From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: I am going to read the first two verses in the 10th chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans. The 10th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, reading verses 1 and 2. "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge."

Now we are engaged with the beginning of this 10th chapter of this Epistle to the Romans, and as I was indicating when we began to study it last Friday night, it is indeed a most interesting, a most vital, and a most important statement. What gives it added importance, of course, is that it comes immediately after Chapter 9. Chapter 9, notoriously, is one of the most difficult as well as one of the greatest chapters in the whole of the Bible, with its great doctrine of the sovereignty of God, the ultimate, final sovereignty of God in the matter of salvation.

But suddenly, the apostle having dealt with that, introduces this further section and division of what he's got to say, and he does so by means of these two verses that we are examining. Now, I'm concerned at the moment, before we come to the particular application which the apostle himself makes of what he's saying, I'm concerned at the moment to draw certain general lessons from what the apostle does.

Our interest in the scriptures must never be merely academic or theoretical or intellectual. We are to be interested in that way—we'll never derive any benefit unless we are—but it's not merely to be intellectual or academic or theoretical. We should study the scriptures in order that we may profit from them, in order that we may have light and guidance upon our own lives and upon our own conduct and behavior.

And thus, I'm trying to show you that what the apostle does here has a great deal to teach us at this present moment. Now, we've already drawn two general lessons. The first is, of course, the lesson that we learn from the great apostle here in the whole matter of how we are to treat those who are unbelievers, and especially those to whom we are bound closely by ties of nationality or country or blood or family or some such tie.

Here is the apostle, reviled and persecuted by his own fellow countrymen, the Jews, and yet we notice that his heart is full of tenderness, that his heart's desire for them and his prayer for them is that they might be saved. And he's as ready as any man can be to pick out anything good that he can find about them in order to praise it and to commend it. We've looked at that great lesson.

We also looked at a second general lesson which was this: the relationship between doctrine and practice. And our final conclusion at the end of that was to say this: that if our understanding of doctrine has the effect of paralyzing us or making us do nothing, or making us feel that it's no use being anxious about your loved ones who are unsaved, or if it says that you need never pray about them, that there's no purpose in doing so, or never speak to them or preach to them, well then, there's only one thing to say, and that is that you've misunderstood the doctrine.

Instead of following the doctrine of the scripture, you've been following your own little logic and your own little confined, cramped reason, and you've found yourself in a position in which a Christian should never be. Here is a man of all others who teaches this sovereign election of God, but his heart yearns for his countrymen. He not only yearns for them, he prays for them, and he does everything he can in order to bring them to salvation.

Well, it's a most important lesson, this relationship between doctrine and practice, and we are always wrong if our understanding of doctrine paralyzes us, makes us feel there's no point in doing anything, and leads to that terrible result in which we actually do nothing. Now then, we've done that, but I do repeat it because it is most important as an introduction to what we've got to consider tonight.

Very well then. If it is wrong, I say, to be paralyzed, if it is wrong to do nothing, what is right? What should we do? What should be the position of the Christian? And here the answer that is generally returned at the present time, in particular, is that we should be full of zeal. We should be full of a zealous spirit. But the very statement of the apostle compels us to examine that, for he tells us in the second verse, "I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge."

So, we are driven by his very statement and the way he puts it to examine this whole question of zeal in the life of the Christian. And as I want to try to show you, this is a most urgent problem and question for every one of us as individual Christians and for the church as a whole just at this present moment. And for these reasons: the first is that the whole position in which we find ourselves as Christians is so desperate, so alarming.

I mean by that the very figures and statistics that Christians, putting it at its highest, are only some 10% of the population of this country, and only half of those attend a place of worship with any regularity. Not only that, we're aware of the declining moral situation, the whole collapse of morals and the terrible confusion in so many departments of life at the present time. The position is desperate.

And so, many people in the face of that are tempted to say, "We must do something!" The mere sheer desperate position in which we find ourselves drives them to say, "Well, at any rate, those people are doing something, and it's better to be doing something than to be doing nothing." Any position of desperation inevitably tends to call for action and for activity, and the more desperate the position, the more liable we are to think and to imagine that anything that is done must of necessity be right, because at any rate we are doing something and we're not just sitting back in a paralyzed condition doing nothing at all.

