Well, thank you very much for the warm welcome. It's good to be here once again to represent the work and witness of the Trinitarian Bible Society. And as you'll be aware, the Society has been in existence for a long time, 186 years, so since 1831, has been promoting faithful and accurate translations of the Word of God. It's good to be here. Another annual visit and another year has passed and another 10 million scripture items have been sent out to the four corners of the earth. In fact, 113 countries have been served with the word of God in 40 different languages. It's always encouraging when we receive reports where the word has been sent. And this letter is quite topical because it has reference to the refugee crisis. And of course, we've all been concerned about the situation in Syria and other such countries where there's been internal conflict and people fleeing for their lives, displaced from their country and seeking asylum elsewhere. We've had contact with an organization known as Voice of Hope, and they specialize in getting scriptures in the hands of such people. And we were able to supply them with 6,500 Bibles and New Testaments in various languages. And this was their brief report. We distributed a lot of Bibles in a reception centre where over 6,000 refugees are living, how eager they were to get a Bible. Also, almost all Arabic New Testaments and Bibles were distributed among young people from Egypt and refugees from other countries in the Middle East. Since the escape route to Greece is almost closed, a lot of refugees from there come to Italy. Owing to this fact, even Muslims receive and read a Bible. The Arabic New Testaments and Bibles were also distributed among the Arabic-speaking refugees in Germany. It is impossible for us to teach all the people the Word of God, but if at all possible we try to teach those who have received a Bible. The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few. We know that we depend upon God's blessing and we believe our Lord is working by his Holy Spirit in the hearts of the refugees, even with those people that we cannot reach. Well, that's heartwarming to hear the way in which the Lord is using his people and to realise there's a desire amongst these people to receive the Scriptures. I'd like to share with you an encouraging letter regarding a lady who shared with us her own personal testimony of God's saving grace. She is now living in Nigeria but was born in Zambia. and she wrote in reference to this publication by the Society, The Birth of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. It's one of our medium booklets, there are eight in the series, and this has the title that says it takes you through all the main Incarnation texts and takes you on to Gospel verses which show directly the way of salvation. It's divided up into paragraphs with headings such as God was manifest in the flesh, Emmanuel, God with us, Jesus the Son of God, the birth of Jesus Christ, good tidings of great joy, and so it continues on along those lines. Now this lady that wrote to us said that she was brought up in a pagan family, she was taken to worship at the temple of the Sun God, that was what she was accustomed to as a child. She went with her nine brothers and sisters But she was devastated at the age of seven when her parents split up and divorced. She was cared for by wider family members, grandparents and uncles and so forth, but was quite unhappy in those circumstances, partly because she wasn't allowed to go to school. That was against the religion of the family. As I grew up, she said, I felt that my life had no meaning. I followed my religion, but my life left me empty. I very much wanted to find peace and joy. And things got worse. At the age of 14 she was forcibly married to a man aged 65. She bore him three children and he was a man who wasted his money on drink and drugs and also a very aggressive man. And one day he got into an argument with two men over a piece of land. It developed into a fight and he ended up killing these two men. And for that he was locked up in prison. Now at this very low point in her life missionaries arrived in her village bringing with him TBS scripture publications, and amongst other things, these booklets. And she said when she started to read the verses of scripture in this booklet, she felt a power and an unction attending the reading of these verses. She went on to explain, it was as though my eyes were opened for the very first time. I began to cry and feel convicted of my sin. I fell on my knees and said, Lord, forgive me for my sins. I turned away from the idols I'd worshipped and I was miraculously saved, overwhelmed with peace and joy for the first time in my life. As a result of her conversion she'd become a missionary herself and she wrote to the Society to ask if we could possibly supply her with Bibles New Testaments, any other scripture publications we could make available, she'd be very pleased to receive them. We often find it's the case that where people have been converted directly through reading the scriptures, they become very zealous in their promotion of the written word of God. She meets with a group of people for worship under a tree, and she has contact, particularly with some elderly converts. and she's anxious to be a means of help to them in some way and she wants scriptures that she can pass on to these people that they may grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. So it's heartwarming, encouraging for us all, as supporters of this great work, to hear the Lord is using his word, sometimes in quite remarkable ways. And sometimes when one person is converted, they are a means of great blessing to many others beside. You never know quite how the Lord may use his word as it's sent forth. Now this year, as you know, is a special year of commemoration, marking