{"id":18892,"date":"2017-09-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-09-10T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/protestant-reformation-012\/"},"modified":"2017-09-10T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-09-10T05:00:00","slug":"protestant-reformation-012","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/protestant-reformation-012\/","title":{"rendered":"Protestant Reformation 012"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[83],"series_event":[480],"sermon_service_type":[473],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-18892","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-zechariah","series_event-protestant-reformation","sermon_service_type-sunday-school","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"Protestant Reformation 012","sermon_date":"20170910","sermon_month":"9","sermon_year":"2017","sermon_notes":4919,"sermon_slides":4918,"sermon_mp3":4922,"sermon_id":"910171014190","series_or_event":480,"service_type":[473],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":83,"chapter_and_verse":"14:4","sermon_transcript":"Andy Woods\n\nThe Protestant Reformation\n\n9-10-17\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Zechariah 14:4\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lesson 12\n\nIf you could take your Bibles and open them to the Book of Zechariah, chapter 14 and verse 4.\u00a0 We\u2019re nearing the completion, hopefully, of our study on The Protestant Reformation.\u00a0 Don was just telling me that people are already talking about it in the Houston Chronicle and other places. So it\u2019s going to be a big subject of discussion, particularly when we hit the month of October so I wanted to give us some understanding of the Protestant Reformation and why it was significant.\n\nWe started with the early church and what was handed off to the first generation of believers; basically what was handed off, as we have traced very carefully, is the literal method of \u00adinter\u00adpretation.\u00a0 And the church interprets things literally for, probably its first two centuries and then what you discover is that method of interpretation was overthrown through the influence of Alexandria, Egypt.\u00a0 And Alexandria, Egypt, as we\u2019ve talked about, introduced the allegorical method of interpretation.\u00a0 And we began to study how the church shifted away from a literal understanding of the Scriptures to an allegorical understanding.\u00a0 So that factor coupled with other factors essentially took the Bible, God\u2019s revealed truth, and removed it from the masses.\u00a0 And whenever that happens it empowers the ecclesiastical church hierarchy and the sheep are in a state of manipulation and vulnerability.\u00a0 We talked all about that during the Dark Ages.\n\nAnd so consequently God, in the 16th<\/sup> century raised up the Protestant Reformers who restored to the church biblical authority in certain areas, the five solas (as we\u2019ve talked about).\u00a0\u00a0 But we\u2019ve also been very careful to point out that the Reformation that the Protestant Reformers introduced is partial at best.\u00a0 Particularly the week before, I guess two weeks ago, so last week and then the week that met before the flood hit we were talking about what the Reformers left undone and I showed you some\u00a0 major problem areas.\n\nAnd what I want to shift to here and I kind of feel obligated to talk about this because I want to you the state of Reformed Theology today.\u00a0 Reformed Theology today remains in sort of a half done mode.\u00a0 And these are the churches that owe their direct spiritual lineage to the Protestant Reformers.\u00a0 Unless we understand this we don\u2019t really understand why God continued to reform the church through others outside of the Reformed tradition.\n\nSo I\u2019ve given you the major blind spots, dark spots if you will, of the Protestant Reformers.\u00a0 Now what\u2019s the condition of the churches or the theological system that they started called Reformed Theology?\u00a0 Well, the error of Reformed Theology is it erroneously assumed there was no further progress to be made.\u00a0 So they took the advances given wonderful, by the way, to the church from the Protestant Reformers and assumed that there was no further ground to conquer.\u00a0 And that\u2019s the great mistake in Reformed Theology.\u00a0 And that has to be an error because the Book of Daniel, chapter 12, verse 4 says this: \u201cBut as for you, Daniel, conceal these words and seal up the book until the end of time; many will go back and forth, and knowledge will increase.\u201d\n\nAnd then down in verse 9 it says, \u201cHe said, \u2018Go your way, Daniel, for these words are concealed and sealed up until the end time.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 Now we are studying Daniel on Sunday mornings so we\u2019ll eventually get to this passage but it\u2019s interesting that Daniel himself, God speaking to Daniel through Gabriel, predicted that right up until the end of the age there would be further ground to be conquered.\u00a0 In other words, you shouldn\u2019t look back at the Protestant Reformation and assume it was the end all, be all of all biblical truth.\u00a0 In fact Daniel is very specific in his prophecies that as the human race got closer and closer to the end of the age more truth would be forthcoming.\u00a0 And when I say \u201cmore truth\u201d I\u2019m not talking about new revelation because the canon of Scripture is shut but new understanding would be forthcoming.\u00a0 In other words the truth was there but it would be made known at an increasing rate as we got closer and closer to the end of the age, particularly in the area of prophecy.\n\nSo I do not believe that today there is progressive revelation because once John completed the canon, the Book of Revelation in the first century the canon of Scripture was shut.\u00a0 But I do believe very strongly in progressive illumination today.\u00a0 In other words, we know things that Luther and Calvin and Zwingli and Tyndale and the rest of them could not know, not because we\u2019re smarter than them, not because we have an additional book of the Bible they don\u2019t have but we\u2019re living further in time.\u00a0 And see, this is the mistake of Reformed Theology because they act as if what Luther and Calvin and the others developed (properly) from the Scriptures was the end all be all.\u00a0 And I just don\u2019t think that\u2019s true, I think the Holy Spirit continued to reform the church after the Reformers died and I think He\u2019s continuing to some extent to reform the church even today.\u00a0 And if the next generation, the Lord tarries and the next generation comes they\u2019re going to see things in the Scripture, rightfully, that we do not see.\u00a0 It\u2019s not that they\u2019re getting a new Scripture but they\u2019re getting new understanding, or the information that\u2019s there is becoming unsealed.\n\nAnd it mentions there in Daniel 12:4 \u201cmany will go to and fro and knowledge will increase.\u201d\u00a0 And that\u2019s usually misinterpreted as air travel, the internet, and\u00a0 going on cruises, and things like that.