Fighting and Killing Sin II: Watch and Pray

Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast. I'm Jon Snyder and with me for a number of podcasts is Jeremy Walker. And Jeremy has been with us before, but he's here in North Mississippi preaching and traveling around in the States and preaching as your family is visiting family in the States because you married.

An American, right? I did. I married up, yeah. Yeah, a Jersey girl. Oh yes. Yeah, yeah.

So while Jeremy's here, we asked if he would do a number of podcasts with us and we are going to be covering over a series of podcasts the doctrine or the teaching on temptation and on the mortification of sin, and we're helped by John Owen.

Jeremy is the pastor of Maiden Bower Baptist Church in Crawley or kind of south of London, UK, and Jeremy also has two podcasts of his own, Word in Season and From the Heart of Spurgeon, and we'll put links to those in the show notes.

This is our second podcast on the theme of temptation, and in the first podcast, Jeremy, we talked a lot about the danger and the nature of temptation and how that's different from God's testing us. The source is different and the purpose is different.

Temptation is from an enemy with the purpose of alluring us into sin, for us to live against our God. Testing is God allowing us to go through difficult times, even allowing us to be tempted, but for the purpose of doing us good, and we talked about that, and that is a constant danger, of course, for anyone.

I remember reading McShane who, in a letter to someone, was talking about the fact that we never do reach a place as a believer where we're above temptation. Right. And not just above a certain temptation, but you know, of temptation as a whole, and he described it this way.

He said, we are always gunpowder, and temptation is always a match. So how do we live a life where these two are not constantly coming together, and you know, the damage and the dishonor done to God? Well, McShane's rule was simple, and he said, just keep the heart damp.

Keep the powder damp with the loveliness of Christ. So that's a general statement. We're going to be talking about some very specific things, because last week we mentioned that you cannot turn inward, you know, perhaps after committing a sin, and the shame is there, and the disgust and the hate of your enemy who has lied to you again, you know, the sense of grief that you have sinned against your God again, you know, self-hatred, maybe the consequences are there in front of your face, and it's bitter, and you just say to yourself, I will never, ever, ever sin again.

I will never believe those lies again, and that kind of determination fades. We cannot trust our heart, and Owen gave us some reasons, but this podcast, we want to look at Owen's explanation of Christ's directives that we are to watch and pray, because we don't want to be what John Wesley called spiritual enthusiasts.

Now, in the 18th century, the idea of spiritual enthusiasm is very different than our day's idea. We think of a person being very, you know, vibrant and, you know, and expressive about their emotions.

Enthusiasm in Wesley's day, from the Greek word, means that a person, in a sense, they're a spiritual fanatic, they say, I've got God in me, and you know, it's kind of like what we tend to think of as maybe a falsely charismatic approach, you know, God told me to do this, or you know, God told me to act this way, and so an enthusiast in Wesley's day was a person who was a bit of a fanatic, not following Scripture, and this is what he said to his men, he said, we must beware of the spiritual enthusiasm of desiring a goal, spiritual goal, the end.

So we desire holiness, we desire to walk in a loving harmony with our new King, but not desiring all the steps, all the means, all the tools, not desiring to use all of those that lead to that goal. So it's just kind of wishful thinking.

Right. I wish I was more Christ-like, I wish I.

Knew my Bible better. So it's that the let go and let God mentality, as opposed to the more scriptural trust God and press on mentality. Right. So specifically in our.

Passage, Owen says the means of preservation that Christ mentions are watch and pray, and we want to talk about that today. Sure. So Owen's been.

Describing this entering into temptation, and he helps us to understand what that looks like, what that feels like, how do I know when this hour is reached, and he says sin, sin's the obvious marker. If you've sinned, it's because you've been drawn into temptation.

Sometimes it's the violence of the attack, that sudden but potent aggression in your soul, where you almost sometimes physically, I don't know if you ever have this experience, I think my wife picked me up on it once, she said, what were you doing up there?

