The whole matter of the Protestant
Reformation is ignored by many, misunderstood by others, and
by a great majority just completely overlooked and maligned as something
that never should have occurred in the first place. And this
is simply not the case. And so in order that we might
have, as we said this morning, a greater appreciation for what
God has done in the past, We are considering that great movement
of God and its biblical principles, what they are and were, and then
tonight what they say to us. So having introduced the subject
this morning, by asking and seeking to answer the question, why study
the Reformation, not to deify the human instruments, not to
vilify Roman Catholics or Roman Catholicism, and certainly not
simply to fill our minds with historical facts, our purpose
is rather fourfold. That we might appreciate what
God has done in the past, that there might be a confirmation
of our own understanding of God's truth, that there might be formed
within us holy aspirations for God to bear His arm in our generation,
and that we might receive some direction as we grapple with
the biblical principles which came to light in the Protestant
Reformation. So having set that direction
of purpose within the framework of a psalm like Psalm 44, and
having enunciated it, We then addressed ourselves to the question,
what were the great spiritual issues which were the lifeblood
of the Reformation? The Protestant Reformation was
not wholly a spiritual movement. There were political factors.
There were factors that were mainly intellectual. There were
other factors that were just downright sinful. But in spite
of the smoke in the flame, for the most part, it was a flame
of the mighty movement of the Spirit of God at that point in
history. And there were three great principles
which are the focal point of the Protestant Reformation. Those spiritual issues which
were the very lifeblood of the Reformation, and they have come
down to us in those well-known Latin words sola scriptura, sola
gratia, or gratia, and sola fide. All of Scripture, and only the
Scriptures, are the source of final authority concerning the
individual problem of how a man may be right with God, or the
corporate problem, how may the Church please God. How is a man
to be accepted before God? What is the basis of God's dealing
with sinful men? It's by grace alone. No mixing in of human merit or
human effort. Grace which undertakes the entirety
of man's salvation. And then that salvation is received
by the instrumentality of faith alone, not faith plus, but faith
period. And so sola scriptura, sola gratia,
and sola fide became the principles of that mighty movement of God.
Or they were the principles, and then as men have looked back,
they had seen them. It wasn't as though Luther came
out and said, here's the watchword of the Reformation, and spouted
three Latin terms. No, as we look back upon what
God did and try to see the structure of that movement of God, we see
these three principles emerging. They, in turn, gave birth to
the great exegetical work of John Calvin and the 16th and
17th century Puritans. And then, as they came over to
this country, the great structure of our own national life is found
rooted in the word of the living God. Why? Because of these great
principles of the Protestant Reformation. The whole scientific
world was upset, and the beginning of what we would call true modern
scientific method has its roots in the Protestant Reformation.
And so this morning we simply tried to bring into focus those
three great principles. Now tonight, as I announced this
morning, we want to see what those issues of the Reformation
say to us in this present hour. The issues of the Reformation
and their present relevance, and I want to state unequivocally
that these issues are just as relevant as Moratorium Wednesday,
the amazing Mets and the fall frost. I don't think you can
get much more relevant than those three things, especially those
amazing Mets. It'll be a long while before
we get over that. That's pretty relevant business, isn't it?
Well, let me say that these three dusty, musty Latin phrases and
what they speak of, just as relevant as those things. Sola Scriptura,
sola gratia and sola Now, in what sense are they relevant?
How are we going to break this down? This is a broad subject.
How can we organize our thinking? Well, let me suggest how I'm
going to attempt to organize the thinking of this. I want
to demonstrate the relevance of these principles as the Church
of Christ faces Rome, as we as an individual Church face the
imposing structure of Romanism, as we face apostate Protestantism,
and the great segment of Protestantism is just that, and other great
segments are teetering on the brink of apostasy and another
rejection of biblical truth, and then as we face the world.
So what is our stance to be with regard to Rome? What is our stance
to be with regard to great segments of professing Protestantism?
