August 31, 2022 Show with Angelo Valle on “The Oracle of Parliament: A Contextual Reading of Stephen Marshall & His Thanksgiving Sermon Before Parliament (Sept. 21, 1641)

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August 31st, 2022.

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Today, we have a returning guest to the program, someone whom I love to interview,

a man who I have become very extremely impressed with.

I heard him deliver an installment sermon, a challenge

to the congregation of a mutual friend when he was being

installed as pastor of a congregation.

And I was really, for lack of a better term, blown away by the

power of his message and the profound

articulate nature of his message, a biblically

saturated message.

And I knew that I wanted to have him on my program then, which I did.

And it's great that he's returning.

His name is Angelo Valley, pastor of Christ Reformed Church of Alexandria, Pennsylvania.

If you look up his photo on Facebook, you will be wondering why a

Presbyterian church in America has allowed a 13 -year -old boy to be their pastor.

A very young -looking man.

But he is certainly, no matter how young or old he is, and I'm not certain, he is

certainly a man equipped far beyond his age to

open the Word of God.

That's for sure.

Today we are going to be addressing the theme of his doctoral dissertation, The Oracle

of Parliament, a contextual reading of Stephen Marshall and his Thanksgiving

Sermon before Parliament on September 21, 1641.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Angelo Valley.

Hey, Chris, it's a pleasure to be on

again, of being on.

Oh, the pleasure is all mine, brother, and my listeners.

And tell us about, for those of my listeners who have not heard you on the program before, tell us about

Christ Reformed Church of Alexandria, Pennsylvania.

Alexandria is a small rural congregation full of some of the warmest, most

loving Christians, myself and my family.

I've been serving there about nine years.

When I was called there back in August of 2013, the church had, within the last

couple of years, left the United Church of Christ.

So by God's mercy and grace alone, we have been able to help

them into the

PCA.

And so we're a mission church, we're PCA, and stay calm.

Yes, and I don't want my listeners to be startled when you go to the website, because some have

already commented to me.

So you're having a Christian Reformed Church pastor on, and sadly, although there are

still very faithful men in that denomination, I'm not going to broad brush them, sadly that

denomination, the Christian Reformed Church, known as the CRC,

has fallen from its very wonderful and

biblical roots and has become, for the most part, very liberal and,

dare I say, in some circumstances, apostate.

As I said, there are some good men in there.

I don't think Dr. Joel Niederhood ever left the CRC, who I have

very high regard for.

But the website is crcalexandria .org, and that

stands for Christ Reformed Church.

So if you are visiting the area of

Pennsylvania, Alexandria, where this church is located, or if you live in or near there,

or if you have loved ones in or near there, I strongly urge you either visit yourself or recommend

this church.

The Oracle of Parliament, a contextual reading of Stephen Marshall in his Thanksgiving sermon

before Parliament, September 21st in 1641.

What compelled you to write your doctoral dissertation on this?

And perhaps even before you answer that, who

was Stephen Marshall?

The most immediate question, Stephen Marshall is a member of the Westminsters.

He preached more before Parliament than anyone else.

He was wonderfully connected

to the Oracle

theology, and originally I was a John Owen man, which you would know from our former podcaster

interview together.

But there are people doing that.

So in the work of research, I wanted to try and find someone original who was

out of Northern Ireland who pointed me towards Marshall.

And I just began to research and check him out.

I'm a doctoral student right now at Puritan Reform Theological Seminary, and so I got the

opportunity to get Dr. Greg Salazar on the Westminster Assembly, and I

just wanted to learn more about him.

I'm hoping that my dissertation, when it's finished, will be on him, and just further study, because there's...

Praise God.

Well, what is so important, specifically,

about the more detailed description of our discussion

today, the Oracle of Parliament, a contextual reading of Stephen Marshall in his Thanksgiving

sermon before Parliament?

What is so compelling about that, that you not only wrote your dissertation on that, but you also

immediately knew that you wanted to discuss that today, knowing that we have many

listeners in Iron Trip and Zion Radio's audience who love and appreciate history

and very often are reformed, if not predominantly?

And what's so vital about this?

Well, imagine with me this.

If you had an opportunity, a message, would you consider that an

amazing opportunity?

Yes, and I would even have less respect for Congress if they asked me to do that.

Well, we come to a time in the 1640s where preachers

are welcome before the magistrates of the land, before the House is present,

and what would that be like?

And so that was kind of the curiosity.

So all of this, with the study of history, I think most historians start with the curiosity.

What was going on?

What led to this?

Why did this happen?

What was the significance?

Why him?

Why there?

Why then?

It becomes almost like a fun puzzle, and at the same time an amazing story, an opportunity to learn.

And so one of the reasons I wanted to study this particular aspect was, what is it about

him that made him so special?

I love preaching.

I love good preaching, right?

You've ever had the misfortune of sitting under a bad preacher within the first three or four minutes, you think to yourself,

oh my goodness, he's just getting started.

And so there are amazing preachers in the world who have the ability to just make God's Word come alive.

So he's one of those characters.

I wanted to try and understand, what is it that made him special?

Why is he remembered?

Why was he called on in the 11th hour to preach before Parliament?

It's not a small, out -of -the -place thing.

It's the Parliament of the nation.

