Untitled Sermon (19)

Call to Worship

Reading of Psalm

Prayer

Kids Play day this Tuesday. Anyone want to make snacks?

Tonights Church meeting is at 6:30 with everyone meeting here.

Deacons meeting tonight after Church.

Introduction

Well as you very well know, this is the first Lord’s Day of October and this is a day that I have been anticipating now for several months.

We will be setting to the side our study of Paul’s letter to the Galatians to study the five core articles of the Reformation.

5 Core doctrinal beliefs that the early reformers declared that we must believe in order to be within the realm of Biblical Orthodoxy.

Now for many of you this statement might not make much sense.

Why are these 5 elements what the great reformers said was needed in order to accept true Biblical Christianity?

Well I think that as we walk through this month, the teachings that we will encounter should make this very clear to us as time progresses.

So as we begin today, I’d like to open up our study of the first and most influential of the solas with a reading that comes from .

2 Peter 1:16–21 ESV

For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Let us read God’s holy Word and go to Him in prayer.

Read and Pray.

On January 4th 2017, David Haskell who is a Professor of religion and culture at the university of Wilfred Laurier wrote an article for the Washington Post.

The headline for this article was as follows: “Liberal churches are dying. But conservative churches are thriving.”

The headline on this article is surely enough to grab the attention of anyone who comes across it.

For the liberal who sees this they would be angered that something like this even made it into the paper.

And for the conservative they would be wondering what the real reasoning behind this article would be.

Haskell begins his article by stating that according to research, mainline protestant Churches are shrinking by around 1 million people every year.

Yet Haskell isn’t noticing anything new.

There was a time 100 years ago when every Church across this great land would be filled to the brim with people who fellowship at the local body.

From the high end banker to the town drunk who stumbled into the back doors of the Church hungover, the local Churches thrived and flourished in our American culture.

But as time progressed, something happened that transformed the thinking and the culture.

Something happened that led those people to search for answers outside of the local Church.

And when they looked for those answers outside of the local Church, they found answers that lined up with what they wanted to hear.

The hearts of those very same people who 20-30 years before had filled the local churches, now looked unto something else as their authority.

The thoughts in their minds about where the ultimate source of moral authority came from began to drift away from the Bible.

Instead of the Word of God providing answers to these people, they now had the world around them to give them the answers.

The problem is that the world around them operated and functioned on the basis of individual thought.

What was right for you was right for you and what was right for me was right for me.

Never mind the fact that our two views may contradict each other.

Let each of them do what is right in their own minds.

I think theres some thoughts on that in Scripture...

With this same idea of individual autonomy where each person now becomes their own little god if you will, came alongside it people in the Church who believed the same thing.

Men such as John Shelby Spong who is a Bishop in the Episcopal Church would write books such as “Why Christianity Must Die or Change.”

And this influence became prominent over the local Church’s.

In a time where conservative scholars were battling to win the souls of the unbelievers with the truth of the Gospel.

Men like Spong came along offering up a different Jesus.

A Jesus who still somewhat looks like the Jesus from the New Testament.

A Jesus who still might have died upon the Cross of Calvary.

Yet this new Jesus, He’s alright with your sin.

In fact, what the “Old” Christians believed to be sin, we won’t even call sin anymore.

Instead we will call it something along the lines of misunderstood lifestyles.

We’ll take what God has clearly forbade in the text of Holy Scripture and we will now teach the truth.

The truth that those horrible and wretched conservatives knew this whole time.

But in order to push you down and oppress you, they decided to stick with “ancient and outdated” views.

Yet these men and women, people such as Spong and countless many others who teach a different view of Christianity, these are the people that would swear that they are right.

This thought that said basically this:

That in order to minister to the hearts of those living in the 21st century, we must transform the text of Scripture so that it conforms to the thinking of the modern world.

And for a long time, this thought and these people had their hands in every arena you could imagine.

It wasn’t just the rise of individual liberal theologians and pastors that brought on this issue.

It was also the indoctrination of those who were being educated in the Seminaries as well.

Ralph Elliot who was a professor in 1961 at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, the school that I attend:

Published a work criticizing the creation account in Genesis and declared that chapters 1-11 of Genesis were merely mythical.

