Now we're going to read this morning from the epistle of 1 Peter and chapter 4. This is the third and last week we're considering what is a Christian. On Sunday mornings, and it's in the light of what we call, or what has been called, the Manhattan Declaration. paper that was signed by all sorts of people who say they are Christians when many of them are not Christians. if you would like to see a copy of the Manhattan Declaration that I've been mentioning so often these past three weeks well you look at the coffee table in the room at the back and there's a short copy which is one page long and there's also the full copy which is nine pages long so you can look and read it if you so desire to see what I've been saying about. But let's read from 1st Peter chapter 4 verse 11 onwards. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. If any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth, that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you. But rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings, that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye. For the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you. On their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or as a thief or as an evildoer or as a busybody in other men's matters. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian Let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God on his behalf. For the time has come that judgment must begin at the house of God. And if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear. Wherefore, let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well-doing as unto a faithful Creator. Amen. And God will bless the reading of his inspired word. This is the concluding sermon on the Manhattan Declaration or what is a Christian. And I will be repeating and emphasizing and in many ways summing up what I've said in the previous weeks with a few more things added for emphasis. The Manhattan Declaration says we are Christians about people who are not Christian. The statement in saying we are Christians is a lie. It is bearing false witness to the world. In other words, it is in blatant breach of the ninth commandment. Always in the 1950s and the 1960s, Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones said in relation to the ecumenical movement and so on, that they, in striving for an outward show of Christian or church unity, had forgotten something very important. And that the two most important questions In the area of Christian or Church unity that you must ask these two questions is what the doctor said. What is a Christian and what is the Church? They are the two most important questions. Before you start talking about Christian unity, what is a Christian and what is the Church? And the ecumenical movement answers none of those questions biblically at all. So these ecumenical ventures, like the Manhattan Declaration, have an outward show of unity. But it is neither Christian unity, nor is it church unity. Because the people signing it are not Christians. And the churches they talk about are not churches. It is a unity of Christians with unbelievers. That's what it is. It's a bunch of religious fuddy-duddies coming together for a back-slapping session. That's what it is. That's all it is. And it consists of mixed up people who don't know what they believe and they are standing hugging each other and trying to show an outward unity whilst at the same time hoping that the world's going to look on and be amazed and say, wow, let's become religious like them. It's wishful thinking. What I want to emphasize this morning is three or perhaps four things we'll see, but the first thing is this. The Manhattan Declaration is a misuse of the word Christian. The Manhattan Declaration is a statement of lives. Their profession of Christian is not true. A Christian, the word Christian is not the word to describe many who have signed the agreement. Christian is defined by the word of God. A Christian is a follower of Jesus who believes and obeys the gospel. That's what the Bible says. There is no other meaning of the word Christian. And anyone who tries to give it any other meaning than that, a follower of Jesus who believes and obeys the gospel, anyone who tries to give it any other meaning than the true meaning is just corrupting the word. The word has come to be used wrongly, the word Christian, in modern society. It is not a matter that words change their meaning with time. That is the case sometimes with some words. We know that. But a Christian is exactly as God describes a Christian 2,000 years ago. A Christian is precisely the same today. Nothing has changed. And the sad bit is that professed evangelicals have led to the pollution of the word Christian. It has come to be used far too loosely. People talk about liberal Christians. There's no such thing. Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox Christians. There's no such thing. Anglo-Catholic Christians. Tom, Dick and Harry. In a general way, the word Christian has come to be used. People have used the word to describe those who are not Christians. And this use of the word has come to be accepted in our society until it is now blatantly misleading. It is wrong and sinful to use the word Christian in the wrong way. Men and women, there is no general sense of the word Christian that covers unbelievers. It cannot be stretched that far. God's Word defines Christians and describes Christians. And anything less than God's Word and His definition of Christian is error and confusion. The word Christian should never be used outside the Bible's parameters. How many times does the word Christian in the Bible describe a liberal? Never. How many times does the word Christian in the Bible describe a person who doesn't believe in miracles? Never. How many times does the word Christian, or a Christian in the Bible, describe someone who doesn't believe in Christ's resurrection? Never. Well then, how can the Archbishop of Canterbury be counted as a Christian? He's not, under any sense of the meaning of the word. How many times does the word Christian in the Bible describe a person who is an idolater? Never. Not even once. Well, who or what gives moderns the right to start using the word to describe anything other than biblical Christians? Nothing gives moderns the right to use the word any differently and if they do so it is pollution, deception and corruption of the truth. That's what it is. What has been going on in the last few hundred years in Christendom is foul and it's deceiving. The word Christian means what God means by it and nothing more. If we keep to the Bible's definition of words, Christian, church, we won't fall for what goes under the guise of Christian unity or church unity today. Keep to the biblical definition. I implore you. So let me come to the second thing I want to restate. A Christian is someone who believes the gospel. The gospel, what's the gospel? We are sinners. We are convicted of our sin. We feel guilty in other words. We feel so guilty and are so guilty that we repent of our sin, we turn from it to Christ and we ask and confess and ask Him to save us. And then we put our trust in Him, faith, and we have forgiveness. And that leads, as Jesus says, to eternal life. That's the gospel. That's the gospel. And from Acts 11, and from Acts 26, 28, and from 1 Peter 4, 16, a Christian is someone who has had the gospel preached to them, who has repented of their sin, and who is trusting only in Jesus to save them, and no one and nothing else. A Christian is someone who obeys the gospel of Christ. Now, many of the signatories on the Manhattan Declaration are not Christians. And that is why it is wrong for any evangelical to sign that paper. Because in signing it, they are saying these people are Christians, when they're not. And that's a lie. Now, there are two great men, there are more than two, The main one I am not actually quoting today is Pastor Ralph Ovidal. He put the articles in the English Churchman concerning this and drew my attention to it. But there's two other men here as well who have not signed the Declaration and they tell us why they didn't sign it. These two men are firstly John MacArthur and R.C. Sproul. Here's what John MacArthur says. The implicit assumption From the start of the document until its final paragraph is that Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant evangelicals and others all share a common faith and a common commitment to the gospel. The document repeatedly employs expressions like we and our fellow believers As Christians, we claim the heritage of Christians and so on, and that seriously muddles the lines of demarcation between authentic biblical Christianity and various apostate traditions. The Declaration therefore constitutes a formal avowal of brotherhood between evangelical signatories and purveyors of different gospels. Thus, for the sake of issuing a manifesto decrying certain moral and political issues, the Declaration obscures both the importance of the gospel and the very substance of the gospel message." End of quote. That's John MacArthur. And then R.C. Sproul says this, While I would march with the Bishop of Rome or an Orthodox prelate to resist the slaughter of innocents in the womb, I could never ground that co-belligerency on the assumption that we share a common faith and a unified understanding of the gospel. How could I sign something that confuses the gospel and obscures the very definition of who is a Christian and who is not a Christian. End of quote. He couldn't sign it because he says it obscures what a Christian is. And that is the issue. A blurred definition of Christian. And for anyone listening, I know there's no one in this room more than anyone listening who is wooly headed in their thinking, like a person that only a few weeks ago spoke to one of my friends who's a minister. A person spoke to him and said, but surely we really don't know what a Christian is. He was trying to define a Christian from the Bible. Surely we don't know what a Christian is, they say. This is someone who says they're a Christian in a church. Surely we don't know what a Christian is. For anyone who thinks like that person, I have one word to say to them, and it's a Greek word. And the word is moros. It's where we get the English word moron from. Surely we don't know what a Christian is. The Greek word means knucklehead. I'm serious, that's a direct translation. Surely we don't know what a Christian is. Do you really think that God inspired 66 books of the Bible and didn't make himself clear, so you