God Uses Luther’s Flawed Pen to Recover the Gospel | Mark 1:14-15, Rom 1:16-17

The Reformation, Luther’s Name, and Why Church History Matters

This is essentially part two of last week's sermon, or maybe even part three. I've been preaching on the Reformation. As I mentioned, I really love this subject and the history of the church. I'm going to continue preaching through Martin Luther's life and specifically the 95 theses that he wrote and posted on 1517, the year 1517.

But first I did have a correction to make, a correction to make regarding, oh and you know, yeah, well I want to submit this correction now. I mentioned that Luther's name change, that when he changed his name from Luther to Luther, I was mistaken about the definition of the name Eleuterios, which is what he would call himself.

It does not mean to bring light, it actually means the free man. So that's what it actually means. It's kind of close because the two can be related, but he would call himself Eleuterios, which means, it's Greek for the free man.

And this, Roland Bainton in his book, in his book, Here I Stand, his biography of Luther, which I brought again today, I highly recommend everybody to take a look at that. He says that in the years 1517 through 19, Luther was so sensible of his affinity with the humanists, the Renaissance humanists, as to adopt their fad of Hellenizing vernacular names.

So that's why there was a sort of a trend that was happening because of the Renaissance and the humanism. And Hellenizing, of course, is to, basically to Greekify. It's from the word Hellas, which is another name for Greece, a Greek name for Greece.

So, and the reason I want to preach through this, continue to preach through this also, is because Protestants have largely forgotten their Reformation heritage and conflict with Rome. So we need to be mindful of both of those things.

Even to this day, to this very day, we have just such a lack of awareness of these issues and of the Reformation and of Roman Catholicism and how, even today, it's still a problem, a big dividing line.

But many are falling prey or just there to the deception of Rome and this false ecumenism that many are pushing, including so-called Protestants. So we have to be careful with those things. Another reason, though, is that Roman Catholics themselves also tend to be very unaware of what their church actually teaches, officially teaches.

They tend to be extremely unaware, though they often say that we believe the same things, which is simply not true. So do not be deceived. We learn to appreciate church history and its importance in the life of the Christian for these very reasons.

These are just examples, key examples, of why it's so important to know these things. I spoke to a gentleman when I was preaching at the local Catholic Church and he was very well read and he knew the Bible and a lot of what he said sounded very good, but then when I asked him if he had read the Council of Trent, he hadn't.

He had no idea, really, what it said and that's part of the problem with Catholics, is that even the ones that appear to be better prepared to defend their faith still don't know what the church officially teaches because they tend to mediate things through apologists and apologists are very, they're very fork-tongued.

They tend to be, they tend to massage a lot of things that Rome says and teaches in order to make it look and paint it in a positive light that it really doesn't deserve. And so the Council of Trent clearly anathematizes those who believe that justification is by faith alone and that's why we have different Gospels and that's why Rome herself is a false church because it doesn't preach the biblical gospel.

It has another gospel, which there is no other gospel, but the one that the Bible teaches. So that's why we need to know these things. We're going to go through these things in a little bit more detail today.

Luther, Indulgences, and the Problem of Purgatory

So continuing on the theses where I left off, Luther denies that the Pope has any power over people in purgatory in Theses 25 and 26 and then in 27 to 29 he attacks the idea that when the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.

He sees it as encouraging sinful greed and says that it is impossible to be certain because only God has ultimate power in forgiving punishments in purgatory. Now you can see that Luther is still entertaining the idea of purgatory, which of course is unbiblical, but I also wanted to make another correction here because I misspoke last Sunday when I was commenting on this saying that when the coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs.

I said that a soul springs from heaven, but that's not the case. They spring from purgatory to heaven, supposedly, according to the Roman Catholic Church, and they still teach this to this very day. They still affirm this as we will see.

Now we have another character into the mix regarding these indulgences, and that is Johann Tetzel. Johann Tetzel was a German Dominican friar whose preaching on indulgences considered by many of his contemporaries to be an abuse of the sacrament of penance sparked Martin Luther's reaction, including the 95 Theses.

It was because of these indulgence preachers that really provoked him. Tetzel became a peddler of indulgences, and it caused a scandal in Germany that evolved into the greatest crisis, the Reformation, which is the Reformation in the history of the Western Church.

