After the Sermon Part 2

Introduction: The Misery of the Unconverted and the Blessings of God's Promises

0:03 The following message was delivered on Sunday morning, August 6, 1995, at the Trinity Baptist Church of Montville, New Jersey.

0:14 What a blessed thing to be a Christian and to know that all of those promises in quotation marks from stanza two to the end are ours in Christ. And for you who are out of Christ, and life right now holds little in the way of anything that could be called trials that are like a river and a flood, a fiery furnace of affliction, for most such will come sooner or later. Some slip through, Psalm 73 underscores that, some slip through life relatively unscathed, but the scripture says as an ordinary rule,

0:58 man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward. What a horrible thing to have no such promises to undergird you when your rivers come, when your fiery furnaces come, to face them all alone,

1:16 then to go off into an eternal fiery furnace, into an eternal flood of the unleashed fury of Almighty God. If you're not a Christian, whether you have any felt sense of it or not, you are in the moment, most miserable, pitiable condition imaginable. May God grant that just the singing of the people of God and the ringing affirmation of their faith will make you jealous to become one of us and cause you to flee to Christ who stands ready to be to you everything that he has pledged himself to be in the word and promise of the gospel.

2:00 Let us pray together. Our Father, what thanks can we, render unto you for your exceeding great kindness and mercy to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. How we thank you for each of these words of promise that we have sung back to you, that we have sought to sing into our own hearts. We thank you for the privilege of being your children and of having blood-sealed promises, as our stay and as a bulwark to our souls

2:45 in the midst of the trials of this life. And as we face that greatest of all trials, death and judgment, to have your promises that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. We bless you. And we earnestly pray that you would deal in grace and mercy, with those who sit among us strangers to these blessed realities.

3:17 Speak to us now as we turn to your word. Further instruct us out of that word that as a company of your people we may become by your grace better hearers of your word of truth. We ask through our Lord Jesus Christ.

3:39 Amen.

The Duty After Hearing: Retaining the Word Through Repetition and Supplication

3:48 In Luke's Gospel, the 8th chapter in the 18th verse, our Lord uttered a very simple but clear command to His disciples when He said to them, Take heed therefore how you hear. This command had reference to the very words which He had spoken and would yet speak to them as the inner circle of His followers. It is these words which in their time of worship, timeless authority and constant relevance have formed the basis of our series of studies through these weeks of the summer on the subject of how we ought to hear

4:32 the word of God preached and taught to us. In the opening up and applying of this duty to take heed how we hear, we have considered together the duties it demands of us prior to our hearing of the word, the duties it demands of us during the hearing of the word, and we are now considering the duties it demands of us after we have heard the preaching of that word. And in addressing the third and final category of this theme, we have first of all sought to identify what I have called the central concern

5:16 that ought to fill our minds and hearts subsequent to our exposure to the preached word. And I expressed it this way that having heard the word preached, it ought to be our most crucial concern to retain that word in our hearts and to experience its appropriate influence upon our lives. That was the central concern identified. Then last Lord's Day, we began to examine what I have called the specific means prescribed.

5:56 What means has God given to us and revealed in His word that under His blessing will enable us to retain the word in our hearts and to experience its appropriate influence upon our lives. And we had time last Lord's Day to underscore justly one of those means appointed by God for the attainment of that end, namely the retention of the word in our hearts and the experience of its appropriate influence upon our lives. And that word was repetition.

6:41 Repetition. And we turn to a number of scriptures which indicate that along with the witness of generalization, scripture also underscores that the repetition of the truth heard is a means ordained of God for its retention. We come this morning to address the second word which identifies another means ordained by God to assist us in this retention of the word. And it is the word supplication.