\u00a0 But when you look at Amos 8:12, a parallel passage, it says this, \u201cPeople will stagger from sea to sea and from the north even to the east; They will go to and fro\u201d see, it\u2019s talking about moving \u201cto and fro\u201d just like the Daniel passage talks about that, \u201cto seek the word of the LORD, But they will not find it.\u2019\u00a0 So when Daniel talks about many going to and fro and knowledge increasing what he\u2019s saying is as humanity gets closer and closer to the end times people are going to start to read the Bible and see things in the Bible, \u201cgoing to and fro\u201d is reading, not traveling, and they\u2019re going to start seeing in the Bible that the greats of the past or the sages of the past didn\u2019t see.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what I would call progressive illumination.\n\nIsaac Newton, most people don\u2019t know about Isaac Newton, but Isaac Newton was a devout Christian.\u00a0 In fact, Isaac Newton, who is probably considered the founder of modern science, the discoverer of the law of gravity and these kinds of things that Isaac Newton is known for, Isaac Newton spent more time studying the Bible than he did studying science.\u00a0 And it\u2019s interesting that when you read secular humanists today they criticize Isaac Newton and they say think of all the further scientific knowledge we could have had from this guy if he\u2019d just quit reading the Bible and devoted that time to the study of science.\u00a0 The reality of the situation is Isaac Newton\u2019s knowledge of the Bible gave him an incentive to study science.\u00a0 Do you use that?\u00a0 Because Isaac Newton believed in a creator God and because he believed in a creator God he believed that the universe had certain laws to it that the creator had established.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what gave him basically the incentive to study the natural with the same aggressiveness that he studied Scripture.\u00a0 And Isaac Newton wrote entire commentaries (most people don\u2019t know this) on the Book of Daniel and also the Book of Revelation.\u00a0 Isaac Newton was a tremendous student of the end time.\u00a0 And Isaac Newton made this statement back in the 17th<\/sup> century, he lived at the end of the 17th<\/sup> century the beginning of the 18th<\/sup> century.\n\nHe said, \u201cAbout the time of the end, a body of men will be raised up who will turn their attention \u00a0\u00a0to the Prophecies, and insist upon their literal interpretation,\u201d and I like this last clause, \u201cin the midst of much clamor and opposition.\u201d\u00a0 [Isaac Newton cited in Nathaniel West, The Thousand Years in Both Testaments<\/em>, 462]\u00a0 So he is making a comment there on Daniel 12:4 and Daniel 12:9 and he\u2019s making a statement that is consistent with what I would call progressive illumination, that there\u2019s going to be further light on the subject as you get closer and closer to the end.\n\nAnd I share these things with you to tell you the major error of Reformed Theology, because when you talk to Reformed theologians or people that have been influenced by Reformed Theology their attitude is if you can\u2019t find in Calvin and if you can\u2019t find it in Luther then it\u2019s not biblically true.\u00a0 And do my mind that is the huge mistake of Reformed Theology; it contradicts what\u00a0 Isaac Newton, and more importantly Daniel is saying.\u00a0 And it contradicts the principle of progressive illumination.\n\nSo what Reformed Theology did is it took the progress of the Reformers and froze it into creeds and they assumed that the final statement of truth is found in their creed.\u00a0 One of the favorites is the Westminster Confession.\u00a0 If you\u2019re in Reformed circles you do not, you DO NOT disagree in any way with the Westminster Confession.\u00a0 In fact, I\u2019ve read some of the doctrinal statements of some of the schools influenced by Reformed Theology and they hold their professors very strongly to the Westminster Confession and if you deviate from the Westminster Confession in any way your employment, you know, is terminated.\u00a0 And I\u2019ve even read some schools that say if you begin to have thoughts against the Westminster Confession then you need to immediately go talk to the President of the school.\u00a0 I mean, that\u2019s how strong Reformed Theology is anchored to the Westminster Confession.\n\nAnd the Westminster Confession has a section in it that says this, it\u2019s their statement on eschatology, the end time, \u201cAt the last day shall be a general resurrection of the dead both of the just and of the unjust. 2. All found alive shall be immediately changed. 3. Immediately after the resurrection shall follow the general and final judgment of all angels and men, good and bad. 4. That the date of this day and hour is purposely kept secret by God.\u201d [Westminster Confession. <\/em>Chaps. 32and 33; Larger Cat<\/em>. , Ques. 87\u201389.\u2013These teach\u20141.]\n\nNow what you see in this clause is an error called reductionism. \u00a0Reductionism is you take a subject which is a complex subject and you over simplify it.\u00a0 In fact, this statement here, to my mind, is woefully incomplete and woefully inadequate.\u00a0 It has some true statements in it but the picture in the Bible is much bigger than what you get in the Westminster Confession.\u00a0 You know, there\u2019s a rapture, there\u2019s a seven year tribulation period, there\u2019s a coming kingdom on the earth, there are different resurrections at different times; church age saints resurrected at the point of the rapture, non-church age saints resurrected at the beginning of the millennium.\u00a0 Then you have the resurrection of the damned at the end of the thousand year kingdom, just prior to the Great White Throne Judgment.\u00a0 And where do I get all these things from?\u00a0 I\u2019m leaving the Westminster confession and I\u2019m turning my attention to the pages of Scripture using the same method that the Protestant Reformers used to rescue the church in the five solas.\n\nSo you\u2019ll notice the Westminster Confession has none of those complexities in it, it\u2019s just\u00a0 very simplified statement.\u00a0 They have one general resurrection at the end for everybody and the fact of the matter is the details of the Biblical text are far more intricate and far more complex than what you find in the Westminster Confession.\u00a0 But what you see, in Reformed circles the authority becomes the Westminster Confession and you are told to interpret the Scripture through the lens of the Westminster Confession.\n\nSo what happened with Reformed Theology is they took the progress that the Reformers had made and they froze that progress into creeds and confessions.\u00a0 And then what began to happen in Reformed Theology is the creed or the confession became the authority.