3 Reasons Why the Reformation Still Matters

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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October 25, 2020

Psalm 46 (Lord of Hosts) by SGFC Worship Team

00:00: Want to invite you to take out your Bibles with me and turn to Romans chapter 1.
00:12: I realize we Had been in an extended Series in Genesis, but this week and next week.
00:19: I will be stepping away from Genesis today is Reformation Day And so I am preaching a Reformation sermon next week is Going to be my four-year Anniversary sermon Not the anniversary of me being the preacher.
00:36: I've been the preacher for 15 years, but Every four years I preach the same message God will still be on his throne Wednesday because next week is the Sunday before the election And we need to be reminded that no matter what happens Jesus will still be King So keep that in mind for next week.
00:59: We will be in in the book of Isaiah But today we are in Romans.
01:04: So I do invite you to stand again We stand for the reading of God's Word when it's going to be preached It also ensures that everyone is Together so we stand to read the word.
01:14: We're going to read Romans 1 verses 16 and 17 For I am NOT ashamed of the gospel For it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes To the Jew first and also to the Greek for in it The righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith as it is written The righteous shall live by faith Father in heaven.
01:54: May you now keep me from error and from cowardice as I preach May your spirit fill the room in Christ's name.
02:01: Amen.
02:02: You may be seated The title of today's message is why the Reformation still matters Why the Reformation still matters? Many of you have heard me over the course of several years Especially those who have been here for many years.
02:24: You have heard me talk about the life of Martin Luther Many people are aware of the major events of his life the nailing of the 95 theses the burning of the papal bull the triumphant pronouncement at the Diet of Worms the translation of the Bible into the German tongue but less commonly known Unless you just happen to be a Person who happens to follow Luther's life a little more closely less commonly known is The impact that the passage that we're reading today had on the life of Luther the six words which confronted Luther's heart and ultimately led him to a right understanding of justification Were these words The righteous shall live by faith The righteous shall live by faith.
03:26: This is a quote from Martin Luther Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement The righteous shall live by faith Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God Justifies us through faith as it is written.
03:47: He who through faith is righteous shall live Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise the whole of scripture took on a new meaning and whereas before the justice of God had filled me with hate now it became to me an inexpressibly sweet love this passage of Paul's became to me a Gateway to heaven you see Luther was afraid of the righteousness of God the righteousness of God had caused Luther to be a man who spent sometimes hours in the confessional confessing to his Superiors all of his sins to the point that one of his superiors even said to him brother Martin Please do not come back to the confessional until you have something serious to confess I mean he was a monk living in a cloister.
04:46: How much could he how much sin could there be you know? I was coveting brother Richard's bread You know, I mean what what could he have done? but he felt and understood his sin because he understood it when he compared it to the righteous and magnificent greatness of God You see Luther didn't compare himself to other men as men often do Luther compared himself to God and he knew how Desperately wicked his heart was And when he saw this passage The righteousness of God that scared him because he knew that it was the righteousness of God That condemned him But as he began to grow in his understanding of the word as he began to understand better what this word means And what this passage means he realized that the righteousness of God is what condemns us But it is also what saves us Because God gives us his righteousness.
