A Man Before His Flock Part 2

The Necessity of Earning Respect and Confidence

0:01 Though I am a man under authority when I come under the auspices of the Student Association,

0:07 I shall leap the traces of that relationship by speaking not on the pastor and applicatory preaching, but complete the two-thirds given lecture of this morning, and consider with you this afternoon the pastor-preacher in his relationship to the flock of God, and in particular the third area which I mentioned in the introduction, namely that the pastor-preacher in relationship to his flock must have the increasing respect and confidence of the flock of God. We dealt in the earlier session with the necessity of an increasing measure of unfeigned love to the flock. An increasing liberation from fear of the flock, and now this afternoon, the man of God, the preacher who would be useful among his people, must have, I say must have, the increasing respect and confidence of the people to whom he ministers. Now let me first of all make some general remarks bringing to bear some portions of the word of God upon this whole matter of the relationship between. What a man is doing when he preaches, and the relationship of respect which he sustains

1:34 with the people to whom he preaches. Now the word of God teaches us that the people of God are to respect and honor those who are over them in the Lord. First Thessalonians 5, 12, know them that are over you in the Lord, and admonish you, and esteem them very highly in love for their works. The people of God are to esteem those that are over them in the Lord.

2:04 They are to know them in the sense of knowing as a synonym for regard with special and distinguishing affection. Hebrews 13, 17, the people of God are commanded to obey them that have the rule over them and to submit to them as those who watch for their souls. But do not these passages assume that those who are over them in the Lord are those who have the position of oversight, are such in their walk before the people of God as to make this esteem and obedience both natural and delightful. Assuming that the church is a company of gathered saints, we must face the fact that respect and confidence cannot be forced or commanded as it were in a vacuum. Respect is earned. Respect is earned. Respect is earned.

2:59 By performance. And therefore the emphasis again and again in the pastoral epistles falls upon the exemplary conduct of the servants of God as that which earns the respect and confidence of the people of God. For instance, the apostle speaking to Timothy says in verse 12 of chapter 4, let no man despise thy youth. Don't let anyone say, Timothy, well, what can you expect?

3:28 He's still wet. He's still wet behind the ears. Let no one think lightly of you in your ministerial function simply because you are a relatively young man, but overcome the disadvantages of youth by what means? By assuming some pompous clerical airs?

3:48 By assuming some papal-like authority? No. He says wear them down by a consistent example. Notice.

3:59 Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an ensample to them that believe in word, in manner of life, in love, in faith, and in purity. Further, in writing to Titus, Paul says in Titus 2 and in verse 15, these things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no man despise thee. Well, how is that to be fulfilled?

4:31 Well, it will be fulfilled as Titus obeys the injunction of chapter 2 and of verse 7. In all things showing thyself an ensample of good works, in thy doctrine showing uncorruptness, gravity, sound speech that cannot be condemned. So the emphasis again falls upon the fact that if the spiritual leader is to command, if he is to have the respect and esteem, of those whom he seeks to lead, his own life must be exemplary. One other very pivotal passage in this regard is 1 Peter chapter 5.

5:14 Peter is writing to the elders, identifying himself as a fellow elder, and he admonishes the elders, 1 Peter 5, to tend the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not of constraint, but willingly. According to the will of God. Nor yet for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind, neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you, but the opposite of this administration of pastoral oversight, the opposite of carrying it out in a lordly way, is what? Making yourselves ensamples to the flock.

5:59 There are two ways to lead. One is to lead by the. Sheer force of an authoritarian air. Little poults, little mini poults, who go about and railroad issues through, who lead, as it were, by carrying a big stick.

6:20 Peter says, no, you elders, this is not the way you are to lead. You are to lead by the overcoming power of an exemplary life, not lording it over the heritage, but making yourself ensamples. To the flock. Now, other passages could be pressed into the service of the point I'm seeking to make.

6:42 I trust these will suffice. Spurgeon once says, I don't like the preacher that explains one passage by simply quoting a number of others. He said, if I had a box of oranges and someone held up one, said, you don't want to want to know what an orange is? He said, I don't want him to hold up 50 other oranges.

6:57 I want him to cut it open and show me the constituent elements of an orange. Well, I don't want to be guilty of holding up 50 oranges in establishing the point. But I do want to marshal enough passages so that you realize this is no isolated principle. It stands to the forefront in the whole area of the relationship of the spiritual leader to those whom he would lead.

7:23 And I think Stalker has gone right to the heart of the issue when speaking to this very subject. He says, and I now quote from his book, The Preacher and His Models. We are. So constituted that what we hear depends very much for its effect on how we are disposed toward him who speaks.

