A Man Before God

The Preacher's Twofold Responsibility: Himself and His Teaching

0:02 Will you turn, please, in the word of God to the portion that Noel referred to in your hearing, 1 Timothy chapter 4, and I shall read several verses from that section of the word of God in order to set the framework for our study this evening, and I trust for the entire conference, our sessions together will not be in the strictest sense a model of what the opening up of a portion of the word of God ought to be in the regular pastoral ministry or the administration of pastoral instruction, but rather these will be a combination of sermon, dash, lecture, dash, and probably several other things thrown in along the way, but I trust that out of it all will come that which will profit us as we seek to understand more fully what God is. And it is to obey the biblical injunction to preach the word. Paul has given many directions to Timothy with reference to his official ministerial responsibilities as those responsibilities were to be exercised in the churches around

1:22 Ephesus, and many of those responsibilities are weighty ones, the preservation of purity of doctrine in the churches, the establishment of the churches in pure worship. The ordering of the churches with reference to government, the place of male leadership, the place of women in the assembly, and yet after giving to Timothy all of these many and weighty responsibilities, the apostle Paul now turns to Timothy himself as a man, and he says to him in verse 12 of 1 Timothy chapter 4, let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of them that believe. And in word, in manner of life, in love, in faith, in purity, till I come give heed to reading, to exhortation, to teaching. Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. Be diligent in these things. Give thyself wholly to them, that thy progress may be manifest unto all.

2:33 Take heed to thyself and to thy teaching. Continue in these things, for in doing this thou shalt save both thyself and them that hear thee.

2:48 It should be evident that the subject matter to be covered by Mr. Moorcraft and myself during this brief conference on preaching falls into two basic categories. Category number one, the man who preaches, and I shall be touching on that broad theme this evening. And again tomorrow morning, Mr. Moorcraft will be touching on it in one of his sessions tomorrow. And then the second major category of consideration is the act or exercise of preaching itself. So there is that twofold division, the man who preaches and the act or exercise of preaching considered as a spiritual ministry to the people of God. Now this twofold division is fundamental.

3:38 It is the act or exercise of preaching that is the most important part of any consideration of preaching which draws its perspectives from the word of God. And perhaps the classic text which focuses upon this principle is the one that was read in your hearing, verse 16 of 1 Timothy 4. Take heed or pay close attention to yourself, that is the preacher is to be concerned with himself as a man before God, the nurture, the cultivation of his own walk as a believer. He is to be concerned with his teaching, that word of course referring to the thing taught and also to the act of communication, teaching itself.

4:21 And so Timothy's responsibilities neatly divide themselves into those two major categories. He is to be concerned with himself as a man. Take heed to thyself. He is to be concerned with his acts or exercises of preaching.

The Indissoluble Link Between Character and Message

4:37 He is to take heed to his teaching. Now the scriptures everywhere assume as well as assert that true preaching is found where there is no disjunction between the character of the man proclaiming and the content of the message proclaimed.

5:00 I want to repeat that statement because it's fundamental to the whole direction and drift of what will be said from this platform during these four weeks. The scriptures everywhere assume and assert that true preaching is found where there is no disjunction between the character of the man proclaiming and the content of the message proclaimed. It is the Pharisee and the scribe who are condemned for saying but not doing. It is the Pharisee and the scribe who are condemned for saying but not doing.

5:41 It is the Pharisee and the scribe who are condemned for carrying on a professional ministry in which there existed a great disparity between lip and life. Between the doctrine professionally proclaimed and the doctrine experimentally assimilated and manifested in the life. And it is only to professional clerics that it's such scathing words come forth of all these words. Come, do as they say, but do not after the pattern of their lives.

6:19 The scribes sit in Moses' seat, said our Lord, and to the extent that they properly convey the mind of Moses embodied in the word of Moses, follow them, but for God's sake don't do what they do.

