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The Pastor's Devotional life By Albert N. Martin

Let us turn in the Word of God to 1 Timothy, chapter 4.
1 Timothy, chapter 4.
And I shall read verses 6 through 16. 1 Timothy 4, verses 6 through 16.
If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ,
nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained.
But refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness.
For bodily exercise profiteth for a little time, but godliness is profitable unto all things,
having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.
This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation.
For therefore we both labor and suffer reproach,
because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe.
These things command and teach.
Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers
in word, in manner of living, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.
Neglect not the gift that is in thee which was given thee by prophecy
with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.
Meditate upon these things.
Give thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear to all.
Take heed unto thyself and unto thy teaching.
Continue in them, for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee.
Let us pause again for a moment of prayer to ask the Lord's special help
as we consider together this most vital theme of the pastor's devotional life.
Lord, you have heard the cries that have gone up to thy throne on behalf of this conference as a whole,
the petitions that have been uttered from this very meeting place in this hour.
And now hear us as we cry to thee again, not that we think we shall be heard for our much speaking,
but because, O Lord, we want again to consciously acknowledge our present need
of the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Oh, be pleased to make this written word a very pointed and applied word to each of our hearts.
And by thy grace, may it become a life and habit-transforming word.
Speak to us, Lord. For thy name's sake we plead through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The subject which was assigned to me for this opening session, as most of you I'm sure are aware,
is the subject of the pastor's devotional life.
Now, in order that we might know together that which we're speaking about,
I want to say several things by way of introduction.
First of all, what are we considering when we talk about the pastor's devotional life?
Well, in no way do I think it was in the thinking of the committee that we should establish
some kind of a dichotomy between the secular activities of the pastor
and that which we might call the sacred activities,
as though he were somehow more pleasing to God when he was on his knees
than perhaps when he's found polishing his shoes last thing Saturday night,
which happens to be the last chore that I do on Saturday night,
or when perhaps he may be found spanking his children Monday morning,
which may be particularly needful after they've been up too late the evening before.
In no way are we inferring that somehow this area of the pastor's life is more sacred
than any other area that comes within the compass of the will of God.
But we are speaking particularly of the act and habit of secret prayer
and private meditative reading of the Holy Scriptures
for the development of spiritual life with no conscious reference to ministerial duties.
Now, when I read that definition that I worked on this week to one of the men in the car,
he says, well, it sounds rather involved like a sort of an antiquated statement
from one of the old 17th century writers.
I asked him, what could we change? And after we went over it, he said,
well, I guess it's all right, so it will stand as written.
What are we talking about when we speak of the pastor's devotional life?
Well, this is what I'm speaking about tonight and trust to bring to bear upon this subject,
relevant portions of Holy Scripture, the act and habit of secret prayer
and private meditative reading of the Holy Scriptures
for the development of the spiritual life with no conscious reference to ministerial duties.
That exercise will have tremendous carryover into ministerial duties,
but the pastor's devotional life is that aspect of his life when he's shut up with his God
and with the word of his God and is not consciously thinking of specific official ministerial duties.
So much then for what we mean by the phrase devotional life,
and now the person who is in focus, according to the title, is the pastor.
But I'm sure that the people on the committee had in mind all those who are engaged
in what we call some kind of full-time Christian ministry,
a bad distinction in some ways, but one that at least communicates.
We're speaking of those of us who live of the gospel,
who do not have to go out and put in our eight or 10 or 12 hours a day in some form of employment
to put bread on the table and a roof over our head and electricity in the light bulbs.
But those things are taken care for us by those to whom we minister.
So this would take in teachers, missionaries, as well as pastors and evangelists and other forms of Christian work.
But the principles apply to every single one of us,
for the scripture does not give a double standard of piety for the pastor.
There is an intensified standard of piety, but not a double standard.
When recently studying the requirements for the elders as set forth in Titus 1 and 1 Timothy 3,
it was interesting to note that only one of those requirements is not found repeated in the epistles
addressed to all Christians in general as a requirement of godliness and piety amongst all believers,
and that's the requirement that they be apt to teach.
All the other requirements—sober, good behavior, not given to much wine—
those requirements are given to Christians in general in other places.
And so the standards of piety—and this includes, of course, personal devotional exercises—
are basically the same for every individual believer.
They are intensified for the pastor or the Christian workers.
So I trust that you who are called laypeople will not turn off the matters which we'll be dealing with tonight,
for they apply to you in a very real sense.
Then, of course, last of all, by way of introduction, let me state that it's comparatively easy
to gather materials from the Word of God on this subject, for the Word of God is full of such material.
It's comparatively easy to go through Christian biography and glean some tremendous statements
from men of God whose lives have adorned the Church with great blessing in years past.
But I confess at the very outset that the preparation of this message has not been the real sweat,
though I trust some sweat has gone into it,
nor will it involve too much sweat for you to sit here for an hour and listen.
But if by the grace of God we're to do what David did when he said in Psalm 119 and verse 59,
this will cost us something,
I fought on my ways and I turned my feet unto thy testimonies.
I made haste and delayed not to keep thy commandments.
When he saw the standard of Holy Scripture and he thought upon his own ways,
he said, My feet are not walking in the waves of God.
He said, I made haste.
Before the impressions left me, I sought to conform my present experience to my new light from God.
