the alignment of New Evangelicals with apostasy. In recent times, there has been a falling away from the faith in such proportions that it is heart-rendering and very difficult even to give an account of it. But that we must do if we are to fulfill the biblical mandate that we are to contend for the faith once delivered. In our own day, there have been many compromises leading to possibly the final and ultimate one so far in evangelicals and Catholics together. where Catholics have been formally declared by leading evangelicals, including many reformed men, to be our brothers and sisters in Christ. It is necessary, therefore, to address this topic, because throughout the ages evangelicals have held to the true gospel and have known that justification is in Christ Jesus alone, by grace alone, and through faith alone. And that justification is a declarative act of God. whereby the sinner receives true faith, right standing in the person of Christ Jesus. This faith had been lived and preached for many years after the Reformation, and of course by many leading believers before the Reformation. But particularly since the Reformation, this was the centerpiece of what it meant to be an evangelical, that you were true to the gospel. And so, in modern terms, to have people call themselves evangelical, who have denied the very gospel, and have not separated from the very people who have consistently consistently denied it in sacraments and in rituals. So we have in our own day a serious challenge. A person calling himself an evangelical and not getting the true gospel and not separating himself from others who have apostatized is denying the very name of what evangelical means. New evangelicalism in the way we now see it, to a certain extent, started in the 50s. But the roots of it go back even earlier, particularly in the person of Charles Finney, who was followed by Billy Sunday. These men rejected basically the principles of the Reformation. And this was the beginning of coming to the altar, which later became decisional regeneration. By your decision, somehow you become a Christian, rather than by the grace of God. That's where the roots go back to. And students of history should trace that. But in our own day, it's really the 50s. There is a remarkable book, and I think it is a necessity for evangelicals. It's this book, Evangelicalism Divided, by Ian Murray. He traces 50 years of decline, meticulously and documented. Inside the front cover of the book, He gives an outline of some of the main people responsible and the areas where the compromise with the true gospel began. 1950 Fuller Theological Seminary began to water down the very principles of what it means to be and evangelical. In the same year, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association was founded. And that has consistently given a watered down gospel that denies in practice grace only and faith only, and particularly the fourth principle of the Reformation, in Christ only. That has been consistently denied. and the many crusades of Biddy Graham, not only giving a message that is like the cover of his magazine, Decision, it is decisionism by which a person is regenerate by their decision, rather than by grace through faith as the Holy Spirit quickens. And this has gone consistently with these years, instead of separation He has joined together and had priests and nuns as part of the counselors who came to inform people what they should do, the Catholics, when they came forward to make their decision. Another big turning point, 1956, with the publication of Christianity Today. Carl Henry stated in the purpose at the beginning they were going to be true to orthodox evangelicalism, and it has been nothing like that. It has been consistently, up to the present issue, consistency has been to deny the very gospel and to uphold a false gospel, as they do in the present issue. It is horrendous to see what this magazine has done to the name Evangelical. In 1962 to 65 in Rome, the Roman Catholics began their own program to warmly come alongside Evangelicals in different documents where they are now called Separated Brethren. And this has been quite successful to launch other things where the Evangelicals have taken the invitation to be brothers. It is really sad to see how this has succeeded mightily. The main or the beginning of the formal declaration of apostasy began not in the United States of America, but in the United Kingdom. The first and second National Evangelical Anglican Conferences met at Keele and Nottingham, two cities in the UK, in 1966 and 1967 respectively. The desire of the New Evangelicals present was to be united with ritualistic Anglicans who were essentially Roman Catholic in practice and belief. and with liberals who believe in a fallible Bible. Leading evangelicals such as John Stott and J.I. Packer endorsed the statements of these conferences and so allied themselves with apostasy. The Nottingham Conference was even worse than the Keele Conference It proclaimed a complete approval of Catholicism and liberal and ritualistic Anglicans. And the saddest of all was an approval of Pentecostalism. And David Watson was famous for his statement, the Pentecostal statement at the end of that conference where he said, one of the greatest tragedies that ever happened to the Church was the Reformation. The most blatant denials, however, have occurred here in the United States. An overture of Prelude came in 1993, just before the Pope came to Denver, Colorado. in Colorado Springs. There was a meeting and a huge advertisement in the papers. It was called Concord of Mutual Respect, whereby evangelical ministries together with those Jewish and other forms of religion and the ritualistic type of religion, we had a declaration by evangelicals that they would not evangelize others. And such groups as James Dobson, focused on the family young life navigators, signed that initial formal declaration