04a) Pastor's Spiritual Development, Part 3

Introduction: The Devotional Assimilation of God's Word (Recap) and McCheyne's Example

0:02 This real, this expanding, this genuine acquaintance with God and His ways, and we've addressed just the first of those disciplines, namely that of the devotional assimilation of the Word of God, and I sought to underscore that it ought to be structured and consistent, systematic and comprehensive, prayerful and meditative. And as a little P.S. and before moving on to the second of these means, namely the maintaining of the habit and spirit of secret prayer, I commend to you the section in the Remains and Memoir of Robert Murray McShane by Bonar. He writes on page 54, his diary does not contain much of his feelings during his residence in Dundee. His incessant...

1:00 His incessant labors left him little time except what he scrupulously spent in the direct exercises of devotion. But what we've seen of his manner of study and self-examination at Larbert, his previous place of labor, is sufficient to show in what a constant state of cultivation his soul was kept, and his habits in these respects continued with him to the last. Jeremy Taylor recommends...

1:30 And this is a marvelous statement. Quote, Now, toward the end of the lecture, if we come to it today, we'll deal with what some of those extraordinary seasons are, of protracted seasons of waiting upon God, at times perhaps even joined to fasting. He did occasionally, McShane, set apart seasons for special prayer and fasting, occupying the time to set apart, so set apart exclusively in devotion. But the real secret of his soul's prosperity lay in the daily enlargement of his heart in fellowship with his God. As the river deepened, as it flowed on to eternity, so that he at last reached that feature of a...

Maintaining the Habit and Spirit of Secret Prayer: The Duty

2:30 A holy pastor, which Paul pointed out in 1 Timothy 4, 6, 15, his profiting did appear unto all. And then on page 55, there is some detail given, or some details relative to his devotional habits. Well, we come now then to the second of these means, ordained of God for this kind of personal acquaintance with God and his ways, and I've simply described it as maintaining the habit and the spirit of secret prayer. And here we are not concerned primarily with what we deal with in a separate heading in this course, pastoral intercessory prayer, that is, praying, which has as its primary concern the needs and the well-being of the flock and the blessing of God upon your labors in connection, with the flock, but rather, secret prayer as it pertains to our own needs, our own sins, our own struggles, our own worship, our own thankfulness and praise unto God. And I've used two words to try to capture this means that God is ordained.

3:51 I've used the word habit and the word spirit. And I've used the word habit to point again to the...

4:01 principle that there must be a commitment of the will that finds expression in times that are purposefully allocated to seek the face of God in prayer. Our Lord in Luke 18.1 says, Men ought always to pray and not to faint. Here is prayer as duty.

4:26 Sometimes delight and desire precedes us to the performance of that duty. Most often it is commitment to duty that will take us there, and hopefully desire and delight will often follow. But the man who waits for desire and delight to take him to the place of prayer will have of all men the most shoddy prayer life. And Psalm 5 has been a passage that God has used in my own life over the years where here the psalmist gives expression of his commitment to what I am here calling the habit that is the conscious moral commitment of the will to pray.

5:10 Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation. Hearken to the voice of my cry, my King and my God, for unto Thee do I pray. O Lord, in the morning you shall hear my voice. In the morning will I order my prayer unto you and will keep watch.

5:39 Here is the language of a man who is committed to the habit of secret prayer. In the morning you shall hear my voice. I will order my prayer and will keep watch. Psalm 55, 16, and 17.

5:59 Psalm 55. Psalm 55, verses 16 and 17. As for me, I will call upon God and the Lord will save me. Evening, morning, and at noonday, at stated seasons, will I complain and moan and He will hear my voice.

6:28 And then we see the example of our blessed Lord in Mark 1. In Mark 1, in verse 35, as you know, Luke gives us the most extensive record of the prayer life of our Lord, and that in itself is a fascinating study. I believe there are no fewer than eight references to the prayer life of our Lord in the Gospel of Luke. Is it eight, John?

