Reformation Sunday

This is Reformation 499. So here's what we're going to do tonight. I'm going to give you a little bit of the life of Luther, Martin Luther. Not Martin Luther King, but Martin Luther. And then we'll get into the five solas of the Reformation.

And so it's not going to be necessarily a verse-by-verse study. Early on, I'm going to encapsulate what was going on with Luther up into the point where he nailed the 95 Thesis to the castle church door on October 31st, 1517.

Another time, maybe I'll tell you what went on with Luther after 1517. But we'll lead up to 1517, and then we'll look at the five solas of the Reformation. The best book that you can read by Roland Banton is called Martin Luther.

Very simple. If you want to read something about the Reformation, I'd say it's one of my top ten books of all time. That I've read. Maybe my favorite biography, Roland Banton. He has a great book. There's another one by Jim Cromartie, and I'm basing my Luther introduction tonight on his book called A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.

That would be another one if you'd like to read it. Jim Cromartie's book on Luther. So we're going to pray. We're going to talk a little bit about Martin Luther and how God used him. I am always encouraged when it comes to biographies and men and women that God has used, because I think, you know what?

They're just like me. Sinful people, but God can use those kind of people. And they also spur me on, because if God could use them, could he use me as well and you? And so tonight, Luther and then the five solas of the Reformation.

Sound good? Alright, let's pray. Thank you, Father, for tonight. Thank you that we can celebrate gospel truth. Sola Scriptura and the other solas where you would have our eyes see by your Holy Spirit's illuminating work that, in fact, your word is true and your word is God-breathed.

And we don't have to be dependent on people that can teach us things in Latin or anything else. We can see with our own eyes. And we even heard it tonight in Galatians. The just shall live by faith. We thank you for that great truth and thank you for using a man, even like Martin Luther and his wife, Katharina, for these kind of truths that you would recover.

You have said you will build your church and nothing can stop it. We're thankful for that. So bless our time tonight. In Jesus' name, amen. It was 1483 when Luther was born in Germany. And I wanted to give you a little background on his upbringing.

Very religious, very strict upbringing with the Roman Catholic Church. If you were a student in those days, you would have a dread of God. You would have a fear of God. God was ferocious. God was wrathful.

God was kind of a mean father, if you will. And you knew that he hated sin. You knew that God would punish every sin. And that's kind of the environment of Martin Luther when he grew up. People would be so afraid of Jesus, this righteous, zealous, trustworthy God, that they would look for a softer side.

If you'd like to have access to God, Jesus was so righteous. He was so just. He was so holy. You needed to have a softer side of God. And so many people would say no to Jesus. After all, he was too righteous.

And so they wanted a feminine side of God. And so they would go to the Virgin Mary. The Roman Catholic Church at that time was similar to the days of Haiti now. Haiti has a mixture of the Roman Catholic Church and paganism.

And the same thing was happening back in the late 1400s and early 1500s. You would have Roman Catholicism mixed with local paganism. And you can just imagine, what does paganism bring? It brings all kinds of evil spirits, all kinds of demons and curses, and just things that aren't true.

Martin's mother, Marguerite, she thought that there was a woman who lived in the village who was a witch. And she, that woman, the witch woman, witch woman, the witch woman, had cursed their family. Cursed other families.

One of the children died. For sure, that has to be a curse. She sometimes, Marguerite, Luther's mother, thought when there was some milk missing or eggs missing, it was the spirits, it was the demons that would come and steal the eggs or steal the milk.

Luther's father, Hans, he thought sometimes accidents in the mines, he was a miner, if he was in the mine and something bad happened, it had to be some wicked demon doing something. His parents were firm and hard and they did not spare the rod and they did not spoil the child.

Cro-Marty said, quote, they seriously thought that they were doing right but they could not distinguish character which, however, is very necessary to know or how chastisement should be inflicted. It is necessary to punish but the apple should be placed beside the rod.

In other words, they were all firm and no fun. I like the little slogan that Marguerite trained her children to know and this is one of the little songs that Luther would have been taught by his mother and maybe we should teach this to our kids too.

If folk don't like you and me, the fault with us is likely to be. It's your fault. People don't like you, it's your fault. Now, his mother and father, Martin Luther's mother and father really liked education.

It was almost like today, the savior happens to be education. The problem is back in those days everything was in Latin so you had to go to school to learn Latin and Luther not only got whacked at home, spanked at home, given the rod at home, he got it at school as well.

