Holiness: Its Nature, Part 2

The point: Push your lower back against the pew, throw your shoulders back, draw in a few deep breaths, and hang in there until the conclusion of the hour.

Martin uses the analogy of the sun at its zenith and the post-lunch drowsiness to highlight the challenge of maintaining alertness for serious thought, testing both listener and preacher.

I'm sure there are many of you who are very conscious of the fact that this is about the most unenviable time in which to speak to any group of men and women gathered for serious thought. You've had lunch, the sun is at its zenith, and it seems to say with every forthcoming ray, take a nap, sit back, relax, and it tests the mettle both of the listener and of the preacher. But I trust that in mutual dependence upon God the Holy Spirit and by the engagement of all of our faculties, we will give ourselves with alertness to the word of God.

0:04 - 0:46 Read in full sermon

The point: Push your lower back against the pew, throw your shoulders back, draw in a few deep breaths, and hang in there until the conclusion of the hour.

He gives practical advice (pushing back, deep breaths) to listeners to stay awake, humorously noting his own voice will keep him awake, to encourage engagement with the sermon.

If you begin to go off into the land of Nod, let me encourage you to push your lower back against the pew, throw your shoulders back, draw in a few deep breaths, and hang in there until the conclusion of the hour. At least the sound of my own voice will keep me awake. And I hope I will find you awake with me.

0:46 - 1:09 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Though sin no longer reigns, sin does remain. Though it no longer exercises dominion, it does exercise constant guerrilla warfare.

He describes remaining sin as exercising 'constant guerrilla warfare' even after its dominion is broken, illustrating its persistent, insidious nature in the believer's life.

Number one, because the new man in Christ is not a perfect new man. The new man in Christ is not a perfect new man. Though sin no longer reigns, sin does remain. Though it no longer exercises dominion, it does exercise constant guerrilla warfare.

3:53 - 4:22 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And it's because we're stamped for perfection, that we're sitting ducks for any teaching that says we can have perfection here and now. And it's only the earnest Christian that gets ensnared in perfectionist teaching wit…

The Holy Spirit is described as the 'earnest' or 'down payment' of what believers shall be, explaining the inherent longing for perfection that makes them susceptible to perfectionist teachings.

In some places, walking down a person is always concerning the necessity of the process, and it is for this simple reason, to every truly regenerate person, that it would be otherwise. You see, God has given us, in the language of the New Testament, the earnest of the Spirit, the down payment of the Spirit,

8:30 - 9:13 Read in full sermon

The point: I would preserve some of you from the agony and the disillusionment of being attracted by any form of perfectionist or semi-perfectionist teaching.

The history of the Church is described as 'strewn with the wreckage' of movements attempting sanctification by naked human effort, illustrating the destructive consequences of legalism.

And completely overlooking the necessity of the divine agency, they so give themselves to the process of sanctification by naked human effort, that they always drift either into legalism, phariseism, or asceticism. And the history of the Church is strewn with the wreckage of men and women, and whole movements that have attempted to get on in the process of sanctification without a full appreciation of and commitment to the necessity of the constant

11:47 - 12:29 Read in full sermon

The point: I would preserve some of you from the agony and the disillusionment of being attracted by any form of perfectionist or semi-perfectionist teaching.

He describes the 'complete passivity' view of sanctification as trying to be 'nothing but a funnel' for Jesus Christ to live through, illustrating the extreme of quietism.

divine agency in the process. But then on the other end of the spectrum, you have in the history of the Church the wreckage that has come from the theories of sanctification that I call sanctification by complete passivity. These people take up the words yield, abide, and other such vocabulary from the New Testament and they say, aha, there is the secret of the process of sanctification. To get old self out of the way.

12:29 - 13:05 Read in full sermon

The point: We need to understand that if we are to make any progress in this process, we are to render praise and thanksgiving to the Father that he has enabled us to make that.

He uses the analogy of a coach patting a player on the back after a play, then leaving him on his own, to illustrate the false idea that God breaks sin's dominion but then leaves the believer to sanctify themselves.

The Father, he is asked to understand this. Well it is important to understand it so that we may be kept from any do-it-yourself moralism. The idea that God broke sin's dominion but now he's patting me on the back like the...

17:16 - 17:49 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He details Christ's active role through His indwelling and intercession. Citing Romans 8:10 and Galatians 2:20, he explains Christ's indwelling as inseparable from the Father and…

Martin recounts Peter's denial and subsequent weeping after Jesus looked at him, arguing that it was Christ's intercession, not a magical power in His look, that broke Peter's heart, illustrating the efficacy of Christ's intercession.

prayed for thee then when we read on in the gospels that Peter having cursed and sworn three times that he did not know Christ and he went out and he wept what made the look of Christ efficacious to break the heart of Peter it was the intercession of Christ there was nothing in that look that held inherent power to break his heart those were the same eyes that looked into the face of Judas and said betrayest thou the son of man with a kiss they hardened

36:33 - 37:18 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He details Christ's active role through His indwelling and intercession. Citing Romans 8:10 and Galatians 2:20, he explains Christ's indwelling as inseparable from the Father and…

