{"id":18887,"date":"2017-07-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-07-23T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/protestant-reformation-007\/"},"modified":"2017-07-23T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-07-23T05:00:00","slug":"protestant-reformation-007","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/protestant-reformation-007\/","title":{"rendered":"Protestant Reformation 007"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[12],"series_event":[480],"sermon_service_type":[473],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-18887","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-genesis","series_event-protestant-reformation","sermon_service_type-sunday-school","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"Protestant Reformation 007","sermon_date":"20170723","sermon_month":"7","sermon_year":"2017","sermon_notes":4800,"sermon_slides":4801,"sermon_mp3":4808,"sermon_id":"72317101332","series_or_event":480,"service_type":[473],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":12,"chapter_and_verse":"8:21","sermon_transcript":"Andy Woods\n\nThe Protestant Reformation 007\n\n7-23-17\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Genesis 8:21\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lesson 30\n\nI\u2019m going to open up with a Word prayer and then we\u2019ll get started.\u00a0 Let\u2019s pray.\u00a0 Father, we\u2019re grateful for today and grateful for another chance to gather in Your name and to study, and I do ask specifically Father for the illuminating ministry of the Holy Spirit which Jesus promised would come in the Upper Room so that we could understand Your Scriptures and Your church the way that You would have us to understand these things so that we can grow correctly therein.\u00a0 I do ask, Father, that You would do something eternal today, whether it be someone gets saved or someone forms a relationship they didn\u2019t have or gets some kind of insight they didn\u2019t have but I do ask, Father, for Your blessing in that way\u2026 that something eternal would be accomplished and we\u2019ll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory.\u00a0 We ask these things in Jesus\u2019 name, and God\u2019s people said\u2026 Amen.\n\nLet\u2019s open our Bibles, if we could, to the Book of Genesis, Genesis 8:21.\u00a0 As you all know we\u2019re starting Lesson 7 on the Protestant Reformation and as we\u2019ve indicated the 500th<\/sup> anniversary of the beginning of what most people believe is the beginning of the Reformation is coming up this October 31st<\/sup> so in that vein, what was this reformation about, why it\u2019s significant and that\u2019s sort of the purpose of this historical study that we\u2019re doing through these summer months.\n\nHere\u2019s the outline that we\u2019re following; I didn\u2019t start us in the 16th<\/sup> century, I started us with the early church in the 1st<\/sup> century just to sort of show us what the apostles handed off to the first Christians.\u00a0 They handed off to them purity of doctrine and there was a school there, up north in Antioch, that took that baton very seriously and they developed the school at Antioch and they began to interpret the Scripture literally, as we talked about, including Bible prophecy.\u00a0 So things are kind of rolling along for the first two centuries of the church and around the second century everything starts to change with the rise of the circle down below, down south, in Alexandria, Egypt.\u00a0 And they became infatuated, not with the literal interpretation of the Scripture but with an allegorical interpretation of the Scripture.\n\nI\u2019ve given you many, many examples of what they did; basically they used the language of the text to bring in some kind of higher spiritual meaning.\u00a0 So they would say the four rivers in Eden, Genesis 2, the Pishon, the Gihon, the Euphrates, and the Tigris, those are just four parts of the soul, even though when you read it it looks like four rivers, doesn\u2019t it?\u00a0 And they did the same thing with the various gates around the wall of Jerusalem, as described in Nehemiah 3.\u00a0 And of course we\u2019ve gone into detail explaining why this allegorical approach is not the way to interpret the Bible.\u00a0 It\u2019s got many, many problems, not the least of which is you\u2019re not really interpreting the Bible, you\u2019re reading your own ideas into the Bible.\n\nAnd we went through I think about six reasons why this became very popular in the 2nd<\/sup> century, 3rd<\/sup> century, and by the time we get to the 4th<\/sup> century it had almost eclipsed everything that the school of Antioch stood for.\u00a0 So the church became very allegorical in its approach to the Scripture, particularly prophecy.\u00a0 And this ushered us into a very, very difficult time in church history, around the 4th<\/sup> century, probably right up to the Protestant Reformation, called the Dark Ages or the Middle Ages, where, for a variety of reasons the Scripture is removed from the people and everything is filtered to you through the lens of the priesthood.\u00a0 And we talked about how the system began to take advantage of people in that condition and began to tell them if you want to spring Uncle Joe out of purgatory you need to pay the right price to the priesthood.\u00a0 That\u2019s called the sale of indulgences.\u00a0\u00a0 And so we went into detail sort of describing that very difficult time in church history.\n\nAnd once you understand the background and once you understand what was lost doctrinally for over a millennium in church history you begin to see the significance of the Protestant Reformation and why God raised up the Protestant Reformers to restore what was lost by getting us away from the influence of Alexandria, Egypt, and ultimately back to Antioch.\u00a0 So the Protestant Reformation really what it is, is it\u2019s a back to the Bible movement.\n\nSo in that vein what we\u2019ve been talking about under Roman Numeral IV is the contribution of the Protestant Reformers; several things we went through last time.\u00a0 We talked about the preparation of the Protestant Reformers.\u00a0 I gave you a little bit of the background into Martin Luther\u2019s life and how God prepared him for this role that he himself didn\u2019t even know he would play.\u00a0 And we talked about some morning stars of the Reformation.\u00a0 There are some things that came into play, like the printing press which allowed the Reformer\u2019s ideas to be spread all over Europe.\u00a0 And there\u2019s actually in church history some pre Martin Luther type characters, like John Huss and others.