The Christian, the Church & Our Family History | ‭‭Philippians‬ ‭4‬:‭8‬-‭9

ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church

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Okay, so this coming

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Lord's Day that is next Sunday is Reformation Sunday, which is basically the

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Sunday that falls closest to October 31st. And that was, as you all might know, the day that Martin Luther supposedly hammered the 95

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Theses to the Wittenberg church door to discuss and to debate. And so,

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Lord willing, next Sunday I'm planning to preach about the

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Protestant Reformation. But before I do, this Sunday, I did want to first set the tone for how we should approach the

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Reformation and church history in general. I want us to think about that first and see how we should approach that and view that as Christians.

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So, I'm going to survey lots of ground. It's going to be, a lot of it is going to be high level, but we are going to dive into some scriptures as well, and both church history and scripture, and especially how the two should relate to each other.

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How do the two relate to each other? And so, put on your thinking and discernment cap on, and put your

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Berean caps on, because we're going to have some heavy duty thinking through this process.

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So I want to start out with a question that we all should ask ourselves at the outset.

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Is church history important? Is church history important?

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How important is church history? Is it important for Christians to read about and understand church history?

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Is the study of church history, and by extension, historical theology as well, required for Christians and for the church?

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Is it necessary? Does God command us to learn from those who came before us?

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Is it something that we must bind our consciences to?

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And that's very serious, and we need to tread very carefully here, because we cannot and we must not ensnare our consciences or ourselves to unbiblical traditions of men that are not biblical, that are not according to scripture, much like the

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Pharisees did, where they would avoid the Word of God for their own traditions. And in light of Reformation Sunday coming up, just like the

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Catholic Church has done and continues to do with their man -made traditions, and binding people to all kinds of things that are not, that are contrary to scripture.

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So scripture is very clear that we are not to pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather, decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.

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It's Romans 14, 13. So we have to be very careful and have a balance.

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For you know, brothers and sisters, that you were not redeemed from your useless, spiritually unproductive way of life inherited by tradition from your forefathers, with perishable things like silver and gold, but you were actually purchased with the precious blood, like that of a sacrificial lamb, unblemished and spotless, the priceless blood of Christ, 1

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Peter 1. So ponder these questions throughout the message today.

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Have these in the back of your mind as we seek to answer them biblically.

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So we're going to hop on these trains of thought and journey through church history, kind of a crash course through certain events in church history.

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Those of you who know me well enough can probably guess where I'm going with this, but humor me anyways.

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I promise that you will nevertheless learn and deepen your understanding and appreciation of vital, important truths.

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I know I have just from the study that I've done. I've actually learned a lot. I'm excited to share it today.

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So lost my place here.

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So okay, obviously now, before we go any further, we first and foremost need to define our terms.

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We have to define our terms, as I always say. So the obvious question here is, what is church history?

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What exactly is church history? So church history is a kind or type of history that focuses on the church.

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That's kind of obvious, right? But we also need to understand what the two words mean, church and history.

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Now, while our understanding of the church may be more in tune with scripture, since scripture explicitly deals with the church all throughout the

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New Testament in particular. So that may not be so much of an issue. However, our understanding of history might be a little bit under the influence of secular philosophies that define it in terms of relating only to mankind and to nature.

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And this is where it causes a lot of problems. And usually it's without a purpose.

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There's no ultimate purpose to history, it just happens, especially in Darwinian atheistic evolutionary materialistic philosophies.

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It's kind of like Shakespeare's Macbeth, who immortalized this secular view when he said that life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

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Apologize for that word, I thought that was very fitting for this.

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So the predominant view of written history, which is what

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I learned in school, and which some church historians have also adopted, claims that the historian must remain as detached and objective as possible by strictly reporting the facts alone.

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Just the facts, without inserting personal bias or opinion.

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That's what's seen as doing good proper history. Of course, some are postmodern and totally reject any meaning of history and it's just all whatever you want it to be, but there's still a semblance of this.

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As bad as this one is, at least I hope there's still something like this that's somewhat objective or tries to be.

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So now, we have to realize that this is actually impossible to do, because the writing of history, of any history, including church history, it requires making philosophical assumptions and interpretations and moral judgments about the past.

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You cannot escape that. It's inevitable in part because you have to pick and choose what to write about and what to exclude, because you can't write about everything, obviously.

