Ministry of Mutual Exhortation

Introduction: Perseverance and the Means of Grace

0:01 This sermon was preached on Sunday morning, July 4th, 1982, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:12 Now let us once again seek the face of God in prayer. Holy Father, we have come before you with the confession of our sense of shame as part of a nation that reels like a drunken man in the stupor of its own pride, of its own sensuality and rejection of light and privilege. And we know that you have called upon us as your people to be the light. You are the light of the world, a city set upon a hill. And, oh God, how we pray that your word may so press in upon our understanding and upon our consciences and be so worked out in a life of concrete obedience that as a result of our time together in the scriptures this morning, our salt may have more saltiness and more glory. And as a result of our time together in the scriptures this morning, our salt may have more saltiness and more glory. And our light may be brighter, that we may shine with greater brilliance in the midst of this crooked and perverse generation.

1:37 Oh, Lord, minister to us to the end that your own sovereign purpose for the church may be more fully realized and more concretely worked out in us as a congregation of your people. Amen. Amen. Amen.

1:54 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

1:54 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

1:54 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

1:54 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

1:54 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

1:54 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

1:54 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

1:57 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

1:59 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

2:05 Amen. Amen. For a number of weeks, our Lord's Day morning meditations in the word of God have been focused on the biblical doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, or to use more contemporary terminology, the continuance of the true people of God in a life of faith, holiness, and obedience, even to the end. of their earthly pilgrimage having examined approximately 30 texts in the new testament which teach the necessity of the continuance of the people of god in faith holiness and obedience we are now examining various portions of the word of god which set before us the means by which god's people are enabled to persevere in this course of faith holiness and obedience we have discovered from the scriptures that these means ordained of god can be brought under two general categories the private or individual means of perseverance and then the corporate or the social means of perseverance those means deposited

3:26 in the church functioning by the rule of holy scripture and it is that second category that we are opening up at this time and thus far we have considered the first and primary of these corporate or social means ordained of god for the perseverance of his people and that means we have seen from the scriptures is the ministry of the word of god by the appointed oaths overseers of the people of God. And though we live in a day that demeans preaching and downgrades preaching, God has not changed the revelation of his own mind concerning the strategic place of preaching in the perseverance of his people. Now this morning we come to the second of these means deposited in the life of the church. Having examined what the scriptures teach us with respect to means number one in that category of the social or corporate means, namely the preaching of the word by the appointed overseers of the church, we come this morning to consider this second social or corporate means, that which I'm

Exposition of Hebrews 3:12-14: The Setting and the Charge

4:47 describing very simply as continuous mutual exhortation. And there is no passage more strategic than the in setting forth this means with respect to our perseverance than is Hebrews 3 verses 12 through 14. Hebrews chapter 3 verses 12 through 14. Here the writer to the Hebrews charges the people of God, take heed brethren, lest there be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away, and that word in the original falling away is the word from which we get our English word apostatize, lest there be in any one of you an evil heart in apostatizing, in falling away from the living God. But exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called today, lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we are become partakers of Christ if we hold fast the

6:08 beginning of our confidence firm unto the end. Now because this is the most strategic passage on this subject, mutual exhortation as a divinely appointed means of perseverance will concentrate all of our attention upon this passage this morning. And I'll spend the first half of our time together opening up the meaning of the text, and then the last half seeking to draw out of the text three major principles of our duty in this area. First of all then, in the opening up of the text will you notice the setting of this charge to the people of God. It comes in a setting which as to its general import is concerned with the subject of perseverance. It comes in this section in which the people of God are being urged, verse 7, if they hear the voice of God not to harden their hearts. And then allusion is made to God's ancient people, who though they were brought out of Egypt never entered into Canaan, but their carcasses rotted in the wilderness,

7:27 under the judgment of God, because they did not persevere in the way of faith, holiness, and obedience. And then more specifically, you will notice that in the language of the passage read in your hearing, there is a warning against apostasy in verse 12, take heed lest there be in you an evil heart in apostatizing from the living God. And then in verse 13, verse 14, there is an underscoring of the necessity of perseverance. If we hold fast the confidence of our faith firm unto the end, we thereby manifest that we have become partakers of Christ. We do not hold fast as we saw in expounding this verse under the heading of the necessity of perseverance. We do not hold fast in order to become partakers of Christ. We do not hold fast in order to become partakers of Christ.