7:46 The regular hearers of a minister gradually form in their minds, almost unawares, an image of what he is into which they put everything which they themselves remember about him and everything which they've heard of his record. And when he rises on Sunday. In the pulpit, it is not the man visible there at the moment that they listen to, but this image which stands behind him and determines the precise weight and effect of every sentence which he utters. Now, would you not say that that answers to your own experience that you are so constituted that what you hear depends very much for its effect on how you are disposed? Have you not said, well, look, I can take anything from that guy because, and then you give the reasons why. And there are other people you say, I wouldn't listen to him even if he were quoting the Bible.

8:51 You see, how we are disposed to a person greatly affects what we're willing to receive from him. And though ideally everyone ought to receive anything that is an accurate conveyance of the revealed mind of God. In Holy Scripture, God does not violate these fundamental principles of human relationship in the work of the gospel. Rather, the grace of God lays hold of them and sublimates them and brings them into the service of the gospel.

9:23 This is why Paul is careful to emphasize to Timothy and Titus and Peter to the elders, let your life be exemplary. Why? Because you cannot shepherd a people who do not esteem you and they cannot esteem you unless you're light. And many a man is more than an able preacher, but because he is poor in his life, there is a neutralizing of his effectiveness as a pastor preacher.

9:54 And so we return full circle to where we began with the assertion that if we would be effective as pastor preachers in the long-term relationship of ministry in any given congregation, there must not only be this increasing measure of unfeigned love to our people, this increasing liberation from fear of our people, there must be the increasing respect and confidence earned as we walk and live amongst our people.

Beware of Shoddiness in Personal Godliness

10:28 Now, having established the principle, let me descend to some very practical lines of rather negative exhortation. I think this will be the best way to accomplish the goal. As I've tried to scan my own life and try to read the experience of our own assembly and other churches, what I am proposing to do is not to give an exhaustive manual of areas that can cripple our relationship to our people as far as respect is concerned, but I wish to pick out some of the cardinal areas in which men, when failing here, generally lose the respect of their people. First of all, respect and confidence will be weakened if your people discern a general shoddiness in the area of personal godliness. If your people discern a general shoddiness in the realm of personal godliness. I remind you that the first and the abiding requirement for the man who would aspire to the office of an elder is this. If any man seeketh the office of an overseer, he desireth a good work.

11:47 The bishop, therefore, must be blameless. Blameless. And though the apostle uses a different word in Titus, the thrust of both words focuses upon this principle that we're seeking to establish, that no man can lead spiritually who does not have the esteem of those. He seeks to lead at the level of his own character and the level of his own walk before them.

12:20 If any man desires, he must be blameless. There must be no just cause for censure. Now, it does not say sinless, but it does say blameless. And then Paul, as it were, exegetes what blamelessness means by descending from the general, to the particulars.

12:43 And when you take the list in Timothy and in Titus, and there are areas of difference, so you know that it is not a kind of wooden thing, when you summarize it, what you have is well-developed, balanced, practical piety. And there must be no glaring holes in the fabric of that piety. That's why he deals with things that are in the full range of human experience, from the domestic, ruling, and the public. He deals with things that are in the full range of human experience, from the domestic, ruling, and the public.

13:11 To his house well, to his external conduct, he must have a good report of those that are without, he must be self-controlled, he must not be given to much wine, he must not be a striker, a brawler. What is the apostle doing? He is picking out enough general characteristics from the full spectrum of human experience to establish that he who would lead a flock must be exemplary in godliness. There must be no glaring holes.

13:41 There must be no glaring holes in the fabric of practical piety. And the moment your people sense that you have areas of weakness in your character that are not being brought to the purifying influences of the blood of Christ, and to the renovating influences of the spirit of Christ, that you are content to let those areas go unchecked and undeveloped, they lose respect and confidence. Because, you see, the whole end of that which you do as a minister in preaching the word of God, in ministering the sacraments, praying, and all of these things, you say to your people, these are the means constituted by God as that by which we are to grow and to be more and more conformed to the image of Christ. Well, if they see you trafficking in those means week after week, and those means are obviously doing nothing for you. For you, in the glaring areas of your weakness, they begin to be skeptical about the whole thing. And rightly so.

14:49 Rightly so. You can imagine a man trying effectively to sell a product that is supposed to cure baldness and his head looks like a cue ball. I mean, it just doesn't do to go around with a cue ball saying, I have a cure-all for baldness. And it doesn't do for a man to stand in the pulpit and to declaim, maybe very loudly and persuasively about the necessity of this aspect of truth and duty and promise and all the rest, while these areas in his own character continue to be manifest before the flock of God.

