The English Reformation Part 1

And if you'd please open up your Bibles, or swipe, or click, whatever communicative device you have here this morning, to Romans chapter 1.

Before this all hit, with everything in our current situation with the coronavirus, way before this,

Pastor Jensen asked me to come and share this presentation on the English Reformation.

My son William and I, we had the blessing to be able to go on a G3 conference to learn about the

Reformation history in the United Kingdom. And so Pastor Jensen had asked me to come, oh, would you do a little presentation about the

Reformation. So I appreciate that privilege. But that's not the real reason why we're here today, to learn about the

English Reformation. Not just because your pastor asked for this, not just because I want you to see all the neat slides from my trip, no, there's much deeper reason why we need to understand this particular phase of history.

I first want to start out and say, why do we study church history at all? Why do we even bother studying it?

I'll sum that up real quickly by saying, one of the reasons we study church history is so that we can understand and believe and know

God's Word is true. Church history proves to us God's Word is true.

Now, I see some concerned faces out there. No, I have not backed down from the orthodox historical perspective that we can only know

God, we can only understand God, we can only be conformed to God, and we can only be converted to God through the specific revelation of Scripture.

I still hold to that position. I'm still a presuppositionalist. I believe that's the historical orthodox biblical view to have.

We cannot understand who God is, and Pastor Jensen made this very clear Wednesday night on your London Baptist Confession of Faith study.

He made it very clear. The Scriptures is the only way we can know and understand who God is.

And we can only understand life and what life is about only through God and how God has revealed himself in the

Scriptures. That's the orthodox historical truth and doctrine of the Christian church.

It's only through the specific revelation of Scripture that we can understand God, we can understand our lives.

It's the only way we can be converted to God. The only way we can learn about salvation, be reconciled through God, through his

Son Jesus Christ, is found only in the Scriptures and the clear revelation of the

Scriptures. So we can only be converted to God through what we find in the

Scriptures. And we can only be conformed to God. We can only become holy as he is holy.

We can only take on his righteousness through his Son Jesus Christ and be made righteous with him as it's revealed in the

Scriptures. The natural world around us, the general revelation of the world around us, cannot conform us to God, cannot convert us to God, cannot help us really truly understand the significance of who

God is and what he expects of us and how he has so wonderfully and lovingly reconciled us to us through his

Son Jesus Christ. We need the specific revelation of Scripture. I still hold to that.

But what does the specific revelation in Scripture teach us about the general revelation of creation and the natural evidences around us?

What the specific revelation of Scripture teaches us is that the general revelation, how God has made himself known, how

God has shown who he is and what he's about, he's done that clearly through creation.

That's what we read in Romans 1. We read that the invisible attributes of God are plainly seen in all that's been created.

Guess what? We're created. We're created human beings. We live out life.

We experience life. We've been experiencing life through at least 6 ,000 years of recorded history.

So the invisible attributes of God are plainly seen in history. And as Paul goes on in Romans 1, and he makes clear in Romans 1, that's what convicts all men.

The general revelation of how God has made himself known in all of creation, in all the natural evidences of this creation, it convicts men before God.

No, it can't convert them to God. It can't conform them to God. But it convicts them before God, because men know there's a

God, and that holds them accountable before God. So one of the reasons why we study church history is to hold all men accountable before God, and to point them to the specific revelation of Scripture.

So we need to have that proper priority and view and understanding of specific revelation and general revelation.

And we should use history as a tool to teach us, to make us grow in our faith and love and knowledge of God, to help us grow in our love and faith and knowledge of His Son, Jesus Christ, to know how to be truly converted to Him and truly conformed to Him.

It's an encouragement to us. It's a teaching tool. The specific revelation of Scripture teaches us where to learn from history.

We read in 1 Corinthians 10, there's Paul telling the Gentile believers there in the city of Corinth, saying, hey listen, you learn from those who went before you.

Learn from Israel. Learn from their old covenant relationship with Israel. Don't make the same mistakes they made.

Don't grumble and complain like they did in the wilderness. No, you trust in the Lord God. You can make the argument the entire epistle to the

Hebrews is once again pointing us to history and to learn from history. And the author of Hebrews, the author of Hebrews is clearly pointing people to say, hey listen, look at your history.

