There is One Faith - Brandon Scalf

All right, everyone, grab your Bibles and turn with me to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4, and today we are going to revisit verse 5. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 5, and the title of today's message is One Faith, The Church's True Treasure, The Church's True Treasure.

And so if you would, please stand with me for the honoring and reading of God's holy infallible and all-sufficient Word. As I said, we will be looking specifically at verse 5 today, but I'm going to start reading in verse 1 so that we get the full context of what's happening here.

This is the Word of God. Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, exhort you to walk worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, being diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.

There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever, amen?

Amen.

Go ahead and have a seat and put your eyes back on the text. If you remember, we have been looking at an early, maybe the earliest, creedal statement that exists. It is a statement that shows forth the foundation of the unity that Paul is trying to tell the Ephesian church and us by extension to guard.

There are a lot of things that people try to build unity on, but essentially what Paul is saying is the unity needs to be built around the triune God of the Bible, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Because in the Godhead, there is unity because there is one God, and yet that there is diversity in a sense, although you need to be careful with certain language around that in the Trinity because there is three persons and we are in one body.

And as we will see as we journey through this part of the letter, there is many members. And so last week we looked at Lord, one Lord, after, of course, speaking about being in one body and one spirit, being that which ties us all together as well as one gospel.

But today we're going to look at this phraseology here, one faith, diving back into this three sets of three with this sevenfold repetition of the word one, emphasizing the oneness of this reality. The thing about faith is that you've heard the word.

Maybe you have a definition for faith. Faith is obviously important. It is how we are binded to God's workings in Christ, and it's the instrument he uses to save us. But not only that, faith is a recurring theme that underscores really the entire narrative of Scripture from Genesis all the way to Revelation.

We've already seen this even as we've looked at the book of Ephesians. If you remember in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8, we encountered this word when we read for it is by grace you have been saved through faith.

And this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. So faith was shown in Ephesians 2 .8 if you remember to be that instrument which binds us to the workings of Christ. And if you remember, one of the things I encourage you to think through is that sometimes people decide or live out in such a way that, you know, they're going to think about faith as having faith in faith.

If they just hope that things will go better, that they will be okay, or if they even just think that their faith in fact will save them. Jesus is the Savior. Faith is the instrument. But nonetheless, it's important, and like I said, it goes from Genesis to Revelation.

It comes in the Scriptures when the word is powerfully and truthfully preached. In Romans 10 .17, it says, so faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. So faith comes when the word is preached, and that's how God has designed preaching.

To work.

It also is used in how we are to live. Habakkuk 2 .4, behold, as for the proud one, his soul is not right within him, but the righteous will live by faith. And of course, in Romans 1 .17, the righteous shall live by faith, borrowing from Habakkuk 2 .4.

And in Galatians, Paul, the same author who authors Hebrews, said that he has been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer he who lived, but actually it was Christ who lived in him, and he lives a life now, not in the flesh, but by faith in the Son of God.

Faith counts us righteous before God, even though we aren't righteous, obviously. Genesis 15 .6, that he believed in Yahweh, speaking of Abraham, and he counted it to him as righteousness. In Romans 3 .28, the same sentiment is echoed when Paul says, for we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

And I could keep going on and show you how the Bible really talks about how Jesus commends faith, how faith is powerful, how the apostles prayed for more of it, and one of the things that's most stark in the Bible is that without it, without faith, it is impossible to please God.

If it overcomes the world, it is a huge deal in Scripture. However, I want you to think about something maybe you haven't thought about up to this point. And that is this, that the Bible speaks of faith in more than one way.

And what I mean by that is, there's kind of two ways that the Bible speaks about faith. There's the subjective faith that we must possess as Christians, and there is an objective faith. Oftentimes, when you look at Scripture, you see this playing out by the use of articles.

And for those of you who didn't pay attention in grammar school, that's just like the word.

The.

And so, when it talks about faith that you are to possess as a Christian subjectively, it's faith in Christ, that's a subjective thing. But oftentimes, the Bible will talk about something called the faith, the faith.

And it's actually not unrelated to the other faith, but it is actually different. Let me give you an example. In Romans 10 .9, though the word faith is not explicitly used, it's talking about faith. This is that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, which we covered last week, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

So faith is that belief or trust or reliance upon Christ and his finished work. It is that instrument which binds you to his finished work. That faith, obviously, as we journey throughout the Bible, is life-giving.

