The History of the Church Pt 3 - The Call to Reform - Chance Cole

Welcome to the official podcast of the Church

of Christ Wheeler area. We're so glad that you've

tuned in for today's message. Whether you're

on your morning commute or if you're relaxing

at home, we're here to share the strength and

truth of God's Word with our community. If you're

in the neighborhood, we'd love to meet you in

person. Come see us at 1500 South Allen L. Bean

Boulevard right here in Wheeler, Texas. We gather

every Sunday morning at 1030 a .m. and in the

afternoon at 230 p .m. We meet again on Wednesdays

at 7 p .m. Right now, let's open our Bibles together

and dive into today's sermon. This morning we're

going to continue our sermon series on the history

of the church. Now it's came to my attention

that sometimes I speak a little fast, but this

morning you're going to be very glad with that

because we got a lot to cover, so we're just

going to get with it, all right? So just very

quickly, we're going to do a quick just recap.

So Zane talked about the establishment of Christ

Church, and what he talked about was Jesus had

a recipe for how he wanted the church to be.

He had a plan of salvation. He had the way that

the church needed its hierarchy to be, that every

church individually was to be autonomous and

have elder leaderships. He talked about the assembly,

how that was supposed to be set up, come around

the Lord's table on the first day of the week,

one person speaking, everyone else being quiet,

do it for edification. He did a good job about...

about correlating it to a guy named Alfredo.

This guy named Alfredo, guess what he made? He

made Alfredo. And Alfredo, he had a certain recipe

to it, and he used three ingredients. Now today,

we like American Alfredo that has the cream and

all the good stuff that makes us a little bit

overweight. And if you do that, it's no longer

Alfredo, okay? When you add to it, it's no longer

that. And he correlated that with the Christian

church. When you add to what Christ wanted the

church to be, it's no longer Jesus' recipe. Next,

we see the fulfillment of the fallen away. James

talked about this. The church went through intense

persecution at this time. And after that, they

started adding things to Christ's recipe. They

started adding things like infant baptism. They

started adding ceremonies to the church. They

changed the hierarchy. You know what it was?

then it was no longer Christ Church. It was a

different recipe. And if we're using that same

correlation with what we're going to talk about

today about the call to reform, what the church

was then, it was no longer Alfredo. It was no

longer a few ingredients added to it. It was

chicken fried steak now. It was so far gone from

what Christ would want it to be that you couldn't

even recognize it. So before we get started,

there's two questions I want you to think about

during this study. One question is, why is there

six churches in Wheeler, Texas? Why is there

three churches in Allison? Can you answer that?

Why that's so? And we're going to look at that

today. And also, can you take chicken fried steak,

take a few ingredients out, and make it alfredo

again? Can you do that? So we're going to start

with this, the call to reform. We're going to

look at Jeremiah chapter 6, verse 16. It says,

Jeremiah 6:16

So there's these guys called the reformers. And

they see that the church has gotten far away

from what Jesus would have the church to be.

And they say, we need to go back to those old

ways and change it and get back to the New Testament

and change it back to the way Christ would have

it. study and see if they did that. So what was

going on during this time period that made the

reformers say, hey we need to make a change?