So this guy was very provocative that he's the one that would say things like, oh even if you violate the mother of God herself, you can be forgiven if you buy an indulgence from me. So very vile, wicked man, and that's what the Church of Rome leads to.

It promotes these things, and we will see that this is in fact the case. In Luther, oh so yeah, in Thesis 28, Luther also says that it is certain that when money clinks in the money chest, greed and avarice increases.

But when the church intercedes, the result is in the hands of God alone. So here you can see Luther escalates his attacks on indulgences and rebukes and mocks those who push and peddle them. So, public service announcement.

Now, if you study this, you will see that indulgence preachers, these Roman Catholic itinerant preachers, are really the original prosperity preachers, right? Nowadays they say sow your seed and you'll be rich and wealthy and famous, but back then it was by an indulgence that you'll be released from purgatory, or your family and friends will be released from purgatory, and so really that's where this comes from.

It's from the Church of Rome, and sadly Protestants have taken that on in a different form, and that's still another false prosperity gospel, but nonetheless it's in the same vein. So, Theses 30 through 34 deal with the false certainty that Luther believed indulgence preachers offered Christians.

In Thesis 32, he says those who believe that they can be certain of their salvation because they have indulgence letters will be eternally damned, together with their teachers. Together with their teachers.

So here, the lines are clearly being drawn. This is just, ouch, ouch, ouch, all the way for the Church of Rome. That's a false assurance. The Reformation was really a lot about the basics, the foundations of the Bible and the biblical teaching, one of them being assurance, because buying an indulgence gives you no such thing, no such assurance.

That's not what it's about. It's about believing the gospel and the Spirit of God bearing witness that you are a believer. So, he utterly condemns both those who have, he's simply stating a reality, those who think they are assured are damned eternally, together with their teachers.

So, and we, as a reminder once again, we cannot forget that the Reformation is still not over. We may not have to deal with indulgences in the Protestant churches anymore, even though the Catholic Church still pushes them, but there are many similar errors today that plague the church, because anytime, anytime you preach something that is not only false, but also you consider more important than that which is most important according to Scripture, namely the gospel, whether it's critical race theory, or racism, or wokeness, legalism, federal vision, final salvation, lordship salvation, prosperity gospel, pietism, fellowship with Romanism, or with other false teachers who claim to be evangelical, you are already compromised.

You are already compromised, and this is where we need to take a stand, because these are the things that matter most in the eyes of God and according to Scripture. The gospel is of first importance, so if you undermine the gospel, you are anathema, like Paul says.

You cannot have a false gospel, and as believers, we need to be straightforward about the truth of the gospel, like Paul says in Galatians 2. We have to be straightforward and not be hypocrites like Peter was when he sat at the table with the Judaizers and affirmed that false behavior that they had of becoming a Jew in order to be saved by circumcision.

So these things are still happening in a very multiplied form, not just from Rome. No wonder, right? Because Satan disguises himself as a minister, an angel of light, and his ministers as ministers of righteousness.

They want to look like they are sound, even though they are not. So in Theses 35 and 36, Luther attacks the idea that an indulgence makes repentance unnecessary. Thesis 37 says, any true Christian, whether living or dead, participates in all the blessings of Christ in the church, and this is granted him by God, even without indulgences.

Indulgences are not at all what they have been made out to be by these preachers, these false prosperity indulgence preachers, and they are rather instead detrimental and unnecessary. I also want to make a correction about last week because I said that repentance is not a one-time act, and we have to be careful to make proper distinctions here because repentance is a change of mind, and that is a one-time act when we believe the gospel.

We change our minds about the gospel. We go from not believing or not properly understanding to understanding and believing the true gospel. That is a one-time act that results in fruit in keeping with that initial act of repentance that God gives us, and of course, repentance is a gift from God because Paul says, if God perhaps grants these opposers repentance.

So repentance is a one-time act in that sense, but like Luther said in Thesis 1, a believer's life is marked by repentance because we also still sin, and when we sin, we should have godly sorrow that leads to repentance to change our mind about that sin and to stop sinning, to want to stop sinning.

So there are distinctions with which we have to direct, which with regarding what repentance is directed at, whether to the gospel or whether to sin, we have to be aware of these things that the Bible teaches, okay?

So that's a very important distinction that we need to properly understand. Now, Theses 39 through 40 argue that indulgences make true repentance more difficult. Thesis 40 says true contrition seeks and loves penalties.

