Specific Directives, Part 1

Introduction: The Call to Practical Godliness and the Series Context

0:02 The following message was delivered on November 1, 1981, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. This is the fourth in a series of five messages by Pastor Albert N. Martin on Romans 13 and verse 14, entitled, Putting on Christ. Following your Bibles, please, as I read from Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 13, and the few verses which I trust by now have become very familiar to you, Romans chapter 13, verses 11 through 14.

0:41 In this section of the epistle, in which the Apostle is calling the people of God to a life of practical godliness, he says, and this, knowing the season, that already it is time for you to awake out of sleep, for now is salvation nearer. It is nearer to us than when we first believed. The night is far spent, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.

1:16 Let us walk becomingly, as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and jealousy, but put ye on the Lord Jesus. And make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. Let us once again seek the face of God for his help in the ministry of the word.

1:49 Our Father, we thank you for this text of your own holy, infallible word, which we have studied for these past few Lord's Day evenings. As we come tonight to consider, some of its very practical demands upon us, we pray that the Holy Spirit will be present and operative in a very special and powerful measure as the spirit of wisdom and insight, the spirit who alone can help us accurately and in a balanced way to perceive our duty. O Lord, give to me that combination of his grace,

2:31 O Lord, give to me that combination of his grace, the gracious influences which I so desperately need if I am to instruct your people as I ought, and give to your people a discerning and an obedient ear. We wait in expectation for the help of the spirit, which together we seek as your children, believing you delight to give the spirit to those who ask. Amen. Amen.

3:08 Particularly for the benefit of any who may be, visiting with us and have not been with us for our previous studies in Romans chapter 13 and verse 14, I'm informing such that tonight is our fourth meditation in this very vital and crucial text with respect to some aspects of the Christian life, particularly the issue of how a Christian is to fulfill the call to holiness in the midst of a new world. In this text, we focus on the positive injunction, which is that we should be in the midst of an ungodly society and with remaining sin continually harassing him. In our initial study of this text,

3:51 we considered the introductory concerns of the text, such as who were the recipients, the general setting of the text, the immediate context, and the obvious structure. And then in our second meditation, we concentrated on the positive injunction, namely this mandate from God to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. And I sought to open up the significance of that very bold figure of speech and then give some practical directives as to how precisely the people of God are to put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Addressing the 'How-To' of Mortification

4:34 And then in our last study, we took up the negative injunction, namely the divine mandate. In the last study, we took up the negative injunction, either part of the verse, to make no provision for the flesh, literally unto lust. That is make no provision- lay up no stores for the flesh with respect to its peculiar lusts. Now one of the accusations that is often directed to preachers is this- Preacher, you're always telling us what to do but you don't tell us how to do it.

5:10 Well, there may be some justifiable accusation thrown at some preachers, but if they are preaching biblically, they ought to be giving you a good balance of not only what to do, but how to do it insofar as the word of God addresses itself to the what and to the how. But I would refuse that accusation tonight because this is going to be a how-to sermon. Again, having sought to open up in your hearing the meaning of the words, do not make provision for the flesh unto lust,

5:49 and having drawn from those words some of the obvious conclusions with respect to the relationship between the negative and positive mandates in this text, what I propose to do tonight is to give you some specific practical counsel on how... Oh, to make no provision for the flesh with respect to lust.

Pastoral Counseling Scenario: Seeking Deliverance from Sinful Patterns

6:14 In a very real sense, what I'm doing tonight is giving you a session of pastoral counsel in public. And I want you to imagine yourself as having come to me in the privacy of the study, acknowledging that there was an area in which you seemed to be making very little progress with respect to a matter...

6:38 ...of sinful patterns.

6:42 Perhaps one of the things mentioned in this very context, perhaps you've come to me acknowledging that you cannot seem to harness a certain physical appetite, maybe for food or drink, the issues dealt with in the beginning of verse 13, or perhaps with some aspect of a perversion of your God-given sexual appetites, expressing themselves in ways that are contrary, ...of sinful patterns.

7:08 ...of sinful patterns.

