Knowing the Truth with Pastor Kevin Bowling is a live call-in radio program providing doctrinal dialogue, cultural commentary, and insightful interviews with some of today's foremost Christian authors and leaders. Knowing the Truth is the outreach ministry of the Mountain Bridge Bible Fellowship located on Highway 25 in Traveler's Rest. The goal of the church and the radio program is to seek the glory of God in the salvation of sinners and the sanctification of the saints. by the Ministry of the Word. For more information, go to www.knowingthetruth.org. Here with today's edition of Knowing the Truth is Pastor Kevin Bowling. Hey, welcome into this edition of the Knowing the Truth radio broadcast. This is Pastor Kevin Bolling. So glad that you joined us on the broadcast today. Here for the folks in Greenville, South Carolina, where we're broadcasting from. It's a snowy, wintry day. It was making me think this morning as I was driving into the studio of the verse that we find in Psalm 51, where it says this in verse 7, it says, Purge me with hyssop. And I shall be clean, wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Looking at the white snow out there reminds me of just the cleansing power of the blood of Christ washing us clean. The snow so far for the folks here in the upstate of South Carolina has been enough where it has closed the schools. All the schools are closed today in Greenville County. And a lot of the Christian schools then base their calendar upon what is taking place with the county, and so they're closed as well. But the roadways right now are very much passable. Right now, it's about 33 degrees, and so it's cold enough to snow, but not cold enough to freeze the roadways. That's going to change here in the upstate over the next couple of hours, especially over the night. It's supposed to drop down to about 29 degrees, I think, overnight. And so all of that moisture on the road is forecasted to turn to ice. So it'll be a very different condition tomorrow or throughout the night tonight. So just be careful with the driving out there. I'm originally from Buffalo, New York, so for me, the snow coming down reminds me of home, and this is nothing compared to Buffalo in that sense, right? But the ice is something altogether different. I don't care how familiar you are with driving in cold weather, the ice is going to make things very, very slick around here, so please be careful. Let me mention that we are broadcasting live on sermonaudio.com right now. So if you're at home and you can watch the broadcast as well as listen to it, you can listen to it on the 50,000 watt station that is WLFJ or Christian Talk 660. But you can also listen to the FM version of that on 92.9. And in addition to those two services, we also provide a live video webcast now out on sermonaudio.com. And so you can go out there to www.sermonaudio.com, right on the homepage. You can click on it there, or you can go to our page on Sermon Audio, which is sermonaudio.com forward slash knowingthetruth. and then you can actually watch the broadcast. And Jim Moline mixes into the broadcast. It won't just be me sitting here, but he mixes in pictures of the guest that's on the broadcast and the book that we're talking about, and then other things as well. For instance, we'll be airing a commercial today about an upcoming film, and so the folks that are watching via Sermon Audio will be able to see that. Now here in Greenville or on the airwaves, you'll hear a separate commercial that'll be running, but for the folks watching on Sermon Audio, you'll see something completely different. We'll talk more about that commercial when we get the opportunity, and we're also gonna have the producer of that film is going to be, is scheduled to be with us here in the next weeks or so, talking about that film. Let me tell you about the book that we're talking about today and the guests that we have on the program. The book is called You Lift Me Up, and it talks about overcoming ministry challenges. It says this in the intro to the book, or on the back of the book, it says, It happens little by little. Even in context of a very faithful ministry, a pastor may be at risk for a gradual but ultimately debilitating downfall. And Albert Martin speaks from years of experience as he guides pastors to identify warning signs of dangerous paths. The warning signs are these, backsliding, a spiritual decline, manifested first in the prayer closet, a burnout, that's the erosion of one's mental and emotional and physiological and physical resiliency and buoyancy, and then finally washout, and that is a loss of credibility among the people. And so with a sympathetic counsel, Pastor Martin probes into the life of the minister, addressing symptoms and causes and cures for these various conditions that he talks about here in this book. It's certainly a pleasure for me to welcome back onto the program Pastor Albert Martin. He served as pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey for more than 40 years, and he's certainly a well-respected voice, and his counsel is heeded by many in