1689 London Baptist Confession Of Faith (part 2)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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April 30, 2017

00:00: Our Father in heaven, we thank you for your word, both written and living. Father, that you have preserved scripture for us, that you have granted us the blessing of knowing so much about you and keeping that revelation available to us against all the assaults, both of liberalism and just people who hate your word.
00:28: And Father, just against, even against time and all these other things that could have destroyed them, but you preserved them by your power and we thank you for that.
00:38: We thank you for the living word in whom we have every blessing and we're even seated in the heavenlies as it were, as Paul writes in the book of Ephesians.
00:48: Father, what great blessings you have granted your children. Father, we just pray that you bless our time as we look to the 1689 and we look to your word to see how we ought to use this.
00:59: In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well, I wanna start with this. This week,
01:07: I belong to an email list with retired deputy sheriffs and somebody died this week.
01:14: Now that's not unusual, they send these things out. I mean, we're retired, we're old. Thank you, thank you very much.
01:20: I mean, some people are a lot older than me. This guy was 95. So that caught my attention. He's 95 years old and he died.
01:27: He was married for 70 years and his wife had just preceded him in death and then he died.
01:35: And so I was looking at that and then I saw that he lived in Missouri and that the services were gonna be held there in Missouri at a church.
01:44: Church had kind of an unusual name. And so as I mentioned in this email, I went to their Facebook page and I looked up their statement of belief and whatnot.
01:53: So listen to this. This is from their, now the names have been excised to protect the guilty.
02:02: My co -pastor and wife, cause she's the co -pastor of the church, and I want to welcome you and your family to Destiny Church.
02:12: Our hope is that you feel welcomed, loved and accepted. I believe people today are not looking for a religion, but a relationship with God.
02:22: A relationship that brings hope and peace to you and your family. We invite you to join us in a discovery process that helps us grow in our relationship with God and each other together.
02:34: Let's discover our God -given destiny. Now what's wrong with that?
02:43: What does the church teach? What does the church believe? Yes. We have a destiny.
02:54: We have a destiny. It's apparently, and well, it doesn't say that we're supposed to, oh yeah, we're gonna discover our
02:59: God -given destiny. Very good. Yeah, it is God -given. But I mean, there's nothing there.
03:05: And I mentioned last week this whole idea that has become popular that Christianity is not a religion, but it's a relationship.
03:14: Well, what does it mean if it's a relationship? What exactly does that mean? And the answer is it doesn't mean very much.
03:21: Everybody has a relationship with God, right? But it's interesting if you listen to that carefully at all, there was one word that was missing.
03:33: I mean, there were a lot of words that were missing, but one that sort of struck me was Jesus. Not mentioned anywhere in there.
03:42: Now, for a Christian church, that seems somewhat lacking.
03:48: Anyway, all I have to say that it's just like, we talked about it last week and here it was, a perfect example of exactly the same thing, that Christianity is a way of life or it's a relationship, but it's not a religion.
04:02: And that's where we left off last week. But I had, well, I'll read this. Here's where we left off last week.
04:09: Isn't it both? In other words, if Christianity has no content other than a relationship with Jesus, and here you don't even have a relationship with Jesus, you have a relationship with God.
04:19: And what's the problem with a relationship with God as opposed to a relationship with Jesus? Yeah, I mean, it's so nebulous.
04:29: This is like something Oprah could go to and be perfectly happy. Hey, we all have a relationship with God.
04:34: Let's discover our destiny together. Ooh, okay.
04:41: How can anyone communicate the gospel based on this, right? This is a gospel -less church.
04:50: And how do you learn more about the Christian faith? Well, apparently you don't. You just discover your God -given destiny. Okay, so trivia question.
05:00: Since you all are experts, oh, I left my copy of the 1689 in the office. That's a shame. Since you all are experts on the 1689
05:09: London Baptist Confession of Faith, who can tell me when it was written? Just a hand, go ahead and volunteer.
05:23: What was that? 1680? That's wrong. Wrong. Anybody else?
05:33: See, I told you you were gonna learn something today. Anybody else dare?
05:44: Everybody laughing, and then nobody wants to be so bold when they find out it's not written in 1689. 1677, 1677, and I thought this was so cool.
05:56: Now, obviously, you're not gonna know this. For 12 years, it went unpublished.
