Well, good morning, brothers and sisters who gather with us this morning. And thank you for the opportunity, the invitation to come and to address you with the chapel this morning. And also a thank you to Brother Kelderman, because I noticed this seminary is much like my congregation, seems to fill from the back. towards the front and after a while speakers become self-conscious. What perhaps is the cause of everyone sitting in the back? So I appreciate you moving forward somewhat. I do want to acknowledge on a more serious note it's with a certain spirit of fear and trepidation that you come here and you address an assembly such as yourselves. But I also want to just remind you, some of you are in active ministry, I assume. Others of you are aspiring to active ministry. And it's always, at least it always should be, with a spirit of fear and trepidation that we open up the Word of God and seek to expound it. An old, old minister, who now has been translated into glory, told me that if your hand ever reaches for the consistory room door to go preach and you're not afraid, don't go preach. And I think that's a good statement to live by. There has to be a spirit of reverential awe as we turn to the Word of God and as we consider it together this morning. I'd like you to turn in your Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter 4 Just a note also, if I may, of course we are convinced all of scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable, but also a special note for those entering into the ministry and those in the ministry that the pastoral epistles are especially relevant. And so I would encourage you to spend much time, of course, in the Word of God, but also spend much time in these pastoral epistles. Now we turn to 1 Timothy 4, reading the chapter in its entirety, and then we'll focus our attention especially upon the last verse, verse 16. Hear now the reading of the very Word of God. Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by the word of God in prayer. 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 little, 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 conversation, 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 the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee. Having read the word of God, let's open also with a word of prayer. Most holy and almighty Lord God, we enter into your presence in the morning hour of this day, and we do so with joy within our hearts, but also with a spirit of reverence we trust, for we acknowledge that it is your goodness and your sovereignty that has given us another day in which to live, and in which to live for your glory and your honor. we do confess in the light of your holiness that we already in these morning hours have fallen short of your glory and so we plead upon the merits of your son Jesus Christ and ask for the forgiveness of our sins and we pray for the purification of our souls for the cleansing the renewing of our minds our wills and our affections we pray for our sustaining grace, for persevering grace as we go about the duties to which you have called us in this day. We thank you for being a God who speaks, for a God who speaks clearly, for a God who speaks unto us, reminding us by way of continual exhortation of our duties and of our responsibilities, also as those who aspire or who labor in the ministry of the gospel. Heavenly Father, we long to see your kingdom come, to see your glory advance throughout this world. And so we pray that this institution and the men who study at this institution might be men who take heed and who attend to the doctrine of the scriptures. We look upon history and in many ways it is a sad account of a gradual decline into apostasy and we plead that that might not be the case with us and nor with this school. And so we ask for your blessing upon our morning activities, that you might be in our midst by your word and by your spirit, granting both utterance and also the reception of that which is spoken. We ask all of these things only in Jesus Christ. Amen. I have to acknowledge also that as I drove up to the seminary here, much has changed. I told one individual, this is my first time being in the new seminary, so to speak, after the addition has been completed. And what a remarkable transformation has taken place over the last decade. If you go back to the days when I started my studies here at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, none of what you see here existed. a small house that was our seminary. The garage of the house was our one classroom surrounded by books that often granted distractions of a coveting nature. As we attended the lectures that were given by two professors, full-time professors, that along with an assistant or two was the staff of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. And so if you look back briefly upon where this institution has come, you'll see that the Lord has blessed it with remarkable growth, not only with student body growth, also with professors and additional faculty members and a beautiful facility. I couldn't help but notice the beauty of the facility as I meandered around, so to speak, finding my way into your beautiful kitchenette, so to speak, and the bookstore, and everything else. It's a glorious opportunity to be here. But it also raises, not so much a concern, but yet a point that I want to emphasize this morning, that the well-being of this institution is not strictly nor even predominantly in the bricks and in the mortar. The well-being of this institution and the well-being of you brothers as those who labor in this institution is not seen in the square footage nor in the dollar