It brings the dead to life after being regenerated, justifying the sinner and reconciling one to God. It is more, obviously, as we discussed when we looked at Ephesians 2 .8, more than an intellectual assent.

It's not just saying, yeah, I agree that there was a person named Jesus, he hung on a cross, and you know, I believe all of that happened, and sure, I'll even buy into the idea that he was God, and maybe even a Savior, but I don't actually believe it and I don't live my life in ways that would manifest that I actually believe that thing.

It is a complete clinging to the promises of God found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's the subjective faith. The objective faith, on the other hand, is the faith, or here, one faith. I'm going to make the argument that this is not speaking of subjective faith, but rather this objective faith.

Now, one thing you will notice is there is no article of the before this, and so it's not always a perfect science. You have to look at context to see exactly which one is it being talked about, and as you will see as we journey on through this text, they're not completely unrelated, obviously.

But before we look at our text, actually, let's go ahead and look at it, 4 .13, a little bit further down, he's talking about how to protect unity, right, and he's talking about the foundation of it, and he's going to be talking about what it looks like to live life in the context of a local church, and in verse 13, he says, until we attain to the unity of the faith.

So, inside this argument, the faith is mentioned, and if it is the foundation of our unity, then we have to think about what the implications of that are. Now, the Spirit binds us together, and we all have faith in Jesus, which is how that all works out, but actually, what binds us together, in a very real sense, is the faith.

So we are saved by Jesus by having faith in Jesus, and the Spirit makes us one body, but it's the objective faith that we look to. We can see this in places like Acts 6 -7, and the Word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became, and this is an interesting set of words, obedient to the faith.

How are you obedient to the faith? If it's a subjective belief, he's talking about a different faith. So what I'm arguing for is that this one faith found here is not the subjective faith that is crucial to your understanding of the New Testament, but that it is the objective faith.

It's not about personal connection, it's about objective realities. In other words, it is the body of Christian truth or doctrine that has been revealed in Holy Scripture. With this understanding, it is faith in God's revelation, given once for all to the saints, and particularly as it pertains to Christ and his Lordship.

And like I said, I think that fits with Ephesians 4 -13. And so, the first thing that I want you to think through is we think about what it means to actually be under this umbrella of one faith is stand in awe of it.

There's many things we could say, but the first place that I want you to start is I want you to stand in awe of this one faith. And the reason I say it and say it like that is because you need to understand that if that's true, if it is talking in fact about the doctrine, and I hope to prove this throughout the remainder of our time, that it's put forth in Scripture, the first thing you must do is understand that God penned that revelation, that doctrine, that faith, and he protects.

It.

2 Timothy 3 -16 says, all Scripture is God-breathed. It is God-breathed. It is phianustos. It is inspired in some translations, particularly the New American Standard. And what this means for us is that this one faith is grounded not in man's opinion.

It is grounded in the infallible, inerrant, and sufficient Word of Almighty God. It's not left up to the winds of time. It's not something that we get to manipulate or change or be soft on. True unity is unity, yes, purchased by Christ, applied by the Spirit, but it is unity that rests in the truth of the faith.

There's not many faiths. There's one faith, and it has to, if it is to be a real faith, has to come from God. And it has to be unchanging, because if it changes, there's no unity there. And so we need to understand that this faith, the faith, or faith as it pertains to sound doctrine, is not given to the sands of human opinion, but on the solid rock of divine revelation.

God penned it. But he also, and this is the beautiful reality of our scriptures, he protects it, 2 Timothy 1 .14, Paul writing, obviously, to Timothy. He tells him to guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us the treasures which have been entrusted to you.

Many times in the New Testament, authors, which I read this already, it's the faith handed down, and God's servants are called to guard it. But I want you to notice here, it says, through the Holy Spirit.

So yes, God's servants, God's people, God's sheep are to guard this truth, but they're not left to do it alone. And God protects them and helps them to guard such truth. This is why, I'm going to vent a little, if that's okay with you.