What is our stance to be with regard to the world? May I suggest
that our cry and our watchword should be these three principles,
not just mouthing them with our lips, but having our very thinking
and all of our activities suffused with these principles until they
mold us and we embody them in our own experience. Sola Scriptura. This must be our stance as we
face the issue of Rome. This is the great divide between
evangelicalism and Romanism. What authority shall bind the
conscience of the professing people of God? By what shall
I, as a pastor, seek to bind your conscience? When I tell
you young people, this is what you ought to do, this is what
you ought not to do. When I say to you wives, you
mothers, you fathers, this is your duty. By what authority
shall I seek to bind your conscience? There is no question of greater
importance than this. And this is the great dividing
line between true evangelical Christianity and Romanism today. It was the issue in Luther's
day. My conscience is held captive to the word. And, eck, the great
scholastic theologian would quote the fathers, and Luther would
say, in essence, be still with your fathers. If you want to
say what they said, fine, but don't you try to bind my conscience
by the Father's. Bind it by the Word. Bind it
by the Word. That's still the issue with Rome
today. In an article on Martin Luther
called The Last Angry Man, Stuart Garver says, quote, The battle
was joined where it is still joined. Shall the Church, through
its infallible teaching office and endless traditions, exercise
sovereign control over men's souls and consciences, or shall
the Bible? Here is the great divide, the
wall of separation between Catholicism and historic Protestantism, Ah,
but someone says, isn't Rome different? Isn't Rome changing? Isn't there a new emphasis upon
the Bible? Now granted, I'm willing to acknowledge
that the Spirit of God may be working in strange ways and in
strange places, and that in certain areas there may be little pockets
of Roman Catholics who are gathering together to genuinely study the
Scriptures and bow to its authority. That I would not question, and
God may be doing that in hundreds of places which you and I know
nothing of. But speaking of the official position of the Church
of Rome, as expressed by her own acknowledged authorities,
yes, Rome has changed since Luther's day. Surely she has changed.
Since then, she's decreed the infallibility of the Pope. Since
then, she's declared the perpetual virginity of Mary. Since Luther's
day, she has declared the assumption of Mary into heaven. Since then,
she has declared the equal authority of tradition with scripture.
Since then, she has declared anathemas upon every cardinal
doctrine of salvation, justification by faith alone, assurance of
salvation, and all the rest. Any apparent changes in Rome
in the present day are merely surface changes, and a harlot
becomes more dangerous when she's more attractive. When she does
away with some of her grosser forms of speech and dress and
becomes a cultured lady, a harlot is more seductive than ever. Much of the changes in Rome are
simply the external changes. which make that great religious
harlot more seductive in her attempts to bring within her
fold the separated and divided brethren and incorporate them
into the true Church. In July of 1968, that's pretty
recent, Pope Paul VI issued his Credo of the People of God, a
3,000-word article in which he clearly stated the Church's position
on basic issues. Listen as I quote from that credo. First of all, there's a summary
of it, and then I'll give an actual quote. The Pontiff cited the
importance of baptism, the Roman Catholic Church as the only true
church, the need for a church hierarchy, infallibility of the
Pope and of bishops as a body under the Pontiff, the Mass as
a real enactment of Christ's death, the Eucharist as the true
body and blood of Jesus, and the existence of paradise, purgatory,
and hell. He extolled the papal infallibility
as a cornerstone of the Church. Now I quote, We believe in the
infallibility enjoyed by the successor of Peter when he teaches
ex cathedra as pastor and teacher of all the faithful, and which
is assured also to the Episcopal body when it exercises with him
the supreme magisterium teaching. We believe in the infallibility
of the pronouncements of a man and his cohorts. We have the
right to bind the consciences of the faithful. Sola Scriptura,
very relevant issue. Coming to the whole matter of
the Mass, you say, ah, but they changed the Mass, it's no longer
Latin, now it's English. Is blasphemy any different in
English or in Latin? Does God suddenly turn off His
abhorrence to the blasphemous doctrine of the Mass because
it's now in English and not in Latin? Listen from this same
credo, what the Mass is in the eyes of the official teaching
of Rome. We believe that the mass celebrated by the priest
representing the person of Christ by virtue of the power received
through the sacrament of orders and offered by him in the name
of Christ and the members of his mystical body is the sacrifice
of Calvary rendered sacramentally present on our altars. Christ is sacrificed on our altars. 1968, July. I'm not talking about Luther's
day. I'm talking of something contemporary. He goes on to say,
the credo does, the bread and wine have ceased to exist after
the consecration, after the priest says his hocus pocus over them,
so that it is the adorable body and blood of the Lord Jesus that
from then on are really before us. under the sacramental species
of bread and wine as the Lord willed it, in order to give himself
to us as food and to associate us with the unity of his mystical
body. Then he goes on to elaborate.
