88b) Spiritual Experience #2

The Necessity of Experiential Acquaintance with Sin and Grace

0:03 Alright brethren, let's seek to pick up where we left off in the previous hour as we continue to examine this second element of that which comprises a biblical call to the pastoral office, namely the clear indications of an enlarged, balanced, and tested Christian experience. The first, which I addressed in the previous hour, a proven love for and devoted attachment to the person of Christ. And now the second, and it's listed at the top of page 11 of your printed notes, is what I've described as a personal and perceptive acquaintance with the fundamental workings of sin and grace in the soul. And you say, what in the world do you mean by that bunch of words? A personal and perceptive acquaintance with the fundamental workings of sin and grace in the soul. Well, let me seek to explain myself.

1:05 The framework of the apostolic witness was in many ways unique, as we alluded to in the previous hour. They were eyewitnesses. Their testimony was validated by true signs and wonders. But just as in their calling, there were principles that were preordained.

1:25 Present in their ministries that are present in every valid ministry of an ordinary servant of Christ laboring in the pastoral office. And one such principle is found in the words of 1 John 1 and verse 3, where John says, That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you. Now, that was a unique element of apostolic testimony. They actually saw and heard the...

1:55 Christ in the days of His humiliation. They saw Him and touched Him and heard Him subsequent to His resurrection and prior to His ascension to the right hand of the Father. But there is a principle they were trafficking in that which was part of their own experience. Again, in Acts 4.20, After two of them had been warned and told to be silent and not to preach, they responded by saying, We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. And it is that principle that I'm seeking to capture in the words that if we would be recognized as gifts of Christ to His people, then there must be some clear indications of this personal and perceptive acquaintance with the fundamental workings of sin and grace in the soul. Now, what do I mean the fundamental workings of sin and of grace in the soul?

C.J. Brown on Ministerial Guilt and Personal Godliness

3:01 Well, here I'm going to hide behind the quality control of the men of the past. And the first is a quotation from a sermon preached on the subject of ministerial guilt on May 21, 1844 at the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland by a servant of Christ by the name of C.J. Brown.

3:26 And the title of the sermon, as I've indicated, was Ministerial Guilt. And I pick up at this point where he said to his fellow ministers, As we ought not to be ministers at all, however, if we be not Christians, regenerated men, so assuming this, that is, that we are regenerate men, I believe that one of our chief sins and the parent of all other evils in the real world, particularly Christian ministry together, is to be found in the low state of godliness of the life of God in our own souls. I'm aware that this statement is liable to be misunderstood, and all I can afford time to say to obviate misapprehension is just this, that I am not here comparing us with our former selves. In this view, perhaps, we may have made some happy progress, and this, we are not quite so far off as before, may just be the secret of our seeing more distinctly today our fearful distance from the mark. I am comparing our spiritual state with such words, such notes of a lively and prosperous Christian as the following, and then he quotes the Apostle Paul, Our conversation is in heaven. Thy word was found of me, and I did eat it, Jeremiah,

4:53 and it was unto me. I am rejoicing of my heart. Paul, again, to me, to live, is Christ. Genesis, Enoch walked with God.

5:03 Paul, I pressed to the mark. David, my soul thirsts for God, the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? Now let me try, if I can, bring out in a sentence or two the vital connection between this state of soul and the discharge of the whole work of the ministry.

5:23 See it, for instance, in that word of Paul, 2 Timothy 1.12, I suffer these things, nevertheless I am not ashamed for. Mark the secret of his heroic bearing. We talk of the magnanimity, the heroism of Paul, but observe the secret of all his labors and toils and sufferings.

5:42 For I know, says he, whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. Ah, that it is that will make a man go through the flames for Christ, that element deep and strong in his soul. I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded he is able to keep that which I have committed to him. Or, see it in the words of David, we were just singing, Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit.

6:17 Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. Then, Lord, how shall I teach transgressors thy ways, unless I am seeking to walk close and straight in them myself? Unless restored and upheld by thy good spirit, I am both discovering and loathing my own ways, and constantly seeking to tread in thine, or take it thus. Our themes, fathers and brethren, the hinges of the ministry, are sin and Christ.