Supplication Defined and Its Purpose

7:23 Now the word translated in our English Bibles supplication means to ask or to make request. The noun deesis which is translated and rendered in our English versions as supplication comes from the verb deomai which means to ask, to beg, or to implore. So when I say that supplication is a means given to us by God I am using the word in the sense that it is used in such familiar passages as Acts 1 and verse 14

8:06 Acts 1 and verse 14 where we read these all with one accord continued steadfastly in prayer with the women and married women the mother of Jesus and with his brethren. Here it was prayer in the form of supplication and then Ephesians 6.18 with all prayer and supplication in the spirit where supplication is made a distinct kind of the more general discipline of prayer. Philippians 4.6

8:44 where we are told to be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving to let our request be made known unto God. And as surely as repetition is the prescribed means to rivet the word to our minds supplication is the prescribed means to write that word upon our hearts and to incline our hearts to desire to believe and to obey what the word requires.

Two Aspects of Supplication: Writing the Word Upon the Heart

9:25 And as we take up this second word which identifies the means prescribed for this retention of the word in our hearts and its appropriate expression in our lives I want us to consider supplication under two very elementary headings. First, we supplicate supplicate supplicate supplicate God that he would write his word upon our hearts and then secondly we supplicate God that he would incline our hearts to believe and to obey the word written upon them.

10:07 In other words, we will focus first of all upon that which we supplicate God to do upon our hearts and in the second, in the second category we supplicate God with respect to that which we want him to do with our hearts. In the one, we're asking God to do something upon us and in the other, we're asking God to do something with us. First then, we supplicate God that he would write his word upon our hearts. And the warrant for this is seen in what I'm calling the promise and command of God

10:52 addressing this very issue. When we turn to the scriptures, we find a strange parallel in both commands in which God tells us to write his word upon our hearts and yet promises in which God says that it is his work to write his word and his law upon our hearts. We find in Ezekiel 18 and verse 31 a thing that God commands his people to do that later on in this very prophecy God says that he himself will do.

11:34 In Ezekiel 18 and verse 31 God says through the prophet cast away from you all your transgressions wherein you have transgressed and may you be saved. And in the second, we find make you a new heart and a new spirit for why will you die O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dies says the Lord Jehovah wherefore turn yourselves and live. Here God commands that there be the making of a new heart and a new spirit.

12:16 He says this and this alone. Alone is the way to avoid spiritual death. Make you a new heart and a new spirit for why will you die? I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked unless the wicked is transformed by making a new heart and a new spirit he will die in his sins.

12:40 Yet in Ezekiel chapter 36 it is God who says that he will do the very thing he commands here in Ezekiel 36. Ezekiel chapter 18. Here in Ezekiel 36 God says in verse 26 a new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you shall keep my ordinances and do them. Here the thing God commands

13:25 his people to do he says he will do. And this is true with regard to this writing of the word upon the heart in Proverbs 7 and verse 3. Solomon commands his son to do this very thing. Proverbs 7 and verse 3.

13:44 Bind them well we'll back up to verse 1 my son keep my word lay up my commandments with you keep my commandments and live and my law is the apple of your eye bind them upon your fingers write them upon the tablet of your heart my son you are to write my laws my commandments my words upon the tablet of your heart and yet as we've seen in Ezekiel 36 and in a parallel passage Jeremiah 31 31 and following it is this very thing that God himself says that he will do. Jeremiah chapter 31

14:27 and verse 31 Behold the days come saith the Lord I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah contrasts it with the old covenant and now verse 33 this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days saith the Lord I will make a new covenant I will put my law in their inward parts and in their heart will I write it and I will be their God and they shall be my people and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother saying know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them saith the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin

15:12 will I remember no more now is this a hopeless contradiction or is it another of those expressions of the marvelous synthesis of God's revelation that the very thing he commands us to do or to be he promises that he will do or make true of us and in us well obviously it is not the former but it is the latter the promise and command of God with respect to this matter of the writing of his law of his precepts upon the heart is not in contradiction to the promise that God will do it

