Source

Pastor Martin uses baking as the controlling analogy of the sermon: the previous sermons described what the 'cake' (fear of God) is and named its ingredients; today he traces the ingredients back to their source — the flour came from a field, the shortening from an animal.

And so you bake this cake, and you set it before this person, and the first question they ask is, what is it? And you say, that is a cake. That is something to eat. All right, having described what it is, then they ask you, what's it made of?

5:05 - 5:20 Read in full sermon

Martin imagines a father who has just announced a wonderful day out, only to have his son ask whether he is going to drive the car off a cliff. The heartbreak of that moment is how Israel treated Yahweh who had just brought them out of Egypt — they didn't know Him.

We're going to do dust and dust and dust. And you know sooner get in the car and you say, Daddy, are you going to take and run this car off a cliff and kill me? You say, son, you don't know me. You don't know me.

28:05 - 28:15 Read in full sermon

The fire and brimstone on the plains seem a mighty display of God's holiness. Martin argues that compared with Calvary — the Father bringing down wrath on His own beloved Son — Sodom is a small flame.

Hating the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah in the cities of the plains so much that he makes, as it were, heaven to be a belching oven to pour out fire and brimstone, my friend, listen. That's no display of God's holiness in comparison with Calvary. For when you look to the cross and see the shrouded heaven covered in blackness, look upon the heaving bosom of the Son of God, and then you hear that cry, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And the answer, the only answer is, God is so holy that when his own beloved son, the one of whom he spoke from heaven on several

37:38 - 38:24 Read in full sermon

The point: Refuse the legalistic strategy of rubbing your conscience raw with terrors; God binds hearts to Him in fear by disclosing forgiveness, not by withholding it.

Martin describes Roman Catholic theology: the fear of God is produced by rubbing the conscience raw with terrors, doubts, and uncertainty about one's acceptance. He exposes this as 'not biblical religion, but evil.'

You mean tell a man he's forgiven and accepted, Heaven is just as certain now as though he were there. He'll live like the devil. And so they say the way you produce the fear of God that produces obedience is rub the conscience raw with terrors and with insecurity and with doubts about one's acceptance. Use the conscience raw.

43:03 - 43:24 Read in full sermon

The point: If you are dead sure of heaven but your life shows no careful conscience, no inward inclination to obey, you have believed a lie that cannot save.

The second great deflection: 'You don't tremble like some of my poor Roman Catholic friends — you're dead sure of heaven. But your forgiveness has left your heart devoid of the fear of God' — and that is a lie.

You don't tremble like some of my poor Roman Catholic friends do, hoping and wondering if maybe you'll wake up in purgatory tomorrow. You're dead sure you're going to wake up in heaven because you're forgiven through the blood of the cross. But your forgiveness is coming away which has left your heart utterly devoid of the fear of God. you don't know what it is to walk before him with a careful conscience you don't know what it is to be powerfully inclined to obedience to his holy law from the heart you'll go out and desecrate this day you've thrown your two hours before God this morning you'l...

44:10 - 44:56 Read in full sermon

Pastor Martin's own conversion testimony: a dirty-mouthed senior in high school up in Stamford, Connecticut, transformed into a man who could not keep away from the Bible. 'Amazing grace — how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.'

The climate of the gracious provision of the new covenant. Isn't it wonderful, child of God, to look back and say, you mean God did all of that to bring you to fear? known unto God are all his works from the beginning of time but the scripture says that the works of God are sought out of all those that have pleasure there in has it been a pleasure to trace out this morning how God put his fear into your heart does it make you want to say hallelujah what a Savior when God said I'm going to take that sin I'm going to bring him in tow and I'm going to put my fear into his heart and then gave us s...

52:59 - 53:45 Read in full sermon