{"id":18881,"date":"2017-06-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-04T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/protestant-reformation-001\/"},"modified":"2017-06-04T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-06-04T05:00:00","slug":"protestant-reformation-001","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/protestant-reformation-001\/","title":{"rendered":"Protestant Reformation 001"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[111],"series_event":[480],"sermon_service_type":[473],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-18881","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-revelation","series_event-protestant-reformation","sermon_service_type-sunday-school","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"Protestant Reformation 001","sermon_date":"20170604","sermon_month":"6","sermon_year":"2017","sermon_notes":4721,"sermon_slides":4720,"sermon_mp3":4722,"sermon_id":"6417939191","series_or_event":480,"service_type":[473],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":111,"chapter_and_verse":"20:1-10","sermon_transcript":"Andy Woods\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Protestant Reformation 001\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Revelation 20:1-10\n\nOpen your Bibles to the book of Acts, chapter 11 and verse 25.\u00a0 We\u2019re starting a summer series which the timing works good because this is the first Sunday in June and we\u2019ll probably continue this throughout the summer months on the subject of The Protestant Reformation.\u00a0 Why are we talking about the Protestant Reformation?\u00a0 A couple of reasons, number 1, I just got back from Germany, I was there twice within the last two months so I got a chance to see the various places where the events of the Protestant Reformation started, places like Wittenberg, Germany, I stood next to the door where Martin Luther nailed his 95 Thesis to the Cathedral door in Wittenberg, Germany.\u00a0 And so it\u2019s a chance for me to show off my amateur photography.\u00a0 I won\u2019t be doing that today but we\u2019ll be working that in as the series progresses.\n\nAnd then the second reason we\u2019re looking at the Protestant Reformation is because everybody now is talking about the Protestant Reformation because this October 31 it will be 500 years when the Protestant Reformation began.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0On October 31, 1517, exactly 500 years ago from this coming October, end of October, Martin Luther, a Monk, triggered off a chain reaction all over Europe.\u00a0 And there\u2019s a lot of historical license that\u2019s taken with this.\u00a0 I mean, really what he was trying to do was to start a conversation.\u00a0 This was a common way of starting a what was called a dialogue or a dispute in Luther\u2019s day.\u00a0\u00a0 And I think he was surprised more than anybody else when the Roman Catholic Church, which was the only church at the time, started to denounce him as a heretic.\u00a0 But through these series of events the sovereignty of God strategically worked and it set off a chain reaction all over Europe in what is called the Protestant Reformation.\n\nAnd we today are living in the fruit of the Protestant Reformation. Most Christians don\u2019t know much about it, it\u2019s some weird thing that happened 500 years ago in our minds because we don\u2019t get a lot of historical teaching in our churches.\u00a0 But what I want to do in this series is helpfully, as God allows me, to kind of fill in the gaps so we can look back on what happened 500 years ago and how God used these men, and how they put into motion a method of interpretation called the literal grammatical historical method of interpretation, which subsequent generations took, after the time of Luther, and applied it to the rest of the Bible.\u00a0 So the Theology that we have today we wouldn\u2019t have to day had it not been for God\u2019s initial work through these Protestant Reformers.\n\nAs I mentioned before, this happened October 31, 1517; this happened 500 years ago.\u00a0 It was a far-reaching impact but one of the things I want to communicate in this series is that it was a partial restoration.\u00a0 The Protestant Reformers, people have a tendency to put them on a pedestal and sort of act like they completed the revolution, which they did not.\u00a0 Reformed Theology today, which was birthed out of the various churches that they started, have not completed the revolution either.\u00a0 It was up to other Christian denominations, other Christian groups to take the method that the Protestant Reformers used and to complete the revolution by applying it to the whole Bible.\n\nSo what you have to remember, and if you\u2019re not getting all this right now don\u2019t worry about it, we\u2019re going to be going through all of this in meticulous detail, but what you have to remember is the Protestant Reformation was a partial restoration because they used the literal method of interpretation selectively, but had they not given us the methodology subsequent generations couldn\u2019t come along and apply it consistently.\u00a0 So that\u2019s sort of the direction that we\u2019re moving in with this study.\n\nThis study is going to be different than anything you\u2019ve heard from me at this church. Every study that I\u2019ve done here since I\u2019ve been here, since 2010, has been completely based on the Bible as you would expect, right, from a pastor.\u00a0 I mean, you\u2019d hope to see that from a pastor.\u00a0\u00a0 So every study I have done has been a book study or I\u2019ve also done various topical studies using the Bible to put together topics.\u00a0 We just completed the doctrine of soteriology which lasted a little longer than I had hoped, 58 lessons.\u00a0 I don\u2019t anticipate this series lasting 58 lessons; I anticipate it just kind of going throughout the summer months, maybe 8, 10, 12 weeks, something like that.\u00a0 But this is not going to be a biblical study; we\u2019re not studying a book of the Bible, we\u2019re studying history, church history.