I was, I don't want to, I'm not going to say where I was at or what I was doing. I'll just tell you the situation, because I'm not trying to call anyone out in particular. But there were some questions that were coming at me relatively recently, and the questions stemmed from, at least some of them, this idea that the church is failing, that the word of God's not doing its work.

And I just wanted to say over and over, as I was trying to answer these questions, that Jesus' church is fine. Jesus' church is fine. He's protecting his word. He has protected his word, and he will continue to protect his word.

He will continue to protect the faith. Jesus' church, friends, is not in trouble.

Amen?

Fake churches are in trouble. Fake churches are in trouble. Jesus is in the business of purifying his bride and making sure that his truth is promoted in the land and that sinners are saved. He will get his lot.

Sworn faith has been entrusted to all of us as a sacred deposit. And we are called to guard this with all diligence, relying on the Spirit to keep us steadfast and immovable on the truth. Truth matters.

Truth matters. Now, some truths are more important than others, and we'll get into that momentarily. But I want to ask you this, Sel, I want to ask you this question. Are you daily immersing yourself in the Scriptures with the understanding that God wrote it to put forth to you something that is going to help you?

Not only in your daily life, although that is very important, but guard the unity in the church. Are you guarding this deposit of faith, understanding that it has been given to you, and it's not for you to change, alter, or any of that business?

God's preachers, especially, since I know there are some men in here desiring to be in future ministry, this reminds us that you don't get to alter God's message. You are simply a mailman. You are not given the license to alter anything.

There is one faith set forth in the Scriptures, and that is the one you are to proclaim. The second thing that I want us to consider, or I've put it in the form of an imperative, is believe the one faith.

Believe the one faith. So you need to stand in awe of it first, understanding it comes from God, but you also need to believe that one faith. Now, what I mean by that is not, hey, I know I told you that this was going to be a sermon, or I'm going to prove to you that this is not speaking of the subjective belief.

So I did my piece, now I'm going to talk about subjective peace. No, what I'm trying to get you to understand at this point, and maybe I could have been more clear, is the gospel is content for our belief.

You get what I'm saying when I mean that. The faith is content that we are to believe. And so what is it? Well, first and foremostly, it's the gospel of Jesus Christ, and it is Him crucified. This is why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 2,.

For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. To him this was the pinnacle of the faith, it is the pinnacle of sound doctrine, it is the pinnacle of the message that ought to be proclaimed.

It's centered around, it's saturated in, and revolves around the gospel of Jesus Christ, the message of His perfect and sinless life, His atoning death, and the glorious resurrection.

That happened.

Now, this is the heart of our faith. It is the truth that we must believe if we are to be together in unity. The gospel message is of first importance. There are other things to worry about, for sure, but what binds us together is Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

And if we start there, understanding that, hey, everybody around me is in the same exact position as me, namely that they needed a Savior in this life, that the cross is a gigantic beacon that screams none of you could measure up, every single one of you is sinful, then guess what?

We can interact and preserve unity in a pretty radical way that is somewhat unseen in today's.

World.

If you could sit across the table from someone and assume, before you even start talking, that you guys are already not worthy, and that you are not superior, and that you both needed Jesus Christ to be crucified, that you might be able to be sanctified and be.

Saved.

Changes everything. Changes quibbles. It changes peripheral doctrinal disagreements. It changes everything. This is the pinnacle of that truth. Well, this also means then, since, remember, it's one faith, not multiple faiths or alternate faiths, it's one faith.

And if that's true, the gospel of Jesus Christ, which it is, right? Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the Father but through him. Then we understand something that leaves no room for alternate paths to salvation.

There's one gospel, which is why Paul said in Galatians chapter 1, verses 8 and 9, let those be damned who preach another gospel. So the gospel is something to be believed, obeyed, and studied, so that we might not say, hey, there's alternate paths.

No, there's one. It's Jesus. It's his cross. It's the one faith. It's the only way to be reconciled to God, and any deviation is heinous in the sight of God. Any departure from the true gospel leaves us still in our sins, or as Ephesians chapter 2 said, dead in our transgressions and sins, and being stuck, and being led in our passions and lusts, and being influenced by both the devil and the world.

The reality then is this is a narrow gate. In Matthew 7, verses 13 and 14, Jesus says, the way to life is narrow, and few find it. And the one faith is a narrow path. It's distinct from the broad ways of the world that lead to destruction.