I think it was before I was due to preach, and I was in the pulpit, shaking my head, what was like a fly or something? And I think I was literally trying to shake some ugly thought out of my head, is the sense of right here, right now.

Or Owen says it's when you actually start sucking on the sweet poison, when you start enjoying what's going on, and you're tantalized by this, and you're entertaining it. You said earlier, when sin comes up onto your doorstep, and you start having the conversation with it, or when what you're doing opens the door to sin, when you're ready to give it that entertainment, or you start drifting.

You used to be walking closely with God, and Owen says, right, you watch and pray that these things either not happen, or that you push them off, and you seek that they not happen again. And the two great weapons that Christ exhorts his disciples to in the Garden of Gethsemane, watch and pray lest you enter into temptation, lest you be subjected to the kind of pressures against which you cannot stand.

So one immediate lesson.

There for us that's really practical, is that if we don't want to enter into temptation, if we do not want to embrace the thing that offends our King, we must take seriously Christ's commands that follow.

Watch and pray so that. And if we say, I hate sin, or I don't want to live like that anymore, I want to turn away from that, but we are not, by the grace of God, in a dependence upon God, wrestling with the Scriptures, and with our own souls, you know, an open Bible, a face turned toward our God saying, teach me how to watch, teach me how to pray.

I know what prayer is, but in what way is Christ speaking of it here? Is there some special aspect? Is there, you know, a thought, a way of doing this? God, I do not want to go back to the old life, but if that's not there, all of our fine words about loving holiness, and wanting to be like Christ, and wanting to grow, it's just a mask.

Well, it goes back to that chain illustration that you used, another version of that, the tinderbox heart. I'm full of spiritually combustible material, and I live in a world of sparks. Now, if I, I therefore want to avoid the sparks, if I can't, I want to make sure that the tinder is damp rather than dry, but if I put my tinderbox heart where the sparks fly most thickly, is anybody going to say I don't want to be lit on fire?

And it's this consciousness of sin as against our Heavenly Father, the sinfulness of sin, the evil of evils, this heart distaste for that which offends the God of our salvation. Owen says you've got to begin with, if you don't hate sin, if you're not conscious of the evil and the danger of temptation, why would you watch and pray?

So it's this whole disposition of, it's the new creation in Christ Jesus. I am now against this, and I need to know what God wants of me, and I need to be in dependence upon Him to work that in me, and then I run in the.

Way of His commandments. Yeah, I think the Christian has to be reminded that what the world says we're doing is not true. It is the opposite. The world says, you Christians are trying to be nice, noble people.

Okay, fine. That's very admirable. I don't want it, but if you want to do that, you can. You know, like what we think of like a monk or a nun, you know, wow, you gave up a lot. Wow, that's a very admirable thing, you know, so to speak.

But the world says that we do that by closing our eyes to the real and the wonderful things, and we're willing to do without them because we're Christians, you know, so we're kind of shriveled up, dried up little lives for Jesus' sake.

But one day, in heaven, we'll be happy. But that is the exact opposite. You know, James talks about this. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. James chapter 1. Every good gift, every perfect gift, comes from the Father of lights.

That is, if we could only see things, not as they are apparently, but as they are really, we have strong motivation to take our senses in hand, to take the Scripture in hand, to carefully follow the commands of Christ, because I want the things that are lastingly good, not the things that are shadowy, and when I grab hold of them, unlike God who doesn't change, the enemy's gifts shift immediately.

And I realize when it's too late, I have bitten into poison.

Again. If I'm a Christian, my appetites have been changed, and I am learning more and more about what that means. So if you say, well, you can't have the things that you love anymore. No, I don't love them anymore.

And you have to do these oppressive, burdensome things from now on. No, those are my joy and my delight. God is not depriving me of the things that I really want and imposing upon me the things that I have to do.

