Last time I spoke, my topic was
the sovereignty of God and the promise of Christ to build His
church. I realized as I prepared the
message that it was going to be more than one message. So
last time we focused on the sovereignty of God as the very foundation
and basis of the promise of Jesus Christ to build His church. Today
we'll talk about Jesus Christ building His church. For Scripture,
please reference Matthew 16, verses 13-18. They're focusing on the words
of Christ after Peter had made his confession that Jesus is
the Christ. And Jesus said, upon this rock
I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it. Bear that in mind. Keep that
thought ever before you. scripture is Matthew 28, 18 through
20. And Jesus came and said to them,
all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go
therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them
in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And
behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. Third
Scripture, please. Romans chapter 1, verse 16. Paul tells us, For I am not ashamed
of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to
everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Two final Scriptures, both from
the book of the revelation of Jesus Christ, the first being
chapter 6, Verse 2, And I looked, and behold, a white horse, and
its rider had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he came
out conquering and to conquer. Then, Revelation chapter 19,
11 through 16, Then I saw heaven open up, and behold, a white
horse, The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True,
and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like
a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems. And he has
a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in
a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is
the Word of God. And the armies of heaven arrayed
in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp
sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule
them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of
the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on
his thigh he has a name written, King of King and Lord of Lords. Keep those Scriptures in your
mind. Remember them. Hold to them. They should guide
our thoughts as we go through the rest of the message. In my
previous sermon, as I mentioned earlier, the title was, The Sovereignty
of God and Christ's Promise to Build His Church. I focused on
the sovereignty of God, and this was the major point to be understood,
that the promise of Christ to build His church is rock solid,
it is certain, it is absolutely true, because it is based completely
and totally in the sovereignty of God. If God says it, He will
do it. Christ has promised to build
His church. And with that promise, He said,
not even the gates of hell shall prevail against the church. With
the sovereignty of God as the foundation of Christ's promise,
we know then that the church will be built and the church
cannot be defeated. We know from the Bible that Jesus,
as He spoke, as He walked and talked among men, as He lived
His life on this earth, built up quite a following. We know
from the Bible that after Christ ascended, the apostles, with
power given to them by the Holy Spirit, built the church. It expanded rapidly. We know
these things from the Scripture. Today what I'd like to do is
take a quick run through human history from the times recorded
in the Bible until the present. This means, for the sake of this
sermon, we will be talking a lot outside of the Scripture. I hope
that doesn't alarm anybody. I don't mean to be away from
the Scripture in doing this, but 2,000 years have passed since
the last apostle spoke or wrote. And God has not ceased working
amongst His people and working in the affairs of men in this
world. He is as active today as He was in Bible times. If we do not understand this,
If we do not take this to heart, if we do not make this a reality
in our mind and our thinking, we will tend to sectionalize
history and we will divide things like this. That was Bible times,
but this is now. It's a whole other issue now.
And when we start breaking the continuum of human history into
pieces like that and segregating out Bible times from the scope
of human history, The Gospel can become stagnant. It can become
stuck in a time and a place in our minds. And it will become
in time little more than mythology to us. That should never be. But I think
I can say, and you can realize it yourself as you think of people
you know, even in some of the churches, that for them, The
gospel is mythology. It's not a meaningful message
for today in their lives. It's Bible times. It's not today. for us to think on this today,
that we may bring the Gospel forward, that we may see that
God has been working throughout the last 2,000 years and indeed
is working even today. We may sense in human history
the moving hand of God and the power of Jesus Christ throughout
the course of human history. Now, to bring the Gospel forward,
we must interpret history. History by itself is just facts. This happened on this day. Facts in and of themselves are
neutral. It is the interpretation, the
meaning that we place on them that will determine the significance
that they take. We will be interpreting history
today. Now some people, when you say
you're going to give an interpretation, they instantly throw their hands
up and say, wait a minute, you're going to inject your bias into
this message. To that I say, absolutely, I
am going to inject my bias into this message. Every single person
living has a bias. We can't escape that. We are
thinking people. We meditate on things. We mull
things over. We have a bias. Every person
in this room has a bias. The person that tries to take
the high moral ground and say, I'm not a biased person. I consider
the facts and determine what it is. I'm not biased. That person
is absolutely biased. And what they're saying, whether
they mean to or not, is that my opinion is the right opinion.
And really we all say that. We all tend to say that whether
we know it or not. But every person on earth is
biased. I'll give you an example of bias
even in the last couple of days. Turn on the TV, what's the number
one news story for the last week? Osama Bin Laden is dead. That's the fact. That's the fact. Anything beyond that is bias,
interpretation being presented. If you're an American, you tend
to say that is a good event. But that represents a bias. If
you are a Muslim, you tend to say that is a horrible event.
