Wycliffe, Luther, and Today

I'll go over on this side here.Okay, so folks, we're just getting thisumPowerPoint set up here. Let me make sureI've got the right screen I'm projectinghere.There we are.Let's see if we can find ourpresentation. It's somewhere in here.There it is.All right, good afternoon, everybody.Uh thank you for your patience. Did youall have a good lunch?Yes? Are you all feeling wide awake now?Yes?

No? No.Uh you had a a digestion walk, yes?Yeah, well, um we had a digestionconversation where we were.And uh we had a lovely meal. And so it'sgood to be back and to welcome you backhere to our afternoon program. Uh so uhthis afternoon, I'm going to there's atitle of the topic on the screen therethat's called "Wycliffe, Luther, andToday".And umas you may know, if you've watched someof my um sermons or presentations, Ilike history.And it's important that we understandhistory because history does tend torepeat itself.Just because we all we all have a fallenhuman nature. And we tend to repeat themistakes of our past.

And so um I'mgoing to be talking today aboutsomething in the time of Wycliffe. Thenwe're going to shooting on to the timeof Luther. Then we're going to come totoday and how some of this relates to usand religious liberty in 2024.So umthis uhthis presentationI imagine it'll be on the the DesotoCamp Meeting YouTube channel one day, Iguess. I don't know.But uh I assume it'll be somewhereonline.And if you want to watch it later.So let's bow our heads and we ask theblessing of the Holy Spirit and then wewill get underway.Our dear heavenly Father,Lord, I want to thank you for theblessings of the Sabbath day.Father, thank you for the gift of lifeand the promise of eternal life.Now, Lord, as we we um we pause, we'vehad our physical food, now we pauseagain for spiritual food. I ask, Lord,that as we as we share these momentstogether, we will grow not just inunderstanding and in knowledge, but Ipray we'll grow in wisdom.And we'll know how to apply thisknowledge in the time and era in whichwe have been born into.So Lord, may your spirit speak throughme and for me.

May you be glorified inall that is said and done thisafternoon. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.All right, soumDoes anybody know what time we have tofinish up? Is it 5:30?That's a joke, by the way.I was uh when when I preach inAfrican-American churches orBritish-Jamaican churches, you oftendon't get to stand up to preach tillsometimes 12:30 or 1:00.And I was preaching Dr. Isaac Olutunde'schurch last year, and it was 12:30 andthey were still doing the children'sstory.And somebody texted me and they said,"They're deliberately stopping you frompreaching because um it's already 12:30,you need to break now for lunch."And as I stood up to preach at aboutquarter to 1:00, Dr.

O he leaned overand he says, "Brother Vine, he says, youhave till 4:00 when the next programstarts."So umI I've I've suggested only half in jestthat because Adventists have mostly beenunvaccinated against the effect of longsermons,that umwe should actually have umboys walking up and down the centralaisle here like during the ball gamescarrying little sachets of apple sauceor something because you have you havehypoglycemics and diabetics and theirblood sugar runs low after 3 hours ofsitting here, and they may want to sugarboost. So,anyway, I'm I won't go on till 5:30today, so don't worry about that.Um but I'm going to talk about Wycliffeand then Luther and then today. And aswe're going to see,um religious liberty is not somethingthat just happened or came intoexistence overnight. It goes back a longway.And the liberties we enjoy today inAmerica that we treasure and sometimeswe take for granted, they they actuallyhave a long long heritage.And it's important to understand howthose liberties came into existence andhow they're being applied today. So,we're going to start out with umwith Wycliffe.And uh then we're going to turn toLuther, we're going to come to Tyndale,we're going to come to our conclusions.And so,the umWhen my boy was born, I wanted to callhim Luther Tyndale Wycliffe Huss JeromeVine.And my wife said, "No."And my wife generally is as the voice ofthe Holy Spirit when I when I'm at home,so I listened to her on that.Andso we ended up he ended up with the nameshe wanted a name that would travel allaround the world, was an internationalname, and was Christian.

So, we settledon David cuz David is a name thattravels to almost every country onplanet Earth.And so we we called him David, a manafter God's own heart. But I wanted himto be called Luther and Wycliffe andTyndale and Jerome and Hussand any other reformers I could squeezein there.And he'd always have problems the restof his life in his passportapplications.So, Wycliffe, who was this guy Wycliffe?Have you all heard of Wycliffe by theway? Yes, sir. Yes, the Wycliffetranslation. We're going to look a bitof that here this afternoon.

So, he wasactually born in 1324 in England. And heis known to us historically as theMorning Star of the Reformation.And uh even though he's called theMorning Star of the Reformation, he'scalled that because he was born in inthe moment of papal supremacy acrossEurope. He was born in the area whenwhen Innocent III and some of theseother popes were proclaiming reallyblasphemous claims and assertions abouttheir authority over the humanconscience. So, let's just set some kindof the the context of who this guyWycliffe was in the world into which hewas born. So, we're going to come backto this man here, Pope Innocent the III.And uh as I said this morning, if anation is called united, it's adisunited nation.

If a nation is calleda democratic republic, it's adictatorship. And if your name isinnocent, then you're not innocent.And this man here was certainly uh notinnocent of a whole variety of things,but he wanted supreme power in Europe.And so, he claims the authority toappoint every bishop in every countryall across the European nations. And themost important district in 1205 was whatwe now call the Archbishop ofCanterbury. That was the lead um churchofficial in England at the time. And so,what happened was the the bishops inEngland, they chose their own bishop,and Innocent didn't like that.

And so,King John, who signed the Magna Carta,that's where he's buried there inWinchester Cathedral, umhe he chose his candidate, and Innocentdidn't agree with that. So, Innocent theIII imposed his own candidate. Now, thein practical terms, this meant that aforeign power had just appointed the thesecond most important and powerful rolein the crown in the the the realm ofEngland. And the English barons werefurious about this. They didn't wantforeign interference in how they ran thenation of England, and neither did theking.

So, to add insult to injury, uhInnocent the III, he inspired the Frenchking Augustus um to invade England in1207 to impose Innocent the III's choicefor the Archbishop of Canterbury. So, itwasn't just a matter of we're going toimpose a new Archbishop on you, but heincited the French to invade England.Which wasn't a good idea.Because the English and the French havereally never got along very well.UmUh for instance, uh just some hitchessome historical context here orinformation, when the Normans invadedEngland in 1066, that's the start ofmodern British history, they were led bya guy called William the Conqueror andthe Normans all spoke French. And theSaxons, who were the peasants and theslaves, all spoke Anglo-Saxon. And so,the names of the animals even we havetoday in the English language are theSaxon names like pig, cow, sheep, cow uhgoat, and chicken.But, when those animals were taken bythe serfs, the Saxons, to the the tablesof their Norman overlords, they suddenlyacquired French names, mutton, veal,lamb, and pork.And those are French words. And so, thethe Anglo-Saxons raised the animals andthey had Anglo-Saxon names from themthey were alive, but the moment thoseanimals were turned into meat, they allhave French-sounding words.