\n\nSo what in the world did God do after the New Testament closed?\u00a0 We have about 2,000 years don\u2019t we, of church history and so what I\u2019m going to be trying to do is put together the pieces of church history for you and we\u2019re going to be highlighting and emphasizing what the Protestant Reformers accomplished.\n\nSo if you look at this slide here, I\u2019ve got some new toys and gadgets up here I\u2019m just learning how to use these, here\u2019s the big outline we\u2019re going to be using, it\u2019s got about eight parts.\u00a0 This slide gives you the eight major areas we\u2019re going to look at.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to start with the early church, and that\u2019s probably what we\u2019ll cover today, if we cover a little bit more than that then that\u2019s fine.\u00a0 And I want people to understand what the apostles handed off to the first generation of Christians after the apostles.\u00a0 And I want people to understand what the early church believed for 200 years.\n\nAnd then we\u2019re going to be getting into what I like to call Roman numeral II, the Alexandrian eclipse.\u00a0 You say well why are you giving us all of this information?\u00a0 Because you can\u2019t really appreciate what the Protestant Reformers accomplished until you understand what had to be retrieved.\u00a0 You can\u2019t appreciate a solution until you understand a problem, and the problem really began in a place called Alexandria, Egypt, and their method of interpretation (which is not literal) eclipsed what the church had done for the first 200 years.\u00a0 And that led us into what\u2019s called the Dark Ages.\u00a0 The Dark Ages is a period of time that lasted from the 4th<\/sup> century A.D.\u00a0 and it lasted over a thousand years.\u00a0 So it started from the 4th<\/sup> century and it really continued right on up to the 16th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 Over a thousand years is a long time.\u00a0 Think about how long that is.\u00a0 That\u2019s the sad and pathetic condition, doctrinally, theologically, the church was in. And unless you understand the Dark Ages largely ushered in by Alexandria, Egypt, you can\u2019t really appreciate what the Protestant Reformers accomplished in terms of rescuing the church theologically.\n\nSo after we study the Dark Ages then finally, Roman numeral IV we\u2019re actually getting into the Protestant Reformers.\u00a0 I\u2019ll try to show you what they did, what they stood for, but I\u2019ll also lead you into Roman numeral V where I want to communicate the idea that their revolution was incomplete.\u00a0 Basically what they did is they knocked over a domino and how they knocked over that domino is very important because they introduced a method of interpretation to accomplish that.\u00a0 But once that domino fell the other dominos started to fall and God raised up other individuals, outside of the Reformed faith, subsequent generations, to knock over even further dominos and all they did is they took the method that the Reformers used and they began to apply it consistently to the whole Bible.\u00a0 So I will not just be focusing on the Protestant Reformers; I\u2019ll show you other heroes centuries later that God began to use.\u00a0 But those heroes couldn\u2019t have been raised up had they not been reading the blueprint of Martin Luther and others to the Protestant Reformation.\n\nAnd then we\u2019ll Roman numeral VI where I\u2019ll tell\u00a0 you the kind of sad state of Reformed Theology today.\u00a0 Reformed Theology is a hybrid; one of the great errors of Reformed Theology is it assumes that there was no further progress to be made.\u00a0 So that\u2019s why you can go into a Reformed church and they will take the Bible literally in some areas but in other areas they won\u2019t take the Bible literally.\u00a0 And so Reformed theology today is sort of a hybrid breed, part Protestant, part Roman Catholic.\u00a0 So I\u2019ll be drawing that to your attention.\n\nAnd then I\u2019ll be sharing with you Roman numeral VII, dispensationalism which is our heritage at Sugar Land Bible Church and the specific men that God used to complete the Reformation that the Protestant Reformers started.\u00a0 And then finally in Roman numeral VIII we\u2019ll be looking back 500 years later and I\u2019ll try to give\u00a0 you a proper perspective on how to look at the Protestant Reformers; not to idolize them but at the same time to look at them as if we owe them a great note of indebtedness and gratitude for what they accomplished.\n\nSo anyway the class is going to proceed sort of in a lecture format and I\u2019ll try to reserve the last five or ten minutes of class for question and answer.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to try to start the class right at 9:45 a.m. and then the music team has to get in here and set up and everything so we\u2019re going to try to end right at 10:45 a.m.\u00a0 That\u2019s the direction that we\u2019re moving in.\u00a0 I kind of like to give people the big picture before we start getting into the details.\u00a0 So over the next 8 to 10 to 12 weeks, however long this is going to take, those are the big subject areas we\u2019re going to be going over.\n\nLet\u2019s start with Roman numeral I, the early church.\u00a0 First of all let\u2019s talk about before the canon of Scripture is shut.\u00a0 The canon of Scripture officially shut when John completed the Book of Revelation in A.D. 95.\u00a0 But we know from looking at various biblical writers that New Testament characters, when they interpreted the Old Testament, particularly information as it relates to the kingdom of God, always took Bible prophecy at face value.\u00a0 And I\u2019m sort of using \u201cBible prophecy\u201d as a bell weather because the idea is if you can spiritualize away or allegorize away Bible prophecy it\u2019s not long until you start allegorizing and spiritualizing away what?\u00a0 The rest of the Scripture.\n\nSo here\u2019s Jesus speaking, this is Matthew 9:28, look at how seriously Jesus took Old Testament prophesies concerning the kingdom.