Private Means of Grace

Introduction: The Sixth Principle of Christian Living

0:07 This adult Sunday school class was held on April 17th, 1983, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:18 We return to the subject which has been the major focus of our study for many months, hoping to conclude this study this morning. If we don't, hopefully then just one more Lord's Day. We've been studying together major principles of living the Christian life. And thus far we've examined five such principles.

0:40 And I'll simply state them. I'm sure many of you would be able to give them to me, but in the interest of time let me simply state them. And then we'll move on to the sixth and final principle that we propose to cover at this time. We have seen together, first of all, that there is no one master key to living the Christian life.

1:00 Secondly, that there is no escape from tension and conflict in living the Christian life. Thirdly, that there is no passivity in living the Christian life. Fourth, there is no crisis experience commanded or promised as essential to living the Christian life. And the fifth principle, there is no escape from the varied pressures of afflicted circumstances in living the Christian life.

1:28 Now this morning, the sixth major principle is this. There are no effective substitutes. There are no effective substitutes for the God-appointed means of grace in pursuing the Christian life. There are no effective substitutes for the God-appointed means of grace in pursuing the Christian life.

Explaining the Principle: God's Appointed Means for Life and Growth

1:55 Now as we've done right along, I will first of all seek to exegete, explain the meaning of the words in the principle as it is stated. And then we will turn to the scriptures for a demonstration of its validity. Now first of all, explaining the principle. What do I mean when I assert that there are no effective substitutes for the God-appointed means of grace in pursuing the Christian life?

2:25 Well, I think the best way I can explain this is by drawing a parallel between these two fundamental sets of truths. Two fundamental truths. The first one is this. That God has graciously and sovereignly provided the way into life by means of his own appointment.

2:47 God has graciously and sovereignly appointed the way into life by means of his own appointment. And when we turn to the Bible with the question, How does a dead sinner find spiritual life? The answer of the Bible is clear. That that life is to be found only in the person and in the work of Jesus Christ.

3:19 Christ himself said in John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, the life. No man comes unto the Father but by me. So the way into life is the way that is to be found in the Lord Jesus. He is the way, the truth, and the life.

3:39 No man comes to the Father but by him. And we could bring many, many passages of the word of God to bear upon that principle. Furthermore, the Bible teaches us that the manner in which the life that is in Christ is received is by faith and faith alone. Now it is a penitent faith.

3:59 We are to repent and to believe the gospel. But the peculiar function of faith is that it receives the life graciously offered in the Lord Jesus. By grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God.

4:16 Not of works that no man should glory. Ephesians 2, verses 8 and 9. So then, when we turn to the Bible, we see that God has sovereignly and graciously appointed, marked out the way into life. And we dare not tamper with that way into life.

4:38 For if we do, then we put ourselves outside of the orbit of that which God has revealed. And the scripture says there is a way which seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Well, in the same way in which God has appointed the way into life sovereignly and graciously, and we dare not tamper with it, the second set of truths is that the same God, in the exercise of the same gracious sovereignty, has appointed specific means for the nurture and the development of the life which He gives us in Christ.

5:20 As He graciously and sovereignly marks out the way into life, so He has graciously and sovereignly marked out the way into life. So He has graciously and sovereignly marked out the way that this life which is ours in Christ is to grow and to develop. So if we want to think of the life as growing and developing, we must see from the scriptures and be convinced that just as God has marked out this way into life, so God has marked out the way for the development of life. And one of the real problems that we constantly face in our own Christian experience, and historically it has been faced in the church,

6:02 is that there are many who are willing to concede that God has marked out these things. Christ has been appointed as the only Savior, faith is the only way of appropriating that Savior, but that we are left free to experiment with respect to the question, how shall the life in Christ be developed? How shall that life be nurtured? And there are many who, in their practice, evidence that they do not believe what we have asserted this morning, that it is the same God in gracious sovereignty who has marked out the way into life, who has marked out the means and the way by which that life is to be developed.

6:47 And so often God's people are like the children of Israel. God brought them out of Egypt, into the wilderness wanderings, and He appointed manna as His means to sustain physical life. And they grew weary with the manna. There was everything in that manna to meet all of their nutritional needs, but they grew weary with the means that God had appointed for their sustenance and for the growth and development of their life.

