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. Today, the evangelical church has become a vast mission field. Nowhere is the preaching of the one true gospel and the repentance and conversion of sinners needed than in the nominally evangelical church itself. Dear friends, these statements may shock you, but we have the authority of the Word of God to back them up. Why is this true? What must we do? Stay tuned for the answers as we present the conclusion of the message that we began on our last program. These messages are part of our current series, Remembering the Reformation. Heavenly Father, you have told us that your word is like a mirror, that we can hold up before ourselves to see our true condition. Father, I pray that each one listening may see his true condition and the true condition of his church today. But may we not be like the one who looks in that mirror and then goes away and forgets what manner of man he is. By the work of your spirit, may we be doers of your word and not hearers only. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen. We spoke of the fact in our last message that we hardly ever hear the word Protestant anymore. And when we do, for some, they consider it to be a mark of shame. They consider the Protestant term to be a badge of dishonor because many have come to believe that the Protestant Reformation was a mistake. Why can't we all just get along? Growing numbers see no reason why we cannot cooperate with Rome in various ways. Growing numbers see no reason why we cannot even cooperate with what they mistakenly refer to as the peaceful elements of Islam. Many today simply don't understand what the term Protestant even means. But dear friends, as we look at the history of Scripture, as we look at the history of the church, even as we look at the history of the people of God before the establishment of the nation of Israel, We find this pattern that I mentioned that God always deals in remnants. God's people have never been a majority, never will be this side of the Lord's return. It hasn't been that way. Even within ancient Israel, there was rarely a time, hardly ever a time when the people were entirely true to the Lord. When the Lord comes to the point where he condemns them to go into captivity in Babylon and Assyria, What does he say? He says, you have been adulterers ever since you were in the wilderness. It never stopped. We need to hear and fear. The nature of true saving faith is that it has always been a narrow way. But there are many seeking a broad way today. The un-Protestant church Why is it that we live in a time of the un-Protestant Church, as I've chosen to call it this evening? Why does present-day evangelicalism seem to be increasingly ineffectual? While societies are deteriorating around the globe, while Islam has become more aggressive, while Roman Catholicism has been undergoing a resurgence, And one of the main places that Roman Catholicism is undergoing a resurgence in America today is in the Bible Belt of the South. Amazing. Secular humanism, the new atheism, a growing number of spiritual plagues within churches that were once sound. While all of these things are happening, why is it that the present-day evangelical church seems to be increasingly ineffectual and impotent? I believe the answer is quite straightforward. We have it as we look at the example of the Church of Corinth. We see it in the history of lengthening periods of apostasy, punctuated by very short periods of reformation and revival within the history of Judah and Israel. And we see the same pattern in our own times, with few and precious exceptions. Three things today characterize the nominally evangelical and reformed churches. First of all, The church today is the church unplugged from its source of power and authority, the Word of God. And the church unplugged has become the church uncertain of what it believes and unable to articulate and defend even the core truths of the faith. And the church unplugged and uncertain has become the church ineffectual, unarmed, and unarmored for spiritual warfare. against the enemies of truth and unprepared to carry out Christ's Great Commission. Now, I realize that this is quite an indictment of the Church in our time, and it sounds like a very dark picture. And with few and precious exceptions in our time, it is true. It's increasingly true of churches and of Christian colleges and seminaries. Many of them that were once on fire for God and self-consciously Protestant have grown lukewarm and even cold and are self-consciously seeking compromise with the world and even with false religions. There's compelling evidence to support this point of view, to support this picture. Let me briefly give you some of that evidence. According to reliable surveys, self-described Bible-believing churches today, in those churches, only one adult out of every six reads the Bible even once or twice a week outside of a church service. And many of them admit that they aren't reading the Bible at all. 35% never open a Bible outside of a church service. And many of them aren't even reading the Bible in church services because they're not given the opportunity. Scripture reading has been eliminated or minimized so that we can increase entertainment and other things in the church. One commentator a few years ago in a magazine article put it this way. He said that the Bible in the evangelical church has become the greatest story never read. Now this may sound unbelievable, but it is not unbelievable. when we consider the fact that systematic, chapter-by-chapter, verse-by-verse exposition of the Word of God has mostly disappeared from many evangelical churches today. Biblical preaching has given way to a topical approach that's geared toward the felt needs of an audience. All you have to do is turn on the television to see that today. Visit most nominally evangelical churches in any area. not only in the United States, but in other parts of the world today, and you'll find this. We get letters in our ministry, emails in our ministry all the time from people in the Philippines, in South Africa, in Australia, in Germany, in Central Africa, and they're telling us these things are happening in their churches. And