Indispensable to the Life of the Church (1)

In this part of the sermon: Martin begins by establishing that delight and grief are inherent to the experience of love, illustrating this with a child's gift to his mother and a man proposing marriage. He…

A little boy brings a fistful of dandelions to his mother, illustrating the delight of love in bringing joy to its object and the mother's delight in receiving his expression of love.

that sanctifying grace, preventive grace, O Lord, may Your Word do its manifold work in all of our hearts, we plead to the praise of Your own holy name, we ask through the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. I doubt there is anyone here this morning who would argue with me when I say that delight and grief are words which always belong to the language and to the experience of love. It is the great delight of love to bring delight to its object. We see this when the little boy, clutching a fistful of freshly picked dandelions in his grubby hand, bursts through the back door and goes running through the ho...

2:34 - 4:01 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And if indeed grief and delight are words always belonging to the language and experience of love, then we should expect the realities of delight and grief to karmic. The revelation of God's salvation to men for it is th…

A young man proposes marriage and gazes into his beloved's eyes for her 'yes,' illustrating the great delight of love when its object reciprocates.

who can paint the look of delight upon his face when his mother stoops over and accepts this bouquet of dandelions for what it is in the perception of her son, an expression of his love, desiring to delight his mummy. And the grin that was already like a jack-o'-lantern almost stretches the muscles of his cheeks when she bends over and pats his head and kisses him on the cheek and praises him for expressing his love in that way. Surely, watching a scene like that, no one would debate that it is the great delight of love to delight the object of its love. Or we might move from the little boy to...

4:01 - 5:18 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And if indeed grief and delight are words always belonging to the language and experience of love, then we should expect the realities of delight and grief to karmic. The revelation of God's salvation to men for it is th…

The mother, too busy, dismisses her son's dandelion gift, causing him grief. Her subsequent sorrow illustrates that it is the great grief of love to cause grief to its object.

But the reverse is true. It's the great grief of love to cause grief to its object. Suppose the mother in her busyness only saw the boy's grubby hand and these half-crushed dandelions. And she said, Son, don't bother me right now.

6:01 - 6:23 Read in full sermon

Driving home: It has the form and feature, but it has no breathing, pulsing life. And where are we taught this in the scriptures?

A wax figure of Winston Churchill is used to illustrate that a church without the Holy Spirit's presence is like a lifeless representation, having the form but no true life or power.

Man cannot make what constitutes a living temple of the living God. And what is called a church may be no more a true living temple of God than that wax figure of Winston Churchill there in...

14:23 - 14:44 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The first line of evidence is that the Holy Spirit alone constitutes the church as a living temple of God. Martin uses the analogy of a wax figure to contrast a mere religious…

The church is described as 'God's tilled land,' implying careful cultivation and the expectation of fruit, not a wild, overgrown field.

Now he uses two images for the church. You are God's tilled land. You're not a field grown over with nettles and thorns. No, somebody's been working the field.

18:05 - 18:18 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The first line of evidence is that the Holy Spirit alone constitutes the church as a living temple of God. Martin uses the analogy of a wax figure to contrast a mere religious…

The church is described as 'God's building,' implying careful planning, solid construction, and divine labor, not something that just happened.

And then he uses a second image. You are God's building. And whenever you see a well-constructed building with symmetry made of solid materials, it didn't just happen. Somebody planned it.

18:36 - 18:50 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The first line of evidence is that the Holy Spirit alone constitutes the church as a living temple of God. Martin uses the analogy of a wax figure to contrast a mere religious…

The Shekinah glory over the Tent of Meeting and its removal from the temple is used to illustrate the unique, special presence of God among His people and the desolation when it departs.

That His presence, His personal presence, in a unique dimension that I am not prepared to even attempt to begin to define, is a unique element of that which makes, in a unique dimension that I am not prepared to even attempt to begin to define, is a unique element of that which makes, the church, the church, just as surely as one of the things that separated the Israelites and their professed peculiar relationship to God, was the Shekinah glory that was over the Tent of Meeting as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. No one could imitate that. No religion among the nations could coerc...

23:40 - 25:04 Read in full sermon

The point: Be exceedingly jealous for two things in public worship: only engage in practices God has instituted, and consciously depend on the Holy Spirit to make those means effectual.

Martin quotes Vaughan's work on the Holy Spirit in public worship, emphasizing the need for both divinely instituted practices and conscious dependence on the Spirit for their efficacy.

He alone can make it a temple by dwelling among his people. But he alone can communicate life to all the divinely instituted activities within his temple. In what is a unique essay, at least in terms of my reading of literature on the subject, Vaughan in his masterful work on the gifts of the Holy Spirit has a chapter on the Holy Spirit in conjunction with public worship. And he begins the chapter by saying that the people of God must be exceedingly jealous for two things in their public worship.

26:16 - 26:53 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Our worship is such that take away the presence, the person, the active power of the Spirit and it is nothing. It is nothing. We worship by the Spirit of God.

Moses 'enduring as seeing Him who is invisible' is used as an example of the Spirit's ministry to make unseen spiritual realities visible to the 'eyes' of faith.

To our hearts with power. So that we are not worshiping vacant, vaporous notions that float by. The Holy Ghost as it were gives spiritual flesh and blood to these unseen realities. As it is said of Moses, He endured seeing Him who is invisible.

31:26 - 31:49 Read in full sermon

The point: Be deeply concerned not to grieve the Holy Spirit, recognizing that He alone gives the church its being, life, and validates its ministry, and there is no backup system.

Israel's defeat at Ai due to sin and Joshua's subsequent prayer is used to illustrate that when God's people grieve Him, they lose His accompanying power and have no 'backup system'.

in many churches whether the Spirit of God is present or not you still have a good time because there is so much that is carnally planned and promoted and paraded that at least you get some aesthetic enjoyment you get some entertainment whereas I've said again and again in pastor's conferences all around the world as I've had privilege to speak to God's servants we are shut up to God's simple plain institutions and if he doesn't attend them with power we have no backup system and those who have known the Holy Ghost coming riding in regal glory and grace on his own institutions into the assembl...

54:14 - 55:41 Read in full sermon

The point: Be deeply concerned not to grieve the Holy Spirit, recognizing that He alone gives the church its being, life, and validates its ministry, and there is no backup system.

A 'strict evangelical reformed sandwich' (hymn, prayer, reading, preaching) is used to describe the simplicity of their worship, emphasizing that its power comes from God's presence, not human novelty.

and I'll accompany your armies again you see that's the glory of the simplicity of God's institutions only the Holy Ghost can make them effectual and when he makes them effectual you don't want anything else do you? someone said concerning our kind of service well it's just one of those things well it's just one of those things well it's just one of those things well it's just one of those things well it's just one of those things well it's just one of those things one of those strict reformed sandwiches you have a hymn and prayer and another hymn and a reading of the scriptures and it's cappe...

55:41 - 57:10 Read in full sermon