In other words, it acknowledges that sin has consequences that we may need to account for, right? Like King David. When King David committed the horrendous sin of adultery and sent Bathsheba's husband in the front line so that he would die and essentially murder, he recognized that sin has consequences and that's why he fasted for three days and God punished him.

God had punished him for it. Yes, there are covenantal differences that we have to account for, but nevertheless, sin has consequences that we may still have to account for. Not in purgatory, okay? That is a lie of Rome, but we still may face consequences in this life.

But liberal pardons from indulgences, in other words, Luther says only relax penalties and cause them to be hated or at least furnish an occasion for hating them. So in Theses 41 through 47, Luther criticizes indulgences on the basis that they discourage works of mercy by those who purchase them and highlights what Christians are to be taught instead, okay?

So see, for example, Theses 43 says Christians are to be taught that he who gives to the poor or lends to the needy does a better deed than he who buys indulgences. Theses 45, Christians are to be taught that he who sees a man in need and passes him by and gives him money for pardons purchases not the indulgences of the Pope, but the indignation of God, the wrath of God.

So as you can see, things continue to get spicier and spicier. Ouch. That's again drawing the line as it should be, as it should be drawn with Rome. The line is still there. We have to recognize that it is still there with Rome.

Rome is not our friend. Roman Catholics are not our brothers and sisters in Christ and if by chance there is somebody who calls himself a Roman Catholic that might be saved, it is not because they are Roman Catholic, it is because they are inconsistently believing the gospel and still calling themselves Roman Catholic.

Again, Rome does not have the true gospel. We have to recognize that. Thesis 47 says Christians are to be taught that by that their buying of indulgences is a matter of choice, not compulsion or obligation.

So you can see Luther is still not, hasn't fully shed the Romanist teachings that later on in life he does end up correcting. Always reforming, right? That's why the powerful Reformation motto is that we as a church must be reformed and always reforming in light of God's Word and truth to make sure that we shed ourselves of the errors or inconsistencies or contradictions that we may have as believers.

That's why we need to continually grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior through sound doctrine and the means of God's grace. So, Theses 48 through 42, Luther now takes the side of the Pope and gives him the benefit of the doubt.

Thesis 50 says that Christians are to be taught that if the Pope knew the exactions or the ways and doings of the indulgence preachers, he would rather that the Basilica of St. Peter were burned to ashes than built up with the skin, flesh, and bones of his sheep.

That's why he was pushing indulgences because he wanted to pay for the big fancy buildings in Rome and here he gives clearly the Pope the benefit of the doubt that he is a wise and benevolent leader and it's these indulgence preachers that are corrupting the Pope's real intent.

He may not, apparently Luther may not have been aware that Pope Leo the 10th was the one who commissioned Tetzel and the indulgence preachers to sell indulgences to finance all of his extravagant building projects again in Rome and there's a series of church history tracts by Ronald Cook which I recommend to all of you as well.

They are worth reading because it is when I preach on the series of church history, this is a Protestant view of church history and that's what we should look for. A Protestant view of church history because this is what helps us give us a biblical perspective of the history of the church.

We need to look at it through the right lenses and we all have lenses. We cannot be unbiased when it comes to history or anything else. We need to have the right lenses and that's why material like that is good to look at to help us equip us to have a proper perspective of these things and Cook in one of those tracts on the Reformation says that Tetzel was also given a special concession from the Emperor to sell indulgences anywhere in the Empire and later on he obtained a papal brief, an official papal brief permitting him to sell indulgences throughout Germany.

Okay so this was directly commissioned from the Pope himself. I suspect that Luther may have known that but he was maybe trying to force the issue in a way that would still allow the Pope to save some face.

Now here Luther shows that as he reflected later on in life was still a raging papist so he still had some allowance for having a but his power was much more limited than what it actually was. It took a few more years for Luther to later on solidify his convictions about the papacy being unbiblical.

Pope Leo X, the Treasury of Merit, and Rome’s False Gospel

So that leads us to the question who was the Pope? Who was this Pope and what was he like, right? This is Pope Leo X. He was Giovanni di Lorenzo de Medici. He was a Medici Pope from the Medici family.

It's a family with a very shady history and Philip Schaaf, the very prominent church historian which I've commended to you all before, says about him that the chief thing to be said about this Pope, the main thing, is that he was a worldling.