There was a place or there was a thing called

the PayPal hierarchy and what that was was you

have the Pope You have the Cardinals Archbishop's

bishops priests local congregations. You have

this Territorial hierarchy. It's not as Christ

set up They were over all the churches not every

local church was autonomous and the Pope was

the main authority And what a bunch of these

reformers had a problem with was the Pope would

tell you what you didn't believe in the Bible

He was above scripture. If you had a doctrinal

issue, you said maybe we should change something

he would look at and he would give you the answer

for that. So they were not looking at the scripture

for the authority, but looking at the pope. Pope

Boniface VIII in 1302 said, Furthermore, we declare,

we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely

necessary for salvation that every human creature

be subject to Roman potniff. Roman potniff here

is the pope. We need to be in subjection to him,

not scripture. He will tell us what scripture

says and how we're supposed to follow it. And

we know in the Bible, 2 Timothy chapter 3, 16

2 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

through 17, it says all scripture is given by

inspiration of God and is probable for doctrine,

for reproof, for correction, instruction and

righteousness that the man of God may be complete,

thoroughly equipped for every good work. So we

know we're supposed to go to scripture for our

ultimate authority because this is inspired by

God, but that's not how they were doing it. They

were looking to the pope as that ultimate authority

during this time period. Next we got church tradition

was right up there with scripture There was man

-made laws that they said this is right up there

with the law of God Okay, so one of those things

was you need to confess your sin once a year

your very bad sins to the priest You know that

is not in scripture anywhere that was man -made,

but if you didn't do it there could be repercussions

You could be not able to take communion You can

be kicked out of the church if you're not going

to follow with what they said. They had the seven

sacraments, baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist,

reconciliation, the anointing of the sick, holy

orders, and matrimony. They had these ceremonies

that they did that are not in the Bible. You'll

see baptism here, and this was talking about

infant baptism. And then later on you do the

confirmation, and you know what that is? Later

on when you could actually believe that Jesus

Christ is the Son of God, then you would receive

the Holy Spirit. And we know in Acts 2 .38 we

receive the Holy Spirit after... were saved.

So they had man -made laws that they put up there

right with Christ laws. Who in the Bible have

you ever heard of who does that? That put their

man -made laws right up there with Christ laws.

In Mark chapter 7, 8 through 9, it says, The

Mark 7 · chapter mention

Pharisees were doing this back in the New Testament

days. They were putting their man -made laws

right up there with God laws. And Jesus tells

them, you're taking your man -made laws and making

it one of God's laws. And that's the same thing

the church was doing this with... infant baptism,

which we're going to talk about quite a bit this

morning. They put it up there and they did away

with Christ's plan of salvation and said infant

baptism was right there with it. You know, history

repeats itself. Alright, next you have indulgences,

abuses. So we're going to talk about three main

points here. There's a lot more points if you

want to study them, but indulgences, abuses was

a big one back then. The reformers had a big

problem with this. And what those were, after

you die, their belief was you go to a place called

purgatory. Now we're not going to get too much

into purgatory, but pretty much what purgatory

was was some of your sin that you had here on

earth, it still needs to be cleansed from you.

So you're going to spend time in purgatory and

once your soul is cleansed all the way through,

then you'll go to heaven. So they had indulgences,

and what those indulgences were, you could pray,

so you wouldn't have to spend too much time in

purgatory. You could go help the sick, help a

widow, volunteer at the church. And those are

good works that you could do to make sure that

you did not have to spend too much time in purgatory.

You could also give money. So this is where it

starts getting pretty corrupt. So let's say Aunt

Mary passed away. We love Aunt Mary. We don't

want her to spend too long in purgatory. So the

priest comes up to us, says, hey, you know, we

want to do some remodeling on this building.

If you would fund that, we'd make sure Aunt Mary

went to heaven a little sooner. She ain't gonna

spend as much time in purgatory, okay? So they

would do that. They would take advantage of church

members. The next thing they would do, let's

say you did something awful. You did some horrible

sin. You really hurt someone. Well, you'd go

to the priest and say, I'm gonna give you this

amount of money if you make sure I'm not gonna

spend that long in purgatory. And the church

would take it. They were taking that money and

using it for buildings and things like that and

they were getting very greedy. There was premeditated

sins. I guess they're all if we kind of think

about it sometimes before we do it but they would

go up and go to the priest say I'm gonna do this

I'm gonna give you this much money but put a

good word upstairs so I'm not in that much trouble.

So the church was very corrupt. The church was

evil. The church was very greedy. They were taking

money from these people and you may think how

can this happen? How can the church do that?

How was no one standing up during this time?

Now what we need to remember is the church is

very powerful. The church is intertwined politically

with governments. James talked about the Pope

anointed a king. They were very, very powerful.

They had armies. They were over the universities.

They told the universities, this is what you're

going to teach. They had a lot of land. They

had a lot of wealth. If you went against them,

you went against them too far, they'd kill you.

So it was not wise to go up against the church

at that time. And here's kind of the... through

my studies it was kind of a sad part your ordinary

people could not read and write back so they

went to the church for their information the

church would tell them what they needed to know

to have books back then you had to be wealthy

part of a university part of the church to even

read and write you need to be wealthy part of

university part of a church to even be able to

read the bible so they couldn't read back then

so they went to the church for all their understanding

but the church was not leading them in the right

direction Another thing that they would do, they

would read out of the Latin Vulgate Bible. So

they would preach out of Latin. If someone was

teaching back then, they would preach to the

congregation in Latin. Doesn't sound like a big

deal, does it? Well, most of the congregation

didn't speak Latin. So they could not understand

scripture. They were teaching in a language that

they could not understand. So they were keeping

the ordinary people down. You just come talk

to us and we'll tell you what to do. Let's go

back online. Pope Innocent III. July 11, 1999,

he said the secret mysteries of the faith ought

not to be explained to all men everywhere. It

says they cannot be understood by all men everywhere,

but only those who can conceive them with a faithful

mind. They said ordinary people should not have

scripture, should not have the Bible, because

they may interpret it wrong. But the problem

was the church at this time was interpreting

the scriptures wrong as well. In Acts 17 and

11, it says they were more fair -minded than

those of Thessalonica and that they received

the word with all readiness and search the scripture

daily to find out whether these things were so.

