Jesus and the Sleeping Disciples #2

In this part of the sermon: Martin details the two imperatives: 'watch' and 'pray.' Watchfulness means active resistance to spiritual drowsiness and external influences, staying in touch with reality…

A sensitive child living in squalor and filth drifts to sleep and dreams of being dressed in satin and eating ice cream. This illustrates how spiritual sleep makes one out of touch with harsh realities, creating a false sense of comfort and safety.

You see from the world of reality let me illustrate there is things where our brother Steve labors some of the things that we are not aware of and some of us have seen the crushing poverty of those who live in these little sections of where people have cardboard shacks as their homes and I mean that literally shacks made of cardboard boxes and little children run around naked or just a dirty old cotton shirt coming down to the waist and naked the rest of their bodies and there is a little child a sensitive child who thinks that he is going to die but he is not he is going to die he is going to...

19:47 - 21:17 Read in full sermon

The point: Actively resist external influences (like the world's opinion of Christ) that seek to induce spiritual drowsiness and make you helpless.

The experience of fighting against an ether-soaked rag to avoid unconsciousness is used to illustrate how external influences (the world's spirit, opinions of Christ) constantly try to induce spiritual drowsiness and make believers helpless against temptation.

the world had its opinion of Christ then as it has its opinion of Christ now. Some of you aren't old enough to remember when Ether. Ether was the standard way of putting someone under for minor surgery and even major surgery, but some of us are old enough to remember when it was used for minor surgery. And some of us can remember fighting, having a cloth soaked with Ether put over our nose. Maybe you've seen in an old, innocent movie, there are a few of them left around, some murderer or some thief who was trying to capture someone and he came with a handkerchief soaked in Ether and tried to c...

26:52 - 27:55 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Why didn't those disciples pray? Because they weren't watchful. And because they weren't watchful, that's why they fell asleep.

A hypothetical scenario of a madman with a gun on the platform is used to demonstrate how being truly 'in touch with realities' (watchfulness) immediately drives one to cry out for help (prayer), unlike a mere intellectual acknowledgment of danger.

create a climate of real prayer. Without B, I could say here right now, somebody, help me. There's a murderer trying to blow my head out with a .44 Magnum. Come and help me. You're not very convinced. Why? The way in which I say it, and you don't see anyone here. But let some madman come charging through the side door up on this platform and hold a nickel-plated .44 Magnum to my head. And with a wild look in his eyes, say, I'm going to blow this preacher's brains out. If I then say, somebody help! Because you would see me in touch with the realities of what really is.

35:55 - 36:45 Read in full sermon

Driving home: No, no, the Bible doesn't teach that anywhere. The Bible teaches when we are regenerate, the spirit dominates.

The analogy of two dogs, one fed meat and the other sawdust, is used to critique the 'two-nature theory' of the Christian life, arguing that it misrepresents the biblical teaching that the regenerate spirit dominates.

That's the so-called two-nature theory of the Christian life. You've heard people talk about, it's like having two dogs and a pen. They were twins, born of the same mother, same size, nursed at the same nipples of their mother and all the rest, but the one you feed meat and the other you just feed sawdust, and after three months they have a fight with the one that got the meat is going to beat the one that got the sawdust, so you have two natures, the old nature, the new nature. If you feed the old, he'll conquer and you become a carnal Christian.

53:51 - 54:17 Read in full sermon