He was a man of the world who would have loved John Bunyan's Vanity Fair. This guy was very worldly. Religion was not a serious matter with him. Pleasure was his daily concern, not piety, not holiness.

He gave no earnest thought to the needs of the church and this is the Pope. The Pope led the Cardinals in the pursuit of pleasure and in extravagance in the use of money, okay? This was Leo X and it's no wonder that he provoked so much scandal and controversy and that led to the Reformation.

On the other hand, in spite of his worldliness, Leo prayed fasted, went to confession before celebrating mass in public, and conscientiously participated in the religious services of the church. So even though he did these things, this reeks of what Jesus condemned the Pharisees for and that is one word with a capital H.

Hypocrites, right? You hypocrite! That is what so aptly applies to many teachers, priests, cardinals, prelates, all the hierarchy, the false hierarchy of Rome is that they are very properly called hypocrites, especially the Pope.

Blasphemy personified. Now, this Leo X also had the Machiavellian qualities of deception and shrewdness which was so highly esteemed by the political princes of his time, okay? So he's just a combination of all kinds of ugly and that is why Luther was so provoked, rightly so.

And so now, continuing with the theses, in 53 to 55, where Luther complains about the restrictions on preaching while the indulgence was being offered, and in 56 through 66, Luther criticizes the doctrine of the treasury of merit upon which the doctrine of indulgences is based since everyday Christians do not understand the doctrine and are being misled.

They are being misled. So he describes the treasures of the gospel as nets to catch wealthy people, whereas the treasures of indulgences are nets to catch the wealth of men instead. So maybe you can say the priorities are a little bit screwed up when it comes to indulgences.

This leads to another question about what is the treasury of merit. Let's get it straight from the church's, the horse's mouth, the Church of Rome. This is from an official papal pronouncement called the Indulgentarium Doctrina, which is an apostolic constitution on indulgences.

This is the arrogance of Rome. They believe that they are the one true apostolic church. This is an official document by Pope Paul VI, which was promulgated on January the 1st of 1967, okay? This is still official Roman Catholic teaching, which says in their exact words, thus is explained the treasury of the church, which is the infinite and inexhaustible value the expiation of the merits of Christ our Lord have before God, offered as they were so that all of mankind could be set free from sin and attain communion with the Father.

It is Christ the Redeemer himself in whom the satisfaction and merits of his redemption exist and find their force. Now listen here, listen carefully. This treasury also includes the truly immense, unfathomable, and ever pristine value before God of the prayers and good works of the none other than the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints, these canonized saints, who following in the footsteps of Christ the Lord and by his grace have sanctified their lives and fulfilled the mission entrusted to them by the Father.

Thus, listen to this, while attaining their own salvation, they have also cooperated in the salvation of their brothers in the unity of their mystical body, okay? This is official Roman teaching in their own words.

That is why we need to be aware of this and quote this stuff when you are conversing and evangelizing Roman Catholics. This is what they teach and they will often deny it, okay? If you do, you'll have to deny the Pope himself, the Magisterium of Rome, okay?

We need to hold Rome accountable. What's wrong with this picture? To claim that the Roman Catholic Church has a treasury of merits that contain the good works of Jesus Christ and other super saints, right, that went above and beyond what was required for their own salvation.

In other words, they had to cooperate with God to earn it, not that it was by grace, but they had to earn it so it was not by grace alone, but it also required the works of other saints who went above and beyond, which can then be used to pardon the sins of others, is to commit blasphemy, okay?

This is blasphemy and that's the problem here. It is to deny the perfect, finished, all-sufficient work of Christ himself in his life and his death on the cross. It is to deny Christ alone and consequently, it is to therefore catastrophically deny the other solas of the biblical gospel, because according to Rome, you must rely on her system of sacramental penances and the works of people in addition to Christ to fully save you and to expiate your sins in purgatory.

That is word-for-word from the official teaching of Rome. Word-for word. Expiate your sins in purgatory from the same from the same apostolic constitution on indulgences. Highly encourage you all to look this up in the notes and to look at it with your own eyes and to show this to Catholics when we evangelize, because that is what we will find in large part in this area that we live in.

So, then it is no longer by faith alone, obviously, because to rely on your own baptism, your own penance, your own contrition, your own works, in addition to God's grace, because Rome says you have to cooperate, remember, and play your part as if God's grace alone was not enough, is to deny that we are saved by the grace of God alone.

