The Sufficiency of Grace

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If you have your copy of God's Word, I want to invite you to open again to 2
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Corinthians chapter 12 and hold your place at verse 9.
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Before we read, I'd like to give a few words of introduction. I'm motivated this morning to extend a caveat before I begin preaching.
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It is my normal manner of preaching that I would get up and I would preach an expositional message through books of the
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Bible. As many of you know, we've been in 2 Corinthians now for many months. We're coming close to the end.
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Before that, we were in Colossians. Before that, for many years, we were in Genesis. So it is our normal pattern to preach verse by verse through the text.
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Well, today I'm going to depart slightly from the norm and give what is known as an historical sermon.
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This is not without biblical precedent. For if we read through the
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Bible, particularly under the Old Covenant, we read over and over and over the call of God's leaders to the people to remember what
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God has done. And then they would point to things that God has done.
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Remember what God did when He led us out of Egypt. Remember what God did when He parted the sea.
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Remember what God did on the mountain when He gave His commandments. Remember, remember, remember what
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God has done. Well, I want to point out this morning that God did not stop working in the first century.
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But God has continued to work through and in the life of His church for the last 2 ,000 years.
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And it is important for us to remember what God has done.
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And so this morning, as we will look at 2 Corinthians 12, 9, and 10, and we are in 2
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Corinthians, so we're not departing the text, this text will serve as a point of beginning because it reminds us of the sufficiency of God's grace.
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And I will show and I hope to show that that was the very heart of the
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Reformation. Rome never argued that grace is unnecessary.
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But if you listen to her teachings, it is clear that she sees grace as insufficient.
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But God's word says, my grace is sufficient for you.
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Let's stand together and read the text. This is
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Paul's words written to the Corinthian church, chapter 12, verse 9.
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It says, but he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
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Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
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For the sake of Christ, then I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.
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For when I am weak, then I am strong.
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Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. We come to you,
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Lord, thanking you for this opportunity to worship you afresh this morning on this Lord's day.
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On this day where we commemorate an important event in history and on a day where we are reminded that you did not stop working in the first century, but you have worked in and through your church down through the ages and continue to work today in the hearts and lives of your people.
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Lord, I pray that as I preach this message that you would keep me from error. For God, you know that I am a fallible man.
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I am capable of error. And for the sake of your name, for the sake of your people, for the sake of my conscience,
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I pray that you would protect me and protect them from any falsehood leaving my mouth.
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I pray, oh God, for the believer that they would look at what we learn today and be encouraged in what you have done to bring light out of darkness, to recover the gospel for your people which had been shrouded in corruption and mystery.
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And Lord, I pray that as we examine the history of this reality, that we would be moved toward an ever more zealous following of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. For he who brought light out of darkness is the same one who brought light into the darkness of our dead hearts.
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And may we, Lord, celebrate his work today, not the work of Luther or Calvin or Zwingli or anyone else.
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For even they would say it was not they who did it, but the word of God through the power of the spirit because of Christ.
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And Lord, we thank you for that. And Father, we pray for the unbeliever today.
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For if there are those among us, and there must be, Lord, with a crowd this size, there certainly are those who have not yet trusted in the
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Lord Jesus Christ, whether they be old or young, whether they be man or woman, I pray, oh God, that through the preaching of the sufficiency of grace, that they would recognize the beauty of the
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Lord Jesus Christ, that they would fall on their knees and trust in him, and that today would be the salvation for their soul, which is a work that only you can do, oh
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God, so we trust you with it. In Jesus' name, amen. Every year, on the
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Sunday prior to October 31st, churches around the world who exist in the
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Reformed tradition will recognize this day as Reformation Sunday.
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This is because it was on October 31st, 1517, that Martin Luther published the 95
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Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg. I use the word publish because there is some historical argument about the methodology of his sending out those 95 arguments.
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Most of us are familiar with this scene, which is Luther taking the hammer to the door at Wittenberg and nailing it, and most of us picture that as being somewhat of a revolutionary move, you know,
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I'm going to go to the church and I'm going to pound on the door, but the reality was the door of the church was more like a bulletin board.
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It is likely there were other things on the door. It's not as if he was making a revolutionary movement by going and nailing it to the door.
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It was very common to place things on the church door because this was the area where the people would go and come every week, and so if you wanted people to know about something, you would place it here, and it was also a place to begin disputes.