So, there is one reason why we must of necessity consider this. But let me give you another one. There is a great tendency at the present time to say that in the last analysis, nothing really matters but zeal, or to use another word, sincerity. Now, you will find so many saying today—it's indeed one of the most common things that one sees in print or that one hears in conversation—that at a desperate moment like this, in this country and in the whole position in the entire world, nothing matters except that Christian people get together and act together and do something to stem the tide of communism or of immorality or any other ism that may be threatening.

They say, "What's it matter what you believe? If you can get hold of a body of sincere, zealous people who are anxious to do something, this is no time to be questioning as to what they believe about this doctrine or that doctrine." They say when the whole house is on fire, isn't it being rather ridiculous to be paying attention to particular pieces of furniture? The thing to do is to do something to put out the fire and not to be quibbling with one another about particular articles of the Christian faith.

Now, you are familiar with that. That is more or less what is being said in terms of what is called the ecumenical movement. This is a day, we are told, when any man who calls himself a Christian, whatever he may believe in detail, is a man to whom I am to give the right hand of fellowship. I'm to work with him, and we are to stand together and do all we can in a sincere and zealous manner.

They say what's it matter what a man believes as long as he's sincere? They say the curse of the past has been that people were so correct in their doctrine but they were not sincere. They didn't put into practice what they believed, and that's the cause of the present trouble. So, the tendency now is to exalt sincerity and to exalt zeal and activity because of the terrible plight and position in which we find ourselves.

Then let me give you a third reason, which is not perhaps quite so applicable in this country as it is in the United States of America. Now, in America, some of the most acute and discerning and spiritually minded leaders are very concerned about this position. In America, in contradistinction to this country, most of the churches are full on Sundays. It is the thing to do to go to a place of worship in the United States, particularly on Sunday morning. Not so much Sunday evening, but Sunday morning. The churches are full, the churches are flourishing, the churches are prospering.

But at the same time, the crime wave is increasing at an alarming rate. So that a number, I say, of the best thinkers in the church in that country are beginning to say, "What have we got in our churches? Is it Christianity or is it religion? Is it the Christian faith or is it some kind of social club, a social activity and a social outlet?" They're becoming very concerned about this.

The churches are not only full, they have all sorts and kinds of institutions and organizations and clubs, and they're all thriving and they're all busy. Their activity is quite amazing. But at long last, many are asking the question, "What is the value of all this? Have we a right to be complacent? Have we a right to say that everything's all right because the churches are full and are so full of activity?" They're beginning to see that you can have a so-called active church brimming over with people and with excitement and activity and yet that your Christianity, if it is such, is not really counting very much in the life of the nation and of the people at large.

Now, a number of books have been written about this very subject within the past months, and there is an increasing concern being manifested with regard to this whole question. Now then, it's in the light of all that I'm calling attention to this question. But as I say, my fundamental reason for doing so is the very way in which the apostle puts it. "I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge."

In other words, it is obvious that you can have a wrong zeal, that zeal may be mistaken, that zeal may even be dangerous. Now, if you take the long history of the Christian church, you will find that very often, a wrong or a false zeal has done very great harm. I could give you examples. Take the time of the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther, having seen the truth of justification by faith only, mainly through this Epistle to the Romans, in a sense starts Protestantism.

And all along he's having to fight against Roman Catholicism, and he had to wage a great battle against Roman Catholicism. But quite soon he found himself engaged in another battle also, because certain people, following in the wake of Luther, certain enthusiasts, certain fanatics, having got a taste of liberty, turned it into license. So that Luther from then on was not only fighting on the one front against Roman Catholicism, he was having to fight against the fanatical Protestant sects that rose up on the other side.

And the reason he had for doing it was this, of course: he could see very plainly that the excesses of the fanatics were in a sense a greater danger almost than Roman Catholicism itself. At any rate, they were weakening his whole position and argument as over and against Roman Catholicism. His great heart was greatly grieved by the excesses—and it was genuine, it was zealous, it was sincere—of so many of these sects that arose suddenly just immediately after the Reformation.

The same thing happened in this country in the 17th century at the time of the great Puritan awakening and revival. You remember that certain people arose—that was the origin of the Quakers. George Fox himself was a great and a good man, but there were others, men like the man called William Naylor who belonged to the Quakers and who became quite fanatical and who rode on a horse into Bristol proclaiming that he was the Messiah.