06:00: He gives us the righteousness of Christ and Therefore the righteous the one who is declared righteous is not the one who is righteous in and of himself He's not the one who is righteous because of what he has done, but he has been declared righteous based on the righteousness of another You see this was what Paul meant when he said I stand having a righteousness not of my own Which comes from the law? But a righteousness which comes through faith in Jesus Christ the righteousness of God which comes by faith This is the heart of the Reformation Brothers and sisters, this is what made the Reformation come alive Because the Roman Catholic Church had twisted and maligned the righteousness of God and they had told men that they could earn that righteousness That was needed through good works and Through the purchase of indulgences and through the participation of penance and confessionals the Roman Catholic Church Had maligned the Word of God and when and when Luther came to a right understanding of this passage He said it was like heaven had opened It was like the gates of paradise had swung open and it was like I was reborn Sounds a little like what Jesus said and he said unless a man be Born again he will not see the kingdom of heaven and Luther said when I when I understood this passage I was reborn and it was like the gates of paradise were opened to me Luther's conviction About how a man is made right with God ignited the Protestant Reformation and through him and other men like Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin and their predecessors John Wycliffe and Jan Hus Who had laid much of the foundation stones? for the Reformation led the church in a new direction away from the false teachings and corruptions of Rome and Into what became known as the Protestant Reformation, but sadly We sit here today Five hundred and three years this side of the official start date if you want to call October 31st 1517 that was the day the 95 theses were nailed So we sort of we sort of count that as the the day We stand here 503 years later and many of us And when I say us I don't mean just us as a church but many of us in Christendom Have lost any sense of why that whole event mattered We live in a day where many Protestants cannot tell you why they are Protestant.
09:14: They are Protestant by tradition Not by conviction you ever heard of a cradle Catholic Cradle Catholic is somebody who's born a Catholic been a Catholic since I was born.
09:29: So I was a cradle Catholic That's fairly common in Roman Catholicism, but it is also common unfortunately in Protestantism There are people who are born into Baptist homes and therefore I'm a Baptist I was born in a Methodist home and therefore I'm a Methodist.
09:47: I was born in a Presbyterian home and therefore I'm a Presbyterian, but they have no sense as to why They have no sense as to why it matters to them it's nothing more than Which team they root for It's like having your favorite sport and your favorite team and you don't really it doesn't really matter at the end of the day who? Wins, but I hope my team is doing good If you've been in this church any length of time certainly if you've been in here for more than a year or two You know that I believe the Reformation mattered, you know Our elders believe the Reformation mattered and I hope you believe that the Reformation mattered And I hope you believe that it still matters.
10:37: But my question for today is why? Why does this still matter Why focus on this? I mean don't we have bigger fish to fry today? I mean, there's this this all of the Junk going on in the world.
10:52: Why are we talking about this? Why does this matter? Can't we just quit worrying about this and move on that's what a lot of people want to do They want to say it doesn't matter anymore Let's just get over it and move on Can't we quit worrying about it? My answer is no and I'm going to give you three reasons today why I believe the Protestant Reformation still matters Now they're kind of long sentences.
11:27: I didn't put them on the board I didn't think that well, they might have fit but it were there long sentences So if you're taking notes My recommendation would be just wait and when I'm done you can come and take a picture of my notes Because if you're going to try to write all this down It might be a little hard to follow and I'll email them to you If you ever want a copy of my notes, just email me.
11:46: I just send you the notes the whole thing And you can read it back over later But there are three reasons I'm going to give you the three reasons and then I'm going to go back and unpack the three reasons Three reasons why the Reformation still matters number one the majority of people who call themselves Christians still venerate the Pope the majority of people who call themselves Christians are still under the authority of the Pope number two Ignorance of the Bible still exists among the people of God and number three Sola Fide is still the article upon which the church stands or falls So that's the three reasons of the Reformation still matters, so let's go to the first one The majority of people who call themselves Christians still venerate the Pope According to the most recent numbers.
12:42: There are about seven and a half billion people in the world.
12:44: That's a lot of folks We have doubled in population over the last century Seven and a half billion people and it's still growing 31 percent of that seven and a half billion Claims some fidelity to Christianity that puts Christians at about 2.3 billion people in the world Within that 2.3 billion people 53 percent I Don't mean to be throwing so many numbers at you 53% of people who call themselves Christians or Roman Catholic 35% are Protestant 11% are or if Eastern Orthodox and then there's another Like some stragglers out there like 1% of just people who don't claim any fidelity to any group So the vast majority of them are what? Catholics The vast majority of people who call themselves Christians in the world are Roman Catholics 1.2 billion Catholics on the planet and all of them would in one way shape or form pledge allegiance to the vicar of Christ in Rome That's what he calls himself.
