Confessions of Faith or No?

So, turn in your Bibles to 1 Timothy 3, and we're doing a

Wednesday night series. This is week three on what is a

Reformed Baptist, and we are going to spend at least two lessons, but maybe more, on confessions of faith, okay?

We're just kind of walking through this. We've covered some history.

We've done some introductory. Now we're kind of getting into what is a confession of faith?

Why should we have a confession of faith? Is it biblical to have a confession of faith? So we want to think through all of that.

So 1 Timothy 3, verse 15, Paul says, If I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living

God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. So let's just make some comments there.

First of all, in 1 Timothy 3, Paul is talking about the offices of what, you know? Two offices.

What are they? Yeah. Overseers and deacons. Elders and deacons. These are only two offices.

The reason I say that is because there is a formality in the structure in 1

Timothy 3. And so if you just say, well, the church, so if you try to say, well, the church is, you know, just wherever any

Christian is, or the church is, each individual Christian is the church or whatever, you missed the point of what

Paul is saying. Paul is talking about the institution of the church, the church as a whole, as it finds expression in the formal unity and order and institution of the local church.

It is the pillar and ground of the truth. The church doesn't create the truth.

The church must, I put these on your sheet, protect the truth, right? So we don't create the truth.

We protect it. The truth has enemies. Did you guys know that? You know, people lie today.

The truth has enemies. Obviously, the chief of which is Satan and his lies. The church must promote the truth.

So we're not just on the defensive. We're also storming the gates of hell, as Jesus says, and proclaiming the truth of God and Christ and then perpetuate the truth.

And what I mean here is, the church in each generation is responsible to pass on the truth to the next generation.

The church in each generation is responsible to pass on the truth to the next generation.

Ephesians 6, 14, it's on your sheet. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth.

Okay, so we have the truth. That truth, well, all truth is

God's truth. But God has given us a book. We have a book from God. A book that we affirm is the inerrant, infallible, necessary, clear, authoritative, and sufficient word of God.

This book, the Bible, has been attacked. It has been confiscated. It has been neglected.

It has been burned. It's been torn to pieces. It's been outlawed. And guess what we have still today?

Here it is. The word of God shall prevail. So let me say something very clear so everyone hears this tonight.

At Providence Baptist Church, we unapologetically, unashamedly, and unwaveringly stand upon the word of God.

Amen? But we're talking tonight about confessions of faith. If all this is true about God's word, and it is, then why confessions of faith?

Because a distinctive, part of what it means to be a Reformed Baptist church is that they hold to a confession of faith.

Which the Reformed Baptist confession of faith is what? The Second London Baptist confession of faith.

Or we might, or we call it here the 1689 for shorthand. I'll get to that later. But if all that is true, what

I said about the Bible, why do we need a confession of faith? OK, I'm going to read a quote and I want you to tell me if you agree with it.

The quote is, Our appeal is to the Bible for truth.

Raise your hand if you agree with that quote. Our appeal is to the Bible for truth.

Do you guys agree on Zoom? OK, I see those hands. I agree with the quote.

But there's a problem with the quote. The quote comes from a book that was written in 1946.

And the book is defending the false religion of Jehovah's Witnesses. Listen, here's a song from a

Jehovah's Witnesses hymn book. Though men God's word have ridiculed and falsehoods have preferred.

We like our Lord, let God be true. We stand firm on his word. For us who preach the truthful word, it has the final say.

It's truth we seek. Since we are meek in God's word, we obey.

So we are saying, Providence Baptist Church is saying, we are a church that loves, believes, stands firm upon the

Bible. And then we have the Jehovah's Witnesses saying what? Saying the same thing, right?

Saying, hey, we believe the Bible. So this is where I'm going to make a case for a confession of faith.

A confession of faith is a servant of the Bible, OK? It is a tool that serves the

Bible. It's subservient to the Bible. And it seeks to point us to the

Bible and say this, hey, we're not only saying the Bible is our highest authority, but we're also saying we're not ashamed to put into writing what we believe the

Bible actually teaches. So a confession of faith is man's attempt to say, here is what we confess that the

Bible teaches. That's what the word confession means. Sometimes you hear the word confession, and you think I'm saying sorry for my sins or something.

