the first king of Israel as it became a nation in its own right he set about a plan that would lead Israel into a state of apostasy from which it would never recover from the days that Solomon knew and the days that David knew in the nation of Israel when it was one nation The story that we're looking at tonight in the commemoration of the Reformation and the providence of God in the Reformation is one of similar proportions, one of similar sin. You have your notes before you, as I said, I'm not going to read them word for word, but I will be using them for my notes and I will be following through them, but I want you to listen. and you can read these notes later, as I said this morning there are some things, some assertions that I make in conclusion that are bold assertions and I must admit that but I want us to understand that as we re-examine today the Church of Jesus Christ which we are called to do we must re-examine it with an honest heart we must come to it in the light of scripture We must set aside friendships. We must set aside our social circle, if needs be. We must set aside those things which tie us down and our emotions. And we must come objectively to a re-examination, not only of ourselves as individuals, but we must come objectively to a re-examination of the church as a whole. And that's what I want to do tonight. I'm going to span the entire history of the New Testament Church in one hour or less. That's a tall order. But I trust as we go through this history that you will see the flow of history, that you will get some sense of the flow of apostasy and the pulling back from the brink that the Protestant Reformation experienced in the 16th century. As the New Testament Church emerged from the narrow streets of Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost and began to disseminate the Gospel in obedience to the Great Commission. It did so, as we have been learning in the Book of Acts, under great persecution from the Jews. The Roman persecution had not begun yet. That initial persecution was exclusively Jewish. The reason Roman persecution was not immediate was that the system of paganism that existed in the empire, the Roman Empire was so flexible at that time that no one religion excluded the other. the empire of Rome was made up of many different deities a variety of different gods and one nation as the Roman empire moved across the world defeating nation after nation they let the deity of that nation alone they let them worship as they did in Israel they let them worship the deity, their own local deity and so paganism was comfortable together in all its variety When the New Testament Church arose, however, in the Empire and made its presence felt in the preaching of the Gospel, it was evident that that Christianity was never going to fit the mold of pagan superstition. And it therefore caused such a stir in the Roman Empire that persecution, great persecution, beginning with Nero in AD 64, great persecution was going to fall on the church. You see the problem for the Roman Empire was that in Christianity there was something different than in any other pagan religion. In Christianity there was a vital element that overthrows superstition in the human heart Not only was there that element in Christianity that overthrows superstition in the human heart, but there is in Christianity, inherent in it, a missionary element, a missionary zeal, a missionary spirit that brings that out in the individual. wants to disseminate the truths of Christianity across nations and across the variety of deities and religions that there were in the Roman Empire but added to that there is in Christianity a spirit that has no compromise with the articles of another faith there is inherent in Christianity a spirit that has no compromise whatsoever with the articles of another faith Christianity therefore threatened the destruction of paganism in the Roman Empire it threatened the downfall of the religious ecumenical paganism that the Roman Empire knew not by a physical warfare not by taking up arms, the only weapon that Christianity had, and still has, was the word of God, the sword of the Spirit. Thus, when the spirit of Christianity was felt in the empire, the Roman government came down heavy in ten major waves of persecution. With the translation of the scriptures into the language of the Roman world, with the fidelity and zeal of the early disciples and the heroic deaths of the martyrs came this movement and out of the flames of persecution there arose a great spirit of drive and zeal that no persecution could quell and Christianity was gaining momentum, it was gaining great influence it was gaining great prominence throughout the empire to such an extent that in 311 AD when Constantine took the throne as the Caesar in 312 he called the Roman Empire a Christian nation and he legalized, if you like, Christianity such a move for the Christians at that time was unheard of, it was unprecedented not only was it unprecedented It was unexpected and unscriptural according to some of the early martyrs because they saw the Roman Caesar as incompatible, the Roman Empire and his throne as incompatible with Christianity but peace, peace and contentment and ability to worship overcame and after they were convinced that this was the way to go according to the old Israelite under the old covenant they saw the nation then as a theocratic nation however from 312 AD from that point in history Christianity the Christian church which had maintained its purity and vigour amid the fires of persecution began to suffer began to become weak it began to become anemic under the