15:55 for the promises of God are not given to negate the necessity of prayer and of effort but they are given to the end that we may have both an incentive for our efforts and a confidence that our efforts will not be in vain and as we take that great promise principle and apply it to the subject in hand when our Lord Jesus says to us take heed how you hear and we bring to that general command the analogy of scripture and realize that scripture has much to say about being a fruitful or an unfruitful hearer of the word

16:39 a doer or a non-doer of the word it has much to say about whether or not we believe or hear and do his commandments when we bring then the analogy of scripture to this aspect of our study and ask the question how can we be good hearers who retain in our hearts and seek to find appropriate expression in our lives that word which we've heard there must not only be repetition to keep that truth etched upon the walls of the mind but there must be supplication that that word may be written

17:23 upon the fleshy tables of our hearts while we have no power in and of ourselves to effect this God commands us to do it that we might feel the necessity and responsibility and yet in our sense of helplessness we supplicate him to do in us that word that which he commands us to do but which we know we have no power to do but which he has graciously promised to do for us and that's not just bringing human logic to this apparent contradiction for we find in one of the very passages that I've quoted

God's Promises and the Necessity of Inquiry

18:07 Ezekiel chapter 36 that God explicitly states this principle in Ezekiel chapter 36 after all of these I will do this I will do this I will do this notice what God says further on in that chapter the God who says in verse 26 I will give you a new heart I will put a new spirit within you I will take away I will give I will put I will cause this very God in verse 37 says thus saith the Lord God for this moreover moreover will I be inquired of

18:50 by the house of Israel to do it for them will I will and now God says for the very thing I've committed myself to do I will be inquired of by my people to do it for them and so these promises in which God commits himself to do something are not meant to be viewed as things that we look at from afar and sit back and wait for God to somehow fulfill them without any engagement of our own hearts and minds and without the earnest supplication of our hearts

19:33 that God would do for us the very thing he has committed himself to do in his own word of promise and so when it comes to this matter of taking heed how we hear and we find ourselves convinced that this central concern ought to be our concern and it has begun to be a kind of spiritual obsession that what we hear in the preaching and teaching of the word will indeed be retained in our hearts and we will have a holy restlessness until we begin to see it finding an appropriate expression in our lives what are the designated means to that end?

20:18 well there must not only be repetition in some of the ways that we sought to highlight by way of practical pastoral counsel last Lord's day for that repetition will primarily fix the word upon the mind but there must also be joined to repetition supplication that the living God would himself by the power of the Holy Spirit etch that word upon the flesh sleep tables of our hearts in other words that that word might invade and take up residence in the very citadel of our being for what the heart is the man is

21:02 the scripture says guard your heart above all that you guard for out of it are the issues of life Jesus said the good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth evil things and then he highlights specifically in the context the use of the tongue for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks but out of the heart the scripture says are the very issues of life as a man thinks in his heart so is he for out of the heart are the issues of life and while it is possible to retain in the mind

21:45 by frequent repetition the substance and the form and even the very words that have come to us in preaching it is not until that word has taken possession of the heart until that word has invaded and taken up its residence in the very citadel of our being where motives are first born where intentions and perspectives and volitions have their seat and origin in scripture the heart is the very seat of our being out of it are the issues of life and it is there that motivation and perspective

22:29 it is there in the heart that desire and choices all have their origin and therefore it is in nothing less than the heart that the word must take up its residence it must in the imagery of Ezekiel 36 and Jeremiah 36 31 it must be written upon the fleshly tables of the heart and while God has committed himself to this work he has committed himself to it not that we should be passive but that we should supplicate him earnestly that he would do the very thing that he has promised

Practical Implication: Earnest Supplication for Heart Inscription

23:12 practical implication then should be quite obvious to us we must seek as our great privilege and solemn duty to cry to God in focused earnest supplication that the word preached to us would be inscribed upon our hearts by the very finger and power of God the Holy Spirit we must beg God that he would be pleased to do what he has said he would do in the writing of his word upon the table of our hearts and that as he would do that work that he would so write it upon our hearts