And, oh, if God will be pleased to do that, that the new light that comes,
or old light that comes with freshness may find us thinking upon our ways
and then turning our feet unto the testimonies of God,
then this time will have been spent to our profit and to the blessing of others.
So much then for these introductory thoughts as we try to think our way through this subject.
Let us consider in the first place the importance of the pastor's devotional life.
Then we shall consider some hindrances to the pastor's devotional life
and if time permits, some practical suggestions for the establishment of a fruitful devotional life.
First of all then, the importance of a pastor's devotional life.
We're going to look at it with Scripture before us in two ways.
From the standpoint of a general principle of Holy Scripture
and then from the standpoint of four specific things that are accomplished
in the exercise of a devotional experience or in this devotional life that we're speaking about.
Now, the general principle is set before us in the text which I read to you tonight.
First Timothy chapter 4 and verse 16, the Apostle Paul says to this young preacher,
Take heed unto thyself and unto thy teaching.
Continue in them for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and those that hear thee.
That word take heed is a very strong word.
It's the same word used in Acts 3 and verse 5
where it speaks of that impotent man who fixed his eyes upon Peter and John.
Look on us! And the Scripture says that he looked to them.
God is saying look carefully to yourself
for it's only as you do this that you will save yourself.
And that's your first responsibility, Timothy.
I've given you many instructions, Timothy.
I've told you that I want you to help the churches in selecting proper spiritual leadership.
I've set out the requirements. I've told you what you're to teach, what you're not to teach.
I want you to tell the wives, the young men, the old men.
I've told you that you're to be this and do that.
But Timothy, amidst all of those tremendous responsibilities,
never forget it, Timothy.
Your first and greatest responsibility is to watch closely over the nurture and cultivation of your own soul.
And if your obedience to anything else I've told you makes that supper, your obedience is sin.
For you've neglected the greater part and chosen the lesser in its place.
The same principle is set forth in Acts 20 and verse 28
where the apostle is charging the elders of the church at Ephesus.
And when he comes to conclude his exhortation to them, he says in Acts 20 and in verse 28,
Take heed therefore unto yourselves and then to all the flock of God
over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers.
The word take heed here is a different word. The word used in Hebrews 2, 1,
Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard,
lest at any time we should drift away from them.
This is the word. We're to give earnest heed to ourselves.
In the light of these two texts of scripture, the principle, the general principle is obvious,
that the first and greatest responsibility of the Christian minister
is the nurture and cultivation of his own relationship to God.
Someone has said that the minister's life is the life of his ministry.
And if that's true, and I believe it is, the minister's life is the life of his ministry,
then his devotional life is the heartbeat of his life.
If his life is the life of his ministry, if his ministry will be no more than what he is,
then he will be no more than what his heart is.
And what is his heart? His devotional life.
And cut out a man's heart and you'll have a carcass, and before long it stinks.
Instead of the fragrance of Christ, there is the stench of self and of flesh
when the vital heartthrob of a warm devotional life is killed.
In the light of this principle, you and I, if we are not already convinced,
must become so deeply convinced that this matter of the cultivation of our own relationship to God
is of prime importance that we will fight with a holy vengeance,
every influence rising from within our own hearts, from within our own homes,
and within our official ministerial duties that would militate against the establishment
and maintenance of a fruitful devotional life.
And I say to any preacher here tonight, if you are not conscious of fighting the tendency to neglect this principle
and fighting it with a holy vengeance, the battle's already been won on the side of the enemy.
If you're not conscious of a very real struggle in warfare to maintain the primacy of that principle,
take heed to thyself, then I submit the battle's already been lost.
Listen to the words of Henry Martin, the saintly missionary to India.
I see how great are the temptations of a missionary to neglect his own soul.
Apparently outwardly employed for God, my heart has been growing more hard and proud.
Let me be taught that the first great business on earth is not the fulfillment of the Great Commission.
No, no. He said, let me be taught that my first great business on earth is the sanctification of my own soul.
And then he goes on to say, so shall I be rendered more capable also of performing the duties of the ministry
in a holy and a solemn manner. In another place, Henry Martin says,
may the Lord in mercy to my soul save me from setting up any idol of any sort in his place,
as I do by preferring even a work professedly for him to communion with him.
To obey is better than to sacrifice and to hearken than the phatograms.
Let me learn this, that to follow the direct injunctions of God about my own soul
is more my duty than to be engaged in other works under pretense of doing him service.
Brethren, do you see how practical that is?
That means that when you go up to that study at 8.30 in the morning
and all of a sudden you think of all the letters that must be written and the sick people that must be visited
and you rationalize yourself away from giving those morning hours to seeking God,
listen to what Henry Martin says, it is more my duty to remember the words of God,
take heed to thyself, than to remember the words, take heed to the flock.
This is more my duty than to pretend to serve him by disobedience to that principle.
Listen to the words of Spurgeon admonishing the young preachers in his college.
It will be in vain for me to stock my library, to organize societies or project schemes
if I neglect the culture of myself, for books and agencies
and systems are only remotely the instruments of my holy calling.
My own spirit, soul and body are my nearest machinery for sacred service.
My spiritual faculties, my inner life are my battle-acts and my weapons of war.