favour, under the secular advantages and under the worldly cares that surrounded it The acceptance and the incorporation of the church by the state proved then to be its greatest obstacle. It's a very interesting study when you study the ramifications of that secularization of the church. That's exactly what happened. It was a secularization of the church. Under all this external advantages and under all this imperial favor The Bible became head from the people. The church was now a state church as it were. The state was ruling it. The state determined who was going to be bishop. Bishops began to rise in favor. They began to take their place. The government of the church, the polity of the church was modeled after the policy and the polity of civil government, where there were four patriarchs set over four different areas of the church. And there were four main patriarchs who were heads over their dioceses. And with this, the Bible became hidden from the people. Through time, the teaching ministry of the pulpit was transformed into a sacrificing priesthood that now is known so well in the Roman Catholic Church. The preachers were no longer servants of the people. They no longer taught them the gospel. The preachers and the bishops became priests. and became mediators between the people and God. The gospel was being hid, the gospel was being manifested as they sought in these individuals. It was being externalized in the secularization of Christianity. The gospel became less and less of grace and more and more of human merit. The final authority of scripture, because the scriptures had been hid, was becoming less and less important. Salvation became a thing that was handed out by the church. Worship, instead of being the spontaneous thanksgiving of the soul, became a mere formal ritual. Superstition of the barbarian tribes was kept intact as Christianity spread, as the Roman Empire began to spread and the church through the Roman Empire began to spread. the worship and the superstitious paganism of the barbarian tribes was kept intact. In other words, when the missionaries went out and when the church went out to proselytize, when they went out to preach the gospel, they were not preaching a gospel of regeneration in the heart. they were getting numbers to join a church and so as a nation was captured and as a nation was Christianized the entire nation would come in to become members of the church they would become part of the church as a nation there was no longer an individual regeneration there was no longer the need for individual faith in Christ the church was now a great institution run along the model of civil government. And so Christianity before long, not before long, became a mongrel system. Under this confused syncretism, Christianity became a fashionable institution, spiralling more and more then into apostasy. Down through the centuries the church spiralled more and more into apostasy. Monasticism rose up in the 3rd century. The celibacy of priests rose up. Mereolably the worship and the prayers to Mary became a doctrine in the church. Worshipping the saints and the martyrs became a problem or became a common prayer in the church and so as you can see down through the centuries as you follow the history of the Christian church down through the centuries you see the spiral of apostasy which is becoming more and more difficult to reform although there had been calls for reform within the church It is becoming more and more difficult to reform as it becomes more and more aberrant in its theology and practice. It is out of this apostasy that the Protestant Reformation rose up. As I said there have been many calls for reform in the church over the centuries. As sin became more and more blatant and destructive. But with such a totalitarian ecclesiastical system that had developed reformation from within proved to be impossible. Those who would live for God and purity found that they must leave the established church behind and hide in the mountains and worship in secret. If the church then is going to experience reform, if the church is going to see a change, if the church is going to see a pulling back from the sins and doctrines It is going to take a move of God, it is going to take a revival of religion. Individual faith in the individual heart is going to have to be worked by the God of heaven in an act of God. Such a move came in the heart of Martin Luther. Luther had for years fought in his own heart regarding his own sin. He was a monk trained in law, he was trained in Bible exegesis and he was teaching Bible exegesis and for years he was struggling in his own mind, in his own heart regarding this problem of sin that he knew he had as an individual. And no matter where he tried to find peace, no matter what he tried to do, whether it was pilgrimages, whether it was beating his body, He could find no peace in the doctrines and in the church of Rome. He made a trip to Rome itself and there he saw as he looked over the city of Rome he saw the splendor of the castles and cathedrals and he was sick to his stomach as he came from Germany and the poverty of the people indeed it was around this time that Tetzel one of the Pope's emissaries was travelling around Germany and Europe collecting money to build the great cathedral in Rome and as Martin Luther went there he discovered and he saw through the splendours and the riches of Rome he saw through the ritual and the idolatry of her priests he saw through the oppression of the people and the darkness that Rome as an institution was keeping the people by their papal authority and he lashed back on the 31st of October 