Look Jewish believers. Look to your history. And once again, the stern warning is there, the stern admonishment is there.

Don't fall back. Don't retreat. Don't grumble and complain.

Don't harden your hearts like Israel did out in the wilderness. No, enter His rest.

Enter His rest. Know that you have a greater covenant through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Know that you have more power available to you than the people of Israel did. This is all the more reason why you should be trusting

God and worshiping God. Because you have Christ. God has fulfilled

His covenant to us through His Son, Jesus Christ. We now have a greater new covenant relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ.

We have more power available to us. We have more means to us now to truly worship and serve

God. And then he goes on and he says, look, look to your history. Look to those men of faith who went before you.

Once again, I've referred to many times Hebrews 11, the hall of fame of faith.

And we see all these Old Testament figures. And how they believed in God. And they believed in God's salvation through the promise of Messiah.

How even though they never saw the advent of Christ, they were still trusting in Christ. And how much more so, believers, now that you have seen

Christ, now that you have experienced the advent of Christ, how much more so now should you be worshiping and following God?

So once again, don't harden your hearts unto God's rest through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Learn from the history of those who've gone before you. And so, yes, it sounds like first I'm saying here, oh, that should convict us and that should humble us.

Oh, yeah, it should. But this is the beauty of God's Word. This is the beauty of God's Work.

As much as God exhorts us and warns us and puts fear in us to trust

Him and obey Him, does He not also love us and encourage us and edify us and build us up?

That's the beauty of God's Word. It both exhorts and encourages. That's the beauty of God's Work.

It both exhorts and encourages us. History encourages us. And we see, wait a minute,

God for 6 ,000 years has been saving and sanctifying Himself of people through His Son, Jesus Christ.

That's been going on for 6 ,000 years. And you see what all these believers went through throughout their whole lives and all the experiences they went through?

And I'm not trying to be trite here or minimize what we're going through right now. But I also have to be direct here and say what we're going through in a country right now through our coronavirus.

Does not compare to any of the other historical tribulations God has put this world through.

War, famine, pestilence, disease, and sometimes all at once. But yet,

God still saves Himself of people, sanctifies Himself of people. And those people are still here today, and they're still worshiping

God and glorifying God? That should encourage us. The people who went through so many tribulations before us, and they're still faithful to God, and they still pressed on in their faith, and they still shared their faith from faith to faith.

They still shared the gospel with succeeding generations, and we're still here today as believers in Christ?

People, be encouraged by that. Be uplifted by that. As Pastor Jensen always loves to remind us, we're more than conquerors in Jesus Christ.

And it's not just Pastor Jensen saying that. That's our Lord and Savior saying that. Our Lord and Savior said, take heart.

Why? Because He overcame the world. And not only did He overcome the world,

He's also overcoming the world. We are victorious in the Lord Jesus Christ, and Christ has been proving that throughout all history.

Why do then we study about the Reformation in terms of church history? Because in all candor, it is probably the most significant event in church history since the day of Pentecost.

We've never seen such a tremendous outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit applying the gospel and the word of God in people's lives than we did in the

Reformation. So I do need to give you a little brief overview of church history here so that you understand the significance of the

Reformation. Don't worry, Pastor Jensen, we're going to do it very briefly. The first 500 years of the church,

I'll sum that up real quickly. The church was faithful.

The church was faithful. Why do I say that? They trusted in the word of God. They took

God's word to heart. They lived their lives by God's word. They believed in the salvation they had in Jesus Christ because of what was found in God's word.

They were sharing the gospel and the truth of God's word through the scriptures. When they had some issue in the church and they came together and they had a council and then they stated a confession afterwards, it was based on the scriptures.

The first 500 years, the church is faithful to God and to his son Jesus Christ by being true to the scriptures and trusting how

God has revealed himself to them through the scriptures. Sola Scriptura.

The 16th century Reformers didn't come up with the concept of Sola Scriptura. No, that's been with the church from the very beginning.

The apostles revealed that in the gospels. The apostles revealed that in the epistle. You need the word of God. You need the truth of the scriptures.