No, the Lord has given me a new desire. I no longer wish for those things. And when I'm in my happiest and holiest and healthiest condition, I have no desire or appetite for that. And what I want is this.

So when, to twist the sort of the modern lingo, the modern language, when I am truest to myself as a Christian, actually, I have no appetite for that. And what this temptation is, is it's a twisting again of that perception.

And that's why I need to do this watching and praying, because it doesn't necessarily begin with the sudden presentation of an opportunity. I have to fight against the inclination in my soul. It's that James language that, first of all, you've got those inward niggles, and then that gives birth to something else, and that then rises up to something else.

That's where I fight. That's where this battle begins, with those.

Instincts and appetites. So if we're not going to fall prey to kind of a half biblical theology, you know, just knowing enough of the Bible to do damage to our souls, where we say, well, because I am saved by grace, therefore I am free, and Christian liberty, living in a realm of grace, equals, you know, seeing sin as a very small matter.

Or maybe not even possible, because God sees me through the lens of Christ, therefore the false application is He cannot see sin in my behavior at all. Which I think, you know, just goes against so much in Scripture.

How can God give so many rebukes, for instance, in the seven letters to the churches? How can Christ point to sin if He can't see sin in His people, because of justification? So that's a wrong application.

But then there's the other wrong application of doctrine, and that is, I realize now that God is sovereign and all-powerful and gracious and free, and I am all unrighteousness, you know, and all this sounds very evangelical and admirable, but my application is this.

Well, I don't have any power to resist sin, so we just kind of shrug our shoulders and float down this stream, but Christ gives us very.

Clear directives. So how do we do that? Yeah, it's that flawed idea of Christian liberty is so dangerous. I don't want to fall over the cliff, but I'm free to dance on the edge. Okay, how about you stay as far away from the edge as possible?

Our Christian freedom is not the freedom to play with sin in the hope that we don't slide into it. It's the freedom to pursue godliness, to pursue holiness in the fear of the Lord. I have been liberated in order that I may please the Lord, and so I'm going to use those means that God has given me by all means possible to flee from sin, to avoid sin, to fight against sin, and I'm using those different verbs because there are some sins, I mean, we're told to flee sexual immorality.

There are some sins you want to fight against, there are some you just run away from. They're too easy to slide into, and we're seeking after holiness, and it's that sense of temptation, it's that fight against, it's that fleeing from.

I can see this coming, and I need then to watch and to pray. And the very watching and the praying, Owen actually begins with praying, that's where he starts, because I think he's trying to emphasize the spirit of dependence that is implied and even stated by prayer.

If I think I can do this myself, why pray? If I've got the resources within myself, why ask anybody to help me? But the moment I engage, and I think when Christ says this to his disciples, he's not saying, watch, then pray, but this watchful praying and this prayerful watching, these things are going hand in glove.

So the very fact that in watching I pray, I am saying I need the grace of God, I need the help of God, I cannot do this in my own strength. I think that.

That's one of the paradoxes that we find throughout Scripture, where there is a command given to us, but in order to obey the command of the King, which is not optional. Whether we call it grace, whether it's pre-New Covenant, post cross, post-Pentecost, this doesn't alter with the unfolding of redemption.

It is not optional that we obey God. So we have these commands, though, in the New Testament that come, and even in the grammar of the Greek, so you're having an imperative, a command, and it's in the passive voice.

You must, so Peter preaching to the crowds at Pentecost, you know, be saved from this evil generation. Alright, you must get saved. You must not save yourself, you know, you must do what is required to get someone to rescue you, which would be a terrifying command.

Did not Peter explain exactly who is so willing to save? We also have Paul in Ephesians 6, you know, be strong in the Lord. So there's a command, you must be strong, but it's actually in the passive. Be strengthened in the Lord.

