Introduction and Overview

In this part of the sermon: Martin explains Pastor Nichols' absence and the adult class schedule before introducing his subject as a 'teaser' for a forthcoming series on verbal communication, grown out of…

Martin describes the forthcoming series as 'sort of brewing in the depths of my mind and spirit, and hopefully when it's thoroughly cooked, it'll come out in the form of a series' -- the gestation of a sermon compared to cooking.

However, we do believe that this polemic, this opening up and defending of the biblical doctrine of baptism is something that has been a long time coming and is needed, and we trust that though it may not appear on the surface of things to be the most relevant of truths, if you are with us for any period of time to come, you will see how again and again many of these truths have realms of implication that you'll see. You'll see them tying together over the months and years to come, and I trust we'll come to an increasing appreciation of the material that has been set before us. Now, I had this...

1:59 - 3:24 Read in full sermon

The point: Examine your speech patterns not as a personality quirk but as a theological matter: they are the index by which God will vindicate or condemn at the last day.

Martin describes the final judgment scene: when God says 'depart from me ye wicked,' all he need do is bring forward their speech patterns to vindicate the verdict; when he says 'come ye blessed,' the same evidence vindicates their righteousness.

In other words, when God says to a certain class of people, depart from me ye wicked, all he will need to do to demonstrate that that assessment of their character as wicked is a valid assessment is to be respect. is to bring forward their speech patterns. Now that's pretty serious business. And when he says, Come, ye blessed of my Father, all he needs to do to vindicate before the entire moral universe that they are indeed righteous, not forgiven on the basis of their speech, forgiven on the grounds of the righteousness of Christ, yes, but that their character has indeed been made righteous, ...

5:46 - 6:50 Read in full sermon

The point: If you go to prayer meeting, attend church, and have all the external marks of religion but do not bridle your tongue, the Bible calls your religion vain -- take this as a sober self-examination.

Martin compares setting the study on a sound biblical foundation to reinforced concrete pillars holding up main structural beams -- the doctrine of verbal communication needs the same weight-bearing support.

So this is a vital, vital subject. And in order to set this study on a very sound, reinforced, concrete, biblical base, like those pillars out there that are going to hold up the main structural beams will be reinforced concrete, I want us to turn to the book of Genesis and to consider, first of all, God himself as the perfect model of a verbal communicator. God himself, as the perfect model of a verbal communicator. Genesis chapter 1.

7:25 - 8:05 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Working through Genesis 1-2, Martin shows that God's pre-fall verbal communication was prominent, true, clear, comprehensive, sincere, and loving -- and that man, made in God's…

Martin observes that Genesis 1:26 records God speaking to himself before man was created -- inner-Trinitarian communion described in the language of verbal communication, not thought or consideration.

God is a God who before man was ever created is recorded as speaking to himself. It doesn't say, God is a God who speaks to himself. thought, or God considered, it says, and God said, let us make man after our image and after our likeness, speaking of inner Trinitarian communion, described to us in the language of verbal communication. Now, I'm not here to explain, I'm just reading and highlighting what the passage says. And no sooner does he create man, male and female, but the first thing he does, verse 28, God bless them. Now, whether that blessing was in terms of a verbal conferral of his ...

8:53 - 9:56 Read in full sermon

The point: Hold God's own six-fold standard -- prominent, true, clear, comprehensive, sincere, loving -- as the measure for your own verbal communication, since you bear his image.

Martin notes that even in an unfallen state, with perfect perception of general revelation ('the heavens declare the glory of God'), that was not adequate for Adam to know the will of God -- God had to speak to him directly.

God. The firmament shows his handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night shows forth knowledge. But it's interesting that Adam, in an unfallen state, with 2015 vision to perceive, God's creation, and with an ear that was perfectly attuned to hear everything that God was saying through what we call general revelation, that was not adequate for Adam to know the will of God. God spoke to him. And the things that characterize God's speech are these. Number one, it was a prominent element of his interaction with Adam. God did not occasionally grunt something out of the side of his m...

13:08 - 13:54 Read in full sermon

The point: Hold God's own six-fold standard -- prominent, true, clear, comprehensive, sincere, loving -- as the measure for your own verbal communication, since you bear his image.

Martin humorously pictures the alternative: God occasionally grunting something out of the side of his mouth and Adam standing there scratching his head wondering what God expects -- to contrast with God's clear, prominent verbal communication.

something out of the side of his mouth. He did not grunt something out of the side of his mouth. And have Adam standing there, scratching his head, saying I wonder what God really expects of me. What in the world did he...excuse me, God, what did you say? There is every indication that when God spoke, he spoke as a prominent element of his interaction with Adam. Second thing is everything he said was true. God didn't deceive Adam about a thing. Everything he said was clear. There was no ambiguity. He said I want you to exercise dominion over I want you to be fruitful and to multiply, subdue th...