7:18 And you remember what the Scripture says when they complained and grumbled and wanted flesh? God gave them flesh until, and it's a very almost, we'd say gross figure, it came out their nostrils. Now I didn't say that, the Holy Ghost says that. It came out of their nostrils.

7:36 And then God says in the Psalms that God granted them their request, but He sent leanness to their souls. And so often we see in the life of the people of God, that principle, not in terms of physical sustenance, but in terms of spiritual sustenance, when we grow weary with the means appointed by God and go experimenting with other means and hankering after other means, we are the ones who ultimately suffer with leanness in our souls as a result. Alright? So what I'm asserting in this sixth principle is that there are no effective substitutes.

8:19 No effective substitutes. Oh, there are many substitutes offered, but no effective substitutes. That is substitutes that can effect true spiritual growth and development. No effective substitutes for the appointed means of grace.

8:35 That is the means that God has sovereignly and graciously designated as His means for the development and growth of our lives. Alright? Any question about the meaning now of the principle? Have I explained it with sufficient clarity?

The Three Private Means of Grace: An Overview

8:54 Alright. Now then, let's seek to demonstrate from the Word of God the validity of this principle. Or, to change the question, let's approach and seek to examine the basis in Scripture for this assertion. Many have found it helpful to view these means as the means of grace, and that's what the terminology means, and to consider them in two basic categories.

9:26 On the one hand, the private, and on the other hand, the public means of grace. Or, to state it a bit differently, the individual and the corporate means of grace. Now then, with respect to the private or the individual means of grace, I would suggest that they are basically three. Now, these can be amplified and subdivisions can be considered under them, but basically, the individual or private means of grace, and again, there's some overlapping, the distinctions are not ironclad, but they are helpful in terms of thinking these things through.

10:06 Well, you tell me what you think the major private or individual means of grace are, appointed by God for the development, the nurture of our spiritual lives. What are they? Yes, Gene? The reading of?

10:28 The palm? Meditation? The palm? Another?

10:39 Jeff? What kind of prayer? That was an unfair question, because I asked it under the category of the personal or private means of grace, and you were already assuming that. All right?

11:03 And what is the third? Major means of point, individual means of grace. Yes. Self-examination.

11:12 That would be a subheading under a larger category. Keeping of the heart, getting closer. That's part of this larger category. Keeping of the heart.

11:28 All right? Obedience to that word. Well, that's part of it as well. All right?

11:38 We'll get a couple more here, and then I think we'll tighten the noose. All right? Cliff? Pursuing holiness.

11:47 All right, let's look at these now. Without self-examination, you will not be able to keep a what? A good conscience. Without keeping the heart, you'll not be able to attain or keep a good conscience.

12:07 Without obedience and confession of the sin of disobedience, you'll not be able to keep a good conscience. Without the pursuit of holiness, certainly there can be no maintenance of a good conscience. So I would like to suggest that many of these other private, personal disciplines can all be subsumed under the keeping of a good conscience, the maintenance of conscious communion with God. You call it anything you want.

12:33 But it's that category of maintaining conscious communion with God, the keeping of a good conscience. I'm not particularly fastidious about the terminology. It's the thing itself that I'm concerned about. And that the private means of grace, in a very real sense, can be ranged under these three major categories.

12:56 Now you see, there's nothing esoteric, there's nothing mysterious, there's nothing secretive about these things. They are stamped upon the very face of Holy Scripture that if the life we have in Christ would be vigorous, if it would grow and develop and mature, it must be a life continually nurtured by the disciplines of secret prayer, reading of and meditation upon the Word of God, and by the maintenance of a good conscience, the sustaining of conscious, delightful communion with God. Now, what passages in the Word of God clearly indicate that secret prayer

Private Means of Grace 1: Secret Prayer

13:38 is an appointed means of grace? Will you give me two or three very plain passages in the Word of God? Jenny? Alright, Philippians 4, 6 and 7.

13:57 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God, and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. So when you find a Christian who seems to have a pattern of being harried and worried and distraught and constantly in a state of anxiety and agitation, you know this much about that person. Something's defected here. Because the promise of God is clear.

14:38 If in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, we are letting our requests be made known unto God, God is committed to fulfill that promise. The peace of God shall garrison your hearts. So when you find someone whose heart is not garrisoned by the peace of God, it may be that they're in a season of unusual satanic opposition. It may be that there are other factors.

