Take Heed to Thy Teaching

Introduction: The Minister's Responsibility to His Teaching

0:00 Before turning to the scriptures, I do wish to express my sincere appreciation for the privilege that has been afforded me sharing in this particular institute for the gracious invitation from the faculty committee responsible for the arrangements of the institute, and And then for the warm reception, which I have felt in the personal contacts that I have had with a number of you, and for the joy it has been to minister the Word of God in so receptive and congenial an atmosphere.

0:46 Often I am asked in various places when I am privileged to minister, particularly in pastors' conferences, what do you know about Reformed Seminary? most of what I've had to say has been second-hand information, good information, but now that I've been here and had a little bit more of the feel of things, I trust that I'll be able to be more accurate and enthusiastic in my recommendation of the seminary and what it has to offer to young men who aspire to a ministry in the Word of God. Now, we turn again this morning to the passage which has formed the basis and the framework of our consideration together, 1 Timothy chapter 4 and verse 16.

1:39 The Apostle Paul, having given to Timothy many directives relative to his responsibilities as a minister, responsibilities discharged in a peculiar role as an apostolic representative to the churches there in the area of Ephesus. He then turns to Timothy himself and says in essence, Timothy, though you have much to do with reference to the establishment of the churches, both in right doctrine and in right life and church order, you also have much to do with regard to keeping Timothy right as a minister. And his charge to Timothy reaches its climax in verse 16, Take heed to thyself and to thy

2:30 teaching. in these things, for in doing this thou shalt save both thyself and them that hear thee. For three sessions we have considered in some very practical ways what it means for the Christian minister to take heed unto himself, his first and great responsibility being the nurture and the cultivation of his own life and walk before God. The soil of an anointed ministry in the Word is an anointed life, and we must never separate those two things.

3:12 Now this morning, I wish to direct your attention to the last part of this command, take heed to thyself and to thy teaching, or more properly translated to the teaching or to the doctrine. Now just a word about this word, teaching or doctrine. It's one of these words which in the original can be used in the two major ways that we use it in the English language. If I say of a certain person his teaching was atrocious, I could mean that the manner by which he communicated the substance was a butchering of all the known and accepted rules of communication, or I could mean that which he communicated was such an aberration from the truth that it should be called atrocious.

4:07 And the word is used in that two-fold way in the scriptures. Sometimes teaching refers to the thing taught. Other times it refers to the act of communicating that thing. You have that particular use, the second use, in verse 13.

4:27 Till I come, and these are activities, give heed to reading, to exhortation, to teaching. and the focus here is upon the activity of communication. However, I believe here in verse 16 that the apostle is not so much saying to Timothy, Take heed to thyself and to thy teaching, that is, to how you are communicating truth, though he does deal with that in other parts of this letter and his second letter to Timothy, but rather he is concerned with the substance and the content of that which Timothy communicates as a minister. So he is charged to take heed not only to himself, but to his teaching, that is, to the doctrine,

5:14 the substance of that which he communicates in the name of Christ. And if this is the proper meaning of the word in this context, and I believe it is so, then you see it brings us head on into this very crucial issue, namely the place of truth, with reference to the accomplishment of God's saving purpose. For I remind you of the promise with which the text is concluded. If Timothy is to save both himself and his hearers, He is to do so in a course in which he takes heed to himself and to his teaching.

Truth's Centrality in God's Saving Purpose

5:56 The Apostle is joined these things because the saving purpose of God is brought to fruition by the instrumentality of men. Yes, that's why they must take heed to themselves, but by men conveying the truth of God. Hence, he must take heed to his teaching. The scripture makes clear that truth is central in the accomplishment of the saving purposes of God, both in the inception of spiritual life and in the continuance and the development of that life.

6:31 Just a few texts under both of those headings. When does divine life come to a dead sinner? How is that life conveyed? James 1 in verse 18 gives us the answer.

6:45 Of his own will begat he us. The impartation of divine life is an act of divine sovereignty. When men are born of the Spirit, they are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. It is no accident that the three analogies used with reference to the impartation of spiritual life are analogies in which there is a strict monergism, birth, resurrection, and creation.

7:20 Those are the three dominant analogies for the impartation of spiritual life. That which is created does not cooperate in its creation. That which is born does not cooperate in its birth. That which is resurrected does not cooperate in its resurrection.

7:40 And so James, picking up this same concept, says, Of his own will begat he us. But what was the instrumentality? By the word of truth. The instrument was the word of truth.

7:56 And all of Berkhoff's attempts to say that this text does not mean that, notwithstanding, James means to convey the idea that truth is instrumental in the work of God in the new birth. And you have a similar statement in 1 Peter 1.23. Having been born again, none of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever.