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So you have to pick, and that is when your assumptions feed into it, and your convictions about what is important and what is not.

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And that's because everyone has a bias, everyone, we as Christians do too.

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It's supposed to be a biblical bias, but we have one nonetheless. It is disingenuous to deny that fact, and it is impossible to avoid.

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We cannot avoid our biases, as much as we may think we are or try to, we cannot.

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So I was really fascinated because this issue really deepened my appreciation for our

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Reformed Baptist standards, our creeds and confessions, because they actually define both terms very clearly according to Scripture.

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It's really amazing. So to start out with the history, history is summed up in questions 11, 12, and 15 of the

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Baptist Catechism. Question 11 says, what are the decrees of God?

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The decrees of God are His eternal purpose according to the counsel of His will, whereby for His own glory,

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He has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. Question 12, how does

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God execute His decrees? God executes

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His decrees in the works of creation and providence, creation and providence.

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Creation is obviously when God first created the world in six days and everything in it.

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And the works, so question 15, is what are God's works of providence? God's works of providence are

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His most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all

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His creatures and all their actions. All their actions.

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That, my friends, is what history really means. You probably have never heard this definition of history outside of even most church historians.

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This is what history means. And as you can see, it is completely God -centered because history and church history is what

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God does. It's what God has foreordained and caused to happen in the past, in history.

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So, history is the execution or unfolding of God's predestined purpose and plan in His works of creation and providence.

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Okay, that's very important to cement in our minds.

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Now that covers the history part, what about the church part? So, the church,

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I've preached on before many times, taught many times on this, but I want to focus specifically on what the scripture says that church history has two primary meanings.

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Biblically, there's two main meanings to the word church. There's the visible and the invisible church, which are defined in questions 105 and 106 of the

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Baptist Catechism. Question 105 says, The visible church is the organized society of professing believers.

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That's the key word, okay? Professing believers in all ages, all ages and places wherein the gospel is truly preached and the ordinances of baptism and the

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Lord's Supper are rightly administered. Question 106 says that the invisible church, on the other hand, is the whole number of the elect.

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The elect, the chosen people of God that have been or shall be gathered into one under Christ the head.

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So, that is the biblical definition of the church.

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This, however, we have to keep this in mind. This is where church historians tend to mess things up.

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The terms aren't even defined properly from the start, because they tend to use the word church in a more ecumenical or more broader sense, which causes confusion.

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It can cause a lot of confusion. Many church historians, including some who claim to be

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Protestant, consider the Roman Catholic Church, for example, to be part of the true

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Christian Church. And one popular example, very popular, is

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Justo Gonzalez. He's a professing

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Protestant historian, who nevertheless explicitly writes from an ecumenical perspective, that is also sympathetic to Rome, to the

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Church of Rome. In fact, he deeply laments that the

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Reformation resulted in, quote, some of the most painful and enduring breaks in the

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Christian Church. And that having a Protestant bias, as he calls it, is a bad thing.

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Something that you need to be cured of, in fact. Also hopes that his efforts will contribute, in some measure, to the growing sense of unity among Christians of all persuasions.

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It's a big party where we all sing Kumbaya and get along, right? But beloved, do not be deceived by this, okay?

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This is just a fairy tale. It is not real.

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It is not reality. We cannot have unity at the expense of truth.

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That is impossible. Truth will always give out, it will always be compromised when you have unity without it.

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You can't have that. You can't have it both ways. So, in fact, sometimes painful and enduring breaks in the

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Christian Church, in his words, are absolutely necessary and good.

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Because as the Apostle Paul asserts, Indeed, it is necessary that there be divisions among you, so that those who are in the right may be clearly seen in your midst.

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Divisions are necessary according to Scripture, in order to draw the line and show who's in the right and who's in the wrong.

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They are necessary and good. Conflict sometimes is necessary and good.

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It is a good thing. It purges the church and it clarifies the truth. So, and so -called

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Christians, you know, the so -called Christians, right? Of certain persuasions are simply not

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Christians at all. They are not Christians at all. If they deny the gospel, which would include

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Roman Catholics. You cannot call yourself a Christian if you deny the gospel. Any primary doctrine, especially the gospel.

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So, in fact, it is the very reason the Reformation happened in the first place, was because the

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Roman Catholic Church had become apostate in its teaching and grossly immoral in its lifestyle.