But in this sense, we mean confession is we confess the truth. Tom Hicks says, it's on your sheet, a confession of faith is a brief summary of the

Bible's theology that expresses a church's standard of teaching for church officers and members.

Confessions of faith also serve to protect against heresies and errors. OK, the

Bible does not need a defender. It is, I think

Spurgeon said this, it is the anvil that is broken or worn out many hammers.

But a confession of faith is simply saying to the world, when we, Ephesians 6, 14, when we gird ourselves with truth, this is what we mean by truth.

We have a specific set of propositional truths that we believe that the

Bible is teaching, and we're not afraid to put it into writing. As Spurgeon said, whatever we find in this book, that we are to stay.

So this is what we do. We're laying it out. We lay out our doctrine. We confess these truths.

And we're not just giving vague or nuanced positions, but rather we're standing for what we believe it is that the

Bible teaches. Now, a confession of faith is not so much a necessity.

So listen to this is very, very important for the argument. I think a confession of faith is not so much a necessity as it is a reality.

So think through that statement again. A confession of faith is not so much a necessity as it is a reality.

What does that statement mean? It means that everyone already believes something about the

Bible. So you can write down what you believe the Bible teaches, or you cannot write it down, but it doesn't change the fact that you confess something about the

Bible. It's very interesting to me that a lot of not a lot of places, but there are some places there say we don't need a we don't need a confession.

We've got the Bible. That's all we need. Well, you understand that's a confession. That very statement is something that you've just confessed about the

Bible. So there's it's really impossible to get around this. Tom Nettles. Excellent quote.

He says, just as each person uniting with the Baptist church should be able to give some expression of what is believed.

So each church should make plain to the membership and to the world the truths that are believed by the church as a whole.

So if someone comes to join this church and and and we say, what do you believe? And they say, we believe the

Bible. And then they say, what do you believe? And we say, we believe the Bible. Should we go ahead and just say,

OK, then we're in unity and let's go forward. Should we do that? Well, they might be

Jehovah's Witnesses, right? Right. We just already proved that. So just because someone says,

I believe the Bible, it doesn't necessarily bring. Well, it doesn't bring clarity at all what they actually believe the

Bible teaches. Does that make sense to you? OK.

Let me lay it out more for problems, this is really what we'll cover tonight for problems with rejecting a confession of faith for problems with rejecting a confession of faith.

The one we just talked about, number one, it denies reality. So if you reject a confession of faith, first problem is you're denying reality.

To say that you don't like confessions of faith is to pretend that you don't already make a confession of faith.

OK, but you do. Everyone has a set of beliefs. For example, you go to a church that says, well, we don't have a confession of faith.

And you say, can I move the pulpit over this way? No, no. Right. No, they have a set of beliefs about stuff.

Right. I've actually seen that happen. But think about this. Just listen to me. Think through this well, because I know you might have some pushback maybe from other people or maybe in your mind you're wrestling with this.

Think through this. Every time someone stands in this pulpit. Every time a

Sunday school teacher or a children's worker opens their mouth and uses non biblical words, not unbiblical.

What I mean is non biblical. So as soon as they say this verse means,

OK, they're not just reading scripture, but they're talking about what it means. As soon as they try to explain a text or teach a text or preach a text, they are in essence doing what?

They're making a confession of faith. They are making a statement about what the

Bible teaches. They are using man's words. To explain the doctrine of the

Bible. I'm just explaining that to you, because some people will say, I don't need man's words, I just need the

Bible. OK. Then that means every time you get in the pulpit, you say nothing but what?

You just read scripture, because as soon as you begin to explain scripture, what are you doing?

You're confessing, you're using man's words to explain the Bible. Now, is that wrong? No, it's not.

The whole point I'm making is that's not it's not wrong to do that. Otherwise, we just all we would do is there'd be no teaching.

