Hearing and Believing

In this part of the sermon: Martin elaborates on 'the word of the truth,' asserting three fundamental facts: there is absolute truth, it can be intelligibly expressed (in words taught by the Holy Spirit)…

Martin references Pilate's question 'What is truth?' to highlight the world's skepticism about absolute truth, contrasting it with Paul's assertion that the gospel is the 'word of the truth.'

The world would be much less miserable and confused if Pilate's question had died with Pilate. Do you remember his sneering question after our Lord said, I have come to bear witness of the truth. And he says, What is truth? Is there such a thing as ultimate reality?

10:23 - 10:46 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Almighty God can and has conveyed absolute truth. Ultimate reality has come to us in words.

He describes people searching for ultimate reality through LSD, drugs, or inner depths, illustrating the despair and confusion when truth is not believed to be intelligibly expressed.

Who are we ever to express it? And so you have in our own day the very thing that is driving so many in our own generation to search for truth in the weirdest places, hoping that somewhere, whether on an LSD trip or high on some other kind of drug experience or delving into one's own inner depths, some kind of insight will come that could be called ultimate reality. Truth? Paul says no.

11:54 - 12:25 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Almighty God can and has conveyed absolute truth. Ultimate reality has come to us in words.

Martin contrasts the intelligent perception of truth through hearing with irrational, subjective experiences where truth cannot be clearly communicated, emphasizing the propositional nature of God's revelation.

What a blessed thing that the eternal God has condescended to convey truth, facts, things as they are, intelligibly expressed so that they might be intelligently perceived. Truth comes to us in propositions, in statements. They did not have to go into ecstasies, ecstasies, into some kind of irrational transports and then come out of their ecstasy and say, ah, I found the truth. And there are some poor people out there who say, tell me what it is.

14:36 - 15:14 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin elaborates on 'the word of the truth,' asserting three fundamental facts: there is absolute truth, it can be intelligibly expressed (in words taught by the Holy Spirit)…

He compares the facts of absolute, expressible, and perceptible truth to a 'granite mountain which isn't moved by the lightning that plays off its craggy peaks,' signifying their unshakeable nature despite being questioned or denied.

Facts which are lampooned and considered ridiculous. But facts which, like a granite mountain which isn't moved by the lightning that plays off its craggy peaks. Facts which stand. And many of you here are monuments of the truth of those facts.

16:09 - 16:27 Read in full sermon

Driving home: I'm not an original thinker Paul says but I am a stickler for being an accurate conveyor of what God has already said. What God has already revealed.

Martin uses the analogy of a composer or author guarding their original work to explain why Paul was so zealous to protect the gospel: not out of pride in his own originality, but because its source was God, and tampering with it was tampering with God's truth and authority.

Its authority is bound up in the authority of the God who gave it. The Apostle again and again underscored this principle. Though he might be looked upon in his day as an original thinker he did not want to be regarded as an original thinker. He wanted to be regarded as an accurate conveyor.

18:26 - 18:47 Read in full sermon

Driving home: saving faith is self-commitment to Christ in all the glory of His person and in all the perfection of His work as they are so freely and fully offered to us in the gospel.

He uses the term 'fireproofed' to describe a superficial, repentance-less faith that merely seeks to escape hell without genuine change, contrasting it with true faith permeated by repentance.

Though he says having believed they believed in the context of Paul's preaching a faith which was suffused and permeated with repentance. They didn't come just to get fireproofed. They didn't come just to get off the hook at God's expense. There was repentance toward God as part and an inseparable commodity of their faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ.

28:17 - 28:46 Read in full sermon

The point: Be zealous in proclaiming the truth of the gospel to others.

Martin uses the metaphor of 'temporary cataracts' to describe the temptation to avoid or weaken the truth of God's sovereignty in Romans 9, urging believers to read it with open eyes.

We would not weaken one statement of Romans 9 or blink at it or hope we have temporary cataracts when we're reading through that section of Holy Scripture. We would read that chapter with open eyes and with responsive hearts. But may God help us to read Romans 10 the same way beginning with verse 11. For the Scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be put to shame.

36:48 - 37:13 Read in full sermon