Profound Significance

In this part of the sermon: Martin explains the eldership's joint decision-making process for preaching series, announces the topical 'Now Concerning' series patterned on Paul's approach in 1 Corinthians…

Martin explains that the household of Chloe reported the contentions at Corinth to Paul, who addresses them unashamedly in 1 Corinthians 1:11, illustrating how the 'Now Concerning' pastoral pattern works and providing the title for the current series.

He says in verse 11 of chapter 1, it has been signified to me concerning you, my brethren, by them that are of the household of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. And so he plunges right into the matter of division within that church and makes this very unashamed statement, I'm doing this because the house of Chloe snitched on you. They were among you, and when they were among you, they picked up this fact, and now they've told me, and I'm going to address it. And if anybody said, well, that wasn't fair, they shouldn't have squealed on me, they had to live with the inspired word of t...

6:37 - 7:19 Read in full sermon

The point: Examine the habitual pattern of your speech, not isolated lapses, to diagnose the true condition of your heart - momentary failures like Peter's denial do not define the pattern.

Martin notes he was reading that morning of Peter's oaths and maledictions ('I swear by Jehovah I do not know this man') and uses Peter's subsequent restoration conversation with Jesus to show that an isolated momentary lapse does not constitute the pattern that reveals the heart; Peter's heart truly loved Christ.

The use of his tongue in that moment of weakness was entirely contrary to the true state of his heart. So a few days later the Lord Jesus looks him in the eye and says, Peter do you love me? He says, Lord you know that I love you. You know that those maledictions and oaths and curses those lies that I did not know you Lord Jesus you know those words were not a revelation of the true state of my heart.

16:21 - 16:53 Read in full sermon

Driving home: your mouth is the catch basin of the overflow of your heart when the heart is filled up with something and it spills over what comes out of the mouth is the catch basin

When Jesus casts out a demon restoring a mute man, the multitude weighs whether he is Messiah. The Pharisees' tongue-response - 'this man casts out demons by Beelzebub' - becomes a window into their unregenerate hearts. Jesus responds with the tree-and-fruit principle, showing their words reveal what they are.

They see in this miracle a credential of Messiah. And so they are weighing the issue. Could this really be Messiah? But when the Pharisees heard it they were amazed.

18:07 - 18:18 Read in full sermon

Driving home: your mouth is the catch basin of the overflow of your heart when the heart is filled up with something and it spills over what comes out of the mouth is the catch basin

Martin explains the word 'abundance' (Greek overflow) in Matthew 12:34: when the heart is filled up with something and it spills over, the mouth is the catch basin that catches what overflows - a vivid hydraulic picture of how the heart's contents surface in speech.

And he addresses these Pharisees and in the course of addressing these Pharisees he says and now we come to verse 33 either make the tree good and its fruit good or make the tree corrupt and its fruit corrupt for the tree is known by its fruits. You offspring of snakes how can you being evil speak good things for out of the tree for out of the tree for out of the tree for out of the tree for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks the good man out of his good treasure and in a parallel passage

18:45 - 19:30 Read in full sermon

Driving home: your mouth is the catch basin of the overflow of your heart when the heart is filled up with something and it spills over what comes out of the mouth is the catch basin

Martin expounds Romans 3:13: when an ungodly person opens their mouth it is like rolling away the stone from a sealed tomb - out belches the stench of rotting flesh, rotten, foul, and noxious. The whitewashed exterior looks fine until the stone is removed and the olfactory reality is exposed.

is demonstrating that all mankind is in a condition of depravity and guilt and wrath deservingness Jew and Gentile alike those who have had the revelation of God in scripture those who never have and when he comes in chapter 3 and verse 9 through verse 20 he's going to summarize all that he's been saying about universal sinfulness he's going to wrap it all up and then bring it home to the conscience with a plethora of quotes from the Old Testament notice what he does in verse 9 what? then are we

21:43 - 22:28 Read in full sermon

The point: Casual use of God's name in exclamation - 'oh God, oh God' - is not a trivial habit; it reveals how small God is to the speaker and constitutes a public disclosure of the heart's true state.

