Dear friends and supporters of the Trinitarian Bible Society, it's a privilege to be here with you this evening and to do so to support the important work that we have just heard about of translating the Word of God in different languages, of revising and of also distributing faithful translations of the Word of God. It's also striking that we are here this evening in a week in which we remember the Reformation having taken place almost or around 500 years ago. And so as I was reflecting on what to speak on, I thought I would focus on more of a historical or church historical focus this evening in light of Reformation. and the Word of God. And those are bound together, aren't they? The work of TBS and also the time of the Reformation are bound together because what really was the Reformation all about? It was the Word of God, wasn't it? In the time of the Reformation, God raised up men to translate that word into our language so that we as common people would be able to have that word, read that word, be blessed by that word, and also hear that word proclaimed in our own language. And maybe we should also, or maybe we should better say it this way. The Reformation was about the power of the Word of God in the hearts of sinners. Is that not the power that we so need today? The power of His Word, which is still today living. The Word of God is still living and powerful. as it ever was. And so let us focus this evening on the power of God's word in the Reformation. And I seek to draw from different reformers and ones who live shortly after the Reformation. We are reformed, most of us I presume anyway, belong to reformed churches and it's good at times to not only be reformed, but also to listen to what our forefathers have to teach us. And so the power of God's Word in the Reformation, first how it was wrought or how it worked in the time of the Reformation, then we focus on how it was taught, what they taught about the power of the Word of God, and then end with that power sought, seeking that power also today. First then, the working of God's Word in the time of Reformation. Where do you start and where do you end when you talk about the power of God's Word working in that period? Why don't we start in Germany, in a monastery. A monk had been appointed to be a lecturer of the Word of God, to teach the Word of God, He was a doctor of the scriptures. And so he had a copy of the word of God, not in German, of course, but he studied that word of God, day after day, as he prepared to teach the word to his students. And their reformation began. Years later, this man reflected back, and he said, I only read in the Bible at Erfurt in the monastery, and then God wonderfully wrought, contrary to all human expectation, so that I was constrained to depart from Erfurt. I was called to Wittenberg, where under God I gave the devil, the Pope, such a blow as no emperor, king, or potentate could give him. Yet it was not I. but God by me, his poor, weak, unworthy instrument, Martin Luther. He said, I only was reading the word of God, and God wrought wonderfully. There's the power of the word of God. We can go to a university in Paris, and there was a young scholar there. He was strongly Roman Catholic. He had no use for these newfangled ideas of these Protestants. He was a scholar, and he was going to get somewhere in life. And things began to change. And he later wrote, Since I was too obstinately devoted to superstitions of potpourri to be easily extricated from so profound an abyss of mire, God, by a sudden conversion, subdued and brought my mind to a teachable frame, which was more hardened in such matters than might have been expected from one at my early period of life. God made him teachable. And everything changed. He said, having thus received some taste and knowledge of true godliness, I was immediately inflamed with so intense a desire to make progress therein, that although I did not altogether leave off other studies, yet I pursued them with less ardor. It was John Calvin. It was the word of God that gripped him, that changed him, and made him a student. of God. We can leave Germany and France and go across the channel to England. There in Cambridge there was one who was a priest already. in his late 20s. And just shortly before that, the New Testament had been published in Latin by Erasmus. And it said that this Thomas Bilney bought it out of a desire to read the Latin, which was a very beautiful Latin that Erasmus had. not because he had such a spiritual hunger for the Word of God. But as he was reading that beautiful Latin, he came to 1 Timothy 1 verse 15. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. And he said, as that word came, His eyes were opened to see his sin and to see that there was no salvation anywhere else than in Christ alone. It was a reading of the Word of God. Everything changed. It was not only the reading of the Word, as in these cases, but it was also the witness of others that God used in the time of the Reformation. The same Thomas Bilney, A little while later heard another priest arguing so strongly against the teachings of the Reformation. And later he took him aside quietly and he said, can I tell you something? And he shared with him what the Lord had taught him. And that one he shared it with was Hugh Latimer. who said, to say the truth by his confession, I learned more than before in many years. So from that time forward, I began to smell the word of God and forsook all the foolish ideas he had before. Sometimes the Lord used simple means. John Fox, the one who wrote the Fox's Book of Martyrs, records the account of a certain Catherine Finlay. She was converted by her son, expounding to her the word of God. She later died at the stake. It was a power of God's word. It was a power that was wrought not only through the reading and through personal witness, but also through the preaching of that word. Luther, later on in life, he said this, I simply taught, preached, and wrote God's words. Otherwise, I did nothing. And then while