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If you wanted to dispute theology, you would place it there, and there are those who say not only did he nail the 95
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Theses out, but they were also sent out by letter to leaders, and within a few weeks had made their way all around Germany.
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So when I say published, that's what I mean. They went out on October 31st, 15 and 17, and we as a church have for many years chosen to celebrate this day, the
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Sunday prior to October 31st, as Reformation Day because we believe it is something worth celebrating.
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We've celebrated it with feasts. We've celebrated it with events. We even had
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Brother Mike stand in that pulpit back there, dressed as Luther, well, in a robe about as close as you get to dressing as Luther, and preached to us in the open air just a few years ago, and by the way, if you do wonder what that cage is in the background, it looks like a giant baby cage.
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It's not. That is a replica of the pulpit that was used by George Whitefield when he went through the open fields of the
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Americas, or through America, preaching the gospel during the Great Awakening. So that's what that is, and that's why we have it.
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We built it as a replica of his mobile pulpit, and we still use it periodically for special purposes.
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So having said all that, we celebrate the Reformation because we believe it is worth celebrating.
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A week and a half ago, I published an article, and the title of the article was,
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Why the Reformation is Worth Celebrating, and this was a paragraph from that article.
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I'd like to read it to you. We are not celebrating disunity.
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Rather, we are celebrating recovery. The recovery of truth and the exposure of error.
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This is what the Reformation was all about. The Roman Catholic Church had fallen into error in many areas, indulgences being just one.
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The Reformers saw themselves not as divisive figures, but as men seeking to give God's people back what had been taken from them, the simple gospel message of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to Scripture alone, for the glory of God alone.
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These five battle cries, known as the five solas, encapsulated the
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Reformers' cause, and they are worth celebrating. So today, we open our
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Bibles to 2 Corinthians, and we see an important truth in this text, in this one short phrase by the
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Apostle, where he describes the sufficiency of grace. He proclaims that he is content, sola gratia, with grace alone.
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Now, as I said, I'm not going to give a specific exposition, but I do want to remind you, if you've been here, we exposited this text last week, along with the verses that came before it, and I mentioned to you where this text falls, and I think it's always important to be reminded of the context and what this is saying, because the context of this particular verse is within the context of Paul describing his own sufferings for the gospel, and right before this, he talked about a thorn that was in his flesh, a thorn that he had suffered, and that he had asked the
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Lord three times to remove, and the Lord did not remove it. And the answer from the
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Lord was these very words. The quotation is not the quotation of the words of Paul, but it is a quotation from the
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Lord himself to Paul, when Paul was given these words, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
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That is the message of today. God's grace is sufficient for us.
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It was sufficient for Paul as he battled against the super apostles, those who came after him, who tried to make his ministry of no repute, who tried to damage his character, and tried to overtake the work that he had done.
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He said he fought against them, he battled them, he preached against them, and he said what gave him the strength to do so was the grace of God.
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And what I want us to see is while the grace of God was sufficient for Paul's overcoming of his opponents, as the grace of God is sufficient for Paul overcoming his suffering, as the grace of God was sufficient in Paul overcoming all of the problems and issues and thorns that he had to deal with, the grace of God is also sufficient for us.
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Most notably, it is sufficient for our salvation.
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For that is the very issue upon which the reformation was battled.
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Is grace enough for salvation? Is grace enough, or do we have to, by our merit, add to grace?
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Later in today's message, I'm going to read to you some of the canons of the
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Council of Trent. The Council of Trent was known as the Anti -Reformation
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Council, or the Counter -Reformation Council. After the Reformation exploded in Europe, a council was called by the
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Roman Catholic Church, and they repudiated the teachings of the reformers. And what we will read when we get there, and we will get there in just a little while, what we will read is they explicitly say grace is not enough.
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The canons of Trent clearly say that while grace is necessary, it is not sufficient, but must be added to by our own merits.
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In fact, this is the whole reason for the doctrine of purgatory. For purgatory says that when you die, your sins must still receive the punishment they are due.
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And therefore, you must go into purgatory to receive the purging, that's where the word purgatory comes from, purgation or to purge.
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You must go to purgatory to have those sins purged.
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The punishment must be met out on you. Christ's death is not enough.
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The sufficiency of grace is not enough. It must be added to, and it must be added to by you.