the pastoral ministry. Pastor Martin, it's a pleasure to have you back on the Knowing the Truth radio broadcast. Well, Pastor Bowling, it's my privilege to be back with you again and also honored that people would take the time to tune in and trust that when our time is over, they'll feel that it was a profitable expenditure of their time. Amen. That's my prayer as well. Let me ask you, if you would please, I gave a little bit of a brief account as to what your book deals with. Would you give us a little bit of a synopsis or an overview of the entire book? And then after you do that, we'll come back and start talking through your book at different stages. Yes. Well, as the summary on the back cover indicated, from which you read in opening up the program, basically I was attempting to minister to a group of ministers at a pastor's conference, addressing what I regard as very practical concerns that, if heeded, would secure by the grace of God a continued life of fruitfulness and freshness as opposed to a life that became a ministry that becomes sapless, dry, lacking in vigor. And so I tried to identify the causes for that tragic declension into such a ministry and gave it the titles of backsliding, burnout, and ministerial washout, seeking to identify what I meant by those terms, what the manifestations of them would be, and then I end the book with five specific words of counsel that, by God's blessing, I trust will bring men who are found in any of those conditions by the grace of God taking heed, those counsels would come back to a place of spiritual freshness and vigor and restored credibility amongst their people. And so I call that last chapter of counsels to those whom God has dealt with through the book. So that, in short, is a quick flyover of what the book is all about. Well, let's start right there in the very beginning of the book, in the opening segment. And let me, you mentioned some of those sections that there are in the book, but let me just recount them really quickly in case our listening audience missed that. But the idea is the warnings against ministerial backsliding, that's in the very beginning. and then the warnings against ministerial burnout, the warnings against credibility washout, and then the final section dealing with the idea of restoration of the convicted pastor. That's the outline of the book. Under that first heading, warnings against ministerial backsliding, the opening segment there is something that is extremely timely in our day and age, You write to beware of distractions from devotion. If I could put one banner over this entire society today, it would be the distracted society. We're passing a law here. They're seeking to pass a law here in Greenville for distracted driving. So there's a lot of distraction that there is in this day and age. Tell the listening audience, then, what you write about that subject related to the ministerial responsibilities. Well, I try to point out that where there is spiritual backsliding, it often will begin with a neglect of those means that God has ordained in order to keep us fresh and flourishing. Psalm 1 is one of those passages that clearly identifies the one who will never cease from bearing fruit is the one who meditates in the law of God day and night. It doesn't say, blessed is the man that preaches and prepares sermons day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water. But it speaks of the nourishment of the inner life by feeding upon the scriptures, by communing with God for the sheer delight of communion with Him, that when we pick up our Bibles, we are not particularly or primarily picking them up to find food for others, but like Jeremiah, we pick up our Bibles to say, Thy words were found and I did eat them, and they were unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart. And so in that element that you mentioned, that is one of the ways that men backslide and lose their spiritual vigor. And there is a lessening of the fire and passion of the truth is when they deal with their Bibles primarily to feed others rather than to be fed themselves. I've been looking recently, we've been teaching through the opening verses of Hebrews chapter 11. I did an expository study through the book of Hebrews, and that's where we're at. And the past week or so, in fact just this past Lord's Day, I mentioned that the three opening characters that we find in the list of men listed that have lived by faith, we find first Abel, and then Enoch, and then Noah. And I said that the first one is the worship of faith, the second one is the walk of faith, and then the third one is the witness of faith in Noah. And I was making the point that it's vitally important that we understand that progression, because so many people want to go to the witnessing, or the work of the ministry, if you will, before spending time in communion and walking with God, like we see with Enoch. Is that the basic concept that you're getting across in that section? Yes, and the two texts that I use particularly are 1 Timothy 4 and verse 16, where after all of the responsibilities that Paul has laid upon young Timothy in the ongoing work of maturing the church at Ephesus, he then turns to Timothy himself And after telling him, let no man despise your youth, but be an example of the believer, he concludes in verse 16 of chapter 4 with this very clear directive. Take heed or pay close and constant attention to yourself and then to your teaching. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those that hear you. so that he laid upon Timothy as his primary, his fundamental responsibility was the nurture, health, and maturation of his own walk with God. Take heed to yourself. He uses a present imperative, and then he follows it up with the admonition, continuing these things, and then the wonderful promise that in so doing, The best thing I can do for my people is to make sure that my own walk with God is fresh and vibrant. In so doing, you will save both yourself and those that hear you. And then the other text is Acts 20, 28, where Paul is charging the elders of the church at Ephesus. He laid out his own example before them in his three, three and a half years of ministry. Then when he turns to charge them, his first word of charge is, again, take heed to yourself and to all of the flock of God in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, reminding them of the same thing that he said before Timothy. You men who are charged with the oversight of God's blood-purchased flock in Ephesus Your first responsibility is to care for your own souls and your own walk before God. So I use those two major texts and then other texts as well, but to underscore that vital principle. Amen. It reminds me of that classic work by Richard Baxter, who wrote The Reformed Pastor. And in the beginning of that, it starts with the oversight of ourselves as being speaking to the pastor as to what he needs to keep in mind. And I believe it's all founded upon that text that you read from the Book of Acts there. as well. It is. It's all based on the Acts 2028 passage that became the framework for what was supposed to be a face-to-face ministry to a gathering of ministers, and he was unable to go, and so that was to be like a tract to be in his place, and it ended up being that book that has been a classic over the centuries ever since he wrote it. Amen. It's been a tremendous blessing to my soul as well. Pastor Merton, then, the practical ways of doing that, the means of grace, as we would refer to them as, are what, then? What are the practical ways of the pastor making sure of the oversight of his own soul? What can he use? Well, I think at the most elementary level, in fact, often people wonder, do we need to tell preachers that they need to have their devotions, and I say yes. Having ministered at pastors' conferences for over 50 years, I found that when men would get honest, the biggest struggle they would often acknowledge is the maintenance of their own devotional life. Having a commitment to a program of reading through the scriptures, ideally at least once a year, or once every two years, whatever the program is, the McShane program has been used by many, others are suggested. But where we come to our study, or wherever we are going to meet with God, and our first responsibility is not to sit at the desk and prepare for others, but to come to our Bibles Even as our Lord Jesus is beautifully described in one of the servant songs, and he says of God his Father, he wakens my ear morning by morning as one that is taught, that I may know how to teach and to comfort and encourage him that is weary. Son of God began his days with his own devotions, if we may use Kermit terminology, and that that is what's absolutely critical, that our dealings with God and His Word are personal, and the first commandment, again, can be brought to bear upon our consciences, and because we can cheat on our devotions, and it's not going to show up as quickly as it will if we cheat on our sermon preparation and prepare a sermon that's poorly organized, poorly structured, sloppy exegesis. If we cut corners in sermon preparation, it soon becomes very evident to our discerning people that we're cutting corners. If we deceive ourselves, if we think we can cut corners in our devotional life, and no one will know, it won't be long before that will begin to be manifested to our wives, to our children, and to the more discerning among the people of God in various ways, So for me personally, and then ministerially, in terms of my own experience at pastor's conferences over the years, I would say that issue number one is to make conscience about the critical place of my own dealings with God, not as a Christian minister, but as a Christian disciple. That's the baseline. And then I would say, secondly, growing out of that and essential to that, if I'm going to be heard as I pray, David says, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear. The prophet Isaiah said, that God's ear is not heavy, that it cannot hear, but your sins have separated between you and your God. In Proverbs 28, 13, he that covers his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy. It