But as Dr. Jason Allen pointed out in a reflection article concerning this event, Elliot’s work was not the largest part or even the pinnacle of the incident, but instead was merely the last straw so to speak.

*Ralph Elliot*

Elliot’s work was the final piece of kindling that made the pile ready for the fire.

Liberal theology for countless many years had run rampant throughout the Southern Baptist Seminaries.

Elliot’s work merely revealed it to those in the pews of the local Churches.

Something drastic had happened in many of the local Churches.

Something that was unprecedented and outright rebellious against God.

Yet I don’t have to tell very many of you about this.

Many of you lived through this.

I mean that was the entire reason that this Church was started.

To get away from the “system” Church and get back to the roots of Orthodox Christianity.

And that’s not a bad thing at all.

This period of time that we’ve been talking about this morning was horrendous for the local Church.

It was bad for the Church then and it’s bad for the Church now!

But can I tell you something, the effects and the impacts of liberal theology is coming to light in profound ways in our modern culture.

A Church in California who once stood on sound principles of the faith is now there as an empty building.

What was once a thriving body of believers reaching over 2500 in attendance and membership has now vanished.

What caused the closure one might ask?

At the end of the day it’s all very simple, they removed themselves from being under the authority of the Scriptures.

The mega-churches who closed down did so because somewhere along the line, they abandoned the only source that they had for truth.

The dying liberal Churches are seeing the very same issue.

They are rejecting the authority of the Scriptures, and because of this they are losing ground and dying off every day.

So what does this have to do with the Protestant Reformation and our text for the day?

I would argue that they are directly connected to one another.

In the periods leading up to the Reformation, the Church was dying in much the same way.

The people of God were being starved of the truth.

They were being fed a lie and told that it was the truth.

They could hear

They were being told that they must work hard to make themselves right before God.

In the period of the reformation the Church was starving for truth at the hands of those who were entrusted to teach.

In our generation today, you have the same thing.

A body of men sent off to the local Seminary to be equipped and yet they come back rejecting the authority of the Word.

Rejecting the Word and pouring those same thoughts and ideas into the hearts and the minds of their congregations.

But in the period of the reformation, men were bold enough to stand firm and stand up against the tyrannies that would enslave the people.

See we credit 1517 and Luther’s 95 Thesis as being the starting point of the reformation.

And while there’s some truth to that, the reformation actually begun a few years later with Ulrich Zwingli.

Zwingli on January 1 1519, set aside his Catholic lectionary and began to read and to teach from the Bible in a verse by verse, book by book format.

This idea that Zwingli as the Pastor of the church had the authority to set aside the catholic lectionary that was assigned to him and just teach the Bible was profound.

You see, Zwingli, Luther, Calvin and many other reformers had gotten to this place and this mindset that Scripture is enough!

And not only is it enough, it is the sole authority in the Church.

It’s the sole authority in the lives of Christ’ followers.

And it is not bound to interpretation by some higher authority such as a pope.

All the authority that we need in Biblical interpretation and understanding has already been laid.

And that foundation was on the testimony of the Apostles.

That’s actually what we find here in this text today.

Peter is addressing a people who no doubt had been entangled with the many different controversies of the early Church.

In fact the tone of the letter here would lead almost any reader to suspect that something was taking place that would cause Peter to reaffirm what was seen.

In just a quick overview reading of the text, it very quickly reveals itself to be one that reaffirms an event that the Gospels tell us about.

In we find Christ upon the mountain.

This event was a milestone in affirming that this Jesus who had showed up on the scene of the first century Jews truly was the Messiah promised of old.

In verse 5 you hear the voice of the Father calling out and saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him.”

This man who we know as the only unique Son, truly was sent here with a purpose.

And once His redemptive plan was fulfilled, He died upon the cross of calvary and rose from the dead 3 days later.

And after a short period of time He ascended to the Father where He is now awaiting His return to the world.

This very idea comes to us from the entirety of the Bible.

It doesn’t take a PhD in theology to read Scripture and find the foreshadowing of these events.

For us to know that Jesus was pre-eminent with the Father we must only look at .

A mere 26 verses into the history of creation and we see the Trinity in existence.