of what is, in fact, a denial of the mandate to give the gospel to every creature. The most drastic departure, however, happened in 1994, some 17 years after Nottingham, and it was a group of 20 leading evangelicals together with 20 leading Roman Catholics. Charles Colson, together with Richard John Newhouse, an apostate from Lutheranism who became a Roman Catholic priest, together with Larry Lewis, Southern Baptist, Jesse Miranda, Assemblies of God, John White of Geneva College, and others, including two Jesuits, helped draft the document. If anybody was anyway conscious of history, they knew that this is what the evangelicals suffered from after the Reformation in Poland, Hungary, Romania, and many other countries where the Jesuits already tried to do in. The Bible believers, if anybody had any idea of history, they would not have to Jesuits draft a document. But this is what they did. And later, Richard John Newhouse says that a cardinal of the Catholic Church, quotation, was very active in support throughout the process. And so a cardinal of the Catholic Church later and two Jesuits were part of what this was all about. The document begins by saying that there are differences that cannot be resolved here Nonetheless, they say they desire to face moral issues together, and therefore, because this is so, they recognize each other as brothers and sisters in Christ and as truly Christian. The lengthy document gives something that comes nearly close to what the gospel is. They said, We affirm together that we are justified by grace, through faith, because of Christ. Living faith, active in love, is nothing less than the love of Christ. They say, by grace, through faith. They leave out that important word alone. Why is that so important? Because alone signifies the perfect righteousness of Christ Jesus, because that alone can stand before the All-Holy God. It is the most important word because of its significance. And to leave that word out is, in actual fact, a subtraction from the Gospel, because many Bible texts signify alone, like Romans 3.28. It is amazing how so-called evangelicals could sign the document. And then they go on not only to subtract from the gospel, but they add to it. They say living faith instead of faith alone. Living faith. This is a Roman Catholic word used very often in Catholicism. Reading from the New Catechism, paragraph 249. The Church teaches of Rome. The very root of the Church's living is living faith, principally by means of baptism. A sample of the Catholic Church using these words to mean their sacraments. They use this word to mean they can include works and rituals. It's the exact same thing that they have done over the years. The Council of Trent made a decree. They said the following. For faith, unless hope and charity be added to it, neither unites one perfectly with Christ nor makes him a living member of his body. The Catholics already decreed that faith is not faith alone. You must add things to it at the Council of Trent. Now these evangelicals sign a document. where they use this Catholic terminology, living faith. And so they subtract from and they add to. And they make a formal denial of the gospel of Christ. The most disturbing document, however, was 1997. And that was to go on and further differentiate what had been said before. But just before coming to that, I want to say that it has been heartbreaking because of the acceptance of Catholics as brothers and sisters in Christ. It has devastated mission fields in the Philippines, in South America and in the Catholic nations because the documents said we are not to proselytize each other. People have taken this seriously and it has ruined so many mission works that before were highly successful in sending out missionaries to Catholic countries. I had a sample of this in my own life. I got a telephone call from Sacramento, Robert Colton. He said he had come from Spain and was returning to Oregon. He was devastated because of this document. Supporters were saying they would no longer support him. And finally, three years later, after the second document was published, that he had to come from Malaga, just a little bit outside Seville, where so much of the horrendous suffering of the Inquisition took place. He had to come back and is now living in Oregon as a member of a church instead of evangelizing in Spain. That's typical of what evangelicals and Catholics together has done to missions. The second document, 1997, was published with great bravado in Christianity Today with a cover letter affirming it by none other than the renowned reformed man, Timothy George, of the Founders Movement of the Southern Baptists. He lauded the document and it was a document that was much shorter than the first and was focusing in on the gospel. The name of the document beside ECT2 is The Gift of Salvation. focuses in on what they say is the gospel. It is very important to see that the document early on says, Catholics who are conscientiously faithful to the Catholic teaching, the two Jesuits and the other signers, Catholic signers of this document, say explicitly that they are conscientiously faithful to Catholic teaching. They have not given it up. And that's what we find in the document, Catholic teaching, not biblical teaching. The part about justification reads as follows. Justification is central to the scripture account of salvation, and its meaning has been debated between Protestants and Catholics. And then they claim that they have come to accord with the following words. We agree that justification is not earned by any good works or merits of our own. It is entirely God's gift conferred through the father's sheer graciousness out of the love he bears us in his son who suffered on our behalf and rose from the dead for our justification. In justification, God, on the basis of Christ's righteousness alone, declares us to be no longer his rebellious enemies, but his forgiven