And what does scripture say? If it is by grace, it is no longer of works. Otherwise, grace is no longer grace. Romans 11 6, right? To say that you have to cooperate with God in your salvation is to deny grace entirely.

That is a false gospel. That is why this is a false gospel, because Rome says you must do penance, right, as opposed to be penitent, as opposed to changing your mind. But you have to do works of penance, do your part in your own salvation, then you accordingly get some of the credits as well.

Some of the glory belongs to you, so that God alone no longer gets all the glory that He alone deserves. No one else deserves the glory of salvation. Why? Well, what does Isaiah 42 verse 8 and countless other scriptures say?

It's almost like Rome did it on purpose, to contradict the explicit teaching of scripture. This is not hidden, right? This is something that God is explicitly clear about, that He wants us to know and understand clearly and fully.

I am Yahweh. That is my name. I will not give my glory to another, to any other, nor my praise to graven images. What was Rome thinking, right? This is the exact opposite of what Rome teaches, practices, and promotes.

Sadly, that is why we have to draw the line where scripture draws it. But it gets worse, because the Roman Catholic Church state, remember, it's not just a church, it's also an official political state in the Vatican.

The Vatican is an official city-state by which the Pope is the head of it, just like Revelation talks about, that beast and that whore of Babylon. For over 1 ,600 years has mastered the art of replacing scripture with the traditions of men.

That is what the Church of Rome has done. It is the very thing that Jesus condemned the scribes and Pharisees for. Vehemently, the sharpest condemnations that you see Christ pronouncing on anybody are the ones against the scribes and Pharisees, where he says, why do you yourselves transgress or violate the very commandments of God for the sake of your own tradition?

You invalidate, you nullify, you cancel out the Word of God by your own tradition, which you have handed down, and you do many such things as that, straight from the words and mouth of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus, to the point where one sola alone that the Roman Catholic Church truly holds to is not any of the other solas we hold to, it is really sola ecclesia.

The Church alone, ultimately, is what has the final say. The Church alone is the final authority and determiner of truth. Not God, not His Word, but the Church, according to Rome, as opposed to the biblical doctrine of Scripture alone, as the final, ultimate authority and determiner of truth.

Not any man, no other man, no Pope, which doesn't exist in Scripture, unless you look up Nimrod or Diotrephes. That's where the Pope comes from, not from Christ, but from those wicked men in the Scripture.

And no nullifying traditions of men can ever take away from the authority and glory that God alone deserves, and His Word. Remember, that's why I want to encourage us always to know and defend the five solas and the law gospel distinction, because they are the keys to sound evangelism.

They are the key to understanding the biblical gospel. They are the key to understanding the differences between us and us Protestants, as evangelicals, and Rome, the other side of the Tiber River, with the Vatican and the Magisterium of Rome.

The Belgic Confession, Faith Alone, and Christ’s Full Sufficiency

Now, this is the same Protestant response to Rome's tyranny. Let's look at what the Belgian Confession, a Dutch Reformed Confession, has to say in Article 22, called the Righteousness of Faith. This is beautiful, beautiful summation of biblical teaching.

Let's take a look here and meditate on this, okay? We believe that for us to acquire the true knowledge of this great mystery, the Holy Spirit kindles in our hearts a true faith that embraces Jesus Christ with all His merits, and makes Him its own, through faith, that is, and no longer looks for anything apart from Him, not to the works of others, not to indulgences, not to anyone else outside of Christ, right?

For it must necessarily follow that either all that is required for our salvation is not in Christ, or if all is in Him, then he who has Christ by faith has his salvation entirely, not partially, not half a salvation.

It is an entire salvation, a whole salvation. Therefore, to say that Christ is not enough, but that something else is needed as well, such as the works of other saints, such as the works of Mary, such as the prayers of Mary and saints, such as indulgences, to say that something else is needed as well, in addition to Christ, is a most enormous blasphemy against God Himself.

For it then would follow that Jesus Christ is only half a Savior, only a partial Savior, only an incomplete Savior. Blasphemy, utter blasphemy. And therefore, we justly say with Paul that we are justified by faith alone, by faith apart from works of any kind.