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And still is. Nothing has really changed on that front. So, when

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I was researching for my sermon online, the AI robot, the artificial intelligence robot, gave me an unsolicited definition of church history.

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I didn't ask for it. And this is what the AI robot told me.

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Church history involves studying the history of Christianity and the way the

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Christian church has developed since its inception. It covers the origins of Christianity and the church, its relationship to Jesus, its role in salvation, its polity or government, its discipline, its eschatology, its leadership.

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And it also examines the past events, councils and crises pertaining to the church using various sources and perspectives.

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So, this was an interesting answer, but it's too vague ecumenical and relative.

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It fails to mention that church history also involves studying professing believers.

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Professing believers like the Baptist Catechism says, including key figures and leaders, such as flawed heroes of the faith like Martin Luther, as well as notorious heretics like Pelagius.

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It includes the study of how the church has gathered, localized, and split, and how the church has related to and interacted with the culture, society, and the state.

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Church history is also, borrowing from Beecke and Hagen, from this booklet actually, very good booklet, that it is also the written interpretation and judgment of past events in the lives of professing believers, including sermons, diaries, journals, letters, theological treatises and tracts, liturgies, and even church buildings of that time.

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So, it's very comprehensive. Similarly, now historical theology is a sister discipline of church history that deals specifically with questions like, how have the doctrines, specifically the doctrines, of Christianity been identified, formulated, elaborated, defended, and applied throughout the history of the church?

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What specific doctrines have theologians and churches taught in a given historical era?

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Historical theology also locates professing Christians and their perspectives in the historical context, prior influences, which is very important, prior influences, and commonplaces of the time, common understandings of the time, of their time.

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Alright, so now we've defined our terms. Next step. Let's return to the question of whether church history is important to the life and doctrine of believers.

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So, by way of contrast, should our view of church history be more like what the ancient monk

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Pelagius thought of grace? If you know your history, or if you attended the classes on lordship salvation, you would know exactly what

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I'm talking about. Case in point. Let's use church history to make a point about church history, and tie everything together with scripture.

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So you see, Pelagius, who lived from about 354 to 418

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AD, take note that this was obviously a very long time ago, was a

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British monk and theologian known for promoting a system of doctrines known as Pelagianism.

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He emphasized human choice and free will in salvation, and denied original sin, or the doctrine that mankind is born in sin, and by nature evil.

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Pelagius thought that God's grace was optional for our salvation, that it's nice to have, sort of like a supplement, it's nice to have, but not really necessary.

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You could save and perfect yourself by your own efforts, according to him.

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So it's nice to have, optional, but not really necessary. In the words of Pelagius, whether we will or whether we will not, we have the capacity of not sinning by our own will.

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This is because God has already given us the ability to obey Him without any extra help or grace needed.

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So we'll explore more of this later. But now it's time for public service announcement.

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It's been a while since I've done those. I've got plenty of them today. As I've noted before, scripture makes an important distinction between being ignorant of an important doctrine and knowingly and willfully rejecting it.

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There's a very important difference there. Those who knowingly and willfully deny a primary doctrine of scripture, especially the gospel, have denied the faith and therefore cannot be saved.

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You cannot be saved. God's word has many dire warnings of doom to those who knowingly reject the truth and suppress it in unrighteousness, like Romans 1 says.

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For example, in 2 Peter 2, starting verse 19, we read, it says,

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For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. For after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our

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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome.

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The last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the commandment delivered to them.

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What the true proverb says has happened to them. The dog returns to his own vomit and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.

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That is obviously a disgusting image to get us to see how serious that really is in God's eyes.

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Jesus tells us, in fact, that these are the ones sown among the thorns from the parable of the soils of the sower.

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Because they are those who hear the word, they understand it, but the cares of the world and deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word and it proves unfruitful.

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These people understood the gospel, in other words, they had the knowledge of our

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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but ultimately did not agree with it.

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They did not consent to it. They did not believe it to be true. And therefore were never saved and instead fell away into a worse state of rejecting the truth as opposed to ignorant unbelief of the truth.

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That is worse according to Scripture. So now let's turn to Hebrews chapter 10, starting in verse 26.

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This is where we'll see a corollary passage. It's very important. Hebrews chapter 10, starting in verse 26.