\n\nAnd from there we started to talk about okay, this thing got off the ground and what did it actually contribute to Christianity?\u00a0 Well it contributed an emphasis on literal interpretation.\u00a0 I showed you the writings of many, many Protestant Reformers who used the word \u201cliteral\u201d over and over again.\u00a0 And so they restored the church doctrinally in a lot of areas by using a literal approach to the Scripture and in the process they denounced the longstanding practice of allegorization which began in Alexandria, Egypt and really became popular under Augustine in the 4th<\/sup> century.\n\nAnd another contribution of the Protestant Reformers is they rejected church tradition as a guide.\u00a0 So what people were taught prior to this point in time is it\u2019s not just the Scripture that\u2019s important, it\u2019s the words of the priest, it\u2019s the words of the Monks, it\u2019s the words of the Pope who they think speak ex cathedra<\/em>, at least the Pope.\u00a0 And so the Protestant Reformers reject that and they want to anchor their entire thinking and theology and preaching and teaching on the Scripture by itself.\u00a0 And that\u2019s why I had you turn to, last time, Mark 7:13 and it occurred to me last time that I had you turn to Mark 7:13 but we never read Mark 7:13.\u00a0 So I\u2019m as bad as the Roman Catholics I guess.\n\nBut Mark 7:13, Jesus faced this same battle with Pharisaical interpretation.\u00a0 He says, \u201cthus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that.\u201d\u00a0 So the Pharisees, as we talked about basically read the Bible through the lens of manmade legalistic documents and Jesus came on the scene and wanted to get back to the Scripture because layer after layer after layer after layer of manmade regulations was actually contradicting the Scripture at points.\n\nAnd that\u2019s basically what the Protestant Reformers are doing.\u00a0 They are rejecting church tradition as \u00a0a guide and they want to get back to the literal written Word of God.\u00a0 So that\u2019s probably one of their biggest contributions.\u00a0 And along the way they started to emphasize this idea of the priesthood of all believers because prior to this point in time people were basically told, first of all, many were illiterate and couldn\u2019t read the Bible on their own if they wanted to.\u00a0 But even if they could they were basically told that look, you\u2019re not qualified to understand the Bible because you haven\u2019t been schooled in the Alexandrian approach to things, the allegorization.\n\nSo the Protestant Reformers reject that and they look at passages like Revelation 1:6 which says that we\u2019re all\u00a0 priests.\u00a0 [Revelation 1:6, \u201cand He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father-- to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.\u201d]\u00a0\u00a0 So I am just as much a priest here at Sugar Land Bible Church as you are; I don\u2019t have any special pathway to God that you don\u2019t.\u00a0 And so if that\u2019s true, and that\u2019s what the Bible teaches, of course this practice is very different than what happened in the prior dispensation where priests came from which tribe?\u00a0 Levi, and they had to be a descendant from whose lineage?\u00a0 Aaron\u2019s.\n\nBut if we\u2019re in the church age where God is doing something new, as He\u2019s been doing the last 2,000 years, and we are not Israel, then there\u2019s other texts you have to go to, to figure out who we are.\u00a0 One of them is Revelation 1:6 which says under Israel priests were limited but that\u2019s not how it is in the church age; all of us are priests.\u00a0 And you see, this is one of the things that the Roman Catholic Church did, is they kept going back to Israel to get their ques.\u00a0 So this idea that only they, the priests, in Roman Catholicism were priests, where are they getting that from?\u00a0 They\u2019re not getting that from church age truth; where they\u2019re getting that from is Old Testament teaching concerning Israel that you find in the Book of Leviticus.\n\nAnd why is it that the Roman Catholic priests always wear these robes and these kind of things, and make themselves different than the people by wearing these very fancy robes?\u00a0 Well, you\u2019re not going to find that in the New Testament related to the church age but you will find it in the description of Aaron in the Book of Exodus, around chapter 28 if my memory serves, where Aaron as a high priest had a very fancy robe.\u00a0 So this is sort of what began to happen in the Dark Ages or the Middle Ages, is church authorities are not making an Israel\/church distinction and they\u2019re building their case from Old Testament passages.\n\nNow the book that I recommended to you by Ronald Diprose, Israel and the Church: The Origins and Effects of Replacement Theology,<\/em> he documents all this historically, how the church, beginning in the Dark Ages, Middle Ages, are getting their ques about how to do church, not from Acts 2 forward, the way we would, but from Old Testament passages concerning Israel.\u00a0 So\u00a0 you go into church age doctrine there is no such thing that only some believers are priests.\u00a0 That\u2019s true in the prior dispensation under Israel.\n\nSo the Protestant Reformers see this and they start to restore the doctrine of the priesthood\u00a0 of all believers.\u00a0 And guess what?\u00a0 If we\u2019re all priests we all need to understand the what?\u00a0 The Bible in our own language.\u00a0 So this is why the Protestant Reformers are into\u2026 Martin Luther spent a chunk of his life doing this, translating the Bible into the common man\u2019s language, from Greek and Hebrew into German.\u00a0 And other people that followed Luther wanted to do the same thing.\u00a0 So the Bible now is becoming available to the masses since we\u2019re all priests.\n\nAnd guess what?\u00a0 We\u2019ve got to do something about this illiteracy problem; we\u2019ve got to teach people to read, not so they can pick the best stocks and retire early.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got to teach people to read because they are priests and they need to be able to read what?\u00a0 The Wall Street Journal?\u00a0 NO, the Bible.\u00a0 And I bring up these things about the Wall Street Journal and things because our goal of literacy in the\u00a0 year 2017 is so you can get a good job.\u00a0 But that\u2019s not the way the Protestant Reformers think; their whole goal is to get people literate so they can read the Bible on their own, in their own language because they\u2019re as much a priest as is anybody else.