We would just explain or we would just read the Bible. OK, so if someone says we don't need a confession of faith, they're denying reality.

A written confession of faith acknowledges our reality and says, look, we're actually going to publicly own what we believe instead of pretending that we don't have beliefs about the

Bible. So number one to reject is to deny reality. Number two, it is historical snobbery.

And here's what I mean. It says in 2025, we are smarter than everyone else in the history of the church, and we don't need them.

OK. In one sense, it can even be a violation of the Fifth Commandment, which says what honor your father and mother.

OK, what it does is it dishonors our parents in the faith. It rejects the ones who's gone before us and says two thousand years of church history.

I don't need that historical snobbery. Tom Hicks says the second London Baptist Confession contains the theological insights of the church throughout history, including the doctrine of the biblical canon,

Orthodox, Nicene, Trinitarianism and Christology, the Augustinian doctrine of human nature and the reformed doctrines of the sufficiency of Scripture and salvation by grace alone, as well as a congregational doctrine of church government.

The doctrinal content of the second London Baptist Confession is the fruit of some of the most gifted and faithful theologians throughout church history, and it is the confessional standard of the reformed

Baptist. What are we saying? We're saying we take this confession of faith because we're not historical snobs.

I could probably use a better word for that. We're not historically arrogant. We are humble and we want to learn and benefit and grow from those who's gone before us.

OK, number four. No, sorry. Number three. It is an embrace of hyper individuality.

If you reject confession's faith, then in essence, you're saying all that matters is what

I personally believe. Now, a lot of Americans live that way. All that matters is what I personally believe.

And I don't have to confess truth along with the church. It's just me, God and my

Bible. This is a Bible belt mentality I've seen for many. All that matters is me and my relationship with Jesus.

And I don't need anything or anyone else. The problem with that is we go back to first 73 15.

And does it say individuals are the pillar and buttress of the truth or the church? It's the church.

Now, the church is made up of what? Individuals. So we're not we're not we're not opposed.

Like each person in here individually needs to confess the truth of Christ. Each person in here individually needs to personally call upon the name of the

Lord, personally trust Christ. But what we're saying is we're against hyper individuality, which says

I don't need the church and it's just me and the Bible. And I don't have to learn from anybody that's gone before me.

OK. Fourthly, it ignores our present condition. OK. We live in a world today in American culture,

I should say, that is apostatizing before our eyes. We have watched individuals, churches, denominations walk away from the faith.

And then not to get too deep back in this, but let's just talk about our world today.

I think about the train stabbing of Eric. You say your name, Iriana, is that how you say your name? I r y a n a.

I think about the train stabbing. I think about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Look at our culture today.

Our culture is coming apart at the seams. It's like the Book of Judges in lawlessness abounds.

Now, are you going to look at our culture today and you say, you know what the solution is? You know what the solution is?

Less truth. Less truth. Let's look around and let's minimize if we could just minimize truth in our culture today, everyone would get along better.

False. That's not true. And so to say, look, we don't need truth. We don't need to confess truth.

We don't need to have a confession. It's just ignoring what's going on in our world today. And then fifthly, and most importantly, it disregards scripture.

We'll look at a couple of passages. Second, Timothy one. You could turn there. Maybe it's on your sheet.

I don't remember. Second, Timothy one. Second, Timothy one, verse 13 and 14.

Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus by the

Holy Spirit who dwells within us. Guard the good deposit entrusted to you.

Now, when Paul says there in verse 13, the pattern of sound words. What he's talking about is to follow his teaching.

OK, he's not saying only. OK, these are one in the same.

But listen, there's a careful nuance. He's not just saying only follow the words of the

Bible, though that's true, but also follow what Paul. But what

Paul has what? Taught don't just follow the words of the

Bible, but also follow Paul's teaching of the Bible. Do you think that when

Paul spoke that it was scripture? Just in case you're going to say yes, I'm telling you, don't say yes.

OK, no, Paul, not everything that Paul just said to somebody is scripture. Right. But when

Paul wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that scripture. But Paul wrote scripture under inspirational spirit.