6:52 Well, how shall a man discover the sins of others, sins? Solidly and tenderly, not harshly, but tenderly and lovingly, who is not seeing and weeping in secret places over his own iniquities. And as for Christ, the very idea of Christ, the beloved of the Father, his elect in whom his soul delights, is one of the heart and of the soul. It is not to be taken up by mere intellectual apprehension.

7:20 The love of Christ constrains us, says Paul, giving the spring of all his labors. Lovest thou me, Peter? Then feed my lambs, feed my sheep. Thou canst never feed them otherwise.

7:34 That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. You see what the man was doing back in 1844? He was seeking to address his fellow ministers and tell them if your ministry would be owned of God, it must come out of the matrix of this personal and perceptive acquaintance, with the fundamental workings of sin and of grace in the soul.

John Owen on Experiential Knowledge for Pastoral Care

8:02 Yet no human author that I've consulted more accurately and more extensively addresses this than does Owen. And I've sought to give you a number of references and I'll not quote from all of them. Let me just give you the heads and a little taste to whet your appetite.

8:21 Volume 16, page 85. Dealing with the requirements for the office, of pastoral labor. It belongs unto them on the account of their pastoral office to be ready, willing, and able to comfort, relieve, and refresh those that are tempted, tossed, wearied with fears and grounds of disconsolation in times of trial and desertion. The tongue of the learned is required of them that they should know how to speak a word in season to him that is not of them.

8:57 One excellent qualification of our Lord Jesus Christ in the discharge of his priestly office now in heaven is that he is touched with the feeling of our infirmities and knows how to succor them that are tempted. His whole flock in his world are a company of tempted ones. His own life on earth he called the time of his temptation. And those who have the charge of his flock under him ought to have a sense of their infirmities and endeavor him in a special manner to succor them that are tempted.

9:34 And then he talks about the children of God who grow through periods of desertion, the buffetings of Satan, the injection of blasphemous thoughts. And he says, how can a man minister to such sheep if he's a stranger to those things in his own experience? He will sit there with a look of incredulity upon his face saying, what in the world are you talking about? A sense of desertion.

9:59 What are you talking about? Being at prayer and having blasphemous thoughts as it were injected into your mind. I don't know what in the world you're talking about. Owen is saying, unless a man has some element of experience in the fundamental workings of sin and grace in the soul, how can he be a true shepherd?

10:19 To minister to God's distressed sheep. For these things are part and parcel of their experience. And then Owen goes on to state, to be able rightly to understand the various cases that will occur of this kind from such principles and grounds of truth and experience as will bear a just confidence in a prudent application unto the relief of them concerned. In other words, to have the tongue of the learned to know how to speak a word in season.

10:52 Then he anticipates the question, where will I acquire this knowledge? It will not be done by a collectivist and determination of cases which yet is useful in its place. The old Puritan's works on cases of conscience back to his directory. He's saying fundamentally, you'll not get it from there.

11:09 Where will you get it? But a skill, understanding, and experience in the whole nature of the work of the Spirit of God on the souls of men. Of the conflict that is between the flesh and the spirit. Of the methods and wiles of Satan.

11:27 Of the wiles of principalities. And powers or wicked spirits in high places. Of the nature and effects and ends of divine desertions. With wisdom to make application out of such principles or fit medicines and remedies unto every sore and distemper are required hereunto.

11:45 These things are by some despised. And many in our day would despise them as the ravings of a fanatic. Of a half-crazed mystic. These things by some are despised.

11:55 By some neglected. By some looked after. Only in stated cations of conscience. But he says true pastors must obtain this skill and understanding by diligent study of the Scripture.

12:09 Meditation thereon. Fervent prayer. Experience of spiritual things and temptations in their own souls. With a prudent observation of the manner of God's dealings with others and the ways of opposition made to the work of His grace.

12:28 In them without these things listen to Owen without these things all pretenses unto this ability and duty of the pastoral office are vain. Whence it is that the whole work of it is much neglect.

12:47 In other words if Owen were sitting down on an eldership to examine whether or not a judgment should be made by the church as to your fitness or mine to assume the pastoral office he'd probe us to see if there was at least a modicum of that deposit of understanding wrought in the crucible of our own Christian experience of the workings of sin and grace. And if it were not there if Owen sensed we were sincere but simply untaught I think he'd lay his hand upon the shoulder and say now son you pray to have dealings with God at least that will match the struggles and the dealings with God of the rank and file of your people. God bless you for your desire. But God bless you with sufficient acquisition of experience that will make you confident to do the work of a shepherd after my own heart. For isn't that the promise of Christ under the new covenant? I will give them shepherds after my own heart who shall feed them with knowledge and understanding knowledge and understanding fitted to do what?