McShane writing to a ministerial friend who was traveling with a view to perfecting himself in the German tongue,
used language identical with our own, still quoting from Spurgeon who in turn is quoted McShane,
I know you will apply hard to German, but do not forget the culture of the inner man.
I mean of the heart, how diligently the cavalry officer keeps his saber clean and sharp.
Every stain he rubs off with the greatest care. Remember you are God's sword.
His instrument I trust, a chosen vessel to bear his name.
In great measure according to the purity and perfection of the instrument will be the success.
It is not great talents, God blesses, so much is likeness to Jesus.
A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hands of God.
End of quote.
And there is no advance in holiness where there is perpetual neglect of the devotional place of God.
So much then for this general principle.
Now I want to move in to consider the importance of the preacher's devotional life in terms of its specific functions.
Here the principle is clearly stated in scripture, take heed to thyself and then to the flock.
But now what are the actual functions of these devotional exercises?
May I suggest in the first place that the devotional exercises of the preacher or of the average Christian,
first of all confirms the reality of spiritual life.
It confirms the reality of spiritual life.
The fact that a man is a pastor does not negate the necessity of obeying 2 Corinthians 13 5.
Examine yourself, prove yourself whether ye be in the faith.
The fact that a man expounds the word of God does not negate the necessity to obey 2 Peter 1 10.
Make your calling and your election sure.
In fact, if any person, any Christian should be doubly in earnest to obey those injunctions to self-examination,
it should be the man who faces a text like Matthew 7 23 and says,
look, I could qualify for that. The average lay person can't.
Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not preached in your name?
And in your name cast out devils and in your name done many wonderful works.
Then will I profess unto them, depart from me.
I never knew you, ye that worked iniquity.
Worked iniquity, but mighty workers in the cause of God's kingdom, apparently.
I find no reference in scripture to anyone coming before the throne of judgment and saying,
but oh God, have we not known what it is to be humbled in your presence?
And when no eye was upon us but thine to mourn over inward corruption,
have I not known what it is to wrestle against the swelling pride of my heart?
Oh Lord, have I not known what it is to bathe my sincere sorrow for sin in tears that were triggered by a view of a bleeding savior?
Oh no, no one is found in that day seeking to bring forward the inwardness of true piety.
No, no, it's those who were content with the outwardness of service.
To whom he will say, depart from me, I never knew you.
My name was upon your lips and I honored thy name and the powers of darkness moved,
but you never felt the release, the power of sin within your own breast.
Depart from me, I never knew you.
I tell you, brethren, that ought to make us tremble.
One of the functions of a consistent devotional life is that it confirms to the preacher that he's something more
than one more to stand in that crowd described in Matthew 7 who will say,
have we not preached to whom you'll say, depart?
When he can say with all his failures before him and all his weakness,
Lord, at least by your grace I've known what it is to sneak away into the quiet place.
And there prays you not because it was Sunday morning and the first thing we do according to the order of service
is sing the doxology, but because, Lord, I love you.
And to be found on my knees with my hymnbook, not because it's part of my duty, but because, Lord, I delight to praise you.
It confirms the reality of life.
No man should seek confirmation of spiritual life in terms of his gifts or his usefulness in service,
but in terms of the marks of vital inward piety.
May I ask a very pointed and, I trust, searching question to every pastor tonight, every Christian worker?
If you could this night strip away from your life all the praying, all the study of Scripture,
all the talking about the things of God that is directly related to your official ministerial tasks,
how much prayer, how much study of the Word of God would you have left?
Take away the hours that are spent in working over the text, seeing its structure,
seeing its relationship to its context, seeking to lay it out orderly, systematically, clearly, illustrated,
put little windows in it, make it interesting, put all that study to one side,
all the study of Scripture related to preparing for that midweek service, all of that put it aside.
Now put aside all the prayer for God's blessing, particularly upon your ministry and your preaching and your teaching.
Put all that aside.
And let remain that study of Scripture that has as its conscious motivation,
I'm a disciple of Jesus, I'm one of His sheep, I love His voice, I want to hear His voice for me, nobody else.
I come to Scripture because I know that the entrance of the Word gives light and I want Him to search me and try me and know my heart,
and so I come with a prayer, Lord, see if there be any wicked way in me, and with no thought of exposing the sin of my people,
I lift my heart up to the burning light of Holy Scripture that God will search me and make me a holier man.
I come because I love my God and I love to see His face, and here in Holy Scripture His glory breaks forth,
and I come to that book because I want to see Him and be ravished with a new sight of His glory in the face of Jesus.
My preacher friend, how much of your Bible study has that as its motivation?
Well, you see, if there's spiritual life, you'll be able to say, oh God, far too little, but thank you, at least some.
And if you can't say, at least some, you're on dangerous ground. Dangerous ground.
For the love of reputation, for the love of the praise of men, a man can be a deep and earnest student of the Word,
to share it with others who himself has no hunger to have his own heart blessed and burnt and broken with that Word.
Generally speaking, the only reason a man sneaks away with that book, with no thought of his people,
is because grace has been imparted. Grace that has made him a true lover of God and a lover of his Son.
Grace that has made him a hater of sin and a lover of holiness. And this book is the means of sanctification.
To sanctify them through the truth, Thy word is truth. That's why he comes to it. That's why he prays.
Now I'm talking about prayer. God, bless my preaching.
Lord, if you don't, it might not last too long.
