Our Love Must Be Properly Protected

Introduction: The Christian's Danger and Duty in an Age of Abounding Lawlessness

0:03 The following message was delivered on Sunday evening, September 26, 1993, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now as we pray for God's blessing upon the ministry of the word here, let us also remember our brother Ken Harris, who is preaching in an entirely different setting. I can assume on good grounds and on solid evidence that the vast majority of you sitting here sit here as those who love Christ and love his word and come expecting that word to come to your heart with grace and power. Ken ministers in a setting where there are men who look upon their place there in the mission as a convenience. As a means to have a place to sleep and a meal to fill their bellies. And let us cry to God that as Ken seeks to seize their ears and to hold them with the word of God that the spirit of God will greatly assist him even as we trust him for his assistance here.

1:18 Let us pray together. Our Father, we thank you that you are never weary when your people come to you in sincerity and in truth. We find nothing in your word to discourage us from coming again and again and again and again so long as our coming is the outcry of our felt need and our believing acknowledgment that your ear is open to the cry of the righteous and you delight to come to their aid. Lord, it is in that spirit that we come tonight.

1:59 We come to plead as a congregation for our brother Ken Harris and to plead that as he stands and even now preaches to those men at the mission you would be with his mouth even as the apostles sought the prayers of the Ephesian Christians that utterance would be given unto him that he might open his mouth and speak boldly as he ought to speak. So we plead this for our brother Ken. Oh, God, be with his mouth. Help him to seize the ears.

2:30 Seize the ears of those men and may your word fasten itself upon their consciences and this night may some be brought out of darkness and into your marvelous light. And then, oh Lord, we again plead for those aspects of the ministry of the Spirit which we both need as much as those men need and without which our time in the word will be. Amen. Amen.

3:01 Amen. Come then and help preacher and listener alike that we may know what it is to have your word fastening itself upon our consciences, gripping our wills and directing our lives. Hear us, we plead. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

3:22 Amen.

3:27 Now, if you will please turn with me to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 24,

3:34 as we come tonight. this evening to our final meditation in these two verses found in Matthew 24 verses 12 and 13. In the midst of what is commonly designated as the Olivet Discourse, our Lord Jesus speaking says, and because iniquity shall be multiplied, the love of the many shall wax cold. But, he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved. We have considered this text on three previous occasions under the title of the Christian's Danger and Duty in an Age of Abounding Lawlessness. In our initial message, I sought to unpack the basic content of the text. It begins

4:37 by saying that iniquity shall be multiplied. Our Lord envisions a season when there will be not the mere presence of iniquity or lawlessness, but when the presence of lawlessness shall be greatly heightened and increased. And after the condition is described, the declaration of lawlessness is predicted. As a result of the influence of that abounding lawlessness, the love of the many shall wax cold, or it could be rendered, the love of the many shall be extinguished. Many who professed love as the fruit of their professed faith to Christ will find that love extinguished, and with it all of the fruits of that professed love will be swept away. They will become apostates. But then our Lord sets before us the resistance demanded, but he that endureth,

5:55 he that perseveres to the end, the same shall be saved. Personal perseverance, in the way of faith and love and its fruits, in spite of the pressure that comes from abounding lawlessness, is demanded of all who would find themselves saved at the end of their own lives, at the end in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. And though it is absolutely certain that every child of God shall be saved, he that perseveres to the end, the same shall be saved. God, in whom the root of the matter has been planted by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, will persevere to the end. It is a certainty, it is nonetheless a necessity, that we persevere to the end. Then we went on to see that if the grace of love to Christ is to be kept burning hot amidst the chilling rain in the context, of abounding lawlessness, that that love must first of all be properly rooted in our hearts.

The Proper Rooting and Nurturing of Love for Christ

7:15 That love that we profess to have to Christ must be the result of a powerful operation of the grace of God in our hearts. It is only those whose professed love to Christ is the fruit of his own supernatural work in the heart, that we can be saved. And so, we must first of all be properly rooted in our hearts. And so, we will see that love continuing to increase and maintain itself in the midst of abounding lawlessness. But not only must it be properly rooted in our hearts, as we saw in our communion meditation two Lord's Day evenings ago, it must be properly nurtured in our hearts. That love which God plants must be nurtured. And again, while the Lord Jesus is committed in his life of intercession, and the Holy Spirit is committed by the mysterious but powerful operations of his indwelling presence, and the Father is committed by his immutable, unchangeable purpose, that the love of Christ in our hearts should be nurtured, we are nonetheless responsible for the nurturing of that love.

