nothing of our effort, nothing of our endeavor, that's the problem, you must let go and let God, you must appropriate Christ in simple faith,

20:49 plus no effort, plus no endeavor, and if only you and I will do that, then he will live, to use the language of a more recent teacher, Major Ian Thomas, he will live his saving life through us, and all we need to be, and this is his terminology, is restfully available. Well, A little lovely little cliche, restfully available.

21:14 Another more recent teacher is the Chinese pastor and writer Watchman Nee, whose book, Sit, Walk, Stand, has brought many into the orbit of this so-called key to the Christian life. And the bottom line of all of the Keswick victorious higher life teaching is that the key that will unlock the door of personal victory to make me what I ought to be before God as a Christian, what I ought to be as a husband before my wife and a father before my children, a witness before an onlooking world, the key is not immediate confession of sin to God where necessary to man, though that is a part of it, but the key is just giving up myself

22:05 and let the living Christ live his life of triumph through me. Then there is the newer Campus Crusade Spirit-filled doctrine, which embodied in their little booklet, Have You Discovered the Secret of the Spirit-filled Life? has a whole approach that they liken unto breathing. I breathe out my self-life.

22:29 Now is it going to be a great struggle for me to take my next breath? I breathe in his life. Isn't that lovely? It's as simple as breathing.

22:40 I'm not setting up a caricature. God's truth doesn't need anyone's lives to help it. What's the whole idea? The whole idea is no struggle, no battle, no buffeting.

22:57 It is as simple and as easy as breathing. Well, these are some of the common, some of the basic, fundamental and dominant concepts in this master-key approach to living the Christian life. And what they all have in common is that rather than seeing the full spectrum of a balanced teaching on the whole ring of keys, which unlock the various doors to triumph and to victory and to conquest and to usefulness, they would reduce all to one master-key. So the basic principle has been stated. There is no single master-key to living the Christian life with success and vigor. The basic principle has been, I trust, sufficiently explained that you will understand what I'm attempting to say.

Biblical Evidence 1: Explicit Statements of Scripture

24:06 Now we come more directly to the Scriptures. The principle expounded and defended from the Scriptures. And here is the nub of the question. The question is this.

24:20 How do we know from the Word of God that there is no one master-key to living the Christian life? To state it a bit more differently, suppose you met an ebullient, outgoing, joyful, richly contagious person who, when you asked him, what's the secret to your life? He says, oh, give me an hour and I'll tell you. And he tells you how his prayer life was shoddy, his own personal life as a man before God was shoddy, his life as a husband and a workman and a father was shoddy.

25:00 But he went to a convention and he heard these marvelous sermons on the saving life of Christ and he let go and he let God. And he told you that the secret to the kind of life he lived was that he had discovered the master-key of letting the indwelling Christ live through him. How would you lovingly respond to such a man, such a woman? How would you seek to take the place of a Priscilla and Aquila and show from the Word of God that though you do not deny something happened to him that has transformed him for as far as you can see, he is indeed now a very fruitful Christian and contagious in his godliness and in his zeal and in his wholesome piety. But how would you instruct him in the way of God more perfectly? Well, after we're done this morning, I hope you would be able to say I would by showing him these three lines of biblical evidence. The principle expounded and defended from the Scriptures.

26:09 Number one, we know there is no one master-key from the explicit statements of Scripture which affirm this fact. There are explicit statements in Scripture which affirm that there is no one master-key to living the Christian life. I want you to turn to one of those verses with me in Matthew chapter 4 we had occasion to look at this passage in the previous hour in another connection, but I want you to notice its significance because it is in a context of temptation. A context in which our Lord overcame temptation in which he was confronted with different kinds of temptation. And here in the first temptation which was to turn stones into bread and thereby to validate his identity as the Son of God, how did Jesus respond to the devil? Matthew 4, 3, And the tempter came and said unto him, If thou art the Son of God, or since thou art the Son of God, command that these stones become bread. But he answered and said, It is written,

27:34 Man shall not live by bread alone. But by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by not one simple word that will be sufficient spiritual diet in every situation and circumstance. No!