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0 Even though Luther stood for sola Scriptura<\/em> when you\u2019re in Reformed circles and\u00a0 you point things out in the Bible that seem to deviate from the Westminster Confession you\u2019re basically shown the door because the authority in their circle is now the Westminster Confession instead of the Scripture.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0 That\u2019s why our church is called Sugarland what?\u00a0 Bible Church, the authority here is the Bible; it has to be biblical for us to believe. It really doesn\u2019t matter is Luther understood it or Calvin understood it or what creeds or confessions we might study.\u00a0 We have our own creeds and confessions here but you know what?\u00a0 We can always change those if there\u2019s a biblical case to change it.\u00a0 But that\u2019s not how it is in Reformed circles, it\u2019s all about the past.\u00a0 And I think Luther and Calvin themselves, if they saw what their spiritual lineage had done with the Protestant movement, they themselves would be disappointed.\n\nHere\u2019s a quote from Jerry Edmonson in an article he wrote, and I like what he says here.\u00a0 I think it kind of summarizes the point I\u2019m trying to get across.\u00a0 He says, \u201cThe goal of the Reformation was to point Christianity back to the Scriptures. The noble intentions of the Reformers called for the Bible as the supreme authority for believers everywhere. For this we rejoice! But if the Reformation and its resulting creeds are exalted to the standard of measuring orthodoxy, does it not defeat the very purpose for which it was intended?\u201d\n\nAnd that just sums it all up.\u00a0 The Reformers stood for sola Scriptura<\/em> and in Reformed circles they will follow sola Scriptura<\/em> to a point, until it contradicts a creed or a confession.\u00a0 So what has happened is the creed or confession now has been elevated to a place of authority over the Scripture itself which is the very thing that Luther and Calvin railed against related to Roman Catholicism.\n\nAnd in Reformed Theology Augustinian amillennialism, the \u201ckingdom now\u201d idea that you find encapsulated in Augustine\u2019s writings, particularly The City of God<\/em>, an idea that he got\u00a0 using Origen\u2019s spiritualizing hermeneutic and Origen got this spiritualizing hermeneutic from Alexandria, Egypt, and so what developed is this kingdom now belief called Augustinian amillennialism.\u00a0 Augustinian amillennialism never got corrected by the Protestant Reformers.\u00a0 The Protestant Reformers never took their literal approach and corrected Augustinian amillennialism. They corrected the church in certain areas but Augustinian amillennialism, which goes back to the fourth century, which ultimately goes back to Alexandria, Egypt, lives and breathes and is alive and well in Reformed Theology, reformation theology.\n\nRenald Showers puts it this way:\u00a0 \u201c \u201cThe Lutheran, Reformed, and Anglican Reformers rejected Premillennialism\u201d now what was the original name for premillennialism? chiliasm, going all the way back to where?\u00a0 Antioch. \u201cThe Lutheran Reformed, and Anglian Reformers rejected Premillennialism as being \u2018Jewish opinions.\u2019 They maintained the Amillennial view which the Roman Catholic Church had adopted from\u201d who \u201cAugustine.\u201d\u00a0 [John Ankerberg and Renald Showers, The Most Asked Prophecy Questions<\/em> (Chattanooga, TN: ATRI, 2000), 328.]\n\nThat\u2019s why you can go into a Reformed church or Reformed seminary today and I like to call it a hybrid; it\u2019s Protestant in certain areas, particularly the solas, but it remains Roman Catholic in other areas, including this very important subject of the doctrine of the church and the doctrine of the end.\u00a0 Now a great book on this which explains all of these things so well is the book by Barry Horner and the title of it is Why Christian Anti-Judaism Must Be Challenged <\/em>and I think that\u2019s the sub title of the book, I think the title of the book has the name Israel in the title but you can just Google Barry Horner and the word Israel and you\u2019ll \u00a0run across this book.\u00a0 And he has a tremendous statement in here demonstrating what I\u2019ve been trying to articulate.\n\nHorner says, \u201cThe inheritance from the Augustinian tradition that modern Europe received, notwith\u00adstanding the opposition of Melanchthon and others to Luther's excesses, resulted in a continuance of an eschatology that upheld the essentially anti-Judiac thesis, namely, the transference of blessings, formerly promised to Israel, to the Christian church for its fulfillment...On a much larger scale the reformed movement maintained its allegiance to Augustinian eschatology, which essentially found authoritative expression in the writings of Francis Turretin [notice the dates here,\u201d just after the Reformers and their generations, \u201c(1623\u20131687)] who studied at Calvin's academy in Geneva and later taught there for 30 years. His monumental Institutes of Elenctic Theology<\/em> became the epitome of reformed doctrine. Not surprisingly, his quotations of Augustine are copious,\u201d talking about this theologian, Turretin that followed Calvin, \u201chis quotations of Augustine are copious even far exceeding references to Calvin. Consequently, Turretin's eschatology is almost predictable...Of course such a mass incorporation into the church is to the exclusion of any perpetuation of Jewish identity. In classic Augustinian fashion, there is token recognition of Jewish individuality for a time, though any form of Jewish restoration was considered to be a gross form of chiliasm. Turretin's Institutes<\/em> became the central textbook for systematic theology in American Ivy League colleges during the last half of the 18th century. It is not surprising that the early theologians of Princeton Theological Seminary highly esteemed this most influential legacy, and of course it's eschatology.\u201d\u00a0 [Barry E. Horner, Future Israel: Why Christian Anti-Judaism Must Be Challenged<\/em>, ed. E. Ray Clendenen, NAC Studies in Bible & Theology (Nashville, TN: Baker, 2007), 155-60.]\n\nAnd you see, this is the reason why Lewis Sperry Chafer started Dallas Theological Seminary in the 1920\u2019s because he was displeased with the things that were coming out of Princeton and he was displeased with what was coming out of Princeton because here\u2019s the trajectory. \u00a0\u00a0We go from Alexandria, Egypt to Augustine, who develops amillennialism, that goes right into the minds of the Protestant Reformers, including Calvin.\u00a0 I\u2019ve given you citations where Calvin said I\u2019m wholly with Augustine almost in every area.\u00a0 And then Calvin then begins to train theologians and so what happens in the writings of Turretin is the Augustinian amillennialism continues to live, it continues to breathe, and it goes right into Reformed Theology and right up to today. \u00a0Reformed churches, Reformed seminaries are holding to this doctrine of amillennialism which rejected chiliasm and it\u2019s just something that got passed down over and over again through the generations that was never corrected in Reformed Theology.