Importance / Primary Focus / Our Attitude

Driving home: In a word, we can neither live safely, profitably, and godly, or comfortably, nor die so, without believing serious consideration of our everlasting rest.

Martin quotes Baxter's 'The Saints' Everlasting Rest' to show that believing thoughts of heaven are essential for Christian stability, liveliness, endurance, honoring God, and the very being of religion.

The biblical religion, if there is not a conviction concerning the biblical, the orthodox doctrines of heaven and hell. Richard Baxter, in what is rightfully called a classic work on heaven, called The Saints' Everlasting Rest, 672 pages, expounding the glorious biblical doctrine of the saints' everlasting rest in the presence of God. In the introduction, when Baxter is seeking to open up the importance of the doctrine of heaven, he writes as follows, I have found, says he, by reason and experience, as well as scripture, that it is not our comfort only, but our stability, our liveliness in all...

8:26 - 9:48 Read in full sermon

Driving home: When I, Jehovah the living God, when I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die, and you give him not warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way to save his life, the same wicked man shall die in his ini…

The Lord's commissioning of Ezekiel as a watchman on a city wall is used to illustrate the prophet's (and preacher's) responsibility to warn people of approaching danger (God's judgment) to avoid being charged with their blood.

Well, as with so much New Testament terminology, it has its roots in the Old Testament, and this terminology, finds its root system in Ezekiel chapter 3, Ezekiel chapter 3. Here we have the record of the Lord's commissioning of Ezekiel as a prophet to Israel. And his position as a prophet is likened to a watchman upon a city wall. Now before the days of radar, and before the days of missiles, when warfare was conducted in a hand-to-hand manner, cities were walled in for protection, and watchmen were set upon the walls to look off into the distance to see if there were any signs of the approach...

13:45 - 15:00 Read in full sermon

The point: Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, not on earth, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be.

Martin describes how many evangelicals are shifting emphasis from heaven to social consciousness and involvement, calling it 'pie in the sky by and by religion' and a 'carnalizing of the Christian message'.

The great emphasis in many branches of evangelical Christianity is away from heaven as the place of the believer's rest, the place upon which he fixes his eye amidst all of the inequities and injustices of this life. And we are being told more and more that if we're to have anything, but the kind of credible Christian testimony, we must have a greater concern for the now, and social consciousness, and social involvement, and the social implications of the gospel are not the great themes of the liberals anymore. They are the dominant themes of the majority of many circles of evangelicals. And t...

20:40 - 22:00 Read in full sermon

The point: Recognize that you are a sinner bound for hell, repent, believe, and come to the Lord Jesus Christ, regardless of your social or economic status.

He challenges the idea that one cannot preach hell to the poor in a ghetto because it makes their current suffering seem like heaven, arguing that the message of sin and hell applies equally to all classes.

She has been most powerful to influence this world. And I stand to protest against this carnalizing of the Christian message. Likewise, with the doctrine of hell, we are told, how can you go to a ghetto and tell poor people who have been pressed down by all the social inequities and by all of the exploitation and tell them that they are wretched rebel sinners and there is something awaiting them? It makes the ghetto look like heaven. You can't do that. You'll be turned off.

23:16 - 23:56 Read in full sermon

The point: Preach and teach the orthodox doctrines of heaven and hell faithfully and proportionately to all segments and classes of society.

Martin uses his own practice of adapting language (e.g., 'St. Mark' for Roman Catholics) at weddings to illustrate that while style may change, the core message of the gospel remains unaltered.

For every different class, surely we adopt language and illustration and style. Surely we do that. Those of you who come to a wedding, you know that. Some of you wonder, why at some weddings does Pastor Martin talk about St. Mark and St. Matthew and St. Paul the Apostle?

25:45 - 26:04 Read in full sermon

Driving home: But there is no more deadly injury, no more high-handed cruelty, which any man can perpetrate upon a fellow creature, than that which the theological reformer is in danger of when, against the apparent meaning of God's w…

He quotes Charles Hodge to argue that disguising or explaining away the reality of hell is a 'deadly injury' and 'high-handed cruelty' to souls, far worse than preaching it extravagantly.

We cannot be faithful to the souls of men unless we proclaim both the frightening horrors of the dead. And who go to hell and the glories, the wonders, the beauties, the ravishing delights of those who go into the immediate presence of God in that place the Bible describes as heaven. I want to read just a brief quote from Hodge, who's speaking of those who feel they are wiser than God. In bypassing the preaching of this doctrine, he writes as follows.

26:40 - 27:19 Read in full sermon

The point: Get down off your high horse of thinking you have a right to determine what is fair and just, and absolutizing that into truth.

Martin addresses the objection to the resurrection of the body by describing a body turning to dust or being eaten by sharks, using it to highlight the folly of questioning God's power based on human understanding.

Holy and righteous art thou, O God, just and holy are thy ways, though I may not be able to reconcile in my own, the finite sinful mind, the perfect parallels between the revelation of God's utterly just character and the biblical doctrine of hell. It is not my responsibility to be a reconciler, but to be a humble receiver of the testimony of God. Likewise, with regard to heaven, some say, how can it be possible that the body long since turned to dust, or eaten by the sharks, and the shark in turn has died, and its remains have become part of the ocean floor? How can there be a resurrection of...

39:05 - 40:02 Read in full sermon

The point: Approach the study of heaven and hell with sobriety, trembling before the word of God as you contemplate these awesome realities.

He references biblical incidents of theophanies (visible appearances of God) where people were shocked to be alive, using this to illustrate the sobering, yet joyful, contemplation of heaven's glories and seeing God's face.

I'll never know. How one can contemplate the glories of heaven, the glories of what it is, for a mere mortal, to look upon the unveiled face of Christ, and in some sense to see the very throne of God. You remember those incidents in scripture, when people had what the theologians call a theophany, a visible appearance of God. Why they were shocked that they were alive to record it.

41:45 - 42:24 Read in full sermon