7:08 Or perhaps you've come saying you're crippled by a spirit of jealousy and envy and those things dealt with in the latter part of verse 13. And you've said, Pastor, what can I do? What shall I do with all my heart? I'm seeking to clothe myself with the Lord Jesus.

7:29 I'm seeking to mortify this or that sin, but I seem to be making so little progress. Can you help me? Well, if someone...

Fundamental Assumption: A State of Grace and Desire for Holiness

7:38 If someone were to come, and they have often come with that plea, this is the kind of counsel that I would give. And in opening up these matters, what I propose to do is, first of all, to underscore a fundamental assumption that would be present in such a counseling session. And then, secondly, I want to set before you what I would call a preliminary charge and then conclude with three specific directives. First of all, then, a fundamental assumption.

8:11 I would assume, if you were to come to me privately in that situation, and I'm assuming this with the vast majority of you here tonight, and Paul assumes it in this text, that you are in a state of grace and therefore you have a fundamental desire for and a resolute commitment unto universal holiness. When Paul wrote, to the Romans, saying, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, do not make provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust, he was assuming that he was writing to people who had a fundamental desire for

8:55 and a hearty commitment to a life of universal holiness. He was writing to a people already described in Romans 6, 7, and 8, a people who had died, to sin and risen to newness of life in Christ. A people who could say, I delight in the law of God with my inward part. And though they were conscious of that contrary principle of remaining sin, they were a people who in the language of Romans 8 had been delivered out of the realm of commitment to the flesh and were now in the language of Romans 8, 9, in the Spirit.

9:38 He are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. If so, be that the Spirit of God dwells in you. As such, he can appeal to them as he does in the beginning of this section, in chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, on the basis of the mercies of God already received, knowing that that appeal will cut mustard with a true Christian. That when he says, I beseech you by the mercies of God, that, nothing touches more sensitive strands in the heart of a Christian than that appeal to the mercies already received from the living God.

10:20 Now, I am making that same assumption in the counsel that I give you tonight. And if you sit here as one who is indifferent to a life of holiness, one who is unmoved by appeals based on the dying love of Christ, unmoved by the realities of life in the Spirit, then the things you hear tonight, I can make a prediction, they'll sound as downright foolishness and fanaticism to you. But remember, if you're sitting there making a judgment that the preacher's crazy and the hearers are foolish to listen to the outpourings of his crazy head,

11:04 the problem, my friend, is not with my head and with this people, it's with you. And the basic problem is, you are so in love with your sin and such a stranger to the dynamics of the grace of God that these things are in a realm that is totally foreign to you. But I'm assuming that the vast majority of you are in that state of grace which the apostle assumed was present in those at the church at Rome. So much, then, for this fundamental assumption Now, then, I want to set before you what I'm calling a preliminary charge.

Preliminary Charge: Serious Self-Examination to Dismantle Sinful Provisions

11:45 If you are serious about obeying the latter part of Romans 13, 14, if when you hear these words, do not make provision for the flesh, then there is a preliminary charge which you must take to heart. When a Christian finds himself making very little, if any, observable progress in dealing with such sins as are dealt with in the context or in any other area of remaining corruption, it is generally because a whole

12:26 of storing up for that particular lust has been established. And there will be no progress in the destruction of that lust until that whole sin is established. until that whole sin is established. And the whole system of providing for it is dismantled down to the very last board.

12:52 Now, please, please don't fall asleep on me. And take that as just so much preacher's rhetoric. Hear me now. If you would make progress with that area of physical appetite that seems to have you mastered, your mouth, in a sense, is your master, and you know it, and the moment I say it, your conscience smites you.

13:16 And in the case of some of you, your physical appearance betrays you. Not in the case of all of you. A man can be a glutton and be as skinny as a rail.

13:29 There may be some of you very, very conscious that there are aspects of perverse sexual behavior and thought, and you've almost despaired of ever finding deliverance. It may be that they are the inward sins of strife and jealousy. But hear me now. If you are a Christian, a true Christian, and yet little progress has been made over a period of time, for some of you a long period of time, it is almost invariably because a whole system of storing up provisions for that sin has been made.