\u00a0 And the more people understand the Scripture the less they\u2019ll be deceived by the sale of indulgences and manipulated and things like that.\u00a0 So that\u2019s what we\u2019ve covered, I think in our last session, related to the contribution of the Protestant Reformers.\n\nAnd let me kind of pick up here and throw something else into the mix that, for whatever reason almost nobody covers this in their presentations on the Protestant Reformers, and the good that it brought to the world, first to Christianity and then the world.\u00a0 If the Protestant Reformation didn\u2019t happen the system of government that we have in the United States I don\u2019t think would exist.\u00a0 The United States Constitution, the way I look at it, I don\u2019t look at The United States Constitution as an inspired document, obviously, the way the Bible is inspired but I believe this: the most important book that\u2019s ever been written is the Scripture.\u00a0 The second most important document that\u2019s ever been created, other than the Scripture itself is The United States Constitution because that document has given more people more political and economic freedom than any other document in the history of the human race.\n\nAnd I would just like to get across this very simple point, that if the Protestant Reformation hadn\u2019t happened in the 16th<\/sup> century, and the descendants of those who came to these shores to found this country, the system of government that they would have set up, without being spiritual descendants of the Protestant Reformers living in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, the system of government that they would have come up with would have been completely different than the one we have today.\u00a0 And I believe that we would probably be in some form of totalitarianism or something to that extent had it not been for the Protestant Reformation.\n\nThe default mode of governments throughout human history is totalitarianism.\u00a0 What you have in the United States is totally unique and that\u2019s why we\u2019ve enjoyed what we\u2019ve enjoyed in this country for so long, because of our founding documents and note that document makes no sense unless you view it through the lens of the Protestant Reformation.\u00a0 You look at our system of government with three branches of government which will not coalesce power in one person\u2019s hands and then that system of government, not only does it divide power up it creates checks and balances where neither branch can get control of everything.\u00a0 Each branch is constantly being checked and balanced by another branch of government.\n\nAnd then beyond that, not only did they divide, our Founding Fathers in America divide political power horizontally the way I\u2019ve described it but they also divided it vertically by creating a national government and then multiple state governments.\u00a0 So if\u00a0 you actually go back and read some of our founding material what you\u2019ll discover is the true source of power is not even to rest in the national government but it\u2019s to rest where?\u00a0 In the state governments.\n\nAnd we also have The Bill of Rights which came about a couple of years after our Constitution.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0You\u2019re familiar with The Bill of Rights\u2026 freedom of speech, freedom to peaceably assemble, the right to keep and bear arms, the right to be protected from unreasonable searches and seizures, the right for the government not to come and take your property without just compensation.\u00a0 All of these individual rights we have are hindrances on government.\n\nNow you look at that system and there isn\u2019t a businessman on planet earth that would set up his business this way.\u00a0 This is a deliberately inefficient system.\u00a0 And this is why I always get a laugh out of people who say we\u2019ve got too much gridlock in Washington D.C., nothing\u2019s getting done.\u00a0 Every time I hear that I say thank you Jesus that nothing\u2019s getting done.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to live in a country where things get done just like that.\u00a0 If you want to live in a country like that I\u2019d recommend Iran to you; things get done very quick there but of course you\u2019re living in totalitarianism where things get done rapidly without any insight or input from the people.\n\nAnd the point I want to make and the point that\u2019s almost never brought up is the people that set up the United States government were the spiritual descendants of the Protestant Reformers that happened in the 16th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 And even before I develop this let me read the words here of Antonin Scalia<\/em> who passed away recently, formerly of the Supreme Court.\u00a0 He writes this: \u201cEvery tin horn dictator in the world today, every president for life, has a Bill of Rights,\u201d...\u201cThat\u2019s not what makes us free; if it did, you would rather live in Zimbabwe. But you wouldn\u2019t want to live in most countries in the world that have a Bill of Rights. What has made us free is our Constitution. Think of the word \u2018constitution;\u2019 it means structure.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s why America\u2019s framers debated not the Bill of Rights during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia,\u201d he said, \u201cbut rather the structure of the federal government.\u201d\u2019 Meaning its deliberate division of power.\u00a0 \u201cThe genius of the American constitutional system is the dispersal of power,\u201d he said. \u201cOnce power is centralized in one person, or one part of the government, a Bill of Rights is just words on paper.\u201d...\u201cA constitution is about setting structure; it is not about writing the preferences of special interest groups,\u201d he said.\n\nScalia had a very long career on the Supreme Court, wrote many wonderful opinions and dissenting opinions and this is right prior to his death.\u00a0 He says if you want to know why our country has lasted as long as it has without moving into the default mode of totalitarianism you look at our Constitution and how it deliberately divides power.\n\nNow if the United States Constitution was set up by secular humanists or religious humanists or psychologists, or people who believe that humans are naturally good at heart, they would never set up this inefficient system that we have.\u00a0 The reason we have the deliberately cumbersome, deliberate inefficient system we have is because of a belief that came out of the Protestant Reformation called total depravity.\u00a0 And one of the things that the Protestant Reformers believed in, at least their heritage did, is something called TULIP, which is a description of the Calvinistic system.