06:04: Here's why, because it was illegal to publish it. And in 1689,
06:12: England, the English Parliament, passed, and the crown, was it a king or a queen?
06:18: I think it was a queen, signed into law the Act of Tolerance, the
06:27: Act of Tolerance, Act of Toleration, and it gave freedom to worship to other than people who belonged to the
06:38: Church of England, okay? If you were an Anglican, you could do your Anglican stuff, but if you were a
06:43: Baptist, there were a lot of restrictions on you, including the fact that you couldn't publish anything like a
06:49: Statement of Faith. Well, yeah, you can bring it up here. You couldn't publish anything like a
06:58: Statement of Faith. So in 1689, this passes the Act of Toleration. But here's what
07:05: I found funny about the, yeah, the Act of Toleration. Here it is. If I didn't, if my wife hadn't gotten it,
07:12: I, okay. Yeah, here it is.
07:18: It's a beautiful thing. Okay, has both the Confession of Faith and the
07:23: Baptist Catechism in there. Okay, after this passed, these groups did, still did not have freedom to practice their religion.
07:40: They were, anybody wanna guess? Catholics is correct.
07:46: That'd be the biggest group. And I'm like, why don't we have a law like that in the
07:51: United States? Anybody else? Any other guesses? Well, the
07:59: Jews would be correct. They would be able to be, and you'll understand when I get to this here in a second.
08:06: Others? What? Puritans. Eh, no,
08:12: I think they were okay. Here's the list. Catholics, non -Trinitarians, so that would include
08:20: Jews, and atheists. I don't know why the atheists were listed, but there they were, you know.
08:30: Atheists are not permitted to practice freedom of religion. Okay. I don't know what, where the big penalty is in that.
08:42: Waldron writes, talking about confessions. He says, confessions are a lawful means of the church discharging its task as the pillar and ground of the truth.
08:57: Where would we see that phrase, the pillar and ground of the truth? Robert?
09:04: First Timothy, that's right. So, if the church is to be the pillar and ground of the truth, it must have some kind of concept of what the truth is.
09:15: That's his point, and they are a lawful means, meaning there's nothing unlawful about them. Now, he gives three uses of confessions, three uses of confessions.
09:29: First of all, a confession is a useful means for the public affirmation of and defense of the truth.
09:39: It's a useful means for the public affirmation and defense of the truth. In other words, when we put out, put this on our website, the
09:47: Confession of Faith, we're saying that this is what we believe, okay?
09:53: And it's also a defense of the truth. Well, how is it a defense of the truth? How is a confession a defense of the truth?
10:13: Some of you have read our confession. It's a confession of the truth, why?
10:19: Because it has what kind of supports in it?
10:26: Scripture. What do we use to defend what we say? How do we prove what we're saying is true?
10:35: By scientific or, I wanted to say architectural evidence. What's the word
10:41: I'm looking for? Archeological. See, I knew it wasn't architectural. That's why
10:47: I didn't want to say it, but I said it anyway. We can usher forth the archeological evidence.
10:54: We can usher forth scientific evidence. We can do all this kind of stuff, but ultimately, what is our proof?
10:59: Our proof is the word of God. Why? Why is that our foundational proof?
11:12: What's that? It's infallible, good. It can't be broken. It won't be proven wrong.
11:20: It's inspired. It's inspired. It is inspired. We're going to be talking more about that, but Waldron says the church is to hold fast the form of sound words, to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints,
11:35: Jude 3, and to stand fast with one spirit, with one soul, striving for the faith of the gospel.
11:41: In the fulfillment of this task, a confession is a useful tool for discriminating truth from error and for presenting in a small compass, in a small form, the central doctrines of the
11:53: Bible in their integrity and due proportions. And that's what the confession is. When you read through it, you're not going to go, oh, this is a,
12:01: I mean, does this look like a systematic theology? No, I mean, if y 'all have seen systematic theology, they run hundreds of pages, and this is not like that.
12:11: In fact, the confession of faith, once you take out the appendix on baptisms and the introduction,
12:23: I think we're talking about maybe, well, less than 50 pages, and this is like, you know, the typical modern typeset with lots of space in between the lines.
12:35: So we're talking, you know, maybe 30 pages if we printed it out, half pages, so 15 pages altogether.
12:43: It's pretty small, and it's just short statements with a bunch of scripture references.