But Paul also taught. And he's telling Timothy, you need to.

And the words of Tom Hicks attain or. Follow a well -organized body of doctrine, the pattern of sound words.

So this pattern from Paul that Timothy heard from him, he was to follow another passage, Romans six, 17.

Romans six, 17. But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed.

Again, I'll read from Hicks. Remember, we're going to we say, well, a lot of quotes from Hicks. If you remember, we're using his book.

What is reformed badness? So he says the word standard refers to a type or form of teaching.

The Bible is not a form or pattern of human teaching, but the very word of God. Paul is saying that the church had received and was committed to a comprehensive summary of biblical teaching that was faithful to the scriptures.

Do you understand? What Paul is telling the church at Rome is not only have they received the scriptures, amen, but they've received the teaching about the scriptures.

So the argument I'm making is that the scriptures themselves expect a conformity to the teaching of the scriptures to not only say,

I believe what the Bible says, but to be willing to say, I believe what the Bible says. And here it is.

Here's what it says. Here's what it says. Here's what it teaches. I'm not afraid to put that in writing.

OK, so argument. It is every local church's responsibility before God to gird ourselves with truth, to protect the truth, promote the truth, perpetuate the truth until Jesus returns.

OK. And to do that, we have to have.

Some standard of teaching makes sense. And that's what it is in a confession of faith.

It doesn't stand above the scriptures. It's below the scriptures. For example, if you find something that is wrong or sorry,

I shouldn't say that because you can't find anything that's wrong. Here's it. Erase that from your mind. If you find something that you think is wrong in Romans nine, can you change it?

If you find something that you think is wrong in Chapter 11 of the confession on justification, can you change it?

Theoretically, yes. Now, we'd want to be cautious and slow and patient and wrestle with the scriptures, but you see the difference.

One is unalterable. The other is subservient to the scriptures. Hopefully that makes sense.

Now, we believe at this church in one of the soul. We believe in all five souls.

But the one I want to bring up is Sola Scriptura. OK. And the very first line of our confession says the

Holy Scriptures are the only this chapter one paragraph one. The Holy Scriptures are the only sufficient, certain and infallible standard of all saving faith.

All saving knowledge, faith and obedience. OK, is the is a confession of faith.

A sufficient, certain and infallible standard of all saving faith, knowledge and obedience. No, because it's only what?

The Bible. James Renahan says an opening sentence asserting the foundational role of scripture in the church immediately alerts readers to Baptist church's commitment to the centrality of scripture.

You understand? So a confession of faith serves the scriptures. It is because reformed

Baptist churches have such a high view of the scriptures that they use a confession of faith. I'm going to give you another biblical thought.

Turn to Acts. This is not on your sheet. Acts chapter 20. Acts chapter 20.

OK, Acts chapter 20. Verse 27 and then verse 31.

Paul says, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God, verse 31.

Therefore, be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears.

So in three years, Paul taught the church at Ephesus. He says the whole counsel of God's word.

OK. In his teaching, was he seeking to stand over the scriptures or to articulate rightly what the scriptures teach?

Well, we know the answer. He's teaching in Ephesus for three years. The whole counsel of God's word.

And in that teaching, he is not standing over the scriptures as a master over them, but he is standing under them as a servant.

OK. And I'm just arguing. This is exactly the point of a confession of faith.

It serves the scripture. It gives us an overview of the whole Bible, the whole counsel of God's word.

Just like Paul gives the whole counsel of God's word in his three years in Ephesus. So our confession of faith is a servant to the scriptures.

It doesn't shape the Bible. It serves the Bible. Don't press these analogies.

I'm going to give you too far. But here's two illustrations. One. If the Bible is a delicious steak, and it is and so much more, then a good confession of faith is a plate and a knife and a fork.

What is it doing? Don't think of it as chopping up the Bible. Think of it as a way to help you what?

Digest the Bible. So you can take the steak and you don't have to have.

I'm sure I've done this in my life before. You don't have to have a fork and a knife or even a plate if you want, grab it right off the grill and just, you know, eat it.