6:50 I think in one of your messages I heard the number. But in Mark 1, an amazing passage, remembering now that our Lord did not draw upon the resources of our Lord. He did not draw upon the resources of infinite strength that were His in His deity, but He lived in the self-assumed weakness of humanity, humanity in our condition. Hence it is said, He took upon Him the likeness of sinful flesh, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief.

7:25 And in Mark 1, 32 through 34, we have the account of our Lord pouring Himself out. In His healing ministry, the casting out of demons, and doing it even after the sunset. And we know from parallel passages that our Lord did not do this without something of Himself going out in every act of compassion. He felt virtue going out from Him when the woman touched the hem of His garment.

7:55 So we can imagine our Lord and the drain upon His whole humanity, sinless but real humanity, and yet, verse 35 says, and in the morning, a great while before day, He rose up and went out and departed into a desert place and there prayed. So the rising up, the going out, the departing, all had as their end that He might give Himself to this season of communion with His own Father. And it wasn't long before the disciples, follow Him, and say, all are seeking You. And our Lord was able, amazing passage, it must have wrung His soul to do it. He said no to crying human need. And He said unto them, let us go elsewhere into the next towns that I may preach there also, for to this end came I forth. And I believe it is right to infer that it was as He waited upon His God and reviewed His mission and His commission and His task that had to be squeezed into that relatively brief time that when the cry comes, they need You back in this town.

9:15 All men are seeking You. Our Lord had the holy resolution not to let need and demand determine how He spent the hours of that day. And as we'll see later on, it's in the discipline of secret prayer that that sense of commitment to the revealed God is fulfilled. The revealed will of God remains fixed in the soul of the servant of God.

9:40 And then Matthew 6, 5 and 6, our Lord assumes that His people will pray, that they have the habit of prayer. And when you pray, not if you pray, but you who are My people, true sons and daughters of the kingdom, when you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites. And then He exposed. He exposes the elements of the hypocrisy primarily manifested in the scribes and Pharisees.

10:10 And then when He gives an outline for prayer, that it was habitual daily prayer is clearly indicated from the very request. Give us, verse 11, this day our daily bread. And woven into that very petition is the assumption that the people of God, the true sons and daughters of the kingdom. Are committed to the habit of secret prayer.

Maintaining the Habit and Spirit of Secret Prayer: The Spirit

10:37 They do enter their closet and shut the door and pray to their Father who sees in secret. And they pray as an ordinary course daily. It is the pattern of their life. And by using the term spirit of secret prayer, I am underscoring the principle, I fear, I know so little of it experimentally.

11:04 But I don't let my experience be the limits of what I lay before you in Ephesians 6 and verse 18 as the culmination of the exhortation to put on the whole armor of God. We are told that this is to be done with all prayer and supplication, praying at all seasons in the Spirit. Praying in the Spirit. And the same terminology is found in Jude 20 in the midst of the buffeting and the cross winds of heresy that would destabilize the people of God.

11:45 What are they to do? Verse 20. But you, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. And brethren, again, if maintaining the habit is difficult, it is doubly difficult.

12:02 It is difficult in maintaining the habit to maintain the spirit of secret prayer and not to begin to be content that I have gone to the proper place at the proper time and done my thing and saddened my conscience. To be disturbed if I am not experiencing felt communion with God as the ordinary pattern of my prayers. To be disturbed if I sense that my prayers are returning upon my own head. I am fully aware that that is part of the struggle of the ordinary Christian and God will bring us through the dry seasons.

12:42 And this is why the Psalms are such a blessing to every knowledgeable child of God and servant of God because there is a reflection of that reality. But nonetheless, as an ordinary course, if it is our duty to pray in the Spirit and to be built up by praying in the Spirit, then should we not pray in the Spirit? And surely we must be committed to the maintenance of the habit and the spirit of secret prayer. Secret prayer in which these five things are at least over a period of a few days, a period of a week, the dominant realities of our secret prayers.

