"Gurgling Bugles " October 28, 2018 AM

Thank God for the freedom to sing together the truths of his word, what a blessing that is. Thank you very much. I invite you to open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 14. This morning, Reformation Sunday, I think it's appropriate that we think a little bit about what it means for us to be the beneficiaries of the Protestant Reformation.

The Need for Clarity on Reformation Sunday

And so, as we look at this passage, particularly verses 7 through 9, we will engage, hopefully together, in a bit of protest. I invite you to stand with me, and I'm going to read verses 1 through 9, and let's do reverence to Jesus Christ.

Let's do reverence to Jesus Christ, who is revealed here. Pursue love, yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy. For one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God, for no one understands.

But in his spirit he speaks mysteries. But one who prophesies speaks to men for edification and exhortation and consolation. One who speaks in a tongue edifies himself. But one who prophesies edifies the church.

Now I wish that you all spoke in tongues, but even more, that you would prophesy. And greater is one who prophesies than one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the church may receive edifying.

But now, brethren, if I come to you speaking in tongues, what will I profit you unless I speak to you either by way of revelation or of knowledge or of prophecy or of teaching? Yet even lifeless things, either flute or harp, in producing a sound, if they do not produce a distinction in the tones, how will it be known what is played on the flute or on the harp?

For if the bugle produces an indistinct sound, who will prepare himself for battle? So also you, unless you utter by the tongue speech that is clear. How will it be known what is spoken? For you will be speaking into the air.

This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Let me pray for us. Father, we come before you. We thank you for the reading of your word. I pray that the truth of this passage, that you would help us see the importance of it, that you would take the truth of this passage, verses 7 through 9 especially, and plant it deep in our heart, forge your desires into our hearts as convictions that we cannot get away from.

Alter us, Father. Shape us. Conform us to the image of your Son, Jesus Christ. And we thank you that we stand in his victory, that you have called us to participate in his victory. And we thank you that you are a man of war and you have won the day.

We thank you that full victory is on the horizon. And we ask that you would help us to be faithful in the battle in the here and now. And we pray these things for the sake of Jesus Christ, our Savior, the one with whom you are well pleased.

I think on Reformation Day, Reformation Sunday, it would be appropriate to hear from Calvin. Calvin went on a walk one day with his imaginary best friend, a stuffed tiger named Hobbes. And as they strolled along, Calvin observed and lamented about how much pain and suffering he had to go through because he cared about things.

He didn't want to be hurt because he was caring about things. So he said, my new rally cry is, so what? And Hobbes, always the thoughtful one, contemplated that for a moment and then replied, I think you're going to have a hard time finding a lot of people to rally to your cause.

Calvin said, so what? Christians should never ascribe to that kind of philosophy. As we experience the fallenness of this world and the rejection of Christ as its Lord, we cannot say, so what? We must look to the word of Christ and say, now what?

We're not a so what people. We're a now what people. We need direction. We need movement. And so we need clarity. We must have clarity. Protestant evangelicalism is all about clarity. You may say, I don't care about that stuff.

I'm just a Christian. Let me explain. We are Protestant protestant because we protest the spiritual exploitation of souls in bondage to sin through the means of false religion, and we've done that for 500 years.

We are evangelical because we believe in the complete and perfect authority of the Scriptures and the necessity and exclusivity of Jesus Christ for salvation. If you find yourself in agreement with that, you are a Protestant evangelical.

If you think it's bad form for the Roman Catholic Church to tell people to pray to Mary for their salvation and keep them in hock all their lives, doing more and more but never ever coming to the point where they know that they can be saved, basing their salvation upon works, if you think that's bad form along with every other false church and cult, then you are a Protestant.

You protest. Eternal life is worth too much to say so what. And if you believe that this word is the word of God and all of it is true and authoritative for what we believe and how we live, and you believe that the only way to salvation is Jesus Christ, repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, then you are an evangelical.