8:27 But the original language is very precise. We have become and remain partakers of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence. Our holding fast does not bring us into the possession of life. It is the manifestation that we do indeed possess life.

8:50 So you see, the setting of the exhortation oozes with the doctrine of perseverance. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God.

8:56 The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The judgment of God. The context. It comes to us not in a general list of Christian duties, such as we looked at in Romans 12 in the adult class, but it comes in a very specific, focused, limited context, the context of the doctrine of perseverance. Now let's look at the charge itself. There are two units of thought, basically. We have the fundamental duty laid upon the people of God, and then several

Defining 'Exhortation': Not Rebuke, but Comfort and Stirring

9:57 conditioning factors with respect to that duty. Now what is the fundamental duty laid upon the people of God? Verse 13, but exhort one another. That is the central duty laid upon the people of God. But now we must ask the question, what does that do?

10:19 What does it mean? That's what it says, but what does it mean? And I did a little experiment in my own household yesterday. I asked one of the members of my household this question. When you think of the word exhort, what concepts immediately come to your mind? And the answer I got was, well, rebuking, reproving, pointing out the sin of another. I said, well, I hope your response is the average response, because I think that's what most of us assume is the answer. The dominant concept in exhortation. Exhortation is loving, gracious, reproof, rebuke, the pointing out of error, fault, or sin in another. But I want to suggest that that is not the biblical concept bound up in the word used in this passage. The word for exhortation that is the general word in the New Testament is a word which, etymologically, that is, in terms of its linguistic origin, is a combination of two very simple words. And every first-year Greek student learns them very early in his vocabulary list. One is a preposition, which means alongside, and the other a verb, which means to call.

11:38 So putting the two together, literally, the word means to call alongside. And there are a few instances in the scripture where it actually bears that meaning. You will remember the incident in the Gospel where Jesus said in Matthew 26, 53, Matthew 26, 53, Do you not think that I could call upon my Father, and He would send me all 12 legions of angels. The word for call is this very word.

12:03 Do you not think that I could ask God to exhort my Father? I could call him alongside to help. But obviously, the word then flowered out in its use, not to be so much a literal calling alongside, but in a figurative sense. Someone is called alongside or draws alongside in order to give encouragement, comfort, or to urge another to duty or to stir him to action.

12:33 And you will find in the New Testament that the word is used for a whole category that we might call the communication of comfort by the choice of appropriate words. We read in 1 Thessalonians 4.18 after the teaching on the return of Christ in which dead believers will not be found second-class citizens, but they shall first of all be resurrected, and those who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds. Paul concludes that paragraph by saying, Wherefore, exhort, comfort one another with these words.

13:15 It's the same word used in Luke 6. 16.25 with regard to Lazarus. He is now comforted.

13:23 In the bosom of Abraham, he was receiving the consolations that are due to the people of God when they leave this life. It's the word used in Matthew 2 concerning those who lost their little ones when Herod slayed, slew all those who were two years and under. She refused to be comforted. So everything that we think of when we use, the word comfort, is bound up legitimately in the use of this word.

13:53 Then another category in which it is used again and again in Scripture is the category of pleading with another. Beseeching another is the way it's rendered in our older versions. It's the word used in Matthew 8 in verse 5. When the demons besought him, they pleaded with our Lord.

14:12 Again in Mark 1 in verse 40. It's the word Paul uses in Romans 20. 12.1, I beseech you, I plead with you to present your bodies a living sacrifice.

14:26 And then it is also used in great measure in a category that we could call an effort to stir another to specific action. In Acts 2 in verse 40, it says, with many other words, Peter testified and exhorted them, save yourselves from this crooked generation. Or in Acts 2 in verse 40, it says, Acts 11.23, speaking of Barnabas, he exhorted them that with purpose of heart they should cleave unto the Lord.

14:56 He was stirring and urging them to holy action. And then again and again in the epistles, Ephesians 4.1, Paul says, I beseech you, I exhort you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith you were called. And then the very passage referred to in our prayer this morning, 1 Timothy 2, I exhort, I beseech, I seek to stir you to this action.

