Ingredients, Part 3

Pastor Martin surveys the many relationships already alive in the sanctuary: angels, men (father, mother, friend, pastor), demons, things (the pew itself). The question is which relationship takes precedence — the one to God.

Now let me give you a very current illustration of this. Right now, sitting where you sit, you are all related to, and let me take the author's terms, to angels. If you're a child of God, angels have been sent forth as ministering spirits to do service to the heirs of salvation. You are also related to men.

10:37 - 11:03 Read in full sermon

The point: Ask yourself whether, in the last 35 minutes of worship, your relationship to God has been the most important relationship to you — that is the real test.

Pastor Martin turns the mirror on the hearer: has your relationship to your watch been the most important thing this morning — 'I've suffered through three quarters of this'? That alone exposes whether the fear of God has been present.

Or has your relationship to your watch been the most important thing? Saying, well, boy, I've suffered through three quarters of this, only another quarter to go. Has that been your attitude? Or has your relationship to your father and mother been the most important?

13:30 - 13:46 Read in full sermon

The point: Identify the relationships (spouse, children, car, career) where love for God is bordering on being displaced; refuse to set up an idol in those places.

A husband says he's going to prayer meeting; his wife pulls a puss. The man who walks in the fear of God says, 'Sorry, dear, my God commands me to gather with His people.' Refusing to set up an idol in the home.

house, with my car, men, angels, things. And in all of those relationships, the man who walks in the fear of God seeks to remember and be constrained by the recognition of his obligation to God, which is what? Love him supremely. So that if he senses an affection for his wife, which begins to border on idolatry, if he says, well, honey, I think I ought to go to prayer meeting and she He starts to pull a puss and say, well, I'll miss you.

16:40 - 17:12 Read in full sermon

The point: Identify the relationships (spouse, children, car, career) where love for God is bordering on being displaced; refuse to set up an idol in those places.

The paint and chrome glisten; the economics are massaged to justify the upgrade even though giving must be reduced. Martin exposes the idolatrous attachment as a failure to walk in the fear of God.

But it's simply the fact it sure would look nice. Now, of course, it means I won't be able to increase my giving, commensurate with my increase in salary last year.

17:48 - 17:57 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me.

Abraham loves Isaac — naturally as a son, spiritually as the covenant heir. Yet the fear of God in him is deep enough that the knife is raised over the breast of the promised child. God names fear above love as the virtue proved.

Yes, God, I love you more. All right, prove it.

25:05 - 25:09 Read in full sermon

The point: Parents, test your ambitions for your children against the question: 'Would I be content if God made them what He wants at any cost?'

Pastor Martin says he hears with 'recurring frequency' of Christian fathers and mothers who hinder their children from following God's clear leading because it contradicts their own carnal ambitions — the very opposite of the fear of God.

When he says to us concerning our Isaacs, Lovest thou me more than this or than these? And he calls upon us to walk in a course which immediately brings up the voice of natural affection. I heard this past week of a situation that just made me want to reel. and I hear of them constantly or not constantly but with recurring frequency where you'll have mothers or fathers Christian fathers and mothers who have certain ambitions for their children and then when God seems to be leading in a different direction not contrary to his word

30:48 - 31:35 Read in full sermon

Pastor Martin calls these last words of the crucified Christ perhaps the greatest act of faith ever exercised upon God's word — spoken in blackness, feeling the Father's wrath, and still trusting completely.

Someone has said that our Lord's last words upon the cross, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit, were perhaps the greatest act of faith ever exercised upon God's work. Here with no sensible delight of the Father's countenance The heavens shrouded in blackness The Son of God feeling in Himself The Father's wrath and displeasure Against the sins of His people In that situation where Isaiah 50 and verse 10 Was more fully realized than in anyone else Here He was, the servant of God Who obeyed the voice of God walking in darkness, the heaven shrouded in darkness,

40:59 - 41:47 Read in full sermon