14:07 And the reason you've not made progress is you've never been willing to go after that entire system of providing for that lust and dismantle it, down the drain. Down to the last piece.

14:22 And so the preliminary charge is this. You must undergo a serious exercise of self-examination in order to face honestly all of the ways in which provision is being made to fulfill your particular lust.

14:46 You must undergo a serious exercise of self-examination in order to face honestly all of the ways in which provision is being made to fulfill your particular lust. In other words, you must undergo an exercise akin to that which the psalmist described in Psalm 119 verses 59 and 60. And the pastor cannot do this for you. Your dearest Christian friend, be that friend, husband, or wife,

15:31 father, mother, some brother or sister in the Lord, no one else can do it for you or on your behalf or by proxy. You must do what David did. Psalm 119 and verse 59. I thought on my own, I thought on my own, I thought on my own, I thought on my ways and turned my feet unto thy testimonies.

16:00 I made haste and delayed not to observe thy commandments. And it's particularly the first part of verse 59. I thought. David is describing a mental reflective activity in which he personally engaged.

16:22 I thought. I thought. And what did he think upon? He said, I thought upon my ways.

16:31 Not my way. The Bible speaks of the way of the righteous, the way of a man. That's the general overall pattern of his life. But he says, I thought upon my ways, the distinct and specific patterns of my life.

16:50 And it is just, that exercise to which I exhort you. This preliminary charge is that you engage in a personal, concentrated reflection upon your ways, the patterns of your life, in particular, the patterns which surround the repeated indulgence and non-progress with respect to your own peculiar, aggravated sins and lusts.

17:32 The Scripture tells us in Proverbs 28, 13, He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy. Well, you see, it is not only a sin to indulge, indulge your lust, it is a sin to make provision for it and then to cover up the provision that you've made.

17:58 And he that covers his sin, whether sin committed or whether sin dissipated and therefore provision is made for it, any way by which we attempt to cover sin, God says we shall not prosper. And the preliminary charge that I lay upon you, your conscience, dear child of God, without which it is unlikely that you will make any progress with respect to that sin is, you must, you must undergo a serious exercise of self-examination

How to Undertake Self-Examination: Prayerfully, Honestly, Thoroughly

18:41 in order to face honestly all of the ways in which provision is being made to fulfill your particular lust. Now this act, this activity, this exercise of self-examination must be undertaken, first of all, prayerfully. It must be undertaken with an eye to the living God that He would help you honestly to discover about yourself what He already knows about you. You see, the 139th Psalm begins with the confession of God's omniscience.

19:20 O Lord, Thou hast made me. Thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting, my up-rising. You understand my thought afar off.

19:31 You search out my path and my lying down, and You are acquainted with all my ways. The Psalm begins with the acknowledgement that God knows all of the ways of the man of God. That God is fully acquainted with me. all of his patterns. And then it closes with this prayer. Search me, O God, verse 23, and know my

20:03 heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Here's the personal application of the doctrine of the divine omniscience. Having acknowledged that God has searched him and God does know him and God is acquainted with all his ways, he is now praying, as it were, Lord, may what you know in your perfect omniscience bring home to me something of an accurate self-consciousness and self-assessment.

20:40 See if there be any wicked way in me. See not with a view, Lord, to informing you, but that I may see it. And that knowing I may be led into the way everlasting, to the way of blessedness. You find this same emphasis in Lamentation chapter 3. In the midst of all of the desolation,

21:06 the obvious tokens of the frown of Almighty God upon the sinful nation, and in particular upon the sinful city, here the appeal goes forth from the prophet in Lamentation, 3 and verse 40. Let us search and try our ways. That's an activity the prophet says that we must engage in. Let us search. Let us try our ways and turn to the Lord. But

21:38 now notice the context. Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens. So there is no self-scrutiny divorced from a prayerful spirit. I urge you, child of God, to obey the charge prayerfully, acknowledging that God alone knows all of the ways in which your remaining sin has constructed this network of provision, this underground system of provision for the world.