8:35 And I sought to set before you this simple but crucial principle, that our love to Christ must be nurtured by the frequent Bible-based believing contemplation of Christ's love to us. Such text as 2 Corinthians 5.14 and Romans 12.1 illustrate and enforce the principle that our love to Christ is always responsive, reactive, and reciprocal. It is never self-initiating or self-perpetuating.

9:19 And how often have we sung this in some of the well-known hymns in our Trinity Hymnal, the third stanza of 397. I find, I walk, love is but my answer. Lord, to thee, for thou wert long beforehand with my soul, always thou lovest me. That's what we sing.

9:51 Yes, we find, we love, but we acknowledge that our love is responsive, reactive, reciprocal. Oh, the whole of love is but my answer, Lord, to thee. We sing it in that well-known hymn, majestic sweetness sits enthroned upon the Savior's brow. After the two initial stanzas focus upon the glory of Christ in his person, stanzas three through five speak of his work on our behalf.

10:29 He saw me plunged in deep distress and flew to my relief. For me he bore the shameful cross and carried all my grief to him. I owe my life and breath and all the joys I have. He makes me triumph over death and saves me from the grave. To heaven, the place of his abode, he brings my wandering or weary feet, shows me the glories of my God, and makes my joys complete. Now, what's the response of the heart of a believer to the contemplation of those expressions of the Lord? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

11:12 The love of Christ, stanza six, since from his bounty I received such proofs of love divine, had eyes and hearts to give, Lord, they should all be thine. There is the reaction. There is the reciprocation. There is the response. Our love kindled by the contemplation of his love. So we must frequently meditate upon that love in its past supreme manifestation, in the events surrounding the cross, in its present manifold manifestations, his constant intercession and nurturing and caring for his own, and in its glorious future manifestation, when we as the sons and daughters of God shall be like him. Seeing him as he is. So then, if our love to Christ is to be kept hot and vigorous in

The Necessity of Properly Protecting Our Love for Christ

12:22 an age of abounding lawlessness, it must not only be properly rooted in our hearts, it must be properly nurtured in our hearts. But now tonight in this final meditation, I want to set before you a third part of the answer to the question, how? How can love to Christ be kept hot in an age of abounding lawlessness? And I answer, not only must it be properly rooted and properly nurtured, but it must be properly protected.

13:03 Like an exotic plant that can never grow unless it is rooted well in proper soil with the right pH balance. And then is nurtured by right pH balance. And then is nurtured by right pH balance. And then is nurtured by right pH balance.

13:16 Right amounts of sun and moisture and fertilizer. But you see that exotic plant will not last long simply if it is well rooted and properly nurtured, it must also be protected. It must be protected from the bugs and aphids that have a peculiar propensity to fasten themselves upon that particular plant and to eat away its life. life. It must be protected from the plant diseases to which that particular exotic plant is more peculiarly liable, and it must be kept from blistering, withering heat and killing and killing frosts. That exotic plant must not only be well-rooted and well-nurtured, it must also be well-protected. And so it is with our love to Christ. If we would persevere to the end in love to Christ and all of its fruits, without which we shall not be saved, but become part of the many who under the pressure of abounding lawlessness, the love is extinguished, then, dear people,

14:36 we must be utterly committed to the protection, of that grace of love. And though, again, the scriptures make it plain that God, who has begun the good work in us, will perfect it until the day of Christ, and no little part of that ongoing perfecting of that work is the nurturing, the nourishing, and the protecting of the grace of love to Christ in our hearts, the Bible makes it plain that though it is God's work, it is also our work and our responsibility. For we read in Jude 20, that ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God.

15:32 Yourselves in the love of God. It doesn't say, in your praying in the Holy Spirit, trust God to keep you. In his love, in the Holy Spirit, must be joined to active endeavor to keep ourselves in the love of God. The principle that is in that text is applicable to the subject before us. We must keep the love of Christ, that is, our love for him, not only continually nourished in the way of God's appointment. Namely, by the contemplation of his love to us, but we must seek to guard it from everything and anything that would weaken its vigor. And so tonight, as we open up this subject of protecting that grace of love, I want to assert that the duty of every Christian in an age of abounding lawlessness is to keep the love of God. And so tonight, as we open up this subject of protecting