is the matter of keeping a conscience void of offense to God and to man. Acts 24, 16. I would say that next to that conscientious commitment to a vibrant, consistent devotional life is the maintenance of a good conscience before God and before men. That means I keep short accounts, I don't excuse my sin, I don't rationalize my sin, If I've spoken a harsh word to my wife, I call it what it is and ask her forgiveness. If I've been brusque in a way that has been ungracious to one of my children, I confess my sin to God, confess my sin to that son or daughter, and with the people of God as well. If I have manifested publicly in my preaching or in a congregational meeting, some manifestation of carnality, then I must make that matter right with God and with my people. Cannot keep a healthy soul while the poison of unconfessed, unrepented sin is working in my spiritual system. That, in Proverbs, is clear. He that covers his sin shall not prosper. So those two things to me are very fundamental in this whole area of keeping a healthy spiritual life that we don't enter a backslidden state. That is such wise counsel and biblical counsel, especially in this day and age where the pastor in his job description, when he even comes to a new church, the job description talks all about, you know, can he do something on the website or is he good with social media or, you know, is all of these other responsibilities that are by far secondary or way down the list of the most important things about spending time with God Himself and then flowing out of that communion, then being able to bring the Word of God before the people of God each and every week. such a vitally important message, I think, for our day and age. We have to beware, I know this in myself, and I say this very often to myself, beware of sermonizing. You know, we can get very well at pulling together a sermon, but I pray, Lord, let me feel the sermon long before the people ever hear the sermon. May I feel the sermon in and of myself that you're speaking to me from thy very word. Pastor Martin, we're going to come back in just a moment. We've got to take a very quick commercial break, but let me tell the listening audience here that we're speaking with Pastor Albert Martin, and he has graciously agreed to stay with us throughout the entire hour today. This is a real treat. We're talking about his book, You Lift Me Up, Overcoming Ministry Challenges. This is put out by a division of Christian Focus Publication. They have a division called Mentor, and Mentor is encouraging Christians to think that it's under that heading. and their website is www.christianfocus.com. That's www.christianfocus.com. I want to make sure that you know about an upcoming event with Dr. Martin as well. He's going to be speaking at an event at the Creation Museum. It's called Reforming Families Conference. It's taking place in 2014. And Dr. Martin is going to be speaking there in July, on July 31st. And my former seminary professor is going to be speaking there as well, Dr. Alan Karens will be there along with Ken Ham and others. I'll give you some more information about that when we come back from the break. Stay tuned, we'll be right back. You're listening to Knowing the Truth with Pastor Kevin Bolling. For more information about today's program, the radio ministry, and the resources we offer, go to www.knowingthetruth.org. There are some bombshells in what are being called the Hillary Papers, documentation that sheds some unflattering light on the potential 2016 presidential nominee. On the next Janet Mefford Show, Alana Goodman from the Washington Free Beacon joins me to tell us all about it. Plus, the head of the Mormon Church has been summoned by a court to answer two charges of spiritual fraud. We'll get reaction from Bill McKeever, president of Mormonism Research Ministry. That and more on the next Janet Mefford Show. This afternoon from 3 to 5 on Christian Talk 660 and 92.9. Hi, this is R.C. Sproul. Remember that Jesus said, Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. And he promised to help us overcome the world because in every generation the world stands against us and against Christ, against the church. And we need strength not only from within but from above to stand against the world, the flesh, and the devil. I'm excited about our national conference for 2014. We'll be meeting again at First Baptist Church Orlando March the 13th through the 15th to consider what it means in our day to overcome the world. We have an array of gifted teachers joining me this year. Sinclair Ferguson, Steve Lawson, Stephen Nichols, R.C. Sproul Jr., Robert Godfrey, Vody Bauckham, Derek Thomas, and Al Mohler. So make your reservations and preparations now. Go to Ligonier.org slash events to register and to find travel and schedule information or you can call us at 800-435-4343. I hope you'll be joining us. Christian Talks 660. If you believe in the sanctity of the life of the unborn, then I would like to invite you to join us March 4th at Camelot Cinemas as we literally roll out the red carpet for the world premiere