Beware of Failure in Domestic Life

15:28 If you would have the esteem and respect and confidence of your people, beware of shoddiness in the general area of practical godliness. Secondly, beware of failure in the realm of your domestic life. And I cannot emphasize with sufficient firmness, is there a place for holy vehemence? If so, it's here.

15:56 The importance of domestic piety in the life of the servant of Christ. When the Apostle gives the list of requirements in 1 Timothy 3 and again in Titus, there is but one requirement that he goes back and enlarges upon, and it is in the area of domestic piety. Having said in 1 Timothy 3 and again in Titus. In 1 Timothy 3 and verse 4, he is to be one who rules well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity.

16:28 But if a man knoweth not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? If he cannot bring together that delicate fusion of grace and government, of love and firmness. If he cannot exercise it in this lesser sphere. Of his wife and his children.

16:50 How shall he be competent to exercise it in the larger sphere? And I think one of the greatest tragedies in evangelical life today is the fact that PKs are the brunt of the coarsest kinds of jokes concerning domestic failure. The reputation pastors have for failure with their families and disregard of speed laws on the highways. This is just enough to make us blush and weep.

17:26 And I mean that seriously. I don't say that to elicit a giggle, I mean that with all my heart. If anything is clear in the word of God. This is clear.

17:38 That if I cease to be exemplary in my domestic relationships. I have no biblical warrant for remaining in a position of an elder. If a man rule not. How shall he rule the house of God?

17:54 And I believe it is high-handed disobedience and indifference to King Jesus that many a man who would never, never be allowed to remain in the ministry, if he violated the standard husband of one wife, if he said, oh, well, I'm keeping all other ten or eleven, I'll just violate the one and begin to have a concubine. How long would that be tolerated? Well, I hope it wouldn't be tolerated long. You say, why?

18:24 Because the Scripture says, one wife's husband, I trust we would not tolerate a drunkard not given to much wine. I trust a man who showed himself to be intemperate in the use of alcohol would be deposed from the office of an elder. And we say rightly so. But, my friends, what right do we have to say, well, this is binding, one wife's husband, this is binding, no, not given to much wine, but this is not binding, ruling well his own house.

18:51 Who are we to negate the... The binding nature of that requirement.

18:59 Ah, but someone says, well, how can you tell what's a good rule? That's not quite as precise as if a man's got a concubine, he's got a concubine. If he's a drunkard, he's a drunkard. My friend, I believe the average person sitting in the pew has some sense of what good rule is and what bad rule is in the domestic sphere.

19:19 And a man who obviously has no communication with his wife, who does not have the respect of his wife, the confidence of his wife as a man of God, as a confidant, as a counselor to her, the man who does not have his children sufficiently governed that when he speaks they obey and they have a general respect for adult authority, he is not ruling well his own house and he has no business remaining in the office of an overseer while that condition remains.

19:51 You say, that's extreme. Is it biblical? Will someone show me on exegetical theological grounds that that posture...

19:59 That posture is not biblical?

20:04 And you see, until you bind your conscience to this, you're never going to resist the temptations which come upon you in the ministry to erode your domestic responsibilities. You'll never resist them unless you're convinced, if I fail as a husband and a father, I must leave the ministry. And you get your conscience bound by that. And you'll be as careful to avoid the influences that will erode your competence as husband and father as I trust you will be careful to avoid any influence that would make you a lecher or a drunkard.

20:41 Are you convinced, if you become intemperate in your wine, that you must leave the ministry? If you are, then the minute you begin to feel any dependence upon your wine, you say to your wife, Dear, no wine in the house for six months. I hope you'd say that.

20:59 But in the same way,

21:01 we must bind our consciences by this requirement. Or, every time we stand to preach, all people can see is our bratty kids and either a frustrated, bitter wife or some kind of a Jezebel or a Miriam who thinks she's a prophetess of God and co-pastor of the church. And I've seen all of these things. And the wives of men who claim to be called of God.

Beware of Ministerial Laziness

21:32 If you would have the respect, and confidence of your people. Beware of shoddiness in the realm of godliness in general. Beware of domestic failures in particular. And thirdly, beware of ministerial laziness.

21:52 Why are you supported by the gifts of God's people? Is it not that you might do what 1 Timothy 5.17 says, labor in the word and in doctrine? Amen.

22:07 And when you read 1 Corinthians 9.6-14 where Paul speaks of his rights as an apostle, he speaks of rights to live of the gospel in the context of living of the gospel by laboring, by warring, by fighting. He uses all these active verbs to describe his activity as a gospel minister. He talks about the ox that is treading corn that should not be muzzled.