23:56 that long after we may forget many of the things in which that word came to us this or that detail of exposition this or that illustration that enforced it that the substance of that precept of that promise that precedent of biblical perspective will have its permanent resting place in the very citadel of our being that God says is the very fountain out of which all the streams of life flow and so I would entreat you my brothers and sisters in seeking to take heed how you hear

24:39 with respect to what we do after the preaching of the word to add to our growing discipline of repetition the discipline of supplication supplicating God that he would write his word upon the fleshly tables of our hearts and if we find that the word seems to fail to take up residence in the heart could it not be that this is one of the reasons that James would say to us in the language of James for in verse 2 you have not because you have not because you ask not God says I will I will I will

25:24 I will I will moreover for this I will be inquired of to do it clearly indicating without the inquiry to do it we will miss the very blessing that is promised you have not because you ask not how much spiritual leakage there is for one to focus earnestly supplication that the preaching and teaching we have heard and perhaps even repeated so that there is some mental and intellectual retention of its substance is never brought into the very center of our being

Two Aspects of Supplication: Inclining the Heart to Obedience

26:08 in answer to fervent supplication to the living God but as we turn to the scriptures and seek to find clues as to what happens when the word is brought home to the heart we find another strand of emphasis in particularly the hundred and nineteenth psalm where we are taught that we must not only supplicate God that he would write his word upon our hearts but that secondly we need to supplicate God that he would incline our hearts into the path of faith and obedience to the word thus written upon them not only

26:52 must God put something upon our hearts God must do something in our hearts and let's look at about five or six clear illustrations of this in the hundred and nineteenth psalm I'm sure almost all if not all of you know that this lengthiest chapter in the Bible is one in which you have eight verse sections each section beginning with a letter in the Hebrew alphabet and so for a Hebrew it was a means of helping to retain by this memory device the substance of what was here and the great theme

27:37 of this entire psalm is the relationship of the heart and life of the child of God to the revealed will of God in his precepts and in his commandments and in verses four and five we have as it were an entrance into the whole perspective that I'm going to attempt to underscore for you and with you you have commanded us your precepts that we should observe them diligently the psalmist acknowledges that God has given us his precepts not merely to inform us or somehow to satisfy our curiosity to expand our understanding of his ways

28:22 and his work no you have commanded us your precepts to this end that we should observe them and not just observe them casually but observe them diligently that being so notice the prayer that automatically flows out of that perspective ways were established to observe thy statutes he says Lord you have commanded us you have revealed to us your will in the precepts to the end that we should observe them diligently that being so then what else can he pray but oh that my ways

29:06 were established to observe your statutes here is a prayer that what God has revealed might become so regulative of every facet of his life that you could call his life a reflection of the very ways of God so that his ways are forged by the precepts and the commandments of his God oh that my ways that is all of the patterns of my life in every dimension of my life were established to observe thy statutes and notice how this then focuses recurringly throughout the psalm

29:50 in the area of his concern for his heart verse 11 is a very familiar text to many of us thy word have I laid up in my heart that I might not sin against thee but notice what leads into that verse back up to verse 9 wherewith shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word if a man young or old but a young man with his peculiar temptations the peculiar pressures upon him to a life of independence to a life

30:34 of selfishness of ambition of covetousness of lust all the peculiar temptations when the potential for sin is fueled by the energy and strength and many times the naivety of youth how shall a young man cleanse his way the answer is by taking heed according to your word if his heart and mind are regulated by the word his way will be cleansed that being so verse 10 with my whole have I sought you let me not wander from your commandments

31:19 you see he realizes that his ways will not be conformed to the precepts of God unless his whole heart is engaged in walking in the ways of God so he cries with my whole heart have I sought you and he pleads that he will not be allowed to wander from the commandments and then he uses appointed means he lays up he stores up the word in his heart he is not merely retaining it in its form in his mind but he is storing up the word in his

