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We'll begin.
Father, I thank you for this day.
I thank you that almost 500 years ago you sparked a fire which would become a flame which would burn through the entire world.
And Lord, we call that the Protestant Reformation.
And we are here today in a church which is independent of Roman authority because of that event.
And we're thankful for that.
And I pray, Lord, that in the short time that we have, I'll get to express some of the blessings that are associated with that event and why we ought to be thankful that men like Martin Luther and others were so willing to take stands for truth.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Tomorrow is October 31st, 2016, which marks the 499th anniversary of the day that Martin Luther took the 95 theses and nailed them to the castle church at Wittenberg's door, thus igniting the fire which would become the Protestant Reformation.
Now there is some debate historically as to whether or not that event actually occurred.
There are some who believe that Martin Luther didn't necessarily nail them to the door, but that he sent them out via mail to the different governing bodies to read them.
And some people see the whole nailing of the door issue as being quite a bold move.
He's going to take his theological premises and he's going to pound them to the door as if somebody went today and just pounded their lectern and shouted out.
But even if he did nail it to the door, that wasn't an uncommon way to begin theological debate of the time.
It wasn't as necessarily as bold as some might make it from somewhat of an anachronistic historical...
The only electronic message board.
Yeah, it was their version of email or whatever.
It's how they put things out in the public square, was to go and to put it up for people to read.
So whether it was nailed or mailed, I don't believe that Luther ever had the intention of creating the stirrer that he did and thus creating the division that he did.
But God had the plan and Luther was just the man.
God was the one who had the idea of what he intended to do through Martin Luther.
And Martin Luther was a broken vessel.
I've said many times, Luther is my hero, but Luther is certainly a person who had his share of issues.
Theologically, he was in error in several places.
Personally, he had a mouth that would get him in trouble today for sure.
He was not politically correct.
One of his things that he would speak out against his enemies and call them all sorts of names.
And that was par for the day.
So it's not as if Martin Luther is coming out on a white chariot with wings of gold and a halo of silver to be this saintly figure.
He was a failed man as am I.
But to me, he's a hero because he was willing to stand essentially against the world.
And he, like the men that preceded him, Jan Hus and John Wycliffe, and even before them, the Waldensians and the Polysians and the others, who had been standing against Rome for many, many, many centuries.
He stands as one of those men in history to look back upon and say, here's a guy who God used and is still using in a sense today.
So what I want to talk about, and I know we've been doing another study in our book, but we are going to take a break just for today because it is Reformation Sunday.
And we're going to look at the events which led up to the Protestant Reformation.
Oftentimes we start in 1517.
We start at the nailing of the thesis, as it were.
But really, the Reformation began as a result, in a very real sense, as a result of the events which occurred in what are called the Middle Ages.
The Middle Ages.
Now, keep in mind that all of history is seen through the lens of the now.
Because every day, today becomes history and tomorrow becomes today.
And we're always looking at history from now.
Think about how many of you weren't alive when 9-11 happened? Everybody here was alive? Okay, I was just checking.
The 9-11 happened in 2001.
Cody, you were one year old.
When 9-11, huh? 11 months old.
You weren't even a year old, so you don't remember the event.
But what I'm trying to get around to is, for those of us who were there, we can imagine being there.
We remember what it was that day.
It was a real event in real life.
We saw it in real time on television and everybody around the world watched as those two buildings fell.
Cody wasn't there.
Now, he was there, but mentally he wasn't there.
He was 11 months old.
He was still trying to figure out, you know, just what are these? Yeah, these fingers on the ends of these phalanges.
What are these things, you know? And so, Cody doesn't have as real an understanding of it as we do.
From Cody, it's a historical event.
And he can see it on television, which makes it a little more real because you can see the event.
But the historical...
Do you remember where you were when it happened? I was three.
Yeah, you don't remember it either, really.
And that's my point, is none of us were there, right? But when we look at the Middle Ages, you say, well, why do we call it the Middle Ages? Because we measure everything by ourselves.
And if you think of Christ as the beginning of modern history, we call it A.D.
What does A.D.
stand for? Anno Domini.
It's in the year of our Lord, right? And we all base everything on Christ.
Even the people who don't believe in Christ, it's still 2016.
You know they've changed that, right? It's no longer A.D., now it's C.E.
If you look at modern dating methods, if you go to a museum or whatever, it's C.E.
Common Era.
And then there's B.C.E.
Before the Common Era.
There used to be B.C.
Before Christ and Anno Domini in the year of our Lord.
Now it's B.C.E.
Before the Common Era and C.E.
the Common Era because the secularists have won the day in the field of science and history and art, and they have made their inroads in so many ways, and that's one of the ways they've done it.