Fanaticism came in. And so, those of you who read the work of people like John Owen and Thomas Goodwin and Richard Baxter will know that they likewise were fighting on the two fronts. They were not only fighting the dangerous tendencies they found in Anglicanism and in Roman Catholicism, they were having to fight these radical sects that arose and constituted a terrible danger to the whole of the Puritan movement.

Same thing again. And when you come to the next century, you have the same thing. Strangely enough, not deliberately, quite accidentally, I've been refreshing my memory on certain aspects of the evangelical awakening in America in the 18th century, the work of Jonathan Edwards and Whitfield. But in reading that I've been reminded again of the havoc that was wrought in the churches of New England by a man of the name of James Davenport, who came in the wake of Whitfield, but who was a fanatic and who carried everything to terrible excesses.

Full of zeal, a most honest, a most sincere man, but he did great harm to the cause of the revival in New England and caused much heart searching and trouble for people like Jonathan Edwards and the other godly men who cooperated with him. There is no doubt at all but that it was the fanaticism of a man like James Davenport who did the greatest amount of damage to that great revival, so that Whitfield, who had been received almost as an angel of God in 1742, when he went back to the same places in 1745, received a very cool reception and even he was not able to do much by way of bringing the masses of the people to a knowledge of salvation.

Now then, there you see is the kind of reason for examining this whole question very carefully. And if ever it was necessary to do so, it is necessary to do so tonight. Now then, fortunately for us, the apostle puts it in the two verses: true zeal, false zeal. How can I tell the difference? Well, in the first verse, you've got true zeal. "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved." That's the true zeal. Verse 2: "I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge." That is false zeal.

Very well, let's look at this. Let's see now something about the dangers of false zeal. First of all, let us look at the fallacy of setting up zeal or sincerity to the supreme position, the fallacy of saying that if a man's sincere, if he's all out, if he's zealous, it doesn't matter what he believes. How common that position is today. Now, let me show you how wrong that is and why it's wrong. The first reason for saying that it's wrong is that it's to misunderstand altogether the nature of zeal or of sincerity.

What is zeal? What is sincerity? The answer is it is nothing but a form of power. It's a kind of motive force. That's what zeal really is. It's a measure of the energy with which a man does anything. Now, that is precisely what zeal means. The obvious comparison is zeal to a man is like fire. Fire is a form of energy or electricity, if you like, it's energy. Now therefore, because that is what it is, you must never regard it as something in and of itself. You must never put it into the supreme position.

If you like it in another way, take it like this: man has a mind, and he has a heart, and he has a will. Now zeal belongs entirely to the realm of the will. And because it belongs to the realm of the will, as I'm going to show you, it should never be put up on its own. It should never be regarded as the supreme thing. Therefore, it is always wrong to say that if a man is zealous or sincere, he must be right and that if you do something, anything, it's better than doing nothing. It doesn't follow.

Now I could illustrate this to you in many different ways. Take for instance that proverb of ours which puts it so perfectly: fire is a good servant, but a bad master. Now there it is in a nutshell. Fire is a good servant, but it's a terrible master. If you control your fire, you can heat your house, you can cook your food, you can do many other things, drive your steam engines, and so on. Fire is a most excellent servant. But you let fire get in control and there's nothing but disaster. It'll burn down your house, it'll ruin your great buildings, it may ruin a whole countryside, it may burn up a prairie and destroy everything in its path.

Fire's a good servant, but a bad master. It was never meant to be master, it was only meant to be a servant. And this is something which is true however generally you may apply it with regard to zeal or with regard to sincerity. And it is the answer ultimately to this whole argument which says, "Well, we must do something at any rate." I can't recall whether I've ever told you of an incident which I witnessed myself when I was quite a boy. It was a house that went on fire, and it went on fire in the middle of the night in a village where there was no fire brigade, nor anyone anywhere near.

And suddenly the whole thing began to blaze. There were the men of the village trying to see what could be done. But suddenly they discovered the village blacksmith engaged in an occupation. And this is what he was doing. I can illustrate it perfectly. The front part of that building, there were pillars supporting a great iron girder, and on that girder a great wall was built up.

