Is the Reformation Over?

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Intriguing question.

Some have raised it in recent past.

More recently, Dr. R. C. Sproul has revisited the question and offered a resounding “No” in reply in his book Are We Together?: A Protestant Analyzes Roman Catholicism. I finished reading this relatively brief synopsis (129 pages) of the subject during my time in Idaho.

The author explains his purpose this way:

In this book, I have a simple goal. I want to look at Roman Catholic teaching in several significant areas and compare it with Protestant teaching. I hope to show, often using her own words, that the Roman Catholic Church has not changed from what it believed and taught at the time of the Reformation. That means that the Reformation is not over and we must continue to stand firm in proclaiming the biblical gospel (p. 9).

And look he does into six key areas:

  1. Scripture
    In what he calls the fundamental issue of the Reformation, Sproul explains that the basis of authority was the formal cause behind the protests of Martin Luther and company. They raised the rally cry Sola Scriptura, Scripture alone, in contrast to Rome’s appeal to Scripture PLUS tradition.
  2. Justification
    Commonly known as the chief article or the formal cause of the Reformation, regarding justification (how God declares the sinner righteous) Sproul masterfully explains the difference between the Reformer’s view of double imputation (that our sin was put on Christ and His righteousness was reckoned to us by faith alone – Sola Fide)  and Rome’s idea of justification as a matter of faith PLUS  works, namely participation in the sacraments (baptism and penance in particular). Especially sobering was the insight Sproul brings out from the Council of Trent (1545-1563), Rome’s response to the Reformation, declaring justification by faith alone as a view of salvation to be anathema (accursed)! He further notes that this is a position yet to be reversed by Vatican I (1869-70), Vatican II (1962-65), or the revisions to the Catholic Catechism as recent as 1995.
  3. The Church
    Sproul takes care as he writes to give credit where it is due throughout the book. He demolishes ill-advised caricatures of Roman Catholicism when necessary. He is no Catholic basher, to his credit. He shows in this chapter a more irenic tone from Rome in the move from labeling Protestants as “schismatics” and “heretics” in Vatican I to “separated brethren” in Vatican II. Still the question lingers as to whether someone can genuinely be saved outside the Catholic communion. Salvation for Rome must involve the sacraments which only an ordained priest may rightfully perform. Protestants appeal to justification by faith in Christ alone. They cannot both be the gospel at the same time.
  4. The Sacraments
    Sproul reviews how Protestants observe two ordinances of Christ – baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Catholics on the other hand have seven: baptism, confirmation, matrimony, extreme unction (prayer for the sick and dying), holy orders (for officers of the church), penance (for the restoration of justification when mortal sin kills it), and the Lord’s Supper. He zeroes in on the first and the last noting in the Roman system how baptism allegedly conveys the grace of justification (baptismal regeneration) and that in the Supper with the so-called miracle of the mass, the body of Christ is broken anew. He frankly concludes: Rome is proclaiming things that are repugnant to those who believe and trust the Word of God (p. 84).
  5. The Papacy
    A very interesting aspect of this study involves the development of the doctrine of papal infallibility. Dr. Sproul explains how this came about over time, well after the Protestant Reformation. Still it represents a significant departure from Protestantism, and more importantly the Bible, that declares only One man ever spoke entirely without error in dispensing divine revelation, the Lord Jesus Christ.
  6. Mary
    Like the doctrine of papal infallibility, the ideas related to Mary as “the second Eve” with her immaculate conception, bodily assumption, and coronation in heaven, came about long after the Reformation. And while considerable disagreement exists even within the Catholic communion about some of these things, Mary still takes on significance in their doctrine well beyond Scriptural warrant.

So why belabor all this? Well, for a couple of reasons. Recent movements in evangelicalism in the name of ecumenicism have sought to unite Catholics and Protestants. I would agree with Sproul that while they have their merit in calling the various traditions to stand together on social issues like abortion among others, the terminology contained within these various documents blurs the distinction between who is genuinely a Christian and who is not. Dr. Sproul does a great job in this book of demonstrating that we are decidedly not together and that what is at stake is nothing less than the gospel in the stand we take related to such broad-sweeping initiatives.

Another reason for this lengthy post lies with OGC’s unique location directly across the street from a Roman Catholic church. In all our endeavors to be good neighbors, like last week’s parking give-away, we must never lose sight that our core doctrines do not align and nothing less than the eternal salvation of souls hangs in the balance.

Finally, tomorrow is Reformation Sunday. We will gather to worship and praise our great God and Savior for the recovery of the gospel in the Protestant Reformation, the gospel in which we stand and about which I intend to preach from 1 Cor. 15:1-11. May we give thanks to God for our rich heritage and never fail to keep this precious gospel the main thing. As long the tendency to drift into error exists, the church must remain given to the rally cry semper reformanda (always reforming).