\u00a0 [T\u2014Total Depravity, U\u2014Unconditional Election, L\u2014Limited Atonement, I\u2014Irresistible Grace,\u00a0 P\u2014Perseverance of the Saints.]\n\nAnd in our soteriology series I went through that and showed you parts of it that I think are correct but other parts that might be a bit overstated.\u00a0 So I\u2019m not giving a ringing endorsement to TULIP or advocating it today; what I\u2019m saying is this is what the Protestant Reformers believed.\u00a0 This is what their heritage believed; this is what their children believed.\u00a0 This is what their descendants believed.\u00a0 And this is what people who came from Europe, following the Protestant Reformation, to the United States believed.\u00a0 They did not believe in the perfectibility of human nature; they believed in what\u2019s called total depravity of human nature which basically means that sin has corrupted every part of my being, even my intellect or my capacity for thought has been corrupted.\n\nSo Luther was a big believer in what\u2019s called the bondage of the will.\u00a0 In the soteriology series I kind of went through why I think some of that is true but some of it is overstated so I\u2019m not advocating everything he said, I\u2019m just saying this is what Luther believed.\n\nMartin Luther called his book The Bondage of the Will<\/em>, his most important work. In it he argued that humanity is bondage to sin, freely choosing to sin by their own will, yet still a slave to sin and unable to choose God on their own.\u00a0 This is what Martin Luther believed.\u00a0 The translation of it is this: Sin has not just corrupted humanity from the neck down.\u00a0 The effect of sin, and you see this with Paul in Romans 3:11, none seeks God, and these types of statements that Paul makes.\u00a0 [Romans 3:11, \u201cTHERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD;\u201d]\n\n2 Corinthians 4:4, how the god of this age, the world, the devil, has blinded the minds. [2 Corinthians 4:4, \u201cin whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving \u00a0so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.\u201d]\n\nSin is so pervasive it\u2019s effected how we think and so that\u2019s what\u2019s meant by total depravity.\u00a0 Now where in the world did the Protestant Reformers get this silly idea?\u00a0 I mean, I thought we were all good at heart.\u00a0 Well, they got it from the Bible because the Protestant Reformation is a \u201cback to the\u201d what? \u201cBible\u201d movement.\u00a0 And they read passages like this: Genesis 8:21, \u201cThe LORD smelled the soothing aroma and the LORD said to Himself, I will never again curse the ground on account man for the intent of man\u2019s heart is evil from his youth.\u201d\n\nSo from the point of conception, Psalm 51:5 says the sin nature is handed down to every single human being.\u00a0 [Psalm 51:5, \u201cBehold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.\u201d]\u00a0 Even your rulers have that sin nature.\u00a0 The masses have that sin nature.\u00a0 So if you believe that, and the Protestant Reformers believed it, and I believe it, it shapes your view of government.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 Lord Acton, because \u201cAll power tends to corrupt and absolute power\u201d what? \u201ccorrupts absolutely.\u201d\u00a0 If you believe in depravity you understand that sin affects, not just the people that need government but the people running government.\u00a0 See that?\n\nIn the Greek system the people running the government were looked at as demigods, it\u2019s just the fun-washed masses that were the sinners, the demigods that were running the government were at a higher level, intellectually they believed, so they weren\u2019t as corrupted by the sin nature as were the masses.\u00a0 But you see, that\u2019s an unbiblical concept.\u00a0 What the Bible teaches is everyone has been corrupted by this sin nature.\u00a0 So the last thing you want to do, the LAST thing you want to do is you want to want to centralize power in the hands of one person.\u00a0 And it is interesting to me that after the Lord made this statement, in Genesis 8:21, what comes after that is Genesis 11 which is the tower of Babel where a man named Nimrod was trying to take over the world.\u00a0 So the default mode is totalitarianism, you see it emerging right there in Genesis 11, and God disrupted it through a check and balance system where he confused the language.\u00a0 See that?\n\nSo what you believe about human nature will control your philosophy of government and what I\u2019m saying here, as you study this, it\u2019s not just my personal opinion, you see this in the writings of the Federalist Papers.\u00a0 This is Federalist Paper Number 51, I believe this one was written by James Madison who is called the chief architect of the United States Constitution.\u00a0 The Federalist Papers, in case\u00a0 you don\u2019t know, were written at the intellectual level of a farmer.\u00a0 And today everybody looks at the Federalist Papers and this is so scholarly\u2026 but the reality is the intellectual capacities of people were much higher back then than they are today.\u00a0\u00a0 So the Federalist Papers were written to the common person in New York, the farmer, trying to convince the people of New York to ratify this new document that was coming out of Philadelphia, called The United States Constitution.\u00a0 So the Federalist Papers become a source of light in terms of trying to figure out what our government is based on and things like this.\n\nSo James Madison, in Federalist Paper Number 51 summarized exactly what I\u2019ve been saying.\u00a0\u00a0 He says, \u201cBut what is government but the greatest of all reflections on\u201d what? \u201chuman nature?\u201d\u00a0 And what he\u2019s saying is what you believe about human nature will shape your view of how government should exist.\u00a0 \u201cIf men were angels [no government would be necessary]\u201d we wouldn\u2019t need a government.\u00a0 \u201cIf angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government\u201d like separation of powers, checks and balances, \u201cwould be necessary.\u00a0 In framing a government which is to be administered by men\u201d parenthesis, who have a sin nature, \u201cover men,\u201d parenthesis, \u201cwho also have a sin nature, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed;\u201d in other words, the government has to be strong enough to keep in check the sinful impulses of the masses, \u201cand in the next place oblige it to control\u201d what? \u201citself.