28:02 Man shall live by the full spectrum of all the vitamins, and minerals, and fiber, and nutrients in every word of the living God. And the very proof of that is in the subsequent accounts of the two other temptations. For you see, Jesus did not answer with that one verse as though it were the key. When another temptation came, appealing to another dimension of realities, cast thyself down, for it is written, and the devil quotes scripture to Jesus, Jesus answers what?

28:46 Not with the master key, that man shall not live by bread alone, no, but by a key suited to that particular temptation. Again it is written, Thou shalt not make trial of the Lord thy God. Here was a different key to unlock the door of the devil from that particular temptation of the devil. And the same thing is true with the third temptation.

29:19 You are familiar with it. I might not take time to demonstrate it, but surely these explicit statements from the very lips of our Lord Jesus, quoting from the book of Deuteronomy, affirms that our lives as the people of God are dependent upon every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, not a concoction of a few words which have been hammered into one master key. We know it as well from the explicit statement of 2 Timothy 3, verses 16 and 17. 2 Timothy 3, verses 16 and 17. Paul has spoken to his spiritual son, Timothy, urging him that though it will be costly to be a true servant of Christ and he will suffer persecution, he says nonetheless, verse 14, Abide in the things that you have learned and been assured of, knowing of whom you have learned them, and that from a babe you have known the sacred writings which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Timothy, you have known those sacred writings which have as their fundamental and primary purpose that they should make you wise

30:45 unto salvation through faith in Christ. It is the scriptures that will show you, Timothy, what you are as a sinner who needs salvation. It is the scriptures that will show you that God was committed to rescuing people from their sins through the intervention of the seed of the woman, that seed of the woman that later on we learn would be Abraham's seed, would come from the tribe of Judah, would be David's son while yet being David's Lord. Timothy, never, never give up those scriptures which are the only divinely ordained instrument through which men will come to saving knowledge. But then he says, Timothy, the scriptures are not only profitable for that first and fundamental purpose, but for that fundamental function. Verse 16, all scripture is inspired of God and is also profitable for something else. Timothy, all scripture is inspired of God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction or training which is in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work.

32:10 Timothy, you are a safe man because the first function of scripture has been realized in your life. Timothy, from a child, a nursing babe, you've known the sacred writings and by the blessing of the Spirit of God upon those writings you've seen yourself lost and undone, a helpless, hell-deserving sinner. And through those writings you have come to the knowledge that Jesus of Nazareth is all that God had promised in the seed of the woman, in the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Judah, David's son and David's Lord, the suffering servant of Isaiah, the branch of Jeremiah. Timothy, you've come to know that salvation through the scriptures. Now Timothy, would you be a man of God, thoroughly equipped for every work to which you are now being assigned, every task which is being laid upon you in your labors there at Ephesus? Then Timothy, the very same scriptures which are able to make you wise to salvation have performed their first and fundamental function in you by the blessing of the Spirit. Those scriptures in their entirety, all scripture is God breathed and all scripture is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction,

33:40 for training in righteousness. All of the scripture to make you a whole man furnished unto every work in the will of God. Timothy, you need the whole of your Bible to make you a whole man, to be wholly prepared for the whole of your duty as a man before God and as a preacher and a servant in his church. What could be plainer, that if Timothy went rooting around looking for a master key, he would have flown in the face of this very statement of the apostle.

34:16 Paul does not say, Timothy, the scriptures have made you wise to salvation. Now within them is embedded a master key. Give the rest of your life seeking for it. No.

34:27 He said all scripture is profitable for teaching. All scripture is profitable and necessary to train a man, up in a life of practical holiness and righteousness. What is that? But what we would call a successful, a vibrant, a spirit-filled Christian life.

34:47 And so the scripture explicitly says that there is no one master key. And for any man to say there is, is to fly into the face of the words of Jesus quoting Deuteronomy. Man shall live by every word. And the words of the apostle to Timothy, all scripture is profitable.

