The topic that has been assigned
to me, the title is, A Temple of Living Stones. And for me
to address the primacy and centrality of preaching in the Reformation. So there is one text that really
begs for me to begin our time together in, and it's 1 Peter
chapter 1. If you take your Bible and turn
with me to 1 Peter chapter 1, I want to begin reading a passage,
and I really want to just make some observations from this passage
as I will then transition into the Reformation. 1 Peter chapter
1, And I want to begin reading in verse 23, 1 Peter 1 verse
23. This is God's inspired, inerrant,
and infallible Word. For you have been born again,
not of seed, which is imperishable, but imperishable. That is through
the living and enduring Word of God. For all flesh is like
grass. in all its glory, like the flower
of grass. The grass withers and the flower
falls off, but the word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the word which was
preached to you. Therefore, putting aside all
malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like
newborn babes. long for the pure milk of the
Word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you
have tasted of the kindness of the Lord. And coming to Him as
to a living stone, which was rejected by men. but is choice,"
or could be translated chosen, and precious in the sight of
God. You also as living stones, and
this now picks up the title for my message, you also as living
stones are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy
priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God
through Jesus Christ. As Peter writes this letter,
he makes a startling statement in verse 25, that it is assumed
that if you are born again, that you have come to regeneration
through the preaching of the Word of God. In other words,
Peter assumes that the primary, ordinary means of grace is the
preaching of the Word of God. And that is what he states here.
And Peter himself has witnessed this with his own eyes in the
earthly ministry of Jesus Christ. And for three years, Jesus followed
our Lord. And he saw that he was principally
and primarily a preacher. In fact, he was an itinerant
evangelist. And we read how Jesus came preaching
repentance and faith in the gospel. It's been well said, God had
only one Son and He made Him a preacher. And there was the
primacy of preaching in the public ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Peter observed that for three
years. He understood. what is primary,
the main thing in ministry, the preaching of the Word of God. And then in the Great Commission,
which is found in the different Gospels and in the book of Acts,
in Luke's account we read how Jesus charged His disciples to
go into the world and to preach. repentance for the forgiveness
of sins. And so, Peter has received the
mandate from the head of the church, the sovereign Lord, Jesus
Christ Himself, to go out and to preach the Word of God. And so, how was the church birthed?
And Peter stood up on the day of Pentecost, and he took Joel
chapter 2, verses 28 to 32, And he said, this is that that was
spoken of the prophet Joel. And he began an exposition of
Joel chapter 2, that whoever shall call upon the name of the
Lord shall be saved. This Jesus whom you crucified,
God has made to be both Lord and Christ. And there were 3,000
souls. that were sovereignly regenerated
and birthed into the kingdom of God under the red-hot Bible
preaching of the Apostle Peter. And as you continue through the
book of Acts, it is so obvious the primacy of the preaching
of the Word of God, a blind man could see it. Do you know that
one out of every four verses in the book of Acts is a sermon,
or is the equivalent of a sermon as there is preaching to an entourage
of people? The title of the book of Acts
really could, instead of it being the Acts of the Apostles, more
accurately is the Sermons of the Apostles. I mean, we all
want to have a first century church. If we are to have a first
century church, then there must be the primacy of the preaching
of the Word of God, and you follow it from Pentecost. Acts chapter
3, Peter preaches another sermon. Acts chapter 4, as he's before
the Sanhedrin, there is salvation in no other name. For there is
no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be
saved. And as the church grew by the
thousands, there began to be different pressures that were
brought to bear upon Peter and the other apostles, pulling them
in different directions away from the preaching of the Word
of God. And there in Acts chapter 6,
when the needs of the Hellenistic widows were not being met Rather
than Peter stepping in and taking care of these matters, they appointed
seven men who were full of the Holy Spirit and of wisdom, and
he said that he must maintain the centrality of prayer and
the preaching of the Word of God. And that continues throughout
the book of Acts. We read the pastoral epistles.