God the Father, God the Holy Spirit and God the Son.

Yet this is not for us to be confused about the number of Gods for there is only one.

That’s established in the very first verse of Scripture.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

As you move along through the story of the fall, we find this redemptive plan coming to light in:

Genesis 3:15 ESV

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

This idea of redemption enters into the Biblical narrative very early.

And from this moment in Genesis all the way through to New Covenant, we find this echo of eden.

This idea that something was broken and God is working through all of the chaos and all of the mess to restore this broken system.

Now what was spoken early on in the text of the Old Covenant is not always as clear as what we have in the New.

Yet as time progressed, God revealed this plan to His people little by little.

This whole story line is found moving on into the New Covenant where we find the story of Jesus’ coming.

The four Gospel’s record for us the beautiful life of Christ and the redemptive purposes of God.

They all build up to this culminating point where Jesus is left abandoned by His disciples, hanging upon a tree.

They then go into this beautiful story of sorrow followed by rejoicing as the one whom they followed fulfilled this promise from Eden.

And is now reigning with the Father in heaven.

Peter’s point in this passage is that what was presented by him and the other Apostles was not something made up.

It was not some clever fable that was designed to entice a people into submission.

It wasn’t some doctrine that could be left up to the Church as a whole to decide the outcome of this Jesus.

No instead what Peter proclaimed to the people was this overarching story of redemption that led Jesus to the cross but culminates in the consummation of Christ and His bride.

This entire historical plan of redemption is not found in some dark and distant world where only a few can earn this knowledge.

But is found to be summed up and confirmed in the words of the Apostles.

It is a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in our hearts.

You see, Peter here in this passage is urging the people of God to remain steadfast in the Word of the Lord.

He is not calling them to follow cleverly designed fables or tales.

Instead he is calling them to hold fast to the foundations of the Church that God had set in place.

The foundation which is the teachings of the Apostles concerning the Church and all that we need to know about Christ.

It’s what was established by God for the body and the bride of Christ!

Well I would argue that it’s far from easy to do.

For our edification and our sanctification!

Very often within the realm of those who study deeply this idea of Biblical truth and theology, it is very easy to seek after different authorities.

You see out of all 5 of the solas of the reformation, this doctrine is the most vital!

Take for instance the Pharisees in the time of Christ.

They would spend countless hours never really knowing what a specific text taught but instead

JEsuss spoke with authroiyt

For without this doctrine, the bride of Christ has nowhere to turn.

As tim

They don’t have the ability to know and understand what the Grace of God should look like.

They don’t know what faith should look like.

They don’t know or understand Christ alone.

And they surely wouldn’t understand the glory of God alone either.

Listen, as hard as this is to comprehend for us as fallible people:

We must be grounded in the Word of God.

Without this, we would find ourselves like the liberal Churches of our own generation.

We would begin to affirm those core issues that have divided the liberal and conservative branches of the Church.

And shortly after our rejection of the authority of Scripture, our people would begin to look elsewhere.

They would begin to be starved to death for the Word of God like they were in the days of the reformation.

Luther in his time of trying to understand the beautiful idea of grace alone as taught in Scripture came to one conclusion.

And that conclusion is this, that Scripture alone is not only sufficient for the church, but also that it is all that they need.

That the authority of the Word of God is the most vital doctrine of them all.

For without the authority of the Word we are but as foolish as the pope.

We would defy that which God has set before us as His Word and we would turn to the desires of our own hearts.

We would preach, teach and believe that which was conviction for us as being Biblical.

We would begin to error and lead a people astray.

Yet with the Word of God in our hands, we shall surely succeed in God’s purpose.

“A simple layman armed with Scripture is greater than the mightiest pope without it” as Luther said.

The same fight that Luther, Zwingli and Calvin fought in their day is the same one we fight in our own day.

In the time of the reformation it had to do with how the Bible was interpreted.

They used Papal authority and Church history as a diagram to interpret Scripture.

Sadly this same issue existed in Judaism in the first century.

illustrates this for us.

Jesus had just spent time explaining many teachings to a large group of people and when he had finished teaching them, this was their response.

They were astonished at His teaching because He spoke as one who carried authority.

He didn’t teach them like the scribes did.