the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation. Psalm 106 in particular reminds us that when Israel forgot the great things that God had done for them, that Israel soon slipped away into idolatry and disobedience. So we find the psalmists and the prophets rehearsing for them again and again the great things God had done. Their deliverance from the land of Egypt to the house of bondage, coming through the Red Sea on dry land, being provided for for 40 years in the wilderness, manna from heaven, water from the rock, and so forth. And these things were brought to their attention over and over again, that they might come back to the Lord and they might hold fast to the ways of truth. But sadly, often they closed their ears and departed from the true and the living God. Well, it's a lesson for us today. because sadly in some professing Christian circles there's a turning away and a deliberate forgetfulness of the great things God did 500 years ago in respect to the Protestant Reformation. You may be aware that there's been a joint statement from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York fairly recently, which said some nice sort of things, but actually it was quite devious because it was sort of suggesting the Reformation was actually mistaken and should be apologized for. And it was divisive. Well, in a sense it was divisive only because the truth was rediscovered and people were obliged to separate themselves from error. So in a good sense, it was divisive because people came back to the truth and rediscovered the principles and the truths of the gospel in the word of God. Now, 500 years ago, the Pope of Rome had a problem. He wanted money. He had a great ambition of building an enormous and elaborate cathedral known as St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. So he came up with a scheme. He sent his Grand Commissioner, Johann Tetzel, on a tour around European countries selling indulgences. Now if you didn't know the selling of indulgences were for the purpose of apparently it delivered you from the consequences of your sin and if you paid up enough money up front then you could buy an indulgence apparently according to Tetzel that would save you from the consequences of future sin and in addition would help to deliver souls that gone on to purgatory. As you know purgatory is a Romish fiction it has no place in the word of God but the The teaching of the church then, and still is, that there's a place of purifying fire after this life where even the souls of the faithful go who are not yet ready for heaven. And after an unspecified period of years, it could be thousands of years, they will reach heaven. But if you pay up money, that speeds up the process. indulgences, the paying of masses for masses to be said, or helps, apparently. But you can see how this would have played upon the emotions, particularly people recently bereaved of a loved one, to think that if they paid some money that would help relieve them of suffering. You can understand how that would have moved them to do so. So here is Tetzel, this great salesman, going around countries such as Germany promoting this terrible error and it's a terrible denial of the sufficiency of the atoning work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now there's one man in Germany who was incensed by Tetzel's teaching and of course it was Martin Luther and he preached vehemently against Tetzel's teaching not only from a doctrinal point of view, but he was concerned from a pastoral point of view, because he knew that people were going to be deceived by this and find some sort of false comfort as a result. And this prompted him to nail his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg on the 31st of October, 1517. So the 31st of October is not Halloween, it's Reformation Day. That's what we are to remember. Now, these 95 Theses were written in Latin, And the intention was to provide a basis for debate in the university. But it had a much more wide appeal, much, no doubt, to Luther's surprise. They were translated into German, copy after copy, and copy game were made and sent around the country. People were reading about it, asking questions, discussing the topics, searching after the truth. And it was a watershed moment in European history, as people were asking the right sort of questions concerning what indulgence is all about, which Luther had opposed, and as he promoted the doctrine of true repentance towards God. Now you may be wondering what was happening here in England about the same time. Well, England for many, many centuries have been under gross spiritual darkness. Apart from the early dawn of the Reformation under John Wycliffe in the late 1300s, he had translated from the Latin Vulgate into the English. It was the best he could do. It wasn't the best translation, but it was the best he could do in the circumstances, and the Lord used that for the instruction of people in gospel truth. But as a result of severe persecution raised against Wycliffe and his followers, known as the Lollards, much of his influence by the early 1500s had been stamped out. Now, in 1516, the Dutch scholar Erasmus published a Greek New Testament, what has become known as the Received Text of the New Testament, the traditional text of the Greek New Testament. And it was a major step forward in advance of the bring to light of the truth. Of course, only people in the university cities could read this Greek New Testament, but it's made a great blessing to certain individuals. is believed that Thomas Bilney was the first to be converted through reading the Greek New Testament. He'd been under a sense of condemnation in his soul. He'd been to confession, he'd been to the Mass, he'd stayed up late watching, fasting, praying for long periods of time. He'd done all the things he was told to do but couldn't find peace of conscience. And then he opened up a Greek New Testament and his eyes fell upon that beautiful gospel verse. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And the Holy Spirit so applied that truth to his heart he found joy and liberty in believing. He was the means also of converting his friend Hugh Latimer. Now that's an interesting story in of itself. And these men became great promoters of the gospel and laid down their life in future years for their testimony concerning Christ. Another man converted by the Greek New Testament was William Tyndale. And he began to be exercised about his fellow countrymen. And he felt there was a need for the Bible in the English tongue. Well, that was to come just a few years time. Now back in Germany Martin Luther was pressing on with the work of reformation and in 1521 some of his writings were published and were made their way into this country which caused a considerable stir amongst the medieval church authorities because they realized that if Luther's teaching started to gain ground it would undermine their position and their power and would expose their corruptions. So they did everything they could to suppress the circulation of Luther's writings. The second most powerful man in this country, Cardinal Wolsey, had a public bonfire to destroy Luther's writings. Henry VIII took up the challenge and wrote a book entitled The Seven Sacraments, promoting Romish doctrine to oppose Luther's position. The Pope was so pleased that he awarded Henry VIII the title Defender of the Faith, which was somewhat of an anomaly. But, as you know, every reigning monarch in this country ever since has carried the title, and even our present Queen does, and that's why on English coins you have the two letters FD, which represent the Latin phrase Fidor Defensor, Defender of the Faith. So people were claiming Henry VIII as a second Solomon. You may wonder what Martin Luther thought of all this acclaim given to Henry VIII. This is what he said. They are making a great boast of a little book by the king. And quite undaunted, he got on with the work of reformation. The following year, 1522, he published 3,000 German New Testaments, which he translated from Erasmus' Greek New Testament text. And it has been said that Erasmus laid the egg and Luther hatched it. And more than a grain of truth in that. The following year, 1523, French New Testaments became available. And this gave fresh impetus to Tyndale in his desire to make an English translation available. He came to realize there was no place for him to do so here in England. There was no safe place to do so. So he fled to the continent. And we find him traveling from place to place, Marburg, Hamburg, Wittenberg, Antwerp, Cologne, trying to find somewhere where he could translate in freedom, and in secret, trying to find someone to publish the writings, these translations, once he had completed them. He was successful. At the end of 1525 and the following year, these New Testaments started to make their way into this country. Now it so happened at that time in the province of God that famine had struck this country, which meant that Vast quantities of grain had to be imported, which was ideal for the hiding away of New Testaments within sacks of grain, sometimes in bales of cloth. And cryptic marks were placed on these items so that people at English ports knew exactly which items had scriptures hidden away inside. And it's believed that within a 12-month period, these New Testaments had made their way from the length and the breadth of this country. Possibly as many as 16,000 New Testaments made their way into this country at that stage. But the point is, there was a hunger for it, there was a demand for the reading of the Holy Scriptures. People were weary with the medieval superstitions, the worshipping of relics, the going on pilgrimages, and as I've said, the corruption of the priesthood, and the people were wanting to know the truth for themselves. So they've come to the fountainhead of Holy Scripture and learning for themselves. So God was working in a mighty way and the Word of God was being reinstated to its proper place in the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now it's important for us to remember these things because we're living in times when people are trying to almost rewrite history, suggesting the Reformation was just a war of words or a misunderstanding and the pity they couldn't have sort of got together and made some sort of compromise. Others have suggested that it was simply Henry VIII wanting a divorce and therefore separate from Rome. That's true, of course, but that was a secondary issue. The primary issue is simply that the Word of God was taking effect in people's lives. The Holy Spirit was opening blind eyes, unstopping deaf ears, and bringing people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Now TBS has sought in various ways to commemorate this year. You may be interested to know on our website, those who have contact with children, on our website we have a reformation quiz and the children that download the pages and get the answers right, they are presented with a free copy of our commemorative Bible. These are available for sale at £12.95. The picture on the front cover is of Wittenberg Market Square. And there are two monuments in the market square. One is of Luther, the other of his friend Melanchthon. And how different those two men were. Luther was much more lion-like, a son of thunder, whereas Melanchthon was more like Barnabas, a son of consolation. But they complemented one another in their ministries. and sought faithfully to serve the Lord. The text is the just shall live by faith, which was especially significant in Martin Luther's own conversion experience. Now this is based upon the John Brown self-interpreting