Church was faithful to that for the first 500 years for the most part. Then what happens in the 5th century?

What collapses in the 5th century? The Roman Empire. The Roman Empire for all intents and purposes in various shapes and forms and all sorts of upheavals and situations.

But for all intents and purposes, the Roman Empire was running the world socially, politically, economically.

And that collapsed in the 5th century. And the world went into chaos.

Went into chaos. Who's running the world? I used to work with a retired New York City detective.

This is going back 30 years now. It's hard to believe I've now been working in the practice of law for over a generation now, over 30 years.

When I first started, I worked with an old grizzled New York City detective who in his retirement years was now working for the

Nassau County District Attorney's Office. And at that time, if you remember what was going on in the early 90s, there was the commission case in New York City where all the heads of the

New York City organized crime families were all prosecuted and caused great disruption organized crime in New York City.

What was going on over in Eastern Europe? The Soviet Union collapsed.

Berlin Wall came down. The Soviet Union lost its control. The Soviet Union stopped being the

Soviet Union. And what happened? Europe broke out in war. The Balkans, Kosovo, et cetera.

The Chechen Rebellion against the Russian Federation. Central Europe broke out into violent war.

And this old grizzled New York City homicide detective, he said to me one day, he said, you know,

Dave, I think the world was a much safer place when the mob ran New York City and the

Soviet Union ran the Eastern Bloc. And that's what we're talking about at the collapse of the

Roman Empire. This world turned into chaos. It turned into what's known as what?

The Dark Ages. Now, let's be very careful with that. Because the secular historian would tell you that it was the

Dark Ages because man became so uncivilized and man became so barbaric.

The barbarians took over the civilized Romans. So the world became very uncivilized and very violent.

And of course, yes, oh, what? Guess what? There was war and famine, pestilence, disease, and the world just seemed to fall apart.

It was the Dark Ages because all these terrible things going on. We as Christian historians have a different view on the

Dark Ages. We say it was the Dark Ages for a much very different reason. We're saying it's the

Dark Ages because the world was not relying on the light of Jesus Christ.

And the truth of Jesus Christ sat on the light of his scriptures. That's why we say it was the

Dark Ages. Why? Remember now, I just mentioned the church is very faithful to the scriptures for the first 500 years of its existence.

When we now move into those next thousand years before we get to the Reformation, the church is no longer faithful to the scriptures.

Stop and think about that for a moment. The church moved away from the authority of scriptures.

The church was not presenting light into a darkened world. Saint Augustine first was trying to encourage the church.

When the Roman Empire collapsed, Augustine was trying to encourage the church because, yeah, there were all these Christians saying, hey, wait a minute.

We've gotten so used to Rome governing the world. Now that they're gone, what are we going to do now as Christians?

And Augustine wrote his famous treatise, The City of God. And he was trying to explain to the

Christians, hey, Christians, we're part of another city, a greater city, the city of God, the new

Jerusalem through his son Jesus Christ. We're in his kingdom. We're under his reign and rule.

We don't have to fear what goes on in the world. We're a holy nation. We're a royal priesthood.

Christ is our king. He reigns from on high. Doesn't matter what's going on in our world circumstances.

We're citizens of God's kingdom, of his city, the new Jerusalem. And so he was trying to encourage the

Christians at this time at the collapse of the Roman Empire. But that's not what played out in the church, sadly.

It's true. People during that time started to draw more toward the church.

The Bishop of Rome, when the city of Rome was sacked for the second time, who stood up to the plate?

It was the Bishop of Rome who started governing the city. It was the

Bishop of Rome said, hey, OK, we got to take care of this social program. We got to stop this famine. We got to stop this disease.

We got to start doing this and this. The Bishop of Rome started governing the city. And the people were drawn to that. And we can make the army.

That was a good thing. But that's where it began. The church started to be the government for the rest of the world.

Now, be careful what I'm saying here. Understand what I'm saying here. Let's look at everything very carefully here.

The church did start to influence the world. And in one sense, that's good.

In one sense, that's good that the church saw the needs of the culture and the society, and they went to meet those needs.

I think we as Christians to this day still have some role and responsibility in looking out for our neighbors and helping provide ministry to them and care for them.