And what I'm trying to say is this, children, would you look at me? I want to say it to you in this way. The one faith that's rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ is so important that it has to be the only thing that we put our hope in.

I want you to think about it like this. Imagine a little canoe, and you're out, and there starts to be a storm. All other people around you have got themselves into some sticky situations. Maybe the boat sank, or maybe they're just trying to get to shore.

But this one lone canoe that you are in is the only means of rescue. But all you have is this canoe. And you're thinking, that seems like it's not going to be of help to all these people. But then you start moving around, and you realize, no, that's the only boat that's there to rescue.

So it has to work. It has to work.

When we're thinking about the one faith and the content therein, we need to understand that it's like that canoe. It's the only thing in a stormy sea that can save. In other words, the gospel of Jesus Christ is not just the best option, it is the only.

But more than that, also, it is a truth that goes much deeper than that in terms of breadth of understanding. So that's at the top pinnacle. But then we look through the lens of particularly Ephesians 1, chapter 1, verses 3 through 14, and we have this beautiful understanding, if you're paying attention, the doctrines of grace.

Because when he's talking about the one faith, he's not excluding the things he has already talked about. And so this faith here, and I'm not arguing necessarily for any particular type of theological system.

I know doctrines of grace have a, you know, particular, you know, PR image, and I could say tulip, and that might be a different thing. You know, and those things are good, and I'm not saying you shouldn't use those words as descriptors for what you believe.

But what I'm saying is the Bible here shows us these truths to be evident when you read them in verses 3 through 14, all of them, right? That we are sinners, that we need to be saved, and that the triune God has went after us.

In other words, our salvation, if we're thinking about it properly, is entirely the work of God's grace received through faith and secured by Christ. The works can get us there. It's all Christ, and this is at the heart of the faith.

So believe the content of that, unify around the one faith. The faith unites. Now, we are, if you recall, Ephesians 4, verse 2, that we are called to be humble, gentle, with patience, bearing with one another, in love, and being diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.

So this is a unity that has been purchased for us by Jesus Christ, applied by the Spirit, and that Spirit who authored Scripture put forth the faith in Scripture, and we are to be unified around that truth.

We are to be unified around that truth. The one faith unites us as members of one body. Though, and I can't wait to get into this, I think it'll be an encouragement to all of us, though there are a diversity in gifts among us and callings, we are united by our common faith in the faith, our common faith in Christ.

It's beautiful.

It's beautiful. We can see this in places like Philippians 2, verse 2. Philippians 2, verse 2 says, Paul speaking, of course, fulfill my joy that you think the same way by maintaining the same love, being united in Spirit, right, that's been purchased for us, thinking on one purpose.

Thinking the same way is not saying everybody in the church needs to think the way that I think, or the way that Pastor Corey thinks, or the way that our deacons think. We're all going to think differently.

We're different people, different upbringings, different thought processes, and so on and so forth. It's not saying that because I like fountain pens, you should like fountain pens, although you should like fountain pens.

Not saying because I wear a suit when I preach that you absolutely have to wear a suit when you come to church. I have convictions for that, but I don't have a verse for that. When it's speaking this way, when Paul is saying this, he's saying he wants us to think the same way about the things that are important, the things that matter, namely the faith, right?

Having love for one another and being united in that Spirit that has been given to us, and having one purpose. One purpose. And that purpose is found not in what we think it should be, but in the Scripture itself.

Many churches and search committees who are looking for pastors, they generally want a guy with vision. They want entrepreneur types. They want them to pull them out of some sort of, you know, trouble they had found themselves in, or maybe they just want to grow, or maybe they just want somebody who's going to have a vision for the church.

Like, how are you going to do this thing? How are you going to do that thing? And, you know, how are you going to implement this? And so on and so forth. And all the time, I mean, there's just different answers all across the board.

It's whatever that pastor or minister in training decides what he thinks, after reading a lot of books, what the best vision is. Forgetting that the Bible tells us what that vision is. If God is in it, no amount of vision, quote-unquote, is going to make a difference.

If he's not in it, you know. So when we think the same way, with the same purpose, we need to understand it's wrapped up in this one faith. It's wrapped up in the Scriptures. Not once have I tried to cast any sort of vision for heritage.

