and comeliness. That was John Knox. And last week, we looked at the necessity of church government and gave four reasons. First of all, sin. There were disputes amongst the people that needed to be resolved here. We see that in verses 13 and 16 of the text. Secondly, the importance of delegation. We see that in verses 17 and 18. Moses' father-in-law said Moses was not doing something good by bearing all this himself. He needed to delegate it to others. Third, that it was good order. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 14, says all things in the church must be done decently and in good order. And then the fourth reason for the necessity of church government was theology. And that is that when we study the Bible, it drives us to the idea of church government. Well, we left off there, and we want to pick up today with the principles of church government. The Belgic Confession states We believe that this true church must be governed by that spiritual polity which our Lord has taught us in His Word. That is, that God has actually taught something about church government in the Bible. That the Bible actually has a form of church government in it. There are principles of church government which are set forth in the Bible. And I'm going to cheat here for you by reading from Berkhoff's Systematic Theology. Berkhoff says, Reformed churches do not claim that their system of church government is determined in every detail by the Word of God. This is very important because this is the difference between reformed church government and Presbyterian church government. Presbyterians claim what is known as a just divinum, that is the divine right of church government, and because they are strict regulativists, that is strictly adhering to the regulative principle, not only in worship but also in government, they have to have biblical warrant for everything in church government. The church, let me see, which denomination is it in Scotland? It may be the Church of Scotland. One of the Presbyterian denominations in Scotland, if you look at their book of church order, they have scripture proof texts for every article of church government, all right? because they believe that they have to have express biblical warrant for all of them. Reformed church government does not believe that. Reformed churches do not claim that their system of church government is determined in every detail by the word of God. But they do assert that its fundamental principles are derived from scripture. They do not claim a just divinum for the details, but only for the general fundamental principles of the system. and are quite ready to admit that many of its particulars are determined by expediency and human wisdom. From this it follows that, while the general structure must be rigidly maintained, some of the details may be changed in the proper ecclesiastical manner for prudential reasons, that is, wisdom, such as the general prophet of the churches." And then he goes on to list fundamental principles. Listen to me, all right? I believe that the Reformed have this right, and the Presbyterians have this wrong. Same with the regulative principle of worship. That is, that their understanding of the regulative principle actually, in a zeal to be biblical, goes beyond the Bible to state things that are not required by the Bible. All right? Now, if you want to know more about that, we'll have a Q&A, and you can ask. But the Reformed, I believe, are much more biblical in this regard, in that just general principles are set forth in scriptural scripture, but not every detail of church government. Here are the principles, alright? One, Christ is the head of the church and the source of all its authority. I don't think many people would disagree with that in Presbyterian and Reformed circles. Of course, this is contrary to the teaching of Rome, for example, which posits that the Pope is the supreme authority in the Church. Two, Christ exercises His authority by means of His royal word. Christ exercises His authority by means of His royal word. So when the minister, elders, or deacons of the Church seek to govern the church, that is, either in preaching or in exercising rule as elders or the exercising mercy as deacons, their authority extends only so far as the Bible. So an elder, a pastor, or a deacon can't come to you and say, I'm the officer in the church, do what I say. All right? They have no right to do that. They can only minister the Word to you. And Christ exercises authority by means of His Word through the office bearers. Three, Christ as King has endowed the church with power. All right? Has endowed the church with power. And this has to do with the office bearers. That is, that insofar as they speak, consistent with the Word of God, they do so with authority, and they do so with the authority of Christ. Very important that you view this. There's a distinction between the person and the office that that person holds. In the military, as Mr. Rosado would tell us, you salute the uniform. What does that mean? Salute the uniform. You salute the office that that person has. That person, if they're in rank above you, that person may be a bum. And you may not like that person. You may not regard that person. You may not even respect that person. But when he speaks to you as somebody higher in rank, you salute the uniform. That is, you have to disregard the person. This is not a matter of me and you. It's a matter of I'm a sergeant and you're a colonel. Am I right? You salute the uniform, and it's the same thing in the church. Somebody years ago said to me, I don't respect that person. I said, too bad. They're speaking to you as an elder, and when they bring the Word of God to you and address something in your life, you have to hear and heed what they have to say, even though you may not respect them as a person. And so the government of the church is entrusted to office bearers who are given the authority of Christ. Fourth, Christ provided for the specific exercise of this power by representative organs. And fifth, the power of the church resides primarily in the governing body of the local church. Here's an important difference when you talk about government is that Christ governs through the office bearers in a local church. Alright? If you look at a hierarchical system of church government, let's take for illustration purposes the Roman Catholic Church, Christ governs through the Pope, through the cardinals, through the bishops, through the priests down to the people. There is a hierarchy