See all the foul motivation that can enter when we pray for success upon our preachments.
But the prayer that's marked by humbling oneself before God, confessing one's sin, one's pride, one's coldness,
I submit to you that a consistent devotional life has this specific function in that it, first of all, confirms the reality of spiritual life.
Listen to the words of John Owen.
He that would go down to the pit in peace, let him obtain a great reputation for religion, for being a good five pointer.
Let him preach and labor to make others better than he is himself.
And in the meantime, neglect to humble his own heart and to walk with God and manifest holiness and usefulness,
and he will not fail at his end.
Do you want to go down to the pit in peace?
John Owen says, then let all of your spiritual exercises be with reference to others and not to yourself,
and you'll attain your end. You'll go down to the pit in peace, utterly deceived.
When warning of the danger of an unconverted ministry, Spurgeon said,
nor is the possession of this first qualification, namely a true standing in grace, a thing to be taken for granted by any man.
The possession, excuse me, for there is a very great possibility of our being mistaken as to whether or not we are converted.
Believe me, it is no child's play to make your calling and election.
Sure, the world is full of counterfeits and swarms with panderers to carnal self-conceit who gather round a minister as vultures around a carcass.
Our own hearts are deceitful so that the truth lies not on the surface but must be drawn up from the deepest well.
We must search ourselves very anxiously and very thoroughly lest by any means after having preached to others,
we ourselves should be castaways.
Brethren, I would never want to cooperate with a accuser of the brethren, the devil himself,
who would torment the tender, oversensitive, over scrupulous conscience of a true Christian minister here tonight.
I would never want to be a cooperator with the devil to torment an oversensitive conscience,
but neither would I cooperate with him in his work of deceiving us into thinking that because we are quote, busy in the ministry,
we must therefore stand in a state of grace.
We may be sealing ourselves in a state of deception from which only the pit itself may deliver us.
I was interested in the last reading carefully through George Whitfield's journals to find references like these.
After dinner I prayed and an old minister was so deeply convicted that calling Mr. Noble and me out with great difficulty because of his weeping,
he desired our prayers, for said he, I have been a scholar and have preached the doctrines of grace for a long time,
but I believe I have never felt the power of them in my own soul.
That's pretty sobering, isn't it?
A scholar and I've preached the doctrines of grace for a long time, but I've never felt the power in my own soul.
I trust there is some semblance of devotional life, dear preacher friend, that will be a confirmation to you of the reality of spiritual life,
for God does not save men because they preach or because they preach well or because they preach successfully,
but because they've been made holy, humble servants of Jesus by the mighty work of God's grace and God's Spirit.
Well, I hurried to the second specific function of the pastor's devotional life.
It will not only confirm the reality of spiritual life, but it will go far to maintain the vitality of spiritual life,
for our spiritual lives in their vitality are oft like the brook chariot,
which when Elijah first came to it was full to the banks and was obviously an adequate supply.
The day by day he saw the shrinking of that brook until it was just a little trickle.
And every true child of God who's walked longer than three weeks with God knows a little something experimentally
of the difference between the reality and presence of spiritual life and the vitality and vibrance of that life.
The first psalm gives a beautiful description of spiritual life that is in a constant state of vitality.
Verse 3 says, He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water.
A tree that has been planted, as I've tried to search out that figure I've been preaching through the first psalm to my own people,
it's either a custom, an agricultural custom there in the Near East in which they made irrigation ditches
and then deliberately planted trees by them, or finding a place where trees had been planted naturally would bring the ditch by them.
But it's the picture of the fact that the roots go down so deep into that constant source of supply
that no matter what the climate is, the leaf never withers.
There is not only the presence of life but the vitality of life and that vitality is manifest to all.
Jeremiah uses the same figure in the 17th chapter of his prophecy.
Now what's the source of that vitality? Well, the first two verses tell us,
Blessed is that man who walks not in the advice of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful,
but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate, doth he mumble day and night.
You see, it's that man whose roots all of his thoughts so that his subconscious reacting and thinking and evaluating
are more and more shaped and molded by Holy Scripture.
It's that man that shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water.
It's not the man who comes to the Word for his sermonic material and having delivered it is done with the Word,
but it's the man who so loves that Word as the Word of his own Redeemer God that he mumbles in it.
He meditates in it day and night.
God said to Joshua, This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate.
Same word, thou shalt mumble therein day and night.
The Word ever feeding, shaping, molding, directing the thought, the actions, the reactions,
that's the person who maintains the vitality of spiritual life.
Do we not all know what it is to our shame to preach ourselves into a state of spiritual barrenness?
Beloved, I've been at conferences where I had to quit after about the second day.
I found myself getting carnal as a goat.
Why? Because there was so much hearing and so much talking and so much catching up at all times
that there was a neglect of the secret place and the freshness was gone.
Instead of sermons falling like dew upon the parched ground,
they were like more dessert to a man who was already stuffed.
He tasted them. He's had enough. Send the rest back to the kitchen.
If we're to maintain the vitality of life, there must be this matter of the consistent devotional exercises,
where it's here in that secret place when we're reading the Word of God with no direct thought for our people,
that the promises glow with a heavenly light, that the warnings flash in their frightening shadows,
that the comforts of Scripture distill like dew on a parched place.
It's here that sin is revealed in its ugliness in the light of God's countenance.