And so, youkind of see the social stratificationgoing on at the time. So, anyway, theFrench invaded and in 1213, King Johninvaded his crown and the kingship ofEngland to Pope Innocent III. And thebarons were furious about this becausethey didn't want to be ruled by aforeign ruler, so they fought againstthe king and in 1215, that's the year1215, not the time, in 1215 AD, theyforced the king to sign the Magna Carta.And now, the Magna Carta is thefoundation of most liberties in Americatoday.It's an essential document in Westerncommon law systems, and the principlesin the Magna Carta have spread allaround the world. There is one of theThere are four original copies of itleft. This is in Winchester Cathedral,and it's written in the oldy English,but we can still understand theprovisions and the clauses of the MagnaCarta.

So, the Magna Carta was adocument that rejected the concept ofthe divine right of kings and of Popesto overrule the conscience and to imposetheir will on society, and it set forthsome principles of liberty that we takefor granted today. So, for instance, thefirst principle it established was thateverybody could be tried by a jury oftheir peers.Does that sound like a foundationalright we have today?Absolutely. We all want, if possible, tobe tried by a jury of our peers. Oftentimes, the peers don't look like us ordon't know our background or the rest ofit, but we still want a jury of ourpeers. We don't want the the governmentsto be the the prosecutors and the juryat the same time.

We want to be judgedby a jury of our peers. They alsoestablished the principle no man's life,liberty, or property shall be taken fromhim except by judgment of his peers andby the law of the land. That is, theking cannot arbitrarily imprison peoplejust cuz he doesn't like you.And we have that now in the AmericanConstitution, the principle of habeascorpus.We then have the third principle wasthat royal power was restricted fromtaking private property, which also camethrough in the US Bill of Rights, andthe government had to pay reasonablecompensation for whatever it took frompeople. They also agreed that owners ofprivate property could dispose of theirproperty as they desired and to whoeverthey wish to sell it. And fifthly, theyagreed that unlawful punishments wereprohibited.

Like, the king couldn't justmake up cruel and unusual punishments,as were later prohibited here in theUnited States. And so, the Magna Cartais the foundation for liberties inAmerica and in England. And the finalclause of the Magna Carta, I think itwas clause 22, it stated that if theking did not uphold his side of thebargain, that the barons were legallyobliged to take up arms to force him touphold his his part of the Magna Carta.So, it wasn't just that they had theSecond Amendment back then, the baronswere committing to go to war against theking if he didn't uphold the rights ofthe people. It's an astonishingdocument, the Magna Carta. Well,Innocent III didn't like the MagnaCarta, and he annulled it.

So, thebarons arose in rebellion again, andthey forced the king to allow the commonpeople into the parliament, and thatbecame known as the House of Commons,further undermining the divine right ofkings. And this was the world and thethe controversy into which Wycliffe wasborn. Now, Wycliffehe was a brilliant scholar, and heentered the University of Oxford at theage of 16, and he went to BalliolCollege. There's a picture of Balliolwhich was founded in 1263. So, thatcollege goes back almost a thousandyears, and it's produced um 13 NobelPrize winners and four prime ministersamong other things.

So, it's a it's amajor center of learning. And uhWycliffe was such a brilliant scholarthat they appointed him a professor oftheology before he was appointed themaster of Balliol College in 1360. Now,you say, "Well, why is that important?"Well, if you know the story of Luther,and you compare it with the story ofWycliffe, both of them were professorsof theology. That meant that they hadaccess to the Bible.Because most priests didn't have accessto the Bible. They had access to thechurch fathers, and if they were lucky,they'd have access to Latin translation,the Vulgate, which was the Bible of theMiddle Ages, but most people did nothave access to Hebrew or Greekmanuscripts.And back in those days, Bibles wereconsidered so dangerous for the commonman or woman to read that when they werekept in the church, they were chainedshut during the week.

So, the commonpeople couldn't know what was written inthe word of God. And so, Wycliffe, hestarted to study the word of God forhimself, and he came to the conclusionthat priests do not have the biblicalauthority to forgive sins.Now, they that may sound like umoh, yeah, we're we're we're we're allfamiliar with that. But at the time,this was huge. Why? Because he who canforgive sins determines who gets intoheaven.And if you can determine who gets intoheaven, if you have the keys of heavenand hell as on the papal symbol thispapal coat of arms, you have the keysthere.

If you have the authority todetermine who is forgiven and who is notforgiven, you have authority overpeople's eternal lives.This is an immensely powerful right tohave. And Wycliffe came to theconclusion that only God can forgivesins, but that authority was claimed bythe Catholic priesthood who became thusbecame as God to their fellow men. So hewrote a book called objections to friarsand declared it was morally wrong todemand money for the forgiveness of sinsand to have the sale of indulgences. Hewrote, "Is it from the friars or fromJesus Christ that we obtain blasphemy orforgiveness for sins?" End quote. And sostep-by-step the minds of the men ofEngland were led to ask the question,"Not what does the Pope say and not whatdoes the church say?" But people werebeing forced to ask, "What does theBible say?"But most people had no access to theBible, so they could only go by whattheir priest was actually willing toshare with them.But step-by-step the men of Britain, thebarons of England, they realized thatthe Bible is a liberating document andthey realized that what they were taughtby their friars and their priests andtheir bishops and archbishops didn'tquite match with what they were hearingrumors about from the scriptures, sothey wanted to know more.Wycliffe made a trip to Rome torepresent the King of England in anotherdispute and he came away convinced thatRome, the papal system, is theAntichrist of scripture just like Luthercame to the same conclusion 100 oddyears later.

He wrote, "The gods of Romeare avarice, ambition, and hypocrisy."He then attacked the doctrine oftransubstantiation and the mass.Now Rome insisted that without thesacrament of the mass, you cannot besaved.And Wycliffe argued, "No, we must usereason and the evidence of our senseswhen coming to theological conclusions.Thus, he laid the foundation for modernscience where the use of reason isimportant. You look at the evidence andyou come to a conclusion.Well, in 1378, this pope here died,Urban V.I have missed a slide.Oh, never mind. It's gone.Anyway, there was a pope and he died.So, what happened was the College ofCardinals in Rome elected an Italianreplacement, but the French Cardinalscouldn't agree on this and they electeda French pope.And then both popes claimed to be thepope, the Italian pope and the Frenchpope, and both started saying that theother one is Antichrist. And Wycliffesaid, "Well, actually, you're bothcorrect. You're both Antichrist."And so, umso, they eventually they came to aconclusion.

