A Protestant Calling: Witness, Liberty, and the Gospel

And they made a proclamation through Judah and Jerusalem to bring into the Lord the collection that Moses, the servant of God, laid upon Israel in the wilderness.

And all the princes and all the people rejoiced and brought in and cast into the chest until they had made an end.

Now it came to pass that at what time the chest was brought unto the king's office by the hand of the Levites, and when they saw that there was much money, the king's scribe and the high priest's officer came and emptied the chest, and took it and carried it to his place again.

Thus they did day by day and gathered money in abundance.

And the king and Jehoadah gave it to such as did the work of the service of the house of the Lord, and hired mansions, sorry, hired masons and carpenters to repair the house of the Lord, and also such as wrought iron and brass to mend the house of the Lord.

So the workmen wrought, and the work was perfected by them, and they set the house of God in his state and strengthened it.

And when they had finished it, they brought the rest of the money before the king and Jehoiada, whereof were made vessels for the house of the Lord, even vessels to minister and to offer withal, and spoons, and vessels of gold and silver, and they offered burnt offerings in the house of the Lord continually all the days of Jehoada.

But Jehoiada waxed old and was full of days when he died, and hundred and thirty years old was he when he died.

And they buried him in the city of David among the kings, because he had done good in Israel, both towards God and towards his house.

Now after the death of Jehoida came the prince of Judah and made obeisance to the king.

Then the king hearkened unto them, and they left the house of the Lord God of their fathers and served groves and idols, and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this their trespass.

Yet he sent prophets to them to bring them again unto the Lord, and they testified against them, but they would not give ear.

Here ends for reading.

Right, our second reading is by Brother Lord, which is taken from Matthew chapter ten, and is going to be from chapter ten from verse five to verse fourteen.

You're going the wrong way, Tim.

We're up here, Ed.

You've got to read yours, one yeah.

No, no, no, no, no.

Second reading, chapter ten, gospel according to Matthew, reading five to fourteen.

These twelve Jesus sent forth, commanding them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles and into any city of the Samaritans, enter ye not, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils.

Freely ye have received, freely give.

Provide neither gold nor silver, nor brass in your purses, nor script for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves, for the workman is worthy of his meat.

And into whatsoever city or town you shall enter, inquire who in it is worthy, and there abide till ye go thence.

And when ye come into a house, salute it, and if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if not worthy, let your peace return to you.

And whoever shall not receive yet nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.

Here ends a second reading, and may the Lord bless his reading of his holy word.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, Lord this I pray this day.

First of all, an important job, I have to set the timer on because my congregation have said I can only preach for thirty minutes at a time, otherwise they will rebel.

So give me a minute.

Ah Protestantus People of the Witness Verse 19 of 2 Chronicles.

We gather here in this place.

It's an interesting place.

Buddle Protestant Free Church.

It's actually officially called Buddh Protestant Descent Church in the Deeds.

And that's because we dissent against the Church of England.

Literally, it was formed for that reason.

And it's all to do with the prayer book argument of 1928.

But as a Protestant people of our generation, what are we doing?

We meet, we go for a walk behind a good band, and that was a good band.

It was a nice stroll in a nice day.

But you're here for a particular reason.

You're here because this Orange Lodge meets in memory of William III and the revolution of 1688.

And we are more than just a historical group.

We're not a memorial society as such.

Our aim and our objectives are greater than that.

And if we fail in those aims and objectives, if we want to be a memorial group, if we want to just be a remnant of something that was once great, that's fine.

You can do that.

You can descend to that level.

I don't want to do that.

We are far better than that.

And we are a place and in a time that God has placed us, as was said earlier on, I noticed a quote from Esther, we are a people for a time such as this.

When the word of God is under attack, when the Christian values that we have lived by are under attack, when people do what they want to do without recourse to the word of God, and many of them wear orange colourettes.

If we fail to understand our purpose in our generation, then we fail to pass on to the next generation something that really, really matters in life.

The values and principles that William stood for.

And you may go, but we understand those values and principles, and from today's view, you might think you do understand them, but do you really understand William's values and principles?

Do you actually know what they meant in the day, and how when we transcribe it into today, they are something different to what I think many of you believe them to be.

And what were those principles?

William, when he landed at Torbay, flew a standard.