\u201d\u00a0 [Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers, trans. Clinton Rossiter (New\u00a0 York, NY: Penguin, 1961) 322]\n\nSo what he\u2019s saying here is this is not the Greek city-state model that we\u2019re setting up here in America where the people that run the government aren\u2019t somehow at a higher level of evolution and they\u2019re not tainted by the sin nature, what we believe is every single human being has been corrupted by the sin nature so we\u2019ve got a problem here at our Constitutional Convention, 1787; our problem is sin!\u00a0 How are we going to make the government strong enough to control the sinful masses but at the same time weak enough so that the people running the government won\u2019t be corrupted by their power.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what we\u2019re going to do; we\u2019re going to divide up power and we\u2019re going to create a system that makes it very, very difficult for one person, or one group, or one party, to get control of everything, and we\u2019re going to create a deliberate check and balance system.\n\nAnd without that system we would just go right into default mode, which is totalitarianism.\u00a0 And my point I\u2019m trying to make is the Founding Fathers of the United States of America wouldn\u2019t even think this way.\u00a0 See this?\u00a0 They wouldn\u2019t even think this way had it not been for the influence of the Protestant Reformation with its emphasis on TULIP, the first of which is the total depravity of man.\u00a0\u00a0 Now in Lorraine Boettner\u2019s book, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination<\/em>, [Philipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1932) 398-90] he has a chapter in there where goes into this in detail.\u00a0 And he\u2019s probably one of the few people I\u2019ve ever seen develop this idea where he quotes historian after historian after historian who says had it not been for John Calvin with his belief in the total depravity of man, and Martin Luther and his belief in the total depravity of man the American system of government would not exist.\u00a0 So here\u2019s one such quote: \u201cBancroft\u201d a historian that Boettner is quoting, \u201csimply calls Calvin \u2018the father of America\u2019 and adds: \u2018He who will not honor the memory and respect the influence of Calvin knows but little of the origin of American liberty.\u2019\u201d\n\nI wanted to put that in there because for whatever reason this isn\u2019t brought out in most presentations on the Protestant Reformers.\u00a0 The impact that their belief in anthropology, which is the study of man, had on government and how government ought to be set up and the origins of the United States of America, I don\u2019t even think the Protestant Reformers themselves understood what they were putting in motion through their back to the Bible movement and their emphasis on total depravity.\u00a0 They are putting into motion, probably without even realizing it, God realized it, what was happening, they\u2019re putting into motion a political science philosophy that we, in the year 2017 are the recipients of.\u00a0 And most of\u00a0 us just sort of woke up one day in this country and thought this is the way the world is supposed to work; right?\u00a0 No, NO!\u00a0 God is, in history, linking chains together because God sovereignly knew what He wanted to do in this new country called The United States, which, by the way, has sent out more missionaries in the world than any other country in recorded history (that I\u2019m aware of) where Christianity reigns in the United States like it\u2019s never reigned anywhere around the world.\n\nSo I believe this; God is putting into motion the right philosophy that our founders would be steeped in, Calvinism, the total depravity of man, which would give them the right mindset by which a right government could be devised, on the basis of the fact that the people running the government are just as corrupted by the sin nature as are the people being governed.\u00a0 So let\u2019s make the government big enough to control the sins of the people but weak enough so that it doesn\u2019t go to the heads, so to speak, of the people running the government and they don\u2019t become corrupted and we don\u2019t go back into totalitarian default mode.\u00a0 So if you enjoy your freedoms in America, which I\u2019m sure you do, you ought to thank the Lord for John Calvin and Martin Luther.\n\nNow something else, switching subjects here, the Reformers gave us are the five Solas<\/em>, Sola<\/em> is a Latin word which means by itself.\u00a0 So out of the Protestant Reformation come all of these good things, including the five Solas<\/em>, and you probably should just memorize these.\u00a0 Sola Scriptura<\/u><\/em>, which means Scripture Alone<\/u><\/em>.\u00a0 Solus Christus<\/u><\/em> which means Christ Alone.\u00a0 Sola Fide<\/u><\/em> which means Faith Alone.\u00a0 Sola Graetia<\/u><\/em> which means Grace Alone.\u00a0 And Soli Deo Gloria<\/u><\/em>, To the Glory of God alone.\n\nIn other words, they went back to the Bible and they saw these five Solas,<\/em> and they used the literal method of interpretation to restore to the church these five Solas.<\/em>\u00a0 So let\u2019s look at these one by one.\u00a0 The first Sola is what is called Sola Scriptura<\/em>, what does that mean?\u00a0 It means Scripture by itself.\u00a0 And this is why Martin Luther says things in his debates and in his contests with the Roman Catholic Church, I showed you the quotes last week, he says unless I am convinced by Scripture alone and sound reason it doesn\u2019t really matter how many monks or priests or Popes you quote, here I stand Luther said, I could do no other.\u00a0 This is why Luther called the Book of Galatians Meine Frau<\/em>, which means his wife.\u00a0 So Luther\u2019s whole thinking is Scripture completely alone and completely by itself.\n\nAnd what I what I want to show\u00a0 you is that not only did it erase about a thousand\u00a0 years of a different mindset but Sola Scriptura<\/em>, your authority is the Scripture itself, is being erased today by what I would call the emergent church.\u00a0 And even before I talk about the emergent church, this is why when you\u2019re in a discussion with your Roman Catholic friends you all aren\u2019t on the same page.\u00a0 They believe in stuff that you don\u2019t believe in.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 They have a different authority base than\u00a0 you have.\u00a0 You, as a Protestant, believe that your authority and what you believe in comes from this Book.\u00a0 That\u2019s not what Roman Catholics believe.