There is no question. There is no doubt. what is the
chief focus and the tip of the spear for the man of God, it
is to be the preaching of the Word of God. And so, as we read
here in 1 Peter, as Peter is talking about a temple of living
stones It is obvious that before they became living stones, they
were dead stones. They had no spiritual life. They
were dead in trespasses and sins. And then they became living stones
as the life of God came to indwell their soul. So, how was it? that the life of God came to
indwell them. Well, the instrumentality was
the preaching of the Word of God. The author was God Himself,
who alone can bring about regeneration. And in 1 Peter 1 and verse 3,
it says, "'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who has caused us to be born again.'" The agent, capital
A, is God Himself. The instrument is the Word of
God, but the means, the primary means, Peter acknowledges, is
the preaching of the Word of God. And not only was it that
for regeneration, it was also that for sanctification, and
that is why as we come into chapter 2, and in verse 2 he says, like
newborn babes long for the pure milk, of the Word, there is still
to be the essential element of the Word of God, not only to
become born again, but also to be sanctified and to grow in
the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, as
these living stones come together to comprise the temple of God,
in the midst of this living temple is to be the preaching of the
Word of God. And of course, this is built
upon a fundamental commitment to what Peter says in verse 23
regarding the distinctives of the Word of God. There are two
adjectives here, living and enduring. I'm sure you see that in your
Bible, to be born again through the living and enduring Word
of God. It is only the Word of God that
contains life. It is the Word of God that gives
life as accompanied by the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Hebrews 4
verse 12, for the Word of God is living and active and sharper
than any two-edged sword, and able to pierce as far as the
division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and
is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart,
for there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things
are opened and laid bare before the eyes of Him with whom we
have to do. This sharp two-edged sword is
to be unsheathed and wielded by the man who stands to preach
the Word of God." Obviously, there are other means by which
the Word goes out. as it goes out through one-on-one
witnessing, as it goes out in small groups from home to home,
as it goes out in counseling, as it goes out through the singing
of the Word of God. But all of those means are supportive
and secondary, and what is primary and principal is the ministry
of the preaching of the Word of God. And that is what took
place in the Reformation in the sixteenth century. It was a time
in which the preaching of the Word of God returned to front
and center in the life of the church. And what we need to understand
about the Reformers. is that they were many different
things. They were skilled theologians,
and they were gifted teachers. They were remarkable exegetes,
and they were brilliant professors, and they were prolific authors,
and they were capable commentators. But first and foremost, the Reformers
were preachers of the Word of God. And it has been well said
by church historians that if you took away all of their ministries,
and they could only have one ministry, that the Reformers
would have chosen the pulpit, because they understood the strategic
nature, the preaching of the Word of God. Edwin Dargan, a
professor of homiletics at Southern Seminary in the 19th and 20th
centuries, a great teacher of the history of preaching, writes,
quote, the great events and achievements of that mighty revolution, referring
to the Reformation, were largely the work of preachers and preaching. For it was by the Word of God
through the ministry of earnest men that the best and most enduring
work of the Reformation was done." I know that as I have studied
church history and preachers during the Reformation in recent
years, it has been quite a discovery for me. When I was in seminary,
I thought of Calvin the commentator, Calvin the theologian. I could
just see Calvin sitting in an ivory tower, and Calvin just
bent over at a desk and constantly writing, and that does describe
much of his ministry. But I was overwhelmed as I began
to dig into the ministry of Calvin, and the same for Luther. that
they were first and foremost preachers of the Word of God. And so, therefore, I believe
from Scripture as well as from church history, especially in
the Reformation, if we are to have another mighty movement
of the Spirit of God in the church, if there is to be a Reformation
and a revival in the church here in Northern Ireland, There must
be strong men in strong pulpits preaching strong truth to build
up strong congregations. And alternative methods may have
their place, depending upon what it is. But God will always bless
the church. in which there is a pulpit with
an open Bible, and the people of God come to hear the exposition
of the Word of God, and it is brought with power, and it is
brought with precision, and it comes with penetrating power
into their souls. and into their lives. And you
can just walk through church history, from the Reformation,
to the period and age, to the evangelical awakening, to the
great awakening, to the Victorian era. You can just go century
by century, and God has always marked the great eras of church
history, and those mountain peak times when He has raised up strong
men with a strong voice. preach the Word of God. So, we're
not surprised to find in the Reformation that it was a time
where manly men stood up before their congregations and preached
the Word of God. Now, in the time that I have
to share with you about the preaching of the Reformation, I want to
take a particular paragraph out of a book that is written by
John Broadus. John Broadus was a professor
in the 19th century who has written, gave a series of lectures that
have been transcribed into a book called Lectures on the History
of Preaching. And he goes back to the Old Testament
and just walks all the way forward in the 19th century. When he
comes to the 16th century, He makes some observations that
are worth noting, and this will serve as my outline for the rest
of our time. There were four characteristics
in the Reformation as it relates to preaching. So, this will be
very easy to follow. I have four little headings.