So what's going on in his mind?

What's driving him?

What's leading him?

And then, more importantly, what is his message?

What does he have to say to them?

How is he hoping to shepherd the hearts of the people who are leading the nation?

How is he shepherding the nation through the Parliament?

Well, tell us about the contents of this sermon that made it so

important to you.

Well, the first thing I want to point out is that this was a Thanksgiving sermon.

When I started researching this, I didn't know much about the sort of sermons that people had before Parliament.

I just thought, you know, given my American context, if you got to preach at all, you'd be thankful, and that's the end of it.

But there is a long -standing tradition in England of preachers before Parliament.

There is this tradition beginning with Elizabeth the Freighter, with the

Archbishop James Usher, who was a tremendous figure in

Reformation, especially leading up to the Westminster

Receiving Sermon.

He was thanking God to

unite together, lead the nation to further

Reformation.

I think in order to understand his message, we have to understand his context,

because sermons happen, but there

are some preachers who do that.

I mean, the people, the context, and the moment, intersects there and

then with a message.

Considering the context of England at this time, the 1640s, we have to ask what happened before that.

Well, clearly, the 1630s.

In the 1630s, the hand of Archbishop William Laud, who

had begun to de -evolve the English Reformation, and it was

almost as bad as it was before.

People had witness

to Roman or papal practices in the Church of England,

judgment on the land.

Depending on

the person's objective

about Marshall, especially before Parliament, because he wasn't alone,

was that they were constantly with the Lord and his blessing and how

to pursue it, and at the same time, how to avoid his wrath and his judgment.

I wonder how many churches today think like that, and I think that's kind of a fascinating angle.

With that being the case, one of the things I wanted to look at with Marshall was finding more

information about him.

There's not a lot of people who have done work on Stephen Marshall.

When we think about John Owen, we think of people like Sinclair Ferguson.

Dr. Dane Hyde just did his work on Owen as well, or Crawford Gribbon, or Marty

Cowan and others, but there's not a lot of work really done on him.

There was a couple of dissertations.

In the 20th century, there was an article in the year 2000 that said the work should be done.

There was a self -published book.

That's really it.

One of the reasons I wanted to pursue this subject was to help fill a hole in scholarship, not just for the sake of

the academy, but for the church.

How can we learn from good preachers?

Does that make sense, Greg?

Absolutely.

In this day and age, it's rare, extremely rare.

Right now, at this very moment, it could be proven wrong, but I can't think of an instance where

someone had been given the opportunity to speak before Congress

that was as theologically faithful and biblically sound

as Stephen Marshall, to have a public voice

amongst very important leaders of the nation,

and one could only pray and hope that that kind of a thing will occur again in our day

when it's needed just as much as it was needed then,

and perhaps even more.

In fact, I would be certain that it's needed more when we witness things going on

in our nation that even the most liberal individual of

Marshall's day, the most nominal of Christians

who were Christians in name only, or even those that openly

rejected the scriptures and the Christian faith, they would be horrified,

on average, by what is going on in our world, the wholesale slaughter

of infants, the so -called marrying of men to men and women to women,

the outright violation of the Constitution, and

you could go on and on with these amazing things that are occurring in a horrifying manner,

but perhaps paint more of a detailed picture about what you're

speaking about in regard to why this word was such

a perfectly timed word, obviously

orchestrated and ordained from God.

It was a time, you

know, in that decade alone, the leaders

would be beheaded,

their confession and catechisms come together, it was a messy, chaotic, crazy time,

and part of my pursuit of this particular sermon, because

there are many, contained many of the seeds which eventually would blossom into

that ripe or rotten fruit, depending on how you view that.

At Marshall, in particular, we find someone to

get pulled by the horns.

He saw this opportunity, and he was someone who was well -connected.

He was somebody who is not an unknown.

He was well -known in his community and with the political powers that be, like John Pym, the Earl of Warwick,

and others there and then.

He was a well -connected man, but he didn't use that alone for political advantage.

Marshall, alongside Cornelius Burgess, who also

Pristine Forty, I think I'm getting the date wrong off the top of my head,

steer all your weighty consultations by his own counsel to his own glory,

but chiefly in the effectual endeavoring of a further sanctification and strong

guard about our Palladium, the true religion, already of the

reformation of it, in the erecting of

an able, godly, faithful, zealous, profitable preaching ministry in every parish church.

These men seeking to

lead the nation in a direction that honored Christ,

by virtue of the Laudanism of the day and the stifling of faithful biblical preaching in various points,

but one of further sanctification.

You know, we can identify with that, right?

Because anytime someone's ever asked you, hey, how's your prayer life?

An appropriate answer is, it's good, but it could be better.

When we think about our world and our national churches, and I mean that as our

denominations, I'm in the PCA, I think it's something like that, it wouldn't be hard for someone to say, you know, the PCA

needs further sanctification, or the OPC needs further sanctification, or the

URC &A needs further sanctification, or whatever.

We need to grow in loving and pursuing.

And so Marshall gave this broad image in his first sermon, when he spoke before them in 1640,

in November the 17th, he made it even more clear, September 7th, 1641.

He came before the Lord.

Can you imagine that?

You know, a fast by the nations, living for

God's faithfulness.

And what was the fourfold intent?