\u00a0 It says, \u201cAnd Jesus said to them, \u201cTruly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne,\u201d now what throne would that be?\u00a0 The Davidic throne, which is described in 2 Samuel 7, \u201cwhen the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.\u201d\n\nSo very clearly here Jesus took Old Testament prophecy related to the kingdom, related to the Davidic throne, and He took it literally; He believed in (Jesus did) an earthly kingdom that would come to planet earth one day.\u00a0 There\u2019s no hint here that Jesus spiritualized this, those prophecies, reinterpreted them.\u00a0 And Paul, over in the book of Romans, chapter 11, verses 25-27 says the same thing.\u00a0 Paul says, \u201cFor I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery\u2014so that you will not be wise in your own estimation\u2014that a partial hardening has happened to Israel\u201d notice Paul says Israel\u2019s hardening is partial, \u201cuntil the fullness of the Gentiles has come in;\u201d that would be us, and then what\u2019s going to happen, \u201cand so all Israel will be saved<\/u>; just as it is written, \u2018The Deliverer will come from Zion, He will remove ungodliness from Jacob. This is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins.\u2019\u201d\n\nAnd Paul is very clear here that God is going to fulfill all of His purposes and all of His programs through the nation of Israel.\u00a0 And those verses that he quotes there at the end are references to the various covenants that God made with the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.\n\nAnd then just one more, over in the Book of Revelation, chapter 5 and verse 10, John, in the very last book of the Bible, records these words: \u201cYou have made them to be<\/em> a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign\u201d where?\u00a0 Up in the clouds somewhere strumming harps?\u00a0 No, \u201cupon the earth.\u201d\u00a0 So the biblical writers, whether it\u2019s Jesus, as recorded in Matthew, Paul as recorded in the Book of Romans, John as recorded in the Book of Revelation, all took Bible prophecy very, very literally, very, very seriously.\u00a0 There\u2019s no hint anywhere that these prophecies are going to be fulfilled in any sense other than their literal sense. And so when you close the New Testament that\u2019s the spirit that you have; that\u2019s the attitude.\u00a0 And this mindset is what was handed off like a baton to the first generation of Christians after the apostles left the scene.\n\nSo leaving the Bible we come now to this map and you\u2019ll notice there\u2019s two circles on the map and what I want you to focus on is the top circle, up north, and that\u2019s in\u00a0 place called Antioch, Antioch of Syria.\u00a0 Now immediately when you hear the word \u201cAntioch\u201d it should ring a bell because if you look at Acts 11:25 (that\u2019s why I had\u00a0 you open there, it says, \u201cAnd he left for Tarsus to look for Saul;\u201d and actually I think I also wanted verse 26, \u201cand when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. And for an entire year they met with the church and taught considerable numbers; [and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.]\u201d\u00a0 So this is up in the northern tip of the nation of Israel, this is where Christians started to proliferate numerically.\u00a0 He \u201ctaught considerable numbers; and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.\u201d\n\nSo it\u2019s interesting that prior to this point in time you don\u2019t have the word \u201cChristian\u201d used.\u00a0 The Christians are called \u201cthe way\u201d or other different names, and now finally these people here gathering in Antioch, believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, they acted so much like Jesus in terms of their moral character that let\u2019s just call them Christians.\u00a0 So Antioch then becomes a big deal in Bible history and\u00a0 you can trace what we would call apostolic succession back to Antioch.\u00a0 Antioch is where Christians multiplied; Antioch is where Christians started to be called Christians.\n\nDoes anybody recall what else happened at Antioch that\u2019s biblically significant?\u00a0 Who launched his three missionary journeys from Antioch?\u00a0 Paul!\u00a0 Paul launched all three of the journeys, first into southern Galatia, then into Greece and Asia Minor, and then ultimately as a prisoner to Rome, but his first three missionary journeys were all launched from Antioch.\u00a0 So Antioch is very significant.\u00a0 If you want to understand the way the apostles think you study the student\u2019s at Antioch.\u00a0 Let me very quickly, I wasn\u2019t planning on looking at all these verses, but just jot these down and you\u2019ll see very clearly in the Book of Acts that Antioch is where Paul launched his three missionary journeys from.\u00a0 Acts 13:1-3, Acts 14:26, Acts 15:35-41; and then Acts 18:22-23.\n\nAntioch is very special because you can trace the Apostle Paul\u2019s ministry itself back to Antioch. So Antioch, in terms of what it taught, is sort like bellwether,<\/em> if you will, to what the apostles taught.\u00a0 So when the apostles leave the scene what develops in Antioch, the place that we\u2019re reading about here, is a School.\u00a0 We would call it today a seminary, perhaps; it\u2019s called The School of Antioch, and these people in Antioch, they stood for something.\u00a0 Do you know what they stood for?\u00a0 They stood for a literal interpretation of the Bible.\u00a0 And see, the Protestant Reformation, what it\u2019s going to do is bring us back to Antioch and I\u2019m trying to explain this foundation of what was lost.\n\nSo they stood for a literal interpretation of the Bible, including Bible prophecy.\u00a0 And from the School of Antioch comes a theological system that we embrace here called pre-millennialism.\u00a0 The word \u201cmillennium\u201d is not found in the Scripture.\u00a0 Where do we get this word \u201cmillennium\u201d from?