Role and Theme

Driving home: A man may prepare a sermon, may feel that he understands the text, it may grip him in the hours of his preparation, but when he comes to preach it, it goes dead on him. And he can't preach.

Martin contrasts a lecture, which can be delivered regardless of the speaker's or audience's state, with a sermon, which requires a divine 'grip' and can 'go dead' if that element is absent, highlighting the spiritual nature of preaching.

Well, if you haven't, let me inform you that there's a profound difference between the two. And perhaps the most essential element of that difference can be stated this way. A man who's to give a lecture does his preparation, takes the notes of his insight, and putting them into his briefcase, goes to his lecture hall, and regardless of the state of his own mind or the state of those before him, he delivers his lecture and goes his way, files his notes in his place where he keeps his lecture notes, from whence they can be taken out on any occasion, and the lecture repeated. However, preaching ...

0:14 - 0:59 Read in full sermon

The point: As a congregation, you alone have the right to call your elders and must have clear views on what constitutes a faithful ministry to call such men.

He references the Scottish Covenanters who died for the truth that the gathered people of God alone have the right to select their ministers, emphasizing the importance of congregational discernment.

The first reason is this. You as a congregation alone have the right to call your elders to rule over you and to instruct you in the truth of God. One of the most precious truths of Scripture, a truth for which some have lost their very lives, is that the gathered people of God alone have the right to select those who shall preach to them. The great issue that led to the death of many of the covenanters in Scotland was precisely this issue.

5:34 - 6:08 Read in full sermon

The point: Young men aspiring to ministry should have biblical ideals clearly etched in their minds, aspiring to be the kind of man and ministry set forth in Scripture.

An athlete setting up idols and standards to aspire to is compared to a young man aspiring to ministry, who should have biblical ideals clearly etched in his mind.

No one has come forth with an answer. For the Bible everywhere condemns false teaching and warns against exposing one's ears to false teachers. And so for that third reason in terms of the kind of ministry we ought to attend to we must know what constitutes a faithful God-owned ministry. And then of course I speak in a more limited sense to the young men amongst us who aspire to the work of the ministry and just as an athlete early in the development of his skills and in the beginning of his career will set up in his mind his idols, his standards hoping that somehow by the acquisition of simil...

8:21 - 9:06 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And nothing makes me more sick than to hear the term, pulpiteer. Should make us all want to vomit. Pulpiteer is an orator who happens to be using as the substance of his oratory, Bible language.

Martin describes a philosopher as a man with a 'wide and vague look' who 'scratches and strokes his straggly white beard,' illustrating the philosopher's reliance on his own mind for wisdom.

A Corinthian would arrive at what he called wisdom by the exercise of his own mind. He would look to his philosophers, the philosophers, that man with the very wide, and vague incom плохé, A wise look upon his face who sits in solitude and scratches and strokes his straggly white beard and assumes that with his own mind he can look out upon life, he can reflect upon life, line up all the facts, organize the facts, synthesize the facts, and then come up with some insights as to what makes life tick.

18:09 - 18:47 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And nothing makes me more sick than to hear the term, pulpiteer. Should make us all want to vomit. Pulpiteer is an orator who happens to be using as the substance of his oratory, Bible language.

The role of a faithful minister as a witness is compared to a town crier, whose sole concern is to convey a message simply and bluntly, not to impress with diction or personal opinions.

But positively, he says, I came to you in the role of a witness. Notice how he states, Proclaiming to you the testimony of God. I came as a herald to declare a message not my own. And when the town crier would go out into the town to make some news known to the town's folk, he was not concerned with impressing people with his diction.

19:43 - 20:14 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Using the analogy of a wax museum, Martin illustrates that doctrines detached from Christ crucified are like lifeless wax figures, accurate in form but lacking the warmth and…

Martin uses the analogy of lifelike wax figures in a museum, particularly of Churchill and his own wife, to illustrate that doctrines, however accurately stated, are lifeless and cold 'wax imitations' if Christ and Him crucified are not central to them.

It's the difference between a living, throbbing, sentient, warm, pulsing human being and one of those beautiful wax figures in a wax museum. If you go to London almost any time of the year you find a big queue, a big line. Madam, to show wax museum. There are several here in the States as well.

45:55 - 46:21 Read in full sermon