15:06 Again, I'm not being simplistic. And it's so difficult. I hate to keep qualifying, but people absolutize when they shouldn't. And I'm fully conscious of all of the exceptions.

15:18 But generally speaking, the bottom line is, if you're an agitated, disturbed, anxious Christian, here's the problem, and you don't need to look for some secret answer. It's that you've neglected the secret place of prayer. And you can read a thousand books on the Christian life, and they'll not help you one whit. If you don't start praying in secret.

15:41 Because that's God's manner. It's His appointed means for the nurture and development of life. All right, another clear passage. Yes, Mike?

15:53 All right, read it for us if you will, please. Matthew 6, 6 and following. All right, here's the promise that if we pray to the Father in secret, that Father will recompense us as the fruit of our prayers. Thy Father shall recompense thee.

16:34 So when you see someone who is obviously not being recompensed by God with vigor and with growth in his life, generally speaking, you will find there's been, among other things, an erosion in the discipline of secret prayer. All right, another passage in which the vital place of secret prayer is clearly underscored. Yes, Dan? That would sort of be a parallel to Philippians 4, but go ahead and read it for us.

17:03 Casting all your cares upon Him. It doesn't mention prayer explicitly, but in the light of Philippians 4, 6 and 7, we certainly can say it's there implicitly. Well, what about Hebrews 4, 14? Has anyone thought of that?

17:28 Hebrews 4 and verse 14. Vital passage on this whole matter. Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 14. I'm working with a new Bible and it's difficult to get the pages separated, but the pages separated and also location-wise.

17:55 The print is, the whole layout is completely different. And for me, for years, Hebrews 4, 14 has been on a certain place on a certain page, and now it's gone all haywire. All right. Having then a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession, for we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one that has in all points, been tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

18:24 And here's the text more particularly. Verse 14 begins the paragraph. Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need. Now when you find a Christian who is obviously being shortchanged of needed mercy and grace in his times of need, generally speaking, he's shortchanged because he isn't coming to the place where God supplies those commodities.

18:58 We find mercy and grace to help in our time of need when we draw near in the discipline and the exercise of secret prayer. And to these verses, we could add the well-known verses of Matthew 7. Ask, and it shall be given you. Seek, and you shall find.

19:15 Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. But no promise to those who do not ask, seek, and knock. Isaiah 40, 30, and 31. Even the young men shall fall and become weary, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.

19:32 They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Now when we bring all of those passages together, and we could bring many others to bear upon this fundamental means of individual means of grace, we understand more fully why James could say as he does in James 4 and verse 2, He had not because he asked not.

20:02 And written over many deficiencies in many Christian lives could be the language of James 4, 2. You have not simply because you ask not. Our pride, our unbelief, our misplaced priorities, whatever the specific cause or causes for the neglect of secret prayer may be combined, they bear eloquent testimony to the fact that the person who will not seek God with some degree of regularity and secret is the person who is going to find his life in Christ greatly hampered,

20:46 stifled, his growth will be stunted. Now that's just a simple, plain, ordinary, fundamental principle. But I'm sure that some of us, to our shame, would acknowledge we're so slow to learn it. You have not because you ask not.

21:03 And I was struck again in my Old Testament reading this week with what it says concerning Uzziah in 2 Chronicles 26 and verse 5. As long as he sought the Lord, God made him to prosper. But then it goes on to say when he became older his heart was lifted up and he stopped praying. And then you read the tragedy of his latter days.

21:25 As long as he sought the Lord, God made him to prosper. And that can be said of almost any Christian. And so often it's in the early days of our newfound faith and the throne of grace has a novelty about it. And the joy and the liberty of drawing near to God in the flush of that newfound faith and love, prayer was much more a reflexive delight.

21:51 Delightful, spontaneous spiritual exercise than a wrestling, than a discipline, than a military-like exercise. Didn't you find it so? But then as you go on in the Christian life and you learn more and more the tremendous scope of your responsibility and you begin to feel the weariness of the battle, prayer becomes more and more what the Bible describes it in other places as a wrestling, as an agonizing. Those are the words used concerning prayer.

