Denying Self

Driving home: What is the essence of sin? Until I understand what the heart and the essence of sin is, I will never understand the heart and the essence and the real throbbing gold of God in sending a deliverer from sin.

Martin quotes John Owen (freely) on sin consisting in casting off God's limit and desiring to be one's own limit, illustrating the core rebellion of the human heart.

If my conception of sin is just salvation, I will never understand the heart and the essence of sin. bad things that I do that sort of make God frown, then I can never understand the core of the purpose of redemptive work in which he plans to deliver men from sin. The oil brewery in one of his books says this, and I'm quoting freely, not verbatim. Sin consisted in nothing but this.

5:16 - 5:48 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Jesus's call to 'deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me' is presented as the only way to enter the life Christ purchased. Martin uses an analogy of a prince and a poor…

An analogy of a prince offering marriage to a poor woman, and with it, all the glories of his kingdom, is used to illustrate that spiritual blessings are inseparable from Christ himself; one must have him on his terms to receive his blessings.

Here's a prince who goes from a kingdom where there's a very upright moral

26:30 - 26:36 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not tolerate rival affections; Christ must occupy the supreme place above all human relationships and even your own life.

Martin recounts attending a football game and feeling a psychological pressure in the mass crowd, illustrating how multitudes can be susceptible to deception, which Jesus recognized.

There is a psychological pressure in masses. I sat a few years ago when I was in high school at the Army Navy football game. No, it wasn't was army and some other place in Yankee Stadium in New York when I used to live near Connecticut. I don't remember exactly what it was.

37:36 - 37:53 Read in full sermon