So you're commanding me, God, to do something, but in this activity, the only way for it to be accomplished is to be depending upon someone else to act upon me. So I must resist temptation, I must watch and pray, and yet even in the very activity of obeying God, there is that constant awareness that I cannot do this apart from going to a person, and that person constantly giving me what I need.

James 4, where he says that God resists the proud. We think of maybe pride as the person that has, you know, the newest things and, you know, the haughtiest attitude, but what does pride look like in a believer?

A self-sufficiency? Self-reliance. Yeah, a self-reliance, a well-meant but very misdirected statement. God, if you'll just give me one more chance, I'll make you proud, I'll show you.

That I'm taking it seriously. The misapplication. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. You kind of forget the Him who strengthens me and the emphasis is all on there. You know, if my daughter's falling out of a tree and she's clinging on, I run underneath and I command her, drop into my arms.

That's what you need to do, but I'm the one who's going to catch you, I'm the one who's holding you up. And it's not an either-or. The initiative, the priority is always with the God of all grace in His operations toward us, but that is, by virtue of those operations within us, drawing out of us that faith, that repentance, hear the watch and pray.

I am for you, I can supply.

What you need, come and get it. Yeah, again with James 4, he resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Right. So if we think about, what do I need for obedience? Well, one of the things at the very heart of obedience is grace.

That is, this constant, you know, empowering by God, giving us all we need, Philippians tells us, both to desire and to do God's will, to work outward into every area of the life, this wonderful life that was started at regeneration, this new creation, you know, spreading through every thought and every response and every desire and every ambition and every imagination and memory in my life, until I see Christ face-to-face one day, and it's wonderfully completed.

But as we're in the midst of that process, it is God at work in you, Paul says, that makes this not only possible, but it makes it essential to the Christian life. God gives grace to the humble. What does humility look like?

Exactly what you mentioned. I turn in dependence to God and say, I need you. And that's the beginning of applying or obeying what Christ said to watch and pray. And the.

Reason why I so often enter into temptation and then succumb to temptation and sin is not because there is no grace in Christ, not because there is any unwillingness in the Father, not because there's any resistance in the Holy Spirit, but because I refuse to ask.

I don't think I need it, or I don't bother, or I ignore those exhortations and commands. Come to me. Here are the resources that you need. And it's when I seek to stand in my own strength, it's when I fight in my own wisdom, that's when I fall.

And Owen exhorts us, let him who would spend little time in temptation spend much time in prayer. And sometimes, you know brother, these things are very pietistic, and you sort of think, oh that's it's very pithy, it's very sweet, but he taught his disciples to pray.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. How often in my times of prayer am I pleading with my Heavenly Father? Don't even let me get into the place where the sparks are flying. Keep me from these things.

And Owen wants us to understand that then this kind of praying is not just, it's certainly not even reciting the Lord's Prayer as if there's some kind of mantra by which we will be delivered. But that I need, out of that sense of the sinfulness of sin, and out of that awareness of the grace in Christ that comes through him from my Heavenly Father, that I need to take this seriously enough, morning by morning, hour by hour, to be asking the God of all grace, that the spirit of redemption, the spirit of holiness, to enable me, to equip me to stand.

That I not get into that situation, or that I stand when that situation comes upon me.

Owen talks about watching in seasons of particular or special danger. What is he...

What's he talking about there? Yeah, he has a number of different circumstances. When do you need to watch when you don't think you need to watch? Yeah, when do you need to pray when you think you're okay?

Yes, Satan is the master ambusher. He doesn't fight fair. He waits till you're not looking. He waits till you're at peace. So it may be a season of outward prosperity. It may be a season, maybe a season of blessing.

You know, that old language of, you taking to yourself the whole panoply of God, the old hymns talk about, the complete equipment that God provides. But you know, when you thought you just won a battle, and when you're in that season of ease, you say, I don't need...I don't need the shield right here.

I can put that on the wall for a bit, and this breastplate's kind of heavy, and you know, I'm not sure I need these greaves on all the time. And that's the moment that Satan is waiting for. So Owen says, you need to watch, and you need to pray, and you need to be particularly conscious of times when you think that things are going easy.