14:04: And I know for many of you that idea is just like a novelty.
14:07: Oh, it's just the Pope That's just some old white white outfit guy who rides around on a Popemobile.
14:14: It just doesn't mean anything but understand this the papacy is still a danger to the church because the exaltation of the Pope is One of the most destructive and dangerous heresies in the history of the church You see you understand what the Pope is supposed to be The Pope is supposed to be the universal father of the church That's what the word Pope means it comes from the Latin which means the Latin is Papa and in English Transliterated as Pope and the word Pope means father He is the universal father of the church He is also called the vicar of Christ.
15:07: The word vicar is short for the word vicarious vicarious means one who stands in the place of Christ He is also called Pontifex Maximus a pontiff is a bridge builder or one who makes a pathway and he is called Pontifex Maximus the one who makes the path to God He's the one who builds the bridge To the father You understand the problem with these would be and again These aren't just things that some of the rank-and-file call him.
15:38: These are the things that are emblazoned on the crests vicar of Christ Pontifex Maximus Pope Universal father listen to these quotes.
15:51: I actually went back a few years ago I did a long study on the Pope and I went back and I I pulled some of my notes out I just want you to hear this.
16:02: This is from Pope Pius the 10th Now Pope Pius the 10th wasn't in the Middle Ages Pope Pius the 10th lived from 1835 to 1914 so this is less well about a hundred years ago Just a little over a hundred years ago Pope Pius the 10th said this the Pope is not simply the representative of Jesus Christ on the Contrary.
16:21: He is Jesus Christ himself under the veil of the flesh Pope Leo the 8th a few years before Said this quote we hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty And he was speaking of himself as one of the Popes.
16:42: We hold the place of God Almighty Pope Boniface the 8th said this he said the Roman pontiff judges all men but is judged by no one We declare assert define and pronounce to be subject to the Rome to Roman pontiff is to every human creature Altogether necessary for salvation Unless you are subject to the Roman pontiff you cannot be saved And you say well Catholics don't really believe that Well according to Catholic answers, which is one of the pre Premier Catholic websites.
17:21: This is the statement that was made Catholics are not free to choose which teachings to obey Even when the church has not spoken on a matter of faith and morals Infallibly the faithful must give a religious submission of the intellect and will to all its teachings the church teaches Pope is Supreme the church teaches that Pope's the Pope stands in the place of Christ and you don't have the option of Deciding whether or not that's right Now, I promise you this isn't beat up on Catholic Day And if you just happen to be visiting today and you're Catholic, I love you to death So understand this this is not in any way intended to be offensive.
18:02: I am worried for your soul though Because the Roman Catholic Church has placed a man in the place of Christ Not by my words, but by their own words and it is a very dangerous thing to set up an idol in God's Church if you came into this church and we had a statue of Bale sitting here and Bale statue was up here and half of you came up and bowed the knee and kissed the the foot of the statue But the other half said, ah, they're just they're just kind of wacky Both halves would be wrong the half that's kissing the foot would be wrong because they're idolaters the other half would be wrong because they're seeing the idolatry and saying Oh, it's no problem.
18:52: It's not a big deal You understand what I'm getting at.
18:56: You understand the the serious you say well, he's not Bale No, he's worse because Bale never claimed to be Christ and by the way, he claims to have the authority To speak ex cathedra ex cathedra is Latin means from the seat or from the from the chair Ultimate ultimately what it means is he has the power to speak infallibly He can make infallible statements that the church must accept Because he has stated them It kind of makes it difficult when just this last week the Pope affirmed same-sex unions, I Mean that's a big problem, right? I mean you got a guy who's able to make now to their credit They will all come out and say well, he didn't say that from the chair.
