Reasons for Not Murmuring

Driving home: God, simply because He is God, has the right to command His creatures without giving any reason for the precepts which He gives them. However, God, as God knows our frame, He put us together the way we are put together. …

A father tells his children not to take off their shoes in the backyard, first without a reason, then with the reason of broken glass. This illustrates how God often provides reasons for His commands to aid obedience.

In the New Testament, under different covenantal administrations, are either preceded with reasons for the command, or they are followed with reasons after the command is given. Let me illustrate how this works. It is perfectly right for a father, upon noticing that his son or daughter, let's call them John and Susie, are about to go out into the backyard to say, now Johnny, now Susie, don't take your shoes off when you're playing in the backyard this morning. Now, a father needs say nothing more than that.

2:40 - 3:19 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin breaks down the three qualities: 'blameless' (no just cause for reproach), 'harmless' (pure, sincere, unmixed in disposition), and 'without blemish' (no defacing defect or…

A bride's perfect wedding gown gets a grease spot on the back just before the ceremony. This vividly illustrates how a small moral imperfection, like murmuring, can mar an otherwise godly life and draw all attention to the blemish, ruining a consistent testimony.

I want you to imagine with me one of our young ladies who's gone to the bridal shop and she's picked out that which she's dreamed about from her infancy, her wedding gown. And after so many weeks, after the initial work has been done and it's been fitted and all of the rest, the day to pick up her bridal gown comes. And she goes to the bridal shop, and there the proprietor or proprietress takes the plastic covering, garment covering off the gown and holds it up and she examines every fold of the fabric to make sure everything is stitched properly, that there are no blemishes upon it, no wrinkl...

19:21 - 20:05 Read in full sermon

Driving home: There is nothing in scripture to warrant monastic withdrawal nor the pipe dreams of those who see the situation of the world ever becoming such that righteousness will predominate prior to the coming of Christ the people…

Using modeling clay to create a 'crooked' and 'perverted' man by bending and distorting it. This illustrates how humanity, apart from Christ, is a crooked and twisted distortion of what God intended man to be as His image-bearer.

and we must not look for some fine distinction between these two words together they simply mean the epitome of depravity suppose I had some modeling clay this morning and I were able of that modeling clay to make the figure of a man or a figure that at least anyone aged three years old and upward with reasonable intelligence would gather was something like a man alright and I set my clay figure before you and then right at the point where his waist is seen I bend him thirty degrees to the left what have I done to my man I've made my straight man a crooked man now suppose I take his nose which...

31:47 - 33:13 Read in full sermon

The point: Live a life of holiness in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation by holding fast to the word of life, meditating on it day and night.

The imagery of shining as 'luminaries or stars' against the 'inky black darkness of empty space' (the crooked and perverse generation). This portrays the impact of a consistent Christian testimony, standing out brilliantly in a dark world.

but then the third thing he says about this testimony is this it's what I'm calling the figure by which the impact of this testimony is portrayed look at the figure by which the impact of this kind of testimony is portrayed the language is this among whom you are seen or better translated among whom you are shining as luminaries or stars in the world the new international version gives a rendering which linguistically is warranted among whom you shine like stars in the universe you see the imagery the imagery is that of the blackness of empty space God uses that with regard to the state of the...

34:39 - 36:06 Read in full sermon