There has been no basic change in any of the basic doctrines
that caused Luther to stand against that imposing system. And so
the issue as we face Rome is sola scriptura. Shall we follow
the dictates of popes and councils and bishops or shall our consciences
be bound by the word and by the word alone? Now let me say to
balance this that we should be as wise as serpents and harmless
as doves as we see the new openness amongst Roman Catholics to the
Bible. Let's take every opportunity
to get them into the Word. I believe in this. There's someone
sitting here who will bear witness to this. Hours spent with him
as a Roman Catholic to help get his conscience reoriented to
Scripture. I'm not speaking of this unchristlike
attitude that says, let Catholics be damned with their heresy.
No, we're to love them. We're to do all to identify with
them, to gain the opportunity of a hearing, to communicate
in love the truth of God. But never forget, you're dealing
with a system that is blasphemous at its core and is anti-scriptural. This is what I'm talking about,
that recognizing that they need evangelizing. They are not our
separated brethren with whom we have dialogue. They are men
who need evangelizing with the truth of Holy Scripture. Well,
what about our stance as we face great segments of Protestantism
in our day? What should be our cry? Well,
in great segments of the Christian Church, and it's true right here
in this area of West Essex, North Essex, there's a terrible rationalism
where men are standing in pulpits and framing pronouncements of
great church councils based solely upon their own poor, impoverished
thinking. All the so-called religion is
Christianity, the God is dead movement, the new morality, situation,
all this stuff you hear. What is it? But poor, ignorant
men mouthing their ignorance in high-sounding language. For the scripture says to the
law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this
word, it is because there is no light in them. When I speak
in any way that is not true to this book, I simply express the
darkness of my own mind. If they speak not according to
this word, there is no light in them. That intelligent, charming,
young biology professor in your high school, Koopas the account
of creation, you young people, and he does it in such a way
that seems so imposing and so authoritative and so convincing.
Sit there and tell yourself he does that because there's no
light in him. There's no light in him. There's no light in him.
I know more than he does because I believe in the beginning God
created. That doesn't mean you disrespect
him. Honor to whom honors due. You call him sir. You address
him properly. You raise your hand if you want
to talk to him. You make an appointment. When you look him in the eye,
you say, Sir, you say what you say because there's no light
in you. Sweetly, humbly, but firmly. You know more than he
does. When you take the word of the
God who made it all and who told us how he did it. Sola Scriptura. And we face this whole area of
Protestantism that claims to have the heritage of the Reformation
but has rejected the Word of God as the final court of appeal
and is governing its thinking by rationalism, man's thoughts,
by mere subjectivism, what men feel. No, we need to stand in
this hour and bear the reproach of Christ and say, as a disciple
of Jesus Christ, I have the same view of Scripture that he did.
Even He, the incarnate Son of God, constantly hooked men into
the authority of Scripture. It is written, have ye not read?
It is said, David said, in the Spirit, Moses said, the Son of
God, constantly affirming His stance with respect to the Word
of the Living God. It's not enough for us to point
at the Bible and confess it to be the Word. We must obey its
precepts, we must search it, and we must always bring every
aspect of the life and practice and our creed under the judgment
of the Word of God. That's what makes true biblical
Christianity a thrilling thing. When can we exhaust all that's
here? And if we are continually operating on the principle of
sola scriptura, the scriptures alone can bind my conscience,
then you've got to ask that in every area. To what should my
conscience be bound in the life of the church, in the worship,
in the service of the church, as a mother, as a father, as
a husband, as a wife, as a citizen? What should bind my conscience
and direct my duty? Sola scriptura, the word of God
alone. That makes an exciting thing.
It's never static, never stagnant. Constantly going on in our understanding
and then in our obedience. So we dare to face men and say
that. We say to you who are visiting
with us, what's the justification of another church when we've
got dozens of them? This is the justification that
a group of people became weary of places within the pale of
Protestantism that profess to believe the Bible. But we're
following a tradition both in creed and in practice that was
just as high-bound as the traditions of Rome. And God in His sovereignty
brought them together with a mutual desire to bring everything under
the judgment of the Word of God, both in doctrine and in practice. And He's forged and fused us
into a body of people who love with much imperfection, I know,
but with a genuine desire. to operate on that principle.
