Our Solemn, Inescapeable Gospel Duties

In this part of the sermon: He reminds the audience of Isaiah 53:6, detailing humanity's sin and God's provision, and Isaiah 55:1-3, where God passionately invites sinners to partake in salvation's…

God is likened to a street hawker who loudly announces his goods (salvation's blessings) to emphasize His passionate desire for people to receive them without money or price.

We looked at Isaiah 55, verses 1 to 3. And we saw that the answer to that question is a resounding no. God is no take-it-or-leave-it God. In fact, in those verses, God takes to Himself the figure of a street hawker.

5:32 - 5:54 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He reminds the audience of Isaiah 53:6, detailing humanity's sin and God's provision, and Isaiah 55:1-3, where God passionately invites sinners to partake in salvation's…

The blessings of salvation (forgiveness, peace, adoption, Holy Spirit, eternal life) are compared to water, wine, milk, and bread, representing essential and freely offered provisions.

God likens all those blessings to the commodities of water, of wine, of bread, and of what? What's the fourth one? Water, wine, bread. I've got to look at the text.

6:33 - 6:54 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not tempt God by continually refusing the light of the gospel, lest you reach a point where you cannot believe because you would not.

The limited time to seek God is described as a 'door of opportunity' that can be 'eternally shut,' highlighting the urgency of conversion.

While He may be found He is near Clearly if there's a time when He may be found There's a time when He may not be found If there's a time when He's near There's a time when He's not near There's an urgency There's an urgency There is an immediacy To this gospel duty In the context When is the near time The appropriate time When He comes and offers Himself To us With all of the gospel blessings Bound up in the Lord Jesus Seek the Lord While He may be found When can He be found When you're still alive You still have your rational faculties You're in a context where Christ And the sufficiency of ...

20:31 - 21:58 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not tempt God by continually refusing the light of the gospel, lest you reach a point where you cannot believe because you would not.

God's judicial blinding of those who refuse the gospel is vividly illustrated by cutting eyelid muscles and cauterizing optic nerves, showing the irreversible consequence of persistent rejection.

Lest they should see with their eyes And perceive with their heart And should turn And I should heal them They could not believe At one point Because they would not John 5 40 You will not come to me that you might have life They could not because they would not But now the time has come That they would not Because they could not And they could not Because almighty God said okay Then shut your eyes You don't want the light of the gospel To come in and flood your soul You don't want to hear what I've told you About the bad news about yourself The good news about my son You would not be entreated...

26:15 - 27:41 Read in full sermon

The point: Forsake your unrighteous thoughts (envy, pride, lust, greed, anger, resentment, retaliation) at the deepest level, recognizing you have no right to indulge them.

Seeing one's 'way' and 'thoughts' in the light of Christ's agony on the cross makes sin no longer look 'pretty' or 'attractive,' motivating a radical break with it.

That's the first essential element of your gospel duty. And when you've seen your sin in the light of the cross of Jesus Christ, that it is your way and your thoughts and all of the things that flow out of your way and your thoughts that caused God incarnate to hang upon a cross and to have the heavens shrouded in blackness and the billows of God's wrath poured into his soul when you shall make his soul an offering for sin. Chapter 53, verse 10, and you hear the cry run from that soul. My God, my God, why have you abandoned? You see your way, your thoughts in the light of the agony and the sou...

37:24 - 38:27 Read in full sermon

Driving home: But when I know this God, in the light of His mercy revealed in the person of Christ, I say, how can it be? The God who could crush me in His wrath and consume me in His justice. This God is pursuing me with grace and me…

Adam hiding from God after sin illustrates that knowing God only in terms of wrath leads to fear and avoidance, contrasting with turning to a merciful God.

Let me repeat that. If you only know God in terms of His wrath and His judgment against your sin, you'll either hate Him or run from Him. Remember what Adam did? When he only knew God as the God who would punish him for his sin, in the day you eat you'll surely die. Adam's cowering, hiding in the trees. But when I know this God, in the light of His mercy revealed in the person of Christ, I say, how can it be? The God who could crush me in His wrath and consume me in His justice. This God is pursuing me with grace and mercy. He has sent His only begotten Son, and in Him there is a sufficient Sa...

41:21 - 42:15 Read in full sermon

Driving home: But when I know this God, in the light of His mercy revealed in the person of Christ, I say, how can it be? The God who could crush me in His wrath and consume me in His justice. This God is pursuing me with grace and me…

The prodigal son's decision to return to his father, realizing his father's love and grace, illustrates the radical return to God that repentance entails.

and offering and reasoning with me to embrace this Savior, to take the water, the wine, and the milk, and the bread of Gospels provisions. He begs me. He entreats me. Why would I want to keep it a distance from a God like that? What rational reason could there be to do anything other but run to a God like that. Remember what the prodigal did when he came to himself? What were his first words? I will arise and go to my Papi's table. I will arise and his bed. I will arise and go to my papi's bed. No, he said, I will arise and go to my father. He had all these unreasonable thoughts of his father ...

42:15 - 43:12 Read in full sermon

The point: Believe this gospel and lay hold of the promise that coming to God through Christ in repentance and faith will result in mercy and abundant pardon.

Martin mentions reading a sermon by Spurgeon on 'God will multiply pardon,' expressing his own discouragement and blessing from Spurgeon's profound insights into God's grace.

I speed read a sermon of Spurgeon's early this morning, where he preaches on this, part, God will multiply pardon. And I told the men in the back room, I said, I get discouraged whenever I read Spurgeon. I say, Lord, have I ever preached? I've never preached once.

50:47 - 51:04 Read in full sermon

The point: Believe this gospel and lay hold of the promise that coming to God through Christ in repentance and faith will result in mercy and abundant pardon.

A lengthy quote from Spurgeon's sermon emphasizes that God pardons not only many sins but also the 'virus' and 'obnoxiousness' within each sin, even deliberate and presumptuous ones, through Christ's blood.

In addition to there being many sins in one sin, I want you to remember how much virus of sin we sometimes manage to stow away in a sin. A man is done wrong and smarted for it, yet he does the very same thing again willfully, against his own conscience and against the warning he's received. A man will sometimes acknowledge what a fool he's been, and yet play the fool again. If any of us have been blessed with a tender conscience and with godly training, and have heard sound preaching of the gospel and have had light and knowledge if we go deliberately into sin there is in that sin a degree of ...

51:20 - 52:26 Read in full sermon

The point: For those who do not know the joy of sin being leveled, go to God through Christ, seeking Him while He may be found.

The 'mountain of iniquity' built by countless sins is contrasted with God's ability to level it 'in an instant of time' through repentance and faith, highlighting the incomprehensible nature of divine pardon.

that all the mountain of our sin that deserves the wrath of God can be leveled in an instant of time if we obey these gospel commands we say, wait a minute that doesn't make sense you mean that the mountain of iniquity that I have raised one shovel at a time one foul word at a time one foul deed one selfish attitude one rebellious disposition to my parents one cheating in my test one this one that a shovel at a time that I've raised up a mountain that reaches to heaven and you're telling me that the mountain of iniquity the moment I seek the Lord call upon Him while He's near in the way of rep...

56:08 - 57:33 Read in full sermon