It's here that Christ is revealed in ravishing beauty. Heaven and eternity are brought into sharp focus.
Earth and time are put in their proper place. The application of the blood is felt in fresh, renewing power.
There we experience the quickening grace of the Spirit.
For the rest of this message, please turn over the tape.
The blood is felt in fresh, renewing power. There we experience the quickening grace of the Spirit.
There's a statement found in the memoirs of McShane as Bonar comments on the life of McShane.
Quoting from Jeremy Taylor,
If thou meanest to enlarge thy religion, do it rather by enlarging thine ordinary devotions than thy extraordinary.
That's it.
He meditates in the Lord day and night. He shall be like a tree planted.
How is that freshness of spiritual life to be maintained only as there is some measure of consistency in the devotional life?
Now I know some say, ah, that's legalistic.
Yes, it would be legalistic if I had the idea that God will keep me fresh because I pray and read the Scriptures.
No, that's legalistic.
It's not legalistic to say, I have no grounds to expect you'll keep me fresh if I don't use the means he's appointed for my freshness,
which is what? The secret, trysting place with God.
And if there's no freshness, it's probably because there's been a relinquishing of that warfare of holy violence to maintain time alone with God.
Listen to the words of Bridges at this point.
Time must be found for spiritual feeding upon scriptural truths as well as for critical investigation of their meaning or for a ministerial application of their message.
For if we should study the Bible more as ministers than as Christians, more to find matter for the instruction of our people than food for the nourishment of our own souls,
we neglect to place ourselves at the feet of our divine teacher, our communion with him is cut off, and we become mere formalists in our sacred profession.
We cannot live by feeding others or heal ourselves by the mere employment of healing our people.
And therefore, by this course of official service, our familiarity with the awful realities of death and eternity may be rather like that of the gravedigger, the physician, or the soldier
than the man of God viewing eternity with deep seriousness and concern and bringing to his people the profitable fruit of his contemplations.
It has been well remarked that once a man begins to view religion not as of personal but merely professional importance, he has an obstacle in his course with which the ordinary Christian is unacquainted.
Brethren, I don't believe personal testimony is out of place in preaching. I see it in Holy Scripture.
And I know there are times when I must, by no means setting myself a pattern, but I trust having at least experienced a little of that which I'm seeking to preach,
when I have just said, I don't care. If I died tomorrow, somebody would be in the pulpit to preach or they'd have a memorial service and go home.
My first task is not the preparation of those sermons. Sunday's been creeping up and material has not yet been digested.
But circumstances have come into the life where there's been carelessness in guarding the secret place and the heart has been dry and the things of God unreal.
Do your people need another hollow, unreal sermon from an unreal man?
I have said far better to stand up Sunday morning and just tell that the Lord is precious and has made himself real to me
and have a little word of prayer that will make himself real to the people and send them home at least having seen a real man in touch with a real God than a woman professional Christian worker and so-called preacher.
Brethren, the breath of God that comes upon assemblies sometimes comes sovereignly without much relationship to the human instrument.
But generally speaking, the breath of God descends upon a people when the breath of God is descended upon a pastor.
And they get the overflow. And there's no overflow without consistent devotional life.
Well, the third specific function of the pastor's devotional life is this.
Confirming the reality of spiritual life, maintaining the vitality of spiritual life, thirdly providing the soil of an anointed ministry.
What is this matter of unction? That peculiar quality that's either there or it isn't.
That heavenly influence which makes a man able to say with Paul in 1 Corinthians 2,
my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.
I don't understand what this matter of unction is. I know what it isn't.
And I know when I must grind on without it.
And I trust I know a little bit of what it is to have the wind of God fill the sails and the censure being carried along by an influence that doesn't find its roots in you.
And though there's an element of divine sovereignty and divine unpredictableness, lest we should ever think we've got God in our little box,
the ways of the Spirit are like the wind, yet Scripture does reveal that there's an inseparable relationship between the secret prayers of the servant of God
and the precipitation of spiritual unction and power.
For prayer and the outpouring of the Spirit are linked again and again in Scripture to text.
These are merely suggested by no means exhaustive.
Luke 11, 13, if ye being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children,
how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?
Luke 11, 13, Philippians 1, 19, for I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus.
Prayer and the supply of the Spirit.
Acts chapter 4, and as they prayed, the place where they prayed was shaken.
They were filled with the Holy Ghost.
They spake the Word of God with boldness.
It's as they prayed that the Spirit was poured out in the day of Pentecost.
My brethren, I don't understand it, but it's revealed, and I believe it,
that there is this relationship between the secret groans and agonizings and pleadings of the servant of God when he shut up with no one but himself and his God.
And speaking with that heavenly doom of moving in his family with a heavenly breath,
of moving amongst his flock, not with the stake-owned steps of the professional preacher,
but with the fragrance of Jesus and the overflow of his own life.
There is that relationship between secret devotional reading
and this matter of unction that has not only the concept of Scripture that the Spirit poured out in clothing the servant of God,
but the servant himself being possessed of the Word.
Jeremiah says in the 15th chapter of his prophecy,
Thy words were found, and I did what? Exegete them?
And thy words were unto me the outline and substance of my sermon?
Too often that's how we would have to write it.
Thy words were found, and I did exegete them.
We can't look at a passage. We can't hear a passage read.