Or some of you may not even grill it. It's too rare for me. OK, but listen to the analogy.

If the confession of faith helps us digest the word of God. Secondly, if the

Bible is gold and it is and so much more, a good confession of faith is like a chest to carry the gold in.

It helps pass the gold from one generation to the next. It helps keep nefarious characters from trying to scuff up or steal or harm the gold.

The chest serves the gold, but it doesn't add value to the gold. The gold is not more valuable because now the chest is there, right?

The gold has its own value, but the chest helps serve the goal. I hope that makes sense. Rob Ventura says the 1689 has been in greater or lesser use among the churches at various stages of history.

But whenever it was heartily embraced and faithfully applied, the churches were the strongest and purest doctrinally and morally.

Now, I'm not trying to be silly about this, but I think the second London Baptist confession of faith, I'll explain this. Why? I think it's the best confession of faith.

OK, you say that sounds arrogant. No, no, no. Let me explain myself. If there was another one that was better than we would use that one.

Right. Doesn't that make sense? So you understand that the 1689, the point of it is to help digest the

Bible, serve the Bible, defend the Bible, you know, protect us from going astray and poor doctrine, articulate what we believe.

Someone says, you know, I just think this. I just think that that. Well, what is our what is our confession say?

And the reason you ask that is because the confession is going to take us back to what the scripture and then we go to the scriptures.

Questions, comments about that. And then I probably got about I still got a little time left. Give a quick history.

But any questions, comments, anything you want to say up to this point? Oh, sorry.

Yeah. Yeah. Excellent.

That's excellent point. That's exactly what a confession is. It is it is systematic. It's taking the system of thought from the scriptures and boiling it down for something readily and easily accessible.

You know, so, yes, that's excellent. And I would argue that we want to be a church that doesn't just say, oh, yeah, we believe that or we hope or we hold to that.

But we actually continue to bring it out in front of us and think about it and use it. And Pastor Jacob say he and I have both used it in counseling situations and help.

It's it's a great tool. But on one hand, you will talk about this later.

On one hand, you want to avoid what I would call hyper confessionalism, which is almost treating the confession like it is on par with the

Bible. It's not the other. I would call nominal confessionalism, which is, yeah, somewhere in the back door.

Alex, go look in the back door. I think we got that confession somewhere. You know, dust it off.

Yeah. You know, you never you just say, yeah, we're 69 because you're trying to be cool. Exactly.

Check what I got today. Yeah. Excellent.

Excellent. It's glasses. It's not. Yeah. So it serves. So it's important and it serves the scriptures and it keeps us it keeps us.

Or sorry, it's not foolproof. There you know, oh, if you just if you say you believe this confession, you'll never go astray.

Well, that's not true. But it helps guard against error. You know, I don't think that sounds right about how you're articulating the

Trinity. We can go the confession. Remember, it's it is almost 2000 years of Trinitarian language because it goes back to council and I see and all that.

And it flows out of the scripture. So that's just an example, Alex. Yeah. How do you pass on?

That's right. You could say, well, you can go listen to all these sermons or whatever. It's like, no, no. Here it is condensed.

So let's spend the rest of our time. A quick trip down memory lane, let's just articulate again.

When we talk about 16, what is it? What is the second London Baptist confession of faith?

Well, it was published in guess the year, not 1689, 1677.

And it was published anonymously and it stated put forth by the elders and brethren of many congregations of Christians baptized upon profession of their faith in London and the country.

Most likely it was written by Nehemiah Cox. That will be on the test. You need to know that name. And he was from this is we missed a great opportunity to name our church this, but he was one of the pastors at the

Petit France Baptist Church in London. Now, a few questions is published 1677.

Why is it called 1689? Why is there a second London Baptist? What happened to the first? Glad you asked those questions.

That gets me excited. So I'm going to teach you on that. So it helps us to know a little bit of English history to set the context.