The Reformation is not over. Not by a long shot. It better not be in a church of our tradition.

RTS Chapel Message Now Available

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Thanks to the good folks at Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, we are able to make available the audio of my recent message from Ephesians 1:7-10 entitled The Blessing in the Son on our website.

You can listen to the audio here.

I summarized the message this way:

Unsurpassed blessing upon undeserving sinners warrants unrelenting praise. The blessing praised is our redemption. Second, the bounty paid is His blood. The benefit procured is forgiveness of our trespasses. The basis proclaimed is the riches of His grace – extravagantly dispensed, magnificently revealed, perfectly timed, and ultimately purposed grace.

So grateful to pastor in a seminary community!

September Resource of the Month

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orlando grace church 002 300x168 August Resource of the Month

With the establishment of our sweet and newly-stocked resource center at our new building, the options overflow these first few months for choosing a book to feature for our reading and study enjoyment.

When I thought about this month’s offering, I didn’t have to linger long over the choice. I went with Richard Philllips’ terrific little read (110 pages) entitled What’s So Great About the Doctrines of Grace? Here’s why.

Scott Devor begins teaching a new equipping hour on this subject tomorrow morning during the 9:30 hour. This would make an excellent introductory volume for anyone desiring to do additional study. Don’t worry Greg and Joe, I have you covered in the October resource of the month – God’s Big Picture by Vaughan Roberts. Your turn is coming!

But another reason compelled me to start with Phillips’ book. With the opening of our facility we have a number of new folks in the mix. Some may very well be knew to reformed theology and not acquainted with TULIP as a way of summarizing these biblical truths as our spiritual forefathers have done. My hope is a resource like this will help answer a number of questions our newcomers may have about this important aspect of our teaching at OGC.

Indeed Phillips organizes his book largely around the TULIP acronym. After an opening chapter treating the greatness of God’s sovereignty in Scripture overall, he then proceeds to unpack, all with the same heading, What’s So Great About . . .

  • Total Depravity
  • Unconditional Election
  • Limited Atonement
  • Irresistible Grace
  • Perseverance of the Saints

The author states his aim in writing this way:

This book has two purposes. The first is to explain the doctrines of grace, also known as the “Five Points of Calvinism,” through the exposition of Scripture. In this, my aim is not to exhaust the biblical data or to engage in heavy biblical polemics with differing theological views. Instead, I seek to exposit definitive passages as they pertain to the respective doctrines. My approach is to present and explain the doctrines as plainly as possible by drawing out both the clear teaching of the Bible’s text and the necessary implications thereof. The second purpose is one that I find often neglected in treatments of distinctive Reformed doctrines, though to my mind is equally important. This purpose is to help believers feel the power of these precious truths in their lives. In other words, I aim not merely to teach the doctrines of grace, but to show what is so great about them. And how great they are! If we really believe the Bible’s teaching on the sovereign, mighty, and effectual grace of God, these doctrines not only will be dearly beloved, they will exercise a radical influence on our entire attitude toward God, ourselves, the present life, and the life to come (pp. xi-xii).

The book may lack for its omission of the historical background behind the formulation of these doctrines, but given the author’s agenda and desire to stay concise, we may forgive that. Especially helpful in each chapter is the answering of key objections to the teachings and a fleshing out of the implications of these truths in our lives.

I am happy to be able to offer copies of this work at only a donation of $8 thanks to our good friends at Reformation Trust. Pick up your copy tomorrow or some Sunday soon!

Why Pastors Leave After a Building Program

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Now that we’ve survived the major push to occupy our new facility at 872 Maitland Avenue, it occurred to me that someone out there might have written about what to expect as a church AFTER the completion of a new building.

I did a Google search to that end. About four pages into the search I ran across this intriguing title. The article suggests, for a variety of reasons, that as many as twenty percent of pastors leave their churches within two years of completing a building program.

As I read through the article I found myself grateful for the wisdom to have stayed out of the construction process to focus on my pastoral responsibilities. I said all along that wiser, smarter, and better equipped people than I served on the building committee and sub-committees to put our structure on the map. Pastors doing the opposite apparently position themselves for disaster. The article calls it a recipe for burnout:

Most pastors already have enough work to do. The weekly regimen of preaching, preparation, counseling, visitation and administration take up the bulk of their time. It has been estimated that the pastor of the average church works 48 to 55 hours per week. Add to this the responsibility to get a building built, and you’ve got a recipe for burnout.