32:03 heart so that where motives and moral decisions and ethical perspectives are first forged and formed and come to birth there the word of God will be exerting its pressure upon all of the interaction of thought and of judgment and conscience and will and emotions and everything that makes us the mysterious creatures we are as image bearers of God notice that engagement of the heart in conjunction with the word notice it again in verse 32 I will run

32:48 the way of your commandments when you shall enlarge my heart you see the way of God's commandments are there before his mind he has confessed that he is cleaving to God's testimonies and he acknowledges that within his own renewed heart he wants not merely to trudge at a snail's pace in the path marked out by the precepts of God he wants to run the way of God's commandments he wants an obedience that is hasty and enthusiastic and whole

33:33 souled he finds the imagery of running the way of God's commandments but he says if I'm to do that God you've got to do something not only in enabling me to have your word stored up in my heart but to have the heart itself enlarged he's asking God to enlarge his heart to increase the capacities to be sensitive to the ways and will of God a heart that is increasing in its love to the God whose commandments are being stored up in the heart he knows that there must be a work of God in his heart if he is rightly

34:17 to work out his response to the word verse 36 incline my heart unto your testimonies and not to covetousness he is conscious that there is within him a principle that would naturally lead him to this vicious wicked sin of a passion to have more things and he says left to myself my heart will go in the direction of covetousness but left to myself it will not go in the direction of your commandments one of which is thou shalt not covet and he says oh God I know the precept it is there it is retained

35:02 in my understanding the commandment is there it is not a matter of ignorance but Lord it is a matter of disinclination unless you intervene and do something in me he cries incline my heart unto thy testimonies and not to covetousness further on in this psalm look at verse 133 133 establish my footsteps in thy word and let not any iniquity have dominion over me establish my footsteps

35:45 in your word do not let any iniquity have dominion over me he is conscious that it is not enough to know the steps that are marked out by the word and to have a desire to go in that direction and to have God must establish his footsteps in the word he is conscious of the need of grace and of power that God alone can impart and the psalm closes on a note that reminds us of that very principle I've gone astray like a lost sheep seek your servant for I do not forget your commandments he had retained the commandments

36:30 in his understanding by exposure and repetition they were there but he was conscious that there had been a disparity between what he knew to be the will of God and what his experience was I've gone astray like a lost sheep and he cries to God seek your servant he knows that only God can bring back the wandering sheep he knows that God alone has the power to restore his feet back into the path of obedience and therefore he cries to God that God would do this work in him and that's what I'm seeking to set before you when I say that in supplicating God we must not only

37:14 cry to him that he would write his word upon our hearts but that he would incline our hearts to believe and obey the word that he himself has objectively revealed in scripture and it is no other word that we are asking him to do to write upon our hearts it is not some additional word it is not some word above the written word that some would say is the dead letter and then there's something above and beyond and outside of it no in this entire psalm all of the various Hebrew words used for judgments and testimonies and God's ordinances God's law God's commandments

37:58 all of them refer to God's revelation given we would say in black and white on paper it is God's objective revelation whether we ever look at it whether we ever consider it whether we ever yearn for it whether we ever know it's powerful inscription upon our hearts it is God's objective truth but he's not content that there is a revelation out there objectively given by God he is yearning that he will know that word not only internally implanted within his heart but a heart that is brought

38:42 into conformity with what that word requires one of the old writers has said and I've quoted it several times over the years from this pulpit that in conversion the greatest and most difficult work of God is winning the heart to him that's the great work of conversion winning the heart for God and the great work of the Christian life is keeping the heart with God that's the great work of the Christian life keeping the heart with God and you see how all of that comes together under the preaching of the word

The Ongoing Struggle with Remaining Sin and the Need for Supplication

39:27 if the proclamation of the word is the great instrument of God for our ongoing sanctification then that word must get beyond merely being retained on the walls of the mind by careful attention while the word is preached by appropriate responses while that word is preached by judicious repetition of it that it might be fastened firmly upon the walls of the mind it must take up residence in the heart in the citadel and seat of our being and it must and it is for that that we must cry to God and then

