Warnings That Should Concern Us

Driving home: God is in the business of hypothetical warnings. He warns about very real dangers. And the warnings are given because of the love of our God, who does not want to see us destroyed by these many pitfalls that can beset us…

Martin compares a vague warning sign about a 'not too docile' animal to a clear 'Beware, vicious dog' sign, illustrating that effective warnings are couched to arouse attention, just as Scripture's warnings are.

You may come up to someone's yard, and there you see in large print, to all who may be passing this way. And then in small print underneath it says something like this, within these, Fences is an animal not too reputed for his docile temperament and genial ways. And you look at that and say, well, what's all that gibberish? Nothing for me to get concerned about.

4:58 - 5:21 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not enter into an unholy marriage alliance, motivated by personal ambition or the gratification of lusts.

Martin asks if Ahab would have married Jezebel if he had foreseen the terrible judgments that would befall him, his sons, and Jezebel, highlighting the devil's deceptive nature in concealing consequences.

And as a result of it, he went and served Baal. And worshipped him, and reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. And then the record goes on to say how that he led the whole nation into the idolatry into which this wicked woman had led him. Let me ask you a question. If Ahab could have seen the day he stood wherever he stood and took this woman to be his wife, that she would be the very occasion of his own life being cut off in such a terrible way as it was in the midst of battle, if he could have seen that all of his sons would be destroyed as a result ...

8:39 - 9:45 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not enter into an unholy marriage alliance, motivated by personal ambition or the gratification of lusts.

Jezebel painting her eyes and attiring her head in old age (2 Kings 9:30) is used to infer her beauty in youth, explaining Ahab's carnal motivation for marriage.

in 2 Kings 9 and verse 30. It says she went up into a tower and painted her eyes and put on her headdress and stood in the window. And if you read between the lines and check the commentators who have gone into the background of this matter, she was apparently married to Ahab, and she was making a real appeal for this man, if not to actually seduce him, at least to attract him to where now that she was a widow, her husband having been killed according to the prophecy of Elijah, this man Jehu might be interested in taking her to be his wife. The record of that is 2 Kings 9 and verse 30. And whe...

11:32 - 12:38 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not enter into an unholy marriage alliance, motivated by personal ambition or the gratification of lusts.

Martin describes how a young woman might view marriage as a means to fulfill her desires for a home and family, making her susceptible to an unholy alliance if the man seems to offer that, regardless of his spiritual state.

Nothing but raw animal lust will drive a woman to join herself to a man, but that's not generally the case unless it's been a woman who's done a lot of chasing around. But a woman who has kept herself pure cannot contemplate marriage as a purely physical relationship. She much more naturally contemplates this as the involvement of a total person in a total life situation. And from the time she's been a little girl, she's played house. She's played mama. She's played dolls, and she's thought of the time when she'd have her home, when she'd stand at her kitchen and cook her meals for her husband...

14:53 - 16:05 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not enter into an unholy marriage alliance, motivated by personal ambition or the gratification of lusts.

Martin describes how a young man might be tempted into an unholy alliance by a woman's beauty and attractiveness, gratifying his fleshly lusts.

Nothing but raw animal lust will drive a woman to join herself to a man, but that's not generally the case unless it's been a woman who's done a lot of chasing around. But a woman who has kept herself pure cannot contemplate marriage as a purely physical relationship. She much more naturally contemplates this as the involvement of a total person in a total life situation. And from the time she's been a little girl, she's played house. She's played mama. She's played dolls, and she's thought of the time when she'd have her home, when she'd stand at her kitchen and cook her meals for her husband...

14:53 - 16:05 Read in full sermon

The point: Ask God to give you someone in whose heart Jesus Christ sits as unrivaled king, king above ambition, possessions, and everything.

Martin imagines how different Ahab's life and decisions might have been if Jezebel had been a godly wife, comforting him in his pouting or encouraging him after Mount Carmel, to illustrate the destructive power of an unholy marriage.

difference that might have been in Ahab's life? Even in this chapter. Here he is pouting as we looked at him last week like a little boy who can't have his lollipop. And there he is with his face to the wall and Jezebel comes in. Can you imagine the difference that might have been had she come to him and said, Ahab, what's the difference? Ahab, what's the difference? Ahab, what's the difference? And he says, I've gone down there to the field, to this man, Naboth, and I've tried to get his field and he won't sell it to me and I'm disturbed. She had just put her arm around his shoulder and in th...

18:11 - 19:22 Read in full sermon

The point: Ask God to give you someone in whose heart Jesus Christ sits as unrivaled king, king above ambition, possessions, and everything.

Martin illustrates how an ungodly or subtly worldly wife might dissuade her husband from a call to ministry by appealing to comfort and existing possessions, rather than outright rebellion.

Otherwise, the time may come when the pressure of God begins to be put upon your heart, and you feel perhaps the Lord is calling you to sell your home, leave your job, and go on off to seminary or Bible school, and get further training, and go out into some form of ministry, and then you're going to die. You ask God to give you someone in whose heart Jesus Christ sits as unrivaled king, and there a wife will be, not like Jezebel, saying, curse God and die, but saying, well, you know, it's kind of unreasonable, isn't it? The Lord would call us at this stage. I mean, we have our home, and we hav...