of the new pro-life short film, First Do No Harm. First Do No Harm is a riveting story that stirs up a commitment to protecting human life wherever we find it. Get your free tickets at fdnhfilm.com. That's fdnhfilm.com. I hope to see you there. Welcome back to Knowing the Truth with Pastor Kevin Bowling. Information regarding the resources referenced on today's program can be found at www.knowingthetruth.org. Now here to continue with today's program is Pastor Kevin Bowling. Okay, welcome back into the Knowing the Truth radio broadcast. I want to let you know about two upcoming conferences that I just want to bring to your attention here. One relates very closely to our discussion today with Pastor Martin, but the first one that I wanted to tell you about was the upcoming Biblical Personhood and Gender Confusion Conference. Now I think the registration page for that conference was supposed to shut down on Friday, and so I don't know if you can still get in if you want to go to that conference. It's going to be held February 14th through the 16th. That's this week in Seneca, South Carolina. Rosaria Butterfield is going to be speaking there along with Richard Phillips and Derek Thomas is going to be there as well. Let me give you a phone number if you still want to register. I think you can, but you need to call. And so you can call and get some information. You can call the pastor there, Bob Anderson, at the Oconee ARP Church. Bob and the church there is the group that's hosting this particular conference. And so his number is 864-882-8444. That's 864, that's the area code. And then it's 882-8444. You can give Bob a call and register for that conference. You won't want to miss it. I'm going to be talking about the issue of gender confusion, which, as you know, if you read the newspaper at all, or you go online at all, or you watch TV at all, you know that there is a tremendous amount of confusion. in our society today, and in our churches today, as to what God's Word says about gender. And so I encourage you to check out this upcoming conference. I also wanted to let you know about one conference that is being, in part, hosted by Sermon Audio, sermonaudio.com, and the Free Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis, has put together a conference entitled Reforming Families Conference, and it's a free conference that's taking place at the Creation Museum in Kentucky. You know, just the other day, of course, we had a lot of information about the Creation Museum. Up to 5 million people watched the debate that took place between Ken Ham and Bill Nye. about the origins debate, and so I know you're familiar with that that took place. Well, this conference is going to be hosted right there at the Creation Museum. There are four scheduled speakers for that event. And it's called, as I mentioned, Reforming Families event. Alan Cairns, Dr. Cairns was the pastor here at the Faith Free Presbyterian Church right here on Hayward Road when I attended the theological hall of the Free Presbyterian Church. Dr. Cairns was the professor of homiletics, as well as the professor of systematic theology, as well. So I sat under Dr. Cairns for both of those two classes, and thank God that I had that opportunity to do that. He's a special speaker at this event, along with our guest on the program today, Pastor Albert Martin will be speaking there. Gerald Bilks will be speaking at the event, and Ken Ham, as well, will be speaking. A free conference. And I also saw that the folks there at Answers in Genesis, right? that they have also made tickets to the museum available during this conference for only $10. So the people that attend the free conference, they can get then tickets to go through the museum for just $10. You can't beat it. I think a number of folks have already registered for this event. And if I was you, I would get a ticket for it while supplies last. You know, the tickets for the creation debate went in two minutes. Two minutes. So I don't know if these ones are going to go quite that quickly, but I think that event is going to fill up. As I mentioned, our guest today on the program, Pastor Martin, will be speaking there. Well, we're speaking with him right now. about a very important book that he has written. It's called, You Lift Me Up, Overcoming Ministry Challenges. Pastor Martin has been doing some tremendous writing. I had him recently on the broadcast to speak about another book that he wrote about grief. It was an extremely helpful book. I have given it away to people that are going through grief at this time. It was written and published by the same group, the Christian Focus, and their website again is www.christianfocus.com. You can go out there to their website in order to find out more. Let me read to you what David Murray had to say about this book. He said, and spare many families and churches the grief of burned-out, knocked-out, washed-out pastors." And so that's from David Murray. I'll be seeing David Murray speak very shortly here at a conference in Orlando. He's going to be doing a breakout session about his book, Jesus