Five Purposes of Secret Prayer: Renewing Communion with Christ

13:25 Number one, secret prayer in which your personal communion with Christ is both renewed and increased. And the text I've listed, Paul's great passion, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. Having come to know him, having come to repudiate his own self-constructed righteousness, he has a passion that he may yet know him more. And then that intimidating prayer of Ephesians 3, 14 to 19.

14:08 In this past year, I set the goal of praying through that prayer every day for a month, asking God to help me to begin to understand what it means. Read every sermon I could find on it, every commentary, and I confess that I am still intimidated by it. But one thing I knew in praying. Yet I was praying according to the will of God.

14:34 What was Paul's prayer for the Ephesians? For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every family in heaven on earth is named, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, whatever that is, that you may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man. And is it that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith? Or is it being strengthened in order that?

15:07 Or is it that is? I don't know. But notice that the great focus of the prayer is that whatever this strengthening with power through the Spirit is, and whatever its fruition is, it has to do with Christ himself dwelling in our hearts through faith to this end, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong. To apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God.

15:50 I say that's the most intimidating prayer recorded in the Bible, at least according to my present understanding. People have asked me why when I preached to Ephesians 1 and 2 I stopped and never went on to chapter 3. Well, there were several reasons. This is one of them.

16:09 I felt like a little kid who had never climbed a 40-foot high hill in the local park being put down in front of Matterhorn and saying, Climb it, boy. And I don't say that out of some kind of false humility, brethren. But one thing I know, that whatever Paul saw and felt that he prayed for others, it had to do with this matter of personal communion with Christ that must never be static, it is ever to be renewed. It is to be renewed and increased.

16:38 It is to move towards this end of being filled unto all the fullness of God, which is not some mystical flight into realms of direct revelation. It has to do with the inward operation of the Holy Spirit enabling us to grasp realities of who Christ is and what He is to us and in us and what He has conferred upon us in the incomprehensible. And surely, if any means is ordained of God for the nurturing of that communion with Christ and the increase of it, it is this discipline of secret prayer. But secondly, secret prayer in which your perspective of reality is kept in focus. And here I've quoted two texts. 2 Corinthians 4.18, you remember, follows hard upon Paul calling the whole world to be in the presence of God.

Five Purposes of Secret Prayer: Keeping Perspective and Exposing Sin

17:34 And here I've quoted two texts. 2 Corinthians 4.18, you remember, follows hard upon Paul calling the whole world to be in the presence of God. And here I've quoted two texts.

17:37 The whole sum total of all that he bore of afflicted dispensations, he says, are light affliction. Our light affliction, which is but for the moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory while, while we look, while the gaze of our soul is where it ought to be, while the eye of faith is clear and fixed where it ought to be, pile upon the afflictions their lightness. My afflictions are my light afflictions and they are constantly working for something that will meet me in the last day, an eternal weight of glory. Everything was in focus.

18:16 And he tells us what the focus is. 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. When a man has that fixation of soul and the eye of faith is kept clear.

18:36 2 Corinthians 4.18, you remember, follows hard upon Paul calling the whole world to be in the presence of God. And here I've quoted two texts. kept clear and focused then he can say light affliction and it's in the secret place uniquely that God enables to keep that perspective of reality enables us to keep it and the classic example in the psalms is psalm 73 you remember Asaph's problem he looked around the righteous they were harassed from morning to night the wicked they were sliding through life and into death without a twitch of concern and he said the whole world is topsy turvy he said it doesn't make sense until until I went in to the sanctuary of God then everything came back into focus and he was so ashamed he said I was as a beast before I was looking like a brute animal saying huh where's the biggest pile of hay I'll go over with this bunch they've got nice fresh hay this bunch over here they just got a little dried out straw he said I was as a beast before thee nevertheless nevertheless I am continually with you you have hold in my right hand and his confidence that God has not cast him off where did that perspective of reality get back into focus in the secret place in the sanctuary and thirdly it's in the exercise