the set before you. These must be replicated today. They are timeless. They transcend
centuries and generations and can easily be established in
Scripture itself. So, number one, as John Broadus
gives the overview of preaching in the Reformation, he notes,
first of all, It was a revival of preaching period. In other words, previous to the
Reformation, Preaching had all but faded off the scene. Of course,
God always has His men, and always has a remnant, and always has
His witness. And yes, there were the Lollards,
and Wycliffe, and Huss, and the Waldensians, and little points
of light here and there. But by and large, there was a
thick cloud of darkness. that hung over the church, especially
in Europe and in the British Isles. And previous to the Reformation,
the pulpit itself had been moved away from the center of the building.
It was put over on the side, and there were just little homilies
that were given from that displaced pulpit, which was really more
of a lectern like what I've got here. This isn't a pulpit, you
understand. This doesn't count. And this is like a little choir
director's thing. So, it was moved over to the
side, and there were discourses from Greek philosophers, from
Seneca, from Plato, quoting Aesop's fables, etc., and in the center
was an altar. Evangelical churches do not have
an altar. They have a communion table,
but an altar is where Mass is served. And that became the primary,
supposed primary, means of grace. But in the time of the Reformation,
it was a recovery of the ministry of preaching. There had not been
preaching before the Reformation. It was all but vanquished. And
Dargan writes, among the Reformers, preaching resumes its proper
place in worship. Preaching becomes more prominent
in worship than it had been perhaps since the fourth century. So for a thousand years, there
has been a dearth of preaching. But with the Reformers, they
stood up like men, and they stood before the people of God, and
they began to herald and to preach the Word of God. It wasn't in
lighting candles. It wasn't in stained glass windows
and statues of saints. It wasn't in incantations. It
wasn't in an altar in mass. It was bringing the pulpit back
to the middle of the building. And when you came to church,
it was to hear the proclamation of the Word of God. So, let me
just take two men, Luther and Calvin, and just talk about how
they were a part of this Reformed worship service where now preaching
was primary. You've heard of Martin Lloyd-Jones,
right? Martyn Lloyd-Jones said of Luther, he was preeminently
a preacher. And so, Luther preached twice
every Sunday. That would exhaust the average
preacher today. He preached twice every Sunday.
He preached multiple times throughout the week. Whenever he traveled,
pulpits opened up to him. And in one year, for example,
1528, which was the year of the Black Plague, where everyone
left Wittenberg, Luther said, no, I'm staying with my flock,
I'm staying with my people. Luther in the year 1528, he preached
200 times that year. That's virtually four times a
week. In the next year, 1529, he preached
at the same pace, and in certain segments of the year, he would
preach eighteen times in eleven days. Luther said, quote, often
I preach four sermons on one day. It is estimated that in
Luther's lifetime, he preached over 6,000 sermons. Now, Luther was a Bible professor.