8:28 Or you have Paul's words in 2 Thessalonians 2.13. God be thanked that he has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through, by the instrumentality of what? sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth whereunto he called you by our gospel.

8:51 And then of course that classic statement in Romans 10 couched in the context of those passages dealing with God's inscrutable sovereignty the mysteries of the activity of divine will and the interplay with human will that very missionary passage How shall they call upon him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that publish good tidings.

9:23 And he goes on to say, Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. So then, at the inception of spiritual life, truth is central. But this is not only true of the inception of life. It is true in the development and in the continuation of that life.

9:43 In our Lord's high priestly prayer in John 17 and verse 17, he prays, Father, sanctify them in the truth. Thy word is truth. Indicating that the process of sanctification goes on in the context of truth. So whatever the Spirit does as the Spirit of life and of power, He always does as the Spirit of Truth.

10:10 And I think it's significant that next to the new title comforter, the paraclete, the one called alongside to help, the title which our Lord gives to this coming one, more frequently than any other, is the Spirit of Truth. When he, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will testify of me. He will take the things of mine and show them unto you. When the spirit of truth is come, he will reprove the world of sin.

10:39 In other words, we must never set up a dichotomy between the subjective, powerful, inward, experimental application of redemption by the energy of the spirit. Never set up a dichotomy between that and the strictest concern for and the most careful proclamation of objective truth. The moment we begin to think in any kind of a way that brings a bifurcation between inward experimental religion and objective inscripturated revelation and truth, we're in a dangerous realm. realm. No, no, Timothy, you must not only take heed to yourself and be a godly man.

11:23 Take heed to yourself that you are not only in a state of grace, growing in grace and manifesting grace, but, Timothy, my saving purposes or God's saving purposes, Timothy, are to be accomplished not only through a holy life, but by the instrumentation of truth. Ephesians 4.13, that passage in which we have the concept of the body of Christ, Framed together, growing up into maturity. The apostle gives us these words.

11:51 But speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things. Who is the head, even Christ. You see how he fuses the things? People say, look, let's not be overly fastidious about truth.

12:08 Let's just be concerned about love. Other people say a plague on your house. We want truth. 16 ounces to the pound, full home, truth.

12:19 Love, well, that's something else. That's for the liberals. That's for the people who have ecumenical mania. Who want to have a togetherness orgy.

12:30 Love is for them, we're for truth. No, no, no, no, Paul says, Speaking the truth in love. Not love without truth, not truth without love. You find the apostle of love thinking in the same way, in the same way, 2 John, he says to the elect lady whom I love, where? In the truth, for the truth's sake which is in us and with us. No separation. And so I say scripture teaches again and again that truth is central, not only to the inception of spiritual life, but to the continuance and development of that life.

Taking Heed to Teaching: Content vs. Manner

13:13 So Paul's exhortation is very understandable. Timothy, take heed to yourself and also to your teaching, for if the saving purpose of God is to be realized in you and through you, you must be concerned about truth. Now, having established the principle, and I trust given the basic meaning of the command, And in what way are we to take heed to our doctrine or to our teaching? Well, that could be subdivided into two basic areas, and the apostle is again and again picking up those themes in his first and second letters to Timothy.

13:51 And the two areas of division are these. Timothy is to take heed to the content of his teaching, that is, what he teaches, and secondly, he is to take heed to how he teaches. And I won't worry you with giving you all the references that are found. Let me just take one or two specimen passages.

14:10 Right here in the fourth chapter, he says in verse 11, These things command and teach. That's content. These things command and teach. That's the substance of what he communicates.

14:24 In his second letter, he says, The servant of the Lord must not strive, be argumentative, contentious, but be gentle to all men. apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing. That's how he is to teach. So you have those contents and manner.

14:41 These things, content, command and teach, manner. There is to be authoritative declaration. There is to be the application of the best rules of communication. You are to teach them.

The Apostle Paul's Mentality: Content Over Motive

14:55 Now, time will only permit in this session this morning, if I had about three or four more, I like to move on into the manner of our teaching but I do want to say a few words about this matter of content We are to take heed to our teaching primarily as to its content And to enforce this lesson I want you to look with me at two passages in which the same man is writing, and in which there is a marked contrast in his attitude and his mentality to these things related to the content of our teaching. The first passage is Philippians chapter 1. What I'm attempting to do is trying to set a biblical framework for the kind of mentality

15:42 that says what I communicate is more important than how I communicate it. Philippians chapter 1. Let's begin reading at, so we catch the thread of thought. Verse 12. Now I would have you know, brethren, that the things which have happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the progress of the gospel. I'm here in prison. I want no one conducting a pity party for me, Paul says. Don't you all be mourning that poor Paul is no longer out preaching?