on Every Page. So he'll be speaking there. I highly recommend that you read this book. I think that this book obviously is excellent for anybody in the ministry, you know, or anybody in any sort of ministerial work, especially the pastoral ministry. But let me also say that there are principles in here that are broader than that, that can be applied to the Christian life in general, and so I would recommend it for that as well. Let's go back to our discussion now with Pastor Martin. Pastor Martin, we talked about a little bit in the first segment there, in the first section of your book, and primarily with the idea of distractions from devotion and those types of issues. Let's give the listening audience a little bit of a taste of what they'll find in the second segment of your book that deals with the warning against ministerial burnout and some of the things that you write in that particular segment. Well, first of all, if I may just make a little correction, Brother Bowling, the book on grieving was published by Cruciform Press. Oh, that's right. I'm sorry. Thank you. That's all right. I just thought I should mention that, lest someone be confused and wonder. They tell me I can get it at Focus, and I can't find it. So coming back now, then, to the matter of burnout, Because that's not a biblical term, I felt it was incumbent upon me to describe what I meant by that term. It's a term that originally was used in conjunction with rocket science. When a rocket burned up its fuel, it was said to have experienced burnout. But I think it is an apt metaphor, and I'm going to just... You're getting a little bit of some sort of an alert there in the background it appears. Well, we'll just wait just a second. Obviously, something has interrupted Pastor Merton there, so we'll wait till that ends, and then he'll be able to come back on. He mentioned there that the book that I spoke about was actually published through Cruciform Press. Let me give you their website so that you can go out there and find out more about that book. Again, that book was about grief. And it was written very candidly by Pastor Martin about his own personal thoughts as he was grieving his wife going home to be with the Lord. And so, as I mentioned, it has been very helpful for me. to be able to use that in the pastoral ministry. Their website where you can get that book is www.cruciformpress.com. That's cruciformpress.com, and you can go out there and get that book. Pastor Merton, are you back with us now? Back now, I don't know what that interruption was. Yeah, no, we're back together. That's absolutely fine. I was able to give out the Cruciform Press website, so it worked out just fine. And you were talking about that burnout comes from the idea of the fuel being spent. And so then I was saying that I've given a definition to what I mean. What I'd like to do, if that's acceptable, is simply read several lines from the book where I describe what I mean by ministerial burnout. Please do. Yeah. Since, strictly speaking, this is not a biblical term, it's incumbent on me to tell you what I mean by the use of it. Like ministerial backsliding, this condition can overtake us in the context of a very active and fruitful ministry. And what I'm talking about is a condition when our mental activities are not just occasionally dull and sluggish, but chronically and overwhelmingly dull and sluggish. We're afflicted with this condition when serious and concentrated study becomes a crushing and a galling burden I'm referring to a mental condition when particularly the inventive elements of sermon preparation, how we're going to outline, how we're going to illustrate, how we're going to apply the text that we're preaching, when it seems that our minds are in low gear and low low, and we can't shift them up into high gear, There's just a general sense of weariness in the various tasks of the ministry, and just an ordinary day off, a couple of good nights of sleep does not correct it. It's become a chronic condition of general malaise and weariness. and oftentimes people think the problem is that they're backsliding spiritually and I've counseled many ministers who've come into my study thinking that that was their problem, but as I sought to find out what was the pattern of their lives, did they have a mental sabbath where they were letting their minds gain their resilience, or were they driving their mental faculties 24-7 and giving them no chance to be relaxed by doing some reading that was not distinctively theological or biblical, but good, wholesome, diversionary reading, reading a good biography of some well-known person that's been influential in church history or in our ordinary American history, etc. They don't have regular exercise, they're not working up a sweat several times a week, There's a cause that is not rooted primarily in violating spiritual principles, but the principles of general revelation that teach us how to maintain good physical health and healthy emotional and psychological health. Men that don't take time to be with their wives and to keep their interaction