But the reason why, again, I'm telling you all this, it's called the Middle Ages is because if you consider the time of Christ and the time of today, because you measure everything by the now, we call this the Middle Ages because it's the time that was between 600 and 1600.
Around 600 is when we begin to see a decline in the ecumenical nature of the church.
You know, the first couple centuries of the church, there were the councils, the Council of Nicaea and others.
We call those ecumenical councils, which means a gathering of the entire body.
The entire body comes together for these councils, and you have Nicaea and others.
But by 600, we start to see a division in those.
By 1058, there's huge division.
All right, well, I have to look that again.
It might be 1056, but it's the time when the Eastern Church, the Orthodox Church split from the Western Roman Church.
So that would be in the 1000s.
That's the true middle, if you will, all the way to 1517, which is Martin Luther's sparking of the Protestant Reformation.
So when we talk about the Middle Ages, we're talking about the middle from the time we are to the time where Christ is.
What happened in the middle, right? Now, a thousand years from now, the world is still here, and the Lord so tarries, we might not call it the Middle Ages anymore, because at that point, it'll be the first third.
But that's why it's called that.
This is where it lands, historically, from where we are and where it is.
So it's the Middle Ages.
So we're going to look primarily at what happened during this period in time.
During this period of time, we see three major things happening.
If you want to write these down, if you want to take notes, it's fine.
If you don't, that's fine too.
I'm not going to make any one, but I'm going to give them to you, and I'll write them up on the board.
So just in case we don't get to everything today, you'll at least have the broad outline.
From the period of the 600s to the 1600s, we have the rise in Roman Catholic power.
The rise in Roman Catholic power.
We have the spread of Islam during those periods.
We have the rise in Roman Catholic power, and we have the spread of Islam, and there is a third one here I want to mention as well.
We have the lights, and I'll just put a star for that one.
The lights in the darkness.
Because there are people who will say, well, there was a time when there was only a Roman Catholic church, but there have always been dissidents.
There have always been reformers.
Even in the Middle Ages, there were men who stood against Rome.
So don't think for a minute that while Rome had the power, that Rome only had the gospel.
The gospel was out among men, and we're going to talk about those.
So the rise in Roman Catholic power, the spread of Islam, and the lights in the darkness are the things that I like to point out because these are really what give rise to the Protestant Reformation.
Let's look first at the rise in Roman Catholic theology.
There have been false teachings which have attempted to invade the church from its inception.
However, none of those have been so pervasive and destructive as the exaltation of one individual, and that individual's name is the Pope.
The first time the title Pope was given was to Boniface III by Emperor Phocas in AD 607.
You will hear Roman Catholics say that the papacy goes all the way back to Peter, but the first time the title is used is in 607.
The word Pope comes from the Latin word Papa, the Greek word Papas, and it is a child's word to describe a father.
Oftentimes, we'll still use that word today.
We'll call our father Papa.
That term Papa eventually became the Pope.
He is the father of the Roman Catholic system of theology.
The Bishop of Rome is considered to be the universal father of the church.
There are other titles which he has been given, all of which demonstrate various degrees of blasphemy.
One of the titles that the Pope is given is the Vicar of Christ.
Anyone know what the word vicar means? Yes, absolutely.
Vicar is vicarious.
You've heard that word vicarious means to stand in place of.
So vicarious or vicar of Christ means that the Pope stands in the place of Christ in the world.
Interestingly enough, that title is given to a person in scripture and it's not the Pope.
Who is the vicar of Christ, the true vicar of Christ according to scripture? Antichrist.
No, I'm thinking in a positive.
Holy Spirit.
Yes.
You're thinking of the false vicar, the one who stands in place, but the Holy Spirit, Jesus said, I will pray the Father and he will give you another comforter.
That word alas in the Greek means another like me.
He will come and be like me.
The Holy Spirit lives within us to be what Christ is within us, what he was in the world when he was outside of us, when he was here living as a man.
He is now in us in the person of the Holy Spirit.
So the Holy Spirit is the vicar of Christ, not the Pope.
The second he is called is Pontifex Maximus, which sounds like a really, it's almost like they were looking for a devilish name.
It's like they were looking for something that just sounded ominous.
Pontifex Maximus sounds like a wrestler.
You think about WWE and coming down the line is Pontifex Maximus.
It just sounds crazy.
Yeah, yeah, from the Pontifex Maximus.
This title has a long history which goes back to the College of Pontiffs in ancient Rome.
Pontiff means bridge builder and Pontifex Maximus is the greatest bridge builder.
This is one of, this is not one of the Pope's official titles, but it's used on buildings, coins, and monuments to the Pope and it can be associated with the term high priest, a title of which of course Christ alone carries, as he is the one who makes the bridge between man and God, not the Pope.