These people, these ordinary people back then

could not do this. They just had to take someone's

word for it and that's a pretty sad time for

them because there was probably a lot of people

who thought they were doing the right thing and

wanted to follow God to the best of their ability.

Okay, so these are the main three points why

the Reformers said they needed to make a change.

We need to make a change. So let's look at some

of these Reformers. We're gonna go through this

rather quickly. None of these guys are apostles

in the Bible or anything like that. but these

guys were very brave men and they did something

that could have cost them their lives, some of

these guys that did cost them their lives. So

we got John Wycliffe. He was from England. He

was said to be the morning star of the Reformation.

He started before our time period in 1518, but

it said his work laid the groundwork for the

Reformation movement. This man argued that scripture

was the highest authority, not the pope. He criticized

the enormous wealth and power of the church and

the corruption. One thing that was big in the

church, the Eucharist, it was a thing called

transubstantiation. And that's when you take

communion, you're literally eating Christ's body

and drinking his blood. He was against that.

He said it's more of a memorial and we'll look

at that a little bit later. He was called to

come up in front of a council. And he was pretty

much going to be told to recount what you're

preaching. And if he wouldn't have recounted,

he would have been killed. But he died before

he could do that. Later on, they actually dug

him up and burned him and threw his ashes down

by a river so no one could come and see his grave.

This led us to Jan Hus about 1370 -1450. He was

heavily influenced by Wycliffe. He also condemned

the corruption and indulgences and the power

of the pope. And he also argued church leaders

were not above Scripture. If Scripture tells

us that we need to make correction in our life

we should do it. So the problem then was the

Pope was the ultimate authority and there was

a little saying back then or it was in a writing

it said the Pope cannot be judged by man but

only by God. So he was not going to have to do

the same things, the confession or anything like

that. So he said even these top people in his

hierarchy, they need to be held to the same standard.

There was a lot of sexual immorality, greed,

and taking advantage of people back then. He

had to go to the council of consonants to defend

his teaching. He was told to recount. He said,

I'm not doing it. In July 6... 1415, he was burned

at a stake and killed. And he had a lot of followers

and this started a war in 1419. So next we got

Johannes Gutenberg. This may be the most important

person in the entire Reformation movement. He

wasn't trying to reform or anything like that,

but what he did, he created the printing press.

So this was huge. No one had Bibles back then,

except for the wealthy, the university, and the

church. And the reason was it took so long to

hand write a Bible. A monk back then in a monastery

could write about seven pages a day. And when

this guy came along, you could do about 3 ,600

pages a day. So what do we know when it's mass

produced? It becomes cheaper. More people can

take advantage of it. And this is where we're

going to start people actually learning to read

and write. and more people are going to have

access to the Bible. Next we got Desiderius Erasmus.

He criticized the same things of the church.

He wanted to reform the Catholic Church instead

of split it and that's what ended up happening.

He did not think too highly of Luther and the

other reformers we're gonna get to in a second.

In 1516 he printed the first Greek New Testament

and he said let's go to the Bible for our answers

and not the Pope or the church and the Catholic

Church had a big problem with that. He said to

lay the egg that Luther hatched. Martin Luther,

this is probably someone most of y 'all recognize

or at least heard the name. So everything that

led up to this point led up to Luther's success.

The printing press, these guys ideology before

him made it where he was going to be successful.

So on October 31st, 1517, he put out a 95 page

thesis or a 95 thesis on the front of the church

doors and it was going against some of the indulgences

that they had back then about paying money for

your sins and things like that. Now it said in

history that he went up there to make a huge

statement and hit that on the front door. What

I read is that's kind of the bulletin board everyone

went to church back then so he just put it up

there But it sounds cooler if he went up there

made a huge statement. So he did that He was

called in front of the diet of worms I don't

know where they get these names, but it sounds

pretty cool the diet of worms And he was ordered

to retract his teachings and he refused So he

got sent to jail One main thing that saved Luther

here was he taught at a university and there

was a man over that university called Frederick

the Wise and he was also a prince in Germany.