One time Luther said he remembered getting caned not spanked, not with a rod but with a cane. He got caned 15 times in one morning at school because he failed his Latin grammar. Amo, amas, amat. Here's what they would do back in the schools in those days.

If you ever spoke German, remember we're in what we'd call Germany now, if you ever spoke German you would get caned and in trouble. You had to speak Latin. Then they devised this thing where they would call a boy the lupus and lupus means wolf and you would find someone who was speaking German and then you would tattle on them and they would be known as the wolf and they would have to wear a donkey mask until that particular wolf, donkey mask person could find someone else not speaking Latin and speaking German and then they would pass it on.

Luther was not taught geography, history or mathematics but he was taught Latin. He leaves his studies at about 17 years old and he goes to Erfurt to study at the university and he's thinking to himself there is a God and he had a little slogan and that slogan was to pray well is the better half of study.

He knew there was a God, he knew he was sinful and he knew he had to be forgiven but as he would even watch other people wash their hands with soap he had a little slogan the more we wash the less clean we become.

How can we cleanse our own sins? Remember the song we sang tonight? If God were to count our sins Psalm 130 who could stand? And he realized that he had sin and how could he cleanse his own self? He thought you know what maybe I should go to the monastery.

And about this time it's 1503 Luther was on a journey and he would carry a sword and some people carry guns these days he had a sword on his side and the sword fell out it cut his leg it went deep into his leg severed an artery and he thought he was going to die he's now bleeding out he didn't know what to do so he looked up to heaven and he cried out Oh Mary help me.

Someone came a doctor and fixed him that night the wound was opened again and he cried out again for Mary and I find it fascinating that later Luther would recollect and think if I died then ever thought about that?

You know if I would have died before I was born again where would I have gone? And we know the answer he said at that time if I should have died I would have been relying upon Mary to save me. So if you don't know how to get rid of your sins and you know God is a wrathful God a holy God a just God then where should you go?

So for Luther it was the monastery and off he went. He hated it because he had to beg for food on the street. He would rather study books. He said to Duke George of Saxony I was indeed a pious monk and followed the rules of my order more strictly than I could express.

If ever a monk could obtain heaven by his monkish works I should certainly have been entitled to it of this all the friars who have known me can testify. If I had carried on much longer I should have carried my self-denials even to death by means of my watchings prayers readings and other labors.

Thankfully there was a man who was introduced to Luther and his name was Johann von Stoppitz. S-T-A-U-P-I-T-Z. And he was helping Luther understand that you can't get to heaven by works. There's just no way to earn God's favor.

Luther would go to Stoppitz and say you know what. I'm horrified by my sins. I know judgment is coming and who can forgive me. Luther said quote. We fled from Christ as from the devil and ran to the Virgin Mary and Saint Barbara.

For we were taught that everyone must appear before the judgment seat of Christ with his works. Often I was horrified at the name of Jesus. And when I thought about him on the cross it was as if I had been struck by lightning.

When I heard his name mentioned. I would rather have heard the name of the devil. For I believe that I must by my good works make Christ my gracious friend and therefore reconcile an angry God. And Stoppitz would say Martin why are you torturing yourself.

Look to Christ. Stop torturing yourself. Look at the wounds of Christ. Stoppitz said quote look at the blood of Christ shed for you. It is there the grace of God will appear to you. Luther replies I cannot and dare not come to God until I'm a better man.

I have not yet repented sufficiently. Stoppitz a better man. Christ came to save not good men but sinners love God and you have repented. There is no repentance does not begin in the love of God. Luther is learning.

If you were a good Catholic you will make the pilgrimage to Rome. He wants to go 800 miles south to Rome. Everyone would want to go there and you could go get some indulgences and get some friends and family members out of purgatory he's on his way to Rome and he stops in Bologna and he got so sick on his bed it was almost like he was sweating and feverish and didn't know what to think about and through his mind kept going through this little slogan the just shall live by faith the just in purgatory and he was indulgences for them.

He even said quote how I regret my mother and father are still alive what pleasure I should have in delivering them from the fire of purgatory by masses, prayers, and other admirable works. I'm going to go to Rome to get indulgences to get my loved ones out of purgatory and too bad my mom and dad are still alive because I could probably get them out if I just did these things.

I don't know if you've been to Rome or not, but they have the Scala Sancta. Who's been to the Scala Sancta? Anybody here? The Scala Sancta are the sacred steps. These sacred steps are the steps that supposedly Christ stumbled upon and one of the popes then had them dug up in Israel and then moved to Rome.