Both popes stepped aside andthey elected a compromise pope. But,this raised questions in people's mind.Who is the true keeper of the keys ofsalvation? If both popes claim theoffice of pope and both called the otherAntichrist, what then are you to trust?And in the last 4 years, we've all hadto ask questions, what do we trust?Because whether you took the shot ornot, it depends on whether you trustedthe scientific authorities.And your decision is to get the shot ornot is irrelevant now, I guess, in manyways. But, your decision either way wasbased on your source of authority.And if you didn't trust Dr. Fauci, youprobably didn't get the shot.And if you thought Dr.

Fauci was sciencehimself personified, you probably didget the shot.And do you do you trust Fox or CNN?Well, they both sang from the same hymnsheet. Do you trust, um, Dr. PeterMcCullough or do you trust some of thetrust some of these other, um, doctorson on the TV? I actually found it veryhelpful to just have some like basicquestions,um, before you accept something let'ssay on the television. I'd ask myselfquestions like this.Has this person ever lied to me before?So, if it's mainstream media, thequestion answer is yes.

So, I'm notgoing to leave anything in themainstream media. Media. Number two,is this person being paid to say this tome?That's a good good question. Goodfilter, yes? The third question is,would this person be fired if they saidanything other than what they're sayingright now to me?That's a good question.

And the fourthquestion I came I used was,what has this person sacrificed to tellme what they're saying?What have they risked? What have theysacrificed? Because if they've riskedeverything to share what they're saying,I'm more likely to believe them.And so, you as we get at the last fouryears have taught us that you've got tothink about what are your sources oftruth. And Wycliffe was forcing that thebarons and the people of England tothink about what is the ultimate sourceof truth in our lives. Is it the bishopof in the archbishop of Canterbury?

Isit the Pope in Rome? Is it my localpriest, my local pastor? Or is it theword of God? But even then, they didn'thave the word of God in their ownlanguage. So, it's kind of like amystery what the word of God actuallysaid.So, he wrote a book called On the Truthand Meaning of Scripture, in which heargued that truth is found in the wordof God, and that scripture has to beinterpreted by the private judgment ofthe individual.And again, we may not think of that as arevolutionary statement, but 700 yearsago, you could be burnt at the stake forsaying something like that.And that is why as Adventists, we'repart of what we call the radicalreformation.So, on the one side, you've got the theteaching office of the church.

That'sthe cathedra. When the spoke when thePope speaks, he's infallible, and yousimply have to accept the dogma. This iswhat God says to you, you must acceptit. And then in the ProtestantReformation, the pendulum was swung tothe other side, which said thateverybody has the right to read thescriptures in their own language andcome to their own conclusions, and Godwill give you enough light andunderstanding sufficient for yoursalvation.That was the principle of the radicalreformation. And the Anabaptists wereone group that went down that path, andso forth.

And then Luther kind of swungthe pendulum back onto a middling house,where he said, "Everybody has the rightto read the scripture for themselves andcome to their own conclusion, butdoctrine that is commonly understoodteaching of the church is not going tobe accepted from one mouth alone. Thebody of believers has to come togetherand examine what's being presentedbefore them, and then come to their ownconclusion as whether this is biblicalor not." And that's kind of where theAdventist church is right now. Though wewe rejected the ex cathedra, um we we'vemoved beyond the teaching the theradical reformation, um and we've movedto kind of a middling position. And soour Sabbath School Quarterlies are anexample of that. The Sabbath SchoolQuarterlies encourage people to read andstudy the Bible for themselves on adaily basis, but it also has churchdoctrine in there as well.

And so tokind of help you as you go through thatprocess. So, in the midst of all thisthis umin the midst of all this chaos,there was something broke out called thePeasants' Revolt in 1381. Here's an oldEnglish picture from the Peasants'Revolt. And umit was a very famous revolt. It was ledby a guy called Wat Tyler.

And there wasa young king called Richard the Second.And uh his his father died, Edward theThird. And Richard the Second wasunprepared to be king, but his noblessent him out to face down the rebels.And he rode out to meet the rebels justoutside of London, and he said, "I willbe your leader."And they somehow accepted this. And thenso they they killed the leader of therebellion. He was hung, drawn, andquartered, which was the the deathreserved for traitors to the crown. Uhso you were drawn around the city, youwere dragged by your neck behind a horsethrough the city of London.

And then youkind of all the skin came off your back.And then they would um hang you theAmerican way, not the British way.There's a difference. In the British wayof hanging, they put the knot here. Whenyou come to the bottom, the knot comesaround here, and it snaps your neck. Soit's a clean death. The American way ofhanging is to put the neck here, andwhen you snap at the bottom, the ropegoes to the back.

So, that's why peoplethey strangle it's death in the Americanversion of hanging. It takes 30 secondsmore than the British way of hanging.Um and so, they would do the Americanversion of hanging. Then, when you'rekind of half dead and you about yourskin to be flayed off your skin, thenthey tied you onto like an altar, thenthey would quarter you and take out yourinnards and burn them in front of yourface while you were still alive. Itwasn't a pleasant way to go. But, it wasknown as hanging, drawing, andquartering as reserved for traitorsonly.

And so, what sparked the Peasants'Revolt? Well, what happened wasthey just come through a major pandemicknown as the bubonic plague.And pandemics have a way of changingsociety.And the pandemic that killed the bubonicplague killed about 40 to 50% ofeverybody living in Europe at the time.It was huge.And the most most the largest group thatdied were the peasants. Now, peasantshave been tied to the land, and youcould never leave your lot of land inyour entire life. You're basically aserf. You were tied to the land.

But,when all these peasants died out,suddenly every manor and every lordwanted peasants to work his land. So,they were offering money and incentivesto the peasants to move around. So, umthere was the plague, there was highinflation, there was economicdepression, there were extremes ofwealth and poverty across society, andthere were new um poll taxes thataffected the poor um most seriously. Anduh the the authorities were financingexpensive foreign wars, and they wereshutting down any dissent to thedoctrines or interests of theecclesiastical or political elites.Now, that sounds like 2024 America toyou? Yes, it is.It's very very similar.

You know, thingsdon't change very much.And what happened was that the peasantshad picked up Wycliffe's preaching, andWycliffe was sending round these laypreachers, we now know them as Lollards,and they were carrying around portionsof the scripture, and they wereexplaining to the people what the Biblemeant, and the authorities hated thoselay preachers. And if they found a laypreacher, they would kill them in a verybloodthirsty way. But the preachersdidn't limit it that that that thatpreaching to what the gospel said. Theywere attacking the accumulation ofwealth and property by the church and bythe nobility as well.And so Wycliffe, he also disapproved ofthe extremes of wealth and poverty insociety. And so the the Archbishop ofCanterbury called a synod in London.