20:49 - 21:25 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin warns against romanticized, unscriptural expectations of the godly life, drawing parallels to the disciples on the road to Emmaus. He illustrates through Naboth's unjust…

The disciples' disillusionment in Luke 24 is presented as a classic picture of shattered faith due to unscriptural expectations about Messiah's redemption.

One of the most powerful destroyers of faith is disillusionment. If you want a classic picture of it, it's chapter 24 of the Gospel of Luke, here are these people utterly disillusioned, dejected, cast down in unbelief. And what was their problem? Well, as the Lord Jesus draws nigh, the record of this is in Luke chapter 24, He begins to ask them about their present state of mind.

24:08 - 24:38 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The rule of Scripture is that the life of godliness is the life where the people of God down here are going to be kicked around and nobody will care, and God won't put His hands to restrain the feet of the people that ki…

The story of Haman and Mordecai from the book of Esther is cited as an exception, not the rule, where God vindicates the godly in this life, reinforcing that suffering is generally the lot of the godly.

Well, that's a fine way to treat a man of God who's got nothing in his heart but your good, nothing in his heart but the good of the nation, nothing in his heart but the honor and glory of God and the blessing of God upon the nation, and he gets treated like a common enemy. So you have the godly layman and you have the godly preacher, both of whom are treated with disrespect, with scorn, and one of them, even with an unjust death. And may I say, that is generally the lot of the godly. Oh yes, once in a while, God will turn the tables on a Haman like He did in the book of Esther, and the Mordec...

29:01 - 30:18 Read in full sermon

The point: Don't fight suffering; don't be surprised at it. Learn to be prepared for it, embrace it when it comes, and thank God for it.

Martin asks, 'How long has it been since you've been exceeding glad? Maybe it's because you haven't suffered,' to challenge the notion that suffering leads to moroseness.

Not if you read your Bible, it won't. For what did Jesus say? When men revile you and persecute, what is it supposed to do? It's supposed to give you a glory fit.

33:58 - 34:06 Read in full sermon

The point: Don't fight suffering; don't be surprised at it. Learn to be prepared for it, embrace it when it comes, and thank God for it.

The early Christians in Acts 5, rejoicing after being beaten, are presented as an example that suffering for Christ does not lead to sadness but to joy.

When that first group suffered and were beaten by the authorities, what did they do? Come on back to their company and organize some kind of a Christian society for the prevention of cruelty, the Christians? No, it says in Acts chapter 5, they came back and rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for His name. They had a hallelujah meeting.

34:13 - 34:39 Read in full sermon

The point: If God allows your name to be maligned, and your life, property, and goods to be taken unjustly, respond with 'Even so, Father, if that's good in your sight.'

Martin quotes A.W. Tozer, who said God doesn't take us to heaven 'all wrapped up like a Christmas present,' but 'drags us through the fire' to purify us, illustrating the reality of suffering in the Christian life.

Too many Christians here supporting missionaries. I hate to see what happens to that person if and when it comes. Disillusion, why? A romantic idea that God is going to somehow, as Tozer once said, I'll never forget it, take us to heaven all wrapped up like a Christmas present with a pretty little bow on it.

37:23 - 37:40 Read in full sermon

The point: If God allows your name to be maligned, and your life, property, and goods to be taken unjustly, respond with 'Even so, Father, if that's good in your sight.'

Martin critiques the 'success story' thrust of magazines like 'Power' and Christian sports tracks, where conversion is linked to material or athletic success, calling it unscriptural and romanticized.

That's one reason why we don't get that. The whole idea, every guy you read in there, he was just a nobody until he trusted Jesus and now, boy, he's a semi-millionaire. Isn't that the whole thrust? It's the whole success binge that's behind that.

38:05 - 38:17 Read in full sermon

Driving home: He said he's going to drag us through the fire. And then when he's burned out some of the dross and purified us, made us a little bit more like his son, then he'll say enough and he'll take us home.

Martin imagines Job trying to write a 'success story' before his restoration, highlighting how his suffering would contradict the modern 'success binge' narrative and expose its unbiblical nature.

It's unscriptural. It's not scriptural. It won't stand the test of the book of God. Imagine Job writing his success story prior to the Lord's restoring him.

38:33 - 38:47 Read in full sermon

The point: Heed God's warnings for your good and for His glory, trusting Him to preserve you as you walk with Him in simple trust and in the light of His holy word.

Martin revisits the analogy of the 'vicious dog' warning sign, urging listeners not to be foolish and ignore God's real warnings, lest they suffer consequences.

May God grant that we will not be like the foolish person who seeing the sign beware of the vicious dog ends up in the doctor's office for a tetanus shot and seventeen stitches thinking, I know how to handle dogs. When God says beware He's not talking about imaginary warnings very real warnings. And they should throw us back upon our great God so that we can say with the psalmist my eyes are ever unto the Lord He will pluck my feet out of the net. Snares on every hand but God has promised to preserve those who walk with Him in simple trust who walk with Him in the light of His holy word and wh...

50:20 - 51:25 Read in full sermon