Indeed. Praise God for sidestepping that pitfall. You can read the rest of the article here, if it interests you.

I have noticed, however, a shift in my personal involvement with the facility now that we’ve opened. Going to the office day-in and day-out, I am regularly confronted with the variety of matters needing attention both inside and out. Six plus acres and a 21,000 sq. ft. building present a sizable stewardship. How’s that for understatement? Quite frankly, it exceeds the demands of two staff pastors, an assistant, and five elders and five deacons working as hard as they can.

Dear ones, we simply must own this, all of us covenant members, together. The SDA days are gone. We can’t call the landlord anymore. And we simply don’t have the budget to pay for all upkeep, though we have outsourced a good bit of it. We need volunteers willing to serve in the day of His power (Psa. 110:3).

How can you help?

First, if you see something that needs attention, if you possibly can, jump on it. Pull a weed, haul a limb, pick up the trash, dust the shelf, clean the smudge, etc. If you can’t dispatch it yourself for whatever reason, call it to our attention in the office and we will get someone who can.

Second, plan to participate in  at least one or two work parties in the next calendar year. We will call them regularly. We have no choice, especially at this time of the year in the tropics where stuff grows like crazy. If Saturdays don’t suit you due to work or other responsibilities, how about volunteering to come in sometime during the week? Let Greg or me know and we will be happy to put you on assignment at a time that works for you.

Please don’t anybody panic over this post. I not tempted in the least to bail from burnout. I’ve never felt healthier in my adult life. And I am more excited about ministry at OGC than ever now that we have a home. But please count this a gentle reminder that a new day has come. We have a mega-responsibility now to steward. If we spread the weight of that on everyone’s shoulders, no one should collapse under the strain, including me.

Many, many thanks.

Two Most Important Lessons

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I love the interviews each month near the end of every Tabletalk magazine.

This month features a conversation with apologist Ravi Zacharias, president of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, an organization with offices in Canada, India, Singapore, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates,and the United States. He is internationally known as a Christian apologist and has addressed thousands of people worldwide, including students and professors from numerous colleges and universities. Dr. Zacharias is the host of a weekly radio program, Let My People Think, and serves as senior research fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford University. Among his many books are Can Man Live Without God?, Deliver Us from Evil, Walking From East to West, and Why Jesus?: Rediscovering His Truth in an Age of Mass Marketed Spirituality.

When someone asks a person with that kind of track record in fruitfulness to name the two most important lessons he has learned in a lifetime of ministry, I get interested real fast in the answer.

Here’s what he said:

The hardest lessons I’ve learned are, one, how important it is to have the right people around you, and two, to learn to face criticism and opposition (oftentimes from those who should be more understanding) without allowing it to sidetrack you from your closeness to the Lord and His call. When you’re doing very little, nobody will bother you. But when you are making an impact, the Enemy of our souls finds ready emissaries to take aim at you. It goes with the calling. Keep close to the Lord and don’t let the critics dent your calling that a gracious and sovereign God has shaped.

Good counsel on both counts. The rest of the article is worth reading as well. You can access it here.

The Antidote for Abandonment

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Since 2005 and my bout with tongue cancer, two months out of every year tend to make me more reflective on my life than the remaining ten. They are March and this month, August.

March, because of the surgery on my tongue to remove the cancerous tumor threatening my life and the removal of all the lymph nodes from the right side of my neck (affectionately referred to as a radical neck dissection). Lovely. You can read my most recent musing about that event and time here.

Now I find myself in another August seven years removed from finishing treatment which followed that surgery. It consisted of no less than thirty-eight radiation treatments to the tongue and neck along with four separate infusions of two kinds of chemo, the last of which occurred as a continuous infusion over four LONG days 24/7 in August of 2005. For a description of that particularly nasty napalm-like drug click here.

I just finished reading several entries from my journal in August of ’05. Suffice it to say it wasn’t pretty. Not pretty at all. It almost pained me to read my relentless postings of nausea, vomiting, mucous, gagging, metallic taste, sleeplessness, fatigue, scabbing, gagging, peeling, etc., day in and day out. The cumulative effect took its toll. On September 6, 2005 I wrote:

I know I’m not, but I felt abandoned last night. I kept praying as I turned off the lights, “Please, don’t abandon me God.” It wasn’t a good day. I was more tired than usual. Slept till 1 PM. I did some reading while watching football and then just gave in to the TV. Felt nauseous much of the day. Threw up around dinner time. Tongue is still sore. Mouth is still sore. Cheeks are swollen. Lower lip is still scabbing. It just goes on forever. Mucous still forming. What a routine of drudgery. When will relief come? Lord, have mercy. I am rebuked by Bonhoeffer’s final letter to his wife. He never felt abandoned [in prison] for all the support he had. I feel ashamed.