could say, but we don't know what a Christian is. What do you think God's talking about in 66 books? The whole theme of the Bible is defining between a Christian and what's not. How can anyone who professes the name of Christ say, we don't know what a Christian is? Moros is too weak a term. God makes himself clear when he speaks. He defines Christianity and what a Christian is again and again and again. We don't know what a Christian is. It's funny how Jesus says, by their fruits you shall know them. We don't know what a Christian is. Oh, it's funny how it says in 1 John 5 in verse 12, He that hath the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son of God hath not life. Is it not plain? What's fuzzy about that? These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that you have eternal life." We don't know what a Christian is. Someone hasn't been reading their Bible. God speaks to be understood, we can know, we do know what a Christian is. Because in the words of the little children's course, the Bible tells us so. It's so simple and so basic that even the smallest child can understand what a Christian is. What's the sign of a Christian? someone who believes the gospel of Jesus Christ. The third thing I want to say, and emphasize it more this week, is this. The Roman Catholic Church is not Christian. And I told you last week, I quoted from their documents of doctrine concerning what they say about justification by faith. If you believe you're saved by faith in Jesus Christ alone, you are anathema, you're cursed, they say, says the Roman Catholic Church. Let me give you three more Roman Catholic doctrines. I've changed the order that I have them written here for emphasis. What I'm saying is this, the Roman Catholic Church is not Christian. They teach on purgatory. Here is what they teach on purgatory. According to Roman Catholic teaching, a person can commit two kinds of sin against God. moral and venial. Sorry, not moral, mortal. Mortal sin and venial sin. By mortal sin is meant a grave offense against the law of God or the church. It is called mortal because it kills the soul by depriving it entirely of sanctifying grace. Venial sin is a small and pardonable offence against the law of God and the laws of the church. Two kinds of punishment are due to mortal sin, eternal punishment in hell forever and temporal or temporary punishment in purgatory. Eternal punishment is cancelled by the sacraments of baptism and penance Temporal punishment is not cancelled by these sacraments, but by works of penance, by almsgiving, by paying the priest to say Mass, by indulgences which reduce the temporal punishment for mortal sins that would have to be suffered in purgatory. The doctrine of purgatory rests on the assumption that while God forgives sin, his justice nevertheless demands that the sinner must suffer the full punishment due to him for his sin before he will be allowed to enter heaven. What does it mean then to be clothed in the righteousness of Christ by faith? Is that not enough? How can God punish sin that was punished on Christ twice? Don't tell me that the Roman Catholic Church is Christian. It's not Christian. It's not. What about the Roman Catholic Church's teaching on morality? Here's something that might surprise you. Morals. This is the second doctrine I want to draw your attention to under this point. This was written by Liguori, a very renowned Roman Catholic teacher many years ago, who has been said about what he writes that this is the plain summarized teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. Morality. Here's what he says. A servant is allowed to help his master to climb a window to commit fornication. It is not a mortal sin to get drunk unless one loses completely the use of mental faculties for over one hour. So it's not sin unless you're drunk for over an hour. It is lawful to violate penal laws, hunting, fishing, etc. If asked whether prostitutes are permitted, they are permitted, because, as a distinguished priest says, remove prostitutes from the world and all things will be disordered with lust, hence in large cities prostitutes are to be permitted," says the Roman Catholic Church. Notwithstanding, he goes on to say, Now remember, it said of this man, this is the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. He summarizes it in simpler words. Notwithstanding, he says, indeed, though it is not lawful to tell lie or to feign what is not, to pretend what is not, however, he says, it is lawful to dissemble what is to cover the truth with words or other ambiguous and doubtful signs for a just cause when there is not a necessity for confessing it. You know what that says? He says it's not lawful to tell lies but it's okay to bear false witness. That's just what it says. It's okay to break the ninth commandment but it's not okay to tell lies, be specific. That's the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. You can bear false witness if you want to, and mislead people deliberately. The Roman Catholic Church is not Christian. The third piece of doctrine I want to fill in to you directly from their doctrine is on Mary, Mariolatry. This quotation is taken from a book called The Glories of Mary, written by Bishop Alphonse de Ligaurie, one of the greatest devotional writers of the Roman