Now Protestant evangelicalism is all about clarity. All about clarity. Clarity has been our watchword. The Scriptures are clear. The way of salvation is clear. By grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

The marks of the church are clear. Where there is gospel preaching and the right observance of the ordinances. Increasingly, however, ambiguity spreads among the rising fashion of speculation and equivocation.

You see, it is stylish among some leading Protestant evangelicals to speculate about salvation outside of Christ. That's stylish. It is chic among leading Protestant evangelicals to suborn all sexual desire and activity to equal fallenness.

It is sophisticated among Protestant evangelicals to quote and endorse Roman Catholics and mainline liberals endorsing them. It is elegant among leading Protestant evangelicals to don the gravelling habit of penance for our holy book so full of myth, mystery, if not mistakes, so offensive to modern and postmodern alike.

And so, on this Reformation Sunday, I offer a protest on the side of clarity over and against ambiguity, confusion and nonsense. Ambiguity transforms Protestant evangelicals into tolerant ecumenicals.

Clarity, being clear about what we believe as Protestant evangelicals, being clear honors the sacrifice of our spiritual ancestors, many of whom were burned at the stake for their clarity, and it will ensure our future faithfulness as we are clear so that the next generation knows what we believe and why we believe it.

The question we have to ask ourselves is, am I a Protestant evangelical or am I a tolerant ecumenical? To state the concern in a different way, Christianity and clarity rise and fall together. This is our need for clarity, and why is that?

The Light of Christ and the Clarity of Truth

First of all, it's because of the light of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the light of men. Light clarifies, helps us to see. Though the darkness of the curse covers the earth, and the deep darkness of sin covers the peoples, Isaiah 60 says, The Lord has risen upon us, and his glory has appeared upon us.

And nations come to his light, and kings to the brightness of his rising. Jesus says, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. Indeed, we who follow Christ are called the light of the world.

In fact, we're called, the church is called, the pillar and support of the truth. If we have learned Jesus, and truth is in Jesus, then clarity is our watchword. The truth is not improved by many layers of doubtful musing, and the light is not adorned by many interlacing shadows.

The message of the church must not be ambiguous, and it must not be indecipherable, and that's what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14, verses 7 -9. We must be clear. Let's consider the languages of men, and how it is in Corinth there was a need for clarity.

Corinth featured a thriving multicultural economic mecca positioned between two seaports. Strategically, it was an excellent location for a church plant. Tactically, it was difficult to preach the gospel to so many different cultures with their own original languages.

Miraculously, Christ provided, through the spirit for his church, the gift of tongues, the gift of languages. So it was, when an unbeliever would walk into the church or encounter someone from the church in Corinth, and they would hear the gospel preached in his or her own language by those who would not possibly have come to know it but by supernatural power, that was a sign of Christ ruling over all people.

If you were from Ethiopia, and you had come in on a ship to Corinth, and you encountered people from First Baptist Church Corinth, and one of them, moved by the Holy Spirit, preached in your native tribal tongue the gospel so that you understood it perfectly, rather than in the mundane trading language that you had trouble working with.

When you heard it in your own language, and you really understood the gospel, you would understand that Christ is Lord, and he is about saving all kinds of people from all over the planet. That's a sign.

That was a wonderful thing that the Holy Spirit equipped the early church to do. Now, Paul says, when the gift of tongues is used, there needs to be interpretation. There needs to be the translation of what was said so that the rest of the church is edified.

And not only the rest of the church, but other non-believers who might be present. Because otherwise, there would be great confusion. This brings us to the law of distinction. The law of distinction.

Without distinction, without clarity, without distinction between notes, signals, and words, there can be no clarity, no understanding. That's what Paul says in verses 7 -9, 1 Corinthians 14. We see in this chapter, verse 33, that God is not the author of confusion.

We know from John 4, he is spirit and truth. Thus, we must pray with the spirit and with the mind also. We must sing with the spirit and with the mind also. Verse 15 of our chapter. Otherwise, there's going to be no profit, no edification, no exhortation, and no consolation for the church.

That's verses 3 -6. So the whole idea here that Paul is talking about is that there needs to be clarity in the church. And if you use the gift of tongues, there has to be translation so that everybody knows what's going on, so there's clarity and edification.

