Foundation of the Apostles & Prophets

Driving home: But put them together into a beautiful edifice. And together. In that relationship to the whole, they have significance.

Compares scattered stones of a temple to individuals in a city or family, arguing that stones only gain significance when assembled into an edifice, thus highlighting the 'oneness' principle of the temple imagery.

Though the family is a unit, every individual is a total entity. He has significance in and of himself. But you see, if you take the stones that comprise a temple and scatter them, they have no real significance of themselves. They're just stones.

6:36 - 6:54 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin exhorts the congregation to fervent prayer and mental effort to grasp these 'mind-stretching truths.' He then provides a broad overview of the sermon's structure, outlining…

Illustrates that if a house appears on an empty lot, someone must have been at work, emphasizing that the living temple of God is built by a divine Architect and Builder, not by itself.

Somebody's at work to build this temple. If you drive by this blank space of a lot, on the way to the auditorium for our morning service week after week and there's nothing but land and one week you drive by and you see a hole's been dug and then a foundation's been raised and after a few months a house is there, you know somebody's been at work. The man didn't just suddenly one morning say, hey, let's shift ourselves around and suddenly there was a hole. And then some blocks at the West Essex building said, you know, we're tired of the environment here.

17:19 - 17:51 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Focusing on the first component, the foundation, Martin explains its crucial role in determining a building's shape, size, strength, and stability, drawing parallels to the…

Explains the meaning of 'component parts' to children by using the analogy of a stereo system, where individual parts (turntable, receiver, speakers) together make up the whole.

Now, you kids, you know what component means, don't you? You say, no, I don't. Well, I'll explain to you. How many of your parents have a stereo set or a hi-fi set?

18:28 - 18:37 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Focusing on the first component, the foundation, Martin explains its crucial role in determining a building's shape, size, strength, and stability, drawing parallels to the…

References the children's ditty about the wise man building on rock and the foolish man on sand, and Jesus' teaching in Luke 6, to underscore the importance of a strong foundation.

Now, the foundation of a building is both the first thing to be constructed and in a real sense determines the shape, the size, the strength and stability of everything else. Many of you kids learned a little ditty early in your lives. The wise man built his house upon the rock. The foolish man built his house upon the sand.

19:57 - 20:21 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Focusing on the first component, the foundation, Martin explains its crucial role in determining a building's shape, size, strength, and stability, drawing parallels to the…

Uses the metaphor of trying to 'hang morality on a sky book' if foundations are destroyed, emphasizing that righteousness and godliness must rest on the concepts of God, law, and responsibility.

So the concept of foundation, I trust, is clear to all of us. In Psalm 11, the psalm to which your attention was directed, last Lord's Day evening, the psalmist asked the question, if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? If those things that support righteousness and godliness in the people of God, if those things are gone, you cannot hang morality on a sky book. It must be resting down upon the concepts of God and law and responsibility.

20:48 - 21:20 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Christianity is often called a book religion it would be more exact to say it is a religion that is not a religion which has a book its foundations are laid in the apostles and prophets upon which its courses are built u…

Quotes B.B. Warfield to explain that Christianity is founded on the apostles and prophets, whose words, given with Christ's authority, constitute the authoritative law code (Scriptures) for the church.

with the very words of Christ furthermore apostles equated their own writings with the scriptures 2 Peter 3 16 Peter says our beloved brother Paul has written certain things some of them hard to be understood which the ignorant and the unstable twist they rest to their own destruction as they do also the other scriptures in other words Peter is equating the writings of Paul with the other scriptures and the other scriptures and Paul asserts in 1 Thessalonians 2 13 that his words were the very words of God he says we give thanks that when you receive the word of the message from us you received...

40:03 - 41:30 Read in full sermon

The point: If wrestling with where to commit your soul's well-being in a visible community, find a place where the doctrine of apostles and prophets is foundational to every facet of the life and ministry of that church.

Compares a building moving off its foundation to the church adjusting itself to human fads or seeking men's approval, emphasizing the church's responsibility to adhere to its legitimate foundation.

we'd all feel it very quickly its legitimate responsibility is to function to fulfill the design of the architect and builder as it adheres to its legitimate foundation not adjusting itself to the winds that may blow upon it not adjusting itself to turn itself a little bit more to the full face of the sun the responsibility of the church of Jesus Christ is not to adjust itself to the winds of the current fads of human thought it is not to turn itself to the warm beams of the sunlight of men's approving gaze the church is to adhere to the foundation it is to give itself to working out in ever i...

53:13 - 54:40 Read in full sermon

The point: If wrestling with where to commit your soul's well-being in a visible community, find a place where the doctrine of apostles and prophets is foundational to every facet of the life and ministry of that church.

Recounts receiving a letter from a fanatic who called him 'nothing but a Bible commentator' and desired prophets with new revelations, which Martin uses to affirm his commitment to expounding the existing Word of God.

we'd all feel it very quickly its legitimate responsibility is to function to fulfill the design of the architect and builder as it adheres to its legitimate foundation not adjusting itself to the winds that may blow upon it not adjusting itself to turn itself a little bit more to the full face of the sun the responsibility of the church of Jesus Christ is not to adjust itself to the winds of the current fads of human thought it is not to turn itself to the warm beams of the sunlight of men's approving gaze the church is to adhere to the foundation it is to give itself to working out in ever i...

53:13 - 54:40 Read in full sermon