Contrasting Ways of Ungodly & Blessedness

The point: Prayerfully and consciously guard yourself against the constant drip of materialistic counsel from radio, TV, magazines, and newspapers.

Martin compares the counsel of ungodliness to dry rot in a house — invisible, odorless, silently destroying the structure before anyone notices.

And you know, dry rot doesn't even leave a smell. A mold and a wet rot will, but dry rot can be operating at the structure of a house and no one even know it. And we're concerned about those ways that the counsel of ungodliness can act like dry rot at the foundation of the spiritual fabric of a child of God. And so we looked at one of these ways last week that we called the mass media of communication.

4:23 - 4:48 Read in full sermon

The point: Prayerfully and consciously guard yourself against the constant drip of materialistic counsel from radio, TV, magazines, and newspapers.

Like a knee-jerk reflex when stuck with a pin, the believer who absorbs worldly counsel reacts automatically with worldly judgments rather than scriptural ones.

Oh no, no, no, no. As this fourfold philosophy bombards him and conditions his mind, it's sort of like a reflex action. When someone sticks a pin in your hand, you don't think, uh oh, that hurts, that has excited some nerves. Now nerves send a message to my brain and brain send a message to my muscle and hand move.

8:09 - 8:28 Read in full sermon

Martin playfully observes that even Eve was a 'thing' (a created thing) — a way of pressing home that no created good can supply blessedness apart from God.

He still lacked one thing, namely a wife. Now, you wives may not like being called things, but you are a thing, and we husbands are things. You see, a thing is anything created. Anything created is a thing.

12:41 - 12:55 Read in full sermon

Martin recounts how a jingle from a commercial he never tried to memorize had lodged itself in his mind — proof of how relentlessly the philosophy of materialism conditions us.

You see, I didn't know I had memorized Henry Gladstone's words, but you see, I've heard that commercial so often. There it is, working in there, right down there, just ready to come out. Luke chapter 12 and verse...

21:26 - 21:41 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Job never held the things that he received from God with a clenched fist. He held them with an open hand.

Job held his possessions with an open hand — when God placed them in his hand he received them, when God removed them he let them go without grasping.

Job never held the things that he received from God with a clenched fist He held them with an open hand And when the God who put them there was pleased with the same hand to remove them That hand was still lifted up in blessing to God When the things were there The things were not clutched and bowed down to and worship They were held as the gift of God And the heart and the focus of the soul was God's worth, not thing-worth so when the things left the focus of the heart and the soul was still in the direction of the God the hands though now empty were lifted up in blessing God's given, God's t...

35:27 - 36:13 Read in full sermon

Driving home: But thou, O man of God, flee these things, run from them like the plague.

Martin observes that in his neighborhood almost no one parks the car in the garage — the garage is so packed with accumulated things there's no room for the car.

And it's interesting, in our area, though, everybody's got garages. Nobody parks their car in the garage.

49:05 - 49:09 Read in full sermon

The point: Begin now to learn to hold possessions loosely, because a day of spoiling of goods may come and unprepared souls will deny Christ for a mess of pottage.

Persecuted brothers and sisters whose few possessions could be wrapped in a single bundle still spend their first hours in refugee camps telling poor sinners about the Savior.

No, what have they been doing? The minute they get transplanted in the refugee camp, they go around and find poor needy sinners and they tell them about the Savior. And the gospel spreads and the Spirit of God is at work, calling out many to Himself.

53:06 - 53:20 Read in full sermon

The point: Compare your excitement over a new possession with your excitement over a fresh discovery of Christ — the imbalance reveals where blessedness is sought.

Martin tells how his wife instinctively responded to a missed sale with biblical reflexes rather than disappointment — a model of mind steeped in Scripture.

I hadn't planned to say it but it's come back to my mind I feel I should some of you know most of the stores had special sales Washington's birthday and last year my wife was able to pick up about I think $75 list price different things for about $15 for the children's winter clothes for the next year and so as the sale was coming up and one of the ladies who works there kept my wife informed and so we were planning to go over Thursday morning and we went over and as soon as I stopped and let my wife out and drove down I noticed that the store was all blackened. Apparently it had a fire so I t...

58:11 - 58:55 Read in full sermon