\u00a0 It comes from Revelation 20:1-10 and what you have to understand is a lot of the terms we\u00a0 use today, like Trinity, millennium, they don\u2019t come directly from the Bible; the concept is there but the term is not used in the Bible because it\u2019s in church history Latin became the lingua franca of the day and so theologians began to develop these terms in Latin.\u00a0 So mille<\/em> in Latin means a thousand, and annum<\/em> means\u00a0 years.\u00a0 So the term millennium itself is Latin, it means a thousand years.\n\nAnd these people in Antioch are what you would call premillennialists.\u00a0 What does that mean, pre\u00admillennial?\u00a0 It means Jesus comes back first, pre, and then the millennial kingdom comes after that.\u00a0 So how did they reach that conclusion?\u00a0 Because they took Bible prophecy the same way Paul took it, the same way John took it, the same way Jesus took it, as literal.\u00a0 And if you take it literally and you look at the state of the world today and it\u2019s obviously we\u2019re not in the millennium.\u00a0 If this is the millennium I\u2019m sorry I signed up for this deal because the millennium is a time period where there won\u2019t be any war, there won\u2019t be any starvation, the nations will beat their swords into plowshares.\n\nSo you take those prophecies from the Old Testament about the millennium and you have to put them after the time of Christ\u2019s return, which makes you a premillennialist, and this is what the School of Antioch was all about.\u00a0 From the School of Antioch comes the doctrine of premillennial\u00adism, which is an outworking of a literal interpretation of the whole Bible.\n\nNow very early on in Antioch, for the first two centuries of the church, they didn\u2019t call themselves premillennialists because Latin hadn\u2019t come on the scene yet.\u00a0 The name that they gave themselves, or the name that was given to them we chiliasts.\u00a0 Where are we getting that from?\u00a0 The Greek word for a thousand, which is mentioned six times in Revelation 20:1-10, describing the thousand year kingdom of Christ, the word translate thousand is chilia<\/em>, so these people got the name very early on in Antioch as chiliasts.\u00a0 They believed in a literal thousand\u00a0 year kingdom; they believed that all of the prophecies of the Old Testament will be fulfilled during that time period and today we would call it premillennialism but back in the time of the School of Antioch it got the name chiliasts or chiliasm.\n\nAnd what you have to understand is this is the mindset that was passed from the apostles themselves to the first generation of Christians.\u00a0 And this is what is represented in the School of Antioch.\u00a0 So premillennialism, chiliasm, dominates the church for its first two centuries.\n\nI have a quote here from Justin Martyr.\u00a0 Justin Martyr lived towards the beginning of the second century, about A.D. 100-160 and he makes an astounding statement here in what\u2019s called his Dialogue with Trypho, Section 80 and the nice thing about being on the age of the internet is\u00a0 you can look at all this stuff to make sure I\u2019m quoting it correctly\u00a0 But Justin Martyr, who was a representative of the Antiochan mindset or school of thought says this: \u201cBut I and every other completely orthodox<\/u> Christian feel certain that there will be a resurrection of the flesh, followed by a thousand years in the rebuilt, embellished, and\u201d enlarged city of Washington D.C\u2026. it doesn\u2019t say that, \u201cenlarged city of Jerusalem\u201d<\/u> now where in the world did Justin Martyr get this idea? \u201cas was announced by the prophets Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the others.\u201d\n\nSo you\u2019ll notice here that the School of Antioch and Justin Martyr believed in Bible prophecy, they took it very literally, they believed that the center of the world one day would return to the city of Jerusalem and Jesus Christ in the kingdom age would rule over the entire world from that city.\u00a0 That\u2019s called premillennialism or chiliasm.\u00a0 Now what\u2019s very interesting to me about this quote from Justin Martyr is he says \u201cI and every other completely orthodox Christian feel\u201d this way, because what we hear today, what I hear today from people when I try to defend premillennialism is they say well, you can\u2019t make that a test of orthodoxy, premillennial, I mean, you know, this is an area that we as Christians can agree to disagree on, can\u2019t we.\u00a0 I mean, let\u2019s just focus on the big ticket items, like virgin birth, Trinity, deity of Christ, and that\u2019s sort of an ecumenical mindset that we have today.\u00a0 But let me tell you something; that\u2019s not what Justin Martyr said here.\n\nJustin Martyr said if you believe this you\u2019re an orthodox Christian; if you reject chiliasm or pre\u00admillennialism you\u2019re unorthodox.\u00a0 And the early church, I believe, based on this statement believed in premillennialism or chiliasm to [can't understand word].\u00a0 If you didn\u2019t believe in this then you were considered heretical, and this is the mindset that began in the school of Antioch.\u00a0 And as I\u2019ve tried to establish can be traced directly back to the apostles themselves.\n\nNow it\u2019s not just Justin Martyr who says this; there\u2019s a lot of very reputable church historians that will tell you the exact same thing.\u00a0 One of the best church historians we have is Philip Schaff; Philip Schaff wrote multiple volumes on the history of the Christian church. \u00a0And he says in Volume 2, page 614, he makes this statement about the first generation of Christians following the apostles.\u00a0 He says, \u201cThe most striking point in the eschatology of the ante-Nicene age\u201d now that\u2019s basically what he\u2019s saying there is the first generation following the apostles after the canon of Scripture closed.