TMA Recognition Service (1983)

In this part of the sermon: Paul Gordon shares his experience at Trinity Ministerial Academy, describing it as 'the best of times and the worst of times' due to the blessings of fellowship and study, and the…

Paul Gordon quotes Dickens' 'best of times and worst of times' to summarize his three years at TMA, highlighting both the joys of fellowship and study, and the pressures and sacrifices.

So you see that I'm very conscious tonight of the need to be brief. First of all, a brief statement of the past three years. In thinking about what the past three years have meant to me, the statement of Dickens in commenting upon the French Revolution when he called it the best of times and the worst of times pretty much sums up much of how I view my three years of the Academy because indeed it has been, in my Christian life, the best of times. It's been the best of times in the light of the wonderful privilege I've had to fellowship with these brethren, to study together with them, to be und...

10:12 - 10:58 Read in full sermon

The point: Be consumed with a principled zeal for the glory of God, especially when looking upon a society that tramples God's law and name.

The incident of Jesus weaving a whip and cleansing the temple is used as a striking example of Christ's principled zeal for His Father's glory, which consumed Him.

For you remember the incident in the Gospels in which our Lord Jesus, seeing the temple that was to be a house of prayer, turned into a theater of merchandise, wove together a whip, a scourge of cords, and went through the temple, throwing over the money changers' tables and driving out the beasts. the disciples said they remembered this word zeal for thy house hath eaten me up our Lord was so consumed with a zeal for the glory of his father and in particular his father's glory in his father's house that that zeal consumed him

51:11 - 52:00 Read in full sermon

The point: Remain as little children before the Bible, maintaining an unwavering conviction of its infallibility and absolute authority.

Martin critiques the common television caricature of a 'reverend' as soft-handed, effeminate, and innocuous, contrasting it with the robust, holy manliness of Jesus.

Not some kind of reverend half-humanity. I'm sick of the caricatures of the reverends in any kind of a television program. And they always type past the reverend as the soft-handed, half-effeminate, innocent, innocuous fellow who'd never hurt anybody or anything, who wouldn't offend the devil if he walked into his presence. That's not a man of God!

59:22 - 59:53 Read in full sermon

Driving home: That's a saccharine, soft-handed reverend! A man of God has as his model the Lord Jesus.

Jesus's ability to be gentle with children and yet confront Pharisees with fire and thunder illustrates a balanced, real godliness that embraces the full spectrum of sanctified humanity.

But he is also the Jesus who looked Pharisees straight in the eye and said you Pharisees. You Pharisees are like the man and the woman Who scrubs the outside of a platter But inwardly are full of uncleanness You compass land and sea to make proselytes And when you're done you make them twofold more The children of hell How shall you escape the judgment of hell? His manliness could flash fire and thunder It could speak in gentle loving tones That made little children come and sit upon his knee. His sanctified holy humanity was such that he could weep when his friend dies.

60:18 - 61:03 Read in full sermon

Driving home: That's a saccharine, soft-handed reverend! A man of God has as his model the Lord Jesus.

Jesus weeping at Lazarus's tomb, leading friends to say 'Behold how he loved them,' illustrates real godliness that allows for profound human emotion like grief.

And so much so that the friends beholding Jesus weeping by the graveside of Lazarus say, Behold how he loved them. Behold how he loved them. A man of God is a man of real godliness that takes all that is noble and God-like in our humanity and purging it increasingly of sinful perversions and excesses makes a man a whole man in Jesus Christ who can laugh heartily from the bottom of his toes, who can weep profusely from the deepest recesses of his heart. It is a real, but it is a growing godliness.

61:04 - 61:54 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Pastor Martin begins his sermon on 'What is a Man of God,' defining the first three characteristics: a man consumed with a principled zeal for God's glory, a man with an…

The common saying 'so heavenly minded, he's no earthly good' is used to illustrate the need for balanced godliness, though Martin notes the reverse is more common.

It is not a godliness in which certain graces are so developed in others left undeveloped that you have a caricature of godliness. We've heard the term, have we not? He's so heavenly minded, he's no earthly good. With most of us, the reverse is true.

62:21 - 62:41 Read in full sermon

The point: Have a tender heart for fellow sinners, saved and unsaved, drinking of the spirit of the Apostle Paul and Jesus.

Jesus wailing over Jerusalem, a city marked for destruction, illustrates a man of God's tender heart for fellow sinners.

A man of God is a man who drinks of the spirit of the Apostle Paul, who could say of his unsaved Jewish countrymen in the ninth chapter of Romans, I have continual sorrow and heaviness of heart for my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh. A man of God is one who knows something of what Jesus knew when looking over the brow of Jerusalem, a city marked out for destruction because of its sin. The Gospel writer says, beholding the city, Jesus wept literally. He wailed over that city.

63:25 - 64:08 Read in full sermon

The point: Be willing to impart not only the gospel but your very souls in preaching.

Paul is contrasted with a 'professional word machine' who gives a 'gospel chat,' emphasizing that true preaching is the 'ringing out of the soul of the preacher.'

a heart that can say at least in some degree with Paul we were willing 1 Thessalonians 2a to present unto you we were willing to impart unto you not the gospel of God only but our very souls because you were become dear to us you see Paul was not a professional word machine who stood up with his hands in his pockets real laid back and leaned over the pulpit and said, well, folks, I'd like to have a little gospel chat with you tonight. Would you give me your ears for a few minutes? I'd like to just chat with you a little bit. He says, we were willing to impart our very souls.

64:32 - 65:16 Read in full sermon

The point: Be patient in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves, and have an ongoing source of love for the saints, even when they despise your efforts.