16:26 He said, no, no, I would have you know, brethren, that everything that's happened to me has been overruled of God for the extension of the gospel. Verse 13, so that my bonds became manifest in Christ throughout the whole praetorian guard and to all the rest, and that most of the brethren in the Lord, being confident through my bonds, are more abundantly bold to speak the word of God without fear. He said, what has happened to me and the grace God has conferred to me has been used by way of example to pour fresh strength and courage into the hearts and minds of other gospel preachers. Now, he said, they're not all in the same category.

17:06 Verse 15, some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife and some of goodwill. The one do it out of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the gospel, but the other proclaim Christ affection, not sincerely, thinking to raise up affliction for me in my bones. That curse of professional jealousy. No doubt there were some preachers who were the big cheese until Paul came along.

17:32 And then they became little cheese.

17:36 They were the ones who were asked to speak and lead the conferences until Paul came along. And then they were sitting out there in the pew.

17:43 And they couldn't take this. Paul's largeness of heart. He could take a thing like this, but these were men of little shriveled, narrow hearts. And let me say by way of an aside, if there's one plague from which you should break, God's gracious deliverance, you men aspiring to the ministry, it's this curse of professional jealousy and this jockeying for ecclesiastical position.

18:05 It's an abomination in the sight of God. Fellows going out and taking little country churches just as a stepping stone to a bigger church. And church after church, in denomination after denomination, is blighted because of short pastorates of men who are using the church as a pedestal upon which to prove their efficiency, only to move on to a more lucrative salary and to a bigger place of influence, not for the cause of Christ, but for the promotion of their own ministerial image. May God deliver you from that.

18:37 When you go out to that little run-down country, parish to labor, for all intents and purposes, you go there to bury yourself for the sake of Christ and his church. You don't look upon it as marking time until something, quote, better comes along. If you have that spirit, go out and dig dishes or sell bananas, but don't go into the ministry. I plead with you, dear young brothers, don't go into the ministry.

19:01 Well, you see, the apostle Paul didn't have that spirit. But some other people did. They hear Paul's in prison, they say, Ah, good, now we're going to show him up. We're really going to preach and we'll become the big cheese again.

19:13 Other people, their motives are pure. Now, what's Paul going to do? What should be his reaction having become aware of these two kinds of attitudes?

19:27 Well, look at verse 18. What then? What then? What shall I do in the face of this?

19:33 Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, And there the context indicates that the word truth is not talking about the content of the message, but the motive behind it. Whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and therein I rejoice, yea, and I will rejoice. For I know that this shall turn out to my salvation, and through your supplication and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Now get the setting. The content of the gospel has not been tampered with. Christ is preached, and for Paul that meant something more than simply saying the word Christ and Jesus six or eight or twelve times in a verbal proclamation.

20:23 Christ is preached to Paul meant nothing less than the Christ who had revealed himself to him on the Damascus road that one who was God's anointed prophet, priest and king the fulfillment of all Old Testament type and shadow who in the fullness of time was made of a woman born under the law kept that law, went into the Roman gibbet exposed his breast to the full brunt of his father's wrath against human sin, swallowed up death in death, broke the bands of death, came forth triumphant in resurrection, went back to the right hand of the majesty on high, where he sits as king and raised in power

21:11 and dispenses blessing to his church and to lost humanity. That's what preaching Christ meant to Paul, nothing less than that. He says these people are preaching Christ. Now some of them, oh, their motive is not so good.

21:26 But I can't deal with their motive. I wouldn't want to have their motive in answer to God's word. But I can't deal with their motive. But Christ is preached, and since the truth of the gospel is intact, God, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, will take that truth and make it effectual to the accomplishment of His purpose.

The Danger of Sincerity Without Truth

21:46 insincere motives but proper preaching of the content of the gospel and Paul says hallelujah anyhow now turn over to Galatians chapter 1 Galatians chapter 1 and beginning with verse 6 Galatians 1.6 I marvel that you are so quickly removing from him that called you in the grace of Christ unto a different gospel. What's happened here? Somebody's been monkeying with the content.

22:29 Which is not another gospel, only there are some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we are an angel from heaven should preach unto you any other gospel than that which we have preached unto you, let him be. And then he reaches into the grab bag of his own Greek vocabulary and he pulls out the strongest word he has for the curse of God. Let him be anathema. It's as though someone says, well, Paul, just a minute now, haven't you let your volatile Hebrew spirit break the bonds of Christian propriety? Haven't you got a little hot head? He says, no, my head's as cool as it can be in all of this.