That the people would have erected before them an able, godly, faithful, zealous, profitable preaching ministry.

Not only would it be erected, but it would be maintained, and it would be encouraged

that these men would help to establish a church

whose foundations stood upon the purity of God's word to determine the church and state, that

God might be praised in simplicity and purity, because the church was a new Jerusalem.

As the representative,

you know, when I was growing up, I didn't hear any sermon like this.

I don't know about you, Chris.

The sort of sermons you heard growing up, let's rate your time.

Actually, I didn't hear any growing up.

I was raised Roman Catholic, and there was typically just pathetic little homilies that

were five minutes long, and I don't even, right now, remember any of them, except when I

was 18 years old, being at a Christmas Eve sermon, and hearing

the palpably effeminate priest telling everybody

that we're all God's children, gay, straight, you name it.

That's the only thing that is unfortunately etched in my memory about

so -called sermons growing up.

Well, I knew that I grew up, I didn't really ever hear about things that

we can be

reminded of the timelessness of God's word,

as well as the unique ways

that

they

talked

to this year about

bloodshed.

Oh, we have seen our neighbor nation come into England in a hostile show with

peaceable hearts.

Oh, wonderful.

This year, we've seen the same nation, after all mistakes cleared, received into the bosom of their sovereign's

favor.

Their loyalty and faithfulness acknowledged with a friendly aid, honorably and peaceably sent to their own homes.

And the two nations faster cemented together in a league of love.

Wonderful.

God to these men is to give them practical reasons to praise God.

What are the good things we have?

One of our temptations is to think about the good old days.

I was at the dentist yesterday.

I was so glad I wasn't living in the good old days of the 1600s and their version of dentistry.

You know, there are moments where we don't necessarily want to go back to the past.

But being purposeful about observing God's faithfulness throughout history, I mean, that's something that we can really

hold on to.

In fact, pick up where you left off after we return from our first commercial break.

And if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question for Pastor Angelo Valli, our email address is

chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail dot com.

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We'll be right back after these messages with more of Pastor Angelo Valli.

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We're now back with Angelo Valli, and Angelo Valli, as I stated earlier,

is a pastor of Christ Reformed Church of Alexandria, Pennsylvania, a congregation in the Presbyterian Church

in America.

We are discussing The Oracle of Parliament, a contextual reading of Stephen Marshall in his Thanksgiving

sermon before Parliament.

And do you want to follow up on anything that you were saying before the break before I read to

you any listener questions?

No, no, I'm good.

Thank you, Bill.

Okay, well, we have Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, who wants to know how well

was Marshall's sermon received by Parliament, and did it have any noticeable

effect upon the nation at the time?

Well, my first response would be it seems that it was well received because he was called back.

The preachers, if you do a good job, they'll call you back.

If you don't,

it's another

noted 1643, you know, a year and a half or so later,

anti -papal sentiments of the six William laws, the overreach of that,

and then pair that with the ineptitude of Charles I.

I mean, Charles I, the King of England, was regularly inept, and it was his political...

Well, thank you, Bobby.

We have CJ from Lyndonhurst, Long Island, New York, and he said, in

studying Marshall, his sermon, and writing your dissertation on it, have you

learned anything that you could walk away with to teach and proclaim

to not only your own church, but to any Christians with a listening ear on

how the Christian church can be more involved in politics,

or am I off base in thinking that you would draw that conclusion?

I don't think you're off base.

It's honestly an issue that I'm presently wrestling.

You know, when I was...

There was no conversation about politics, and then I was in a church when I was younger that essentially...

We mixed in songs about the military, which left a very bad taste in

my mouth about considering politics and the church as a whole.

But as I've had some time to recover from that and think, I'm presently wrestling through what is the

appropriate place of a Christian's interaction with the government.

You know, I find a couple potential options today, right?

So we have the Two Kingdoms view that's very common from Westminster, California, and the Escondido theology

coming from...

You have the more Kuyperian and even some Neo -Kuyperian things building off of Abraham Kuyper's work.

You have, of course, the Theonomists, Reconstructionists.

You have the Establishmentarian principle from our Reformed Presbyterian friends.

I mean, there's a lot of ways that this could go, and I'm still wrestling through it.

But with that being said, at the very least, we as preachers have a responsibility and a duty

to call a spade a spade.

We have a responsibility to say, this is right, this is wrong, this does not

please God.

It's different about the choices of nations, right?

We see that throughout Genesis and Exodus and thereafter.

That a typical understanding of God and His interactions with nations is He is not indifferent about

their sin.

He hands nations over to sin, right?

We see Jonah sent to Nineveh.

Eventually, you see Nineveh demolished.

We read the Book of Nahum.

So, those are all various factors that are going in.

So, what's the practical application for me right now with Stephen Marshall?

Don't be afraid to preach the truth.

If a nation is in sin, speak it.

Speak it boldly.

Speak it clearly.

Call it to repentance.

Amen.

And, well, before I ask my own question, let me squeeze in another listener question because we are

approaching our midway break already.

Sure.

We have Joseph in South Central Pennsylvania.

Hey, he should come visit us.

And Joseph says, Is Marshall's Thanksgiving sermon

available by any publisher in a booklet or tract form?

And would it be something of value, in your opinion, to have available as a

church lobby giveaway?

