During the Session, Part 1

The point: Plead with God for the marks of a true shepherd, willing to wound deeply if warranted, and to leave people without peace if there is no biblical warrant for it.

The false prophet lays a plaster on a wound without dealing with the wound itself, illustrating superficial counseling that offers peace without true healing.

The mark of the false prophet is that he lays, he lays a plaster upon the wound without dealing with the wound itself. He says, peace, peace. And often this is what people want. They want relief from the pain that their spiritual abnormalities are causing them.

3:29 - 3:45 Read in full sermon

The point: Pray for wisdom, understanding, compassion, empathy, and moral courage to be delivered from the fear of man, enabling objective counsel.

Paul's gentleness is compared to a wet nurse nourishing her own children, illustrating the tender, nurturing side of pastoral care, balancing sharp rebuke.

You don't have the courage for that. And the face of God before you to do it, you don't belong in the place of a shepherd to the individual. On the other, to be able where necessary to say with Paul, we were gentle among you. As a nurse, a wet nurse, nourishing her own children, a woman who loves children enough to make a living by sharing her breast with the fruit of another's womb.

7:03 - 7:24 Read in full sermon

The point: Address issues from the simple and more obvious to the complex and more subtle.

A story of helping a child who fell off a bike, disentangling him and addressing immediate injuries before more complex issues, illustrates the principle of addressing simple problems first.

Let me illustrate. You're walking down the street and you see a kid fall off his bike. Is. I have done on several occasions in my pilgrimage and you come over to the poor kid.

16:13 - 16:22 Read in full sermon

The point: Seek to isolate, eliminate, and diffuse complicating emotional or physical problems before dealing more directly with spiritual problems.

The Good Samaritan's actions of providing immediate first aid and then long-term care illustrate addressing immediate, obvious needs before more complex, ongoing concerns.

But you start, you see, with the simple and the more obvious and then move to the more complex and to the more subtle. You see that with regard to the Good Samaritan. He saw his situation. He administered some first aid, put him on the donkey, took him to the end and said, now take care of him.

17:01 - 17:18 Read in full sermon

The point: Seek to isolate, eliminate, and diffuse complicating emotional or physical problems before dealing more directly with spiritual problems.

God allowed Elijah a season of rest and physical refreshment before addressing his spiritual problems, illustrating the principle of isolating and diffusing emotional/physical issues first.

What's the proper way to abbreviate kings? I don't know if I've seen it. Oh, so we'll put kings, all right? And what we're remembering there, of course, is the whole incident with regard to Elijah.

18:01 - 18:11 Read in full sermon

The point: Always seek to suit the remedial counsel to the presently discovered need, whether it's advice, comfort, or rebuke.

A woman dealing with temper and unreasonableness might be experiencing hormonal cycles (PMS), illustrating the need to consider physical causes before assuming spiritual sin.

And God was going to tell him, no, my work has been carried on. I've committed myself to have a remnant according to the election of grace, and I have reserved for myself 7,000. But God doesn't even straighten out his skewed thinking on that fundamental spiritual problem before he isolates, eliminates, and diffuses complicated emotional and physical problems. For example, you may have a woman dealing with temper and unreasonableness, and then he's become, well, before you assume its unmortified spirit of anger and resentment, ask her, have you charted these outcroppings?

18:51 - 19:28 Read in full sermon

The point: Always seek to suit the remedial counsel to the presently discovered need, whether it's advice, comfort, or rebuke.

Splitting headaches making someone irritable might be due to hypoglycemia, illustrating the need to investigate physical problems before spiritual ones.

Someone may have splitting headaches, making them unusually vulnerable to irritability. Now, to be irritable and to speak out hasty, hurtful, cutting words, that's sin. We're not going to justify, but it may well be that they've got hypoglycemia.

20:07 - 20:21 Read in full sermon

The point: Ensure that divine medicine (biblical truth) is 'swallowed' and internalized, not just heard.

Helping someone understand and internalize a biblical truth is compared to giving a dog a pill, ensuring the 'divine medicine' is swallowed, not just tasted.

And you press the issue. And if you just stick on that one passage, you stay there until you have a sense that that bit of the medicine has not merely been run under their nose and passed. Tasted with their tongue. Even if you've had to help them like your kids open their jaw and put it in and they're like your dog when you put a pill down their throat and then you shove it in its mouth and you stroke them.

30:16 - 30:35 Read in full sermon

The point: Seek to find and use biblical illustrations of sinful behavior patterns and examples of resolution and contrasting graces.

The story of David's adultery and Nathan's confrontation in 2 Samuel 12, followed by God's immediate forgiveness, is used to illustrate God's free grace to a penitent sinner.

You take them to 2 Samuel 12 What joy I've had in the coming counseling situation with men who have fallen into sexual impurity and believe God can never forgive me. And I love to take them to 2 Samuel 12 the whole incident of Nathan coming and you remember the story you know it as well as I and God speaks to his servant and tells him you are the man verse 13 and David said unto Nathan I have sinned against the Lord and Nathan said unto David the Lord has brought me back to you. The Lord has put away thy sin.

33:24 - 34:00 Read in full sermon

The point: Seek to find and use biblical illustrations of sinful behavior patterns and examples of resolution and contrasting graces.

God is depicted as 'leaning over heaven' for months, longing to forgive David, illustrating God's readiness to forgive a repentant heart.

Before he could pen Psalm 51 before he could pen Psalm 32 it's as though and I've had to use this illustration I said it's like God was leaning over heaven for all these months wanting to say the words my son I forgive you but I couldn't do it till his servant said I've sinned and the moment those words came out of David's mouth God said I've put away your sin. That's what I've been longing to say to you.