12:49: That's what a confession of faith is. Waldron goes on to say that a confession of faith is a public definition to those outside of our congregations of the central issues of our faith, a testimony to the world of the faith which we hold in distinction from others.
13:09: Listen, ultimately, here's what he's saying. He's saying it's the gospel, it's the basic principles.
13:15: It's not every picayune, every small little doctrine, but these are the big things that we believe in.
13:27: So this morning, we're gonna be talking about scripture eventually. Scripture and our use of it, our belief in it, that's a big doctrine, okay, because it undergirds everything else we do.
13:39: You know, so if we're talking about the nature of Christ, well, that would be another major doctrine. What we're not gonna spend a lot of time talking about and this confession doesn't is eschatology.
13:50: It doesn't spend a lot of time talking about what true repentance looks like.
13:56: It doesn't talk about a lot of things that we might think are fairly important or are important because they don't define our faith.
14:09: So his first reason for using confessions, it's a useful means for the public affirmation and defense of the truth.
14:15: The second one is a confession serves notice how he uses this word public.
14:20: It's important that it's available to the public. It serves as a public standard of fellowship and discipline.
14:30: He says, the Bible envisages the local church, not as a union of those who have agreed to differ, but as a body marked by peace and unity, okay?
14:42: So our statement of faith, our confession, says what we're for and it says what we're against.
14:50: So when you join the church and you read the confession of faith, you know what we stand for and you know what we stand against.
14:58: And it's interesting as we go through this, you'll see that some of the things, can you imagine in 1689, what some of the arguments are aimed at?
15:15: The Pope, Catholicism, why? Because they're just coming out of the
15:20: Reformation and they wanna make it clear, right? This is what we're for and this is what we're against.
15:25: And what we're against is the Roman Catholic system. What we're against is salvation by works.
15:32: What we're against is papal authority. What we're against is tradition above scripture. That's what we're against.
15:41: So these are good things. And I think it's really helpful in a place like New England to say, this is what we're for and this is what we're against because there's a much of Namby Pambyism out there, if I can trademark that, thank you.
15:56: Let's look at Philippians 1 .27. He says,
16:04: Waldron says, a confession serves as a public standard of fellowship and discipline. Let's read just a couple of passages,
16:11: Philippians 1 .27 and then we're gonna read chapter two verses one and two. Who has 1 .27,
16:18: Philippians 1 .27. Okay, now when Paul writes that to the church at Philippi, what does that make you think that he is encouraging them to do?
16:27: To be united, to be unified, right? I mean, just think what it says there.
16:34: One mind striving side by side, right? This is what it means, to be united. And he gives the purpose for which they're to be united, for the faith of the gospel.
16:47: They're to be united in a gospel purpose, to be united, to have one mind. Look at Philippians 2, verses one and two.
16:56: This is gonna just say the same thing in a different way, kind of. Philippians 2, verses one and two, who has that?
17:05: Go ahead, Larry. It's one of those Honda verses, right? Being in a full accord. One mind, having the same mindset, the same thinking, the same belief system, right?
17:19: That's why we have a confession of faith. So everybody can say, okay, this is what we believe.
17:26: We subscribe to that as a way of describing that. We subscribe to the 1689.
17:32: So everybody understands that we agree with the 1689 confession of faith.
17:39: Waldron goes on to say, and he quotes Jesus. He says,
17:45: Jesus said that what every house divided against itself cannot stand. Therefore, we don't wanna be divided.
17:51: We don't wanna have a bunch of little factions. If you recall, when Paul's writing the church at Corinth, and he says, some say they're of Apollos, and some say they're of Paul, and some say of, and they all have these different little groups that they're following.
18:05: We ought not to be like that. And here's what he writes, and I think this is very clever. He says, and at first you might go,
18:13: I don't know if I really like this, but hang on. Can Calvinists, Arminians, Pelagians, and Unitarians pray, labor, fellowship, and worship together peacefully and profitably while each maintains and promotes his own notions of the truth?
18:29: Now, it may be that we have some Arminians among us, okay? So, and that's okay.
18:38: But I dare say, if you're a Pelagian, a full -on Pelagian, who can define what Pelagianism is?
18:46: Yes, Barry. You know, for a minute,
18:53: I thought you said we don't believe. Okay, all right, I'm just checking. Pelagians don't believe that original sin, the sin of Adam and Eve when they fell, is really passed on in any kind of meaningful way.