20:02 of secret prayer that most frequently our sins are seen in their true light in two passages that I've listed Psalm 90 Moses the man of God pens this psalm having seen that whole wilderness generation die 30,000 I think a month by my calculations over 40 years no wonder he says in verse 9 our days are passed away in your wrath we bring our years to an end as a sigh then sorry verse 8 you have set our iniquities before you our secret sins in the light of your countenance for all our days are passed away in your wrath and it's the phrase our secret sins in the light of your countenance the closer we draw in realized communion with God the more the light of his countenance experienced with greater intensity in the secret place will expose to our gaze our secret sins. And Isaiah 6, 1 and following, you know the passage as well as I. Isaiah was no bum. He was no backslidden prophet like a Jonah running from God as far as we know.

21:31 There was no moral stain or blemish, but when in the year that King Uzziah died and in conjunction with the death of that king, God was pleased to give him this shattering revelation of the glory of the pre-incarnate Christ. For John 12 says Isaiah spoke these things when he saw his glory. You remember how he is undone in the presence of this great and glorious God whose train filled the temple and before whom these sinless creatures must veil face and feet and with a kind of holy restlessness must fly about the throne crying holy, holy, holy as the Lord, God the Almighty. Woe is me, I'm undone.

22:15 Mine eyes have seen the King Jehovah of hosts. And brethren, we can get a kind of subtle encrustment over our hearts with regard to the sins of our hearts until we draw near and see them in the light of His countenance. And then they appear in something of their true and native ugliness. And then furthermore, it's in the secret place, in the discipline of secret prayer in which your pardon and acceptance are sealed afresh to your heart.

Five Purposes of Secret Prayer: Sealing Pardon and Attaining Grace

22:54 That should not be capital H, should be small h, in which your pardon and acceptance are sealed afresh to your heart. That was a typo. And what do I mean by that? Well, I mean that we are not coming for pardon and acceptance for the first time.

23:13 But we are having our pardon and acceptance sealed afresh as we confess our sins, as we have fresh dealings with God in the light of our sins. We echo with renewed intensity the cry of the psalmist in Psalm 130 and verse 3. If you, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But as a man already forgiven, the psalmist, affirms afresh, there is forgiveness with you that you may be feared.

23:51 And the man who would speak with freshness year in and year out of the glory and the wonder of divine forgiveness to sinners is the man who is having his own forgiveness sealed afresh time after time in the secret place. 1 John 1.9 Some of you have heard me say if there are two verses or three, that would wear out through use. This is one that would be worn out and God would say, no, you've come before me too many times with that.

24:21 You've got to bring a different voucher. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous. Faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That truth, when it comes home in terms of our own particular sins, sins that may not be confessed to men, sins that we would never confess to another mortal, sins of the thought life, sins of the heart, sins of desire, sins for which we're so ashamed it's hard to even confess them in secret.

25:00 Yet the scripture says, cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And then in the fifth place, secret prayer in which grace for His work is attained.

25:14 And I wrestled with whether to use that language. But it is biblical. We could say obtained or attained. Hebrews 4 in verse 16.

25:23 Let us come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain. The whole idea that the primary effect of prayer is its subjective influence upon our own hearts doesn't stand the witness of scripture. We come to the throne of grace to obtain something, to obtain mercy. We come to the throne of grace and to find grace to help in time of need.

25:52 And it's there in the secret place that grace for the work to which He has called us is obtained. James 4.4 You have not because you ask not. God says there are things I would give you if you ask.

26:09 Yes, you ask and receive not because you ask amiss that you may consume it upon your lust. But our concern is with the reality of our asking that we may obtain. And the wonderful promise of Isaiah 40, 29 through 31. The older you get, the more precious this passage becomes.

26:32 When in the midst of the physical, emotional and mental weariness that comes and you're tempted to think that somehow God has passed you by and giving what is needed, the Lord asks the question, verse 28, Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary. There is no searching of His understanding.

