Lessons We Can Learn About Preaching & The Word Of God From The Reformation (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.

My name is Mike Abendroth. I have a special treat for you today. It will be formatted a little differently. I had the pleasure of speaking to some Indian pastors and Bible teachers and seminary students via Zoom the other day, and it was posted in on YouTube, and then now Spencer has cut it up into several sections, so it will sound maybe a little bit different, and once in a while you�ll hear someone ask a question.

That�s one of the students, or my friend, Vaneet, who set everything up. Vaneet is a missionary for Omaha Bible Church, and Omaha Bible Church, I think, supports him 100%, so I�m thankful for Vaneet and his ministry, and so this is part one of the Reformation and lessons we could learn about preaching in the Word of God from the Reformation.

Well, officially, I�d like to welcome Pastor Mike Abendroth. Thank you so much for taking the time and making time to teach us once again. We were really encouraged and challenged last time about preaching, preaching the Gospel from 1 Corinthians 15, and today Mike is going to teach us a little more about the preaching of the Reformers.

Something massive happened. We studied a little bit about it on October 31st, the five solas, etc., but what is it that they preached, and what is it that God ultimately used to unleash a storm, and then we�ll come back to some questions and some ministry experience from Mike�s own life.

So, Mike, we�ll just say a short word of prayer, and then we�ll proceed. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time once again. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity to, Lord, learn from you and your Word.

Thank you for the Reformation. Thank you for the rediscovery of the Gospel, and, Lord, the greatest treasure that the Church has is the Gospel, and, Lord, we want to always be hungry for the Gospel because it is the unfolding and a reminder of Jesus Christ and all His multifaceted glory, and so, Lord, speak to us and show us your glory and encourage us and strengthen us and strengthen Mike even as he teaches us.

We ask in Jesus� precious name.

Amen. Amen. Will, thank you again for having me preach a little bit to you, man. I�m always encouraged and have a warm spot in my heart for my friends in India. This isn�t in my notes, but it�s something that I�m thinking about when it comes to the Reformation, so maybe I could just start off with this because it�s on my mind and heart lately as I think about preaching in the Reformation.

Of course, most of us think when it comes to the Reformation that it was a rediscovery of the doctrine of Sola Fide. Luther didn�t invent it. Calvin didn�t invent it. It goes all the way back, not even to Paul, but, of course, the Lord Jesus.

You see it back in Genesis. It is true, right? You�d have Benjamin Franklin in America saying God helps those who help themselves. That was a spin off of a medieval slogan during the Reformation that basically if you do whatever you can, then God will give you grace, and it�s true.

The Reformation was a rediscovery of Sola Fide, and I would not deny that. That is the primary issue, rediscovering the gospel, and, of course, we go through all the solas, but just a side note, man. Don�t forget that during the Reformation times, Jesus was portrayed as a judge and a judge alone.

Of course, I don�t want to take anything away from the justice of the Son and the wrath of the Son, right? Psalm chapter 2. I don�t want to take anything away from who Jesus is as a sovereign king, but when it comes to Reformation times, that�s all they knew about Jesus, and you would walk into a church, and there would be these big paintings and big descriptions of Jesus, the judge who is coming back to judge, and, of course, he is, but what is the relationship of a Christian to Jesus?

Now, what the Reformation then pushed against was Jesus is more than a judge, right? So the Roman Catholics, you see Jesus as judge, and then if you want some comfort, you go to the Virgin Mary, and that�s something that I find interesting today because we all too often as evangelical pastors preach to our people, Christians, as Jesus is this judge, and I think that betrays what we think about justification by faith alone because our relationship to Jesus now, he�s not our judge.

He�s our advocate, 1 John 2. He�s our Savior. He�s our brother. He�s our Redeemer. He�s our friend, and so if you�re thinking about Reformation preaching, again, this isn�t on my notes, but it�s just on my heart.

Let�s make sure that we show our people that Jesus is a man, the God-man, who loves them. He loved them when they were ungodly, Romans chapter 4, and does he now not love them because they�re a Christian who sins?