But what happened in the Roman church and the church influence throughout the world, what happened was as it got more involved with the world, it became more like the world.

And the world started to influence the church more than the church started to influence the world.

And instead of upholding the scriptures and the truth of the gospel, the church started taking on pagan philosophy and ideology and a pagan worldview.

It became more like the world. Once again, be very careful to understand what

I'm saying here today. Let's go to the authority of scriptures. What does the scriptures teach us about the church's role and relationship to the world?

Let's go to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Let's go to his great high priestly prayer.

Before Christ is crucified and raised up and ascends on high, he prays for his church because he loves his church.

And what does he acknowledge before God? He says before God, don't take them out of this world.

I'm sorry if I have any pre -trib dispensational rapturous brethren here today, I love you, you're my brothers in Christ, but we're here for the duration.

Because Christ said don't take them out of this world. So we're here, we're here in this world.

And Christ goes on and says they're in the world, but they're not of the world.

So yes, we're meant to be here in this world. And Christ commanded us to be what? Salt and light in this world.

We're to show the light of who Christ is in his glory. We're to preserve the truth of his glory and his truth in this world.

We are to let our light so shine before men. We are in this world and we're here in this world to glorify

Christ and make his truth and his righteousness known. What? As we find in the scriptures. So when

Christ is praying, what does he pray for? Because he's acknowledging this is an issue.

This is an issue for Christians to be in the world. This is an issue for Christians to be an influence in the world.

But he acknowledges a need for the church. And he asked God the father, he says to him, please keep them.

Please, please protect them and guard their hearts and their minds and their wills while they're in the world.

Don't take them out of the world. Use them in the world. But father, please protect them.

Guard their hearts and their minds and their wills. How? How does

Christ ask God to keep us? He says, sanctify them and sanctify them by your truth.

Your word is truth. Yes, Christian, we are in the world.

Yes, we are to be an influence in the world. But that has to be done by the truth of God's word. The truth of who

Jesus Christ is and all that we know about him is revealed in his word. We need the word of God.

We're in the world, we're here to be salt and light in the world. But through the word of God. When the church stopped living by the word of God, no, they were right to influence the world.

But when they started doing that outside the scriptures and they stopped relying on the scriptures, when they stopped protecting their hearts and their minds and their wills by the scripture, when they stopped being sanctified by God's word and God's truth, they fell into worldliness.

They weren't just in the world, they became the world. So no, don't go off and become a monastic.

We're all here today. We're all here living on Long Island in the 21st century because God placed us here and he expects us to be salt and light in this world.

He expects us to impact and influence the world around us. But how? By trusting in the word of God, sharing the word of God, living the word of God, and relying on the word of God to protect us from all the worldly influences.

Do you understand that distinction I'm making here? And the importance of that distinction? Do we not need to learn from history?

Because you have a thousand years of history where the church moved away from the faithful preaching and teaching of God's word and darkness entered into this world.

Because the church was not preserving the world through salt. The church was not giving light for the truth of God's word.

That's what happened in the next thousand years. I think Pastor Jensen is very relieved

I didn't go through all the councils and all the confessions. All the church fathers for a thousand years.

I think I tried to sum that up pretty accurately. So then what happens?

What happens then? This is going to be my argument before you today, my presentation to you here today.

The Reformation really starts in the 14th century, not the 16th century. It starts off as a flickering flame in the 14th century.

It becomes a full -blown forest fire in the 16th century. Once again, the secular historian will tell us the dark ages ended when man finally realized, oh, we got to be more civilized here.

We got to be more educated. If we study and learn and look at the world around us, if we look at art and history and music and literature, if we look at all these academic disciplines and if we educate ourselves, we can become virtuous and we can become more civilized.

And so let's start universities. Let's start training men to be better leaders.

Let's start training people to really understand the world around them so that we can go back and be more civilized.

That's what the secular historian would tell you is how civilization came out of the dark ages.

Once again, I want to be very careful here. Because let's understand something. This concept of, first of all, before we go any further, let's understand something.

This concept that through education, through higher learning, through understanding and appreciating the world through us by our own teaching and learning, that we can somehow become more virtuous and more civilized and more orderly and have a better world to live in.