So where this happened to Luther was in Rome.

So this Frederick the Wise set up a way to kidnap

Luther out to make sure that he would be protected,

bring him to Germany so he could stay in trial

there and have a fair trial. If it wasn't for

this man Luther would have probably been killed

and burned at the stake, but this guy he saved

him. So during this time, Luther translated the

Bible to German. So what are we seeing here?

We're seeing English, Greek, to translations.

Now we're seeing German, so more people are being

able to read Scripture and see what it says.

He was very brave. He called the Pope the Antichrist,

so there was a big bounty on his head from the

Pope to kill this man, but he spoke boldly. on

the things that he thought the church should

quit doing, and it was the power of the pope

and the things that we've been talking about.

Aldrich Zwingli, he was part of the Swiss Reformation.

He thought the Bible should be the main authority

and what we're gonna see, some of these guys

went a little further than the others. Luther,

we're gonna talk about here a little bit. He

kept some of those Catholic teachings, some of

the Catholic ceremonies and things like that.

Zwingli went a little bit further. He said we

shouldn't even do any of those. And we'll look

at some of the plans of salvation that they thought

here. little bit. He rejected a lot of the traditions.

He also proved the Lord's Supper was a memorial.

Menno Simmons, he was part of a group in the

Netherlands Reformation. He was an Anabaptist,

and that means re -baptizer. So all these other

guys in the Reformation, they still believed

in infant baptism. This guy said you need to

be of a certain age where you can actually hear

the gospel, believe it, repent, confess, and

then be baptized. So this was a big deal back

then. They were persecuted heavily by the Catholic

Church and by the other Protestants. There was

a group of them and they were told, if you don't

start baptizing your children, you're all gonna

be killed. And there was a few guys there, they

said, well, I wanna be baptized the right way

in full immersion. They went down, were baptized,

they ended up dispersing. And a bunch of them

got caught up with and about 5 ,000 people of

the Anabaptists were killed during this time.

What's funny to this is, The Catholic Church

put a bounty on Luther's head to kill him because

he was going to get their teachings. Well, Luther

signed an official 1531 theological opinion stating

that stubborn Anabaptists who taught against

infant baptism or civil order deserve capital

punishment. So what the church was doing to him,

he turned around to the other reformers even

though he was the one who got this whole thing

started. So he went back to some of that as well.

So these guys are not perfect. I want you to

know that and we'll see that throughout this

study. Lastly, it's John Calvin. He came up with

the tulip. He was very strict. He was over Geneva,

and he was very strict at this time. There was

punishments if you were caught gambling, drinking,

if you had different religious beliefs, if you

miss church, he would send guys to your front

door. You know, we probably wouldn't miss church.

That sniffle wouldn't be that big of a deal,

would it? So he would do that. There was different

punishments that you could receive, fines. You

may not be able to take communion, imprisonment,

management, and death. Through this time, there's

about 57 deaths and 76 banishments. Okay, so

these are the guys of the Reformation era There's

a lot of information stuff about them. You can't

hardly give this lesson without talking about

them briefly, but they were not Apostles in the

New Testament anything like that, but they were

brave men. They faced heavy heavy criticism So

we need to look at them as they did something

very brave, but they weren't exactly riding all

their teachings So let's jump into some of the

doctrinal issues So features of the churches

during the Reformation era, they went to a different

source of authority. They went to soulless scripture.

Sounds good. If the Bible says to do it, we're

gonna do it. But the problem was they went to

another direction. They said, if it doesn't say

not to do it, we could still probably do it,

okay? So that's not what the Bible teaches in

Revelation chapter 22, 18 through 19. It says,

Revelation 22 · chapter mention

for I testify to everyone who hears the words

of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds

to these things, God will add him the plagues

which are written in this book. And if anyone

takes away from the words of the book of this

prophecy, God shall take away his part from the

book of life, from the holy city, and from the

things which are written in this book. So what

does the New Testament teach? Do not add, do

not take away. And what they were pretty much

saying, if it says to do it, we'll do it, but

if it doesn't say anything about it, then we

can still probably do it. So they had two principles

they used, regulative principle, only doing worship,

church practice, what scripture authorizes, and

normative principle, anything scripture does

not forbid, we may permit. Okay, so what's an

example of this? Infant baptism, the scripture

doesn't say anything about it. Can you do it?