amounts, but in an integrity and in a faithfulness to the Word of God. I'm sure many of you are students of history, also of church history, and if you survey even at a rapid speed the history of institutions that have been committed to the training of men for the ministry, it is a history of a rise and then a fall. You can think upon several institutions, denominations, federations, that once stood solidly upon the authority of the Word of God, taught clearly the doctrines of the gospel that today have drifted far, far from such a commitment. And that's a note of warning. a serious note of warning for myself and for you, whether you be a professor, whether you be a student, whether you be engaged currently in pastoral ministry, or whether you aspire to pastoral ministry. And that's why, really, with a burden of heart, I simply want to come here this morning and take this verse, the Apostle Paul's exhortation to the young Pastor Timothy, and lay it before yourself and before myself. The Apostle Paul says, underneath the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine. Continue in them. Take heed and continue. In this passage, we really have a simple call to persevere. a call to persevere in remaining firmly fixed and steadfast upon the doctrine that has been committed to the church by Jesus Christ himself, by the prophets, and by the apostles. You'll notice, first of all, if you look at the verse, the attitude of attentive perseverance. It is an attitude, we just want to state this, it is an attitude of the heart an attitude or a spirit of the heart that is created underneath the application of the gospel by the work of the Holy Spirit. An attitude of the heart that really transforms the entirety of the persons. Let the gospel minister is a man who has a certain focus, a certain attitude, a certain spirit. And that spirit might be described first of all as an attentive spirit. You'll notice that there is an implied subject. You take heed unto thyself. The thyself, the you, of course, is the minister Timothy. By extension, it is the gospel minister. By extension even further we might elaborate and say that this verse speaks not only to gospel ministers but also to those who are training for the gospel ministry and those who train for the gospel ministry. Elsewhere the Apostle Paul charges Timothy to commit the things which he had learned to those who follow after behind. So it is the work of the gospel ministry also in part to train gospel ministers. So very simply, the verse is speaking directly to the gospel ministers, and it's calling them, those who hold pastoral office, or those who aspire to hold pastoral office, to have this attentive spirit, to take heed to the doctrine. The word take heed has this connotation, pay attention to, but not just in a passing way. Pay careful attention to. You might even say, hold fast in a type of spiritual fixation. The fixation which comes when someone recognizes the value of something, the importance of something, and also the danger, you might say, of losing something. So this whole idea of taqid is fixate yourself in your entire being, upon that which is precious, that which is true, that which is valuable, but also that which perhaps could be lost. And just to drive this point home, so to speak, this whole idea of an attentive spirit, there is in the gospel ministry to be no room for a spiritual sloth, of a lack of diligence, of a lack of concern. There cannot be any what you might call lazy moments, times in which you just coast in the gospel ministry, times in which you just kind of set the cruise control and you just continue down the road at the approximate speed that you have been going. But rather there must be this careful fixation of our minds, our hearts, our souls, our very persons underneath the work of the Holy Spirit. Not only an attentive spirit, but a persistent spirit. If you notice the two commands that are given, and of course they correlate one with another, take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine, continue in them. You know of course elsewhere that the Apostle Paul compared the Christian life to that of a marathon, that of a long endurance race. I had the opportunity, believe it or not, to participate in a distance run of some miles. I think it was 15 some miles. And the first two, three miles, they go quite easily, to be honest with you. The next three, four miles, you start to think, okay, we've got ourselves into something now. But once you get to like the 10, 12, 13, 14 mile marker, That's when you start to understand the need for simply putting one foot in front of another in a spirit of persistence. And that's something of the idea. The Apostle Paul is saying, take heed that you continue, that you persist. That you remain stationary upon biblical theological truth. And he drives the point home when he opens up this chapter in verse one. Now the spirit speaketh expressly. that in the latter times, some will depart from the faith. Giving heed, you'll notice the parallel, although the absolute contrast. There are two things in which you can give heed. There are those that depart from the faith because they give heed to the seducing spirits. And in contrast to that, the Apostle Paul says, now, you take heed unto thyself because there are going to be those who fixate and who follow and who become enamored with the false spirits and the false teachings of our day. Not only seminaries, but by personal experience. And this is probably, and I've said this before, bear with me, this is probably been one of the most discouraging things that I have encountered in the ministry is brothers, colleagues, friends, who stood