35:10 All scripture profitable because necessary that a man may be wholly equipped for the work of God. And then one other text, when Jesus gave the commission that we've been studying under Pastor Hoffmeier's leadership in recent days in the Sunday school. Remember when our Lord Jesus commissioned his own in Matthew 28, he said, since all authority has been given unto me in heaven and on earth, going therefore make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to know and to master the use of the master key. That's what some people do. I've seen it. I have witnessed it.

36:04 I've seen the painful effects of it. No sooner does someone profess faith in Christ for what they've got their little stack of books, all within the narrow compass of setting forth their concept of the master key. And they say, if only we can put this key into the hands of a young disciple, he won't go through the struggles of others. He won't go through the agonizing self-doubt and through the trauma of wondering, how shall I deal with this appendage from my old life, this spiritual vestigial argument that's hanging on to me.

36:42 He won't go through that. Give them the master key and they'll take off like a rocket. No. Jesus said, take these disciples and then commit yourself to providing for them a ministry of instruction that will bring them into an awareness of the full spectrum of my commands.

37:02 And will seek to impart that instruction to the end that they will observe, not merely know all that I've commanded you, but they will, in the strength and power of the dynamics of grace, they will observe whatsoever I have commanded you. So when we assert that there is no one master key, on what biblical grounds can we assert it? From the explicit statements of scripture which affirm it. But secondly, from the descriptions of the godly which affirm it. From the descriptions of the godly which affirm it. And we go, as we did in the previous hour, but now for different reasons, to Psalm 1. Godly man described in Psalm 1.

Biblical Evidence 2: Descriptions of the Godly

38:07 He is described, first of all, of what he does not do. O blessedness of the man that walks not in the counsel, the advice of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the one master key of living so as to please God. And on that key doth he fix his attention day and night. No.

38:42 His delight is in the law of Jehovah, the whole of that law. Though he cannot know all of its content at once, though he will never in this life master all of his teaching, he is committed to knowing the whole of God's law. Meditating, ruminating, swallowing and burping up into his upper spiritual stomach and chewing as the cow chews its cub that he might thoroughly digest and have it assimilated into his spiritual system. On his law doth he meditate day and night.

39:25 He shall be like a tree planted, both stability and nourishment planted by streams of water, fruitfulness bringing forth fruit in its season. Vigor and life his leaf doth not wither. There is no autumn in his life when the leaves, because the sap is drained down, turn to their beautiful colors, but it's the beauty of the death of those leaves. God says, the trees of my planting remain green and flourishing.

39:59 Parallel passage, Psalm 92. Why? Because of the law of God. The inner life of the child of God.

40:15 When Joshua is about to be God's instrument to lead the people into the land of promise, what does God give him as he faces that tremendous task? Leading that nation that was not accustomed to war, leading that nation upon whom God had set his sovereign electing love, that nation that had had the leadership of Moses, the greatest of all the Old Testament leaders and prophets. What does God say to Joshua now that Moses is dead? Moses, my servant, is dead.

40:56 Go home and possess this land. And as Tozer has so strikingly stated, nothing of God dies when a man of God dies. Moses, I'm Jehovah, and all that was to Moses I'm prepared to be to you, Joshua. But now as he's about to go into the land, what is he told to do?

41:21 Look at verse 8. This book of the law, that entire segment of Old Testament revelatory data given through Moses, this of the law, segment of the Old Covenant revelation called the book of the law, meditate on all of it day and night that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein for then. For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous and then thou shalt have good success. Would you be successful, Joshua, as a man, as a leader, as a general, as the one through whom this promised conquest will actually be effected? Then, Joshua, I give you no one master key. I give you the whole book of the law.

42:26 Meditate in it day and night. Set your heart to observe it and to keep it. Then, Joshua, good success and your way will be prosperous. Here's the description of the godly.

42:42 Meditates in the law of God. Not one master key contained within it. He prospers in all that he does. Joshua prospered in the same path marked out by Psalm 1.