That didn't come from the scriptures. That came from pagan philosophy.

It was the Greek and Roman philosophers who had this mistaken belief that somehow we can attain virtue.

Somehow we can live better lives if we only educate ourselves. We can find the virtue within ourselves.

We can find the virtue within our own means. And of course, the scriptures tell us something entirely different.

The scriptures tell us there's none who's righteous. There are none who seek God. In fact, who we really are is we're bloodthirsty murderers.

We all seek to shed blood. That's what the scriptures teach us about humanity.

And the scriptures teach us, oh, thank God. Thank God. Thank God that he is gracious and merciful and loving.

And thank God he has saved and sanctified himself a people through his son, Jesus Christ. Thank God that he regenerated and renewed people and made them born again so that they can now be made righteous through his son,

Jesus Christ. The only way we can become educated, the only way we can become virtuous is by the saving, sanctifying power of God through his son,

Jesus Christ, and by his Holy Spirit. Christianity stands apart from all the other philosophies of this world.

Now, what we would say then as Christians is that even though sinful men thought that they could re -educate themselves and get themselves out of horror and darkness through education, once again, what men may intend for evil,

God intends for good. God has a wonderful sense of humor. I sometimes wonder if we just crack him up every day.

God says, OK, you think you can educate yourselves, fine. I'm going to use your means.

I'm going to use your means of education. And I'm going to use it for my purposes. I'm still going to accomplish my purpose and my will for what you think is a good idea.

And I'm going to use higher learning. And I'm going to use the university system to make people aware of the gospel and to return to the truth of the gospel and the truth of scriptures.

I'm going to use the university system to bring light back into this world. So even though you pagans have this other false philosophy about how men can improve themselves,

I'm going to take that. And I'm going to show you the error of your ways and vindicate my name and show you the truth of my word through your means.

That's what God does. And once again, that's to show he's God and we're not.

That's what came about during the Reformation. God raised up godly men.

He trained those men. And he trained those men in the scriptures. And their spirits were regenerated.

Their spirits were renewed. They heard the gospel. They saw the power of the gospel in their lives and they were converted to Christ.

And then they knew how important it was then to bring salt and light back into this world. How important it was to be the truth of scripture back in people's lives.

They knew that the only way this world would come out of its darkness was to come into the light of who Jesus Christ is.

And the Reformation takes off and explodes and changes the world again and gets it back on track.

Reformation is one of the most significant, not only points in church history, it's the most significant point, one of the most significant points in world history.

Of course, Jesus Christ coming to this world is the most significant important event in history. But the

Reformation is the outworking of Christ coming into this world. Why do we study the

English Reformation? Because as we'll see, it's in England. That's where the

Reformation began, in England. And England then goes on and impacts and influences the rest of the

Reformation in the following centuries. And has great impact on the great reformers that Europe raised up for us.

Men like Luther and Calvin were blessed by men like Wycliffe and Tyndale.

The English Reformation impacted the European Reformation. We'll talk about that more before I go on any further.

By the way, I'm using this first session primarily for this introduction because once we start going through the history of the

English Reformation, we'll go a lot. But you need to understand the historical context of it first and the biblical context of it.

So before I go any further, any questions or comments that I think I've said so far? Good, let's press on.

That shows I'm doing my job. Let's press on here. By the way, we spent all this time setting up this one slide for you.

We may not get beyond this one slide today. Oxford University, John Wycliffe. No, I know

October 31st, we say that's Reformation Day. Why do we say October 31st is Reformation Day?

Oh, that's when Martin Luther nailed the 95 thesis on the Wittenberg door, the Church of the Wittenberg door.

When where was he a professor? Where was he a teacher? Wittenberg University. I admit, that's a nice important date in history.

But really, the Reformation started at Oxford University in the 14th century, not the

University of Wittenberg. Really starts here at Oxford University, the oldest

English -speaking university in the world. What you're seeing here is a picture of the

King's College. Once again, a university is a system of colleges, different disciplines of life.

Each college has its own discipline of life. And so then all these higher learning, so people can learn from different schools and different disciplines, that all those colleges come together and they make a university.

That's the university system. This is the King's College. This has a significant role, by the way, throughout all of church history.

