Intercession: Fruit

Driving home: By His intercession, Christ has riveted His sacrifice to the throne of God on high.

Martin quotes Hugh Martin's phrase that Christ 'riveted His sacrifice to the throne of God on high' to explain the pattern of Christ's intercession, connecting His blood to the mercy seat.

We've studied together the pattern of His intercession. This is a priestly concept and it is a throwback to the type and shadow of the old Christian religion. In the Old Testament, in which the priest not only shed the blood of the innocent victim, but he caught that blood in a basin and brought it into the presence of God in the work of intercession. Hugh Martin, the Scottish theologian of another generation, has used a phrase with reference to this aspect of the pattern of Christ's intercession that has riveted itself to my own mind.

5:45 - 6:18 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Likewise, we are kept in the favor of God, not by the doctrine of preservation, but by him whose work is the work of God. We are brought into the favor of God, the work of intercession secures our standing in God's favor…

Martin quotes a hymn line, 'Five bleeding wounds he bears, received on Calvary, they pour effectual prayers. They strongly plead for me,' to illustrate how Christ's very presence and wounds are a constant reminder to the Father of sins paid for.

there presenting himself in the perfection of his person and sacrifices we saw several weeks ago, the Father can never bring to remembrance sins for which Christ has paid. The Father hears him pray, his own beloved one. He cannot turn away the pleading of his Son. Five bleeding wounds he bears, received on Calvary, they pour effectual prayers. They strongly plead for me. And so his very presence is a constant

16:25 - 16:57 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Likewise, we are kept in the favor of God, not by the doctrine of preservation, but by him whose work is the work of God. We are brought into the favor of God, the work of intercession secures our standing in God's favor…

Martin quotes an unnamed source: 'we owe our standing in grace every moment to his sitting in heaven and interceding every moment,' to underscore the continuous nature of Christ's intercession in maintaining our justified state.

reminder, as it were, to the Father that our sins have been paid for, and we cannot come under the condemnation of them. And 1 John 2 says, if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation. And so we are kept in the favor of God by Christ's intercession at the right hand of God. As one has said, and I quote, we owe our standing in grace every moment to his sitting in heaven and interceding every moment.

16:57 - 17:34 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Likewise, we are kept in the favor of God, not by the doctrine of preservation, but by him whose work is the work of God. We are brought into the favor of God, the work of intercession secures our standing in God's favor…

Martin shares his personal experience of the difficulty in organizing the sermon material, to help the congregation understand the complexity of the doctrine and to encourage their engagement.

Now let me pause to underscore this. I know this has been hard to think. If you think it's hard to follow while you're preaching, I'm preaching it. You should sit where I've sat for these weeks and try to organize this material and lay it out. We have a built-in tendency to divorce our blessings

17:34 - 17:52 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Likewise, we are kept in the favor of God, not by the doctrine of preservation, but by him whose work is the work of God. We are brought into the favor of God, the work of intercession secures our standing in God's favor…

Martin mentions spending significant time studying justification for an upcoming pastor's conference, to emphasize the importance and depth of the doctrine, while still distinguishing it from Christ Himself.

justification by faith. You are brought into the favor of God by virtue of the righteousness of Jesus Christ and by virtue of being joined unto Christ. Now we need to understand the doctrine of justification by faith. I've been spending on the average of a day and a half or so a day and a half a week on the doctrine of justification by faith. I've been spending on

18:20 - 18:38 Read in full sermon

The point: Learn to give Christ his due praise and his due thanks that he not only has brought us into the favor of God by his sufferings... but that he keeps us in the favor of God by his intercession.

He criticizes 'deeper life teachers' for misinterpreting Romans 5:10, clarifying that 'saved by his life' refers to Christ's intercession, not His living His life through us.

the saints that keeps you in the favor of God is Christ himself interceding who keeps you in his favor. Hence Paul can say as he does in Romans chapter 5 verse 10, for if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life. Your salvation is dependent upon his life. What are this text butchered by one of these deeper life teachers? Talking about the saving life of Christ, living his life in me and

19:17 - 19:59 Read in full sermon

The point: Whenever we bow to pray in our closets always remind ourselves as I bow to pray. One has been praying long before I bow.