19:09: In other words, there are no consequences to the progeny of Adam and Eve. It just, you know, this is,
19:17: I mean, it's Mormonism. Mormons are Pelagians. But there's no impact from Adam and Eve to all their descendants.
19:26: Each person is responsible for themselves. So there's no sin nature.
19:33: That's a problem, right? Unitarians, who can tell me what a
19:39: Unitarian is? Yes. Okay, they deny the
19:46: Trinity, and they say that only God the Father is God. So, his question, then again, is, you know, if you are a
19:55: Calvinist, you believe that God's sovereign in salvation, et cetera, et cetera. If you're an Arminian, you believe in a cooperative effort between God and man to some extent to varying degrees.
20:06: If you're a Pelagian, that's solo bootstrapsa. That's, you know, you use your own free will, and you, you know, decide, and you believe, and good for you.
20:17: And God's just lucky to have you, basically. Unitarians, you know, deny two persons of the
20:23: Trinity. So he says, can Calvinists, Arminians, Pelagians, Unitarians pray, labor, fellowship, and worship together peacefully and profitably while each maintains and promotes his own notions of the truth?
20:34: Now, it's pretty obvious, right? If you have some people who believe in the Trinity in the church, and some people who don't believe in the
20:40: Trinity, you have some people who believe in original sin, and others who don't believe in original sin. You know, you put all these things together, and you go, is this a church?
20:51: Then he goes on to say, can those who believe in verbal and plenary, or plenary, it is plenary, inspiration, share the pulpit with those who deny that doctrine?
21:05: Okay, what does it mean, that verbal and plenary? It always sounds wrong, no matter how
21:10: I say it. Plenary, thank you. Plenary. Inspiration, share the pulpit with those who deny that doctrine.
21:19: Well, that means that every single word, in part and in whole of scripture, is breathed out by God.
21:25: And if you don't believe that, then can you get up in the pulpit, and then you say, well, the
21:32: Bible says this, but that's not really right. That would be difficult to listen to.
21:42: He says, to require a church to exercise discipline against doctrinal error without a public confession of faith, without a published confession of faith, is required to make the church, that is to say, bricks without straw.
21:55: In other words, commend them to do something, and not give them the means to do it. How do you say, well, that's not right?
22:02: You can't teach that when you don't have any standard to hold up against it. I mean, you could say, well, we have the word of God, but if you start debating the minutia of Greek or Hebrew, then you're really fighting a losing battle.
22:17: He says, a church without a confession of faith may as well advertise, and this is the quote I sent out yesterday. Last night,
22:23: I thought it was terrific. A church without a confession of faith may as well advertise that it is prepared to be a harbor for every kind of damning heresy, and to be the soil for any who are given to growing the crop of novelty, meaning we're open to anything.
22:40: Anybody who wants to teach anything is welcome at this church. Do we have churches like that? Churches like that, yes, we do.
22:49: All are welcome. I mean, you go by those UUU churches. How many U's are there anyway?
22:55: United Unitarians for Unity? Universalists, yes. And I mean, the more, the more
23:04: U's there are in the name, the more problem there is gonna be. As soon as I hear United in the title,
23:10: I'm like, okay. United is there for a reason. And the reason usually is, there was some kind of fracture in the church, or there were two different churches, and then they united.
23:20: And so there's always a story behind that. Some of the stories are not so great. Okay, all that to say that a 1689 confession of faith, or any confession of faith, says this is what we're for, this is what we're against.
23:33: And it stops kind of a doctrinal divide, or it helps stop a doctrinal divide, because we have a standard.
23:43: Then he says something, and I'm gonna break it down from what he said. Because you listen to some of this, and you start feeling like every person sitting here, every person in the pew in the church, has to have like a
23:58: PhD in theology. Everybody has to know everything. You know, if you can't define plenary inspiration, did
24:06: I get it right that time? You know, that somehow you can't be a member of the church, and that's wrong.
24:14: He says the object of articles of faith is to keep at a distance, not those who are weak in the faith, that is to say those who don't have an encyclopedia worth of knowledge about theology, not those who are weak in the faith, but such as are its avowed enemies.
24:34: In other words, he's saying, look, we don't want, we're not trying to, by having a confession of faith, we're not trying to keep out everybody who can't say, you know what,
24:41: I understand every bit of this, and I can recite it from memory. That's not the point.
24:46: The point is to keep those who are actually opposed to this confession of faith out of our membership.