So, along with the term father, he is called Holy Father, he's called vicar of Christ, and he's called Pontifex Maximus.
He is, in a sense, robbing the Trinity of the titles which belong to deity alone.
The father is the only father and yet he calls himself father.
The son is the true bridge builder and yet he calls himself the bridge builder.
And the Holy Spirit is the vicar and he calls himself the vicar.
He truly is a man of ill humility and there are people who will say, oh don't you just love the new Pope? How humble a man is he? There is no man in the world who is truly humble who will allow another man to bow before him.
The Pope allows not only people to bow and to kiss and to kiss his feet and to put, you know, all kinds of accolades in his direction.
What happened when a person bowed to Peter, who they say is the first Pope? Stand up, I'm a man like you.
The Pope does not sit in the seat of Peter, neither does he bear his authority, for if he did, he would also bear his behavior.
So we have this position of power which rises up, you know, in the early part of the Middle Ages.
This man of authority rises up in the early part of the Middle Ages.
And there is in this authority, in this power, a lot of, I'm looking for the word, it's not conspiracy, but it's crookedness, but I can't think of it.
No, in government when there's corruption, thank you, I couldn't for the life of me come up with the word.
There becomes a lot of corruption and out of that grows many, many false teachings.
I'm going to just give you a few.
These are still believed by Rome today, some of them vehemently defended by Rome today.
I'm going to give you the time estimated of when these beliefs began to rise.
Prayers to Mary, the saints, and to angels, which again, in scripture, unbiblical to pray to an angel or to Mary or to anyone else, would have been around the same time as the first call of the Pope by name around the 600s.
The worship of the cross, images and relics, which would later become so amazing that they would put them on display and people would come and bow before them, kiss them, pray to them.
This was all in 87, 86 was the time that began.
The use of holy water by the priest, 8850.
Praying of the rosary around 1090.
Sale of indulgences around 1190.
The doctrine of transubstantiation in 1215.
Transubstantiation is the one that I think really is, for me, the ultimate proof that Rome is far afield theologically.
Given the opportunity to speak to a Roman Catholic, very rarely do I issue a debate regarding their position with Mary or their veneration of the saints or their use of relics or things like that.
Normally, I will go right to the issue of transubstantiation because there are people who believe, even in Protestantism, that the bread and the cup literally become the body and blood of Christ.
That is not the issue.
But the issue in Roman Catholicism is not what we call real presence versus what we would take as the memorial view or a spiritual presence view.
But the position with Roman Catholicism is that when the Eucharist, which is the bread and the cup, when the Eucharist is occurring, when this mass is happening, that Christ himself is being represented as a sacrifice again on the altar for the sacrifice of sins, that the priest is performing.
That's why he's called a priest, not a pastor and elder.
He's called a priest because he is performing again the sacrifice of Christ.
I want to read to you from the book, Faith of Millions.
Some of you have heard me read this before, but I find it to be the most damning of quotes.
It's one not repudiated by Roman Catholics who know their theology because this is in line with what they teach.
This is by Father O'Brien.
This is what he says happens during the mass.
Listen closely because this is terribly, terribly important.
When the priest pronounces the tremendous words of consecration, he reaches up into heaven, brings Christ down from his throne, and places him upon our altar to be offered up again as the victim for the sins of man.
It is a greater power than that of monarch or emperor.
It is greater than that of saints and angels, greater than that of seraphim and cherubim.
Indeed, it is greater even than the power of the Virgin Mary.
While the Virgin Mary was the human agency by which Christ became incarnate a single time, the priest brings Christ down from heaven and renders him present on our altar as the eternal victim for the sins of man, not once but a thousand times.
The priest speaks to and lo Christ, the eternal omnipotent God, bows his head in humble obedience to the priest's command.
Of what sublime dignity is the office of the Christian priest who is thus privileged to act as ambassador and vice-regent of Christ on earth? He continues the assertion ministry of Christ.
He teaches the faithful with the authority of Christ.
He pardons the penitent sinner with the power of Christ.
He offers up again the same sacrifice of adoration and atonement which Christ offered on Calvary.
No wonder that the name which spiritual writers are especially fond of applies to the priest is that of alter Christus, for the priest is and should be another Christ." End quote.
There was more, yes, there are so many layers of blasphemy in that sentence, in that paragraph, and this is why I take such great issue with those who would simply say well Roman Catholicism is just another denomination of Christianity.
No, it has denied the gospel and it has set up a false system based on a false view of the atonement and a false leader.
It is as far afield as Mormonism in many ways.
The Faith of Millions by Father John O'Brien.
We had a, it's like a, have to do if you, if you accidentally break the wafer and it falls on the floor, oh my gosh, you know, I mean it's a big deal like can you sweep it or are you allowed to do this with, I mean, oh yeah, it's a, it's a, you'd think it was a joke but it's, it's very much a system of, of superstition.