In every church planting book I've ever read, in every class I ever had in seminary, would tell me that that would be the cause of a church failure. And here we are a year later, and people are coming to hear the Word of God preached.

I was just visiting with a friend of mine this weekend as I was preaching at a conference. He was a phenomenal expositor, and we were talking about how much we love gaudy pulpits like this one because it's the throne of the Word of God.

And I told him the story that as we began to raise funds, and we thought we were going to be meeting in the back room of Pastor Corey's house, the first dollar that we spent was on this pulpit. Which, if you're thinking about vision, and church planting, and how that's all going to work out, that's stupid.

Like, why are you going to spend money to have something like this built, and then put it in the back room of somebody's house? Like, I'm glad we didn't wind up meeting in a house because that would have been weird for everyone.

I understand that. But the reason that I wanted to do that is because I wanted everybody to understand on day one, there's no vision outside of proclaiming the one faith from this one book for the rest of Heritage's days.

It's about the Word. It's about what it says. It doesn't matter what I say. It only matters what God says, which is helpful. If you think this way, then you understand that unity is not based on superficial and cheap agreement that is often fleeting.

Today, you and I might agree on something, and then a couple of weeks later, we have a new experience in life, and now we have a different opinion about that thing. But no, it's based on doctrinal conviction, rooted in careful exegesis of the Word of Almighty God.

Are you committed to the unity of the body of Christ, and do you strive for unity in doctrine? And I know that's not a fun word. Most churches are, ooh, I don't want to talk about doctrine. It divides.

Yeah, it divides where it's supposed to divide. I'm not interested in a church full of people who don't care about the Word of God.

It's not a church.

And so, when we give ourselves to the understanding of the one faith, the doctrine laid forth out in Scripture, we build up the body in love.

It's weird to say, right?

Maybe many people haven't heard that. It's loving to point people to the truths of the one faith. So, let us be a church that labors to promote it amongst us, knowing that our oneness in Christ is a powerful testimony to the world.

That's why, for instance, our statement of faith is not one I created. I didn't create it. It's a Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. If you don't have one of those, there should be some on the back table.

If there's not, we'll order some for you. It's on our app because new truths are just old heresies. The next thing I want to point your attention to is that you are to defend this one faith. You're to defend this one faith.

And you do that by being aware of false teachers. And what I mean by that is not necessarily being aware of all the false teachers out there, partly because we're in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and you could close your eyes and throw a rock and hit one.

Interesting thing about counterfeit money. Seems like a hard left turn. It's not, promise you. How do you think that they train people to recognize counterfeit money? I mean, there's some good counterfeit money out there, apparently.

I mean, I haven't dabbled in that world, but I've read things, I've seen documentaries, and it's pretty wild, you know, how accurate people can be in creating fake money. Although America kind of does that anyway, you know, but, you know, another topic for another time.

Slightly different category, but it's not, you know, it's not different. But how do you think they do that? How do you think they train people to recognize counterfeit money? Well, you would think probably, at least I did before I read this and watched it somewhere, I don't remember where the information came from.

They just studied a lot of different types of money. If that's where this one came from, we found it. And so they start to learn like what, no, no, no, they don't do any of that. When you go to learn how to do that, apparently, once again, I haven't dabbled in this world, but they study the real thing.

You see what I'm saying?

They studied the real thing. They just took real money and they became subject matter experts on what a real dollar looks like. So that way, it didn't matter what ones they bumped into that were fake, they would know it's fake because they know what the real thing is like.

And so you're not to be necessarily like heresy hunters, right? If people are gonna go preach heresy and they're not invading our space and doing our, and they're not making life incredibly difficult for us necessarily.

Then, sure, let them just keep talking. People are, the Bible tells us that people will gather preachers and so on and so forth to tickle their ears and they don't care about what that word of God says, these things happen.

But you should be so engrossed in the word of God, you should be so engrossed in understanding the one faith laid out and given to us by the apostles and the prophets. That anytime you see something fake, anytime you see something wrong, anytime you see something that is putting down or causing you to see Jesus in an unglorified and beautiful way, you know to reject it.

And then you can defend it when it comes your way. Second Peter 2 .1, but false prophets also arose among the people. Just as there will also be false teachers among you. Now, I don't think this is like a prophetic thing happening here.