13:53 To meet them at the place of their real need. And much of that need grows out of the realities of the workings of sin and of grace in the human heart. The human soul. And there are some other choice quotes from Owen.

James Stewart on the Demand for Reality in Preaching

14:11 I'll bypass them but let me give you this quote from James Stewart's book on preaching, page 29. It is one of the mightiest safeguards of a man's ministry to be aware of that hungry demand for reality breaking inarticulately from the hearts of those to whom he ministers. For that cry puts everything shoddy, secondhand, or artificial to shame. You don't need to be eloquent or clever or sensational or skilled in dialectic but you must be real.

14:47 To fail there is to fail abysmally and tragically. It is to damage incalculably the cause you represent. Anything savoring of unreality in the pulpit is a double offense. Let me urge upon you two considerations.

15:03 On the one hand you will be preaching to people who've been grappling all the week with the stern realities behind a congregation assembling for worship. There are stories of heavy anxiety and fierce temptation of loneliness and heroism of overwork and lack of work of physical strain and mental wear and tear. We wrong them and we mock their struggles if we preach our gospel in abstraction from the heart facts of their experience. That's a profound statement.

15:39 We wrong them and we mock their struggles if we preach our gospel in abstraction from the hard facts of their experience. It is not only that they can detect at once the hollowness of such a performance though that is true. There is also this that to offer pedantic theorizing and academic irrelevances to souls wrestling in the dark is to sin against the Lord who died for them and yearns for their redemption. Powerful, powerful words.

16:17 But there is a further indictment he had two heads of unreality in preaching this is rooted not so much in the hard problems men and women are facing what Whittier called this maddening maze of things as in the very nature of the Christian faith itself the gospel is quite shattering the sovereignty of God frustrations, sin and death or to gild unpalatable facts with a coating of pious verbiage or facile consolation it never sidetracks uncomfortable questions with some naive and cheerful cliché about providence or progress it gazes open-eyed at the most menacing and savage circumstances life can show it is utterly courageous its strength is the complete absence of utopian illusions it thrusts Golgotha upon men's vision and bids them look at that the very last charge that can be brought against the gospel is that of sentimentality of blinking the facts away it is devastating in its veracity and its realism is a consuming fire powerful words and brethren if there isn't something about our ministries at the outset as we grow as Christians as we grow as ministers

Samuel Miller on Piety and Experiential Guidance

17:44 and we have a larger and larger stock I'm not saying put the experience of a fifty year old man in a man in his thirties no, but I am saying if there is not a modicum of experiential acquaintance with the fundamental struggles of the soul of the average believer as he seeks to go on with God and live in the real world how in the world can we be received through Christ to perfect them when we are out of touch with the things that form the nuts and bolts of their life, utterly impossible Bridges addresses it page 27 and 28 in his Christian ministry I will not take the time to quote it but I will give you this one last choice quote from the past Samuel Miller's lovely little book that I recommend to each one of you if you don't have it an able and faithful ministry and on pages 4 and 5 he is speaking on the first prerequisite of a minister and that being piety and here he mingles graces and what I am trying to address here as experience and this is what he says how can a man who knows only the theory of religion undertake to be a practical guide in spiritual things how can he adapt his instructions to the varieties of Christian experience

19:12 how can he directly awaken the inquiring, the tempted and the doubting how can he feed the sheep in the lambs of Christ how can he sympathize with mourners in Zion how can he comfort those with the consolations wherewith he himself has never been comforted of God he cannot possibly perform as he ought any of these duties and yet they are the most precious and interesting parts of the ministerial work however gigantic his intellectual powers however deep in various and accurate his learning he is not able in relation to any of these points to teach others seeing he is not taught himself if he makes the attempt it will be but an exercise in the blind leading the blind and of this honoring wisdom has told us the consequence remember what Jesus said both fall into the ditch so brethren this is not some strange note that I am sounding a contemporary saying but the men who knew God and knew something of what the pastoral office ought to be and knew their Bibles they said it was there on the very face of the question who does Christ give to his church to be a shepherd of his people it will not only be one of proven graces but one of sufficient

