Old Path of Gospel Holiness, Part 2

In this part of the sermon: He introduces the focus of the current hour: the glorious provisions God has made for gospel holiness, contrasting God's demands with His enabling provisions.

Martin uses the analogy of Pharaoh demanding bricks without providing straw to illustrate that God's command to be holy is accompanied by His gracious provisions, unlike Pharaoh's impossible demands.

Now we come in this hour to take up what I am calling the glorious or gracious provisions for gospel holiness. At the end of the message in the previous hour, I said, God was not lying. Like Pharaoh's taskmasters, he demanded that they make bricks. But he did not give them the straw with which to make them.

2:08 - 2:33 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not forget that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit and do not implicate it in sin.

He compares the Holy Spirit's indwelling presence in believers to God's dwelling with Israel in the wilderness by the pillar of cloud and fire, emphasizing the reality and special nature of God's presence.

And not the least of them is the fact that in the application of redemptive grace, one of the persons of the Godhead actually takes up special and real residence in our humanity. It's an amazing thing that the God who dwelt with His people in the wilderness, by the pillar of cloud by day and the fire by night, that that God actually has taken up residence in my body, in my personality, in my humanity. That's not a metaphor. It's not a figure of speech.

3:54 - 4:38 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not forget that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit and do not implicate it in sin.

The impact of knowing the Spirit dwells in us, especially when contemplating sin, is likened to a bucket of cold water on a fevered brow, intended to shock and sober the listener.

And that would be like a bucket of cold water on a fevered brow in a summer summer. It's a sultry day in southern Florida to be told the Spirit of God dwells in me, in my body, and I'm joining my body to a prostitute. What a horrific thought. Paul says, don't you know, don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?

5:45 - 6:13 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin shares a personal story about a near-accident with a stepladder to illustrate how the Spirit refines his inner life, changing his reaction from self-recrimination to godly…

Martin recounts a foolish childhood incident where he stood on a swivel chair to reach something, fell, and reacted with self-recrimination, contrasting it with his later, Spirit-influenced response to similar mistakes.

I do not know how else to describe it, but the texture of our inner life. So that change is actually going on within us. As an older Christian, there are times this absolutely amazes me and fills me with wonder and with thanksgiving. When I was a younger man, when I would do something stupid, I mean stupid, stupid, you know, like you're putting something up on the wall and you don't want to go get the stepladder, so you take a swivel chair and think you can get away with it and you stand on it and you spin and you end up on your butt.

10:28 - 11:01 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin shares a personal story about a near-accident with a stepladder to illustrate how the Spirit refines his inner life, changing his reaction from self-recrimination to godly…

He shares a more recent story about nearly falling eight feet from a stepladder while storing a tire, illustrating how the Spirit now refines his reactions to his own foolishness, leading to godly sorrow and confession.

They had a tire replacement and the tire wasn't worth throwing away. It still had enough tread that if the spare went on, it was ready. The rest would be good to keep it. So I wanted to store it up in like an attic place through a little opening in our garage.

11:46 - 12:00 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin shares a personal story about a near-accident with a stepladder to illustrate how the Spirit refines his inner life, changing his reaction from self-recrimination to godly…

Martin quotes John Owen's description of the Holy Spirit exerting a 'physical energy upon the soul' to convey the active, powerful nature of the Spirit's work in sanctification.

God's done something to refine my spirit. That's what I'm talking about. The work of the Holy Spirit actually. Owen used the term exerts a physical energy upon the soul.

12:47 - 13:00 Read in full sermon

The point: Present God's promises as 'blank checks' signed by Christ to the bank of heaven, filling them in with your name.

He uses Spurgeon's devotional book title as an analogy, portraying God's promises as blank checks signed by Christ, ready for believers to fill in their names and present to heaven.

Presented in the bank of heaven. You know Spurgeon's little devotional book, Checkbook of Faith? That's the whole analogy. God's given us in every promise a blank check, signed in blood by the Son of God.

28:04 - 28:19 Read in full sermon

The point: When tempted, reckon yourself dead to sin and alive to God, believing God's promise that sin shall not have dominion over you.

Martin shares a personal testimony of daily appropriating Romans 6:14 during a period of intense temptation in his widowhood, demonstrating how God's promises break the power of sin.

Morning after morning, I would go up to my study and open my Bible. Just me and the Lord. Nobody else in the, in the large house in which I lived. I would open up Romans 6 and I'd read verses 1 to 14.

29:30 - 29:44 Read in full sermon

The point: Take hold of the promise 'My grace is sufficient for thee' when facing weakness or impediments.

God's explanation to Paul about allowing weakness is framed as God preferring a weak man who trusts Him over a proud man who thinks he doesn't need Him.

If you became puffed up and proud. So because of the abundant revelations I've given to you, which the devil could use to make you think you're somebody special, I'm going to allow this messenger of Satan, whatever it is that makes you feel so weak and so inadequate that you feel you can't do my will, I'm going to allow that to remain to keep you consciously, desperately dependent upon me because I can't do my will. I can't use a weak man who trusts me, but I can't use a proud man who thinks he doesn't need me.

31:40 - 32:17 Read in full sermon

The point: Take hold of the promise 'My grace is sufficient for thee' when facing weakness or impediments.

The concept of God's strength being perfected in weakness is illustrated by the idea of being 'tented' in God's power rather than being naked in one's own weakness.

Most gladly, therefore, will I glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may drape itself like a tent around me. That's the force of the original. He said, I'd rather be intended in the power of God than naked in the weakness of Paul. So if God, if God wants to make me consciously weak, then I may be strong.

32:53 - 33:18 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The fourth provision is the church, emphasizing that while believers are individuals, God incorporates them into the body of Christ for growth, a truth he realized after years of…

Martin recounts his personal journey from an individualistic understanding of Christianity to realizing the profound importance of the church, spurred by studying the epistles as letters to churches.

Individuals will go to the judgment as individuals, but the Bible teaches with equal clarity that sinners saved as individuals are not to remain as little lone ranger individual Christians. Incorporated into Christ, they are to be incorporated into the body and the church of Christ, and I shall never forget the time when, coming out of a background where I had no knowledge, where I had no doctrine of the church and the Salvation Army, I didn't get it in the two interdenominational schools I attended, I didn't get it in five years of bopping around

37:50 - 38:31 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not have a 'common law' relationship with Christ's church; commit to its leadership and oversight.

He uses the analogy of a common law marriage to describe a non-committal relationship with the church, highlighting the lack of obligation and the ease of walking away, which is contrary to God's design.

You attend regularly, you fulfill the duties and responsibilities, but there's no commitment. It's like a common law marriage. A man and this woman, they live together five, ten, fifteen years, produce three kids. They say, what's a piece of paper?

45:46 - 46:01 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not have a 'common law' relationship with Christ's church; commit to its leadership and oversight.

The church is described as the theater where God displays His manifold wisdom to principalities and powers, showcasing His work in saving and uniting His people.

That does not in any way detract from the glory of Christ because it's in the church, Paul says in Ephesians 3. Ephesians 3, God makes known through the church His manifold wisdom. The church is the theater in which God is showing the principalities and powers, good angels and demons and devils, His mysterious wisdom in the salvation of His people as He brings them from all kinds of backgrounds and subdues their rebel wills and opens their blinded eyes and shows them the glory of God in the face of Christ and they're bound together in a bond of spirit-wrought love.

46:59 - 47:42 Read in full sermon