And if it means we've got to be out of joint, not only with
Rome and with all the overtures to flirt with her, but with contemporary
Protestantism, so be it. We stand under the judgment and
directives of the Word of God. So, as we face Rome, as we face
much of organized apostate religion, and as we face the world, this
is our confession. What do we say to the world when
it faces its problems? If you've never done this, if
you have the opportunity, some afternoon, tune in that station. Is it WNYC? I forgot. I just know it's my third button
on my radio, where they have a continual playing of the activities
at the United Nations. If you want something that'll
break your heart, just tune that in and listen for a couple of
hours while you're doing the ironing or scrubbing the floor or something
else, you ladies. And listen to the world's great statesmen.
grappling with problems. Sincerely, these people aren't
playing games. Most of them are brilliant enough
that they could be in other enterprises making far more money than they
are as UN representatives. But to hear this great avalanche
of words that for the most part is just an effusion of accumulated
ignorance. Why? Because they've said there's
nothing in the revelation of the Word of God to help us with
these problems, and God says, all right, you're so smart to
reject my wisdom, then go ahead and solve your problems. And
the mess, and the confusion, what is our stance to the world
then? We dare to say, sola scriptura. In the Word of God alone is everything
necessary for life and godliness. All scripture is given by inspiration
of God and is profitable for all of these things. Correction,
doctrine, instruction, that the man of God may be what? Mature,
thoroughly furnished unto every good work. The entirety of the
revelation to make us complete. Well, what about the second great
principle then and its present relevance? Sola gratia or gratia. What does this say to us in our
day? Well, we face Rome. She says
grace is stored up in us. In this credo of the people,
the Pope affirmed that the Roman Catholic Church is the one true
church. Now granted, they've done a little
double talk here, in that they no longer say, if you're outside
that church, you're not saved. You see, that makes the harlot
ugly and people might run from her. Gotta make her attractive.
When you dig down underneath it, it's still saying the same
thing. It's just saying it a little different way. It's saying, in
essence, you don't know it, but if you're really one of God's
people, you're a part of us in principle and in heart, it may
take a while for you to become that in fact. You see? You follow? You're really one of us in heart,
but you're separated. Certain circumstances come, but
when you really get the light, you'll come and acknowledge Papa
Paul. Yes, you will. You acknowledge
him as Christ's representative on earth, and as head over the
true body of the faithful. I have seen nothing to indicate
that that's been repudiated. Why? Because their view of the
church is that grace is stored up in that church, and it's funneled
down through the sacraments. And so, if you're going to have
grace, you've got to get into the circle of grace, and then
get under the spigots of grace. and there are the different sacraments.
No, we dare to say that the reservoir of God's grace is not in a church,
but it's in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians
1.3 says, According as God hath, I'm sorry, blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. He's the reservoir of all grace.
1 Corinthians 1.30 says, But of him are you in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. Where's God's reservoir of grace?
It's not here. It's not in St. Al's on the corner. No, no. It's in Jesus Christ at the right
hand of the Father. There's God's reservoir of grace.
All is stored up in Him. And as God is pleased to confer
that grace, He does so not by opening up a spigot here and
a spigot there, but by grafting men into the reservoir, to mix
my metaphors. He puts them into the reservoir.
He joins them to His dear Son. And then all that He is and has
is theirs by virtue of union. with him. So as we face Rome
with its sacramentalism, with its salvation bound up in the
water and in the sacraments and in its other trappings, we dare
to proclaim that grace and truth have come by Jesus Christ. But now, here we face much of
Protestantism and even some of our dear friends in whom we have
reason to believe are the children of God, evangelicalism. We assert
not only that is grace stored up in Jesus Christ, but we dare
to move from verse 3 to verse 4. What's the first expression
of that grace according to the Apostle? Here it is. According
as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world.