\u00a0 \u201cThe most striking point in the eschatology of the ante-Nicene age [A.D. 100\u2013325] is the prominent\u201d look at that word, \u201cchiliasm,\u201d just mentally substitute the word premillennialism for chiliasm, \u201cor millenarianism, that is the belief of a visible reign of Christ in glory and with the risen saints for a thousand years, before the general resurrection and judgment. It was indeed not the doctrine of the church embodied in a creed or form of devotion, but a widely current opinion of distinguished teachers,\u201d and he mentions all of these first generation Christian leaders, \u201cBarnabas, Papias, Justin Martyr,\u201d whose quote I gave you a second ago, \u201cIrenaeus, Tertullian, Methodius, and Lactantius.\u201d\n\nAnd what people say is well\u00a0 if this premillennialism that you believe in is so clear why doesn\u2019t it show up in any of the creeds of the church?\u00a0 How come it\u2019s not in the Apostle\u2019s Creed?\u00a0 How come it\u2019s not in the Nicene Creed?\u00a0 Well, you have to understand something about creeds; creeds and confessions of Christendom were never designed the way we as a church would put together a doctrinal statement of our beliefs.\n\nYou know, today in churches you put together a doctrinal statement and you say this is what we believe.\u00a0 The early church didn\u2019t think that way.\u00a0 In fact, they didn\u2019t have to do it because everybody [can't understand word] believed the correct thing. Creeds and confessions come about as a response to heretics.\u00a0 Creeds were never designed to be a sum total of Christian truth but they\u2019re designed to respond to heretics at a specific point.\u00a0 So one of the heretics that arose early on was a man named Arius. Arius basically taught what the modern day Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses teach today, that Jesus was a created being.\u00a0 In fact, Arius even had a song, which I won\u2019t sing for you, I don\u2019t have a recording of it going back 2,000 years ago; singing is not my spiritual gift anyway.\n\nBut he basically sung this song which is there was a time in which He was not.\u00a0 So Arius basically pontificated that there was a time in which Jesus didn\u2019t exist.\u00a0 So Arius basically believed that God the Father created God the Son.\u00a0 So when the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, not if but when they show up at your door and try to convince you that Jesus is a created being,\u00a0 you have to understand that that\u2019s just recycled Arianism.\u00a0 And so the early church responded to that through the Nicene Creed.\u00a0 Have you read the Nicene Creed lately?\n\nThere\u2019s a section in it that says Christ was begotten but not what?\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cbegotten but not made.\u201d\u00a0 So when the Nicene Creed was formulated it was never designed to be a sum total of everything the church believed.\u00a0 What it was designed to do was respond to Arius at a particular point.\u00a0 So until major heresy started to emerge\u00a0 you don\u2019t have confessions and creeds in the early church.\u00a0 They weren\u2019t needed because every man, to a man, as a Christian, believed the right thing or they weren\u2019t considered a Christians.\u00a0 So that\u2019s why premillennialism or chiliasm doesn\u2019t show up in the early church creeds, but this statement by Philip Schaff is very important because he says even though there was no formal creed, because creeds were given to respond to heretics which hadn\u2019t quite arisen yet, this was a reigning sentiment, everybody believed this.\n\nJust to kind of get the point across I have this other quote here from Edward Gibbon, now you recognize the name Edward Gibbon don\u2019t you?\u00a0 Edward Gibbon wrote the historical treatise called The Rise and the Fall of the Roman Empire<\/em>.\u00a0 He wrote that, I think around the time that our country was founded (if I\u2019m not mistaken terms of my years and dates).\u00a0 Edward Gibbon, the best I understand didn\u2019t have a Christian bone in his body but he was just trying to be an honest historian.\u00a0 And in one of his books, called The History of Christianity<\/em>, he makes a statement about what the early church believed.\n\nHe says this, quote: \u201cThe ancient and popular doctrine of the Millennium was intimately connected with the second coming of Christ. As the works of the creation had been finished in six days, their duration in their present state, according to a tradition which was attributed to the prophet Elijah, was fixed to six thousand years. By the same analogy it was inferred, that this long period of labor and contention, which was now almost elapsed, would be succeeded by a joyful Sabbath of a thousand years; and that Christ, with the triumphant band of the saints and the elect who had escaped death, or who had been miraculously revived, would reign upon earth\u201d isn\u2019t this exactly what Jesus taught, Matthew 19:28, John, Revelation 5:10, Paul, Romans 11:25-27, that they \u201cwould reign upon earth till the time appointed for the last and general resurrection\u2026 The assurance of such a Millennium was carefully inculcated by a succession of fathers\u201d who are these fathers?\u00a0 This is the first generation of Christians after the apostles left the scene.\u00a0 \u201c\u2026a succession of fathers from Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus, who conversed with\u201d look at this, \u201cthe immediate disciples of the apostles,\u201d so what he\u2019s saying is these early church fathers have a direct line back to the apostles themselves.\u00a0 That\u2019s why the school of Antioch is such a big deal because you can trace apostolic succession back to Antioch.\n\n\u201c\u2026and Irenaeus, who conversed with the immediate disciples of the apostles, down to Lactantius, who was preceptor to the son of Constantine. Though it might not be universally received,\u201d look at this, I have the relative section underlined, \u201cit appears to have been the reigning sentiment of the orthodox believers<\/u>;\u201d in other words, this idea of a literal Bible flushing its way out into literal interpretation of prophecy was so dominant in the minds of Christians that they didn\u2019t even see the need to formulate a creed.\u00a0 You only formulate a creed if there\u2019s a heretic on the horizon, and Arius hadn\u2019t arisen yet.