It's just another example of American oppression and imperialism. All of that is bias. The fact
in and of itself is just a fact. It has no meaning one way or
another until a bias, a viewpoint is applied to it. No person is
free of bias. God himself is biased. He presents his bias in the scripture. We can read the Bible and we
understand that God is biased. He has His way of looking at
things. Now, because God is God, God
is Creator and God is Sovereign, His way is the right way. But make no mistake about it,
God is biased. God said, Jacob I loved. Esau, I hate it. That's a biased
statement made by God. God is biased. The difference
between us and God in terms of bias is that God is perfect. God is free of error and His
bias is correct. We as sinners are tainted and
corrupt in our bias and without the guidance of God our bias
will be completely incorrect. It will tend to be centered in
sin and self. As Christians, it is incumbent
upon us to see that our bias, our interpretation of things
and events line up with God. And that's what today I would
like to do as we look through the events of human history to
try and see the hand of God moving. The rest of the world will not
see the hand of God moving in events of mankind. They will
find all kinds of causative agents to explain why this happened
or that happened. This is in part the fight we
have in the public schools. It's a question of what bias
or what interpretation you put on teaching. Christians want
to see more of an even-handed presentation that allows for
God, and the rest of the world does not. As Christians, we must interpret
history. We must. If we don't interpret
history, it will be interpreted for us and fed back to us, and
it will not include our God in Christ. We must interpret history. But as Christians, we must also
guide our interpretation of history with some basic truth and never
deviate from our basic truth. Number one, God is sovereign.
That should always be in the forefront of our interpretation.
Secondly, God created all things. Thirdly, God is always active
in His creation. God is not passive. God is not
removed. God is always active in His creation. Fourthly, mankind is corrupt
in nature. Mankind by nature fights against
God and mankind by nature fights against mankind. Fifthly, God is gracious and
patient with sinners. Sixthly, God saves sinners in
Jesus Christ. Seventh, saved sinners make up
the church and the church directed by Jesus Christ, being the body
of Jesus Christ in this world, cannot be defeated. And then an eighth point, because
God is sovereign, because God's church will prevail, God's people
can and do make a difference in this world. Those are thoughts that should
guide us as we look at events in this world. And as we consider
those always, keep them in the back of our mind constantly,
churning over those, we can explain a lot of things that we see happening
in this world. Why are there wars, constant
wars? If you turn on the news today,
you'll see that people are fighting in countries all over the world. Why? The simple explanation is
because mankind is corrupt of nature and we fight. We hate
and we fight. Turn on the news and you'll hear
that somebody has done a kind thing out of character and somebody
was protected or provided for in an odd and strange way. Why? Because God is kind. He's gracious. and takes care of us. With these things in our mind,
we can begin to interpret human history. And we can begin to
see that God was moving throughout all things. We look at the apostles and we
see what happened in the book of Acts as they preached and
taught. The church was built up. At times,
thousands of people were at it in a moment. God was building
His church. And that was in a time and a
place that was distinctively pagan under an oppressive Roman
government which was allowing for and even at times dictating
pagan religion. But the church prevailed. Christ
promised the church would prevail. And it did in that time and that
place. With the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., those believers
that were in Jerusalem and in the area around Jerusalem were
scattered. And they left. The command of
Christ was to go and preach and teach to all nations. And those
early believers took it seriously. They hit the highways. There's
two examples that come to mind that have always impressed me.
They're not recorded in the Scripture, so we retreat to human history. And that can be good or bad.