13:54 - 14:45 Read in full sermon

The point: Hold God's own six-fold standard -- prominent, true, clear, comprehensive, sincere, loving -- as the measure for your own verbal communication, since you bear his image.

Martin imagines God saying 'Now Adam, subdue the earth. That's your job. You're my creature. Now get on with it. I'm calling the shots. I'm the boss. Get with it.' -- and notes how incongruous and laugh-worthy that sounds, demonstrating that God's communication must have been loving.

Secondly, it can only cause a jarring of all of our innate senses to think that God said, now Adam, subdue the earth. That's your job. You're my creature. Now get on with it. I'm calling the shots. I'm the boss. Get with it. It's incongruous, isn't it? We snicker.

15:13 - 15:34 Read in full sermon

The point: Hold God's own six-fold standard -- prominent, true, clear, comprehensive, sincere, loving -- as the measure for your own verbal communication, since you bear his image.

Martin invites hearers to imagine what the world would have been like if sin had not entered -- all verbal communication prominent, true, clear, comprehensive, sincere, and loving, no one standing off trying to pick up an inarticulate grunt.

Everything spoken would be true, clear, comprehensive, sincere and loving. Can you imagine what a world would be like in which all verbal communication was like God's verbal communication? That's one of the implications of what mankind...

16:27 - 16:45 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin traces the immediate corruption of speech through the fall: God's character as communicator did not change, but man's speech immediately turned to evasion, blame-shifting…

Martin pictures the fall from God's perspective: 'You did that to me? I will talk to you.' -- God did not go off and have a sulk, but came seeking man with verbal communication as the very first instrument of grace.

You did that to me? I will talk to you. God didn't go off and have a sulk. In fact, it's an amazing thing, and it struck me with tremendous freshness in preparing these notes yesterday.

17:55 - 18:07 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin traces the immediate corruption of speech through the fall: God's character as communicator did not change, but man's speech immediately turned to evasion, blame-shifting…

Martin notes that God could have wrenched Adam from behind the bush and glowered at him, but instead 'The Lord God called unto the man' -- the gentleness of God's verbal approach even in judgment.

Adam and Eve are hiding, attempting to hide from the presence of the Lord amidst the trees of the garden. Verse 9. And the Lord God called. It didn't say he went and wrenched him from behind the bush and stood him there and glowered at him.

18:23 - 18:44 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin traces the immediate corruption of speech through the fall: God's character as communicator did not change, but man's speech immediately turned to evasion, blame-shifting…

Martin unpacks Adam's answer: rather than 'Yes, I have disobeyed you, God,' he says 'The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree' -- a mingling of fact with accusation, with subtle innuendo of blaming God himself.

It's a mingling of fact with action. It's a mingling of fact with accusation, with subtle innuendo of blaming God. Instead of saying, Yes, I have disobeyed you, God. The man said, The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree.

19:21 - 19:40 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin traces the immediate corruption of speech through the fall: God's character as communicator did not change, but man's speech immediately turned to evasion, blame-shifting…

Martin notes that Cain's answer to 'Where is Abel?' should have been 'Right where he lay when I saw him in the twitches of death' -- instead he lies outright and adds self-justification, manifesting both qualities of his spiritual father.

I know not. And then he tries to bring forth his self-justification, Am I my brother's keeper? When did you ever tell me, God, that I was to be my little brother's constant babysitter?

24:00 - 24:16 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin surveys Romans 1:18 through 3:20 as the New Testament's most detailed description of human sinfulness, noting that when Paul moves from generic to specific, his first and…

Martin highlights that when Paul moves from generic to specific in Romans 3, his first focal point is throat, tongues, lips, and mouth -- a fourfold concentration on the organs of verbal communication as the crowning expression of total depravity.

Throat, tongues, lips, and mouth. A fourfold concentration upon the organs of verbal communication. Isn't that interesting?

27:39 - 27:51 Read in full sermon

The point: Recognize that silence used as punishment is not an innocent personality trait but a form of cruelty -- one of the most psychologically damaging things one person can inflict on another.

Martin describes the silent treatment as 'one of the most cruel forms of torture between one human being and another' -- a shut mouth psychologically batters people as surely as physical violence.

Man's sin is a creature who's become fouled up in the whole area of verbal communication. Now along with these gross, positive sins of verbal communication, such as deceit, that which is like the venom of a snake, cursing and bitterness, there are the more subtle sins, such as the torture of no communication. Do you know that one of the most cruel forms of torture between one human being and another is a shot mouth?

29:18 - 30:00 Read in full sermon

The point: Recognize that silence used as punishment is not an innocent personality trait but a form of cruelty -- one of the most psychologically damaging things one person can inflict on another.