with their wives open, transparent, etc. That's what I try to describe as burnout, and that the answer to burnout is not necessarily something that is patently spiritual, but it's recognizing these other dimensions of our humanity, and not trying to serve God, and I use this illustration When disembodied spirits, the angels who are sent forth to serve the heirs of salvation, when they've finished an errand on which God has sent them, they never arrive back at the throne out of breath and weary. But we're not angels. We're not disembodied spirits. We are embodied spirits, and just like God's gracious dealings with Elijah, whatever caused him hitting bottom ten after that amazing display of the power of God on Mount Carmel, and then hearing of Jezebel's intentions, and he makes his way out into the wilderness. It's interesting, when the Lord finds him, he lets him sleep, he wakes him up, he feeds him, then he puts him back to sleep, wakes him up a second time, and feeds him. He didn't preach to him, he didn't spank him verbally, he recognized that this man was experiencing what we would call a form of burnout and the answer was not a day of prayer and fasting but it was two good long sessions of sleep followed by a couple of angel-prepared meals. And in this strength, he then went on to his next responsibility. So that's, in a nutshell, what I try to address under the heading of burnout. You make mention of one of the subtitles of a subsection there in the book under that heading about burnout. You say this, beware of hiding your real And you develop that a little bit further in this sentence. You say, beware of allowing your official position and functions in the ministry to become a wall by which you hide your real humanity or a cocoon within which you imprison your humanity. So we've got to be careful. Somebody once said that the pulpit is a very good place to hide. And so we have to be careful that we don't hide behind some sort of a preacher persona that we're trying to project to the people. And we can't allow ourselves to let them know that we're actually real human beings back here that are going through real times of trouble and difficulty in our own life. And that's where both the example of our Lord and of the Apostle Paul can be of great help to us. When the Lord was disappointed, he did not cloak that disappointment. Oh, unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? He expressed sinless disappointment in his disciples. He expressed sinless grief at their thickness of spiritual, lack of spiritual understanding. And when our Lord was grieving, it was the tears that he shed that caused those at the graveside of Lazarus to say, behold, how he loved him. And his tears were the manifestation of the genuineness of his humanity, and he did not keep them bottled up, saying, Messiah must show such strength that he never weeps. When he came and saw Jerusalem that he knew was going to come under the judgment of God, He not only wept, but, as you know, the Greek word there is the one used of the professional wailers. Our Lord wailed. His whole body convulsed with the emotion of grief, and he did not hide it. And the same way, with his joy, we have that passage in Matthew 11. At that time, Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit. Well, how did they know he rejoiced? because it was obvious in his countenance, his demeanor, and even in the tone in which he said, I thank the Father, Lord of heaven and earth. Obvious, it was an expression of that joy in the manner in which he praised his Heavenly Father. And then would Apostle Paul You find him unashamed of letting, what I quote an old man who helped me years ago, letting the clay show. He writes in 2nd Corinthians, God who comforts those who are cast down or depressed and discouraged. comforted us, and then he tells us how. He doesn't say, by granting me a fresh infilling of the Holy Spirit, by sending an angel to encourage me, though the Lord did that at Corinth. In this case, he said, God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus. Here Paul, one day, hears the door creak and the hinges, and in comes Titus, and Paul sees in the coming of his beloved brother and companion in ministry, God's ministry to a downcast, discouraged saint. And then the fact that we have Romans 7. Where in the world would we be in our struggles with remaining sin, If Paul had said, I can't let people know that I feel at times like a wretched man and I cry out, who shall do? I can't let people know. How will they respect me as an apostle if I tell them the good that I would, I do not. The evil that I would not, that I do. Wretched man that I am. He let the clay show. And the Church has been the beneficiary ever since. And the comfort we've received when we have a sense of self-loathing, that we're not some unusual, unusually perverse person. We're in the company with the Apostle Paul when we recognize and are unashamed in appropriate places and times to let that clay show. goes back to this conference I was in years ago, and a retired army chaplain was there. He was much older than