Especially...

Well, the Thanksgiving sermon models, in many ways, what is a typical Christian response to good

things that happen in our life.

We often pause and thank the Lord.

We don't ever want to be ingraged to His smiling providence, which comes upon us.

It would be necessarily best.

It would be dependent upon the reader because it would be

the way that you could find it.

Early English books online, I don't remember the exact years, but I think it covers all published English works

from 14 -something up until the 1800s

to utilize archive .org.

There's a lot of free, older public domain works there.

But again, when you read that, you recognize that you're reading books, before spelling was standardized.

You recognize that the letter S is going to look like F sometimes.

You have to recognize all those things together.

There is a collected version of these works in hardcover form.

I was holding them just a couple weeks ago when I was checking out the

paper versions of it at Puritan Reforms Library in Grand Rapids.

But I've only played with the digital copies of it.

So that would be my recommendation.

I think you'd have to read it first and know your congregation.

There's some people in my congregation who would never want to read that, and that's okay.

It's not a mark against them.

Deep historical theology like this isn't a mark of sanctification, but it is for some.

Well, obviously, you wouldn't want to not do something

like providing a booklet like that, especially if you were to modernize the language and

the fonts and all that, just because some people are going to reject it.

I mean, if you were going to have that as a mindset, I better not make this available because there are going to be some

people that reject it.

Most great Christian literature would never be available anywhere.

Well, I'm in agreement with you, Chris.

I'm just saying that there's not a modern version out there right now.

So that might be a project for somebody who wants to do that.

Yeah, well, we do have publishers that advertise on this show, so who knows?

That would be something that I think would be a good idea.

We have an anonymous listener who says, you mentioned the church's involvement with

politics.

I have found it all too often the case, even in the congregation where I worship,

where things that are biblical prohibitions and

clearly described as damning and satanic activity are far

too often relegated to the category of political issues that we should not bring to

the pulpit.

Don't you find this to be the case, or is it just something that I am unusually experiencing in

my own life?

And the question, that was a long one, but if I

understood it correctly, you have

to speak about

everything, regardless of love for some people or perhaps even something

that your concern may offend others.

One of the principles that I think is important for preachers is to call a spade a spade.

So if you're dealing in a unique political context that isn't sin, then you have to address that.

You have to inform your people as to what God's words should

not address things or things like that.

And there may be people who are in sin and don't understand,

and I mean that in the

kindest, most...

Yeah, you appear to.

And when we come back from our midway break, perhaps I'll elaborate on what I believe the listener

was saying.

But we have to go to our midway break.

Please be patient with us, folks.

The midway break is always longer because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of

us a longer break in the middle of the show so that they can air their own public service announcements and other

things that the FCC requires of them to geographically localize this program

and all of their programming to Lake City, Florida.

While they do that, we air our globally heard commercials.

Please use this time wisely.

Write down as much of the contact information that our advertisers provide so that you can more frequently

and successfully respond to our advertisers, even if that just means you're saying

thank you for sponsoring Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

But also, obviously, use this time to send in questions to Angelo O 'Valley.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back.

Attention all men in ministry leadership.

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Before I return to Angelo Valley, our guest today, we have some important announcements to make.

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Last but not least, if you are not a member of a Christ -honoring biblically faithful, theologically and

doctrinally sound church like Christ Reformed Church of Alexandria, Pennsylvania, no matter where you

live on the planet Earth, I have extensive lists spanning the globe, and I may be able to help you find a

church no matter where in the world you live, possibly even within minutes of your own home, as I have done with many

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That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Angelo Valley.

We have been discussing the Oracle of Parliament, a contextual reading of Stephen Marshall and his

Thanksgiving Sermon before Parliament on September 21st,

1641.

And just to throw in my two cents about the anonymous

listener's question before the break, I think he was probably talking about the fact that

there are even conservative pastors and churches who

may realize that abortion is infanticide.

They may realize and agree that sodomy is a

damnable sin and that there is no such thing as a marriage between a man and a man

and a woman and a woman no matter what any court in America or the world says.

But they don't want to talk about those specific issues from the pulpit because they have deemed them to be political

issues.

I think that's probably what, and our listener can even clarify it

yourself if you want to send in a follow -up email.

But does that make sense, Angelo?

Yeah, with that clarification, I stand by what I said.

As a minister of the gospel, you expect the Bible

to be political matters or contemporary issues.

Amen.

And by the way, if you want Stephen Marshall's Thanksgiving sermon in

written form, Pastor Angelo has made it available in a digital

form to me.

And if you send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail

.com, I can get that to you or you can even contact Christ Reformed Church of

Alexandria, Pennsylvania.

And that website, again, is crcalexandria .org.

CRC.

Let's see, we have Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, New York, who says,

How does Stephen Marshall stand out to you among great heroes of the faith that may

be more well -known?

What is unique about his contribution to the Christian faith?

That's a great question.

There is a sense where,

you know, if you can use, if you can forgive the illustration,

nobody says Aquaman.

Oh, I love Aquaman.

By the way, Batman is the best superhero because he is believable.

He is an ordinary guy who, albeit in good shape,

and a creative inventor and all that, but he's an ordinary guy that fights crime, and it's actually a believable

character.

But anyway, that's my dissent.