Now verses 7 -9. Listen to the wisdom here. Yet even lifeless things, either flute or harp, in producing a sound, if they do not produce a distinction in the tones, how will it be known what is played on the flute or on the harp?

For if the bugle produces an indistinct sound, who will prepare himself for battle? So also you, unless you utter by the tongue speech that is clear, how will it be known what is spoken? For you will be speaking to the air.

Unless you speak distinctly, you might as well just be wasting your breath. You will be wasting your breath unless you are speaking clearly. My parents loved me, and they hated my mumbling. I lost track of the times they told me to speak distinctly.

Speak with distinction. Yes, mother. Important to be distinct with our language. What makes for clarity? It's not the heights of your education, it's not the depths of your thinking, it's not the breadth of your vocabulary or the length of your conversation.

What makes for clarity is distinction. It's not this, it's that. And this is important not only in the matter of tongues, but it's also important in matters of evangelism and worship and warfare. It's important to evangelism, and we see that from the immediate context of Paul's discussion about tongues.

When you go down to verse 23, you realize that confusion is a really bad approach for evangelism. If people don't understand a word that's being said, you're doing a very bad job at evangelizing. So there needs to be clarity.

We need to speak distinctly. The gospel is all about distinction. There's a difference between Adam and Christ. There's a difference between sin and righteousness. There's a difference between judgment and salvation.

There's a difference between hell and heaven. There's a difference between working your way to God and trusting in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation. There is distinction in the gospel for the sake of clarity.

It isn't a matter of, are you favorable towards God? Have you ever been to church? Have you ever prayed a prayer? I guess you're in. Distinction is essential for evangelism, that people would know the difference between their sinfulness, our wretchedness before a holy and perfect God, that we are creation, but he is creator, that he owns us.

The gospel is about distinction. Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call upon him in whom they have not believed, and how will they believe in him whom they have not heard, and how will they hear the gospel of Jesus Christ of those sent to preach, mumble, equivocate, compromise, and say, so what?

Ambiguity and evangelism turns Protestants into tolerants and evangelicals into ecumenicals, and many have gone this route, so much so that they say, Roman Catholics are our brothers and sisters in Christ, so there's no need to evangelize them.

Well, that's not clarity. That's not distinction. That's not being careful or considerate and loving towards people whose eternal lives are at stake. Secondly, we need clarity about worship. Notice Paul's illustration in verse 7.

He writes about music. He says, even lifeless things, either flute or harp, in producing a sound, if they do not produce a distinction in the tones, how will it be known what is played on the flute or on the harp?

So in a chapter about proper worship in the local church, we are not surprised to find a reference to musical instruments. Distinction is essential when playing musical instruments. Distinction would not characterize my toddler's aspiring concert pianist career.

He plays everything he can reach at the same time in the key of a major headache. Music, you see, is made by distinction. By distinction. The dissonance from the consonants, the treble from the bass, the notes from the rest, fast from slow, loud from soft.

If no distinction is made in the playing of a musical instrument, no beauty is rendered, no art created, no glory given to God. So how will the people know how to sing hymns and spiritual songs and psalms if the music is unclear?

Basic question about how we sing in church. Now music is just one important tributary to the river of Christian worship, and I think that Paul selects this illustration pastorally. I think the Holy Spirit superintended this image with great care.

Now if we are concerned about the instruments being played well or being played clearly, should we not also then be more concerned about what we sing and pray and read, discuss, teach, and preach? Are we not more concerned that those words be bright and clear with the light of Christ in all of our worship?

You see, vague affirmations of God's general character, passionate affections expressed about the feelings that one has when they're feeling about God, mystic mantras, repeated ad nauseum. If the indistinction that plagues many modern Christian song lyrics were equally represented by the way those songs were played, it would sound like a toddler playing in A major.

The truth is that fuzzy words make for fuzzy feelings. They edify no saint and evangelize no sinner. Ambiguous worship creates tolerant ecumenicals. A third area where we need clarity is warfare. Paul's next illustration in verse 8, he writes about battle.