And if you went up the steps on your knees, praying the Lord's Prayer on each step, kissing each step as you went up, you would release souls from purgatory. And Luther thought I should do that. By the way, when I went there last year to Rome, Kim and I went to the Scala Sancta and I thought, you know what?

I'm going to just go up. Might as well. You have to go up on your knees and so I'll just do it. I mean, I'm not trying to mock anybody. I just wanted to go up those 28 steps that Luther did because I'm thinking, well, I might get some family members out of purgatory.

No, I just wanted to go through the experience. Well, I have bad knees. I'm 56 years old and it was so crowded and people were taking so long, I couldn't go very fast. And I thought, you know what? If I go up 28 steps, I'm going to be here for a lot longer than 30 minutes, 60 minutes.

I could not find a fast lane to kind of go through. That's what I was thinking. If I only had an easy pass, I could have made it. So I just stopped and walked back down. When he was going up those steps, saying the Pater Noster, the Our Father, he kept thinking the just shall live by faith.

The just shall live by faith. He was shocked by how many people in Rome were in it just for the money, including the clergy, including the priest. Now remember, the people don't speak Latin. The priest do the services in Latin.

And did you know, sometimes the priest, when they were doing communion, the Lord's Supper, instead of saying, this is my body broken for you. Here's what the priest would say. I'm going to give it to you in English, but they would say it in Latin.

And afterwards the priest would laugh, thinking it's so funny to deceive the people. They would say this. Instead of pronouncing the words that would somehow change the bread and wine into the flesh and blood of Christ, some of the priests would say, quote, bread you are and bread you shall remain.

Wine you are and wine you shall remain. But it's in Latin, and so no one knows the difference. They think that the priest are saying, this is the blood of Christ, you know, the wine change into blood.

Luther hated that. Luther would walk through the city that everybody called holy. And he said, you know what, after this whole deal, quote, if there is a hell, Rome is built over it. Later, he said, the nearer we get to Rome, the greater number of bad Christians we met.

And he said, you know what, Rome stinks to high heaven, quote, I went to Rome with onion and returned with garlic. Now Luther's trying to figure out how do I have peace with God? I know I'm sinful. I know God's angry with sinners.

How can I have peace with God? Quote, it is not against all natural reason that God out of his mere whim, deserts men, hardens them, damns men, as if he delighted in sins and in such torments of the wretched for eternity, he who is said to be of such mercy and goodness.

This appears cruel and intolerable in God, by which we have offended in all ages. And who would not be? I myself more than once driven to the very abyss of despair so that I wished I had never been created, loved God, I hated him.

He didn't know about the mediator, Christ Jesus. He's in his monastery. He's in the tower. It's 1515. He reads, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He wasn't saved then, but he began to understand how God of the son was the sin bearer for all those who would forever believe and believe forever.

Well about this time, the church needed to build St. Peter's and so Tetzel, a man named Tetzel was dispatched and he would sell indulgences. Simultaneously, other ways to get indulgences were looking at relics, as I talked about this morning.

Some of the relics that you would look at, even in the castle church at Wittenberg where Luther would nail the 95 theses, had all kinds of crazy things there. You could find there the teeth from Jerome, hair from Christ's beard, all these things.

If you just look at it, you get time out of purgatory. Four hairs from Mary's head, three scraps of material from her clothing, a straw from the crib in which Christ was laying. That'd probably be pretty interesting.

One of the nails that had torn through Christ's hands, a piece of bread from the last supper. As I mentioned this morning, a twig from Moses' burning bush. And all you have to do is go there and look at those.

And the Pope said, you can have time out of purgatory. Indulgences for the remission of time in purgatory. Now Luther's thinking, how can this be? He's questioning this. How can you look at something and have soul's early release from purgatory?

And on a side note, why live a holy life? Why live a life that says no to sin and yes to righteousness when all you have to do is look at Mary's fingernails? Luther begins to say to himself, that can't be.

Sales of indulgences. Following the death, Cromarty said, of Pope Julius II in 1513, he was succeeded by Leo X. Like his predecessor, he was a lover of the arts and the papacy at this period became a patron of all that was considered valuable to cultured Europe.

In other words, he needed money. How do you get money from people? Well, Tetzel goes throughout German states and he says things like this, quote, press in now, come and buy while the market lasts, get the indulgences while they're hot.

In other words, should that cross be taken down, the market will close, heaven will depart, and then you will begin to knock and to weep because of your foolishness. How sad. How awful. Luther hated it.

He was filled with righteous indignation and he starts to speak out against indulgences. Quote, why does not the pope once and for all deliver all souls from purgatory by a holy act of Christian love?

