Before turning to the scriptures,
I do wish to express my sincere appreciation for the privilege
that has been afforded me in sharing in this particular institute,
for the gracious invitation from the faculty committee responsible
for the arrangements of the institute, 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. Often I'm asked
in various places when I'm privileged to minister, particularly in
pastors' conferences, what do you know about Reform Seminary?
And most of what I've had to say has been secondhand information,
good information. But now that I've been here and
had a little bit more of a 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. 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 He 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 teaching. Continue 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 rock before
God. The soil of an anointed ministry
in the Word is an anointed life, and we must never separate those
two things. 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. 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. 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,
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. The apostles join 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. 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 and verse 18 gives us
the answer. 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. 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. 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. And all of Berkhoff's attempts
to say that this text does not mean that, notwithstanding, Jones
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, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth
and abideth forever." 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. 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 great missionary passage, how shall they call upon him
of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? Now shall they preach, except they be sent. As it is
written, how beautiful are the feet of them that publish good
tidings. 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. 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. 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. 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 and scripturated
revelation and truth, we're in a dangerous realm. No, no, Timothy. You must not only take heed to
yourself and be a godly man, 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,
"...but speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in
all things, who is the head, even Christ." Do you see how
he fuses the things? People say, look, let's not be
overly saskidious about truth. Let's just be concerned about
love. Other people say, a plague on
your house. We want truth! Sixteen ounces
to the pound, full-blown truth! 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. Love
is for them. We're for truth. No, no. No,
no, Paul says. thinking the truth in love. Not love without truth, not truth
without love. You find the apostle of love
thinking in the same way. Second 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 is central not only to the inception of spiritual
life, but to the continuance and development of that life.
So Paul's exhortation is very understandable. Timothy takes
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, 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. 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 weary you with giving
you all the references that are found. Let me just take one or
two specimen passages. 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. In his second letter he says,
the servant of the Lord must not strive, be argumentative,
contentious, but be gentle to all men. Act to teach. patient,
in meekness instructing. That's how he is to teach. So
you have those contents and manner. 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. Now, time
will only permit in this session this morning, if I had about
three or four more, I'd 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 that
says what I communicate is more important than how I communicate
it. Philippians chapter 1. Let's begin reading at 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?" 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. 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 proclaimed Christ a faction, 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, and then they
became little cheese. 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. 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. 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
and 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. 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. 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. Other people, their motives are
pure. What's Paul going to do? What should be his reaction,
having become aware of these two kinds of attitudes? Well, look at verse 18. What
then? What then? What shall I do in
the face of this? 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. 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 to the Roman gibbet, exposed
his breast to the full brunt of his father's wrath against
human sin, swallowed up dead 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 reigns in power, and dispenses blessing to his church and to
lost humanity." That's what preaching Christ meant to Paul, nothing
less than that. And he says, these people are preaching Christ.
Now, some of them, oh, their motive is not so good, but I
can't deal with their motive. I wouldn't want to have their
motive in answer to gospel, 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.
Insincere motive, 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. which is not an other gospel,
only there are some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel
of Christ. But though we or 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. 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 Maccabah, that he be accursed of God." Now, what
was the problem at Galatia? Well, the problem here was not
a matter of motive. And reading the Council, the
account of the Council at 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
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.
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 that
the constant and dominant mode of the apostolic gospel is, by
grace, or you say, through faith. 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 comma. 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 comma, or into
a semicolon. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and be circumcised, and keep the ceremonial law. Paul says,
when anybody comes and tackles with the punctuation, let the
curse of God come upon them. Well, what about their motive?
