Christ's Hatred (Rev. 2:6)

In this part of the sermon: Martin begins by emphasizing the supreme importance of a believer's attachment to Christ in love, faith, and knowledge, and reviews the previous sermon's discussion of Christ's…

The plant of personal devotion to Christ is the most tender and vital in the garden of the human heart, feeding and pollinating all other graces, so its withering leads to the decay of all other spiritual plants.

Nothing more telling than that. Of all the plants in the garden of the human heart, the plants of grace, most tender, is that of personal devotion to the person of Christ.

0:53 - 1:07 Read in full sermon

The point: Worship Christ as the Christ of infinite, pure, and holy hatred, not as a Christ denuded of this capacity.

Martin recounts being told he walked like his father, which delighted him and led him to consciously imitate his father's gait, illustrating how beholding and admiring Christ leads to conscious and unconscious transformation into His likeness.

is more and more made like unto that which he beholds with adoring wonder. The son who admires his father and beholds him in all of his activities as an object of admiration and adulation, many times consciously, but more often subconsciously, is being molded into the very pattern and likeness of his daddy. I shall never forget, when as a boy, somebody told me, they said, you know, you throw your right leg around when you walk, just like your dad. Oh, I felt so good about that, because I used to notice when my father would walk,

17:03 - 17:47 Read in full sermon

The point: Delight your Lord by reflecting His likeness, specifically by hating evil as He does.

A parent with biblical goals for their children finds joy in every sign of valid development, assuring them that their goals will be realized, which illustrates Christ's delight when He sees His likeness reflected in His people.

Just as a parent, if you have biblical goals for your children as we've tried to spell them out these Friday night sessions, your goal is to see a well-integrated, total personality in every area of life under the dominion and direction of Holy Scripture. Intellectual alertness and emotional stability and spiritual virility. And as a parent, every sign of valid development that you see assuring you that this goal can be realized, what does it do to you as a parent? Well, it just fills you with joy.

34:14 - 34:46 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Using a parable of an offspring that cannot live without its mother, Martin illustrates how the presence of holy hatred in believers, even when love seems diminished, is proof…

An imaginary creature that cannot live for more than three days if cut off from its mother is used to illustrate that if hatred (the 'offspring') is present and alive in believers, then love for Christ (the 'mother') must also be present, even if diminished, providing assurance.

that could not exist for longer than three days if it were cut off from its mother. That is if it could not be by the side of the mother with some recurring frequency during the day if it ever got completely out of sight for longer than three days this creature would die. Now suppose you know that this creature and his mother have been corralled in a certain place where there's some trees and some rocks and some big boulders and a few tunnels and the rest and day after day you come by and you see the child but you don't see the mother. Then you say but you see outside the pen there's the annou...

44:17 - 45:01 Read in full sermon