I. I was just in my mid-30s at the time. And he said to me, young man, you believe the Bible? I said, yes, sir. He said, do you believe when it says we have the treasure in clay pots, in earthen vessels? I said, yes, sir. And then he said to me, well, let me give you a word of counsel. Never be afraid to let the clay show. The treasure is never seen to be more precious than when the clay shows. That has been a tremendous help to me so that we can live wholesome, honest, transparent lives before God, before our wives, before our family, and before the flock of God, without turning the pulpit into a biographical sketch every Lord's Day. I'm not talking about that kind of nonsense. I'm talking about this realistic living before people with our Lord and the Apostle as our pattern. Amen. You pointed out a distinction between backsliding and burnout, then, your final segment, which we have just a few minutes for, about three minutes. But in the final segment, you then give another distinction, and this time with washout. So we've got backsliding, burnout, and washout. What's the distinction with that last one? Well, the last one, I have the word credibility in front of washout, and there I was trying to address the very vital issue that the scriptural standard for a man of God is realistic, but it's high. and when we read in first timothy three and this one the requirements for an elder those are not just an ideal standard paul uses the little particle that indicates imperative pressure the bishop the overseer the elder day must be not should hopefully be, may one day be, but he must be. And so every one of those graces must to some degree be present in a man before hands are ever laid upon him. But when they are, in the assumption that his character is indeed well-formed, manifested, mature Christian character, He doesn't get tenure after five years in the ministry. That if his life does not continue to validate and illustrate the ministry that he exercises, he is going to lose his credibility before his people. The old saying, what you are, speak so loud I can't hear a word what you say. And that many men experienced this credibility washout, they've not been defrocked, they have not fallen into gross sin that would warrant leaving the ministry and coming under church discipline, but they've grown careless and they begin to manifest maybe a spirit of being domineering in a session meeting or a meeting of the Board of Elders or Deacons, whatever your form of church government may be, They begin to manifest a touchiness if one of the sheep comes up and says, Pastor, you know, I really had a question about the way you handled that particular passage. They bristle, they get defensive, they don't manifest humility that welcomes constructive criticism or questions. Then their credibility begins to erode. And as one of the old writers said, when you and I stand to preach, it's not the man standing there in the moment that our people see and listen to. It's the man they know us to be from our past reputation and from our present walk before them. And what they know us to be will either add weight to every word we speak, or it will neutralize the weight of what we say. So that's basically the thrust of that section where I tried to deal with the credibility washed out. It's really the result of a life that gets shoddy at the edges and ceases to be the kind of life that would match what Peter says in 1 Peter 5 when he says, the elders among you I exhort He reminds them their task is to shepherd the flock of God, and then he has those three couplets with the negative and the positive, and the last one is not lording it over God's heritage, but making yourselves examples to the flock. To some degree, we must be able to tell our people be followers of me, even as I am of Christ. Amen. What a great word. Pastor Martin, unfortunately our time is gone. Thank you so much for your ministry. Thank you so much for taking the time now to put these thoughts down in words, in these books, and we just really appreciate all the work that you've done and continue to do. Thank you so much. It's been my privilege to be able to interact with you, Pastor Bowling. God bless you and the station in your labors. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Again, that was Pastor Martin. Remember this, that the Lord Jesus Christ said, he said, you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. We'll see you next time. You've been listening to Knowing the Truth with Pastor Kevin Bolling. Knowing the Truth is the outreach ministry of the Mountain Bridge Bible Fellowship located on Highway 25 in Traveler's Rest. For more information about the church and radio ministry, visit us on the web at knowingthetruth.org. The opinions expressed on today's program are those of the announcers, their guests, and callers, and do not necessarily represent those of the staff and management of his radio network, the Radio Training Network, or Clear Channel Communications. Life and Liberty Radio, Christian Talk 660, WLFJ Greenville Spartanburg Anderson on AM 660 and also on FM 92.9.