LBCF Chapter 26 explained

Today we get to chapter 26 and this is the last of the long chapters and it's probably one of the most important chapters for our purposes because it tells you what we believe that the

Scriptures say about the church okay and again since you're considering membership in the church this is one of the chapters that will really define you know what is expected of the members of the church okay after this one we may have one maybe two weeks left before we go through the the actual

Constitution and whatnot so the class is coming pretty much to a close because the last few chapters are very quick they're very brief this one again this is somewhat long

I think there's let's see there's 15 15 paragraphs

I do to this one so we'll start right at the beginning let's see if we can get through the whole the whole thing the

Catholic Universal Church with which with respect to the internal work of the

Spirit and truth of grace may be called invisible consists of the whole number of the elect that have been are or shall be gathered under one into one under Christ the head thereof and is the spouse the body the fullness of him that fillers fills all in the wall all right

I hope everybody here realizes that when we say Catholic what that really means is universal as opposed to Roman Catholic we don't believe in the

Roman Catholic Church but we do believe in the Catholic Church which is why you know that's what the Apostles Creed says that's why we haven't changed the word wording of the

Apostle Creed the Apostles Creed like some people have all right so always all this and simply means is this all the people of God all the elect whoever have been who are now and whoever will be up until the end of time that's consists of the

Universal Church all right so when we talk about the Catholic Church that's what we're talking about everybody who has been will be saved from beginning of time till the end of time and that's the

Bride of Christ and which is called the fullness of him any questions on that that's pretty basic but it just defines it's good that it defines our terms right from the very beginning okay so we move to paragraph two all right all persons throughout the world professing the faith of the gospel and obedience unto

God by Christ according to it not destroying their own profession by any errors everything averting the foundation or unholiness of conversation are and may be called visible saints and such what all particular congregations to be constituted okay what that's simply saying is even though we're part of the

Universal Church the scripture teaches that we should join a visible church that is a local congregation such as this and even though we we call ourselves

Hope Reform Baptist Church we recognize that we're just one part of the larger

Universal Church and every church so called that holds to the doctrines of Scripture we are part of that there are places that call themselves churches which are in fact not really churches just because it has a name church on it doesn't mean that it is truly a church okay if the doctrine is so contrary to Scripture it's not it cannot be considered a church any questions on that pretty pretty self -explanatory all right and again one of the this is one of the things that we have to make judgments on there are churches out and I say churches called they call themselves churches and by the things that they teach we can't consider them and we would have no fellowship with them all right there are churches in our own area that profess

Christ and we may in fact consider them to be true churches but yet their doctrine is so far from what we believe the scripture teaches that it's very difficult we don't disfellowship them but we don't there's a lot of things that we can't do together with them but there's a difference between the church that we disagree with and a church that is not in fact a church yes like obviously any of the cults

I don't care what they call themselves like like the Mormons call themselves the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints no as far as we're concerned they're not the church they're not the bride of Christ because their doctrine is so abhorrent to scripture that that we can't consider them that on the other hand if you take some of the

Pentecostal churches specifically the assemblies of God we believe that they are true believers all right even though some of their doctrine is abhorrent to us all right but nonetheless we would not we would not disfellowship you know the whole assemblies of God okay paragraph 3 the purest churches under heaven are subject to mixture and error some have so degenerated as to become no churches of Christ but synagogues of Satan nevertheless

Christ always hath has had and ever shall have a kingdom in this world to the end thereof of such as believe in him and make profession of his name that's kind of what we were talking about just before obviously that phrase synagogue of Satan comes right from Revelation the book of the book of the

Revelation when Jesus says that you know some of some of these churches have not in fact been churches but call some synagogues of Satan nevertheless

Christ has and ever shall have a kingdom in this world all right that everybody remember

Harold Campin going back a few years you know and all of a sudden saying that you know there is no longer any church all right this part of the confession absolutely refutes what camping had said and obviously the fact that he's gone and the church is still here shows kind of the error of his ways all right all right so and that's exactly what we believe now notice this is this is not an eschatological statement in the sense of well let me put it it's not a millennial statement it's just an eschatological eschatological statement stating that there will be the kingdom of God there will be a church right through to the end of time all right anybody who would believe differently from that would we would you know separate our fellowship from okay purest churches under heaven subject to mixture and error that happens in a couple of different ways that's what we're talking about we'll take our

Presbyterian and our Dutch Reformed brothers and sisters we're probably the closest in doctrine to to Presbyterians and to our

