The Amen in Public Worship: Biblical Principles

Driving home: You see, when we meet in this place each Lord's Day morning and evening, when we gather in our other building on Wednesday, whenever we meet as the church, with the special promises of Christ to be in our midst, in our s…

Martin quotes James Bannerman's 'The Church of Christ' to buttress the principle that God alone prescribes the terms and manner of corporate worship, emphasizing its seriousness.

Once man forfeited communion with God, it was for God and God, not alone to say if that communion could ever be reestablished, and if reestablished, how that communion was to be expressed both individually and corporately. And there is a masterful statement of this principle in Bannerman's classic work on the Church of Christ, and I want to read a few sentences from it. He speaks to this very issue saying, there is a duty of nature which lays upon me, man, the obligation of social or corporate worship. There is a duty of grace to the same effect over and above the duty of nature. And not only ...

10:57 - 12:18 Read in full sermon

Driving home: What a signature is to a document in terms of writing, Amen is to a statement in terms of speaking.

The signing of the Declaration of Independence is used to illustrate how 'Amen' functions as a personal signature, affirming consent to a spoken statement, just as signatures affirm a written document.

Now, when the Declaration of Independence was drafted, you only had one hand that actually framed the words and put them on parchment. Now, when the Declaration of Independence was drafted, you only had one hand that actually wrote the document. You didn't have one man come along and write we and someone else the and someone else people. One hand actually wrote the document.

20:49 - 21:19 Read in full sermon

Driving home: What a signature is to a document in terms of writing, Amen is to a statement in terms of speaking.

The metaphor of trying to reinforce Mount Everest is used to highlight the inherent authority of Christ's words, even as He uses 'Amen' for emphasis.

sent me has passed from death unto life when he would speak of the great realities of the new birth in John three twice he gives the double amen John three three times the new birth in John three times the double amen I say he would give a promise as we would give the double amen amen he would give the double amen amen I say unto you the weight of His Word with His own added signature by the Amen. Now we say, why does the Lord need to reinforce His words? That's like trying to reinforce Mount Everest. It stands on its own.

24:50 - 25:53 Read in full sermon

The point: Outwardly and verbally express the disposition of your heart when led in prayer and praise, so that when the leader adds his 'Amen,' you join with your own.

Martin shares his personal experience of discouragement when prayers are met with 'deathly silence,' contrasting it with the thankfulness felt when congregants respond with 'Amen,' indicating shared engagement.

I tell you, one of the most heart-discouraging things is to pray that you may be helped in prayer in public worship, to think through one's prayers as I seek to do and other brethren do, to give thought to the emphases of the prayers so that there is variety and there isn't the same thing week after week, and to feel some measure of help in being drawn out in prayer, and then to have a deathly silence when it's all over, wondering, well, was I just praying in the presence of 400 people? Were their hearts with me? Did they really lay hold of God with me? Oh, and there's the Amen! There's that s...

51:48 - 53:03 Read in full sermon