Martin shares pastoral experience of counseling people who were as battered psychologically and emotionally as a typical battered wife with bruises -- not from blows but from the 'tyranny of being a clam.'

I have had to try to patch up people who were as battered psychologically and emotionally as the typical battered wife who has bruises on her face and on her back from the crime of murder. The cruel profusions of the angry spirit of the husband. The tyranny of being a clown. That's a form of cruelty when you just shut your mouth and say it.

30:03 - 30:38 Read in full sermon

The point: Stop excusing sinful silence with 'I can't' -- confess it as 'I won't' and repent of the willful refusal to communicate with those who need to know what is going on inside you.

Martin addresses those who retreat into silence: 'Go into your cursed clam shell and torture your wife, torture your husband, torture your children' -- God has made communicating beings and silence is a form of punishment.

Go into your cursed clam shell and torture your wife, torture your husband, torture your children, torture your overseers, torture anybody. Then God has made a communicating beam through your cursed wicked silence. You torture. You torture.

31:03 - 31:30 Read in full sermon

The point: Stop excusing sinful silence with 'I can't' -- confess it as 'I won't' and repent of the willful refusal to communicate with those who need to know what is going on inside you.

Martin challenges the 'I can't speak' claim: go to an eye, ear, nose and throat man and get a slip saying your physical mechanism is broken -- 'What you mean is I won't. I don't want to, and I won't!'

You go to an eye, ear, nose and throat man, an ENT man, and have him give you a slip, and say, you have something wrong with the physical mechanism of your tongue and your lines and your lips and then I'll believe you can't. What you mean is I won't. I don't want to, and I won't! Because you see, giving due allowance for the whole world, Because you see, giving due allowance for the whole world, full spectrum of diversity of personality, giving due allowance for the full spectrum of the diversity of temperaments often flowing along genetic lines, and I'm not insensitive to those things. Some p...

31:41 - 33:06 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin reads James 3:1-12 in full -- the tongue as fire, rudder, and restless evil -- and presses the inconsistency of blessing God and cursing image-bearers with the same mouth…

James' analogy from James 3: if you put a bridle in a horse's mouth you turn about its whole body -- control the tongue and you control the whole person.

For in many things we all stumble. Any man stumbles not in word, the same is a perfect man able to bridle the whole body also. Now if we put the horse's bridles into their mouths that they may obey us, we turn about their whole body also. Control a horse's mouth, you've got all twelve or fourteen hundred horses in your house.

38:52 - 39:04 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin reads James 3:1-12 in full -- the tongue as fire, rudder, and restless evil -- and presses the inconsistency of blessing God and cursing image-bearers with the same mouth…

From James 3: the ship's rudder controls the whole vessel; a small fire sets a great forest ablaze -- the tongue, though small, defiles the whole body and is set on fire by hell.

He pulls on your đầu and against your back you can count the miles you carry, and this is what he says. Now behold the horse ídoipá has the whole of a horse, he who has his hand on the rudder of the ship controls the ship. He is showing the analogy. small a fire, and the tongue is a fire. The world of iniquity among our members is the tongue, which defiles the whole body and sets on fire the wheel of nature, and is set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and birds and creeping things and things in the sea is tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but the tongue can no man tame. It is a rest...

39:16 - 40:20 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin reads James 3:1-12 in full -- the tongue as fire, rudder, and restless evil -- and presses the inconsistency of blessing God and cursing image-bearers with the same mouth…

James' point that abusing a fellow creature is slapping at God in whose image he is made -- 'You see how the image-bearing theme comes in the most unlikely places?'

And notice, when we do, what are we doing? We're slapping at God's image bearers who are made after the likeness of God. You see how the image-bearing theme comes in the most unlikely places? When you speak abusively of a fellow creature, he's an image-bearer of God. You may be slapping at God in whose image he has been made. Out of the same mouth cometh forth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Does the fountain send forth from the same opening sweet water and bitter? Can a fig tree, my brethren, yield olives or vine figs? Neither can a tree. Can a tree yield o...

40:36 - 41:51 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin samples Proverbs 12, 15, and 17 at random, finding that roughly one-quarter to one-third of verses in each chapter address the tongue, building cumulative weight for the…

Martin describes picking three chapters from Proverbs 10 onward at random and circling every verse about the tongue, discovering that roughly one-quarter to one-third of each chapter addresses speech -- an empirical demonstration of the thesis.

So what I did in my preparation yesterday, I said, I'm going to do something at random. I'm convinced that if the thesis I'm setting forth is an accurate one, that one place you'll find that underscore will be the book of Proverbs. So at random, I picked three chapters from 10 onward, and I read them through, and I circled every verse that spoke about the tongue. And you know what I discovered?

42:50 - 43:15 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin samples Proverbs 12, 15, and 17 at random, finding that roughly one-quarter to one-third of verses in each chapter address the tongue, building cumulative weight for the…

Proverbs 12:18 -- speech that rasps like a sword, constantly pricking. Martin applies it: someone who, if a thing can be said graciously or harshly, will always choose the latter.

