Any One Not Prepared to Die is a Fool

The point: Consider the question: Are you scripturally prepared to die?

Martin uses the announcement of a baby's birth to highlight the certainty of death, noting that the only sure thing about a newborn is that they will die.

this is a truth that is lying right on the surface for all to observe no doubt this man had seen his grandfather die perhaps at this stage in his life he had seen his own father die there was stamped on every observed the absolute certainty of death if god nowhere in his words said that death was a certainty for all the sons and daughters of adam all you need to do is open your eyes and you would know that truth with the same degree of certainty with which a man knows it by reading the word of god and there's not a man woman boy or girl here who will not confess that this is a truth that is ab...

5:33 - 6:57 Read in full sermon

Driving home: one of the great curses of the evolutionary view of life... is that that consciousness that I have and am a never-dying soul is well nigh been gone from the general consciousness of our society.

He compares ill-founded confidence in the face of death to a smoker who believes they won't get cancer despite the risks, illustrating a lack of foundation for their belief.

Well, you see, there are many who feel they are ready to die, but they have no well-grounded knowledge of being ready to die. It's like the person who says, oh, yeah, sure, I'm sucking in my three packs a day, and I know that in some people that causes cancer, but I just feel it won't be so with me. Well, you see, there's absolutely no foundation, it's just wishful thinking. Now, there are people who are confident that they shall die well.

12:17 - 12:48 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not deny the existence of your never-dying soul; fear God who can cast it into hell.

Martin shares a personal, unhappy experience of living with someone who believed man was like beasts, illustrating how an unscriptural view of man removes the dread of death.

It is ill-founded and deceptive. And it's rooted probably in at least one, or maybe two, or three, or all four of these things. Number one, you have a confidence in the face of death because you have an unscriptural view of the nature of man. I had the unhappy experience of living with someone who believed that man was like the beasts.

13:26 - 13:57 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not hold an unscriptural view of God that His love will conquer all and He is naught but love.

He references popular books on near-death experiences to illustrate a prevalent unscriptural view of God, where a 'bright light' offers comfort without condemnation, which he identifies as a 'master stroke of deception.'

And if I'm his creature, his love will conquer all on behalf of his creatures. And may I speak very pointedly to some of the current fadism in the area of life after death. Moody's book, Kubler-Ross's book, some of you have read the condensation of this in Reader's Digest, the common denominator in all these so-called death experiences that are making people very confident about death. In these case histories it is said that not one of these people now who supposedly passed through death and came back to life again, not one of them has any dread of death anymore.

16:44 - 17:27 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not feel comfortable in the face of death because of an unscriptural view of the nature of sin.

Martin uses the rich young ruler as an example of someone outwardly moral and religious but inwardly an idolater and hater of men, demonstrating a defective view of sin that misses its deeper demands.

Any lack of conformity to or transgression of the law of God. Every day in which you've not loved Him with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, you've been guilty of high treason against the God of heaven. Every situation in which you've thought of yourself before another and not loved your neighbor as yourself, you have provoked the God of heaven. You may be like the rich young ruler who outwardly is very moral and religious, but he was basically two things, an idolater and a hater of men.

21:23 - 21:56 Read in full sermon

The point: Abandon the unscriptural view of salvation called universalism.

He references the parable of the rich man and Lazarus to illustrate the 'great gulf fixed' between the saved and the lost, directly refuting universalism.

In the parable or the story of the rich man in Lazarus in Luke 16, you remember the words of our Lord, Between this one and that one, a great gulf, not temporarily suspended, but apparently weighty and formidable universalism of the theologians called Barthians. Whether it's the subtle universalism of those who play with the words Ionios and Ionion and go back to an ancient heresy from the third century, it matters not. The words of Jesus stand as a barrier to every form of universalism that says all men will ultimately somewhere in the future be saved. These shall go away into punishment. The...

25:10 - 26:21 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not substitute ceremony for experience or sacraments for the Savior; come into direct contact with the Son of God.

Martin recounts a conversation with a 'full-time Christian worker' who relied on a past 'decision' at age 12 for assurance, rather than a present relationship with Christ, illustrating the danger of decisionism.

For instance, I remember talking with someone who was a, quote, full-time Christian worker. And his conscience began to trouble him as to whether or not he was truly a Christian. But he told me, Pastor Martin, whenever I have any doubts, I go back to the time when at 12 years of age I made a decision. Now notice he didn't say, when I have doubts, I go afresh to the Savior.

31:31 - 31:57 Read in full sermon

The point: If all you have is the memory of something you've done, you're not ready to die; seek a living, vital relationship with Jesus Christ.

He shares his experience during five years of evangelistic work, encountering many 'Christians' who lacked spiritual hunger and relied on past 'decisions' without present reality, further illustrating the problem of decisionism.

He's made a sacrament of his coming down an aisle. He's made a sacrament of his raising his hand. And that's not playing with words, dear people. When I was in evangelistic work for some five years going all over this country and up in Canada, and I spent hours in the homes of Christians with quotation marks, Christians who had no desire to talk about my Lord, who had no obvious hunger for his word, whose shelves were full of secular literature, not Christian literature, whose conversation was full of home and car and business and friends, but not naturally and spontaneously of Christ.

32:21 - 33:02 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin introduces the biblical foundation for true confidence in death: dying 'in the Lord,' which signifies a vital, spiritual, experimental union with Jesus Christ, rendering…

Martin quotes an old covenanting group's tombstone inscription, 'death can do nothing but chase them up to heaven,' to vividly portray the believer's triumph over death through union with Christ.

And thank God when death comes and finds them joined to Jesus. Death can do nothing. But in the language that is engraved on the tombstone of that old covenanting group, death can do nothing but chase them up to heaven. That's all.

36:30 - 36:49 Read in full sermon

Driving home: I shall face Him not laden down with all of my many and numerous sins, but I shall face Him clothed in the perfect righteousness of His own dear Son.

He compares his fear of the act of dying to the fear of a first airplane ride, acknowledging a natural apprehension of the unknown experience while distinguishing it from the fear of death's ultimate outcome for a believer.

It is a fatherly discipline by which He gets us out of this state into a more glorious one. So you see the child of God though he's afraid of the act of dying. I'm afraid of the experience of dying because I've never had it before. The first time I went in an airplane.

41:19 - 41:39 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin elaborates on the transformative power of being 'in Christ' at death: death loses its judicial sting, becoming a fatherly discipline, and the believer stands before God…

Martin recounts a walk with his wife, looking at the stars, and pondering God's purpose for them and the work believers will do in renewed bodies and spirits in eternity, illustrating the glorious future for those in Christ.

But the wonder is that in Christ we have not only a perfected spirit grounded on a perfect righteousness, but we'll have a perfect body. And that perfect body and that perfect spirit shall render perfect service for all eternity. This past week, one evening, when I was able to get away from people long enough to do it, my wife and I took a walk down to the pier at Harvey Cedars. And we just stretched back on that pier and looked up into the starry vault above us.

45:10 - 45:41 Read in full sermon