During the Sermon, Part 2

Driving home: Christ, the Scripture, your own hearts, and Satan's devices are the four prime things that should be first and most, studied and searched. If any cast off the study of these, they cannot be safe here nor happy hereafter.

Martin quotes Thomas Brooks's 'Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices' to show that studying Christ, one's heart, and Satan's devices are crucial for safety and happiness, confirming the historical and theological necessity of addressing Satan's activity.

under the preaching of the word. And furthermore, I set before you the confirming voice of the past with reference to the necessity of this exercise. Thomas Brooks, a Puritan preacher of the 1600s, preached a series of sermons to his people. And then, because they were so helped by them, they pressured the man of God to put them in print.

5:16 - 5:42 Read in full sermon

The point: You can't afford the luxury of careless listening to the word. You must take heed how you hear.

The analogy of birds leaving their perches and nests to follow the sower and snatch the seed illustrates how the hosts of hell are most active and determined to hinder the Word when it is being preached.

There is a personal devil and there are hosts of hell like the birds that follow the sower. They may be perched merrily on the limbs of their trees or sleep in their nests as long as the sower is home in his house. But the moment he puts on his seed bag and goes out to his field and begins to reach into his seed bag to cast his seed, the birds leave their perches, the birds kiss goodbye to their nests and they are there in proximity to the sower because they are determined to have a crop full of seed.

16:42 - 17:26 Read in full sermon