you This is the Scripture-Driven Church broadcast brought to you by Teaching the Word Ministries. The Church of Jesus Christ must be the Scripture-Driven Church, relying on God's inspired and inerrant Word as our sole authority and our infallible critic in every area of life and ministry. And now, here's author, Bible teacher, and Teaching the Word president, Dr. Paul Elliott, to introduce today's program. The great Reformer Martin Luther did not think that he would come to a point where he would be on trial for his life for the Christian faith in so-called Christian Europe. But that happened to Martin Luther and to many others at the time of the Reformation. Some, like Luther and John Calvin, were protected by the Lord and died natural deaths. Others died at the hands of so-called Christians because they refused to renounce the true Christ. Could such things happen to Bible-believing Christians today? We know that it can happen. The question is, if such persecution comes, how shall we respond? That is our theme today as we conclude the message we began on our last program. This message is part of our series called Remembering the Reformation. I hope you will stay tuned. Our Father in Heaven, we live in increasingly perilous times for Christians. We live in a time when many who profess Christ are actually proving themselves to be imposters as they turn against those who are true to your Word and to their Lord and Savior. May your Spirit instruct and equip us for these times, Father, as we look into your Word again today. I pray in Jesus' name, amen. Dear friends, Martin Luther did not think that he would come to a point where he would be on trial for his life for the Christian faith in Christian Europe. He was at first shocked by the intense persecution and opposition that he began to experience in so-called Christian Europe. In earlier messages in our time together, we've looked at the darkening state of the visible evangelical church around the world today and especially in our country. We live in a time in which postmodernist thinking has made great inroads into the church. And the keynote of this way of thinking is that there is no singular standard of truth. All views must be tolerated. I was speaking last evening after the service with a lady who was telling me that her son attends a church in Delaware, which is considered to be a conservative evangelical church. But her son tells her that The pastor of that church says that the time has passed when the church should speak against abortion. The time has passed when the church should speak against so-called homosexual marriage. The reason for this, he says, is that these things are now the law of the land, and so those fights are over. Dear friend, those fights are never over. But this nominally conservative evangelical pastor actually echoes the thinking of Pope Francis I, the present pope, who recently said that the church has no right to judge homosexuals or to interfere in their lives. The pope said that the church must find, as he puts it, a new balance between the church's spiritual and political missions. I don't find in the word of God that the church has a political mission. But this is just one example of what is happening and how self-described evangelicals are slipping into and embracing positions that are also the positions of Rome, all in the name of tolerance. We're rapidly approaching a situation in which the only thing that will be intolerable within the visible church is authentic biblical Christianity. The facts that we faced as we looked at the situation last evening tell us that the foundations have already been laid for this. In the eyes of increasing numbers within the church itself, Bible-believing Christians are becoming intolerable people. If we continue to speak the truth, as we must, I believe that we are entering a time in which we ourselves, or a generation soon to come, will face open persecution even within so-called Christian America, just as Luther and the other reformers faced persecution in so-called Christian Europe 500 years ago. The question is, how will we respond? How will our children and grandchildren respond? May we and they respond with the same heart that David expressed in this Psalm, the same words that Luther found so precious as he faced opposition and persecution and even the prospect of death for the faith. In my own lifetime, I've only known two people personally who gave their lives for the faith. One was a missionary in Columbia in South America. He was captured and later put to death by a group of terrorists who embrace Roman Catholic liberation theology. Liberation theology is a mingling of Roman Catholicism and Marxism. And these terrorists are trying to eradicate biblical Christianity in South and Central America. The other individual who I knew who died for the faith was a lady in the church that I attended when I was young. And she had gloriously come to saving faith in Christ through the ministry of our church. But her husband embraced the Eastern form of Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy. He hated the gospel. He hated what our church stood for. He would come at times, but merely to scoff and ridicule. He hated the fact that his wife was attending our church. And when our pastor approached her husband about the gospel and his own need of salvation, this lady's husband simply scoffed in the most vile terms. And his hatred of the things of God and his hatred of the new life in Christ, the new birth that he saw in his wife, were so great that one Saturday evening he killed her and then took his own life. We hear of violent opposition to the gospel. We hear of the martyrdom of saints in other parts of the world. We don't hear it very often here, but it does happen. And let us not think that it is impossible And I say that especially because