23:17 As we have said before, so say I now again, with all of my rational faculties intact in the full employment of all the Christian graces infused by the Spirit, if any man preaches any other gospel than that which we receive. Let him be a machaba. Let him be a cursed of God. Now, what was the problem at Galatia? Well, the problem here was not a matter of motive. And reading the account of the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15, the motive behind some of this tampering with the gospel in some people was a very noble motive. You see, Paul had preached that men are saved, men are brought into the favor of God, into right

24:10 standing with God, along two fundamental principles. And this is the core of the gospel. Number one, they are accepted solely. And you underline solely, and you put it in red letters.

24:23 They are accepted before God solely on the merits of Jesus Christ. And secondly, the benefit of that merit is received solely by faith. Not a faith from an impenitent heart, not a faith that is non-productive. It is faith fused with repentance, faith issuing in good works, but the constant and dominant note of the apostolic gospel is, by grace are you saved through faith.

24:59 and those were the two pivots upon which the proclamation turned. Christ alone, faith alone. Now, these Judaizers came along and said, Now, everything Paul told you is all right, except we don't like his punctuation. He puts a period where there ought to be a comment.

25:18 When you ask Paul the question, Sir, what must I do to be saved? his answer would be believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved period they come along and say now let's just stretch the period into a common or into a semicolon believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be circumcised and keep the ceremonial law Paul says when anybody comes and tampers with the punctuation let the curse of God come upon them.

25:56 Well, what about their motives? Some of them are sincere. They want to preserve the best of the old covenant and fuse it to the new.

26:06 They want to maintain the cream of what came through Moses and join it to the new. Paul doesn't even bring into perspective what their motives may be. He doesn't care. For when the content of the gospel is tampered with, it does not matter how noble the motive may be, because when the content is tampered with and then believed, men believe a lie and they are damned, even if the one who forges the lie is as sincere as an unfallen angel.

Illustration: The Sincere but Wrong Doctor

26:49 Let me illustrate this principle from human experience. Suppose in a few weeks' time I begin to complain of severe stomach pain, day and night, and it really gets to me and finally I say to my wife here, I've just got to go to the doctor. And I have two options. There are two doctors in town who specialize in this type of problem.

27:12 One of them is a professed atheist. He takes every opportunity to mock the Christian faith. He is very unembarrassed in his hatred to all who profess adherence to the Christian faith. The other man is a sincere Christian who dearly loves the Savior and seeks to please him.

27:32 Never enters a day of practice without commending that day to God and seeking to practice in Christ's name and to Christ's glory for those healing arts that have been entrusted to him. So I go to the man who's the Christian. And I say to him, Doc, I don't feel too good, and I explain the symptoms, and he says, Well, we'll do what we can, and the Lord helping us will get to the bottom of your problem. So he gives me an initial examination, and he says, I really feel you need to be hospitalized for a couple of days.

28:03 So I'm hospitalized, and then they run all kinds of tests, make me drink all kinds of junk and take all kinds of x-rays and all the rest until, if I didn't have anything when I went in. I sure enough have something by the time they get done with me. Then after consultation with other doctors, he calls me into his office about a week later after I'm out of the hospital and he says, well, Reverend, I think we've got what your problem is. And he explains to me in non-technical language and I seem to understand. He said, now in the light of that, this is what I'm prescribing you do. And he lays out what I ought to do in the way of medicinal concomitants and all the rest. And I start taking the medicine In three weeks' time, my wife stands shedding tears over my casket in the funeral home.

28:49 When the autopsy was performed, they found out that because one little aspect of my symptoms had been overlooked, I was given a medicine that was the worst thing in the world I could take for that problem. That Christian doctor stands there, brokenhearted, when he gets news of this. What happened? He loved me.

29:12 He wanted to see me better so I could go back to my people and preach the gospel, and be a husband to my wife and a father to my children. And if he had his way, I'd live to be 80 and be able to preach until the last day of my 79th birthday, if he had his way. He dearly loved me. But what happened?

29:28 He made a wrong analysis and gave a wrong description, and all his love and sincerity could not cancel out the killing effects of the wrong menacing. Conversely, suppose I go to that doctor that hates Christians and hates the very mention of Christ. I go into his office and he happens to know me. He says, oh, you, Reverend, thought you dropped dead before now, but here you are.

29:52 What's your problem? I say, well, Doc, here's my problem. I tell him. I go through the same routine.

29:57 He says, well, let's hospitalize you. He does that, takes the x-rays, runs all the tests, and he calls me into his office, and Very gruffly, without any sense of personal friendship and the rest, he says, ah, here's what's wrong with you. We don't do something that'll kill you. Might be the best for you, but we're going to work on it.

30:18 And when anyone will tamper with it no matter what the motive he says The Anathema of God let it come

Reversing Paul's Mentality: The Modern Minimizing Approach

30:28 If the content is preserved and the motives are bad, this is, well, God will overrule that and deal with them in the day of judgment, but the content remains intact. I'll rejoice. Now, do you see how we have completely reversed that mentality in our day? completely reversed it.

