The Motives of Our Warfare with Sin

In this part of the sermon: Martin introduces the sermon as part of a series on the church's manifesto, focusing on maintaining a balanced New Testament perspective on conversion, the Christian life, and the…

Used to illustrate that God always preserves a remnant of people with Bible-based convictions, even in degenerate societies.

The following message was delivered on Sunday morning, August 2nd, 1992, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. One of the most evident and tragic marks of a degenerate and a decadent society is the absence of men and women who possess Bible-based convictions. Convictions which cannot be dislodged or compromised by the pressure of convenience, expediency, current consensus, or even by the threat of death itself. However, as surely as God reserved to Himself in a decadent and degenerate society in the days of Ahab, seven thousand who had not bowed, bowed the knee to the false G...

0:03 - 1:30 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin introduces the sermon as part of a series on the church's manifesto, focusing on maintaining a balanced New Testament perspective on conversion, the Christian life, and the…

Quoted to exemplify the spirit of unshakable, Bible-based conviction that Martin desires for the church.

in the places for which we prayed in our season of intercession, and bless God in many parts of the world of which we are aware, and many more of which we know nothing. People who by His grace are prepared to say with Martin Luther, my conscience is held captive by the word of God. Here I stand, so help me God. Amen.

1:30 - 2:00 Read in full sermon

The point: Face the fact that if you are a hypocrite, God will unmask you on judgment day; repent now.

Used to illustrate how self-deceived individuals 'kill' biblical passages that expose their lack of genuine warfare against sin, leaving no signs of death.

You're not deliberately wearing a mask. You're self-deceived. You've played head games with those passages we've looked at, and you've learned how to do what someone said supposedly happened in England, in another country. In another century, there was a man by the name of Burke who was a professional murderer.

10:21 - 10:42 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The motives are predominantly evangelical, but never exclusively legal. Don't write that off as an undigestible mouthful of theological mush. To grasp that statement is life and death stuff.

Used to explain that some motives are sensory, like avoiding pain.

Either registering at the level of the understanding, some motives are motives primarily resident in the mind, other motives are resident in the affections, others in our senses. For example, your motive for backing off and putting your hand on a hot stove is it doesn't feel good at the end of your fingers.

14:45 - 15:06 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The motives are predominantly evangelical, but never exclusively legal. Don't write that off as an undigestible mouthful of theological mush. To grasp that statement is life and death stuff.

Used to explain that some motives reside in the affections, like love.

And it's a motive of avoiding pain. Now the motive for going out and finding just the right card that expresses those nuances of your peculiar relationship to your wife on her birthday that will keep you for half an hour or 45 minutes in the card shop, that motive is a motive of love. Resides primarily in the affections, in the emotions. So a motive, a motive is that which, which impels us, gives rationale to given actions.

15:09 - 15:44 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin expounds on several key evangelical motives: love for Christ (John 14), gratitude for the mercies of God (Romans 12), the body as a temple bought with a price (1…

Used to illustrate the moral decadence of Corinth, where fornication was as common and un-condemned as sneezing after smelling pepper.

Manifold mercies of God to us and all that that mercy has brought to us. Paul is dealing with the naughty problem of fornication at Corinth. A city so steeped in immorality that people had no more conscience about fornicating than they did about sneezing when they'd smelled pepper. In that pagan society adultery was bad.

23:57 - 24:22 Read in full sermon

The point: When tempted by sexual sin, plant the 'ugly scene of Golgotha' between yourself and the temptation, remembering you were bought with a price.

Used to vividly describe the cost of Christ's purchase of our bodies on the cross, emphasizing the gospel motive against fornication.

Well, he arms them with many motives, but the crowning motive is a gospel motive. In that warfare, he says, never forget it. This body, including your sexual organs, was bought on a Roman hibbit. It was bought when the incarnate God immolated, face-thripping, with blood and spit, undershrouded heavens with the wrath of God poured upon him.

26:40 - 27:08 Read in full sermon

The point: When tempted by sexual sin, plant the 'ugly scene of Golgotha' between yourself and the temptation, remembering you were bought with a price.

A powerful image used to instruct believers to recall the cross when tempted by sexual sin, planting the ugly scene of Golgotha between themselves and temptation.