This is where John Owen, John Owen was the Dean of King's College at Oxford. And that's more in the,

I got to get my, yeah, 17th century. Then in the 18th century,

Oxford University gave us the Wesleys, gave us George Whitefield. George Whitefield and John Wesley, they started their relationship here at Oxford University.

So Oxford University has had a great impact on church history and church ministry. But I want us to go back a little earlier.

I want us to backtrack a little. Go here to the 14th century. There's a scholar here at Oxford University by the name of John Wycliffe.

Many people are probably familiar with that name. Many of us have supported Wycliffe Bible translators, right?

And why is Wycliffe Bible translators Wycliffe Bible translators? Because they're acknowledging one of the first people to translate the

Bible and do it effectively was this guy, John Wycliffe. And John Wycliffe translated the

Bible into English. Now, that's nice, isn't it? That's a nice, convenient thing to have happen.

It's nice that, hey, we can read the scriptures in our own language. That's nice and convenient, isn't it? Let's thank

God for John Wycliffe. He got the ball rolling to start translating the word of God into people's native languages.

And let's thank God for Wycliffe translators following up on that legacy. But do we understand the motivation of John Wycliffe translating the

Bible? John Wycliffe is one of those people who someone recognizes, oh, this is a highly intelligent man.

This is someone, this is a gifted man. Let's train this man. Let's train this man to become a leader in our darkened world.

So Wycliffe goes off to Oxford. He starts studying at Oxford. He starts teaching at Oxford. And he's a brilliant scholar.

And the university system at that time said, you know, we do need to take into account all of ancient literature, even the scriptures.

Let's start studying the scriptures. And through the teaching of the scriptures,

John Wycliffe comes to know Christ and the truth of the gospel. That's why I want to read here.

I know there's a long way around here. I asked you to go to Romans chapter 1.

Let's read here verses 16 through 17. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the

Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, but the righteous man shall live by faith.

That sums up everything I just said. You need the scriptures to know who

God is. You need the scriptures to be saved by God. The means of God's salvation through Jesus Christ is revealed in the scriptures.

And it was meant for all people in all nations. The English Reformation proves the truth of these words.

And it starts here with John Wycliffe. But before we go any further, I want us to focus on a couple of key words here in verse 16.

We're all familiar with these verses. And we're familiar with these verses because how many missions conferences have we been at where they use these verses?

Hey, we got to get the gospel in people's hands. We got to get the gospel to Jews and Gentiles. That's true. But let's not gloss over these words.

I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God. It's the power of God.

It's not man's intellect. It's not man's understanding and reasoning that brings people to salvation.

It's God's power. It's God's Holy Spirit applying the gospel to people's lives that they are saved.

That's what happened in Wycliffe's life. God by his Holy Spirit made John Wycliffe born again.

That's what Jesus said to Nicodemus, right? Hey, Nicodemus, you're a great student.

You know God's word. You've been studying God's word. But then you're asking who I am? Nick, you got to be born again.

You need the power of God. You need the Holy Spirit to regenerate and renew your heart and your mind and will to understand who

I am and why I'm here. That's what happened to John Wycliffe at Oxford University when he's studying the scriptures.

And he comes to this understanding when he sees the truth of God's word, when he sees the truth of the gospel that we can only be saved through Jesus Christ, through his atoning work alone, through his saving, sanctifying work alone.

He realizes that what the Roman church has now been doing for the last thousand years is just blatant paganism in the guise of Christianity.

Watch what I'm saying here. I'm not trying to be derogatory about Roman Catholics. I'm just trying to say the truth of what it is.

Romanism is a pagan religion under the guise of Christianity. Why do I say that?

Do we understand what's at the heart of pagan religion? And this doesn't matter if you're talking about pagans in Europe.

It doesn't matter if you're talking about pagans in Asia. It doesn't matter if you're talking about pagans in the Americas. It doesn't matter if you're talking about pagans in Africa.

They all share certain common denominators. One of the common denominators that all these pagan religions hold to is a three -realm understanding of existence.

They believe there's a land of the living. That's us. Here we are. Here we are in Quorum 2001.

We're all here talking to each other in spite of the coronavirus. We're all here and living. But then there's the realm of the dead.