30:48 Completely reversed it. The moment you begin to talk about being fastidious about the content of truth, not just for theological students, but in the proclamation of the most fundamental elements of the gospel, is it right to go to sinners and to say to them indiscriminately, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your own life.

31:20 And then to wrench a particularistic text out of John 10, directed to be sheep, to whom he says, I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly and apply that indiscriminately to rebel sinners, spewing out the venom of their unregenerate hatred to God and say, God loves you. Am I some kind of a relic from the Dark Ages when I say, oh my friend, is that the truth? Am I lacking in love because I say, is that the teaching of the Gospel? Oh, because of the Mark, look, look, don't be fair, they're sincere.

32:08 And if people are sincere and there's something of Jesus and something of the cross and something of faith in the message, don't be so fastidious. Sincerity is what counts. Precision and truth, that's not so important. It's purity of motive that really counts.

32:33 I say that this is a reversal of the mentality of the Apostle Paul. A complete reversal.

32:45 He says, sincere and sincere, that's not the issue. Well, the gospel is preached. The issue is, is it the gospel? Now for myself, he says, I seek to keep my motives pure.

32:58 I seek not yours, but you. I renounce the hidden things of darkness. I do not walk in dishonesty and craftiness. But he says with regard to others, I can't reach in and read and deal with the motives, but I can listen to the content of their preaching.

33:16 And he says to you, Galatians, says to the Galatians, you can hear the content, and if it's putting commas where I put periods, if it's putting brackets where there's blank space, don't you listen to them. You're sitting in your room some night, and all of a sudden you're startled. You hear what sounds like the fluttering of wings, and you turn around, and lo and behold, there's an angel that comes fluttering into your room. And the room is filled with light.

33:41 And you're struck with awe, as was Mary when the angel visited her to announce that her virgin womb would be the vehicle through which God would come amongst men. He says, though you hear the flutter of angels' wings, the room is full of the light of angelic glory. the angel says I've come to add something to Paul's gospel. He says you turn around and curse that angel.

34:09 Say I don't know who you are but I know the one place you haven't come from is from the presence of God. That's what Paul says. Though an angel from heaven come doesn't the scripture say no wonder for Satan himself transforms his ministers into what? angels of light.

34:29 And what can be more deceptive than apparent evangelistic zeal by which to create an indifference to doctrinal purity?

34:39 Hmm? What is more deceptive than a man saying, Look, I have passion to win the lost. Don't take me to task on what I'm giving the lost in the content.

34:53 And so we have this woolly thinking in our day, If men are sincere, if men are honest, that's all. It really matters. Just so long is there something of Jesus and something of the cross. Listen, the Judaizers have something of Jesus, something of the cross, something of atonement, something of resurrection, something of heavenly session.

35:18 It was their additions that brought this terrible indictment of the Apostle Paul upon them. And so I would charge every minister here this morning and every housewife, every mother, every father, every Christian, since every Christian is concerned with the propagation of the word of God, take heed to yourselves, yes, but take heed to your teaching. and particularly take heed to the content of that teaching. For content is of supreme importance.

The Priority of 'What' Over 'How'

36:01 Now you say, Mr. Martin, by saying that, are you indifferent to how we communicate? No. If that were so, I wouldn't be enduring the crude ride of airplanes as often as I do to go to pastors' conferences and try to help in what little way I can, giving lectures on some of the principles of effective preaching and pleading with the young men in our own church as I have a monthly class for them trying to pass on any things the Lord has taught me about how to preach and how to convey these.

36:32 No, I'm not indifferent to the how, but I'm saying, if there is to be any priority, it is to be what has over the how. And when you've got the right what? Then seek in the how to communicate it in the most effective, winsome, powerful, sharp, precise manner. The content must take precedence over manner.

The Overriding Perspective: The Whole Counsel of God

36:57 Well then, someone asked the question, I see the weight of the argument. I cannot gainsay that that's been a valid comparison of Galatians and Philippians. what then should be my overriding perspective with regard to content? I see the importance of truth, the centrality of truth in the inception of life, in the continuation of life.

37:21 I see that content should be supreme in my thinking. Now, can you give me something that will be a guideline as to what I should press towards in this area of content? And at this point I refer you to the words of the Apostle Paul in the 20th chapter of Acts.

37:44 In Acts chapter 20, the Apostle Paul standing in the presence of these elders from the church or churches at Ephesus,

37:57 reminding them of his ministry amongst them, reminiscing, giving instruction. says in verse 26 of Acts 20 the following words, Wherefore I testify unto you this day that I am pure from the blood of all men for them.