6:38 You see, the assumption as well as the assertion of Holy Scripture is that in a true and living ministry, in a God-ordained and God-owned ministry, there is no disjunction between what is given in the professional exercises of ministerial function and what is lived and experienced in the practical life of the minister of God. Further, the Scriptures not only assume and assert that true and living ministry is a matter of faith, that true preaching exists where there is no great disparity between life and lip, but they also assume and assert that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between these two things. That is, it is the character of a man's life as a Christian man which in great measure will affect his fruitfulness as a Christian minister. And I'm thinking particularly, particularly of the resident pastor, the elder who labors in the word and in doctrine. Now granted, once in a while a charlatan will appear on the scene who, it is discovered, after many years, has preached quite well and with evident blessing of God who all the while was a lecher, or was a covetous man,

8:06 was a Judas, was a Diotrephes, who fed his own uncrucified ego by gathering crowds, by gathering crowds around his own personality. Granted, that is true. It is even more true that an itinerant minister who comes for a series of meetings can be a typical Elmer Gantry who can live poorly and yet preach with apparent success. But by and large, it is a general rule that a resident pastor who must live among his people will find the fruitfulness of his preaching to be indisputable.

8:44 It is a direct proportion to the impact of his life before the people of God. And I've said all of this simply to form a broad basis of justification for the two-pronged emphasis of these hours together, the preacher as a man and the preacher in his acts or exercises of ministering the word of God. Now tonight, the subject which is before us, is the pastor-preacher as a man before his God. That is, we are to consider the pastor-preacher in his vertical relationship to the living God, considering that relationship as it affects the entirety of his redeemed humanity. And if time permits, and I doubt it will, so this will be but probably a...

The Preacher as a Man Before God: Spiritual Condition

9:45 two-thirds of what we'll carry over into tomorrow morning, I wish to consider the man, the preacher as a man before God, spiritually, intellectually, physically, and emotionally, tying the last two together under one heading. Now I use the terms spiritually,

10:06 intellectually, emotionally, and physically not with clinical accuracy or with fine distinctions, but simply as conveying lenient verbal handles by which to mark off the broad areas of our concern. Of course, all of these things overlap. They interpenetrate one another. And yet I think you will see as we proceed in our study that this broad distinction is indeed both valid and helpful.

An Expanding Acquaintance with God

10:38 First of all, then, the pastor-preacher as a man before his God, thinking of him in terms of his spiritual, spiritual condition. And I should like to say that with reference to his spiritual condition, he must have, if he is to be a true preacher, he must have an expanding, varied, and original acquaintance with God if he is to be an effective preacher. Now the words expanding, varied, and original life with God are not original, with me. I ran across them some years ago when reading this reprint of James Stalker's excellent series of lectures, The Preacher and His Models, and Stalker uses this language with reference to this whole matter of the preacher's inner life. He says it is only the man who has a large, varied, and original life with God who can go on speaking about the things of God with fresh interest. And I've taken his little phrase, large, varied, and original life with God,

11:57 and altered it to speak of an expanding, varied, and original life with God. And my assertion is that such an expanding, varied, And original life, acquaintance, walk, whatever word you want to use, with God is absolutely essential if there is to be freshness, spiritual power and unction in the pastoral preaching ministry week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and year out. Now let me give some scriptural justification for the various adjectives used. It must be an expanding life with God. You see, walking with God is not a static wooden thing. It is described in such passages as 2 Corinthians 3.18 and 2 Peter 3.18 as growth, one stage

13:02 of glory to another. There is the concept of something that rather than being static is dynamic, expanding. Living. Vibrant.

13:13 And therefore, as the preacher grows, as there is this expansion of his own acquaintance with God and the ways of God, there will be new and subtle nuances and hues and color in his preaching. He will be expressing the same body of eternal truth, but that expression of truth will gather to itself. those dimensions of his own expanding relationship with God so that though he speaks of the same Christ of whom he spoke when he candidated at that particular church twenty years before or five years or six months before, though he continues to speak of all of those blessings that come to us within the framework of the everlasting covenant, though he continues to extol the Redeemer who in the uniqueness of his person is true God and true man, though he speaks of the full range of all of the blessings that are given to us graciously in Christ, if his own relationship to God is an expanding relationship, those things will never become hackneyed. They will never become dry. They will never become insipid and bloodless and anemic

14:35 because into them will be pumped the freshness of his own expanding walk with his own God. I like to see a parallel in relationship to love letters. I courted by mail for some four years prior to marrying my wife almost twenty years ago and as I look back, and we did this last summer, it was most amusing to look back at some of my letters written back in the early 1950s. My wife, kid, she says they weren't love letters, they were sermons.