God's Preparatory Trials for Ministers

20:40 Christian experience experience that will be no stranger to the fundamental evidence of the great issues of sin and grace as they operate in the soul of the people of God so brethren if that is so and you have come here for quote ministerial preparation settle it as an honoring axiom God is going to beat up on you on a lot of ways that have nothing to do with the curriculum of Trinity Ministerial Academy you cry to God Lord make me an able minister of the new covenant and God will start answering in ways that may be very surprising and very painful ways that may frustrate you from getting what would be on a grade level an A plus in one course and drop you to a B but God knows that the difference in that A and B in that course is nothing compared to the lesson he is going to teach you that agonizing struggle that he brings into your life through the sickness of a little one through emotional weakness through this or that I've stood on the sidelines at times and I've seen God beating up on his potential servants and everything in me wanted to reach in and say Lord stay your hand it's the only way God makes men of God

22:08 it's the only way and God knows don't make God's dealings with any other man the pattern of his dealings with you I was talking with one of the brethren earlier asked how his wife has adjusted emotionally in the rest of the area she has made a wonderful adjustment to try you in that area because other men have been severely tried in that area but I can say with equal confidence my brother God will drop you down in the frying pan in some other area because that's how God makes ministers do you remember what Luther said what was these three things that made a minister the Bible, prayer and suffering or trials, I think it was Luther that said that those are the three things you can't omit any one of them and if we understand it then rather than say Lord what's happening I came here to prepare for the ministry and now this has entered God says yes that's right and in a sense when you ask God to prepare you to be a true shepherd of sheep you're asking him to pour into your soul the cross section of the experience of a hundred people that you might have the tongue of the learned experientially having learned what consolations what directives, what preventives what curatives are there in the word of God for those distressed sheep and I look back at times and the way God led me by such a winding path and at times it was so lonely

A Chastened Disposition of Humility and Self-Distrust

23:34 I can barely reflect upon it without deep emotion but the years have shown me how wise God was he saw all along the line the distressed souls that would come and he has been unpacking for over forty years what he was squeezing into ten years and then I have to say Lord forgive me for ever ever chafing under your ways of seeking to make me a fit vessel to minister to others but then we come I think we'll have time to address the other two thirdly what I've called a chastened disposition of humility and self distrust and again brethren it's the best I could do if you saw my worksheets where I scratched out and replaced and scratched out again and a moment of truth came when I had to put something onto the dictating machine and something that was the best I could do to capture it right now in the area of Christian experience there must be the evidence that a man has come to some level of a chastened disposition of humility and self distrust and what do I mean by that simply this if the Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3, 4 and 5

25:03 with reference to his ministry as a minister of the new covenant such confidence we have through Christ to God word not that we are sufficient of ourselves to account anything ourselves our sufficiency is from God who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant now how does a man come to this experiential conviction that he is not sufficient of himself to account anything as from himself that will fit him to do the work of the ministry he doesn't come to it by simply reading a book or even examining the text to deal with it God will take a man in hand and in his own tailor made private plan so deal with that man until he has this conviction that I am not sufficient of myself to think of anything as from myself with respect to doing the work of the ministry regardless of what my native endowments may be my acquired skills and disciplines and tools with reference to what I am called to do God will do it all or nothing

26:31 will be done man doesn't come to that conviction of a chastened disposition of humility and self distrust that I am talking about God brings a man there when do we come to the place where we really believe Christ meant exactly what he said in John 15 in verse 5 without me you can do nada nothing is that a rhetorical over state no that is reality you can do nothing nothing we are not sufficient of ourselves to think anything as from ourselves remember the experience of Peter in verse 22 31 to 34 Lord do everyone else deny you not me Satan has desired you to sift you as wheat when you are turned again strengthen your brethren Peter had to learn experientially what it was to have a chastened disposition of humility and self distrust and isn't it interesting that it is Peter who emphasizes that grace when he says all of you be clothed with humility is grace to the humble so with respect to grace is gifts privilege everything connected to the ministry God will press us and press us until we answer the question