38:20 The statement that follows is an explanation of how he came to that place where he had a pacified conscience with regard to the discharge of his ministerial responsibility. he said when I go to bed at night whatever troubles me one thing does not trouble me that I have the blood of men upon my hands I have discharged my responsibility probably an allusion to some of the Lord's words to Ezekiel now what gave him that confidence well he tells us for I shrank not indicating that left to himself he might have shrunk back I shrank not from declaring unto you the whole counsel of God.

39:11 My conviction, Paul says, this pacified conscience is rooted in the awareness that I did not knowingly and deliberately, out of some kind of false sentiment, out of some kind of creature pride which made me manipulate the message and shape it and mold it after my own image. No, no, I slain not from declaring the whole spectrum of divine revelation.

39:41 In other words, Paul did not have the minimizing mentality. He had the maximizing mentality. And again, you see, with this reversal of the attitudes of Galatians 1 and Philippians 1, we've cultivated the minimizing mentality. And it goes something like this.

40:00 What is the final irreducible minimum of what I can give to men and still call it gospel?

40:08 Or to state it this way, what is essential and what is non-essential?

40:14 My friend, don't you dare accuse the living God of revealing something and then saying it was unessential. that's the only book in which God has enclosed his mind infallibly the only one by which we can read his mind and his words in that creation out there wouldn't you give God the credit of being selective in terms of what he put here of all the things he could have revealed This is all he's been pleased to reveal. Don't you see the almost blasphemous element in the mentality that says, I will sit above the Word saying this is important and essential, this is unimportant and non-essential.

41:07 Of course, anyone in his right mind accepts the fact that there is relative importance importance with reference to various aspects of divine revelation. Anyone who would say that the taproot was of equal importance with the smallest leaf on the outermost limb of the tree of divine revelation, something would be wrong with it. But if God has put that leaf on there, don't you call it unimportant? For all scripture is breathed out and is profitable, and the only reason it is there is because it is profitable.

41:42 And if it's there and it is profitable, don't you put one leaf in that great tree of divine revelation.

41:50 God was smarter than you when he put it in his word. I may not see its importance, but I'm not God. And therefore the concept that divine truth has been given as a trust was very real in the apostle's mind. He mentions it in 1 Thessalonians 2.

42:07 as we were approved of God to be entrusted with the gospel. Even so we speak not as pleasing men, but God who trieth our hearts. If you are made a trustee, we have some of the trustees at the seminary here. When the original trustees die and go to their reward, and other trustees are elected, what is the task of a trustee?

42:32 He is appointed to preserve intact all that relates to the intent and purpose and properties of the Reformed Theological Seminary. He's not to go to the trustees and say, I don't know why they put that in there, I don't scratch that up. On this part, oh no, I don't want to keep that in. No, no, when the trust is deposited to you, your responsibility is to keep it in terms of the intent of its original giver.

42:58 Almighty God is made of the positive divine truth And Paul says I'm entrusted with that I will not sleep from declaring any part of it Even though it may be offensive As he says in verse 21 Verse 20 of this chapter I find not from declaring unto you Anything that was profitable It may not have been very palatable But I preached it because it was profitable He says, I preach repentance to the word God And you can't do that without first of all telling people who God is And that man is accountable to God And God has expressed his will for his creatures and his law And man has openly and wickedly and criminally pointed that law

43:43 He stands condemned before God as his judge You think people all clap their hands when you start telling them that? When you start telling them that they got what they deserved Hell would open them up and swallow them over, and angels would rejoice at the vindication of God's justice in your damnation. You think people are going to rise up and say, So enjoy it, I am.

44:20 No, no, my brothers in the ministry.

Application: Declaring the Whole Counsel in Evangelism

44:24 You do not manipulate God's truth by the minimizing mentality saying, well, I think I know what men ought to be told. God's already settled that issue. Now let me put it down in the nitty-gritty because my time is just about gone and I want to make a few specific applications. Take heed of our teaching.

44:42 Let its content be the whole counsel of God. Where? Then, starting with your evangelism and right on through until God calls his people home to himself. And I like to put it just this bluntly.

44:57 What divine authority do I have to tell a sinner? John 6.37.C.

45:05 A and B of John 6.37 are never in the books on personal work. It's always John 6.37.C.

45:14 All that the Father giveth me is A, shall come to me, B, and he that cometh or him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out, C. Now I could ask the question by what divine authority do we quote John 6 37 see and be silent on A and B But that not the issue I even grant that there a right and a want to take the free invitation and the certain assurance that all who come shall be received and never cast out Ah, but listen. By what divine authority do I quote John 6.37 C to a sinner?

45:48 Him that cometh to me, I'll in no wise cast out and not quote to him. Luke 14.26 If any man come to me and hate not his father, mother, brother, sister, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. What book on personal work is telling you to quote Luke 14, 26?