22:17 That lust which seems to yield so little to the ongoing dynamism and power of the grace of God. But then this charge must be undertaken not only prayerfully, but honestly. Honestly.

22:37 There's a terrible charge to the people of God in Hosea. And the charge is this, chapter 7 in verse 14.

22:48 They will never come to me with their heart, but they howl upon their beds. They assemble themselves for grain and new wine. They rebel against me. In the midst of the evident tokens of the judgment of God upon them, they had enough spiritual presence to know that people in such a mess ought to pray. And that God says their prayer is a sham. They're not crying

23:14 to me with their whole hearts. I wonder if this isn't a picture of some of you. You're Howl upon your bed when your conscience, as it were, brings you to the point of inward pain. And you say, oh God, why can't I make progress with this sin?

23:31 Why is there no grace? The problem is you're not seeking God honestly with all your heart. Because the promise of God in Jeremiah 29, 12, and 13 is this. They shall go and pray unto me.

23:50 And ye shall seek me, and ye shall find me, when you search for me with all your heart.

24:01 Child of God, don't dishonor God in His grace by blaming Him for the fact that that sin seems to be so unyielding before the power of His grace.

24:17 Don't blame it upon God. He has both called you to holiness and made every provision, for life and godliness. The problem is you have been unwilling for this exercise of self-examination in facing honestly all of the ways in which provision is being made to fulfill your particular lust.

24:44 You must undertake that activity prayerfully. You must undertake it honestly. And you must undertake it thoroughly. They have healed.

24:55 Slightly the hurt of the daughter of my people. Saying, peace, peace, when there is no peace. And then the prophet goes on to say, they have put untempered mortar there. They've tried to build up a wall with mud that simply won't hold the stones together.

25:20 This task must be undertaken thoroughly. For our text says, And for the flesh make no provision. If we allow, if we allow, one aspect of that whole network of the system that feeds our flesh to remain, be sure that in a moment of temptation, your flesh will find that one avenue of provision.

25:49 You may block up a hundred others, but it's the one you leave that will betray you. Leave no unguarded place, no weakness of the soul. Take every virtue, every grace, and fortify the whole. The hymn writer understood that principle.

The Counseling Challenge: Are You Prepared to Face the Ugly Reality?

26:10 Now let me ask you, and this is what I would do. See, we're in a counseling session now. You've come to me. I haven't come to you.

26:18 No one coerced you into the counseling room. You said, Pastor, I've got a problem. I want to talk to you about it. And so, you've told me about your problem.

26:26 And then I've told you that I assume you're there because you have a commitment to universal holiness and you want to please God. Then I say to you, all right, my dear brother or sister, I charge you when you leave this place as soon as possible to get alone with God. Get down upon your knees or bent over your desk or whatever posture in which you carry on your most fruitful communion with God. Cry to God to search you through and through to give you, as it were, a judgment seat before the time.

27:02 Pray for the grace to be honest and thorough. And I would ask you, are you prepared to leave my study today and go home and take paper and pencil and sit down and begin to face the ugly reality of all of the ways in which you are making provision for the flesh to fulfill the will of God? I would ask you to pray to God. I would ask you to pray to God.

27:24 Are you prepared when God helps you to look honestly and accurately at yourself to see on paper 20 inches from your eyeballs the whole of its ugly reality?

27:43 If at that point you say, I'm not sure, I'd say, let's pray and I'd send you home. There's nothing more I've got to say.

27:51 And I wish if it would not appear overly dramatic and cause misunderstanding, I could do that right in the middle of the sermon tonight and start a new life. And if you're starting right here with Mr. Orr, say, if you're wrestling with an area, a pocket of lust, I ask you, my brother, are you prepared, yes or no? And go right down through the ranks of this congregation.

28:12 And everyone unwilling to say yes, by the grace of God, I shall obey that charge. All others, say, go home. I've got nothing more to say to you.