42:58 But then turning to the New Testament, look at the description of the godly, which affirms that there is no one master key. Our Lord in John 15 describes the godly, his people, as branches incorporated into himself as the main life of the vine. The main branch or stalk, I'm not sure what is the proper term for the main element in a vine, of which branches are the lesser elements. We would say of a tree, the trunk.

43:34 I'm not sure the proper term of a vine, but our Lord says, I am the vine. You are the branches. He urges them to abide in him, to remain in vital union with him. The context makes it plain that that is done by a life of universal obedience.

43:53 But then I direct your attention to verses 7 and 8 in particular. If ye abide in me, abide in you, whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you, herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit, and so shall ye be my disciples. It is in the way of much fruit bearing that your identity as my disciples is validated. Your much fruit bearing does not make you my disciples.

44:32 It makes it manifest that you truly are my disciples. A parallel passage would be John 8. If you continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed. He doesn't say if you continue, you will become.

44:47 He says then you are indeed continuance. In his word is the manifestation of the validity of professed discipleship. And he says it is in that living in him and his word living in us. Not one master key takes hold of us.

45:06 Not his act through the vine. A passage used to teach that false view of letting go and letting Christ live through you. I had a dear man of God in my Bible school days. A godly man.

45:27 To this day the godliness of his life goes before him and is proverbial among all who know him. He is an embodiment of Psalm 92. But I shall never forget him coming into chapel one day. And he had a power drill.

45:44 That was back before the days of battery operated power drills. And he stood up there pulling the trigger of the power drill. He said nothing is happening. Nothing is happening.

45:53 Nothing is happening. Why? He says it is not plugged in. And he says that is your Christian life.

45:58 You will struggle and you will fight. But once you get plugged in and the electricity flows, then the power drill doesn't strain at all because the electricity supplies the power. And then he went on to say and that is the problem with men. Many of us were struggling.

46:12 We are striving. We just need to get plugged in. Just let the Lord Jesus live his life through us. Taught this wretched doctrine of the master key being letting go and letting God.

46:26 Now thank God he lived better than his theology of the Christian life. Or he would not be proverbial for godliness. No, the words of Christ dwelt richly in him. All of the words of Christ.

46:41 The parallel passage being Colossians 16 where we are commanded to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly, not some master key extracted from the word of Christ. And all of scripture is the word of Christ for it was the spirit of Christ in the prophets, Peter tells us, which spoke beforehand of his sufferings and the glories that should follow. No, dear people, never, never be tempted to believe there is one master key. For not only will you run afoul of the explicit statements of scripture which affirm that there is no master key, you'll run afoul of the descriptions of the godly which affirm there is no one master key. And then the third line of biblical evidence is this. We know this is so from the apostolic pattern of dealing with problems, which also affirms it. From the apostolic pattern of dealing with problems which affirms this principle.

Biblical Evidence 3: Apostolic Pattern of Dealing with Problems

47:51 You see, if there were one master key to the Christian life, to unlock every single door of unfulfilled duty, every door of besetting sin, surely if anyone would know about that key, it would have been the apostles. And moreover, if anyone was going to know about it and make copies and pass it on, they would have to make their job a lot easier. Because you remember when Paul is listing all that he bears as an apostle in 2 Corinthians, he speaks of being a day and night in the deep, stoned, imprisoned, and he says, besides all that which comes upon me daily, anxiety for the churches. That was his crushing burden, anxiety for the churches that made him pray, that made him pen letters. Ah, but when he penned the letters, how did he approach the manifold problems of those churches? Take just one church as a specimen, the church of Corinth. What were some of the problems?

48:52 Do you remember them? Chapter 1, he introduces the first one. Problem of divisions. It's been reported unto me.

48:58 Open your Bible and follow. Some of you, it's not in your heads and I want you to know it's not just coming out of my head. If you would please, that's not a command, it's an entreaty. Please, follow in your Bibles.

49:11 Divisions. The household of Chloe has told me there are divisions among you. You're lining up behind Apollos and Cephas and Paul and some of you pseudo-spiritual ones say a plague on all of you. We're just lined up behind Jesus.