The men of the village suddenly found that the blacksmith had gone to his smithy, and he'd brought out his biggest hammer. And there they caught him just in time. He was hammering away with all his might and main on one of these pillars holding up that great girder on which the whole wall was built. And they said to him, "What are you doing?" Well, he said, "I'm trying to get this down." They said, "What are you doing that for?"

He didn't know, but he felt it was a good thing to do. And there he was hitting away at these pillars. Of course, had he succeeded, the result would have been that large numbers of people would probably have been killed who were standing in the road. If the pillars had been demolished, down would have come this great iron girder and the whole of the wall down with it, and the people would have been killed.

Now here was a man, you see, who felt it was right to do something. He was working very hard, he was hitting with all his might and main, but thank God he was stopped just in time. He was very zealous, he was very sincere, he was using a great deal of energy. That's the answer to the statement that at any rate they're doing something, they're not like those other people who are doing nothing, they're doing something, as if to do something is always right. There are times when to do something is very wrong and can be the high road to disaster.

Very well, there is the answer to that. In other words, we must learn that zeal and sincerity are neutral. They're neutral in and of themselves. They're never meant to be in the most prominent position. Zeal is quite often a matter of temperament. There are some people who are more zealous than others. There are some people who are quiet and lethargic and phlegmatic. They do their work, but they do it like that. There are others who are zealous, full of energy and of power. Now, it's no credit to them, they're born like that.

And very often zeal and sincerity are but natural temperamental qualities. But people don't realize that. They don't see that they're zealous because they were born zealous, they think they're zealous because they're Christians. It's a very subtle point, that's why we've got to go on with this examination. Well, there's my first point then: that's the nature of zeal and of sincerity.

But secondly, you will find almost invariably that zeal is one of the most prominent characteristics of people who belong to the cults. Have you ever thought of that? The members of cults are generally most zealous people. Don't you find them coming around to your doors on Saturday afternoon selling books? Are Christian people as zealous as that? Here are people who give their time, their energy, and their money to the propagation of what they believe. And they're prepared to make great sacrifices for it, and they do so.

You get the same kind of zeal and sincerity shown amongst communists. Look how assiduous they are in trying to gain converts to their point of view, how they propagate it, how they'll give time, how they'll take terrible risks, perhaps the risk of losing their position and many other things. How zealous the communists are! That's how they've succeeded in such an amazing manner in this present century.

They didn't hold public meetings, they were not allowed to, they never had mass meetings. It's been done quietly by what they call cellular infiltration. Each man feeling that he's a missionary to propagate his teaching and they've done so. And during the war, you remember how we used to read about certain Japanese pilots who were ready to sacrifice their lives for the sake of the emperor. They believed in emperor worship, this harikari as it was called. They were ready to die for their cause, they were so zealous, they were so sincere in it.

Now surely this needs to engage our attention. It is one of the main characteristics of the cults and their devotees that they are characterized by an amazing and an astonishing zeal and sincerity in the propagation of what they believe. Now that in itself shows us why this subject needs to be examined.

But I go to my third and my last argument at this point. The apostle tells us here that it is actually possible for a man to have a zeal of God and still to be wrong, terribly wrong, tragically wrong. Now you see, this isn't merely a question of a blacksmith, it's no longer a question of a member of a cult. A man can have a zeal for God and still be totally wrong. That he says was the trouble with the Jews.

But listen to our Lord putting this in some terrifying words which he uses in the 23rd chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew in verse 15. This is what our Lord says about the Pharisees: "Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves." That's zeal. Compass sea and land to make one convert, one proselyte. There was no end to their zeal.

The apostle Paul puts exactly the same point in the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians where he's dealing with these Pharisees and others amongst the Jews who were opposing his work. Listen to him: Galatians 4:17 and 18, "They zealously affect you, but not well; yea, they would exclude you that ye might affect them. But it is good," says the apostle, "to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you." Again, he's paying tribute to their zeal. They zealously affect you. They were most sincere and most zealous and most thoroughgoing in their endeavors to influence these Galatians, but they were all wrong. They were not zealously affecting them in a good thing, but in a bad thing.

And our reading at the beginning in the 26th of the Acts has reminded us how this was once true of the apostle Paul himself. Acts 26:9, "I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, which things I also did in Jerusalem." There was never a more sincere man than Saul of Tarsus. "I punished them oft in every synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme, and being exceedingly mad against them." There you are, you can't have greater zeal than that. "I persecuted them even unto strange cities." And you remember how, setting out on that famous journey from Jerusalem to Damascus, he went breathing out threatenings and slaughter. The world has never seen a more zealous, sincere person than Saul of Tarsus going down to Damascus.