friends. And by virtue of his declaration, it is so." End of quotation. Now, there's a slight odor or smell of biblical truth in there, but it's only slight. Even the words Christ's righteousness alone is meant to take you off guard. Analyze the two sentences where they state explicitly what they believe. First sentence, we agree that justification is conferred through the Father's sheer graciousness. They use the distinctively Catholic word conferred and not the biblical word imputed, reckoned, or credited. That is the very word on which the Reformation was pivoted. The Reformers and all great evangelicals always saw justification in Christ alone by an act of God declaring or imputing righteousness. The Catholics always saw that it was conveying, it was a process. And they used the word conferred, like Aquinas did and all Catholics before and after. And it is in the present day, the Catechism of the Catholic Church again and again, and was at the Council of Trent, where they said, if anyone shall say that by the said sacraments of the new law, grace is not conferred, from the work that has been worked, but faith alone in the divine promises suffices to obtain grace, let it be anathema. You're eternally cursed by Rome. If you hold to faith alone, eternally cursed, you must hold to conferred. And now evangelicals put in that word. Now, many of the reformed men, brilliant men, who would know any theology, of course they know the difference. But they have formally decided to sign their names to apostasy. And going on with the second declaration, it is by virtue of God's declaration, it is so. It is hard even to read those words for me, because this was what I knew in Catholicism. It was the apostasy of John Henry Newman, who declared that righteousness was internal. It is so, those three words. It was the famous book by Hans Kuhn, 600 pages, where he, as Catholic, insists that righteousness is so, it is internal, it is infused, it is conferred. And to see evangelicals agree that it, conferred righteousness, is so, is a heartbreak. That men would formally apostasize from the faith once delivered to the saints. The document in this way has been a horrendous declaration by men who know better and others such as Chuck Colson and Bill Bright who ought to know better but they were more into the fluff and the frills of evangelicalism. I maybe did not know what still signed it, but some of these men who definitely knew better. It is a real heartbreaking reading that we do of this document. There was not only the document, but later on a book published that is still marketed extensively in so-called Christian bookstores and across the world. The book has the same name as the document, Evangelicals and Catholics Together, and the subtitle, Towards a Common Mission. So we call the book by the name of the subtitle. In the Common Mission, J. I. Packer declares, neither evangelicals nor Roman Catholics can stipulate the things they believe. which the other side does not believe, to be made foundational to partnership at this point. So evangelicals and Catholics together, let's go of the Protestant precision on the doctrine of justification and the correlation between conversion and new birth. Out of his own mouth and in writing, He says, so Protestants let go. They let go of the biblical dogma and doctrine in the Bible. The writing of Packer goes on. He explains that Roman Catholic teaching obscures the gospel and indeed distorts it tragically anti-scriptural and untrustful manner. Rome's official doctrine disorders particularly on justification, merit and mass sacrifice and so obscures the gospel that were I as a gesture of unity invited to the mass, which of course as a Protestant I am not nor shall be, I would not feel free to accept the invitation End of quotation. Packer says that he would never go to mass. But his signing of the document has led many people into Catholicism and not simply to endorse Catholicism like he did. And then he puts forward the reason why they need the document. He speaks of humanism, materialism, hedonism and Nicolaism. And then he proposes that domestic differences about salvation and the church should not hinder us from joint action in seeking to re-Christianize the North American milieu. And so the glorious gospel of Christ is demoted to being a domestic difference. The man who wrote knowing God and the man who before was renowned for a statement that justification by faith alone was the Atlas that bears the world on its shoulders. The entire evangelical knowledge of saving grace and of quotation from the past has now reduced the same justification to a domestic difference. The apostasy of Packer is quite unbelievable, whom we know of the books that he's written in the past. It is quite unbelievable. Had not people like Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones separated from him because of the Keel-Nottingham issue and his other issues beforehand, and seen that we not only write through doctrine, but we live through doctrine, we would maybe not be so horrified because men have seen it before we have seen it at the present day and have separated from him. The same book has Richard John Newhouse speaking and he states emphatically, quotation, if at the end of the 20th century separation for the sake of the gospel is not necessary, it is not justified. And so if Separation for the gospel is not necessary. We shouldn't have it. So we should be unified without the gospel. And this is the exact intent that the Catholic signers had, that we should have a common mission without the gospel. The Newhouse goes on to say, to declare that justification by faith alone is an article by which the church stands or falls in a manner that excludes other ways of saying the gospel is to turn it into a sectarian doctrine. It, justification by faith alone, has now become a sectarian doctrine. Let's talk about a writing off of the very gospel of