15:23 I exhort, first of all, that prayers, supplication, intercession, giving of thanks be made for all men. Now, in none of these categories, and listen carefully, I've looked at every usage of this in a broad overview in the New Testament, and there is not one usage which will clearly bear the idea of reproof or rebuke or the pointing out of the sin of another.

15:56 In fact, there are contexts in which this word is set alongside words which mean and can mean nothing other than reproof or rebuke, and exhorting is in a different category of activity. Notice 2 Timothy 4 in verse 2. Very familiar. Timothy is charged to preach the word to be urgent in season and out of season.

16:28 He is to reprove, rebuke, and exhort. Now, you see, if exhort is just a synonym for reprove and rebuke, then the apostle is, in a sense, piling up synonyms without any real significance. So there is a category of sin. There is a category of ministry that is characterized by reproving and rebuking and another that is characterized as exhorting.

17:01 Notice a similar motif in Titus 2 and verse 15. These things speak and exhort and reprove. Well, you see, if exhortation includes of necessity the idea of reproof, why add another category? These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority.

17:27 And then in a very unique passage, 1 Timothy 5.1, the very opposite of a harsh reproof is exhortation. It's the antonym. I hope they still teach you antonyms in school.

17:42 Do they, kids? Words that are opposite in meaning. The antonym of light is darkness. The antonym of hot is cold.

17:50 Well, notice the antonyms in 1 Timothy 5.1. Rebuke not an elder. And the word for rebuke here is found only here in the New Testament in the original.

18:01 It means a harsh, sharp, perhaps even caustic rebuke. Do not caustically rebuke an elder, but what's the opposite of that? Exhort him as a father. Now, when I say that in the New Testament, the word used in Hebrews 3.12, which is the focal point of our duty, exhort one another, when I say that the idea of reproof and rebuke is not only not a dominant idea, but probably legitimately should not even enter into the idea, I'm not simply making a case on my own. It is the case that grows out of the very usage of this word by the Holy Ghost in the Scripture. Now, am I saying on the basis of that, that we have no duty to one another to reprove and rebuke? I am saying no such thing.

19:01 Because the Bible does have a doctrine of mutual reproof and rebuke. And that comes under the category of the word admonish. And Romans 15.14, Paul says, I am persuaded of you, brethren, that you are full of goodness, full of knowledge, able to admonish.

19:22 That's the word. Able to admonish one another. And 1 Thessalonians 5.14, All of the people of God are commanded to admonish the disorderly.

19:33 Furthermore, in Luke 17.3, Jesus said, If thy brother sin against thee, rebuke him. There is a doctrine of mutual rebuke. Galatians 6.1, If a man be overtaken in a fault, he that is spiritual, restore such a one. So I am not here saying that we have no obligation, obligations to one another to reprove and to rebuke one another. What I am saying is that when the Holy Ghost says, in a context of this means of perseverance, exhort one another, he is not directing us to an exercise of rebuke, an exercise of reproof and correction, but he's directing us to an exercise of mutual compassion, comfort, of mutual pleading,

20:25 of mutual urging and stirring one another up to holy actions. That's what the word means. And I think for not a few of you, that may be a new understanding of this exhortation. We are commanded by God in a context of perseverance to exhort, to comfort, to plead, to stir one another to action and into paths of holy obedience.

Conditioning Factors of Exhortation: Time and Goal

21:01 So much then for the fundamental duty. Now notice the conditioning factors which are to regulate our performance of that duty. And there are basically two. It's time and it's goal.

21:14 Look at the text. And all we're trying to do now is unpack the meaning of the words before we can start, laying upon your consciences the duty. We must understand the meaning. Notice these two factors.

21:28 It's time. Exhort one another day by day so long as it is called today.

21:39 Our performance of this duty is to be conditioned by the form of the verb. It's a present imperative. Be continually exhorting one another. And we're to do it so long as it is called today.

21:58 Now what does that terminology mean? Well, it means basically the point at which the word of God comes to us until the consummation of the age or until we pass off the scene by death. Today is the day of salvation. Today, if you hear his voice, this is God's day because it's the day when the word of God comes to you and your eternal destiny is not yet fixed.