shoulder to shoulder with you in the gospel ministry, but who have strayed, who have departed, who have fallen. Whether it be moral failures, whether it be theological evolution, not of a positive nature, Those brothers that you once stood with in the pulpit and in the classes meetings or the presbytery, the session, the synod who now have moved from the traditional historical biblical position on doctrines and morals. It breaks your heart to see men give heed to deceptive spirits and teachings. And that's why there must be this persistent spirit. We, of course, have to begin on a solid foundation. But we have to remain on that solid foundation. As we begin our ministry, as we continue in our ministry, as you move forward as an institution committed to the training of men for the gospel ministry, there must always be this carefulness that we continue in those things which have been committed unto us, into those things that are according to sound doctrine. And that's really the focus of this attentive perseverance or this call to perseverance. With this spirit, with this whole attitude, with this, you might say, spiritual demeanor of the soul, of the heart, of the life of the gospel minister that is created by the redeeming, sanctifying, converting work of the Holy Spirit as he applies the gospel to one's heart, there ought to be an attentive, persistent spirit that focuses upon personal piety and apostolic doctrine. You'll notice that the Apostle Paul says, take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine. Brothers, don't ever separate those two. They go together. Theologically we call, you know, orthodoxy, orthopraxy. They have to remain closely woven together in your heart, in your life, and in your ministry. A focus on personal piety. You'll notice that verse seven, if you back up just temporarily, refuse profane and old wives' fables and exercise thyself rather unto godliness. The personal character of the gospel minister is not necessarily, of course, what makes the ministry effectual. It is the work of the Holy Spirit that makes the ministry effectual. But in part, it is the Holy Spirit's work within the gospel minister giving him a personal piety that even has this note of being exemplary within the congregation. And so you'll read the qualifications for office bearers. as Paul gives them to Timothy and to Titus. And gospel ministers are to be men of good reputation, men of not perfection, of course, that would disqualify each and every one of us, but men of an exemplary character of piety that is displayed within our own homes, within our own intimate personal relationships with our wives and with our children. By extension, then, an exemplary piety that is displayed in our entire domestic life, our entire public life, our entire ecclesiastical life. This godliness is so critical that the Apostle Paul, as you perhaps well remember, stated in 1 Corinthians 9, I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified. You can think of the credentials of the Apostle Paul. And you could go on and on as he does, and then he counts it all rubbish, of course. But you could remind yourself of the training that he had. a training of a direct commission from the Lord Jesus Christ, a training of being caught up into the third heaven, seeing things which were not even permitted to be stated. He was the premier apostle in many ways, you might say, bringing the gospel to the ends of the world, a chosen servant of the Lord. He preached Endlessly, tirelessly, he wrote with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and yet that same inspiration of the Holy Spirit prompted the Apostle Paul to remind us of the fact that he disciplined his body, bringing it into subjection, lest he be disqualified, even when he had preached to others. It is not the fact that we preach to others that gains us salvation. One minister stated it this way and perhaps it needs to be understood with a certain amount of context. But God doesn't save us because we're ministers. He saves us by His grace even though we are ministers. So don't think that our spiritual credentials for salvation are simply our diploma or our gospel ministry or even the orthodoxy of the presentations of our sermons and our writings, etc. Our basis of salvation is the grace and the mercy of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. A grace and a mercy of God that brings about not only, of course, the legal declaration of our justification, but also the moral transformation of our conversion. And part of the way in which God by the Holy Spirit brings about this moral transformation of our conversion is by reminding us through his word and through exhortations upon his word that we must take heed unto ourselves. There are pitfalls in the ministry. And I trust that in the pastoral practical theology sections your professors warn you of those pitfalls. They're there. They're real, they're deadly, they're subtle, they're deceptive. Men have stood tall in the pulpit in the ministry and then have stumbled and fell in dramatic ways because they failed to take heed unto themselves. If you don't take heed unto yourself, your gospel ministry will certainly not be successful. And I don't mean successful in the world's standards, but rather successful from a measurement from God's perspective. So now as seminarians, in the future, if God so grants you the opportunity as a gospel minister, brothers, let me plead with you, let me beg with you, let me implore you, take heed unto yourself, your own spiritual life, your own devotional life, your own soul's attitude, you might say, or your own soul's relationship with the Lord your God. A