Bible. If you're familiar with our Westminster reference Bible, it's essentially the same as that. Over 200,000 references, new range of colored maps at the back, information weights, measures, and currencies, and various other features. And this has information on the Reformation and various other items of interest. So do have a look at these after the meeting. There's a leather-bound edition available as well. Not many left, but I have two left. So if you're interested, do have a look. It's a very nicely bound leather edition. Also, we've commissioned a special timeline to be produced, which is now the original, is on the committee room walls at headquarters. Abigail Mahon from the north of England did all the artwork for us, but we have had it professionally photographed and there are two panels this size, the other one's underneath this one, and it begins around about 1450, but of course specially pointing at 1517 and takes you all the way through to the present time. marking out the significant events during the last 500 years. It's full of interesting information, very attractively produced, and is a tremendous resource for homeschooling, Sunday schools, young people's groups, and of general interest. So do have a look at this after the meeting. They're available for sale for £4.20. There's a bookmark coming soon with a reduced, a sort of small version of this, and a booklet written by our good friend Peter Hallihan, and that will be available, we trust, by the end of this month. So in various ways we've tried to draw people's attention to this very significant year. Let us not forget that we are still living in the benefit of the Reformation. We take it for granted, I think, that we can find a place of worship where the Gospel is preached in its purity, where the Word of God is readily available to us, and we have freedom to worship. Now these things were unknown, but they couldn't worship as we do in those times, and we have reason to praise the Lord for the great things he has done. I'm sure it's true to say that the the Reformation has had an enormous impact on the whole of the world, really, because it wasn't just European countries that were blessed, but as a result of England, for example, being blessed, it was the means of blessing to other countries as missionaries went forth to various parts of the world with the message of saving grace. Now I'd like to move on to some of our translations that we are currently engaged in, and one translation of Special interest at the present time is the scriptures for the people of Turkey. Now, as you may be aware, Turkey is the part of the world often referred to in the New Testament, Seven Churches of Asia, for example, Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Bithynia, and areas of the world where the gospel was faithfully preached by the apostles and their fellow laborers, where gospels were established, churches were established, But for many, many centuries, that part of the world has been a barren spiritual wilderness, under the control of the Ottoman Empire for six centuries. And today is nothing less, really, than a Muslim country. It's more of a nominal Muslim country than some countries, but nevertheless, that is the position. And there are very few Christians in Turkey today. Now, 70 million people speak the Turkish language. And there's something like, well, 70 million in Turkey, but possibly 100 million worldwide. And interesting, there are some Turkish words that have made their way into the English language. Some we use every day, like coffee, and yogurt, kiosk, turquoise, and a few others. Even the word meander comes from the Turkish language. It's the name of the river that winds its way out to Miletus Bay. Now, the Gospel of John has been available for some years now. We've published at least 80,000 of these Gospel of John booklets and it's been greatly appreciated. And we do know that God has been pleased to bless the testimony of his word faithfully rendered into the Turkish language. We heard of one young man who received one of these and presumably he'd received it in the street by someone distributing scriptures. Evidently he wasn't interested because he threw it in the rubbish bin. Now an army officer saw what had happened and out of curiosity went over to the rubbish bin and pulled out this Gospel of John and as he subsequently read the Gospel of John he was converted by God's amazing grace. Now interestingly, translation has been the work of primarily one man. Now we much prefer to have a team of translators so they can cross-reference and check one another's work and so forth. And we do have our checks and balances even in this project, but it's been primarily the work of just one man who has been doing most of the activity. And God has been pleased to spare his life to a good old age. He's now in a care home and he's just about finished. the last draft of the Scriptures. So two of our managers went over to Turkey two or three weeks ago to speak with him and the complete Bible is now being typeset and in the process of being published, we hope by the end of this year to have a considerable number of complete Bibles for the Turkish-speaking people. So if you come into contact with Turkish people working in restaurants, which is where you're most likely to find them in this country, it may be worth having some Gospels of John available. So do have a look after the meeting if you wish. Now the other scriptures, another translation that is of particular interest, is the scriptures for the people of China. Now China, just to remind you, is a vast country of 1.3 billion people. A fifth of the world's population live in China. It has something like 4,000 years of recorded history. It's the oldest continuous civilization. There's been Christian influence in China for quite a long time. In 