Luther was a commentator. Luther was an author, i.e., the
bondage of the will. but six thousand sermons that
Luther preached. Luther said the church is not
meant to be a pen house, but a mouth house. In other words,
the church is not meant to be a library club, you know, where
we show up and just read books. The church is intended to be
the place where you hear the voice of the preacher bringing
the Word of God to the congregation. In fact, Luther said the gospel
is not meant to be written, it's meant to be screamed, close quote,
in typical hyperbolic Luther fashion. And as the Reformation
caught fire in Saxony and in Germany, there were other men
now who have not been trained in how to preach the Word of
God, so what Luther did is he wrote postules, which were sermons
for other men to preach. So, not only was he preaching
his own sermons, but he is writing the sermons that would be distributed
throughout Germany, such that Luther is preaching through pulpits
throughout the area, throughout the region, as other men take
Luther's sermon manuscripts and sermon notes and preach them. And so, the point to be made
is that Luther was a prolific preacher. No wonder they had
a Reformation. And the same can be said of John
Calvin. He had an indefatigable energy
about him. Calvin preached twice on Sundays,
sometimes three times on Sundays. Now listen to this. He also preached
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday at 6 a.m. to a packed congregation every
other week. So in the span from Sunday to
Sunday, he would be preaching nine or ten sermons. This is John Calvin. While he's
doing everything else during the rest of the day, he is a
prolific force in the pulpit. And on the 400-year anniversary
of Calvin's birth in 1909, one of his foremost biographers,
Emile Dubergay, said this about Calvin. It would be worth our
hearing this today. That is the Calvin who seems
to me to be the real Calvin, the authentic Calvin. The one
Calvin that explains all the others. Calvin, the preacher
of Geneva, molding by his words the spirit of the Reformed of
the 16th century. And in that same memorable address,
Dumergue remarked, Well, Calvin has come to be remembered as
a theologian who recovered the doctrinal landmarks, and of course
he did. Philip Melanchthon called him
the theologian. Everyone else was just a theologian.
Calvin was the theologian. Dubergay says, though he is remembered
as a theologian who recovered the doctrinal landmarks, which
have been buried under the debris of confused centuries. In other
words, we've lost our understanding of who Calvin was. Calvin saw himself, first of
all, as a pastor in the church of Christ and therefore as one
whose chief duty must be to preach the Word, close quote. And that was expounded in Calvin's
own pulpit. In 1909, J. Murrow Dubergay,
the noted Reformed Reformation historian, says that the real
Calvin is that of the biblical expositor in the pulpit who considered
the pulpit to be, quote, the heart of his ministry, close
quote. So, as Broadus notes, the preaching
of the Reformation, he starts at the most obvious point, that
first and foremost, it was just a revival of preaching period,
meaning that before the Reformation, there is hardly any real preaching
that is going on. And before I move on to the other
headings, I do want to say this, as I said earlier, if we are
to see a Reformation again in this day and in this hour, I
am fully convinced that preaching must come again to the center
place in the church. And I believe that we have too
little preaching today. We have canceled Wednesday evening
or midweek preaching sessions, and many churches have canceled
Sunday evening preaching services. Sunday morning, the sermons are
becoming shorter and shorter, the announcements bigger and
bigger. The music more and more, and the sermon is becoming compressed
until now there is a famine in the land for the hearing of the
Word of the Lord. There is so little preaching
that takes place today. Is it any wonder that our churches
are so weak when we are contrary to the very pattern that we see
in the book of Acts in the first century? And I also believe that
very few preachers come close to reaching their potential as
a preacher, if for no other reason they preach so little. If you
were trying to learn how to play the violin, do you think more
practice or less practice would help you? If you were trying
to learn how to play the piano, do you think more practice or
less practice Well, the answer is obvious. You're going to have
to practice in order to get to the next level, in order to improve
your skill and ability. And today, I believe we have
such little preaching that not only does it weaken our churches
as they are cut off from the primary means of grace into their
own life, but it also puts a low ceiling over the average pastor. And because he is able to develop
his gift in preaching as well as deepen his knowledge of Scripture
and how to deliver it, it is hindered and held back because
there is so little preaching. At the time of the Reformation,
it was a revival of preaching. Now, second, not only was it
a revival of preaching. It was a revival of biblical
preaching. It wasn't just that there was
preaching. It was preaching of a certain
kind. It was preaching of a certain nature. It was expository preaching. It was biblical preaching. It was true preaching. And Broadus said, the preacher's
one great task in the sixteenth century was to set forth the
doctrinal and moral teachings of the Word of God. Erasmus,
as has already been noted in our conference, 1516, he has
compiled and has printed now a Greek New Testament for the
first time. And men are able to now go back
to the original languages. They are able to dig into the
Word of God, and they are beginning now to…they are able to interpret
the Scripture with precision. Abrantes explains, preachers
studying the original Greek and Hebrew were carefully explaining
to the people the connected teachings of passage after passage and
book after book. Dargan gives this insight, the
Reformers gave to Scripture a better interpretation than that which
had prevailed before. The petty and almost, and often
ridiculous allegorizing. which marred even the best medieval
preaching finds little or no place in the sermons of the Reformers. It is refreshing indeed to pass
from the wild and baseless spiritualizing of the medieval preachers to
the sober, clear, grammatical, and instructive expositions of
Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and the others. So, it was a return
to biblical preaching. It was a return to expository
preaching. Now, let me just take Luther
and Calvin again. Luther was a strong Bible preacher. He was committed to straightforward
biblical preaching that is rooted and grounded in the Word of God
itself. He was always expository. Luther scholar Fred Mooser writes,
quote, while Luther came, what many interpreters, with Luther
came what many interpreters call a totally new form of the sermon,
the expository sermon. He went on to say that Luther
virtually single-handedly resurrected biblical preaching from the grave. And Musser explains, quote, Luther's
method is to take a given segment of Scripture, find the key thought
within it, and make that unmistakably clear. The text is to control
the sermon. Now, what a novel idea. that
you would read the passage, you would interpret the passage,
you would show the relevance of the passage, you would apply
the passage, you would exhort with the passage, you would move
on to the next passage. You would read it, interpret
it, show its relevance, apply it, exhort with it, comfort with
it, challenge with it, and then move on to the text. In other
words, for Luther, the preacher has nothing to say. apart from
the Word of God. Now, what he has to say, it starts
with the text, he stays with the text, he supports it with
other texts, but his pulpit is to be a fountain from which the
Word of God is flowing. Hughes Oliphant Old, who probably
was the leading expert on the history of preaching who recently
went to be with the Lord, said, Luther is always an expository
preacher. So, what were some of the books in
the Bible through which Luther preached? Well, he preached from
every portion of Scripture. He preached from Old Testament
narrative. He preached from law. He preached from Hebrew poetry.
He preached from prophecy. He preached from the gospels.
He preached discourses. He preached parables. He preached
the book of Acts. He preached the epistles. Luther preached consecutively
lengthy series Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, 2 Samuel, Psalms,
Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah,
Jonah, Micah. Sounds like a homeschool convention. Just want to make sure you're
still out there. Zephaniah, Haggai, Malachi, Habakkuk,
Zechariah. That's enough to empty the average
church. A Scottish revival. Honey, I
shrunk the church. But in the days of the Reformation,
it was what God was using to set on fire the church with flames
of passion for God and depth of convictions and transformation
of life. And in the New Testament, Luther
also preached from Matthew 5 through 7, Matthew 11 through 15, 18
to 24. Those are chapters, not verses. Matthew 27 to 28, and those are
just the ones that we have. The men in my church bought me
the, whatever, 56-volume set of Luther's works, and in going
through, these are just what we have. of Luke 15 to 16, all
of the Gospel of Mark, John 1 through 4, John 6 through 8, John 16
through 20, Acts, Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians,
1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, 1 Timothy, 1 John, 1 Peter, Titus,
Philemon, and Hebrews. I take the time to read this
just to underscore the steady diet of biblical preaching that
was going forth from Luther's pulpit there in Wittenberg and
is having a contagious effect with other Reformers and other
pulpits in the land. Luther, in his own words, said,
a good preacher invests everything in the Word. In other words,
this church will make it or break it by the ministry of the Word
of God. Luther said, the pulpit is the
throne for the Word of God. The only perpetual and infallible
mark of the church was always the Word, close quote. In other
words, for Luther, where is the real church? It's wherever the
Word of God is being preached. And, of course, Calvin would
then add, and where the ordinances are served, and where church
discipline is practiced, that triad of distinctives, but first
and foremost, the number one distinctive of a true church,
a real church, is where the Word of God is being preached. And Luther said, every time the
church gathers, God's Word needs to be preached. Our Christians
should not even come together. Now, that would shut down a lot
of programs in a lot of churches. Luther is saying, in essence,
there's no reason for us to come together if the Word of God is
not being ministered to us. More important than what we say
to one another is what God says to us. And more important than
what we say to God is what God says to us. Luther said, I take
pains to treat a verse, to stick to it, and to instruct the people
that they can say, this is what the sermon was about. In other
words, the father ought to be able to ask the children after
the sermon on Sunday, what did the preacher have to say? And
it's not the illustrations, it's not the cultural references,
it is the chapter and verse is what should be so memorable in
the hearts and the lives of those who came. And when Luther addressed
other preachers in his generation, Luther said, quote, give me Scripture. Scripture! Scripture! Do you
hear me? Scripture! Close quote. He was begging for the other
preachers to stop with the other stuff. The power is in the Word
of God itself. I can hear Dr. Sproul talking
about the last sermon that Luther ever preached. And he said, you're
looking for the power in all the wrong places. You think the
power is in Mary's milk or in Joseph's coat or whatever the
different relics are. You think the power is in the
building. You think the power is in our tradition. Luther said,
God has put the power in His Word. That's why the Word must
be preached if the church is to be strong. Luther said, it
is disgraceful for the lawyer to desert his brief. It is even
more disgraceful for the preacher to desert his text. In other words, the preacher
is to be like a bulldog with a bone in his mouth. He won't
let go of the text that is in front of him. He said, we can
spare everything except the Word. We profit by nothing as much
as by the Word. Luther said, when I go up to
the pulpit to preach, it is not my word I speak. God speaks in
the prophets and in men of God, as Peter in his epistle says,
holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
Every hearer must say, I hear not Paul, I hear not Peter, I
hear not a man speak, but I hear God Himself speak in His Word."