That the fountainhead of all the blessings that are stored
up in Christ, and the way sinners get into those blessings, are
traced back to the elective purpose of God. So that when a sinner
down here in 1969 believes, it's not because God treasured up
grace in His Son and made a display of it in the cross and now says
it's up to you to make good use of your faculties to get into
that reservoir. No, no. No, Paul says in Ephesians
1 that when that sinner down there in 1969 in Essex County
lays hold of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, and enters into the
blessings of salvation, it's because God in grace from eternity
purposed to bring him, and he owes his faith to his election,
not his election to his faith. See it? It's all right there
in Ephesians chapter 1. Remember as I quoted from Luther
this morning, he said that's the pivotal issue. The pivotal
issue. That's the pivotal issue. Is
it all of grace? For it says in the book of Acts
that they believed through grace. Acts 18 27. They came and helped
them much who believed through grace. Now you say, oh isn't
that just hair splitting? Listen, I want to quote from
a paper delivered by Harold Ockengay, one of the great leaders in evangelicalism
in our day. A paper delivered at the Berlin
Congress, which now is about two years ago. This is a direct
quote from Mr. Ockengay's paper. Faith is erroneously
ascribed to God as a gift. Erroneously described as a gift. He's speaking of those of us
who believe this truth. Man is commanded to repent and to believe
and to convert. The Bible places these acts within
the ability of man. Notice, not the responsibility
of man, but he says these acts are within the ability of man.
For my part, I approve of a practical synergism. The word synergism
means man cooperates with God in his salvation. I approve a
practical synergism of affirming prevenient grace, the responsibility
of each individual, and the election of Christ of all who believe.
Thus I can say, salvation is all of God, reprobation is all
of man. I cannot throw the responsibility
of man's reprobation or his lostness upon God, which no one that I
know does." Further reading, some Reformed theologians I don't
know why I said some, all that I know, teach that regeneration
by the Holy Spirit precedes conversion. The evangelical position is that
regeneration is conditioned upon repentance, confession, and faith. This alone stimulates evangelism."
End of quote. Is this a live issue? Here's
one of the greatest leaders in evangelicalism today saying that
the only thing that will stimulate evangelism is the denial of the
second principle of the Reformation, Spillagratia. I wonder what stimulated Whitefield. And drove this man as though
consumed with an inner fire to cross the Atlantic, what, eleven
times? and take as much as eight weeks.
Sometimes you read his journals and you feel ashamed of yourself.
And you see what this man did, preaching some 18,000 times,
literally burning himself out with compassion and with zeal
for the cause of Christ. I wonder what drove him. He believed
and gladly confessed that men owed their faith to their election
and not their election to their faith. What drove McShane? What
drove Brainerd out into the woods of many sections, even here in
Jersey and out especially in the Susquehanna area? What drove
him? He believed that only God could
give faith. He believed that only God could give repentance.
That's why he prayed sometimes melting the winter snows with
the heat of his body, and fasted sometimes days on end, and for
three years saw no converts. He refused to lose little tricks
to get them to use their ability to repent and to believe. He
didn't believe they had any. He believed they were dead. They
were blind. They were bound by the devil.
He believed that only God could loose them. He believed he must
preach to them. He believed he must instruct
them. So he prayed. He instructed. He preached. And
after three years, one day preaching through a semi-drunken interpreter,
the Holy Ghost came like a mighty rushing wind. And fifty Indians,
men who would never flinch in the most painful initiatory rites
as they were being recognized formally as braves, men who would
never twitch, let alone shed a tear, begin to uncontrollably
sob under a sense of their sin and their wretchedness, and they
begin to call upon God for mercy. And Brainerd could write a year
later of the fifty who professed conversion at that time, Not
one has gone back to his drunkenness or to his immorality, but to
my knowledge, everyone is going on with God. Why is it that the best of modern
evangelists admit that they only have about 5% of their converts
that stick? Because convinced that men have
the ability to repent and to believe, they use every psychological
pressure to get them to make a decision that is not the fruit
of God's working, but the fruit of their own manipulation. And
then they peter out. And then they say, well, if they
had better follow-up, they'd have lasted. Whitefield had no follow-up
courses. The Holy Ghost indwelt people,
and he followed them up real good. All this emphasis upon a systematic
follow-up is one of the attendants of a theology of evangelism that
rules out the necessity of the work of the Holy Ghost to produce
true conversion. The Church is God's follow-up.
The modern evangelism has no place for the Church. Because
if you have the Church, you've got to have a clearly defined
theology. If you've got a clearly defined theology, you can't get
together with everybody. You see? And in being wiser than
God, We find it catching up with us, point after point after point. Now why do I say all of this?
