Unconverted at Day of the Lord

Driving home: We've come of age we know that the old medieval thought of an angry god upon a throne who would come forth in fiery judgment that's past.

Martin uses the analogy of brushing teeth and combing hair while one's house is about to blow up to illustrate the foolishness of being engrossed in normal, legitimate activities when a crisis (the Day of the Lord) is imminent and requires immediate action.

No crisis on the horizon to call us away from our normal pursuits. Now it's alright to get up in the morning and brush your teeth and comb your hair and put your clothes on but listen if your house is about to be blown up you're a fool to spend your time scraping the tartar off your teeth and getting rid of your halitosis.

13:05 - 13:23 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And yet in the midst of all those upheavals that came up with such a stench in the nostrils of God that God says it's repented me that I've made the world I'm going to block them all out.

He uses the example of Noah's day, where people were eating, drinking, and marrying amidst widespread violence, to show how people can be oblivious to impending judgment while engaged in legitimate activities, reflecting a false sense of 'peace and safety'.

Yet in the midst of all that what was the prevailing mood? Notice. But as in the days of Noah so shall the coming of the Son of Man be for as in the days that were before the flood they were eating. Anything wrong with eating?

16:04 - 16:17 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The Lord is not slack concerning his promises. Some men count slackness as long suffering to us. We're not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Martin tells a story of generations (grandma, mom, self) waiting for Christ's return, with nothing seemingly happening, to illustrate the scoffers' argument in 2 Peter 3:4 that 'all things continue as they were' and the resulting complacency.

Now when you tell people, look, this world is not my home. I am hastening unto and longing for the coming of the day of God. I'm looking for a new heaven, a new earth. When the Lord Jesus comes back to take his own to himself and to destroy his enemies, they say, ah, I remember when I was a little kid sitting in Sunday school, sitting on the edge of my seat when the preacher talked about the shout and the voice and the trump and I remember as a kid what an impression this had upon me and boy, I was all taken up with it.

19:18 - 19:48 Read in full sermon

Driving home: I don't know of any more horrible words in the Bible depart from me everlasting this is what makes the day of the Lord such a frightful thing

He uses the example of the angel of the Lord 'coming upon' the shepherds in the Christmas story to illustrate the sudden, authoritative, and seizing nature of the Day of the Lord's arrival.

for come he uses a word that has the idea of suddenly seizing upon someone or standing over them in authority it's the word used in the familiar Christmas story the angel of the Lord came upon them there they are out there tending their sheep watching the stars yodeling a tune and suddenly there's the first of light and the angel of the Lord is there it's the word used in Acts several instances where the authorities come and seize people it says in Acts 6 that the authorities came and they seized came upon and seized Stephen that's the word the day of the Lord he says will come as sudden destr...

36:14 - 37:43 Read in full sermon

Driving home: I don't know of any more horrible words in the Bible depart from me everlasting this is what makes the day of the Lord such a frightful thing

He uses the example of authorities 'seizing' Stephen in Acts 6 to further illustrate the sudden, authoritative, and seizing nature of the Day of the Lord's arrival.

for come he uses a word that has the idea of suddenly seizing upon someone or standing over them in authority it's the word used in the familiar Christmas story the angel of the Lord came upon them there they are out there tending their sheep watching the stars yodeling a tune and suddenly there's the first of light and the angel of the Lord is there it's the word used in Acts several instances where the authorities come and seize people it says in Acts 6 that the authorities came and they seized came upon and seized Stephen that's the word the day of the Lord he says will come as sudden destr...

36:14 - 37:43 Read in full sermon

Driving home: I don't know of any more horrible words in the Bible depart from me everlasting this is what makes the day of the Lord such a frightful thing

The analogy of birth pangs coming suddenly and inescapably to a pregnant woman is used to illustrate the suddenness and inevitability of the destruction that will come on the unconverted.

and the word sudden means unaware and he uses a very vivid illustration even as birth pangs come to a pregnant woman some of us who are husbands have seen this oh we have we know the baby is on the way and yet there's that day when the mother gets up she goes about her task and then suddenly without asking for it her birth pangs come upon her she can't talk them away she can't reason them away they're there that's the illustration used and it's used in other places of scripture speaking of the judgment of God coming as birth pangs upon a woman with child they come suddenly with a suddenness th...