16:44 that grace of love, I want to assert that the duty of every Christian in an age of abounding lawlessness is to properly protect his love to Christ from any and all influences that would weaken its vigor. It is the duty of every Christian in an age of abounding lawlessness, properly protect his love to Christ from any and all influences that would weaken its vigor. And as I have sought to sustain this ministry of faith, I have sought to do this with the hope of daily worship, and so search the scriptures and search my own heart and be sensitive to this particular congregation in the peculiar manifestations of abounding lawlessness in this peculiar society in which we live, I want to set before you four very clear, explicit warnings with reference to things that will dampen your ardor for Christ, that will weaken the vigor of your love to Christ, and you and I must be committed with all the energy of our soul and in the use of every divinely appointed means to guard ourselves from the painful influence of these things. Number one, beware of any human relationship

Warning 1: Beware of Human Relationships that Weaken Love for Christ

18:08 which weakens the vigor of your love to Christ. Beware of any human relationship which weakens the vigor of your love to Christ. According to such passages as Luke 14, 25 and following, and the parallel passage in Matthew chapter 10, 34 and following, no one becomes a true Christian until by the operation of the Holy Spirit all altruist human relationships are shattered at the feet of Jesus Christ. For our Lord Jesus said to the vast multitudes in a day when it was popular to be found in his company, If any man comes unto me and hates not his own father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life, also he cannot be my disciple. Christ will not take into the ranks of his own anyone who is not prepared to give to him the place of supreme affection.

19:33 He will not share that affection which is due to him with anyone who would rival that measure of affection which is his due as God, and as the only redeemer of sinners. As one of the Puritans said, the great work in conversion is to win the heart to Christ. That's the great work in conversion. That was the struggle with the rich young ruler.

20:07 His heart was enmeshed and inclined with his riches. And when Jesus said, you must part with that idolatrous, rival affection to your riches if your heart would be attached to me, disentangle your heart. Those sell that thou hast, give to the poor, thou shalt have treasure in heaven, come, follow me. He could not bring himself to do that.

20:37 He went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. We could well render it, great possessions had him.

20:47 But they had his father, and Christ wanted his heart. And he wanted all of it. And he would be satisfied with nothing less than that. And alas, he went away sorrowful.

21:01 And if the winning of the heart is the great work in conversion, the Puritan said, so the great work in the Christian life is keeping the heart with Christ. The great work in conversion is winning the heart. The great work in the Christian life is keeping the heart, keeping the heart.

21:26 Now God has made us social beings with social needs. Before the fall, every single relationship increased man's love for God. And had Adam and Eve not sinned, all of their progeny and all of the extended family and all of the various social relationships that would have developed in a holy, well-ordered, unsinful society, every single relationship at every moment, every single moment, at every level, fully meeting every social need, every bit of it, would have contributed to man's love to God. But one of the tragedies of sin is that all of those relationships, while man still remains a social being with social needs, sin has so insinuated itself into the totality of man's being that there is not a human relationship that cannot become the occasion of idolatry. Hence, when the Lord Jesus calls disciples, He said, I will brook no rival to your heart. You must love me more than father, mother, brother, sister in the parallel passage in Matthew 10. And if you are not prepared that I shall have a place of unrivaled and supreme affection and attachment in your heart, then I will not own you as my disciple.

22:55 Now, in the light of our text, because iniquity, lawlessness shall abound. Lawlessness shall abound. The love of the many shall wax cold. In an age of abounding lawlessness, one of the marks of that lawlessness is that people are prepared to break the first commandment with reference to their social needs and to otherwise legitimate social relationships.

23:25 What is the first commandment? Thou shalt have no other gods before me. The God who acknowledges social structures very explicitly in commandment number four and five. For in the Sabbath institution He assumes that each man as Lord over his household will not only himself remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy and in it do no work, but He will see to it that that standard extends to all who are within His extension and His limited household, His servants, His family, and even the strangers that come within His gates.

24:07 You see, there are social dimensions to the implementation of the fourth commandment. Then, of course, when we come to the fifth, it recognizes the existence of that intimate social tie of parent and child, honor your father and your mother. But you see, whatever that means, it does not mean there is any right to violate the first commandment. And turn the honoring of parents into a form of idolatry.

24:35 And then in the other commandments the social dimensions stand on the very surface. And what has happened because of sin and particularly in an age of abounding lawlessness, man takes these God-given social needs and these God-ordained social structures and totally breaks the boundaries of God's commandments and makes idols out of human relationships. And that happens on every side there is a tremendous temptation for the people of God subtly to be sucked into the vortex of such a society. And because iniquity abounds, iniquity, and that human relationships become idolatrous, of the many rose cold. In any society, in any age, Jesus Christ will be satisfied with nothing less than the whole of the heart of all of his people. Now I want to be specific in my application. Dear parents, if you are not prepared to take God's side against your

25:58 children, listen to me carefully. The fear of alienating your children could be the door out of the Christian faith and into apostasy for some of you. I have lived long enough to see it, where people refuse. Those who are so fearful of having their daughters angry with them, that they would not demand a standard of reasonable modesty in the dress of their daughters while they're unmarried.

