Pt. 2 Why Use a Confession?

We're studying confessions and today's still part of this, part two of the introduction and we titled it, Why Confessions? And to be prepared for this I want you to remember, everybody remember the story of Uzzah from the Old Testament?

Remember he was the one who called upon to bring the ark back to Jerusalem? And in 1st Chronicles 13 we get the story, okay? David and all Israel went up to Bala, that is to Kiriath-Jerum, which belongs to Judah, to bring up the ark from, to bring from there the ark of God, the Lord who is enthroned above all the cherubim, where his name is called.

They carried the ark of God on a new cart from the house of Abinadab and Uzzah and Ahio drove the cart. David and all Israel were celebrating before God with all their might, even with songs, with lyres, harps, tambourine cymbals, and with trumpets, okay?

Now I mean obviously this paints a picture, they're bringing the ark back to Jerusalem, they're joyous, they're celebrating, but along the way something unexpected happened, and we read this, when they came to the threshing floor of Chidon, Uzzah put out his hand to hold the ark because the oxen nearly upset it.

The anger of the Lord burned against Uzzah, so he struck down, struck him down because he put out his hand to the ark and he died there before God. This is one of those stories from the Old Testament that a lot of people don't like, because it seems that God was overly harsh, all right?

Now I'm sure everybody has heard this story, expounded upon it in a message or a Sunday school message at some time. Many sermons have been preached on this event and many lessons have been taught, and the question is always asked this, why did Uzzah die?

And the answers usually come along this line, that Uzzah was punished for his disobedience, all right? Because remember, God had instructed Israel that nobody should touch the ark, that's found in Numbers 4 .15, that if you touch the ark you will die, all right?

And then the lesson even goes further, they were disobedient because the ark was carried in the wrong manner. Remember the ark was designed with four rings and poles inserted through it, and that was specifically to avoid the touching of it, and if it had been carried that way, the ark would not have been liable to fall.

So we get some of these answers, and they're right and they're valid. In fact, you could teach a lesson on each one of these and it would be good use of scripture, it would be proper exegesis. If you violate God's law or God's instructions, there are consequences and some of them harsh.

Then there's another lesson that's often taught, and that Uzzah thought that his hand was cleaner than the dirt, all right? And again, that's a very legitimate exegesis and there's merit to that, but I believe, and you may have heard me say this before, I believe that there's a principle that lies underneath at the heart of the matter, and that is it was a matter of faith, okay?

What I mean by that is Uzzah didn't believe the Word of God. He didn't believe the Word of God. If he had believed the Word of God, that if he touched the ark, he would have died. He wouldn't have touched the ark.

Just think about it. If that ark was a pot of boiling hot oil and it started to tip and fall his way, would Uzzah have reached his hand up to prevent it from falling? No, he would have been running the other way.

Uzzah didn't really believe. He knew the instructions, but he didn't really believe that if he touched the ark, he would die. So he would have run the other way. He would have let it fall, all right? So what's the point?

Why am I bringing this up when we're talking about confessions? You act or react based upon what you believe to be true, okay? Uzzah acted based upon what he thought was true. He didn't think he would die.

If he thought he would die, he would not have touched the ark. So this is true in every aspect of life, not just in quote religious acts, but everything that you do, if you think about it, you act, you respond in a way based upon what you believe the reality of the situation.

It's true in your spiritual life as well. In fact, when you ask the question, what shall I do? Your answer is always based upon what you believe to be true, okay? So what you believe about God determines how you live your life, all right?

If you don't know, by the way, it also determines how you worship, all right? This is why it's so important that we understand who God is. If you want, what you believe about God determines how you live your life, it also determines how you worship, all right?

If you do not know the true living God, you will worship idols. Even if that idol is an image of Jesus Christ that you believe to be true, but if it's not the Jesus of the Bible, you are worshiping a false God, all right?

So history has taught us this many times over. Anytime you see idolatry, it's because the truth of Scripture about who God is has been hidden or distorted, all right? The basic tenet is then, whatever I believe is true.