22:34 He doesn't see anything about Ferdinand the bull sitting under the tree enjoying the shade. It's the ox that is treading corn that should not be muzzled. And when the man ceases to tread corn, he ought to be muzzled. And you let your people begin to suspect you of laziness and you know what happens?

22:56 They begin to feel cheated. They begin to feel that they're contributing to some kind of an unjust relief program that violates 2 Thessalonians 3.6, if any man will not work. Let him not eat.

23:10 Now the people in the church where you labor, if they cheat on work, it shows up on their punch card. And they only get paid for 32 hours of work if that's all the time they put in. But you see, we have no card to punch. And ministerial laziness is not only a great temptation, it is a tragic reality in the ministry in our day.

23:32 If someone has some facility with words, some facility to organize and to synthesize and to bring together a thought. In somewhat of a structured form because of the plethora of printed material and the availability of tapes. A man can be a very careful borrower just so long as he insulates his people from too much literature and too much exposure to the tapes that he may be snitching from. He can get away with it.

24:00 And really he can be living a life of luxury. But sooner or later, sooner or later, it's going to come through. You can fool all of the people. Some of it.

24:12 All of the time. All of the people, some of the time. Some of the people, all of the time. But you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

24:19 It'll come through. And the moment you're suspected of laziness, you'll no longer have the ears of your people because you no longer have the confidence and respect of your people. Not only would I exhort you to beware of laziness in general, but beware of laziness in sermon preparation. The production of exegetically sound, theologically balanced.

24:42 And may I say. Deliciously served sermons. Your sermons ought to be delicious to your people. I mean to the real people of God.

24:46 They ought to taste good aesthetically as well as spiritually. And the production of such sermons prayerfully, in dependence upon the spirit and all of the divine agency, notwithstanding the production of such sermons week after week, month after month is just plain hard work. It is laboring in the word and in doctrine. It is labor in the word and in doctrine.

25:13 It is labor in the word and in doctrine. And whatever the measure of your native gifts may be, the difference between mediocrity and excellence is labor. We have in our congregation a young man who is greatly gifted as a pianist. He placed fourth in the International Beethoven Festival several years ago in Vienna.

25:32 And it was a truly international competition at the world level. And yet I've been amazed when I've asked Sam in preparation for a certain concert of the year. He said, Sam, how many hours have you been practicing? He said, Well, I think I've practiced about twenty hours the past two days.

25:51 Ten hours a day. Ten hours a day. Tremendous native gift. But the difference between mediocrity and excellence is that assiduity with which he applies himself to that piano.

26:11 I said, Sam, when you get a new piece, what do you do? He said, Well, the first thing I do is I start with the right hand and I mark over every note what finger I will use in playing it. Then I do the same with the left hand. Then I go back and I learn the first phrase with one hand.

26:28 Then I learn the next one. Then I overlap. And by the time it was done, I said, Lord, if Sam's integrity as a Christian musician in seeking rightly to represent what Beethoven was saying musically when he composed such and such a piece, if his sense of integrity with the music of Beethoven will drive him to such meticulous, arduous, painful labor representing your mind to your people draws forth any lesser degree of labor for me as a servant of Christ. You let your people suspect you of laziness in sermon preparation and respect is gone because the edification of your people depends upon your giving them rich fare, served up well. You give them 16 ounces to the pound Bible, and oh, how wonderfully true is the reverse. When your people week after week reap the fruits of your mental and spiritual travail in the study, you don't need to tell them how hard you studied. Usually you'll talk about it when you haven't done it and your own conscience is bothering you.

27:49 But if that is the major drift of your sermonic exercise, labor and pain. And the people reap the fruit of it. It's amazing how you're worked into their esteem and their affections. And it's amazing what you can tell them and get away with it.

28:07 More than once I've come out of the pulpit and said to my wife, honey, I don't know if anybody will be there next week. Perhaps you had to touch on things that were very sensitive and you felt great boldness and authority and really ramming something home to the conscience in the name of the Lord. And you wondered, boy, will they ever come back? And there they are eagerly waiting upon the why.

28:27 Because they've sensed that you're laboring in the Word and in doctrine for their well-being. Don't let them suspect you of laziness in general, laziness in your sermon preparation, laziness and reluctance in what I would call the diaconate duties of the eldership. Now what in the world do I mean by that? Simply this, though there is a specific sphere of responsibility for the elder that is not true.