27:04 And we say yes, that is good, sound, classic theology concerning God in Himself. Creator, faints not, never weary, infinite, unsearchable understanding. But you see, He's not all of those things just to be admired and praised. I say it reverently.

27:25 He is those things to be used by the weary servant of God. Look at the text. He gives power to the faint. And to him who has no might, He increases strength.

27:40 Even the youths shall faint. Those that would normally be marked by buoyancy and strength and vigor, even the youths shall faint and be weary. The young men, the young men shall utterly fall flat on their face. Down they go.

27:56 But they that wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.

28:09 They that wait for the Lord. It seems like wasted time waiting. Gotta get on with it. God says no.

Maintaining a Good Conscience Before God: Confession and Obedience

28:16 Those that wait shall renew their strength. And the labor done, after a due season of waiting, more can be done in an hour in the strength of God than can be done in a day of our own vaunted wisdom and strength. Well, brethren, when I talk about maintaining the habit and the spirit of secret prayer, that's what I'm speaking about. But then thirdly, the third means, ordained of God, that you and I might, throughout the entirety of our ministry, experience that real, that growing, that expanding knowledge of God and of His ways, is what I'm calling here the maintaining of a good conscience before God and man. And I have footnoted this for further development of the subject. Listen to the tapes and then the code number is listed in the series on the perseverance of the saints. If you've never subjected yourself to some thorough, thorough treatment of the doctrine of conscience in relationship to the Christian life, I urge you to borrow those tapes and to listen to them, perhaps during the spring break or at some other time, Lord's Day afternoons.

29:36 I don't have time to develop a full-blown doctrine of conscience, but suffice it to say, Acts 24.16 is the watershed text showing how pivotal this issue is to healthy spiritual existence. This is the apostle in the midst of his testimony before Felix says in verse 16, Herein I also exercise myself. This was a conscious, concentrated spiritual discipline.

30:09 I exercise myself to have a conscience void of offense towards God and men always. The apostle was committed to a conscience, a course of life in which by the grace of God he would have no controversy with God in terms of three things. A sin committed, but not confessed. A duty made plain, but not performed or determined to perform.

30:43 A truth to be believed, but rejected. If you're to have a conscience void of offense, conscience being the monitor of God's authority in the soul that looks to what it knows to be the will of God. If I'm to have a conscience void of offense towards God so that the cultivation of communion with God formally in the structured ways of secret prayer, the meditative, reflective assimilation of the word of God, if I'm to engage in those disciplines with a heart that really desires to engage God, I cannot do it. I cannot do it with an accusing conscience.

31:25 I can't do it. I simply cannot do it. I may go through the motions, but there is inwardly a predisposition to keep my distance from God so that all of the benefits of the reading of the word and secret prayer can be neutralized unless we maintain a good conscience towards God. And the only way we can do that is by continually bringing to God in the first sense of conscience reminding us that we have violated the law of God, coming, if we need to, a hundred times a day, saying, Oh God, I have sinned.

32:09 Forgive me. Forgive for that slight twitch in the deepest recesses of the soul, not only to you, Lord, and to me, of irritation toward my wife, toward my brethren. That first rising of a thought of envy at the gifts or the possessions of my brethren, that first rising of a thought of lust or inordinate desire, whatever it is, if it's in the heart, if this is the theater of communion with God, it is there that we must have no controversy with God in terms of sin committed but not confessed. Proverbs 28, 13, He that covers his sin shall not.

32:53 Prosper. No matter how, quote, little it may be, no matter how secret it may be, no matter how minuscule may be, it's outcropping. He that covers his sin shall not prosper.

33:13 But whoso confesses and forsakes them shall obtain mercy. But likewise, if God's made a duty plain and we simply have not performed it, what is sin? Any lack of conformity unto it as well as transgression of the law of God. Our duty's been made plain in the given area and we know we've not performed it, then that must be confessed to God or we know an area of duty and we've not made a commitment of will to perform it when the circumstances demand that performance.