Dutch Reformed Netherlands Reformed but we have some major differences but we consider them obviously to be brothers and sisters in Christ because their profession of faith is genuine and the errors even though that we consider them to be serious are not enough for even to disfellowship them in fact we've in you there there is some we're in fact we're looking to get

Gary Damar who is a Presbyterian all right we're looking to get him to come here and do a conference for us okay that's how closely we view you know some of some of our

Presbyterian friends so there's mixture in error there's also mixture in that not everybody who's in the church the the visible church is necessarily a true believer while we try to guard the church as best we can we can't see into the hearts of people and so some people make profession of faith who may in fact not be case in point take

Joshua Harris all right we've talked about him from the pulpit there's a guy who very well if circumstances had worked we very well may have had him speak here if it had worked out

I mean that's how convinced we were of his profession and now he is saying he's not a Christian so that can happen okay all right paragraph for the

Lord Jesus Christ is ahead of the church in whom by the appointment of the Father all power for the calling institution order of government of the church is invested in the supreme and sovereign manner neither can the

Pope of Rome in any sense behead thereof but it's that Antichrist that man of sin the son of perdition that exalts himself in the church against Christ and all that is called

God whom the Lord shall destroy with the brightness of his coming okay this is one of those interesting paragraphs we don't necessarily hold to this paragraph exactly as it is written this is one of those paragraphs that you have to take it for when it was written in the 1600s when the churches were being persecuted by the

Pope people were still being put to death and and various other things and so they viewed the

Pope as being the Antichrist yes that's what they would say all right that Antichrist that man of sin that's and son of perdition all right we don't hold that position and it's acceptable not to hold the position okay would we say that the

Pope is an Antichrist yes anything that mitigates against Christ is

Antichrist all right but we would not hold to this and nor would we expect anybody else to hold to that position does that make sense does everybody understand why this would be in there an

Antichrist is someone who sets themselves up comes and in the scripture there's one person who would be described as the

Antichrist but the scripture also says that there are many Antichrists any in fact the scripture defines somebody's

Antichrist who says that Jesus didn't come in the flesh now the Pope doesn't do that but he has so many other doctrines that are contrary to Christ that that's why we say that so anybody who says that Christ is not both

God and man is considered to be Antichrist Satan is the supreme

Antichrist everything that Christ stands for Satan stands for the opposite anti means against okay so so that's what that's where the phrase comes from it is a biblical term all right and unfortunately the the anton the name

Antichrist and the beast and the false prophet that are mentioned in Revelation all right have been confused because of modern -day prophecy pundits who completely misunderstand the book of the

Revelation the beast and the Antichrist are not equated in fact the term Antichrist never appears in the book of the

Revelation all right so so we need to be careful and and I don't want to get into all of that now because that would just take as far afield

I want to focus on the church all right the the main thing that we want to learn here is the only person who is the head of the church is

Christ Christ is the head of the church and we'll get into why do we have elders and deacons in just a few minutes that's in a different paragraph okay all right paragraph 5 in the execution of this power with he so entrusted the

Lord she entrusted the Lord Jesus calls out of the world unto himself through the ministry of his word by his spirit those that are given unto him by his father that they may walk before him in all the ways of obedience which he prescribes to them in his word thus those called he commands to walk together in particular societies or churches for their mutual edification and the due performance of the public worship which he requires of them in the world basically what this paragraph is saying is that if you're a believer you should belong to a local congregation we can call them churches or whatever you want to call it but we are part of the universal church but we should also be part of a local church and one of the ways you see that is in the

Bible more often than not probably more than half the time when the

Bible uses the word church it's talking about a local congregation for example Paul writes to the church in Ephesus to the church in Philippi it's not writing to the to the universal church he's writing to local congregations so therefore we have biblical warrant to call ourselves a church as a local congregation as long as we don't misunderstand that we're not unique to ourselves as the church but we're part of the universal church okay and again there are reasons for this for mutual edification the performance of public worship and and anything else that were required by the scriptures to do in this world okay questions no okay paragraph six the members of these churches are saints by calling visibly manifesting and evidence in in and by their profession and walking through obedience unto the call of Christ and to willingly consent to walk together according to the appointment of Christ giving up themselves to the

Lord and to one another by the will of God in profess objection to the ordinances of the gospel all right basically that's just saying that when we gather together as a church and we commit to one another that we start looking out for one another more than ourselves it's one of the things you hear me pray for every single