1517 the day before, the night before All Saints Day All Saints Day was celebrated by Roman Catholic Church to celebrate the saints in case they had missed one throughout the previous year they had all saints day so they included them all and Luther last back on the 31st of October 1517 and he nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg he was brought before the courts the diet of worms, the word diet It's not that abstinence from food. The word diet simply means the legislature or the church court. He was brought before the Diet of Worms in 1521 and he was asked to retract what he had written in his numerous books by this stage. And he stood there and he prayed to God the day before and he prayed on his way to Worms and he stood before the legislature. Not a man on his side. And they asked him to retract, and he said, Here I stand, I can do no other. May God help me. Amen. With these words ringing in the ears of the Roman church and the Roman council, Luther left the council at Worms, under threat of his life. At 1529, at the Diet of Speer, Luther had gained significant support in the gospel. Throughout Germany the princes and the hierarchy, the well-to-do and the gentry were coming around Luther and they were supporting him in the gospel and by the 15th of April 1529 they came together in a united front for the first time at the Diet of Speer and they handed a protest to the Diet of Spear. And as Philip Chapp says, this was now the protest of princes and representatives of leading cities of the empire, who now for the first time appeared as an organized party. It was a protest of conscience bound in the word of God against tyrannical authority. From this protest and spear, the Lutherans were first called Protestants. That is where the word Protestants came from. It is an appellation that has since taken on political connotations. Some see the name of Protestant as a negative disapproval of all that is associated with Rome. They would try to neutralize it as though to disarm it. They would try to neutralize it as though to make it appealing to a broader audience. And there are those within Christendom, within the Protestant Church, the Evangelical Church, who balked at the idea of using the name Protestant. But it is an important word, and I'm going to prove this tonight. It is an important word. Because Protestantism in its truest form cannot be silenced. It is a return to the primitive purity of the New Testament. It is, as Wiley the great historian said, it is revived Christianity. It is simply the principle of truth as revealed in the Word of God. The first thing I want us to notice regarding this subject then of Protestantism is the Protestant principle. What is the underlying principle? What is the underlying basic law that governs Protestantism? Is it simply an external movement? Is it an organization? Or is it a great principle of truths? The Protestant movement, as we notice this great principle, was not a planned or orchestrated policy. It was not a line of attack that Luther thought up and organized against the Church of Rome. There was nothing planned in Luther's stand against Rome. He was working on the impulse of a heart that had been enlightened by the gospel of truth. He did not plan the movement in Germany. If he had known the dangers that were involved, he may not have even associated with it initially. And so this great movement did not originate out of a planned or orchestrated policy. Its influences penetrated the heart of Martin Luther. His heart was revived. And as the gospel that revived Luther's heart was spread about in the hearts of men and women, so it began to revive society. It began to revive the masses. It began to see then a great work throughout society, throughout the community. It was not a political force. It was not an enthusiastical force. And therefore there is no single denomination, there is no one form of Protestantism that can identify itself as essentially or exclusively Protestant. I want you to understand that. There is no single denomination that can identify itself as exclusively or essentially Protestant. It is the principle of truth that runs through the entire movement that makes it Protestantism and unites the movement together. Protestantism is in many ways a divided force. There are many denominations. This was seen right after the die of the spear, very shortly after, a few months after Luther and Melanchthon fell out. It was seen later when Luther and Zwingli fell out, and Luther was caustic in his attack on Zwingli, and refused to shake his hand in fellowship. divisive worthy and so strong minded and so dogmatic were these men in their fight and search for truth that they were afraid of anything that would jeopardize that and so as you read history you will find that Luther was very very caustic and abrasive in his approach to other believers. The gospel that this new movement preached was no new gospel. It was, as has been noted throughout history, a re-discovery. It was not a discovery of the gospel, it was a re-discovery of the gospel. As it was brought back from under the oppressive tyranny of Rome. Rome had built her kingdom on the principle of darkness and obscurity. The Bible, as we have noted, was hidden. The Pope and his cardinals determined what truth was and the people lay in oppression throughout Europe as Rome got fat on the wealth of the masses of the people. Protestantism however was not an organisation that lay under no one individual's leadership. It was based on the objective truth. Protestantism as Luther knew it and as it stood in the 16th century was truth rebelling against