Can you not do it? But we know you're supposed

to be fully immersed and you're supposed to be

able to understand the gospel call, right? Well,

they would go back, and we'll talk about a little

bit total depravity, kind of what Calvin came

up with, and what all these, most of these reformers

thought is children are born into sin because

of Adam and Eve's sin. So it doesn't say we shouldn't

baptize, but it looks like it would probably

be a good idea because we're born into sin, so

let's go ahead and baptize them so they'll be

saved if they die, okay? That was an example

of kind of what they did. They also, Swingly,

the Swiss Reformation guy, he was big on no statues,

no stained glass windows. He didn't like the

garments the guys wore when they preached. He

said, we ain't doing none of that. Luther said,

some of this stuff's okay so we can keep it.

So you know what we start seeing here? We start

seeing all these different ideas they couldn't

they couldn't agree on really that much at all

and what we were talking about Brandon was talking

about you see a pendulum swing and we're gonna

see that through this Jesus' recipe is right

here. The church got so corrupt, so bad, it came

all the way over here. And Martin Luther, he's

like, well, let's keep some of it. Then some

of them go, we're gonna do away with everything.

But what they didn't do is come back to what

Jesus' recipe actually was at this time. So what

these guys should have done is all got together

and say, we are just gonna follow the New Testament

and do what it says. But what they ended up doing

was going, I'm gonna believe this, so I'm gonna

start a church here. I'm gonna believe this,

I'm gonna do this. So that first question we

talked about, why is there six? churches in Wheeler,

Texas, and Three in Allison, it's because of

this. Every guy had a different idea on what

it was supposed to be, so they all split up.

So the one thing the church had back then, the

Catholic church had, they were unified. I mean,

if you went against them, you might die. So,

but they were unified. They were unified as one,

and what we're gonna start seeing now is a splintering

off, and we're gonna see all these different

denominations start popping up. we start seeing

these human creeds and pretty much what these

were it was I believe the scripture says this

uh talking about how we're supposed to be in

the assembly the plan of salvation so pretty

much their doctrines and we see all these different

doctrines start to pop up and then you could

choose as an ordinary individual saying I really

like how this guy talks so I'm gonna do that

and we start seeing the splitting of the church

you know Christ wanted one church one gospel

and this is where we start seeing the splitting

of that in Galatians 1 8 through 9 says but even

if we are an angel from heaven preach any other

gospel to you then what we have preached you

let them be a curse as we have said before So

now I say again, if anyone preached any other

gospel to you, then what you have received, let

them be accursed. There's one gospel and Paul

gives the warning here that if anyone comes to

preach anything different, let them be accursed.

And what we're gonna see here is a bunch of different

gospels that does not line up with Christ's recipe.

So solo scripture was not a good deal. Anytime

you start letting men's ideas come into the church,

what the plan of salvation is, how church assembly

is supposed to be conducted, it's gonna get bad

because all of us, we all have ideas, they're

not all very good ideas. We need to rely on what

Christ has taught us and go off what he's given

to us. All right, next we got the organization

of the church. Like I said, the PayPal hierarchy,

they did not like that. Their main deal was the

Pope. He had all authority. They wanted to do

the authority of Scripture. Now, so did they

go back to the local congregation as all -autonomous,

led by elders? No, they did not. Luther went

to territory ruler, a prince or a king. They

stayed intertwined with the government. So there's

government laws in here with the church laws.

Calvin, he had a national regional assembly.

There was a monarch, supreme governor for the

Church of England. So we see all this different

stuff. They did not go straight back to the Christ

recipe. We see the Anabaptists. They went back

to the local congregation where they had autonomous.

It was over elders and deacons. So we see that

here that the Anabaptists were getting following,

starting to get quite along with what Christ's

recipe was. And it's very important to say they

were probably the most persecuted as well. Acts

14 23 it says so when they had appointed elders

in every church and prayed with fasting They

condemned them to the Lord in whom they had believed

we see Christ's recipe that we're supposed to

be Autonomous and have elders in every church

and that's the leaders of the church and then

Christ is that ultimate authority All right process

of salvation. This is a big one. This is a big

one. That's debated today How are we saved and

I really believe that Jesus did not think this

was gonna be that big of a debate you know Paul

talks about the milk is for the the young Christians,

the unlearned Christians. And then you get to

the meat, the older you get. I really think the

milk was supposed to be part of the foundation

of Christ, the salvation. But this is something

that from the beginning of this Reformation movement,

it was a huge debate. All right, so Martin Luther,

he is known as the father of faith alone. And

I really want to look at this real quick. He

did not believe faith alone means you don't have

to follow Christ's commandments. And that's huge.