33:46 Not every duty is my present duty.

33:51 Right?

33:53 Not every duty is my present duty. Whatever thy hand finds to do, do with all thy might as unto the Lord. That liberated me as a young Christian when I'd go off to do construction work in the day and I'd go home and I'd say to my godly mother, Mom, I don't know what's wrong, whether I'm getting backslidden. There was a whole period of an hour or two today when I had no conscious thoughts of the Lord.

34:14 And she said, Son, what were you doing at that time? I said, well, I was mixing concrete. Well, what did that mean? Well, it meant that I had to put so many shovels in the mixer and I had to break a bag of...

34:24 And she said, what would happen if your mind was thinking about the Lord and you got your hand in there? I said, I'd be without an arm. She said, the Lord doesn't want you thinking about Him when you're around dangerous equipment. You keep your mind on the equipment and the amount of shovels you put in.

34:38 Well, thank God for the practical wisdom God gave my mother to liberate me from this sense of bondage. It's not every duty is my present duty. But you see, once God sheds light on the path of duty, there must be the consent of my will. Lord, when the circumstances are right for that duty to be performed, by Your grace, I shall perform it.

35:02 But if our attitude is no, Lord, then we've bloodied the conscience. So that's what I mean by a duty made plain but not performed or determined to perform or a truth to be believed but rejected. We're reading our Bibles and we come across something that to our human understanding seems ludicrous and to our processes of reasoning seems unreasonable. Well, at that point, you do one of two things.

35:27 You say, Lord, take my arrogant, my arrogant, human, depraved wisdom that would question what You've said and nail it afresh to the cross, bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Or you carry a lingering, subtle judgment of God in your heart. You can't have a conscience void of offense to God while you have any controversy with His truth. That's why when Paul's writing of those who made shipwreck of the faith, what does he say about them?

35:56 What did they cast off, first of all? They cast off, first of all, they cast off faith and a good conscience.

36:04 They cast off a good conscience and then he says, which thing, having cast off, in number and gender, agrees with conscience? They've made shipwreck concerning the faith. And that's why we must, by the grace of God, maintain a good conscience toward God if we're to maintain a healthy state of soul.

Maintaining a Good Conscience Before Man: Resolving Abnormalities

36:25 And then also, notice number two, it means that you've sought biblically to resolve any area of abnormality with your fellow men, that should be fellow men, not man, fellow men, wife, children, fellow workers, the flock of God, and the world. It means wherever you look out on anything that can be called a segment of mankind, Paul said, I exercise myself to have a conscience void of offense to God and to man, showing his sensitivity that the law of God touches not only, our vertical relationships, but our horizontal as well. And there are many times, if you're determined to keep a good conscience to your fellow men, you will be accused of being overly sensitive, overly scrupulous, so what?

37:19 When you can maintain communion with God, knowing you've done all within your power to resolve any issues of horizontal relationships that it lies within your power to resolve, as much as in you lieth to live peaceably with all men, I'd far rather go to my wife and say, sweetheart, I believe in responding to your question. There was a twinge of irritation in my spirit. If it came out in my voice at all, forgive me. I'd far rather have her say, honey, I didn't pick up on it, but thank you for telling me.

37:52 If there's something that needs to be forgiven, you're forgiven. A brother came up to me here between the sessions and spoke of an incident yesterday and said, I feel that in speaking to you, one aspect of that was less than reflecting on the fact that I'm not a man. I feel that in speaking to you, than reflection of sensitivity to where you were. And I said, my brother, I didn't pick up on that at all.

38:11 But if his conscience smote him, he better deal with that thing or he's not going to be able to pray tomorrow morning.

38:21 It's just that simple. It means that there'll be times when you have to wake your kids up. You get ready to go to bed and you're winding down and the busyness of the day has all been filtered out and then you want to make sure you're going to pillow your head with a conscience void of offense to God and man and God will bring to remember. It means that you spoke sharply to one of your own kids in an unwarranted way.