Martin accompanies his wife to the Collins cancer clinic where compassionate nurses - displaying real kindness (evidence of common grace) - punctuate every exclamation with 'oh God, oh God, oh God' dozens of times without thought, revealing a heart where God is so trivially small that even pagans show more reverence to their gods. After four hours Martin is ready to cry out: 'Don't you know what you're revealing?'

become unprofitable there is none that does good no not so much as one have you got the message? there is no one who is inherently righteous that's the generic condemnation now he's going to move to specific manifestations of that condition and notice what heads the list of the specific concrete manifestations look at the next two verses their throat is an open sepulcher with their tongues they have used deceit the poison of snakes is under their lips whose mouth

23:11 - 23:55 Read in full sermon

The point: The self-deceived person - who attends Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday prayer, has family worship, and judges himself a true worshipper, yet has a habitually unbridled tongue - must reckon with God's verdict …

Martin contrasts two states of moral danger: the known hypocrite who is Mr. Sweetsie in public but curses under his breath and indulges filthy thoughts behind closed doors (at least he knows he is two people), and the far more frightening self-deceived man who has done a con job on himself and genuinely believes he is what he is not.

revelation you know you know me well enough I choose my words deliberately and purposely but it nonetheless according to these passages constitutes an incisive revelation of the true state of our hearts and it will not do if we have patterns of bitterness and anger and sarcasm that cuts and wounds to say oh well but I really don't know I don't mean them I have a good heart if they're the pattern of your speech they are a revelation of the true state of your heart for out of the abundance of the heart

28:20 - 29:04 Read in full sermon

The point: The self-deceived person - who attends Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday prayer, has family worship, and judges himself a true worshipper, yet has a habitually unbridled tongue - must reckon with God's verdict …

Martin links the Greek word 'vain' (mataios) in James 1:26 to Paul's use of the same word for idols in Acts 14:15. The religion of the man with an unbridled tongue has no more substance than the man who bows to a well-shaped little idol of jade or wood - Paul says 'an idol is nothing,' and this man's religion is nothing.

overflowing of wickedness receive with meekness the implanted word verse 22 but be doers of the word not hearers only deluding your own selves if anyone is a hearer not a doer here's his passion with James passionate prophetic practicality he's saying come on man don't be a mere hearer but be a doer of the word lest you deceive yourself and at the end of this chapter he gives two specific applications of what it means to be a doer of the word one negative one positive he points to the tongue and then he points to the way we relate to the fatherless and to the widow so in that context James say...

30:32 - 31:15 Read in full sermon

The point: Progress in mastering the tongue is not merely one virtue among many - it has a disproportionate spillover effect on all of Christian living, as the bridle controls the whole horse and the rudder the whole ship.

James illustrates disproportionate influence: a fifteen-hundred-pound racehorse without an ounce of fat is controlled entirely by one small piece of metal in its mouth. The tongue's mastery has the same disproportionate effect on the whole person's progress in godliness.

lovely young Christian son he knows he's two people maybe you're sitting here today you know you're two people you're a hypocrite but the man that's deceived his own heart he believes in the depths of his being he's something that is not the most frightening condition in all of the world this side of hell this man judges himself to be religious but he's got the pattern of an unbridled tongue what is the reality of his condition he deceives himself and you know what God says his religion is it's a nothing

34:54 - 35:36 Read in full sermon

The point: Progress in mastering the tongue is not merely one virtue among many - it has a disproportionate spillover effect on all of Christian living, as the bridle controls the whole horse and the rudder the whole ship.