Martin shares his personal experience of rising to pray, realizing Christ had already been interceding for him through the night, illustrating the comfort and privilege of prayer based on Christ's ongoing ministry.

This will so grip us that whenever we bow to pray in our closets always remind ourselves as I bow to pray. One has been praying long before I bow. How precious this thought was to me this morning when I rose to pray. And I thought Lord Jesus you've kept a vigil through what to me was the night hours. And you've been bearing me before your father. Presenting yourself and your blood and

23:55 - 24:23 Read in full sermon

Driving home: What is it that secures all the grace necessary for a true Christian to persevere in the ways of God? Knowing he must persevere what is it that gives him the grace to persevere? It is the merit and the efficacy of the in…

He uses the analogy of 'garbage under a kitchen sink' to describe the accumulation of unconfessed sin in a believer's life, leading to a 'stench' and loss of spiritual hunger, illustrating the need for grace to restore communion.

as you've walked with God. Think of those times when through neglect of the means of grace went through the allowance of unconfessed sin to collect in your life garbage under a kitchen sink until the stench of it as it were went through all the departments of your life and there was no hunger anymore for the Lord and his word and his people and his truth. What was it that for no account of walking in your own home or driving your car somewhere and that awful sense of pain came over you? The thought of bygone days when there was sweet

27:36 - 28:20 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin asserts that Christ's intercession secures all necessary grace for believers to persevere in faith and holiness, preventing apostasy. He illustrates this with personal…

The story of David's sin with Bathsheba and Nathan's confrontation is used as an example of Christ's intercession being the underlying cause for God sending grace to bring a backslidden believer to repentance.

That caused that grace to be given that brought you back into the way of God. Look at the case of David who sinned so foully and so openly in the case of Bathsheba and then added to that sin hardness of heart and went for a period of almost a year. Why did God send a Nathan to David? And why did the words of a Nathan pierce the heart of David and bring him down in brokenness until he cried, Have mercy upon me, O God. I'll tell you why. It was the fruit of the intercession of Jesus Christ.

30:01 - 30:40 Read in full sermon

The point: Learn to trace everything that has been brought into your life, enabling you to persevere in the ways of God. Trace it all back to the sacrifice of Christ which purchased such grace. And to the intercession of Christ whi…

The account of Christ praying for Peter that his faith would not fail is used as a powerful example of Christ's intercession securing a believer's perseverance despite their failures.

the text we've quoted often in this reference. There is Peter, early sifted and tried and the devil would have him. Christ says, I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. If faith is extinguished, the root grace is gone, then everything's gone. But he said, I have

31:39 - 31:59 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The ultimate fruit of Christ's intercession is the glorification of God's people, fulfilling God's eternal purpose to bring many sons to glory. Christ's intercession ensures that…

Martin quotes Professor John Murray's description of the 'holy and adoring amazement' and 'exasperation' that should fill believers contemplating Christ's intercession, which saves them from deserved doom and secures glorification.

The contemplation of this, should produce in us something like that which Professor Murray describes at the close, the last paragraph of his excellent little booklet on the heavenly priestly activity of Christ. And I read now from Professor Murray, but the fact that from the seat of exalted and undimmed glory, and in the exercise of His priestly role, He, Jesus, interposes petition to the Father on behalf of every one of His own, to the end that they may be glorified with Him, this should cause us to be filled with holy and adoring amazement

37:44 - 38:25 Read in full sermon

The point: Learn to love the Lord Jesus. Learn to magnify and worship Him in His office as an interceding High Priest.

Martin recounts his mother's conversation with a Roman Catholic roommate about praying to Mary, using the analogy of a mother overwhelmed by multiple children asking for things at once, to illustrate the futility of interceding saints and the necessity of Christ's divine attributes for intercession.

Magnify Him as the God that He is, for how could anyone less than one who is true God bear the weight of the cause of all of His people through all the ages in all the complexity of their needs, sympathetically identifying with each one as though they were the only one He had to care for. Away with the intercession of Mary and priests and the intercession of all who would intrude into the office of Christ. My dear godly mother in her simple, feminine, intuitive, theological sensitivity was in the hospital one time bearing one of the ten of us and she was talking with

42:13 - 42:56 Read in full sermon