24:58: Okay, so that's the second reason for having a confession of faith or a creed is to have it as a public standard of fellowship and discipline.
25:10: The third reason he gives is it serves as a concise standard by which to evaluate ministers of the word, a concise standard by which to evaluate ministers of the word.
25:26: In other words, to measure the faithfulness of what he has learned.
25:31: Let's look at 2 Timothy 2 .2. And I think at one point, maybe when
25:38: Mike had been here either 10 or 15 years, one or the other, we gave him this verse to remind him of what he needed to do.
25:49: No, you know, just as a little memento of the occasion.
25:57: 2 Timothy 2 .2, who has it? Go ahead, Becky. Things we trust these faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
26:10: Okay, thank you. So what's the picture there? 2 Timothy 2 .2,
26:16: what is Paul instructing Timothy to do? If you could summarize it.
26:23: Teach others, right? What you have received, hand off to the next generation and don't get the feedback.
26:34: The idea is passing the baton, right? Don't drop the ball. Don't be the guy who fails to faithfully pass on the truth that you have received from others.
26:48: Don't be an innovator. Don't come up with novel things, but don't drop the ball.
26:56: There's nothing worse, right? You're watching a football game and they run some kind of triple reverse and you think, oh, this is really gonna work.
27:01: And somebody drops the ball and it's laying on the ground. That's a disaster. Well, it's the same principle here, only it's a little bit more important than a ball game.
27:15: And you see this happen in some churches where one guy wants to be the guy who has all the responsibilities, doesn't want anybody else to do anything.
27:26: So when something happens to that man, then what happens? The other men of the church are not ready to go. I mean, if Pastor Mike is off for a couple of months, this church doesn't fall apart.
27:37: If Pastor Mike is gone and I'm gone, the church doesn't fall apart. Why? Because Mike, over the years, by the grace of God, has enabled and taught other men how to do what he does to some extent.
27:50: To some extent. I mean, nobody's
27:55: Mike, so let's be serious. But there's the point. We pass these things along. We pass the truth along so that others can do it.
28:05: It is not, oh, you know, this, he says in the book, he goes, it's not enough to just simply say, you know, to a new pastor, a new elder or whatever, do you believe the 1689?
28:19: Yes. Okay, good enough. Just sign here and you're good to go. You have to listen to him. You have to evaluate them.
28:26: He says, it's not enough to just simply say that, have a man who says,
28:32: I believe the Bible. And as I was thinking about it, I just thought we should probably do this on some
28:38: Sunday night or something. There's a documentary called Losing My Religion. You ever heard of this?
28:44: Some of you probably have. I think it's called Losing My Religion because they play the REM song in the background, you know, and it's got the helicopter thing kind of sweep it in.
28:53: And it's on the Louisville campus of Southern Seminary. And the whole movie is made from the perspective of the people who were on the faculty and were in the student body when
29:06: Al Mohler was elected to be the president of the seminary. And they're all appalled and mad that Al Mohler's coming in.
29:15: Well, why? Why were they upset? Because after all, they ascribed to the
29:21: Southern Baptist Confession of Faith, whatever it's called, it doesn't matter, we're not in the
29:27: Southern Baptist. They all subscribed to this. So why did
29:33: Al Mohler have to come in and just mess everything up? Well, what was going on there? Anybody know?
29:46: They'd signed it and they didn't believe it. And there was all manner of sin, a bunch of things that I'm not even gonna mention.
29:51: Suffice it to say, well, I'll give you maybe the worst case. There was a female professor there who later it turned out was in a lesbian relationship.
30:00: But there was all manner of sin going on at this campus. And what wasn't happening was this, receiving the truth and passing it on.
30:12: A bunch of people were being turned out of that seminary who didn't believe the Bible. And so God brings in a man like Al Mohler to straighten things out and he did.
30:23: I think he got rid of all the faculty except for like two or something like that. And so there were a lot of people, if you watch this movie, there are a lot of people who aren't happy with Al Mohler.
30:33: And the whole time, you're listening to him and just going, okay, we're watching from Satan's perspective.
30:41: What a terrible thing it is that God took back the seminary. And while I'm on that subject, I had a professor in seminary who said, you know what?
30:49: Liberals, and he meant by liberals, he meant people who don't believe the Bible, not political liberals.
30:57: He says, liberals never built a seminary, never, not one time in history.