error, was fact rebelling against fiction and the reformers understood this principle The reformers were well aware that Protestantism was not novel in the 16th century. They knew that there were reformers, they knew that there was a stand, they knew that there was true biblical New Testament Christianity prior to Luther. They knew that there were men such as John Huss and John Wycliffe in Oxford in England and Huss in Prague. They knew that there was a movement of the Waldensians in the Italian Alps. The Waldensians had come out of the Church of Rome in 1170, three or four centuries prior to Luther. They had separated from Rome. Pierre Waldo from Lyon, France, as a rich merchant, separated himself from the Church of Rome and began to preach the Gospel. He was chased and persecuted into the Alps and across the border into Italy and in the hidden in the Alps in Italy. There the Waldensians worshipped God in simplicity. I've been there. to the Piedmont Valley in the Alps where they worship and still do to this day, although they are an ecumenical church today. But I've been to that place where the delegation from Geneva, when the reformation in Geneva had taken roots, the reformation in Geneva was beginning to build momentum and they had recognized that the Waldensians were a vibrant movement prior to the reformation. And so they sent a delegation down with Guillaume Farrell and Anthony Saulnier. They sent them down to speak to the Waldensians, to include them, to see if they would be willing to be included in this great movement that was sweeping across Europe. It's interesting that some of the Waldensians were hesitant They thought to themselves, some of the old school, hard headed Waldensians said to themselves, we have been reformed for three centuries, who do these new kids on the block think they are? And so for three or four days there was great debate. And they eventually joined forces with this great movement that was sweeping across Europe. It was a vibrant movement. It was the principle of truth that was coming alive. Protestant principle is one that calls in for freedom. The tyranny of the absolutism of Romanism had darkened the hearts of men and women. They had no freedom. They had no freedom of thought. No freedom of expression. There was no room for the individual to decide for himself between right and wrong. And Paul said in the Romans, who is he who judges another man's servant? To your own mastery you stand or fall. And the reformers brought back this great principle of the priesthood of all believers. The privilege and the right and the common privilege of every believer to stand under God. in the liberty of his own conscience before God to decide between right and wrong. So the Reformation was a principle that called for freedom. It was also a principle that was inherently critical. And I want you to understand this. The principle of the Reformation Protestantism is a principle that is inherently critical. It is analytical and investigative. It is critical not only of other religions but it is more importantly critical of itself. The Protestant Reformation is built on this inherent principle that it continually reforms itself. What they said in the Reformation, we are reformed and always to be reformed. Reformed and always to be reformed. The principle of self-criticism and self-examination inherent in Protestantism springs from the Protestant understanding of the Gospel and the absolute invariable nature of the sovereignty of God. It was a declaration of what the Church is and what the Church intends to be. Reformed and always to be reforming. It is a recognition Now I want you to understand this. Protestantism is a recognition that good theology does not always mean good practice. Good theology does not always mean good practice. It was an admission that in the world of change and spiritual decline there was this tendency to spiritual decline. In a world in the vicissitudes of the heart, in the vicissitudes of society, there is this tendency to decline spiritually. You know that as a Christian in your own heart. And inherent in the principles of Protestantism was this knowledge that there is this principle in any human system. There is this tendency in any human organization or system or movement to decline. Therefore, Protestantism calls for a continual self-examination and self-criticism. We are reformed and always to be reforming. It is this principle This principle of self-criticism and examination that has kept Protestantism alive down through the centuries. It is this principle of self-examination that has separated one denomination from another It is this principle of self-examination and self-criticism that has raised up in a denomination that was going apostate, it has raised up men in denominations that were selling the truth and they have separated themselves and started new denominations, new churches to keep the banner of the cross flying. Nowhere is this more clearly seen in history than in Presbyterianism. If you look at the history of Presbyterianism in America alone, the Presbyterian Church of America, the USA, was so apostate in the early 1900s that the fight against liberalism had to begin. There was an apostasy moving into the church in the late 1800s And by the early 30s, the 1930s, there was this apostasy and ecumenism and liberalism that had crept in to the Presbyterian Church USA. In 1936, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church split from mainline Presbyterianism to keep the orthodoxy of the gospel alive. The year next, the Bible Presbyterian Church split from the Orthodox for reasons that are not