\u00a0 \u201c\u2026it appears to have been the reigning sentiment of the orthodox believers and it seems so well adapted to the desires and apprehensions of mankind, that it must have contributed in a very considerable degree to the progress of the Christian faith.\u201d\u00a0 [History of Christianity (NY: Eckler, 1916), 141-44]\u00a0 So there\u2019s another historian that\u2019s reputable that\u2019s documenting exactly what I\u2019m trying to say to you.\n\nAnd I ran into one more recently, Jesse Forest Silver makes the following citation concerning what the first believers, after the apostles left the scene, believed in.\u00a0 \u201cSilver says of the apostolic fathers that \"they expected the return of the Lord in their day<\/u>\u2026\u201d\u00a0 So they believed very strongly in not just what is called premillennialism, they also believed very strongly in what I would call Tribulationalism or the idea that Jesus Christ is coming back for the church before the tribulation period starts.\u00a0 Now did they have an in depth flow chart like we have today, explaining all of these things in detail?\u00a0 Not really.\u00a0 It\u2019s kind of hard to put together your theological flow charts when Nero is trying to cut your head off, right.\u00a0 So they didn\u2019t have the luxury that we have today of sitting back in an air conditioned building, where our biggest complaint is its either too hot or too cold or whatever, listening to a lecture.\n\nI mean, they had no such luxury, I mean, these are people that ever since the time of Nero who were fighting for their very lives.\u00a0 They were being lit on fire to illuminate Nero\u2019s garden parties, thrown in prison and others, but they believed, according to Silver, in the imminent return of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 They believed that was the next event on the prophetic horizon.\u00a0 They weren\u2019t looking for the antichrist, they were looking for Jesus Christ.\u00a0 That\u2019s what we call pretribulationalism.\n\nSo \u201cSilver says of the apostolic fathers that \"they expected the return of the Lord in their day<\/u>\u2026 They believed the time was imminent because the Lord had taught them to live in a watchful attitude.\u201d\u00a0 Now where do they get this idea that Jesus Christ can come back at any moment?\u00a0 They didn\u2019t study it in Charles Ryrie\u2019s Systematic Theology<\/em> or The Ryrie Study Bible<\/em>, they got this directly from the apostles.\u00a0 Well where did the apostles get it from?\u00a0 They got it directly from Jesus Christ.\u00a0 \u201c Concerning the ante Nicene fathers,\u201d Silver says, \u201cby tradition they knew the faith of the apostles. They taught the doctrine of the imminent,<\/u>\u201d another fancy name for that is pretribulation\u00adalism \u201cimminent and pre-millennial return of the Lord<\/u>.\u201d\u00a0 So they believed in imminency, that Christ can come back at any moment, and they believed in chiliasm, which is the idea of a thousand year kingdom which would manifest on planet earth.\u00a0 [The Lord\u2019s Return: Seen in History and in Scripture as Premillennial and Imminent (NY: Revell, 1914), 62-64.]\n\nAnd so what you have to understand is this is the state of Christianity for the first two centuries, and unless you understand that foundation you can\u2019t really appreciate what got lost.\u00a0 And unless you understand what got lost you can\u2019t understand the work of God in church history to raise up people like Martin Luther and others to store what got lost.\n\nSo I\u2019m not starting this study with the Protestant Reformation, I\u2019m starting this study at the very beginning because unless you understand the very beginning and the foundation that was laid and the baton that was handed off you don\u2019t really have much of a concept as to what God did in 1517 through a monk named Martin Luther.\n\nSo that takes care of Roman numeral 1, the early church.\u00a0 The reigning sentiment was literal interpretation of the whole Bible, including prophecy, emanating from the school of Antioch which can be directly traced back to the apostles themselves.\u00a0 So if that is true what in the world went wrong? What happened?\u00a0 Where did the shift comes from?\u00a0 So that takes us into Roman numeral II and I\u2019ll tell you exactly what went wrong: there\u2019s another circle there down at the bottom, down south, in a place called Alexandria, Egypt, not up north, but down south, Alexandria, Egypt, a rival school started which basically said you know, all that literal interpretation stuff, I mean, we all know it\u2019s really symbolic and metaphorical, and they developed what is called the allegorical method of interpretation.\u00a0 And once they spiritualized away Bible prophecy it wasn\u2019t long until the rest of Christianity was spiritualized.\n\nThink about this for a minute; if you can\u2019t believe in a future resurrection of the body then maybe Jesus Himself didn\u2019t come out of the grave in a body.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0 And that\u2019s what happened at Alexandria, Egypt.\u00a0 And sadly, between Antioch and Alexandria, Egypt, although Antioch was dominant for 200 years, the folks in Alexandria won the day.\u00a0 The reigning sentiment of Jesus and the apostles and the first generation of Christians was eclipsed (that\u2019s why I call this the Alexandrian eclipse). It brought in what I call, what is called by many the dark ages and this is exactly what Luther was trying to drag us out of.\u00a0 God is raising up Luther over a thousand years after the literal interpretation of the Bible had been dismissed.\n\nBut before we start explaining that let\u2019s remember what the Apostle Paul warned.\u00a0 Paul, in the Book of Acts, chapter 20, verses 29-30 is completing his third missionary journey and he is speaking to the elders at the church at Ephesus in a harbor town called Miletus.\u00a0 So he is a shepherd speaking to shepherds; Ephesus was not far from Miletus.\u00a0 And in Acts 20 he gives an amazing talk to these guys, from a shepherd about how to be a shepherd.