29:00 The deacon does not rule, the deacon and a deacon does not rule. He does not labor in the Word and in doctrine. There is much about the office of an elder that is a continual diaconate. Paul again and again calls himself a servant of Jesus, a slave.

29:19 And he also speaks of himself as one who serves, one who deacons the people of God. And our Lord himself the great shepherd was also the great deacon. He speaks for himself as the great deacon. Among you is he that, what? Deacons.

29:36 I am among you is he that serveth. Girded himself with a towel and took the posture and the duty of the common slave and washed the disciples' feet. And there are many things that in the life, particularly of smaller churches, into which most of you are going to go. There aren't many here who are going to be pastors of the foster church with a paid staff of 13 and all the rest.

30:01 And there are many things that simply cannot be done any other time than during the day. And you may have deacons who really have a heart to serve, but they cannot track down certain things relative to the business end of the church simply because by the time they get done work, the business places are closed. And I've seen preachers who felt it was beneath their dignity to go inquire at the local zoning board about the availability of parcels of land on which possibly to build. And some of these mundane, the unthinkable, the unthinkable, the unthinkable, the unthinkable, the unthinkable, the unthinkable, the unthinkable, the unthinkable, the unthinkable.

30:31 The unthinkable, the unthinkable, the unthinkable, the unthinkable. ministries. You let your people suspect you of unwillingness to serve them at the practical level where necessary, and you'll lose their respect. And the converse is true.

30:43 The reverse is true. When they see that the fact that you do not get out and, as it were, get dirt under your fingernails day after day is not because you're afraid of dirt under your fingernails, but because there are higher priorities demanding your time. It's amazing how you're able to be worked into their affections. I remember what happened.

31:01 It happened to four or five of the men when, about seven years ago, when we purchased the building we're presently meeting in, and we had to renovate it, and by the direction of the elders, I was released to work with my hands for 40, 50 hours a week doing carpenter work and construction work as we gutted out that building and reconstructed it. And something happened materially in my relationship to three or four of those men. They had only known me in the relationship, preaching, and those more distinct functions of the eldership. But when they saw me not only willing but delighting in laboring along with them shoulder to shoulder, putting in a full day, and then when they came over to the building after work, working till midnight, and at the same time burning the midnight oil to produce something of edifying material on the Lord's day, something happened in the relationship. I felt that there was now an esteem and a confidence that never existed before.

32:00 Don't let your people suspect you of laziness and reluctance in diaconate duties. Well, let me move to another area. If you would have the esteem and respect of your people,

Beware of Self-Defense and Excuse-Making

32:11 don't let them discover in you a spirit of self-defense and excuse-making with reference to your known deficiencies. If they detect in you a spirit of self-defense and excuse-making with reference to your known deficiencies, you'll lose their respect and confidence. A true church composed of struggling saints will be patient with a servant of God who's also a struggling saint, who not only declaims against the doctrine of sinless perfection in his preaching, but who lets it be known that there are areas in his life of unresolved difficulty where he's wrestling and pleading with God and seeking to know the triumphs of the grace of God. But you let your people begin to say, that you are going to defend yourself when your areas of weakness are seen, that you're going to excuse and rationalize these areas of deficiency, and you'll lose their confidence and lose their respect.

33:25 When they approach you or suggest that perhaps you're a bit quick-tempered when anyone challenges you,

33:32 and you begin to rationalize, and you begin pompously to show that that's not being quick-tempered, that's simply asserting the prerogatives, of your office or some other pious covering for your carnality, if they sense inflexibility that is covered up under the guise of conviction and principle?

33:53 No, no. And may I say at this point, brethren, this is why you must make one of your primary prayers and goals when God leads you into some sphere of pastoral oversight that God will quickly raise up around you other godly men who have the gifts, and graces of eldership, so that you may have some shepherds to watch over your soul. How I thank God for the three men who shepherd me in our own assembly. And I mean they shepherd me.

34:24 And it wasn't too long ago that they said, Pastor, we believe in such and such a situation the way you reacted was less than Christian. I said, well, brethren, present your case. And they did. I said, the case is convincing.

34:39 And I acknowledged my sin to them. And I went to the people involved. More than once, I've had to call a congregational meeting and acknowledge my sin. Now, I've never blown my stack and thrown a Bible at the wall.

34:51 I'm not talking about that. Any man who has no more control over his spirit than that is not self-controlled and belong in the ministry. But I've reacted negatively. I was something less than exemplary in my reaction.

35:04 And my elders have exhorted me and pointed out my sin that I might repent before God, confess the sin to his people, does that lessen their confidence? Of course not. It sends you up a notch or two in their confidence and esteem because they know you to be practicing what you've preached to them about honesty and transparency. And as we heard this morning, having a conscience void of offense, not only to God, but to man.