I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. In seasons of such overwhelming agony where one wonders if ever the end will come and the temptation to believe that God indeed has abandoned you to your difficulty overwhelms, one and only one antidote suffices.

Pray for mercy.

Over and over again I prayed the same prayer. Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.

We must take our cue from the psalmist in Psalm 42:1-3a.

With my voice I cry out to the LORD;
with my voice I plead for mercy to the LORD.
I pour out my complaint before him;
I tell my trouble before him.
When my spirit faints within me,
you know my way!
Do you feel abandoned in your particular struggle or trial?
Take it from one who wondered if the suffering would ever end but today got to preach somewhere around his 250th sermon post-tongue cancer. He knows your way. Cry out to Him. Plead for His mercy. Pour out your complaint. Tell him your trouble. And never, never, never, cease to do so until you break through or He takes you home.
We have never done all we can do until we have prayed and prayed and prayed. Never give up. Pour out your heart before Him. Plead for mercy.
Mercy there is great and grace is free.
Lord, you never abandoned me through my year-long battle with tongue cancer. I am so very, very grateful. Help me to redeem that time for the sake 0f those wondering if you have abandoned them and may they employ the same antidote as I did even if the trial goes on and on – the simple prayer, Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.

The Rhythm of Grace

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This comes to you from the pen of covenant member, Matt Kenyon. Thanks Matt!

So I’ve been grinding my teeth at night.

My dentist says it’s genetic. Could be. Personally, I think it’s my trademark anxiety that comes from too many months of half-heartedly abiding in Christ and steadily drifting from the love of His sovereign grace and prayer. I kept that diagnosis to myself while I was in the dental chair, though.

Sunday’s sermon delivered at Orlando Grace on the fifteenth chapter of John was no coincidence, and was a timely example of the Lord’s common grace in my life.

Throughout the better part of the chapter, Jesus is articulating the believer’s relationship to Himself and the Father through the lush metaphor of the vine and the branches. Much of the focus of the Lord’s words are in reference to His own role as the grace-supplying vine and the Father’s role as the loving pruner of the Christian. However, it isn’t long before we run headlong into a single commanding verb from the lips of our Savior that requires intentionality and action from the believer: “abide.”

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.” (John 15:4)

Abiding may sound ethereal; I mean, how exactly do you “abide” in anybody, much less the God of the universe? Jesus elaborates further:

“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will done for you.” (John 15:7)

Now, we’re getting somewhere. When it gets down to the nitty-gritty, the means of grace by which we abide are simple: being saturated in the reading and memorization of Scripture (His very “words”) on the daily, being constant in prayer (Romans 12:12), living in a covenant community with other believers, among others. Notice that I said simple — not easy. This is why we need the grace of a Romans 8:28 God undergirding our feeble wills even to perform such acts of spiritual discipline. After all, Jesus plainly tells us in regard to all matters of spiritual effectiveness: “Apart from me, you can do nothing.” (John 15:5b)

Currently, I’m recording an album, and trucking my way through a very robust online video class on sound editing and recording. One of the fundamental lessons deals with amplified sound waves. We’ve all seen what a sound wave looks like: a line that peaks and valleys in different patterns over and under a zero axis. Now, I’ll spare you the geek-talk, but one of the examples in the lesson illustrated what happens when you double (or amplify) the sound wave just milliseconds out-of-sync. The peak of the first waveform doesn’t match the peak of the next, and the resulting sound is slightly less preferable than nails on a chalkboard. The further away the sound waves spread from each other, the nastier and more distorted the sound becomes. However, when they are perfectly in sync with each other, the difference is like night and day. The doubled wave lays perfectly in line with the first wave, and the sound is amplified, pristine and clearer than ever.

This is what happens to me when I fall out of sync with the gospel of grace; when I’m not actively abiding in the vine. Like I said before, abiding is a verb that demands intentionality. You don’t wake up one morning and accidentally start abiding in the Lord. On the contrary actually, most mornings we wake up thinking about our problems, our idols, our vices and our comforts. The original rhythm Adam had with the Father in the garden has become all wonky and awkward, and must be corrected by grace-laden prayer and mind-renewing Scripture.

So, today, let’s start abiding deeply again. Let us not dare, however, attempt it upon our own flawed ability. Knowing that we are justified not by works, but by grace, let us find strength in Philippians 4:12, in God moving and working underneath all of our actions, to abide. The Son shall supply the nutrients to fight, the Father shall prune the deadness that bars, and we shall certainly bear fruit in the rhythm of the heavenly.