I slept, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that never a prince or emperor did such damage to it. I did nothing. The Word did it all. And then later he says, for it is almighty, and it takes captive the hearts, and if the hearts are captured, the evil work will fall of itself. He said, this is what the Reformation is about. I preached, and I did nothing, and the word did it all. He was convinced of the power of the word of God, also through the foolishness of preaching. You saw that everywhere. You saw it in France, as men would come to Geneva, and they'd study there in Geneva, and they'd be sent back into France, hundreds of them, and thousands of churches formed, as that word had effect. And many of these stories of these conversions, we do not know, but we know God's word was working. You can think of Nicholas Ridley, the English reformer. John Fox says that his preaching drew in many former absentees, people who didn't want to go to church before the Reformation were now coming to church. And he said they flocked to him like bees flock to the honey to hear his preaching. had effect. And so when you think of the Reformation, it's about the power of the word of God reaching the hearts of sinners, of scholars who are admiring the Latin of the Bible, also of simple men, he speaks of fishermen who were ignorant and couldn't even read the word of God themselves, but they were taught that word And it led to conversion. And what you see there is not just something that we say, isn't that amazing that so long ago the word had such effect? And then we can think, but we live in such different times. We do. The Word hasn't changed. God hasn't changed. And that's why, secondly, we focus not only on these examples of the power of the Word in the time of the Reformation, but also what the Reformers taught about the Word of God. Because that's lasting if it's based on the Word of God. What did they teach? Well, they taught that that word was powerful because God says in his word that it is powerful. It is his power unto salvation. It says in Hebrews that the word is quick and powerful. And that's in the first place because that word and its preaching is nothing less than the voice of God himself. One of them said this, read the scriptures as if God himself stood by and spake these words unto thee. Read the scriptures as if God himself stood by and spake these words unto thee. It's a strong statement, isn't it? But they were convinced that the word is just that, it is the word of the living God. Too often we can treat the word as just a book about God. But it's not just a book about God. It is what comes out of the mouth of God. Remember what the Lord Jesus said in quoting Deuteronomy, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. That word, the reformer said, when we open it, Then God the Father says, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye Him, Christ speaks. Our words are empty. The word of God is not because it is. You think of 2 Peter 1. How Peter there writes, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount, we have also a more sure word of prophecy, where unto ye do well, that ye take heed. We thank you. If we had the voice of God coming directly from heaven, speaking unto us in his glory, and we saw Christ in his glory as Peter saw on the Mount of Transfiguration, then we would know for sure this is the word of God. But Peter says, no. This word is even more sure than if you had been there on the Mount of Transfiguration. because it's a word of God. He speaks. And they also stress that the preaching is not just man's voice, the voice of Christ. Luther, he said this, yes, I hear the sermon, but who is speaking? The minister? No, indeed. You do not hear the minister. True, the voice is his, but my God is speaking the word which he preaches or speaks. It's an echo of Ephesians 2, isn't it? When Paul says that Christ came and preached to you that were afar off in Ephesus, Christ had never during his ministry gone to Ephesus. But in sending his messengers to Ephesus, it wasn't just those messengers, it was Christ himself who was coming through them and speaking through them. That's why the word of God is powerful, because it is not the words of man. It's the word of the living, almighty God. That's why it has power, because he has power, the one who speaks it. The English reformer John Jewell was defending the Protestant church against the Roman Catholic attacks. And he said, will you enjoin God to keep silence, who speaketh to you most clearly by his own mouth in the scriptures? Will ye call that but a bare and dead letter? The Roman Catholic says, oh, that's just the dead letter. And we need the priests, and we need the Pope, and we need the others to really. He said, no, that's not the dead letter. It's the voice of God. And it's true, we need to always ask, what is the Lord saying and to whom is he addressing what he is speaking in a certain passage? Certain passages are addressed to the wicked. Certain passages are addressed to the people of God. Certain passages are addressed to everyone. And yet every passage has a message for everyone. Calvin said this, reverence comes from the knowledge that it is God who speaks to us and not mortal man. He speaks. Another aspect that the reformers stressed was that God speaks with two words, his law and his gospel, both. There were some people in the time of the Reformation in Germany who said, we don't need the law, only the gospel. And Luther came and he wrote about them, we need both because God speaks both. And then he says, it is the safest to turn to a middle road, to turn too much neither to the right nor to the left, for both are dangerous. The office of the word was instituted that we might teach both the law and the gospel. The one cannot be properly taught or dealt with safely without the other. So here, too, one must divide well, lest only one part be taught in the churches, either fear and sorrow or consolation and joy. We need both, Luther said. We need the law. The