Christ as Prophet - Corporate Implications

The Sadducees bring Christ the puzzle of one woman successively married to seven brothers, expecting to embarrass the resurrection — and Christ answers that they err because they know not the Scriptures.

That position says there is no such thing as the bodily resurrection or the resurrection of the body. Now they not only hold that doctrine, they propagate that doctrine and they seek to bind the consciences of their followers to that doctrine. And so they come to Jesus and say, Teacher, Moses said, and so they point to the Scriptures, If a man die having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, And then they give to the Lord a rehearsal of this Old Testament law with respect to the raising up of seed to one's brother who died. Now he says, or they say, verse 25, there were with us seven ...

11:28 - 12:24 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Faith may swim where reason and understanding may only wade.

Pastor Martin's allergies make his nose itch while preaching, and he feels no guilt for them because they are constitutional — but unbelief is not constitutional, it is moral perversity.

as a constitutional weakness. Some of us have allergies. And when my nose itches here preaching, I don't feel any guilt. I feel a little embarrassment sometimes when I have to rub it, for I fear you may think he's got a nervous habit. No, that's just to get rid of the distraction of an itchy nose. I feel no guilt for my allergies. Now, if I do something stupid to aggravate them and should have known better, then I feel guilt for being stupid.

33:08 - 33:32 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Faith may swim where reason and understanding may only wade.

If the sea of your faith is only as deep as your own height, so you will not swim unless you feel bottom, your sea is too shallow to take you to heaven.

May we ever be delivered from a carnal rationalism that will only believe what it can fathom. If the sea of your faith is only as deep as your own height, and you'll never swim unless you can feel bottom, my friend, your sea is too shallow to take you to heaven. Someone has said, faith may swim.

35:54 - 36:21 Read in full sermon

The point: Bring every tradition (not innocent cultural forms, but traditions that affect obedience to precepts) to the touchstone of Scripture and let Christ's word reform what needs reforming.

A man who takes the ten dollars his destitute parents need and says 'It is devoted to God' and brings it to the temple — honoring God with his lips while despising the fifth commandment under the guise of spirituality.

And he quotes two passages from the Old Testament law. Now he says, you see what you have done? You've set up a clever little tradition. Here's a man who obviously ought to know that honoring father and mother means that if my father and mother are destitute and I have the means to help support them, I can only honor them in supporting them. But they had a clever little tradition where the man says, all right, the $10 this week that mom and dad need to have a little crust of bread on the table,

41:35 - 42:03 Read in full sermon

The point: Bring every tradition (not innocent cultural forms, but traditions that affect obedience to precepts) to the touchstone of Scripture and let Christ's word reform what needs reforming.

Trinity Baptist's reform of the midweek prayer meeting from mixed to men-only prayer based on 1 Timothy 2:8 — and the women coming up to thank them, saying 'Now I know why I was reluctant.'

But I'll tell you some of the things I say. I say my great joy for the past ten years has been to be a teaching elder in a congregation where up till now, whenever we saw something in the book, all we as elders had to do is demonstrate to the people that it was in the book. And that was the end of the matter. And they did it. Up till a year ago or so, give you a case in point, in our stated midweek prayer service, men and women prayed Now only the men pray. Why? Because some of us in our study of the Word, we weren't trying to go around and be mean to our ladies. We love our ladies now more th...

45:50 - 46:49 Read in full sermon

The point: Look for no word from Christ outside the pages of this book — but expect the Spirit to make that word living, sweet, and joy-producing to you.

A young college student saying 'God spoke to me,' and Pastor Martin asking cheekily 'High, low, loud, soft? How do you know it was God's voice?' — exposing fanaticism's pretensions.

God spoke to me. I said, oh, he did. What did his voice sound like? High, low, loud, soft? How do you know it was God's voice? Oh, I've heard him many times. I said, oh, that's very interesting. And I went on to try to answer the fool according to his folly. And it was so obvious that the God who spoke to him was not the God who speaks through his great prophet in this book. And again and again, there generally is no middle position here.

52:38 - 53:04 Read in full sermon