as clear as far as the separation from apostasy is concerned. In 1973, the Presbyterian Church of America, the PCA, separated from these denominations, from the PCUSA, because of a further decline They kept the candle or the light of the gospel burning. You go to Scotland, the Presbyterian Church in Scotland, in 1843, Thomas Chalmers walked out of a Presbytery meeting because of the apostasy in the Church of Scotland. In Northern Ireland, also in the 1900s, apostasy had moved in to the Presbyterian Church. In the mid-1800s, a man called Henry Cook A great stalwart of the faith fought against Arianism, the heresy of Arianism. The church was enveloped with this heresy and Henry Cook went into the Presbyterian church as a young student and stood alone for many, many years until he had around him a support group that enabled him to fight from within the church. and bring the Irish Presbyterian Church back to Protestant Orthodoxy. Such a movement within the system is unusual in the extreme, but Henry Cook did it under God. In 1927 the Irish Presbyterian Church was so apostatized and liberal that they denied the virgin birth and the miracles. A professor in the college in Belfast denied the miracles of scripture. In 1927 the Evangelical Presbyterian Church split from the Irish Presbyterian Church. By 1951 the Irish Presbyterian Church had further slid until they were denying the entrance of the young Ian Paisley into a hall to preach the gospel. And therefore the Free Presbyterian Church was born. And so you see in history, and I would encourage you to read and understand the flow of history and the necessity to stand and separate ourselves. To stand as a separate body for the truth of Jesus Christ and for the keeping alive of the Protestant principle of truth and freedom. This self-critical spirit that is within Protestantism keeps it alive. We come then to the Protestant proposition. We come to this point, the second point, the Protestant proposition. Protestantism has been accused of being negative. How often have I heard that? We're just negative. We're always negative. We're always looking on the dark side. Always against the establishment. There is never any fruitful contribution to be made against the ecumenical growth of Christianity. You've heard it over and over and over again that Protestantism is negative. But contrary to these indictments, Protestantism is a very positive force. Very positive. As the gospel spread throughout Europe it became clear what kind of movement it was and what sort of reform it called for. It was not calling for a moral or ethical reform. It was not merely calling for a social reform. Protestantism was calling for a spiritual reform. Luther had learnt in his own heart, he had come to an understanding in his own heart that Christ is the answer for every sin, for every problem, for every distress and every depression. Christ is the answer for the individual. He further learnt as he developed in his theology, as he developed in his study of scripture, that the scriptures are the authority upon which the Christian must stand, that the scriptures are the authority upon which the church must stand. And all other authority is not an authority, but is tyranny. Luther discovered this great Protestant proposition of the authority of Scripture and all that flowed from it, all the liberty, the liberty of mind and heart, the liberty of soul that flowed from coming to Scripture alone. Alone. Without the Church of Rome to tyrannize and to suppress the conscience, Luther learned that the Scriptures alone was to be the only source of peace, was to be the only source of joy, was to be the only source of going forward. And it wasn't Luther who rediscovered all of this, it was John Calvin who unwrapped the package for future generations. Calvin systematized it in the Institutes of the Christian Religion. If you don't have a copy, you should buy it, read it, and study it. The Institutes of Christian Religion. I think he was 24 when his first edition came out. Calvin was a genius, a law student, had a legal mind, and by the age of 24, I believe it was 24, he had this first edition of the Institutes of the Christian Religion. From this document that all of the main confessions of faith flow for the Reformed Church, such as the Westminster Confession for Presbyterians, the 39 Articles of the Anglican Church, the London Confession for the Baptists. And this one overarching scene that characterized the writings of Calvin was the sovereignty of God. The sovereignty of God. That was the battle cry for Calvin was this absolute supremacy and sovereignty of God. Protestantism did not reinvent the wheel, it did not reinvent Christianity. It did not begin something novel. 16th century Protestantism as a continuum of reformed movements throughout history brought back into focus the authority of God and his word. I want you to understand that. 16th century Protestantism brought back into focus brought back into focus the absolute authority of God and His Word. For the Reformers there were five main areas which expressed and highlighted this theme of the absolute authority the Sola Scriptura, Sola Dei Gloria, Sola Christo, Sola Fidei and Sola Gratia. Those are the five main areas that teach the absolute authority of God and His sovereignty. Luther made his stand at the Diet of Worms on the 18th of April, 1521. He emphasized this Sola Scriptura, the sole authority of God If you can convince me, he said, by the testimony of Scripture, or on clear and plain grounds of reason, so that conscience shall bind me to make acknowledgement or error, I can and will not retract. For