of the very disturbing things that we see happening in government and in the judiciary in this country, the very anti-Christian complexion that things are taking. Growing numbers also within the visible church in the name of a distorted view of separation of church and state are in fact supporting government's efforts to suppress authentic biblical Christianity in America. And we don't know what will happen. We don't know. We may have peace, but I tend to think that we are, in fact, seeing the gathering clouds of persecution, even in our own nation. Perhaps not for this generation, but for generations to come. But whatever happens, we must remain true to our God as Luther did. We must, with the psalmist, And with Luther, say, in thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. Never let me be ashamed. Deliver me in thy righteousness. Bow down my ear to me. Deliver me speedily. Be my strong rock for a house of defense to save me. You are my rock and my fortress. And therefore, for my, for thy namesake, lead me and guide me. That needs to be our continual prayer. Those who oppose us will, under the influence of the evil ones, set traps for us, set traps for the true believing church. And so we need to pray, as we find in verse 4, pull me out of the net that they have laid privily, that they have laid secretly for me, for thou, Lord, art my strength. Our lives, as we read in verse 10, may be consumed with grief, as we see departure and declension from the faith all around us, and I know that some of us experience that even now. Some of you have told me of your concerns and burdens for your own children and relatives in that regard. We may, as David writes in verse 22, have times when we think that we have been cut off from before the eyes of the Lord. Because others who we may have once thought were in the faith forsake the faith and forsake us, we may be inclined to think that God has forsaken us. But He has not and He will not. He never will. He says to us, I will never leave you or forsake you. We may, as David says in verse 11 of this psalm, become a reproach among all our enemies, but especially among our neighbors, those closest to us, and a fear to our acquaintances. And what the psalmist is saying there is, in other words, that as we stand for God, many who were once willing to be associated with us may fear to be seen with us or identified with us. We may, as we read in verse 13 of this psalm, hear the slander of many while they take counsel against us. Dear friends, whatever may come, whatever griefs and disappointments we may have, as we see the deteriorating condition of much of the church around us, whatever griefs and disappointments we may have, even as some of our own friends and family seem to be departing from the faith, in a time when the church needs reformation so much again, whatever may happen, we can say with the psalmist, verse five, into thine hand, I commit my spirit. Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord of truth." We can say, we must say with David, verse 14, I trusted in the Lord. That must be our testimony. I said, Thou art my God. My times are in Thy hand. Depart, deliver me from the hand of mine enemies and from them that persecute me. Make Thy face to shine upon Thy servant. Save me for Thy mercy's sake. Let me not be ashamed, O Lord, for I've called upon thee. Let the wicked be ashamed and let them be silent in the grave. We may indeed call upon the Lord to silence and to bring to naught the influences of those who are causing those who we hold dear to stray from the truth and even forsake the truth. Our God is able to bring deliverance in every circumstance. We may go through fiery trials, but we must remember Colossians 3, verse 1, that as those who are risen with Christ, we are to set our minds on things above where He is sitting at the right hand of God. Because we died, our life is hidden with Christ in God. Luther certainly thought that way. He thought of himself in many ways, at many times, as a dead man. Dead to the world. Dead even to the church in which he had been brought up, which taught a false faith. But yet, in all of this, we can call on our God, we can ask anything that we wish of Him, within the realm of His will. As we saw the other evening, Hebrews chapter 4, this great truth that was recovered at the time of the Reformation, our access to the very throne of God, we need to take full advantage of it. We can say with the psalmist, we can rejoice as Luther did in the words of verse 19 of this psalm, Oh, how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid out for them that fear thee, which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men. Thou shalt hide them in the secret place of thy presence from the pride of man. Thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues, Blessed be the Lord, for he has showed me his marvelous kindness in a strong city, that is, within a fortified city. Dear friends, God has called us to take refuge in him. My wife and I were talking about this coming over this evening that the great theme of the church before Luther, the great theme was A mighty fortress is our church. The church was the fortress. The visible church, the papacy, and all that went with it, that was the fortress, a false fortress, a fortress of Satan. But God says that he is our fortress. He himself. He himself is our fortified city. In Psalm 91, we read this, he that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress, in him will I trust. There are five fortress Psalms in the Word of God. Psalms 18, 31, 71, 91, and 144. all speak of God as our fortress. And no doubt Luther drew from all of those as he wrote his great hymn, a mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing, our helper he amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing. Luther recognized that the ancient foe was still at work and will be at work until the end of time. But, he said, did we in our own strength confide our striving would be losing were not the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing. Christ Jesus, it is he from age to age the same and he must win the battle. And Luther not only proclaimed the word, but he said so often, this is that upon which I stake everything. That word, above all earthly powers, no thanks to them abideth, he said. Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also, the body they may kill. God's truth abideth still. His kingdom is forever. We must remain within our mighty fortress, the protection of our God for the sake of those God has placed in our care. The Apostle Paul, we were sharing this at the men's retreat last Saturday morning. that in Colossians chapter 2, the Apostle Paul says to the Colossian believers, I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you. Those are the words that he uses. He speaks of spiritual conflict and he says, I have this conflict for you. And in the original language, the metaphor of the word is, I wear this conflict like a garment. It is always with me. It's never apart from me. I have a spiritual responsibility for you, Colossian believers, and I take it seriously. We must take the responsibility that we have for those whom God has placed in our spiritual care seriously. That is how God does his great work through faithful remnants. We've noted through this series of messages a number of times that as we look at the history in scripture and as we look at the history of the church since Pentecost, ever since, that God does mighty work through seemingly insignificant remnants, sometimes a single man, but often faithful remnants. And so as we conclude our services together tomorrow evening, the Lord willing, I would like to call our attention having this psalm in mind and having God's great promise to us to be our fortress in mind. I'd like to call our attention to the great fact from the word of God that God does work through remnants. I'd like for us to look in particular tomorrow evening at the remnant that we find in the early chapters of the book of Acts. And I trust that these things will be an encouragement to us and that they will be spiritually profitable to us, that we will recognize that the source of reformation in all times is the moving of the spirit of God among his chosen people. Let us pray. Father, We are amazed that You have chosen us as Your people, those of us who know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord and are trusting in Him. Oh, Father, so often with us the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Strengthen us, Father, to do each of us individually and collectively as your body to do that which is necessary, Father. First of all, in order that we might be fit vessels to be particularly anointed by your spirit, if it would be your will, to do a special work in our time. Oh, Father, we pray for revival. We pray for reformation in our land, reformation in the world. May we, Father, be a prepared people that your spirit can use to your glory for eternity. And now, love the Lord, all ye his saints, For the Lord preserveth the faithful. Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord. Amen. Here once again is Dr. Paul Elliott with some closing comments. Well dear friends we are going to continue this series the Lord willing in two more messages and we trust that these messages are a blessing and encouragement to you and I want to remind you that you can go to our website teachingtheword.org to the broadcast link on our home page to listen to all the messages in this series and to view a complete transcript that you can also download for printing. Let me also remind you that during this series of messages we are offering a free book that calls the people of God back to Reformation thinking. The title of the book is simply Authority and we would be happy to send a free copy to anyone who requests it anywhere in the world. You can obtain your copy of the book called Authority by going to our website teachingtheword.org and clicking the contact link on our homepage. Once again, that's the contact link on our homepage at teachingtheword.org. Just let us know that you would like to receive the free book called Authority, and be sure to give us your complete name and mailing address. If you're listening in North America, you can call us toll-free anytime 24 hours a day at 888-804-9655. Once again, our toll-free number for listeners in North America is 888-804-9655. If you hear a recorded message when you call, please leave a voicemail message telling us that you would like to receive the book called Authority and how we can contact you and we will return your call as soon as possible. You can also request the book call authority by writing to us at Teaching the Word Ministries, Box 2533, Westminster, MD 21158 USA. Once again our mailing address is Teaching the Word Ministries, Box 2533, Westminster, MD 2-1-1-5-8 USA. And once again the book called Authority is free to anyone who requests it anywhere in the world as our gift to you. And when you visit our website at teachingtheword.org, we encourage you to fully explore the fully searchable broadcast archive. You can search the archive by date, by topic, or by scripture passage. And with each recorded message, you will find a full transcript that you can read online or download for printing. Thanks for listening today. I hope you will join us again next time as we continue our series called Remembering the Reformation. And until next time, may God richly bless your personal study of His inspired, infallible, and inerrant Word. This weekly program, the Scripture Driven Church, is brought to you by the faithful friends and supporters of Teaching the Word Ministries.