Maybe the Lord has blessed you. And again, it's the corruption of our hearts, even as God's people, the remaining rather than the reigning sin. That sense after a...maybe there's a particular sin you've been wrestling with.

You're prone to anger. You indulge in seasons of gluttony. You have a good month. You know, if you...maybe one of those people likes checking it off, you know, that little mark that you make in a daily diary or a journal.

Yeah, nailed it again today. And after a month, you're going, wow, I think I'm making this now. I think I'm getting there. And what do you not do that next day? You don't pray. I don't...and what you're... you're not saying this in so many words, but what's beginning to creep in again is that self-reliance, that self-confidence.

I can do this by myself now. We're over the hump. And yes, I'll acknowledge that God has helped me. Hey, I'll raise my Ebenezer today. Hitherto has the Lord helped me, but I'll be okay by myself from here on in.

It's a little bit like that Galatian spirit. You know, you began in the spirit and you're going to finish this off in the flesh. You needed God to kickstart the process, but you're okay by yourself now.

And Owen says, no, these are some of the times when you need to be particularly conscious. And it's not spiritual paranoia. And again, Satan will tell you, oh, so, you know, God's going to let you down or God's out to get you.

He does...no. I live in dependence upon him. This is communion with God. And there is no point at which I don't need him. So let... God rebukes the proud. God, he gives grace to the humble. What's going to happen that time when I go, I need not watch and I'm past prayer.

I'm only going to prove again how much I need that watchful praying and that prayerful watching.

Owen mentions, like you said, seasons of particular blessing, perhaps. A spiritual blessing. Not just that, you know, not just that my lines have fallen in pleasant places at the moment. And we do have those, you know.

Thankfully, there are times where the Christian life, it seems maybe a springtime. And, you know, the enemy, has he receded? I don't see him. You know, things in the family are good. Things at church are good.

Things at work are good. You know, I'm just getting so much out of my Bible study. And Rutherford called those like summer times where everything is just growing and lush. And, you know, and you think that you've become a spiritual giant, perhaps.

One of the dangers I find in seasons like that in my own life, and, you know, we're talking about this a bit abstractly, but we feel all of these. And, you know, and I have, you know, when I read Owen's statements of these things, you know, are dangerous or these things might lead to sin.

And I think, I could have written that, you know, for my own experience. And it's not 50 years ago, you know. It's, is it yesterday or it could be tomorrow morning. But one of the things I've noticed is that after seasons of unusual kindness from the Lord, I hear this little lie that sounds so believable.

And that is, why, John, you're a favorite. You're, you're special. You know, you're a little unique. You're actually not like every other Christian. And therefore you have a right at times to bend the law, to adjust the scripture.

To indulge a little. Yeah. So you can have what you want. I mean, you know, I remember a season in my life where I was required to give very sacrificially to a situation over and over and over and over.

And, you know, and just even with spending, just getting something. So we're not going to talk about wicked things, just thinking, well, I'm the kind of person that has given so sacrificially. God is okay with me devoting all my money to me.

You know, I kind of deserve it. It's kind of the reward mentality.

Right. I get to indulge myself. I've really worked hard for a while on this. I've given up so much. I'm entitled to a little bit of slack. I can indulge myself a little over here. And, and again, it's, it's some of that proverbial language.

So you want to keep the city, but because you've been fighting really hard on that side, it's all right to open the gate on this side and just let a little bit of traffic in and out with the enemy that they'll come in.

And, and that the battle is all about. Yeah. And you mentioned, you know, what, what an expression of the existence of sin, the remnant of sin, even in the Christian, that we can be convinced that an appropriate response to extraordinary love from the King of holiness is unholiness.

You know, that, that, that will be okay. That's a fine expression. That's a fine use of his goodness, you know, or as Paul warned in Romans six, you know, because of grace, are we to just send all the more God forbid.