1853, Hudson Taylor obeyed the call of God, go for me to China. He couldn't get these words from his mind. They kept ringing in his ears, go for me to China. And he was persuaded that's where the Lord would have him serve him. So he went, and after many years of setbacks and disappointments, he was successful. in setting up the China inland mission. Previous to that, Robert Morrison went in 1807, and at some risk to his own life, he shut himself away and translated the Bible. into the Chinese tongue. He had to learn 35,000 Chinese characters to translate the Bible. Now, there's a man in Scotland who had heard about Morrison's work. His name was William Chalmers Burns. And he was concerned and burdened about the lost millions of China. So he wrote to Morrison for further information as to what might be involved. This was Morrison's interesting reply. The study of the Chinese language requires bodies of iron lungs of brass, eyes of eagles, hearts of apostles, memories of angels, and lives of Methuselah. Well, it's a tremendous task, and we admire the gifts given to certain individuals in such translation work. Now, the present situation, as you may be aware, there's been persecution of Christians in China under the communist regime. In the 1960s, they closed down the last of the city churches and boasted that Christianity was now a museum piece. Well, it was nothing of the sort. They'd simply driven the people of God underground, as it were. They were obliged to worship in secret. But in spite of their oppression, the Lord has blessed and prospered them. We were privileged last September to have an annual general meeting at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. two of our translation team members, the Reverend P. Wang and the Reverend M. Zhu, and they came to speak to us about their translation work. It was a presentation in Mandarin Chinese, but thankfully we had an interpreter present. If you're interested, you can hear a download of it from our website, their reports, and I'm sure you'll find that fascinating. But one thing that was said, which snuck in my mind, he said, there are something like 100 million Christians in China today. The Lord has blessed and prospered the faithful labourers of missionaries in times past, in spite of all the opposition they faced, and the Lord has prospered the work in a very marked way. Now, the present Chinese Bible is known as the 1919 Union Bible, which has some quite significant problems. The first problem is it's based upon what's known as the critical text of Scripture. So you've got verses abbreviated, words missing, whole verses missing sometimes, or there are two passages that are missing as well. If you were to add up the total, it's the equivalent of 1st and 2nd Peter missing from your Bible. The other problem is the translation method was rather loose, influenced by false doctrine. And the third problem is that it was translating to what's known as traditional Chinese, and the vast majority of people in mainland China don't understand traditional Chinese. People in Hong Kong and Malaysia do, but not on mainland China, at least people 50 years old or younger. So with this in mind, TBS has embarked upon a new translation project, translating to simplified Chinese from the traditional text of scripture, so the complete Word of God, using well-proven translation methods. And for the first time in the Society's history, you've had available in the Words of Life Calendar in Mandarin Chinese, As you can see, this says, come to me, all that labor and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. If you want to know what it says, you have to compare it with the current English one, and it's precisely the same. But we've also had John's Gospel available on our website for some time, and the idea of putting it online first was to give people that speak the language opportunity to read it for us, to come back to us with comments regarding its readability, so adjustments could be made if need be. And we've gone ahead now with the publication of 70,000 hard copies. And they've been published in China. And the idea of publishing in China is to get over the difficulty of getting scriptures into that country. But we're doing it as secretly as possible, because we don't want these scriptures to be discovered and confiscated. So they're being distributed as quickly as possible. And we trust that they'll be a great blessing to these Chinese speaking people. There's a great demand for the Word of God in that country. I haven't got a hard copy to show you but I have downloaded a copy of the front cover of John's Gospel and we're having another print run done in America for Chinese speaking people in the USA and also for the UK. So in due course we'll be getting some hard copies and I can show you one perhaps on a future occasion, God willing. But we value your prayerful support regarding this work. We've taken significant steps forward in recent times. It's been the work of some years. There have been various frustrations, as often there is, in the Lord's work. And one of the translators said, we are engaged in a battle. We need your prayers. The Lord's work often does involve a battle, does it? And various discouragements. And we pray for them. The Lord will sustain them and help them and encourage them in the work that they're doing. There's such a need for it and we trust the law can go before them still and we trust not too long in the future we'll have the New Testament available before moving on to the Old. So these and other matters we bring to your attention and are thankful for your ongoing interest and support. Please take a quarterly record if you haven't had one already, and you'll find further information regarding the activities of the society. And various other items are available for sale. So please have a look after the