Let's then open our time together this morning with a word of prayer and then the reading of scripture. Our Lord and our God, we thank you for the opportunity underneath your providence to gather together as brothers and to turn our attention to your word. As we do so, we pray that you would be pleased to be in our midst with your word and by your spirit, granting us illumination, both from the perspective of speaking, but also from the perspective of listening and hearing. We ask, Heavenly Father, that we might receive words of instruction and encouragement for the task which you have set before us. We thank you that you have chosen to show yourself to us and to reveal yourself in your word. And we do ask that within our own hearts and within the heart of this institution, this seminary, there might always be a profound sense of reverence as we handle your word. And we pray that your spirit would grant a diligence as we hold on to that word. May we not distort it in any way, may we not compromise it in any fashion, but may we with conviction of heart, heeding to your instruction, lift up your word and proclaim it even to the ends of the world. So we do ask for a blessing out of your grace upon our time together in this morning, and we do so only through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, amen. I'd ask you this morning to turn your attention to scripture as we have it in 1 Timothy chapter 4. It's my intention to focus our meditation upon verse 16, but I want to read the chapter in its entirety. Of course, I suppose it's somewhat fitting when you come to a seminary to turn to the pastoral epistles, and we turn to 1 Timothy chapter 4. We read the following. Now, the Spirit expressly says that in latter times, some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies and hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. If you instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine which you have carefully followed. But reject profane and old wives' fables, and exercise yourself toward godliness. For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for 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 acceptance. For to this end we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe. These things command and teach. Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Till I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the eldership. Meditate on these things. Give yourself entirely to them, that your progress may be evident to all. Take heed to yourself. and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you." And thus far, our reading from God's word. Brothers, as I expressed earlier, it is a wonderful opportunity to come back in your midst and to be in your presence this morning. As was indicated in the introduction, underneath God's providence, I did have the opportunity to study and to graduate from Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. Some years have passed since that time. And as I come back and walk the halls of the seminary, I notice that there are many things that have changed. When I entered seminary, this building did not exist. We met in the home across the way. We met in what was at one time the garage of that home. At that time, we had two professors, full-time professors, and a mere handful of students. And so coming back here, seeing this building, seeing the growth in the student body, seeing the diversity in the student body, seeing the addition of professors and other staff members shows me many things have changed among Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. But we also trust, brothers, that many things have stayed the same, and in fact, that the important things have stayed the same. This seminary was established upon the principle of the fear of the Lord, and the fear of the Lord as that applied to both orthodoxy and orthopraxy. And we trust and we pray that that continues to be true. But for that to continue to be true, there must be diligence. There must be a focused diligence by everyone involved in the life of the seminary. whether it be the professors, the students, whether it be those who are on the board or those who serve in some administrative fashion, we must continue to fix our attention, our diligent attention upon the basic principles of God's word as they especially apply to the pastoral ministry. And so for that encouragement, This morning, we want to turn our attention to this last verse in 1 Timothy chapter 4. We read there the Apostle Paul stating to Timothy, take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you. This verse encourages us by giving us an exhortation to what I'm going to call anyways, attentive perseverance. And the Apostle Paul begins by indicating the spirit or the attitude, the very heartbeat that must be within our own souls and must be within the soul, if I may use that word, of this institution. There must be an attentive spirit. You notice the way that he compounds the imperatives. Take heed, he says, and then he also says, continue. And when you connect the two imperatives of verse 16 together, you notice, first of all, that the Apostle Paul emphasizes the necessity of an attentive spirit, an attentive heart, worked within our hearts, of course, by the operation of the Holy Spirit. The subject is actually implied. He's speaking to Paul, or rather to Timothy. He says, you take heed to yourself. The you is that of the pastor. By extension, we might say the you of verse 16 is that of the pastoral office of minister. And I believe that we are perfectly justified in taking another step forward in saying that the you behind this imperative does not only speak to Timothy and to the pastor and to the pastoral office, but also speaks to those who are training for the pastoral office and to those who are involved in training others for the pastoral office. So the spirit in a very real way, in a very direct way, in a very personal way, speaks to you and to me as pastors, as those training to be pastors, and as those involved in training men to be pastors. And the Spirit through Paul says, take heed. The first imperative, having the idea of pay attention to or hold fast fixing someone's mind and someone's mental focus firmly upon something. Brothers, the Apostle Paul, led and guided by the Holy Spirit, understood well that there can be no spiritual sloth, no spiritual laziness when it comes to practical pastoral