No, no, no, that's all good.

If you look online, our pictures are with Batman shirts on.

That's right.

I think one of the things that, so to pull that justice league example,

I mean, the intellect, the capability, and them being the

members of the Westminster, something unique to offer, some

of it was his

moderation and tone, which sounds ironic given that you do some research

on the shedding of blood, which is not always,

going back to the thing about Marshall, his ability to try and find a peaceful resolution in other situations

and committees and moderating positions for the founding of the long parliament, which was called

the Westminster Assembly, and afterwards, I think that makes him an interesting figure.

And then also, that nobody's really doing work on him.

There's a lot of great theological treatises, theological works, sermons that are just

now being digitized and made available.

And so, it's scholars who are now catching up with the quantity of information available.

And so, that's the need for women, serious Christians and

theologians to interact with these characters for useful reasons.

By the way, allow me, if you will, to give another plug to somebody

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bringing them up because of that fact, but they have nothing but the finest in Christian literature dating back to the

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They have brought back into print the writings of an extraordinary

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do so.

Sorry for the shameless plug, but...

No, it's good.

Those people matter.

I mean, that's the sort of stuff you need in people's hands.

If the government liked them, they would thank the individual who preached publicly, and then they would send them to the press,

or in this case, good PDFs, the power of the Internet.

We have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who wants to know whether you

agree with a minister like Abraham Kuyper, who also became prime

minister of the Netherlands.

I don't know if he had those roles simultaneously, but there are

some people that don't believe a minister of the Gospel should be running for office, even solid men, theologically.

And, of course, there's disagreement.

There are men that I know that are sound, very sound theologically, who have run for office.

So, what is your opinion.

On that?

Well, Kuyper is somebody who I want to study more of.

One of the pragmatic difficulties of being a pastor student,

I mean, the benefit is that he's dead, so it's not going to be like.

I agree with him.

It's not going to be that I agree with him and then in two years be like, oh, why did he say that?

But I would commend them to read the Stone Lectures themselves.

Yeah, I think that that's also a good rule of thumb when naming a child.

If you're going to name your child after somebody famous, name them after somebody who's dead,

not a famous, currently living sports figure because you have no idea what that person may do,

even if they're living a wholesome and clean and honorable life now.

You've got to be careful about that.

Yeah, it makes a big difference.

And make sure that if you're looking up a biblical name, know the story.

I want to know why the parents of Ichabod Spencer a great

Presbyterian minister of the 19th century, I have no idea why they picked that name.

I don't think I ever found out.

Thank you, Susan Margaret, for your excellent question.

And if you could, just give us some more compelling reasons why we

should know about this event in history, why we should learn more about Marshall and why we should learn

more about his Thanksgiving sermon.

Sure.

If you go and get the

PDF of the sermon, it's about 50 -something pages.

It's 50 -something pages.

It's a big sermon.

They didn't preach small homilies, at least not these guys.

It's like a

wedding

celebration.

It's like a birthday.

Everyone's happy and exciting.

And there's all these wonderful things.

And yet, word of warning.

And so this caution that he laid before parliament was simple.

And it's helpful for us to recognize as well.

It's as if Marshall was warning them saying, don't be so presumptuous about this victory.

Just as God had so quickly brought it about, He may just as quickly pull it out from under your rug.

He might pull it from your midst.

And so what was it then in Marshall's estimate that could cause the death of joy?

How many times have we taken the gifts of God and been

indifferent about them?

How many of you this past Sunday at some point were thinking about something other than the sermon or the liturgy?

You took the Lord's Supper and your mind was somewhere else.

So often, we are so quick to disregard the privileges and blessings that God

has given to us.

And so using Marshall to kind of transport his thought in some way to our present situation is he's warning us

about ingratitude.

So to look at that particular time, Marshall's warning came before parliament through a visual manner.

And this is what made Marshall special.

He was a man of the people.

He was someone who knew how to rub elbows.

So if we use our context, he knew how to talk to somebody in the pub.

He knew how to talk to somebody in the cigar shop.

He knew how to talk to somebody on the street, at the bus stop, in the library, in the post office, everywhere.

He knew how to use the phrases, words, and idioms of the day.

So much so that his opponents would deride him for that.

But Marshall said this.

He said, God knows whether all these mercies may not be removed and destruction and misery

yet breaking upon us.

When Tamar was to be delivered, and the twins in her womb, Dara first put forth his hand,

and they tied a scarlet thread about it, and said, This came out first, but his hand was plucked in again, and his

brother broke out before him.

So mercy and judgment, deliverance and ruin, have seemed to be long -struggling in the womb,

which should first break out upon us.

Oh, that ingratitude caused not this hand to be plucked back again, and destruction yet to break in

upon us.

And so Marshall's aim at this momentary Thanksgiving was not to blind them to the

reality and costliness of the work which still laid ahead.

Reunion was merely the first step in a journey of a thousand miles.

Because we know a good beginning doesn't guarantee a good end, right?

How many ministers do you know great beginnings?

And so if the call to obedience in the face of God's smiling providence is gratitude, then ingratitude

is the great disruptor.

And this is something that Marshall's going to put.

Again, Marshall, as an ordinary person of his time, thought England was the new Israel and that her parliamentarians were

the spiritual representatives of the people.