meeting. We're going to read from the scriptures now, and we turn to Ephesians chapter two, Paul's letter to the Ephesians, the second chapter. And this is one of the outstanding chapters in the New Testament, reminding us of what the Lord does by his grace. in sinners' lives. And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past he walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace ye are saved. and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Wherefore remember that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands, that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace, and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby, and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are built together for inhabitation of God through the Spirit. Now draw your particular attention to verse 8. I'm sure I don't need to read it again because I guess most of us know it so well, possibly knowing it by heart, because it's a verse that is very familiar to us. Sometimes it's good for us to come back to first principles, to remind ourselves of the foundational truths of the Gospel of our so great salvation. Those of you who have read Spurgeon's lectures to his students may remember that he tells us of an occasion when he was due to preach at some special service way out from distant from London and he went by train and was seriously delayed. And as a result of his delay, his grandfather, who was chairing the meeting, started the service. So when Spurgeon arrived, possibly at least half an hour late, his grandfather started to preach a sermon from this verse. When he saw his grandson arrived, he stopped preaching and he called him up into the pulpit and he said, now I've preached the first point, for by grace are you saved. And Spurgeon came up and carried on where his grandfather left off, to the second point, through faith. The point is, Spurgeon says, and I would expect, speaking to his students, I would expect every one of you to be able to do exactly the same. Now you might think that's a tall order, and in a sense it is. But the point is, here is a verse that should be very dear to our hearts, because it's our own personal testimony, isn't it? So we, all of us, have something to say on this verse, if we are the Lords. And this is the environment in which we live. We live in the environment and atmosphere of grace, don't we? We are saved by grace. And we worship, this is our environment in which we worship, isn't it? And we seem to bring up our families and so forth. So here then is a verse that's dear to all of our hearts for many reasons. Now what do we actually mean by grace? Sometimes it's good for us to define our terms, isn't it? We sing about grace and we read about grace and we preach about grace, but what do we actually mean? Well, it's simply this, isn't it? It's God's free, unmerited favour towards sinners, towards those who rebel against him, and that's where we are by nature. You may be aware that A. W. Pink, in his well-known book, The Sovereignty of God, uses this illustration concerning grace. He said, suppose someone was to pass my home maybe a down and out, and I realize this man is tired and hungry and thirsty, so I invite him in, give him something to eat and to drink, offer him a bed for the night. He said, that would be kindness. But supposing during the dark of the night, this man gets up and searches the house and finds some valuables and some cash and puts in his pocket and slips off into the night. And then sometime later, maybe a month later or so, I see that same man again walking past my house. And again, he's tired, he's hungry and thirsty. And in spite of what he's done, I invite him in, give him something to drink, something to eat. He said, that'd be more than kindness. That would be grace. Because this man has wronged me. He has sinned against me. He's offended me. And he, as it were, thrown my kindness back in my face by his actions. And yet I still show him kindness. He says, that's grace. That's exactly what grace is. But in a far greater sense, our sin against God is deep and it's grievous to God. We have broken his law, haven't we? sinned against light and knowledge, even when our conscience perhaps was telling us better, we still sinned. And yet God pours out of his kindness and his mercy towards individuals who are brought into a state of salvation. So this is the grace of God, isn't it? Now at the time of the Reformation, or subsequent to the Reformation, perhaps I should say, there were five points that summarised the teaching of the Reformation. And the first was that salvation was by grace alone. Sola gratia. And it was that word alone that was particularly significant, because the Romish Church will speak about grace, but it means something very different to what the Bible means. Romish teaching is along these lines. You try your best. If you can achieve a molehill, God in his grace will turn it into a mountain. That's basically what it amounts to. So you do your best, then God helps you to do no more, and eventually you'll be acceptable to God. It's a completely different notion to what the Bible means by grace. Grace is something entirely free. Works doesn't come into it at all, not in the reception of grace. It's the outworking of grace. But verse 9 tells us it's not of works, lest any man should boast. Now one of the lesser known martyrs of the Reformation was a man by the name of Richard Bayfield. He was arrested, his feet were put in the stocks, his mouth was gagged, and his back was beaten. And you may wonder, what had he done? Well, He'd been speaking to people about grace. That was the offence. Now, why was that so offensive? Well, because he'd been speaking of the fact that God deals individually and personally with sinners. It's a personal matter. So he'd bypassed the whole Romish system, which