22:28 And before our destinies are fixed at the return of the Lord or at our own death, we are in today. The day when the word of God comes to us. So the element of urgency is here. The realization that we will not always be in that place where we are privileged to have the word of God come to us and to have this holy influence of mutual exhortation.

22:57 And so the indication is that the people of God are to carry about with them a profound and weighty sense that they are hanging, as it were, between the ages, the age that is past, the age that is to come. And now in this present moment, all of the issues of the coming age, are being settled and determined in my own life. And then its goal, very clearly stated, exhort one another, time, day by day, so long as it is called today, lest, here's the goal, lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Now do you see that this exhortation of which the writer is thinking, is not primarily corrective, but preventive. You see it? He doesn't say exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called today, if you see someone hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

24:11 When you suspect that someone may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, but he says lest, we could translate it more literally, in order that, they may not be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. So the goal of this mutual exhortation is preventive. It is positive and preventive as opposed to a ministry that is negative and corrective. Now there is a place for a negative and a corrective ministry.

24:44 When the patient is sick, you've got to deal with the germs that it infected him, but there is something better than that. It might put the doctors out of business if it happened to all of us. And that's not to get sick at all. Now, that's not possible in this mixed state of affairs while the seeds of death are still in us and we live under the curse.

25:08 And in this passage, you see, the emphasis is not upon corrective medicine, but upon preventive medicine. The goal is to so engage in this mutual exhortation that none of us will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. And in the context, you see, that deceitfulness of sin is the evil heart of unbelief that departs from the living God. And long before any brother or sister engages in sins which form a pattern evident to all, there has been a declension in the heart known only to God.

25:50 There has been an evil heart that has departed from God long before the feet have stepped out of the path of the law of God. The heart has been estranged from intimate communion with God long before the life manifests that estrangement by trampling underfoot the laws and the ways of God. And so the goal of this mutual exhortation is to so engage in this mixed state of affairs is to be a means in God's hands to deal with our hearts and to keep our hearts in tune so that at the deepest recesses of our being, Christ as the object of faith is increasingly loved and more fervently trusted and more simply and pervasively obeyed. The great goal is lest there should be in any one of us a sin that is not true. Thus, this evil heart of unbelief, lest we should be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Well, that's the basic meaning of the text.

Duty 1: Every Church Member Must Engage in Mutual Exhortation

27:05 And having opened it up in your hearing, now let me seek to bring it home to the theater of your conscience by way of the duties that it lays upon us as the people of God. And first of all, it should be evident to all of us that according to this text, it is the solemn duty and sacred privilege of every church member to engage in this means of perseverance. It is the solemn duty and sacred privilege of every church member to engage in this means of perseverance. You say, now, Pastor, that doesn't sound like you.

27:49 I expected you to say the duty of every church member and every believer. Why did you say church member?

27:56 Well, if you thought that way, you thought properly. I did use the terminology deliberately. Because the writer to Hebrews is writing not to individual Christians scattered all over as islands to themselves, but he's writing to them as a community of visible saints who meet in the organized framework of the life and ministry of the church. In chapter 13, he can assume that they have common overseers.

28:25 So he can say, obey them that have the rule over you and submit to them. He can say, remember them that have the rule over you, men that spoke unto you the word of God. He's assuming that he's writing to people in a context of biblical church life. And because that's the context in which he writes, that's the context in which I want to speak to you.

28:49 He lays upon every church member the duty of engaging in this means of perseverance. Now the writer to the Hebrews was not ignorant of the fact that within any church you had the broad spectrum of divergent personalities. You had those who are naturally outgoing. They always know the right thing to say in any circumstance to anyone of any station.

29:18 Don't you envy people like that? I've met them and I've just drooled as I've watched them. They can meet people from any circumstance in life and they always seem to have just the right word. You try that and lo and behold you botch it and you know it.

29:35 You get that strange look in someone's face and you say, well, I tried. Well, in that church, no doubt, there were people who had that gracious gift of being able to set anyone at ease in any circumstance, from any background, all the way to the person who, when he meets a stranger 50 yards away, feels like his feet are three feet long, his hands are a foot and a half long, his nose is 18 inches long, his ears are 27 inches long. He just feels, oh, like this.