And so there's a little rhetorical flourish that happens there.

He uses his episcopal dedicatory at the very beginning of the book to use a form of superlative self

-humiliation that was typical for that time to lower himself but try to reach the men who were there.

And then he had no problem doing that.

And if you go through other sermons from that time, it's just the normal language of this day.

But Marshall writes, this nation to which God hath been merciful above all nations upon the earth.

He sees this as the premier opportunity.

God has blessed us greatly into whom much is given, much is required.

He also reminds them that while this sermon is being preached, Europe is at war.

If we remember, Germany was at war.

There's the reality of the Thirty Years' War and what's going on there.

And so the metallic odor of blood shed by religious wars was wafted before their nostrils.

As Marshall said this, when our neighbor nations round about us see such days, when Germany remains a

field of blood, when their cities and towns are desolate, their wives ravished, their children killed, when

many of them eat their dead carcasses and die for want of food,

yet these great things are done for us in hopes of greater.

And which is most wonderful?

All this done for the most unworthy and unthankful nation in all the world?

Both simultaneously most blessed and equally unthankful.

And so she was blessed because it's

not so much

that in which Germany suffered at the moment.

He was warning Parliament stepping at their

doorstep.

It was coming right there.

And so the only thing separating them was the mercy of God, a mercy that could be withdrawn at any moment.

You know, when you begin to think in that way, it changes how you view your moment.

When you recognize the mercy of God as an unwarranted gift, it changes how you

approach that.

And so Marshall said that everything had to begin with the men themselves.

He said that there was three points of application.

First, they needed to deal with themselves.

I think you should continue on before I take any more listener questions because we have over a

half hour left of the show.

So continue.

Not a problem.

Deal with yourself.

So for Marshall, when he looked at the members of Parliament or the MPs to

enact God,

you don't follow yourself.

You become a hypocrite, right?

We think of Jesus as strong as the language against the Pharisees and the scribes.

Through and through we think of the woes of Christ.

It wasn't enough for them to reform England in a legislative or political sense.

They, too, themselves, needed to be godly.

Without this heart devoted to God, there would be no hope for the people of God in England.

As the leaders go, so goes the nation.

That's kind of a basic concept that was going through them all.

So according to Marshall, they were to be holy.

That is, separated for their work so that they would not be vassals of Satan in their

labors.

Now think about that.

Think about the boldness and the audacity.

You're standing in a room of nobles, standing in a room full of the leaders of the nation, and you have the

boldness, the spirit -wrought boldness, to stand before them and warn them not to be

vassals of Satan in their labors.

Again, we do something to learn from the courage of the preachers there and then.

This is one of the joys of reading preachers beyond our era, beyond our moment, beyond our sound bites.

So the first thing they needed to do was personal reformation.

The second thing that was necessary then was familial reformation.

This means that the parliamentary members were called to straighten out their homes.

There was a calling for a purifying or reforming of the worship in their homes.

The MPs were to root out various forms of idolatry that, quote, their families may be little

congregations of saints with whom God may delight to dwell.

You see, idolatry was not just simply a religious danger there and then.

There was also this dynamic of a political for idolatry.

God is not unmoved by the sins of the nation and martialized.

And we've talked about that in part already.

The choices of the land, beginning with its representatives, directed the course of the nation.

And so the rooting out of idolatry in preaching became a tactful, roundabout way of dealing with the sin of

England.

Again, what was the thing that was crushing the churches and stifling so much of what the Puritans were...

It was the effects and consequences of Archbishop William Laud in the 1630s reintroducing so much of the

Roman Catholic papist practices in the churches.

And so when he spoke about idolatry in preaching, and if you look at their sermons, idolatry in often times is a code

work against the Laudianism or papalism of the day.

So consequently, the members of parliament were instructed to get rid of, to clean out, to root out

all the ceremonial excesses and papal dress from their homes in order to rightly honor God

and lead the nation in a way that would not result in its ruin.

One of the things I love about this, and you'll see a bleed over in Marshall's work later in the Westminster

Assembly, and we'll see this in the larger catechism, is that individualism was insufficient.

The Westminster larger catechism expresses this in a great language when it talks about the duty

of superiors.

An idea which is found in seed form in these words,

in these warnings.

So I'll read that for you.

If you're familiar with Westminster larger catechism, question 129 says this,

towards their interiors, that is the heads of the home, use this example of the fathers,

are superiors.

According to that power they receive from God and that relation wherein they stand to love,

pray for, and bless their inferiors.

Again, when we say inferior, we're not talking in terms of an ontological inferiority, but in terms of ranks, like

a general is above a private.

To instruct, he goes on, counsel and admonish them, countenancing them, commending and rewarding

such as do well, discountencing, reproving and chastising such as do ill, protecting, providing for them

all things necessary for soul and body, and by grave, wise, holy, and exemplary chariots, to procure glory to

God, honor to themselves, and so to preserve that authority which God has put upon them

to lead well.

Marshall's language

here

actually looked

out among the various parishes for much work

to be done.

In fact, we forget so often that the Westminster Assembly did much to shape and transform the local parishes

or priests who were unable to do their job well, who were just unqualified or

unfaithful, and a lot of their work was given towards the examination, preparation, and promulgation of godly

pastors and the examination thereof.