\u00a0 And Reformed Theology, because they took whatever progress they had made and solidified it into a creed is incapable of correcting this error.\u00a0 See that.\n\nSo this is why God has to raise up other people.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be sharing some of those other people with you the next time we\u2019re together, outside of the Reformed tradition because the great mistake of Reformed Theology is we conquered all the ground.\u00a0 And I\u2019m reminded of what was said to those that conquered the land of Israel in the days of Joshua.\u00a0 What did God say to them?\u00a0 There\u2019s much land left to be conquered, and that\u2019s what I would say about the Protestant Reformation.\u00a0 I thank God for the Protestant Reformation, it resulted in some wonderful things but you should not look at the Protestant Reformation as the end all, be all of biblical truth.\u00a0 There is much, there was much ground left to be conquered.\u00a0 And you can\u2019t find it in these sages of the past.\u00a0 You can\u2019t even find it in Reformed Theology today; it\u2019s a hybrid, having formally frozen whatever progress they made into the form of a creed, then the creed becomes the authority rather than the Scripture.\n\nSo what they began to develop is covenantalism, or covenant theology.\u00a0 What is covenant theology?\u00a0 It\u2019s a system of interpreting the Scriptures on the basis of two covenants, the covenant of works and the covenant of grace.\u00a0\u00a0 Some add the covenant of redemption.\n\nThe importance of grace in every age, believers are always saved by grace so there are certain things in covenantal theology, Reformed Theology, even in replacement theology that are accurate.\u00a0 I would disagree with them on this point, God\u2019s primary purpose on earth is redemptive.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think that\u2019s true at all; I think God\u2019s primary purpose is to do what?\u00a0 To glorify Himself.\u00a0 And as folks get saved who gets the glory?\u00a0 God!\u00a0 So even the concept of redemption you can subsume it, if you will, under the overarching purpose of God in human history, which is to glorify Himself.\n\nSee, if you\u2019re definition of what God is doing is too narrow there are parts of the Bible that can\u2019t be explained.\u00a0 If God\u2019s primary purpose on earth is redemptive then how do you explain the fall of the angels and the fact that the plan of salvation is not open to the fallen angels.\u00a0 How would you fit that into your overarching rubric?\u00a0 So you have to back up and you have to have an overarching rubric that captures all the biblical data.\u00a0 And if you don\u2019t have that what you\u2019re going to start doing is you\u2019re going to start interpreting the Bible literally in some areas and allegorically (thank you Alexandria, Egypt) and allegorically in other areas.\n\nSo in covenantal theology what they now have is a partial allegorical system of hermeneutics.\u00a0 They really have no place for Israel yet future, the best they say is Jews can get saved in the church age.\u00a0 But if a Reformed theologian were ever to come in here and listen to my sermon from last week where I talked about a rebuilt temple in the millennial kingdom, they would just think I\u2019m crazy talking like that.\u00a0 And yet maybe I am crazy, people have called me worse, but I think I\u2019m getting my ideas from where?\u00a0 The Bible, the B-i-b-l-e, that\u2019s the Book for me, Amen.\n\nNow if I\u2019m in a Reformed circle I\u2019m put under all this pressure to not interpret the Bible outside of a manmade confession.\u00a0 And they developed these three covenants and to be completely honest with you I hate the idea that they call themselves Covenant theologians because I think we are the covenant theologians.\u00a0 Where do we get our covenants from?\u00a0 The Biblical text.\u00a0 We\u2019ve gone through on Wednesday nights and even to some extent Sunday mornings biblical covenants.\u00a0 I\u2019ve shown\u00a0 you exactly where they are in the Bible.\u00a0 I\u2019m not making anything up.\u00a0 The Hebrew word \u201ccovenant\u201d or berith<\/em> is\u00a0 used to describe each of these covenants.\n\nOur covenants are exegetically found in the Bible but see, that\u2019s not the way it works in Reformed Theology.\u00a0 They have covenants which are basically manufactured.\u00a0 They have a covenant of works that God entered into a covenant with Adam as the central head of the human race, in which He promised eternal life for obedience and eternal death for disobedience.\u00a0 That\u2019s their first covenant.\u00a0 Then they have a second covenant called the covenant of redemption, this is allegedly a covenant in between God the Father and God the Son in eternity past in which they covenanted together for the redemption of the human race.\u00a0 And then they have another\u2026 this is the Biggie, with a capital B, the covenant of grace.\u00a0 It\u2019s a covenant made by God with the elect in which He provides salvation to the elect sinner.\n\nNow the thing to understand is their covenant of grace becomes a lens through which they read the entire Bible.\u00a0 And it becomes the lens in which certain parts of the Bible are de-historicized, de-literalized and are soteriologized.\u00a0 For example, a Reformed theologian would go to the land tract that God promised to Abraham and they would just tell you flat out that that land is not land on planet earth; that\u2019s heaven.\u00a0 So what are they doing here?\u00a0 Well, they\u2019re re-writing the Bible through an ancient practice called allegorization and they are reading the Bible through this lens of a covenant of grace.\n\nWell guess what?\u00a0 A literal interpretation of Israel and the land covenant that God made to Abraham doesn\u2019t fit with our covenant of grace.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t fit with this alleged covenant made by God with the elect in which He provides salvation to the sinner.\u00a0 And remember they think that the primary purpose of God in history is what?\u00a0 Redemptive.\u00a0 So if that\u2019s your beginning point then what do you do with all of these promises that God gave to Abraham regarding a physical kingdom yet future.\u00a0 Well, all of those things get soteriologized or de-literalized or allegorized.\u00a0 And this is why they either rewrite books of the Bible or they completely ignore books of the Bible.\n\nAnne and I were on an Israel trip with Dr. Randall Price and we ran into some people on the trip with us that had spent\u2026 you know, family lineage there in Reformed Theology, in Reformed churches and by God\u2019s grace they were pulled out of that.\u00a0 And they told us flat out that when we got out of Reformed circles we knew absolutely nothing about the Book of Revelation.\u00a0 We\u2019d never even heard it taught.\u00a0 Well, that\u2019s because your sitting in a church that\u2019s dominated by this lens called the covenant of grace and you\u2019re sitting in churches started by men, and I\u2019ve showed you the quotes last week that actually had antagonism or animosity toward the Book of Revelation.