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God's word says, For if we go on sinning deliberately, intentionally, willfully, after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of the fire that will consume the adversaries.

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Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.

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How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the

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Son of God and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which He was sanctified and has outraged the

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Spirit of grace. For we know Him who said, Vengeance is mine. I will repay.

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And again, the Lord will judge His people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living

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God. Amen to that. Now in this passage, the writer of Hebrews uses old covenant illustrations to give a series of warnings to those who deny what

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Christ has finished for us on the cross. The gospel of salvation that is entirely by God's grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, to the glory of God alone, based on the ultimate authority of Scripture alone.

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This is the same gospel that was encapsulated in the

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Protestant Reformation and was recovered. Known as the Five Solas of the Reformation.

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That is, again, grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, glory of God alone,

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Scripture alone. Five Solas. This is the same gospel, again, that the

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Protestants recovered, proclaimed, defended, bled, and died for before, during, and following the

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Reformation. I'm now going to enlist the help of another influential figure in the history of the church.

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This time on the right side of things. A brilliant Reformed Princeton theologian and church historian in his own right.

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His name is B .B. Warfield. Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield. That's a cool name.

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Whom we should all be familiar with and take the time to read. So much for showing my poker face.

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I guess I'm giving myself away here. Warfield wrote about the Pelagian controversy in one of his books, which honestly should be required reading for everyone.

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He sheds light for us on the kind of man Pelagius was and what he taught. So, in his book on Pelagius, he says,

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So exceedingly ardent an advocate was Pelagius of man's unaided, unhelped ability to do all, everything that God commanded.

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That when this noble and entirely scriptural prayer, give what thou commandest and command what thou wilt, which means, which is praying that God would command whatever

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He wills and grant us the ability to obey His commands. When this prayer was repeated in Pelagius' hearing, he was unable to endure it and somewhat inconsistently contradicted it with such violence as almost to become involved in a strife.

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So he almost got in a fight over this vehement rejection of a simple prayer. That's perfectly biblical.

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The powers of man Pelagius held were gifts of God and it was therefore a reproach against him against God, as if he had made man ill or evil to believe that they were insufficient for the keeping of his law.

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Nay, do what we will, we cannot rid ourselves of their sufficiency according to him.

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Whether we will or whether we will not, we have the capacity of not sinning.

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I say, Pelagius says, not me, not me, that man is able to be without sin and that he is able to keep the commandment of God unaided by grace.

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And this sufficiently direct statement of human ability is in reality the hinge of his entire system.

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So, this is pretty black and white. And if you know your church history, you would know that Luther had a famous debate with Erasmus where Luther called

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Erasmus out for this very thing. The issue was free will. And he blasted

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Erasmus for calling him out and saying, you don't even have the logic of a schoolboy. How is it just because God commands us to do something does not imply that we have the ability to keep it?

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Why else did Jesus come in the first place? Amen? So, that was a little off script, but it was fitting.

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Now another public service announcement and reminder. Primary doctrines center around God, man, and salvation.

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Those three. God, man, and salvation. You could also throw in God's word.

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That's a fundamental one. I'll need to add that in. Including a right understanding and proper distinction of law and gospel.

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Like I preached on before. Pelagius, however, rejected all three biblical doctrines.

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Of God, man, and salvation. And therefore fell under the condemnation of Paul's warning in Galatians 1, 6 -9.

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If you turn with me there to Galatians 1.

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This is a memory verse. This is something that we need to memorize.

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Because in our age of compromise and of ecumenical babble and vagueness and nonsense.

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If we fall into that trap, we're going to fall into the condemnation of the apostle Paul and the condemnation of God.

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Galatians 1, verse 6 says, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ.

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The grace of Christ. Grace alone and Christ alone. And are turning to a different gospel.

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Not that there is another one. There is no other gospel that saves. But there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

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But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be anathema.

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That's the Greek word, anathema. That means accursed, damned, condemned to hell.

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As we have said before, so now I say again. If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you receive, let him be anathema.

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He repeats it twice in the same statement. This is how serious

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God is about doctrinal accuracy. Especially of primary doctrines like the gospel.

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We have to get it right. We have to get it right. And cast away these buffoons like Doug Wilson who say you don't have to get it right.