30:05 And some of us know what that is. That's the way God put us together and influences were brought to bear upon us and everything in between. And yet he says to the broad spectrum of all the different personalities, all the divergence of native social gift and ease and cultivated social awareness, brethren, without exception, brethren, exhort one another. That's what the text says.

30:39 Take heed, brethren. Don't do this, but do this, brethren. Ah, but Lord, excuse me from this duty. I'm just socially awkward.

30:50 You won't find God in any way giving you leave to be, to be accepted. This solemn duty and sacred privilege is laid upon every single one of us. Ah, but you say, Pastor, aren't there immature people who go to extremes with this and think that they are God's chief exhorter, that they're to comfort everyone under every circumstance? Yes, there will be.

31:19 God knows that he's got some odd and immature people in his church, but he still, says, brethren, exhort one another. And I remind you of the words of our Lord Jesus. You are my friends if you do whatsoever I command you. Even the things that are contrary to your nature and temperament and background and training, you are my friends if you do whatsoever I command you.

31:52 When we ask the question with Cain, am I my brother's keeper? God says to every one of us, yes, you are your brother's keeper. Exhort one another daily so long as it is cold today.

32:08 If we take this duty to heart, what a profound difference it will make in the way we look forward to our gathering together on the Lord's Day and on Wednesday and at any other stated meeting. If we've gotten hold of that first means as we've tried to open, set it up over the past few Lord's Days, and we really believe that the exposition and application of the Scriptures by our appointed overseers is the primary social or corporate means for our perseverance, we've seen the profound effect this will have upon us. We'll be here every time the Word is opened. We'll be here prayerfully.

32:48 We'll be here expectantly. We'll be here coming by the grace of God, prepared to have dealings with God, not to be hearers only deceiving our own selves, but to be doers of the Word.

33:01 But if we get hold of this principle, that the second great social or corporate means of perseverance is mutual exhortation, you know how else we'll come? We'll come praying every Lord's Day morning, if not formally on our knees, while we're driving to church, while we're walking in from the parking lot, Oh Lord, You engineer the informal contacts that I have with Your people, with Your people today. Lord, You bring across my path that brother, that sister, that needs comfort, that needs encouragement, that needs consolation, that needs to be urged and pleaded with with respect to some positive path of Christian obedience. Lord, don't let me enter the doors and leave without having at least one brother or sister whom I've been privileged to exhort. You see, if you believe it's your duty, it will start regulating your prayers, regulating your perspectives on what you're coming to do. Now, I would venture to say, if I were to be in a position to ask it without embarrassing you, that there are many of you who'd have to acknowledge, say, I never entered my head.

34:17 Well, after this morning, you'd better enter your head.

34:21 Because if you were ignorant of your duty up till this morning, you're not ignorant now. And to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is. It is sin.

34:32 And can you imagine the tremendous input this would bring to the life and well-being of our congregation if we all viewed ourselves as ministers one to another, not officially and formally from the pulpit. But that's the peculiar task of our appointed overseers, men of proven gift and ability to expound and apply the Word,

34:59 but informally, one with another, seeking to fulfill the injunction to exhort one another, not to go pointing out my brothers' and sisters' sins, no, but to encourage, to comfort, to strengthen the hands of my brethren and my sisters, to encourage and prod them on in the path of positive obedience. I have nothing that would lead me to believe there's any declension in the life, but I know that the real issue is, the state of the heart. And as I know that it's possible to have declension in heart while I'm faithfully attending all of the public means, while I'm singing the hymns and bowing my head, because I know that I can have declension of heart when there are no indexes of it in my external life, I know my brothers and sisters are in the same state. And so as I must take heed to myself, so I must in my existence anytos us deem possible, I must call upon them, seek to strengthen their resolve, to guard their hearts and to be fervent in their love to Christ, it is the solemn duty and sacred privilege of every church member to engage in this means of perseverance. Brethren, this is biblical, quote, body life, now there's a lot of talk in our day

36:29 about body life, and in many circles, what they're trying to implement is a pattern of public worship in which there is no longer the centrality of preaching. Some have coined the terminology one-anothering. So we come together primarily each to share publicly his own struggles, his own insight. My friends, that's nonsense.

36:53 And it leads to spiritual instability and it wrecks churches. Nothing will substitute for the preaching of the word.