Just to stir up trouble, just to stir up the provocation. No,
no, dear ones, to show you that the issues for which Martin Luther
stood in his day are as relevant as the amazing Metz and the fall
frost in our day. Not only as we face Rome, sola
gratia, it's all of grace, but as we dare to face Protestantism,
that where it has not gone into liberalism for the most part
is encased in a man-centered thinking that does not recognize
that salvation is all of grace from beginning to end. And we
must make that confession And then, by the grace of God, we
must demonstrate that confession, that something has happened to
us that has no explanation, but that there's been an operation
of the grace of God. Well, that's the second aspect
of our confession and its relevance for our day, sola fide, as it
relates to the whole matter of our stance before Protestantism,
our stance before Rome. Now what about with our stance
before the world? What a wonderful confession to
make in a day that's filled with despair. Thinking people have
come to the point where they realize we're in a terrible mess
and they've despaired of finding any answer. And the philosophy
of despair screams out of our music, screams out of our art,
it screams out of the theater. Meaninglessness. purposelessness. What a wonderful day in which
to live and proclaim sola gratia. The whole perspective of Ephesians
2, read it sometime this week. There's the picture of man as
we see him today as Paul saw him. dead in trespasses and sins,
walking according to the course of this world, according to the
prince of the power of the air, the spirit that worketh among
the sons of disobedience. There is man dead, bound, a slave
to his lust. But then he comes to verse 4,
who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved
us, even when we were dead, hath quickened us together with Christ,
and made us to sit together in heavenly places, that in the
ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his kindness
and his grace to us in Christ. Why does the jeweler set the
brilliant diamond against the backdrop of jet black velvet? Because
the brilliance of the diamond is enhanced by the blackness
of the cloth. Where sin abounds, grace does
much more abound. There was a time in our own country
where there was a lot of what we'd call common grace, where
people shared the overflow of vital piety that was present
in the lives of a lot of people. And without any supernatural
saving grace in their hearts, there were kind people, moral
people, upright people, honest people, hard workers, industrious.
But all that's gone now, for the most part. We live in what
Francis Schaeffer would call post-Christian Western civilization. That's a terrible thing. But
the one wonder of it is the line between the true people of God
who have grace and those who don't is much clearer now. And
the diamond of the operation of God's grace can shine the
more brilliantly because of the blackness of the backdrop. So
you ought to thank God for the privilege in living in a day
like this. There was a time when you ladies in the office, you
could count for the most part that you'd have Some others who
had the same, at least, moral standards, who felt in giving
a day's work you were doing what was right, no longer. Right?
If you don't want to be a goof-off and really put in eight hours
for eight hours' work, you're looked upon as somebody who's
not quite with it. When you work as diligently when the boss is
absent as when he's present, you're looked upon as someone
who's not quite with it. You kids at school, who won't cheat when
the teacher's out of the room, just as you won't when she's
in. They look at you like something's wrong, huh? You see, these areas
where common grace was operative in a moral tone, those have pretty
well gone by the board. But what a privilege then to
live and display in this context the operation of God's grace.
And according to Titus chapter 2, that's what the Lord died
for. He died to redeem us from all iniquity and purify to himself
a peculiar people, zealous of good works. And Paul says that
he feels his ministry has been in vain unless there at Philippi
there are believers living blameless lives, shining as lights in the
midst of a crooked and perverse generation. And so we say to
this world, by our lives I trust and by our lips, it's all of
grace. What's happened to you? What
makes you what you are? You don't say, well, I made good
use of my faith. I made good use of my ability to repent.
You say, no. I was just as blind and stupid
and ignorant spiritually as any hottentot in the bush. But God,
who is rich in mercy, opened my eyes to show me what a sinner
I was. He showed me what a wonderful
Savior Jesus is. He enabled me to give myself
to him. He's done it all. Ah, but I'm
in too bad shape. I'm, no. This is a faithful saying
and worthy of all acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. Not to help them save themselves,
but to save them. Everything that's necessary to
save a sinner, he came to do. Awaken him. Convict him. Enable
him to repent and believe. Change the bent of his heart.
