Spiritual Depression Pt. 15. Discipline

2 Peter and the Call to Add to Faith

All right, we're on chapter 15 of the book Spiritual Depression by Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, and we're going to start by reading some scripture. We're going to be looking at basically the scripture from verse 5 onward, but I want to put the first few verses up here as a background.

Simon Peter, bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. I put this verse up because notice who is, well we know obviously who the author is, I'm not going to ask you who the author is, but who is it written to?

The elect. It's written to Christians, all right, I want you to keep that in mind. This is not, this epistle is not an evangelistic epistle, it's written to the church. Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence.

For by these he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. All right, notice these two verses right here, okay.

His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, and then if you go down to verse four, for by these he has granted to us precious promises. What is that referring to? No, what's the subject?

Obviously, the whole purpose of a pastoral epistle is sanctification if it's written to the church, but what is, what are these things, what's the basis for him to say these things? Something about the scripture.

His divine power is granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness. How do we have, how do, how is the word of God portrayed to us or transmitted to us through the scriptures, all right? For by these he has granted to us precious and magnificent promises, all right?

Now this, that's not what the lesson is tonight, I just wanted to set that up as a introduction to it. Now these, this is the text for the chapter. Now for this very reason also, notice, now for this very reason also, might have said therefore or however, right?

Now for these, this very reason, what very reason? We have the divine promises given to us where? By the holy scriptures, all right? Applying all diligence in your faith, supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.

For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.

I think Peter needed to go to Dale Carnegie, don't you think? He obviously didn't read the book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. He's laying it right on the line. This is about as straightforward teaching as you're going to, as you're going to find anywhere in scripture.

Spiritual Depression as a Result of Lack of Discipline

So here's the beginning of the chapter. Here, in this first chapter of the second epistle, the apostle Peter deals with yet another cause of spiritual depression. Indeed, his object in writing the letter at all was to deal with it.

He writes to encourage people who had been discouraged, and discouraged to such a degree that they seem to have been doubting the faith which they had believed and accepted. That is something that may arise as a very real danger in this state of spiritual depression.

If the condition persists and continues, it invariably leads to doubts and uncertainty and to a proneness to look back to the old life from which we have been delivered. One more introductory paragraph.

Fortunately for us, the apostle in this instance gives us the very perfect description of the condition. He tells us indirectly a number of things about the people to whom he is writing. For instance, he puts it like this.

Having given exhortation, he says in verse eight, For these things be in you and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. He says for these things be in you and abound, you will then become what you are not at the moment.

And what is that? They make that you are, they make you that you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, implying that their condition was barren and unfruitful.

I see a lot of times as the biblical writers write, they're telling you what the remedy is, but in the remedy, they're actually telling you what the problem is. And here these people were having a crisis in faith, and that's why he says that they had sunk into spiritual depression.

So what's the problem? The admonition of Peter is clear in that, and that is to be diligent. The diligence he advises is very specific. If his readers follow his instructions, they will not be useful nor unfruitful.

If you do what he says, you will neither be useless nor unfruitful. What's the implication? They were useless and unfruitful. Nor will they be blind or short-sighted. Again, what was part of the problem?

They were blind and short-sighted, spiritually blind and short-sighted. So the implication is they were all of these things, or in danger of becoming useless, unfruitful, blind, and short-sighted. The problem, and here's the problem, is they were lazy and stopped being diligent.

Now remember, these are Christians that Peter is writing to. These are not non-believers. And this is an age-old problem that continues and persists in the contemporary church as well. We find people in churches all across this country who have become lazy, lethargic, basically unfruitful, and, as Peter says, blind and short-sighted.

This is nothing new. It wasn't unique just to the Christians of Peter's age. There are those who have professed faith and continue in it. We're not talking about people who have apostatized or gone into heresy.

These are people who can still articulate salvation by grace through faith alone. They can articulate their profession, yet there is no apparent growth, no maturity is evident in their lives. So Peter says, and here's the problem, lacking discipline, that's the title of this chapter, is discipline.

He says they are lacking discipline. There's the problem, and that's the subject of today's chapter. A major cause of spiritual depression is a lack of discipline. You know, it seems like every week I stand up here and we read the next chapter and I say, this is one of the major problems.

I mean, the good doctor has just nailed this subject of spiritual depression, that every new chapter seems like that's the major problem, and sometimes it's even a combination. Remember, what was last week's chapter?

Do you remember what it was all about? Yes, growing weary. That was the problem, was growing weary. Growing weary, you can see how that is even related to this because of a lack of discipline. If you start growing weary, what's going to happen?