The Protestant religion, the liberties of England, I will maintain.

Is that something you can all say?

I challenge you.

Can you all honestly say the Protestant of religion and the liberties of England, I will do my utmost to defend?

Because if you don't, we can't expect the next generation.

For those of us, and I'm not one of them, but for those of us who have had parents in the institution for generations and generations, they handed down those principles.

The good people have also suffered for those principles.

We know nothing.

We've had it easy compared to some.

The word Protestant itself is problematic in the sense of it's very often misunderstood.

Some imagine it to be people that oppose something.

We protest against.

Yeah, sure, that's one meaning of the word.

You know, we we protest.

You can protest against anything.

I protest against my gas bill every time it comes through the door.

You know, it doesn't make you a Protestant, though.

Because the older meaning, the proper meaning that we heard from the reading from Two Chronicles, to give witness to.

Jerome, there's not much we can thank the Roman Catholic Church for, but for Jerome, when he translated from the Greek and the Hebrew into the Latin for the Vulgate, came up with this wonderful phrase, protestantus, meaning those who testify or give witness to.

Does your life testify to the word of God?

Do you give witness to Protestant principles?

Before Protestant was a label, it was a calling.

We were called.

Before it was a movement, it was a posture.

To be a Protestant is a people who give witness.

That's what we do on the 12th of July.

The 12th of July, we don't call a demonstration, if I remember rightly in England, we called it a celebration.

Because we're giving witness to, as I think it says in the rule book, something about an act of parliament.

We give witness to the events of William defeating James.

The point didn't matter in the real shaping of the Irish wars.

What was important is that William and James were both there.

It's the next battle, Akram, which is the deciding one, but that also falls on the 12th of July, and we can play with calendar dates.

And so today, with scripture in one hand and history in the other, I want to reflect on three things.

Our identity as a witness, Protestantus.

Our heritage of liberty, William Standard.

Our calling to the Orange Institution, witnesses of the gospel and defenders of freedom.

And I hope, I really hope and pray that God willing, when we hear Christ charge to us, go and thou do likewise, and do thou likewise, you will go and do thou likewise.

So let's just talk a little bit about a people who witness.

2 Chronicles 24, 9 to 19.

The people of God is a story of the people of God had drifted.

They had forgotten, they had turned aside, and as God sent his prophets, his witnesses to call them back, they killed them.

They were quite happy to kill prophets.

If one of the tests of a prophet is if you actually prophesied something and it didn't come true, that's it, mate.

Your time was over, you were done.

But Jerome translates that prophetic role with the phrase, Protestantus do give witness to, and those who testify.

And the witness does three things.

They speak the truth.

Are you truth speakers?

The truth can hurt.

Are you truth speakers?

They point beyond themselves.

Is it all about me?

Is it all about the chains you wear around your neck or the fancy collars or whatever?

And they stand firm even when ignored.

Do you stand on the promises of God?

Do you stand on the gospel truths?

Even when the whole world is against you, when they go, well, all religions are the same.

No, all religions are not the same.

There's only one way to the kingdom, and that's through and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and nothing else.

And that is the heart of Protestant identity.

We speak the truth in love.

We point beyond ourselves to the kingdom of God.

And we stand firm even when we're ignored.

Whether there be one orangemen or two orangemen or three orangemen or a thousand orangemen, we stand firm on the word of God.

If I had one son or if I had ten, they'd all be brought up to be stout orange men.

Is that true for you?

We are not defined.

Don't let anybody define you by what we proclaim.

People call us bigots.

Some people are gone about this by Godite, which I don't know whether it's true or not.

But we oppose those that lie about the gospel of Jesus Christ, about the good news in the Bible.

We oppose those that add to this book.

Revelation tells us if you add to this book or if you take away from this book, you are going to suffer the perils of this book.

We are not defined by our opposition.

But we are defined by what we proclaim.

You see, if we stand up and go, where Protestant people are going to go, pardon.

For those of you who've been to Southport, you all know what it's like coming home.

Come round that corner by the Victoria Monument, top of London Road, and you've got that pub on the right.

Do you know what?

When I was a junior superintendent, uh not junior superintendent, uh DC, and I walked with the kids, I never have been as scared on a parade as walking past our own.