theology. day in and day out in the life of the seminary student, day in and day out in the life of the seminary, day in and day out in the life of the pastor. There must be a spirit and attitude of attention, taking heed, fixing ourselves firmly upon the task at hand. Not only an attentive spirit, but also then a persistent spirit. Paul says, take heed, but then he also says, continue. I believe, connect the two together. Take heed, and by taking heed, continue in the course. Stay the course. Remain firmly fixed upon biblical theological truth. And the Apostle Paul drives this point home with his double imperatives, in part because of what he has said in verse one. Notice he's coming to a young pastor, and really coming to pastors, and he says, you need to have an attentive, persistent spirit, because, verse one, in the latter times, some will depart from the faith. And so there is this motivation running throughout the entire epistle, and especially throughout chapter four, that given the reality, given the fact, given the prophetical utterance of verse one, that there will be men and there will be pastors, there will be seminaries, there will be professors who depart from the faith. Therefore, you and I need to take heed and we need to continue with a attentive, persistent spirit. I suppose I don't have to go into great detail, but I just bring to your attention that history proves the point of verse one. History proves the point that there have been seminaries that began firmly established upon biblical truth, but have then, throughout time, for one reason or another, moved, drifting down the slope of apostasy. The same is true, sadly, when it comes to pastors in the office of minister. There have been men who have started well in the ministry, but who have then departed. I believe I have told this fact before from this pulpit in this room, but perhaps there are new men here. It's only been five and a half years since I was ordained into the ministry. When I was ordained into the ministry, I was first examined by six ministers of our federation. Within five years, 50% of them, three out of the six, were for one reason or another deposed from their office and are no longer in the active ministry. I have just heard a word that within our federation, the United Reformed Churches A well-known and esteemed minister who has served on a number of federational committees has been deposed after years of ministry because of a violation of the Seventh Commandment. And in light of these facts, which surround us in all of their sadness, the Apostle Paul says, take heed. with an attentive spirit and continue with a persistent spirit. So you might say that he encourages us to have an internal spiritual attitude of attentive perseverance. But he goes further and he shows us the focus of this attentive perseverance. We're to have this spirit of attentive perseverance and that attentive perseverance is to focus itself upon really two things. First of all, personal piety. And so he says in verse 16, take heed, first of all, to yourself, personal piety. And then secondly, to the doctrine, apostolic doctrine. So we are to have a internal, spiritual attitude of attentive perseverance to personal piety and to apostolic doctrine. First of all, to personal piety. Paul says, take heed to yourself. Brothers, professionalism is a danger in the ministry. And I do not have the experience that your professors have, but I'm sure they will echo my statement that it can become quite easy to slip into this mold of professionalism. Knowing the doctrines, knowing the exegetical techniques, knowing the homiletical practices, and as the weeks go by and as the Sundays go by, there can be times in the life of the ministry that you find yourself just going through the motions. Perhaps it sounds shocking, but it's true. And that's why Paul says to Timothy and to myself and to you brothers, take heed to yourselves, to your own spiritual condition, to your own display and conduct of personal godliness in all of its facets. Take heed to your own piety in your personal life. Take heed to your own piety in your domestic life, with your wife if God has given you one, with your children if God has blessed you with them. Take heed to the home, to the pastor's home, to the parsonage or the manse. Make sure that things are well ordered in a biblical fashion there first and foremost. Don't simply neglect your own soul, the soul of your wife, the soul of your children. The Apostle Paul drove this home elsewhere. He says in 1 Corinthians 9 verse 27, I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified. Your, if I may use the word rightly understood, your success in the gospel ministry in many ways depends upon your own personal piety, and how by the Holy Spirit you cultivate and maintain this attentive, persistent spirit of personal godliness and of real piety within your own life and within your own soul. I have found in my limited experience you cannot preach a sermon on a pulpit that you have not first preached in your own study to your own soul as you have worked with the grammar and as you have studied and pulled a verse apart bit by bit. It first has to sink as it were and saturate your own soul. Then by God's grace you can stand in a pulpit Then by God's grace, you can stand by a sickbed or a deathbed. Then by God's grace, you have something to say at a funeral. But it first has to begin with just you, as it were, and the Word of God, just you and the Holy Spirit, just you and God himself. And then when your heart has been fed and nourished by preaching to your own soul all week in the study, then you can emerge and ascend the pulpit steps and by God's grace speak a message that has pastoral power. The Apostle Paul says, fix this attentive, persistent spirit upon your own personal piety, but also upon apostolic doctrine. The gospel minister must be a man who has his soul fixed upon apostolic doctrine. And so verse 16 says, not only to take heed to yourself, but also to the doctrine. First of all, we would say that included in here is what we would call the historical objective doctrinal truths. That body of faith. the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, especially in accomplishing redemption, but of course also the work of the Father in the plan of redemption and the work of the Spirit in the application of redemption. But if we allow ourselves to make this distinction, first