If you don't have the standard of God's Word, then what becomes your standard? Me. I'm the standard. What I think is true. How many times have you seen this in debates? A person who abandons the Scripture as the final authority always has said, well, I think, okay?

So, now if further, if you do not know who God is, and listen carefully to this, if you do not know who God is, then you don't know who you are, because you can only know who you are through revelation from Almighty God, okay?

And you can see this as well, because soon as, apart from God, what do we see? We see extremes in either direction, all right? One extreme is, I am the center of the universe, all right? In other words, I look at the whole world in light of, how does it respond to me?

I want to be happy. In fact, there's an old saying, how many Harvard graduates does it take to change a light bulb? Just one. He grabs the light bulb and waits for the world to turn around him, all right?

But we're all that way to one extent or another. If God's not in the equation, if you don't know who the true God is, then you become the center of the universe. The other extreme is, I am nothing. I'm insignificant.

My ancestor was some protoplasmic goop that merged with some other protoplasmic goop that he found attractive, and millions of years later, here I am. Look at me, all right? But I'm of no intrinsic worth, and actually, most of the people that hold to this point of view look at mankind as though they are invaders into this world.

Now you know, you've heard all of this, and this is what happens when you abandon truth. What is the truth of Scripture? You are the image bearer of God, and that's important, and it's only through the Scripture that you will find that.

Now, it doesn't mean that you're the center of the universe. It means that God is the center of the universe, but you represent Him, okay? So there is value to human life based upon your relationship to Almighty God.

Notice how the picture, the focus comes off of me and onto God where it belongs, all right? So you can see what you believe about God has bearing on how you will live your life because it's what determines who you are and how you view yourself, all right?

We can say the same thing is true of sin, okay? What you believe about sin will certainly affect how you live your life, okay? A generation ago, the end of the 20th century, there was a well-known preacher in Southern California who pastored an extremely large church, and by all outside appearances, he was an evangelical minister.

However, if you dug into his theology, what you found was he said sin is an offense to the dignity of man. Notice what that's saying. Who's the center here? Me. What is sin? When you offend my dignity, okay?

That's the one extreme. Then on the other side of the coin, you have many churches that elevate even cultural standards to the level of the law of God, which is what? Legalism, okay? Rising cultural taboos to the level of sin.

For example, there are churches functioning today right here on Long Island where men are not allowed to have facial hair. That's considered sinful for men to have facial hair. It's considered sinful for women to wear slacks, okay?

It's sinful to smoke cigars. I saw him smiling, so I had to get one. But you get the idea. Something may be a cultural taboo that doesn't necessarily make it sin, but soon as you start making it sin, you enter into legalism, okay?

What is the scriptures say about sin? Question 18 of Keech's Catechism says, what is sin? Answer, sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. That defines what sin is, the scripture, 1st John 3, 4, Romans 5, 13, just to name two, okay?

We also come up with who is Christ, and again, this is an extremely important question, because who you believe Christ is determines whether or not you are a Christian, alright? The early church council spent most of their time on this one question, probably more than any other doctrinal issue.

I didn't time it, so I don't know if that's absolutely true, but certainly the early church council spent a lot of time just defining. No, I wasn't alive at that time, so contrary to what a lot of you may think, so I think Nicaea closed just before I was born, so alright, but they've spent a lot of time just defining who Jesus Christ is.

If your belief in who Jesus is does not agree with scripture, you are trusting in a false Savior. It's that simple. It's not merely that you have faith, the faith has to be in something that is true, okay?

What is salvation? How is a person saved? Who needs salvation? And salvation from what? All of these are pertinent questions that must be answered, and in fact, this is basic Christianity, alright? If you can't answer these questions, how can you have any assurance that you are in fact saved, alright?

This question, what you believe, also affects how you will evangelize, and notice I put down how you evangelize, not if you evangelize, because there is a command for all of us to be evangelizing in some fashion.

Not everybody's called to be a street preacher, not everybody's called to go do an open-air evangelism, but everybody is called to evangelize somebody, okay? Alright, but here's one of the facts of the situation.

Evangelism is getting harder in our culture today. When I was the age of some of the young people here, evangelism wasn't as difficult. You had people going around with tents, evangelists setting up tents, and people would flock to them.