35:34 Oh, but if I confess my sin to the people, it will lower their esteem of the dignity of the ministry. Blessed lowering, if that's how it's got to be lowered. If the esteem is one that will not take honesty on the part of the elder, it's about time such esteem was blasted into the realm of nothingness.

35:56 So don't let them detect a spirit of self-defense and excuse-making, or you're going to lose respect and confidence. Another area to which I would address myself briefly, if they discern in you a spirit of selfishness and grasping after material gain, you've lost their respect. One of the requirements for an elder is not greedy of filthy lucre. 1 Peter 5 says the elders are to take the oversight not for filthy lucre's sake.

Beware of Selfishness and Grasping for Material Gain

36:31 And Paul exhorts Timothy in 1 Timothy 6, 9-11, but thou, O man of God, flee these things. And in the context, he's talking about grasping after material gain. How can we call our people to biblical perspectives if we don't reflect them ourselves? If the parson may fiddle, may not the people dance?

36:56 Don't become a fashion hound, always strutting into the pulpit in the latest style of clothing. A preacher should never be a leader in styles among his people. Now, he shouldn't be 20 years behind either.

37:14 But I tell you, it is far less detrimental to the confidence and assurance and esteem of the people to be 20 years behind than to make it evident that you're spending more time looking at the men's fashion ads than perhaps studying the word of God. And I've seen some preachers that when I've looked at them and heard them, the only thing I could say for certain is they sure were up on the latest styles of clothing. And that was all. That was all.

37:44 You let your people suspect that those external things mean too much to you and distrust. Deem and respect is gone. Don't become an addict to new cars. Cars are the weakness of many a preacher.

37:58 About the only status symbol a preacher can have is his car. Now, thank God the energy crunch has cured some of that because preachers just can't afford to drive those big gas hounds. Well, that's been one of the good things. But I know many a preacher that gets addicted to this business of trading in cars all the time and he's guised it under an economic necessity when he isn't.

38:19 He's wasting hundreds and thousands of dollars for this that is a status symbol to him.

Beware of Moral Indiscretion with the Opposite Sex

38:28 I exhort you, if you would have the esteem of your people, don't ever let them discern in you a spirit of selfishness and grasping after material gain. And then the final area, and I want to park on this for about ten minutes as I close, all respect and confidence from your people will go if they have grounds to question your moral integrity with those of the opposite sex. All their respect and confidence will be gone if they have grounds, legitimate grounds, to question your moral integrity with those of the opposite sex. Why do preachers so often fall in this area?

39:10 I've just come back from ministering at a church where in one month's time of the three full-time ministers, two of them had the lid blown off that they've been carrying on immoral relationships for months and years. This wasn't a liberal church. This was an evangelical church. Two out of three in one month's time and the senior minister known to be a quote, great soul winner.

39:41 And many of the fruits of his ministry are right there in the church.

39:46 And one of the saddest things when I get together with a group of ministers that I've not seen for some time is that almost invariably in the course of general catching up on the news, someone will say, did you hear? And then you hear the sad, the sickening, news that goes right to there. So-and-so has gone down the tubes with another woman.

40:10 And I firmly believe that in few cases is a man ever able, even if his repentance is deep and sincere, I believe he goes through life with clipped wings the rest of his days. Rarely is he able ever again to establish the confidence of God's people. He is always, always, always, preacher so-and-so who committed adultery with so-and-so. Now, why is it that preachers seem to be peculiarly susceptible to this?

40:45 Well, let me suggest several reasons and some remedies. First of all, they are the peculiar objects of satanic attack. You remember what Nathan said to David? He said, because of this thing thou hast given occasion for the enemies of God to blaspheme.

41:02 Satan knew if he could get David to fall in this area, he would have, fuel to spread abroad blasphemy concerning the God of Israel. And I believe preachers are not more perverse or some kind of super-sexed, overly ambitious creatures. No, no, no, no. I believe one of the reasons they fall so often in this area is because they are the peculiar objects of satanic attack. And secondly, they are in a peculiar place of temptation.

41:35 They have access to the homes of their people at any time. They have access to the deepest affections of their people at the deepest level. And they have access to the burdens and needs of people at the deepest levels. And I think those three things combined make them very vulnerable.