49:26 I am of Christ. And then he deals with the problem of worldly wisdom. Verse 20, Where is the wise? Where is the scribe?

49:33 That was a problem there. Comes back to the problem of divisions in chapter 3. Then in chapter 5, he says it's reported there's fornication among you. Such fornication is not even named among the Gentiles.

49:47 Chapter 6, verse 1, Brother going to law against brother before heathen courts and judges. Dare any of you having a matter against his neighbor go to law before the unrighteous. Later on in the chapter, he deals with the problem of fornication and uncleanness. Verse 18, Flee fornication.

50:08 Every sin that a man does is without the body. Chapter 7, questions concerning marriage and singleness. Chapter 8, he deals with the matter of Christian liberty with reference to foods offered to idols. 8, 1.

50:24 He deals in chapters 12 to 14 with spiritual gifts. He deals in chapter 15 with the heretical doctrine that there is no resurrection of the body. What a horrible collection of a mess was there to come. Now what did Paul do?

50:40 If ever there was one master key, here was the eye and show its tremendous power. Divisions. Master key to your divisions. It's been reported to me you're being influenced by worldly wisdom.

51:05 Take the master key to your worldly wisdom. It's reported that there are problems of immorality and you need to discipline. Here's the master key. It's reported that there's no such indication of that.

51:20 Every single problem is dealt with in a different way with a different set of biblical and spiritual perspectives, a different set of facts, of motives, of gospel lights and side lights and no... Why?

51:43 Because there is no one master key to the Christian life. There is no one master key to the Christian life. And the manner in which the apostles deal with problems in the churches, the manner in which the Lord Jesus himself deals with the problems of the churches in Revelation 2 and 3, though some of the churches had similar maladies even the rest in terms of the peculiarities of each circumstance. Now dear people, as much as our flesh would love it and as much as some good and godly men teach it, there is no one master key to living the Christian life. Now having stated the principle, explained it, I trust, expounded and defended it from Scripture, I close now with some concluding observations and exhortations and entreaties. First, I speak to you who are not in Christ. Older women, young men and women, teenagers, little children,

Application for the Unconverted: Christ is the One Master Key to Salvation

53:08 you are not in Christ. You have not taken the posture to which the Scriptures had brought Timothy, where he saw himself in spite of his godly mother and his godly grandmother as one who needed to be saved and came to see that salvation was to be found alone in Christ Jesus. And vomiting out his sin and self-trust and self-righteousness, he cast himself upon Christ alone as he was offered in the Gospel. Listen to me, my unconverted man, woman, boy or girl, for you and your need there is one master key and that is to repent and believe the Gospel.

53:53 There is one master key and that key is a person, that person who says, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. And he says, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest to your souls.

54:24 You may have sat here and much of what I said this morning just flew over your head and you sat there struggling to even pay attention. What relevance does this have to me? No master key, no master key, no master key. What's the relevance, my friend?

54:38 Hear me now. For you in your need there is but one master key and that key is Christ. And until you are united to Christ as intimately as a branch is united to a vine, as a husband is joined in his one flesh with his wife, until by faith Christ is yours and you are Christ's, you're under the wrath of God, exposed to the frightening fury of that wrath for you in your sins. And I urge you in the language of the hymn we sang before the sermon, come ye sinners, poor and wretched, weak and wounded, sick and sore. Jesus ready stands to save even you full of pity joined with power. Let not conscience make you linger nor fitness fondly dream I'll get myself better then I'll come. No, don't fondly dream of fitness.

55:41 All the fitness he requireth is to feel your need of him. I came not to call the righteous but sinners. Do you see yourself a sinner? Then he calls you in the gospel.

Application for Believers with Arrested Growth: Deal Ruthlessly with Sin

55:54 And he and he alone is the key to the great issue of the forgiveness of sins, acceptance with God, readiness to die and go to judgment. But then I say to you who are in Christ and in a state of arrested growth, you've got that besetting sin that is like a horrible, gnawing spiritual toothache. It's there when you wake up. It's there when you go to bed.