You always have to weigh these things out. But two examples
come to mind that have always impressed me. The church in India. And we don't think of India as
a Christian nation, and it's not. But historically there has
been a Christian influence in western India since the time
of Christ. Small body of believers, persistent
there for 2,000 years now. And that body traces its origin
to an evangelist who came to their shores and his name was
Thomas. That's what the Church of India
records. The man who said, I will not believe in Jesus lest I touch
him and see the hole in his side and the nail holes, took the message to India. Go
and preach and teach to all nations. The gates of hell will not prevail
against the church. Another example that comes to
mind that has always impressed me is that the body of believers
in England has claimed from the very, very early hundreds that
it was a man named Joseph of Arimathea that brought the message
to them. At the time, England was only
partly Roman. It hadn't even been conquered
completely by Rome. It was controlled by Celts in
what is now Wales and Ireland and Scotland. It was a very brutal
and pagan nation. But the church, the believers
in England claimed that a man named Joseph of Arimathea came
to their shores and told them there was a better way, there
was a Savior. The church prevailed in England
against pagan darkness. At a point, Paul writes to the
believers in Rome that their faith is being spoken of in the
whole world. Now I've heard people make light
of that statement on the part of Paul and they say he was using
extremely hyperbolic language. He was exaggerating to make a
point. But if what we have heard and
history seems to indicate that men like Joseph of Arimathea
went to England and men like Thomas went to India, that's
not such a far-fetched statement, is it? Your faith is spoken of
in the whole world, from England to India. That's not such a hyperbolic
statement anymore. Go and preach and teach to all
nations. The Roman Empire was vile, it
was corrupt, it was pagan. It was filled with the most brutal
government the world had known up to that time. It was full
of the most perverted sexual practice the world may have ever
known. It was full of every kind of
bizarre pagan god you can think of. And yet, and yet, from the
streets came Christ. In 300 years, Christianity went
from a small sect in Jerusalem to the official religion of the
Roman Empire. In 313, Constantine issued the
Edict of Milan, ending the persecution of Christians and establishing
Christianity as the religion of Rome. Christ conquered Rome. Now when you make statements
like that, people immediately begin to say, but you're talking
about the mixing of religion and state. Yes, that's true.
You're talking about the establishment of a corrupt Catholic church. Yes, that's true. That's true. I can't deny that. But I will
remind you that even the theocratic state, the theocratic nation
of Israel, which was established by God Himself because it was
made up of sinners, never achieved perfection on earth. In fact,
they fell so far from perfection that they were exiled. They suffered
many horrible things. Yes, Christianity became the
official religion of Rome. But it was not perfect Christianity. But it carried the name of Christ
and it carried the influence of Christian teaching throughout
its world. And that's important. Because
mixed in through corrupt religion, there was nonetheless a core
of real Christians. And we never can forget that.
We never can forget that. When Rome fell at the end of
the 300s, the early part of the 400s, barbarians came in from
the north and from the east. You had the Mongolian hordes
coming in from the east. You had the German barbarians
coming in from the north, the people like the Goths, the Visigoths,
the Vandals, and others. They came in on a much corrupt
and weakened Roman empire, and it crumbled. But there's kind
of an interesting fact mixed in with the fall of Rome. And
that is that some of the barbarians, the German barbarians, were Christians.
Not all of them. Some of them were. That in the
interface between Rome and the barbarians of the north, the
church had had an impact. And when some of those barbarians
came into the Roman Empire to plunder, They left the churches
alone because Christ lived there. And people that had taken refuge
that were panicked and had nowhere else to go and packed into the
churches for security were left unharmed because Christians recognized
fellow Christians. That wasn't the total story,
but in part it was. And that represents the providence
of God and the working of God, the grace of God working in human
history to preserve a people. Remember from the book of Matthew
that Christ said, except those days have been cut short for
the sake of the elect. Similar things have happened
throughout human history. God has preserved His people.
He is working the gates of hell will not prevail against the
church. We call the people who invaded
the Roman Empire barbarians primarily because the Romans called them
barbarians. Some of them were not so uncivilized
and some of them were not so cruel. I think we've seen that. A review of history will prove
that. The Roman Empire as the power
of the world fell. The church was still in place.
And the church, while it wasn't all it should have been, still
held Rome together. The old Roman Empire. It held
it together. It was a unifying factor. The
nations of the continent of Europe, the political system had crumbled
and it was reduced to a series of warlords. Territories and
warlords. But the church was somewhat of
a unifying factor and kept an uneasy peace throughout Europe. Not perfect, but there was a
presence of Christ and an uneasy peace. God was working within Europe during those years.
An interesting thing happened around the year 1000. Europe went crazy with an end
time frenzy. Sound familiar? Apocalyptic thinking,
end of the world thinking is not new. And as the year 1000
approached, Europe was beside itself. They were saying things
are so bad. There's wars everywhere you go.