When you look at the Gospels and you think, okay, what does Jesus look like and what is his heart like? Of course, you all know the verse, �Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls.

If people are weary and heavy laden, Jesus gives them rest. So one of the things that I wanted to just say at the very beginning so I don�t forget is make sure that since you men believe in sola fide, you believe in Christ alone and faith alone, etc., that you don�t portray Jesus as this judge to come get Christians and to come after Christians.

They need to understand who Jesus is and that God forgives the sins of Christians too. That doesn�t mean there won�t be discipline. That doesn�t mean we ought not to tell people that sin is not right.

It�s against God�s law and against his holy nature and do not sin. But I think too many Christians, and here�s like a self-confession, I think I began to say there�s a bunch of unbelievers in the church and I need to preach Jesus as judge so they come to faith instead of there are a bunch of weak and weary Christians who have been sick this week and been up all night with their kids and had to go to work strange hours and they need to hear a good message, a gospel message about a Jesus who is their advocate and who has come to rescue them.

So this is kind of just a preface to what I�m going to say and the preface is simple that while sola fide was what was rediscovered in the Reformation, don�t forget that because of that Christians are justified and Christians stand before God as righteous as the Son because it�s the Son�s righteousness and therefore you can preach in such a way that you�re not scolding them, that you�re not telling them that they�re under the wrath of God, that you�re not telling them that if they don�t measure up this week that God somehow doesn�t love them or he loves them less.

That is a problem that the Galatians had, right, and so you�re saved by grace but you got to stay in by law keeping and that is a tragic mistake and I think all too often I�m presenting my facial expressions in some scolding manner because I too have not realized what the Bible has taught and what the Reformation rediscovered.

Does that make sense? Yeah, okay, good. Well, since it�s my Zoom meeting, I could have my long preface and go off my notes. If you�ve got questions, guys, why don�t you just write them down and then we�ll take questions at the very end.

The Reformation as a Recovery of Biblical Preaching

So, my topic today is the Reformation and its preaching. We too live in some very dark times and disturbing times and I want to have this purpose statement really today is I want to encourage you men in any way I can to keep faithfully preaching in honor of the Lord Jesus no matter what fruit you see, no matter what comes to pass in terms of how many people attend the church or Bible studies that you lead, that�s not the issue.

I want you to think about faithfulness, not somehow numbers and all that and so what can we learn from the preaching of the Reformation? I probably have way too much information. On a side note, when you prepare for your preaching, always have too much information instead of not enough, right, and what I end up doing is I have about, if I�ve got too much information, two or three endings, right, and then I know I could jump to one ending or another or another and so I have way too much information, Vineet, so if you�d like to invite me back again sometime, I will come back.

The first thing, and it�s an obvious thing when it comes to the Reformation, it was a recovery of preaching, recovery of the preaching of the Bible. I read a good article by a guy named Charles Terpsta and he put together a lot of information regarding this and he essentially said what was right, it was like a preaching revival, right, it was a time where if you thought about it this way, although it didn�t happen in the churches there, but it was a moving from the pulpit to the side, a little lectern, a little Bible study, a little sermonette, and essentially what we had with the Reformation was the pulpit and the preached word, while it might not have moved physically in some of those churches there in England and in Europe, it was at the center, front and center, it was a rising of the pulpit and its proclamation.

Preaching was at the center of the service and that�s one of the things that I�m sure you men do and want to do or else you wouldn�t have invited me to come and do this. There was a reason why the Middle Ages were dark ages and you can think about science and you can think about philosophy and you can think about how people thought, but one of the reasons the dark ages from 500 to 1500, why were they dark?

Well, because the word was not proclaimed, right, there might be little pockets here there, God always has his remnant, but we refer to the Middle Ages as dark and depressed and wicked because there wasn�t preaching.

In the Reformation, it wasn�t for lack of clergy, right, the Roman Catholic Church, they had bishops and priests and popes and archbishops and they had people in place, but they didn�t preach. And you could go to a service and not hear any preaching at all.