He said, faith alone, I have the faith that Jesus'

blood saves me and that I don't need to go give

money to someone to take care of my sins, okay?

He was against those indulgences. That if I pray

harder, if I do more good works, then I'm gonna

be saved even better. And you know, that's what

we believe today. You're supposed to have good

works, but we're not gonna pray any harder to

be saved. It's the blood of Christ. This is a

big one for a Martin Luther James 218 He said

but someone will say you will have faith I have

works show me your faith without your works I'll

show you my faith by my works Luther believed

when you were saved again or saved again when

you are saved You're good. You're gonna have

good works. You're gonna follow Christ commandments

You know you think about the sermon on the mount

Christ set those standards pretty high, but he

expects us to try to follow those And that's

what Luther believed too. He didn't think that

you had to be disobedient to Christ's commandments

or you could just live any way that you wanted

to. Luther also believed in baptism. In the Babylonian

captivity of the church, he said, it is therefore

indeed correct to say that baptism is a washing

away of the sins. But the expression is too mild

and weak to bring out the full significance of

baptism. He said, what happens in baptism is

greater than just saying it washes away your

sins. He said, which is rather a symbol of death

and resurrection. Romans 6 talks about that.

We're buried with Christ in baptism. We're resurrected

as a new creature. He said, for this reason,

I would have those who are to be baptized immersed

in the water as the word says and as the mystery

indicates. He believed immersion baptism was

the right way to do it. He believed that's the

way you were supposed to be saved. That's the

way you're supposed to be baptized. Now the problem

with Luther, he also believed children had sin.

So he also believed in that infant baptism. So

we could see they were kind of... not right in

their way of thinking, but he did believe baptism

washes our way of sin and that that's how we

come in contact with Christ's blood. Holdrick

Zwingli, he came up with the save or saved by

faith not works, it's the same thing, we're not

saved by those indulgences that we do, but he

also believed that baptism was an outward sign

of an inward change. 1525 treaties of baptism.

Although baptism may wash the body, and that

is all that water baptism can do. He said pretty

much all water baptism can do is just wash the

dirt off your body. It cannot take away sin.

Sin is taken away only when we have a good conscience

before God, but no material thing can purge the

conscience. Not long ago, I heard a guy talk

about 1 Peter 3 .21 like this. He says, there's

also an anotype which now saves us baptism. So

there's a baptism that saves us now, but it's

not being cleansed in water, it's not the removal

of the flesh. You don't need to be dunked in

water to be saved. And he said, this is talking

about Holy Spirit baptism, because it says it's

not the removal of filth of the flesh, because

that would be water, all right? But the problem

with that, if we go to verse 320, it tells us

what it's for, who formerly were disobedient,

when once the divine longsuffery waited in the

days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared

in which a few, that is eight souls were saved

through what? Through water. Then it says, and

we also have some that saves us now. And the

type which now saves us is baptism, not taking

a bath, but it's a good conscience towards God.

Baptism is essential to our salvation. It's not

just taking a bath, it's what we do to be obedient

to Christ and Christ's teaching. Zwingli also

said, hence it is that when the bad... And when

we baptize an adult, we ask him whether he believes,

only when he answers yes. Then he receives baptism.

Faith, therefore, has been present before he

receives baptism and is not given by baptism.

And we can look and ask for that answer. I'm

gonna stop here, come back next Sunday. Landry's

gonna hit this a little bit harder during the

restoration movement. But this is not the truth,

but that's what he believed. Now here's the thing

about Zwingli. He also believed in infant baptism.

So baptism don't matter, but we're gonna baptize

infants anyway. So, like I said, their beliefs

didn't quite line up. We got John Calvin. We

did a series not long ago about this, The Total

Depravity. That's where they believe babies are

born into sin. Matthew 18 .3 says, and said,

surely I say to you, unless you are converted

and become as a little children, you will by

no means enter into the kingdom of heaven. He's

saying, unless you become as these children who

are innocent, you will not enter the kingdom

of heaven. We are not born into sin. Children

are not born into sin, okay? Predestination,

Helman's Wigley believed this, that you're predestined

before you even set foot on this earth, that

God has already decided if you're going to heaven

or if you're going to hell. John 540, but you're

not willing to come to me that you may have life.