Another thing I think that, you know, as pastors, we hear a lot is that people will say, well, I would like to read my Bible or pray more, but I'm just, I don't know. I just don't seem to have the time.

Or, you know, I, I don't know why, but I don't pick it up. I look at my Bible and I agree with the concept that everything that, you know, when saying watch and pray, well, that's great. But I just somehow don't go from concept to activity.

And I think what I try to remind people is that it's not just appetite that keeps us from daily throwing open that book and laying our soul before our Father and, and saying to Him, you can say anything you want to say to me, you know, here I am studying, teach me what you want me to know.

But I think it's not just appetite because there are times where my appetite's very weak. And if I just read the Bible and I felt like reading the Bible, well, it would be less. But humility. I need you.

I have to say this to God so many mornings. I need you. I need to bring my soul before you, to lay my hopes and fears before you, to, to open my ears toward you. I need to meet with you and then walk the rest of the day with you.

I am not self-sufficient. So whether my love for you is here or here, my, my appetite's here or here, it doesn't matter. That's not the.

Measure of my dependence. My dependence is absolute regardless of how I feel. So I'm always needy.

So I pick up my Bible and so I tell the people, it's not busyness that is really our problem. It is arrogance. It is, I feel that God is like a vitamin. You would say a vitamin. It's like a vitamin. You know, if you take this multivitamin, you'll feel better.

And, and, you know, you, you spend all this money on this health, this packet of vitamins, you know, there's 30 vitamins. You think, oh, how can I get all those down? You eat them. And you think, I don't even notice if I felt different.

Maybe I feel a little better. Maybe I think so. But God is not the vitamin. It's life and death. I am a desperately needy person. I am as needy this moment in this podcast as I was the moment that God opened my eyes to my true spiritual state.

And I cried out to him for.

The first time. And however much you grow in the gratitude and the knowledge of Jesus Christ, you will always be hanging upon him for your, your standing with God and your strength in Christ. And I think one thing that's really helpful, even in, even in the way that you've described and discussed that, there are two strands there.

There's one of what you might call general or universal Christian experience. I am always, because I am a creature whom God is saving. I am always in this circumstance. But a couple of the things you mentioned, somebody who's watching or listening might be saying, well, I don't often feel like that.

And what's really important is that we understand both the general principles and the universal realities. But one of the things that Owen counsels is you do need to know yourself. So somebody might say, well, I don't feel like that under those circumstances.

But they might describe a different situation. You might go, why, why do you struggle with that? And Owen says, it's so important that we know our own hearts. Some of the Puritans would talk, some of the language, I think we need to be a little bit careful with it, but the, you know, darling sins, because no Christian really ought to have a darling sin, but maybe if we call it a constitutional sin, some of us are going to be more inclined just on account of the way that we're put together to some sins than to others.

So somebody who's a little more sparky, a little more zesty, maybe they're going to be more inclined to impatience and to anger. Somebody who's might say whose passions are more rapidly roused, maybe there's going to be greed or lust that bubbles up.

Somebody else says, I don't really have that problem. I just, those things don't bother me. Okay, but maybe what you could be tempted to think of as your self-control is actually just going to show itself as laziness or lethargy.

And while there's this sort of hyper-engagement on this side, there's this absence of righteous engagement over here. Now, that doesn't mean that we then get to shoot at each other and say, well, you know, you're a bad man like this.

And you say, well, but you're a bad man. No, actually what I need to understand is that because Satan is the master tempter, because he's long practiced and well-practiced and he knows our nature, he's not necessarily going to hit me with the same temptations as he hits you.

He's not going to hit you with the same temptations as he hits me. So when you're watching against temptation, if I say to you, right, John, watch out like this and be careful about this and don't do this, that may not be immediately a help to you.

