Our Duty Toward the Rising Generation (2)

Driving home: You have but one life to live. This to glorify God's life and lay spiritual foundations and a spiritual inheritance for unborn generations yet to come.

The advertising jingle 'You only go around once in life, so grab all the gusto you can' is used to succinctly capture the world's pleasure-seeking philosophy, contrasting it with the Christian's life purpose.

But each man is in his own way a philosopher. He is molded and shaped by a view of life which determines his values, which determines his values, which determines his values, which moves him to spend his time and money in certain ways, to establish certain relationships and pursue certain goals in life. And a few years ago, the pop philosophy of American culture was very succinctly captured in an advertising jingle of a certain beverage company which again and again repeated these words, you owe...

0:51 - 1:32 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin briefly reviews the previous sermon's points on duty to natural offspring, including qualifications and biblical examples, then shifts the focus to the church's duty to…

The analogy of a perpetual relay race illustrates the existing generation's responsibility to receive the 'baton of truth,' run their segment, and pass it on, instructing the next generation how to continue the race.

And we saw that the common denominator of those four passages focuses upon a twofold duty of the existing speaking. Existing generation of the people of God with reference to the rising or succeeding Generations and those two duties are these We must seek to experience a pattern of universal submission to the Word of God in our own lives And secondly we must seek to command a pattern of universal submission To the Word of God in the lives of the rising Generation and then I use the analogy of a perpetual relay race

8:22 - 9:04 Read in full sermon

Driving home: When the knowledge of sins forgiven, judgment no longer a threat, one's acceptance in the Beloved and all of those glorious truths so filled the heart of the infant believer that he is obsessed with Christ, speaking of C…

The analogy of a happily married couple's enduring love, beyond initial infatuation, is used to qualify that Christ does not expect believers to maintain the 'incidental elements' of first love, but its core passion.

At the end of the day, loss of first love is just what it appears to be at one's first reading. It is the love that one had. Certainly not the dimensions of it, that are born of the novelty of entering a whole new world of spiritual reality and the initial recognition of sins forgiven and pardoned, sealed in the blood of Christ. God no more expects us to keep what I would call the incidental elements of our first love in our relationship to Him than He expects a happily married couple whose marriage has been tried and tested in the crucible of life,

17:09 - 17:53 Read in full sermon

Driving home: When the knowledge of sins forgiven, judgment no longer a threat, one's acceptance in the Beloved and all of those glorious truths so filled the heart of the infant believer that he is obsessed with Christ, speaking of C…

Martin quotes Ramsey's commentary on Revelation 2, emphasizing that Ephesus's ruin stemmed not from organizational failure but from a secret waning of love in individual believers' affections.

There is no doctrinal deviation. There is no moral deflection from the standards established by Christ. He says that this quenched passion of love to the first love person, if not dealt with, will result in His coming and removing the lampstand unless there is repentance. Ramsey, whose commentary on the first 11 chapters of the book of the Revelation is most helpful at almost every point, commenting on these sentiments writes,

19:50 - 20:35 Read in full sermon

The point: Remember from whence you have fallen, recall past experiences of grace, remember divine mercies, lost joys, broken vows, and departed usefulness. Repent and do the first works.

The analogy of a sick man feeling old symptoms return is used to describe the declining Christian's need for immediate alarm and return to the 'remedy' of repentance and faith.

is it no longer thus? As the sweet thrill of tenderness, the yearning of desire, the springing energy of love passed away, leaving a painful consciousness of departed joys in your devotions and your services, then the horrid leprosy which the sprinkled blood seemed to have cleansed is again bursting forth in its dark polluting spots over your soul and your life also. When the sick man who's been nigh unto death and so far restored is to feel the power of the disease broken and the process of recovery established,

22:47 - 23:31 Read in full sermon

The point: Look to the cross, the blood, the righteousness, the spirit, as at the first. Take hold of the invitation and offer of the gospel as a lost and helpless sinner, and believe the love that God has to you. Renew your repent…