Andduring the consultations meeting 132,there was an earthquake. And the the theparticipants were terrified of theearthquake and they wanted to go home,but the Archbishop of Canterbury saidthis was a favorable sign that God wantsto purify the earth from erroneousdoctrine. So they then had acondemnation of Wycliffe's teachings inwhat now is known as the earthquakesynod. And so as Wycliffe was coming tothe end of his life, he realized thathis labor would be in vain unlessEnglishmen had the Bible in their ownlanguage.He He was no point in saying to people,"You must have the Bible as your soleauthority in life if you have no accessto the Bible."And so in the last years of his life,Wycliffe devoted his life those last 4years to translating the Bible into theEnglish language. As you might say, thelanguage of heaven was now in thelanguage of Englishmen.

And he kindled alight that would never be extinguisheduntil Jesus comes again. There's aThere's a version of it there.And he understood that all of our lawsreflect a religious or moral worldview.That the laws of a nation reflect thereligious worldview or the atheist orsecular worldview of the legislatures.And the divine Magna Carta is the wordof God and it reveals that we arecreated with inalienable rights.We read in the scriptures ultimatelythat civil liberty is an extricableinextricably linked to religiousliberty.And the truth that liberates humanity isa knowledge that we are created in theimage of God. Therefore, we have beengiven the the ability to think, tocreate, and to develop our mental,spiritual, and physical powers throughthe exercise of our inalienable rightsprovided for us by our creator.So, Wycliffewas really he was a a hero in many, manyways. He He had a stroke. Theauthorities wanted to kill him.

TheyThey They They attacked him in thecourts many times. He somehow survived.And umbefore the council he died of a strokeum in in Lutterworth in England. And uh50 years later, there was the Council ofConstance um held in Constance overthere in Europe. And uh there amongother things they condemned Hus as aheretic. There's a picture of Hus therebeing condemned by the Pope.

But, in1415, the Council of Constance declaredWycliffe a heretic and they banned allhis writings. They also declared thathis work should be burnt and his bodilyremains should be removed from theconsecrated church grounds because as aheretic he placed himself outside of thechurch. And that order was confirmed byPope Martin V and was carried out in1482. There you have a woodcut from thetime where Wycliffe's corpse, 40 yearsafter he was buried, was dug up. Um theremains were burnt and the ashes werethrown into the River Swift.

And assomebody said, from the River Swift theywent down to the River Severn, from theRiver Severn they went down to theEnglish Channel, and from there theywent all around the world. And there youhave various You have various On thatwoodcut you have various things beingspoken about. Um I can't read it fromhere, but the bottom right it says theashes of Wycliffeum cast into the river. That's oldEnglish script there. And then you havevarious um church officials listed andin their robes there.And so,Wycliffe um the hatred of the churchagainst Wycliffe was so great that theythey destroyed his grave and they senthis ashes down the river and never to beseen again.Wycliffe ultimately believed what yousee on the screen.We are always to be ready to give adefense to everyone who asks you reasonfor hope that is in you with meeknessand fear.That means you are to have anintelligent faith, not a blind faith.We are to know what we believeand we only can know what we believewhen we have access to the word of God.And it's not just that we have access tothe word of God, but we take in the wordof God.There are many houses, Christian houses,where when you visit them there's a filmof dust on the Bible on the shelf.What does that tell you?They're not reading it.

There are manypeople have a cross around their neck.They have a cross hanging from therearview mirror of the carso they can see behind, but they don'tknow the difference between the Old andthe New Testament.And what the the foundation for ourliberties in Americais the word of God.And if we're to understand and value theliberties that we have in America todayand pass them on to the next generation,then we are to be reading the word ofGod.And we are to be able to have given anintelligent reason for the faith that wehave.And if you don't think that's necessary,in the last 4 years, I helped a lot ofpeople write vaccine waiver letters.And some of them were for the USmilitary.And the US military had like these10-page questionnaires. They're tryingto figure out what denomination you wentto.Like, who's the name of your pastor?What's the name of the address where youhave your Bible studies? Where do youmeet? What's the name of yourdenomination? And people didn't want toput the word Seventh-day Adventist downthere.Because then their waiver was going tobe denied.As it happened, almost all waiverrequests were denied by the militaryuntil the courts intervened.But as I was talking with youngservicemen and women,time and again I had to say to them thatyou have to be able you have to knowwhat you believe.I can help you write a letter about yourbody being the temple of God and usedour principles and stuff like this, butlike, if this is news to you now, thenyou've got a problem.So, we're we're to know what we believe,and that's possible because of peoplelike Wycliffe who understood that we areset free from earthly tyranny when ourlives and our societies are based on theword of God.

That brings us to MartinLuther.Now, he was born in Germany.He was ordained to the priesthood in1507.And he also was a brilliant scholar, anduh because he was a brilliant scholar,he became a professor at an early age,and therefore he could study thescriptures himself in his cloister. AndLuther started to understand thatsalvation and eternal life are notearned by good works or through almsgiving money to the poor or through thesacraments of the church. But he startedto understand that salvation is a freegift of God given through the believer'sfaith in Jesus Christ.Now, this was a huge uh insight andunderstanding. Why? Because the churchwas living off the money of sellingsalvation.And so, if you wanted to if you were asinnerand you wanted like um like a blanketforgiveness for all your sins, you paidthe church a certain amounts of money,you got an indulgence, and all the sinsyou ever committed and all the sins youever would commit were now forgiven.Now, when you have a society where allyour sins are forgiven on the payment ofsome money to the church, what thatmeans is that society never progressesin moral terms.

There's no incentive toprogress. Whereas Protestant nationsbelieve in sanctification and theputting away of sin, when you are saved,you're looking for sanctification andvictory over sin. That is why Protestantnations from the 1500s on have advancedeconomically and socially, and Catholicnations have tended to stagnate becausethere is no incentive to gain victoryover sin. You pay your money, and youcan keep on living the way you've alwayslived.And so, Luther came to conclusion thatChrist alone is redeemer from our sins.He understood that the Bible alone, andnot the teachings of men or the decreesof councils is the only source ofdivinely revealed knowledge. And heopposed the financial and spiritualcorruption of the priesthood.

And in1517,he posted his 95 theses. He posted themon the door of his castle church and hewanted a dialogue within the church onthe question of indulgences and theirlack of biblical basis. And he wasstriking at the financial roots of notjust the Catholic church but the entiregovernment system of Western Europe atthe time.It wasn't just a theological debatebecause if the indulgences can no longerbe sold,the Pope was using the indulgencesthrough the sale of indulgences to buildSt. Peter's Basilica in Rome that westill see today.That was financed through the sale ofindulgences.And the German Catholics were furiousabout this that why we paying for thebuilding of this St. Peter's Basilicaand the monks were going around sellingthese indulgences and you could pay yourmoney and your father would be let outof purgatory and get straight to sendstraight to heaven.There was no indulgence formothers-in-law because nobody wanted tobuy those.Butthey was there was a this was a corruptfinancial system and the church wasmaking a lot of money out of the sellingof forgiveness.The church made a lot of money in otherways.