Some of them are sincere. They want to preserve the best
of the old covenant and fuse it to the new. 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 tempered with, it does not
matter how noble the motive may be, because when the content
is tempered 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. 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, dear, 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. 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, 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. 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. And 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,
and in three weeks' time, My wife stands shedding tears over
my casket in the funeral home. 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. And that Christian
doctor stands there, brokenhearted, when he gets news of this. What
happened? He loved me. 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? 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 medicine. 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, I thought you dropped
dead before now, but here you are. What's your problem? I say,
Well, Doc, here's my problem. I tell him. I go through the
same routine. 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, it'll kill you. Might be the best for
you, but we're going to work on it." And when anyone would tamper with
it, no matter what the motive, he says, they are not among us,
let it come. And 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. 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 life? And then to wrench
a particularistic text out of John 10, directed to his 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, stealing out the penance of their unregenerate
hatred of God, and say, God loves you? Am I some kind of a relic from the
dark ages, when I say, O my friend, is that the truth? Am I lacking in love because
I say, is that THE teaching of the gospel? Oh, but Brother Martin,
look, look, don't be sad. They're sincere. 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
in truth? That's not so important. It's
purity of motive that really counts. I say that this is a
reversal of the mentality of the Apostle Paul. A complete
reversal. He says, sincere or insincere,
that's not the issue where the gospel is preached. The issue
is, is it the gospel? Now, for myself, he says, I seek
to keep my motives pure. 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. And he says to you Galatians,
says to the Galatians, you can hear the content and if it's
putting commas where I've 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. Comes fluttering into
your room and the room is filled with light. 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. 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. And what can be more deceptive
than apparent evangelistic zeal by which to create an indifference
to doctrinal purity? Hmm? What is more deceptive than
a man saying, look, I have passion to win the lost? Don't put me
to task on what I'm giving the lost in the content. And so we have this woolly thinking
in our day. If men are sincere, if men are
honest, that's all that really matters. Just so long as there's
something of Jesus and something of the cross. Listen, the Judaizers
had something of Jesus, something of the cross, something of atonement,
something of resurrection, something of heavenly session. It was their
additions that brought this terrible indictment of the Apostle Paul.
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 yourself, yes, but take heed to your teaching, and particularly
take heed to the content of that teaching, for content is of supreme
importance. 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, pleading with the young men in
our own churches. 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. 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. 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. 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 twentieth chapter of Acts. In Acts chapter twenty, the Apostle
Paul, standing in the presence of these elders from the church
or churches at Ephesus, 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, 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?
But he tells us, four, 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. My conviction, Paul says, this
pacified conscience is rooted in the awareness that I did not
learn the end 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 strike not from declaring the whole spectrum of divine
revelation. 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. What is the final irreducible
minimum of what I can give to men and still call it gospel?
Or to state it this way. What is essential and what is
non-essential? 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? Of course. Anyone in his right
mind accepts the fact that there is relative 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 be wrong with him. But if God's 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's there is because
it is profitable. And if it's there and it's profitable,
don't you pluck one leaf in that great tree of divine revelation.
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. As we were approved of God to be entrusted with the gospel,
even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God will dry up our
hearts. If you're made a trustee—we have some of the trustees of
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?
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, hmm, I don't know why
they put that in there, let's scratch that up. Oh, this part up? 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. Almighty God has made a deposit
of divine truth, and Paul says, I'm entrusted with that. I will
not shrink from declaring any part of it, even though it may
be offensive, as he says in verse 21 of verse 20 of this chapter,
I shrink 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 Lord 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 in his law. And man has openly and wickedly
and criminally broken that law. 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 and so did I. No, no, my brothers in the ministry,
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 to thy teaching. 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. What divine authority do I have to tell a sinner? John 6.37c. A and B of John 6.37
are never in the books on personal work. It's always John 6, 37,
C. 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 a question,
by what divine authority do we quote John 6, 37, C and be silent
on A and B? But that's not the issue. I'll
even grant that there's 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, 37c to a sinner? Him that cometh
to me I will 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, gay, and his whole life also, he cannot be my disciple. What book on personal work is
telling you to quote Luke 14.26? Who said you had the right to
quote John 6.37? Not tell people Luke 14, 26. You tell me who gave you that
right. Who gave you that right? 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. 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-embracing. They will scare the sinner away.