37:05 But my brothers and sisters, the preaching of the word must be supplemented with and accompanied by mutual exhortation. So it's not either or. It's each in its proper place.

37:20 That's what the writer means when he says later in chapter 10, he says, consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking. And the assembling of yourselves together. Now, some have taken that verse and said, see, the purpose for your assembling together is primarily to provoke one another, not to hear preaching. Now, that's the kind of irresponsible exegesis that's going on in our day.

37:44 And that's precisely what it is. Irresponsible exegesis. But there is the truth of that passage. That word consider means to look upon, to gaze upon intently, to look upon one another and say, how can I provoke my brother or sister?

38:01 Not to. Not to envy, not to anger, not to jealousy, but provoke them to love and to good works. What can I do to exhort them, to encourage them, to stir them up, to be greater lovers of Christ and his people, to abound more in good works? Look upon one another, the writer says, to provoke one another unto love and to good works.

38:27 Now, when you see each other after a service, do you look at one another that way and say, Lord, what can I do for my sister over there, to stir her up to love and to good works? What can I do to my brother over there, to stir him up to more love and to more good works? That's a command. Flows out of this duty that we have, one to another.

Duty 2: Cultivate Skill in Exhortation

38:51 Well, then we must hurry on and notice the second thing that we deduce from the text. Not only is it the duty of every church member to engage in this means of persecution, but it is the duty of each church member to seek to cultivate skill in the performance of this duty. It is the duty of each church member to seek to cultivate skill in the performance of this duty. The writer of the Proverbs says that a word fitly spoken is like a beautiful work of art.

39:27 Everything's in its right place. Now, you can imagine what it'd be like. It'd be like a beautiful work of art. If we were to look upon a beautiful work of art, say one of Rembrandt's paintings, and there where everything was symmetrical and all of the various hues played upon one another, you saw something in the way of a splash of color that looked like a segment taken from a modern impressionistic artist.

39:53 You'd say, well, the whole thing is out of place. It doesn't fit. Well, that's the way some people are when they start to exhort one another. They just...

40:02 It's as though they studied to use the wrong word in the wrong way, in the wrong manner.

40:08 No, we need to cultivate a holy art of engaging in this mutual encouragement. And there's one place to cultivate it. That's on your knees, praying for wisdom, to be a wise encourager and urger and prodder in the things of God. And then to study the appropriate scriptures.

40:31 See how our Lord... Encouraged and comforted and exhorted.

40:36 Study the book of Proverbs in particular, where we are given the principles which ought to regulate this ministry one to another. John Owen, in his perceptive comments on this passage, says that the people of God, in cultivating this skill in mutual exhortation, need constantly to take account of three fundamental ingredients of effective exhortation. exhortation. He said, number one, the exhortation ought to be based upon the words of truth as found in the scriptures. If our exhortation is to be the voice of Christ to our brethren, it must be the word of Christ. Now that does not mean you can only quote a text of scripture, but when we speak, we must be speaking within the framework of scriptural norms and promises and principles, if not formally using the actual words of scripture. So we must study to exhort one another in terms of words of truth. Then he goes on to say they ought to be words delivered, and this is the old Puritan language, in a good and comfortable manner. In a good and comfortable

41:49 manner. You just don't come up to someone, put a hand on the shoulder, glare in their eyes and saying, brother, are you pressing on? He'll think you're a madman. And you say, well, I heard a sermon that we're to urge to good works. And no, no, no, there's another way of doing it. You can do it with good and with comfortable words. You can take your brother aside and say, it's been a long time since we've chatted together. And you know, I've been having some real struggles recently in maintaining this aspect of my own spiritual life. And you know, I'd welcome help from anyone. Could you tell me how you wrestle with that? Well, that may be the very means for him to say, brother, look, I'm in a mess with you. And then you end up encouraging one another. You see,

42:38 you don't become fanatical and unfeeling and boorish. We need to pray that God will help us to cultivate this holy art of mutual exhortation, words of truth, the basis, words delivered in a good and comfortable manner. And then Owen goes on to say they must be words conveyed from the context of an exemplary life.