\u00a0 They believe it comes from tradition, what the Pope\u2019s say, church history, so they\u2019re elevating all these other things on equal level with the Scripture and that\u2019s why they believe \u201cA\u201d on a lot of different topics, and you believe \u201cB\u201d because you\u2019re dealing with a discussion amongst people that are operating by a different authority base.\n\nLuther and Calvin restored to the church the authority base of the Scripture which is Sola Scriptura<\/em>.\u00a0 You don\u2019t believe anything unless you can see it well taught in this Book.\u00a0 The emergent church sort of has moved today to get back to the pre Reformation Dark Ages.\u00a0 That\u2019s the best way I can describe the emergent church.\u00a0 Brian McLaren, one of the key voices in the emergent church, in his book, A Generous Orthodoxy<\/em>, page 210, says, \u201cAnglicans\u201d now I found that very interesting because my background is Anglican, I grew up in a church that believed exactly the way McLaren is describing how authority should be set up.\u00a0 I was saved out of this.\n\n\u201cAnglicans have demonstrated this both\/and beautifully in relation to Scripture. Scripture is always a factor<\/u><\/em> in Anglican thinking. \u00a0In Anglicans\u2019 best moments, it is their primary factor,\u201d but notice what McLaren says, \u201cbut it is never\u2026the only factor<\/u><\/em>. Rather Scripture is always in dialogue\u201d that\u2019s a popular word today, dialogue, \u201crather Scripture is always in dialogue with tradition, reason, and experience. None of them Sola can be the ultimate source of authority<\/u><\/em>\u2026\u201d\n\nNow if you put your ear to the ground and listen very carefully you can hear Martin Luther rolling over in his grave because Luther\u2019s whole point is Sola Scriptura, <\/em>Scripture by itself.\u00a0 That\u2019s how he reclaimed doctrines that had been lost for over a thousand years and what you see here in the emergent church is well, Scripture is nice but you\u2019ve also got to factor in all these other things.\u00a0 Like what?\u00a0 Like tradition, like reason, and like experience.\u00a0 So what is happening with the emergent church is basically an erasure, they\u2019re taking out a eraser and erasing the influence of Luther and Calvin in the Protestant Reformation.\n\nLet me ask you a question: should tradition, reason and experience be elevated to the same level as the Bible in terms of authority?\u00a0 I don\u2019t think so.\u00a0 First of all notice what Paul says, 2 Thessalonians 2:15, \u201cSo then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us.\u201d\u00a0 Aha, tradition is not always bad; I mean, we\u2019re not just against tradition because it\u2019s tradition.\u00a0 Tradition can be a very helpful thing if it\u2019s consistent with the Bible.\n\nBut you see, what happens in so many places is the tail starts to wag the dog and the tradition becomes more important than the Scripture itself.\u00a0 And if you move in that trajectory the Bible condemns that.\u00a0 This is why Mark 7:13, which we read earlier, Jesus condemned the Pharisees by invalidating the Word of God by your what?\u00a0 Tradition.\u00a0 This is why the Apostle Paul, in the Book of Colossians, chapter 2 and verse 8 says, \u201cSee to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.\u201d\n\nSo tradition is fine but when tradition departs from Scripture we depart from tradition.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0 That mentality comes into existence in Christendom in a dominant way because of the influence of the Protestant Reformation.\u00a0 Part of that point in time is whatever the church said is on equal level with the Scripture itself.\n\nNow what about reason?\u00a0 What is McLaren saying here, back in this quote I gave you.\u00a0 \u201cAnglicans have demonstrated this both\/and beautifully in relation to Scripture. Scripture is always a factor in Anglican thinking. In Anglicans\u2019 best moments, it is their primary factor, but it is never\u2026the only factor. Rather Scripture is always in dialogue with tradition, reason, and experience.\u201d\n\nWhat about human reason?\u00a0 How much trust can be given to human reason?\u00a0 Well, if total depravity is true and sin has not just corrupted me from the neck down then even my mental capacities themselves are tainted by sin.\u00a0 In other words, my mind and your mind, as brilliant as perhaps they are or are not, I don\u2019t know, as brilliant as the human mind can become and the capacities God has given it, the human mind has the ability to go astray, doesn\u2019t it?\u00a0 So this is why we\u2019re told over and over again to test our intellectual conclusions by the Word of God.\u00a0 It\u2019s all over the Bible.\n\nHere\u2019s the verse\u00a0 you have probably on your refrigerator at home, \u201cTrust the Lord with all your heart,\u201d Proverbs 3:5, \u201clean not on your own understanding.\u00a0 [6] In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.\u201d\u00a0 Did you catch that second clause, \u201clean not on your own understanding.\u201d\u00a0 Why wouldn\u2019t I lean on my own understanding?\u00a0 Because my mind, I haven\u2019t been corrupted by sin from the neck down, it\u2019s affected my intellect.\u00a0 So whatever I\u2019m thinking has to be tested with the Word of God because my mind can go astray.\n\nProverbs 14:12 says, \u201cThere is a way which\u201d what? \u201cseems right\u201d it looks good, \u201cto a man, but its end is\u201d what? \u00a0\u201c\u2026.death.\u201d\u00a0 So what the Bible is saying is the intellect is wonderful but don\u2019t make that your authority.\u00a0 Why not?\u00a0 Because God has permission, doesn\u2019t He, to do things that are outside of my mental checkbox?\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t Isaiah 55:8-9 say, \u201cFor My thoughts are not\u201d what? \u201cyour thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,\u201d declares the LORD.\u00a0 [9] For as<\/em> the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.\u201d\n\nAha, so I have a thought, it may not be God\u2019s thought.\u00a0 I have an idea, maybe it\u2019s not God\u2019s idea.\u00a0 So we\u2019re told constantly to use the Scripture to hem in our reasoning capacities because I\u2019m not given permission as a Christian to think thoughts that are contrary to God\u2019s thoughts.\u00a0 So the Bible supports reason, it supports the intellect; what it does not support is unaided reason, the idea of unaided reason is not a biblical concept.\u00a0 It comes from basically humanism and rationalism under the misguided belief that human beings are naturally good and untainted by sin.\n\nNow what else did McLaren say?