You're going to get lethargic, you're going to get lazy. He says, have we not all noticed that when it comes to the things in spiritual life, we do not seem to have the same zeal and enthusiasm, nor do we apply the same energy as we do with our secular calling or vocation?

John, you can go ahead and say it. Ouch. There are certain things you don't want to say amen to, you know, but I mean, isn't that true? And again, I'm not pointing fingers at any individuals, but in general, isn't it true that Christians, by and large, put more of a priority on their employment and on other things other than their spiritual condition?

All you have to do is look around at the state of the church in America today and you have to agree that that's true. With our secular calling or vocation, our profession or business, our pleasure or something we happen to be interested in, have we not all noticed when we have been working quite well that somehow if we turn for a season of prayer, we suddenly feel tired and fatigued?

Is it not curious that we always become tired and sleepy when we want to read the Bible? We are fully persuaded that it is something purely physical and that we really cannot help ourselves, but it is as certain as anything can be that the moment we begin to apply ourselves to spiritual things, we shall immediately come face to face with this problem of indolence and the laziness that afflicts us, however alert and energetic we may have been previously.

I've actually heard, and I hope nobody in here said it, I've actually heard Christians say, give advice to another person who's having trouble sleeping. Well, start to read the Bible. That'll put you to sleep.

No, I'm dead serious. I have heard that with these two little ears. So, this problem also often manifests itself in the form of procrastination. It's not just a question of getting tired, but of putting it off.

The desire is there, but not right now. I know I should read the Scriptures. I'll do it later. I know I should be reading the Bible more often. I know I should be praying more often. I just don't have the time.

That is the issue that Peter is dealing with in the text, and I dare say that those answers are in the modern church today. It is beyond dispute that most of us are living lives which are seriously lacking in discipline and in order and in arrangement.

Never, perhaps, has life been quite so difficult for the Christian as it is at the present time. He's writing in 1950. So, just imagine how quadrupled that is by now. The world and the organizations of life around and about us make things almost impossible.

The most difficult thing in life is to order your own life and to manage it. The reason for this is not that these external things really compel us, but that if we do not realize the danger of drifting and put up a stand against it, we will have failed without knowing it.

There are so many things that distract us. So, how does a Christian find himself in this condition, the condition of lack of discipline? How do we find, how do we get there? And, of course, we're talking, the good doctor is talking mostly about lack of discipline in our spiritual lives.

However, you will usually find that a person who is not disciplined in their spiritual life is usually not disciplined in their physical life or material life as well, but not always. Sometimes somebody can be very disciplined in their secular life and be undisciplined.

Faith Is Not Automatic or Magical

So, how does a Christian find himself? The root cause is usually a poor understanding of the role of faith in the Christian life. I want you to follow me carefully on this. They have been taught that all that is necessary to live the Christian life is to have faith.

Okay, just have faith and that's all you have to do. Pray this sinner's prayer, believe it, and you're saved, and you never have to do another thing. There are churches that teach that doctrine verbatim as I have just repeated it, and I know that because I grew up in a church like that.

If I merely believe, then the rest of my life will fall into place. This is what you have many churches teaching. As long as you have faith, you pray, things will work out. I call them pantheists. Everything will pan out in the end.

I need do nothing more. That is a wrong view of faith. Okay, now there surely is a suggestion that would that they have a wrong view of faith. Oh, I knew I heard that someplace. This is something which is very common.

They seem to have had a kind of magical view of faith. The idea, in other words, that as long as you have faith, all is well, that your faith will work automatically in your life, and that all you need to do as a Christian is to just believe the truth.

You must accept the faith, and having done that, all the rest will happen to you. You just take one step, you make a decision or whatever it may be called, and that's all that is necessary. I describe it as an almost a magical view of faith or an automatic conception of faith, but perhaps I can put it in a different form.

Very often what we must need is described as a mystical view of faith. In other words, I believe, that's it, everything else is going to work out. In fact, I would say, without fear of being contradicted, that the majority of the Christian churches today teach a doctrine just like this.

They may not say it as openly as this, but that's what it boils down to. How many people remember when John MacArthur came out with his book, The Gospel According to Jesus? Let me just see, how many people know anything about that book?

Okay, well, yeah, never mind, I was going to throw a dig in, but I won't. All right, now the whole purpose for John MacArthur writing that book was against, there was a controversy, it was called the lordship controversy.

There are churches who were teaching that you can have Jesus as your savior, but not as your lord, all right? And that's why he wrote the book, The Gospel According to Jesus, to refute that type of thinking.

If you ever want to read a good book on it, that's one of the, I think that's one of MacArthur's best books that he's ever written, all right, is The Gospel According to Jesus. Putting it negatively, I mean that such people do not realize that faith needs to be supplemented by virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity, as the apostle shows here.