Catholic Church, and the Word of God taken from the Douay version The editor's notice says, everything that is written is a summary of Catholic tradition on this subject that it treats. It is not an individual author. It is the church herself that speaks. So this is the official teaching. Here's what they say about Mary. You listen to this. She is truly a mediatrix of peace between sinners and God. Sinners receive pardon by Mary alone. Mary is our life. Mary, in obtaining grace for sinners by her intercession, thus restores them to life. He that fails and is lost, he fails and is lost, sorry, who has not recourse to Mary. Mary is called the gate of heaven because no one can enter that blessed kingdom without passing through her. The way of salvation is open to none otherwise than through Mary. And since our salvation is in the hands of Mary, he who is protected by Mary will be saved. He who is not will be lost. All power is given unto thee in heaven and earth, so that at the command of Mary all obey even God, and thus God has placed the whole church under the dominion of Mary. Mary is also the advocate of the whole human race, for she can do what she wills with God." End of quote. Now don't you ever tell me The Roman Catholic Church is Christian. That is not Christian at all. The Roman Catholic Church is not Christian. God says drunkenness is a sin. The Roman Catholic Church says only if you're drunk and out of your mind for over an hour God says thou shalt not steal. The Roman Catholic Church says, but it's lawful to steal. If you break fishing laws and hunting laws, it's okay. God says thou shalt not commit adultery. The Roman Catholic Church says prostitutes are permitted. I rest my case. The Roman Catholic Church is not Christian, but it contradicts the word of God in every area. Therefore, I come then to the fourth point, and the last point of my message this morning. A rebuke is necessary. To evangelicals who signed the Manhattan Declaration, they must be rebuked, yoking themselves with that blasphemy that I've just read. By the evangelicals, by their signing of the Manhattan Declaration, they are giving false witness. They are signatories and in their signing they are teaching other people that Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Church are Christian churches when they're not. It is erroneous teaching and false witness that these evangelicals have committed. And the Bible tells pastors to rebuke sharply those who teach things that they ought not to teach. Titus chapter 1 verse 11. And the Bible tells pastors, elders and ministers that any church leader who sins, any elder who sins, is to be rebuked before all, 1 Timothy 5.20. And true pastors are to contend for the faith that was once delivered to the saints, Jude. They are to contend for the true gospel. So therefore, even though I will probably never meet them, but at least I can declare this. In the light of the teaching of the Bible, Dr. Albert Mohler, Ligon Duncan, Dr. Tim Keller, Dr. Wayne Grudem, Joni Erickson, Randy Alcorn, Ravi Zacharias, Dr. James Dobson, Dr. Philip Reichen, in the light of Scripture and in the light of the Gospel of Christ, we rebuke you for shaming the Gospel, for corrupting the word Christian, for confusing the line between a Christian and the world, for uniting with the anti-Christian church, and for shaming the Reformation. You are rebuked. Any signatory who professes to be evangelical, they are rebuked. And they need to repent and stop making excuses for their sin. they have borne false witness in declaring those Christians who are not. I draw to a conclusion. I've given you four points. The misuse of the word Christian. A Christian is someone who believes the gospel. The Roman Catholic Church is not Christian. and a rebuke is necessary. Charles Coulson, a name you probably have heard of, is one of the originators of this document. He's also a very famous so-called evangelical in the ecumenical movement. This is what he said at the signing of the Declaration. There in front of all those cameras and lights Christian leaders lovingly, winsomely and firmly took a stand. He said, I will never forget the picture. I stood between Archbishop Worrell of Washington and Cardinal Regali, Archbishop of Philadelphia. I looked over at Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Jim Daly of Focus on the Family and Ron Snyder, the President of Evangelicals for Social Action, It was a foretaste of what we're all going to see in heaven, says Chuck Coats. I don't know what type of heaven he's dreaming of. It seems he's very muddled. The Bible says that in heaven Revelation chapter 21 and verse 24, in heaven are the nations of them that are saved. True Christians. It says in Revelation 14, 12, that those in heaven are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus Christ. Not those who break the commandments of God and keep the faith of Mary. No. Just the opposite. What type of heaven is he talking about? Not a real heaven. Men and women, sadly there are many false erroneous teachers. in the year 2010. Don't ever listen to them. You trust in Jesus Christ and keep the commandments of God. Believe the gospel. And that is a Christian. And for any not Christians, all you have to do is that today and you will be. Be a true Christian. Amen.