\u00a0 They knew nothing about Romans 11.\u00a0 All they knew is just little tidbits that the Reformed pastors or preachers would give to them on Sunday morning.\n\nNow is Reformed Theology liberalism?\u00a0 Not really, it\u2019s not liberalism because they don\u2019t allegorize the whole Bible.\u00a0 They take the Gospels literally, the life of Christ literally, and if they were to take their method of interpretation, which they use to allegorize the study of the end times and they were to apply it to the whole Bible they wouldn\u2019t be conservative at all; they would be full-blown liberals.\u00a0 But because they\u2019re partially allegorical in their method of interpretation they remain within the camp of conservativism, but if you were to take what they do in some areas of the Bible and do it to the rest of the Bible they would be outside the camp of Orthodoxy; they would be into full-blown liberalism. And what keeps them with one foot in the door is their belief (properly) that the Reformers rescued the church in literal interpretation and the five solas.\u00a0 If they didn\u2019t have that they wouldn\u2019t even be orthodox Christianity.\n\nAnd the thing that\u2019s so interesting about this is this covenant of grace that they have is such a big deal and you ask them, you\u2019re reading the whole Bible through this covenant of grace, you\u2019re allegorizing parts of the Bible, can you show me the covenant of grace in the Scripture?\u00a0 And the answer is crickets, they can\u2019t find it in the Scripture because it\u2019s manmade.\u00a0 In fact, on their better days their own theologians, Charles Hodge being at the top of the list, would admit that this covenant of grace is not found in the Bible.\n\nNow this is a quote that comes right out of Charles Hodges Systematic theology.\u00a0 He says, \u201cThis statement\u201d that\u2019s the covenant of grace, \u201cdoes not<\/u> rest upon any express declaration of the Scriptures\u2026\u201d Wow, what an admission there.\u00a0 \u201cAnd although the word covenant [as in works] is not used<\/u> in Genesis, and does not elsewhere, in any clear passage occur in reference to the transaction there recorded,\u2026it [still] is plain<\/u> that the Bible does represent the arrangement made with Adam as a truly federal transaction.\u201d\u00a0 [Hodge, Systematic Theology<\/em>, 2:117]\u00a0 Now I guess I\u2019m of the old school. If you\u2019re going to erect this covenant of grace and use it as a filter through which all biblical data is interpreted you need to show me in the Bible where the covenant of grace is.\u00a0 And here Charles Hodge is saying it can\u2019t be found.\n\nSee, from this pulpit when I mention covenants, and I show you chapter and verse where the covenant is found in the Bible.\u00a0 Our covenants are exegetically determined.\u00a0 You don\u2019t have that in Reformed Theology.\u00a0 What you have is a manufactured theological covenant.\u00a0 Now this is all a carry-over of Augustinian amillennialism, which the Protestant Reformers inherited and never corrected.\u00a0 And the Reformed tradition today hasn\u2019t corrected this problem.\u00a0 That\u2019s why it gets under my skin a little bit when people try to buttonhole me and want to know if I\u2019m a Calvinist.\u00a0 Are\u00a0 you a Calvinist?\u00a0 And I\u2019m always thinking in the back of my mind, do you realize everything you\u2019re asking me in that statement?\u00a0 Do you understand everything that Calvin said and did not say?\u00a0 I got so tired of the question I said I\u2019m not a Calvinist, I\u2019m not an Arminian, I\u2019m a Biblicist, that\u2019s what I am.\u00a0 I don\u2019t believe anything, any manmade theology tells me unless I can find it in the Biblical text.\u00a0 You see, that is NOT how it works in Reformed circles.\n\nSo consequently in Reformed Theology today they take passages that we would take literally and they just allegorize them out of existence.\u00a0 And that\u2019s why I had you open up to Zechariah 14:4, which says, \u201cIn that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south.\u201d\n\nSo what does that passage mean?\u00a0 I know the answer, when Jesus Christ comes back His feet are going to touch the Mount of Olives and the Mount of Olives is going to split in two.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that what it says?\u00a0 No problem!\u00a0 In Reformed circles though, what you find is no, no, no, no, no, you simple-minded Antiochian, chiliast, what this is talking about is being born again.\u00a0 And when Jesus comes into a person He pierces their hearts.\u00a0 Now what are they doing there?\u00a0 They are interpreting a plain sense statement through the lens of the covenant of grace because the covenant of grace is what\u2019s important in Reformed Theology, not the details of the text.\n\nAnd so David Regan of Lamb and Lion Ministry, a prophecy ministry, makes this great statement \u00a0in one of his articles.\u00a0 He says: \u201cLet me give you a classic example of spiritualization taken from the writings of a theologian by the name of Loraine Boettner.\u201d\u00a0 A very reformed guy.\u00a0 \u201cIt has to do with his interpretation of Zechariah 14:1-9. That passage says that in the end times Jerusalem will be surrounded by enemy forces and will be ready to fall to them when the Lord will suddenly return to the Mount of Olives. When His feet touch the Mount, it will split down the middle. The Lord will then speak a supernatural word that will instantly destroy all the enemy forces. And on that day, the Lord will become King over all the earth.\u201d So far so good.\n\nHowever, \u201cIn his commentary on this passage, Boettner completely spiritualized it. He argued that the Mount of Olives stands for the human heart. The enemy forces symbolize the evil in this world that surrounds and attacks the \u00a0heart. The Lord\u2019s return represents what happens when a person accepts Jesus as Lord and Savior. Thus, when Jesus comes into a person\u2019s heart, their heart\u201d \u00a0(the Mount of Olives)<\/u> is their heart, right? \u201c(the Mount of Olives) \u00a0splits in contrition, and all the evil influences in the person\u2019s life are defeated, and Jesus becomes king of that person\u2019s heart.\u201d\u00a0 <\/u>And Reagan adds, \u00a0That\u2019s wh<\/u>at I call an exercise in imagination!\u201d\u00a0 [\u201cThe Beginning and the Ending,\u201d online: http:\/\/christinprophecy.org\/articles\/the-beginning-and-the-ending\/<\/u>, accessed 19 April 2017, 1.\n\nWhen you read something like this I give you an A+ for creativity.\u00a0 I give\u00a0 you an F- for exegesis, trying to figure out what the text says, because that text doesn\u2019t say that.\u00a0 It might make for a good sermon that gives people a liver quiver but it\u2019s one of those cases where it\u2019s a great sermon, wrong passage.\u00a0 That passage does not say that.\u00a0 Well what happened with Lorraine Boettner?\u00a0 The covenant of grace subsumed the details of the text and he began to de-historize, allegorize, soteriologize, passages that God never authorized to be interpreted in that way.