\u00a0 So if you want to understand a proper philosophy of ministry I would you to encourage you to read Acts 20.\u00a0 Almost everything I try to do here at Sugar Land Bible Church I\u2019m getting right out of Acts 20.\u00a0 People think I\u2019m making this stuff up; I\u2019m getting my ques from the Apostle Paul.\n\nBut in the process of this speech, and he says things in this speech like I have warned you with tears for three years.\u00a0 [Acts 20:31, \u201cSo be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears....<\/strong><\/a>\u201d] \u00a0And people say well, a pastor should never get emotional in the pulpit; a pastor should never show any emotional weakness.\u00a0 Oh my gosh, I don\u2019t think most churches would have hired Paul.\u00a0 Paul is warning them for three years, to the point of tears, that\u2019s emotion isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 Of what is going to come when he leaves the scene and the rest of the apostles leaves the scene.\u00a0 He makes a prediction.\u00a0 I believe that this prediction is flushed out in another book that Paul wrote, his final book that we\u2019ve studied in this church called 2 Timothy.\n\nBut here\u2019s what he says, just a small excerpt from it.\u00a0 \u201cI know,\u201d now when he says \u201cI know\u201d there\u2019s no guesswork here, he says this is going to happen.\u00a0 \u201cI know that after my departure\u201d that\u2019s the departure of Paul and the rest of the apostles, \u201cI know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you,\u201d that would be false teachers, right, \u201cnot sparing the flock;\u201d [Acts 20:29]\u00a0 So he\u2019s talking about an external theological attack that\u2019s going to come against the church.\u00a0 But then he starts talking about an internal attack, he says, [Acts 20:30] \u201cand from among yourselves\u201d now that probably put the fear of God into some of these elders because what he\u2019s saying to them is some of you, that I\u2019m talking to, are going to turn in a theologically wrong direction after I leave the church.\u00a0 [Acts 20:30, \u201cand from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.]\n\nAnd you have to understand that Ephesus was the key church at that point.\u00a0 I mean, think of a church as influential in Houston as, like First Baptist, Second Baptist, some church that has an impact on a whole area.\u00a0 That\u2019s what the church at Ephesus was and he says this church is going to go south, and you believers are going to go south, theologically, when I leave the scene.\u00a0 Fortunately it didn\u2019t happen for a couple hundred years but as I\u2019ll be showing you, because of the influence of Alexandria it did happen.\u00a0 He says, \u201cand from among your selves men will arise and speak perverse things,\u201d what perverse things is he talking about? Ideas contrary to what Jesus taught and the apostles taught and the school of Antioch taught.\u00a0 They will \u201cspeak perverse things\u201d now why ae they doing it, because they\u2019re trying to draw away disciples after themselves.\u00a0\u00a0 [Acts 20:30, \u201cand from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.\u201d]\n\nThere\u2019s going to be people in the church that are going to try\u00a0 cut the cord from the apostles to you.\u00a0 Now they\u2019re going to be called a lot of names, probably they\u2019ll be called hyper-literalists, they might even call you the \u201cF word\u201d (Fundamentalist), literalist, flatterer, right wing, narrow minded, whatever they\u2019re going to call you but through this derision and this name calling they\u2019re going to remove the church from apostolic teaching.\n\nAnd beloved, that\u2019s exactly what happened in Alexandria.\u00a0 So in Alexandria, Egypt, North Africa, by the way, think about this, is there apostolic succession to Antioch?\u00a0 A ton of it!\u00a0 How much apostolic succession is there to that bottom circle?\u00a0 How many apostles do we know of that have any connection whatsoever to Alexandria, Egypt?\u00a0 ZERO!\u00a0 So that automatically tells you if there\u2019s a dispute between these schools which school of thought you ought to follow.\u00a0\u00a0 But sadly the school that had no connection to the apostles starts to dominate during the dark ages.\u00a0 They had a big library there and so they were known for their academics, their scholarship.\u00a0 God, in His sovereignty, I believe, allowed that library to be burned down.\u00a0 But just because the library burned down, I think that library, if I\u2019m not mistaken, is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.\u00a0 But just because the library got destroyed it doesn\u2019t mean that the ideas of these people in Alexandria, Egypt, didn\u2019t start to dominate.\n\nSo what were they teaching there in Alexandria, Egypt that was so wrong. Well, they taught, not a literal interpretation of Bible prophecy and the rest of the Bible, they began to teach allegorization.\u00a0 What in the world is allegorization?\u00a0 Allegorization is the idea that you use the text of the Bible to not teach the actual text of the Bible.\u00a0 You use the text of the Bible to bring in a higher meaning that sounds a lot more spiritual, that only\u00a0 you are aware of exists by the way, as an allegorist.\u00a0 The nice thing about being an allegorist is you can never lose your job because you\u2019re the only one that knows what the allegory means.\u00a0 So you use the language of the text to bring in a higher spiritual meaning.\n\nOne of the great allegorists that came out of the school of Alexandria was a guy named Philo.\u00a0 This process started in Judaism, even a tad before the time of Christ; Philo lived right at the end of the B.C. days and into A.D. so he lived just a little bit before Jesus Himself, and Philo is one of the guys that introduced this allegorical method of interpretation.\u00a0 Just to give you an example, he would take Genesis 2:11, 13 which talks about four rivers in Eden, the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Pashan and the Gohan, and he would say you don\u2019t really believe those are four rivers in Eden, do you? [Genesis 2:11, \u201cThe name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.