is an elaborate system of works. And he had, as it were, set aside all the priestly caste and the treasure of merit and so forth in the church, and he'd spoken that God deals with people individually. And that was deeply offensive. And for that, ultimately, he lost his life. It's astonishing, but it's true. Sola gratia. So it's by grace alone. And that's where the reformers stood. That's where we stand. And we must continue, of course, to stand. Secondly, it was sola fide. By faith alone. Not faith plus works. It was faith alone. Faith directly. in God's provision of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the doctrine of justification by faith was especially emphasised because it was rediscovered. It wasn't, of course, something they invented. It was something they simply discovered in the Word of God which had been lost sight of, been buried by all the traditions of the Romish Church. And men like Luther and Calvin After him and many others, they were great promoters of justification by faith, and by faith alone. We are made righteous by believing, by trusting, by the righteousness of Christ, who is the only one who can produce a righteousness that's worthy of the name. The very best that we can do is nothing more than rags and tatters. It's like filthy garments, isn't it? So this was emphasised by faith alone. So when we're speaking about faith, we sometimes speak about the eye of faith, looking unto Jesus. There's a wonderful summary of the way of salvation, isn't it? Looking unto Jesus. The eye of faith sees Christ and the sufficiency of that which he has done. We sometimes speak about the arms of faith, embracing Christ. That's where the Song of Solomon is particularly valuable to us. Now, I held him and would not let him go is one of the expressions in that book describing the relationship between Christ and his people. We sometimes speak about the feet of faith that runs to Christ for refuge, that hope set before us in the gospel. And so this is a particularly important aspect of the teaching of the gospel, isn't it? So it's by grace alone, sola gratia, And it's by faith alone, sola fide. Thirdly, solus Christus. It's through Christ alone, isn't it, that salvation has been provided in God's beloved Son. And again, this is where the difference lay between the Reformers and the Romish Church. Yes, there was a kind of lip service paid to Christ. But there was this almost competition. There was the merit of Mary. She could do a good few things for you, as it were. She could help make mediation for you. And then, of course, there was the saints to which you could pray, and so forth. And the priests, of course, they could absolve you. And all this was a distraction from the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so Christ was exalted once again through the preaching of the Gospel as men came to embrace this truth and sought to promote the true Gospel of saving grace, solus Christus, through Christ alone. And fourthly, as made known by the Scriptures alone, sola scriptura, And that's why there was a great movement of translation. It was understood that that's what the people needed. They needed to have the Word of God at their disposal. And as we thought about Luther and the German scriptures and the French Bible and Tyndale and the English scriptures, and there was the Italian Bible, the Spanish Bible, Hungarian Bible, even an Icelandic Bible about the Reformation. And they realized that the Word of God must be faithfully translated, and there was this great tradition of translating carefully and accurately, and provide a great foundation for preaching the Word of God to men and women. And of course, this is where we take our stand still, isn't it? The importance, the fundamental importance of having the Word of God and faithful translations And as our Chinese translator said to us, he said, good translations take time, and we're very much aware of that, sometimes many, many years. Our Turkish translator's been working for at least 20 years on this translation, and Nepali Bible took 29 years, sorry, 27 years. And so it goes on, because sometimes translators have other things engaged in their time, and they can't dedicate all day and every day to translating the Bible, but they do what they can in their spare time. But there's one final point which came to light as a result of the Reformation. Grace alone faith alone, in Christ alone, as revealed in the Scriptures alone, but finally, to the glory of God alone. Soli Deo Gloria. And this was a fundamental point with them, that God in all things must be glorified. We find Paul speaking these terms at the end of chapter 3. Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Again, it was the Reformers going back to the Scriptures, and Christ's glory is revealed to us in the pages of the Word. The express image of God's person, the brightness of his glory, and there was this desire to lift up the name of Jesus, to exalt his name, and to show that all three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are involved in our salvation. and seeking to glorify God on that account. So let us be encouraged afresh as we take our stand for these five solas, because it's that word alone that was so important. It was faith alone, not... Because the Roman Catholic Church would say, yes, it's by faith, but it's faith in their system. But this is faith alone, in Christ alone, which is something very different. So we take our stand still for these important truths. Let us be encouraged to press forward. These are Reformation truths. These are revival doctrines. If revival should come to our country, these great truths will come to the fore all over again. And those who have drifted off into other things will have to forsake them and come back to these great truths. So let us hold fast to these fundamental things. Amen.