Corrective Church Discipline, Part 2

Driving home: We must never seek to isolate one purpose and extend it into a universal that incorporates all others, nor must we magnify one of the purposes above the other, let alone exclude any from the many purposes revealed in the…

Martin quotes Jonathan Edwards, who lists a sixth distinct purpose for church discipline, influencing Martin's decision to include it as a separate category, underscoring the complexity of discipline's aims.

And in your outline, there are five purposes that are listed, to which I have added a sixth in the reworking of the lecture in preparation for today, and I believe it is a separate category. I wrestled for some time to settle in my own judgment whether it were really an amplification of purpose number one, or indeed a separate purpose, and when I was just about 50-50 in my judgment, the fact that Jonathan Edwards lists it as a distinct and separate purpose or function, Jonathan Edwards cast my judgment to include a number six. All right then, we take up together, brethren. The purpose is for c...

2:51 - 4:18 Read in full sermon

The point: Allow the matter of God's honor in His church to grip your hearts and condition them, so you are prepared to deal with feelings, fears, and reticence regarding corrective discipline.

Martin uses Christ's zeal in cleansing the temple as an analogy for the passion believers must have for God's honor in the church, preparing them to engage in corrective discipline despite personal fears.

who, when he saw his father's house defiled, was prepared to be considered a madman, prepared to have it said of him, Zeal for your house has consumed me. You have turned my father's house into a den of robbers. And you see, the glory of the church is never truly stained biblically. When it becomes a gathering place of publicans and sinners, cleansed of the ways of publicans and the ways of sinners, but when the church claims to be the congregation of those delivered from the dominion of sin, planted in the narrow path and pressing on to conformity to Jesus Christ, and there is patent contradi...

9:55 - 11:21 Read in full sermon

The point: Allow the matter of God's honor in His church to grip your hearts and condition them, so you are prepared to deal with feelings, fears, and reticence regarding corrective discipline.

Martin quotes Jonathan Edwards on how tolerating visible wickedness greatly dishonors God, Christ, religion, the church, and its members, reinforcing the first purpose of discipline.

on the whole subject of church discipline, in which he gives five reasons for church discipline. I read to you number one, page 121, sermon 5, volume 2. If you tolerate visible wickedness in your members, you will greatly dishonor God, our Lord Jesus Christ, the religion which you profess, the church in general, and yourselves in particular. As those members of the church who practice wickedness bring dishonor upon the whole body, so do those who tolerate them in it.

11:21 - 12:00 Read in full sermon

The point: Pray for the perspective that Christ's rebuke and chastening flow from His love, or you will never be up to the task of giving biblical guidance to your people in this area.

Martin draws an analogy between Christ's scathing words to the churches in Revelation and His loving rebuke and chastening, arguing that radical discipline is a loving act reflecting Christ's heart.

And what is the end of that shame? Not that he would slink out of the assembly, yet count him not as an enemy, admonish him as a brother, that the church of shame and the admonition would be effective to get him out of that disorderly state and walking in an orderly manner, commending the gospel he professes to believe. Now in this sense, it is accurate to say that radical, corrective church discipline is indeed a loving act which reflects the loving heart of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Who after His most scathing words in the seven letters to the seven churches, the one in which He said, I...

18:32 - 19:21 Read in full sermon

The point: Make it plain to the men and women in the church that willful, perpetual patterns of indulgence in known sin have no biblical grounds for claiming to be on the way to heaven, and radical discipline communicates this trut…

Martin quotes Geshti, a Mennonite author, who beautifully articulates that excommunication is not a breakdown of grace but a renewed presentation of the gospel, confronting the impenitent with truth and making grace available.

Listen to Geshti, who is a Mennonite, writing in a book called Discipling the Brother, published by Herald Press. He has stated this beautifully. There is much in the book that I would not endorse, but this I endorse wholeheartedly. There has been, unfortunately, bad excommunication practice.