This was Luther's commitment. He was a strong Bible preacher. And the same can be said of John
Calvin. And these two men were like the juggernaut forces in
the Reformation. John Calvin was a biblical expositor
of highest order, and he preached verse by verse through books
in the Bible in an extraordinary way. He was always an expositor. T.H.L. Parker, who probably was
the foremost authority on Calvin's preaching, writes, Sunday after
Sunday, day after day, Calvin climbed up the steps into the
pulpit. There he patiently led his congregation,
verse by verse, through book after book of the Bible. Parker noted, for Calvin, the
message of Scripture is sovereign. sovereign over the congregation
and sovereign over the preacher, his humility is shown by his
submitting to the authority of Scripture." So, in other words,
Calvin understood that the highest arbitrator in the church is the
Word of God. Everything yields to the Word
of God. The preacher yields to the Word
of God. The elders yield to the Word of God. The congregation
yields to the Word of God. And in this sense, the church
is not a pastor-led, elder-led, or congregation-led. No, ultimately,
it must be God-led through His Word as it is preached. James Montgomery Boyce remarked,
Calvin had no weapon but the Bible. Calvin preached from the
Bible every day. And under the power of that preaching,
the city began to be transformed. As the people of Geneva acquired
knowledge of God's Word and were changed by it, the city became,
as John Knox called it later, a New Jerusalem, from which the
gospel spread to the rest of Europe, England, and the New
World. And so Calvin preached consecutively,
sequentially, literally verse by verse through entire books
of the Bible. He would start in chapter 1,
verse 1, and he would not complete the series until he had finished
the book. I've made a list here of the
books that we know that he preached from, and I'm going to take just
a moment to actually read this, and I do so that the weight of
this you would feel Calvin's resolve to be an expository preacher. He first preached in Strasbourg
through John in Romans. We don't have the number of those
sermons. And as he preached through the New Testament, he literally
died preaching a harmony of the gospels after sixty-five sermons. Preaching through the book of
Acts, 189 consecutive expositions. 1 Corinthians 110 sermons, 2 Corinthians
66 sermons, Galatians 43 sermons, Ephesians 48 sermons, 1 and 2
Thessalonians 46, 1 Timothy 55, 2 Timothy 31, Titus 17. These
are all Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon preaching. And then he preached the Old
Testament Monday through Friday. Listen to this. Genesis, 123
sermons. Deuteronomy, 201 sermons. Judges,
a short series, we don't know the number. 1 Samuel, 107 sermons. 2 Samuel, 87 sermons. 1 Kings,
a number we don't have the number. Job, 159 sermons. They must have thought they were
in the Great Tribulation on that. Individual Psalms, we only have
72. We know He preached more than
that. There was a paper shortage at the beginning of the 19th
century in Geneva, and they went into the library and they took
Calvin's sermons and sold them to merchants who would turn them
over and write their bill of sale, and so we lost a large
number of Calvin's sermons. So, we don't know how many psalms,
but Psalm 119, twenty-two sermons. Isaiah, 353 consecutive verse-by-verse
expositions. Jeremiah 91, Lamentations 25,
Ezekiel 175, Daniel 47, Hosea 65, Joel 17, Amos 43, Obadiah 5, Jonah 6,
Micah 28. In fact, those sermons, if you
want to take a book to read, those sermons have been republished
in Micah, and they are just as relevant and just as fresh as
though they were preached this morning. Nahum, we don't have
the number. Zephaniah 17. This is impressive. He anchored Himself to the pulpit. He bound Himself to the Word
of God. And He fed those hungry souls
the Word of God. No wonder God was doing something
there in Geneva that would be like a volcano erupting that
would send missionaries to the rest of Europe, church planners
into France, as far away as Brazil, that it would be what was going
on there in Geneva, even through the Geneva Bible, that the pilgrims