56:27 It follows you to your place of work. There is arrested growth because of some pocket of remaining sin that seems to constantly mock you by its strength. And when you read sin shall not have dominion over you, you can say of many things, Lord, it's true, this sin no longer has dominion and that's...

56:52 But oh God, this one here, this one here, Lord, how can it be true that sin does not have dominion when that's such a grip upon me? Listen to me. You are most vulnerable to this teaching that the reason that sin is still there, you haven't discovered the key. See?

57:13 You haven't discovered the key. That somehow God hasn't really opened His mind and heart and somehow the ministry here is inadequate and somehow the books we carry in the bookstore and the tapes we promote and the counseling we do, it hasn't shown you the key, my friend, that's a carnal cop-out in your sin and blaming God and someone else. And he that covers his sin shall not prosper. That's that which God has given to deal with that sin.

57:54 ...for what it is.

58:09 Don't go looking for... Don't go looking for master keys.

58:20 Look that thing straight in the eye and say in the strength of Christ, the grace of His Spirit, be weakened in its power. You have to go the old...

58:45 ...blessing to God if you call before it a hundred times a day and if necessary go into your wife and to your kids if it's something visible and something manifested before others and you're gonna have to deal ruthlessly with the things that leave you more vulnerable to that sin and leave you more open to its provocations in your breast.

59:10 You're gonna have to watch as well as pray that you enter not into temptation. You can't go sauntering in carelessly into the circumstances which unusually provoke it and then say, well, you don't have the key. Yes, you do. The key is there in the Word of God, the things you flee from, certain things you cut off and pluck out and throw away.

59:33 May God help the grace of God that faith and fight leave and buffet back in you and by the grace of God I'm going to make progress. And you still got the spoiled brat in you and you want somebody to stroke you and wipe the fever from your brow and pity you when by now you ought to be more than conqueror by the grace of Christ over that sin. If you don't want to go to heaven, you don't want to get to heaven bad enough to reach there. It's that simple. You want to get there some other way, you won't.

Application for Spiritually Healthy Believers: Press On by the Same Rule

60:41 That's God's way. In faith, in trust, do not cancel, fight and trample and buffet that drive me to fight and the very excuse me to trample and the very energy to buffet and to hack and to you. And finally, to you who are in a present spiritually healthy state and I believe that is many of you, I just urge you in the language of Philippians 3, 13 to 16 and this is my closing comment to the text. I urge you to lay to these words.

61:26 Philippians 3, 13 to 17. Brethren, I count not myself to have yet laid hold but one thing I do. Forgetting the things which are behind, stretching forward to the things that are before, I award the gold unto the prize of the high Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, full-grown, mature, healthy people, be thus minded and, if in anything you're otherwise minded, this also shall God reveal unto you only whereunto we have attained by that same rule. Let us walk. How have you come to this present state? By the old of praying, confessing, trampling underfoot your lust, use of liberties when they ensnare you and cause others to stumble.

62:35 What's the rule by which you now attain your present state? Don't look for some exotic, easy key that's going to jumpstart you to a new plateau. Don't waste your time. Forget what is behind.

62:52 Press on. And by what set of principles? The ones that have brought you where you are. And that's why we're determined to maintain a balanced New Testament doctrine of the Christian life.

63:08 That with the apostle, we may so press on. By the same rule by which he pressed on. That when our end comes, we can say, I have fought the good fight. I have kept the faith.

Closing Prayer

63:20 Henceforth there's laid up for me the crown. Let us pray. Thank you for your holy word. We thank you that it is a lamp unto our feet and a light to our pathway.

63:42 And how we plead that in this day when the winds of confusing teaching on the Christian life blow so fiercely and some blow with a smell that is so attractive and even seducing that you will keep our hearts and minds so riveted to our Bibles that we will not be in any way seduced from the old biblical paths of full wholeness to the whole of Scripture. These things upon our heart and for those who are strangers to your grace may the entreaty that they would close with Christ this morning not be in vain. Seal then your word and dismiss us with your blessing we pray in Jesus name. Amen.