They would sellreligious offices. If you were rich, youcould become an archbishop through thepaying of money even though you had noqualifications for that. You couldbecome a priest through the paying ofmoney even though you didn't know theBible in any way, shape or form. And sothe church was like a money-makingracket and when Luther posted his 95theses, he wasn't just discussing canpriests forgive sin or do can God aloneforgive sin, the implications were thefinancial collapse of the entirereligious system of his era. It washuge.And in response, Pope Leo the 10thdemanded in 1520 that Luther renounceall of his writings.

He refused, and onthe 23rd of June, 1520, Luther publisheda document called An Appeal to theGerman Nobility. That was on behalf ofthe principles of the Reformation to theHoly Roman Emperor and all the nobles ofGermany. And in this, this is what hesaid. He said, "The Romanists, that isthe Papists, have raised three barriersagainst all reformation. When thetemporal power, that is the the thedukes and nobles, has attacked them,they've denied its authority andasserted that the spiritual power wassuperior to it.

When anyone would rebukethem out of the scripture, they'veanswered that no one but the Pope isable to interpret the scripture. Whenthey've been threatened with a council,the reply has been, 'No one but thesovereign pontiff has the authority toconvoke a council.'"So, basically, there was no way youcould appeal the decision of the Pope.The Pope was above scripture. The Popedetermined what scripture could say. TheThe Pope had the right to call thecouncils. The Pope had the right toover- overturn the decisions of thecouncils.

And the Pope insisted that allthe religious money in Europe was cominginto his coffers.It was an incredible system that hadbeen erected there in Europe.This appeal went viral throughoutGermany, as much as it could back then.And it's interesting that umLuther's writings appeared just afterthe invention of the printing press.And had it not been for the printingpress, Luther's writings wouldn't havespread as fast as they could did acrossEurope. Up until Luther, the scribeswere writing out manuscripts by hand.And it would take years to write a copyof the Bible in a monastery.But after the printing press wasinvented by Gutenberg, Luther's writingswere sent as pamphlets all across Europealmost overnight. And this was arevolution of knowledge. And that peoplehaving access to knowledge is anempowering thing.And when people got And when peoplestarted reading Luther's writings, theystarted to agree with him.So, the Pope um decided he had to stampout Luther. The nation of Germany wasroused to rally around the standard ofreform.

Luther's opponents were burningwith a desire for revenge. They urgedthe Pope to take decisive action againstLuther. And so, it was decreed thatLuther's doctrines should be condemnedimmediately. And 60 days were to begranted to Luther, after which if he didnot recant, he would be excommunicated.And a papal proclamation and was a bullwas issued by Leo the 10th in June 1520.It was a global condemnation of thispreacher, but due to the the politicaland logistical factors of the time, itdidn't reach him for a few months.That was a blessing for Luther. Popefinally of the 10th finallyexcommunicated Luther in January 1521.And shortly afterwards, at the Diet ofWorms, Worms, Luther presented his case.Now, this was this was an astonishingcase because Luther was a an Augustinianmonk.And theoretically, his case, the onlyperson jurisdiction over his case withthe the master of the Augustinian orderand then the Pope.And so, Luther, he said, "I'm going toappeal my case not to the Pope, but I'mgoing to go to the civil authorities.And they're going to hear my case."And the Pope didn't want that because hewas saying, "This case should only beheard in the church courts becauseyou're a church employee." Luther says,"No, people should be judged by jury oftheir peers from Magna Carta.

I'm goingto be judged in the civil courts."And so, Luther won that argument. Andthe nobles of Rome wanted to hear whatLuther had to say. So, the Holy RomanEmperor called for the Diet of Worms inGermany there from January through May1521.And papal officials demanded that Lutherrecant his teachings. Their desire wasto see him burnt at the stake.And Luther respondedwith really famous words.He says, "Unless I'm convicted byscriptureand plain reason,I do not accept the authority of Popesand Councils because they havecontradicted each other.My conscience is captive to the word ofGod.I cannot and will not recant anythingfor to go against conscience is neitherright nor safe.So help me God so help me a God. Amen.As he said in German, so help me a God.Amen.

Now,this was a radical radical statestatement.Becausethe Catholic system was based on theauthority of the Pope and the Councilsof the Church.And those the Pope and the Councils ofthe Church had authority over the Bible.And Luther said, actually, the Councilsof the Church are always in disagreementwith one another. So who are we tobelieve?This Council says this, that Councilsays the other.So ultimately, we have to go back to thefoundation document, which is the Bibleitself.He was stripping away the ecclesiasticalpower of the entire the the CatholicChurch in all of Western Europe. So hewas he was attacking the financial basisfor the papacy and the political powerof the of the papacy. Andthis is the essence of the ProtestantReformation. We talk about script solascriptura, scripture alone, as opposedto tradition, and fide sola, by faithalone, and so forth and so forth.

Butthe essence of the ProtestantReformation is that God is up hereand I am down here.And before Luther,there was an ecclesiastical hierarchythat said, we have the right that stuckinto into pose between God and me. Andthat hierarchy said, we have the rightto determine what God can say to youby a dogma, and you cannot come to thepresence of God except you go throughour priests or our confessional.And that hierarchy said, we we are themediator between God and man.Whereas Paul writes to Timothy thatthere is only one mediator between Godand man, that is the man Jesus Christ.So the essence of the ProtestantReformation is deeper than scripturealone, and it's deeper than faith alone,is that you have a direct connection toGod.And no ecclesiastical hierarchy can comebetween you and your heavenly father.No ecclesiastical hierarchy, no group ofadministrators sitting somewhere else,has the right to determine what God canand cannot say to you.Now, this reached a crisis in ourcurrent church.Cuz I've been saying that the churchdoesn't have the right to override ourreligious liberty, which is the abilityto act in harmony with the convictionsof the Holy Spirit upon the conscienceof the believers. The church is saying,we have the right to determine what theHoly Spirit can and cannot say to you.It's the same struggle today as we had500 years ago in Europe.And today we say in our Adventist churchthat the that the supreme authority inthe church is the church voting in worldsession.But I would say that's kind of no longera Protestant position.The supreme authority in my lifehas to be the word of God.Not the decrees and councils of men,because they go back and forth on allkinds of issues.And so this is the essence of theProtestant Reformation,and it's not something to be takenlightly, because we say this is myright, but then you actually have tolive that right.If you believe that you have to live inharmony with what God is convicting youof through the understanding ofscriptures and the convictions of theHoly Spirit upon your conscience, thatmeans you need to read the scripturesfor yourself, study them for yourself,and when the Holy Spirit convictssomething on your conscience, you needto live in harmony with that.You can't just say, I won't listen tothe councils of men, I'm going to followmy conscience, then ignore yourconscience.So, if you're going to claim theProtestant position that I will read thescripture and God will give mesufficient understanding for mysalvation, that's why he gives us thescripture. God doesn't give us thescripture so we know all mysteries. Hegives us the scripture so we can besaved.And once I understand sufficient forsalvation, anything beyond that's like abonus point, you might say.But when God gives me understandingsufficient for for salvation, and I'mseeking to live my life according toGod's will, cuz I do pray, "Thy will bedone on in earth as it is in heaven."And that part of the Lord's Prayer, theonly parts of this world I have anyinfluence over is my own life.So when I say, "Thy will be done onearth as it is in heaven." I'm saying,"Thy will be done in my life."I can't control what happens in yourlife, but I can control what happens inmy life.