22:24 Colossians 4.12 speaks of Epaphras, this fellow soldier of the Apostle Paul who agonized in his prayers for the Christians at Colossae. So secret prayer then is one of the appointed individual means and there is no effective substitute for that God appointed. So if you're not praying in secret, if you're not with someone, some degree of regularity, and I know I'm speaking to mothers who have little ones, I don't speak as someone who is insensitive or ignorant or indifferent to all of the peculiar pressures and tensions.

23:06 I hope I speak realistically. I'm not saying as a mother of little ones you've got to be on your knees an hour every day from eight to nine. I know you can't predict year eights and belly eights. I'm fully aware of all of that.

23:18 But the bottom line is God does nowhere say, that a young mother or a mother of young children can grow in grace without secret prayer. So you've just got to do whatever you've got to do to make time to pray. Now it may mean that you have to do it a different time every day. Maybe the only time you get to pray is when you go in the bathroom.

23:43 You've got to make time to pray. And God will not rewrite His Word simply because of the peculiar pressures that you feel make you an exception. All right? Any question now on that first strand of the personal means of grace?

24:06 Yes, Ralph? Well, that's something we can consider, Ralph. But I think if we would start going that direction now. But basically, the bottom line is you've got to be determined to kick the hindrances in the teeth.

24:34 And that's what I have to do. After 30 years of being a Christian, I'm still kicking the same things in the teeth. And sometimes, when I don't, my soul suffers. And it shrivels.

24:47 And I think for most of us, we know what the problems are. We've got to get mad enough to do something. I was counseling someone not too long ago who had made very little progress in the divinary and now there's some real progress. I said, well, how do you account for the change?

25:01 And among other things, this individual said, well, I got mad enough to do something about it. I got determined enough to do something about it. And with most of us, that's the problem. We just need to be determined enough to do something about it.

25:19 Now, I'm not saying that's the only answer, Ralph. I'm just using the occasion of your suggestion to use that as a launching pad to underscore that principle. For most of us, it's not a lack of knowing what we ought to do or knowing what it is that hinders us from doing it. It's simply spiritual sluggishness.

25:39 And we need to roll up our sleeves and say this one thing I do. I know I must pray. Without it, I will not make progress in grace, so I'm going to pray. And just make time.

25:51 Alright? Yes. Okay? And let's move. Were you going to say something?

Private Means of Grace 2: Reading and Meditation on God's Word

25:59 Alright. And the reading of and meditation upon the word of God. Now, can you think of some passages that clearly state that there will be no flourishing of the Christian life without it, or that state more positively that this is the appointed means for the development of our life in Christ. Pivotal passages.

26:21 Let's see. Someone we haven't called on yet. Jerry, and then we'll go back to you, Dave. Alright? Psalm 119

26:32 in verse 11. Verses 9 through 11. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word. Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.

26:46 If progress in the Christian life is progress in holiness, then we see the vital place of reading and meditating upon the word of God. Hiding the word in the heart. Alright? Another passage.

27:00 Dave Schuster had to say. Was that the passage you had in mind, Dave? Alright. Many, many parts of Psalm 119.

27:09 Alright? Some other passage. Okay, let's see. Where were we here?

27:13 Alright, Rich. Read them out loud for us. Psalm 1.

27:50 Alright, so here's the picture of a flourishing child of God. He's like a healthy tree and even in the season when it's not fruit-bearing time, the leaf does not wither. There are the evidences of vibrant, vigorous life as well as the bearing of fruit in the appointed season. And he's described negatively in terms of what he doesn't do.

28:17 He doesn't walk in the counsel of the wicked. He doesn't stand in the way of sinners. He doesn't sit in the seat of scoffers. But then positively he's described in terms of what he does do. He

28:29 meditates in the law of God day and night. His whole inner life is under the constant nurturing influence of the word of God. Alright, another passage that makes this plain. Yes, Mr. Bischoff? Alright.

28:49 Pivotal passage, 2 Timothy 3 15 to 17. You want to read those verses for us, please, Mr. Bischoff? And so the man of God, which probably has primary reference to Timothy, if he's to be equipped unto every good work, if he's to be complete, he must have this exposure to all of the God-breathed words.

29:33 All Scripture given by inspiration of God is profitable. Alright, one or two other key passages. Alright, Henry? Alright, it's spoken specifically to Joshua as a leader in Israel, but certainly there are some principles to be taken from that. Anyone want to read it for us?

