Presuppositions with Respect to Counsel Given

The point: Stand in the biblical perspective that those to whom you minister are fully accountable to God for their actions, thoughts, and motives.

Martin quotes Dr. Adams' definition of responsibility as 'the ability to respond' from his book 'Competent Council,' then critiques it as Pelagian, arguing that responsibility is what God requires, not necessarily what man has the inherent ability to do.

Joseph's well-known statement to his brethren in Acts, Genesis 50 and verse 20, you meant it for evil. All of their acts born of wicked motives, you meant it for evil, but God meant it, the same complex of events, for good. So we recognize that tension, that interfacing, and denial of either of those realities, man's accountability or God's absolute sovereignty, will lead either on the one hand to fatalism or on the other to humanism. But we stand in the biblical perspective that those to whom we seek to minister in a counseling situation

5:38 - 6:17 Read in full sermon

The point: Be careful with terminology, using biblically precise language to avoid misunderstandings (e.g., 'non-destructibility of the soul' instead of 'immortality of the soul').

Martin uses the heresy of annihilationism as an example of where a holistic anthropology (viewing man as a single integrated entity without essential diversity of body and soul) can lead, arguing that if man is destroyed, all of him is destroyed.

So faith, apart from works, is dead. And we must have a clear understanding of this as we sit. A holistic anthropology that views man as a single integrated entity has often led to the heresy of annihilationism. Because if he's destroyed, all that he is is destroyed.

18:22 - 18:47 Read in full sermon

The point: Be careful with terminology, using biblically precise language to avoid misunderstandings (e.g., 'non-destructibility of the soul' instead of 'immortality of the soul').

Martin explains his careful use of 'non-destructibility of the soul' instead of 'immortality of the soul' to avoid pagan connotations and ensure biblical precision, likening it to using terminology that people can 'shoot down' without touching biblical truth.

And you'll see some of the strains of that in the chapter in Philip Hughes, where he deals with what would classically be called conditional immortality and attacks the pagan idea of the non- or the immortality or the non-immortality of the soul, rather than, from my understanding, I don't ever use the term. If you could hear me preach for 20 years and never hear me speak of the immortality of the soul as something inherent in what man is, I will speak of the non-destructibility of the soul. But immortality being a biblical word and immortality being described in the Bible is something that is...

18:48 - 19:30 Read in full sermon

The point: Recognize that problems are not simple; maladies of the soul will spill over into the body, and vice versa.

Martin describes David's physical symptoms in Psalm 32 (crying, moisture turned to drought) as an illustration of how maladies of the soul (unconfessed sin) spill over into the body, challenging the assumption of purely chemical imbalances.

Maladies of the soul will spill over into the body. If you knew nothing of David's sins, and simply observed him as he describes himself in Psalm 32, 3 and 4, you'd say, surely he has some deep chemical imbalance, some deep psychosis. He says, I cried so much that I had no more tears. He said, my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.

22:28 - 22:53 Read in full sermon

The point: Recognize that problems are not simple; maladies of the soul will spill over into the body, and vice versa.

Martin recounts Elijah's physical and emotional collapse after Mount Carmel (1 Kings 19) to illustrate the organic unity of body and soul. God's compassionate response (sleep, food) shows recognition of physical strain affecting spiritual and mental state, serving as an example for wise counseling.

He speaks in terminology of making his couch to swim until there are no more tears. You'd say, surely he has, he has some kind of radical chemical imbalance. No, all of the distress of his body was but a reflection of the deeper distress and condition of his soul. And this is true not with respect just to sin, but when you read 1 Kings 19, the man of God is exhausted after that dramatic encounter on Mount Carmel.

22:53 - 23:23 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The third presupposition concerns man's constitution, involving essential diversity (body and soul), organic unity (co-action of body and soul), and unique individual identity…

Martin shares his personal experience of distress after killing an animal to emphasize the profound emotional and psychological toll Elijah must have experienced after slaying 400 prophets, reinforcing the organic unity of man's constitution.

Can you imagine what it would be like to hack and hew 400 people with your own hands? The text says that he slew them by the brook. Can you imagine what that would be like to a sensitive man who has a heart for a widow and her dead son? I've never had to kill a human being.

24:12 - 24:30 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not try to peg people into ancient psychological categories; recognize their absolute uniqueness and seek to discover who they are with the Word and dependence on the Spirit.

Martin uses the analogy of snowflakes, which are all snowflakes but no two are alike, to illustrate the unique personal identity of each human being, emphasizing that counselors must recognize this individuality.

In the midst of a snow storm, you can say snowflakes are falling everywhere, and you know it's not peas and apples and bananas dropping out of heaven. It's snowflakes. But you know if you examine them under a microscope, no two of them will be the same. Those are human beings.

25:12 - 25:32 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not try to peg people into ancient psychological categories; recognize their absolute uniqueness and seek to discover who they are with the Word and dependence on the Spirit.