Sunday all right that we would love the Lord our God with all our heart and that we would love each other more than ourselves that's what it's saying because that's one of the evidences of the church just as Christ laid down his life for the church we are to we are to lay down our lives for one another and to make sure that that all our needs are met that's why we have a benevolent fund that we collect because if somebody in the church has needs the church has to be there to to help and support them and so that we truly become part of a community a community of believers not just meeting

Sunday only but being there throughout the week for whatever needs there are okay questions on that that's again pretty simple okay paragraph 7 to each of these churches thus gathered according to his mind declared in his word he has given all that power and authority which is in any way needful for their carrying on that order in worship and discipline which he has instituted for them to observe with commands and rules for the do and right exerting and executing of that power but let me just pause for a minute on this one one of the things that we've seen especially in our postmodern society today here in America is people don't look at the church as having any kind of authority okay we recognize that families have authority you know we and we recognize that the government has authority but it's amazing how many people don't recognize that the church has authority part of that is because of the poor teaching of the church some churches will tell you they have no authority they don't practice discipline okay they don't mandate anything all right they don't correct if somebody is has gone gone astray

I had a situation when I was the headmaster of the Christian school where a family that went to a particular church which

I won't mention didn't pay their bill and we kept writing letters to them they ignored phone calls they wouldn't return phone calls and so finally

I called up the pastor of the church they attended and I said listen we just want to square this away if they have financial problems we'll we'll work with them and everything else well we just you know they're just not responding to us as you know and the pastor returned to me says well that's none of my affair

I said but during your congregation and they're neglecting their testimony is being harmed and they're being dishonest and he says

I'm sorry that our church will never get involved in that I said but don't you realize that you need to do it for their benefit

I said we're willing to write it off I only have to do is talk to us you wouldn't even do that and that's the shame that family is developing sinful habit patterns and the church is sitting there and doing absolutely nothing that's the shame okay that's basically the essence of this paragraph is that the church has certain authority but it's limited authority remember there's three covenant institutions that the

Bible Bible recognizes the state the church and the family each are covenant institutions okay and each has their own sphere of influence for example the church can never put somebody to death when we excommunicate somebody we don't kill them okay we have no right to and where the church did it in the past the church was wrong and in violation of Scripture the government on the other hand the

Scripture gives the power of the sword and they have the right to put people to death families don't have the right gift your child misbehaved you can't kill them and I feel like that sometimes but but you can't kill all right all right so the problem comes in when one or the other of these covenant institutions fails to live up to its expectations or usurps something from the others what's happening in our society in our society the government is usurping church's responsibility and you just usurping family responsibility the government is coming in and telling us you know you have to have your child inoculated doing all kinds of other things telling us what we must do with our children all right and that's wrong all right they're there as a safeguard in other words if you do abuse your child the government has the right to step in that's biblical okay but not in in normal discipline okay

I paragraph eight a particular church gathering completely organized the court well that's a misstatement right there

I don't know any church that is completely organized sorry I couldn't

I couldn't resist a particular church gathered and completely organized according to the mind of Christ consists of officers and members and the officers appointed by Christ to be chosen and set apart by the church so called and gathered for the peculiar administration of ordinances and execution of power or duty which he entrusts with them or calls them to be continued to the end of the world are bishops or elders and deacons all right notice two church offices two only it doesn't matter if you call him bishop or elder just depend that's just a question of how you translate the the original language and deacons that's why the only officers you'll have you see in this church are elders and deacons okay no such thing as cardinals and archbishops and etc and a bishop and an elder is the same thing you could no well well you shouldn't father is not a designation that you want to use but but Bishop is definitely a biblical designation the various offices of the pastor pastor shepherd bishop elder are used interchangeably in scripture and the only reason for the difference is that highlights a certain aspect of his ministry all right a pastor is a shepherd all right but as an elder he's a counselor you know as a bishop he's an overseer all right so each of the words has a specific connotation to it but it's all referring to the same office it doesn't in fact the only time that I use the title

Reverend all right is when I sign an official document for the state because the state recognized the term

Reverend is rightly used for only ministers who have been ordained all right once you're ordained you're set apart kind of it's almost like it's being set apart like sanctified thing you set aside and they call you

Reverend I don't particularly care for it but it signifies to state officials that you are in fact a legitimate minister of the gospel okay so but I prefer and that's why in any church correspondence that you see

I always sign it as pastor because I think that's the most biblical title but if I sign a you when

I marry people officiate at their wedding and I have to sign the wedding like the marriage license I sign it