But what we're sermonizing and breaking it down, thinking, how could I share that to others?
And, oh no, Jeremiah says, Thy words were found, and I did exegete them.
I wanted to make them mine. I had no thought of anybody else.
And thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart.
Listen to the same prophet as he says in chapter 20.
Having gotten discouraged in feeling one of those terrible blue Mondays, might as well quit.
He said, I'm not going to talk anymore. Every time I open my mouth, I put my foot in it,
and everybody else sticks his foot in my shins. What's the sense?
He said, I wasn't long in that resolution to quit when something happened.
Thy word was where? In my head? No, in my heart, as a fire shut up within my bones.
I was weary with forbearing. I could not stay. He preached. Why?
He'd explode if he didn't. If he didn't open this cavity, he was afraid it would blow out some other.
And whatever unction is, I know it's not noise. Some of us, when we explode, it comes out in volume.
Other people, it doesn't. It doesn't need to be volume.
But there's that peculiar something. From the time the words leave the mouth of the preacher
and come to the ears of the hearers, there's a divine influence that sits upon them
and sends them home with power and authority. And men know they're hearing the voice of God.
That's unction. And it doesn't come to the man to whom this book is his official textbook
for his ministerial functions. It comes to the man to whom this book, this precious meat and drink,
has the word of his God. Listen to Bridges again.
It is the present experience, nourishment and enjoyment that gives a glow of unction
far beyond the power of accomplishment. To bear our message written in our hearts
is the first method of carrying to our people deep and weighty impressions of the things of God.
Oh, to be able to say, brethren, with John, that which we have seen and we have heard
and our hands have handled that which we have seen and heard, we declare.
I don't believe a busy bee is particular where he finds some good nectar, some pollen.
And I'm reading from Salvation Army hymnal tonight, a hymn of the past general of the Salvation Army
that captures this concept of the third function of the preacher's devotional life, giving unction to his ministry.
Listen to the words of Albert Osborne.
In the secret of thy presence, where the pure in heart may dwell, are the springs of sacred service
and a power that none can tell. There my love must bring its offering, there my heart must yield its praise,
and the Lord will come revealing all the secrets of his ways.
More than all my lips may utter, more than all I do or bring is the depth of my devotion to my Savior, Lord and King.
Nothing less will keep me tender, nothing less will keep me true, nothing less will keep the fragrance and the bloom in all I do.
Blessed Lord, to see thee truly, then to tell as I have seen, this shall rule my life supremely, this shall be the sacred gleam.
Sealed again is all the sealing, pledged again my willing heart, first to know thee, then to serve thee, then to see thee as thou art.
Then the fourth function of the pastor's devotional life is that by the assistance of God it will aid in creating the climate of a balanced ministry.
One of the terrible effects of the fall is disharmony and disproportionateness.
All was in perfect equipoise in the world when it came from God's hand.
Everything in the inanimate world, everything within man was in perfect balance, and sin came and all was thrown into disharmony.
Now when God regenerates us, turns us to himself, and we become new men in Christ, there is a basic reuniting of that which was out of harmony and a basic bringing together, but not a perfect bringing together.
And one of the areas in which this problem of disharmony is seen is in the tendency to imbalance in the Christian life.
Now how are you going to be kept balanced in your ministry?
It's only as in the devotional reading of scripture God is continually keeping your own inner life, your thought life, your perspective of truth as he keeps that in balance.
Then there will be balance in your ministry.
And I would submit this is precisely the purpose for which the entire revelation of God was given to us.
Notice in 2 Timothy chapter 3, 2 Timothy 3, what Paul says the function of Holy Scripture should be in the life of a preacher.
I'm sorry, yes, 2 Timothy chapter 3.
He says in verse 15, from a child, Timothy, you have known the Holy Scriptures.
Now what is their first function? Number one, which are able to make the wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
And the first function of Holy Scripture is to be a pointer to Christ.
Now what's the second great function? Listen, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction, and righteousness that the people of God may be perfect.
So, that the man of God, who's the man of God, that's that peculiar title that Paul uses with Timothy, but thou, O man of God, flee these things.
And he says, Timothy, the scriptures which you learned from your childhood which have been God's pointer to Christ are now to be the instrument that you as the man of God might be perfect,
mature, well-rounded, kept in proper perspective, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
And so if there is not a system, some system of continuous exposure to the whole spectrum of the word of God,
if I do not have some systematic devotional patterns whereby over a period of a couple of years I'm not going through the entire breadth of scripture,
asking God to speak to me, to show me what doctrine, what reproof, what correction is there, I'm going to be imbalanced in my thinking and consequently in my ministry.
Again, I would bear testimony here as to why I would ever be found at a Reformed Baptist conference.
There's only one reason from the human side that I have come to believe and love those aspects of truth about which we gather secondary, of course, to our Lord and as the truth is in him.
It's because this matter of the devotional reading of scripture brought me periodically to John 17.
And when I came to those words, I have given eternal life to as many as thou has given me.
And I said, now Lord, whatever you want to show me about yourself, show me here.
It seemed as though he was telling me there are people who my Father gave to me and I have given eternal life to them.
And the obvious implication is not all men were given to him or all would have eternal life.
And so I put it on the shelf for a while, but it wouldn't be long before you go from John into Acts and then you're in Romans.
And when you came to Romans 9, Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.
