Method of Warning Against False Teaching

In this part of the sermon: The sermon narrows its focus to the third observation: Jesus' command to 'take heed, beware of the leaven' as a perpetual duty for all disciples, using analogies of zooming in on…

Martin uses the analogy of Genesis 1 (broad overview) and Genesis 2 (zooming in on particulars) or a photographer enlarging a significant part of a landscape to explain his method of focusing on one specific observation from the previous sermon.

So what we're going to do this morning is something akin to what we find in Genesis chapters one and two. Genesis chapter one gives the broad overview of the six days of creation. Then in Genesis chapter two, God takes the zoom lens and zooms in on the particulars of the creation, of man. Or to change the imagery, I'm doing what the photographer might do, in which he took a picture that encompassed a large landscape, and then there was one particular part of that picture that was particularly significant to him, and so he takes his enlarger and enlarges it, and crops out that particular part, ...

12:40 - 14:06 Read in full sermon

The point: God's servants must be willing to warn of religious error in the manner in which Jesus and the apostles warned... as an integral part of their pastoral duty.

Paul's naming of Hymenaeus and Alexander is illustrated by the metaphor of their lives being 'dashed to snithereens upon the rocks of spiritual shipwreck,' emphasizing the destructive consequences of abandoning faith and a good conscience.

further in the pastoral epistles, and again he names names. 1 Timothy chapter 1, this charge, verse 18, I commit unto you, my child Timothy, according to the prophecies that led the way to you, that by them you may war. The good warfare, holding faith in a good conscience, which some, having thrust from them, made shipwreck concerning the truth. Then he did not say, and you can call to remember, and some such people don't forget them. No, he didn't deal in generalities. Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander? Timothy, every time you think of the words, the names, Hymenaeus, Alexander, Alexander, H...

32:48 - 34:07 Read in full sermon

The point: Unless we're prepared to indict, Jesus Christ as being wrong and sit in judgment on the perfect, holy, harmless, guileless Son of God, we better cry that God will purge from us all of this worldly notion that it is wrong…

Martin argues that if the cross is stripped of its offensiveness, it is also stripped of its power, implying that avoiding offense in preaching can compromise the gospel's saving efficacy.

An offenseless Christianity is a Christianity not worth propagating. For the Apostle Paul, in dealing with the Judaizers, says if we yield to their tenets of their convictions and their beliefs, then is the offense of the cross ceased. Implied in that is, once you've stripped the cross of its offensiveness, you've stripped it of its power. And if the cross is stripped of its power, what hope is there for sinners?

44:50 - 45:20 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And any man who says the promised land is integration is a false prophet.

Martin critiques Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' speech, arguing that King's 'promised land' was a material, earthly utopia (integration) rather than spiritual regeneration and heaven, thus labeling him a 'false prophet' for misapplying biblical redemption language.

To see that man stand and take Bible verses that apply to redemption in Christ and say, I have a dream. I've been to the mountain. I've seen the promised land. And for him, what was the promised land?

55:24 - 55:39 Read in full sermon

Driving home: You want to throw a monkey wrench into that whole hug fest, you just talk about absolute truth that saves and error that damns. You won't aid the ecumenical movement. Well, bless God, if I go to my grave, having never ai…

The ecumenical movement is described as a 'calculated effort to have one global religious hug fest,' where doctrinal differences are ignored, to highlight its opposition to absolute truth.

That's the ecumenical movement in poor man's terminology. And it is the calculated effort to have one global religious hug fest.

58:10 - 58:20 Read in full sermon

Driving home: we are one in the spirit because we are one in the truth the whole idea that we just all lock arms and forget our differences and say well we're one in the spirit everything's alright because we all can gibberish in tong…

Martin uses the scenario of joining hands with someone to lift a truck off a pinned man, or standing shoulder-to-shoulder on a battlefield, to illustrate common human sympathy and shared civic duties, distinguishing these from religious unity which requires agreement on core truths.

You deny that and say any noble thing you want to say about Him and you're not my friend, you're my enemy. You're an enemy of the cross of Christ because that's what His cross is. You deny that the same one who was wrapped in linen cloths and laid in the borrowed tomb as the one who came out of that tomb on the third day the same person who went in came out throbbing with a new quality of life which is not fully described in Scripture but which is called newness of life which is called life that is immortal. You deny that Joseph's tomb is empty for any other reason than that he rose from the d...

61:54 - 63:23 Read in full sermon