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And you can still be saved. But as it turned out in history,

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Pelagius was soundly refuted and denounced by one of his contemporaries who was arguably the theologian that most influenced the

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Reformation. This is very, very, very important to understand.

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This man cast a huge shadow on not just the Western Church but the entire

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Western world. Even the Eastern world. Because the Eastern world reacted against him in many ways.

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Do you know your church history? Pelagius was refuted by none other than Augustine of Hippo.

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It was Augustine. Now I have a maxim for you. I want to lay down a maxim.

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You cannot understand. You cannot understand and appreciate the history of the church and the

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Reformation in particular unless you understand the role that Augustine played in it.

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He was one of the most influential figures in the history of the church apart from the biblical authors.

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Why, do you ask? Well, let's find out. Let's ask our trusty tour guide,

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B .B. Warfield again, who summed up the Reformation in this way. The Reformation inwardly considered was just the ultimate triumph of Augustine's doctrine of grace over Augustine's doctrine of the church.

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It was the ultimate triumph of Augustine's doctrine of grace over and against Augustine's doctrine of the church.

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This one quote speaks volumes to the overwhelming influence that Augustine played on the medieval world and on the

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Reformation. It is... Warfield just nails it perfectly because both sides, as you will see...

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I'm going to get to that. Consequently, the more you understand this quote, the more you will understand the significance of both church history and the

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Reformation because Augustine's view was championed by the

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Protestants, the Reformers. And Augustine's view of the church, on the other hand, was adopted and further corrupted by the

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Roman Catholic church state. So that's a thumbs down. By the Roman Catholic church state because Augustine had a sovereign view of grace and he believed that man was depraved, like the

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Bible says. But his doctrine of the church unfortunately became compromised and he started to believe that you needed to compel unbelievers and heretics, compel them by force to come in, which gave rise to the

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Catholic church's view of the Inquisition and those kind of things. Augustine didn't teach that but he kind of paved the way for that.

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And providentially, as it turned out, when Martin Luther, now back to Martin Luther in the 1500s, when he prayed to Saint Anne, who is the alleged mother of Mary, according to the

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Gnostic and Roman Catholic tradition, during a thunderstorm, which you can definitely call an act of God in every sense of the word, so that she would spare his life.

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So he prayed that she would spare his life and so he said something like, help me Saint Anne and I'll become a monk.

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He took a vow to join a monastery, which just so happened to be, okay,

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I hope I can say this right, Agustina Kloster, which is very butchered German for Saint Augustine's monastery.

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Okay? So I hope you can see how all these dots are connected. They're all connected.

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Pretty amazing stuff. And by the way, even the secular world acknowledges to some extent the importance of the

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Reformation. Because this monastery became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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Why? And they explain that it's due to its role in the Reformation, these historic sites are considered to represent one of the most important events in the religious and political history of the world.

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The entire world. Even secular organizations recognize just how significant the

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Reformation was and is. So then, back to our initial question.

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Should we view church history the same way that the heretic

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Pelagius viewed God's grace? That it's just optional, but not really necessary.

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Not trying to influence you either way. Just saying. But maybe it's not in your best interest to side with the heretic this time.

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Okay, let's try somebody else. What about Dave Hunt? How about Dave Hunt's view of church history? In a radio interview on August 11th of 2000,

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Dave Hunt told James White, I am very ignorant of the Reformers. I have not had time to read them.

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There are truckloads, I guess, of their writings. And I like to just kind of pretend that we're back there in the days of the

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Apostles before all of these things were written. And I like to go to the

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Bible, so whether a Reformer said this or that, I don't know. I don't know.

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So, kind of like, I'll just pretend that nothing exists after the

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Bible was written. Who cares? Who needs it? This is how many churches operate.

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I've seen and listened to many churches that almost completely disregard history or view it as a distraction from other things that they consider more important.

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Sometimes they may not even admit it or realize it. But this essentially is a simplistic, no creed but Christ, no book but the

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Bible view. This is that perspective. Very common. Incidentally, Dave Hunt was deeply influenced by another historical movement, speaking of church history, the

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Plymouth Brethren. The Plymouth Brethren, which had a serious negative impact on the church and continues to have a bad, a negative effect on it.

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So, I hope you're spotting the trend here. I hope you're seeing a trend.

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Just how connected we all are to the past.

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To the past. And because we're Christians, to the church, to the historic church.