34:02 - 34:28 Read in full sermon

The point: Seek for specific biblical directives concerning the problem itself, encouraging memorization and application of relevant texts.

The application of 1 Corinthians 10:31 to eating problems, encouraging a mental habit of glorifying God with every bite, illustrates specific biblical directives.

there are some weaknesses in some of the patterns of Puritan sermons sermons left to us and all the rest and I don't think there's anyone here that would give them a place beyond what they deserve but one of the things that makes them so eminent and makes us all seem like pygmies is their facility in this very area I can remember in my earlier ministry before there was this widespread resurgence of appreciation of the Puritans and trying to get people hooked on the Puritans just pulling a volume at random pulling a volume of books to a total relative strength and just say now look put that in ...

35:58 - 37:26 Read in full sermon

The point: Don't prematurely assume that all problems are exclusively spiritual in nature.

Martin's personal experience with prostate cancer and the need to resist being an 'expert' illustrates the importance of not assuming the role of a competent physician.

Now, you may have picked up a little knowledge of things here and there as we've come to principle number three under this heading, but don't attempt to assume the role of a competent physician. Even when you've been driven into an area of study through your own experience and God's dealings with you as I have with the prostate cancer, what I have to resist now is because word has gotten out that I've done some reading and been through this, that I'm ready to be the expert. And this is one of the most imprecise fields in all of medicine. And I just have to tell the people that call me, look, h...

41:38 - 42:11 Read in full sermon

The point: Learn some practical home remedies for common maladies, recognizing the interaction between physical and spiritual well-being.

Martin's experience with men reporting spiritual dryness, which he often addresses by suggesting social diversion and physical exercise, illustrates the use of 'home remedies' for common maladies.

You've heard me mention that often when men call me with dullness and spiritual dryness, and I have known them to be true men over the years, I don't assume the problem is primarily spiritual. I go after the whole matter of their cheating on legitimate social diversion, physical exercise. And so often, those hopeless, home remedies are used of God to help them out of their present spiritual, as they assume, spiritual impasse. Well, those are the categories that I hope to cover in this hour.

42:47 - 43:19 Read in full sermon

The point: The person must accept full responsibility for his behavior patterns, rejecting societal or genetic excuses for sin.

The habit of constantly rubbing one's nose is used as a semi-humorous example of an 'undesirable behavior' that may not be sinful but still needs addressing.

Now, what's the distinction between sinful or undesirable? I'm not sure if I can make it theologically, but sometimes someone may have undesirable behavior that is not particularly sinful. Someone may have a habit of constantly, rubbing the end of his nose when he talks to you and it's an undesirable ingrained behavior pattern. I'm not sure if you'd want to get into a man's conscience and try to prove to him it was sin, but it certainly is undesirable.

43:55 - 44:20 Read in full sermon

The point: Be resolved to deal with the problem at any cost, in a context of hope rooted in God's grace and power.

The empirical demonstration of a chemical predisposition to alcoholism is used to argue that genetic factors do not extenuate personal responsibility for sin.

And I don't get a daily newspaper, but just getting it once a week. But that there's some new discovery of a certain area of ethical and moral aberration that has some genetic answer. Well, it makes no difference to us. It can be empirically demonstrated that someone who becomes a smashing, irresponsible drunk had a chemical predisposition to alcoholism.

48:14 - 48:37 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Men with a mission that they believe is from God to slay his servants, not physically, but their usefulness, their earned reputation, and their passion because they're convinced they're doing God's service. That's how de…

The adulterous woman in Proverbs 7:14 who claims 'sacrifices of peace offerings are with me this day' while seducing a young man illustrates the deceitfulness of sin and self-justification.

I've gone to temple today. I've done my religious thing. Isn't it amazing? She's out there in the streets, in the broad places, lying away, caught in, kissed him.

65:08 - 65:18 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Men with a mission that they believe is from God to slay his servants, not physically, but their usefulness, their earned reputation, and their passion because they're convinced they're doing God's service. That's how de…

Jesus' warning that those who kill His followers will think they are rendering service to God illustrates the extreme deceitfulness of sin, where evil is perceived as good.

Apparently, she makes a connection between her joy in doing her religious service and celebrating by seducing this naive young man. You say, how in the world can that happen? The exceeding deceitfulness of sin. Remember what Jesus said, the time will come when those who kill you will think they render Latria.

65:32 - 65:50 Read in full sermon

The point: Replace sinful patterns with the opposite grace, following the 'put off, put on' motif of Scripture.

The adulterous woman in Proverbs 30:20 who 'eats, wipes her mouth, and says, 'I have done no wickedness'' illustrates the denial and self-persuasion inherent in sin's deceitfulness.

Again, only specimen passages. Look at the picture. So is the way of an adulterous woman. She eats, wipes her mouth, said, I've done no wickedness.

66:37 - 66:46 Read in full sermon

The point: Suggest a concrete or specific course of action in dealing with the problem, providing practical tools for change.

A person with a tendency to dominate conversation is given a practical tool: count people in a group and don't speak until half have spoken, illustrating a concrete course of action.

this text to give an example here's a person that is convinced they have a tendency to dominate conversation and you've identified that and it may not be specifically sinful but they know that it is a violation of some of the general principles of Christian maturity can be sinful in that it could be selfish and it's just an ingrained pattern it was part of their family life part of their upbringing and they've identified they want to deal with it well then you give them some specific things say in any group situation count up the number of people and say I'm going to divide them in half and I'...

71:03 - 72:32 Read in full sermon