But you see, it was altogether and entirely wrong, absolutely mistaken. And he puts it again in Philippians 3:6, "Concerning zeal, persecuting the church." He said if it's a matter of zeal, I beat everybody. "Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law a Pharisee, concerning zeal persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless." There was never a more zealous and sincere man than Saul of Tarsus. But you see, he came to see how tragically and terribly wrong it all was, and so he was constantly making this point in his teaching later on.

So he puts it in 2 Timothy 3:6 like this. He says, "Of this sort are they which creep into houses and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." And again in 2 Timothy 4:3, "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts—here's the zeal—shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables."

That's it. Well very well then, you see the apostle's teaching is that you can have even a zeal of God and yet be altogether and entirely wrong. So there's only one conclusion to draw: zeal must therefore always be tested. It must always be examined. You don't say, "What a wonderful zealous man that is, he must be right because he's so zealous. How sincere he is, he must be right, who am I to question him?" That is the most dangerous thing you can ever say. The whole of this teaching in the New Testament, our Lord and the apostles, urges us to be careful, to warn. The whole case of the Jews is a standing warning against trusting to a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.

Very well, so that I come to my second main heading which is this: what then are the characteristics of false zeal? If I've got to examine zeal, if I'm told that I can have a false zeal as well as a true zeal because zeal itself is neutral, how can I test whether my zeal is true or false? We are therefore committed to an examination of the characteristics of false zeal.

And here are some of them. First, these are not absolute tests. You've got to take them together, you'll have an element of some of them in many different cases. Here is one thing which should always raise a query in our minds, and that is that our zeal has been imposed upon us by somebody else and we are just conforming to a pattern. That is of course a characteristic of the cults also. You see the case is put before you, and if you are persuaded, you take it up, and then you begin to be like all the rest of them, and they're all the same. But you see that is a zeal I say that is imposed upon you. You're conforming to a pattern, you're becoming one of them and you become exactly like the rest of them. They're all the same. It's an imposed pattern. That should always raise a query in our minds.

Secondly, if it is a zeal that has to be whipped up or organized, as it were, or that we have to be kept up to it, it is good presumptive evidence that it may well be a false zeal. I mean particularly if the stimulus has to come from other people on the outside all along, it may very well be a false zeal.

Then another very important point is this one, my third test: if you find that you put greater emphasis upon doing than upon being, it's always an indication that you should be careful. If you are more anxious to do things than to be a saint, you better examine your zeal again. The false zeal always puts its emphasis upon the doing and is not very interested in being. Hence its danger.

Or another way of putting that, my fourth test, can be put in this form: that in false zeal the activity is always very prominent and at the center of the life rather than the truth. The thing you're hit by all along is the activity, this energy that's being put forth, rather than by the truth which even the people themselves claim to be representing. In other words, there's always a tendency in false zeal to overdo things. There's always an element of excess. The activity is more in evidence than the thing which it is claimed that has called it forth.

Or if you like, in the fifth place, the more prominent the machinery and the element of organization, the more likely is it to be a false zeal. When methods and means and organization and machinery and mechanism are very prominent, it's good presumptive evidence that it is a false zeal.

But as my sixth test, I would group a number of things together under the heading of carnality, carnality. I mean by that the flesh. What do I mean? Well, in false zeal there is always this carnal element, and it shows itself quite often by a kind of lightness, lightness of spirit, almost sometimes even a frivolity. Alas, this can sometimes be seen even in religious meetings. There's a lightness and a joviality and a kind of jovial superficiality. You can't imagine such things anywhere near the apostle Paul or any other of the apostles or anywhere near our blessed Lord himself.

But you get it in these meetings. They're very zealous—I'm not querying their zeal, I'm granting their zeal, I'm granting their enthusiasm—but they always overdo it and there is this light touch about it. Indeed, I have often on some occasions in a certain type of meeting, I've had to remind myself that I am in a religious meeting. The spirit I have felt present has been the spirit of a cricket team or a football team, the spirit of doing something worldly, some worldly entertainment. These people were absolutely sincere, but there was a lightness in the atmosphere. There was no sense of awe, no sense of God, no sense of holiness, no sense of reverence, but everything was bright and breezy. It was being carried along with great verve and wonderful organizing power. I say these are indications of carnality and not of true zeal.