So I'm asking for God's will tobe supreme in my life, not my own fallenwill. That means I need to know thescriptures for myself.We can't just claim freedom fromecclesiastical hierarchies, then followour fallen desires, and claim that's thepromptings of the Holy Spirit.We're tofollow the convictions of the HolySpirit as we learn God's will for us inhis word.So I want to encourage you as whateverdenomination you are today, whether youhave a denomination or not,that the foundation of our liberties inthe West is this book here.It lifts people up. This book has beenbanned, it's been buried, it's beenburnt, it's been banishedbecause governments know this liberatesthe human mind.And if we are to be Protestants in thefinal crisis, and to say that my faithis built on the word of God, then weneed to know the word of God forourselves.Not what the pastor teaches, we need toknow it and read it for ourselves. Well,what happened wasjust aswith Wycliffe,Luther was condemned as a heretic.They they said in in the in thecondemnation that he could be killedwithout legal consequences, and hisfreedom of movement was actuallyrestricted for the rest of his life. Hewas tied to a certain part of Germanyfor the rest of his life.

Luther's greatsin in reality was that he hadchallenged the power of an absolutistecclesiastical hierarchy that thatclaimed the right to know God's will forhumanity. And shortly afterwards cameanother peasants' revolt in 1521 and1525. So after Wycliffe, there was apeasants revolt and after Luther, therewas also a peasants revolt. And thesetwo things had very very similarcontributing factors. In both of thesecases, you had high taxation, you hadhigh inflation, you had high rate risingcost of living, you had increasingpoverty between the elites in societyand the poor in society.

There was aforeign military adventures by thegovernment and there was a incredibledisconnect between the peasantry and theelites. Does that sound again familiarto today? Okay, it's the same thing. Soas you have this reformation goingforward in England with Wycliffe and inGermany with Luther, in both of thosecountries, the peasants heard what thereformers were saying and they got theirhands on the scriptures and they readthe scriptures for themselves and theysaid, "Excuse me, but we don't see thedivine right of aristocrats in thisBible.And we don't see that the king has theright to hold us in slavery.And we don't see the right for the kingto be an absolutist ruler and to have noparticipation civil government. And sothe peasants in both countries revoltedwhen these reformers were giving theirwritings.

Well, um as it happenedum they just suffered from the bubonicplague again in Germany. The old feudalstructures were collapsing and thepeasants were disillusioned with all thepolitical elites of that time.Similar to America today as well.There's disillusionment with ourpolitical elites and the peasants askedfor the entire political structure to beabolished and they wanted two rulers.Um Caesar and Peter.Peter was the Pope, Caesar was the HolyRoman Emperor. But then they got theirhands on Luther's writings, theyrealized they were the victims ofsystemic injustice and they becamepretty violent. And the the peasantsrevolt was put down with extremeviolence and many of them wereslaughtered in large numbers and Lutherwas so upset about the violence that hewrote this tract here called against themurderous and thieving hordes ofpeasants. So you kind of understoodwhere he stood in terms of the violencethat came out of just after theReformation there.

He denounced theviolence, and the authorities, theycrushed the German peasants revolt. Manywere executed, but the revolt left adeep scar on the German psyche as it didin the English psyche because manyLutheran pastors had sided with thepeasants as the Lollard preachers ofWycliffe had sided with the peasants inEngland.So, from that moment on, Catholic re-rulers went to great lengths to removeall evangelical, that is Protestantpreachers, from their lands for many,many years afterwards.Now, Luther's revolutionary contributionto our liberty todaywas the freeing of your relationship toGod from the need of intercession by anecclesiastical hierarchy.It's massive.You can get down by your bed tonight andask God for forgiveness.And you can pour out your heart to him.And that's entirely consistent withscripture. But until Wycliffe andTyndale, if you want to confess yoursin, you've got to go and see the Pope.Oh, sorry, the the the priest in thelocal confessional.And that priest gets to know all thejuicy gossip in the village.And the priest uses that to his ownimmoral advantage.And then the Pope had the doctrine thatstated if you criticized the priest, youwere criticizing the Pope, you would bekilled.So, you effectively institutionalizedpriests who were basically sexualpredators, and nobody could do anythingabout it for centuries across Europe.It was a terrible system that was setup. Based on scripture, Luther arguedthat no priest had the authority tointervene or come between the man orwoman and God.He argued that every individual, guidedby their conscience, can communicatewith God and both seek and receiveforgiveness for their sins, the promiseof salvation, without need for any humanpriest to hear confession, declareabsolution, receive determine penance,or pervert the Lord's Supper into themass. So, the conscience became themeeting place in your mind between Godand man.

The Christians are to be guidedby their conscience, but the conscienceisn't just alike aa blank sheet of paper. Our conscienceis being formed by our reading of theword of God. And when you read the wordof God for yourself, you you you youhave these moments when this suddenconviction seizes you, does it not? Andyou realize this is the Holy Spiritconvicting me of something here, andthen you act upon it. You act inobedience what the Holy Spirit isconvicting you through the word of God.And so the conscience becomes themeeting place between God and man.Luther championed freedom of conscienceover medieval church law and papalsupremacy.

Today, he'll be championingfreedom of conscience over theconscience-defining decisions of ourGeneral Conference outcome.That's just the way it is.So, let's come to today, shall we?I like putting things in charts. Justhelps me think things more think thingsmore clearly.So, I've got Wycliffe's time, Luther'stime, and today.So, in Wycliffe's time, and in Luther'stime, and today, there was a plague thatcaused economic and social havoc.They called it the bubonic, some calledit the black death, but it was a plague.It was caused by rats carrying somelittle ticks on them, and it was a veryvery bloody death. It was a veryunfortunate thing to get the plague. Andanyway, as today, so then we haveplagues changing society. In all threeinstances, we have rapid inflation.In all three instances, Wycliffe's time,Luther's time, and today, we have risingcosts of living.