26:35 Under their roof, there's not a man here that does not have a sense of what is unnecessarily provocative in the developed body of a young woman. This, in Trinity Church, then is why what your daughters wear at the pool of Christ. Their spouses, God's side against husband

27:33 or wife, where the expectations of the spouse lead not into an orbit of distasteful, but nonetheless, unrighteousness. If you have a less legitimate accommodation, that you might, by that accommodation, keep peace in the home and seek to win an unconverted spouse, oh no. Your bottom line is, I'll bend and I'll capitulate, which says, if I go beyond that line or stay back of that line, my spouse will leave me and I can't live without him and without her. My friend, you can live without him or her, but you cannot live nor die nor dare you go to judgment without Christ. And if your love to spouse and the human relationship of marriage with its multilevel intimacy has become a form of idolatry, beware, it can only dampen and weaken the vigor of your love to Christ. I say to you, young people, this is the time

28:54 of the test you must put to all of your same-sex relationships. You girls, what young women should you seek to cultivate more intimate friendships with? You guys, what guys ought to be your closer buddies? If you name the name of Christ and profess to love him, here's the tax, here's the test, beware of any human relationship which weakens the vigor of your love to Christ.

29:24 Ask yourself, when you spend your time with your spouse, do you love your spouse? Do you love your spouse when you spend an afternoon at that gal's home, your closest girlfriend as a young woman? Do I come away more sensitive to the voice of Christ, more pliant to the word of Christ, more excited about the church of Christ and the people of Christ and the ways of Christ and the work of Christ and the will of Christ? Or does my time with that friend cause me to draw back and have less appetite for my best friend?

29:54 For my Waters, for my Bible, for church, for obedience to my parents? You must answer the question young women. If you name the name of Christ, you beware of any human relationship that weakens the vigor of your love to Christ. You guys, the same thing. It's not enough that you're a sports nut and your closest buddy shares your involvement in sports. That may be legitimate in itself, but ask the question when we've spent an afternoon together, when And we've spent a Saturday together. I come back to my home. Am I looking forward more to the Lord's Day, to my Sunday school class, to the preaching of the word, to the worship of God because I've been with that guy?

30:38 Or do I find myself digging my heels in saying, ah, Sunday again.

30:45 Now, you've got to be the judge. I can't be.

30:49 But if you want to be found persevering to the end and you claim to be attached to Christ in faith and love in an age of abounding wickedness, you must beware of any human relationship which weakens the vigor of your love to Christ. And then it extends from parent-child, spouse-to-spouse, same-sex friendships. And it's the acid test of opposite-sex friendships and romantic pursuits. It's not enough.

31:22 It's not enough that she stirs your hormones and your he-mones and your hormones.

31:30 Not enough.

31:34 Does my interest in that young man, that young woman, does the cultivation of that interest find me more vigorous in my love to Christ? Or does it make me more preoccupied with my face and my eye shadow and my lipstick and my bust and my behind? Come on, gals. If you make an idol because of the guy you're interested in, that's what he makes it known is the thing that he's most interested in. It's not your love to Christ which he seeks to nurture and which he fastens on to as the thing most attractive in you. You know it. He knows it.

32:46 Remember Samson? He never learned this lesson. If God didn't put Samson among the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11, none of us would think he had the root of the matter in him. You'd never know it.

33:00 Every gal he looked on that caused his juices to flow, he had to have her. You read the story.

33:09 The Bible is very blunt in its description.

33:14 But it's not just Samson concerning whose state we have questions if God didn't settle it by putting him in Hebrews 11. But look at David, the man after God's own heart. When he first cast his eyes upon Bathsheba, his thought was, Will the second look intensify my eye for my God and my Redeemer? But will the second look please my flesh?

33:45 You're going to make it in an age of abounding wickedness. You and I must beware of any human relationship which weakens the vigor of our love.

34:00 And you know it is not shameful if you've gotten quite far in the relationship to break it off for no other reason, than this Judgment Day honesty demands that I say from the time I started dating this guy or this gal, my love to Christ has waned and waned and the relationship has weakened its vigor for no other reason than that. I break it off as a relationship that is not in the interest of my soul's salvation.

