Christian Liberty #04

The point: Gird up the loins of your mind.

The image of a man tying up his loose garments to run without stumbling is used to encourage listeners to mentally prepare for a complex theological discussion, preventing them from 'stumbling over the loose folds of your brain.'

But there's no way I could. And I put it on the front end. While I trust your minds are still fresh, you're going to have to do what Peter said. Gird up the loins of your mind.

11:18 - 11:28 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He details the Abrahamic Covenant as a covenant of promise, to be embraced by faith, and ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ, drawing heavily from Galatians 3.

Examples of personal promises (calling at 6 PM, taking wife to a restaurant) are used to explain that a promise is a commitment made by the speaker, not a command to the listener, clarifying the nature of God's promise to Abraham.

Whatever this covenant is, whatever this commitment God made to Abraham, it's based upon a promise. Now in a promise, you're not telling someone else what to do. You're telling someone else what you are committed to do. I promise to call you at 6 o'clock tonight.

13:59 - 14:18 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin explains the Mosaic Covenant's nature, given 430 years after Abraham, with moral, civil, and ceremonial dimensions. Its purpose was not to annul the Abrahamic covenant but…

The legal act of upgrading a will and explicitly negating previous versions is used to illustrate that God did not annul the Abrahamic covenant when instituting the Mosaic covenant; the former remained in force.

If any of you have upgraded your will, what's one of the statements you put in there? That this particular will, made out at this particular time and signed by my wife and me, what does it do to any previous will? It negates it, right? How many of you have seen that in your will?

21:59 - 22:17 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin explains the Mosaic Covenant's nature, given 430 years after Abraham, with moral, civil, and ceremonial dimensions. Its purpose was not to annul the Abrahamic covenant but…

A child seeing a long shadow of his father before he turns the corner of the house is used to explain that the Mosaic Law's rituals and sacrifices were 'shadows' pointing to the coming 'substance' of Christ. When Christ (Daddy) arrives, the shadows are no longer needed.

Hebrews 10 and verse 1, we read these words, For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of those things, but the same sacrifices year by year, which they make continually, make the offerer perfect. They were a shadow. I was thinking of this, trying to illustrate. Suppose a man has his house situated in such a way that when he comes home in the afternoon, of course it would change throughout the year so the illustration breaks down, but a certain time of the year, when the sun is going down at a certain point, the time that he arrives home, he casts a very large...

25:31 - 26:32 Read in full sermon

Driving home: God overlays it with the Mosaic. He doesn't remove it. He doesn't cancel it. Until, until, until the promised seed comes and when He comes, God splits the cast, takes it off and throws it away.

A broken arm in a cast, which is applied temporarily until the bone heals and then removed, illustrates how the Mosaic Covenant was a temporal overlay on the Abrahamic Covenant, removed when Christ (the promised seed) came.

It was given to reveal its sin. It was given to foreshadow the great realities of the redemption that would come through the promise that is there in the Abrahamic covenant which was never annulled or canceled by the Mosaic covenant. If I break my arm and I have a cast, that cast is put on temporally until the bone heals and then it is split and it is removed that my arm might be fully functional without the impediment of the cast. Here's the Abrahamic covenant.

28:30 - 29:08 Read in full sermon

Driving home: When a Christian is tempted to do any of these things he is distinctly to say to those who would bring him a bondage who gave you authority over my conscience? Who authorized you to add to or alter or repeal any of Chris…

An extended quotation from John Brown's commentary on 1 Peter 2:16 is used to articulate the Christian's freedom from man-made doctrines and rules, emphasizing that believers are bound only by divine revelation.

The most succinct and clear statement of this blessed truth that I have found will come to the Scriptures to see its support. I found, again, in my good friend, John Brown, in his comments in the verse in 1 Peter, as free, not using your freedom as a cloak of maliciousness. Listen to John Brown. The Christian does not act in character if he receives any doctrine, observes any ordinance, performs any duty on any ground except he has seen with his own eyes that he is free from the tyranny of man-made doctrines and rules, rules, regulations, and regulations.

43:21 - 43:53 Read in full sermon

Driving home: God alone is Lord of the conscience and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men contrary to his word or not contained in it so that to believe such doctrines or obey such commands out of conscience i…

The historical context of the Reformation, where figures like Martin Luther were bound by papal and church council doctrines not found in the Bible, is used to explain why the doctrine of Christian liberty was so precious to the reformers.

Well I'll tell you why. They had a sense of the horrible bondage that existed throughout the so-called Christian world up until the Reformation. When Papa Rose and church councils were creating doctrines not found in the Bible were laying burdens upon people. No meat on Friday.

46:28 - 46:57 Read in full sermon

The point: That authority must never be allowed to bully you into doing that which is explicitly against the law of God.

The pastor's role is compared to eyeglasses: they don't change the text of Scripture but help the listener to see what is already there, emphasizing that pastors are to teach and persuade, not to impose beliefs or duties not found in the Bible.

why those of you who've been under this ministry for years have heard me say, times without number. Believe nothing because I say it, because I say it passionately, because I say it convincingly. Believe it when you see it. Believe it when you see it. Believe it when you see it with your own eyes in your own Bible. Our task is to be to you what my glasses are to me. I'm right now looking at Colossians 2 and verse 1. If I didn't know it from memory, I couldn't tell you what's there. Now the text is there. That's the Word of God. It's objectively there. What are my glasses to?

58:56 - 59:39 Read in full sermon