15:15 I was all the time, sharing with her what I had read or some new thing that he'd discovered and there was a little bit of the other in there as well. But something wonderful has happened in the past twenty years. It's the same woman with whom I've lived, the same one to whom I wrote and saw during vacation periods while going to college, and the same basic tools of expressing affection and love are there. I mean, what word can you use?

15:49 It's beyond. It's beyond, I love you. You can pile up other words. I love you very much.

15:53 I love you very deeply. But when you've said it all, it's, I mean, there's not another word, is there? Have you found one? I haven't.

15:59 But now listen. Listen.

16:02 If my wife were to compare a letter written, say, from Pakistan a few months ago when I was away for almost a month, if she was to compare a letter written to her in which I poured out the deepest expressions of my affection with the letters that were written during the days of our courtship, if she was to compare a letter written to her in which I poured out the deepest expressions of my affection, if she could not see, by comparing those letters, something of the expansion that has gone on in our relationship as a man and a woman, she would have every reason to be bitterly disappointed as a wife. Because the glory of a marriage in which Christ is central and in which a man and a woman under the lordship of Christ are seeking to relate to one another within the framework of the norms of Scripture is that it is a norm. It is a non-static relationship. It is a dynamic relationship, ever expanding as you push back horizons of mutual understanding, mutual sympathy, as you enter in more fully to the other's personality and you know that person in this multi-leveled intimacy of marriage. Well, if that's true, between two finite personalities, a man and a woman, how much more is it true when the servant of God, is constantly exploring more and more of the complexity

17:29 and the impenetrable depths of the being of God and the glory of the salvation of that God. And just as it is unforced and natural for me to express in my love letters to my wife and in my verbal communications to my wife, it is not forced and unnatural. It is simple. It is simply the overflow of the dynamism of that relationship for every medium of communication to gather to itself the fruits of that expanding intimacy.

18:05 So in preaching, preaching will be the overflow. It will be the mirror. It will be the spillover of that expanding relationship with God. And woe be to the congregation who must be lulled to sleep with a wooden sameness in the ministry of a man who's been with them six months, a year, five and ten years.

18:36 No wonder they run after something novel. They simply cannot stand the torture and the boredom of the static relationship of the preacher to his God, making his preachments insipid and lifeless and anemic and bloodless. And God knows, the country's full of such pulpits. Don't you clutter up another one.

19:03 Where hungry sheep, in the words of Milton, look up and are not fed. There must be an expanding relationship with God. The Apostle Paul learned this at the very inception of his ministry. What a glorious beginning to hear the voice of Christ directly from heaven, to see the Lord by direct revelation.

19:30 And yet, Paul could not care and carry on his ministry simply by drawing from that rich inheritance given to him at the beginning. And our Lord made this plain to him. In Acts 26 and verse 16, we have these very pregnant words with reference to this principle. The Lord speaking to Paul says, But arise, stand upon thy feet, for to this end have I appeared unto thee, that's the past revelation, to appoint thee a minister and a witness, both of the things wherein thou hast seen me.

20:10 Oh yes, Paul. What you've already received by way of revelation will form the substance of your testimony. You're to be a witness of those things wherein thou hast seen me, and of the things wherein I will appear unto thee. He says, My servant, there's much more to come.

20:35 And your witness will draw its substance not only from past revelation, but future. Now, of course, we do not look for direct revelation. I am not making a one-for-one parallel between the words of our Lord to Paul and the principle that applies to us. But the principle is true nonetheless, that we are to bear witness of the things wherein our Lord has appeared to us.

A Varied Acquaintance with God

21:03 As we've sought to know Him in the pages of Scripture and to walk with Him in Christian experience, disciplined by the Word, yet our ministries must reflect a witness to things not only past, but present and future dimensions of our Lord's self-disclosure to the heart of His servant. Well, so much for the word expanding, but it must also be a varied acquaintance with God. Now, the Psalms are an eloquent testimony to the fact that knowing and walking with God here on earth is a varied experience. And may I say, because I recognize that I'm speaking to an audience that comes from a great diversity of background and influence, any view of the Christian life that makes it impossible for the person who embraces that view in any given period of six months of Christian experience to read any of the Psalms with appreciation is unbiblical. There are views of the Christian life that say if you accept the premises and enter in to the blessings promised on the basis of those premises,

22:28 the Christian life will essentially be nothing but one of joy and constant victory and delight and all the rest. Saying in essence that you've got to throw out half of the book of the Psalms as an expression of valid Christian experience. And when anybody starts promising me something that takes me beyond David, I'm scared to death of it. When someone promises me something that makes it impossible for me to read as my own experience, Romans 7, Galatians 5, 2 Corinthians 5, I say if you've gone beyond David and beyond Paul, you've gone too far for me.