28:26 Nothing more to say. Now, friends, that sounds harsh, but it's not harsh. And, oh, I trust, that some of you will mark this night as the night when you said, Oh, God, I cannot, I will not, I dare not go on howling upon my bed about this area of sinful lust. I dare not, I cannot, I will not go on putting, as it were, the band-aid of weak resolution and half-hearted efforts, Lord, from this night on, I'm determined to have the whole system

29:09 that feeds this lust by the power of your grace. Well, I must hasten on now from the fundamental assumption, the preliminary charge. Now, let me give you three specific directives. Perhaps, maybe, I'll see how time goes.

Specific Directive 1: Rid Yourself of Unnecessary Provisions

29:29 I may only give one of them. We do have our time of remembrance, and I don't want us to come overly weary to the Lord's table. So, we'll start and see how far we go. Assuming that by the grace of God you're going to do what you've been charged to do in the fundamental charge, preliminary charge, now then, the specific directives.

29:53 If we are to take seriously the injunction, do not make provision for the flesh to fulfill their lust, what will that involve? Well, it'll mean you'll look down through your list, and the first thing you'll do is this. You will rid yourself of every unnecessary possession, relationship, or activity which becomes a provision for the flesh. You will rid yourself of every unnecessary possession, relationship, or activity

30:36 which becomes a provision for the flesh. Suppose with me that the person who is in my study has confessed a problem with covetousness, a terrible sin of covetousness. And when I do a little probing around, and these illustrations are all hypothetical, I am not using one example that to my knowledge has ever come out of a personal counseling session. And after almost 30 years of dealing with people's sins, it's been awfully hard to come up with, let's suppose, that.

31:16 So if anyone feels he's being described, I have sought before God not to reproduce anything that has come to me in an actual counseling situation. So if the shoe fits, it's because we're all in the same boat together, or all have the same foot, perhaps is a better analogy. All right, having given that qualification, someone comes to me and says, Pastor, I have this terrible sin of covetousness. And I say, all right, how does your sin manifest itself?

31:46 He said, well, my covetousness surfaces most of the time when I go over to Willowbrook, and I'm just going over, supposedly, to window shop. But lo and behold, I come home with things for myself, or for my husband, or for my kids, that I know I really shouldn't have bought. And I say, oh, that's interesting. How did you buy them?

32:07 Well, I put them on my Master Charge. Oh, I put them on my Visa card. Oh, you did. In other words, in working, without the family budget, your husband or your wife were together.

32:17 You did not agree that so much should be allocated for this or that. Oh, no, no, it was impulse spending. All right, and what was the occasion of your being able to indulge that lust of covetousness expressing itself in impulse spending? Well, it was the fact that I had my credit cards with me.

32:35 I say, all right. Now, is there any necessity in the structure of your husbands or your business or your wife's, man or woman, is there any necessity to have a Master Charge and a Visa? Well, no, not really. It's just kind of convenient.

32:52 You know what my counsel would be? Get your scissors, post haste, and right up through the middle, and then across the side, and thrash them. And when the announcement comes next year saying, enclosed is your Visa card, get the scissors, snip it up one side and down the other for the rest of your days. Until you die, make no provision for the flesh.

33:25 Your credit card in that case is not a necessary possession. It is an unnecessary possession which becomes a provision for your flesh so that when lust in the form of covetousness cries out to be fed, there you've got some juicy morsels in the cupboard in the form of a Master Charge and a Visa. Get rid of the food. Don't go home and moan and groan and pray.

33:56 Scissors out, man! Scissors out, woman! Now, that's obedience to Romans 13, 14. And for the flesh, make not provision to fulfill the lust error.

34:17 Well, someone else comes and says, well, my particular problem is overindulgence in coffee. I just love coffee. And once I have my first cup, I've got to have my second, my third, and I've read enough and I know enough to know that when you're pumping five, seven, ten cups of coffee in your day, all that caffeine is not good. There's enough suspicion about its influence upon the heart, and I know it makes me edgy and cranky, but I just can't seem to say no to coffee when I smell it.

34:50 I say, what have you done? Oh, I've prayed. I've asked God. I've vowed.

34:54 I say, very interesting. You got any coffee in the cupboard? Oh, yeah. There's a pound can there, and oh, very interesting.