If you can get everybody out by papal decree, why are you keeping people in purgatory when you can just decree them to be out? And he said, it's all for money. It's for perishable money. It's for the Cathedral of St. Peter.

So this all leads us to the time where Luther says, I want the church to go back to the Bible. He wasn't trying to start a new denomination. He's trying to reform the church from within the church, reform the church from within.

And when he thought about Tetzel, he said, by the help of God, I will make a hole in his drum. So he, he puts together 95 propositions and they would do this for discussion in the, in the university, very public thing.

Luther went on to say, by the way, if I would have known how often they would have been read, I would have taken more time as I crafted them. But that was better by the way, than for instance, Zwingli, when Zwingli would write things, he wouldn't even read through it one extra time for editing.

He just sent things off to the presses. But on my part, Luther said, as I have often done before, so now I implore all men by the faith of Christ, either to point out to me a better way, if such a way has been divinely revealed to any, or at least submit their opinion to the judgment of God in the church.

In other words, I want proof. Luther nails the 95 thesis to the Wittenberg door and the intellectual contagion spreads. It wasn't that long ago, there was no internet. I know that's kind of hard for some of you young people to believe.

Think about the internet and its effect on people today. The only thing that comes close to it is if you go back to the late 1400s, you had the Gutenberg press. So instead of Luther walking around telling everybody, Luther could now print the 95 thesis and hand them out to 500 people who had 50 copies and off it went.

It was a literal intellectual contagion. So what we're going to do tonight, that leads us up to Luther nailing the 95 thesis on the castle church door. We're going to talk a little bit about then what happened because of all this and some of the truths that were rescued.

I'm going to hate to do this, but I'm going to just do it right now. Any questions so far? I'm afraid you asked me a question I might not give you the answer. So today we celebrate Reformation Sunday where God had prepared providentially, orchestrating even Luther's life as an unbeliever to be ready for this particular moment to say to the world, we have to question what the Roman Catholic church is doing.

October 31st, he nails the 95 thesis to the church door at Wittenberg. All right, so here's what we're going to do. We're going to look at the five solas of the Reformation, not on this civic holiday like it would be in Germany, but what churches in the United States call Reformation Sunday, All Saints Day.

We didn't know that it was on October 31st until Melanchthon wrote back in 1546 that this was the day. Who can name the five solas of the Reformation? What we're doing is here's Luther up to this point and then kind of what was the product, what was the summary of what God did through Luther at the Reformation?

That's what we're going to look at now. So there's a big gap in between, but Luther up to 1517 and then the product of what God did through Luther and through Melanchthon, through other people, Calvin Zwingli.

Who can name the five solas of the Reformation? What's sola mean by the way? Alone. Okay, good. And every one of the solas is teaching truth, but it's also teaching something, it's going against the opposition.

So for instance, sola scriptura is what? Scripture alone, that means, and therefore, no traditions, no magisterium, no other authority. Sola Christus, Christ alone. The church doesn't save, you can't save, Jesus alone saves.

Sola gratia, what's that mean? Grace alone. It is not you and God synergistically, S-Y-N, it is God alone monergistically by His grace saving. Sola fide, faith alone. It is an instrument, it receives, it doesn't cause, it doesn't affect anything, it receives what God has done.

And then finally, soli deo gloria, to God alone be the glory. So let's quickly look at those and then we will, in Martin Luther's style, have some ice cream. Oh, it is Martin Luther's style. Yesterday, the elders and their families, we went out to have ice cream.

And I think it was all burnt off, boiled off, but I had some chocolate oatmeal stout ice cream with the elders. So I don't know if I need an indulgent for having that, I think the stout was boiled off.

But that would be like a Luther kind of ice cream, stout ice cream with oatmeal. It was good by the way. Pradeep, what kind did you get? Hot chocolate? The teetotaler, Pradeep, he got the hot chocolate.

So Luther is used of God up to 1517. Everything starts at 1517, all kinds of stuff happened. We don't have time to talk about that tonight, but what was the result? What was kind of the end as we look backward now at the Reformation and say, if we had to summarize the Reformation with five points, what would those five points be?

And they'd be the five solos. So that's what we're going to do right now. First one, sola scriptura, scripture alone. Why don't you turn to 2 Timothy chapter three, please. We're going to just look at a passage briefly for each one of these.

The sole source for truth is scripture, divine revelation. The Bible contains everything you need pertaining to life and godliness, to quote 2 Peter. No creed, no counsel, no individual can bind your conscience.