27:59 of 1 Corinthians 6 and 7 exactly as we ought to answer it I turn to that passage 1 Corinthians chapter 4 verses 6 and 7 notice what the concern is now these things brethren I have in a figure transferred to myself and Apollos for your sake that in us you might not to go beyond the things which are written that no one of you be puffed up for the one against the other and here is the question who makes you to differ simple question who makes you to differ though the concern here has reference to these people lining up behind their favorite preachers and splitting up into parties within the church principle goes far beyond that specific expression of it who makes you to differ doesn't say who made Apollos and Paul to differ understand it in yourself and then you'll rightly apply it to the ministers God sends among you who makes you to differ and what have you that you did not receive now two very simple questions theoretically we all know what the right answer is but to come to the place where experimentally in the deepest chambers of the soul the answer rings out instinctively who makes you to differ if I differ in any way to gift and grace

29:27 it is all of God and all of grace and what have I that I did not receive who gave me life in my mother's womb who put the genes together in such a way that I should be a normal human being who laid hold of me in grace who opened my eyes what have I that I did not receive nothing but if you received it why do you glory as though you had not received it anything of the remnants of pride and self-trust is an indication that we've moved away from the experimental acknowledgement of the right answer to those simple questions and so if God's going to place you as his servant into the ministry an able minister of the new covenant he's got to bring you into the framework of new covenant consciousness or the consciousness of new covenant ministers that they are not sufficient of themselves to think anything is from themselves everything they have has been given and they're not given to glory as though it were not given and you see it's not just on the threshold but all the way along the way Paul was no novice when he wrote 2 Corinthians chapter 12 he said in the ongoing revelations of Christ to me he saw the naughtiness of my heart that I might be puffed up so he allowed this messenger of Satan to come and afflict me and I said Lord I can't do your work unless you take this away and he said for this thing I thought the Lord three times

30:55 probably three extended seasons of prayer most likely coupled with fasting and he said Lord here's the logical conclusion this thing is such an impediment I can't fulfill my ministry God says no now there's another construction and it's this in the light of all the endowments I've granted and the abundance of revelations knowing the naughtiness of your heart lest you be puffed up with pride I'm going to send this thing to keep you consciously weak and consciously dependent because I can use weak men who know they are weak and are dependent but I can't use proud men Paul says Lord I got the message most gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me and if I become a living paradox going around always dying yet imparting life going around half dead and yet an amazement to men so be it I want the power of Christ to intent itself about me do you see brethren it's not something that's once for all but surely no man can consider himself Christ's gift to the church who has not been brought to this fundamental experiential posture of a chastened disposition of humility and self distrust how can we enter a ministry that has as its focal point the proclamation of a Christ who said come to me I will give you rest for I am

32:24 meek and lowly in heart how can a proud and arrogant man preach a meek and a lowly Christ with any conviction can't be done and so I say in the area of Christian experience there must be a modicum how much I'm not going to say the Bible doesn't say but I know the difference when I'm in the presence of a proud man and a humble man and I don't know where the line is but you better be safely back from the line where people can justly accuse you of being a proud self confident cocky young creature and you can't feign humility you can't do it by simply shrugging your shoulders and putting your hands in your pocket and mumbling through your beard no no it's an internal grace it's got to be worked in here and if God had to use some external pressure on a mature saint like Paul to keep him there don't be surprised if he beats up on you to get you there brethren I wish there was some easier way but it's a glorious thing to see a man walking ministering publicly and privately with the due of God upon him with godly assertiveness and boldness and yet to sense in his presence there's the meekness and the gentleness of Christ in a man who knows he has nothing but what he's received and then fourthly

A Measure of Sustained and Vigorous Faith in Unseen Realities

33:53 we will get through them this fourth aspect of what I'm calling this necessity for an enlarged balanced tested Christian experience is what I've described as a measure of sustained and vigorous faith in the great realities of the unseen world and again I was fishing for words trying to explain that faith is not just one grace among many in the soul it is the pivotal grace without faith Hebrews 11 6 it is impossible to please him for we walk by faith and not by sight and then the crucial text and I've listed it for you 2 Corinthians 4 13 and I commend you Warfield's sermon on this I believed therefore have I spoken and Warfield has a marvelous sermon on that text and 2 Corinthians 4 in verse 18 the apostle says concerning his quote light affliction is but for a moment while we look not on the things that are seen but on the things that are not seen for the things that are seen are temporal but the things that are not seen are eternal and what I desire to say on this has been better