it is neither safe nor wise to go against conscience. Here I stand, I can do no other. So help me God. This is the testimony of Scripture. Psalm 138, verse 2, "...that has magnified thy word above all thy name." He has set His Word out for us to see. He has made His Word visible and accessible. Do you hear that, believer? He has made His Word visible for us. He has made it accessible. He has magnified it above all His name. It is in the word of God then that we find our sole authority for faith and practice. Not only was there sola scriptura, there was soli deo gloria. For the glory of God alone, monasticism had made the distinction between the ascetic Christian living and the normal mundane life. Celibacy set the clergy apart from people, inferring a dishonor on marriage. You see as you examine the dogmas and the practices that came into the Roman Catholic system throughout the ages, monasticism and celibacy to name but two and in doing that and in instituting those practices they were setting men apart and making a distinction between the mundane life and the aesthetic life But the protestant reformers called for an examination of life to be seen that all of life, every aspect of life is to be sanctified to the glory of God alone. All of life. You cannot segregate your life into different compartments and say you're glorifying God. You cannot go out into the world tomorrow, live as you please in the world, live like the devil if you like, and decompartmentalize then your Christianity. Christianity calls for this sovereignty of God and the sanctification of all of life. under the sovereignty of God's hand. Man's chief end, the Catechism said, is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. That is our chief end. Then there was the Solus Christo. It is in a different case because it is by Christ alone. Rome had hidden Christ behind the elaborate tapestry of external ritual and doctrinal deceit. The Reformers however taught, that Christ was to be taught, Christ was to be preached, that Christ was the only mediator between God and man, that the priest was no mediator, the priest was an imposter and a liar, and they called for Christ to be taught to the people as the only mediator. They highlighted furthermore the priesthood of all believers. Then there was sola gratia, This claim was a recognition of the inadequacy of all human claims to righteousness and also the prior action of God in anything that we do as far as our salvation is concerned. As the hymn writer put it, I sought the Lord and afterward I knew He moved my soul to seek Him seeking me. It was not I that found my Saviour true, no, I was found of Thee. They recalled the doctrine of by grace alone that Paul preached to the church at Ephesus Salvation by grace alone and then Sola Fide by through faith alone was central to the protestant proposition Coming in to the protestant progression This protestant proposition as we have seen is a very positive proposition It had, in this sense, an agenda. It had an agenda. There was propositions given to the people. There was truth being taught to the people. It was not merely, and I want you to understand this, it was not merely a rebellion against Rome. We're going to see this later. It was not merely a rebellion against Rome. It was a way forward. It was a proposed route to take for the glory of God. and for the good of the people. That, my friend, was the Protestant proposition. It was then a positive force. We come then to the Protestant progression. Biblical Christianity cannot die having seen this proposition and having seen the principle of truth. Biblical Christianity and Protestantism cannot die because it is a dynamic movement. It is built on the basic principle and re-examination of the truth. It is built furthermore on an intrinsic missionary spirit and it is kept alive. We're coming now to application, how we're going to tie this all together to our modern society. Now I want you to listen. I don't like to be misunderstood. is kept alive by protest. Protestantism is kept alive by protest. The word protest today is a very negative and dirty word. Nobody likes it. The modern sense of the word and most dictionaries has the words objection or against very prominent in the definition. But the older meaning, the original meaning of the word is very different. It is a Latin word, protestare. And you can see in this Latin word, protestare, the compound that makes it up. It is protestare. It is, in other words, to testify for. To testify for, you see there, the positive proposition. It is testifying for something. I want you to be clear on that. The Christian is always to be against theological error in the church and moral evil in society or in the church. Negativity is not necessarily wrong. Indeed it is proper in its place. Protestantism however is a positive thing and standing against error must always mean standing for truth. If you read the book of Jude you'll understand that. Standing against error always means standing for truth. You cannot hit error and damage error with anything other than truth. you cannot defeat error without truth and so Protestantism must stand against error and in doing so it stands for the truth, it testifies for the truth Luther recognized and realized this in his fight against Erasmus in the enslaved will or otherwise known as the bondage of the will Luther writes when Erasmus censured him for being over bold in making assertions Erasmus was a very calm and calculated a very anemic individual who loved education and academia and hated the Roman Catholic system although he remained in it he was a humanist and theologian