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Beloved, that is an affront to Scripture. It is an affront to truth.
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And beloved, it is a false gospel. Plain and simple.
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People ask a lot, because I do reference Rome quite a bit in my teaching, and people will ask a lot, do you believe that Roman Catholics are saved?
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And my answer is I believe there are Roman Catholics who are saved because they have trusted in Christ, but the gospel that Rome preaches is not the gospel of Christ.
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And so those who are saved within the Catholic Church are saved in spite of what is taught, not because of what is taught.
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See, God's word is able to save simply by people reading it. And by God's grace, there's Catholics who read the word of God and trust in Christ.
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See, that's the point. They can be saved in spite of what's taught. But what
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Rome teaches is not the gospel, which is why the Reformation should be celebrated, because it's a recovery of the gospel.
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Now, I said this was going to be a historical message, and so I do want to give some history. Some of you, you may be new with us.
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This may be your first time worshiping with us, and perhaps you have not heard of the things that happened in the
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Reformation, and perhaps your introduction to church history has been very little, and that is very common, unfortunately, in the church today.
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Church history is not taught on a great scale in churches. In fact, it's not even focused upon in many seminaries.
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Church history is placed to the side, and we focus more on things that are maybe considered more practical, more relevant.
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Who cares what happened 500 years ago? Who cares what happened 1 ,000 years ago? Who could possibly care what happened 1 ,500 years ago?
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But when we examine history, and we walk through the events of history, we begin to learn so much relevance for today, and see how some of the very same battles that were happening in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd century are still being faced today.
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Tonight, we begin our next academy class, and it is on the history of the early church from the fall of Jerusalem to the rise of Augustine, so about a 500 -year period, and I can't tell you how excited
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I am to just show how much relevance there is in those first 500 years, because some of the same battles that were happening then are still happening now.
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There are still Gnostics today. There are still Judaizers today. There are still Marcionites today. There are still all of the false teachings that existed in the first 500 years of the church still exist today, and that's the one thing that I find fascinating when
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I talk to Roman Catholics. Oftentimes, it sounds as if the church was this unstained, beautiful edifice up until Martin Luther came along and split it up, as if there were no divisions prior to October 31st, 1570.
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But beloved, division in the church began in the 1st century. Who does
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Paul write against in so many of his letters? He writes against the Judaizers, who sought to divide the church by way of who was keeping the ceremonial law of the
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Jews, who was being circumcised, who was keeping the dietary laws. Those men split the church in the 1st century and divided the church because of their teachings, and Paul had to write against them.
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Later in the 1st century and in the 2nd century, we have what's known as the Gnostics. The Gnostics had a very peculiar view of the world.
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They had a dualistic view which separated material and spiritual things, and the spiritual was good and the material was bad, and therefore the
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God of the Old Testament who created the material world was bad because the material world is bad, and certainly
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Jesus didn't become a man because if Jesus had become flesh, he would have taken on a material body and that would have been bad.
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So the Gnostics taught this dualism which had to be dealt with by the church. In fact, it's commonly believed that when
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John is writing his letters and he says, if anyone says Jesus Christ has not come in the flesh, let him be accursed, that he's dealing with that same issue.
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It's called docetism, the idea that Jesus did not come in the flesh but merely appeared to be in the flesh, and there was a division within the church.
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Later, in the 3rd century and the 4th century, we have the rise of Arianism, which taught against the full divinity of Christ.
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Moving through that, well in the 2nd century, you have the Montanists, which were like an early sect of what we would call today
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Pentecostals. They believed in special revelation from God and they behaved very oddly because of their belief in that revelation.
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Then you have the Novationists, the Donatists, the Arians, the Pelagians, the
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Monophysites, the Iconoclasts, on and on and on. There has been battle after battle after battle because Satan is always at work, always trying to divide his people, always trying to introduce falsehood, always trying to create error in the church.
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So anyone who says, well the church was going along just fine until Martin Luther came and messed it up, that is a fairy tale.
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In fact, the greatest divide in the church prior to the Reformation came almost 500 years before.
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It's when the Eastern church split from the Western church in what's known as the Great Schism, or Schism, depending on how you want to say that word.
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I can't, we'll debate about that. They're not called Schizers. But in 1054, the
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Eastern church, which we now call the Eastern Orthodox church, divided from the
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Western church, which became then known as the Roman Catholic church.