Our dead ancestors. And they go to this other realm. And then beyond that is the realm of the divine powers, whatever deities.

Now, once again, yes, we can look at differences and variations between all these pagan cultures and societies.

But they all hold to at least that three -realm idea of existence.

Land of the living, land of the dead, and the land of the divine powers. And guess what? You can never, never have access to the realm of the divine powers.

They're just divine powers. And you don't want to anger them. So you have to live in fear.

And you have to carry out certain works, certain rituals, to make sure the divine powers, whatever they may be, whatever pagan culture held out to be their deities, you don't want to anger those guys.

And this is why, then, you need your dead ancestors.

And you're dependent on your dead ancestors to make intercession to you. And you need to ask your dead ancestors, who can understand who you are and what you're going through, and you need them to look out for you and to protect you.

And then, therefore, you need to carry out certain rites and works to make sure you don't anger your dead ancestors.

You need them. They're your intercessors, so that you can live in the land of living.

People, do we understand the glory of the gospel, the truth of the gospel, the significance and the uniqueness of the gospel?

What does the gospel teach us? The Lord God Almighty and the person of his son

Jesus Christ came off his heavenly throne. He came off and came down from his heavenly realm and came into this world, and he lived amongst us.

And not only did he live amongst us, he carried out all the works we needed to be reconciled to God Almighty.

And there is no other mediator. There is no other intercessor. There is only Christ and Christ alone, by his work and his work alone.

He perfectly obeyed the law for us. He perfectly paid for the law for us by his crucifixion. He was raised up for us.

He ascended on high. He went back to his heavenly throne, and now he rules and reigns in righteousness, and now we can boldly approach the throne of grace through him.

Do you understand how that throws away and destroys all the other pagan and worldly philosophies?

Do you understand how that's the power of God, and how that permeates people's foolish, arrogant thinking and changes their way and outlook on life?

That's what John Wycliffe realizes. He realizes what Rome has been teaching us.

The intercessory, the land of purgatory, the land of our saints, and we need our saints to intercede for us.

We need our dead ancestors to intercede for us. We shouldn't be surprised that Roman Catholics still hold the purgatory and the intercession of the saints.

It's a pagan religion. That's what pagans believe. Oh, I'm not trying to be derogatory toward Rome.

No, please, please, please pray for Pope Francis. Pray that God is merciful to him and applies the gospel to his life.

And instead of saying, oh, say, if you heal Mary, she'll overcome this coronavirus, pray that he calls the people to faith and repentance in his son,

Jesus Christ. Wycliffe realized this. And because he opposed the teaching of his day, and because he saw the importance of the gospel and the power of the gospel and need to get in the hands of the nations, and because he translated the word of God and put it into the lives of people, the

Roman church wanted to put him on trial for heresy. And John Wycliffe had a lot of nerve.

I'm just going to finish up this one point. John Wycliffe had a lot of nerve. You know what he did when they wanted to put him on trial for heresy?

Talk about verve. Talk about audacity. You know what Wycliffe did? He went and died on them before they could put him on trial for heresy.

He died on them. That stopped the Roman church? No. They dug up his body and they burned it out of stake and scattered his ashes because they were so opposed to him being converted by the power of the gospel and sharing the gospel of the world around him.

The Reformation proves to us the truth of God's word. If God's word also tells us,

God's word remains forever. No matter what sinful men do,

God's word goes on. We're going to see next week how Wycliffe's ministry goes on into succeeding generations.

But yes, the Reformation started here at Oxford University. Wycliffe has been referred to as the morning star of the

Reformation because he saw the power of God. God in his power applied the gospel in his life after a thousand years of darkness and put it on his heart to bring light back into the world.

The truth of God's word. Let's pray. Oh Lord God, may we be found faithful. We thank you for your word.

Lord God, your word is truth. Sanctify us by that truth, especially in the darkened ages that we live in today and make us faithful to you.

By your Holy Spirit, regenerate, renew our hearts and our minds and our wills. By your power, Lord God, apply the gospel to our lives.

Save us, sanctify us, strengthen us, lead us all to the glory of your name. Here we go now in your grace and peace.