\u00a0 The Bible needs to be equal with tradition, it needs to be equal with reason, it needs to be equal with experience. \u00a0Does that work?\u00a0 Is the Bible equal with whatever experiences you have had or not had?\u00a0 A lot of people think so; they think whatever experience they\u2019ve had, whether it be a dream, a vision, an impression, a liver-quiver, whatever it is must be from God, right, because the experience was so real.\u00a0 The experience was so real it must be from God.\u00a0 And of course that\u2019s what a young man named Joseph Smith thought when he started Mormonism, because he was visited by an angel.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t have any doubt that the experience that a young Joseph Smith had was very real but the error comes in where he thought what was real was from God.\u00a0 This is how Islam started in the 7th<\/sup> century, through another angelic manifestation to Mohammed.\n\nIf you were to interview Joseph Smith and Mohammed I think all of us would be convinced that they had real experiences but the error is in thinking that because the experience is real it must be from God.\u00a0 Let me let you in on a little secret here: it\u2019s really not a secret when you study the Word of God\u2026 the devil can give experiences!\u00a0 Did you all know that?\u00a0 In fact, this slide here gives you every example in the Bible that I could come up with where a miracle is happening but God has nothing to do with the miracle.\u00a0 It starts with Pharaoh\u2019s magicians, who are able to duplicate many of the things Moses and Aaron were doing.\n\nDeuteronomy 13:1-3 says if you go into the land and there\u2019s a prophet in the land and the prophet announces a sign which comes to pass, but then says let\u2019s follow other Gods, you\u2019re to renounce that prophet.\u00a0 [Deuteronomy 13:1-3, \u201cIf a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, [2]<\/a> and the sign or the wonder comes true, concerning which he spoke to you, saying, \u2018Let us go after other gods (whom you have not known) and let us serve them,\u2019 [3] you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the LORD your God is testing you to find out if you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.\u201d]\n\nSo there\u2019s a false prophet that\u2019s announcing something that comes to pass.\u00a0 Jesus said in the last days, Matthew 24:24, there would be false prophets performing signs and wonders.\u00a0 [Matthew 24:24, \u201cFor false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.\u201d]\n\nIn fact Jesus said in Matthew 7, in the Sermon on the Mount many will come in that day that have never believed in Christ and say, Lord, Lord, did we not perform many\u201d what? \u201cmiracles in Your name.\u201d\u00a0 [Matthew 7:22, \u201cMany will say to Me on that day, \u2018Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?\u2019\u201d]\n\nYou have Simeon, the sorcerer, before he believed in Christ he was wowing a whole city of Samaria with his signs and wonders.\u00a0 [Acts 8:9, \u201cNow there was a man named Simon, who formerly was practicing magic in the city and astonishing the people of Samaria, claiming to be someone great;\u201d]\n\nYou have in Philippi, Acts 16:16, the young slave girl who was predicting the future and making her master a lot of profit in the process because of the demon that was inside of her.\u00a0 [Acts 16:16, \u201cIt happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a slave-girl having a spirit of divination met us, who was bringing her masters much profit by fortune-telling.\u201d]\n\nGalatians 1:6-9 talks about how even if an angel manifests itself and preaching something other than apostolic doctrine do not believe that angel.\u00a0 [Galatians 1:6-9, \u201cI am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; [7] which is really<\/em> not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. [8] But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! [9] As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!\u201d]\n\nAnd you see, this is always something that\u2019s bothered me about so many Christians looking for a signs and wonders movement.\u00a0 Now don\u2019t get me wrong, God performs miracles; the Bible is full of them.\u00a0 But people think that every and any miracle has to be from God and the biblical text just isn\u2019t saying that.\u00a0 The greatest signs and wonders movement predicted in the pages of God\u2019s Word is the false signs and wonders movement of the antichrist, 2 Thessalonians 2:9.\u00a0 [2 Thessalonians 2:9, \u201cthat is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders,\u201d] we\u2019re going to get into that passage perhaps a little bit in our Daniel study today.\n\nThe antichrist is going to rise from the dead, Revelation 13:3; he\u2019s going to call down\u00a0 [Revelation 13:3, \u201cI saw one of his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed. And the whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast;\u201d]\u00a0 He\u2019s going to call down fire from heaven, that\u2019s a pretty big miracle, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 It kind of sounds like he\u2019s imitating who?\u00a0 Elijah.\n\nRevelation 13:13 and Revelation 16:13-14 talks about demons performing signs and wonders.\u00a0 [Revelation 13:13, \u201cHe also performs great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in front of people.\u201d Revelation 16:13, \u201cAnd I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs; [14] for they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them together for the war of the great day of God, the Almighty.\u201d]\n\nSo what am I trying to get at?\u00a0 I\u2019m trying to get at that experience cannot be a test of truth unless the experience aligns with what?\u00a0 This Book [the Bible].\u00a0 So when Brian McLaren is saying well, let\u2019s just take reason, tradition, experience and Scripture and put them all at the same level I\u2019m saying NO WAY!\u00a0 That\u2019s not what the Bible teaches us to do and it\u2019s certainly not what the Protestant Reformers stood for.\u00a0 Where in the Scripture are we told to dialogue with all four?\u00a0 Where does God say okay, get your experience out, get your tradition out, get My Word out and have a conversation amongst them.\u00a0 I mean, that\u2019s just a manmade teaching; there\u2019s no teaching on that.\n\nNow am I against experiences?\u00a0 Not necessarily.\u00a0 Am I against tradition?\u00a0 Not necessarily.\u00a0 Am I against reason?\u00a0 Not necessarily.\u00a0 But you see, I hold those loosely against the authority of Scripture.