So then, what is the answer to this form of spiritual depression? If you have a lack of discipline, what's the remedy? Well, the problem is a lack of discipline. The answer is, get discipline. You say too simplistic?

Discipline is not something one gets by sitting around and hoping for it, all right? Discipline is an act of the will. And of course, it begins with prayer and requesting divine help, but there is work involved on our part.

It requires personal effort. How do I know that? Why would I say that? Look at what Paul says. So then, my beloved, this is Philippians 2, verses 12 and 13. So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

I mean, can anything be more specific than that? He's talking very clearly, work out your salvation. And remember, salvation has several different meanings. In this case, would be sanctification, not justification, all right?

But work out your sanctification with fear and trembling. For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. So if you're asking for God's help because of your lack of discipline, that's what you're asking for.

You're asking him to change your will so that you have the willpower to do it. You're not just trying to muster up your own self-will. It's divine power that enables you to do this. And then later on in the next chapter, he says, brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward.

Notice there's effort. You have to strive for this, to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ. Paul, Peter, all of the apostles give the message, faith is just the beginning.

In fact, I think I have a slide that says that. Faith is just the beginning. And without faith, it is impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.

How can you become a seeker of God when God has regenerated your Holy Spirit? Because apart from divine intervention, how many people are seeking for God? No one. So God enables you to be a seeker. And then just like our gracious God, I mean, in his character, he rewards you for doing what he commands you to do.

The answer is simple, but not easy. Here's the difference. What's the remedy for lack of discipline? Get disciplined, all right? Very simple, but not easy to do. Once you profess faith, your work is not over.

It's just beginning. In fact, Spurgeon was once asked, but isn't justification the end of the gospel? And Spurgeon says, yes, but which end? So Peter doesn't stop there. He says, we must add certain things to our faith.

Okay, who wants to take me out, you know, as a heretic now, right? Sounds like salvation by works, doesn't it? But, says someone, you're preaching. Is it not an inculcation of justification by works? You see how subtle the devil is.

Surely you are going back to the Roman Catholic heresy and the whole Catholic type of devotion. The answer to that argument is that it is the apostle Peter, the inspired apostle, who goes out of his way to remind us that all these scriptures are inspired.

It is he who tells us that we must add to our faith these various other things and to give all diligence in the doing of it. All right, so Peter is not suggesting that these other things must be added to be saved.

These are things that must be added after you are saved, but that they must be present in the Christian life to avoid spiritual depression and to be fruitful in the kingdom of God. It is not the works that are wrong.

It is the faith in your works. Trusting in your works, but what a subtle danger this is. It seems to me that one of the chief dangers in Protestantism today, and especially in evangelical circles, is that in our fear of the error of justification by works, we have been saying that works do not matter at all.

We argue that faith alone counts, and because I am a man of faith, it does not matter what I do and my life can be thoroughly lacking in discipline. In the text, Peter tells us that certain things must be added to your faith if you are to avoid this particular brand of spiritual depression.

And remember, this admonition comes right after Peter affirms the sufficiency of scripture. That's important. He affirms the sufficiency of scripture, and then he goes right into what is necessary for sanctification.

And what is necessary for sanctification? The Bible. And what else? The Bible alone. So what are those things to be added? First, moral excellence. All right, and that, I mean, I don't think we have to really dwell too much on that.

I didn't plan on spending too much time on these, because each one of these would be a lesson in and of itself, but moral excellence. What is that? Abstain from what is immoral and move to that which is moral.

Where do we find out what morality is? It's defined in the scriptures. Today, what do we have? We have a sliding scale of morality, all right, and it changes from generation to generation. Things that are being done openly in our generation today, here and now, weren't even considered a possibility when I was growing up in the 1950s.

It's just an amazing thing to see how far we have come. So moral excellence must be added. Second is knowledge, and this is not specifically speaking about doctrinal knowledge, although we know that is important, but more in the term of wisdom and applying the knowledge that you have of God to your daily life.

Self-control is beginning to look a little bit like the fruits of the Spirit, isn't it? Self-control, and again, we know when the Bible means self-control, it's actually control that the Holy Spirit is giving you of your own self, all right, not something that you muster up from yourself.

Fourth is perseverance. Fifth, godliness. Sixth, brotherly kindness, and I don't know why, but I left the seventh one off is love. I don't know why I left love off. So just look, these are the things that need to be added to our faith.

That's what Peter is saying. If you want to be fruitful in the kingdom of God, you want to grow in maturity, and you want to not be blind and sword-sighted, then you have to add these things to your faith.