19:45: So it's not enough and it's not an official Infallible proclamation, but that becomes sort of an apples-and-oranges situation wins a guy infallible when he's not That's a that's pretty tough there People say well who cares what the Pope thinks 1.2 billion people care what the Pope thinks that's the point.
20:03: I'm trying to make Half more than half of the people that call themselves Christians are still under the authority of this man When I was driving down to Ocala last week, you know I wasn't here last week and I went down to Ocala drove down 301.
20:18: I saw Several Catholic churches on the way.
20:22: In fact, there was a church about a half a mile from the church I preached at and it was full of cars So this isn't this isn't something that is a small issue This is a huge issue the Supreme Court of the United States used to be made up of mostly Protestant men But now it is made up of mostly Roman Catholics and that is only to simply say Things have shifted the Reformation was a rejection of the papacy understand this the Reformation was an absolute Rejection of the papacy.
21:10: It is a demonstratable fact that every Protestant theologian every notable Protestant theologian from the 19th from the 16th century to the 19th century regardless of their position on Predestination or any of that stuff regardless of their denomination every single one of them believed that the Pope Was Antichrist now you may think that I'm being a little harsh with that language I'll just read to you Martin Luther said this he said we are of the conviction that the papacy is the seat of the true and real Antichrist Personally, I declare that I owe the Pope no other obedience than I would to Antichrist.
21:49: I mean, that's That's Luther Few years later a man by the name of Charles Spurgeon came along now.
21:56: You've probably heard of Charles Spurgeon 19th-century England one of the greatest preachers in history Called the Prince of preachers by many people.
22:04: This is what he says It is the bounden duty of every Christian to pray against Antichrist and to what Antichrist is no sane man ought to raise a question If it be not the potpourri in the Church of Rome There is nothing in the world that can be called by that name He says if it's not the Pope nothing else would qualify the fact that most modern Christians venerate the Pope and the rest of us say it's no big deal It's proof that the Reformation still matters.
22:45: We need to pray for our Catholic brothers and sisters.
22:50: They are under the boot heel of an ungodly leader and Many of them do not see it He is not a loving father He is a devilish wolf whose teeth are stained pink with the blood of men's souls Which he has devoured and through his false teaching damned to hell now, I have not said a word about Roman Catholic individuals.
23:23: I Love my friends who are Roman Catholic and I do think some of them are saved But it is it is in spite of the teaching It is in spite of what they are taught not because of it.
23:39: The teaching of the Roman Catholic Church is Not the gospel of Jesus Christ The Pope is not the vicar of Christ and As long as I have breath in my lungs, I will proclaim that because that is why the Reformation still matters half of the people who call themselves followers of Christ are under the heel of The vicar or the the Pope the Bishop of Rome.
24:10: I Think I made that point well enough.
24:13: Let me move on And it's it's serious guys that was the most important thing to say today, but I have two more points so I'm not anywhere near done, but That was that keep that in mind.
24:27: That's important number two Not only is the papacy still a problem but ignorance of the Bible still exists among God's people prior to the Reformation There was great ignorance of the Bible But in one sense people had an excuse It's hard to hold you accountable for something.
24:48: You've never seen It's hard to hold you accountable for something.
24:51: You cannot read as I said earlier in the service the first time the Bible was ever translated into English was in the 14th century by John Wycliffe and John Wycliffe by the way was hated by the Roman Catholic Church He was a professor at Oxford by the way If you are interested in a this is certainly not a plug for my show, but I do us every morning I do the podcast this week on the podcast.
