Practical Implications

The point: Cultivate a perspective for intelligent, God-honoring Bible study by grasping the overall plan and unity of the scriptures, seeing God as the central actor.

Martin uses the analogy of someone trying to understand a football game without knowing its overall design to illustrate how many people approach Bible study without grasping the unified plan of Scripture, leading to confusion.

in some kind of regular Bible study, on your own. Whether you read through the scriptures once a year, once every three years, or whether you dip in and dip out, I'm speaking by and large to a group of people to whom Bible study, study of the scriptures of the Old and the New Testament, is an integral part of your, I trust, daily life pattern. In your own personal devotional exercises, in your own family devotional exercises, as well as in the formal exposition of the word in this place, you and I are Bible students. Now, much Bible study degenerates into mere religious sentimentalism because ...

9:05 - 10:23 Read in full sermon

The point: Read J.I. Packer's 'The Plan of God' to gain a better understanding of the Bible's unified message.

Martin quotes extensively from J.I. Packer's book to emphasize the need to read the Bible as a unified whole, centered on God's work and purpose, rather than as disconnected snippets.

they see Abraham going up the middle on the second down. And they see Isaiah throwing a pass on fourth down. You see? And they see no overall structure to the whole thing. They read something about Isaiah, something about Abraham, something about Isaac, something about Jacob. But they've never seen what the game is all about, what the overall perspective is. And they see no overall perspective is. May I suggest that Ephesians 1.11 provides the perspective within which the scriptures in all of their many details will begin to make real sense. And at this point, I want to quote from Dr. Packer's...

11:10 - 12:10 Read in full sermon

The point: Find stability and peace in the face of life's uncertainties by understanding and believing that God works all things after the counsel of His own will.

The account of Jesus sleeping peacefully in the boat during a raging storm is used to illustrate the stability and peace believers can have, rooted in confidence in God's control over all circumstances.

And so we can with our Lord afford to sleep, the sleep of peace, in the midst of the raging storms of all of life's uncertainties. That was going back with me. We find it in Matthew 8 and again in Mark 4, and I'm not sure just where it is in Luke, in which our Lord is out in the midst of the sea, fast asleep in the stern of the ship. And the sea is raging and dashing upon the ship until one gospel writer says it was full of water.

25:56 - 26:33 Read in full sermon

The point: Find a sure source of comfort and resignation in the face of sorrow and perplexing providences by understanding and believing in God's sovereign will.

Martin recounts the story of a talented young man who drowned while on a missionary exposure trip, posing it as a perplexing providence that challenges human understanding of 'sense and purpose.'

A circumstance that I read about in Dave Cliff's letter. A handsome young man who could be a, a veritable lecher at that age, greatly talented in music. He gives up a summer to go down to Ecuador to expose himself to the possible call to a life's work as a missionary. And in a little innocent diversion, as he's swimming in the lake, he drowns.

35:47 - 36:15 Read in full sermon

The point: Find a sure source of comfort and resignation in the face of sorrow and perplexing providences by understanding and believing in God's sovereign will.

He shares the personal story of Roz and Irv Millett, whose 12-year-old daughter died after an operation they believed was right, to illustrate how theoretical comfort from Romans 8:28 becomes intensely personal in real grief.

It's all well and good for us to talk about Romans 8, 28, but when you're Roz and Irv Millett, and you've wrestled through a decision to have your 12-year-old daughter have an operation which might take her life, and you're convinced she ought to have it, and then she dies in your arm the day she comes home from the hospital, now what do you do? You know, all this theorizing. Suddenly, there's an impingement upon your own life. Now, child of God, what do you do?

36:37 - 37:06 Read in full sermon

The point: Embrace difficult circumstances, rather than merely 'grinning and bearing' them, by recognizing God's wise, loving, and gracious counsel behind them.

Martin tells the story of a saint imprisoned for ten years, who penned a poem expressing comfort and resignation, finding joy and freedom of mind in adoring God's purpose and providence, even in severe suffering.

Because the God whom we worship is the God who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will. This forms the source of our comfort and the basis of our being able to embrace the dispositions of providence to us. There was a saint of God who was shut up for ten years in a dungeon. The only light this saint saw during those ten years was the light of the candle which was given when the meals were served.

39:41 - 40:19 Read in full sermon