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So, but now we need to really dig into kind of like the obvious issue, right?

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What does God have to say about church history? What does God have to say? What sayeth the

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Scripture? So, upon doing a survey, and I didn't even really scratch the surface.

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I just did more of an overview. But I found that God often commands.

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He commands. Doesn't suggest, doesn't make it optional. He commands. His people to remember, honor, and commemorate the past.

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Remember, honor, and commemorate. There is in fact a comprehensive theology of remembrance. Woven through the entire

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Bible. So, starting with the Old Testament, these passages give us a general sense of how

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God wants us to view history. And how we should see history, all of history, as providentially predetermined by God.

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Who is the ultimate cause of all history. So, Psalm 77 verse 11 says,

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I will remember the deeds of the Lord. Yes, I will remember your wonders of old.

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I will ponder all your work, and meditate. That's to think deeply on your mighty deeds.

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Your way, O God, is holy. What God is great like our

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God? You are the God who works wonders. You have made known your might among the peoples.

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You with your arm redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph. So, that's like an emphatic five times in that one small passage.

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Remember, ponder, meditate, think deeply on the works of God. Deuteronomy 32, starting in verse 6 says,

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Do you thus repay the Lord? You foolish and senseless people.

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It is not He, your Father, who created you, who made you and established you.

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Remember the days of old. Remember the past. Consider the years of many generations.

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Ponder the past. Ask your Father, and He will show you your elders, and they will tell you.

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So, He's telling them, you need to be talking about this stuff. You need to be talking about the past.

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Meditating on it. Pondering it. Asking the elders to explain it to you. The significance of it to you.

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So, I want to summarize and give a big picture of how God repeatedly instructed

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Israel to commemorate, to memorialize many historical events.

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He said, Remember the exodus out of Egypt. What the

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Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt. The great trials that your eyes saw.

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The signs, the wonders, the mighty hand and the outstretched arm by which the Lord your

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God brought you out. That's Deuteronomy 7. Remember the

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Sabbath to keep it holy. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the

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Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.

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Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

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That's Deuteronomy 5, the fourth commandment. Remember, the waters of the

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Jordan River were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord when it passed over the

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Jordan. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.

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It's in Joshua 4. Remember the Lord and His mighty works, His creation,

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His deeds, His wonders. That's all over the Psalms and in many other places. Remember, the national feasts, the holy days, the celebrations, the ritual sacrifices, all of these things were embedded in the worship and nation of Israel.

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Remember, remember, remember. Remember the hall of faith, the hall of faith, the faithful men and women of God of old, and the martyrs, like the passage in Hebrews says.

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And even in heaven, remember, remember the pierced hands and feet and side of Jesus Christ.

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Even in heaven, which will forever remain on our Lord and Savior, to remind us of the gospel, the series of historical events.

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That is what the gospel is. It's a series of historical events consummating in the perfect life and vicarious death of Christ our

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Lord. So important it is to remember that after Jesus rose from the dead,

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His resurrected, glorified, perfected body still had the scars of His sacrifice on His wrists and on His feet and on His side.

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He invited Thomas, who doubted the resurrection, to see and feel the scars of crucifixion. Put your finger here, said

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Jesus. See my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.

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So, that's just barely scratching the surface.

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And the New Testament similarly repeats this emphasis on remembering the past and those who came before us.

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1st Corinthians chapter 10. Let's turn there.

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Let's go to 1st Corinthians chapter 10. Starting at the beginning in verse 1.

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We'll see a summary of what I read in the Old Testament. 1st

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Corinthians chapter 10. Here we read, 1st

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Corinthians chapter 10, verse 1. For I do not want you to be unaware or ignorant, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea and all were baptized to Moses in the cloud and in the sea and all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them and the rock was

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Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

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Now these things took place as examples for us, for us who came later, that we might not desire evil as they did.

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Do not be idolaters as some of them were. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

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We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did. And 23 ,000 fell in a single day.

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We must not put Christ to the test as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer.

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Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come.

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Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed, lest he fall.

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Amen. Just an amazing recap of how God literally says,

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He made these things happen in part so that we could learn and benefit from them. To know them, understand them and not be ignorant of them.

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Now, continuing on, 1 Timothy 3 .15

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says that we need to know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living

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God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. Pillar and buttress of the truth.