29:52 Wonderful verse. One of the ones that some of us memorize very early when we took the Navigator's topical memory system. And we can remember the first time we encountered Joshua 1 and verse 8. Alright, another key passage that no one has mentioned yet.

30:23 Ray? Our Lord quoting from Deuteronomy says, alright, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Life is sustained. Spiritual life is maintained by feeding upon the words of God.

30:51 Yes, Elaine? Alright. First Peter chapter 2 and verse 2. That was the verse I was fishing for.

31:04 Wherefore laying aside or putting away all wickedness and guile and hypocrisies and envies and evil speakings as newborn babes long for the spiritual milk which is without guile that you may grow thereby unto salvation. And to this we could add such passages as Psalm 19, 7 to 11. A celebration of the word of God by which the soul is converted, by which the servant of God is warned, in the keeping of which there is great reward. Many passages to substantiate that the whole idea that Christians to grow in grace

31:48 must read and meditate upon the word of God is not some kind of a traditional evangelical legalism that's been imposed upon us. It has been part and parcel of the general counsel that the people of God have received through the centuries because it is a truth so evidently taught in the word of God. And so often the Lord would say to us in terms of practical problems, you do err not knowing the Scriptures. And it is our ignorance of the Scriptures that leaves us vulnerable to errors of judgment, to errors of perspective, errors in the head, errors in the heart, errors in the feet. And so if

32:33 we are to grow into mature men and women in Christ there must be the reading of and the meditation upon the word of God. Not a mere threading of so many words, of so many chapters through our eyes, but in exposing them to the eyes, not being content until we have sensed their impress upon our hearts. Far better to meditate meaningfully upon two verses of the word of God so that those verses impinge upon the heart, upon the affections, upon the will, upon the processes of thought than to read two whole chapters without any real heart engagement or any

33:18 real engagement of the mind. Now again, I am not saying that every time you read your Bible you must have a glorious heart-rending experience. I am not saying that. There are times when your reading in the word of God will seem to be nothing much more than a dogged, naked spiritual discipline.

33:38 I know that by experience and I am not insensitive to that. But what I am saying is that even in such times you are not content with that. You are crying out, God I have read a whole paragraph of your word and it is just like I have threaded words through my eyes, Lord I am not reading your word simply to do something. Lord, help me to understand what you are saying.

34:02 Lord, what does this say to me? For the life of me, Lord, I don't know what it says to me because I don't know what it says. Give me understanding in your word. Open my eyes to behold wondrous things out of your law.

34:14 So again, I am not being unrealistic. There will be days sometimes you are reading in certain portions of the word when you may go several days, you may go a week in which there is very little that really strikes you. Very little that really warms you and uplifts you and exhilarates you. But it is part of the word of God.

34:34 But all I am saying is that you simply do not become content with threading words through the eyes. But that you are constantly seeking to bring your heart to the word and the word to your heart. And here you see Psalm 119 is a tremendous help because you find the Psalmist again and again in that Psalm crying out that his heart would be moved into a path of obedience. That God would give him understanding. That God would undress

35:02 his eyes. That God would make him to go in the way of his precepts. And language such as that just throbs through the 119th Psalm. So then, if we are to flourish in our spiritual lives there must be, there must be the reading of and the meditation upon the word of the living God.

35:24 Otherwise, we will be spiritually starved and weakened. We will be vulnerable to errors. We will find ourselves again and again crippled and hampered in making true spiritual progress. Alright, any question or further comment on this second private means of grace? Yes, Doug?

Private Means of Grace 3: Maintaining a Clear Conscience and Communion with God

36:01 Yes. Certainly hiding the word in the heart is more than memorization but memorization is a great aid to hiding the word in the heart. Hiding the word in the heart is bringing the heart to the word and the word to the heart. But as Doug has said, it's difficult to do that if you don't have it in your head.

36:28 And often we can't be walking around in the shop or in the office with a big bottle full of notes. But if we've got many portions of the word here in our hearts and stored away in our minds then we are able to bring that word to remembrance. Alright, then let's move on to this third category of the private or personal means of grace, the maintenance of a clear conscience or the cultivation of conscious communion with God, whatever we want to call it. This is clearly a means of grace.