Are they Protestant?

They all come out singing the sash on to you don't see them in church.

You don't see them on the Sunday parade at the back of the hall.

You don't see them in the ranks.

See, Protestants can be identified.

Just calling yourself a Protestant isn't enough.

That's a lie.

It's not about where you're brought up or what family you're in, or if you're in a band, or if you play support a certain for 14.

That does not identify you as a Protestant whatsoever.

What defines you as a Protestant is do you give witness to the gospel?

Protestantus.

We are not shaped by our grievances.

Or we shouldn't be.

It's hard, isn't it?

We all get into those fights where we go, well, we don't want to talk to him ever again.

I'm as bad.

I'm a guilt, I'm a I'm probably more guilty because I'm up here saying we shouldn't be, and I know I'm that way.

And it's hard.

But we shouldn't be shaped by the grievances that we hold.

We should be shaped by the gospel.

And what does the gospel tell us?

How many times do you forgive?

One, two, three, seven times seventy.

Almost eternally.

You don't hold on.

If you're going to hold on to things that have hurt you in the past, you're actually going to gnaw away at yourself.

And I'm a living evidence of that, I tell you.

I admit it.

We are not people of a noise.

We just don't make a sound.

But we are a people of testimony.

We're people whose lives speak even when our words are few.

And how what does that mean?

It means how do we behave?

How do we act in public?

Especially when you're wearing a collarette.

I well remember when I was banding it back in the day.

You know, we'd come up London Road, I was a constant player, come up London Road, and some of the songs I sung I'm totally ashamed of.

You know?

Phoenix to the left and physician to the right.

You all know the words because we've all sung them.

Well, Liverpool people know the words because we've all sung them.

I don't know about the rest of you.

You know, we all know about Glasgow Rangers song.

You know?

Can they do a bouncy if you're a Tim?

Tim?

You know.

And then we do these things, and we do these things in all innocence.

We really do do these things in all innocence.

And only when we read the gospel that we discover that it's wrong to do these things.

It's only when we read what God says about forgiveness.

What does he say about forgiveness?

Christ forgives.

He doesn't ask what you've done.

He doesn't demand a schedule of sins off you.

What he asks you, all he asks you is to turn your face to him and turn your back on sin.

We call it repentance, it's a big word.

We call sin sin.

But really it's like the thief on the cross.

You turn your face to Jesus and turn your back on sin.

And in doing that, you don't sing those songs because it offends We know it's offensive, but we do it because it offends.

Some people like to do it, they call it shock banner.

We don't tell bad jokes.

We don't lie, we don't besmirch people's names.

We don't complain to people third hand.

We're honest people.

We're people of a testimony, and our daily living has to be that testimony.

And this is why William Chillingworth could say, The Bible is the Bible the Bible and the Bible only is a religion of Protestants.

Chesterton, who was a Roman Catholic, teased him for it.

But the point remains, our witness is rooted in the Word of God.

It's not rooted in a s uh psaltery, it's not rooted in a prayer book, it's not rooted in anything else, it's rooted in the word of God.

This is the most precious of books.

How many of you have them in your house and they're nothing but dust collectors?

I don't say, you know, you're like me, I've got two dozen or more in my house.

But one of them, which is the one I bring with me here, is falling apart because it's the one I use.

And when that one gets retired in a couple of years' time, or maybe even a couple of weeks' time, the way it's falling apart, I'll have another one and I'll dust that down, and that one will be used until it falls apart.

But how many of you can say that?

How many of you open your Bible at home?

Mine actually lives, and you might go, well, Ian, you're a pastor, this should happen, but no, I'm telling you, this is before I was even pastoring.

Mine lives at the side of my chair.

It's always there.

I've always got a Bible within hand reach.

To be a Protestant is to say, here I stand.

Not on tradition, not tradition alone, not on power, not on sentiment, but on the living word of God.

And just as God raised witnesses in Judah to call a drifting people back to faithfulness, so in our own history, God raised up moments that protected the freedom to hear and obey his word.

And that landing in Torbay in November 1688 is one of those moments.

You've got to remember the history that was going on at that point.

James, you had Charles Charles and James Stewart that were trying to bring in the divine right of kings.

James was the worst because he was an out-and-out papist, and he goes, We're going to change the rules.