\u00a0 I use those things, not in a magisterial sense; see a magistrate is someone that sits in judgment on somebody, I don\u2019t use reason, tradition and experience to sit in judgment on the Bible.\u00a0 I\u00a0 use reason, tradition and experience to be in a subservient role as a minister to the Bible.\u00a0 So sometimes reason, tradition and experience can help extricate, explain biblical realities.\u00a0 But you see, when tradition departs from the Scripture I depart from tradition.\u00a0 When reason departs from the plain statements of God\u2019s Word I depart from reason.\u00a0 When experiences depart from Scripture I depart from those experiences.\u00a0 I\u2019m not necessarily shutting them off; I\u2019m always holding them loosely and at bay to what the Scripture is saying in its literal, grammatical, historical sense, consistently applied.\n\nSo why do I think that way?\u00a0 Well, John Calvin and Martin Luther dropped off a great big Christmas present to me, called the Protestant Reformation, where they got me to thinking in a\u00a0\u00a0 Sola Scriptura<\/em> sense.\n\nLet me cover one other Sola which is Sola Christus<\/em>, it comes right out of the Protestant Reformation, meaning Christ alone.\u00a0 And you know that\u2019s true because that\u2019s what the Bible says, and the Protestant Reformers say this, salvation is found in Christ alone.\u00a0 See, the word \u201cSola\u201d is a big deal; because the Protestant Reformers insist on the word Sola by itself that\u2019s what put them at war with the Catholic hierarchy.\u00a0 If they had just left the \u201cSola\u201d out everybody would have gotten along hunky-dory.\u00a0 But because they insisted on Sola that was what was unearthing a thousand years of the dark ages.\u00a0 Jesus said, \u201cI am the<\/u> way, the<\/u> truth, and the<\/u> life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.\u201d [John 14:6]\u00a0 Christ alone, Sola<\/em>.\n\nActs 4:12, quoting Peter, \u201cAnd there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.\u201d\u00a0 Sola Christus<\/em>, Christ alone!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1 Timothy 2:5, where there is how many mediators between God and man?\u00a0 One, \u201cthe man Christ Jesus.\u201d\u00a0 [1 Timothy 2:5, \u201cFor there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.\u201d]\u00a0 By the way, only Christ could be the mediator between God and man because he\u2019s the only one who\u2019s both God and man.\n\nSo the Reformers see this and they start to reject Mariolatry.\u00a0 Now Mary, how does the Bible portray Mary?\u00a0 She\u2019s the Mother of Jesus; the Holy Spirit used her womb, through the virgin conception to bring Jesus into the world.\u00a0 So we as Protestants have a great deal of respect for Mary. \u00a0She\u2019s a woman to be honored.\u00a0 But let me tell you something; we don\u2019t pray to Mary.\u00a0 Why don\u2019t we pray to Mary?\u00a0 Because of Sola Christus<\/em>.\n\nMary was not God-man, so any prayer offered to Mary is of no validity, it has no power, it\u2019s just empty tradition.\u00a0 And so the Reformers see this and they start to move away from Mariolatry, elevating Mary to a place where the Bible never puts her.\u00a0 The Bible says she\u2019s a respected woman but what you have in the thousand years of the Dark Ages is Mary is lifted up, almost as a co-Redemptress, almost as a mediator of some kind and that\u2019s not the biblical position because it\u2019s not borne out by the first principle of the Protestant Reformation called Sola Scriptura<\/em>.\n\nSo the Reformers reject Mariolatry and in the process they reject the idea of the perpetual virginity of Mary.\u00a0 In Mariolatry what happened is they elevated her to such a role as the mother of Jesus, the Holy Spirit using the virgin conception, that she stayed a virgin her whole life.\u00a0 Did you know that?\u00a0 And\u00a0 yet what does the Bible say?\u00a0 B-I-B-L-E, that\u2019s the book for me\u2014right?\n\nMatthew 13:55 says, \u201cIs not this the carpenter\u2019s son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers,\u201d where do these guys come from? \u201cJames and Joseph and Simon and Judas?\u201d\u00a0 What does this mean?\u00a0 It means that the Holy Spirit used the virgin Mary to bring Jesus into the world but Mary was married to Joseph.\u00a0 Following the virgin birth of Jesus Christ Mary and Joseph had a normal sexual relationship and from that normal sexual relationship, post virgin birth of Christ, came forth the half-brothers of Jesus.\u00a0 Now why do we call them \u201chalf-brothers\u201d?\u00a0 Because they shared the same mother as Jesus but not the same father.\u00a0 Joseph is the father of these guys; Joseph, as we believe the Bible teaches was never the father, the biological father, of Jesus Christ because Jesus was born of a virgin and Thank God He was because if He wasn\u2019t then what would we have inherited right down the line?\u00a0 The sin nature, and He had inherited the sin nature He wouldn\u2019t have qualified to be our sinless sacrifice, because God only accepts a sinless sacrifice.\n\nSo we have in the Biblical text very clearly expressed the half-brothers of Jesus.\u00a0 Two of them wrote books of the Bible.\u00a0 Did you know that?\u00a0 Which two am I thinking of?\u00a0 James and Jude.\u00a0 Two books of the New Testament written by the half-brothers of Jesus Christ.\n\nSo the Reformers are moving away from Mariolatry; they are rejecting doctrines such as the perpetual virginity of Mary.\u00a0 And they\u2019re also rejecting in the process the sinless perfectionism of Mary because in Roman Catholic teaching Mary, not only is she a mediator of some sort, not only did she remain a virgin her whole life, but she is actually in a state of sinless perfection.\u00a0 Well, that doesn\u2019t work, does it, because the sin nature has affected every human being other than Christ, including Mary.\u00a0 And that\u2019s why Mary herself says, Luke 1:46-47, as Jesus is in her womb, \u201cAnd Mary said: \u2018My soul exalts the Lord, [47] And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Even Mary herself recognized she needed s Savior.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0 I think Mary would be embarrassed that over 2,000 years she\u2019s been promoted to a state of sinless perfectionism.\n\nWe know Romans 3:23, \u201cFor all,\u201d wouldn\u2019t that include Mary, \u201cFor all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.\u00a0 So this Mariolatry now is being corrected in the Protestant Reformation through a return to Sola Scriptura<\/em>.\u00a0 And we\u2019ll pick it up next time with Sola Fide<\/em>.","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