The general exhortation to watch, that's proper, but you're going to need to watch against the things to which you are particularly prone, as well as in a more general sense, whereas I'm going to watch.

So we might both go into the same environment and you'll come out and we think, or we might get somewhere and ask, John, I can't go in there with you. Well, what's wrong with you, man? And I might say, what's wrong with you?

Actually, God has put you together in a different way. It would be like someone who's indulged in alcohol all their lives and has been converted and another guy who's never touched a drop, can't bear the smell of it.

And all of a sudden you say, hey, let's go visit this beautiful vineyard and it's a winery and one guy says, I can't go there. What's wrong with you, man? We're just going to sort of walk around. No, that to me, that's a sparky environment and my tinderbox heart isn't going to cope.

In God's mercy, your heart's all damp. Now be careful because you might find it's not quite as damp as you thought it was, but I need to know what's going to provoke me, what's going to stimulate me, what's going to entice me, just as you need to know that in your regard.

And actually, if we're really going to help one another, we watch out for one another's souls and you're not going to drag me into an environment where my heart is going to be drawn to sin any more than I would put you in a situation where your inclinations as a creature are going to drag you in a certain direction.

So that self-knowledge, that self-awareness, how am I put together as a creature? What am I particularly inclined toward? And I need to, I need not a sort of a reserve of grace, like I can get a whole back up so that when this happens, but I need to prepare myself and I need to build those defences under God so that when I am exposed to the particular temptations to which I am prone as a creature, I've got in my mind those particular truths, I've wrestled to believe certain promises that are going to displace the allurements of sin, I've got to fight my battles with God's equipment.

But sometimes they'll be my battles and not yours. And though we might be fighting side by side and though we may be helping one another, there's going to be personal dimensions to this that I think pastorally we need to take account of, as Christians in churches together, we need to be aware of.

Owen wants us, when we're watching, watch in accordance with your own heart. Know what you're about. Satan's going to come after you in particular ways.

So, a carefulness. A carefulness in light of the realities of God, in the light of what Scripture says that sin is. It is not what it pretends to be. It is a master deception. And a carefulness in light of your propensities, what you know of yourself.

I remember reading a biography on McShane, and it wasn't the Banar biography, it was a different one. But it mentioned one of his friends, maybe a year or so after McShane's death. So Banar's memoirs had been published, and so quite popular immediately.

And there was a Scottish fellow down in London, and he was in a Christian bookshop. And a Londoner was picking up this, you know, the memoirs. And he heard the guy talking, and he was Scottish, and so, you know, like, where are you from?

And, well, he was from the same area as McShane, and he knew he was a minister, so he said, did you know him? And, well, yes, I did. And he said, what do you think was the secret of his holiness? Now, Andrew Banar said in his memoir that McShane sometimes gave the appearance from his holiness that it almost came naturally to him, and that would be a danger to think that.

And sometimes we see believers that seem to walk so closely to the Lord, so happy in the Lord. You know what one old writer, John Barrett, called a cheerful consecration. We look at that, and we think, well, that comes natural to you because you're you, or you're a preacher, or you're this.

But that's a lie, and it's a dangerous lie. And what the friend said to the man that said, what do you think's the key of his sanctification, was very helpful. He thought for a moment, and he said, carefulness.

Not it came naturally to him. He was just that kind of a guy. He died young, but he was careful. He was prayerful and watching. He kept away from the edge. He didn't play with sin.

And again, Owen says, watch for the approach. There's the carefulness. When you see it coming, don't just stand around. Respond to that. And Owen has this beautiful exhortation. He says, meet your temptation at the very outset with thoughts of faith concerning Christ on the cross.

Don't wait till it's got its hands around your neck. Don't wait until you're in a lock hold, or whatever it may be. The very moment this comes toward you, and when you're describing McChain, I don't know if this is a typical illustration in the States, but sometimes in the UK, people talk about the swan gliding serenely over the surface of the water, this majestic glide.