the sad thing is that America has exported this to the world. The church that follows this kind of a pattern falls into a deadly trap. When the church neglects the Word of God, it creates a spiritual vacuum. And what happens? If you have a bottle that's sealed with a cap and there's a vacuum inside that bottle, what happens when you unscrew the cap? The outside rushes in. And that's what's happening in the church. The worldly mindset rushes in to fill that spiritual vacuum. Man, not God, becomes the source of authority. And as a result, man's word, not God's word, shapes the church's agenda. If a church does not teach the word of God, it teaches the word of man. There is no third alternative. And that was the problem that was growing in the church at Corinth. And that is the problem in much of the church today. And the church that is unplugged from the Word of God, as we said, becomes uncertain. Independent surveys have found that when people in evangelical churches are asked to do so, most of them cannot articulate or defend the most basic Christian doctrines from the Bible. They cannot articulate and defend doctrines like the authority of Scripture or even the basic elements of the Christian gospel. Most of them can't. And these studies also reveal that most evangelicals today, most who would describe themselves as evangelicals today, cannot defend Christian moral positions on abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, sex outside of marriage from Scripture. They may know in some vague way that these things are wrong. But they cannot tell you exactly what the Bible says on these vital matters or where it says it. A leading researcher on the evangelical church was asked, why is this the case? Why this phenomenon? He was asked this in an interview on C-SPAN television. And he made this chilling observation about conditions in the evangelical church, based on his research and based on his interviews with thousands of evangelical church members and church leaders. He said this, I'm quoting now, he said, among evangelicals there has been this shift over time, a shift from Bible reading to feeling. from knowing what Jesus actually said to having a relationship with a Jesus, and he put that in quotes, a Jesus that they know little or nothing about, from actually reading the Bible to merely revering the Bible. That's a quotation from a leading researcher on the evangelical church, and it sounds a lot like 2 Corinthians chapter 11, doesn't it? Another Jesus, another spirit, another gospel. Uncertainty among self-described evangelicals because they are disconnected from the Word of God. A more literal translation of the words that we read in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 would be like this at the end of that passage. If he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you may well put up with it. You may well tolerate it. And that's precisely the atmosphere in much of the nominally evangelical church today. An atmosphere of tolerance of that which God says is intolerable. A mindset that says that God will bless those things that he has declared that he condemns. In fact, it is accurate to say that much of the nominally evangelical church in our time is moving from uncertainty about the word to outright unbelief. According to reliable surveys, nearly 40% of the adults in evangelical churches today do not believe that the Bible is totally accurate. Forty-five percent of evangelicals do not believe that Jesus Christ was sinless while He was on this earth. Nearly two-thirds of evangelicals do not believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to eternal life. And nearly two-thirds, a similar number, believe that good works play a part in gaining eternal life in addition to faith. And over 50% of evangelicals say that they do not believe that Satan is a real person. Now Satan especially loves that last one. Satan revels, I'm sure, in the fact that he has convinced and deceived so many, even of the nominally evangelical church, that he personally does not exist. Yes, many of them say that they believe in some impersonal force of evil, but over half of them say they don't believe in a personal devil. And so the one they think does not exist is having a field day, sowing the seeds of confusion and unbelief and uncertainty in the church. And so the church that is unplugged from the word of God and uncertain of what it believes has become the church ineffectual. And even in many cases, the church in outright unbelief, the un-Protestant church, the church that's unprepared for spiritual warfare against the enemies of truth. Well, what is the answer to these things? Is the answer, as many would say, for the church to look more and more like the world? Is the answer for the church to more and more adopt the ways and the thinking of the world? No. Now we think sometimes, perhaps, that this is a new philosophy. We think that the purpose-driven church movement, the emergent church movement are really something new. But let us not forget that that philosophy has also been for more than a thousand years the philosophy of the Roman Catholic Church. Today, for example, the Roman Catholic Church has no problem at all calling God by the name of Allah in the mass. In Catholic churches in Muslim-dominated parts of the world, no problem with that at all. But to their shame, To our shame, self-described evangelical Bible translators, the largest and most prominent Bible translation missionary organization in the world, has adopted the same pattern, the same position, in some of their translations of the scriptures for use in Muslim areas of the world. They have perverted Scripture by mistranslating it. They think they know better than God. They think that they can call the first person of the Trinity, God the Father, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the name of the false god of Mohammed and get away with it. And they're doing it. Translations are being published and used by evangelical missionaries today that call the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Allah. It's happening. God will not honor it. God will not bless it. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 13 tells us that God's Word is the church's sole authority. Our authority, Paul says, is not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches. Comparing spiritual things with spiritual, literally comparing things from the Spirit with things from the Spirit. In other words, comparing Scripture with Scripture. 2 Timothy 3.16 and 17 tells us that all Scripture is given for a fourfold purpose, for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. And the reason, Paul says, is so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped, thoroughly fitted out for every good work, complete, mature. Many today say, let us not preach doctrine. Let's not emphasize doctrine because doctrine is dull and doctrine divides. We can't have that. Well, doctrine does indeed divide. Sound doctrine divides the orthodox from the heretic. Sound doctrine divides true religion, the one true faith, from all others. Today we hear so much talk, even among evangelicals, about faith-based organizations. What a fallacy. Many of the so-called faith-based organizations in this world are embracing a wrong faith that leads to destruction. Many of the so-called people of faith in this world are embracing religions and beliefs that are leading them on their way to hell. That is why we must never listen to those who say that we should not preach doctrine. And sound doctrine is the only right path for Christians in the church. Titus chapter 1, verse 9 tells us that the leaders of the church especially must be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convict those who contradict. We need the Word of God. We need to remain committed to the Word of God. Dear friend, if there was ever a time when the church needed to return to the authority of the Word of God, it is now. The fact is, as we look at this picture, as we look at what's happening in churches today with few and precious exceptions, well, what is this picture? The church has become a mission field. The evangelical church has become a mission field, vast segments of it, because they're putting up with another Jesus, another spirit, and other gospels. We face, in many important respects, a situation that is very similar to the situation that the reformers faced 500 years ago, very similar. The only difference is that there is a faithful remnant in some churches. Now at the time of the Reformation, there were very few places where that was true. The Reformation began because God worked in the hearts of individual men in most cases. Today there are those few precious, exceptional churches that are holding on. We need to hold on. The church itself today, even churches that call themselves Bible-believing, Even churches that call themselves conservative, even churches that call themselves fundamentalist, even many of those churches are increasingly becoming mission fields today. Fields that need to be evangelized because they are being dominated to a greater and greater extent by unregenerated people in the pews. And dare we say it, it's true in more and more cases, unregenerated leadership. As I said in the beginning, the Lord willing, I'd like to put some of that picture before us in a different way as we go on, to challenge us and also to comfort us in the situation in which we find ourselves. Luther's great testimony at the Diet of Worms in 1521, and he was very much consumed We can understand his biography and also just looking at passages of Scripture, we can understand what passages of Scripture were very much on his heart. And the Lord willing, I'd like in particular in our next message to turn our attention to Psalm 31, because that clearly is one of the passages which was not only Luther's outcry to God about these things, but also his expression of faith in his God to deal with these things. The great need of the church today is the rekindling of the fires of reformation. The great need of the church of Jesus Christ, the true church, is that once again we would be driven by scripture so that we would be Protestant. That God's inspired and errant word would be our sole authority and our infallible critic in every area of life and ministry and in all our thinking. And so, as we continue in this series, the Lord willing, we are going to take up that challenge from the Word. And I trust that we're going to be comforted and encouraged from the Word as well. I trust that these things will be of great benefit to us. Let us pray. Father, what a privilege we have to call you Father. What a privilege we have to come before you as adopted sons of the living God. God, the condemning judge, has become God, our loving Father. And Father, we know that because you love us, and because you are sovereign, and because you are in control of all things, that you will take us, your church, through every crisis, through every situation that we face. The Reformers had that faith in you 500 years ago, Father. May we have that faith in you unflinchingly, unfailingly now. Stir our hearts, Father, in faithfulness to you and in reliance on you for all that may confront us. We thank you for our faith, which you have told us is the victory. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Here once again is Dr. Paul Elliott with some closing comments. Dear friends, let me remind you that during this series of messages we are offering a free book that calls the people of God back to Reformation thinking about the authority of God and His Word. 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. 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. 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You can search the archive by date, by topic, or by scripture passage to find any radio broadcast. And with each recorded message, you will also find a full transcript that you can read online or download for printing. Thanks for listening today. Thank you for your prayers for this ministry. Thank you for your interest and your financial support. I hope you'll join us again next time as we continue our series, Remembering the Reformation. Until then, may God richly bless your personal study of His inspired, infallible, inerrant Word. This weekly program, the Scripture Driven Church, is brought to you by the faithful friends and supporters of Teaching the Word Ministries.