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The church is a pillar and buttress of the truth. What does pillar and buttress mean?

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What is a pillar? A pillar and a buttress, like a fortress. Pillar is something that maintains stability.

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It supports, it holds, it preserves. A buttress, same thing, it protects, it preserves, maintains.

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So the church maintains the truth in this evil world.

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And ask yourself this, was the church born yesterday? When you got saved, is that when the church was born?

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Or was the church born way back in the times of Christ? Like the

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Bible says, when the new covenant was authorized and established.

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So, the church has been, in other words, consequently, therefore, thus, the church has been a pillar and buttress of the truth from its inception back in the

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New Testament. The church has always been the pillar and buttress of the truth.

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The salt and light that preserves, buttresses, and supports the truth in every age that it has existed.

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So, let's turn now to Ephesians 4, verse 11.

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Ephesians 4, verse 11. So, Ephesians 4, verse 11 tells us,

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And He, God, Christ, gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, or pastors, and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, which is the church, until we all, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the

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Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes.

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Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the

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Head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, the entire body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part, each part, each part is working properly, makes the body grow, so that it will build itself, so that it builds itself up in love.

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Here we see again that God has given us a five -fold ministry of officers in the church.

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There are the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers, all to equip the saints for the work of ministry to build up the church, to edify us, even now.

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Now the question is, are these pastors and teachers and prophets and evangelists, are these just the people that are alive today?

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That's what C .S. Lewis called chronological snobbery, where we think only the present is relevant.

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And the reality is that God says the exact opposite, that God has given us pastors, teachers, in fact most of our, you could say in one way, most of our pastors and teachers, especially the ones that will most help us, come from the past.

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Because their doctrine has been developed, it has been tested, and has been kept and preserved by the church, the pillar and buttress of the truth, for us, to build us up.

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So the ministry, the work of these men from the past, who have passed on to glory, still works in our day, which is obvious, right?

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We all can pick up a book by Spurgeon, or by Charles Hodge, or by B .B. Warfield, or by anybody from the past, and learn from them, which is what we're supposed to do anyway, because God commands us to, very clearly, because every joint has a part to play.

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Every joint means every one of us has a part to play. That means that the men of old who passed away, it's not like they were a joint, and then they got taken out of the body.

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Right? That doesn't make sense. They are still members of the body. They are still a part of the joint, which is the church.

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And therefore, we must still look back to them as guides to learn from the truth of God's Word, to better understand

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God's Word, and how to apply it, and to learn from their mistakes, as well, of course, because they were not perfect.

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So, that's a key passage right there.

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All of them are, but now this one, I want to bring the point home with this last one.

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Hebrews 13, 7 says, to remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the

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Word of God, consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.

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It's a very clear passage. And now, taking what we've learned previously, using the analogy of Scripture, using the analogy of faith, connecting all of the dots of Scripture, we see

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God is telling us to remember our leaders. Is it just Tim, Elder David, and myself?

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No. We are not just the only leaders you're supposed to take heed to.

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We need to take heed to the leaders, the five -fold office of ministry that God has given us before.

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The pastors, and teachers, and evangelists, like Spurgeon, and like Charles Hodge, and like B .B. Warfield, and all of these great men of God, whom

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God used, Martin Luther, the Reformers, John Calvin, all of these men

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God used to preserve, to edify, and to build up the church. And we need these men to help us, and to guide us.

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Because it is the height of arrogance to think that we don't need them, because I just have my

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Bible, and that's all I need. When in reality, if you knew history, you would learn, how did we get our

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Bible in the first place? It was translated by Reformers.

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Starting with men like John Wycliffe. They were

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Protestants. Because they believed what God says about His Word. That it needs to be understood in the common language.

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So, alright. There's so much more we can get into here.

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This is just scratching the surface, but even this overwhelmingly shows us what

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God says about history, and church history. What shall we say then?

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What should our answer be to the question of whether Christians should care about history and church history?

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Should we listen to Pelagius, that it's optional, nice to have, or Dave Hunt?

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And these men, Pelagius was a heretic. Dave Hunt, he may have been a believer.

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He was a very misguided one. He had a lot of really serious problems because he did not regard these men of the past.

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You will suffer for it. You will suffer for it. The obvious answer to that is no.