That's impoverishingpeople.In all three cases, you have massivedisparities of power and wealth betweenthe elites in society and the people.History does tend to repeat itself. Inall three instances,you have high taxation from financingforeign wars.For me to hear in the news that we cansend 40 odd billion to Ukraine, but wehave nothing for the people of NorthCarolina is absurd.Is utterly absurd.UmAnd so in all three situations you hadrising social discontent. And in two ofthose you had a peasant's revolt inGermany and in England. And in all threeinstances you have a you have the arapid dissemin- nation of new ideas. Soin Wycliffe's time it was by the Lollardpreachers.

Those are poor preachers goaround the towns sharing their little umpassages of scripture and teaching thepeasants this is what the gospel say. InLuther's time the rapid dissemination ofidea was by the printing press and booksreally for the first time becomingeconomically viable all across Europe.And today we have YouTube.And praise the Lord for YouTube. But inall three circumstances you have therapid dissemination of new ideas. Andwhenever um whenever there is censorshipin society it's because the elites arefeeling threatened by the population.And the rapid flow of information takesaway the power of the elites to censoranything that would question or umdelegitimize their dominant role insociety. So I'm not talking aboutRepublican or Democrat here.

It's just asociological phenomenon. The poor nevercensor. It's always the rich andpowerful impose censorship on societies.And so you have the rapid disseminationof ideas. In all three circumstances theecclesiastical authorities jealouslyguarded their income.Some of you are laughing at that.In Wycliffe's timethey were jealous over the loss ofincome caused by Wycliffe's preaching.In Luther's time they were jealous overthe loss of income caused by hisdenunciation of indulgences.And todayif you speak for 2 minutes on the topicof tithe you will be canceled or bannedin our church.That's just the way it is.Then, in Wycliffe's time, Luther's time,and today, the ecclesiasticalauthorities assumed the right todetermine what God can or cannot say toman.I mean, as Protestants, we should not beassuming the right to tell other peoplewhat God can say.But, this is what we're doing right now.And that has been done to us in the last4 years. And that's what Luther wasfighting against.

That's what Wycliffewas fighting against.So, if you celebrate Luther andWycliffe, then presumably we uphold theprinciples that they stood for.Then, we also see that in all threesituations, the ecclesiasticalauthorities were indifferent to theconcerns and grievances of the commonfolk.They're aloof and indifferent to thepain that their policies have beencausing.We also find that in all threesituations, the civil and religiousauthorities combined to impose theirwill on the people and to override theconsciences of the people.Is this news for any of us today?No.We see in all three situations that Ijust did a cut and paste across threeall three eras cuz it's pretty much thesame. Dissenting preachers are placedunder a ban by the religious authoritiesthat seek to destroy their ministry andcancel their voice.And sister Barbara Lee, you know allabout that, don't you? Cancel culture.You know all about that.And the dissenters are banned.Now, in Wycliffe's time, there was apeasants' revolt. In Luther's time,there was a peasants' revolt.And I'm not arguing to say that we needa peasants' revolt. I just want to makethat absolutely clear.

I'm not arguingfor that.You may think that's where I'm leadingwith this. No, I'm not going in thatdirection, all right? I don't want to bemisquoted on this.But, we are to turn from faith in humanprinces to Jesus Christ.And the solution to our problems isfound in a renewed walk with our Lordand Savior, not in politicking orlobbying for this decision to be made orthat decision to be made. The solutionto our problems, all of our problems, isto be found in a vibrant, personal,salvific relationship with our Lord andSavior Jesus Christ. And in a sense,that's the revolution that we're lookingfor today because when we come to themark of the beast and all the structuresare either gone or they're compromised,it's going to be you and your faith inJesus Christ is going to get you throughthe final crisis.

So, we need to startliving today as we mean to live betweennow and through the time of trouble andJacob's time of trouble and the time oftrouble such as never has been sincenation came into existence, Daniel 12:1and 2, until Jesus comes again. So, Iwant to challenge us today. We're notlooking for a for revolt. We are lookingfor a renewed, vibrant walk in withJesus Christ in our lives because that'swhat's going to get us through to thegates of heaven above.And so, you might say that in Wycliffe'stime, truth triumphed.And in Luther's time, truth triumphed.And in this era, I wasn't quite surewhether I should put truth triumphs witha question mark or truth triumphs withan exclamation mark. I wasn't quite surewhat to put for this.Sorry?I got it right there, yes, truthtriumphs.

Well, as time goes by, truthis revealed more and more. A mother isthe time is the mother of truth, and ifyou just wait things out, truth but thetruth becomes evident to everybodyaround us.But I want to encourage you um thattruth is triumphant.And truth stands the test of time, andthe word true is an old English wordtrio. It's the same word as an oldEnglish word for a tree, and a treesurvives the storms of time because hasdeep roots.So, that which is true is deeply rooted,and it survives the tests of time. Itsurvives the storms that blow throughtown or through North Carolina. Umsomething may be popular, but it's notgoing to stand the test of time unlessit's true.And so, truth is triumphant preciselybecause it has deep roots and is basedon the word of God itself.

So, how doesthis apply to us here today? Well, uh ifwe're going to take that kind of turn inthis talk here, I like like therevolution we're looking for is arevolution in our personal walk withJesus Christ.Then the end church, the time of thechurch in the end of time is a Laodiceanchurch in Revelation chapter 3. And ifyou look in Revelation chapter 3, whereis Jesus in relation to that church atthe end of time? On the outside or onthe inside? Where is he?He's on the outside.

It's an astonishingthing. It is a church that says we arerich and increased in goods and haveneed of nothing.But Jesus says, "But you do not know."That means it is a self-deluded church.It thinks it has all this money and allthese institutions and all these bankaccounts and investment savings funds.But Jesus says, "You're blind and you'renakedand you have nothing."The text says, "Behold, I stand at thedoor and knock. If anyone hears my voiceand opens the door, I will come in tohim and dine with him and he with me."Now, thisJesus does not promise here that says Hedoes not say, "If the church hears myvoice."He says, "If any individual hears myvoice."So, in this end-time church of aLaodicean condition, where we know whatwe needs to do, but we don't do it,we're kind of lukewarm.If we're cold, we don't know what weneeds to do and we don't do it. If we'rehot, we know what we needs to do and wedo it. And if we're lukewarm, we knowwhat we do we know what we needs to do,but we don't do it.

If we're in thiscondition as an end-time church, Jesusis promising us as individuals that hewill come in and have a have a meal withus. What does that mean?UmIf you trust somebody, you have a mealwith them.For throughout the centuries, if youwere a king in many parts of the world,and you had a taster sitting next to youand everything before you put some soupin your mouth, the taster took a mouthof it first.And if the taster didn't drop over dead,you knew there wasn't any poison in thatsoup. So, So, applied for the job ofKing's tester, butumYou know what You know the story of mywife's and my thumb-in-law? Do you know?You know I don't need to tell thatagain, do you? No.I won't tell that story again.But, theBut, the the point about that is is thatif you trust somebody to eat with them,once that food passes your lips, youhave no control of what it does to yourbody.Once you If If you give me some food andI swallow it, it I'm trusting you withmy life.