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And in this divide, the divide was over the question of the authority of the
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Pope. Was the Pope a man who had equals? Or was he one who rose above all equals?
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And the issue that caused the debate was whether or not the Pope and the
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Magisterium in Rome should have the authority to change the Nicene Creed. You know what the
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Nicene Creed is? It was a creed that was written in the 4th century to affirm who Jesus was.
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The Nicene Creed says that the Father begets the Son, and the Son and the
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Father send the Spirit. But that's not what the original said. The original
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Nicene Creed says the Father begets the Son, and the Father sends the Spirit, or the Spirit proceedeth from the
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Father. But in the 11th century, in the 1000s, or the 1000s, the addition of what is known as the filioque, or the
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Latin phrase for of the Son, was added. And the Eastern church denied the filioque, and the division came.
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And it wasn't so much because of the filioque clause, it was because of who did it.
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It was because of the question, who has the authority to make such a change in a document that has served the church now over 600 years?
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Who has the authority? And so the issue of authority led to a division in the church.
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Major division between East and West, which has not yet been overcome. Is there not still a divide between the
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Eastern church and the Western church? Absolutely. So, my point in all of this is just to remind you, that church history is messy.
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Church history is not, you have this perfect unblemished church up until Martin Luther. No, you have a church that was always struggling, always in battle, always fighting for the truth, always having to stumble through.
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And during the time of the Middle Ages, which the medieval period arises around the 600s, and goes into about the 1400s, you can go back as far as 500 and forward as far as 1500.
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But we call that period the Middle Ages. The early church is the first 500 years. The post -reformational church is the last 500 years.
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That in the middle period, with the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, all of these things bring about corruption and abuse of power in the church.
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And the person at the head of that corruption and abuse of power is the Pope. You understand this is why when our
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Baptist ancestors wrote the 1689 London Baptist Confession, you know who they identified as the
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Antichrist? The Pope. It wasn't like, oh we wonder.
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No, the Pope is Antichrist. And not like little a, one of many.
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No, no, he is capital A. He is the Antichrist. That was the view of the
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Reformed Baptists, or particular Baptists, or those who held to that document.
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If you really want to know who the Antichrist is, stay in Mike's class. He'll let you know. He'll give you his address. But they are doing revelation.
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If you really do want to know. At least I don't hold the position that the Pope is the Antichrist, even though I would say the papacy is an
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Antichrist. The papacy as a office is
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Antichrist. And I'll give you a couple of reasons why. One, the very titles of the
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Pope are titles which are meant to be for God alone. He is called
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Pontifex Maximus, which means the master bridge builder. Pontifex Maximus.
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He is the one who builds the bridge between us and God. No, who has that title? Jesus is the great bridge builder.
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As I love this phrase, and I remember years ago hearing a man say it, and I just like it because it's a great visual. It says,
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Jesus went upon the cross and died and came off the cross, took the wood of the cross and built a bridge.
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That's why I thought it was a beautiful picture, right? We go to God through Christ and through his cross. It is not through the
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Pope. He is called Holy Father. Who is the only
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Holy Father? Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be His name. He is called
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Vicar of Christ. Vicar means vicarious or one who stands in the place of Christ.
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That's what vicar is short for. Who is the Vicar of Christ? The Holy Spirit. Jesus said, if I go,
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I will send you one like myself, and he will walk with you as I've walked with you. He'll be in you, right?
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That's what Jesus said. I will send all those percolators, another comforter. Him. We'll send the
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Spirit, not a Pope. The papacy is a corruption in the history of the church, and it has brought no good.
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It has brought only destruction. You might say, well, there was this good Pope here, and there was this good Pope here. What about this
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Pope, and what about that? He did a few good things. The office, are there good men?
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Possibly. I don't know how any man can hold those three titles and consider himself a humble man, but we could talk about that.
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But the office itself is an office of corruption, and it demonstrates.
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And by the way, if I seem to get passionate about this, I'm a little, because it's still worth battling today.
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You would be surprised how many young men and women are being wooed to Rome this very day by the arguments that are being put out online.
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Very articulate apologists who have taken to the
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Internet to defend Rome and all of her errors, and men and women are being wooed to Rome.
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It is my passion to teach that that should not be so.
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Do not fall for the false teachings of Rome. Please, if anything, don't.