31:03: He goes, they steal them. And that's the truth, right? That's what they did at Louisville.
31:09: And that's why it's amazing that through Al Mohler, the Lord took it back because it just doesn't happen.
31:16: What was Harvard when it opened? What was Yale when it opened?
31:24: These places were founded, I mean, even USC was a Methodist school of instruction, and what happens to all these places?
31:34: Eventually, they get taken over by liberals. Fuller Seminary, everybody knows that Fuller is just a liberal,
31:41: Looneyville seminary. Did you know it was founded by, and I'll forget his first name, the number one radio show guy of his day, and he was a fundamentalist.
31:55: His name was Fuller, obviously, and he was a serious fundamentalist.
32:01: The Bible is it, and we wouldn't have agreed with him because he was
32:07: Arminian and all that, but he believed in the Bible, and he believed in scripture. And here's what happened is he sent his son,
32:14: I believe his son's name was Daniel, because he wanted his son, his son was super bright, and wanted his son to be on the faculty.
32:20: And so he sent his son to the University of Edinburgh to get what's called a terminal degree, a
32:27: PhD, so they could come back and be on the faculty. And it was terminal to his faith because he came back not believing in scripture.
32:37: And that whole, just sending him there and having him come back and be on the faculty started the whole chain of events within,
32:44: I think it was within 10 years, the whole faculty had gone liberal. So they went from being a fundamentalist school to a liberal school.
32:52: And it's this whole thing of, you have to receive the truth, the once for all delivered faith, and then pass it on.
33:01: When that doesn't happen, disaster strikes. In fact, he writes in this book, he says, one cannot overestimate, you know, usually we say underestimate, one cannot overestimate the damage done to churches by carelessness in placing men in theological chairs, he's talking about seminaries, and giving them the opportunity to shape the malleable minds and souls of young ministerial candidates.
33:28: When you put liberals in charge of seminaries, and then you send your young men that you're training for ministry to sit under their teaching, disaster is going to strike, not just in that seminary, but in the churches where these men go to.
33:48: Machen, J. Gresham Machen said, the historic creeds, talking about why we use them, the historic creeds were exclusive of error, meaning they wanted to keep error outside of the camp, they were intended to exclude error.
34:13: They were intended to set forth the biblical teaching in sharp contrast with what was opposed to the biblical teaching, in order that the purity of the church might be preserved.
34:23: It's a tool for doing that. These modern statements, on the contrary, are inclusive of error.
34:30: They're designed to make room in the church for just as many people, and for just as many types of thought as possible.
34:39: And I get back to that Destiny Church. That place is just a, I mean, that is, if you don't receive the truth, right, and you're not passing the truth on, then what are you doing?
34:53: Whatever you'd like. And so you're gonna see all manner of heresy arise from a place that doesn't practice sound doctrine, that doesn't pass that on.
35:08: Okay, so now we finally get to chapter one. Okay, chapter one, talking about of holy scriptures, of the holy scriptures.
35:17: Chapter one of the 1689. Waldron notes about it, this is,
35:23: I moved it up to the beginning of this. He says, throughout these studies in the Confession, throughout all the various chapters, we will need to repeatedly remind ourselves that its assertions were forged in the fire of historical controversies.
35:39: This is particularly true with chapter one. He says, each of its seven major assertions contradict a corresponding
35:47: Roman Catholic dogma. Further, in two instances at least, the radical
35:53: Anabaptist claims to direct revelation and the gift of prophecy are denied.
36:00: Its thoughtful and earnest responses to the errors it confronted in its day enlighten basic issues of the faith to this day.
36:07: Now, what is an Anabaptist? Because I realize we're not all church historians, Barry.
36:13: Radical reformation. Believers, baptism. Okay, believers, baptism. Okay, and I believe it means,
36:21: Anabaptist means to be baptized again. So most everybody was baptized as an infant and the
36:27: Anabaptist said, well, wait a minute. It's believe and be baptized, so you need to be baptized as a believer.
36:33: And so they were rebaptizing people, thus the name Anabaptist. But many of them had some really extra biblical practices, namely, and he says them right there, they would say things like,
36:48: God told me, or I've received a revelation, right? So this 1689 teaches against that and they would also claim to have the gift of prophecy.
37:04: And I'm like, these are issues that we still deal with in the church today, where people say that they have direct revelation or that they have the gift of prophecy.