\n\nAnd this is very common in Reformed Theology.\u00a0 One of the recent views that they have been pushing lately is the doctrine of preterism.\u00a0 Preterism is a Latin word that means past and it\u2019s the idea that the whole Book of Revelation, maybe with a few exceptions, was already fulfilled in the past.\u00a0 Think what you have to do to the Book of Revelation to get the whole book to be fulfilled in the past in the events of A.D. 70.\u00a0 Who promotes this?\u00a0 People that are big names.\u00a0 R. C. Sproul promotes this.\u00a0 I\u2019ll give\u00a0 you a quote from R. C. Sproul in just a minute.\u00a0 N. T. Wright promotes this.\u00a0 Roman Catholic apologist Scott Hahn promotes this.\u00a0 Second from the bottom you\u2019ll recognize the name Hank Hanegraaff is steeped in all of this allegorical way of thinking related to Bible prophecy.\u00a0 One of the big names also out there is at the very bottom, Kenneth Gentry, who also, interesting enough, is a huge voice in the Lordship salvation controversy.\u00a0 I mean, John MacArthur is sort of the popular preacher of Lordship salvation but the brains behind a lot of it is Kenneth Gentry.\u00a0 He\u2019s the academic that produced a lot of these ideas related to Lordship salvation.\u00a0 And he is also the brain child of this doctrine of preterism that\u2019s more popularly promoted by people like Hank Hanegraaff and R. C. Sproul.\n\nSo what preterism is trying to say is the whole Book of Revelation with a few exceptions, already happened in A.D. 70.\u00a0 And look how wildly allegorically you have to get to make that work.\u00a0 The Book of Revelation talks about a destruction of half of the world\u2019s population, the sea turning to blood, the greatest earthquake in human history, the great city which reigns over the entire earth.\u00a0 Now how are you going to fit all that into the local\u2026 how are you going to fit these global events into the local events of A.D.\u00a0 70?\u00a0 Well, the answer is Alexandria, Egypt, handed off a baton to these guys called allegorical interpretation and that\u2019s what they use over and over again in eschatological end times passages.\n\nKenneth Gentry says, \u201c\u2026the preterist view does understand Revelation\u2019s prophecies as strongly reflecting actual historical events in John\u2019s near future, though they are set in apocalyptic drama and clothed in poetic hyperbole.\u201d\u00a0 [Four Views of Revelation, <\/em>p. 38.]\u00a0 All that Revelation stuff is just hyperbole, don\u2019t take that too literally.\n\nHere\u2019s R. C. Sproul, now what I\u2019m saying here about Sproul is not hearsay, I know Sproul\u00a0 is very popular in the minds of people, not that he doesn\u2019t have some good things to say on other subjects.\u00a0 This is not something I overheard on the radio.\u00a0 Sproul wrote a whole book dealing with this topic.\u00a0 You can buy it and read it for\u00a0 yourself.\u00a0 He tries to defend this; it\u2019s called The Last Days According to Jesus.\u00a0 <\/em>He\u2019s arguing for preterism.\u00a0 Sproul says, \u201cRussell and Calvin agree that the language employed in biblical prophecy is not always cold and logical as is common in the western world, but adopts a kind of fervor common to the East.\u201d In other words it\u2019s all hyperbole.\n\nDon Preston who is to my mind a heretic; the reason I call Don Preston a heretic is he doesn\u2019t even believe in a Second Coming.\u00a0 Even Sproul and Hanegraaff hold to a Second Coming, so they interpret Revelation 19 literally but the rest of the Book of Revelation allegorically.\u00a0 Don Preston has gone the whole way and says Jesus already came back and once you go that direction you\u2019re, to my mind, you\u2019re outside the bounds of orthodox Christianity.\u00a0 \u00a0Don Preston talks about how the whole creation was shaken when the war began in Jerusalem and he is trying to argue here that that\u2019s all hyperbole, the Book of Revelation is not future, the Book of Revelation is past.\u00a0 The antichrist is not future, the antichrist is past in the person of Nero.\n\nKenneth Gentry goes on and he says, \u201cBefore beginning my survey, I must note what most Christians suspect and what virtually all evangelical scholars\u201d now notice what\u2019s in parenthesis here, \u201c(excluding classic dispensationalists)\u201d so everybody has seen the light on this except those stubborn dispensationalists, what they all \u201crecognize regarding the book: Revelation is a highly figurative book\u201d I agree with that, it is highly figurative, \u201cthat we cannot approach with a simple straightforward literalism.\u201d\u00a0 [Four Views of Revelation, <\/em>p. 38.]\u00a0 \u00a0Gentry will put on one set of glasses when he\u2019s reading Matthew, Mark, Luke or John; when he\u2019s reading the Book of Revelation another set of glasses goes on.\u00a0 He puts on Reformed Protestant glasses reading the Gospels; he puts on the covenant of grace glasses when he\u2019s reading eschatology.\u00a0 And this is common place in Reformed circles.\n\nRobert Thomas who just passed away, I think on Wednesday, who\u2019s one of the good guys and he\u2019s done some great work exposing these guys, Robert Thomas says, \u201cA Preterist approach must assume an apocalyptic genre in which the language only faintly and indirectly reflects the actual events. This extreme allegorical interpretation allows for finding fulfillments in the first-century Roman Empire prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.\u201d\u00a0 [A Classical Dispensationalist View of Revelation,\u201d in Four Views of the Book of Revelation, p.181<\/em>]\n\nThe emergent church, Brian McLaren is aggressively moving in this direction of preterism as well.\u00a0 There\u2019s a quote there from Brian McLaren indicating this.\u00a0 [\u201cThe book of Revelation is an example of popular literary genre of ancient Judaism, known today as Jewish apocalyptic. Trying to read it without understanding its genre would be like watching Star Trek<\/em> or some other science fiction show thinking it was a historical documentary\u2026instead of being a book about the distant future, it becomes a way of talking about the challenges of the immediate present.\u201d Brian McLaren, The Secret Message of Jesus<\/em>, 175-76]\n\nSo you see what\u2019s happening here is it\u2019s very common in their circles to just widely spiritualize Bible prophecy, which really is nothing new.\u00a0 That\u2019s an old approach going all the way back to Alexandria, Egypt.\u00a0 So when\u00a0 you go to Revelation 20:1-10 it mentions the thousand year kingdom.\u00a0 Does anybody know how many times the thousand year kingdom is mentioned in Revelation 20:1-10.\u00a0 How many times does it say a thousand years?\u00a0 It says it six times in ten verses.\n\n[Revelation 20:1-10, \u201cThen I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand.\u00a0 [2] And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; [3] and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it<\/em> and sealed it<\/em> over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time.