Remedies: Maintain Spiritual Health

42:00 Now, how then, in the face of the machinations of the devil and the peculiar susceptibility of the work of the ministry, how are we to maintain confidence and esteem in this area of unquestioned moral purity with relationship to those of the opposite sex? Let me make three suggestions. Number one, maintain good spiritual health in general. No man goes from a life of consistent, intimate communion with Christ into the bed with another man's wife. There is always a solid, a process. That's why our Lord said, watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation. Satan must always draw us away from until he, before he can draw us into. And a man living in intimate, warm, vibrant communion with Christ is not going to go out and involve himself in a sordid, lecherous relationship with another woman. And is not the account

43:17 of David's fall an extended commentary on that principle? He was softened up years before when in direct disobedience to Deuteronomy 17, 17, where God says, when I give you a king, the king shall not multiply to himself wives. David began, and he had his six wives, children by those various wives. And then he took to himself a wife, and he took to himself a wife, and he took to himself a wife, and he took to himself a wife, and he took to himself concubines. And then, through success, he becomes lazy. And instead of being out when kings go to war, for there was much more land to conquer, he's lounging around in his bed and finally gets up for a stroll at eventide. And the sweet psalmist of Israel is just a sitting duck. But you never read of that fall in 2 Samuel 11, apart from the weaning away from vibrant, vigorous, spiritual health and activity which preceded it. And so, my dear future preacher, if you and I can condition our consciences to think in this way, it will be a great help to us. What is the price

44:32 that I may pay if I neglect the secret place today? Well, as Mr. Moorcraft reminded us, the price I will pay is that it will be much easier to neglect the secret place tomorrow. If conscience hollers with 50 days, it will be much easier to neglect the secret place tomorrow. If conscience hollers with 60 days, it will be much easier to neglect the secret place tomorrow. If conscience hollers with 75 days, it will be much easier to neglect the secret place tomorrow. In other words, when conscience no longer whispers about the neglect of the duty of the secret inner exercises of the soul, the reality of the world of the spirit grows dimmer and dimmer. The word of the world is the spirit of the soul. Since the theory of the inner doer is not the spirit of the spirit, the reality of the world of the spirit grows very dim. God, Christ, the blood of the covenants, the

45:21 Satan, temptation, heaven and hell, though I have not consciously relinquished my conviction in any of these realities, I have, as it were, drawn away from them, where they no longer have the grip upon my soul that they once had. The horror of sin, you see, is not felt except in living communion with Christ. And when the eye of faith is beheld him in the agony of that awful baptism of Golgotha, sin is ugly.

45:58 You see, when days have passed and there's been no drawing into the veil to contemplate my Lord in his dying agony, though I still say sin is ugly and sin is vicious, there isn't the felt reality of that upon the soul. And now I'm vulnerable, you see, to temptation. I cannot emphasize enough. That the great preventive to great moral lapses is the maintenance of good spiritual health in the day-by-day disciplines of the Christian life.

Remedies: Maintain Intimacy with Your Wife

46:32 Second word of exhortation. Maintain a good, wholesome, multi-leveled intimacy with your own legitimate wife.

46:45 Maintain a good, wholesome, multi-leveled intimacy with your own wife. And what do I mean by multi-leveled intimacy? I mean your wife is your best friend. She is your confidante.

47:02 She's the one with whom you laugh the most. And in the area of your own sexual experience, that walled garden becomes more and more a delight to you.

47:15 The thought, then, of ever seeking to snatch some fleeting pleasure with someone with whom you love, someone with whom there is not that multi-leveled intimacy, is actually abhorrent. Even though there may be the surface temptation in terms of well-arranged flesh in the right place in right proportions, the thought of joining yourself to someone at so surface a level is abhorrent to the person who knows the delight of the multi-leveled intimacy with his own legitimate wife. And may I give a word? To you, wives, I'm not ignorant that you've been here.

47:59 I've not spoken to you directly because it's better that you hear me preaching to your husbands, and then you'll know how to preach at them when they need it.

48:10 And I thank God for a wife. Oh, did she preach to me yesterday. I was in sad straits before I came down here. It's been a number of factors, and I was in bad shape mentally as far as being disrupted in my own mind.

48:23 And, oh, she preached back to me so many things that I preached to her. She was all done. I was quite proud of what she'd learned from me.

48:31 Because when I needed it, she really bore down on me in a lovely, feminine way, but she still bore down on me nonetheless.

48:40 But seriously now, remember this, you young wives, when the pressure of rearing the children seems such that you've got nothing left and you just feel it's a burden to be a sweetheart and a lover to your husband, will you remember this? Remember this. Oh, remember this, you young wives. You make the walls.