the power of God unto salvation. But this is what we face at the present day when we remember Spurgeon's words that apply to our day much more than his. He said, since he was cursed, who rebuilt Jericho, much more the man who labors to restore potpourri among us. In our Father's day, the gigantic walls of potpourri fell by the power of their faith and the perseverance of their effort and the blast of their gospel trumpets. That gospel trumpet is necessary because leading evangelicals, now supported by myriads of others since then, have reduced the gospel to a domestic issue or a sectarian doctrine. Even the New York Times, ten years after the first signing, wrote a leading article to say how it had changed the face of evangelicalism in America. Even the secular newspaper saw that the faith had been denied. You and I have reached the turning point in history. Those who adhere to the gospel of Christ Jesus hold to the true gospel and do not associate or align ourselves with anybody who denies it. And therefore, we must take heed of what the scriptures said. The Holy Spirit again and again warns us as believers that principled teachers would become false teachers and grievous wolves. And this is evident in the early church and right through history, but In some ways it has become more horrendous than what we have seen in the pages of history. Now the spirits speak it expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. Paul warned grievous wolves not sparing the flock and Peter spoke about false teachers. Now we are obliged biblically before the Lord to earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints. That is the commandment in Scripture given by the Lord. As is, stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel. Unless there is repentance, we must utterly separate ourselves from all these men. To date, there has only been one man who withdrew his signature, and it's John White of the Geneva College. He withdrew his signature soon after The first document was published. There's been none other. Larry Lewis said he wouldn't speak about it so much anymore because of the pressure of the Hispanics and the Southern Baptists who were saved out of Catholicism. But he said he said even though he wouldn't speak about it so much, he still believed what he had signed. The Lord is explicit that we must contend for the faith. And I think that before us is a very serious challenge. Before us is the fact that many churches are at the present day, as it were, standing in a balance. I've seen it again and again. Bible churches, sometimes First Baptist Church, they don't know which way to go. I've seen it particularly with Calvary Chapel. Some pastors explicitly strong standing against these documents and for the gospel, like when I spoke in Washington State at the Calvary Chapel, pastor utterly strong. He declared the five principles before he introduced me to speak. And other Calvary chapels have gone the way of all flesh. I think it would be great to get the list of Calvary chapels that we know of, maybe send them Murray's book. This was the book that converted one of the Calvary chapel pastors in Portland, Oregon that I personally knew. Our own little booklet of the same title as today's message is really a summary and a conclusion to Iain Murray's book. And that could be posted to, mailed to, churches that are really struggling with this issue. And it is an agonizing issue. And even though many have succumbed, at the present day in the United States and worldwide, as I discovered when I was in Eastern Europe. Many are in between, and they're looking for information. And if we are contending for the faith, we can send it to them. This article is on our webpage, all I have said tonight, with a little bit more than what I have said. To the glory of the one true God. Amen and Amen. This Reformation audio track is a production of Stillwater's Revival Books. SWRB makes thousands of classic Reformation resources available, free and for sale, in audio, video, and printed formats. Our many free resources, as well as our complete mail-order catalog, containing thousands of classic and contemporary Puritan and Reform books, tapes and videos at great discounts is on the web at www.swrb.com. We can also be reached by email by phone at 780-450-3730 by fax at 780-468-1096 or by mail at 4710-37A Edmonton, that's E-D-M-O-N-T-O-N Alberta, abbreviated capital A, capital B, Canada, T6L3T5. You may also request a free printed catalog. And remember that John Kelvin, in defending the Reformation's regulative principle of worship, or what is sometimes called the scriptural law of worship, commenting on the words of God, which I commanded them not, neither came into my heart. From his commentary on Jeremiah 731, writes, God here cuts off from men every occasion for making evasions, since He condemns by this one phrase, I have not commanded them, whatever the Jews devised. There is then no other argument needed to condemn superstitions than that they are not commanded by God. For when men allow themselves to worship God according to their own fancies, and attend not to His commands, they pervert true religion. And if this principle is adopted by the Papists, all those fictitious modes of worship in which they absurdly exercise themselves would fall to the ground. It is indeed a horrible thing for the Papists to seek to discharge their duties towards God by performing their own superstitions. There is an immense number of them, as it is well known, and as it manifestly appears. Were they to admit this principle, that we cannot rightly worship God except by obeying his word, they would be delivered from their deep abyss of error. The Prophet's words, then, are very important, when he says that God had commanded no such thing, and that it never came to his mind, as though he had said that men assume too much wisdom when they devise what he never required, nay, what he never knew.