Not a pastor, not an elder, not a friend. The only thing that can bind your conscience is scripture and scripture alone. Not the Pope, not the councils, not the bishops, no one. The Holy Spirit speaks through the word.

By the way, this easily can be discussed too today when it comes to psychology and how it does not sanctify and mystical experiences. Sola scriptura, verse 15 of 2 Timothy chapter three. The Bible alone is the standard and teaches everything necessary for salvation, Christian behavior.

And from that childhood, here's Paul writing to Timothy, you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is God-breathed.

Breathed out is much better than breathed in. It's breathed out by God, profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, training in righteousness that the man of God, that's a technical term for the preacher, may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

God has his word breathed out and it is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, training in righteousness. What is our standard? That's teaching. How have we failed to measure up? That's rebuke.

Correcting, stand you back up again and point you in the right direction. And then total training in righteousness is the end. Training in righteousness as a way of life. The scriptures are sufficient for all that.

I just looked at an old, this is kind of a funny thing, the picture was even funnier. I found the telegram, not the telegram in the Gazette, what's the West Boylston paper? The banner. I found the banner.

And on the front of the banner was this guy in 1997 who looked kind of odd to me and it was actually me. It said the Reverend Mike Avendroth that now calls West Boylston home. And I was interviewed, Fred Maxine, by Linda Rochelot, who used to attend the church.

And I was in the banner and, you know, what did I expect to do here in West Boylston? Where am I going with this? Can somebody tell me? See, this is why Steve and I do the radio show together because I just look at Steve and say, what was I going to say again?

And he goes, oh, you were going to say this. I don't really know what I was saying. Oh, I know what I was going to say. God, as it were, parachutes me in behind enemy lines into Massachusetts. I have nothing besides a Bible and the Spirit of God.

And everything I need in the Bible can help us for ministry. There was nothing lacking when God says, here, go to Germany, go to West Boylston, whatever. The Bible has no deficiencies. The best way to think about it is sufficiency of Scripture.

And that means there are no deficiencies. Everything pertaining to your life, godliness, marriage, finances, it's all contained in the Bible. And it makes people, what's a text say? Adequate. This preacher is adequate.

He's proficient. He can meet all the demands for gospel ministry. Psalm 19 talks about the law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul. Rome thought its teachings were infallible. It thought its teachings were final.

It thought its teachings were absolute. By the way, we don't talk about it very often, but during the Reformation, there were some other crazy people besides the Roman Catholics, and they were called the what?

The Anabaptists. And Anabaptists, who are running around, thought that the Spirit of God spoke directly to them outside of the Bible. God told me. They were like pre-Jesus calling people. And instead of having a pope, they would say they had infallible messages given to them by God directly.

And the Reformation went against both of those, against the popes and traditions and magisterium and against direct communication with the Holy Spirit apart from God and His Word. Calvin, when the fanatics boast extravagantly of the Spirit, the tendency is always to bury the Word of God so that they make room for their own falsehoods.

That is sola scriptura. Scripture alone, Christian, is your highest and only authority, your final authority. And don't you know that the world says anti-authority, and what does it attack? Along with everything else, it attacks the Bible.

The only thing that can bind your conscience and this church is the Word of God. It is sufficient. Therefore, I have a few exhortations, therefore, you should read your Bible, you should study your Bible, you should say that Scripture alone is the only rule for this church, you should not settle for anything less than the Bible, you should remember the power of the Bible.

I love it when Luther said, how did you start the Reformation? Quote, I simply taught, preached, and wrote God's Word, otherwise I did nothing, and then while I slept, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that never a prince or emperor did such damage to it.

I did nothing, the Word did it all. Number two, sola Christus, Christ alone. Scriptures alone are sufficient. Now secondly, solus Christus, Christ alone. The historical Christ, His sinless life, His substitutionary death, His resurrection alone, not through sacraments.

I sometimes think that pluralism is only for our day, but back in those days of the Reformation, pluralism was alive and well because of the Renaissance. Petrarch was calling for the spirit of the age back in those days where all religions would be united.

The Reformation would teach that since man is so bad and sinful, Christ alone has to be the Savior. Why don't we turn to 1 Timothy chapter 2 to see this flesh itself out. The right view of God leads to the right view of man, and you have to have Christ who saved.

It is not Christ plus sacraments, and today it's not Christ plus anything else as well. We need this doctrine today because most people, when surveyed, would say that there is judgment, but they don't think they're going to be in hell.