For if the bugle produces an indistinct sound, who will prepare himself for a battle? Gurgling bugles do not rally the army and cannot direct the troops at the critical time. Gurgling bugles are not helpful at all.

Superior forces have often left the field of battle in a total rout, defeated less by their hearty foes and more by that constant enemy called the fog of war. There was no clarity and so they were defeated.

Check this in the Old Testament. How often did God defeat the enemies of Israel? How often did God defeat them? Through confusion. Almost every time. Confusion, you see, is the way that an army is defeated.

Clarity, therefore, is essential in our warfare. We must have distinct sounds in our fight. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of our enemy, Ephesians 6, 10 -18.

And we are to stand firm, it says, against the schemes of the devil. You can read it roughly this way. We must make a stand against the methods of the through-thrower. That's how you read devil in the Greek.

Diabolos, through-thrower. He's a through-thrower, which means, figuratively, we must maintain our stance in the batter's box against the craftiness of the chief pitcher because that's what the devil is.

He's a pitcher. He is always trying to throw his deceits and his lies through our defenses. He's always trying to get some kind of deceit and some kind of lie to hit home in our lives, 2 Corinthians 10, 3 -5.

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations.

We are destroying speculations. In the common vernacular, it's pronounced this way. Well, I feel like God is. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

We take the baseball bat of Christ's truth and crush every lie. That's the kind of warfare that we are to be about. You've got to have clarity. Without distinction, without clarity, all our efforts in evangelism, worship, and warfare will be so much waste of breath.

The good of the church depends on the clarity of the light of Christ. So this morning I want to talk to you about the front lines. I want to talk to you about the front lines. We need clarity, not ambiguity.

And the front lines are where the fog is rising on vital matters of the Christian faith. The Reformers knew in their day that clear teaching and preaching of God's Word was essential for the good of eternal souls.

Clarity, clear teaching and preaching of God's Word was essential to their protest. John Calvin writes, I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of bowels. I think that's pretty clear.

If we don't have clarity, if we don't have the light of clarity, then truth is just an obstacle we stub our toes on. It's something to be avoided. Something that gets in our way. But with clarity, we see the truth of Jesus Christ as that precious fountain of life to drink from, something to be treasured.

Scripture, the Trinity, and the Exclusivity of Salvation

Here are the front lines of clarity. It's getting foggy on the front about the use of Holy Scripture. It's getting foggy. The clarity of the Scripture is one of the foundational doctrines of the Protestant Reformation.

Papists still claim that the Bible cannot be rightly understood by the ordinary believer, but they need the official interpretation of the church and its traditions. You can't read and understand the Bible on your own.

You have to have others who, in consensus, will tell you what it means, because you can't understand what it means for yourself. That idea was shattered in the Protestant Reformation, and it has been resurrected in our own day.

I wonder, as your pastor, how you're affected by that. Here's a litmus test. Pray for the Holy Spirit's guidance. Read your Bible. Study a passage in its context. Interpret its meaning through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Cross-check with other passages to make sure that you're being consistent. I want you to meditate on its applications, and then go share with somebody else what the meaning of the passage is, saying that it is the meaning, not just a meaning, the meaning of the text.

At some point, you may break out into hives. Not determine the meaning of the text. No, God determined the meaning of the text. You're reading it. He's a clear communicator. You might feel naked without five study Bibles and commentaries to tell you what it means.

Those things are helpful. They are not essential. The person you're talking to may look at you and say, that's just your interpretation. I mean, who are you anyway? Are you a pastor? Are you a seminary-educated theologian?

And even they don't all agree about it. What answer can you give them? Do you feel the tension that you would ever take up the Bible for yourself, read it for yourself, study it, and then tell somebody else that's what it means?

It doesn't help either when some well-educated, tolerant ecumenical says, well, I think there are four to six valid readings of Genesis. That doesn't help things, does it? Listen, you're not a Protestant evangelical if you don't think the Scriptures are clear.