So what you do is you take the cross and you put it back behind
a nice velvet curtain and hide it. 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, come on. Him that comes, I'll know, come
to Jesus. Jesus is just the other side of all of, come. And so
they quote, come. Sure they come. They come all
right. They come all right. 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 sure would
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. Oh beloved, I'm not trying to
be funny. He ought to weep. Then we tell him, 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, 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. Then you bring out the cross, and begin to talk about
discipleship, and the totality of the demands of Christ, and
then you begin to construct all kinds of false theories Savior, now you need Him as Lord.
You're a believer and not a disciple. You're in the kingdom, but not
in words. Oh, may God have mercy on us.
We've tampered with the content. And 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. It's planted in the middle! And coming is there peace? Yes! Matthew 11. Come, I will give
you rest. But don't stop there. The next
verse is, Take my yoke upon you. Come under my gracious yoke. But my yoke nonetheless. Take heed, dear doctor. Don't
you just preach, accept Jesus as personal Savior? You preach
what Paul says here, repentance toward God, and faith toward
our Lord Jesus Christ, in a way of this abominable teaching that
repentance is just, quote, a change of mind, because that's what
the Greek word means. What a clever evasion. Change
of mind about what? A change of mind that implies
what? 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 appalling wonder of the angelic host and
seraphim and seraphim, when you've lived days, weeks, months, years
in substance of that God, is a change of mind about that God
a little thing? When you come to the discovery
that that God whose infinite holiness and righteous anger
could have consigned you to the pit and closed and sealed it
over forever and let your voice join the chorus of the damned
as a continual monument to eternity of the righteous judgment of
God. You say that's a little thing? Have a change of mind
about that God. It's the most radical thing that
can ever happen to a man. as I preach repentance toward
God. You preach it. Take heed to your
teaching, to your doctrine. Faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Saving spray faith is the embrace
of a sovereign upon a throne who came to that throne by way
of a virgin's womb, a bloody cross, and an open tomb. God
hath made him both Lord and Christ. And if there is the embrace of
faith, it's the embrace of the whole Christ. by the whole man. Take heed to your teaching. At
the outset, in your evangelism, give the full-armed 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, I've heard people say, 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, of all places, yes, Pentecostal
Bible Institute. I didn't get the blessing there,
but... I received a great blessing,
though, from a young man who runs a bookstore. Came to me
after the second night I was there, he said, Mr. Martin, I've
got to talk to you. I said, why's that? He says, I discern some
strong notes of Reformed theology in your preaching. I said, uh-oh,
my slip must be showing. 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. 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 his Son, the certainty of the calling
of all of his sheep, 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. Here
Paul is writing to this church to further 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—uh-oh, uh-oh. Mustn't say that word,
election. Might cause a church split. Mustn't
say that word, election. You know, that's a deep mystery
just for theologians. Get out of here. He's writing
to converted slaves and pagans. And he says, Blessed be this
God, even as He chose us in Him, the true foundation of the world. 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's he writing
to? A school of theologians? No! 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. Boy, this is what you put out in your display case.
Not with a chin like this. That's the reason some of you
fellas 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. You go around with your chin
out, there's enough people with enough remaining corruption they're
going to take a shot at. 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. Who are you to say that
any truth in the word of God should not be proclaimed. Take
heed to your teaching. All my fellow ministers, take
heed to your teaching. Let your goal be that in your
teaching and preaching there be a declaration of the whole
counsel of God. 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 star, 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. That's my ambition. to hold no
position that would make me subtly wish that God would block that
sentence out of his book. The whole counsel of God. Take heed to your teaching. Take
heed to your teaching. Take heed to your teaching. May God be pleased to bless this
crazy, mixed-up generation. Not with a host of clever people.
Not even, particularly, with another Whitefield. I don't pray
that. I know there's something wrong with me, but I ought to
be able to say, Lord, give us another Whitefield. Give us another
Spurgeon. No, no. God's work, for the most part,
is not carried on in its full extension by the Whitefields
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 Photon, in that place here
and 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. 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 11
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
ye to themselves and to the teaching. And for all of us engaged in
the ministry, may these words be burned into our consciousness
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.