\u00a0 [4] Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw<\/em> the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. [5] The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. [6] Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.\u00a0 [7] When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison, [8] and will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together for the war; the number of them is like the sand of the seashore. [9] And they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and devoured them. [10] And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.\u201d]\n\nWell, what does that mean, a thousand year kingdom.\u00a0 I have the answer, Jesus is going to rule for a thousand years, that\u2019s what I think it means.\u00a0 But they think that\u2019s too simplistic.\u00a0 So out comes the allegorical method of interpretation.\u00a0 Gentry says, \u201cThe proper understanding of the thousand-year time frame in Revelation 20 is that it is representative of a long and glorious era and is not limited to a literal 365,000 days. This figure represents a perfect cube of 10, which is the number of quantitative perfection.\u201d\u00a0 [He Shall Have Dominion: A Post Millennial Eschatology (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian economics, 1992), page 335<\/em>]\u00a0 That\u2019s kind of odd, I thought seven was the number of perfection.\u00a0 Gentry tells us well, yesterday it was seven, today we\u2019ll call it ten.\u00a0 And it\u2019s really ten cubed and what do we get cube from?\u00a0 I guess we can find that in the Trinity or wherever, and all it\u2019s talking about is Jesus reigns for a long time.\n\nWell guess what folks, John knows how to say short time and long time, doesn\u2019t he?\u00a0 He says that in Revelation 20 a couple of times.\u00a0 And if you throw out the number a thousand here what in the world are you going to do with the rest of the book; 2 witnesses, 7,000 people, 4 angels, 7 angels, 144,000 Jews, 42 months, 1,260 days, which I\u2019m going to be showing you in our Daniel series is very literal.\u00a0 All those numbers are sort of up for grabs and the interesting thing\u2026. I\u2019ve got other arguments here why a thousand means a thousand but you get the idea here.\n\nRobert Thomas, one of the good guys, and I agree with this, \u201cobserves\u201d in his commentary on Revelation \u201cthat, no number in Revelation is verifiably a symbolic number.\u201d<\/em> \u00a0[Revelation 8 to 22: An Exegetical Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1992, Revelation 8 to 22: An Exegetical Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1992, 408]\n\nEvery single number is literal unless you can demonstrate from the text itself that God intended it to be allegorical.\u00a0 And there are clues that you can look at which demonstrate a non-literal interpretation at certain points.\u00a0 But if the text says a literal number that\u2019s what it means.\u00a0 It\u2019s just like when it says Jesus had twelve disciples.\u00a0 What does that mean?\u00a0 He had twelve disciples.\u00a0 Just like when it says Jesus went into the wilderness for forty days to be tested by the adversary, what does that mean?\u00a0 Well, it means he was in the wilderness for forty days.\u00a0 We all understand this, don\u2019t we, with other parts of the Bible.\u00a0 But when it comes to eschatology the rules change and I\u2019m trying to explain why Reformed Theology continues to do this.\n\nNow what do you do with Revelation 20:16-17, which describes the New Jerusalem as a 1500 mile by 1500 mile by 1500 mile cube, the city in which the righteous will indwell (isn\u2019t that cool) descending from heaven to the earth?\u00a0 What do you do with that?\u00a0 Well, I have the answer; it means we\u2019re all going to live one day in a city called the New Jerusalem that is a 1500 mile by 1500 mile by 1500 mile square cube.\u00a0 The gates are open so people can go in and out but that\u2019s exactly what\u2019s portrayed there in Revelation 21.\u00a0 The size of that New Jerusalem will be roughly, maybe a little bigger than half the size of the continental United States of America.\u00a0 Why do I think that?\u00a0 Because I take the words and phrases in that chapter at face value.\u00a0 But you see, your Reformed theologians come along and they think it\u2019s just crazy to interpret the Bible that way.\u00a0 One of them says, \u201cSuch dimensions defy imagination and are permissible only in the language of symbolism.\u201d\u00a0 [Paul Lee Tan, Cited in, The Interpretation of Prophecy<\/em> (Winona Lake, IN: BMH, 1974), 285-86.]\n\nAnother one says, [Swete] \u201cOf course, this must preclude all idea of there being such a city literally in Palestine\u2026this cannot be understood literally; and the very idea of a literal fulfillment of this shows the absurdity of that method of interpretation\u2026this cannot be taken literally; and an attempt to explain all of this literally would show that that method of interpreting the Apocalypse is impracticable.\u201d See, they\u2019re just waving a wand and causing dimensions that God said are actual to disappear.\u00a0 This is very common in Reformed circles.\u00a0 Another theologian says no clear proof that all is figurative, such a height is simply out of harmony with the constitution of our world.\u00a0 Well guess what, Mr. Grant, that\u2019s talking about another world so you can\u2019t compare what\u2019s normal in this world to another world that\u2019s yet on the horizon.\n\nLorraine Boettner, who I made a statement about earlier, says: \u201cNeither the shape nor the dimensions of the city can be taken with mathematical exactness,\u201d and he ridicules people that do, \u201cas if it were a gigantic apartment house.\u201d\u00a0 You go through Reformed commentaries you\u2019ll find this mindset displayed constantly.\n\nWell, the city is big, it\u2019s got pearls next to each gate; the streets are made of what?\u00a0 Gold.\u00a0 And yet what do Reformed theologians say?\u00a0 This quote is from the writings of progressive dispensationalists who are building a bridge to Reformed theology.\u00a0 They\u2019re trying to find a middle ground between dispensationalism and Reformed theology.\u00a0 And unfortunately the progressive dispensationalist at Dallas Seminary today have the upper hand; not that there aren\u2019t some good people at Dallas Seminary but the progressive dispensationalists dominate every department whether it\u2019s New Testament, Theology, Old Testament Department, right on down the list.\n\nAnd this particular progressive dispensationalist says you can\u2019t interpret these pearls literally.\u00a0 Well why not?\u00a0 There\u2019s not oysters big enough to make pearls like that is basically what he\u2019s saying in this quote.\u00a0 And he goes on and he says you can\u2019t interpret the streets of gold literally, there\u2019s not enough gold in the world to make a street like that.\u00a0 And my response is this is a new creation we\u2019re talking about.\u00a0 Does God have any problems bringing oysters or gold into existence.