If you think the Scriptures are foggy and you can't ever understand them on your own, you're not a Protestant evangelical. There's something awfully devilish going on when interpreters want to share their novel readings, maybe not so novel readings of the Bible, and they say things like this.

Could it be? Is it possible? Has God really said? So things are getting foggy on the use of Scripture. We need clarity that the Scripture is to be rightly studied. It's not like it falls directly into your lap.

You know, this isn't a see-spot-run kind of material. This is the Word of God, and it's wonderful, and it's clear, and we have to work a little hard at it. But you know what? We can come to the right understanding of the Bible.

That's not outside of our grasp because we're filled with the Holy Spirit. You're a believer. Secondly, it's getting foggy about the doctrine of the Trinity. If you picked up the survey at the back of the auditorium, you'll notice that the survey is called the State of Theology in 2018, put together by Ligonier and Lifeway.

You will see on the list, on the statements in the survey, that a majority of evangelicals believe that Jesus Christ was the first and greatest creation by the Father, not the eternal, uncreated Son of God.

You'll also notice that a majority of evangelicals believe that the Holy Spirit was not a person, but an impersonal force. Folks, we're in trouble. Now, if we're Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons, we're doing just fine.

We're in trouble on the Trinity. Herman Babbitt did not overstate the importance of this doctrine. He wrote, Well, it's understandable. You know, nobody can understand the Trinity. No, nobody can comprehend the Trinity.

We can understand it because it's in the Bible. We can't comprehend it, but we can understand it. We need clarity at this point that the Scriptures teach that the Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God, God is one.

The Father is not the Son or the Spirit. The Son is not the Father or the Spirit. The Spirit is not the Father or the Son. But all three persons of the Trinity are co-equal, co-eternal of the same nature.

It must be that way for revelation, as the Father speaks of the Son through the Spirit. It must be that way in creation, as what the Father speaks through the Son, the Spirit makes. It must be that way for salvation, as the Spirit saves those for whom Christ died, those whom the Father gave to him.

It must be that way for us, the Church, who calls God Father, is betrothed to the Son, and is filled with the Holy Spirit. We have to have clarity on the doctrine of the Trinity. We should protest the blasphemy against the Spirit that reduces it into some kind of power to manipulate.

We should protest the deification of Mary as Savior and Redeemer. And we should protest the neutering of God the Father because, well, feminism. Thirdly, it's getting foggy out there on the exclusivity of salvation.

There's growing ambiguity about whether or not it's Christ alone for salvation. Do we really need to repent of our sins and place our faith in Jesus Christ alone for our salvation? Is that really necessary to go to heaven?

As God's holiness and man's sinfulness are increasingly obscured by muddled interpretations of the Bible, it seems less and less likely that, given the fog, God would send anyone to hell who doesn't have a perfect understanding of what they're rejecting.

That's where we are today. Books are written, positions are taken, answers are given in interviews. Oh, we don't really know what will happen to them. It's not for us to say. It's not for us to say. Who knows?

There may be a trapdoor entry into eternal life I don't know about. That's really up to God. Let's remember how loving and merciful God is. That's where things are. If you have seen the interview of the Pope with this poor, broken boy who lost his father.

His father died as a nonbeliever, according to the Roman Catholics, he was a nonbeliever. I don't know what kind of nonbeliever he was. The little boy goes and asks the Pope, is my father in hell? Broken little boy.

Terrible sorrow. You don't understand why. The Pope assures the little boy that his father is not far from God and that he's okay. I wonder if his answer is any different from a whole lot of evangelical pastors.

What do you say? But what an opportunity to talk to the little boy about what makes for salvation. And what does it mean to be saved? The devil likes to throw a fastball that says, love wins, everyone goes to heaven.

But that's too obvious for some, so he also pulls out his slider that says, well, it's not my place. Nobody really knows who goes to heaven and hell. It's not really clear about that in the Bible. It's kind of foggy.

And besides, even if I were to see something that looks to be clear, I can't trust my own reading. It's not for me to say. You see? It's getting foggy on the exclusivity of Jesus Christ alone for salvation.