23:05 You've gone too far for me. Walking with God is a varied experience. There ought to be times when you can enter into those Psalms in which David verily dances before God with joy, and a little dancing before the Lord wouldn't hurt any of us. But there are times when with the Psalmist we'll have to cry out, hast thou clean cast me off forever?

23:37 You see, once you've claimed some experience, whether it's come in terms of the jargon, of the charismatic movement, or the deeper life movement, or any other philosophy of the Christian life, once you've claimed the experience that supposedly brings you into that dimension of Christian reality wherein there is no heaviness, no struggle and agony, one of two things will happen, my friend. You'll either be true to your conscience in the presence of God and reject it, or you'll begin to play tricks on your conscience. And once you start doing that, you're in dangerous ground. And you start calling sin something other than sin.

24:16 No, walking with God is a varied experience. It's an experience that has its days of blessedness and ecstatic joy followed hard by crippling heaviness, times of quiet rest and fearfulness. Psalm 23 has it all, doesn't it? Psalm 23 is a wonderful distillation of the full range of Christian experience, at times led by waters of quietness, other times led through the valley of the shadow of death, other times fearful in the midst of one's enemies, until the sight of the shepherd brings confidence and assurance.

24:57 Well, you see, it's essential that our own walk with God not only be expanding, but reflect the full range of biblical variety because our preaching reflects our own religious experience. Now, I did not say, our own religious experience forms the basis of our preaching. No, no. The basis of our preaching is exegesis, exposition.

25:24 Laying out the mind of God is revealed in the words of Holy Scripture. Granted. But I did say, and I will repeat, that our exegesis, once it turns into sermonic form, and that becomes preaching, will reflect our own experience. This is why some great masters of the art of preaching who were careful exegetes said that experience is the greatest expositor.

25:56 And what they meant by that was simply that since the Bible is written in the context of the real experience of the real people of God, in the real history of real redemption, it is experiential throughout. And to enter into the soul of Scripture is to fuse experience to that which is revealed. Well, you see, preaching that cannot enter into large segments of the word of God because the soul of the one who would preach is a stranger to this varied experience of walking with God. Oh, how truncated and narrow and stunted is such preaching.

26:48 You see, it's because the Apostle Paul could say that at times he was a fearful man, that he could enter into the fears of the humble saints of God. It's because he himself knew what anxiety was that he could exhort God's people not to be anxious. It's because he himself knew what loneliness was. I love that passage when he says, God who comforts those that are cast down comforted us how?

27:15 By the coming of Titus. Oh, how unspiritual, but how beautiful. Paul said, I sat there longing for a brother and when Titus came through the door and I embraced him, I said, thank you, God, you've sent me comfort in the person of my brother. Now, you see, it's something of the Apostle's own varied walk with God that oozes through his pastoral letters.

27:40 And you see him at one point there in 1 Thessalonians 2 bringing together all the gentleness of the maternal image he said, I was gentle among you as a wet nurse nursing her own child. Here's a woman that loves babies enough to make it her business to nurse them even when she doesn't have one as the fruit of her own womb. And he said, I was as gentle as a woman who loves babies that much when she's holding the fruit of her own womb to her own breast. And then he goes on to say, and I was like a father I tenderly exhorted and encouraged every one of you as a father his own children.

28:18 But oh, today my wife and I were reading in 1 Corinthians 4 and he says, what? You want me to come with a rod? Williams translates it. We're reading it through in Williams' translation.

28:29 You want me to come with a clubber in gentleness? It was to rear back on his hind legs and get angry. Yes, he did. Well, you see the full range from all the maternal tenderness to paternal gentleness and tenderness to something of that holy vehemence.