34:39 If you say, Pastor Martin, that's radical. Well, I'll tell you, missing hell and going to heaven is radical. You don't get a second chance. Cutting off right hands and plucking out right eyes is radical.

Warning 2: Beware of Worldly Pursuits that Weaken Love for Christ

34:55 But Jesus said it's necessary if we'd enter life. But then secondly, second warning with reference to protecting the vigor of our love to Christ, beware of any pursuit of the thing, the things of this world which weakens the vigor of your love to Christ. Beware of any pursuit of the things of this world which weakens the vigor of your love to Christ. And here I ask you to turn to Mark chapter 4 and verse 19, when our Lord Jesus is interpreting the parable of the soils and the sower and the seed. He says in Mark chapter 4 and verse 19, verse 18, And others are they which are sown among the thorns. These are they that have heard the word, and the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts, the desires of other things, entering in.

36:16 Choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful. The love of the many shall wax cold. Here is someone that is in proximity to the ministry of the word. There seems to be some measure of a faith response, a plant of what appears to be gospel planting begins to grow, but long before it can have anything, that we could call ripe fruit, it is choked and withers, and brings forth in the parallel passage that which Luke says no fruit to perfection or to maturity. Why? Because the weeds grew with it, and the weeds choked its life. And what are the weeds?

37:11 Look! A drunkenness, an immorality, and debauchery, and thievery, and homosexuality, and lesbianism. The things of this age, the things that come upon us living in this present age, legitimate cares that have to do with making a living, putting bread on the table, and preparing the bread before it comes to the table, and the care of making sure that we've got our snow tires on, and we've changed the oil, and the car's been serviced, and all that goes into living life as life must be lived in this present age, the cares connected with this present age, the deceitfulness of riches. Riches, you see, that promise what they can never give, and give what they never promise, withhold what they never tell us they will withhold, and the lusts, the desires of other things entering in, choke the world. I say beware of any pursuit of the things of this world which weakens the vigor of your love to Christ. Remember Demas?

38:36 All that we are told about him in 2nd Timothy 4.10 is this, Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present age. Doesn't say ran off and shacked up with somebody else's wife. Doesn't say like a Judas, he grabbed the bag and was a thief, and embezzled apostolic funds.

39:03 It says he forsook us, having loved this present age. You remember in Pilgrim's Progress, one of the bits of advice that Evangelist gave to Christian was this, let nothing, this side of the world to come, get within you. Evangelist knew that Christian had to be in constant contact with many things that would be consumed with this world when it goes up in the fires of the final conflagration at the coming of the Lord Jesus with his mighty angels. He understood that Christian had to be en rapport, in contact with, and constant interaction with this real world. But he said, Christian, let nothing nothing, no thing, this side of the world to come, get within you. Keep all of your relationship to it, an external relationship. Receive the things of God's bounty with an open and a thankful hand, but never close your hand around them, and then press them into your heart.

40:21 Don't let them get within you. The warning of 1 Timothy 6, 6 to 10, needs to be sounded in an age of abounding lawlessness that is joined to abounding materialism. And all of the moaning and groaning about the state of our economy, notwithstanding, we are glutted to death with bounty. The scripture tells us, here's the divine standard.

40:56 Verse 6 of 1 Timothy 6, Godliness with contentment, is great gain. For we brought no thing, nothing, no thing, into the world. All we brought was the cry that made our mothers feel glad that we were alive and breathing. We brought nothing into the world, for neither can we carry anything out.

41:21 But having food and covering, we shall therewith be content. Having what many would call now, a borderline, poverty, subsistence, existence, we'll be content. We have enough food to keep us from hunger pangs and nourish our bodies, enough raiment to protect us from the elements, so that we are not exposed to unnecessary disease and sickness and personal danger. There is to be contentment.

41:54 So my Bible says, I'm sorry, I didn't write it. I believe it. By the grace of God, I seek to obey it. Having food and covering, in these we shall have enough.

42:10 Let us therewith be content. But, now notice, they that are minded to be rich, and in the context, what is it to be rich? It's to have a cushion in all the areas of our basic needs. That's a rich man.

42:23 It's to have more than a mere subsistence existence. It's to have so much that it's really hard to pray the Lord's Prayer. Give us this day, bread for the day. How often I've been convicted that I can't pray that prayer with any earnestness.

42:42 Because when my wife comes back from the supermarket, bread for the week is in the cupboards and in the fridge and in the freezer. They that are minded to be rich, those that are determined to have things beyond food and raiment. It doesn't say those who have it, but those that are minded to be. Providence is not placed there.