37:43 - 39:11 Read in full sermon

Driving home: I don't know of any more horrible words in the Bible depart from me everlasting this is what makes the day of the Lord such a frightful thing

The detailed account of Sodom and Gomorrah's destruction is used as a vivid illustration of sovereign, sudden, and inescapable judgment, highlighting how a normal day can turn into utter destruction without warning.

joined to suddenness is the record in scripture of Sodom and Gomorrah and the destruction that those cities received from the hand of the Lord listen as I read from the 19th Genesis the time has come for Lot to escape the angels have said that they will bring judgment upon these wicked cities now I read through Genesis 19.15 and when the morning arose the first rays of dawn break into that area the angels hastened Lot saying arise take thy wife and thy two daughters which are here lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city while he lingered the men laid hold on his hand and upon the han...

39:11 - 40:40 Read in full sermon

Driving home: you've escaped you've rationalized you've done you've cast aside the prickings of conscience and the overtures of God's grace but mark my friend when God puts out the net of judgment you shall not you shall not you child…

He briefly references the thief on the cross who repented in his final hours to contrast with the suddenness of judgment that leaves no time for repentance, as in Sodom.

a normal day in this area the sun has awakened some of the children alarm clocks have gone off for mom and dad maybe some teenage kids that neither light nor alarm clocks would affect who've had the wrong move to the father or the harsh voice of a mother to awaken them another day is gone and so we brush our teeth and we comb our hair and put our clothes on and we come down for breakfast and without any warning suddenly fire and brimstone pour out of heaven by the time a man would have had his second cup of coffee and the school bus would have come for Johnny and Sue there's nothing but the sm...

40:40 - 42:09 Read in full sermon

Driving home: you've escaped you've rationalized you've done you've cast aside the prickings of conscience and the overtures of God's grace but mark my friend when God puts out the net of judgment you shall not you shall not you child…

The story of Belshazzar feasting and then receiving sudden judgment ('weighed in the balances and found wanting') before the night was over illustrates the suddenness of destruction.

you get the feeling of this thing how terrible is sudden destruction you find the same thing with Belshazzar there he is feasting with his wine and his concubines and his wives the sentence of God comes forth thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting and before that night is over destruction came upon him who goes from the bosom of a concubine to the dust of the judgment of God that will be in the day of the Lord and then the third thing it says about that destruction is that it's inescapable notice and they shall not escape in the English language if we use two negatives we are round...

42:09 - 43:38 Read in full sermon

Driving home: you've escaped you've rationalized you've done you've cast aside the prickings of conscience and the overtures of God's grace but mark my friend when God puts out the net of judgment you shall not you shall not you child…

He uses the metaphor of the 'gospel net' that people escape, contrasting it with the 'net of judgment' from which there is no escape, to emphasize the inescapability of God's final judgment.

the day of the Lord come upon them they cry to the rocks and mountains fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth upon the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb they know that they are held in the vice of an inescapable life of the world and they are in judgment you see the contrast of the day of salvation the day of salvation God calls the gospel feast is spread the gospel net is cast how often some of you have escaped that net as I've cast it forth in this book to some of you dozens of times and have pled with you to repent and believe the gospel and have sought to take you in ...

43:38 - 45:06 Read in full sermon

The point: Ensure your expectation of readiness is well-grounded by answering two questions biblically: What has Christ done for me (as a sinner, He is Savior)? and What has Christ done in me (evidence of repentance, faith, and pre…

The story of a man building a lighthouse with great confidence, only for it to be swept away by the first storm, illustrates the difference between a confident expectation and a 'well-grounded confidence' in one's readiness for the Day of the Lord.

any kind of knowledge that you're ready but a well grounded knowledge the story's told of a man who came up with a unique design for a lighthouse in a certain area on a sea coast and other people confident to pass judgment on those things said no that will not stand the test of the battering of the waves and of the high tides that may come this man said I'm absolutely confident in will so they deferred and they let him go ahead and build his lighthouse he had a very confident expectation that it would stand the test but the first violent storm swept it away and there wasn't a trace of that lig...

46:35 - 48:05 Read in full sermon