Billy Graham had a rally in New York City. He rented the Madison Square Garden for one week, and I think he wound up for two months having crusades every night, packing Madison Square Garden out. You think that's the case today?

It's getting harder and harder. Why? Because many people are ignorant of the Scriptures and have no concept of the God of the Bible and who He is. So that means that your evangelism is going to be harder.

The idea that people have of God today, probably the most pervasive idea in our culture just in America today, is that God is a higher power similar to how AA teaches. He's a higher power that you have to be in touch with, whoever that may be, and however you decide to do that, alright?

Or it's also by...Bette Midler had a very popular song a couple of years ago. God is watching at a distance. He's some power that's way, way out there and really all He's doing, but He's a watcher. He's not really involved in everyday life.

So the idea of God being a transcendent God who is also imminent is virtually unknown. The one who sent His only begotten Son to die for the sins of humanity is a foreign concept in most of our culture.

In fact, Francis Schaeffer, a Christian philosopher of the 20th century, very underrated Christian philosopher, he said this, it's necessary now for Christians to pre-evangelize. What he means by that is you actually have to lay the groundwork before you can get into the gospel because the concepts are so foreign.

That's why evangelism has become so much harder. It used to be that if you just talked about sin and repentance, people would have a general understanding. They don't have that general understanding anymore.

So where are we to find these truths? Only in the scriptures, okay. Paul says in Romans 6 ,17, but thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed.

I highlighted that form of teaching. The ESV translates the standard of teaching. What Paul's referring to is there is a set of doctrine. There is a doctrine that is at the heart of all evangelism and of the Christian faith in general.

But here's another problem. The Bible is not a little tiny book, is it? It's big, got a lot of pages, small print, and it's not easy to read. In fact, it contains some things that are not easy to understand.

Peter tells us this as he's talking about Paul's writings. Look at what he says, "...and regard the patience of the Lord of salvation, just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote you.

As also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of scriptures to their own destruction.".

Notice he says there are some things that are hard to understand. The Bible, it's not all easy. It's not all like learning your ABCs. There's some basic things that are pretty simple that even a child can understand, but then there are some deep things that are much harder to understand.

They call church councils to reconcile some of these things. So where do you find, how do you find these truths? Notice that Peter says the untaught, the unstable distort the scriptures, so when the scriptures are distorted, that truth is hidden.

There's an old saying, we have an inerrant Bible. We all believe that the Bible is the inspired and inerrant Word of God. If you misinterpret it, what good is inerrancy? Because you've hidden the truth.

So how do you work your way through the scriptures? What I'm going to show you now, in fact I should mention this up front anyway, a lot of the material that I'm covering is courtesy of James Renahan.

He just doesn't know it. So Jim, if you should ever get a hold of this tape, I'm giving you credit for a lot of the material, and he's made my job a whole lot easier in presenting this. So we only find this truth in scripture.

There are three general ways to read the scripture, and again these are general ways, and all three have their purpose and are valid. In fact, all three ways that I'm going to show you should be employed by Christians at one time or another in your Bible study.

So how do you read through the scriptures? First, there's chronological reading of the scriptures. Now what I mean by that is the Bible is the story of the plan of God, and for the most part, the Bible as it's put together in our books is chronological.

Now granted, there are things that are not chronological, but if you think about it, in general it is. You got the five books of the Torah, five books. The beginning, in Genesis you have the beginning, creation, the fall, the promise of God.

Then you have all those Old Testament historical books from Joshua, Judges, 1st, 2nd Samuel, 1st, 2nd Kings, Chronicles. Again, they're not particularly necessarily in chronological order and there's repetition, but it goes through.

Then all of the prophetic books fit right into that portion. Then you move to the New Testament, you have the story of Christ and the four Gospels, then the book of Acts which takes you up to about 70 AD, 60 some AD.

Then you have all of the epistles which are explaining the Gospels. So generally, there is somewhat of a chronology to it and there's a benefit in reading it because you get the whole story of the plan of God.