43:08 It doesn't say to them in any other circumstance but that of a basic subsistence existence. They are minded to be rich. They've set their hearts on making it. What happens to them?

43:20 Fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts such as drown men in destruction and perdition. My dear people, that is the love of the many waxing cold, extinguished under a pile. The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows and they'll be piercing themselves with the sorrow of eternal death. Dear people, this is serious business. I know a lot of you will go out of here and say, oh well, Pastor Martin was on his ranting and raving thing again, but my friends, this is Bible. You say you believe this book.

44:27 Are you going to become another living monument that the Holy Ghost was speaking the truth to, Paul? Getting the itch for something more and the price you pay is an absorption, an involvement that weakens the vigor of your love to Christ. You certainly know that I am not saying we should not have career goals and should not seek to work as diligently as we can to provide for our own and have wherewith to give. I'm familiar with all those passages.

45:02 I've preached them and I'm not negating them, but I am seeking to do justice to this passage and to what Jesus says are the network of thorn bushes that choke the word and there's not a gross sin in the whole list. They're the kinds of sins that can be pursued and indulged in in the most respectable reformed congregation. And I tell you one of the things that has stirred me in my preparation down my so-called day off. On last Monday, I did some cleaning up.

45:38 That's usually one of my projects Monday mornings to tidy up my study. Books all over the place and notes and papers from preparation for the academy and on into the Lord's day. And I want to do something and do some extra cleaning somewhere in a little storage area. I've got buried an old reel-to-reel tape of our wedding.

45:57 I don't even know if the thing will still play because it's been in the hot and cold extremes of that storage area. So I was rooting around in there and I found that picture that we took of the church family in 1975 over at the Grover Cleveland Park. And I tell you, you talk about highs and lows in one hour or one half hour. I looked across that picture at some who were little children.

46:26 The unfolding history has been nothing short of what one would call a living tragedy of the folly of turning away from gospel invitations and gospel warnings and gospel entreaties and everything many of those young children were told. They are now the living monuments of what happens when people stop their ears and say, it's not for me. And then there are others, full-grown adults, some who've left us for one reason or another and we still have reason to believe they are Christians, but there are others who have utterly repudiated the Christian faith. And in some cases, it is clear that the issue is right here. They began to pursue the things of this world in a way that patently weakened the vigor of their professed love to Christ. For you see, in an age of abounding lawlessness, the first command is broken with impunity. You shall have no other gods before me.

Warning 3: Beware of Recreation/Entertainment that Weakens Love for Christ

47:34 And the book of Colossians says, covetousness is idolatry. The setting of the heart upon things is a breaking of the first commandment as well as of the tenth. Dear people, if we would persevere unto the end in an age of abounding lawlessness, if we would know the increasing vigor of that love to Christ, the spring of all other graces, then beware not only of any human relationship which weakens the vigor of your love to Christ, but beware of the pursuit of any of the things of this world which weakens the vigor of your love to Christ. And then thirdly, and here I'm going to unload what has been a growing burden. This is not something I say hastily or carelessly or thoughtlessly. I say it as the built-up pressure of what I trust is genuine pastoral concern.

48:44 Beware of any form of so-called recreation or entertainment that weakens the vigor of your love to Christ. Beware of any form of so-called recreation or entertainment that weakens the vigor of your love to Christ. Now again, I'm fully conscious that embedded in the very commandments of God given on Sinai, there is God's recognition of a weekly cycle of six days of labor and a day of holy rest. I'm fully aware of that.

49:28 And I thank God for each recurring Lord's Day Sabbath. My Savior, whom I am to imitate with you, took naps in the middle of the day when He needed them, even in the unlikely place of a storm-tossed ship in the midst of the sea. Our Savior sat on a well midday while He was weary with His journey. Our Savior said in Mark 6, 31, Come ye apart and rest a while.

50:03 And the context is clearly their need for recreation, but not entertainment in that context. It says they didn't have time even to eat. There was such pressure upon them. And so He says, Come apart.

50:17 You need to be re-created. You need to refurbish your strength and energy. And furthermore, 1 Timothy 4, 1 to 6 condemns every form of asceticism as having its origin in the activity of demons. Asceticism is demonic, for it is an attack upon man as man, not man as sinner.

50:42 To say that I'll be more holy if I deny the indulgence of God-given appetites in a God-appropriate way, that's asceticism. I'm more holy if I don't eat certain meats, more holy if I abstain from the intimacies of the sexual relationship in marriage and remain celibate. That passage says that commanding to abstain from meat in marriage is rooted in the doctrine of demons, demons who are out to destroy man as man. God's grace attacks only that in man which is sinful, not that which is man.