Verse 17, he that utters truth shows forth righteousness, but a false witness deceit. Verse 18, there is that speaks rashly like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise is held. Ever been around someone whose speech is like a sword, constantly pricking, pricking, pricking, pricking? If a thing can be said graciously and gently.

43:54 - 44:20 Read in full sermon

The point: Parents must understand that demeaning speech -- 'you dummy, you stupid' -- inflicts invisible but real wounds on children's spirits and can drive them away from the Christian faith.

Martin says he has never counseled someone beaten with physical blows from a parent, but spends hours patching up broken spirits of children whose fathers said 'you dummy, you can't do this, you stupid' -- demeaning speech enough to make angels weep and drive children from the faith.

I have never yet had to deal with someone in my own pastoral counseling who came into my study with bruises and welts all over his body from a parent who had, in uncontrollable fits of rage, taken a prune and beat on a child. But I tell you, I spend hours trying to patch up the bruised and broken spirit of young people whose father's with them. But their demeaning speech, you dummy, you can't do this, you stupid, you can't do that, is enough to make angels weep. No wonder those kids want nothing to do with the Christian faith when they see that same father sitting in a church like Trinity Chur...

45:51 - 47:03 Read in full sermon

The point: Measure the reality of your relationship to Christ by whether it regulates your tongue -- where there is no regulation, God's word says the profession of religion is empty.

Martin constructs a vivid courtroom scene: the Lord Jesus called as defense attorney, gathering witnesses to testify that this person's eyes were made salty with tears of repentance over caustic words, that they confessed sins of speech a dozen times in one week, that their lips now speak truth and uprightness.

Now let me ask you. Would you like to go to judgment in the next half hour, and have the Lord Jesus vindicate before angels and all intelligent creatures the true state of your character simply on the basis of how you used your tongue last week? Would you like the Lord Jesus, how much fuel did he have, how much material have you given the Lord Jesus to say to all intelligent creatures, this is indeed one who is the object of my transforming grace, one over whom I've cast the canopy of my perfect righteousness, in whom I have done my work of the new creation, evidence please, judge of the unive...

49:50 - 51:08 Read in full sermon

The point: Follow Christ's example of patient, repetitive communication with slow-to-understand family members -- the answer is not exasperation but the patience and gentleness of Christ.

Martin holds up Jesus as the perfect model for parents: he kept telling the disciples over and over 'I've got to go to Jerusalem, I'm going to have to die' -- their inability to grasp it did not provoke him to say 'you dummy, how many times?' but to keep telling them patiently.

Then as you read through the Gospels, what a beautiful thing it is to behold the Lord Jesus as our perfect model, how he spoke comfortingly, pointedly where necessary, patiently explaining to these thick-headed disciples. They were a bunch of duds when it came to grasping certain things. And there are times when it grieved them and they said, oh, faithless and unbelieving generation. But how patiently. He kept telling them over and over again, I've got to go to Jerusalem.

52:44 - 53:17 Read in full sermon

The point: Follow Christ's example of patient, repetitive communication with slow-to-understand family members -- the answer is not exasperation but the patience and gentleness of Christ.

Martin describes the reward of patient parental communication: one day you hear your child telling someone else what you kept telling them, and you say 'Thank you, Lord. Got in there somehow.'

I'm going to have to die. You see, he's the great model for us as parents. You say, how many times do I have to tell my kids this? Do you want to batter them? Just say, you dummy, how many times? No, no, don't say you dummy. You pray for the patience and the gentleness and the meekness of Christ to keep telling them, keep telling them, keep telling them. And lo and behold, one day, you know what will happen? They'll turn around and laugh. You'll hear them telling you. Someone else. And you say, thank you, Lord. Got in there somehow. Got in there somehow.

53:17 - 53:51 Read in full sermon

The point: Fathers, your speech patterns toward your wife will likely be reproduced by your sons in their marriages -- this gives your daily verbal communication a generational weight.

Martin addresses fathers directly: 'Your sons will probably end up treating their wives just like you treat yours.' If you treat her like half a human being, don't be surprised when your teenage son talks to you the same way and says 'Dad, I learned to do that from you.'

Are your kids going to be like you and your speech patterns? You men, listen to me. Your sons will probably end up treating their wives just like you treat yours. You treat her as a creature of honor who didn't be mocked. You treat her like she's half a human being and your speech patterns? Don't be surprised. When your boy gets to be a teenager, he starts talking to you. You're not going to have much clout to say you're going to spank him. He'll turn right around and say, Dad, I learned to do that from you. May God write upon our hearts this very weighty concern of our verbal communication, n...

53:53 - 54:56 Read in full sermon