The next time you go by a temple where the temple prostitute bears her thigh and beckons, plant that ugly scene of Golgotha between you and her bared thigh. You were bought with a price. That's exactly what he's saying they need to do.

27:16 - 27:33 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And my friend, you're never going to get to first base in the warfare. Unless you're furnished predominantly with gospel motives.

Used to explain that the world does not currently recognize believers, but a day is coming when their true identity as God's purchased property will be revealed.

Right now, John says, the world knew him not. It knows us not. When we go out of this place and we walk somewhere where people mingle, there's no halo over our head. There's no mark on our forehead.

29:07 - 29:19 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin clarifies that while evangelical motives predominate, legal motives are also biblical and necessary. He illustrates this with Paul's discipline to avoid disqualification (1…

Paul's analogy of athletes disciplining themselves to win a corruptible crown is used to illustrate the need for self-control in spiritual warfare for an incorruptible crown.

Reign in his bodily appetites? And though this is not the imagery of warfare, it's close to it. It's the imagery of the Olympic Games. Verse 25.

31:49 - 32:01 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin clarifies that while evangelical motives predominate, legal motives are also biblical and necessary. He illustrates this with Paul's discipline to avoid disqualification (1…

Used to illustrate a legal motive for forgiveness: failure to forgive will result in being delivered to tormentors.

I'm really coming in high. And the Lord said, oh no, Peter. Seventy times seven. He said, then I'm going to tell you a little story, Peter.

36:50 - 36:59 Read in full sermon

The point: Control your tongue if you desire to love life and see good days.

Used to explain the hierarchy of motives: foothills (secondary), real mountains (biblical), and Matterhorns/McKinleys (gospel motives like the cross) which must predominate.

So look at it this way. Think of a mountain range where you have foothills, then you have real live mountains, snow-capped all year long, and then in those mountain ranges you have the famous ones that shoot up above all their mountain piers. You have the Mount McKinley's. You have the Mount Hood's.

42:09 - 42:27 Read in full sermon

The point: If you find yourself relying only on legal or self-centered motives, get your eyes back on the 'Matterhorn' gospel motives.

Quoted to support the argument that legal motives alone are insufficient if stronger gospel motives have been abandoned in the fight against lust.

John Owen understood this well in writing not so much as theologian, but writing as perceptive, godly, insightful pastor. Listen to what he says. He says, if we're to make any progress in this battle, he says there must be gospel motives. If thy lust has driven thee from stronger gospel forts, it will speedily prevail against this also.

44:00 - 44:28 Read in full sermon

The point: Go to the cross and plead with Lord Jesus to break the dominion of sin, giving you a sight of your sin in light of His agony.

Used to illustrate that legal motives, like eagle talons, can restrain temporarily but lack the power of the 'cables of the cross' to truly hold the unregenerate heart from sin's dominion.

They know there's a hell, they know there's a God, they know there is judgment, and these legal motives reach out their talons and try to hold them. But I tell you, they have no power over that beast called the unregenerate human heart, and it will tear itself out of the talons of the most powerful. And there are people in this building today who are living proof of the fact that you can sin the grossest forms of sin while your conscience is screaming at you that that thing will take you to hell, but the legal motive isn't enough to keep you. My friends, the talons of the eagle of legal motive...

47:50 - 49:15 Read in full sermon

The point: You will not have the power to walk by 'girly magazines' or pornography unless your eyeballs and heart are lashed to the cross of Christ.

Used as an example of a heart 'lashed to his God,' enabling Joseph to resist intense sexual temptation by appealing to his relationship with God.

But if they are lashed to the cross, you can be like Joseph. When that older woman that got the hops for him, Dale, after a day tried to get him in bed, and one day she got desperate, and she went beyond words. You talk about sexual harassment.

56:47 - 57:07 Read in full sermon

The point: You will not have the power to walk by 'girly magazines' or pornography unless your eyeballs and heart are lashed to the cross of Christ.

Used to warn young men about the addictive nature of pornography, comparing it to drugs and the law of diminishing returns, where escalating content is needed.

Otherwise, you're going to be a hopeless addict. And that addiction is going to get worse and worse. Some of you young guys have just begun to fool around with pornography. Mark my word, it is addictive.

57:48 - 57:58 Read in full sermon