Martin critiques the use of ancient psychological categories like phlegmatic, sanguine, melancholic, and choleric in Christian counseling, arguing that they fail to capture the absolute uniqueness of individuals.

And then there is the insinuation of sin through the gene pool as well, into all the various departments of who and what we are. And when you sit down to deal with someone, then you see immediately, you're not looking, how do I peg this person, into what category? When you read this stuff in Christian counseling about taking up the old four categories of phlegmatic and sanguine and melancholic and the rest, you say, the Lord have mercy on anyone that deals in that way with Christ's sheep. You can't put them in four categories determined by an ancient psychology.

26:22 - 26:58 Read in full sermon

The point: Probe into the domestic influences that molded and shaped a person, as imitation is woven into the family sphere.

Martin poses a hypothetical scenario of 100 Montville residents in their mid-twenties being converted, asking what their social conditioning (e.g., TV exposure, lack of godly role models) would have taught them about gender roles and sexual ethics, illustrating the pervasive influence of society.

These Cretan believers were not insulated from the impact of the social or societal conditioning that molded them and shaped them in their formative years. And all of that was not shed like a dirty garment when they came over the threshold into conversion and into the orbit of the life and ministry of the church. And when you think of what is molded and shaped if God were to break in right now and save a hundred people in their mid-twenties in Montville who are typical middle-class Montvillites. Then you look at the statistics.

34:29 - 35:04 Read in full sermon

The point: Understand that people bring baggage from social conditioning; the dynamism of grace does not automatically shed all 'grave claws' of societal influence.

Martin shares his early Christian experience of not understanding why Paul needed to dedicate a chapter to fornication, illustrating how societal conditioning can blind believers to the relevance of certain biblical commands until the culture shifts.

Just read 1 Corinthians. In my early Christian life I really never questioned the wisdom of God. I could not really find myself entering into why Paul had to spend a whole chapter giving seven reasons why Christians shouldn't fornicate in chapter 6. Everybody knows Christians shouldn't fornicate.

36:00 - 36:20 Read in full sermon

The point: Understand that people bring baggage from social conditioning; the dynamism of grace does not automatically shed all 'grave claws' of societal influence.

Martin uses the disciples' difficulty in grasping a suffering Messiah as an example of how religious conditioning (their ingrained expectation of a conquering Messiah) can deeply influence understanding, even of clear biblical truth.

Someone who's been conditioned not only domestically but socially and then in church or religiously. You see, look at the disciples. Why were they so thick about a Messiah who would die? Because their whole religious conditioning said Messiah doesn't die.

36:39 - 36:59 Read in full sermon

The point: Understand the religious conditioning of those you counsel (e.g., liberalism, Romanism, easy believism, hyper-Calvinism) to minister to their real needs.

Martin shares his experience counseling former Roman Catholics who struggle with works-righteousness, illustrating how deep religious conditioning can resurface even after conversion, affecting assurance and understanding of justification.

And you've got people that come out of Romanism, some of the most difficult pastoral things I've had to deal with over the years are people who were old-time Roman Catholics to whom works, righteousness was a part of the very stuff of their soul. And they struggle for the rest of their days just when you think they've really got it in place now and they understand that their acceptance before God has nothing to do with their performance. It rests solely upon the doing and the dying of another. A situation will emerge when it's like this.

37:40 - 38:12 Read in full sermon

The point: Understand the religious conditioning of those you counsel (e.g., liberalism, Romanism, easy believism, hyper-Calvinism) to minister to their real needs.

Martin recounts meeting real-life hyper-Calvinists after only reading about them, illustrating how specific religious conditioning creates unique struggles that counselors must understand to minister effectively.

You'll get people greatly conditioned by easy believism. Others, as we had some years ago, a whole group of people with hyper-Calvinism. I'd read about hyper-Calvinists in my reading of church history and in biography, but I'd never met a real live hyper-Calvinist. Then all of a sudden we got a whole more than a handful of them.

38:46 - 39:06 Read in full sermon

The point: If motives of hope and love for God do not resonate in a counseling session, begin to wonder if you are dealing with a true sheep.

Martin shares a recent counseling experience where pressing motives like the glory of Christ, hope in God, and love for Christ yielded no response, leading him to question the individual's conversion and pray for their salvation, illustrating the importance of these presuppositions.

Gratitude for mercy received is the foundational motive for a life that is lived well pleasing to God under the eye of God. And so when you're in the counseling session, if you assume this as a presupposition and you begin to press a behavior alteration that has to deal with attitudes of the heart as well as actions in the life, and you press the concepts of hope and love, and it's like nobody's home, you better begin to wonder if indeed you're dealing with a real sheep. I had a recent experience where these perspectives were pressed on an ethical aberration and it was like nobody was at home....

49:19 - 50:04 Read in full sermon