35:22 said by Bridges on page 178 in his work on Christian ministry dealing with the problem of the lack of faith among men in the ministry and this in turn being an impediment to usefulness but I want to put it here with respect to fitness to enter the ministry it is most important habitually to contemplate our work in its proper character as a work of faith 1 Thessalonians 1 3 as such it can only be sustained by the active and persevering exercise of this principle this is that makes it a means of grace to our own souls as well as the grand medium of exalting our divine master it is faith that enlivens our work with perpetual cheerfulness it commits every part of it to God in the hope that even mistakes should be overruled for his glory and thus relieves us from an oppressive anxiety often attendant upon a deep sense of our responsibility the shortest way to peace will be found in casting ourselves upon God for daily pardon of deficiencies and supplies of grace without looking too eagerly for present fruit hence our course of effort is unvarying but more tranquil it is peace not slumber rest in the work

36:50 not from it faith supports us under the trials of our ministerial warfare with the clear view of the faithfulness of the covenant and the ultimate stability of the church and indeed as all the promises are made to faith or to the grace springing from faith this is the only spring of Christian courage and Christian hope unbelief looks at difficulty faith regards the promise unbelief therefore makes our work a service of bondage faith realizes it as a labor of love unbelief drags on in sullen despondency faith makes the patience with which it is content to wait for success the patience of hope as every difficulty as we've hinted is the fruit of unbelief so will they all ultimately be overcome by the perseverance of faith this is the victory that hath overcome the world even our what even our faith believe wait work believing the promise gives the power to wait waiting supplies the strength for work and such work is never in vain in the Lord most precious words believing the promise gives the power to wait waiting supplies strength for the work

38:18 and such working is not in vain in the Lord and then he goes on to say daily experience reminds us of the extreme difficulty of maintaining spiritual perceptions of eternal things he has stated that eternal realities are the focus of faith but the pressures of life constantly pull us away from that and then he quotes another servant of God who said faith is the master spring of a minister hell is before me and thousands of souls are shut up there in everlasting agonies Jesus Christ stands forth to save men from rushing into this bottomless abyss and to proclaim his ability and his love I want no fourth idea every fourth idea is contemptible every fourth idea is a grand imperfection so said the man of God from another generation that's found in Cecil's remains for the great principle is brethren that surely if this is true of the work of the ministry on the threshold of seeking to discern is this a man whom Christ is forming and placing into his service to undertake a work that in its very nature is a work of faith trafficking in the unseen world of spiritual realities then there must be a measure of sustained and vigorous faith

39:45 in those great realities if a man's chronic problem is chronic despondency born of unbelief the church has got enough struggling saints crippled as they are Mr. Fearings and Mr. Ready to Hawks without having one in the pulpit brethren if anything should mark a man in the pulpit regardless of his native temperament people can look and say there's a man to whom the world of spiritual reality is real it's stamped upon his eyeballs it breathes and throbs through his preaching regardless of the peculiarities of that preaching in a world where everything is a man and fused their souls to the realm of sight help us if they come into the house of God on the Lord's day and see a man who is buried beneath the mound of the things that can be seen and felt and touched rather than a man in whom they see his eye is constantly piercing through the veil of the things that are seen and is fixed upon the things that are not seen whether he is speaking of the privileges and the glories of the age to come or the present relationship of Christ to his people or seeking to stir up and awaken the careless

Prayer for Experiential Preparation

41:12 with the threats of divine judgment he speaks as a man whose own eye of faith beholds the things in which he traffics and it gives a note of reality which nothing else can replace well brethren as you seek to be honest in the presence of God and earnestly seek his face with regard to his call upon your life may I urge you to pray that these four strands that constitute what I have tried to designate as an enlarged balanced and tested Christian experience will be yours by the grace of God let's pray commit our thoughts to the Lord our Father in the contemplation of these things we have come to the fresh conviction that only you the God who made the worlds can make a true servant of Christ and we pray that that work you've begun in these men will be carried on and that you will use the things considered today to help them better to understand your dealings with them now in preparation for their life's work whatever has been mixed with the clay of human thought blow upon it bring it to naught drive it away like the chaff whatever has been true to the principles

42:40 of your word write it upon our hearts by the finger of the Spirit's ministry we ask in Jesus name Amen