51:20 My dear people, that's the matrix out of which I'm speaking. I believe those things. However, one of the marks of a lawless age is its obsession with fun and games. Look at our age.

51:35 How does it manifest its lawlessness? Sunday has become National Fun Day. All across our country today, stadia have been packed with 60, 70, 80,000 people who of course have to come for what they call their tailgate party before the game. That's a chance to booze it up and get half blown out of your mind on beer and liquor and then go in and act like a fool and stomp and holler for three to three and a half hours on God's sacred day.

52:17 No regard for that day. It's fun day. Sunday is the great reaping day for the obsession with sports in our lawless age. Lawlessness spawned by the musical forms that have set children and young people against their parents and set young people against the proven structures of decency and the norms of societal restraint.

52:54 The sixth commandment, the murderous, blatantly that thunders into the ears of millions day after day and hour after hour. And then how could anyone expect to have a sitcom, a humor show, a movie of any kind without a gratuitous sex scene, without some structure in the plot in which the decency and the normalcy of heterosexual marriage and commitment for life and children who are the fruit of that union form the matrix of that plot. I'm thankful for what they did in the most recent TV Guide. Not the one that came out this week but last week. They had full preview and all the new sitcoms.

53:50 They had a summary of who the main actors were, what the basic storyline was and the structure and then an assessment. And as I read through those paragraphs there was only one exception. All of the structures are abnormalities that represent a violation of the fifth or the seventh commandment. For example, you've got a young lawyer who's divorced his wife and moves in with his father with his son.

54:20 You've got another where you've got two divorced mothers moving together with their kids. It's all of these things that for fun and entertainment the lawlessness is at a nation. And what I'm saying is this. If you can look at a structure, the very structure of which is a defiance of God and His law and laugh in the midst of that structure, you know what's happening?

54:49 Your love for God and His law is being eroded. And your susceptibility to be vulnerable to the very thing you can look upon with tacit approval and the very thing you can laugh at will one day be the thing you contemplate indulging. And I am frankly shocked when I hear on the lips of members of Trinity Baptist Church, oh, that's not a bad movie. Only ten curse words, only one sex scene.

55:21 In God's name, my brother, sister, where are you coming from? Do you really believe that the devil is that respectful of you that you can deliberately expose yourself to that as entertainment where you're coming not with your discerning spiritual faculty, your faculties alert, believing on an enemy's ground and you have some compelling God-given reason to expose yourself to that, but you're doing it for entertainment? The very concept of entertainment is you're throwing your spirit over to the thing that is entertaining you. Be not deceived.

56:06 Evil companions corrupt good morals. Whether the companions are at your side in a flesh and blood relationship or whether they are your companions on the dots that form the pictures on the TV screen or at the local six-plex theater. I know some of you are going to go out of here and say, oh, Pastor Martin's gone back to old Fundy. No, no, my friends, no.

56:36 I'm not saying no Christian under any circumstances can go to a commercial motion picture theater. Christ bought a liberty for every Christian to make that decision. I won't touch his blood-bought rights nor yours. But what I'm saying in the name of the Christ who said because iniquity shall abound shall wax cold you beware of any form of so-called recreation or entertainment that weakens the vigor of your love to Christ.

57:15 And entertainment and recreation it is obsessed with breaking and violating the sacred day, denigrating sacred relationships of father and mother and family, casting aspersions on the sanctity of the sexual union to be enjoyed only within the bonds of life, long marital commitment and fidelity. God have mercy on you. You'll be a statistic that will fit into Matthew 24, 12 before it's over. You'll be part of the money.

Warning 4: Beware of Conscious Controversy with God

57:56 But you've been warned. But I don't want you just warned. I want to see you safely to heaven. And then fourthly and kindly beware, beware of any conscious controversy with God which will weaken the vigor of your love to Christ.

58:25 You see the moment I sin and conscience by the word makes me aware of my sin and I do not run to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness because at that point I am grieving the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 4, 30 says, And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and ye kind one to another tenderhearted, forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. It is only the Holy Spirit that can keep alive and vigorous burning brightly in the imagery of the coals but now in the imagery of tonight that can keep that exotic plant of love to Christ healthy. It is He who continually takes of the things of Christ and makes them real and precious. It is He who as I gaze upon Christ as revealed in the Scripture 2 Corinthians 3, 18 transforms me into that likeness. It is the Holy Spirit who enables my heart to know anything of love to Christ and devotion to His person and cause.