28:50 You see, it comes through. He's a pastor to those churches. He's shepherding them. And that shepherding reflects that varied experience with God.

29:02 I wish to quote from Stalker at this point who says something so helpful along these lines. Valuable as an initial call may be it will not do to trade too long on such a memory. A ministry of growing power must be one of growing experience. The soul must be in touch with God and enjoy golden hours of fresh revelation.

29:30 And he's not talking about fresh revelation in terms of additional revelation beyond the scripture. The truth must come to the minister as the satisfaction of his own needs and the answer to his own perplexities. Ministers do have needs and perplexities, you see. And he must be able to use the language of religion.

29:52 Now, follow. Not as the nearest equivalent he can find for that which he believes others to be passing through, but as the exact equivalent of that which he has passed through himself. Do you know what you're doing when you pray that God will make you a true shepherd to the souls of men? Do you young men know what you're praying?

30:15 You know what you're asking God to do? You're asking God to drag you through the crucible and to give you an experiment and to give you an experimental acquaintance with everything from the most crushing grief to the most ecstatic joys that you may be able to minister a word in season to him that is weary. Now, that's what you're asking God for. That's what you're asking God for.

30:42 When you pray, Lord, make me an able minister of the new covenant, that's what you're asking God for. In the language of Stalker, we must not find the appropriate word in the shop of religious language that suits the need. Stalker says, no, you reach into your own heart and from thanks you draw forth that which perfectly suits the need of that child of God because you've passed through it and you've seen and felt and tasted in your own experience. There are many rules for praying in public and a competent minister will not neglect them, but there is one rule worth all the rest put together and it is this.

31:24 Be a man of prayer yourself and then the congregation will feel as you open your lips to lead their devotions that you're entering an accustomed presence and speaking to a well-known friend. There are arts of study by which the contents of the Bible can be made available for the edification of others, but this is the best rule. Study God's word diligently for your own edification and when it has become more to you than your necessary food and sweeter than honey or the honeycomb, it will be impossible for you to speak of it to others without a glow passing into your words which will betray the delight with which it has inspired yourself. You see, the man who spends a half an hour in a greenhouse full of lilies comes out smelling like lilies and he doesn't need to try to. And the man whose walk with God is expanding and varied, he does not need to make a conscious effort in his preaching to reflect this. He's been among the lilies and the fragrance will be upon him.

An Original Acquaintance with God

32:41 A varied walk with God, but it must be also an original walk with God. Expanding, varied, and original. Now what do I mean by original and what do I think Mr. Stalker meant when he used it?

32:53 I can only say what I think he may have meant, but this is what I mean in using it. The Word of God is full of the concepts of solidarity and community, and I trust I'm aware of those concepts. But the purest, noblest individualism is also seen in the Scriptures. Jesus said, The very hairs of your head are numbered.

33:18 Now that's pretty pure individualism. The very hairs of your head are numbered. Psalm 139, a beautiful and eloquent testimony to this individualism where David says that I was regarded by my God while yet being knit together in my mother's womb and every day was marked out for me when as yet there was none of them. Jesus said that when he puts forth his own sheep he calls them by name and there's nothing more personal than your name.

33:52 And therefore if our walk with God is real it will be original. We do not seek the parrot, the language of the experimental divines. We seek to say with John that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you. I remember hearing a great sermon by a great man some years ago.

34:17 The man's name was A.W. Tozer. Now I didn't hear this.

34:21 I read it in one of his essays where he took the text in the Psalms speaking of Jehovah whose way is in the sea, whose paths are not known. And he was making the point that as many ships as have plied the Atlantic not one has left a path for the next one to follow. And he said walking with God is like crossing an ocean in a ship. There's that sense that every man must walk alone.

34:49 And there's a tremendous principle there. There is this pure holy originality in my walk with God knowing that that God is my Father and that God has loved me and redeemed me in Jesus Christ. I can feel safe. I can trust him to lead me through every single experience that he knows is necessary to furnish me and make me an able minister of the new covenant.

Cultivating the Expanding, Varied, and Original Walk: Scripture

35:20 Well, I suggest that if we are to be effective pastor-preachers there must be this expanding, this varied, this original life with God. Now, to the practical question, how are we to pursue such a walk with God? Well, I've already hinted and now I shall explicitly state the answer to that question. There must be, number one, the discipline of consistent, systematic, prayerful, and meditative reading of the Holy Scriptures.

