Personal Holiness

In this part of the sermon: Pastor John MacArthur introduces Albert Martin, highlighting his ministry and family. Martin then shares his personal principles for chapel preaching: no jokes and no 'stroking'…

Martin recounts his student experience of being disgusted by preachers who told worn-out jokes to establish credibility, vowing never to do the same. This illustrates his commitment to serious, direct preaching of God's Word.

And I trust that in the time allotted this morning, God will be pleased to bring his Word home to our hearts with clarity and with power. One of the things I always determined, after sitting where you sit as a student in two different Christian colleges, that if God ever gave me the opportunity to speak in the chapel sessions of Christian colleges, there were two things I would not do. Number one, I would not stand up and tell a lot of thin, corny, worn-out jokes to try to prove to the men and women of the college that I was a nice guy.

2:54 - 3:31 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Pastor John MacArthur introduces Albert Martin, highlighting his ministry and family. Martin then shares his personal principles for chapel preaching: no jokes and no 'stroking'…

Martin describes his torment as a student when preachers assumed all Christian college students were spiritually sound and 'stroked' them, rather than challenging them. This illustrates his commitment to confrontational, honest preaching.

If I ever get a chance to speak in college chapels, I'm not going to assume everybody is in the same place. He is in the place where he already has little nubs sprouting angel's wings and assume that everything's all right simply because someone's in a Christian college. My soul used to be tormented nigh unto death when preachers would say, well, you're in this marvelous Christian college, and I know all of you. And I'd say, man, God isn't telling you that stuff.

4:03 - 4:31 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The first aspect of the dynamics of grace is that in all real Christians, the dominion of sin has been broken through union with Christ, as expounded from Romans 6, where…

He uses the analogy of mountains of sin and grace (10,000 ft sin, 15,000 ft grace) to explain the devil's logic of continuing in sin to magnify grace, which Paul refutes in Romans 6.

If you have your Bibles, you can read this hymn on the Bible. It states that in the first chapter of Romans, Paul writes to the Roman Christians having extolled the grace of God in free justification, that is, that we are justified on the basis of the obedience of another and not our own obedience and where sin abounds, grace super abounds. Romans, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? If the mountain of sin is 10,000 feet high, and where sin abounds, grace superabounds, God's mountain of grace goes up to 15,000 feet, then the devil's logic is, let's raise a m...

11:09 - 12:34 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The mind of the flesh is enmity against God. It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. Neither indeed can it be.

Jesus' analogy of Pharisees as whitewashed sepulchers is used to illustrate external conformity to God's law without inward transformation, highlighting the hypocrisy of a carnal mind.

A man who has nothing but the mindset and the disposition of heart to God and His law that He brought with Him from His mother's womb can never truly be subject to God. Oh yes, like the Pharisees, He may render some external conformity. Jesus said you Pharisees are like whitewashed sepulchers. They appear beautiful to men, but are inwardly full of dead men's bones and all unclean.

20:53 - 21:20 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The mind of the flesh is enmity against God. It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. Neither indeed can it be.

Martin extends the whitewashed sepulcher analogy with a vivid story of admiring a freshly whitewashed sepulcher, only to find a horrible stench of rotten flesh inside when the stone is moved. This powerfully illustrates the deceitfulness of outward religious appearance without inward regeneration.

You walk by A.B. Hinklestine's sepulcher the morning after he whitewashed it. And the morning sun is rising and it shines against it and you nudge your buddy and you say to him, Look at A.B.'s sepulcher, doesn't that look beautiful?

21:21 - 21:34 Read in full sermon

Driving home: But far be it from me to glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through which the world, this present age, this whole system with its commitment to live for time and the world of sense and the values that will …

Paul's statement 'the world has been crucified unto me' is illustrated by comparing the world to a cadaver hanging on a cross, covered with flies and picked by buzzards. This conveys the utter repulsion a true believer should feel towards the world's values, having seen its role in crucifying Christ.

there is such an open declaration of the absolute vanity of everything that men live for by nature that when you embrace that cross, the very cross that is the instrument of your salvation becomes the instrument of your severance from the world. Paul says through the cross the world is crucified to me. He's saying this present world with all of its tinsel, with all of its glitter, with all of its seductiveness, he said it has no more attraction for me than a cadaver hanging on the cross with a buzzard picking off its flesh. Now if you saw somebody walking up to a corpse hanging on a cross cove...

34:01 - 35:12 Read in full sermon

The point: Pray that obedience would be the highest joy because of love for God, gratitude for His mercies, and a wondrous awe for His glory.

John MacArthur shares his experience of being invited to speak on New Testament morality at a secular university, where he began by stating that he wouldn't expect anyone to be interested, leading to a student asking 'why not?' This illustrates the necessity of addressing the unregenerate heart before presenting moral commands.

There is nothing to add to that message, obviously, and I would not attempt to do that, but to give you a sort of personal experience with the same approach to truth. I was sharing with Pastor Martin last night that I was invited to the philosophy class at Cal State Northridge, and the professor, who is an unbeliever, in fact, formerly a Jewish rabbi, said, I want you to talk on New Testament morality. I want you to present New Testament Christian morality. To go into a secular classroom, a philosophy class, upper division, on a college campus, and call everyone to New Testament morality would...

51:10 - 52:22 Read in full sermon