40:11 we must continually cry to God that this heart of ours with its remaining sin that would naturally incline us to covetousness and to the breach of all ten of the words of the Decalogue remaining sin that in its kind though not in its extent or power is in the same way opposed as it did when sin reigned in us doesn't become something of a different nature its power is broken the extent of its influence is radically altered but our remaining sin and all that is yet within us has the elements of enmity

40:56 against God it has affinity to that which is contrary to the ways and will of God is revealed in scripture and it is with this heart that we must reckon when we consider the ultimate fruit of the preached word in our hearts and in our lives now having sought briefly to lay before you what I mean by this discipline of supplication following the preaching of the word supplicating God to write his word upon our hearts and supplicating God that he would incline our hearts to obey the word

Application to Unbelievers: The Stony Heart and God's Promise of a Heart of Flesh

41:40 written upon them I want to make application first of all to you who sit here who are strangers to the grace of God and to the God of grace do you not see once again how your life is a clear witness of the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian that is talked about in the Bible sitting here as an unconverted man or woman boy or girl the last thing in the world you want is for the precepts and the promises and the ways of God revealed in his word the Bible to take possession of your heart

42:24 so that there is no facet of your life that is not brought through the filter of God's word that's as far from your desires as it is that you would here and now be plunged into a boiling vat of oil you have no desire that the word of God be written upon your heart that there be an internal delight in the ways of God in the will of God and supremely in the salvation of God in Christ and in the Savior who is the great focal point of all of that word from Genesis to Revelation

43:07 you have a heart that is described in Ezekiel as a heart of stone it is hard it is unfeeling it has no nerve endings with respect to Christ and his glory Christ and the marvelous provisions he has made for sinners Christ and his will and his word and his ways and his people you have a heart that with respect to those things is unresponsive and hard as a lump of stone that's what God says you have by nature a stony heart and it's that heart that is enmity against God it's not subject to the law of God

43:52 neither indeed can it be what a tragic thing to sit under the preaching of the word and to have no more effect upon you than someone trying to use his fingernail to etch words in granite my dear unconverted friend don't be don't be proud of your ability to push the word away it ought to humble you that you can sit under that word that promises life and salvation in Christ that calls you in the words of Ezekiel to turn from the way of death and to live to make you a new heart

44:36 and a new spirit that you might not die in your sins and I would plead with you again that you would not let another Lord's day come and go finding you brought to its threshold with a hard heart and pillowing your head tonight with a hard heart cry to the God of heaven who says I will take out the heart of stone and I will give them a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within them and cause them to walk in my statutes and to keep my judgments Jesus died to effect all of the blessings

45:20 promised in the new covenant we are told in Hebrews that in coming to Jesus we come to him as mediator of the new covenant and in the new covenant God says not only will their sins and iniquities will I remember no more but God says I'll take out the heart of stone and I will give a heart of flesh and I'll put my spirit within you my dear unconverted friend those blessings are to be had in Christ and you're to go to Christ for those very blessings that not only can he alone effect them he stands ready and willing to do so he himself entreats sinners indiscriminately sincerely

Application to Believers: The Privilege and Delight of Obedience

46:04 earnestly to come to him with the promise that none who come to him shall be cast out but to you dear people of God who desire with all of your heart to please your savior let me ask you do you begrudge that God lays upon you this gospel demand that having heard the word you should make supplication to him that he would write that word upon the fleshy tables of your heart as he had promised he would do and then pray that he would incline your heart unto obedience and not to covetousness and when you sense yourself

46:49 straying from that word pray seek me oh God for I've gone astray like a lost sheep bring my heart back into a loving embrace of all of your word and your precepts and bring my feet into conformity with that word and with the revelation of your will what a privilege to be a child of God and to say I find delight in obeying the God whose service I once regarded as the most aggravating drudgery imaginable isn't that what you thought about God's will in God's way when you were unconverted you thought the most miserable

47:34 way in all the world to live would be to live under the horrible restrictive constraints of the commands of God and the words of Christ but now you have found that his yoke is easy his burden is light there are some little gospel choruses that have a lot of good solid truth in them and there is one that takes those words of Jesus and captures them beautifully his yoke is easy his burden is light I found it so I have found it so he leadeth me by day and by night I found it so have you found it so can you say that once

48:18 you regarded the ways and the will of God as embodied in the precepts of God as the most miserable constricted restrictive way in which a man or woman could possibly live and now you look back and depending on how you look at it you blush with shame you weep with self loathing and then you laugh at your folly as you've come to know his yoke is easy his burden is light he's a gracious master his commands are not grievous he directs us into the very paths for which God originally made us God did not create man in Adam and Eve and place

49:03 them in the garden to be servants of the devil and be put into the way of death and of destruction he created them that in fellowship with him and in loving obedience to him they might know fullness of joy in communion with their God as they walked and as they ran in the way of the commands of their God it was the lie of the devil that obedience to God is burdensome obedience to God is the way of restricted knowledge God doth know in the day you eat you shall be as God's knowing good and evil and believing his lie that plunge themselves in all of their posterity into death into bondage oh dear

49:47 child of God never never never never allow yourself to be enticed into thinking there is some pleasure true pleasure to be had outside the blessed bounds of the revealed will of God no no that's the way of death the way of bitterness in the ways of God there is nothing but pleasantness even the bearing of the cross brings us into the communion and fellowship of the sufferings of Christ and what is more blessed than holding communion with the blessed Lord of glory who came from heaven to take upon himself all the liabilities and responsibilities

50:31 of providing a just pardon and a righteous acceptance with God may I entreat you then as the people of God lest there be increasing loss between what is preached and what finds expression in your hands and feet and in your tongue and ears and eyes not only to add to the preaching of the word our hearing of that word and taking heed to that word not only repetition by which we seek to fasten it upon the walls of the chambers of our minds but supplication

Concluding Prayer: Forgiveness for Prayerlessness and Confidence in God's Promises

51:15 that God would write it upon our hearts and that God would do whatever is needful in our hearts to incline them into the way of obedience to his precepts let us pray together our father we confess before you that so often we have failed to cry to you that the word we have heard would be written upon our hearts and we have not inquired of you for the

52:00 very thing you have promised to do forgive our prayerlessness forgive our presumption but we thank you for the encouragements of your word that when we do ask you to do the very thing you've said you would do we know that we are not asking amiss to consume it upon our lusts but when your promises frame our petitions and supplications we have the encouragement of your word that if we ask anything according to your will we know that you hear us and if we know that you hear us we know we have the petitions we desire of you so Lord while there are many things that when

52:45 we pray we must acknowledge our ignorance that we know not how to pray and for what to pray surely when we pray write your word upon our hearts we need not append if it be your will but we may pray in the confidence of faith that you are committed to do the very thing we ask and then oh Lord we would plead with you that we may learn the discipline of supplicating you that our hearts will then be so wrought upon by you that they will be prepared to run the way of your commandments that they would be inclined to your precepts and not unto covetousness

53:30 we confess oh God that our hearts are an unruly thing we pray that you would govern them that you would subdue all of the remaining rebellion and all of the remaining tendency to waywardness oh God may none of us rest short of heart dealings with you having heard the preaching of the word then our God we beg of you again have mercy upon those who have come to another Lord's day carrying with them that horrible internal spiritual reality of a stony heart oh God may this

54:14 day not close without that heart of stone being removed and by your grace and power you implant the heart of flesh seal then your word to our hearts and dismiss us with the blessings of your grace upon us we plead with thankfulness for the privilege of gathering again in your special presence to worship you and to hear your word proclaimed hear us we ask in Jesus name amen