law has power to bring love. The law has power to expose what we are before God. Our sin, our guilt, the dreadfulness of our sin, and failing to love God with all our heart, and failing to love our neighbor as ourselves. That law is God's sword to pierce the heart and expose what lives there. how we need that law with its power. And it is God's sword to pierce hearts and slay self-righteousness and slay all that self-sufficiency and pride. John Bradford, the English reformer said, he that feeleth the law working in his heart can never be satisfied but despair. except the gospel and the joyful tidings of Christ be brought unto him. When the law comes with power, then we need the greater power of the gospel. Luther said of the gospel, nobody ever heard of the Holy Spirit being given to anybody, be he doctor or dunce, as a result of the preaching of the law. As soon as the gospel came your way, you received the Holy Spirit by the simple hearing of faith before you had a chance to do any good deed. You're convinced that grace comes by the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. William Tyndale, the translator, whom we are so indebted to also with our authorized version, said, the Scripture sprang out of God and flow unto Christ and were given to lead us to Christ. Thou must therefore go along by the Scripture as by a line until thou come at Christ, which is the way's end. The Gospel reveals the Savior. Luther says, Neither you or I could ever know anything about Christ or believe in him or receive him as Lord unless they were offered to us and bestowed on our hearts through the preaching of the gospel by the Holy Spirit. The work is finished and complete. Christ has acquired and won the treasure for us by his sufferings, death and resurrection. But if the work remained hidden, so that no one would know of it, it would all be in vain. But in order that this treasure might not remain buried, but be put to use and enjoyed, God has caused the word to be published and proclaimed in which he has given his spirit to offer and apply to us this treasure, this redemption. He said that gospel message of the grace of God is God's means to take those riches of Christ and to bring them and to give them and to apply them so that sinners share in them. That's what the gospel does. And so our reformers were convinced that God uses his law to slay and the Gospel to give life, salvation, and blessing in the way of bringing to Christ. That's the power of the Word of God, both the law and the Gospel. That law hasn't changed since the time of the Reformation. That gospel hasn't changed since the time of the Reformation, because God hasn't changed since the time of the Reformation. He's still the same. And that Word still has the same power, law, and gospel. God knows what you and I need tonight, whether it's to be stripped or whether it's to drink of that fountain. The power is in him through his words. Reformers were convinced the word is the voice of God. He speaks with law and gospel. As they reflected, they also stressed that this power of the word comes by the Holy Spirit. who brings that word home. Luther said, viewed superficially, the word preached looks like a trifling thing without any power, like an ordinary man's speech and words. When such preaching is heard, his invisible divine power is at work in the hearts of men through the Holy Spirit, and therefore Paul calls the gospel the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believe it. One of the translators of our authorized version, Francis Dillingham, he said, we must not take it thus, as if it were sufficient to have the bare outward preaching of the gospel to call us, For the inward working of God's Spirit must be joined with the same, otherwise men cannot be converted. John does. And he was asked, what is the Reformation all about? He said it was this. God gave his Holy Spirit to many simple people in great abundance. His word came with power by His Holy Spirit. And again, friends, the Holy Spirit hasn't changed. He's the same with all His power and all His grace. He's still the same. And that's because what they taught about the Word of God was based on the Word of God. It has such instruction to us today still. That we would not only learn, but that we would seek that power of God's Word. Final point. They sought that power of the word of God first by translating it. They knew that God's word was his power unto salvation, and that's why they wanted to see that word in the hands of the people. And they wanted to have that word proclaimed to the people because they knew this is what God uses. That's why those, in the early in the Reformation, men were translating the Word of God at the risk of their own lives. And they were willing to die if it would, that's what it would be. But translate the Word, they would do. Into English, into German, into French, into Danish, into Polish, into Italian, into all different languages. as they knew this is God's means. What a beautiful thing it is that we may still be involved in that work. We, it will not cost us our life. It may cost us some money. That's actually not a cost, is it? It's a privilege to be able to support the work of the translation and the spread of the word of God, which God uses. as his means. That was their great desire, that people would have the word. Luther, when he recalled his work of translating the scriptures into German, said he did it so that there'd be less writing and more studying and reading of the scriptures. where all other writing should point to the scriptures as John pointed to Christ when he said, he must increase and I must decrease. And maybe that's still a lesson for us. Too easily, even today, we can be so caught up in even reading other things or reneglecting the word of God itself. And that's why the second aspect of seeking the power of the word of God was not only translating and spreading it, but also searching that word. They didn't just want Bibles to be in people's homes. They wanted them open. People searching