We have a choice. We can come to Christ for life

or we don't have to come to Christ. He gives

us a free gift. We can either receive it or reject

it. So that does not line up with scripture either.

Finally, Calvin, he came up with the perseverance

of the saints. That's what we hear today of the

one saved always saved. Galatians 5 .4, you have

become estranged from Christ. who you attempt

to be justified by the law, you have fallen from

grace. We can fall from grace. These guys went

back to the old law and Paul tells them, if you

do that, you're falling from grace. So we see

all these different examples of salvation. They

couldn't come up with, or they could not agree

on one single one. So this is where we see all

these different denominations today that have

all these different ways of salvation and all

these different doctrinal issues. It all started

during this Reformation era. And then finally

we got the Anabaptists who believe you hear,

believe, repent, confess, and be baptized. They

said that in the confession states that baptism

is for those who have learned repentance, believe

their sins are taken away by Christ and constantly

requested, thereby explicitly rejecting infant

baptism. And this is where all the other reformers

in the Catholic Church really got onto them because

they believed you needed to be at a certain age

to really understand what you're doing. All right,

form and purpose of the assembly. The reformers

went back to a more simpler assembly, not the

elaborate ceremonies of the church. Like I said

before, Luther kept some of those stuff. Swingley

and Calvin went further away. This is a big one.

First Corinthians 1433. It says, for God is not

the author of confusion, but of peace, as in

all the churches of saints. God wants everything

to be done in an orderly manner where we all

understand. He does not want confusion. They

went back to teaching the Bible in a way that

everyone could understand it. If you spoke English,

you know what they taught the Bible in? English.

If you spoke Greek, they did it in Greek. They

wanted everyone understood the Bible. They did

go back to that. In Galatians 5 .4, let's see,

I got messed up. Okay. This is 1426. How is it

then, brethren, whenever you come together, each

of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue,

has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let

all things be done for edification. So they got

back to edifying the Christians, edifying the

members. In the 67 articles, this is by Zwingli.

He says, in the house of God, let the words be

spoken only. They got back to no instrumental

music. They went back to a more simpler. Luther

kept some of that instrumental music. but the

rest of the formers said, we're gonna do away

with that. And let everything that cannot be

understood or that is done for external show

be put away. No more ceremonies, no more show.

We're gonna be here, we're gonna do it for edification

now, purposes. And we're gonna get back to the

New Testament and how it was done before. Some

other things they did, they prayed to God and

not to Mary anymore. The Lord's Supper was made

more of a memorial, as Scripture states, and

not actually eating Christ's body and drinking

his blood. Luke 22, 19, and he took the bread,

gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them

saying, this is my body, or this is my body which

is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

So they got back to following some of the New

Testament. what the New Testament would have,

what Jesus' recipe was. All right, finally, we're

gonna look at morality and daily conduct of church

members. We see a renewed impetus on being holy.

So what did they used to do? If you sin, you

could pay a little money, you could be forgiven

of it. There was a lot of corruption, sexual

immorality, things like that, greed, at that

time period, and they decided to get back to

a more holier way. John Calvin, he was the king

of that. He said, we're gonna find you, kick

you out of the church if you don't do it. And

that's James 1 22, it says, but be doers of the

word and not hears only deceiving yourself. So

if the Bible taught it, do it. If Christ wants

you to be that light on the hill, you need to

be different. You need to follow his commandments

and be holier. The problem with this was, as

we looked at that hierarchy, most of the churches

were still intertwined politically and with the

government. So there was government laws that

if you did something wrong, then you could get

in trouble by the government, you could be fined,

you could be thrown in jail. They did a lot of

public. If you sin, we're gonna tell everyone

about it. I always think of the letter A, the...

the scarlet letter, they did things like that.

The Anabaptists, who were lining up more with

Christ's recipe, they went back to voluntary

discipline, where if you have a problem in your

life, you can come to the church and ask for

forgiveness and ask for help. And they also handled

it just within the church and not with the government.

They did it more that lined up with scripture.