59:44 But when you grieve Him by not dealing with the controversy that you have with God then the moment you so grieve Him there is immediately a measure of a weakening a waning of the vigor of your love to Christ. You simply cannot go around with your spiritual system conned up with unresolved controversies with God and have a growing vigorous love to Christ. Dear people, if we would have our love to Christ kept vigorous we must have a conscience Acts 24, 16 void of offense at all times to God and to man. You say well Pastor that is an awfully strict way of walking. Yeah it is. That's why Jesus said narrow is the way that leads to life and few there be that fight.

Conclusion: The Safest and Happiest Way is Strict Walking

60:52 That word narrow means compressed easy, laid back stick your hands in the pocket whistle Dixie and look at the clouds trip to heaven dear folks. Bunyan didn't describe it that way. There were bogs and there were ditches and there were the enemies of Apollyon and giant despair and all the other things that Christian and his companions met with in the way. I conclude to let you know that that great perhaps the greatest preacher of free grace and the beauty and the glory of Christ since the days of the apostle Charles Spurgeon and I have fed my soul for two years now on his morning and evening having recommended it for years and my wife has worn out her leather covered copy as it's about time I read what I've been recommending and I've been doing it much to my profit for the past two years and he had a meditation on August 29 on the Nazarite vow. Now the Nazarite who was to eat nothing made of the vine tree from the kernels even to the husk and he takes the principle that this illustrates a life of separation unto God. Strict walking is much despised in these days but rest assured dear reader

62:20 it is both the safest and the happiest. The safest and the happiest he who yields a point or two to the world is in fearful peril he who eats the grapes of Sodom will soon drink the wine of Gomorrah. A little crevice in the sea bank in Holland lets in the sea and the gap speedily swells till a province is drowned. World the conformity in any degree is a snare to the soul and makes it more and more liable to presumptuous sins.

62:56 Moreover as the Nazarite who drank grape juice could not be quite sure whether it might have endured a degree of fermentation and consequently could not be clear in heart that his vow was intact so the yielding, temporizing Christian cannot wear a conscience void of offense but must feel that the inward monitor is in doubt of him. Things doubtful we need not doubt about they are wrong to us. Things doubtful we need not doubt about things tempting we must not dally with but flee from them with speed. Better be sneered at as a Puritan than be despised and exposed as a hypocrite. Careful walking may involve much self-denial but it has pleasures of its own which are more than a sufficient record and what greater pleasure can there be than the conscious enjoyment of the presence of Jesus and the increasing confidence that I am his and he is mine yea I to the end shall endure as sure as the promise is given more happy but not more secure the glorified spirits in heaven.

64:23 Who takes these admonitions seriously and by the grace and strength of Christ out of the motive of a growing love to Christ the fruit of the contemplation of his love to us such a one will never be numbered amongst the many whose love is experienced. May God help us then by his grace throughout all of our days not only to be sure that our love is properly rooted that our love is properly nurtured but that love to Christ properly protected as we by the grace of God beware of everything and anything in human relationships that would weaken our love to Christ any pursuit of this world that weakens the vigor of our love to Christ any form of recreation or entertainment that weakens the vigor of our love to Christ and any conscious controversy with God that weakens our love to Christ. If that standard is extreme tell me on what biblical grounds would you accept a lesser standard for yourself

65:51 and for you who know nothing of love to Christ to be a Christian means you are going to have to have dealings with Christ dealings with him in such a way that no longer is your own will and your own goals for your life your God that you pursue but the Christ who loved and died for sinners and lives to guide and take a host of sinners safely to heaven must become the object of your trust and the supreme object of your devotion may you cry to him for mercy may you know his grace and may you with all the saints of God be such as persevere even unto the end let us pray Our Father we thank you again for your holy word we remember the celebration of your word by the Psalmist who exclaimed moreover by them is your servant warned and in the keeping of the them there is great reward O Lord as we have been warned by your word may we find in the keeping of those warnings there is indeed great reward the reward of a growing vigorous

67:20 love to your son the reward of increased communion with him increased usefulness for him in our generation and then the final glorious reward of being taken home to be with him when our earthly pilgrimage is over and being found glorified with him at his return O Lord we ask you bring this word home with power to every heart and every conscience hear our cry dismiss us with the blessing of your gracious presence continually abiding with us and where necessary bringing pressure to bear upon us until at the point of controversy with you there is a blessed submission hear us and answer us we plead through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen