Take Heed to Thyself, Part 2

Review of 'Take Heed to Thyself' and the Organic Nature of Truth

0:06 Let us turn again this morning to Paul's first letter to Timothy, 1 Timothy chapter 4, and since a number of you have joined us since the first session yesterday afternoon when it was my privilege to open up the scriptures in your hearing, I will take just a few minutes this morning to bring into focus the main threads of thought that we considered, since in a very real sense the four messages which I am privileged to have are an organic whole. I hope that each one is in some measure complete in itself, but there is a true sense in which

0:45 they form one organic whole, and since the truth of God has this interrelatedness, I like the mentality that caused our Puritan forefathers to write bodies of divinity. They saw this, that every facet of God's truth. was organically tied to other facets of that truth, and it's only as we see that wholeness of truth which we've heard from Dr. Spikeman, even with relationship to the Christian ministry, that we do begin to truly understand it.

1:18 I stated at the outset of our study yesterday that 1 Timothy 4, verses 12 through 16, is in the realm of practical instruction for the Christian ministry what a text like Rome 8, 29, and 30 is in the realm of a compact statement of Christian theology, particularly soteriology. Where in all of Scripture will you find such a sweeping, comprehensive statement of God's saving purpose in Christ in so short a space as you find in Romans 8, 29, and 30? Well, my contention is, or assertion, that this passage, 1 Timothy 4, verses 12 through 16, is a dictionary.

2:02 It's a translation of the directives found in many other parts of Scripture with reference to the Christian ministry. So to master its content, to absorb something of its directive, to begin to live and walk in its light, is to open up many other areas of the Scripture as they speak to the subject of the Christian minister and the responsibilities of his ministry. Our attention is focused particularly upon verse 16, in which the author says, The Apostle Paul charges Timothy with these words,

2:36 Consider very briefly the three main areas of thought that are found in the text. There is this command to intense watchfulness in two areas, take heed to thyself and to the teaching. There is a charge. There is a charge to persevere in that particular course, continue in these things.

3:09 There is this gracious promise that in so doing, a saving purpose will come to fruition in the servant of God and then through the servant of God to listen to him. And then we went to your teaching, but to yourself. And these two possibilities go together in an inseparable way. There are two facets of this command.

3:53 We are to take heed to ourselves, first of all. And then...

3:58 Our teaching. This we find in Acts 20 and verse 28, where the Apostle charges the Ephesian elders in these words, take heed unto yourselves in applying the first part of the command. You see, we have the broad overfilled in with the zoom lens upon the command, and then we put it under a microscope. So that's how we've approached the text.

4:29 I suggested that there were three areas in which I would seek to... Those engaged in ministry to others, we must take heed to ourselves that we ourselves are in a state of grace.

4:50 Because a man is a minister does not mean he is no longer under obligation to obey 2 Corinthians 13, 5. Examine yourselves. Prove yourselves. Know ye not your own selves that ye are in the faith, or how that Christ is in you, except ye be reprobate.

5:10 Because we are ministers, we are not exempt from the command of Peter to make our calling and our election true. And so we looked into the scriptures to see how we, as ministers, as those involved in a peculiar place of privilege and responsibility, are to examine ourselves whether we are indeed in the faith. Now, so much for the review. That, in a nutshell, is what we covered yesterday.

The Minister's Call to Personal Growth in Grace

5:35 Now I wish this morning to draw out two other lines of consideration under the general heading of taking heed to ourselves. What does it mean for me, as a Christian minister, to take heed to myself? Well, it means I not only take...

5:51 ...heed to see that I am in a state of grace, but secondly, I am to take heed that I grow.

5:59 In this, the Apostle Paul says to Timothy, Be diligent in these things. Give thyself wholly to them that thy progress may be manifest unto all. Progress is made in Timothy's hearers through his official ministry. He himself is to be making progress in grace.

6:23 And so I would, from this text, and within that perspective, I want you this morning to take heed to yourself as a Christian minister, that you yourself grow in grace.

6:39 ...grow in grace.

6:40 He grows in grace the way anyone grows. ...convey to others through the ministry of the word.

Systematic Assimilation of God's Word for Personal Sanctification

6:59 My answer, and the answer of scripture is, I've tried to come up with... If you find one, please seek me afterwards, and I'll qualify it.

7:25 The word of God must be assimilated in a devotional and a systematic order. Now, when I...

7:31 use the word devotional, I do not mean with the disposition that comes to the... ...threads words through the eyes until something jumps out and fathoms itself upon us.

7:41 I'm not speaking in that sort of mystical, non-rational approach to the scriptures. ...and Greek texts, you may be consulting the commentaries.

7:51 I'm speaking of that treatment of the scriptures that has no conscious or deliberate reference to my official ministry to others. I'm speaking of that kind of dealings with the scriptures, that has primary reference to my own relationship to God and the word of God, which states more clearly that the scriptures are to have this function in the life of the minister, and no passage which states it more clearly than the one referred to in the previous hour. 2 Timothy chapter 3. Will you turn to it, please, for a moment?

8:37 In verse 14, the apostle is charging Timothy, in the face of declension and unbelief on every hand,

8:45 to continue in the things which he... ...he has heard.

8:47 Verse 14. Abide thou in the things which thou hast learned and been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned then. This is a direct word to Timothy. And that from a babe thou, Timothy, hast known the sacred writings of the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee, Timothy, able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

9:15 Timothy, the first function of scripture, in you, is to be this precise thing here. Be the instrument of your own salvation. From a child you've been acquainted with the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise to salvation. Through the scriptures you've come to the discovery that God is your creator.

9:38 You are his creature. Through the scriptures, Timothy, you've come to the discovery that you are under moral obligation to keep the law of your God. Through the scriptures your conscience has been awakened, to that painful awareness that you've offended this God. You fell in Adam, and that you have ratified, as it were, a thousand times, a thousand over and over again, that revolt in Eden by your own conscious and willful sin.

10:07 Timothy, the function of scripture is such, throughout these discoveries and then the further and gracious discoveries, that in Jesus Christ sin has been judged, and all who repent and believe in Christ have forgiveness, and all who repent and believe in Christ have forgiveness, and all who repent and believe in Christ have forgiveness, Timothy, the function of scripture in you as a Christian minister is first of all to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. What he goes on to say,

10:37 Scripture is inspired of God and is also profitable. You see, it has a further and a more extensive purpose in you, Timothy.

10:48 Scripture is inspired of God and is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness, Now notice verse 17, that, not the people of God, that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely on every good work. And who is the man of God? By cross-referencing this passage with 1 Timothy 6 and verse 11, we see that it's a particular term that Paul uses of Timothy. 1 Timothy 6, 11, But thou, O man of God,

11:28 flee these things, says to Timothy, is the instrument of your own salvation, but its second and great and perpetual function in your life, Timothy, it is to be the constant instrument of your own instrument with regard to doctrine, reproof, correction, that a Christian minister may be complete, that you as a minister may be furnished unto every good work. Then and only then does he charge in chapter 4, verse 1, I charge thee in the sight of God and of Christ Jesus, who shall judge the living and the dead by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word, what word?

12:11 Timothy, that word which has been, first of all, the constant instrument of your own instruction and sanctification. Stated a bit differently, Paul is indicating to Timothy that it is the word of God furnishing me as a man, which is to take precedence over my work of proclaiming that word. It is conditional to my job of proclamation to others its word. It is the work of instruction and sanctification in and to me.

12:49 I charge to you this exhortation, I entreat ye to those of you who are my fathers, in age and in experience, is that we must take heed to ourselves, that we ourselves grow in grace, and we do primarily in ministering the word to others, unless that ministry is the outworking and the overflow of the ministry of the word to our own hearts. Amen. Chapter 15.

13:24 The substance of my ministerial tasks were found into my own being until they became part and parcel of my own life, was molded and governed by it. Thy word was found, and thy words were found, and I did eat them. Thy word was unto me the joy, the rejoicing of my heart.

14:06 I regard these day sessions as an exclusive congregation. I'm not ignorant of the lay folk who are here, some of you ladies, but you'll forgive me. If I'm constrained to direct my remarks more particularly to the pastors and ministers and students. For five years it was my privilege to be engaged in an itinerant ministry going from church to church in a Bible teaching type ministry and conferences.

14:36 And all of that ministry was in evangelical churches. I have never had the problem of whether or not I should court the favor of those who reject biblical authority and historic Christianity. They've never flirted with me, and I have never flirted with them. So it's sort of been a standoff.

14:54 And during that time, I would always attempt when going into a church to establish true friendship with the pastor and remember that I was a guest and behave myself accordingly. And I would seek to establish a time when we could get together during the day to pray together, to share one another's concerns. And after the second or third day when we got over all that caginess and trying to impress one another and the rest and began to really get down to the gutsy issues of where we really lived, time after time, I would ask the pastor a question something like this. What is your pattern?

15:29 What is your schedule? Personal, devotional reading of the scriptures. By that I mean going through the full range of divine revelation in some kind of a systematic order, whether it's once a year, once every two years, once every three years. I'm not a stickler for a program, but do you have a plan in which you have set out to expose your mind and life and thoughts, thought and perspective and ambitions and your total concepts of life and of the ministry to the whole breadth of divine revelation in a systematic way?

16:03 What is your plan? Do you know that in five years being in the hands of the men who had some kind of a plan of systematic devotional assimilation of the Word, the confession that came again and again and again was that the duties of official ministry all the way from catechizing to communicants, classes, to the preparation of sermons and everything in between had so pressed in upon the time and the energies that this book was no longer an instrument of personal sanctification.

16:47 It was almost exclusively the instrument of official ministration to others. To understand why those very churches in which these men labored as teaching elders were filled with unscriptural teaching, unscriptural practices, both in church life and in evangelism were tolerated and never even questioned. Evangelical traditions that had gathered around that church like barnacles on the hull of an old ship were there and nothing was active to break them off.

17:25 A great measure to be found is because the mind has certain rocks of thought and the life then following that mind for as under that line for as a man thinketh in his heart so is he and those thoughts in practice are unscriptural. This is a very challenging and very sensitive exposure to the totality of divine revelation. If all of scripture is profitable for teaching then the willful neglect of any part of it means that there will be great defects in aspects of my teaching. If all of scripture is profitable then for reproof and correction

18:09 and instruction in the way of righteousness to the extent that I willfully neglect any part of it, there will be defects in my life that I do not see projected upon my people by preaching. Many times over and I see who sits in an ivory of these corporation type churches with ten full time ministers but as pastor of a smaller church seeking to have a shared ministry

18:54 with other elders and deacons who serve in their appropriate place as one who seeks to be amongst his people and have a heart for his people to weep with those who weep to rejoice with those who rejoice with those who weep to rejoice, I trust I speak synthetically something of the pressures I know something of all of those influences that would undercut this but I plead with you plead to yourself that you yourself grow in grace and you cannot grow in grace if you neglect that most fundamental discipline of growth in grace

The Fruits of Personal Word Assimilation: Freshness, Living Doctrine, and Balance

19:28 that discipline that you lay upon your own people and not as a Christian minister. It is this that will keep us fresh in our relation to Christ himself. Amen. You remember the record in the 24th chapter of the Gospel of Luke.

20:00 These two who were walking with heavy hearts and in a short time their testimony was did not our hearts burn? And what brought the burning heart?

20:13 A cold of many colors ecstatic experience and the calm of angels unto us the springs concerning himself

20:41 fragrance of present living intimacy with Christ the sensitive souls in the assembly are aware of it the Nazi goes on the Nazi goes on the Nazi goes on the Nazi goes on the Nazi goes on continue to counsel the distressed and give direction to the awakened discerning begin to sense that there is perhaps in some of us a harshness that begins to enter the preaching it's a lot easier to be negative and censorious with a heart that has lost the fragrance of the presence of Christ it's hard

21:25 it's very hard unless you're a play actor to set forth the glories of God in the face of Christ when you're not beholding them that. The constant fragrance of Christ as Paul says, we are a sweet flavor of Christ unto God even in those who check the message in them that perish, yes as well as in them that are saved. But it's the fragrance of Christ that exudes from our ministry. Or is that fragrance to be kept in that secret place? We need to ourselves

22:03 God's word to keep us fresh in our relationship to Christ. It will keep the great doctrines of the faith a living thing because we see them in connection to their head the Lord Jesus Christ. Raise the most precious doctrine loose from him becomes a heart seen in relationship to him and in your ministry. People how he is the sum and substance, the stone of all and then the doctrines live and catch fire

22:47 and cause hearts to be ravished as they reflect the glory of Christ. It is this alone in the third place that will keep from imbalance in our ministry. The tragedies of the fall is the mental imbalance it has produced. I've often wondered what would Adam's mind have been like had it come to full development without the curse of sin one great manifestation of which is this matter of mental imbalance.

23:16 To have a mind that explored God's universe without any imbalance but holding all things in their proper tension and in proper relationship to one another. See when this imbalance is carried over into our ministries we are not rightly representing our God. What can keep us from this? Well one of the great means is that constant exposure to the word of God. Theological

23:52 conviction. So you would say that you stand in the tradition of reformed theology and thinking. Basic answer is looking through the New Testament the virgin mind asking God that I might approach that as a disciple not as a master standing above it but as a subject sitting beneath its authority and its power I'd come and read my reading in Matthew to Matthew 11 and I'd read those words of Jesus I thank thee Father Lord of heaven and earth thou hast hid revealed even

24:35 so father it to me. As I'd meditate upon that I'd say you know that sounds like what some of those people who are called Calvinists talk about divine sovereign in the work of your human nation and so I'd think and I'd meditate and I'd say but I can't have that and so I'd finish up Matthew and be reading along and then I'd come into a passage like John 6. No man can come except the Father which has sent me it seems to say that man doesn't even have the ability to get to the remedy let alone make the remedy. You're bad off when you can't even get to the doctor. You're bad

25:17 off when you need the doctor but when you can't even get to the doctor to get what you need unless you're drunk then I'd say ah but that has some frightening implications and so I'd sort of push it under the rug but it wasn't long before I was in John 10 and I'd read the words of our Lord. I said he cannot believe because he allowed my truth. It's a statement that he did not lay down his life for everyone. In the same context he says I lay down my life for the truth and you're

25:51 not right. Christ's redemptive purposes well you see I'd put it under the rug and try to forget it but it wasn't long before I was in John 17. The authority over all he should give eternal life to as many and it brought the issue up again. Well then I'd push it under and then I'd come to some of those statements in Acts. They believed

26:32 through grace as many as were ordained to eternal life believed and I'd push it under the rug and then I was in Romans. Romans 9 and that really used to drive me up a tree. I said it must be that I'm drawing the Russians from his premises because I'm coming up. Some of the commentators have been quieting me down and take away this disturbance and I said well if what they say is true that

27:17 this is just a vague national election in which divine selectivity doesn't touch individuals on the basis of sovereignty, on the basis of something else, why then the objections are cleared away. So that can't be the right interpretation. If you're understanding Paul's line of thought you'll come up with the objections he anticipated. Well then I'd push it under the rug and I could go on. It isn't

27:40 long before you find yourself in Ephesians 1. You see what happened? I could never come to the place where I said look, reject that position I have nothing to do with it. It's a closed issue because God was constantly reopening the issue by his word.

27:58 At the same time, at the same time I can remember thinking to myself look, if I ever come to embrace what is called Calvinism, I know one thing I'm going to embrace those things in such a way that I sit on my backside doing nothing because God's on his throne because I find that same apostle who in Romans 9 speaks of that free, unbounded sovereign selectivity of God in Romans 10 speaking of his evangelism and evangelistic passion in the very ninth chapter with the souls of a broken heart saying, my, I have continual heaviness and my prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. And so I said, well whatever Paul believed about those

28:42 things, it didn't kill his evangelistic passion, it didn't kill his spirit of prayer, it didn't kill his desire to see the gospel extended so if I ever can embrace that I know I must embrace it in such a way that rather than cutting the nerves of compassion and evangelistic it ought to sustain and feed the very life of those activities. Well brethren, I give you in a few minutes that brief biographical intimation of what I'm trying to get across when I say that systematic exposure to the word is what will keep from imbalance and I've only taken one facet of doctrine and there are many other areas, some of the things

29:26 Mr. Spiken has been speaking about I've sat here with a broken heart saying why is the food in Toronto the pension claims expense to all of life? 2 Timothy 3 16, food for faith intact and it is God's means of disciplining us in the total life of righteousness that it will rightly absorb our servants and portray the consciences of the people of God through the expository

30:07 ministry of the word, social contacts and his contacts and his business associates, the education of his children, he can't be different to that why in the stationing and the admonition of the Lord to be in the cost and the revelation, a few devotions and I'll

30:50 give them the Sunday school class and then I'm done? No!

31:04 Circumstances?

31:25 Take seriously these things

31:37 for your people. The key to it that constant exposure to the word in the secret place with God the freshness and the fragrance in your relationship to Christ causing the doctrines of the word to lose, keeping from imbalance in short this discipline of secret devotional consistent systematic exposure to the whole spectrum of divine revelation that provides the soil of an anointed ministry. The truths that have burnt their way into your heart in the secret place are the truths which coming from your heart

32:20 as living poles will burn their way into the hearts of your hearers. The truths that have torn through your own heart like a gleaming plowshare will be mighty in your hands to tear through the hearts of others. The truths that have distilled like dew upon your own parched spirit will be the truths that will distill like dew upon the parched spirits. Take heed to yourselves brethren, that you yourself grow in and you cannot grow in greater to the word.

The Maintenance of a Spirit and Habit of Secret Prayer

33:00 Then secondly, it must be the maintenance of the spirit and the habit. Not only the exposure to the word, but the maintenance of the spirit and the habit. Revelation, it's somehow the grace that is stored up in Christ

33:33 of the people of God. Philippians 1.19, Paul says this will turn to my salvation through your prayer. You know how to give good gifts to your children. How much

34:11 more shall the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him. Here, in secret prayer that all taproots of an anointed ministry are to be found. Sins are constantly exposed. Psalm 91. God has set our sins

34:35 before thee, our secret sins, in the light of thy countenance. Instruct and swagger around feeling like you've made it until you get into the secret place. And you begin to engage in true prayer. Meditation upon the greatness, the grandeur, the majesty, the holiness of that one who calls himself the high and the lofty one, who inhabits eternity. And you begin to sense

35:04 something of that uncleanness. Those specific sins that have gathered around you and almost imperceptibly attach themselves to you until you go into the secret place. It's there in the secret place that true perspective is both gained and maintained. Psalm 73.

35:24 The psalmist is looking out and everything just seems upside down. He says, what's the sense of being a godly man in an ungodly age? Look at that old wicked, crooked man down the street, chomping on his big fat cigars, crooked as can be.

35:42 Long vacations, peaceful death. Child of God over here, afflicted day after day, can't pay his bills, can't make ends meet, kids sick, wife in the hospital. He said, doesn't make sense. He said, until, until I went in to the sanctuary of God.

36:03 Then he got his perspective straight. The New Testament counterpart is 2 Corinthians 4.18. While we look machine, Paul says, but on the things that are not seen, things that are seen are temple, but the things that are not seen, the minister.

36:29 If you think you're going to get it, young men, forget it. Go into something else. Substance to your people served up attractively and orderly, you seek to present that sterling as a spiritual sacrifice unto God in the presence of his people.

37:00 In the world to use all this. In the secret place, remembering who you're doing it for, you'll get sour, my friend, and you'll be another one of those joining the ranks of the has-beens. It's there in the secret place. Please, men, it's there in the secret place that you

37:43 reaffirm. In sin you'll be seasoned out of season, Timothy. Ever keep before you the God who's permitted you, the God before whom you'll stand. Keep that perspective, and I say it's impossible to keep it unless there is the habit and the spirit of secret prayer. It's

38:18 there in that place that those carking cares that bleed away your mental and spiritual energies are roamed and your weakness is exchanged for his strength, for even the youth shall fail. The young men become weary, but they that wait upon the Lord shall exchange, shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall

38:50 walk and not faint. They that go through the forest, so that you can put a loose, that you quote No, no. They engage God in prayer, who find themselves mounting up with wings as eagles, running and not becoming weary, walking and not fainting. For your careful and repeated study, the section in Charles Bridges' classic work on the Christian ministry, on the minister's It's the best statement I know in all of English literature that I've encountered

39:32 this very discipline, and in the interest of time, I must leave it. But then there was a third facet of growing in grace that is so essential, particularly for the Christian minister. It's true of all saints, but in a special way of the Christian minister. If we ourselves would grow in grace, we must not only systematically assimilate the word to ourselves, but we must maintain the spirit and the habit of secret prayer, but there must be the maintenance of a tender blood-washed conscience

The Maintenance of a Tender, Blood-Washed Conscience

40:06 at any cost. Those who defile and condemn the apostle's statement in Acts 24.16, standing in the presence in Acts 24.16, exercise

40:50 myself to have a conscious void of offense toward God and men. This is the very, which we get our English word, ascetic. It's a transliteration from the Greek word. An ascetic, one who subjects himself to rigorous discipline. I

41:18 myself, subject myself to this conscious spiritual discipline, and I do it, he says, constantly, and it's clearly defined, to have always a conscious void of offense to God. If I'm blushing into the face of my God, then whatever would cause me to blush, immediately having recourse to the cleansing of Christ's blood, and to be able to look out uncondemned into the face of my fellow man, and know that if men hate me, it's for the truth's sake, and for the truth's sake alone. I submit to you that there is no searching,

42:03 ministry in the pulpit, of any duration, unless a man is maintaining a tender blood-washed conscience in the Christian life is almost completely overlooked in our day, but it holds a central place in New Testament teaching. For Paul says to Timothy, the end of the charge is this. I'm charging you that you should get after these people teaching false doctrine, but the end in view is this. The end of the charge is love out of a pure heart, a good conscience, and faith. Later on in 2 Timothy

42:41 1, he indicates that the first step to apostasy is casting off faith and a good conscience. Then men make shipwreck of the faith. Oh, my dear brothers in the ministry, be to yourself that you keep a tender, blood-washed conscience. Conscience, boy, of the face to God. Consciousness

43:10 that you're accountable to God for the dangers of the ministry are great. There's no time clock for you to punch. That person that sits in the pew, who wakes up so morning and says, well, I just don't feel like being with it. He pays for it, my friend.

43:23 The pine clock shows up at the end of the week 37 hours instead of 40. But you can wake up in the morning and say, well, I just don't sort of feel with it. On the TV and watch the morning show or something else. Conscience smites you, or you're being true to your task, and then you begin to rationalize.

43:45 Yeah, but the Lord knows you've got to unbend the bow. You know. That's the way you can even, as we heard this morning, find a text to justify your action. You shouldn't be looking at it. But then you rationalize and say, well,

44:10 you know, if I'm going to be a minister who has that ring of contemporaneity that the preacher talked about, and if I'm going to articulate to the times, how can I speak to my kids about the pop hedonism unless I pick up Playboy once in a while and read it? Oh, it's virtue when you do it, of course. It's not that there's a lecherous something in you that's being fed. Oh, no. Prostitute the ministry

44:42 when you try to preach out of that content. First thing I have to do is to be searching with themselves. Preach these innocuous

45:13 words. You can love into a missionary art.

46:00 Through preaching grows tender blood washed. Why Paul could stand and face men as he could fearlessly. Why? A conscience void of offense to God.

46:13 When you look down at your wife and your kids on Sunday, you can look them straight in the eye and know that if nobody else respects what you say, your wife and your kids are forced to say, that man lives. That means you'll have to humble yourself with your own children when you discipline them in anger instead of in principle. You've got to get on your knees with your own kids and say to them as I've had to do so many times, will you forgive daddy? You deserve to spank him. But daddy's spirit was not

46:48 right. Will you forgive your daddy? And pray with your children. So when you stand to preach Sunday morning, you can look your own children in the eye with a conscience.

46:59 Look your own life in the eye. I find that the greatest test is whether or not this text is having its right influence upon me. Brethren, that you yourself grow and you grow the way every Christian grows. And I submit that these are three of the irreducible minimum of what it means to grow in grace. The best thing

The Urgency of Prioritizing Personal Spiritual Disciplines

47:42 that could happen to many of you here at this institute is to the busy schedule. You find some place to get alone with God and sit down and start talking to yourself and then start talking to the Lord and start reconstructing your list of priorities and stop fooling yourself. We all can cultivate the unholy art of puttering and then convince ourselves we're busy in the Lord's work. God have mercy upon us. Perhaps imperceptible

48:19 to us, but not to our people. This anointing, a breath of heaven upon all of us have never known. What is your first and great responsibility? As you do this, that you will save those.

48:49 This is not some kind of an inverted self-love. No, no. We do this that we truly serve. And I know of no clear evidence that the devil knows this and the fact that he fights this more than anything else in the life of a minister. He's a strategist.

49:09 He knows where to strike significant blows. And why is it that he strikes completely and incessantly at this area of the life? Because he knows in all the rest. May God help us to ourselves that we are in a state of grace, that we ourselves grow in grace.

49:32 Time did not permit me to touch on the third aspect. Perhaps we'll deal with it this afternoon. That we ourselves are manifesting the...