And what did they do with the leftover? The wine is drank, is drunk by the priest, whatever's left, so as not to be dumped or poured out.
Yeah, yes dear.
When it comes to the accidental spilling of the wine back around the Middle Ages, that was such a concern for them that sometimes like they'd only give the common people the bread and then the priest would keep the wine themselves because like well it could get spilled.
Well there was a time, in fact, historically in Roman Catholic theology where, and it's really up until recent times, that the people would only receive the bread and they had a theological argument for that as well, not just for the spilling but just because of the position of the hierarchy of the priest over the people and so they would receive only the bread.
I wish I could say more about this but along with the the pope and the Roman Catholic authority and these false doctrines also came a lot of political power because when you have in your position of religious belief an all-powerful authority in the world, the man, the pope, and you live in a place of monarchs and kings, there's going to be a question as to who has authority over whom, you know, who is the more authoritative person and the king has the authority but only so far as his reign allows the pope has universal power over the soul and so often the pope had the power to, as it were, excommunicate the king and so the pope would exercise an authority greater than that even of the monarch and so yeah so you have the the division there in the creation of the Anglican church.
So like I said, there's a lot, there's Emperor Charlemagne and some things that happened with him in the 800s.
Charlemagne was a Frankish king who was crowned by Pope Leo III and didn't know what was going to happen.
He was there to receive communion and the pope produced a tiara or a crown from his robe and placed it on the king's head when he was taking communion or making him king and this was sort of what helped establish the rise of the Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, but the point in doing so was what the person who crowns the king is what? The person that has the authority to do so and so he's establishing by crowning the king his position of authority over him.
So there was a political motivation in it.
Like I said, there's so many things that we could consider in time that won't allow it, but I do want to very quickly jump to the issue of Islam because, and by the way I mentioned earlier about the divide with the Eastern Church, that was 1054.
1054 there was a divide between the Western Church and the Eastern Church and it was about authority.
Who has authority in the churches? When the Western Church is saying the pope has all authority and the Eastern Church is saying no, we have bishops and our bishops also carry the same weight of authority, there's going to be division there.
You either have all authority or you don't and so there was division and part of that was created as a result of the question of whether or not the son proceeded from the father alone or from the father and the son, I'm sorry, the Holy Spirit proceeded from the father or from the father and the son.
That was called the filioque clause.
The filioque clause is the question as to whether or not the spirit proceeds from the father only, that was what the Eastern Church took, or from the father and the son and this was a question of the Nicene Creed because it says that the spirit proceeded from the father and later they added the addition and the son and the question was whether or not they had the authority to add that addition to an ancient creed and of course the pope believes he has all authority so the Roman Church believed it could do it without any consensus among the other churches and without that consensus they created division and you might say well that's such a small thing whether or not the spirit proceeds from the father and the father or the son the issue is authority the issue is not the question of doctrine which is important but the issue is who has the right to make doctrine you've changed an ancient belief you've added to an ancient belief something that Christians have believed for 700 years well we have the authority we have the pope we have the magisterial authority of the church who are you to question us well we're going to make our way elsewhere and that's the division between east and west and I will admit this I've not done as extensive a study into Eastern Orthodoxy as I have in Roman Catholicism but Eastern Orthodoxy carries its own false teachings it has a lot of mysticism accompanying it which is itself an issue so very quickly let's move to the spread of Islam we don't have a lot of time but up until September 11th 2001 not many people in America cared much about the issue of Islam I mean we knew that over the Middle East there was a lot of fighting going on but there was a time in history where we as a country would have stood on the side of the Islamic people such as when they were fighting with Russia over the invasion of their land you remember this those who are old enough to remember this there was a time when we would have stood with the freedom what we would have called freedom fighters those who were fighting against the invasion from Russia but now having been attacked in the last 15 years since the attack in 2001 much has arisen about the dangers of Islam and it is Islam is itself not only a religious system but it's a political ideology and it does bear with it serious consequences for those who participate if you look at the lives of those who participate in Islam the women are treated certainly not only as second-class citizens but as almost chattel as owned by their husbands who are their owners they're not allowed to do many many things that you know women in America are allowed to do certainly not to walk around uncovered and we see those things happening and we see also in major or majority rather Islamic countries the danger of living and not being a Muslim people who are Christians who are forfeiting their lives having the the Arabic letter N painted on their homes because they follow the Nazarene that's what the N stands for and so they are then marked they begin with taxing them at different rates and causing them to have to pay more and then that becomes an indication of who they are being able to worship you know by higher taxation which have been and then gives birth to persecution and ultimately at times death people having to die for their faith but it all began in the 7th century with a man named Muhammad.