And there were because there were all these little feudal
kingdoms fighting for territory. The church was becoming a medieval
power structure. It was becoming very corrupt
and they recognized it. They say, we've got wars, rumors
of war, we've got a corrupt church. Then off to the east, there's
this giant power that's building up. Starting in the late 800s,
there was a new empire building. It was called Rus'. We call it Russia. And the people
of Europe quaked in their boots. They said, Rus is coming to invade
us. They're barbarians. They're pagans. And they're coming to take us. Europe was in an end time frenzy
as the year 1000 approached. They knew. They knew this was
the end of the world. what they didn't know and failed
to take into account that even in our darkest days, God is working
for the benefit of those who love Christ and are called according
to His purpose. Unbeknownst to them, two missionaries
from Greece, two men, Cyril and Methodius, felt called to go
to the land of Rus and preach Christ. And they went into the territory
that is now called Ukraine and they preached. The people there
were barbarians. They didn't even have a written
language so they developed a written language for them and they translated
the Bible into Rus. And the alphabet they developed
is named to this day the Cyrillic alphabet after Cyril. And it's
much the same today with those funny looking letters. It's got
as it was then. And Cyril and Methodius preached
Christ. And the Rus took Christ. And by the time that the year
1000 rolled around, as the time of the end of the world approached,
Russia was a Christian empire. They weren't the marauding barbarians
that they were just a hundred years prior. The invasion didn't come. The
world did not end. Christ was working. The gates of hell did not prevail. After a period of jubilation,
discontent set in again. The people of Europe realized
that the church was more corrupt than ever before. And starting
in the 1300s, bold men began to preach that we must recapture
and restore the Gospel. We must preach Christ. Men like
John Wycliffe and John Huff began to preach Christ, Christ alone. Not the church, not the Catholic
church, but Christ. These men were killed. Burned
at the stake. Killed. But within 150 years
of their bold proclamation, more followed and more followed. Men
like Tyndale and Luther and Calvin. And the Reformation broke loose. The Gospel was restored. Jesus
Christ was proclaimed with boldness in Europe. And not only in Europe,
but these men began to see that the Gospel was presented in all
the languages of Europe, not just Latin like the Catholic
Church had maintained, but all the other languages. And they
also sent out missionaries. This was a time of exploration
throughout the world. The Spanish were sailing all
over the world. The Dutch had the strongest navy
in the world during this time. The English were exploring. The
Portuguese, the Italians, and there were Christians that went
with them. There were Catholics that went
and established missions, and there were Reformation Christians
that went. The Gospel went around the world. The printing press and the modern
trade routes, the sea, had made it now possible for Jesus Christ
to be preached all around the world. God was moving because
of this movement. Churches, real churches were
established in Africa, all the lands of Indochina, Australia,
North America, South America. Phenomenal. These were lands
of pagan darkness, areas of cannibalism, human sacrifice, head hunting,
all kinds of horrible, horrible pagan practice. But Christ was
being preached there and converts were coming to Christ. Darkness
was giving way to light. Death was giving way to life. The gates of hell did not prevail. That takes it up to the early
modern period, and I think that's where we'll stop. I'd like to
say some things in closing. There's much more that could
be said, because I didn't even get us up to our day and age.
But I hope that you've seen that if we examine human history with a sovereign God and the
promise of Christ, as our foundation, we can really see that God is
moving, powerfully moving, even in the darkest of days. I hope that that's a reality
to you. I hope that for some of us, maybe
this was just a reminder. For some of us, maybe it was
an eye-opener. I hope that it will be something we can meditate
on. And the reason I say that is because in dark days, We need
confidence. We need confidence deep in our
hearts that God is with us and that God is present and that
God is working on our behalf. We talked last time about the
condition of the world. Wars everywhere. The Christian
message is not being preached in most of our churches. It's
a dark day, it seems. And in our own country, in our
own lives, we've seen what seems to be the downward spiral of
our society. And that can be so disheartening.
That can be so disheartening. And if we're not confident in
our God, we can become weakened. And we as Christians, we may
be weakened, but let us stand up and dust ourselves off because
we know that God is working. And a sovereign God said the
church will be built and the gates of hell will not prevail
against it. Some of the things that blind
us at times to this view of God in the first is that sometimes
we confuse the goals of God and the gospel with our own goals
and desires. Not everything that I want to
do, I hate to admit this, is particularly Christian. And because
I am egocentric, that is, I think of myself first, I tend to think
that my opinion is the correct opinion. And if my opinion is
contrary to God's opinion, then I can become disheartened because
I want to go this way and God is going this way and I get upset. And this is where we must check
ourselves always to see that we are indeed in tune with what
God would have for us and that our expectations in all things
are in line with God's expectations in all things. lose our confidence when we confuse
the goals of God and our goals. We get our confidence shaken
sometimes because we have great confidence in God's Word, but
really little confidence in God. Now that sounds like a contradictory
statement, and what I'm really saying is that we have developed
an interpretation of the Scripture based on whatever. And we hold to that. We say, this is God's Word, it's
true. And when we hold fiercely to
an interpretation, especially if it's wrong, then we'll lose
confidence in God because God doesn't always act that way. If I believe in the free will
of man, that dictates a certain interpretation and a certain
outlook on the Scripture. And if I read a certain verse,
if it contradicts that, I'll ignore it. And if it contradicts
it, I might give it a completely different interpretation. And
that's what I mean. I may have great confidence in
God's Word, but little confidence in God. And what that really
means is I have great confidence in my interpretation and not
in God. And that causes confusion and
lack of confidence. Another area that causes problems
is the influence of dispensational thinking. And that is the popular
and most common theology of the day. And it's all tied around
a view of the end times. They divide the dispensationalist,
and I must say right up front, I am not a dispensationalist.