William comes.

William standard, the Protestant religion, the freedoms and liberties of England I will maintain.

And when William landed in 1688, he didn't come with a message of conquest.

He didn't come with thousands of troops, strangely enough.

He came with a promise.

And a promise that mattered.

And a standard raised high.

The Protestant religion, the freedoms and liberties of England, I will maintain.

Now you've got to understand this in the context of the day.

If you try to apply it outside of the context, it falls apart.

The Protestant religion he's talking about was basically the Church of England, the established churches, Baptists, Baptists, non-conformists, all of those, and they'll just be allowed to do stuff.

But when you consider that in Europe, under King Louis, it was a Catholic dictatorship.

Everybody had to be Catholic.

Remember, you're only a generation or two away from the rev from the uh revocation of the Edict of Nantes and St.

Bartholomew's Day and the massacre of the Protestants in France, the Huguenots.

What William did when he said, I'm I'm coming to invade your land, but he knows he didn't.

He actually said, I'm here, and I'm actually not going to change anything.

Your Protestant religion is going to stay your Protestant religion.

I'm not going to bring my religion, which is the way normal invasions went.

The freedoms and liberties of England as they stood at the time, because they're not like they are today, but they were better than they were in Europe, are going to stay.

I'm not going to change that.

I will maintain.

It's a strange type of invasion because normally, when somebody invades another country, they impose their laws, not within.

This wasn't triumphalism.

It wasn't sectarianism.

It was a commitment to liberty of conscience, rule of law, and freedom from tyranny.

The Glorious Revolution was glorious not because it was bloodless and it actually wasn't bloodless, but because it restored something precious.

It restored something that the Stuart monarchs had taken away.

It restored the right to worship without coercion.

It restored the right to read scripture freely.

It restored the right to live without fear of arbitrary power.

And it restored the right to disagree without persecution.

These are Protestant values.

Values are because the Protestant values, because the biblical values.

When the Spirit of the Lord, where there's the Spirit of the Lord, there is liberty.

Where the gospel is honored, conscience is respected.

And where Christ is Lord, no earthly power may claim the soul.

Picture England, 1688.

And picture any Roman Catholic country at the same time.

And measure the two together.

And you'll see the truth of what I've just said.

You see, Christian liberty is not the liberty to do as we please.

Don't get it wrong.

Be very careful with that.

It's a liberty to follow Christ without fear.

Under James, Protestants were persecuted.

Be they Anglicans, be they Baptists, be they whatever.

You had the deal with the seven bishops, you had the monmouth rebellion.

All persecution by the state.

And we won't go any further back and talk about the Scottish Covenant as persecution by the state.

No crown but Christ.

Or as my little banner says on the front of Christ's Crown and Covenant.

William's banner, William's banner, was not a banner of exclusion.

It was a banner of protection, a promise to uphold the freedom for all.

And that's what you, all of you who are here today, proclaim yourselves to be.

A barrier for the protection of all, irrespective of their religion, irrespective of politics, irrespective of football teams.

You are there to defend all because William, when he landed on that beach in Torbay, promised to keep the freedoms and liberties of England.

And liberty, once it's gained, has to have stewards.

It's always fragile.

We see that in politics today.

When everybody tries to shout everybody down.

You see it on the streets in Manchester, in my own city.

You see it down in London on a weekly basis.

I've got friends in uh Israel and I see I come out of my house and I see little stickers for um bids or bods, boycott Israel basically.

You know, all over the place.

And if you dare argue about what's right, they come for you.

They browbeat you.

And they try to do it with the orange order.

They will try to do it to you.

I well remember in my younger days just after I joined and I told my boss I was taking the day off on the 12th of July and I told him why, and he sack me.

You know?

Been there, done that.

I'm still here.

He's not.

Liberty once again has to be stewarded.

Are you good stewards?

Are you stewards for liberty?

Standing on the liberty which God made free?

Standing on the promises of God.

The Orange Order's calling is to witness unto liberty.

Matthew 10, 5, 14, 17, 22.

Jesus sends his disciples out on the Great Commission.

He says, Go! He says, proclaim, be witnesses, offer peace, stand firm under pressure, trust God with the results.

For a fair number of years now, I've been given out gospels on parade.