The 'passion of love' for Christ is described as a 'most tender plant of the soul' that withers with the 'slightest draft of worldliness' or 'noxious weed' of sin, impacting future spiritual generations.

for the person of the Lord Jesus. The slightest draft of worldliness into the soul, the first plant is that of the passion of love, of orthodox notion, remain firmly rooted and flourish, the plant of activity and perhaps seal in performance. But that most tender plant will begin to wither if we allow

25:44 - 26:29 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin quotes Spurgeon's sermon on Habakkuk 3:2, highlighting the 'peculiar perils' churches face in their 'middle passage' of existence, where spiritual decline and loss of first…

Martin quotes extensively from Spurgeon's sermon on Habakkuk 3:2, where Spurgeon expresses anxiety about the Metropolitan Tabernacle's spiritual vitality after 25 years, warning of the 'peculiar perils' of the 'middle passage' for churches.

I very kindly put in my hands a choice little volume a few weeks ago. It's called the Memorial Volume Spurgeon's Silver Wedding Testimonial Services. And there at the Metropolitan Tabernacle they celebrated 25 years of Spurgeon's ministry in London. And on the first Lord's Day of that celebration, Spurgeon preached morning and evening.

27:52 - 28:23 Read in full sermon

Driving home: It seems as if the middle passage of communities cannot be safely passed except by a miracle of grace.

Spurgeon's examples of the early defection in paradise, the sinfulness of the patriarchal period, the decline of the Jewish state after Solomon, and the early Christian church's compromise with Constantine are used to illustrate the historical pattern of spiritual decline in the 'middle passage' of communities.

The middle passage is crowded with peculiar perils. The middle passage is crowded with peculiar perils. Have you ever noticed how previous dispensations have all passed away in their prime long before they had grown gray with the years? Upon the golden age of paradise and perfection, the sun went down ere it was yet noon.

29:49 - 30:19 Read in full sermon

Driving home: He saw every truth revealed by God as a beam of radiant light going out from some aspect of the glory of God reflected in the face of Christ and were you to touch any aspect of God's truth you were ultimately to touch th…

The Graham organization's enlistment of liberals and Roman Catholics in campaigns is used as an example of compromising the gospel by deeds, arguing that the end never justifies the means.

he said we did not do these actions why that the truth of the gospel might you can compromise by what you do as well as by what you say and the Graham organization comes into any city and enlists liberals and Roman Catholics and tries to enlist everybody in its campaign why will we not throw in our lot and go with the flow because we would be relinquishing the truth of the gospel that the Romans on the platform next to your pastor for the same thing at heart no we're not

50:39 - 51:23 Read in full sermon

The point: Embrace doctrinal and expositional preaching and study historic confessions of faith to understand and defend the central issues of our faith.

Martin quotes Martin Luther's statement, 'I would rather that the universe collide with the earth than that one grain of God's truth should fall to the ground,' to emphasize the preciousness of God's truth.

but to search the scriptures to see whether these things are so this is why we encourage doctrinal preaching and expositional preaching this is why we unashamedly put in your hands before you ever come into the membership a proven historic confession of faith that states in succinct ways the great central issues of our faith and what we understand them to be a statement that was hammered out in the anvil of centuries of controversy with error this is why we do this why because we want to be doctrinaire no we believe that God's truth is precious to God's heart Martin Luther said words to this e...

56:33 - 57:17 Read in full sermon

The point: Be a discerning people who can recognize subtle error, even from the pulpit, and have the moral courage to confront it.

Martin confesses his desire to preach a sermon with subtle error to test the congregation's discernment and courage in defending the truth, illustrating the kind of uncompromising adherence to truth he desires.

wait a minute that's skewed two degrees left of center that's skewed three degrees right of center that's not the truth of God I close with a confession I have wanted many many times to stand up in this pulpit some Lord's Day morning and without giving you a clue by my facial expression or my voice to try to pull off injecting some error in the midst of a sermon to see what would happen just to see what would happen I believe there are people here who as I went on it became more and more evident that I was teaching something contrary to the word of God I do believe there's somebody that would ...

60:56 - 61:40 Read in full sermon