So it's basically chronological even though it might not be specifically chronological in every area, but there's in fact one of the... you guys remember, was it a year ago or two years ago that you guys gave me a gift?

I think it was for pastor's appreciation and it's the Bible, a set of the Bible in books with no chapter divisions, no verses, just told as a story that would focus on chronological reading. And there's a big benefit in doing that because you see the big picture.

Sometimes we get so involved in the minutia of looking at verses and words that we lose sight of the big picture and so we have to be careful. In fact, I would say this, that a lot of times you get people who move into heresy, they forget the big picture.

You got to see how everything fits into the big picture. So it's the chronological reading in this way gives you the big picture of God's plan. Second way to read the Bible is ethical reading. The Bible tells us about the holiness and righteousness of God.

I mean, you can't read the scriptures without getting an idea every time you come to a portion talking about God. We see him in his holiness, talks about how righteous he is, how he can't have sin in his presence.

It teaches us our responsibility to live in accordance with his holiness. There's an ethic to the Bible. Unfortunately, some people reduce Christianity to this code of ethics, which is a tragic mistake and heresy.

The Bible does have an ethical system, but it is much more than an ethical system. It teaches us the principle of sowing and reaping. Deuteronomy 28 talks about blessings and cursings upon the nation of Israel when they enter the land.

What happens when you obey? What happens when you disobey? It's all in there. Then there are many object lessons that were told. First Corinthians chapter 10, we have a summary of the history of Israel.

And then what does the Apostle Paul say? These things happened as examples to us upon whom the end of the ages come. Then, of course, there's a one big admonition. Remember Lot's wife. You see that some of the stories are meant there to teach us things.

So that's the second way to read the scriptures. Third way is theological reading. The Bible teaches us what we are to believe. It teaches us the knowledge of God. As much as the scriptures have revealed to us, we should know.

It teaches us what constitutes faith, what constitutes truth. It's the Bible that determines that. Pilate's question, what is truth? Whatever God says it is. It's not subjective. God determines what truth is.

This is doctrinal Christianity. And now here you may have been wondering, what in the world does all of this have to do with the confession? This is where confessions and creeds come in. Right here at this point.

The use of confessions. Firstly, before we get into the whole thing, is there a difference between a creed and a confession? I'm going to give you a definite yes and no. They are very closely related.

There is a difference. And the difference is simply this. Creeds tell us what we must believe. Confessions tell us what we should believe. Creeds tend to be short, concise statements like the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed.

We can recite those. In fact, shame on us that we don't recite them more often than we do, but they're meant to be recited and it gives us, in a nutshell, what Christianity is all about. Confessions tend to be longer with greater detail.

The London Baptist Confession, 32 chapters with numerous sections in each one. The Apostles' Creed is only one paragraph, so that's the basic difference, but they both speak about the essentials of the faith.

I'm going to give you a first one is what I call a positive use of confession. In other words, what it does. Confessions state the content of the faith so that belief may be intelligent. I want to emphasize that point.

Christianity is not a blind leap of faith. If you ever hear somebody talk about a blind leap of faith, run because you're talking about somebody who's going to get you involved in a cult. Christianity is not a blind leap of faith.

Christianity is faith that is in a belief that is intelligent. The Bible expects you to use the brain that God has given you. Also, Christianity is a historical religion. What I mean by that is there is a history.

We show that the history of Christianity goes all the way back to the creation of man, but it is also a revealed religion. You can't get the tenets of Christianity just by looking at creation. You can see some things about God in creation, but it'll never lead you to salvation.

It's impossible. It can't do that. The revelation comes in a historical context. That's the importance of reading through from beginning to end and not just taking the Bible piecemeal. You have to look at the whole thing because the revelation comes in a historical context.

Hebrews 11 6, and without faith it is impossible to please him for he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a reward of those who seek him. Notice there's intelligence involved here.

Without faith you can't please God, so you have to believe, but you have to believe in God and you have to know something about God. Faith must be in the revealed truth and confessions state the facts of our faith, the necessary doctrine.