Hugh Latimer was an English reformer and he called these priests and these popes and these bishops who didn�t preach, he called them strawberry parsons, strawberry parsons. Why would he call them a strawberry parson?

I just was on my phone the other night, I have the Luther insulter and it�s Martin Luther, he insults you and then it says, �Press to be insulted again. And then just type in on your browser, Luther insulter.

Well, this is not Luther-esque, but it�s still a picture-esque, strawberry parsons. Parson is a word for preacher or pastor, strawberry parsons. He said that because they only came out once a year and stayed for a very short time.

And so when you grow strawberries, it�s the same thing. So, strawberry parsons. Luther in 1520, early in his ministry said this, and it�s kind of old King James English, �Lo, whither hath the glory of the church departed?

The whole earth is filled with priests, bishops, cardinals, and clerics, and yet not one of them preaches by virtue of his office, unless he be called to do another and by different call besides his sacramental ordination.

In other words, Luther was saying there are clergy people, but they�re not preaching. And you think about it today. This is why I am so, and I�m getting ahead of myself, but that�s okay. I�m so determined to make sure I talk about the Lord Jesus and his gospel on Sundays, because every place else in the world, you can get law, you could get TED Talks, you could be how to be nice, how to love your children.

That can be all found somewhere else. But could anybody tell me how I could have my sins forgiven? Could anybody tell me how God loves me in Christ Jesus? Could anybody tell me what�s my relationship with this God?

Because I have an appointment for eternity that I must keep. That�s why men who stand on the pulpit must proclaim the Word of God. And of course, when we think about the Word of God, you ought to be thinking that every book in the Bible is a Christian book.

Proverbs is a Christian book. Psalms is a Christian book. Hebrews is a Christian book. And so we have that, and that is why it�s so very important. During the Reformation, the Catholics would have something not called a sermon, but what they call it today, a tiny brief sermon.

We call them sermonettes, and they would call them homilies. And basically, what the priests would do during Luther and Calvin�s time, they didn�t study like we would study. You know, we have to figure out what�s this mean, and what�s the context, and what�s happening theologically as we study.

Essentially, what those priests did, with few exceptions, is they just pulled up something, maybe from a church father, and they just read it. And so you�ve got hardly any preaching, and then when it is preaching, it�s just this packaged, prepackaged, sterile thing.

And so what does that do to the sanctification of the people? If preaching is a means of grace, and they�re not getting any preaching, what happens? How are you graced by God? You say, well, common grace, and rain, and sun, and the moon, and family.

Well, that�s true, but there needs to be something special. Here�s what Calvin said. What sermons in Europe then exhibited that simplicity with which Paul wishes Christians people to be always occupied?

No. What one sermon was there from which old wives might not carry off more whimsies than they could devise at their own fireside in a month? In other words, you could just make this stuff up. A bunch of old ladies sitting by the fire could come up with a sermon like that.

Calvin goes on. For as sermons were then usually divided, the first half was devoted to those misty questions of the schools which might astonish the rude populace, while the second contained sweet stories by which the hearers might be kept on the alert.

Only a few expressions were thrown in from the Word of God that by their majesty they might procure credit for their frivolities. Number one, nobody writes like Calvin. Number two, what did he say? Number three, what he said was essentially, this is just kind of made up.

This is like a pep talk. The beginning you have like a moral story, but at the end you�ve got to keep people awake. So you�ve got to have this kind of peppy thing going on. Since I�m a pastor and I also teach preaching, here�s my little sidebar note to you men.

If you have 40 minutes to preach or 30 or 50, whatever you have, would you please not waste the first five minutes on telling a story to get people�s attention? Number one, you�re not a good storyteller because really nobody really is a good storyteller anymore.

So you get up to preach the Word of God and you�re going to tell a story and you�re not any good at it and you�re wasting time, so quit that. Remember, I�m a German-American and so therefore I�m very blunt.