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During the medieval period, the power of the papacy demonstrated its corruption in several major events.
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A few just to share with you. One was known as the Cadaver Synod. This one was so outrageous that it even offended lay people.
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By that, I mean the church itself saw this happen. They saw the Pope do this, and they said, wow, this is incredibly wrong.
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Because the Pope, at this time, it was the 9th century,
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Pope Stephen VI, decided that his predecessor was a heretic.
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His predecessor, whose name was Pope Formosus, he had his body exhumed from the ground.
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He had his cadaver placed in the court, dressed in his royal papal robes, and he put him on trial.
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Yeah, the dead corpse, on trial. This is why it's called the Cadaver Synod.
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And legend says they even had a man sitting behind him, working him like a puppet. So as to, when a question was asked, it was to turn his head one way or move his head another way.
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So is the foolishness that has happened in the papacy.
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There was something in the 11th century known as the Pornocracy. Now, we know the word pornea means sexually immoral, and that's where the term pornography comes from.
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There was a period of about three generations, about 60 years or so, where there was sexually immoral and illicit things happening in the papacy, which produced children who were illegitimate, which produced all forms of nepotism and corruption.
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All that is documented historically and often looked at as simply a blot in the history of the papacy, it certainly is a blot.
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The term pornography literally means the rule of the prostitutes. If it gives you an idea of what was happening.
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Shortly before the time of Luther, about 100 years, there was what was known as the, or about 150 years, there was what was known as the
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Avignon papacy. Because of political and social things that were happening in Rome, the
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Pope moved to Avignon, France. And you know where the Pope lives normally is in the Vatican in Rome.
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Well, when he moved to Avignon, France, there were some political reasons for doing so.
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There became a great divide in the church as to whether or not the Pope should do that. And so eventually another
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Pope was placed. And both of those Popes, guess what? They anathematized one another.
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So a third Pope was chosen. They anathematized him. Finally, the church gathered in council.
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It was the Council of Constance. And they deposed, or the ones who had resigned, one had resigned, they deposed them.
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And they replaced them all with a fourth Pope, who became the Pope. Here's what's interesting about that.
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If you ask a Roman Catholic, they'll say, we have an unbroken apostolic line.
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Thoui. There's a Greek word for it, it's baloney. You do not have an unbroken apostolic line.
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You have a tradition, much of which is fabricated.
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Again, when people are trying to fascinate you with these things, remember to do your homework.
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I had a guy recently, you know, well who laid hands on you? So asking me, who laid hands on me?
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As if to say the authority for preaching comes from some unbroken line of hand on head, hand on head, hand on head.
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And that's where some churches will argue what's known as apostolic succession. Who laid their hands on whom? And you may believe that that is necessary.
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I don't. I do believe that the church has to recognize a man who is gifted for the office of elder, and he must affirm them, and hands should be laid upon him.
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But that is not based on some unbroken succession, which goes all the way back to the first century. But it is based on the work of the
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Holy Spirit of God, who raises men up in the local church to serve. I know this is a lot of history, and I hope
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I haven't caused anyone to wonder, what is he doing?
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He's not preaching, he's just telling history. This all matters, and I'm driving to a point, I promise. Because remember
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I said that it was at the Council of Constance that they solved the issue of the
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Avignon Papacy, and they established the pope that would go on to be the pope after?
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That same council has a huge significance in the history of the church. Because it was at the
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Council of Constance that two of the early reformers, before Martin Luther, two of the early reformers were condemned at that council.
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The first one was John Wycliffe. Now John Wycliffe had died.
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He had been dead for a while. But the council still saw fit to condemn him.
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So they condemned him, and guess what they did? They dug up his bones. They are good at that. They dug up his bones, burned his bones to powder, and sprinkled them in a nearby river.
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So as to condemn him posthumously, because he taught the very things you believe.
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That man is not justified by works, but he is justified by faith alone. That was taught. Because he had translated the
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Bible into English, he was the first one ever to do so. Because he had preached against the mass, which was a false teaching about the bread and cup and communion.
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In fact, that was the thing, I think, that most got him sent out of the church, and where he couldn't teach, because he taught at Oxford, where he couldn't teach at Oxford anymore, because of what he taught about the table.
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Because he said, this is not a transubstantiatory sacrifice. And so he was condemned.
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But there was another man who was condemned at the council of Constance. You may have heard his name.