illustration perhaps serves the point. I recently flew on an airplane and you've probably all heard it before too if you pay attention, although sometimes we're tempted to tune them out. The stewardess comes on, gives all the warnings and the instructions in case something happens, in case the plane goes down. And there's this statement about the mask that will drop down. I have to confess I only listen with half an ear, but I always hear this same statement. She says, make sure you secure your own mask. before you try to help others secure their mask. And if you take that and apply it by way of illustration to this text, make sure you take care of your own soul so that you then might take care of the souls of others. Because in the airplane, if you don't fix the mask on your own face first, the time will come as the cabin loses pressure that you're no longer able to help anyone. And in fact, you yourself will be in need of help. So take heed unto thyself and then also unto the doctrine. The apostolic doctrine, the gospel ministry and the institution that trains for the gospel ministry must have this internal spiritual attitude of an attentive perseverance to apostolic doctrine. It is to the objective body of doctrine. To the things that have been committed to Paul, that had been committed to Timothy, that had been committed to you and to me. That body of apostolic doctrine that we have received and that we are now called upon to carry and to proclaim. The historically objective work of the Lord Jesus Christ and also the experiential subjective work of the application of that work. Those things have to be maintained, have to be defended, have to be proclaimed in season and out of season. Because again there is this danger of a subtle but steady drifting away. Another illustration taken from the natural realm. At times in the summer I enjoy, although I'm not very good at it, fishing. And I have a parishioner who's An expert fisherman, so it works out great. I know nothing about fishing. He knows pretty much everything about fishing. But one thing I've learned is if you go out on a lake, especially if it's a windy day, you drop the anchor, you think everything's fine, you begin to fish and you begin to converse and steadily but gradually you drift. I remember this last summer, we were fishing at a lake and as we were casting and probably not catching a whole lot, but conversing and just simply becoming preoccupied with what we were doing, suddenly we found ourselves having drifted quite some distance towards where there is a little dam that drops down into a river. And all of a sudden, there was this, you might say, spirit of alarm. We've drifted quite some ways and now we're on the edge of this dam. And now you quickly have to try to get the motor started. Now you have to quickly try to get all the gear in as you frantically try to escape what is most likely going to be a disaster. And the point is that these things happen gradually, almost undeceptively. So take heed to the doctrine. Test yourselves. Evaluate yourselves. Measure yourselves. Don't just assume or presume that because you once stood on apostolic doctrine that you will always stand on apostolic doctrine. Take heed unto yourself and unto the doctrine. And a motivation is given. for this exhortation, and that's one of the beautiful things of scripture. You know that the commands of scripture are often linked with the promises of scripture, and so also the exhortations of scripture are linked to motivations for those exhortations. Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine, continue in them, for, here's the ground, the motivating ground, in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee. So our attentive, persistent spirit of humble reverence that focuses upon piety and doctrine is necessary for our own salvation. So that we ourselves might be preserved from harm, from spiritual harm. It points forward to the final fullness of the experience of salvation and that you might save thyself. And of course he's not denying here or in any way undermining the sovereignty of God in salvation. But he's recognizing the perfect balance that there is between the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. That given the sovereignty of God, this is our responsibility for in doing this underneath the Holy Spirit's work and committing ourselves to personal piety and apostolic doctrine, we shall both save ourselves and them that hear thee. You have a soul. You understand that, of course. I trust you'll learn that very well in your anthropology courses. But don't, in all of the intellectual and academic training, don't lose the pastoral side to that, that you have a soul, that I have a soul, that you have an eternity, that I have an eternity. That we will stand in the judgment before a thrice holy God. That we have a heaven to win or to lose right alongside of our parishioners. Right alongside of every single human being who lives and walks and interacts among us. What a sad, sad day thing it would be for us to have preached to others and then ourselves be cast away. What a shock. You know, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ spoke of this, that there would be those who said, Lord, didn't we do this in your name? And didn't we do that in your name? And yet he will say to them, I never knew you. It includes pastors. It includes pastors of conservative, reformed churches. It includes pastors who failed to heed the exhortation that Paul gives to Timothy to take heed unto themselves and unto the doctrine. Not only ourselves, but also those who hear us. Just in passing, And I don't even remember where it was, I read last