It's also getting foggy on the nature of sin. As long as scriptures are not all that clear and God is not too big and salvation is not really exclusive, sin is not very serious. We're being told from several quarters of evangelicalism that when it comes to sexual sins, the earth is flat.

Meaning, sexual brokenness is on the same level for everyone, whether you're happily married or transgendered. We're all in the same big fog of sexual brokenness. We share the same fog. No distinction must be made.

That's not a Protestant evangelical view of sin. That's a tolerant ecumenical view of sin. We should protest the dignifying of sin and the flattening of sin. There's no word yet from these same sources whether or not the earth is flat when it comes to hate, greed, rebellion, or idolatry.

Maybe it's just sexual sins. What we're dealing with here, and I want us to recognize the temptation in our own hearts, is that we're drawing fire. We live in a society that is increasingly non-Christian.

In fact, we live in a society that is increasingly anti-Christ. Our profile becomes more and more exposed. You believe what about the Bible? That insane idea about the Trinity? You think Jesus is the only way?

Man, you're intolerant about sin. Our profile is becoming more and more clear, more and more exposed in the world in which we live. That means that the enemy has a better view of us, which means we're taking fire because we're exposed.

Here's the temptation for us. The temptation is to engage in smoke grenade hermeneutics. I don't like taking fire. I don't like people thinking I'm mean or backward, so here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to pull the pin off my smoke grenade, throw it down, and all of a sudden I'm hidden in the smoke.

All the bullets still fly, but they can't see me as well anymore because I've engaged in smoke grenade hermeneutics. Well, you know, it's not all that clear. It's not all that clear. That's smoke grenade hermeneutics.

I don't like taking fire. I don't like persecution, but the fact is that all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. The fact is that we are not the church at rest. We are the church militant.

We are the church at war. We have some things that we've got to do while we're still here. We can rest later. Every man under his fig tree, I'm looking forward to it. But it's not right now. Right now there's a battle.

Right now there's a war. Martin Luther wrote, If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God, except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ.

However boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield beside is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.

We've got to stop throwing the smoke grenades. We've got to start taking fire. And I'm so glad that God gave us to be one another as a local church. Things are foggy about that too. On the State of Theology 2018 you'll notice that there's a lack of clarity on the need for the local church.

There is an ambiguity about church and church membership today. Do church at home with or without live streaming some service. Hang out with a small group here and there. Attend a service here or there.

There's a sense of belonging without any lingering. There's a sense of acceptance without any accountability, which is a dangerous way to live. A true church may be understood as the regular local gathering of the saints in covenant, confessing the gospel of Jesus Christ, making disciples of all peoples through the faithful preaching of all scripture and the right observance of the ordinances.

Definition I worked out a long time ago. It's not the only one. It's too long. Striving for clarity. But there has to be definition to the local church. There has to be distinction for the sake of love, for the sake of education, for the sake of safety, for the sake of endurance, for the sake of accountability.

And from and within this embassy of Christ's kingdom, we proclaim Christ from all the scriptures until his spirit renews all God's people into his image. The nature and purpose of our unity is anchored here in our communion.

By eating the bread, by drinking the cup, we declare the gospel of Christ until he returns. And there's clarity here. We know who died for us. We know how he died for us. We know that he lives again and is calling us to this meal to commune with him, our living, risen Christ.

There is distinction here. This is our only table. There's no other table that we gather around. Our unity is in Christ. Our community, our fellowship is in the person and work of Christ. Let's pray together.

The Local Church, Communion, and Final Exhortation

Father, I thank you for this day. I thank you for a clear word. I thank you for the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I pray that you would help us to rejoice in the person and work of Christ. And that we would hold fast.

Lord, I know that it's difficult to be a Christian, increasingly difficult to be a Christian. Father, give us all the courage, the zeal, the clarity, the star-worked faithfulness that we need in these days.

God, be pleased to glorify yourself amongst us in the ways that you know are best. We pray these things for the sake of Christ.