36:01 You've been reading the 17th century authors too much. Can't you be more brief than that? No, every word is chosen with purpose. There must be the discipline of consistent, systematic, prayerful, and meditative reading of the Scriptures.

36:24 Your physical health, for the most part, is determined by the day-by-day diet which represents your intake of vitamins, minerals, calories, et cetera, and your health is not a reflection primarily of the abnormal assimilation or non-assimilation of food. By that I mean, if you have a banquet once a month and fast one day a month, the banqueting one day and the fasting the second day will not reflect your basic physical condition. It is the assimilation of food in your normal diet over the other 28 days that primarily determines your physical condition. Well, this is true spiritually. It is not those seasons when under the pressure of some peculiar crisis we are literally driven to pray. There are times you'll find in the ministry when it's not a matter of finding time to pray or committing yourself to pray.

37:31 You can do nothing other than pray. There are times when the pressures within and without are such that a spirit of urgency descends upon your own spirit and you can do nothing but pray. But those are not the normal times. And if there is to be this expanding, varied and original walk with God, there must be the discipline of these things.

37:59 And by discipline, I mean simply the setting of a schedule with its list of priorities well defined and laid out and then jealously guarding them in the name of the Lord. The discipline of what? Of systematic reading of the scriptures. That is, covering the whole range of God's revealed mind from Genesis to Revelation, making sure that the primary influence upon my mind with reference to who God is, who I am, what His relationship is, is to me as Creator and Redeemer, what my relationship is to His and to Him and to His world, what that relationship is both as creature and as redeemed, making sure that the primary influence upon my mind in all of those fundamental categories is not the word of man concerning what God has revealed but the word of God itself. And there are precious few preachers who are more influenced by the scriptures themselves than by what men have told them

39:26 about the scriptures. May I remind you of the simple word that we all love to use and rightly so, as both an exposition and defense of the doctrine of scripture that we hold, 2 Timothy 3, verses 16 and 17. Having reminded Timothy that the scriptures performed their first function in making Timothy wise unto salvation through faith that is in Christ, the apostle goes on to say all scripture is inspired of God and is also profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly furnished unto every good work. And the man of God in that passage is not every Christian spoken of in some generic term, the man of God, none of. It is the peculiar word that Paul uses for Timothy. He says in 1 Timothy 6 and verse 9, But thou, O man of God, flee these things.

40:33 And he says to Timothy, The scriptures that were the alone instrument in revealing the salvation of God which is in Christ and is received by faith, those scriptures that were imparted to you by the influence of your godly mother and grandmother, that same body of revealed truth is adequate in all of its richness and fullness to furnish you completely unto every good work. And therefore if the whole of scripture is given to make us whole men, furnished wholly to the whole work of the ministry, then there cannot help but be some crippling influence from the perpetual neglect of any part of the revealed will of God. And therefore if we are to have an original, expanding, varied walk in communion with God, there must be the discipline of consistent, systematic exposure to the scriptures. Time after time my Lord, I believe, would say to us his servants, Ye doer, not knowing the scriptures. Ye doer, not knowing the scriptures.

41:55 We err in our counsel because we cannot give to people clear, explicit, biblical norms. But this exposure must not only be consistent, systematic, but prayerful and meditative. That is, asking God for light upon the sacred page. Not presuming that our knowledge, limited or extensive, of the original languages, the accessibility of exegetical tools, lexical aids, are in themselves sufficient to unlock the mysteries of Holy Scripture.

42:37 May I remind you that none of you knew Hebrew or knows Hebrew like the scribes and Pharisees knew it? May I remind you of that? And yet Jesus had to say of them, Ye search the scriptures, but you miss the very purpose of the scriptures. Didn't he say that?

42:55 Ye search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and these are they which testify of me. But ye will not come to me that ye may have life. It is that spirit that drives us to pray with David in Psalm 119 and verse 18. Open thou mine eyes, that is, undress my eyes, take away the veils, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.