The dispensationalists divide the Bible into time tables, time
zones. And God acts this way or that
way depending on the time zone and the people that he's dealing
with. that can create some problems. The dispensationalists have assigned
us to this end time. Without question in their mind,
the world is coming to an end soon. That dictates an interpretation
of the Scripture. That dictates an interpretation
of the events of history. That dictates a practice in our
lives. Their view is that we cannot
make the world any better. We can't. Because God has dictated
that it will spiral downward towards the battle of Armageddon
and then it's all over with. Ultimately, ultimately the church
will prevail. But right now, in our day, in
our time, it's not going to. Basically what they're advising
their followers to do is hold on to what you got and hope you
make it until tomorrow. That's not the gospel message.
Now, the problem with dispensational thinking is if you assume that
there is an end time and you're in it, you know what? Every generation
could assume that. Every generation is made up of
sinners. We talked earlier about the year
1,000. It was the end of the world.
They read the Scripture. They interpreted the Scripture
and it's happening in the year 1,000. I've got a facsimile edition
of the 1599 Geneva Bible. I love that Bible. But in the
prefacery notes to the book of Revelation, They have a timetable. And you know what? The end of
the world was in the 1600s. We're still here. We're still
here. Dispensational type of thinking,
end time thinking, apocalyptic thinking is not new. It's not
new. In the middle 1800s, you had
end-time theologies develop. Remember in 1988, Edgar Wisnant's
book, 88 Reasons for the Return of Jesus Christ in 1988? It was
supposed to happen at Rosh Hashanah in 1988. It didn't happen. He rewrote it. 89 Reasons for
Christ's Return in 1989. Didn't happen. Do you remember
all the hubbub about the year 2000? My lights didn't even flicker
at midnight on 2000. All that to say, and I don't
mean to beat that point, maybe I made too much out of it, but
If we're going to have a sane perspective on human history,
if we're going to be able to solve real problems and present
Christ in a real and meaningful way to sinners who need Christ,
we need not assume that this is the end of the world. We need to assume that Christ
will build His church and the gates of hell will not prevail
against it. Let me end with a statistic and
just a few observations. The last consideration of a worldwide
population that I have was from 2010. Said the world population
in 2010 was 6.8 billion people. 2.2 billion That's 32.5% claim to be Christian. Think about that. Think about
that. A handful of believers in a small
upper room in the year 33 A.D. 2,000 years later, 2.2 billion people
claiming the name of Christ. Upon this rock I will build my
church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
That's not the entire world population, but 2.2 billion is pretty phenomenal. And I understand that's not the
perfect church, that that contains wheat and tares. I understand
that. Christ presented a church of wheat and tares as well. But
32.5% of the world claims the name of Christ. The gates of hell shall not prevail
against it. Let's talk about Christian influence
felt in the world. Even in pagan countries, even
in countries that claim to be secular, atheistic countries,
the name of Christ is still mentioned. People still discuss Christ now.
Whether it's to hold Him up or beat Him down, there's discussion
about Christ. Holidays are observed, centering
around Christ. Even in pagan countries, they
take Christmas off. Christ mass. Laws have been introduced worldwide
that have their origin in the Christian faith. That's the influence of the church
worldwide. Christianity has been, for the
last 2,000 years, civilizing the world. Whether they know
it or not, they are being civilized by Christ. Consider that where
Christ has been preached, practices such as infanticide have been
stopped. Genocide has stopped. Slavery
has ended. People in general have been treated
more humanely. Concerns of children's rights
and women's rights have come into bear. Hospitals have been
built. The sick and less fortunate are
cared for. This, even in pagan countries,
is the influence of Jesus Christ and the church of Jesus Christ. The gates of hell shall not prevail
against it. With that, let me say these final
statements and I'll end. We of all people, Christians,
yes, I realize that it's dark days, that things are not the
way we want them to be, but we of all people should be hopeful.
We have a perspective on history. We can look back and see the
hand of God moving that brought us to this place, to this time.
And we have the message that truly engages people, that truly
grabs a hold of human hearts and changes people. Let us not
assume that dark days mean the end of the world. Let us assume
that Jesus Christ is completely correct when He said, upon this
rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail
against it.