He came to save sinners from beginning to end. And then when
he begins, the scripture says he will carry on unto completion. Well, I hurry on to close then
with the third principle and its relevance for us today, sola
fide, by faith alone. Well, it's obvious that we need
not labor the point as far as Rome is concerned. You ask the average Roman Catholic,
if you don't believe this, just ask him sometime. You don't need
to be nasty. You can be sweet as you do it. You just say to
him, John, Harry, whoever it is, say, tell me in just a word
or two, a sentence, How do you think a man gets his sins forgiven
and is ready to meet God when he dies? And he'd tell you, well,
I can't answer that in a sentence or two because there's too many
things you've got to do. You see, the average Roman Catholic
is blinded when he thinks of how. He thinks in terms of, I
must do this and do this and do this. He doesn't reply by
faith alone. So our stance, as far as Rome
is concerned, is that of sola fide. What is our stance with
regard to Protestantism? Again, speaking of that great
segment of Protestantism that has grown apostate, the most
current philosophy is, men don't need to believe, they're saved
already. All men are fallen in Adam, all men are redeemed in
Jesus Christ. Oh, you say, nobody believes
that. Yes, they do. I was talking with my good friend, Pastor Bradbury,
who at the Synod meeting just this past week down in South
Jersey, a synod of the USA Presbyterian Church in this area, said that
here's a man delivering a paper, one of the position papers or
something, who actually expressed this, and when he nailed him
down, like these men will do, he began to dodge and hedge and
play verbal double-talk with him. But this was the thrust
of what he was saying. No longer is it true, he that
believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be
damned. All men are already saved, we just go and tell them the
fact of it. It's a new universalism. It's even being debated. I saw
a questionnaire at a certain meeting of Protestant ministers,
and here was the question. Do Jews and Muslims need to be
evangelized? Why, the very asking of the question
is the height of impudence, if you know your Bible. What's the
whole argument of Romans 1, 18 to 320? God hath concluded all
under sin. Even the Jew of Paul's day who
believed the Bible, who believed the doctrine of the transcendent
majesty of God, the purity of the law, the necessity of a blood
sacrifice, even the Jew who believed all of Orthodox Jewry needed
to be saved. How much more of the modern Jew
who is, for the most part, basically a liberal at heart. Most of the
Jews you and I meet are that. So our stance as we face Protestantism
is to insist that though salvation is all of grace, we have no reason
to believe that grace has been operative until we have been
brought to rest wholly in Jesus Christ and to acknowledge that
nothing in our hands we bring simply to his cross. we cling,
he that believeth shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be
damned." Then, as we face the world at
large, what do we say to that world? We need to tell them that the
way of acceptance is by faith alone, that they desperately
need acceptance with God, and that the only way of acceptance
is through Jesus Christ, In Luther's day, they were a
little bit further on than we are. A man who wrote a very penetrating
article said along this line, we have a long way to catch up
with pre-Reformation Europe. How lucky Luther was. He fought
these battles before the days of trench warfare, when positions
were clear and understandable. Since the age is unresponsive
to the preeminently evangelical note of the Reformation, it must
be made ready for the gospel. The biblical prescription of
such preparation is the preaching of the law. And then the man
goes on to say in Luther's day, Luther didn't need to preach
the law. People were going around under the terrors of judgment.
You look at the art of that day, the religious art, and it would
have the picture of Christ on the throne with fire leaping
out of his eyes. Some of you remember in the film
Martin Luther, they have a reproduction of that. And there's the sinner
clenching in his fear. These people believed. in the
concept of a God who was holy, who was an angry judge. They
didn't need to be convinced of that. Their problem was they
didn't know how you get accepted before Him. And so Luther came,
almost with his exclusively positive note, by faith alone, God has
set forth His Son as an able and a willing Savior. Throw yourself
upon Him! Does the average man or woman
walking down the street on your block get up in the morning dreading
An angry God upon a throne with fiery eyes and a flaming sword
about to bring it down in wrath upon it? Does he? Does he? Not in your life. All he fears
is the stock market will go down three more points. That's all
he's afraid of. Maybe the Mets will get knocked
off before they get into the World Series. That's what he's
afraid of. Afraid the Jets might lose or Joe Namath's knees might
get busted up. That's all he's afraid of. That's
his circle of fears. temporal, sensuously. So if we're going to meaningfully
communicate to this generation by faith alone, I say it reverently,
we've got to create the problem which this answer solves. What's
the problem? A holy God, a sinful creature,
an angry judge, a guilty criminal, an infinite chasm. Until they
begin to say, how can that chasm be bridged? And then we set forth
the blessed message, this unique person who comes all the way
from there because he belongs there, he's God. Came all the
way down to us where we are because he's man. And as the God-man,
again I say it reverently, he pulls God and man together. as God, able and worthy to save,
as man, sympathetic with us in our need, dying, shedding His
precious blood. We say by faith, O Lord, weary
of your sin, longing for deliverance from sin and its consequences. You need not beat yourself. You
need not fast. You need not agonize. Cast yourself
upon the offered Savior. Plead the merits of His blood.