He gives a personal example of times of spiritual dryness, carnal passion, and then unexpected spiritual renewal through God's Word or a believer, attributing these turnarounds to Christ's intercession.

story will be told us when we get to the other side can you think of those times when you've been negligent in your devotional life and your hunger for the word of God has been shriveled until it was almost non-existent and when there rose up in its place conscious after the leeks and the garlics and the cucumbers of your past Egyptian life when you felt as it were a raging fire of carnal passion within your breast and then it seemed out of nowhere the word of God into your mind

38:02 - 38:47 Read in full sermon

The point: If we do not understand and come to grips with this fundamental issue [the 'I' that lives by faith], we are doomed to be vulnerable on many many fronts with regard to the Christian world.

Martin shares a personal anecdote of standing in front of a refrigerator, agonizing for hours over whether to take a glass of milk, trying to discern if it was Christ or carnal gluttony, illustrating the absurdity and agony of extreme quietism.

and well can I remember standing in front of the fridge at night and I don't want you to laugh because it isn't a laughing matter and I'm not saying it to be funny as to whether or not I should take was it the indwelling Christ urging me to take that glass of milk or was it carnal gluttony in front of the refrigerator spending hours I mean hours sometimes two three four hours on my face to make a decision about what to preach because I wanted the answer to choose

42:27 - 43:11 Read in full sermon

The point: If we do not understand and come to grips with this fundamental issue [the 'I' that lives by faith], we are doomed to be vulnerable on many many fronts with regard to the Christian world.

He recounts spending hours on his face trying to choose a sermon text, pushing his own will into neutrality, waiting for 'celestial fluttering,' illustrating the paralyzing effects of quietism on ministry.

and well can I remember standing in front of the fridge at night and I don't want you to laugh because it isn't a laughing matter and I'm not saying it to be funny as to whether or not I should take was it the indwelling Christ urging me to take that glass of milk or was it carnal gluttony in front of the refrigerator spending hours I mean hours sometimes two three four hours on my face to make a decision about what to preach because I wanted the answer to choose

42:27 - 43:11 Read in full sermon

The point: Every man that hath this hope purifies him, even as he is pure.

He uses Jesus' figurative language of cutting off a hand or plucking out an eye to illustrate that believers, not the Lord, are the ones who actively 'amputate' and 'cast off' sin in their lives.

So, if there is defilement, if there is to be the putting away, what did Jesus say? If thy hand offend thee, pray that the Lord will put you to sleep and give you a painless amputation. In some mystical experience, know, if thy hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee. If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee.

47:11 - 47:42 Read in full sermon

The point: We do the amputating and we do the casting. Not the Lord. You do it.

Paul's example of buffeting his body (1 Corinthians 9:27) is used to show the active, even violent, self-discipline required of believers to keep bodily appetites in check, contrasting it with passive waiting for God to act.

Paul gives us the example. 1 Corinthians 9 and verse 27. He said, I buffet my body. I literally bruise myself under the eye and keep it in some place.

48:23 - 48:39 Read in full sermon

The point: I urge upon you to make this book [Owen's Volume 6] your lifetime companion. If you want to make progress in the matter of putting sin to death and dealing with temptation, next to your Bible in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progre…

Martin quotes Abraham Kuyper to summarize the balanced view of sanctification: believers act as if doing it themselves, but after success, they prostrate themselves, acknowledging God's work, prayers, and praise.

That speaks to this very issue and then one brief quote from John Old. When we are called upon to speak, to act, or to fight, we do so as though we were doing it ourselves, not perceiving that it is another who works in us both to will and to do. But as soon as we finish the task successfully and agreeably to the will of God in Scripture, as men of faith we prostrate ourselves, before Him and cry, Lord, the work was thine, as were the prayers in which we sought thy help, and the praises which we now render

55:15 - 55:59 Read in full sermon

The point: I urge upon you to make this book [Owen's Volume 6] your lifetime companion. If you want to make progress in the matter of putting sin to death and dealing with temptation, next to your Bible in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progre…

He quotes John Owen on mortification, emphasizing that the Holy Spirit works in us 'so as to preserve our own liberty and free obedience,' encouraging active participation rather than neglect.

for what you have enabled us to do. That's it. Kuyper understood it. And John Owen in his classic work, Volume 6, and I urge upon you to make this book your lifetime companion.

55:59 - 56:14 Read in full sermon

The point: I urge upon you to make this book [Owen's Volume 6] your lifetime companion. If you want to make progress in the matter of putting sin to death and dealing with temptation, next to your Bible in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progre…

Martin shares his past experience of trying to preach in a monotone voice with suppressed emotions, believing any 'beller' or 'motion' was flesh, illustrating how quietism negates redeemed humanity and hinders authentic ministry.

You see, wherever people take the deeper, higher life teaching seriously, they are all cut out of the same mold. Because their humanity is being negated. Imagine me trying to preach when I believe that stuff. I felt any time I felt a beller coming and a motion coming.

57:20 - 57:39 Read in full sermon