43:26 It is only in this way that the message and the spirit of the scriptures enter into our minds and possess our spirits. We ask God for light in order to know him, in order to know our own hearts, in order to have our own lives scrutinized by the light of Scripture. There's a great text with reference to Ezra that underscores this principle. Ezra 7 and verse 10. I shall read it in your hearing, because I'm not sure if I quote it from memory I'll get it right. Ezra 7 and verse 10. For Ezra had set his heart notice his heart in your acquaintance with the scriptures helps you to know that the heart here is used with reference to the seat of a man's whole personality. For Ezra had set his heart his whole being to do what?

44:23 To seek the law of Jehovah and to do it and to teach in Israel's statutes and ordinances. His heart was set to do what? To know that he might perform and then and only then that he might instruct others in the ways of God. This is what I mean by meditative reading of the scriptures, reflecting upon that message in reference to ourselves.

44:53 What it reveals to us of our God that we may worship him more accurately for he seeks the people to worship him in spirit and in truth. May I just throw out again a very practical observation. In the average pastoral prayer in the church where you go do you feel that when the first prayer is offered in the morning that you're being led into the presence of a God who is great and majestic and awesome and wonderful because something of the majesty and the awe and the wonder is obviously permeating the spirit of the one who leads you in prayer. Or do you inwardly yawn waiting for the phrase for Christ's sake or in Jesus name amen so you can get on with the first hymn that at least will have a little life because the organist has got a little pizazz. I don't say that to be unkind. I hope it underscores the very principle we're talking about. Why is it that so few professional clerics are instruments to lead the people of God within the veil in worship when they pray? It's because they've not

46:17 been living within the veil throughout the week. You can't just flip a button when you stand on the platform Sunday morning. The man who's come into the presence of his God to meditate upon the word, to have that word open up new dimensions of the glory of his Savior, new dimensions of the majesty and the grandeur of his God shed light upon areas of darkness in his own heart, subtle areas of his indwelling sin and the windings and twistings and vagaries of his own remaining corruption. The man who's known something of experimental dealings with God in the scriptures through the week and something of the fruit of his own struggles in worship then is reaped in the assembly and the people of God are led into the presence of God. Most often I can tell if it's worth waiting to hear a man preach after I've heard him pray. And there's some men when I've heard them pray and they weren't to preach and I've said I think I'd walk 20 miles if I heard that man was going to preach anywhere because there was the sense that he was

47:43 having dealings with God. Oh, pietism! You call it what you want, my friend. It's biblical religion. And if that's not what you're determined your people will know in God's name for the sake of Christ and his sheep, pursue the work of the ministry. If you've got a fascination with notions, like the mathematician who stands back and admires the precision of his formulas and all this of the covenant of grace and sin and redemption is something that is fascinating to your intellect but is not the substance of your soul and your spirit in God's name! Don't curse the people of God by

Cultivating the Expanding, Varied, and Original Walk: Secret Prayer

48:31 cluttering up a pulpit. Well, much more could be said. May I touch just briefly upon the second thing that is essential if we're to have this varied, expanding, and original life with God? There must be the maintenance of the habit and the spirit of secret prayer. The maintenance of the habit and the spirit, and I've chosen my words carefully again, of secret prayer. Our Lord said in Luke 18 1, men ought always to pray and not to faint. Prayer comes into the realm of that which partakes of ought-ness. That is, obligation is laid upon us.

49:32 And obligations are to be fulfilled regardless of the present frame of the mind. For instance, driving down here today, Mr. Philbrook saw that the speed limit was 55 miles an hour and he was obviously driving in such a way as to evidence a regard for the ought-ness of those signs which say 55 miles per hour. Had he felt so giddy in his spirit and so confident of his new van and the ability of radial tires to take much higher speeds and his little V8 to propel the vehicle at much higher speeds and he was so irresponsibly wrapped up with the beauty of the sunset that he simply forgot and the sense of ought-ness was not upon him and the speedometer went up to 75 miles an hour and a car with a blinking light appears on the behind and on the side and pulls him over it will not do for Mr. Philbrook to say, well, officer I was so enjoying the hum of the tires and the beautiful sunset that all sense of ought-ness was gone. Well, the policeman would say, I'm glad you enjoy our Pennsylvania sunsets but listen buddy, you're going to get a ticket. You see, my sense of ought-ness does not affect the binding nature of the ought-ness relationship.