Amen? Of any kind. That's what the Bible teaches. Beautiful. However, it continues, we do not mean properly speaking that it is by, it is faith itself that justifies. This is very important. For faith is only the instrument.

It is the empty hand by which we receive and embrace Christ, our righteousness. Faith is not a work that contributes. But Jesus Christ is our righteousness in making available to us all His merits and all the holy works He has done for us and in our place.

It wasn't a partial place. He fully satisfied those debts that we owed on our behalf. And our faith is the instrument that keeps us in communion with Him through union with Christ and with all His benefits.

When those benefits are made ours, they are more than enough to absolve us of all of our sins. All our sin. All of it. Amen? So these are good questions to ask those who still belong to Rome, who still call themselves Roman Catholics, or even others who don't understand the biblical gospel.

Is Christ alone sufficient for all our salvation or is He not? If Christ did not accomplish our salvation entirely, then He is only a partial Savior. Did Christ satisfy the full punishment for our sin or did He not?

Is He the full propitiation for our sins or is He not? According to 1 John 2 verse 2. What and countless other verses. Was it finished past tense on the cross as Christ Himself proclaimed or was it not finished?

Did He leave loose ends untied? Did He leave unfinished business? Or was it truly finished? Are we going to deny the words of Christ Himself when He said it is done? No, of course not. Christ alone is sufficient.

Then why does the church of Rome say that most will still need to expiate their sins in purgatory? In their own words, in their official documents. But not only Rome, why do some Protestants so called professing Protestants teach that you must present your own inherent righteousness to be allowed into heaven?

This is a lie of false teaching in Protestant churches like Federal Vision and John Piper and Lordship Salvation also comes dangerously close to these false teachings. So we have to be careful because you know the Protestant reformers and the confessions completely renounce and Christ Himself the Word of God itself renounce this treasury of merit and instead assert that a true church is fundamentally defined by its adherence to the pure pristine gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone to the glory of God alone based on the ultimate authority of scripture alone.

Amen? This is it. This alone is what saves us. Christ alone is what saves us. Okay? And that is where I want to leave you all today to think on these things and to study these things. I hope you see this clear examples as to why it is so important for us to learn the Word of God, the sound doctrine and the history of the church and what the church has handed down to us in this heritage from the Reformation.

This is what we need in order to fully grasp to grow properly in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior and to not be deceived by the lies of the world, the flesh and the devil by these ministers of the devil that are disguised as ministers of righteousness.

We have to know these things and study them carefully to understand God and His Word properly according to what He says and not according to what false teachers of false religions say. Amen? So I leave you all with that to meditate on and we will, Lord willing, continue on this journey.

This is a historical journey through the Reformation. I really greatly enjoy and benefit and am edified by this and I hope you all are as well. There's so much good stuff here and Lord willing, we'll get to that next Lord's Day as well.

Prayer and Closing Exhortation

Let's bow our heads in prayer. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we lift up to you our church before your throne of grace, of grace alone, as your almighty Word says, that you have given us all things necessary for life and godliness through the knowledge of Him, of your Son, Jesus Christ, through His Word, through your words, Lord, your precious Word and the sound doctrine that you have given to us as it was has also been preserved by your pillar and buttress of the truth, the church, the faithful church that belongs to you, Father.

But in order to identify this church in history and in us, we must know your Word. That is the beauty as we know, Lord, your amazing system of checks and balances that we have to not be deceived by the lies of Rome or by the lies of these these people who call themselves Protestants but in fact are not because they preach a different gospel that does not glorify and is not in accordance with your truth, your gospel, your only, the one and only gospel that saves.

Lord, help us to meditate and think on these things, Father, to study these things diligently and to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus as we continue to live these things out and hopefully get the opportunity to share with others who do not know you as Lord and Savior.

We thank you, Father, we ask these things in Jesus' precious almighty name and for your precious gospel that has given us everything in Christ. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermons of Thorn Crown Covenant Baptist Church where the Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety is applied to all of faith and life.

We strive to be biblical, reformed, historic, confessional, loving, discerning Christians who evangelize, stand firm in, and earnestly contend for the Christian faith. If you're looking for a church in the El Paso, Texas area or for more information about our church, sermons, and ministries such as Semper Reformanda Radio and Thorn Crown Network Podcasts, please contact us at thorncrownministries .com and may the mercy, peace, and love of our Triune God be multiplied to you.