I know the Indian style to kind of come along and help you and do this, but I�m just going to be blunt today because I really mean it. You can get to the text and get people�s attention when you�re preaching with a little creativity.

You can get there quickly. I�ll just give you one illustration, just the one I always use. If I got up to the pulpit and did this instead of a five to seven minute bad story, and you can change things up of course, but you get up there and say, �What�s your favorite psalm

I think I know it�s probably Psalm 23 and it�s rightfully so a great psalm, but today we�re going to look at another psalm in the Bible that is so wonderful, that is so encouraging, you�ll probably at the end of the service have a new favorite psalm.

Please turn your Bibles too. I can pick anything and I know you�re like, �What is that? I want to know. Anyway, let�s try not to be like old women sitting by the fire as we give our introductions to sermons.

Does that make sense? Does that appeal to your manhood? Then what happened in the Reformation in terms of preaching, our lack thereof, they had people that were traveling preachers. You could think about, and I know there are many traveling evangelists, maybe some of you men are that, where you go around to different villages and places to evangelize.

Of course, I encourage evangelists. They had something called a friar and they were a traveling preacher. They would go around and try to give little messages around, but it still wasn�t God�s word. So, if you have your Bibles, since this is a Christian message here, if you turn to 2 Timothy chapter 4, I know it�s a passage you�re very familiar with, but I just want to remind you what our charge is.

Of course, there�s rarely language like the language in 2 Timothy chapter 4. Paul is essentially into his son in the faith, Timothy, and this is the last chapter he writes. You men know this for certain, but I just want to remind you not to be the kind of person that we saw in the medieval times.

Do you see and do you remember the gravity of 2 Timothy 4 .1? This is like in the courtroom. You�re standing before God and you raise your right hand and you say, I hear these words, I solemnly charge you.

This is not just Paul teaching. This is the Spirit of God. I solemnly charge you, you men in India, in the presence of God. You can just feel the weight of this and of Christ Jesus, the Messiah God-man.

What do we know about him? Who is to judge the living and the dead? And it goes on, and by his appearing and his kingdom, and then we move into verse 2 about preaching, to preach the word. Testifying under oath in God�s law court.

Could there be anything more solemn? Could there be anything more emphatic? This is not just to Timothy. This is all preachers, even before the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a commission that we have to obey.

And of course, in the old days, in the Reformation, this was in fact recovered. The centrality of the preacher, not because it�s only the right thing to do, not because if you have a visitor, that�s important, but this is in the face of God.

This is quorum Deo. What do you do? And men, I have all kinds of faults and sins and things that I do wrongly at the church and personally and privately, but maybe you could be encouraged by this and do the same thing.

When they bury me, when they have some eulogy, or if they think of me fondly, I want them to say, �Do you know what? Pastor wasn�t perfect, and I wish you would have done this, that, and the other more.

But when it was a funeral, a wedding, a Bible study, a new member�s class, a pulpit ministry from Sunday morning, a pastor�s conference on Saturday, he got up, opened the Bible, and told me about the Lord Jesus.

�Him we proclaim�, present tense, Colossians 1 .28. �I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 1 Corinthians chapter 2, as you know. And so for Paul and for Jesus, you think about him as a preacher, the centrality of preaching with language that�s really, it should be fairly intimidating and scary when you think about this preaching.

He says in verse 2, �Preach the word. You remember the old story, men, about John Bunyan, and if you stop preaching, you don�t have to go to jail, but he didn�t stop preaching so they put him in prison, and then they said to him in jail, �Mr. Bunyan, you can come out of prison whenever you promise to cease preaching the gospel.

�Bunyan, if you let me out of prison today, I will preach again tomorrow by the grace of God. �Well, then you must go back to prison. �Bunyan, I will go back and stay there if need be until moss grows on my eyelids, but I will never deny my master.

And so for us, when we think about the Reformation, it is the heralding of God�s Word. It is a glad announcement, right? When you think about the word �preach� there in verse 2, it is a military kind of command to proclaim, �Hear ye, hear ye.