would take across the Atlantic Ocean. It would be Calvin's teaching,
Calvin's theology, Calvin's footnotes in his study Bible. that would
really be the initial worldview of New England in the start of
the colonies. A fierce commitment to expository
preaching. I mean, they weren't playing
church. The Word of God was flowing like a river. Calvin said, the
minister's whole task is limited to the ministry of God's Word,
their whole wisdom to the knowledge of His Word, their whole eloquence
to His proclamation. Calvin said, when we enter the
pulpit, it is not so that we may bring our own dreams and
fancies. As soon as men depart, even in
the smallest degree from God's Word, they cannot preach anything
but falsehoods, vanities, errors, and deceits. I mean, these men
were committed to sola scriptura at the highest level. Calvin
said, a rule is prescribed to all God's preachers. that they
bring not their own inventions, but simply deliver us from hand
to hand what they have received from God." He said, we owe to
the Scripture the same reverence which we owe to God, because
it is preceded from God alone and has nothing of man mixed
with it. That's why when Calvin stood
in the pulpit, he wasn't sharing. He was saying, thus says the
Lord. He says, no one ought to be deemed
a sound teacher but he who speaks from God's mouth, close quote. So, it was a revival of preaching. It was a revival of biblical
preaching. And I just have run out of time,
really, even for these last two points. Let me just conclude
by saying this. I'll come back in five hundred
years to give you the last two headings. We need more Bible. We don't
need less Bible. We need more Bible. I mean, that
was just backed up by this UK study of theology. It's not that
we are for it. It's not that we're against it.
We just don't even know the Bible, period. We need men in pulpits
who will herald and preach the Word of God. Pastors, do not
listen to your parishioners. who are saying, we need less
preaching. You listen to God. You read the Bible. You see the
primacy of the preaching of the Word of God. Martin Lloyd-Jones,
who had been a physician, then became a preacher. People were
coming up to him in his church and trying to tell him how to
get Westminster Chapel back up and going because he was so dominant
in his preaching. They wanted other things. Lloyd-Jones
said, when I was a physician, I never let the patient write
the prescription. Do not let the back pew dictate
what you're doing in the pulpit. Let the throne of grace and the
throne of God dictate what you're doing in the pulpit. And for
those of you young men who are considering a call to the ministry,
what is the number one thing you should do? You should find
a strong pulpit and be under that pulpit and learn how to
preach. And for those of you who are laymen in the church,
encourage your pastor to preach the Word. Ask him, can we start
the service on time, just so you'll have more time to preach?
Could we have fewer announcements? Could we have more of the Word
of God? Pastor, could we have something
during the week where you would feed our souls the Word of God. Pray for your pastor. Encourage
your pastor, because there's not another path for another
Reformation. It will be as God raises up and
restores to the center of the life of the church just like
He did five hundred years ago. There will be strong preaching
from strong men that will build up strong congregations with
strong families and strong lives. And yes, there are other means
by which the Word of God comes to us, no question, but it must
be the preaching of the Word of God that takes the lead in
any movement that is owned by God. Let me close in a word of
prayer. Father in heaven, thank You for
these moments to reflect upon what You did five hundred years
ago in Your church. and among your people. And Lord,
I pray that You would raise up men of valor, heroic men of convictions
and courage with depth of understanding and insight into Your Word. Lord,
I pray that You would reestablish the high view of the preaching
of the Word of once again in your church. Father, we pray
this in Jesus' name. Amen.