He that believeth on the Son hath life. See, it's not enough
to go out and say to the neighbor, you know, by faith alone you're
saved. He says, yes, so fine, nice. Nice, nice, nice information. Appreciate it. Thank you. But
he's got no problem that makes that answer meaningful. See?
We've got to create problems. I don't want to steal his thunder.
I'm sure he'll say it during the four days he's here, but
it stuck with me. John Riesinger said, up to about ten years ago,
he used to pray, Lord, save people. He said, I don't pray that anymore.
He says, I just keep praying, Lord, get some people lost. He
said, Lord, if you'll get them good and lost, I can tell them
how to be saved. You see what he meant? They're already lost,
but they don't know it. You see? And our generation doesn't know
that it's lost. Oh, it feels confused. But there's no vertical
thought. Man feels out of touch with man.
You see, the great thrust in our day is we've got to reconcile
man to man. We've got to get reconciled racially,
and God knows we need to. We've got to get reconciled on
the level of human relationships, ethnically, socially, all of
these problems. But when you say to people, yes,
but look, man's ruptured relationship with his fellow man is just one
of the expressions of a deeper problem. He's got a ruptured
relationship with God. And they say, away with this
business upward. All we're concerned about is
outward. See? And we say, no, no, don't you dare. Don't you
dare insult God and say, we want to clear up the fruits of our
rebellion against God, but we don't want to deal with the problem
that lies at its root, namely our rebellion against Him. We
must insist that the cry faith alone is an answer to that problem
of how a holy God and a sinful man can be brought together. This is pretty relevant business,
isn't it? May God help us to be true sons and daughters of
the Reformation, that understanding these principles, sola scriptura,
sola gratia, sola fide, we may dare to be counted as the true
sons and daughters of the Reformation, and that we may not betray those
principles by becoming static. The Reformation was not complete,
and there are areas of our own lives and our own church life
corporately that need constant reform by the standard of Holy
Scripture. Let's not be static. Let's not
be, as it were, those who throw off the tradition of 1500 years
and are bound by the tradition of 50 years. That's true in many
segments of evangelicalism in our day. Wouldn't dare accept
the Romish tradition, but break an evangelical tradition and
woe will be unto you. What sayeth the word? Is it too
much to expect that in this generation The God of our fathers, the God
of Martin Luther, of Zwingli, of Calvin, of the Reformers,
is the God who would once again bring a body of simple people,
for He chooses, you see, to take the weak things, and the things
which are despised, and the things which are not, to bring to naught
the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.
Is it too much to believe God could take the likes of us? and
bring us broken to His feet, and burn these principles into
our hearts, and so enable us to embody them in life and in
practice, that God would be pleased to make us an instrument in His
hands, to once again establish, in some measure, in a way that
we haven't seen for years, His truth, His law, and the glory
of His own name, and the salvation of His Son, here in our own segment
of the vineyard where he's placed us and then in other places as
God is pleased to extend that ministry. I hope our study today
has brought us to a new appreciation of that great movement of God.
I do trust that it has also brought us to a place where there is
some holy aspiration and longing that God will do it again. I
trust it's brought us to a place of confirmation. We may hold
things that put us out of joint with many of our peers, but we
stand in the great stream of God's people. And we can thank
God that we do. And then, that it may give us
some direction. As we face the problems of our
day, God is not going to use great organized efforts of great
congresses, whether it's on evangelism or anything else. God's going
to use His people, coming broken to His feet, stripped of everything
but a desire to glory in Christ and see others brought to the
place with a glory in Him. And how He'll move, I don't know.
But I sure would love to hear news that He's moving somewhere.
And if He doesn't do it here, I want to find where He is and
go take my cup and hope I can catch a few drops. May the Lord
give us a longing expressed in earnest prayer until He come
and reign righteousness upon us. Let us pray.