38:43 Or maybe you disciplined them with an edge of unmortified anger. Or that you did some other thing to your own kids and you have to go wake your own kids up.

38:53 It's humbling.

38:55 Let's either go to bed with a good conscience or a bad conscience. Just that simple. I mean, it's not that complicated.

39:03 And you ask your children to forgive you. Daddy's sorry. Will you forgive him? Daddy's asked the Lord Jesus to forgive him.

39:11 Will you forgive me? Some situations you can't deal with immediately. But you know and I know when in our hearts we've said as Lord as soon as the opportunity presents itself I'm going to deal with it. You know the release that comes.

39:23 And you know that God's accepted the willingness for the deed. But you also know when you're playing head games on yourself.

39:30 How can you come, you see, then with absolute liberty in the presence of God to say, Lord, search me. Speak to me. Show me the glory of your Son. Make my communion with Him more precious.

39:42 It's like the Lord says, stop playing games. My son died that you might be a holy man and have a conscience constantly washed in the blood that He shed for sinners. And you're treating that blood lightly. It stands ready to cleanse you but you won't humble yourself you proud son of Adam.

40:00 Humble yourself. I give grace to the humble. I resist the proud. You're going to be too proud to say to your wife, I sinned.

40:07 To your kids, I sinned. You're going to be too proud. All right, go ahead. I'll resist you.

40:13 And when you get sick and tired of sitting there reading your Bible and having it be a dead book and having your prayers rebound in your own ears then you'll come to your senses. I've saved you all that trouble.

40:24 Deal with it now. Deal with it now. At the end of the day, brethren, it's not that complicated.

The Importance of a Healthy Conscience and Personal Testimony

40:31 I spoke an unwitting, untruth Sunday. I said I'd been in the way 42 years. It's 43 years this winter.

40:39 And you know, on some of these issues not a thing has changed.

40:44 Back then it was going to my siblings. Family of 10 living in a house. A little house. The only Christian among the siblings at that time.

40:53 And it's very interesting now as middle-aged people when we get together and they reflect on God's work in saving me in that senior year of high school they said, Sonny, that's what I was called until I was 21. One of the things that we couldn't shake was that you were the one that as far as we could see was living like a Christian yet you were the one always acknowledging your sin to the rest of us. And it stuck. Well, I wasn't doing it for a fact.

41:23 But I learned early from the pressure of that home that if I'm to have a conscience void of offense to God and man you've got to eat crow feet, legs, feathers and all and humble yourself under the mighty hand of God.

41:40 The importance look at the conclusion of a healthy conscience cannot be overemphasized. A defiled conscience will take away the relish for the word and cause estrangement from the throne of God. of grace.

Periodic Seasons of Self-Examination and Exposure to Masters of the Inner Life

41:55 Now, these other two things I'll touch on briefly because the notes I believe are self-interpreting. May I take just five more minutes? Is that going to put anyone in an awkward position? Good.

42:09 Engaging in what I'm calling periodic seasons of intense self-examination and protracted seasons of prayer.

42:19 And I've tried to choose the words carefully not binding anyone's conscience beyond scripture but the scriptures record such seasons Moses and his forty days with God Daniel setting himself to seek God with prayer and fasting one of those sessions went on we know for three weeks the example of our Lord Jesus the example of the apostles while they were ministering to the Lord and fasting the Holy Spirit said and then the assumption of our Lord's words in Matthew 6.16 when ye fast and so we know what I am saying in this fourth means is that God has set before us in the record of scripture that there will be for us as the servants of God the necessity for periodic seasons of intense self-examination and protracted seasons of prayer the scriptures record such seasons second Christian biography underscores the benefit of such seasons and Christian biography is an implicit model in the light of Hebrews 13.7 remember them that have the rule over you men who spoke unto you the word of God and considering the issue of their lives imitate their faith and therefore we can learn