In other words, these things grow out of your faith. Our faith is not something that's here and the rest of our life is over here. Too often we look at, Christians I'm talking about now, too often we look at our life as Time Magazine does.

Anybody a Time Magazine fan? I used to be, I'm not anymore, but if you go through Time Magazine, Time Magazine is divided into clearly marked sections, all right. We have world news, we have national news, we have entertainment, we have sports, we have religion.

Religion is just one segment of Time Magazine. Christians often look at their life just like Time Magazine. I have my work over here, I have my pleasures over here, and here I have my, you know, my family time.

Oh yes, and then I have a slice here, this is my religious section. That's leading into spiritual depression because there's a lack of discipline. So look at the remedy, 2 Peter 1, 8 to 11. Notice it says, for if these qualities are yours and increasing, remember we believe in progressive revelation and in progressive sanctification.

If these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor fruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. If they are increasing, you know there's a principle, if you're not going forward in the kingdom, you're moving backwards.

Because you're, you know what it's like? It's like being in a boat on a stream. What happens if you stop paddling? You roll with the tide. So you got to, and let's face it, as believers in our society, we are paddling against the tide and it will render you neither useless nor unfruitful.

And again, what's the clear implication? If you're not adding those things to your faith, if you're not increasing, it's going to render you useless and unfruitful. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.

Here's another verse that we know for sure he's talking to believers, because who's been purified from his former sins? Only the believer. And what happens if you lack those qualities? You're blind and short-sighted.

Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing you, for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble. Be all the more diligent. Notice it's put in, it's in the imperative mood.

It's a command. Be all the more diligent. That's how you stay out of spiritual depression in this way. How do you compensate for lack of discipline? Order yourselves to your faith, add all of these things, and you'll start to live a disciplined life, so you can become fruitful and not useless, as long as you practice these things.

The minute you think that you can just coast, you're flowing with the tide, you're going backwards, you're not going forward. For in this way, the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be abundantly supplied to you.

There's the whole sermon there, but not for tonight. I'm going to conclude with two paragraphs again. You minister these things, and by that, he means to add these things. You minister these things to your faith, and an abundant entrance shall be ministered to you.

It works reciprocally. In other words, if you do these things, says Peter, if you discipline your life, if you order your life and furnish out your faith in this way, and with these various other qualities, he says you will never fall in the present.

You will have great joy and happiness resulting from your assurance, and when the end comes, you'll go out of this life into the next, with your sails filled with the glorious breezes of heaven. There will be no hesitation about it.

It will not be an entrance with torn sails, rather an abundant entrance will be ministered to you. If we are unhappy and depressed Christians, it is more than likely that it is all due to a lack of discipline.

Let us, therefore, be up and doing and giving all diligence. Let us supplement our faith and not be afraid. Let us get our ideas clear and then put them into practice, and supplement our faith with this strength and vigor, with this knowledge, with this temperance, with this patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love.

Let us begin to enjoy our Christian life and to be used and helpful to others. Let us grow in grace and knowledge, and so be an attraction to all who know us to come and join with us in the like precious faith, and to experience the blessedness of these exceeding great and precious promises, which never fail.

The old Brit has some way with words, doesn't he?

Questions About Memorizing Scripture and the Meaning of the Virtues

Questions? Yes, sir. Didn't you have a friend that you were at a conference, and he was talking about this, and he said, I guess I won't be able to get out, do my new book, Coasting for Jesus. Yes, yes, that was a.

Pastor friend of mine, and I'll never forget it was at an ARPCA conference, and the minister was talking about standing firm, and going forward, and even used the illustration of going backwards, and it was Steve Martin who turned over, not the comedian, the funny one, and he turned around, and he said to us, he said, well, there goes my new book, Coasting for Christ.

Any other questions? No? Is that because you got it all, or you're just being lazy and lack of discipline? Yes. Would a good spiritual discipline be to memorize scripture? Yes. In fact, I can testify.

I won't give you my whole testimony, but it was the word of God that I had memorized as a young child that brought me to Christ. That's a whole different story, but it was definitely scripture. I had to go to church, and I had to memorize scripture, and even though I wasn't a Christian, it was all in there.

Okay, so when it had the list of the seven things that faith should be accompanied by,.

Is that basically the disciplines that they're talking about? Yes, yes. In other words, you have to, and if you look at what all those things are, all right, patience, self-control, godliness, moral excellence, it's all things that we are required to do.

I mean, it's all throughout the scriptures. Just Peter here nails it down and says, you've got to add these things. Your faith is here, and you have to build on your faith with these disciplines, and those disciplines will keep you from spiritual depression and being useless for the kingdom.