I have good news from the King, and this is the good news when it comes to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so I could exposit that passage a little bit more, but I�ll just read it. �Be ready in season and out of season.

Reprove. This is sin. Rebuke. You do that sin. Exhort. Here�s the comfort with great patience and doctrine. That is one of the things that you�ll see in the Reformation. It wasn�t just preaching. It was doctrinal preaching.

And this isn�t my new point, but it�s just a sub-point. Make sure you are a doctrinal preacher. One of the things, man, that I�ve been trying to do is I�ve been trying to address the children that are sitting before me on Sundays.

And that doesn�t mean I�m trying to be simplistic, but I�m trying to be simple. Say, �Well, what about big words that are in the Bible on propitiation and redemption and reconciliation Well, I use every one of them, obviously, because they�re in the Bible.

The Holy Spirit didn�t make a mistake when He talked about predestination or other big words. And so I will say them, but I�ll try to explain them in a way that even children can understand them. So if I say, �Propitiation and I want to be a doctrinal preacher, I can say things about this is assuaging God�s wrath.

This is placating God�s wrath. This is God the Father exhausting His wrath on the Son. This is a picture. Remember back in the Old Testament where you�ve got the mercy seat and you�ve got the Ark of the Covenant.

And what was it, kids? It was a box. What was in the box, kids? Well, there was Aaron�s rod, there was some manna, and there was something else. What else was in that box? Oh, the Ten Commandments. That�s right.

And so when the blood was put on the top of the mercy seat, it was a picture. And it�s as if God was up in heaven looking down at the law that was broken by you, the people. He didn�t see that broken law anymore.

He saw the blood at the top, the wages of sin is death, some substitute paid for my lawbreaking. And so when you see the word propitiation, that�s what you see. So if you say to me, here�s my point. Well, I don�t really want to do doctrinal preaching because the people I�m talking to, they�re out in a village and they don�t really read much.

They�re not really literate. I want to have you bring them up to the Word of God and not somehow dumb down the Word. I know it�s difficult because we preach to people, I preach to people that have PhDs in theology and preach to little kids.

And so we as pastors and preachers, we study the Word all week long. And then if you�re smart, man, you will push back from the table, even literally like I do, and then think, okay, my job is not to exegete the people, but my job is to exegete the passage and see what God�s saying.

And then I should think about the people. I�ve got a grandma, I�ve got some kids, I�ve got some people who work, I�ve got some people that just had cancer, this, that, and the other. And I should be keen in thinking, you know what, I want to explain this in such a way where these people understand and that they get it.

And so they could be encouraged or convicted by God�s Word. What we�re talking about now is the recovery of preaching, that is doctrinal preaching, in the Reformation. And I know you men are committed to it, but there will be people that want to pull you away, and so I�m trying to confirm and rivet into your minds, in fact, this is what we want to do.

Hugh Latimer, I talked about him a little bit earlier, in 1548, he was saying how bad it was that there was no doctrinal preaching, sound preaching, hygienic preaching. And then he said this, which I thought was interesting.

He said, well, you know what, let�s talk about diligent preachers in England. And here�s his quote, �And will you know who it is, the most diligent preacher in England? I will tell you, it is the devil.

He is the most diligent preacher of all. He is never out of his diocese. He is never from his people. You will never find him unoccupied. And his office is to hinder religion, to maintain superstition, to set up idolatry, to teach all kinds of potpourri.

He is ready as can be to devise as many ways as can be to deface and obscure God�s glory. Where the devil is resident and has his plow going, they�re away with books and up with candles, away with Bibles and up with beads, away with the light of the gospel and up with the light of candles.

And maybe you�re not in a Roman Catholic area, but maybe you�re in an area that�s been affected by pragmatism in local churches. And so it�s away with the Bible and up with drama, away with the Bible and up with motivational speeches, away with the Bible and up with this is how you get through your life this week.

That is not our charge. That is not what we do. And so I just want to encourage you guys that when you preach, preach doctrinally and have preaching at the center of your service. That is to say, if your service is one hour and it�s filled with everything except preaching, you need to change that around.