A thousand-foot ocean liner displacing untold tons is directed through twenty-foot seas by a twenty-foot rudder. The rudder says to the great ship, 'I'm the boss - you go where I tell you.' The tongue has this same disproportionate governing influence over the whole course of a person's sanctification.

this man's religion is vain this is the very word again a rare word in the New Testament that Paul uses to refer to idols in Acts 14-15 he says that you should turn from these vanities unto the living God his religion has no more substance than the man that bows down to his well-shaped little idol made of jade or wood Paul says in Corinthians an idol is nothing this man's religion is nothing because he bridles not his tongue

35:36 - 36:20 Read in full sermon

The point: Seek to be filled with the Spirit - which Paul immediately expresses as 'speaking' (Ephesians 5:19) - recognizing that a Spirit-controlled tongue is the first evidence of a Spirit-filled life.

Martin observes with fresh insight that when Paul commands 'be being filled with the Spirit' in Ephesians 5:18, the very first participle indicating the outflow of that filling is 'speaking' - not feeling, but speaking. To be Spirit-filled is to have the tongue under the governance of the Spirit and the Word.

demanded by the truth but no bridled tongue ask his wife ask her husband ask the children ask the people at work ask those who know him where he really is and they know him to be a man a woman with an unbridled tongue God says your religion is a bunch of nothing now is that important to know whether your religion is got substance or is a pile of nothing important is the subject my dear brothers and sisters

37:03 - 37:48 Read in full sermon

The point: As a Christian who loves God and seeks to keep his law from gratitude, understand that the tongue is implicated in at least seven of the Ten Commandments - evangelical law-keeping is impossible without a bridled tongue.

Martin walks through the Ten Commandments showing each one's tongue-dimension: third (God's name in vain), fourth (not speaking one's own words on the Sabbath per Isaiah 58), fifth (cursing parents = death), sixth (calling someone 'fool' is heart-murder per Matthew 5:21), seventh (filthy sexual speech), eighth (stealing reputations by slander and gossip), ninth (bearing false witness with the mouth), tenth (coveting erupting in lies to bring another down).

the whole body also you see what he's saying we all sin in many things however when it comes to the mastery of the tongue the man the woman the boy the girl that's making significant substantive progress in the mastery of the tongue it will be seen that controlling that unruly man that unruly member has a spillover in generic progress in practical godliness if any man stumble not in word the same is a mature man able to bridle the whole body also

40:41 - 41:24 Read in full sermon

The point: Soberly consider whether the pattern of your words would give God enough evidence to declare you one of the truly righteous, or whether your words of dishonesty, bitterness, uncleanness, and pride would justify his conde…

Martin uses Matthew 25:31-46 to clarify the relationship of works and judgment: the righteous are not taken to heaven because they visited the sick and fed the hungry, but these works demonstrate their genuine union with Christ. Similarly, words at judgment will demonstrate, not determine, one's status - they are evidence of what one truly is.

you go where I'm telling you you do what I tell you disproportionate relationship between the mouth of the horse and the whole horse the rudder of the ship and the whole ship the tongue and the whole body and you see the mastery of the members of our body is a crucial element in sanctification according to the New Testament Romans 6.13 neither present your members instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but present yourselves unto God

42:52 - 43:36 Read in full sermon

The point: Soberly consider whether the pattern of your words would give God enough evidence to declare you one of the truly righteous, or whether your words of dishonesty, bitterness, uncleanness, and pride would justify his conde…

Martin poses the question in stark terms: if summoned to judgment today, what words has God got? For the righteous - words of kindness, truth even at personal cost, purity when mocked, confession after sin, forgiveness when sought. For the wicked - words of dishonesty, bitterness, uncleanness, pride, and self-defensiveness. 'Your words manifest your true character.'

and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God and when this member is so presented and under the governance of the word and of the spirit is bridled it is significant in the generic progress of the Christian life as I was meditating upon this it struck me with freshness when Paul said be not drunk with wine Ephesians 5.18 but be being filled with the Spirit what's the next word the first participle

43:36 - 44:20 Read in full sermon