Chan, Bed and Dixon has a great book on this, the Reformation Heritage books called God's Ambassadors.

I really commend that to you.

So to go back to Parliament, then, what was this sweeping work, what did it involve?

So we talked about it involved the ordinary parish ministry throughout the kingdom.

Marshall wrote that the roots of our evils is not taken away, and he says as well,

he proceeded to make plain that there remained, much rubbish to be carried away.

Chris, given your language, I don't think that that would be too far for you to agree that some pulpits today have

a bit of rubbish in them.

Is that fair assessment?

Well, tragically, I would say most.

I'm not making that accusation to specifically our

Reformed brethren, and I'm not saying that horrific sermons don't

exist among us, but when you talk about the grand scheme of things amongst

the spectrum of evangelicalism, I would say the majority is, especially what I hear and

see in prominent media.

Yeah, it's just proportionality between media,

or better said, the quality of videography and the quality of teaching.

They don't always happen to be together.

Some of the best teachers come in through audio cassette quality sound, and some of the most horrific

preachers and pastors have the prime time spot, and so when Marshall is addressing the parliamentarians and saying,

gentlemen, it's time for you to do your job, he says, sweep the church and the kingdom.

There is much work to be done, yet the ministry is not purged, yet the great cities and towns, many thousands of

other places in the kingdom want bread for their souls, and the portions of the Levites' honorable maintenance

for them, who should do the work of the Lord in many places, are not yet provided.

And then he goes to that comment, yet there remains much rubbish to be carried away, as yet the honor

of the Lord's Day is not fully vindicated, as yet the Lord's temple is not built, nor the scepter of Christ thoroughly set up.

He's really trying to lay it thick on them.

Gentlemen, recognize the weightiness of what lies before you.

Not only is there rubbish, but there needs to be a purging.

And he says, we are reminded, he says that the great cities and towns and many

thousands of other places in the kingdom want bread for their souls.

What does that mean?

Well, he's using the image of bread for the language of preaching, the bread of heaven, not just manna that was feeding

Israel, but the word of God.

There are many pulpits that are lacking godly preachers, and our people are starving.

And so, we are reminded then of the original worship wars in England.

We think of the worship wars today, can we have an electric guitar?

Is it only acoustic?

Do we have a full drum set with a little box that the guy sits on on the corner and taps, taps, taps?

What is it that's acceptable?

In England, there was, in that day, a worship war where we worship according to the ceremonial path of law

or the simplicity of preaching of God's word.

And so Marshall, what he did by these words was laid in seed form.

I'm arguing he laid in seed form what the goal and duration of a long parliament

would ultimately be.

So again, this long parliament was going to call the assembly, they're going to have a transformative effect on England and

Scotland, and even today in the assembly's product, the Westminster Standards,

they're still a blessing today guiding churches all over the world.

Marshall says that this present parliament is to all things be rightly established

both in church.

And so what was the chief method then of praising God in these moments?

Remember, this was a Thanksgiving sermon.

What was the method?

Thoroughgoing reformation throughout the land.

Marshall stood before the leaders of his day unabashedly, unashamedly, said, you have a

job to do to make Christ

the church's heart.

Where it is missing, where can we shape it?

Where can we present it?

Where can we celebrate it?

Oh, that God would do such a work.

So when I think about his words like that, that resonates in my heart as a preacher.

It resonates in my heart as a Christian wishing and longing for a day to

be elevated.

And so this is what he's arguing for, a thoroughgoing reformation throughout the land.

He said any goal short of that would be a demonstration of ingratitude.

Again, the ingratitude concept.

What's the opposite of Thanksgiving?

Ingratitude.

If God does something, we have to praise him.

If we don't praise him, we're ungrateful.

If we're ungrateful, we will miss and these things will be taken.

And so this ingratitude for the mercies which God needs

to be put in order.

And so what does that include?

Well, that includes the polity of the church.

Marshall was seeing the abuse of that.

Although he wasn't initially, from what I can tell, someone who said that Presbyterianism is the

cat's meow, that's it, nothing else.

There is the reality that what was going on through the Episcopal Church there and then was severe

overreach.

It became influential.

His work before Parliament in preaching was influential.

His writing, and we haven't even touched some of his other writing.

He wrote on infant baptism.

He wrote against Geronimo Episcopalianism with the work of other men and they used a pseudonym

called Smectineus, which is very difficult to say.

And he had many other sermons presented before Parliament.

Not all of them are published.

But here, he said very simply that the Reformation in view involved polity,

involved Parliament, it involved pulpits, it involved the people, and

it was to be published throughout the land.

The temple of the Lord or the church was in shambles, but only Christ can fix her.

And that was his hope.

Praise God.

I can see why.

And we have Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina, very faithful listener to this program and

also a very generous...

He says, Greetings, brothers.

While researching Stephen Marshall, did you find any other little -known men

of his era that we should know about?

Not yet.

All the men who stood out were big hitters.

So when Stephen Marshall...

It's a great question.

Because you begin to pull at the thread and see who's involved.

In terms of preachers, not yet.

So when he first preached before Parliament on November 17, 1640, he did it with Cornelius Burgess, who

was another member of the Westminster Assembly.