But context, we don't get too bogged down in that. But at the time of the first London Baptist confession in 1644, a man by the name of Oliver Cromwell was in power and there was religious freedom for the

Baptist. By the way, the first London Baptist confession is a good confession. It served Baptists well.

But in 1660, Charles the second returned to the throne as king of England.

Turns out that since they had beheaded Charles the first, the parliament, and it was mostly

Puritan parliament, he kind of had a problem with Puritans and separatists. So go figure.

That includes Baptists. They weren't Puritans. They were separatists. Anything outside the

Church of England was essentially outlawed. That's the act of uniformity happened in 1662, August 24th, 1662.

There's what is known in church history as the Great Ejection. It ousts some 1800 ministers from their churches because they didn't conform to the

Church of England. Now, this put three like minded groups of people in a difficult time.

The Presbyterians were not Church of England. The Congregationalists were not Church of England. And then who?

The Baptists. OK, now, First London Confession, 1644, published in 1646, though, the

Presbyterian confession was published and it is known as the Westminster Confession of Faith in 1658.

The Congregationalists published their confession of faith, known as the Savoy Declaration.

It's largely mimics the Westminster, John Owen, Thomas Goodwin. There's some of the

Savoy writers. So you have two groups. You have the Presbyterians and Congregationalists in 1658 that now share a similar confession of faith.

So that kind of leaves the Baptists on their own because no one ever asked Baptist anything. They just do their own thing.

And then Baptists are like, hey, we're Christians, too, you know. But in the 1670s, you have some of the

Baptists who begin to defect to the Quakers. And beyond that, you have a man named

Thomas Collier. He writes a theology book. He was a Reformed Baptist. Then he writes one, you know, apostatizing, denying

Reformed Baptist doctrine. So he's defected. All this is going on, persecution, false teaching, apostasy.

This led to Nehemiah Cox, most likely was him and maybe his fellow elder, William Collins, to write in 1677 what we have today, the

Second London Baptist Confession. So here's what they do. This is important, all that to say to set this up. They take the

First London Confession of Faith. They take the Westminster Confession of Faith and they take the

Savoy Declaration and they put it in a bottle and they shake it up and out comes the

Second London Baptist Confession. That didn't exactly happen that way, but they took these three confessions.

What are they again? The First London, the Savoy, the Congregationalists, the Westminster, Presbyterians, and they write the

Second London Baptist Confession. Why? Because they're saying, look, we're not crazy. We believe just like you guys believe on all these important doctrines.

We have some important differences in baptism and the way we do church. But in terms of the word of God, in terms of the gospel, in terms of the covenants, in terms of the six day creation, in terms of God's sovereignty and salvation, there is much, much, much that we can agree on.

OK, even with the First and Second London Baptists, there's no theological, substantial theological changes.

OK, how do I know that? Because men signed both. There were men alive in 1644 and then again in 1677 and 1689 who signed both.

OK. Now, why is it called 1689? Because in 1685, you remember Charles II died and then you have

William and Mary or William and Mary come to the throne. And this begins to result in religious freedom for Baptists.

So what happens is in 1689 that why is this year important? Over 100 churches that were reformed or a particular

Baptist hold they hold a meeting. And actually, what's today the 17th?

So. That'd be two weeks ago, two weeks ago, today, September 3rd, 1689.

They hold a general assembly. And these churches decide to adopt the confession of faith that we hold here at Providence Baptist Church.

So this is how it got its common name of the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith.

Now, why is all that matter? I'm just trying to tell you again. In in church history and in theology, sorry, not church history in theology.

We don't care about being progressive. That's a kind of a bad word, actually. We want to be regressive in the sense that we want to go back and stand on those who've gone before us.

So when we adopt this confession of faith, we adopted it in 2023. I think it was

March of 2023 when we adopted this confession of faith. We were signaling, hey, we're going backward and we're going to stand upon the shoulders of those who've gone before us.

And we stand in a long line of godly men. And we used the confession as they used it, not as a way to mold the

Bible, but as a way to teach what the Bible teaches to articulate the truth of the scriptures.

All right. So that will conclude. We can stop the recording and then we can ask questions again.