43:03 You go to encouraging your brethren. You better be a living monument of not one who is perfect, but one who is pressing on in dead earnest in the path of perseverance. In fact, Owen describes exhortation in what to me was the most helpful way. This is a direct quote. Exhortation is nothing but an encouragement given to others to walk with us or after us. In the ways of God and of the gospel. Isn't that beautiful? What is exhortation? Nothing but an encouragement given to others to walk with us or after us in the ways of God and of the gospel. Well, you better make sure you're walking in the ways of God and of the gospel. If exhortation is encouragement to others to walk with you or behind you or after you, you better make sure that Your feet are in that path. And you see how a commitment to this duty is a check upon your own conscience?

44:09 If I know that when I gather with God's people, I'm under solemn obligations, not every single meeting to go home and put a notch in my rifle. I got in three exhortations today. I got seven. But we have it as a matter of conscience before God.

44:24 We're making it a matter of prayer, and we're looking for opportunities. If we believe this definition of it, what a check it is upon us. Can I ask my brother how he's doing in the exercises of his own devotional life if I've been willfully shoddy in mine? You see, it's not qualitatively different from what happens in the life of a preacher who's determined to be a man of God and not a hypocrite.

44:51 Many a time, it was the coming of the Lord's day and the realization that I was going to have to call you in my capacity as an office bearer to faith and holiness and obedience that has prodded me to have dealings with God in areas of my own faith and holiness and obedience. Lest God should say to me, do after what they say, but not after their works. That's the condemnation of the Pharisees. They say, but they do not.

Duty 3: Welcome Exhortation When Directed to Oneself

45:24 And I have said to some personally that if for no other reason, than the salvation of my own soul, I thank God that he put me in the ministry. For the pressure of having to call others into that path has been God's instrument to call me back into it again and again and again. And so it is in the same way with the people of God. When you're convinced that it is your God-given duty to engage in this means of perseverance, mutual exhortation, it will cause you to, not only cry to God, not only for wisdom to bring good and comfortable words, for a deepening knowledge of the scripture that those words may be words of truth, but also it will shore up your own life so that they will be words conveyed from the context of an exemplary life. And then finally, we learn from this text that it is the duty of each church member to welcome this means of perseverance, when directed to himself. You see, when the writer says exhort one another, he's assuming that when a Christian takes that seriously and goes to his brother or sister to comfort, to encourage, to stir him up, to beseech, to plead that he might be pressed on in the ways of holy obedience,

46:51 the assumption is that the man who's determined to persevere will welcome the exercise of this means of his perseverance, does a man who knows that he must eat three times before his journey's end resent the person who steps into his path and offers him a meal? Does he say, who are you to offer me a meal?

47:20 Who do you think you are? If he's convinced that he must make it to the end of his journey and that the meal is an essential means to strengthen him, anyone who comes with a platter of grub is his friend. And frankly, it is a sad index of the state of the soul of a man or woman who does not welcome the exhortations of his brothers and sisters. Because according to this passage, they are food and meat and drink to help us make it to the end.

47:58 Now, in the light of that, I want to get very specific.

48:03 Beware of mere surface relationships with the people of God. If all you have is a little halal, oh, goodbye, how you doing, how the kids, how's business, see you later, you're putting yourself outside the orbit of the context in which it's natural for your brothers and sisters to comfort, to encourage, to stir you up, to plead with you. Now you say, well, it's just my personality. My friend, your personality must be harnessed to the norms of the Word of God.

48:38 And when God says, exhort one another, lest anyone, one of you be hardened, even with your diffident, reserved, socially awkward personality, you can be hardened through sin's deceitfulness. And therefore you need your brothers and sisters to exhort you. And they cannot exhort you if you just fly in and fly out of all of the natural contacts with them. So you beware of mere surface relationships with the people of God.

Warnings Against Hindrances to Exhortation

49:09 Beware of brief encounters with God. Beware of brief encounters with God's people as the pattern of your life. Now there are times when, of necessity, one or another of us must leave quickly from our stated meetings. I'm not binding your consciences beyond the norms of Scripture.

49:26 But when brief encounters become the pattern, it's an index that something's wrong. You're cutting yourself off, consciously or unconsciously, from that kind of interaction which is a means of grace in the hands of God. To help keep you in the way of faith, of holiness and obedience. Beware of limiting your contacts with the people of God to those that you have in your stated meetings in the church building.