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We should not take that view. It should be clear by now that Scripture commands us to remember and learn from the lives and the doctrine of Christians who came before us.

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Before us. Therefore, church history and historical theology are absolutely indispensable, necessary, for the life and doctrine of all

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Christians. All of us. Not just pastors.

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Not just super -Christians. Not... It's everybody.

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We are all members of the body. We all need to be equipped and edified by the body of Christ.

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All of the body. Including the men of old. Now, mind you, aside from the clear teaching of Scripture, the clear teaching of many pastors and theologians is the same.

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Even men whom I would personally disagree with. I have this really...

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This quote really surprised me. By Martin Lloyd -Jones.

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Or as Elder David affectionately calls Martin Lloyd -Jones. He said some very powerful words with respect to this subject.

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And I got the wrong page number here. That was a false start right there.

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Okay, here we go. I found it. This was written by Beacon Hagen.

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It says, Meditating upon God's works and servants in history is not optional for the

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Christian, but an important part of covenant faithfulness to the Lord. Martin Lloyd -Jones said,

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My contention is that the Christian should learn from history. That because he is a

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Christian, it is his duty to do so. Then he must rouse himself to do so.

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Yes, you must rouse yourself to action to learn history. To help you do this.

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That's incredible. I mean, that blew me away.

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I wasn't sure if I was overstating my case. But after all this studying and seeing what even these men have to say, this is something that we need to bind our consciences with and make a priority in our lives.

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Because when I hear a Christian say that he doesn't like history, immediately that should be a red flag.

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That should be a red flag for us. Like what Dave Hunt said. Because our

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God is the Lord of history, the predeterminer of history, the one who commands us to remember history, and the men who he used and ordained to preserve the truth throughout the history of the church.

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Because God commands us to learn and remember the past.

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Simple. Period. And because the Bible is one big history book.

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Amen? I mean, it's one gigantic history book. It is the earliest, most reliable, only perfect history book in existence.

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And it is a book of history. Overwhelmingly a book of history. So, even in our secular society, we celebrate and remember the importance of certain days.

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This is not a foreign concept to us as humans. Right? Holidays. We have holidays. Obviously not all of them should be celebrated, like Halloween, which is satanic and demonic, because it's got the wrong focus.

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But we have anniversaries, wedding anniversaries, work anniversaries. God built our

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DNA into this. Now think with me here, as we get ready to close.

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Doesn't God want us to know what

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He has been doing all these years since He wrote the Bible? The rhetorical answer should be obvious by now.

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But what arrogance, how arrogant is it to say, I don't need to know what God did before I came along.

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It just matters when I'm here. That's just the height of foolishness and arrogance.

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And God calls it foolishness. In the passages that we read earlier. So, final point of application here.

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So does this mean now that you're in sin if you're not very familiar with church history?

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It's an important question. And the answer is that it depends. Alright, let's take a test now.

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If you would like to learn history, or like to learn more about it, but simply haven't gotten around to it, then that's understandable.

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The desire is important, and we need to kindle that desire, as individuals and as a church.

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But my point is that we all need to make church history a priority. It needs to be a priority.

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And as a church, we need to teach and promote the study of church history and historical theology, and give us all the opportunities to learn more about it, get recommended resources, because I know that's a minefield.

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Studying church history can be a minefield if you don't know where to look. So we can help you with that.

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But if you don't want to learn church history, if you're not interested, or because you think it's unimportant or irrelevant, then, you know,

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God rebuke you. Right? That's not the right attitude to have. It needs to be corrected and repented of.

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Because God is clear in the Scriptures that we must regard history, the church especially, which is the pillar and buttress of the truth that has been handed down and preserved to us.

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We are a product of church history. We are a product of history. And being ignorant of that is only going to be to our demise and peril.

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We need to renew our minds according to the truth of God's Word.

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We have to take heed to what God says and apply it accordingly. Amen? With that said, let us now close in prayer.

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Thank you for listening to the sermons of Thorn Crown Covenant Baptist Church, where the Bible alone, and the

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Bible in its entirety, is applied to all of faith and life. We strive to be biblical, reformed, historic, confessional, loving, discerning

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Christians who evangelize, stand firm in, and earnestly contend for the Christian faith.

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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 Ephraimanda Radio and Thorn Crown Network Podcasts, please contact us at thorncrownministries .com.