43:47 from Christian biography the benefit of such seasons and then I've listed on page 27 the necessity for such seasons here are three of the most fundamental the frightening power of indwelling sin it has a hardening dulling effect and sometimes a day spent shut off from telephone and normal eating and drinking and shutting with God in serious self-examination taking perhaps the larger or shorter catechism statements on the ten commandments and asking God to use his law to condemn and scour your heart it's amazing how much can be seen in a day of waiting upon God there's a frightening power of indwelling sin and then there's a dulling influence of constant contact with holy things you men can believe it when others say it there'll come a time when you'll experience it and it's frightening and sometimes only a protracted season of waiting upon God can do for the soul what the thief does when he wants to sensitize his fingers to feel the tumblers when he's going to crack the combination on the safe he sandpapers the ends of his fingers to make them unusually sensitive to get the nerve endings feeling the slightest vibration of the tumblers well in a sense

45:15 you and I must have nerve endings of the soul that are sensitive to holy things and just constant handling of them we develop imperceptible spiritual calluses and they need to be sandpapered off in seasons of extended waiting upon God and sometimes the draining influence of the manifold task and burdens of the ministry we need to have a season when we simply do not as it were pass the signs of grace but we need to plop them down plop it down for a longer season of absorption of the benefits of waiting upon God in the word and in prayer and that's and then I've listed the final means of grace to help us in our own cultivation of the inner life with God regular exposure notice I didn't say daily I didn't say weekly I can't bind your conscience beyond scripture but regular exposure to the masters of the inner life and I say this based on the implications of Ephesians 4 11 and following God has given to his church pastors and teachers not all of them are given in the name of God not in any one generation and the wonderful legacy we have in the literature of the kind of things I've listed and this is not an exhaustive list this is only a suggestive list

46:42 by the kinds of writings that I'm referring to when I speak of the masters of the inner life oh in volume 2 6 and 7 particularly the section on spiritual mindedness of course volume 6 both halves the treatises on temptation indwelling sin mortification and also psalm 130 it's a marvelous rich devotional heartwarming treatment of that psalm and then Flavel's discourse on keeping the heart Brooks precious remedies and the privy that should be P-R-I-V-Y the E should not be there the privy key to heaven and then Haywood's heart treasure reformed pastor Scott the Christian's daily walk the reprints of Winslow's works and I hope more of them are forthcoming I'm working through right now the precious things of God marvelous helpful heartwarming devotional literature and many of the Soledale Gloria publications provide us a tremendous wealth of materials and if we are to continue to keep our hearts expanded in the knowledge of God we need to sit at the feet of those who dealt with these issues out of the matrix of a sound wholesome

48:09 vigorous biblical theological perspective as opposed to a maudlin sentimental mystical perspective and find the insights that they were given by God to be helpful to our own hearts well thank you for bearing with me these few extra minutes brethren that we might get through these matters and I try to trust that you'll have occasion to come back to them again and again and by the grace of God that in the trenches of these most fundamental issues you men in Christ's strength may be more than conquerors through him that loved us let's pray together our father we acknowledge that we have touched upon those matters that have meant the rising and the falling of many in Israel and we have done so conscious of our own manifold sins of the closet the sins of neglect the sins of prayerless prayers the sins of unbelieving prayers the sin of insulting you by attempting to hold communion with you while we have in some measure despised the blood of your son when through pride or stubbornness we've been unwilling to own our sins Lord how patient you've been

49:39 with us and we pray that you would help each one of us to be more and more established in these five disciplines and means of grace that you have given to us Lord I cry to you that you would help me that whatever marks the remainder of my earthly pilgrimage that I may know what it is to grow in the things that I've shared with my brethren and whatever you have for them whatever sphere of usefulness whatever measure of gift oh God may the foundation of each man's life and ministry indeed be this reality of an expanding varied original life with you a growing acquaintance in the use of the means of your own appointment have mercy upon us and write upon our hearts your word the provisions of your grace we plead these mercies with thankful hearts in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ Amen