So that you can add to that, whenever there is a good deal of excitement, this is still under carnality. Excitement is generally fleshly. And if there is an element of self-confidence and of assurance and of being in control of the situation, you can be quite certain it is false zeal. Any impression that is given by a man, I don't care how zealous he is, I don't care how sincere he is, if he gives that impression that he's in control and self-confident and assured, I'm suspicious of his zeal and of his sincerity. If there's any suspicion at all of his being proud of himself, it is still worse.

But let's go on to test number seven: false zeal is always impatient of examination. It dislikes being examined, it dislikes being questioned. It resents this. It says, "But can't you see that I'm zealous, I'm enthusiastic, I'm sincere, I want to do." But you say, "Well, but let's make sure because of the teaching of the script—" no, no, it's impatient of all that. It wants to get on with things, must be doing something. It's this doing of something instead of sitting down with the world on fire. That's the argument. It's impatient of any examination. That is surely a very bad sign.

And when it is impatient of teaching, it is still worse. They have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. They don't want the knowledge, says Paul, they've rejected the knowledge. They're not interested in it. They must get on with it, they say, and they don't want to be taught, and teaching is unnecessary. The thing to do is to be doing something. That's the spirit of the false zeal.

Test number nine: fanaticism, intolerance, concerned with success of what it's propagating primarily rather than concerned about being true. So I put as my 10th test a lack of balance. You will generally find that people who are animated by a false zeal see one thing only, one aspect of the truth only, and they're not interested in anything else. It may be evangelism only, it may be Calvinism only, it may be Arminianism only, it may be prophecy only. This is the one thing and with all their might and main and zeal they press this one thing and they're not interested in anything else.

That's always a fatal sign. That's always been the trouble with heretics. A heretic is a man who's lost his balance. A heretic is a man who's become so absorbed and taken up by one thing that he sees nothing else, and he so presses this one thing, he not only loses his balance, it becomes a lie. It is blind zeal, and zeal can be blind, it can be blinding.

So if there's any evidence of a lack of balance, if the fullness of the truth isn't being presented, if the whole counsel of God is not being dealt with, but always hammering away on the one thing, this one thing, nothing else matters, not interested in learning, not interested in doctrine, not interested in theology... must get people saved and nothing else... or the man who isn't interested in getting people saved, but he has one particular aspect of doctrine and he's always on it... you're certain to find it whenever he speaks or writes, always comes out, that's a false zeal. It's a lack of balance.

Or any lack of balance of course as between doctrine and life, what a man believes and teaches and the way he lives, that of course is of necessity proof positive that it is a false zeal. So my last test is this one, my 11th test: the man who's got a false zeal is always a restless person. And he's restless for this reason, that he's living on his own activity. He's living on his zeal, his energy, his enthusiasm, and his own sincerity. And that will never give a man peace. And these people, they show it of course in this way: if they're taken ill and can't do things, they don't know where they are, they become depressed, they're unhappy. They then realize that they've been living on their own activity.

God knows, my dear friends, I'm preaching as much to you as I am to myself. I've known preachers, alas, who've lived on their own preaching. I've seen some tragedies, I've seen old men who've been a lifetime in the ministry unhappy when they could no longer preach. Not because they were not unhappy because they couldn't preach, but they were unhappy in themselves. They'd been living on their preaching instead of living on the Lord and living on the truth. It's a terrible danger for any man in the ministry. It's a danger for any man who's active in the Christian life. Let's be certain we're not living on our own activities, because if we are, we have a false zeal.

It is of no value. You can be indefatigable, you can be assiduous, you can really give yourself, but it's all wrong if it leaves you in this position in which you are restless and feel lost if you can no longer be active. Well, there I suggest to you at any rate are some of the more important tests by which you can discover whether your zeal is false or not.

But let me turn to the other side: what are the characteristics of a true zeal? The answer is of course it's more or less the exact opposite of what I've been saying, but let me put it in this form. The true zeal is never a zeal that's put on. It's not put on you by anybody else, it's not put on by you yourself. If you've got a true zeal, you've got it not because you've been told it's the thing to do when you join this church or this society, whatever it is. No, no, that's not the reason. If you're doing it simply because it's the thing to do in this society or company, it's probably false. That's never true of the true zeal. It's never put on mechanically, either by other people or the thing to do, or by ourselves as the result of a decision.