of all, our hearts must be fixed upon the historical objective work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We must know our doctrine. but not only the historically objective work, but also the experiential, subjective, redemptive work. We must know what Christ has done in his steps of humiliation, in his steps of exaltation, And we must know how within Holy Scripture, no matter what passage of the Bible it is, how that that reveals and shows and proclaims and testifies concerning that objective work accomplished in the glorious public ministry of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We must know, in short and in essence, how to proclaim the truth of Christ crucified. But we must also know in a very real way, how it is that that historical objective truth is applied by the spirit to the hearts of the elect. We must know not only the doctrine of repentance in the theological book, but we must know the doctrine of repentance in the heart and in the soul. We must know how faith is exercised by the soul of God's people. How faith is exercised, might I say, in its strong moments and in its weak moments, in the times of spiritual victory, but also in the times of spiritual trial and trouble. And so fixing our attention upon the objective and the subjective redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ, we will then be able to minister in season and out of season, taking heed to our personal piety and to apostolic doctrine. So I believe in verse 16, Paul has encouraged us to possess an internal spiritual attitude of attentive perseverance to personal piety and apostolic doctrine. but we might ask the question why and uh... the spirit leads paul to answer the question now we have a ground given to us in verse sixteen for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you in doing this if i have been correct in summarizing the this means having an attitude or a spirit underneath God's blessing of an attentive perseverance to personal piety and to apostolic doctrine. In doing this, you will, first of all, save yourself. Again, Paul emphasizes to Timothy, Timothy, you have a heaven to win as well as others. And the Spirit would emphasize that to men who are in the pastoral office, or who are training for the pastoral office, or who are involved in training men for the pastoral office. Let us, myself, you as brothers, never forget, we have a soul that must be saved. God does not save men just because they are ministers. God saves ministers the same way that he saves everyone else, through faith, by grace, through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The word save there, used in the future tense, you will save both yourself, does not deny the fact of a present reality of salvation, but emphasizes this aspect of preserve, even a keep yourself from harm. In doing this, you will preserve yourself. You will keep yourself from the harm of shipwreck and from danger. We, of course, boast in the doctrinal truth of the perseverance of the saints. And that perseverance is what then causes the perseverance of the saints. But here, the emphasis falls upon the duty for the perseverance of the saints. In doing these things, in continuing in these things, in maintaining these things, you will save yourself from the shipwreck of apostasy. So our personal piety and our attention to apostolic doctrine, both in its objective and subjective aspects, has this first motivation, the salvation of our own souls. but not only the salvation of our own souls. The Apostle Paul says, you will save both yourself in doing this, but also those who hear you. A quote from a forefather states, the gospel ministry is the effective means by which God saves people. A basic truth, no doubt you all understand. God is a God of means. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God, that word as it is proclaimed by men called to be pastors and called to be ministers. But here we let the text stand for itself and speak for itself that the personal piety and the attention to apostolic doctrine that a minister has and displays and gives evidence to are the means by which God gathers his people, saves his people, redeems his people. And so not to rob any glory from God, absolutely not. We understand well the sovereignty of God. We find our comfort in the sovereignty of God. But we let the balance stand. Here, the text emphasizes the responsibility of man, the responsibility of pastors, the responsibility of ministers, the responsibility of seminaries, the responsibility of professors in seminaries. In a very real way, the spiritual condition of the church, to a certain degree, rests upon the attentive, persistent spirit that the gospel minister has to personal piety and to apostolic doctrine. John Kelvin, known for his love of brevity, perhaps summarizes it far better than anyone else when he says there are two things of which a good pastor should be careful to be diligent in teaching and to keep himself pure. And so this morning, as we look at verse 16 of 1 Timothy 4, to a seminary and to seminary professors and to men studying for the pastoral office, to men who perhaps are already in the pastoral office, we are reminded of the two important things. Keep yourself pure and be diligent in teaching. Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you that you speak to us words of encouragement. And we ask now that the Holy Spirit would bless the word as it has been opened up, as it has been proclaimed, that it might be a goad and a spur to move us on in personal piety and in apostolic doctrine. Lord, we see evidence not only in your word, but also in our own experience of those who do and have departed from the faith. And so we lift up this institution, and we lift up each and every man that is connected to this institution, along with those who work in various administrative roles, and we ask, Heavenly Father, that you would, by your Holy Spirit, preserve within us an attentive, persistent, spirit that is focused upon personal piety and apostolic doctrine, for our own salvation, for the salvation of your people, ultimately for the glory of your name. We do ask for a blessing upon these men as they return to their studies both in this day and in this semester. May you send forth many a reaper into the white fields of harvest, bringing your kingdom to greater number. We ask these things only in Christ's name. and for his sake, amen.