I think he's just saying, this is what happens. Some people take this to be like in the future and things, but no, I say just every church is gonna have people who don't want to take the one faith seriously.

There's always gonna be false teachers till the Lord Jesus comes back.

And what will they do?

They will, according to 2 Peter 2, secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them. Now, that's an interesting sentence, but we don't have time to get into it. Bringing swift destruction upon themselves.

So if we're going to stand against people who introduce destructive heresies in our midst, we must know this one faith. We must know it. We must know the opposite of heresy. Because there's an ever present danger of false teaching.

And we must be vigilant, discerning, and ready to expose error. We're not being annoying, but we are not afraid. We should be reluctant, but ready. You know what I mean by that? A Christian's not always looking for a fight, but a Christian will never back down from a fight, amen, amen, amen.

And, you know, I think this should probably be said as well. Who cares if it's about your argument or whatever? Like, we're trying to defend the truth of God's word. If people have negative things to say about you because you're saying God's word, or promoting God's word, or the one faith, let it go.

Who cares?

Don't be interested in defending yourself, defend God's word. You have nothing to defend. I have nothing to defend, right? Charles Spurgeon famously said, do not think ill of the brother who thinks less of you, for you are far worse than you think you are, or than he thinks you are.

You know, I think he had turned that on himself, actually. He was like, I'm not afraid when people talk trash on me, basically, because I'm far worse than he thinks. I'm a sinner saved by grace, you know?

So believe that truth. It'll change the way you interact with the world. We must be warriors of the word, ready to contend for the faith that has been entrusted to us, this one faith. This is why also, if you notice throughout the course of my preaching in other sermons, and even somewhat in this one, it's why I refute certain bad theologies.

It's why we stop and focus on the prophets and apostles because of the area that we're in. And just next year sometime, a friend of mine, Kosti Hinn, is going to come here to Oklahoma, and we're going to do a conference on the destructive heresies of the NAR movement, which is the New Apostolic Reformation.

Why do we do that?

Why?

Because we must contend for the faith. This is why Martin Luther, which you should know this name, right, did what he did during the Reformation, which I'm very excited to be celebrating.

That soon.

But in that historical moment, the Roman Catholic Church had developed a complex system in which faith and works and sacraments were insanely intertwined, at least as it pertains to salvation. They, and still do, teach that faith, while somewhat necessary, is insufficient to save you.

You need works in conjunction with it. The system also promoted things like indulgences, and the treasury of merit, and things like this, which would imply that salvation could be bought. Some of these things are happening.

That's insane, right?

And so in 1521, when Martin Luther was called before the pope and so on to recant his beliefs, he famously said, or kind of said, I mean, there's some dispute as to whether or not these were the exact words that he used,.

But,.

Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Now, what's often left out of that story, which is why I said be reluctant but ready, is that actually what happened in history, like, we get all the highlights, right?

But actually what happened in history is he was humble, which is not Martin Luther's general disposition, especially as he aged. He's not, yeah, you just could not say that he was, like, a huge humble guy, but God was working in him.

I do believe, obviously, he was saved. He resurrected this great truth, sole fide, by faith alone. If you didn't know that, it's the reason you're sitting in these seats and not a Catholic church, Protestant Reformation.

It's all about faith. Is he came before these men at the Diet of Worms, not worms, Worms, and said, I think I'm right here, and I think you're wrong. And they said, well, you don't get to tell us we're wrong.

We're the Roman Catholic Church, you know. We come from Peter, and tradition plus Bible is the source of what you need to submit to. So on and so forth. And he was like, okay, I don't care about that.

I think I'm right. And they were like, well, we think you're really, really wrong. And so Martin Luther said, okay, I can't recant right now, but maybe you're right. Maybe you're right. And he goes back and says, give me like a couple days.

I don't remember what exactly it was. So give me a couple days, think this over. Give me a couple days to pray and to really search this thing out. Because actually, Martin Luther was not trying to start a Protestant reformation.

He was trying to reform the Catholic Church. And he wasn't actually trying to do it by any sort of real effort. He just hanged a piece of paper on a door so he could have some theological conversations, thinking that there was an ability that one could have to talk to the powers that be, rationally.