\u00a0 He speaks and things come into existence.\u00a0 There\u2019s no reason not to take the streets literally, the dimensions of the city literally, the gold literally, the oysters literally.\n\nI like what David Cooper says, that\u2019s your fancy definition of literal interpretation; I would interpret it as follows:\u00a0 When the literal sense makes good sense seek no other sense lest\u00a0 you wind up with nonsense.\u00a0 Now we do that in any area of the Bible and God has called us to do that in the area of prophecy as well.\u00a0 \u00a0[\u201cWhen the plain sense<\/u> of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense; therefore, take every word at its primary, ordinary, usual, literal <\/u>meaning unless the facts of the immediate context, studied in light of related passages and axiomatic and fundamental truths, indicate clearly otherwise.\u201d\u00a0 David L. Cooper, The World\u2019s Greatest Library Graphically Illustrated<\/em> (Los Angeles: Biblical Research Society, 1970), 11.]\n\nOr you take Ezekiel 40-48, a lot of them just think I\u2019m crazy believing that there\u2019s an actual temple in the millennial kingdom.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a statement, I\u2019ll let you read that on your own, by Gary DeMar spiritualizing away Ezekiel\u2019s temple despite the fact that the exact dimensions of that temple are given.\u00a0 [The Book of Hebrews was written to show beyond a shadow of a doubt that the entire Old Covenant system\u2013with its priest, sacrifices, ceremonies, and temple\u2013has been done away with in Christ\u2026The prophecy of Ezekiel\u2019s temple is a picture of the restored covenant community that returned to the land after the exile. The vision should not be projected 2500 years into the future into some earthly millennial kingdom where sacrifices will be offered for atonement<\/em> in the presence of the crucified Christ.\u201d\u00a0 [Gary DeMar, Last Days Madness<\/em>, 4th rev. ed. (Powder Springs, GA: American, 1999), 97-98.]\n\nThe problem that Gary DeMar has is there\u2019s another temple described in Ezekiel 8-11.\u00a0 The Book of Ezekiel is symmetrical, there\u2019s a temple in Ezekiel 8-11; there\u2019s another temple in Ezekiel 40-48.\u00a0 They are both described with the same precision mathematically and detail.\u00a0 But Gary DeMar comes in and he says the first temple in chapters 8-11 is literal, the other temple mentioned in Ezekiel in the millennium, despite its mathematical precision and numerical count, that\u2019s not literal.\u00a0 So you see what he\u2019s doing?\u00a0 He\u2019s interpreting part of the Book of Ezekiel with one lens and the eschatological sections of Ezekiel with a completely different lens.\u00a0 This is the problem with Reformed Theology.\n\nAnd let me leave you with this quote; this quote kind of sums it all up, their problem in not applying a literal approach to the whole Bible.\u00a0 This is a quote from Albertus Pieters given in 1931.\u00a0 And he gets to the heart of the problem.\u00a0 He\u2019s a Reformed theologian.\u00a0 He says: \u201cThe question whether the Old Testament prophecies concerning the people of God must be interpreted in their ordinary sense, as other Scriptures are interpreted, or can properly be applied to the Christian church, is called the question of spiritualization of prophecy. This is one of the major problems in biblical interpretation, and confronts everyone who makes a serious study of the Word of God. It is one of the chief keys to the difference of opinion between Premillenrians\u201d that would be us \u201cand the mass of Christian scholars.\u201d See, why can\u2019t we just have a Rodney King theology\u2026 can\u2019t we all just get along? And Peter says you can\u2019t because one camp wants to interpret the whole Bible literally, the other camp doesn\u2019t\u00a0 and as long as there are applying different methods they\u2019re going to reach different conclusions.\u00a0 Peter says, \u201cthe former\u201d that would be us, reject spiritualization, the latter\u201d that would be his group, \u201cemploy it;\u201d and look at this last sentence here, \u201cand as long as there is no agreement on this point the debate is interminable and fruitless.\u201d [The leader,\u201d September 5, 1931; as cited in John F. Walvoord, The Millennial Kingdom: A Basic Text in Premillennial Theology<\/em> (Findlay, OH: Dunham, 1959), 128.]\n\nYou keep debating these things when two groups of people are applying different methods, the debate will never end and it won\u2019t solve anything until we can agree on the fundamental issue which is a consistent literal interpretation.\u00a0 In fact, here at the church office I had a Lutheran pastor call me and he had read something that I had written defending literal interpretation and he was working on some kind of project for either a seminary course that he was taking or teaching and he basically called me to talk to a real live dispensationalist, like he had never met one before.\u00a0 It\u2019s like visiting an endangered species in the zoo or something.\u00a0 And he was a very nice guy, and I liked him, we had a nice conversation, and he was obviously very bright and he put a lot of work into this and we would be talking and suddenly he would weave into the conversation, so you take all that Old Testament stuff literally, huh?\u00a0 I\u2019d say yeah, I do.\u00a0 And then he would go another direction, start talking, eventually he\u2019d come back and he\u2019d say do you really take all that stuff literally.\u00a0 Honest to God, this happened three, four or five times in the conversation.\u00a0 And finally he could see that we weren\u2019t agreeing, not because I\u2019m a better person than him or I\u2019m more spiritual than him but we are methodologically on a different page and that sort of ended the conversation.\n\nAnd the first thing you\u2019ve got to resolve when you come to God\u2019s Word is are you going to take the whole thing literally or not, particularly in the area of eschatology.\u00a0 The Reformers did not; Reformed theology today does not.\u00a0 So what did God have to do to continue to reform the church?\u00a0 He had to raise up others outside of the Reformed tradition to complete the revolution started by Calvin and Luther.\n\nSo the next time we\u2019re together I\u2019ll be introducing you to some of those key movers and shakers who took the Reformer\u2019s hermeneutic and started applying it consistently. And I\u2019m sorry for rushing through like that and not leaving time for questions but we\u2019ll have a Q and A session either next week or the following week.\u00a0 Let me pray.\n\nFather, we\u2019re grateful for Your truth and we\u2019re grateful for history and the lessons that it teaches us.\u00a0 And I ask that You\u2019ll continue to help us grow in this area so we can be good stewards of Your truth, rightly dividing the truth that\u2019s been handed to us.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory.\u00a0 We lift up these things in Jesus\u2019 name, and God\u2019s people said\u2026 Amen","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