Most people today would say, you know what, if a person is good, does enough good things in life, they will earn heaven for themselves. That denies sola Christus, what we have is Christ alone. So 1 Timothy chapter 2 is going to help us.

There's one mediator between God and man, the woman Mary. Of course it's not going to say that, but that's what Rome is teaching. If you go to Rome today and you ask them, to whom do you pray, guess who's going to be at the top of the list?

I just heard the survey, I can't remember who's 2 and 3, it's kind of the Saint Ann's of the world, but Mary's number 1, Jesus is number 4. Saints aren't the way to get to God. Sacrifices like the mass aren't the way to get to God.

Mary's not the way to get to God. Only alone sola Jesus. There's one God, verse 5 of 1 Timothy chapter 2, one mediator also between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. And what did this Jesus do? He gave himself as a ransom for all, the testimony born at the proper time.

One mediator. We live in a world like they lived, that there was exclusivism taught by the Bible, Jesus alone. And they wanted to have inclusivism, where everybody gets in their own way, or pluralism, you just tolerate everybody else's religion.

When you read 1 Timothy chapter 2, you realize you can't do that. Jesus is the one God for all peoples. Every kind of people. Not just Jews. And he gives himself a ransom. He dies on behalf of all kinds of people.

That is sola Christus. Jesus is the only mediator. If you want a mediator between God and man, it has to be Jesus. It's not an emperor, it's not a saint, it's not Mary. Time's going by so fast, we've got to finish.

Number three, sola gratia, grace alone. Scriptures alone, Christ alone, by grace alone. The supernatural work of God, God's favor alone. Why don't you turn to Ephesians chapter 2, please. I'm trying to give you at least one verse, one set of verses for each of the solas, and you can study them on your own.

You are saved by the accepting work of a gracious God. There's no other way to save, to be saved. God doesn't say, you do your part, I do my part. We think it's interesting when Franklin, wasn't it Benjamin Franklin who said, God helps those who help themselves?

Isn't he the one who said it? Here's the medieval phrase that was popular in Luther's day. Listen, God will not deny his grace to those who do what they can. That's basically Mormonism. I remember when I picked up the Book of Mormon, I was in a Salt Lake City hotel, and I was in seminary and I needed to get the Book of Mormon, and I didn't want to steal it.

But if anything should be stolen, maybe that should be. But I still didn't want to steal it, and so I called the hotel and said, could I please have the Book of Mormon that's here in my hotel room? And they said, no, but we'll send someone up and then they'll give you one.

I said, no, thank you. Don't want the people. Finally, they called back and said, you could have it. And I was just reading through it, and Steve, is it Nephi or Nephi? Nephi. Nephi? Well, thank you for that.

I appreciate it. And in the second book of that, it says, you have to help me, Steve. You are saved by grace after all you can do. You're saved by grace after all you can do. That's not grace, right? Romans chapter 11, you mix one part of works with 99 parts of grace, and what do you get?

The medieval slogan, God will not deny the grace to those who can do what they can, is full of error. And Sola Gratia teaches against that. Ephesians chapter 2, let's just read the verses and we'll move on.

By grace you've been saved. It's even front-loaded there by Paul in Ephesians 2. By grace. He doesn't even say you've been saved through faith, by grace, he says up front, by grace. It's by grace alone.

We just sang this song tonight, you have been saved through faith and that not of yourself. The grace isn't from you, the faith isn't from you, salvation isn't from you, nothing is from you. It's all the gift of God.

Not a result of works, if it could be more clear, it's made even clearer that no one should boast. To quote Pat Abendroth, my brother, you will not get to heaven and high-five God, or fist-bump Him and say, we did it.

It's by grace alone. Your part was sin, my part was sin, God's part was grace. There's no cooperation between the two. He saved us not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His what?

Mercy. That's Titus chapter 3. It is by grace and by grace alone. No sacraments, no scala sancta, no anything when it comes to indulgences, when looking at relics, rescued from God's wrath by grace alone.

Number four, sola fide, faith alone. Let's see, where should we go for that? What would be a good verse to look at faith alone? Well, right there in Ephesians chapter 2. Isn't that right? Saved through faith.

The instrument, the non-meritorious instrument is faith, a commitment, a trust, a confidence in, a persuasion of trusting Christ alone. It is through faith, not faith plus anything else. If you go back to verse 4, you see the cause of your salvation.

Faith is not the cause of your salvation. It has nothing that's meritorious. The cause of your salvation, verse 4 of Ephesians 2, is God's great love with which He loved us. The just shall live by faith.