That's one of the purposes of confessions. It teaches us what the revealed truth is that is necessary for our doctrine. So that's the first use of confessions. I'm going to give you a negative one, and when I say negative, I don't really mean that it's bad.

Negative meaning it's something that it prevents. It defines who is not a part of the community of faith. And again, this is an extremely important part of the confession. Confessions create doctrinal boundaries.

Doctrinal boundaries are important. We don't just let anybody come up and preach from our pulpit. The eldership of the church is mandated to guard the pulpit of the church so that the congregation will hear only truth coming from that pulpit.

How do we know if a speaker is preaching the truth or not? For us it's very simple. Have you seen the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith? How do you stand with that? That's the first question that we ask somebody.

For example, here's an example of a confessional boundary. God is one. Last week, remember we looked at that? That's the most basic of all confessions, right starting in the Old Testament. What does that eliminate?

Polytheists. Somebody comes and says, I believe in three gods. You're not Christian. Stay away from my pulpit. You're not going into my pulpit. So it creates boundaries. Now you can expand upon that. I just gave you the most basic one.

Another positive use of confessions. Confessions connect believers from other places. This is really neat. I love this part. Examples. I put up there Ukraine and Colombia. When we took several trips to Ukraine for different purposes, every time we went to Ukraine, we wound up tying up with fellow believers who confessed the same thing that we believe.

And even though, in fact, the last time I was there in God's providence, the apartment that we rented was right next door to a Presbyterian church, and they held to the Westminster standards. So right away I knew we could go to that church, and with a couple of exceptions of baptism and whatnot, but we held to the same faith, and so I was able to get in there and I had tremendous fellowship with the pastor of that church.

And even though I couldn't understand a word he was saying, well one or two words that he was saying, I could still worship with them and have fellowship with them because we had a common confession. Same thing in Colombia.

Most of you know that I was asked to teach in a seminary down in Medellin, Colombia, which I still love because Medellin, as you know, was the former haven of Pablo Escobar, probably one of the most storious drug lords, and now it is a haven of Christianity down there.

And I was able to teach in the seminary because they held to the same confession as us. So I taught in the seminary in Medellin, Colombia, and I actually preached an Easter Sunday service in a Reformed Baptist church right in the heart of Medellin, Colombia, and they didn't have hymn books, so they put the words of the hymns up on the overhead, the same hymns that we used.

So I was able to sing in Spanish and know exactly what I was singing because we held to the same beliefs. It's amazing. So confessions help you cut across ethnical lines, cultural lines to others who believe the same that you do.

But there's another positive use. It goes a little bit further than that. Confessions connect believers from other time periods. We can identify with Christians who held to the same confession from years ago, and there's one big example of that is Charles Haddon Spurgeon used the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith.

That was the confession of faith that was in the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London over a hundred years ago. He preached in the 1800s. So there's a continuity of doctrine in confessional churches. One of the things that I love about being a confessional church is we know that the doctrine that we're teaching today is the same that Spurgeon taught back in the 1800s, the same that Nehemiah Cox taught back in the 1600s, and we can trace the roots of our confession all the way back into the New Testament, and if you wanted to even stretch a little bit, we'd go right back into the Old Testament.

And if they had had it, maybe Cain wouldn't have killed Abel. Too far? Alright, I tried. So what's the conclusion? Confessions are essential for a faithful church. A confession is a document that will keep a church on solid ground and prevent it from going into error in one direction or the other.

Why is this important? Because Christianity affects all of life. Christianity is not like Time magazine. It's not just one little slice of life. Your Christianity affects every area of your life. Romans 12, Paul tells us this, he says, therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice.

You realize that's an oxymoron, a living sacrifice, alright? It's meant to be that, because your whole life is sacrificed to Jesus Christ. That's what he's saying here, which is your spiritual service of worship, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Notice, it's not blind faith, it's intelligent, by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good, acceptable, and perfect. And then, so what's the upshoot of all of this?

Right living is based upon right believing. That's why we use a confession. Confession of faith, if you look at our 1689 London Baptist, it's a concise summary of the important elements of the scriptures, which teach us not only how to worship, but how we should live our lives day in and day out.