Reverend because that lets these the state officials know that I was in fact ordained now unfortunately today a lot of people just assume the title and they use it and they've never been ordained but that's the society we live in okay paragraph 9 the way appointed by Christ for the calling of any person fitted and gifted by the

Holy Spirit unto the office of bishop or elder in the church is that he be chosen unto by the comrade suffrage of the church itself solemnly set apart by fasting and prayer with imposition of hands of the eldership of the church if there be any before constituted therein and of a deacon that he may be chosen by like suffrage and set apart by prayer and the like imposition of hands okay we follow this when here if you notice we have a procedure in fact this excuse me this month all the membership of Hope will be getting a letter of listing all the male members who are in good standing and you have to examine them to see if there is anybody who is qualified for the office of elder or deacon and then there's a procedure that we go through and I'll go through that when we get to the

Constitution but we do by this we do set them apart by fasting and prayer

I I don't think we emphasize enough that the congregation should be fasting as well in fact that's something that I'll correct but the elders and the deacons we do well even when when

I baptize somebody I encourage the person who is being baptized to fast all right and I as well fast for a couple of meals beforehand all right to stay in line with this but the idea is that elders and deacons are recognized by the congregation it's our desire here that all of our office bearers come from within the congregation it's it's it's legitimate to call a pastor from outside the church but it's just so much better if you can do it from within because you know how many times have you ever seen a pastor's called in from outside and he's not really what you thought he was it happens a lot in churches that's do you know what the average stay for a pastor is yeah it's about five years and that's why because you know pastor comes in nobody knows him you do your best you can and everything else and next thing you know it's not really what you thought you raise somebody up from within the congregation you know all about him there's no secrets no surprises you know and so that's why even you'll see in our

Constitution we do everything we can to foster raising them that's why I have a mentoring group

I have a mentoring group where I'm teaching not only teaching theology but teaching pastoral ministry

I teach them how to preach how to find sermon illustrations we do all of these to how to do research that's what we're doing that's why we have a mentoring ministry to try to raise up young people in the church to take over the positions and that's something that we have to think seriously that I just turned 74 how much longer am

I going to be able to do this I have no intention of retiring but I mean seriously

I mean how I have no idea how long I can continue to do this right now I feel fine

I mean I feel like I could go on forever but we know that's not gonna happen all right I know some sometimes people think

I preach forever but that's the end of that okay so this is just basically showing that what we're doing is according to our confession which we believe is the scripture and that we call out you know and set aside people by prayer fasting and then we lay on hands and you has everybody been here when we've put when we've dedicated a deacon or an elder so you know that we've called him up the rest of the office bears lay hands on him pray for them etc that's that's just in line with this part of the confession paragraph 10 the work of pastors being constantly to attend the service of church in his churches in the ministry of the word and prayer and watching for their souls as they must give an account to him it is incumbent on the churches to whom they minister not only to give them all to respect but also to communicate to them of all their good things according to their ability so as they may have a car and by the express order of our

Lord Jesus Christ who has ordained that they preach the gospel should live of the gospel okay basically that's just saying you got to pay your pastor a decent wage that's really what it says and we are not opposed to pastors have you know having part -time elders and whatnot but the best situation is if the congregation takes care of you know takes care of the pastor that's all that simply means and I can say this without hesitation this congregation ever since I was called as the past has always done whatever they could to take care of me

I have no complaints whatsoever okay paragraph 11 although it be incumbent on the bishops or pastors of the church to be instant in preaching the word by way of office yet the work of preaching the word is not so peculiarly confined to them but that others also gifted and fitted by the

Holy Spirit for it and approved and called by the church may and ought to perform it basically this is just saying that we can have gifted men in the church who are not specifically elders all right we can have them preach and that's why you've noticed

I do give periodically some of the men of the church opportunity to preach and again there's a lot of reasons for that this is one reason most of them have been elders or deacons but we're not not relegated to that because we do have some men who are very gifted in both preaching and teaching who for one reason or another are not office bearers and it may not want to be an office bearer okay but yet we can utilize their services and we'll continue to do that this is very uniquely

Baptist Presbyterians you won't find that Presbyterians if you're not an ordained

Presbyterian minister mode there's a lot of Presbyterian churches that would not have me preach even though I'm honored

I'm unordained because I'm not a Presbyterian ordained minister but that's kind of unique to them because I've preached in in Dutch Reformed churches

I preached in all kinds of different churches but I don't think I've ever preached in a Presbyterian so I actually preached in an

Assemblies of God once well

I had

Al Stein preach for me here once Al Stein was an Assemblies of God preacher but he was

