Once-for-all Act

In this part of the sermon: Martin opens with an illustration of a building on fire to emphasize the critical need for accurate, loud, and clear directions for escape. He applies this to the spiritual…

An analogy of a building on fire requiring accurate, loud, and clear directions for escape is used to stress the urgency and clarity needed for God's directions for escaping His wrath.

As many of you know, when we meet in this building, we always meet with an official employee of the Board of Education, present, one of the janitors, and if he were to discover during the next few minutes that this building was on fire, all of us would immediately be placed in a critical, a very real emergency situation. Now, if that situation were to develop, once discovered, any directions relative to our exit to safety and away from that imminent danger of the fire should be marked by three things. They ought to be accurate, they ought to be loud, and they ought to be clear. It would do no ...

0:02 - 1:15 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Whatever it is, it must be understood as an act of God. An act in contrast to a process. You see, a process speaks of imperfection and continuance.

The process of home renovation is contrasted with an 'act' to highlight that justification is a singular, completed event, not an ongoing, imperfect process.

I happen to know that, in some of your homes, certain rooms in those homes are in the process of being renovated and redecorated. That process for some of you has gone on for months and for years. You wish that there were an act of renovation. You go in on Tuesday, everything's a mess.

9:35 - 9:58 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Whatever it is, it must be understood as an act of God. An act in contrast to a process. You see, a process speaks of imperfection and continuance.

Sticking a letter in a mailbox is used as an example of a 'once-for-all act' to illustrate the decisive and completed nature of justification.

But you see an act like sticking a letter in the mailbox. Once you pull down the lid and stick it in and it shuts, you have posted the letter. It is a once-for-all act. It is not a process.

10:08 - 10:22 Read in full sermon

The point: Cry to God for ears to hear and understand the distinction between justification as an act and sanctification as a process.

The instantaneous clearing of a dark, ominous thunderstorm is used to illustrate how the 'canopy of divine judgment' is instantly removed the moment a sinner believes in Christ.

in terms of giving judicial account for his sins and here our Lord you see points again to this great reality that justification is an act of God's free grace unto sinners it is not a process it is indeed an act there is a moment when a man comes out from under the awful canopy of divine judgment and into the smile and favor of the living God and trying to rack my mind for something to illustrate the instantaneous nature of this the only thing that came to my mind that I thought would register even with the truth of the Bible and the truth of the Bible and the truth of the Bible is that we are...

19:07 - 20:36 Read in full sermon

Driving home: God not only cancels all our debts that would just return us to a neutral place but then he confers upon us all of the positive righteousness of his own dear son and treats us as though we had perfectly kept his holy law…

The story of a man in debtor's prison whose debts are paid and then given money is used to illustrate the two aspects of justification: cancellation of sin (pardon) and conferral of righteousness (acceptance).

let me illustrate here's a man who's in the debtor's prison they used to have debtor's prison you couldn't just declare bankruptcy and get off the hook you went to prison they said well that's not fair well they didn't think that way they said if you incurred unjust debts and couldn't pay them you had broken the law and that's your problem and they threw you in prison well how can a man pay back his debts when he's in prison they said that's your problem the law does not exist to solve your problem it exists to punish your misdemeanors and the concept of debtor's prison had much more of a bibl...

39:23 - 40:51 Read in full sermon