Wherein Ye Once Walked

The point: Be prepared for the shocking sight of what you are by nature to truly know the bliss of what you are by grace.

Compares the 'before and after' of conversion to diet ads, emphasizing that spiritual transformation is the greatest and most significant 'before and after' demonstration.

And here is the greatest before and after demonstration that makes all the ads of the diet concerns and any other before and after concern pale into insignificance. What are we before the grace of God comes to us in power? What are we after grace has laid hold upon us? And in these first three verses, Paul is concerned that the Ephesians will do what the prophet Isaiah commanded the people of God to do.

1:59 - 2:33 Read in full sermon

The point: Be prepared for the shocking sight of what you are by nature to truly know the bliss of what you are by grace.

Uses Isaiah's imagery of looking to the rock and the pit to illustrate the necessity of appreciating one's natural depravity to rightly value God's grace.

We read in Isaiah chapter 51 and verse 1, look unto the rock from whence ye were hewn and unto the hole of the pit from whence ye were digged. The Apostle Paul is taking the Ephesians as it were by the hand and saying, look, that's what you were when God began to deal with you, that's the pit in which you were when God laid hold of you. For it is only as we appreciate what we were by nature that we will rightly appreciate what we are by grace. To whom much is forgiven, the same loveth much.

2:33 - 3:15 Read in full sermon

Driving home: My friend have you ever thought of this biblical concept, the activity of the spiritually dead? And it's an evidence of our state of death that we don't feel the horror of it.

Highlights the spookiness of activity among the physically dead (e.g., in a graveyard, a ghost) to underscore the horror of 'activity among the spiritually dead' which often goes unrecognized.

Now does it sound strange to your ear to put these two words together? The activity of the dead? Now whenever there seems to be activity among the physically dead we get spooked and spooked real quick. That's why someone's walking through a graveyard and hears a noise or sees a movement they're filled with horror because activity amongst the physically dead is just plain spooky.

8:05 - 8:33 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin addresses the seemingly paradoxical concept of 'activity of the dead,' explaining that spiritually dead people are indeed active. He highlights Paul's use of 'walked,'…

Explains the Greek word 'peripatetic' (walker abouter) in relation to Aristotle's followers to illustrate that 'walked' signifies an entire course of activity, not just isolated actions.

Let's look at them in some detail. First of all, he underscores the reality of the activity of spiritually dead people by saying they walk. The word literally means to walk about. If you hear about a person who is gadding about here and there, someone may, if they're trying to impress you with their vocabulary, say, you know, he's quite a peripatetic.

11:17 - 11:40 Read in full sermon

Driving home: He came to the shocking recognition that every religious person must come to that not one of my religious deeds was acceptable spiritual activity because, get it now, acceptable spiritual activity can only come from spir…

Uses Paul's language of counting his religious achievements as 'dung' (Philippians 3:8) and vividly compares it to manure waiting to be spread on a farm, to shock listeners into understanding the worthlessness of self-righteousness before God.

He said it was like that which is waiting to get loaded into the manure spreader in the spring out on the farm. I counted but done. Strong language? Biblical.

28:55 - 29:06 Read in full sermon

The point: Honestly ask yourself: could Paul say of you 'ye once walked' or 'ye are yet walking' in the realm of trespasses and sins?

Describes a spiritually dead person as a 'trussed up spiritual corpse' with strings, moving hands and mouth, and a recorder speaking right words, but lacking true life, to illustrate external religious performance without internal spiritual reality.

You've never been quickened to life. You are as it were a trussed up spiritual corpse.

40:42 - 40:49 Read in full sermon