\u00a0 [13] The name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush.\u00a0 [14] The name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.\u201d]\n\nI mean, you poor na\u00efve fundamentalist, don\u2019t you understand the higher meaning.\u00a0 The higher meaning is these really represent four parts of the soul.\u00a0 OH, well, that\u2019s a little bit more interesting to listen to, isn\u2019t it, than a boring sermon about four rivers.\u00a0 Tell me about four parts of the soul.\u00a0 This sounds so spiritual, and it sounds so academic.\n\nIf you go over to Nehemiah 3 for a minute let me tell you about a sermon that I\u2019ve heard as a new Christian and most likely a sermon that you\u2019ve heard; it\u2019s on the walls, the walls surrounding Jerusalem that Nehemiah built.\u00a0 There\u2019s a series of gates there.\u00a0 So in verse 1 you have the sheep gate and people say well, the Sheep Gate represents Jesus because John the Baptist said about Jesus, \u201cBehold, the Lamb of God.\u201d\u00a0 [Nehemiah 3:1, \u201cThen Eliashib the high priest arose with his brothers the priests and built the Sheep Gate; they consecrated it and hung its doors. They consecrated the wall to the Tower of the Hundred and the Tower of Hananel.\u201d]\n\nAnd then in verse 3 you\u2019ll see the fish gate.\u00a0 [Nehemiah 3:3, \u201cNow the sons of Hassenaah built the Fish Gate; they laid its beams and hung its doors with its bolts and bars.\u201d]\u00a0 Now that represents evangelism, right, because Jesus said, \u201cGo, I\u2019ll make you fishers of\u201d what? \u201cmen.\u201d\n\nIn verse 6 you have the old gate.\u00a0 [Nehemiah 3:6, \u201cJoiada the son of Paseah and Meshullam the son of Besodeiah repaired the Old Gate; they laid its beams and hung its doors with its bolts and its bars.\u201d]\u00a0 Now the allegorist would say the \u201cOld Gate\u201d is conversion because don\u2019t all things become new when you\u2019re \u201cin Christ.\u201d\u00a0 You transfer from old to new.\n\nVerse 13 of Nehemiah 3 is the valley gate.\u00a0 [Nehemiah 1:13, \u201cHanun and the inhabitants of Zanoah repaired the Valley Gate. They built it and hung its doors with its bolts and its bars, and a thousand cubits of the wall to the Refuse Gate.\u201d]\u00a0 And they say that represents the believer overcoming death because David says in Psalm 23, \u201cThough I walk through the\u201d what? \u201cvalley of death I will fear no evil.\u201d\n\nAnd I\u2019m always interested in what they\u2019re going to do with the dung gate, and they that represents hell because Jesus, in Matthew 5 analogized hell to manure being burned in a place called Gehenna, refuse being burned outside the city gates.\u00a0 Verse 15 talks about the fountain gate and of course that would represent healing because Jesus told the blind man to wash in the pool of Siloam if I remember right, John 9.\u00a0 [John 9:11, \u201cHe answered, \u2018The man who is called Jesus made clay, and anointed my eyes, and said to me, \u2018Go to Siloam and wash\u2019; so I went away and washed, and I received sight.\u201d\u2019]\u00a0 Verse 26 talks about the water gate; the water gate would represent what?\u00a0 The Holy Spirit, because Jesus, did He not say in John 7, \u201cOut of your innermost being will flow living waters,\u201d referring to the Holy Spirit.\n\nAnd then you have the horse gate; now didn\u2019t James 3:3 talk about the tongue is like a bit in a horse\u2019s mouth?\u00a0 [James 3:3, \u201cNow if we put the bits into the horses\u2019 mouths so that they will obey us, we direct their entire body as well.\u201d]\u00a0 So when you see the horse gate you\u2019re supposed to remember to control your tongue.\n\nAnd then you have verse 29, the east gate, and the east gate represents the second coming of Jesus because \u00a0according to Matthew 24 His coming is like lightening in the east.\u00a0 And then verses 31-32 you have the inspection gate and that represents the judgment seat of rewards because God is going to take our works and put them through a fire to inspect their quality.\n\nSo you listen to something like this and you say great sermon, wrong passage, which is kind of like a lot of the evangelical preaching you hear today.\u00a0 It\u2019s like good stuff, it gives me the liver quiver of the day that I\u2019m looking for, but where in the world is he getting this information from because when I read Nehemiah 3 I don\u2019t see anything about evangelism or conversion or controlling our tongue. Do you know what the fish gate was?\u00a0 Are you ready for this?\u00a0 They took fish in and out of the gate, period.\u00a0 And it\u2019s the same with all these other gates, the horse gate, the water gate, Watergate\u2026 that\u2019s a bad word anyway in America.\n\nWhat I\u2019m trying to describe is this is the mindset that starts to take over in Alexandria, Egypt, where they move into this very aggressive allegorization.\u00a0 So what is happening is the preachers and teachers from Alexandria, Egypt, art NOT deriving their ideas from the text; they\u2019re reading them into the text.\u00a0 Now if you want to preach a sermon on evangelism and the Holy Spirit, I can\u2019t tell you how many verses I can think of to do that but they didn\u2019t do that in Alexandria, Egypt, what they started to do is they moved into allegorization.\n\nSo this is what takes over; this is what eclipses Antioch.\u00a0 This mentality is what eclipses what the church taught for 200 years.\u00a0 And this, beloved, is what dominates the church for over a thousand years, this mentality.\u00a0 This is why God raised up the Protestant Reformers, to correct this problem.\n\nSo why should we not allegorize?\u00a0 I think I\u2019m actually running out of time so we\u2019ll pick up there next week; I\u2019ve got four problems against allegorization but I hope you find this helpful because this is the background you need to have to understand the Protestant Reformation.","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t