I struggle to walk and I find it useful to do.

I don't know how they work.

I don't know whether it has any results at all.

What I do know is that I could actually get give out, and I can only carry 300 at a time.

300, and I can give out more on squad if you like.

Have I had a uh a bigger, I'm thinking of getting a big trolley, so I can put foxes on, because I could get them with that one.

Because I'm giving freely the gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel of Jonah, which is the one most evangelicals use.

I offer peace.

Not peace between men, but between peace between God and man, because that's what John's gospel is about.

And I stand firm under pressure the amount of times I've been told to stop it, get back in the ranks.

You're supposed to parade.

I'm not noted for doing it, I'm told, by the way.

You may have gathered, you know.

And the thing is, I trust God with the results.

It's not down to me.

I can only do what I can do.

You give somebody a gospel, you've got to leave it down to God.

But do you trust God that much?

Do you actually trust God to do his bit?

What is God's bit?

You see, I can't save anyone.

I can't call anybody to repentance.

I can't make anybody repent.

I can be told lies and I believe them because I have to believe everything I'm told unless proven otherwise.

I have to trust God.

And sooner or later God actually deals up.

So the next question for you guys is how much do you trust God?

Are you Protestants?

Do you have this un whatever may come?

God is in total control, it's fine.

This is the calling of being a Christian, and it's the calling of the Orange Institution.

The order itself is not merely a cultural society or a historical society.

At best, it's a fellowship of believers, at its very best.

It's rooted in Scripture, it's committed to Christ, it's devoid, devoted to the witness, and it defends liberty for all.

You go over to Ireland, what do you get on the field?

Speeches after speeches, services after services, wherever you go.

You see the same up in Scotland.

Down in Liverpool, every parade, even today, had a church service attached to it.

You know, we'd parade into St.

George's Hall in my day in National St.

George's Hall.

There was a service.

Just parading for the sake of parading is not parading at all.

It's not doing what you're meant to do.

Unless you proclaim Christ as King at the end or at some point in that parade.

Because why?

Because we're a fellowship of believers.

And even believers need to be reminded that Christ loves you, Christ is there for you, Christ is behind you, Christ is before you, Christ to your left, and Christ to your right.

Not liberty for those who agree with us, but liberty for every person made in the image of God.

So to be a Protestant is to be a witness.

To be an Orangeman is to be a witness with responsibility.

To be a Christian.

Oh, to be a Christian is to be a witness with love.

Our world, no.

It doesn't need louder voices.

It needs clear witnessing.

It needs witnesses who carry peace into every house, as Jesus said.

It needs witnesses who will speak truth with humility.

It needs witnesses who defend freedom with grace.

And it needs witnesses who stand firm without hatred, and witnesses who live the gospel they proclaim.

And in a world of soft persecution, pressure, misunderstanding, misrepresentation, our calling is not to fear the opposition, not to be scared of what we are, but to remain faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Word of God.

Faithful in the face of that opposition.

So what does that mean for us today?

We stand on the Word of God because it's our foundation.

We say it, don't we?

You know, this is the Word of God, our rule of faith and trust through life.

We cherish the freedoms won in 1688 and we defend them for others and for our descendants.

We should live as Christian, live as witnesses of Christ in speech, in conduct, and in love.

We carry peace into every place you go.

Peaceably I come.

That's what Christ commanded.

We hold fast to the gospel when opposed, for the Lord is faithful.

You see, you need to let your Protestantism be a testimony and not a grievance.

Let your oranges be a blessing and not a barrier, and let your witness be marked not of pride but of the humility of Christ.

And as you leave this place, hear Christ call afresh.

Go, as witnesses of the gospel, guardians of liberty, and servants of Christ, go and do thou likewise.

And remember this, always keep this in your head.

The one who sends you is the one who goes with you.

Amen.

Let us pray.

May the God of truth strengthen you to stand firm upon his word.

May the God of liberty guide you to defend the freedoms of all.

May the God of peace send you out as a witnesses of Christ's grace, and may the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit rest upon you and remain with you as you go forth to witness with honesty, courage, and hope.

Amen.

We're going to sing, I think.

Yes, we're going to sing.

I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus of Nazarene and wonder how he could love me a sinner condemned unpleasant.

We start to sing.