Calvinist yep oh yeah he's a good man and again

I had him preach because we were very good friends and he would he understood he would never go near any of the those things but he but he's very strong Calvinist he's deceased now he's yeah he was actually the area representative yep as all believers are bound to join themselves to particular churches when and where they have opportunity so to do so all that are admitted unto the privilege of the church are also under the centuries in government throughout according to the rule of Christ okay it's an importance everybody who's looking for membership pay close attention to what

I'm going to say now what you're doing here if you're going to become a member of the church you're submitting yourself to the governance of the church and any discipline that the church would handle out and out this is especially for young people who are going to be baptized become members of the church what you're saying once a young person is baptized into membership in the church they not only are accountable to their parents but they are also accountable to the elders of the church so if we have a child who's been baptized as a member and they start to go astray obviously the first and it comes to the to the attention of the elders obviously the first thing we would do is we go to the parents okay but if the child refuses to listen to the parents and the elders they they too are subject to church discipline doesn't matter how old they are if they're baptized or members of the church okay so I just highlight that because I just want to make sure that everybody understands that and parents in particular now again it's not up to the elders to supersede or to conflict with the role of the parents in raising their children but if the child is rebellious and not paying attention to the to the parents then the elders can step in and exercise church discipline let me give an example suppose suppose we know what child is behaving in an ungodly way let's say stealing or something like that and it came to our attention

I wouldn't go directly to the child if the child's a minor I would go to the parents first and let the parents deal with it okay but if it doesn't stop or the child doesn't listen to the parents then we would have to step in and exercise church discipline but we in this church very strongly recommend the you know and support the position of the parents having first priority over the children not the church okay does that make sense but kids just want to make sure you're aware that not only gonna if you get baptized not only you have parents watching over you now you got elders watching over you too okay no church members upon any offense taken by them having performed their duty required of them towards the person that they offended and ought to disturb any church order or absent themselves from the assemblies of the church or administration of any ordinances upon the account of such offense at any of their fellow members but to wait upon Christ in the further proceeding of the church this is a crucial one what happens when there's a dispute between two families or two people in the church somebody gets mad they walk away this confession says you can't do that that's contrary you there's the

Bible gives the Bible gives procedures for how to deal with conflicts within the church okay you see this a lot especially if somebody comes at odds with the pastors okay what do they do they stop coming to church and that is just absolutely contrary to keeping order in the church is there's a way there's always a way to to handle it what it let's say let's say that the offense is with the pastors and you can't resolve it okay that's what paragraph 14 comes in as each church and all the members of it are bound to pray continually for the good and prosperity of all the

Church of Christ in all places and upon occasions of further everyone within the bounds of place and calling and the exercise of the gifts and graces so churches when planted by the providence of God so as they may enjoy opportunity and advantage for it ought to hold communion themselves for their peace increase of love and mutual edification this means you can join an association of churches and then those that in that association you can assist a church that is having a particular problem okay in fact let me go right to 15 because I think it expands on it if I remember correctly here it is yes in case of difficulties or differences either in point of doctrine or administration wherein either the churches in general are concerned or any one church in their peace and union and edification or any member or members of any church are injured in or by any proceedings and centuries not agreeable to truth and order it is according to the mind of Christ that many churches holding community together do by their messengers meet to consider and give their advice in or about the matter in deference difference to be reported to all the church is concerned how be it these messengers assembled are not entrusted with any church power properly so called or with any jurisdiction over the churches themselves to exercise any censures either over any churches or persons or to impose their determination on the churches or officers what this means is let's say let's say we have a problem in our church and usually if it would be something that let's say it's a problem with the elders okay and it can't be resolved we can go to other like -minded churches and call them to have messengers sent and to sit down and in an arboretum arbitration or a mediation panel okay so in other words if you have an offense with the elders you have you always have recourse you can go to another like -minded church like for here for example and this has happened in the past here on Long Island where grace reform

Baptist Church who is also a 1689 church let's say you came into agreement and let's let's say just for the sake of argument that discipline was was meted out upon you and you think it's unfair you could go to the other church and say listen we

I need some help here can you help me out and then they they would be able to come here and we can try to work things out so in other words yeah there's there's a way you know what that avoids heavy -handed eldership sometimes the elders can my word is it's my way or the highway you know it's not the way it should be all right a lot of you notice the wisdom in this confession all right and this is this is in fact the last the last paragraph this is these and these last three paragraphs are the ones that was that allows us to have associations such as ARCA such as reform