49:58 It is said of the early Christians that they not only gathered in Solomon's porch for the apostolic teaching and at the temple for the stated seasons of prayer, but it says they ate their meat from house to house.

50:13 They found delight in each other's company in a non-structured social environment. And yet, in that very environment, Christ and his gospel and his work were central in their thoughts and in their conversation. And then my final word of exhortation under this heading is beware of allowing those precious moments that we have in our contact with one another in this place. To degenerate into common shop talk.

50:50 It grieves me as a pastor when I hear people taking the few hours that we have during the week to be together by virtue of our stated meetings and consuming them in talk about things that are legitimate in themselves but have nothing to do with exhorting one another in the holy ways of God. I remember back some years ago, when we had some people in our midst who were totally preoccupied with economics. And they seized the Lord's day to buttonhole our people and tell them why they should invest in gold. Rooting people's minds to earth on the one day when they can be lifted to heaven all the day and have it pleasing to God. And some of you have a project that is consuming your time six days a week. My friend, don't import that into the fellowship of the people of God. What does that have to do with helping your brothers and sisters avoid the evil of a hard heart?

52:08 Now again, am I saying that it's sinful to talk about anything but Christ in the Bible and the workings of the soul on the Lord's day? Of course not. And don't anyone put that construction on it. And anyone who does that usually is fighting the real issue I am driving at.

52:23 That's a smoke stream. You take the issue that pinches people, it pinches your conscience and you blow it out of proportion so that ostensibly you can get rid of the pressure on your conscience. Now what I'm saying is that if this is our duty then surely there is no more fitting time to perform it than on the Lord's day and on Wednesday when we gather as the people of God and we have such precious little time in the complex interaction of demand made upon us in this society and particularly in a metropolitan area. What an oasis to come out of all of that jungle of filth and cursing and materialism and sensuality and come to a people whose hearts love Christ and love His ways and love His word. What better place is there for us to exhort, encourage, comfort, stir up one another in those things that will result in our perseverance? What better place than here? Amen.

Conclusion and Call to Unbelievers

53:26 In the fellowship of His people. May God grant that we shall lay to heart this solemn responsibility and glorious privilege of exhorting, not rebuking, not reproving, not pointing out one another's sins. That's another biblical duty that has its place. But this overarching concern is positive and preventive.

53:54 Comfort one another. Stir up one another. Encourage one another. While it is called today, lest any one of us be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

54:07 For we have become and remain and it is manifest that we are partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end. And if you are not a believer, surely if you've listened at all, you are not a believer. You are not a believer. You are not a believer.

54:25 Truly if you've listened at all, you should come away with the conviction that whatever that man has been talking about from the Bible, there's no way I can live that kind of a life given the fact that I am what I am. My mind and heart are not full of Christ, and holiness, whatever that is, and obedience and faith. My friend, if that's been your reaction unto the preaching it simply underscores what Jesus meant when He said, Except a man be born. Let the man be born from above.

54:57 He cannot perceive. He cannot see. He cannot understand the kingdom of God. And you need nothing less than an infusion of divine life.

55:08 A birth from above. A new heart in the language of the prophet. And you go to the Lord Jesus, the great mediator of the new covenant. And you ask him to do for you what you cannot do for yourself.

Closing Prayer

55:24 Let us pray.

55:32 Our Father, we are thankful that the word of God speaks to us clearly. Speaks to us with all of your own authority in it. And we pray that this passage we have examined this morning may be written upon the fleshy tables of our hearts. And that as a people of God, we may be determined in the strength of Christ to walk in the light of it.

56:00 Oh, may there be a new dimension of this kind of ministry one to another. We thank you for the great measure of it already manifested amongst your people in this place. How many have testified to the encouragement received from one another. But, oh Lord, we want to increase and abound more and more.

56:24 We pray that you would help us to repent of any ways that are contrary. To the ways set forth in this passage of your word. We pray, oh God, that grace will be given to us even this day. To engage in this means of our perseverance as we exhort one another.

56:48 This day for your glory and in obedience to your word. Hear us and be with us. Help us to sanctify the remaining hours of this day to your praise. And we pray that you would help us to repent of any ways that are contrary.

57:01 And to our prophet, we ask with thankfulness and with gratitude in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.