Three Most Significant Days of our Lives (wedding)

The point: Consider the three most significant days in your life: your birthday, your death day, and your judgment day.

Martin asks Jim and Lynn, and then the congregation, to list the ten most significant days of their lives, anticipating that many would include their wedding day, to introduce the idea of momentous days.

Excuse me, Messiah, but I am in a room that I speak to you from the Word of God on this occasion that we are gathering together in your coming chair in the joy of their marriage ceremony. And in the next few minutes, I want you to think with me on the subject momentous days. If I were to ask Jim and Lynn, in the next five minutes, to list on a piece of paper the ten most significant days in their brief life history, I'm absolutely confident that one of the ten would be June 8, 1974. And, if time permits, and I raise... I'm going to pass out paper and pencil to everyone here and ask you, in fiv...

0:05 - 1:03 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The first universally significant day is one's birthday, marking entry into existence as a creature made in God's image, accountable to Him, and destined for eternity. This day…

The moment of birth, being expelled from the womb and drawing a first breath, is likened to an aftershave lotion ad that vividly reminds us of this initial cry, emphasizing the reality of one's beginning.

The moment when you were expelled from your mother's womb, and the doctor spat... on you, and you drew in that first breath of air on your own, and you cried as you find in that aftershave lotion ad that vividly reminds us of what it was all about.

2:17 - 2:36 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The wages of sin is death. It is the entrance of sin into the human race which alone can account for the ugly reality of death.

The existence of birth certificates and death certificates in government bureaus, with no more than 110 years between them for any individual, illustrates the certainty of both a birthday and a death day.

And as certainly as you have a birthday, the youngest to the oldest, is going to have a death day. It's a striking thing to realize that down in Trenton, and any other capital where the records are stored, right next to the volume of records that has in it recorded birthdays, there is in another department, a recording of the death certificates, and there's no one there with more than 110 years between the two. Human experience. Human experience alone is sufficient to convince us we'll have a death day.

4:20 - 5:04 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The wages of sin is death. It is the entrance of sin into the human race which alone can account for the ugly reality of death.

Man's sin is compared to a tree whose main tap roots are cut, causing it to show some semblance of life for a time but ultimately wither and die, illustrating how sin severed man's relationship with God and led to spiritual and physical death.

It is the entrance of sin into the human race which alone can account for the ugly reality of death. For God said to those first parents, our first father and mother Adam and Eve, in the day that thou eatest, in the day that you disobey me, dying thou shalt die. And like a tree whose main tap roots are cut and the leaves made, show some semblance of life for a week or two, but it's only a matter of time before they wither and die. So the moment man sinned, he was severed.

5:52 - 6:28 Read in full sermon

Driving home: For again the Scripture says it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this come in judgment.

The feeling of regret when a lovely family picnic ends, despite its joy, is used to illustrate how one might stoically accept the end of life if only a birthday and death day existed, highlighting the need for a third momentous day.

Now if this were all, if they were the only two momentous days, birthday and death day, we might wax sort of stoical about the whole thing and say, well, if life was bitter, the death day was a welcome release and the end of it all. If life was full of joy and bliss, we might say, like we do at the end of a lovely day when the family has come together for a family picnic, and the weather's been perfect, and the bees have not bothered us, and the ants have gone on a vacation, oh, it's a shame to see this day come to an end. But all good things come to an end, and so you accept. Well, if all we ...

6:58 - 7:42 Read in full sermon

Driving home: For again the Scripture says it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this come in judgment.

Conscience is described as a 'little trumpet' or 'preview summons' of accountability to God, illustrating its function in affirming the reality of a coming judgment day.

What is the function of conscience but to be a little trumpet, a little preview, a little previous summons of the fact that we're accountable to God for this life and all of its deeds. And I cannot say for certain what awaits anyone in this building except this, and I shall not be contradicted. There is a death day and a judgment day coming for every one of us. For every one of us.

8:17 - 8:43 Read in full sermon

The point: Long to be set free from whatever binds you, whether lust, pride, attachment to things, or covetousness.

Lynn's potential deep need for Jim, and her discovery of his willingness and ability to meet that need, is used as an analogy for the two-way relationship required in spiritual marriage with Christ.

Oh, my friend, you've never had a wedding day till you've been brought to your painful awareness of your need of the heavenly bridegroom. But then, secondly, there must be the discovery that he is willing and able to meet that need. Lynn may have felt for some time a deep pang for Jim convinced she needed him, but until she discovered in him from his own actions and words a willingness and an ability on his part to meet her need, there'd been no marriage today. It's a two-way relationship.

13:40 - 14:15 Read in full sermon

Driving home: My friend listen if you've not been joined with the Son of God so that he is your life you're not a Christian. You're not Christian.

A hypothetical scenario where Jim and Lynn, immediately after their wedding ceremony, decide to go their separate ways and only produce a certificate if asked, illustrates the absurdity of a 'decision' for Christ without true union.

What would you think if in about two minutes time when Jim and Liv come and stand here and I was just about to say I now present unto you Mr. and Mrs. that they would have turned to each other and said well we've had a wedding ceremony now let's take it care of. On the license and all the rest.

18:48 - 19:09 Read in full sermon