And then when he got to preach again, he worked alongside Jeremiah Burroughs, which is just fascinating.

If you're familiar with The Banner of Truth, they have so many Jeremiah Burroughs works available.

And they're certainly worth reading.

And well

-known characters, and learn more about them.

So specifically, Jeremiah Burroughs, the very same day Marshall delivers the sermon that

I've been going on and on about, he gave his own Thanksgiving sermon before Parliament, calling for praise

exactly as Marshall had.

He said that praise had to be offered, but had done.

That God's mercy alone had been taken up anew in England by their hands and that it was up

for grabs.

And now they needed to do something about it, something that honored the Lord.

And his optimism, which I think is different than Marshall, it's always important to see those little differences.

His optimism comes across in this way.

He says on that very same day to these same men, let not therefore our joy this day be darkened,

or checked with such kind of thoughts or expressions of the work is not yet done.

What is done, but may be undone again.

The child is not yet born.

It may be stifled in birth, but his hopefulness comes forward when he says that which has begun will

certainly go on.

God has begun a work that he will never leave till he has brought it.

Hallelujah.

By the way, I have to really endorse another

book since you mentioned Jeremiah Burroughs.

I can remember as a young Christian, my pastor at the

time, Mike Gaydosh, strongly urging me to read The Rare Jewel of Christian

Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs, which is published by Banner of Truth,

and it had a profound impact on my thinking, my life, my heart,

and I strongly urge you to purchase this, and I would recommend or request that you get it from

CVBBS .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com, since they sponsor

this program.

We're going to our final break.

It's going to be a lot more brief than the other breaks.

If you have a question for Angelo Valley before we run out of time, send it in immediately.

Don't go away.

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Welcome back.

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I would like you to have a few minutes of uninterrupted time to summarize

what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today about this important event

in history featuring Stephen Marshall.

We can draw when we consider Stephen Marshall's

is that this calls

when we give ourselves and

there's no appreciation

in his son Jesus Christ.

We want to recognize his mercies and his love and his

generic providence

as an individual.

Demonstrate my gratitude.

How can I as a father or a husband or if you're a wife or a mother or a son or a daughter or

grandparent wherever you were founded a single married wherever.

How can I frame my circle in a way that honors Christ and then beyond that

in the spheres of influence where God has placed me.

How can I demonstrate gratitude for what he's done with my coworkers or with my

distant relatives or with other people in the community with whom I regularly encounter.

How can I display gratitude for the work of Christ and his mercy where he's placed me.

I think once we begin to assess ourselves under those broader questions that Marshall is taking up in his day and

applying to his unique particular context we find that it's as timeless as the necessity of loving God.

Praise God.

We have an anonymous listener and he says I wonder

if you share with Marshall his burden to purify the church

from the remnants of Romish heresy.

One of the things that saddens me greatly in this day and age and I have heard the host of Iron

Sharpens Iron Radio Chris Arnzen state this as well is that far too many churches

who claim to believe in the historical gospel of the reformation which we believe to be

the reformation of I'm sorry which we believe to be the gospel of the scripture

are compromising on the very gospel in order to be more ecumenical with Roman

Catholics.

I just for the life of me cannot understand how we think that is loving when we are

helping people to remain in their deception and believing in a damning and

false gospel no less damning than the gospel of the Judaizers that the Apostle

Paul said was no gospel at all.

What are your thoughts on this?

I'm not sympathetic with Rome my background.

When my

grandmother died I wanted to do

the funeral and I said

I can't do that in good conscience because we're preaching two very different messages to

do the service but just an immediate practical example of what I

can say.

We can't.

We can't pretend in the niceties.

We deceive ourselves we deceive their congregation we deceive the community.

We need to stand firmly and accept where the chips lie.

People don't like us and that's not the most important.

They don't want to be hated but even more than that we want to be faithful.

Amen.

I have a long time very good friend who is a Roman Catholic journalist and he

always gets upset when I point out to him that the gospel of

Rome the official dogmatized gospel of Rome at Trent which is still

their gospel today no matter how the liberal Pope may have made people think it's

different or whatever.

He gets so hurt and offended when I say it's a false gospel it's a damning gospel.

And I cannot call you my brother even though I love him as a friend and even though I think

that in an earthly sense he may have been and may be a far

superior individual than I am in regard to being

a better spouse to his wife than I was to my late wife to being a better

child to his parents a better father to his children.

Well I don't have any children but a better father to many evangelicals.

Children.

A better father than many evangelical parents a better citizen a better friend.

Those aren't the things that are going to get you to heaven.

It's being covered with the blood of Christ and having his righteousness

attributed to us and imputed to us.

But and I told him it is far better to hurt the

feelings of a temporary heart than to be

dismissive and have apathy over the never dying soul of a friend.

But we are out of time and I want to make sure that our listeners have your contact information.

Once again the website for the Christ Reformed Church of Alexandria Pennsylvania

is crcalexandria .org crcalexandria .org.

I want to thank you once again Pastor Angelo for doing such a superb job on the show.

I look forward to you returning as a guest.

I also look forward to seeing you again face to face at the Iron Trip and Zion Radio Free Pastors Luncheon on September 22nd.

I'm looking forward to it.

Amen.

Well thank you everybody who listened especially those who took the time to write.

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than

you are a sinner.