but he hated the Roman Catholic system although remaining in it till his death but he censured Luther for being overbold in making assertions and he says, Luther replies to him, if you have the book The Bondage of the Will you should read it, it is an excellent book and Luther's caustic sarcasm comes out very clearly throughout the book and it is very interesting the translation by J.I. Packer and O.R. Johnson Luther writes Away now with skeptics and academics from the company of us Christians. Let us have men who will assert. Men twice as inflexible as very stoics. What language today? The modern society doesn't like inflexibility. Luther says, let us have men twice as inflexible as the Stoics Take the Apostle Paul, he goes on, how often does he call for that full assurance which is simply an assertion of conscience of the highest degree of certainty and conviction Peter then, he goes on, commands us to give a reason of the hope that lies within us Nothing is more familiar or characteristic among Christians than assertion. Take away assertion and you take away Christianity. I love that quote. Take away assertion and you take away Christianity. If you cannot assert a propositional truth, then you have no Christianity to assert. If you cannot stand for truth and cannot assert it, as Peter tells us, to be always ready to give a reason of the hope that lies within us, or as Paul says, and I've given you the text there, Paul calls us to know that full assurance. Take away assertion and you take away Christianity. This, my friend, was the spirit of the Reformation. It was a God-given grace, a God-given confidence in the truth of Scripture that launched a reformation. And my friend, it will be that same spirit that keeps Protestantism alive today, or that keeps Biblical Christianity alive today. That spirit of confidence in the truth, of the conviction, the courage of our convictions Since Protestantism took root and spread throughout Europe and across the Western world, it is difficult to imagine that there ever was a worse state that the Church finds itself in as it does today. I know every generation feels that it's worse off than ever. As I look at the Church, it is hard to imagine that the Church has ever been in a worse state than it is in today. In many respects Protestant Christendom is on the road back to medieval paganism and Romanism. The charismatic movement has abandoned the Protestant principle of Sola Scriptura. I want you to understand what I'm saying. they might not and the accusations that I have to bring against the charismatic movement and certain areas of the evangelical church they may not admit in fact I am certain that they would not admit it because their head is clear in some areas of doctrine But I am speaking of the practice of these movements. I am speaking and I will let society and I will let them define themselves, how they practice, what they do. Because we as Protestant Christians must understand this inherent self-criticism. We must examine ourselves. We are obligated tonight to examine the Christian Church to see where it stands before God and to seek to stand for truth in the midst of a downgrade of Christianity, in the midst of an apostatizing evangelical church. in North America and across the Western world. And I said that the charismatic movement has abandoned the Protestant principle of sola scriptura. Why? Because they are searching for an experience, a personal experience. They do not want to know what the scripture says. I have spoken to people on the phone. A lady phoned me just after I arrived last year, and she was a Pentecostal, tongue speaking, Toronto blessing, all of the above. And I said, Dear, if I could prove to you from scripture That the tongues of the New Testament has nothing to do with modern tongues. That the Toronto blessing is of the devil. If I could prove to you from scripture, would you hear me? I have experienced this. I have experienced it. They have raised experience up above the scriptures of truth. Just exactly what Rome did. in the centuries prior to the reformation. They had brought in art that would satisfy the eye. They brought in incense that would satisfy their nostrils. They brought in the Euporus that would satisfy their tongue. Everything that would satisfy the senses. Rome incorporated. Why? Why is there necessity to do that? Because they had sold That true religion that satisfies the heart. And if you have abandoned that which satisfies your heart, you need something to put in its place. And the senses is the next best thing. The charismatic movement have abandoned it. And any charismatic individual or Pentecostal individual that I speak to, and talk about the teaching of Scripture, and talk about the study of the Word of God, they admit to me, they freely admit that their system and their form of worship is shallow. How often have I heard that from a Pentecostal worshipper and a charismatic worshipper? Yes, it is shallow. But will they leave it? No. Will they abandon it for truth? No. Why? Because they are experiencing something with their senses. As I said, Erasmus, exactly the same, knew that Rome was wrong to its core, but would not leave it, would not stand for something. Modern evangelicalism has forsaken the Protestant principle of solo Christo for a psychological conversion. in place of the sound evangelical conversion called for in the Protestant Reformation. Charles Finney in the 1800s brought in what he called new measures. Charles Finney could tell you when he was going to have a revival. He had measures and he had methods to get people up the aisle. And in the 1830's he is writing