week, wherever it was, it was emphasizing the need for the gospel minister to love his congregation. So just in passing, brothers, if you don't love your people, the gospel ministry will not only be a burden, but also most likely a failure. There has to be a pastoral love and it's a weighty love. What I mean by that is it hurts your heart to see the hearts of your parishioners hurt. It hurts your heart to see individuals that you baptized walk away from the faith. It hurts your heart to witness those that you joined together in marriage fall apart. and break the covenant of marriage through divorce. It hurts your heart to talk, for example, to the couple who have just laid an infant child into the ground because of what we would call a premature death. I just might say give a forewarning that your heart will be burdened if you are a true gospel minister with the burdens of your people. But that's the way it ought to be. Out of a love, out of a concern for them. You can think of the Apostle Paul, right, as he writes of his fellow countrymen. He would even that he himself would be cast away. that they might be saved. He had a love for them. And that love ought to motivate us to take heed unto ourself and unto the doctrine so that we might save them that hear thee. I don't know in God's providence if you'll minister to a small congregation or to a large congregation. It doesn't really matter because you'll stand behind the pulpit and you will have eyes fixed upon you. And whether it's two or whether it's 2,000, these souls are, by God's providence, looking unto you as an instrument of the ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so they'll come, we trust, Sunday morning, and we'll encourage them to come Sunday evening also to sit in front of the gospel pulpit so that they might receive the words of everlasting life. And many of them will come with sincerity of heart, with a brokenness of heart, and they'll look not to you as a person, not to you as an individual, not to you as a mere man, but as a spokesman from God. They'll look to you with a certain expectation in the midst of all of their troubles and all of their sorrows. They'll look to you when their marriages are crumbling. They'll look to you when they lay their infant in a tiny little casket. They'll look to you when their child or grandchild departs from the faith. And they'll want a word, not just from you personally, they'll want a word from the Word of God. And in season and out of season, Sundays by Sundays, and as opportunities permit and allow within the execution of the gospel ministry, week by week, we must, for the well-being of their souls, have something to say. Have something to say concerning the gospel. Have something to say concerning the balm of Gilead that heals the wounds of the people of God. We must have something to say with boldness and with clarity, calling men, women, and children to repent and to believe, and to find the comfort and the security and the peace that can be found only in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you don't take heed to yourself and to the doctrine, you won't have anything worthwhile to say to them. and that indeed would be a disaster. To stand behind the pulpit or to go on a pastoral visit, to stand beside a grave, to sit in a counseling room and have nothing to say but that of your own imagination, that of your own invention, that of your own ideas is the most dreadful thing. So take heed unto yourself and unto the doctrine I can't perhaps go wrong quoting John Calvin in closing. There are two things of which a good pastor should be careful. To be diligent in teaching and to keep himself pure. There's a lucid brevity to that. Among the thousands of pages of the Institutes, still sometimes Calvin gets this lucid brevity and actuality and he just nails it, so to speak. Two things of which a good pastor should be careful. Be diligent in teaching and keep yourselves pure. As brothers aspiring to the ministry, as brothers in the ministry, as professors training those to enter into the ministry, as an institution that has been raised up by God's providence and God's good timing to train men for the gospel ministry. Brothers, take heed unto yourself and unto the doctrine that you might save both yourself and those who hear you. Let's close with a word of prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we do acknowledge that we live in troublesome times, times which are dark. We read reports of the darkness of spiritual apostasy that continues to creep over different parts of the world, the darkness of Europe, the darkness of North America, the darkness of our own towns, cities, and villages. And in the dark times of which the spirit has foretold us, we do pray that by your word and by your spirit and through these exhortations, that you might continue to prod us onward, warding off a spiritual slumber, giving us a heart, a spirit that is vigilant, that is diligent to remain steadfast, to hold firm to the truths which we have received. Above all, we pray, Father, that by doing so we might bring glory and honor unto your name, but also that we might set forth the way of life everlasting to those to whom we are called to minister. Give us something to say to those who are brokenhearted, to those who are lost in the darkness of their own depravity. Something to say not of our own imagination or of our own invention, but something to say that comes from you yourself. Bless this institution and those who both labor in it and also those who study within it. May you use this place to advance your kingdom and to glorify your name. And we ask these things for Christ's sake, amen.