35:03 Someone else says, my problem's Coca-Cola or Mountain Dew or something else. Someone else says, well, my problem is I just love my beer. I just love my wine. And I just can't seem to have a moderate amount.

35:18 And then I just go beyond that, and I've prayed, and I've asked, oh, is that right? Well, what have you got in the house? Well, I've got a six-pack in the fridge, and I've got a case down. We laugh.

35:32 You wouldn't laugh if you were a pastor. You'd weep. Now, you see, it's necessary that the human body consume liquids. It's essential to our physical well-being, to our very existence that we imbibe liquids.

35:54 But Coke or coffee or beer or wine, no one is maintaining the liquid necessary for life. So if the presence of Coke or coffee or beer or wine becomes in the cupboard for your flesh of the God of heaven, bloody your conscience, spiritual life, disgrace your savior, and run the risk of damning your soul for a bottle of Coke

36:39 or a bottle of Bud or some Bougelais or Bordeaux for a cheap ripple, make not provision for the flesh. My friend, I didn't put this here. This is God's word. The application of that word in the concrete realities demands that you rid yourself of every unnecessary possession, every unnecessary relationship or activity, which becomes a provision for the flesh.

37:20 A young man comes to me and says, Pastor, I don't know what to do. I'm having a terrible time. Every time I go out with this particular girl, before I know it, we've gone from holding hands to kissing and then into heavy petting, and we know it's wrong, and we ask the Lord to forgive us, and then we ask God to help us, and we vow we'll never do it again, but we fall again and again. Ever occur to you, young man, the best way to get rid of that problem is never to go with that girl again?

37:50 If you're not married to her, you have no commitment that demands that you still be in her presence. It may be just as simple as saying, Look, we are both so weak in the same area, we are no good for one another, and break the relationship. Do not make provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. I tried to word that word of counsel carefully,

38:32 and I used the word unnecessary possession. But don't be too quick to say something is necessary when it isn't. Every one of us sitting here tonight with two feet thinks that our feet are necessary. You let one of us get an advanced case of diabetes and have the right foot become shot through with gangrene, and the surgeon says, May I have your permission and the permission of your wife to cut off your foot.

39:02 It's amazing how what you thought was so necessary now is expendable. When life itself is involved, you're willing to go with a stump. Yes. Right now, those of us sitting here with two kidneys, think they're both necessary, but if life depended upon the removal of one, as one in our own relatives or one of our own congregation recently discovered, they were willing to sign the paper to be rid of the one.

39:36 My friend, don't be so quick to justify that possession, that relationship, and that activity, which continues to be the occasion of sin in your life by saying, Oh, well, that's a necessary possession, relationship, or activity, I can't relinquish it. Jesus, it seems to me, addressed himself to that very mentality when someone saying, Well, I can't be holy at that price because it would mean ridding of myself of something that is a part of me. It's a right hand or a right eye. What did Jesus say to do with it?

40:15 Cut it off, cast it from me, pluck it out, cast it from me. That's the language of our blessed Lord. Now, in saying this, I must underscore the fact that I said, rid yourself of every unnecessary possession, relationship, or activity which becomes a provision for your particular lust. I didn't say go around ridding everyone else of similar things and make rules for everyone else.

Personal Application and Caution Against Legalism

40:51 That's one of the great dangers. If something in the cupboard is a provision for a peculiar lust of mine, I assume that if I combine my brothers with my brother, I assume that if I combine my brothers with my brother, other's pantry and see the same commodity in his, it must be the same thing to him. I have no right to assume that. Now I'll tell something on myself, and this is a real situation. Before the Lord

41:14 saved me, I had an addictive, idolatrous attachment to sports, particularly competitive sports of a group nature. And when the Lord saved me, I soon discovered that I simply could not hack the demands of competitive sports. So as I grew as a Christian, I realized that for me, Albert N. Martin, there would have to be no regular competitive group sports. Now exercise is necessary

41:46 for a healthy, useful existence. Some need more than others, and in my constitution I happen to need more than others do. So for me, running by myself, working out a little bit in the basement with some equipment, there by myself, gives me all the exercise I need without any unnecessary provision for the fleshly lust to have an idolatrous attachment to competitive sports and to fall prey to pride. Now does that mean when I go by on a Tuesday night and see the fellows of the church playing basketball, or on a Monday night see them engaged in the church league in softball, I sit there and

42:30 say, oh, Lord, hasten the day when they get as spiritual as I am and no longer want anything to do with... No, no, I rejoice. In fact, I envy them. I say, Lord, it must be wonderful to be able to go out there and play with all your heart and go home and forget it. I can't do that.

