What is the Straightened Way? Part 9

Driving home: Whatever is secured by the death of Christ in keeping with the plan and purpose of the Father cannot fail to come to pass.

Martin quotes Albert Barnes' commentary to define 'this present evil world' as a world without religion, full of bad passions, false opinions, and corrupt desires, preoccupied with self rather than God.

Now there are times when the word age is used with reference to this evil age in which case the focus is more upon the time frame in which this state of affairs will exist. The other passages that we've considered use the word cosmos or world this order of things but there is no essential difference in the thing itself. And we are to understand in these words that the purpose of the death of Christ was to deliver us out of this present evil world. Not to deliver us ultimately at the end of the age but to deliver us now in the virtue of His death on our behalf. Albert Barnes in his commentary o...

9:14 - 10:27 Read in full sermon

Driving home: He said this world has as much attraction to me as a man dying or already dead upon a cross, a sight that was sickening, nauseating.

Martin uses the historical reality of crucifixion as a brutal, demeaning method of execution to illustrate how unattractive and repulsive the world becomes to a believer who views it through the cross.

Now no one here has ever seen a person crucified. In that day, perhaps, some of these Galatians had but it was well known throughout Roman society what crucifixion means and what it was like. It was a horrible, horrible method of execution reserved generally for slaves and social outcasts. When you wanted to demean a man to his very last breath, the way you got rid of him was by crucifixion.

34:29 - 35:02 Read in full sermon

The point: Become so identified with Christ and His purpose (to deliver you out of this evil world) that your perspectives, talk, dress, words, and conduct reflect heavenly standards, goals, and ambitions.

Martin uses the biblical imagery of the world as an adulteress (James 4) and the metaphor of an 'ugly wrinkled witch' to convey how the cross exposes the world's true, repulsive nature, stripping away its seductive appeal.

Well I certainly don't understand the depth and the breadth of what the apostle understood when he wrote these words but surely he was saying this much. You want to know what that seductress really looks like and I use that imagery continually this morning because it's biblical. In James chapter 4 James writes to a group of professing Christians and calls them adulteresses saying adulterers do you not know that the friendship of this world is enmity with God? He takes over the imagery from the Old Testament where covenant breaking and the heart going astray from Jehovah after other gods was li...

36:50 - 38:14 Read in full sermon

The point: Become so identified with Christ and His purpose (to deliver you out of this evil world) that your perspectives, talk, dress, words, and conduct reflect heavenly standards, goals, and ambitions.

Martin recounts how the world, in both its pagan (Roman) and religious (Jewish) forms, treated Jesus Christ with hatred, scorn, and ultimately crucifixion, demonstrating the world's inherent enmity toward God.

That's right. And to Paul that's what this world was. Why? He viewed it through the cross There was one time when the world this system had God in its hands only once only once for 33 years God in the person of the Lord Jesus dwelt among us in true flesh and blood humanity joined to his essential undiluted eternal deity and what did man do to him?

38:47 - 39:22 Read in full sermon

The point: If you name the name of Christ, examine if your struggles with friends stem from not having truly come clean from the world, lacking enough distinctiveness to make the world regard you as unattractive.

Martin shares a personal anecdote from his conversion, explaining how his new standards in Christ caused all but one of his worldly friends to abandon him, illustrating how identification with Christ naturally separates one from the world.

you see frankly teenagers I want to talk to you out of my heart I can't understand why some of you struggle about your so called friends when the Lord saved me and Christ became to me the pearl of great price all my friends brought me but one he was the guy that played end on our football team Louis Hardball was his name and he was the one guy that was willing to have me as a man back from the dead to have me with my whole new set of standards no more dirty jokes no more foul mouth of the things that mark the worldlings of my day which in many ways were nowhere near as gross as the things that...

43:44 - 45:13 Read in full sermon

The point: If you name the name of Christ, examine if your struggles with friends stem from not having truly come clean from the world, lacking enough distinctiveness to make the world regard you as unattractive.

Martin uses the vivid metaphor of being treated 'like I had a skunk under each armpit and a bag of them in my breeches' to describe how his worldly friends reacted to his conversion and new life in Christ.

you see frankly teenagers I want to talk to you out of my heart I can't understand why some of you struggle about your so called friends when the Lord saved me and Christ became to me the pearl of great price all my friends brought me but one he was the guy that played end on our football team Louis Hardball was his name and he was the one guy that was willing to have me as a man back from the dead to have me with my whole new set of standards no more dirty jokes no more foul mouth of the things that mark the worldlings of my day which in many ways were nowhere near as gross as the things that...

43:44 - 45:13 Read in full sermon