Presence of Moral Law in the New Testament (4)

In this part of the sermon: Pastor Martin opens with prayer and then introduces an extended medical analogy: a doctor in a remote village discovers a critical illness with a specific cure. The doctor's first…

An analogy of a group of doctors going to a remote village in West Erion (formerly New Guinea) to treat a specific, rare disease. The medication is potent but requires precise dosage and accompanying dietary changes; anything less, more, or without proper diet will be ineffective, fatal, or leave the patient crippled. This illustrates the need for careful instruction on how to 'take' the Ten Commandments.

A man, a woman who has a legitimate sphere of occupation and calling in life, but I want you to imagine with me that each one of you were a fully competent, duly licensed, board certified physician. A doctor of medicine with proven credentials to practice medicine across a very broad field of medical concern. And you heard an appeal that went out from several mission agencies for such people, qualified, experienced, general practitioners, to spend a few months using their medical skills as an opportunity to meet some very critical needs in a remote, primitive village in West Erion, formerly Ne...

6:04 - 7:16 Read in full sermon

The point: Before administering spiritual 'medication' (the Ten Commandments), ensure the 'villagers' (congregation) understand the rules for its proper use to their profit.

The Ten Commandments are described as 'potent medication' for the soul. Just as the doctors in the analogy must explain how to take physical medicine, Martin, as a 'spiritual physician,' must explain how to approach the Ten Commandments so they lead to spiritual healing and well-being, not death or detriment.

You'd say, Pastor Matt, has the cold weather affected your head? No, I hope not, for evil anyway, because this is precisely what I'm seeking to do in these messages, in these days. I've announced that we're going to take the medicine of the Ten Commandments, and we're going to take into our souls the potent medication of the ten words of God spoken by the mouth of God and written by the finger of God on Mount Sinai. However, as a spiritual physician, aware of what is taught in the Bible, and validated in church history, I happen to know that if this medication is not taken as it ought to be ta...

13:49 - 15:15 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: James corrects this problem using a 'four-pronged method of correction,' likened to 'four whacks on their spiritual behind' or 'four doses of spiritual purgative.' This manifold…

James's four-pronged method of correction is likened to 'four doses of spiritual purgative' to 'clean out' the spiritual gut of professing Christians, or 'four whacks on their spiritual behind' with a 'paddle of verbal discipline.' This conveys the severity and thoroughness of James's rebuke.

And as he corrects the problem of this carnal partiality to the rich, he's going to use a four-pronged method of correction. To change the imagery, he's going to take the paddle of verbal discipline and give them four whacks on their spiritual behind. To change the imagery, he's going to give them four doses of spiritual purgative. You read in the old writers, so and so needed to take purgative.

25:24 - 26:02 Read in full sermon

The point: Your actions should reflect the character of God your Father; being unlike God in your partiality is ungodly.

The example of a parent reminding a child 'daddy's doing this because he loves you' before administering discipline is used to explain James's use of 'my beloved brethren' before delivering stinging rebukes.

You kids, that's what mommy and daddy do. They're walking in the room when they're going to put the paddle on you, and they remind you, daddy's doing this because he loves you. And I know what you think sometimes, you see, that I should be so loved. But they do it, and that's what he's doing.

27:29 - 27:46 Read in full sermon

The point: If you are living with your conscience under the gracious guidance of the royal law (love your neighbor), you are doing well; keep it up and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

The moral law is described as a 'seamless garment of divine authority.' This metaphor illustrates that treating any one part of the law with contempt is essentially treating the whole, and its Giver, with contempt, because God's authority stands behind every commandment.

sin is not only falling short of the mark of the standard set by God it is breaking the boundaries established by God and he says to these who hold the faith of the Lord Jesus when they show this carnal respect of persons they are sinning and he says you must know that you are sinning because the law thoroughly convinces and convicts you of transgression and then the third thing he says is that the moral law is a seamless garment of divine authority we are going to have occasion to come back to this text in another sermon but suffice it to grasp that principle for there is a connective whosoev...

44:46 - 46:11 Read in full sermon