21:50 - 22:11 Read in full sermon

The point: If your people's souls are in jeopardy because they think grace is consistent with their sinful lifestyle, understand that excommunication is God's voice speaking to them, calling them to repent and return to holiness.

Martin uses the analogy of candid diagnosis in medical practice to explain that excommunication, though painful, is necessary for spiritual healing, as persons cannot find healing without facing the truth.

What a marvelous statement of it. Excommunication is not then merely loveless condemnation. It's necessary in spiritual life as candid diagnosis is in medical practice. Without facing the truth, persons cannot find spiritual healing.

23:32 - 23:50 Read in full sermon

The point: If your people's souls are in jeopardy because they think grace is consistent with their sinful lifestyle, understand that excommunication is God's voice speaking to them, calling them to repent and return to holiness.

Martin quotes Jonathan Edwards, who argues that benevolence toward offending brethren calls for maintaining discipline, as it is the most proper means devised by infinite wisdom for their reclamation and salvation.

For sin shall not have dominion over you for you are not under the dominion of sin. You are not under law but under grace. Listen again to Jonathan Edwards who says, Benevolence toward your offending brethren calls upon you to maintain discipline in all of its parts. Surely if we love our brethren it will grieve us to see them wandering from the path of truth and duty and in proportion as our compassion is moved shall we be disposed to use all proper means to reclaim and bring them back to the right way.

24:52 - 25:29 Read in full sermon

The point: If your people's souls are in jeopardy because they think grace is consistent with their sinful lifestyle, understand that excommunication is God's voice speaking to them, calling them to repent and return to holiness.

Martin uses the proverb about a loving father chastening his son to illustrate that discipline, though seen as harsh by a 'sentimental humanist' world, is an act of love that will ultimately be blessed by God.

Remember the scripture says and there's beautiful parallels in a well-ordered home it is the man who hates his son who refuses to chastise him but he that loveth him chastens him diligently. And while the sentimental humanist on the outside sees a loving father spanking his child and calls it child abuse that son will rise up one day and call his father blessed that he didn't cooperate with the devil in sending him to hell. And so an unthinking world and a sentimental unbiblically trained church may say when you and your people engage in balanced biblical corrective and radical discipline how ...

26:13 - 27:34 Read in full sermon

The point: If you have a heart for the church, to purify it and present it to Christ as a glorious church, you must have a heart for the implementation of radical or corrective discipline when necessary.

Martin uses the analogy of leaven in bread dough to illustrate how even a 'little' unaddressed sin or immorality can infect and influence the entire congregation, emphasizing the need for discipline to maintain purity.

In your ranks don't you know that when you put but a little lump of leaven in a whole table full of bread dough that the whole lump is infected and influenced by that little leaven it's a little leaven that leavens the whole lump a little as opposed to the whole and therefore we cannot take the attitude well we've got 50 people so we have someone that's in a path of immorality someone who is in a path of what the Bible puts in the same class with immorality who is a reviler who has an ungoverned and ungovernable tongue but that's just one I mean we've got 99 or 49 people happy content sheep bu...

30:06 - 31:34 Read in full sermon

The point: If you have a heart for the church, to purify it and present it to Christ as a glorious church, you must have a heart for the implementation of radical or corrective discipline when necessary.

Martin humorously tells the congregation to 'go back to your mama's kitchen and learn some ecclesiology' to understand how a little leaven affects the whole lump, reinforcing the pervasive nature of sin.

In your ranks don't you know that when you put but a little lump of leaven in a whole table full of bread dough that the whole lump is infected and influenced by that little leaven it's a little leaven that leavens the whole lump a little as opposed to the whole and therefore we cannot take the attitude well we've got 50 people so we have someone that's in a path of immorality someone who is in a path of what the Bible puts in the same class with immorality who is a reviler who has an ungoverned and ungovernable tongue but that's just one I mean we've got 99 or 49 people happy content sheep bu...

30:06 - 31:34 Read in full sermon

The point: If you have a heart for the church, to purify it and present it to Christ as a glorious church, you must have a heart for the implementation of radical or corrective discipline when necessary.