that word of God. There's remarkable accounts of ones who had such a zeal for that word once the Lord began to open their eyes to see the riches of it. There's a Richard Norwood in the time of the Reformation. In a period of just over half a year, he read the entire Old Testament five times and the New Testament 10 times. It wasn't just about how many times, but that there's also a searching. John 5, the Lord Jesus says, doesn't he search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye of eternal life, and they are they which testify of me. He will not come unto me that ye might have life. The call is to search the scriptures. Whenever I hear that text, I always think of my grandmother. She thought she was on her deathbed and she that all her grandchildren come in one by one. I think she said it to them all, search prayerfully the scriptures. Searching as one who's looking for hid treasure. It's there. Open my eyes that I may see it. Searching also means studying that word, asking questions as you read it. What is it saying? How does that fit with what is said elsewhere in the Word of God? What does it show us about God in this passage? What does it show us about ourselves in this passage? What does it show us about the Savior in this passage to search themselves. John Knox acknowledged the temptation to turn from the Word of God to other books. He said, even the elect are subject to this temptation. But he says, how can you do so? You never grow weary of the sun and of food and of drink and of air. You need them in order to live. And he says, how much more the scripture Luther found that word like an orchard, and he said, every chapter is a tree, and in every chapter there is fruit to be had. They called to search the scriptures. James Pilkington, an English reformer, he said, to desire the grace of God and not to search the scriptures is to tempt God. for the answers and he gives through the scriptures. But not only translating and searching, but also speaking and hearing the word of God. In the Reformation you find that. Parents begin to teach children. And often it was the other way because parents couldn't read, so children would read to parents the word of God. Masters gathered their households and had the Word read to their servants. Teachers at school began to teach the Word of God, and neighbors began to speak of that Word to others. Sometimes we can be so discouraged, and you speak to your children, and they seem to go the very opposite way. And you feel your own weakness. We are weak. We have no strength. But God's Word is powerful. Don't give up teaching that Word of God, which is His power unto salvation. There's the power to continue teaching. but they especially emphasize the preaching as a main means that God uses. Preaching. And shall we then not seek God to raise up men who may be his messengers to bring that word of God? And shall we not also pray that God would give men who have that calling to be faithful to him If they're to be his messengers, they're not to change the message. At times it can be something you so fear as a minister, am I putting words in the mouth of God, which he has not spoken, and that's a frightful thing. But if we are to teach and if we are to preach the word of God, and how we need to be led into the truth, and so bring that truth to others. And the flip side of the preaching is the hearing, isn't it? In the Reformation, they so emphasized how to hear. I mentioned the translator of our authorized version, Francis Dillingham. He has a whole sermon entitled, A Christian Directory to Hear Sermons Profitably. Because he said, many hearers there are, but few hearers there are. Many in name, but few in deed. That's why he preaches on Mark 4, where the Lord Jesus said unto them, take heed what ye hear. If it's the word that God uses, how important to be under that word. It's his means. And to do so prayerfully, pleading the word. The English reformers quoted Jerome, let reading follow prayer, and prayer follow reading. Francis Dillingham, the translator of our Bible, he says, not to pray is to presume of thine own strength, as if thou couldst hear well without God's help. We're afraid of presumption, aren't we? How much presumption is there if we go to church without prayer? If we open the Word of God without prayer, we're presuming that we can benefit from it in our own strength. That's presumption. It's this prayer to God for His grace to bless it. Calvin says, when we don't immediately understand the word of God, and if we are not immediately blessed by the word of God, so easily we grow weary, but that's a call to persevere also in prayer that the spirit would enable us to understand and to be blessed by the word of God. We can't emphasize that enough. If this is the grace of God, if this is the power of God, and this is what he does, then he always calls to pray for him to do what he says he does. He says, I will be inquired of to do these things for them. Prayer to this God of almighty power. Because His power is greater than the power of our sin. His power is greater than the power of our unbelief. His power is greater than the power of the hardness of our hearts. His power is greater than every problem that we can have, and that's actually the problem, isn't it? The problem is never the word. The word is clear, and the word is the voice of God. The problem is me, my deafness, my hardness, my coldness, my unbelief, my whatever it may be. But friends, to confess that before God. The problem's here, and the power's with thee. So to come before the Lord with all that's wrong, to open that word, to come into his house knowing this is a means that God is pleased to bless and delights to glorify His grace through the foolishness of preaching, through the searching of the Scriptures. And so the Reformation, in the power that God showed in its time, and what was taught at the time about the Word of God, all points us to the God of the Word. who speaks with power. He knows what you and I need to hear. Speak, Lord.