25:19: I'm going to be doing every day I'm going to be doing a biographical sketch of an of a reformer so every day if you're interested in the history of these men, that's what I'm going to do, but But just a quick note John Wycliffe was a professor at Oxford our Oxford He was expelled from Oxford because he was questioning the teachings of the Pope primarily the teaching about transubstantiation Transubstantiation the doctrine that the bread in the cup become a representation of the sacrifice of Christ and thus Christ is sacrificed again For the sins of men he opposed that teaching and he was expelled as a professor when he was expelled as a professor He went to a place Lutterworth Which is a smaller town where he took up residence as a pastor and he preached at that church and he and his followers Which are called the Lollards? Translated the Bible into English for the first time Because he said if the people can read what the Bible says then they'll know what the church is saying isn't true So he took to the task of translating the Bible into English But he did not have the original languages of Greek and Hebrew So he translated it from the Latin Still a great translation Even though it's a generation removed the Wycliffe Bible still a great translation 200 years later in the early part of the 1500s a man by the name of William Tyndale remember him William Tyndale translated the Bible for the first time into English from the original languages from Greek and Hebrew So that's the first time that that ever happened When he translated the Bible into English he became an outlaw He was hunted and when he was finally caught he was burned at the stake and When he was burned at the stake he cried out to God God opened the king of England's eyes less than a hundred years later King James authorized the translation of the English Bible That would be translated and disseminated among the English people So William Tyndale's prayer was answered Less than a century later God opened the king of England's eyes.
27:37: He did And many of you today still own a King James Bible Which was translated in 1611 Since then there's been no stopping the Reformation You can't stop men and women who have the Word of God in their hands The Reformers said this they said the simple plowman armed with Scripture is Mightier than the greatest Pope without it So give them the Scripture give them the word and they will go and use that word and the The Reformation will not be able to be contained and it wasn't but you see we have a problem today We have a problem with what I would call the the blessing of riches or rather the curse of riches See oftentimes when you have something so much and so long you learn not to appreciate it Like a man who has a good wife who does him good every day of his life So he seeks to at times take her for granted when he never should Because a good wife should always be appreciated right all the ladies say amen.
28:50: Okay same for a good husband but we learn Over time to take things for granted when we have them at our disposal and This is what we have done with the Word of God We have taken it for granted We not only have free access to Bibles in our language We have Bibles in our language that are written for people who don't read very well You've got the really Difficult to read examples like the the New American Standard Bible Which is written pretty heavy and then you have the the NIV and the TNIV Which is like the the teenage version of the NIV you can get it.
29:36: You can go anywhere you want in that line You can get free access To the original language and translate the to make sure that what you're reading is correct You get all that for free online You can get free access to commentaries language helps all kinds of things online yet Most Christians remain ignorant of the Bible Christians in times past could not read the Bible for themselves.
30:05: We can but we choose not to their ignorance Was not like ours because our ignorance is purposeful and criminal.
30:30: There is no Reason why a man or woman who calls himself a Christian should be ignorant of the Word of God yet Survey after survey after survey shows us that we are Recently Ligonier ministries that is the ministry of the late.
30:55: Dr.
30:55: R.
30:55: C.
30:55: Sproul every two years.
30:57: They do a theological survey They survey thousands of people asking very basic theological questions Just to see where people stand 30% of evangelicals surveyed all of these people are in evangelical churches confessing Christianity 30% of them rejected the deity of Christ 46% believe they are good by nature and 22% think that gender identity is a matter of personal choice the amount of big biblical ignorance in the church is downright shameful and It's a result of twofold of a twofold problem Preachers have been derelict in their duties to preach the Word of God instead of preaching the Word of God They preached stories and movies and they've had all kinds of garbage in the pulpit But they have not been preaching the Word of God.
31:55: So preachers are to blame but so to our Christians who have unashamedly turned their interest to pursuing the things of the world rather than the things of God We can quote all the episodes of the office, but we can't quote five verses of Scripture We can tell you everything that happened on every season of our favorite television show But we don't know that Moses and Jesus didn't live at the same time And a guy asked me that one time did Jesus ever meet Moses well in a way he did but not in the way you think Brother Andy preached last week They fear the Lord yet served other gods Is that not what we see? This is why the Reformation still matters because the Reformation was not just protesting against the Roman Church The Reformation was the greatest back-to-the-Bible movement in the history of Christianity The Reformers didn't say listen to me the Reformers said read the Word of God and study the Word of God and show yourselves to be Students of the Word of God and we have lost that.