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His name was Jan Hus. Jan Hus was the rector at the church in Prague.
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And he had, because of reading the scripture, learning the gospel, and also having been influenced by the teachings of Wycliffe, Jan Hus began to preach against the eccentricities and false teachings of the
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Roman Catholic Church. He was called to the council of Constance, and he was promised safe conduct.
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That means, you come to the council, you give your position, even if we don't like it, you are under the protection of the emperor.
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It was Emperor Sigismund. He said, you come, you state your case, and you can go home, even if we don't agree.
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Jan Hus came to the council of Constance, which was held between 1414 and 1418.
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He came to the council of Constance. He stated his case. He was immediately condemned, and the emperor was told, heretics do not deserve safe conduct.
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So he was taken into the dungeon, where he was held, until he was burned at the stake.
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You've heard the phrase, your goose is cooked. His name, his nickname was the
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Goose. He was from a town, which is called Goosetown, and it has a name that I can't pronounce in its original language, but what it would be called for us is
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Goosetown. And he was called the Goose. And Jan Hus was burned at the stake, and witnesses say he died singing.
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Jesus thou son of David, have mercy on me.
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Those were his dying words. About a hundred years later, in the height of the
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Renaissance period, a man by the name of Martin Luther, saw the corruption in the church, recognized the false teachings in the church, and he took a stand for the truth.
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And he was called a Hussite. In fact,
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I believe it was in his debate with Eck, one of his first public debates, where he said,
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Eck said, you are a Hussite. And Luther said, the
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Hussites are wrong, and yet I find much truth in what they say.
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So he was saying, they're not right about everything, but I find much truth in what they say.
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And the things that were true about what Hus taught were the same things that were true about what
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Wycliffe taught. They were the same things that were true about what Luther was teaching, and they're the same things we teach today.
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That salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
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Maybe not articulated as clearly and as well, but that was the heart of the argument.
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Rome had, through her teachings, absolutely covered over the beautiful truth of that gospel.
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And God brought men willing to give their lives for that truth.
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In fact, when Luther was called to Worms, which is where he made his stand against the false teachings of Rome, and when he was ultimately excommunicated, he was at the
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Diet of Worms. My kids always love that because it's spelled Diet of Worms. So every year we do a little thing with gummy worms.
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We remember the Diet of Worms. When Luther was called to the
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Diet of Worms, and he stood before the council, he was called to recant.
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Luther, will you recant? And the first thing he did was ask for a day to think about it.
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You say, oh, well, why would he need that? He knew he was in the shadow of Jan Hus.
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He knew the very thing Jan Hus was burned for was the very thing he was standing for.
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And he knew the possibility of what would happen if he took a stand.
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So he asked for a day. And when he returned, depending on what historian you read, his response was either said with great strength and confidence or it was said very quietly.
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I tend to think maybe it was a little quiet because he knew what he was saying because he said, unless I am convinced by Scripture and reason and not by popes and councils who have often contradicted one another, unless I am convinced by the
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Word of God, my conscience is captive to the
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Word of God. And to go against conscience is neither right nor safe.
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Therefore, I cannot and I will not recant.
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God help me. Amen. Luther was condemned, but not to death.
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He was made an outlaw, but his friend, it's good to have friends, his friend staged a kidnapping, took him to Wartburg Castle, kept him there for a year to keep him safe.
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While he was there, he translated the Bible into German. The German translation that many
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Germans still use today, the Lutheran translation of the German Bible, so that his people in Germany would have the
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Word of God in their language. Beloved, these stories must be remembered because God is at work.
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He was at work then and he's at work now. That's why I'm telling you these things. This is why, because I haven't even gotten to the great part yet.
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And I know we're about out of time, but the great part is the aftermath.
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The aftermath was the spread of the Gospel of Grace throughout Europe and into the new world as the
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Gospel of Grace goes out into the world and changes lives. Rome didn't know what to do.
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This man who the Pope, when he first heard about Luther, he called him a wild boar. He said, oh, he's just a drunken
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German. When he sobers up, he'll get back in line. Well, Luther never sobered up.
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He stayed in the fight. Other men joined the fight. Calvin in Switzerland was the next generation.
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Calvin didn't live contemporaneously. He did with Luther, but Luther was much older than Calvin. But this battle kept going.