Martin describes the discipline of preaching to people who fall asleep or resent the message, highlighting the need for an ongoing source of love in ministry.

Our hearts are not constricted towards you, though yours are to us. And one of the greatest disciplines in the ministry will come to you when you've prayed yourself into weariness, studied yourself into exhaustion, and preached yourself to the place where you feel there's nothing left to give. and you see people falling asleep, that's all the fruit you'll have for your labor. And you'll find others who've been awake enough to hear what you've said, resenting that you've tried to go after the sins that are damning them or destroying them.

66:32 - 67:17 Read in full sermon

The point: Remember that your best friend on earth is the man who tells you the most truth about yourself through an honest proclamation of the Bible.

The analogy that 'your best friend on earth is the man who tells you the most truth about yourself' is used to emphasize the value of honest, unvarnished proclamation of God's Word.

but will seek with the shadow of the day of judgment cast across his pulpit to the best of his ability and knowledge to do nothing but declare the word of the living God. my dear friends who are with us tonight you can find a thousand preachers who tickle your ear and tell you what you'd like to hear remember this and never forget it your best friend on earth is the man who tells you the most truth about yourself and the most truth you'll learn about yourself is by an honest proclamation of this book.

69:49 - 70:35 Read in full sermon

The point: Remember that your best friend on earth is the man who tells you the most truth about yourself through an honest proclamation of the Bible.

Martin describes churches that tell people they are 'lovely persons' and offer superficial moral advice, contrasting this with the Bible's message of sin, guilt, and the need for Christ.

Don't you ever forget it. Churches are legion. They are dotted across the countryside of our nation where you can go and be told you're a lovely person. Be sweet to your neighbor.

70:36 - 70:54 Read in full sermon

The point: Be men mighty in prayer, wrestling with Almighty God in your closet, excelling in holy wrestlings.

Martin recounts preaching to people who visibly pitied him for believing 'antiquated notions,' illustrating the spiritual blindness caused by the devil and the need for prayer.

But the time will come in the language of Acts 6-4 when you will be able to give yourself to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. The Scripture says our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but principalities and powers. And therefore Paul says the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, fleshly, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. What lies behind the prejudice in that person's mind who sits when you preach and says, look at that poor young fool.

72:53 - 73:29 Read in full sermon

The point: Fearlessly confront the evils of your own generation, being the conscience of that generation.

The prophetic office is described as standing in one's own generation to be its conscience, pointing out specific sins, exemplified by Amos.

It's relatively easy to speak about the sins of past generations. How hard it is to hurl into the conscience of one's own generation the word of the living God pointing to the sins that will drag your own generation down to hell. and yet you are a man of God only if you are prepared to do that for the term man of God as you have been taught in your prophets class has its origin in the prophetic office thou O man of God and what was the great task of the prophet not primarily to stand in his generation

75:33 - 76:19 Read in full sermon

The point: Have undaunted faith in the power of God and of the gospel, looking into any dark situation or hopeless person and saying, 'but God.'

John the Baptist's confrontation of Herod's marital sin and subsequent beheading is used as a stark example of the cost of fearlessly confronting generational evils.

There's a man named John the Baptist who lost his head for that. He had the temerity to go to a heathen king. Whose marital life was an affront to the law of God. and say to him, it is not lawful for you to have her.

77:03 - 77:21 Read in full sermon

The point: Have undaunted faith in the power of God and of the gospel, looking into any dark situation or hopeless person and saying, 'but God.'

Martin gives contemporary examples of confronting abortion as murder and homosexuality as perversion, illustrating the fearless confrontation of generational evils.

And to say to this generation, it is not lawful to kill innocent unborn babies. It is not lawful to create euphemisms and call it destruction of fetal tissue. It is the murder of unborn life. And every doctor who injects the saline solution and who takes his scalpel and his little suction machine is a murderer.

77:27 - 78:05 Read in full sermon

The point: Have undaunted faith in the power of God and of the gospel, looking into any dark situation or hopeless person and saying, 'but God.'

The experience of ministry feeling like a 'savor of death unto death' rather than 'life unto life' is used to describe periods of barrenness where faith in the gospel's power is tested.

Don't lose that undaunted confidence in the power of this great sovereign God whose attributes and ways have been taught to you in your courses of systematics. You have been given tools to discover from this book all of the glories of that message which is the power of God unto salvation. But if you come through a period of relative barrenness, when it seems to be more a savor of death unto death than life unto life, that one who originally came to our first parents and said, Yea, hath God said, will come and whisper, Is the gospel the power of God?

80:12 - 80:58 Read in full sermon

The point: Labor on, pray on, preach on with undaunted courage, believing that gospel seed can multiply, even if preaching to only ten people.

The contrast between churches filled by 'gospel drama' and 'musical packages' versus laboring in the Word and prayer with only a 'trickle' of fruit is used to encourage undaunted faith.

Is preaching still a viable option? The churches all around you may be filled to bursting as the crowds are enticed with so-called gospel drama and all kinds of musical packages and so-called Christian art and Christian films. And here you labor day after day in the Word and in doctrine and you pray. And it seems that there's such a trickle, if any at all.

80:59 - 81:32 Read in full sermon

The point: Pray that the Lord of the harvest will continue to mold these men, thrust them forth, and use them mightily for His glory.

Martin imagines a parent questioning why their smart son is at a 'rinky-dink school' without a degree, contrasting worldly success with the true value of being molded into a man of God.

You said, I can't figure this out. Honey, my son's got the smarts. He could be making good bucks by now. And what's he doing?

82:45 - 82:51 Read in full sermon