Well, you just put it down for a sign, but it wasn't long before you got through Romans and Corinthians and there you were smacking Ephesians 1.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,
according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world.
Until it was just too much and the Lord just subdued my heart and disposed my mind to embrace the wonderful truth of his sovereign election of his people.
Ah, but on the same token, why could I never embrace this idea that, well, since God has chosen his people, we must not preach the duty of faith and the duty of repentance?
It's illogical if men are spiritually impotent. Well, because in reading through the book of Acts I find Peter standing saying, Repent!
And I find Paul saying, Repent! And I find John saying, Believe!
I couldn't become a hard shell. No man can read his Bible and become a hard shell Baptist.
No man can read his Bible spiritually sensitive to its message and become indifferent to evangelism any more than he can read his Bible spiritually sensitive
and forever seek to cast off the glorious truths that we commonly call Calvinism.
Oh, beloved, that we might have a balanced ministry. None of us will have a perfectly balanced ministry,
but we can under God do much to be deterred from a glaringly imbalanced ministry by a consistent devotional life.
Now, if you desire as a pastor to cumber the ground by a ministry which has no biblical grounds of assurance,
no present vitality of spiritual life, no heavenly unction and no assurance of balance,
then, my dear preacher friend, you may go right on rationalizing as to why you don't frequent the closet.
I know if we could right now make a board one foot long and two inches square of every rationalizing statement that's gone through the minds of men here tonight
who know they are negligent in this area, I think we'd probably burst the walls with these boards,
for we all have the best reasons that would be totally inexcusable in our brethren, but God knows my situation's different.
Yes, he does know. He knows that you're lying.
He knows that it's spiritual carelessness that has led to this state where not only does a day or two, but three and four and weeks pass.
Without that kind of meditative reading of the Holy Scriptures until they burn with no thought of my people but my own soul.
Brethren, in the five years that I spent in the itinerant ministry, I received a shocking revelation.
Going from evangelical church to evangelical church in many parts of this country, in the period of five years, going into dozens of such churches,
I met less than a dozen men who testified that they had any regular systematic devotional habits. Less than a dozen.
It's no wonder that poor hungry sheep look up and are not fed. Is it no wonder that they're running off after Pentecostalism?
Is it no wonder that they're running off into little groups outside the pale of the organized church, little cell groups, faith in action groups?
I see them running after all of these things in our area, and in one respect I don't blame them.
For to sit under lunch in this ministry from a dead, wooden servant of Christ would be more than my own soul could take.
Oh brethren, if we're determined by God's grace to be true Christians and true ministers, then we will arm ourselves for the holy conflict and fight with holy violence until we, by God's grace, maintain some semblance of consistent, fruitful devotional life.
Now, I can see my time's only going to permit me to touch briefly on the hindrances to the pastor's devotional life. I would suggest that they are twofold.
Number one, the natural or external hindrances, and then in the second place, the internal or spiritual hindrances.
What are the natural or external hindrances? Well, there's that of an undisciplined life in general and that of an unplanned devotional time in particular.
An undisciplined life in general. Because we live of the gospel, we have no clock to punch, no boss to frown if we come in three minutes after eight.
Nobody to check on our hours, nobody to say at the end of the week when they're making up the paychecks,
well, this fellow's put in only 32 hours, so his time hour rate is $3.95 an hour, therefore, boom, this is what he gets. No?
Nobody to check on us. No clock to punch.
And you know what many of us have cultivated? That unholy art of doing little non-essential things in such a way to convince ourselves and others that we're very busy in the work of the kingdom.
That's the unholy art of puttering. Puttering! That's what puttering is.
It's the unholy art of doing little inconsequential things in such a way to convince ourselves and others that we're very busy in the kingdom of God.
And we always feel good when someone calls and says, well, you know, Pastor, I know you're so very busy, I hate to take your time and say, boy, the act is going over good.
Tozer once prayed, oh God, save me from puttering. Someone said, I've been puttering around the garden.
Well, if you need physical exercise, don't putter, get out there and work. And if you don't need physical exercise and you ought to be studying, well, don't be puttering, be up studying.
And we ought to be praying. Let's be praying with every fiber of our redeemed beings engaged.
Whatever thy hand finds to do, do with all thy might is unto the Lord. This is a world of order and system, and there must be some structure to our lives.
And so I submit that the reason some of us have very unfruitful devotional exercises is because of this very natural factor of an undisciplined life in general.
And perhaps it would help. And I've done this on occasions when I've found my own rationalizing heart getting the best of me.
I've taken a three-by-five card and I've laid it on my desk. And when I went there or into my study to pray, I jotted down the time I came in.
And when I got up off my knees, I jotted the time I was done. And when I went to my desk to study, I jotted down the time.
And when I left, if it was to go downstairs for a cup of coffee, I jotted down the time. When I got back, I jotted down the time.
So I went to mail and I took account at the end of the day. And it was shocking at times to see how I'd been deceiving myself into thinking I was spending a day in wholly ministerial exercises.
When the total of it, if it were out in the workaday world, wouldn't bring home enough bread to feed my children, let alone my wife and the guests and the visitors who'd come.
Brethren, we must cultivate an ordered, disciplined life. I wouldn't set up rules for you, but there must be some rules for you that you set up.