50:58 Men ought always to pray and not to faint. Our Lord knew that fainting was the great hindrance to the habit of prayer. That's why he states in the strongest language men ought to pray and they ought not to faint and therefore when I do not pray and when I faint, I am violating divine obligation praying with all prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching there unto with all perseverance, Ephesians 6 and verse 18. Now why is it that if you pursue the work of the ministry and become a teaching elder that in most instances you will not be obligated to punch a cock, go into an office put in your 40, 50, 60 hours a week in some form of employment which will have as its remuneration a monetary substance sufficient to live? Why is it that many of you as some of us will be able to live of the gospel? Well is it not that a precedent was established by the apostles there in the early history of the church when refusing even to give their time to legitimate acts of mercy to widows they said it is not fitting that we should leave the word of

52:25 God to serve tables. We will give ourselves to prayer. And to the ministry of the word. And notice the order. We will give ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. And if there is one area where my conscience gives me more disturbance I think than any other it is here. I am not often troubled that I have been willfully careless in exegesis, that I have willfully cowered before the face of men, that I have been careless in the structure of my garments but when I ask myself have I given myself you see not given some time to ease my conscience but given myself

53:16 to prayer. At that point I must say with Daniel I blush and am ashamed to look up and yet I must not allow my own failures to keep me from exhorting you as you contemplate the work of the ministry to remember that if there is to be freshness in your walk with God there must be some maintenance of the habit and the spirit of secret prayer. There is only one way to learn the art of divine argument with God and that is to pray. Only one way to learn how to turn the promises into handles by which we lay hold of God and that is to pray. And after all is said and done all the books all of the treatises on prayer can be of no help unless we pray. And is not this the reason why there is so little real unction in much of the preaching in our day. Preaching has fallen upon bad times.

54:31 It's because in place of prayer we are inundated, glutted with committee meetings with the professional analyzers with the conference organizers, no reference to those who work so diligently for this conference to those who are feeding all kinds of statistics into all kinds of computers coming up with all kinds of answers to all our problems. But where are men who are giving themselves to prayer? And I seriously and heartily recommend to every one of you that you purchase I hope another reprint will be coming out soon but if not to borrow, beg I can't say steal but I'm tempted to several books that you will find lifetime companions and lifetime prods and goads in this area Spurgeon's lectures to his students, the section on the minister's private prayer is masterful. Bridges, the Christian ministry the section on the preacher's prayer life again is masterful. Gardner-Spring's Power in the Pulpit, the section chapter on the preacher as a man of prayer three masterful

55:58 treatises and they're the kind of things or kinds of things to which you will return again and again and find them a help in stirring you up to this great privilege and responsibility. Well, my time is gone I've only gone about half way but that's alright. The Lord willing tomorrow we'll pick up at this point and consider the preacher as a man before his God in his intellectual life and then in his physical and emotional life and I trust we'll see the wisdom of God in hedging us up in all three directions to a course of conduct and activity that will make us the kind of men who under the blessing of the Spirit of God will prove to be able ministers of the New Covenant. Let us pray. O Lord, we acknowledge that all things are naked and open before your eyes and you know us all together. You've set us behind and before and laid your hand upon us.

57:18 If we ascend up into heaven you are there. If we make our bed in hell you are there. And O Lord, as we stand open before you this night we plead the cleansing of the blood of your own dear Son for our sins. Sins aggravated by our additional light and privilege and opportunity those of us who are your servants laboring in the Gospel those who aspire to this holy and solemn responsibility O God forgive us that so often we have starved our people because our own souls have been shriveled and starved through want of the disciplines of secret prayer and private meditation upon your word. O Lord we love your sheep we acknowledge that our love is but a faint reflection of yours and we pray that in love to them we will spare nothing in ourselves to the end that we may be able ministers of the new covenant. O Lord hear our prayer and continue with us and may each of us sense that we are having dealings with you. Draw near to us O God we pray. Bless your servant

58:44 who will speak in the hour to come give him great liberty and joy in the Holy Spirit as he would lead us into a further discovery of your mind and will as revealed in the scriptures. Hear us O God for the sake of your dear son in whose name we dare to come to you and to plead forgiveness and mercy and help by your spirit. Hear us then O Lord we ask in Jesus name. Amen.