49:00 You make the garden of your sexual relationship such that he'd be going for cheap pickings if he ever went elsewhere to find any delights in this area. You have a tremendous responsibility as well as an awesome privilege. And if you are rendering to him his due in the biblical sense of the word, 1 Corinthians 7, you can be a great means of grace to keep your husband from temptations in this area. So maintain good spiritual health.

Remedies: Maintain Preventive Disciplines of Common Sense

49:32 In general, maintain a good, wholesome, multi-leveled intimacy with your own legitimate wife in particular. And thirdly, maintain the preventive disciplines of common sense.

49:50 No preacher needs to go visiting women at their homes during the daytime.

49:57 There are few circumstances in which there is any necessity for a preacher to go visit a woman in her home during the daytime. If the problem is so critical, most wives drive. You can take your own wife with you in the car to go pick up the woman and bring her back to your own home and talk to her privately. And when I hear of these men who get in trouble with these daytime visits, I have to believe they're looking for it.

50:27 Common sense tells you if you want to avoid this type of sin, you avoid the circumstances which make it possible. One of the areas of counsel I give to all the individuals, engaged couples, so that they do not fall in the area of fornication and jump the gun and spoil the sanctity of their own marriage. I say, just don't put yourself in physical surroundings that make this possible. Now, that's very simple. Very simple.

50:56 Common sense and the scriptures and human experience confirm the fact that the person who does not avoid the occasions of sin is not serious in the avoidance of sin itself. Another aspect of the preventive discipline of common sense is don't counsel people in terms of marital problems alone.

51:27 As a general rule, don't counsel people when they have marital problems alone. You get that poor woman who has a husband who is a veritable churl. He has no sympathy. He's not kind. He doesn't hear. He doesn't listen.

51:42 And because you love this dear sheep, you're all ears and you're all heart and you're all sympathy. And before she knows it, you're all love. And before she knows it, she's not come to seduce you. No, no, no, no, no.

51:52 But she's found a man who has something of those gentle, tender qualities that Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians 2. And before she knows what's happened, she's reaching out for identity with you that she never intended when she came. And you're just fallen creature yet enough to respond to that in a way that is not wholesome or honoring to God.

52:20 The third area of practical counsel is, as a general rule, especially when you're in your younger years, keep your hands off the other women. Unless, like our senior citizen I've said for years, the only woman in the church that I kiss and embrace, apart from my wife, is dear Mrs. Blair. She's 93.

52:42 And now that I've got a few more miles on my speedometer, I can get away with hugging and kissing a few more under certain circumstances and still be discreet. But I adopted it as an almost inflexible rule of my ministry for the first, oh, 15 years.

53:00 Hands off. And there are times when, you know, a woman gets all broken up and she's sobbing and crying and you don't know what to say. Everything in you wants you to just go put your arm around her and just hold her close. You dare not do it.

53:13 You dare not do it. That's the time to call your wife up and have your wife put her arm around her and hold her close.

53:21 Yes. She may need physical reassurance. But you don't know your own heart in these things. And I repeat, he who does not avoid occasions to sin is not serious concerning the avoidance of sin itself.

The Tragic Cost of Disregard

53:36 You know, it's a tragic thing, brethren, and this is the thing that about breaks my heart as I stand here and then I'm done. If every one of you men here today ends up a teaching, ruling elder in some flock of God, do you know that statistically some of you sitting right here today are going to end up disgracing, your God, your family, the work of the ministry, the church? You're going to sell all of that for a few moments of physical pleasure.

54:09 And if and when you do, it will be because you've disregarded some of these practical directives. And remember, the price you pay is the irreparable damage in the area of esteem and confidence. And as far as I'm concerned, if that cannot be regained, you're done as far as the ministry is concerned. Well, I hope that this has not been too heavy in the standpoint that you're scared.

54:41 I hope something of holy fear is in your heart. But may I conclude with the exhortation with which we began. If you would be an effective pastor preacher, you must preach in the context of the esteem and confidence of your people. That esteem and confidence is earned by your life lived before them.

55:01 Beware. Beware, then, of shoddiness in the realm of practical godliness. Beware of domestic failure. Beware of laziness.

55:11 Beware of covetousness. Beware of hypersensitivity and excusing your faults. Beware of indiscretion with those of the opposite sex. Few of us will ever attain to the heights of youthfulness of the Whitfields and the Bunyans and the Wesleys and the Calvins.

55:30 Most of us will carry on our ministries as the unsung heroes in the army of Christ. But, oh, that we may carry them on in whatever sphere we minister as men who have the earned esteem and respect of the people of God. And in that day, the loving commendation of the Son of God. Well done, thou good and faithful servant.

56:01 Amen.