In Matthew 18, 16 it says, but if he will not

hear, take with you one or two more, that by

mouth or two or three witnesses every word may

be established. So they went back to a Christ

recipe on that. They handled the problems within

the church and got away from the government,

which the old church was and most of the reformers

were with as well. All right, so what were some

of the fundamental problems with the Reformation

movement? So reform means to make changes to

something such as a system, a law, or a person's

behavior in order to improve it or remove its

faults. So what the reformers thought back then

was that they could take the church and they

could remodel it. They could fix what was wrong

with it. And that we could keep this church the

same. The problem was the church was so far gone

that they couldn't do that. And what we see,

most of these guys decided that they could do

that. They kept some of those old traditions

and some of the old doctrinal things of the old

church. It did not line up. with what the New

Testament or what Jesus' recipe was for the church

at this time. So they could not do that. So go

back to my second question. Can you take chicken

fried steak and ever turn it back into Alfredo?

Can you take some of the greedy outs and get

it back? You can't, you gotta scrap it and you

gotta start over. And that's what the church,

or that's what these guys should have done. They

should have got together, said we're gonna forget

everything we learned, we're gonna look at the

New Testament, and we're gonna follow it to the

best of our ability. And that's what Landry's

gonna talk about this next Sunday. So we encourage

you to be back for that. The reformers did not

like the pope and his authority, and what ended

up happening, they took the place of the pope.

The Lutheran church, that Martin Luther, the

reformer church, went more with Zwingli and Calvin,

and it elevated these men up to pretty much what

the pope was. So they had a problem with him

telling them what to do, so they ended up being

up there telling everyone else what to do. And

as we saw Luther, he ended up telling people

that, hey, it's good to kill Anabaptist because

they don't believe the way I did. So they started

doing the exact same thing as the earlier church

did. So they did not do a really good job of

reforming anything. They kind of just put themselves

up in that space of the Pope. And we see this

throughout the scripture in 1 Corinthians 1,

12, 13. Paul's talking here. He says, now I say

this, that each of you says, I am a Paul, and

I am of Apollos, and I am of Cephas, and I am

of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified

for you? Or were you baptized in the name of

Paul? So what Paul says here, these people were

starting to go, hey, I've been baptized to Paul,

putting him up. above everyone else and what

he's saying, it don't matter. All that matters

is that you're baptizing Christ. We're gonna

put Christ first. In Acts 10, you see Peter go

up to Cornelius and Cornelius falls on his face.

He says, get up, I'm just a man. I'm just like

you. And that's what these guys could have done,

but they did not do that. And it's pretty interesting

to me. You can go back to the New Testament and

some of the things they had struggles with, we

see examples of those in the New Testament. So

in conclusion, while the courage of the reformers,

reformers, oh my goodness. Let's start over one

time. While the courage of the reformers should

be respected, they fell short of correcting the

errors that crept into the church and they gave

rise to all the denominations that you see today.

Why is there so many churches here? Because of

these guys. They had an idea, they didn't get

together, they didn't change it. If they would

have started with the revolution... era, instead

of doing the reform, they would have done a lot

better if they would have just got together and

said, we're going to go off what the New Testament

says. So quickly, what can we learn from this?

Why are we even studying the history of church?

Why does it matter? I'm going to tell you, this

helps us with evangelism. When you sit down and

you talk to someone about come to church with

us, they go, well, there's six other churches.

Why don't I go to those? We can sit down and

go, you know, this is where all this started

in the Reformation era. This is where all these

different denominations, these different doctrines

came up. And they go, well, why is your right

and theirs is wrong? Well, this last month, nothing

to have. We've been studying the five -part study.

It's a good chance to sit down and say, let's

study what scripture says. Let's go off Jesus'

recipe. Let's not worry about what chance says

or what you think. Let's see what the Bible says.

And after we go through that study, you know

what we can do? We can look at what church is

following Christ's New Testament recipe to the

best of their ability. So this is a good way

that we can help with evangelism and how we can

help people understand that there was one recipe.

And there's many people who went off of that

and did what they thought was right. The next

thing is we need to say village it. Do you think

the church ever thought it would get to where

you could pay for your sins with money? Do you

think they thought they would ever get there?

No, they didn't think they would get there. It

is the same way as with us today. Sometimes we'll

say, it's okay to do this. The Bible doesn't

say we can't do it, but we need to always remember

what happens when that happens or when that poses.

We can look back and see what happened to them

when they said it was okay to do some man -made

stuff. So we need to stay diligent in what we're

teaching and studying the Bible and make sure

we're doing it as Jesus would have us to do.

Thank you for listening to today's sermon from

the Church of Christ Wheeler area. We hope this

message encouraged you and strengthened you in

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