Martin quotes Jonathan Edwards, who explains that strict discipline prevents the spread of wickedness and makes the church more fruitful in holiness, as brethren observing each other's conduct leads to greater guardedness against sin and abounding in good works.

with a carcass of orthodox reformed regulative principle worship that has the smell of death and of it we can say as they did of Lazarus behold he stink and brethren that's the fruit of an unwillingness to deal biblically with these things these things that grieve the Holy Spirit when they are not settled in the ordinary formative discipline of the church or not settled at the lesser levels of private admonition and why they must if not dealt with be brought into the realm of corrective formal discipline I say the purity and the health and the well-being of the church is at stake listen again ...

34:36 - 36:04 Read in full sermon

Driving home: there was the power to repel that gave them something worthwhile to attract the people to and when a church ceases to have both its attraction and its repelling power it ceases to be a biblical church

Martin uses the analogy of admiring the roar of a prop-driven plane's engines but not wanting to put one's head in the propeller to describe how people might magnify a church but dare not join it if God's disciplinary activity is evident, highlighting the deterrent effect.

may be in fear and then in Acts chapter 5 and I'm personally convinced that we have this incident among other reasons that God himself might say something right on the front end of the establishment of the Christian church where the disciplinary agent is not the apostle taking the lead in guiding the church to excommunicate Ananias and Sapphira but the Lord himself excommunicates them and kills them in one stroke that's what he does to these hypocrites and what happened after the Lord himself became the one who executed discipline by death and therefore removal from the church look at the text...

39:03 - 40:32 Read in full sermon

Driving home: there was the power to repel that gave them something worthwhile to attract the people to and when a church ceases to have both its attraction and its repelling power it ceases to be a biblical church

Martin refers to Edwards' emphasis on discipline making people 'more guarded against your sin,' underscoring the deterrent function of discipline.

upon the theocracy God says in verses 12 and 13 and the man that does presumptuously and not hearkening to the priest that stands in the church that stands to minister there before the Lord thy God or unto the judge even that man shall die and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel and all the people shall hear and fear and do no more presumptuously and that very terminology shall fear and do no more presumptuously Deuteronomy 13 11 and 19 and verse 20 does church discipline have a deterrent effect yes and I don't need to prove it in a computer readout God has said it well then let sin repro...

42:00 - 43:29 Read in full sermon

The point: Sensitize your conscience to the duty of leading the people of God into biblical, balanced, wholesome implementation of radical or corrective church discipline, considering its six vital purposes.

Martin quotes Jonathan Edwards, who argues that strict discipline and morals in the church would be one of the most powerful means of conviction and conversion for those outside, linking discipline to effective evangelism.

and where it does not then our effectiveness as a witness is greatly hindered are the people of God the community of those who by the spirit are mortifying the deeds of the flesh and thereby show that they are on their way to consummate eschatological life if you by the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body you shall live then what of someone who will not mortify his sins and after admonition and patient loving counsel he refuses to mortify his sin to allow him to remain in the community of those marked for heaven is to declare a lie to the world you can get to heaven a second class citizen ...

52:19 - 53:47 Read in full sermon

The point: Sensitize your conscience to the duty of leading the people of God into biblical, balanced, wholesome implementation of radical or corrective church discipline, considering its six vital purposes.

Martin uses the example of revivals, noting that a mighty work of conversion among the lost is an inevitable fruit when the church is purified and gets things right with God and one another, reinforcing the link between discipline and effective witness.

that believes not or unlearned he's convinced of all judged of all thus the secrets of his heart are made manifest and so falling down in his face he will worship God and report God is in you of a truth if strict discipline and thereby strict morals were maintained in the church it would in all probability be one of the most powerful means of conviction and conversion towards those who are without and surely if what we call revivals those concentrated intensified operations of the ordinary work of the spirit more localized more augmented if they teach us anything they teach us that when the ch...

53:47 - 55:16 Read in full sermon