37:08 And here I don't need to go into great detail in the light of the expositions of several months ago under the general heading of the Doctrine of Perseverance and Acts 24.16 is the pivotal text under this heading where the Apostle Paul declares, Herein I also exercise myself to have a conscience void of offense toward God and men always. Now, what's involved in this maintenance of a clear conscience? This cultivation of communion with God, what is actually involved in

37:52 humble terms? What must I be doing continually if I am going to keep a good conscience before God and men? Nothing profound, yes, Ray? Alright, so we've got to humble ourselves again and again and go as guilty, helpless, needy, sinners. We've got to go

38:30 as beggars. Nobody likes to have a perpetual identity as a beggar. He likes to get out of his beggarhood into some other state. But we never do. In one sense, we

38:43 never do because we are not perfectly sanctified. Though sin no longer has dominion over us, sin yet remains in us. And therefore we must continually confess our sins that we may know the fulfillment of the promise God is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so that's a vital element in the maintenance of a clear conscience, of the moment pride begins to have its way in the heart, we'll find ourselves wanting to move out from the posture of a beggar.

39:19 We don't want to come daily saying, forgive us our sins. We do not want daily to remind ourselves that in us, that is in our flesh, dwells no good thing. Alright, what's another vital element in this matter of keeping a good conscience and maintaining a climate in which communion with God can be maintained and realized? What else?

39:47 Yes, Dan? Yes. What some have called cultivating the consciousness or practicing the presence of God. Wherever I am saying to myself, God is here. I am in

40:20 His presence. It's a profoundly transforming thing. It sounds trite when we say it. But you know as well as I do, you have to cloud that reality from your mind before you can indulge certain kinds of sin.

40:38 Now some kinds of sin rise up from us almost reflexively. You bang your finger when you're trying to fix something and some of the words that you used to use in your old life, it's not as though you're seduced gradually into that sin. It may be that some of the old language just leaps to your mind and may even come out on your lips almost reflexively. But there are other kinds of sins.

41:04 Sitting down to watch something, you know you shouldn't on the television. Reading literature, you know you shouldn't. Engaging in conversation on the phone, you know you shouldn't. You never can move into those realms where the warning signals go out without first of all neutralizing the sense of the presence of God. Isn't that

41:25 true? You've got to neutralize the sense of God's presence. Because you know if you're thinking, the minute your conversation begins to move in a direction it shouldn't on the telephone, if you're thinking God is here. Every word I speak is in His ear. You know that that will

41:41 restrain those words. So you have to blot out that reality and at least for a few moments forget that you're in the presence of God. Same way with regard to watching something on the TV. You know you shouldn't. You know if the

41:57 consciousness of God is here. He beholds what I'm watching. He beholds with favor or disfavor. He smiles or frowns. Well you know what the

42:07 results are going to be. You turn that thing off or change the channel. Whatever was the appropriate action. So what do you do?

42:13 You conveniently neutralize in your mind the consciousness God is here. For some of you who struggle with literature that you know you shouldn't look upon or read. The first thing you have to do before you can pick up such literature. First thing you have to do before you can open and look upon it and read it. You

42:31 have to neutralize all consciousness of the presence of God. Isn't that right? Unless you're prepared to engage in high handed blasphemous activity. You're not going to say God is here. Therefore

42:47 under his eye I will do that which he detests. So you neutralize the sense of God's presence. Isn't that what happens? Am I some kind of strange creature? Is that what

42:59 happens? Yes or no? Alright you see how necessary it is then if we're to grow in grace that we maintain a clear conscience. That conscience that we cultivate that consciousness of the presence of God.

43:13 And that must be done wherever we are. Whatever our calling in life may be. And some of us are in a context in which the pressures to neutralize that sense of God's presence are greater than others. But we have the promise. First

43:29 Corinthians 10, 13. There's no temptation taking you but such as is common to man and God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able but will with the temptation make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it. Alright? There's another vital aspect of this business of maintaining a good conscience that no one's mentioned yet and we can't omit it. We could take up many things

The Horizontal Dimension of a Clear Conscience

43:53 but there's one other aspect that we need at least by way of review to underscore. Yes, Ruth? Pardon? The brevity of life. Reminding ourselves of the

44:05 brevity of life certainly is a part of walking as we ought with God but that's not the part I was fishing for. That's a vital element. Yes. Yes. The whole

44:18 biblical principle, the Bible knows nothing of a doctrine that says you can be right with God and wrong with your fellow men. The Bible knows nothing of that kind of purely vertical spirituality. He that says, I love God and hates his brother, how can he love God whom he has not seen if he does not love his brother whom he has seen? That's how John argues in his first epistle.