Secondly, it is always the result of being. The man who's got a true zeal has it because he is what he is. He has it because he's grown in grace and because he's grown in sanctification. He acts because he is what he is.

Or thirdly, and putting it still more specifically and in terms of our text, true zeal is always the result of knowledge. It is always the outcome of knowledge. Now the apostle has very well put this very wonderfully for us already in Chapter 6 in verse 17, where he said this: "But God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you." Now you notice the order. He actually puts the obeying first, but the obeying actually in practice was the last. This is what he says has happened to you: you were the servants of sin. What's happened to you? Well, he says the first thing was this: a form of doctrine was delivered you. The gospel was preached to them.

And they received it and believed it with their minds. But it wasn't only in their minds, the heart was involved. They were moved by it. And because the heart was involved and they were moved by it, they gave it obedience, their will came into action. But that was the order: they received it with the mind, it moved the heart, it moved them to action. Now that is the true order always. And the trouble with a false zeal is that it puts the will first and is not interested even in the heart nor in the head.

The man who says nothing matters but doing something, he's dismissing the mind. He's dismissing the heart. He says nothing matters but activity, the will. That's the danger of activism always. It doesn't know what it's doing, it isn't interested in what it's doing, it's doing, that's the thing. And it rushes and goes on in its headlong blind manner. The right order is the mind, the heart, the will. The will should never be approached directly. Whenever you approach the will directly, you are in danger of producing and creating a false zeal.

The man who has the true zeal, he knows what he's doing and he knows why he's doing it. His zeal is according to knowledge. So that the fourth test is this: that it is a deep zeal, not superficial. There's a depth about it. It's not spectacular, not showy. You get a much bigger blaze if you put a match into shavings than if you put it into a lump of coal. Terrible blaze but it's soon over, finished. The coal isn't so spectacular, but you get a better fire and it lasts longer and it does more useful service. There's a depth about the true zeal and there's a control about it.

If zeal is in control, as I say, it's like fire, it's a bad master. But when zeal is controlled by knowledge, it's as it should be, it's true zeal. And therefore it follows that there are certain characteristics which once more are the exact opposite of carnality. The man with a true zeal is never self-confident, never. Never self-confident. He is always reverent, he doesn't get excited in a false sense. He's a man who depreciates himself.

The apostle Paul says to the Corinthians that when he went amongst them he did so in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. Paul trembling, apprehensive, fearful, nervous as it were. How different that is from the false zeal and the confidence and the assurance and the mastery of the occasion. No, no. Weakness, fear, much trembling. He was greatly used, so he says in 1 Corinthians 15:10, "I labored more abundantly than they all." But wait a minute: "Yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me."

The Corinthians were despising Paul because he wasn't boasting about himself. Some of the false teachers were boasting about themselves. They were recommending themselves, as he says in the second Epistle, Chapter 3. And because Paul was a humble, modest man who didn't advertise what he was doing, they said he's a nobody. His speech is contemptible, presence is weak and his speech contemptible.

What did he do? "Well," says Paul, "if you really want to know, I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. I am what I am by the grace of God." What's the motive that animates true zeal? Well, it isn't just to be busy and to do things and to get results. It's the glory of God. The glory of God. The love of Christ constraineth me. That's it. Not because he's an active fellow, not for zeal and enthusiasm and energy. No, no, the glory of God. The love of Christ.

His concern about the condition of the lost, seeing their destiny, seeing them as hell-bound sinners. He doesn't talk glibly like that about souls being saved. He realizes the condition of the lost, and he's desperate, it's serious, it's alarming, it's terrifying. And that is why he's engaged as he is. It is knowledge of truth, and he's not simply anxious that people should decide for Christ, he wants them to come to what Paul calls a knowledge of the truth. He's not interested in superficial results, but he is very concerned that men and women should have a knowledge of the truth that will save them from hell and bring them to a knowledge of the glory of God and make them heirs of eternal bliss.