37:13: So when we get to those points, it'll be helpful. Okay, so number one, chapter one.
37:22: I'm gonna read the entire chapter. Well, bit by bit, first part of it.
37:29: The Holy Scripture is the only, you could just underline that, the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge.
37:43: Now I'm gonna comma there, but I'm gonna read it again. Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.
37:54: Although the light of nature and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God as to leave men inexcusable, yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and his will, which is necessary unto salvation.
38:11: Now I'm gonna stop right there. When you hear that, what verses do you think about? What's that?
38:27: Romans 1? We'll stumble and fumble and rumble. If you said
38:34: Romans 1, 18 and 20, Will, that'd be correct. Very good,
38:41: Will. Ha ha. Would somebody read Romans 1, 18 and 20?
38:47: And as we read it, just think about what we've just said here. Romans 1, 18 and 20.
38:55: Who has that? Go ahead, Carmen. 18 through 20. That's what we call, or what do we call that?
39:04: Not Romans 1, 18 through 20, but go ahead, Cory. General revelation, right?
39:10: We look at creation. We look at the order of things, and we're able to perceive some things about God, namely his power.
39:19: You know, it must be a powerful God who created all these things. And the more science learns about the solar system and the galaxy and the universe and all that stuff, and all that stuff, it becomes more impressive.
39:32: Not just that God created everything in a word, but that he sustains things, that there's order, you know, that we don't see, you know, just absolute chaos out there.
39:42: As I like to say, you know, as long as man has been able to observe things, we've always had dogs having dogs and cats having cats and not dogs having cats and cats having dogs, right?
39:55: Their progeny look just like them. Well, why is that? Because we don't live in a chaotic universe.
40:00: We live in a universe of order. It's reflective of God. And all, you know, all the general revelation, all the things that we can, you know, the beauty or whatever, all these things we can then ascribe to God.
40:16: But what this confession of faith says is that general revelation does what?
40:24: Just as it says in Romans 1, it just leaves all men without excuse. They have no excuse for not worshiping the
40:31: God of salvation. They have no excuse for not worshiping him, and yet they don't worship him.
40:36: And it goes on in Romans 1 to talk about how they do not worship him. Though they knew
40:41: God, they didn't worship him. They, you know, they wind up worshiping what? The creation rather than the creator.
40:51: So continuing on there. Therefore, it pleased the
40:56: Lord at sundry times and in diverse manners to reveal himself and to declare that his will unto his church, or and to declare that his will unto his church,
41:10: I don't know what, and afterward for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against, excuse me, against the corruption of the flesh and the malice of Satan and of the world to commit the same holy unto writing, which maketh the holy scriptures to be most necessary.
41:34: Those former ways of God's revealing his will unto his people now being ceased.
41:46: Now, when you hear that, the former ways of communicating to his people now being ceased, what do you think of?
41:53: Hebrews 1, Hebrews 1 .1, right? This is how God used to speak to his people and now he has spoken to us through his son.
42:07: There's a force field right here. Since he doesn't communicate to us the same way that he used to, it was necessary to have the scriptures, to have the word of God inscripturated, to have it written down so that we might have the means to look at it.
42:31: And what we're going to do next week is we're going to be talking about, we talked about general revelation.
42:39: Well, what do we call scripture? Special or specific revelation, right?
42:44: Because general revelation just tells us about God generally, and this is the knowledge that's available to everyone.
42:50: But special or specific revelation, the scriptures are alone able to do what?
42:59: What's that? Bring us to salvation. We can look at general revelation all we want and we're not going to come to a saving knowledge of Christ.
43:11: So we need scriptures and that's what we have to leave because some of us have other things to do here in a little bit.
43:19: But anyway, we'll pick it up here next week and we'll talk some more about scripture.
43:25: Let's pray. Father, we thank you for who you are, even as we just talk about general revelation and about how that alone is enough to put us in awe of you and to remind us as believers of your goodness, your kindness, your power.
43:46: And Father, we know that there are many around us, unbelievers who see those things, enjoy those things and ascribe them to something else and won't even give you the proper glory even for that.
44:01: So we thank you for that and we thank you for your presence. Lord, make us messengers of your specific revelation, of the words you've given us that really reveal more about you to us, that we might see many in the surrounding community, our friends and neighbors, family, come to Christ Jesus and be forgiven of their sins.