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So Rome chose to have her own council to repute what had been taught by the reformers.
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Or to rebut, rather, what had been taught by the reformers. And that's why I wanted to share with you today the 24th
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Canon of the Council of Trent. Canons are official proclamations from councils.
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So they would talk about the canons of Nicaea. Those were the official teachings of the
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Council of Nicaea, right? These are the official teachings. And while we would say, and I'm going to talk about this in the history class, we would say that many of the early church councils were good and they hold authority because it was at a time when
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Rome had become as corrupt as she did in the Middle Ages. But by the time of the Middle Ages, we see corruption in these councils.
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I mean, Constance burning guys' bones and putting to death a man who'd been guaranteed safety.
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That's corruption. But the Council of Trent, in an attempt to respond to the
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Reformation, wrote several things, and this is but one. This is the Council of Trent, Canon 24.
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And it says, And the phraseology is a little different than what we would say, justification.
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So if you would just think of it that way. But that those works are merely the fruit and sign of justification obtained, not the cause of its increase.
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Let him be anathema. Notice what it's saying. If you say that your good works are the fruit of justification and not its cause, notice what it says, not the cause of its increase.
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You see, you're given a portion of justification, but not all of it. It must be increased by your merit.
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It must be increased by your good works. And it says, if you say that good works are a fruit of salvation, you are anathema.
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Beloved, what do we teach? The good works are the fruit of salvation. What does the
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Bible teach? For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
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It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works that he prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
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Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 to 10. We are saved for good works, not by good works.
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And that is the division of the Reformation. That is the whole argument.
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Will we be saved by what we have done, added to what Christ has done, or will we be saved by the grace of God alone, in Christ alone, received through faith alone?
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That is the division. This is why Luther would say that justification by faith alone, which is shorthand for saying justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to scripture alone.
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He said justification by faith alone is the article upon which the church will stand or fall.
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Hear that again. Justification by faith alone is the article upon which the church will stand or fall.
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Because justification by faith alone is justification by faith in the grace of God alone, which comes through Christ alone.
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You see, that is the heart of the Reformation.
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Not the necessity of grace. Any Roman Catholic will tell you grace is necessary.
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But beloved, grace is not only necessary, it is sufficient. That is the key distinction.
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That was the battle. Yes, there was corruption. Yes, there was a papacy which itself is anti -Christ.
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Yes, there was all kinds of false things being taught. And even to this day, false things about Mary, false things about saints, false things about rosaries, false things about prayers, false things about the magisterium, false things, all these things.
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But the thing that matters most is not those things. The thing that matters most is whether grace is enough or not.
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And beloved, the Reformers argued my grace is sufficient for you.
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God's grace is sufficient for you.
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You come here today and maybe you don't believe that. Maybe you came here today and somehow, and I must say, the people who
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I talk to who have the hardest time believing they can be saved, and people do, they come in,
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I just don't see how God can save me. They don't understand the extent and power and breadth and depth of God's grace.
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You are a great sinner. Christ is a greater Savior. Your sin is like scarlet, but He is able to wash it whiter than snow.
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And not through your work in purgatory, but by His work on the cross. Whiter than snow because of what
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He has done. When God said to Paul, my grace is sufficient for you, we know that it is sufficient in every area, especially salvation.
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Salvation begins and ends with grace. Therefore, any work we do is only a result of grace and not its cause.
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Therefore, we have the confidence in our salvation, because it's not dependent upon us, but it is dependent upon God and His grace.
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Our works can fail. God's grace cannot. And so we say, along with Jude, who said these words, now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy, to the only
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God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority before all time.
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Now and forever. Amen. Father in heaven,
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I thank you for the opportunity to proclaim the sufficiency of grace.
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And I pray, Lord, if there are those here today who are trusting in themselves, trusting in their works, trusting in what they have done,
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I pray that they would abandon that trust and that they would trust in Christ alone.
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For the grace of Christ is a pool without bottom.
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Lord, it has an inexhaustible supply.
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And Lord, if there are those who are trusting in anything other than that, I pray that they would turn to Christ today.
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And Lord, as we, in a moment, are faced with the bread and the cup,
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I pray, O God, that we would remember the presence of the Lord who is with us now.
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Lord, and as we consider the value of this bread and cup and what it reminds us of, of His work on the cross,
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Lord, may it be that we are conformed evermore to His image.