What Can Miserable Christians Sing?

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Got your attention with that one, didn’t I?

I first heard this provocative question while listening to Mark Dever’s latest audio offering entitled, False Conversions: The Suicide of the Church on the 9Marks website . Good stuff as always from him. You can listen to the audio here.

Honestly, I don’t remember the context in which he brought up the question, the title of an article by Carl Trueman. But it caught my attention because some voices have chirped in my ear lately (more than usual and all well meant) about some aspects of our worship music at OGC. Now we certainly want to be open to feedback about our choices in corporate worship so as do the best we can in coming before the Lord in singing and praise, but I find this an excellent occasion to toot my colleague’s horn in one very important respect.

I appreciate A LOT of things about our chief musician. Among them is the range of emotional identification in the songs he selects that includes lament. I suspect he takes his cue from a number of things in that regard (if you know the man, you know exactly what I mean), but especially the fact that the psalms in Scripture, the Bible’s own hymnbook, consist much of lament, longing, grief, even downright agony. Life is like that. For many, loss and the pain that accompanies it, make up a good bit of their life experience at any given time. What do suffering saints sing then when they come to church? Not that there isn’t room for them to hope in the triumph of the resurrection and the truth of the gospel. But shouldn’t they/we be able to embrace and engage the minor key songs of worship life along with the major, especially when trials assault and afflict?

Trueman argues we should, we must, make room for such as these, especially given psalmody and the nature of its content as well as the consequences of limiting our selections to only the upbeat and happy kind of tunes. He writes:

A diet of unremittingly jolly choruses and hymns inevitably creates an unrealistic horizon of expectation which sees the normative Christian life as one long triumphalist street party — a theologically incorrect and a pastorally disastrous scenario in a world of broken individuals. Has an unconscious belief that Christianity is — or at least should be — all about health, wealth, and happiness silently corrupted the content of our worship? Few Christians in areas where the church has been strongest over recent decades — China, Africa, Eastern Europe – would regard uninterrupted emotional highs as normal Christian experience.

You can read the rest of his article here.

Believers mired in misery must grow to be sorrowful yet always rejoicing (2 Cor. 6:10) to be sure. Jesus promises us His brand of joy independent of circumstances as we abide in Him (John 15:11).

But the Man of Sorrows who wept in the face of great grief (John 11:35) must have sung from the Psalter and entered into lament when the seasons of life warranted it.

And so must we.

The Finer Art of How to Walk Into Church

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What better time to consider this concept than having opened a new building?

As we all attempt to carve out our particular spots in the auditorium, perhaps we could take a g0spel-shaped tack in determining our seats from week to week.

How so? Here’s a thought.

Pray about where you sit. This is called the “Pew Prayer’ or in our case the “Seat Prayer,” since we don’t have any pews.

The idea is not original with me. I came across it recently while reading through a great little book on ministry called The Trellis & the Vine. Copies, by the way, are available in our resource center for only $8.

I borrowed it from an article referenced in the footnotes for chapter four entitled The Ministry of the Pew.

Here is the thrust of the idea from the article:

Church is a gathering of God’s people to hear his word and respond in faith and obedience. In this gathering, we are in fellowship with each other, through the blood of Jesus, and, because of our fellowship, we seek to serve each other. We use our gifts and abilities to strengthen one another and build Christ’s Church—‘edification’ is the word often used to describe what goes on in church. All believers are involved in building the church, not just clergy or preachers. The New Testament consistently teaches that in the growth of the body of Christ each part must do its work (see Eph 4; 1 Cor 12-14). Because of this, we aren’t to see ourselves merely as part of an organization called ‘St Hubert’s Church’, but as servants of God’s people, eager to meet the needs of others even if it means sacrificing our own. . . . If at church we are working to strengthen our fellow believers, where we sit becomes important since part of our work will be talking to our neighbor in the pew, welcoming people, helping each other understand God’s word and praying with each other. The ‘Pew Prayer’ was a significant turning point in my understanding of what church is all about. It changed my reasons for going to church. The shift was made from being the ‘helpee’ to the helper, the served to the servant (emphasis added). Church is where we seek spiritual food and encouragement in order to become more godly; but church is also where we go in order to feed other people and encourage them. In God’s mercy, we become more Christ-like in the process, as like him we deny ourselves for the sake of others. But our purpose in gathering with God’s people is to strengthen them and build the body of Christ. We look for opportunities to assist the growth of the church in practical ways.

Good stuff. I commend the notion to us all.

Beginning this Sunday why not walk into church (on time, sorry, couldn’t resist) praying the pew prayer: “Lord, where would you have me sit and help me engage with the word in the power of the Spirit as led?”