44:47 Jesus said, when you stand praying, you're going to have dealings with God vertically, forgive. He says you better be sensitive to your horizontal relationships. When you come, Matthew 5, 23 and following, to offer your gift, and there remember thy brother hath ought against thee, leave thy gift before the altar first, go be reconciled to thy brother, then come and offer thy gift. And then in the Lord's prayer, if ye do not forgive men their trespasses, mean neither will your heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses. The Bible

45:23 knows nothing of a spirituality that is purely vertical. It knows much of a spirituality that is both vertical and horizontal. And there is no such thing as walking in blessing, blissful, intimate, throbbing communion with God when you've got bitterness, lack of forgiveness, suspicion, and envy, and other sins in your heart to your fellow men. Nor does the Bible know anything of a forgiveness heavenward that is sealed to our hearts with joy and peace if there is not, at the point of confessing it, the intention verified by

46:08 practice of making that thing right with our fellow man where necessary. Notice how I chose my words. I hope you notice carefully. I did not say we can have no peace and no consciousness of the Lord's forgiveness till we actually go to our brother. God knows

46:25 the intention of our heart. Sometimes the logistics of actually getting to our brother or sister may be such that it may take days. Does that mean I cannot have peace and rest before God until I've actually been able to settle a thing? No, it doesn't mean that at all. But it does mean

46:41 if I intend to deceive myself into thinking I can be right with God without humbling myself and doing whatever is necessary to be right with my fellow men, I'm kidding myself. I'm kidding myself. That is a sickening pseudo-spirituality. It is not true spirituality. Remember the whole

47:01 emphasis in Ephesians 4 on grieving not the spirit is in the context of having proper horizontal relationships and attitudes. So these are the secret, the private means of grace. And our basic principle has asserted that there is no effective or there are no effective substitutes for the God ordained means of grace in pursuing the Christian life. And if you and I would flourish in grace, then we must be no strangers to these disciplines.

Conclusion and Transition to Public Means of Grace

47:37 The disciplines of secret prayer, the discipline of reading and meditating upon the word of God, and the maintenance of a clear conscience at any cost. The cultivation of communion with God, practicing the presence of God in every situation. Well, our time is just about gone. Any further comment or question that you want to raise? Yes. Jonathan?

48:03 Absolutely. Good point. Good point, Jonathan. We must, in the language that is used concerning the requirement for elders, but certainly in the light of many Biblical principles, we must have a good testimony of those that are without. We are to let our light

48:32 so shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify our Father which is in heaven. We are to shine as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom we are seen as lights in the world. Philippians chapter 2. Alright, then God willing in our next lesson we'll take up that second category, the social or the corporate means of grace that God has appointed. And may I

48:59 suggest for a little possible reflection and meditation that you read Ephesians 4, 11 to 16 at your leisure and see what that passage has to say about the social or the corporate means of grace in the development of spiritual life in the hearts of God's people. Alright, let's pray together. Our Father, we do thank you that your word not only gives us clear instruction as to the way into life, but that it also instructs us as to how that life can be

49:44 developed and grow. And we pray that as a congregation you would so establish us in these fundamental, elementary truths of the Christian life that we will not deceive ourselves into thinking that our lack of growth is due to our inability to grasp some profound doctrine, our inability to pursue and to lay hold of some deep, dark secret of the Christian life. Holy Father, we pray that we may be given the grace of spiritual honesty to face our prayerlessness for what it is, to face our neglect of your word

50:28 for what it is, to face realistically what we are doing or have done that mars and hinders our enjoyment of your presence in the context of a good conscience. Lord, have deep, deep feelings with us and don't leave us at the mercy of our own rationalizing hearts, but bring us back again and again to the place where by your grace we are established as a praying people, a people who do meditate in your word day and night and who are determined at any cost to live in your presence, to be right with you

51:12 and right with our fellow people. Write then these basic issues upon our hearts and give us grace to live in the light of them. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.