42:49 I came up with the bases loaded, and we were two runs behind in the last of the seven, and everyone was dependent on me, and I popped up. I'd be reliving that moment for the next three weeks. I would. I'm that perverse.

43:04 Such a remaining lust to excel in competitive sports. It is idolatrous to me. Now, knowing that, I make no provision. But I have no right to legislate for others, nor do I have any desire to. My friend, you, after obeying that initial charge, getting before God prayerfully, honestly, and thoroughly writing down everything in your own life that becomes

Conclusion: Call to Action and Preparation for the Lord's Supper

43:38 a source of supply for some area of remaining corruption, you must then begin deliberately to rid yourself of every unnecessary possession, relationship, or activity which becomes a provision for that particular lust. Well, I think you've heard enough for tonight, and I don't want us to come exhausted to the Lord's table. But I think we'll leave it there and finish up the rest, God willing, next week.

44:16 Because if you're serious about making progress, you've heard enough to keep you busy for a week. You've heard enough. And for those of you that are not serious about doing what you've been told to do, I would not add to your condemnation by giving you more light that you're going to treat with indifference.

44:37 My earnest prayer is, and I know it's the prayer of my fellow elders who've helped me in the composition of the message tonight. As I sought their counsel last night, that first point, that preliminary charge, was one that they helped me to see as essential. And so the whole first point, in a sense, I'm the mouthpiece for your elders who helped compose that part of the sermon with me and for me. And it is our deep longing that not a few will look back to these few Lord's Day evenings as a time when, by the grace of God, you will be able to see the Lord's face again.

45:14 If you turn the corner in dealing with that area, that pocket, that pattern of lust that seems to be so resistant to the grace of God, it may be something that fits the category of the context. Excessive appetite for food or drink, some deviation of sexual behavior, some evident manifestation of interpersonal tension, strife and envy. It may be something far. It may be something far more subtle, known only to God and to you.

45:48 But, oh, my friend, this is the word of God. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and do not make provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts. And what a wonderful thing that we should, in the providence of God, have had this sober meditation as a preview to coming to the Lord's table. For the last part of that verse, as I've reminded you night after night, is never to be undertaken, divorced from the first.

46:15 And it's in coming to the Lord's table that we exercise ourselves in putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. We reflect upon His dying love. We think of the intent for which He died to make us a holy people. We think of the glorious truth that we died with Him.

46:33 We were buried with Him, raised to newness of life. And as faith exercises itself upon Him and the great realities of our union with Him, we are thereby clothing ourselves with the Lord Jesus. And in that context, let us go forth to our closets, to our places, alone with God, to obey the charge and begin to do what must be done that we make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. Let us pray.

47:09 Our Father, we are very conscious again this night. That the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? We confess to our shame that we are masters of rationalization, of healing ourselves slightly, of mistaking a howling upon the bed for an earnest seeking of You with all the heart.

47:39 We pray that the word may bite deeply and pervasively throughout this entire congregation. tonight. O God, we plead with You that many will mark this night as the night when new levels of attainments in grace. were realized

48:02 because there was a new level of judgment and honesty in seeking to make no provision for the flesh. to fulfill the lusts thereof. O God, God, seal the word to our hearts and continue with us as we gather to the table of our blessed Lord. May we, as we come, joyfully put on the Lord Jesus in the fresh actings of faith, and thereby be equipped to make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof.

48:42 Hear our prayer, receive our thanks for your goodness and mercy in meeting with us. Amen.