And then an unplanned devotional time in particular. I'm convinced that some have great hindrances in their devotional exercises because they have no order.
And they come in the morning, the mind is dull and the spirit is heavy, and they just try to pray a little bit and nothing happens, try to read a little bit.
You'll have some order, some structure. Recognize that, generally speaking, the spirit will be sluggish and heavy and stodgy.
So you're going to begin by spending the first few minutes in singing praises to the Lord. You're going to read some psalms until there begins to be a driving way of some of the clouds of heaviness.
Then you have some system of reading through certain portions of scripture, some plan for your devotional life.
I was going to quote something from McShane, but you can search it out for yourself, and that'll be a good incentive to buy his memoirs if you don't have it.
You read 158, page 158 has some helpful suggestions. But of course the great hindrance to the pastor's devotional life is not external, but it's the spiritual or the internal.
And may I suggest that there are two basic spiritual hindrances to the pastor's devotional life. One is the aversion of the flesh to holy exercises.
Galatians 5, 17 says, the flesh lusteth against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh. These two are contrary, the one to the other.
Paul says in Romans chapter 7 that when I would do good, evil is present with me, and nowhere and in no circumstance is evil more present than when I would do the thing that is most good.
Let me illustrate. Have you not found many times when the mind has been dull and you've thought, well, I shouldn't pray in this frame of mind?
That's an insult to God, to just pray with your mind just running around in circles, and so you slouched down in the living room chair and you picked up the newspaper, and when your eyes turned to the sports page, suddenly the mind became alert.
How do you explain that? How do you explain that? Or maybe some friend you hadn't seen for a while came through the door and suddenly you were very much awake. How do you explain that?
There's no explanation but this. The flesh lusting against the spirit, and John Owen has some very helpful insights in his volume number 6 on indwelling sin, expounding this very concept, and it brought great help to me to understand myself in this area.
Why is there this aversion? I can be alert to everything until I think of pray and then dullness and distraction, and when I recognize that that's what it is, that aversion of the flesh and the more spiritual an activity, the more violent is that aversion, then there's only one way to meet it with holy violence.
Wrecking myself dead to its claims, buffet my body, drive myself to the secret place, and then the second great spiritual and internal hindrance to devotional exercises is conscious controversy with God.
Paul said in Acts 24 16, Herein do I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offense toward God and toward man.
He said, I exercise myself. The Greek word is the one from which we get our English word ascetic. I put myself under strict rigors to keep an unblemished conscience. Why?
Because an unblemished conscience is the indispensable requirement for the holy exercises of prayer and meditative reading of the Scripture, unless, of course, the prayer is one of confession to get an unblemished conscience for fresh application of the blood.
And there are times when we have controversies with God and we make ourselves find things to do to keep from the secret place because it's in that secret place that we know we can't deal with God without dealing with that thing.
For John says in 1 John 3, Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God in whatsoever we ask we receive of him because we keep his commandments.
It's possible to preach, to learn the art of handling words and outlines, and have some tremendous areas of controversy with God. It's possible to make sick calls and visitation and conduct board meetings.
But you can't pray long with conscious controversy with God, can you? Can you?
I've heard of men who preached for years while they were living in adultery or full of covetousness, but I haven't heard of men who were known for their secret prayer lives guilty of the same sins.
Of all people, the servant of God must keep an unblemished conscience if he is to know a fruitful devotional life.
What's the pathway to a fruitful devotional life? I'll just give you my headings and you can work out the rest. Recognize the indispensable necessity.
What you regard as necessary you make time for. I don't care how busy you were this past week in your ministerial duties, you didn't go to call on somebody in the hospital dressed in your night clothes.
You got time, you found time to get dressed because you believed it was necessary. When you're convinced the secret place is necessary, time will be made and found.
And the only reason that's the first thing we relinquish is we really feel we can do it and get away with it.
Appear at the first Presbyterian hospital in my night clothes, I couldn't do it and get away with it. Therefore, no matter how busy I am, I better get dressed.
Skip the secret place, I can do it and get away with it. That's why we skip it because we think we can.
We're not convinced of its necessity. Then secondly resolve to make any necessary adjustments of time and habit in order to establish this place with God.
And then begin right at this conference, begin anew. We read in Revelation 2, repent and do the first works. Let your repentance give birth not only to holy resolve but to holy action.
Let's not allow unguarded late conversations during the conference to rob us of time alone with God in the morning.
Let's not allow the good things of fellowship with each other to rob us of that better thing of fellowship with our God.
And I'm convinced, brethren, if we come to these meetings tomorrow morning, all of us fresh from a new touch of God upon our hearts in the secret place,
I believe, I don't mean to be irreverent, that a dog could bark and we'd get blessed.
And God would see somehow that hungry, prepared hearts would get blessed.
That there could be the greatest preachment and exposition in these days, but if it falls upon hollow hearts, there will not be much blessing in the days ahead.
Take heed to thyself. This is your first and great responsibility.
As we look to our Lord Jesus, we see the perfect pattern pressed by ministerial demands that make all of us look like sluggards.
And yet it's said of him that a great while before day he went off alone to pray.
He that sayeth he abideth in him ought himself so to walk, even as he walked. Let us pray.
O Lord, seal thy word to our hearts and give us grace to do that which you have said to us.
Hear us for thy name's sake. Amen.
by the christianlibrary.org.au