33:10: I want to tell you this is why in this church Those of you members those of you aren't members those of you who are visiting with us our Primary commitment to this in this church is the accurate preaching and teaching of the Word of God Now we try to do other things.
33:26: Well, we try to love each other.
33:27: Well, we try to fellowship Well, we try to serve one another well, but we are committed to the accurate preaching and teaching of the Word first and foremost That's why we started the Academy We teach history Apologetics hermeneutics Christian ethics.
33:49: These are all things that have been have been taken out of the church.
33:56: I Believe the church is an institution of higher learning This is the place to come to learn the most important thing in the world and it should be taught, right? The Reformation was about pointing men to Scripture and that will never ever not be necessary We will always need to be pointed to Scripture.
34:19: So that's the second thing last thing this one will go a little quicker finally number three Because Sola Fide is still the article upon which the church stands or falls.
34:32: Sola Fide is the Latin phrase by faith alone and It actually means this by faith alone in Christ alone go back to our passage today and look Notice what it says in verse 17 the righteousness of God is revealed from faith.
34:49: Now the ESV says faith for faith I hate that I said this last week because I preached on this text last week at the other church didn't just sermon But it was the same text by from faith For faith is is ESV is trying something there with that with that preposition.
35:05: No from faith to faith And what it literally means is from faith beginning to end From faith from first to last you don't start with faith and then get saved by works You don't start with faith and then earn more salvation by your works it is from faith in the beginning to faith at the end You don't add to your faith by your participation in the ordinances You don't add to your faith by your participation in good works You don't add to your faith and by this what I mean is you don't add to your salvation Certainly we build our faith and we grow in our faith.
35:42: I want to make sure I'm being clear I'm not saying we don't grow we do grow in our faith and these things do help us grow in our faith But we don't add to our salvation We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone according to Scripture alone for the glory of God alone alone alone alone Dr.
36:06: RC Sproul said this he said the doctrine of justification by faith alone is the article upon which the church stands or falls The article that was so important that Martin Luther said if we lose it we lose Christianity If we don't have the doctrine of justification by faith alone, we don't have the gospel and if we don't have the gospel We don't have the church The church itself ceases to be a church and falls into apostasy Because it is the article that answers the question.
36:35: What must I do to be saved? And that is the question that is sadly answered wrongly by Rome and it is answered wrongly by the cults it is answered wrongly by the false religions and It is the most important question that you could ever Know the answer to man is justified made right with God not by works But by faith alone Jesus Christ lived a perfect life.
37:12: He died a substitutionary death and in him our sins Have been paid for and his righteousness has been imputed to us Whereby we stand as I said earlier not having a righteousness of our own But our righteousness which comes through faith in Christ that is the gospel and It still matters.
37:41: I hope you understand today why the Reformation mattered why it still matters and I hope you are reformed not by tradition But by conviction children I'll address you Do not just believe these things because your parents believe them believe them because they are true and study them for yourselves Adults, especially those who have been here for a long time.
38:18: Don't just hold these things because I say it's right Study the scriptures Don't just listen to me and brother Andy and brother Mike and brother Jack study the scriptures Hold us to account to the Word of God and learn these things for yourself Because I promise you they still matter and if you don't know Christ I Will say this as simply as I can there is salvation in no other and Salvation comes not of works But by faith in him If you believe in him praise the Lord for it is because of him that you believe and If you have yet to believe Call out to the Lord The Bible says whoever calls on him will be saved Call out to him in repentance and faith For there is no other name By which we must be saved Let us pray father in heaven.
39:29: We come to you in Jesus name We are so grateful and so thankful to have Been able to go to the scripture today and look at what it says and moreover Lord to be reminded of the importance of History and what history matters to us today how it still matters Lord.