There�s a missionary that we support. His name is Lance Roberts, and he has been in the Czech Republic for 20 years. He was an American. All the men there now are trained. The Czech people are there and ready.

And so after 20 years, he�s off the field and will now become a pastor here in America. He�s coming to our church this Sunday and he�s going to preach. And so I joke with Lance the other day because he said, I kind of want to give the people an update and say, this is what the Lord has done.

And I said, remember Lance, when you have missionaries come in and give updates, never let them give updates before the sermon because you tell them they�ve got five minutes to talk and they end up talking for 25 minutes.

And an update of a missionary, which is a fine thing to have a church, you know, updated, it runs over into the service. What I do is I turn my watch to the top to 12 noon before I preach, hit the button for the watch to start, and then set that watch by my pulpit Bible and my, or my Bible in the pulpit and my iPad.

And that tells me, I don�t care when the service is supposed to end. I have a sermon that I�m going to deliver at this amount of time. And when I�m done, I�m done. And so what we did with Lance, as I joked around with him, because he knows the priority of preaching Christ Jesus and the Bible, he�s going to give a 10 minute update at the very beginning of the service, because I have no other opportunity with COVID.

I have two services. So he�s going to give a 10 minute update. Then I�ll give the call to worship and New Testament scripture reading and off into the worship service we�ll go. So the Reformers, really by the grace of God, this is the spirits working through the word.

There was a restoration of the central task of the pastor in a local church, the Lord Jesus�s church, and that is the preaching of the word. And therefore, when we think about Sola Scriptura, we think about the Bible, it was at the very front and center.

When, whether you look at Wittenberg, Luther, Calvin, Geneva, Knox in Scotland, that�s what you would see. It is the preaching of the word. That�s why we like them. You guys were talking about Lloyd-Jones earlier, so I�ll give you a free Lloyd-Jones quote.

While men believed in the scriptures as the authoritative word of God and spoke on the basis of that authority, you had great preaching. But once that went and men began to speculate and to theorize, the eloquence and the greatness of the spoken word inevitably declined.

As belief in the great doctrines of the Bible began to go out and sermons were replaced by ethical addresses, moral uplifting talks, it is not surprising that preaching declined. The last thing I�ll say before we get to the next point is simply this.

You are going to be pushed and pressured, men, as you preach the Bible for stories, for uplifting things, for positive, encouraging messages, and for, now listen to me, a heavy dose of practical application.

People always want practical application. Obviously, the Bible is practical. It�s relevant. I mean, heaven, hell, sin, forgiveness, walking in a holy life. That�s all true. But when it comes to practical application, I think you ought to be very, very careful.

Here�s how I think I could challenge you. Maybe I told the story last time. I�m in Scotland. I�m at St. George�s Tron in Glasgow, Scotland, listening to Sinclair Ferguson preach. This was in 2000. I was preaching through Mark back in my home church in Boston, verse by verse.

Sinclair�s finished with the service. We go and talk with him. He gives us a lot of his time, which was very generous. I said to Dr. Ferguson, I said, �Dr. Ferguson, I�m preaching through Mark, verse by verse, and I�m having a hard time trying to figure out practical application.

It�s the good news of Jesus in Mark for 16 chapters and trying to figure out how does this apply or what could they do or three takeaway points of application. Could you please help me? Then he asked me a question that was similar to, when did you stop beating your wife?

It just stopped me in my tracks. I know right where I was. I don�t know the day, but I know the year. Sinclair Ferguson said to me, �Mike, is there anything wrong with showing people the glories of Christ every week?

What could I say There�s law in the Bible. There are imperatives. There are commands, obviously, but it�s our responsibility to make sure that if we�re preaching the Bible, we�re preaching doctrinally, we�re preaching a book that our Lord Jesus in Luke 24 says speaks of me, even the Old Testament, we ought to be preaching the glories of Christ Jesus in a doctrinal way so our people could understand Him better.

Does that make sense?

Okay. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God�s Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We�re right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.