46:14 Who said you had the right to quote John 6, 37? Who?

46:21 Not tell people Luke 14, 26. You tell me who gave you that right. Who gave you that right?

46:32 Yet it's being done on every hand. You must not plant the cross on the threshold of the Christian life. That's an ugly thing. That's an instrument of death.

46:42 That means that there is a radical cleavage with the past and the emergence of the new. That means that the commands, the demands of Christ are total and all embraces. You'll scare the sinner away.

46:56 So what you do is you take the cross and you put it back behind a nice velvet curtain. Hide it.

47:02 And you take roses and you just throw them at the threshold and say, don't they smell sweet? When you like joy, look at that rose of forgiveness and peace and joy and happiness. You want a meaningful life? Look at the roses.

47:16 Come on. Him that comes, I'll know. Come to Jesus. Jesus is just the other side of all.

47:21 Come.

47:23 And so they, quote, come. Sure they come. They come all right. They come all right.

47:31 And sometime later your conscience begins to trouble you. You say, well, that's one of my converts, but I don't see much self-denial and much love to Christ and much concern to extend the kingdom of the saved, because I've told them they are, and I should like to see them made disciples, so I sort of gingerly and hesitantly take them by the hand and say, there's something else in the Christian life.

48:03 Oh, beloved, I'm not trying to be funny.

48:07 We ought to weep.

48:11 Then we tell them, now you're saved and you're going to heaven, but if you really want to have a big bag of yo-yos and have lots of rewards, you've got to become a disciple. Now you don't need to be to go to heaven. I don't want you to get upset. You know, that's the cardinal sin in evangelicalism today, to get a person to question whether he's saved or not.

48:30 Even though he may have no biblical grounds to think he is, because you've proved he is by syllogistic assurance, you must never undo that.

48:38 Then you bring out the cross. You begin to talk about discipleship and the totality of the demands of Christ. And then you begin to construct all kinds of false theories of the Christian life and true level of Christian experience. You've got Christ as Savior.

48:53 Now you need Him as Lord. You're a believer but not a disciple. You're in the kingdom but no rewards. Oh may God have mercy on us.

49:02 We've tampered with the content.

49:05 The Lord Jesus who gave the most free, full, unfettered invitations to the life of peace and forgiveness and mercy. Gave the most clear, stringent calls to get up on a cross and die at the threshold. The cross is planted in the middle of the roses.

49:26 It's planted in the middle. And coming is their peace, yes. Matthew 11, come, I will give your ass. But I'll stop there.

49:37 The next verse is, take my yoke upon you. Come under my gracious yoke. But my yoke nonetheless. Take heed to your doctrine.

49:53 Don't you just preach except Jesus as his personal Savior. You preach what Paul says here. Repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And away this abominable teaching that repentance is just a change of mind.

50:09 Because that's what the Greek word means. What a clever evasion. Change of mind about what? a change of mind that implies what?

50:19 When you've regarded God as an object unworthy of your love and homage and obedience the infinite God of heaven creator of heaven and earth sustainer of the same object of the abhorring wonder of the angelic host and seraphim and seraphim when you've lived days, weeks, months, years even different to that God is a change of mind about that God a little thing? When you come to the discovery that that God who is into holiness and righteous anger could have consigned you to the pit and closed and sealed it over forever and let your voice join the course of the damned as a continual monument to eternity of the righteous judgment of God. You say that's a little thing?

51:06 Have a change of mind about that God. It's the most radical thing that can ever happen to a man. Paul says, I preach repentance toward God. You preach it.

51:20 Take heed to your teaching, to your doctrine. Faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Saving free faith is the embrace of a sovereign upon a throne who came to that throne by the way of the virgin's womb, a bloody cross, and an open tomb. God hath made him both Lord and Christ.

Application: Declaring the Whole Counsel in Exposition

51:41 If there is the embrace of faith, it is the embrace of the whole Christ by the whole man.

51:48 Take heed to your teaching at the outset in your evangelism. Give the full-orbed message. Don't give a truncated, anemic, saccharine version of the gospel of the glory of our God. then in your exposition of the word.

52:13 I've heard people say, well, yeah, I believe it. But it's sort of like contraband goods. You just keep it on the counter until somebody comes in and asks for it. I was at a Pentecostal Bible Institute a few months ago.

52:28 Of all places, yes. Pentecostal Bible Institute.

52:33 I didn't get the blessing there, but...

52:40 I received a great blessing, though, from a young man who runs a bookstore. He came to me after the second night he was there. He said, Mr. Martin, I've got to talk to you.

52:49 I said, why is that? He says, I discerned some strong notes of Reformed theology in your preaching. I said, uh-oh, my slip must be shown.