these books to help people in revivals, to get people up the aisle. What is the fallout of such a movement? Easy believism. As long as you can get them up the aisle, as long as you can get something out of their lips that say they're Christian, then everything is okay. Easy-believism has left the evangelical church with a Christless gospel and the only support available is the glut of pseudo-Christian self-help books that you'll find down in the Christian bookstore. It is filled with rubbish of self-help material. Such material, my friend, is self-destructive. And that bookstore in the town is the face of modern evangelicalism. It is the face of modern evangelicalism. You want to know what the evangelical church is today? You go down there and you'll see. You can get all sorts of stuff there. From holy water sprinklers to crucifixes, all sorts of papist and nonsense self-help Christless material. The current barrenness of evangelicalism has resulted in an insatiable desire for an external, intangible Christianity. Hence, therefore, the excess of trinkets that they're selling in the Christian bookstores. There's a lust for novelty. And there is this desire in recent years to go right back to Judaism. What the Christian church wants to go back to Judaism for is beyond me. You go on to CBD, Christian book distributors, and they are selling Jewish sofars, horns, they are selling prayer shawls, they are selling anointing oil. Now we can excuse it as Commercializing Christianity. But my friends, such an excuse is not enough. It is beyond, it is more sinister, it is worse than commercialized Christianity. It is a return to the externals of Christianity. And yes, you might buy a shofar, if you have bought one. I trust you bought it as an ornament of ancient Israel. And men and women might buy them as ornaments and there's mementos of Israel on a visit to Israel but I fear and I know from experience and I've met people who buy those shafars within the Evangelical Church who buy those shafars to blow at 9 o'clock every night to blow the spirits away I have heard it a return my friend to paganism in the Evangelical Church Now if you don't believe what I'm saying or you doubt what I'm saying, I want you to research. Look into it yourself. Discover the truth yourself. The ecumenical movement has encouraged the unity within Christendom. That is a reversal of the reformation. Liberalism has fostered such a freedom of theology as to invite the same destructive syncretism that destroyed and crippled the early church. You go back to what we said about the early church and the syncretism of paganism within it. That is exactly what we are looking at today in Christianity, in Protestant Christianity. Secularization of the church that was known in Constantine's day has made it a fashionable institution. My friend, where does this leave Protestantism today? Where does this leave us today in Protestant Christianity? I want you to go back to your Bible and I want you to go back to the confessional statements of the churches that you know. The 39 Articles of the Anglican Church, the Confession of Faith for the Baptist Church, the Westminster Confession. and I want you to examine that church, that particular church in light of the confessional statements they had you will find a great departure from the truth you will find a great departure from their very own confessional statements and do you know what that means? a man who has signed a confessional statement in his ordination vows in the ministry and is teaching something that is totally aberrant and opposite to what his confession states makes that man a liar makes him a liar my friend this is exactly where the church is today we are in the same place where Jeroboam found himself in ancient Israel Isaiah said that judgment is turned back backwards and justice standeth afar off for truth is fallen in the streets truth is fallen in the streets Jeroboam in his quest for to keep the unity of Israel in his quest to keep numbers together does that ring a bell? in his quest to get numbers and to get people he set this idol up and notice that Jeroboam did not deny the God of Israel he did not deny the existence of the God of Israel neither does Protestant Evangelicalism today neither does Liberalism Neither does the ecumenical movement. But they have brought in and they have appendaged things to Christianity that has destroyed it. There is an ungodly, pragmatic counsel in the heart. He finds in verse 28 of 1 Kings chapter 12, he took counsel. He took counsel. And there is this uncalled and uncommissioned preaching of the word, because he set men up, verse 31, as priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi. My friend, we are right back to the days of Jeroboam, to the days that Luther experienced prior to the reformation. Truth, my friend, is not neutral. And here I'm finished. Truth is not neutral. and God is not neutral Protestantism calls for a fresh and vibrant re-examination for a return to the absolute authority of the word of God it calls for discrimination of error it calls for discernment to know the truth, for grace to live the truth for courage to assert the truth it calls my friend to testify for the truth It calls, in other words, for protest. It calls for protest. There is what Protestantism is. There, my friend, is where we are today. I want you to go and search your heart as an individual. Re-examine where the church is as a whole, where the evangelical church is. and discover what you, what you need to do as an individual and what you as a member of a congregation need to do and what we as a church need to do. Amen.