He didn’t take what this person said and compare it to what this other person said.

He didn’t act as the scribes who would only appeal to higher authorities in trying to teach the people.

Jesus spoke with an absolute authority.

And knowing this, Luther looked at the way the Word of God was being handled by being passed through miscellaneous authorities for it’s understanding and he said ENOUGH!!!

There is no need to pull together what this pope says about the Gospel and compare it to what this other pope says about the Gospel.

We no longer need to seek after authorities over the Bible for the Bible is the authority on itself.

And it is easy enough to understand that the common boy in the field can know more about it than the pope!

Now let’s pause for just a moment here.

What Luther was not saying is that there is no place for historical interpretation in understanding the Bible.

He was not saying that the Church needs to abandon all aspects of history.

In fact, Luther, Calvin and Zwingli would all agree that Church history can be used in many ways to help us understand Scripture.

They were arguing against Papal Authority in the Church.

They argued against the Pope making a decree and it carrying weight and authority in the Church.

They argued against the idea of allowing anything to be the guide over the local Church besides the Word of God.

The reformers claim is that there was but one source of authority for the Church that was without error.

And that source was and is the same today:

The Word of God.

It’s the only source of authority that is able to bind the conscious of the individual.

It’s the only source of authority that the Elder in the Church can look to in how to shepherd the flock of God.

It’s the only source that makes declarations without error!

Everything else is subject to error and doctrinal impurity.

Scripture is the confession and testimony that shows us all that we need to know in this life.

Scripture is the confession and testimony of who Jesus is.

That why when Jesus asks Peter who Peter says that Jesus is and Peter makes that wonderful proclamation about Christ’ deity.

Jesus tells Peter that it is upon His confession that Christ will build His Church.

It is upon the profession of Jesus Christ as the Lord that the gates of hell will not prevail against.

It is upon this beautiful profession that Church has the ability to see Jesus for who He is.

And all of Holy Scripture gives testimony to this.

This is why Scripture Alone is the sole authority for the Church and the believers life.

Because Scripture is the only source of authority against all others that will guide Christ’ people.

In our generation, much like it was in Luther’s time.

We have a fight and a struggle on our hands that threatens to take away the authority of the Church.

Luther and the other reformers had Papal authority against him.

We have the unbelieving world and Liberal Churches against us.

We have been called by God to stand firm upon the testimony of who Jesus Christ is through the Word of God.

How are we to proclaim that message if we go astray from the only authority of the Church?

How are we to stand firm in the face of opposition and persecution if we can’t even define what it is that we stand for?

At the end of day all of the doctrines which we will be studying go back to this one core doctrine.

Scripture Alone!

Sola Scriptura.

It is the only source of authority for the Church and the only source for proclaiming the truth.

It is the staple for the Church.

It is the staple for society.

It is the only source that we can seek after that will not lead us into error.

But we have to read it.

During the reformation period the people couldn’t read it.

They were starved for Biblical truth to be proclaimed.

In our day and age, we’re starved for it as well.

But for us today, the reason we’re starved for Biblical truth is because we’ve set aside the Word of God for other concerns.

It’s time that we in the 2017 begin our own period of reformation.

Where we get back to the supremacy and the authority of the Word of God in our lives and in our Churches.

We refuse to speak where Scripture hasn’t spoken but when it has spoken, we stand firm upon what it says.

If we expect to win back our Churches, we have to be the reformers of our day.

We need to stand in the footsteps of theological giants and declare from the highest of points that this is the Word of God.

That the message that this Word brings to a lost and dying world brings them hope through the Gospel.

That God has established a pattern for how it is that we are to live our lives.

When the culture asks us what our view on marriage is we don’t need to cower down.

We have the answer from the Word of God.

When the culture beats us into a corner because of our view on human sexuality, we stand firm.

If we want to stand in the footsteps of theological giants like Calvin, Knox, Luther, Zwingli, Gill and Spurgeon:

We as a people have to be willing to take the very same stand that they took.

Our generation and our Churches are in need of a reformation.

Let us be the ones to stand like Luther before the diet of worms.

Condemned to death for standing upon the truth of Scripture.

Let us be the ones to stand condemned by the world to stand right with God.