52:59 Because I was dealing with very practical issues. But you see, he had been doing some reading. And divine truth is so interrelated. You can't deal with the most practical issues and deal with it vividly without tracing it to its roots in your theology.

53:12 Can't do it. Well, to make a long story short, this fellow told me that he, through his reading, had become quite persuaded of the Reformed position, and he ran the bookstore there, and he kept Banner of Truth literature and all this other stuff under the counter in the back. And when anybody would get his appetite whetted in any of his classes, he taught a class or two, then he'd take them in the back of the bookstore and give out his contraband goods. Well, you know, it's a shame when people treat such doctrines as election, the particular design of God in the death of the Son, the certainty of the calling of all his sheep,

53:59 when they treat that like contraband goods. Paul never did. I've been preaching through Ephesians 1 for the past year, and I've been absolutely amazed.

54:12 Here Paul is writing to this church to fully establish them in the truth of God, and as he's meditating upon the things that he'll write, he slips from theologizing into eulogizing. And he says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ, even as he...

54:38 Uh-oh, uh-oh. Mustn't say that word election. I call the church split. Mustn't say that word election.

54:46 You know, that's a deep mystery just for theologians. Get out of here.

54:51 He's writing to converted slaves and pagans. And he says, Blessed be this God, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.

55:06 We should be holy and without blemish before him, in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. And he goes on having predestinated us, in whom we have redemption, great concepts. Who is he writing to? A school of theologians? No!

55:30 To converted pagans, many of whom had their curious arts and were steeped in the occult. You remember the bonfire they had at Ephesus. He doesn't treat it as contraband goods. He says, this is front store goods.

55:44 Boy, this is what you put out in your display case. Not with a chin like this. That's the reason some of you fellows get in trouble. You cover people saying, I'm going to tell you something and you don't like it, but I'm going to tell you anyway.

56:01 You go around with your chin out, there's enough people with enough remaining corruption they're going to take a shot at. They're going to take a shot at.

56:10 No, no, and I'm speaking particularly now to you younger men with your home ministries before you. pray that these things will become part and parcel of your own inner life and perspective so that you don't deal with them in the harsh, detached, polemic way but your theologizing becomes eulogizing and eulogy is contagious you lay your mind and heart next to Paul's in Ephesians 1 and you're just carried with it Who are you to say election should not be taught? Oh, in its proper time and place? Yes.

Conclusion: A Lifetime Goal of Unembarrassed Preaching

56:51 Who are you to say that any truth in the word of God should not be proclaimed? Take heed to your teaching. Oh, my fellow ministers, take heed to your teaching. That your goal be that in your teaching and preaching there be a declaration of the whole counsel of God.

57:10 Let me close with one very practical suggestion. I have tried to adopt as my own lifetime goal, I'm sure I fall short of it and I'll never attain it, but in this sense I've hitched my ambitions to a start, and the ambition is this, and there's another reason why I've been driven backward and kicking into the Calvinistic position. I've tried to adopt the perspective that I want to hold no theological position that will make me unembarrassed in the course of my ministry to turn up any page of the Bible and honestly handle the text of Holy Scripture.

57:47 That's my ambition, to hold no position that would make me subtly wish that God would block that sentence out of his book.

58:00 the whole counsel of God. Take heed to your teaching. Take heed to your teaching. Take heed to your teaching.

58:16 May God be pleased to bless this crazy, mixed-up generation, not with a host of clever people, not even particularly with another Whitfield. I don't pray that. You know, there's something wrong with me, But I know lots of people say, Lord, give us another Whitfield. Give us another Spurgeon.

58:33 No, no. God's work, for the most part, is not carried on in its full extension by the Whitfields and the Spurgeons. They come once every hundred years. But it's carried on by those faithful lesser lights, who in that little place out in Fodon, In that place here, in this place here, with hearts fused with a vision of the glory and majesty of Christ, bowed low at His feet, conscious of their accountability to Him, taking heed to themselves, committed to a ministry in which they will hold back nothing that is profitable.

59:15 God is pleased to own that ministry with grace and power, bring congregations to a place of life and flourishing spiritual health, pour upon them a spirit of evangelism and compassion for the lost. Once again we may see that leaven at work throughout the entire structure of our national life and out to the ends of the earth. May God be pleased to make of you seminary students, all to whom he has given gifts of ministry, mighty men of God who for the entirety of their lives take Eve to themselves and to the teaching. And for all of us engaged in the ministry, may these words be burned into our consciousness

60:09 And ever be kept before us, that in taking heed to ourselves and to our teaching, we shall save both ourselves and those that hear us. May God be pleased to bring it to pass for His glory and for our good. Let us pray.

60:39 Thank you.