Those are his motives. So that ultimately it comes to this: that the man who's animated by a true zeal, however successful he may be, he's never elated. He's never excited with his own success. He is a man who has taken to heart the words that were uttered by our Lord himself to the seventy when he sent them out to preach and to cast out devils and they were so successful that they came back full of excitement and they said, "Master, the very devils are made subject unto us."

And our Lord looked at them and said, "In this rejoice not, that the devils or the spirits are made subject unto you, but rejoice rather that your names are written in heaven." And that is the position of the man who has this true zeal. He thanks God that he's been used and that God has deigned to bless his puny efforts, but the thing in which he rejoices is not the results he's had, but that his name is written in heaven.

So at the end of his life, this is what he says with the apostle Paul in 2 Timothy Chapter 4: "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but also unto them all that love his appearing."

That's the thing he's interested in. With all his great and phenomenal success, this is what he says: "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death. If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection from the dead. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended; but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

That's the man with the true zeal. His desire is not to be successful primarily, but to know the Lord and to be like him and to apprehend him with a greater fullness. That's a most wonderful test. Well very well, we must leave it at this. I apologize for having held you, but I wanted to deal with this subject. Shall I ask you a question as I close? What's the effect of all this upon you? Is it that you are so afraid of a false zeal that you do nothing at all? If it is, I have spoken in vain. If you are so afraid of a false zeal that it paralyzes you, you're the very antithesis of Paul, you've not understood the truth.

A knowledge of the truth always moves the heart and moves the will. Ye have obeyed from the heart that form of sound doctrine which was delivered you. If it's only in your mind, my dear friend, examine yourself, there's something wrong with you. If the knowledge of the truth hasn't moved you, hasn't engaged your affections and your emotions, hasn't made you do something, you've not known the truth properly. When a man really knows this truth he says, "We cannot but speak of the things which we have seen and heard."

When the early Christians, the ordinary people, were scattered out of Jerusalem by a persecution, I read of them that they went everywhere preaching the word, not in pulpits but telling everybody whom they met. Why? Well, it was so wonderful, it was so glorious, what it had done for them, and they were anxious for everybody else to have it. In any case, the apostle teaches us in Romans 12:11 that we mustn't be slothful in business, we must rather be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.

Not a false zeal, but a true one, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. He's not writing to apostles, he's writing to ordinary church members. Are you fervent in spirit? Are you moved by what you claim to believe? Do you really believe it? If you do, you know that everybody who doesn't believe it is going to hell. And can you be passive and quiet and paralyzed and say nothing and do nothing?

You're here from different churches tonight, my friends. How often do you take strangers to your place of worship that they may hear the gospel? To what extent are you concerned about the souls of the lost? How can a man believe this gospel and not be concerned about those who don't? How can a man sit down feeling his own pulse, worrying about his own temptations and sins and problems and have no concern about the lost? He doesn't know the truth, that's his trouble.

A man who knows the truth must be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. I'm not just asking you to get up and rush and do something. What I'm saying is this: that if you're paralyzed and are doing nothing, what you need is the spirit. You can't make your own spirit fervent, if you try to it'll be a false zeal. The Holy Spirit alone can make a man fervent. It is the fire from the altar of heaven that alone can burn in the heart and give a man a concern for the lost and make him do something about them. That's what you need.

You need the baptism of the spirit of God, you need the fire of the spirit, and you should give yourself no rest, no peace until you've got it. Horatius Bonar was a man who believed Romans 9, he believed in the sovereign election of God, but we've been singing his hymn tonight. Do you remember it? This new hymnbook of ours has left out two verses, I wonder why. These are the two verses they've left out, listen.

"Go labor on while it is day; the world's dark night is hastening on; speed, speed thy work, cast sloth away; it is not thus that souls are won." That's been left out, perhaps they no longer believe that. Here's another verse they've left out: "Men die in darkness at thy side, without a hope to cheer the tomb; take up the torch and wave it wide, the torch that lights time's thickest gloom."

They left that out, they probably don't believe that either now. But Horatius Bonar believed it, and it's true. They're dying in darkness and they're going to hell. Take up the torch of the gospel, wave it that they may see it. "Toil on, and in thy toil rejoice; for toil comes rest, for exile home; soon shalt thou hear the Bridegroom's voice, the midnight peal, Behold, I come." And what a wonderful thing it'll be if he says to you when he sees you: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." God grant that it may be so. Amen.