or a chain, if you will, of authority. If you look at a Baptist church or a strict Congregationalist church, Christ governs through the people. Alright? So, not the officers, but through the people. And you can see that the reformed system of church government moderates between these two. Christ governs through the office bearers of the local church. And if you were to look at our church order, for example, it's always been a principle of Reformed Church government that no office bearer may lord it over another office bearer. All right? So like in some Pentecostal churches, you have apostles and bishops where they can come and lord it over other pastors. You don't have that. All right? Nobody, no office bearer can lord it over another office bearer, and no church can lord it over another church. You can't have a church that's got 500 members throwing their weight around and saying, hey, we're the big church in town. You've got to do what we say. You only have 20 people. No. Christ exercises his authority through the local church and through the officers in that church. It's not through the people, and it's not through a hierarchy. Those are the basic principles of Reformed Church government. It's neither hierarchical nor is it congregational. Rather, it's through the officers. Those are the principles of church government. And then the offices of church government says, namely, that there must be ministers or pastors, elders, and deacons, who together with pastors form the council of the church. that in the church these officers are on a par. It's not as if the ministers up here, the elders down here, the deacons down here, and the people are down here. The minister, elders, and deacons are all equal one to another. And together, in different capacities, they form the council of the church. Those are the officers. Now, you can trace those offices right back to the Old Testament. We looked last time, for example, at elders in Exodus and in Deuteronomy. Deacons were the priests. Interesting. Look at Acts 6. to see this in the New Testament. Acts 6. What most people consider as the birthplace, if you will, of the diaconate for the church. Acts 6. I don't want to read the whole thing here, but verse 2. The Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, it would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the Word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We'll turn this responsibility over to them, and we'll give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the Word. That's the ministers, all right, and the elders. And then they choose them, and then verse 7, Verse 6, they presented these men to the apostles who prayed and laid their hands on them. Verse 7 says, so the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly. And look at this, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith. The ministry of mercy in the Old Testament was the task of the priests. And interestingly, here in the early days of the early church in Jerusalem, It was when the Jewish priests saw that now this church, this Christ-following sect of Judaism, picked deacons to exercise the ministry of mercy that they were converted and that they became obedient to the faith. It's almost as if we're being told, well, now we see that you're looking after the ministry of mercy. We're going to join with you, because that was our task in the Old Testament. So you have a direct line that can be traced, and we won't take time to do it all here, with respect to these three offices in the Old Testament and a direct line that can be traced to these offices in the New Testament as well. And then, fourthly, we want to look at the purpose of church government. And for this, since you're open to the New Testament, look at Ephesians 4. Ephesians chapter four. Verse eleven, Ephesians four, verse eleven there. says regarding the ascension of Jesus Christ, it was He, that is the ascended Christ, who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Now, and then it goes on through verse 16, suffice it to say for our purposes, that here officers are given by the risen and ascended Lord Jesus Christ to the church for a specific purpose, verse 12, all right? To prepare God's people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up, all right? This is what the Belgian Confession is getting at here. when it says that by these means, that is by the government of the church, the officers of the church, that by these means the true religion may be preserved. The true religion may be preserved. The church's chief concern is with true religion. The church's chief concern is with true religion. The aim of the enemy of God and his people is the destruction of the church. And we ought not to forget that. It's very interesting that the devil has gotten his way in a large measure, in the contemporary American church at least, by the fact that the church ignores the doctrine of the church. That is that there's no government. that most people think that the government of the church is a human invention, that it's simply up to us, that we do it any way we want. And as a result of that, in many churches, churches which many here have been in and are familiar with, you have abuses of authority, you have abuses all across the board, because there is no proper government in the church. There's no accountability, there's no appeal, there's nowhere to go. The church is destroyed simply because there's no government. There's no proper church government. The chief concern of the church is with true religion. This is why the elders are responsible for doctrine as well as life. Look at Acts chapter 20, for example. Just give you an example of this. Acts chapter 20, Paul there is giving his farewell. to the church that he had founded and spent so much time establishing, forming, that is, the church at Ephesus. Verse 25, in the midst of this farewell to the Ephesian elders, Paul says, Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again. Notice there that Paul's gospel was a gospel about the kingdom. It wasn't an individualistic gospel, it was the kingdom. Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of all men, for I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will or the whole counsel of God. Ha-se-he-bu-re-tu-the-u, all right? The whole counsel of God. Watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God which He bought with His own blood. Now listen to this. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come out among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number, men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard. Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you, night and day, with tears. The church's chief concern is with true religion. As Paul says farewell to these elders, he says, what's your job? Keep watch over all the flock. Attend to their lives. Take care of them. Look out for them. But, there are people who are going to come from amongst your own number, in your own midst, who are going to distort the truth. Be on your guard for that. Watch it. Watch out. Be careful about that. Because your chief concern is true religion. You have to be concerned with supervising doctrine and life. And of course, when we get to the book of Revelation, right? Go ahead, look at Revelation. Opening chapters of the book of Revelation. Revelation chapter 2. Verse 2, I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them false. Apparently, they took heed to Jesus' admonition here. But, of course, verse 4, yet I hold this against you. You have forsaken your first love. If you went to Asia Minor today, where these churches are geographically located, you would see that the Church of Ephesus is but a historical landmark. It no longer exists. So, though they apparently did this by that time, they continued to fall on hard times to the point that the Lord removed the candle from their stand and they are no more. The Church's chief concern is with true religion. Secondly, though, and this is something which I mentioned last week in Sunday School, the Church must not only be concerned to preserve the faith, but propagate it. The Belgic Confession says that by these means the true religion may be preserved and the true doctrine everywhere propagated. That is, that it's the Church's task not only to preserve the truth, but to propagate it. That is missionary activity, a vandalistic activity. And you'll often hear people say that missions awaited centuries after the Reformation, that it did not occur until centuries after the Reformation. That is not true. Please do not let people sell you that bill of goods. They'll say, oh yeah, the Reformation, that was about Reformation of doctrine, recapturing the Gospel. It was about Reformation of worship, getting the church's house in order, as it were. But they really didn't turn their attention to missions until decades and centuries later. That's not true. All right? Guido de Bray, who wrote the Belgian Confession, was a missionary. And you really, this is how you've got to think of this, you've got to think of the whole Reformation as a missionary movement. That they recaptured the Gospel and began preaching that Gospel to nominal Christians. People who had been told that they were Christians, who were Christians in name only. And when that Gospel was preached to them, people were converted. People became alive. People became vital members of the Church. But Guido de Bray was a missionary who was martyred for the faith. Calvin sent out missionaries to Brazil and was engaged in teaching men to propagate the Gospel throughout the entirety of Europe. The Synod of Dort, which formulated the five points of Calvinism, or the canons of Dort, which are in the back of the hymnal, established Near East missions in Ceylon and in Indonesia. And in Michigan, I know people that are Indonesian, which are descendants of converts that go all the way back 400 years to when the Dutch brought the gospel to Ceylon, which is now Sri Lanka, and to Indonesia. When I visited Sri Lanka, I wasn't a Christian, but when I visited Sri Lanka in 1977, there were Dutch Reformed missionaries there that had arrived there hundreds of years earlier. And that was part of a missionary movement as well. So don't let anybody tell you that the Reformation was not involved or interested in missions. Thirdly, the purpose of church government, preserve true doctrine, propagate true doctrine, and then supervise the congregation. That likewise, transgressors are punished and restrained by spiritual means. Transgressors punished and restrained by spiritual means. This is the discipline of the Church, which will be taken up in a subsequent article. But please notice that this is a pastoral concern that the Belgic Confession has. Hear me on this, alright? That Guido de Brea, as he's writing the Belgic Confession, is not just concerned to cross Ts and dot Is. He's not just concerned to state truth and say, here it is, this is what we believe the Bible teaches, No, there was a pastoral concern to that truth, that it was to supervise the congregation. And then lastly, the purpose of church government was to minister the mercy of Christ. And that stated thusly, that the poor and distressed may be relieved and comforted according to their necessities. according to their necessities. That is to minister the mercy and the compassion of Christ. And if you study Dutch Reformed or Reformed Church history, Dutch Reformed Church history in particular, you find this concern for the poor and distressed there throughout the entirety of their history. We have begun a practice, although it's kind of fallen on neglect, We've begun a practice of when we celebrate the Lord's Supper, taking a benevolence offering. That is for those that are in need. And we put the plate in the back. In addition to tithes, we can give an offering for benevolence. That has been a practice going back hundreds of years, that when we receive the mercy of Christ in the Lord's Supper, when God the Holy Spirit comes and nourishes and strengthens us, then we are concerned to minister mercy to others less blessed than ourselves. And you find a number of these things in the practice of the Church woven into the very fabric of the life of the church, so that's the purpose of church government. So, as the word of God is the life and soul of the church, so godly order and discipline is, as it were, the sinews in the body which knit and join the members together with decent order and comeliness. The necessity of church government, the principles of church government, the offices of church government, and the purpose of church government. Father, we do thank you for your church. Thank you for the teaching of your word with respect to her. We pray, Father, that we would be instruments in your hands that, as Paul has taught in Ephesians, the church may be built up and strengthened and attained to maturity and unity in the faith. Help us in this as each one does his part, for we ask it in Jesus' name and for his sake as the head of the church. Amen.