That's what it's saying. I'mgoing to take this food into my body andI have no control of what it does to me.That's why sharing a meal with somebodyis an expression of absolute trust intheir in their good intentions to dotowards you.So, in this passage here, Jesus is onthe outside of the church. We might sayhe's on the outside of the inside ofyour heart today.But, he wants to come into your heart.We know what God asks of us and expectsof us, but God may still be on theoutside of our lives.And today we may be sitting here knowingthat Jesus is not in here. We're holdinghim at arm's length. I know what isright.I sometimes try to do what is right, butI know that Jesus is not in my hearttoday.

And he's still knocking on thedoor of my heart from the outside. Thisis a common experience for manydisciples today. Paul describes this inRomans chapter 7 in great detail. Thethings I want to do, I don't do. Thethings I don't do, I find myself doing.And this is a common experience for manyChristians today.

So, what does it meanin practice to allow Jesus into yourheart so you have a reformation in yourwalk with him? Well, John 1:1 is on thescreen there.It says, "In the beginning was the word,and the word was with God, and the wordwas God."That phrase in the beginning, en archein the Greek there, that echoes what wefind in Genesis 1:1, which also beginswith the word en arche in the Greektranslation, "in the beginning." And so,this version This This verse is tellingus that that Jesus was with the Fatherin the time in the process of creation.He is the word of God. He was with theword was with God and the word was God.In Genesis 1:1 is a profound statementbecause you have in the beginning,that's time, God created the heavens,that is space, and the earth, that ismatter. Yes? Time, space, and matter inthat sentence.

When when Einstein camealong, Einstein before Einstein, ourphysicists thought you have time, andthen the the universe came intoexistence, and time goes from left toright on the sheet of paper. That's howwe visualize time. And Einsteindemonstrated that time, space, andmatter are like a ball of wool. They'reall interrelated. You can't have timewithout space and matter.

You cannothave space without time and and andmatter. You cannot have matter withouttime and space. They're like a a ball ofwool. And you cannot have one withoutthe other. And so that's our modernunderstanding of the universe.

AndGenesis 1 actually says that in thebeginning, time, there was God createdthe heavens and the earth. That's time,space, and matter. But it also tells usthat God is outside of his creation.He's outside of that creation. So he'snot subject to the physical limitationsof being inside his creation. But thisverse here, John 1:1, says that Jesus isthe word of God.So what do we need to come into ourlife?The word.I may have a Bible at home,but I need to eat it.

I need tointernalize it. I need to study it. Ineed to know it for it to enter my life.And when somebody is in hospital andthey're dying of cancer, and you turn toa page in their Bible, you pretty soonsee whether they're reading that Bibleat all or not.Because you can see from all theunderlineings what's really important tothem.You know, if somebody's dying of cancerin a hospital bed, and somebody says,"Can you read a Bible verse to them?"Just open their Bible and look for theunderlined parts, because you knowthat's what's significant to them.It's a quick way of knowing what'ssignificant to somebody. But I need toput the word into my mouth. I need toeat the word.

It's not part of my lifeif it's gathering dust on the shelf. Wecan labor it outward obedience, yetremain unchanged in our hearts if we donot take the word of God into ourbodies.Hebrews 4:12 talks about the power ofGod.The word of God is living and active,sharper than any two-edged sword,piercing until it divides soul fromspirit, joints from marrow, is able tojudge the thoughts and intentions of theheart. So, God's word is powerful.And Psalm 33:9 says this,he spoke and it was what?And it was done.Okay? So, uh when God speaks, his wordshave creative power, they changephysical reality. God spoke the worldinto existent.

He said, "Let there belight." And there was light. If I have aFord, no offense to Ford owners here,but if I have a Ford and said, "Let itbe a Ferrari." It would still be a Ford.If God takes a look at my Ford and say,"Let it be a Ferrari." It'll be aFerrari.Because God cannot lie. Because God'svery word changes physical reality.So, when God speaks, it is. That's aprinciple we find in scripture. And so,God's work word has creative power, myword does not.

So, just imagine Peter isin the boat on the Sea of Galilee. Theboat feels like it's going to flounderand they're all going to drown. AndPeter sees Jesus walking to him on thewater. And Peter believes that Jesus hascreative power in his word. He's seen itin action.

So, Jesus says to Peter oneword, "Come." And in that word is thepower to make it true. As long as Petersteps onto the water and he keeps hiseyes on Jesus and he believes that theword of God is powerful to make Jesuscommand come true in his life, he canwalk on water.But the moment he turns his eyes fromJesus and starts doubting that the wordof Jesus has authoritative power tochange physical reality, then that'swhen he sinks into the water.And he feels like he's going to drown.Moses in the wilderness is in the samesituation. God commands him to hit therock so that water will come out of it.Moses knows that he has no logical powerto make water come out of the rock inthe wilderness, but he also understandsthat God's word has creative power. So,he acts in a faith and he struck thestrikes the rock and out comes water.He understands, having written Genesis1, that God's word is creative andpowerful to make his words come true.When God says something, the power inhis word brings that thing to reality.The Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, isthat we normally call it the TenCommandments, yes? But in Deuteronomychapter 4 and verse 12, it calls it theTen Words.Some of your translations actually saycommandments there, but the Hebrew wordis debarim and the word for word isdebarim and it also means promise.So, the Ten Commandments are not justthou shalt not kill,they are a promise from God that if youfulfill this commandment, you will livein a society free from the threat ofphysical violence.Thou shalt not commit adultery is apromise from God.

If you fulfill thatcommandment, you will live in a societythree free from fornication, adultery,pornography use and the breakup ofmarriages.These are promises from God to peoplewhen they live out his commandments.Thou shalt not steal is a society whereGod promises, "If you fulfill thiscommandment of mine, the promiseimplicit in my word is you never need toworry about locking your doors. Youdon't need to close your windows atnight. You don't need to worry aboutpeople breaking in and stealing becauseif everybody follows these commandments,there is a promise that society will betransformed."So, God's word has creative power. "Hitthe rock," God says to Moses, "waterwill come out." "Show yourself to thepriests," Jesus said to lepers, "and youwill be healed." "Walk on water," Jesussaid to Peter, "and you will not sink.""Dip seven times into the Jordan,"Naaman, "and you will be cleansed ofyour leprosy." All of these things arephysically impossible, but the power ofGod comes through and God when peopleaccept God's word at face value, actupon it, and open their lives to thepower of God to run through them in in away they've never seen before.God doesn't ask you necessarily today towalk on water, hit the rocks, or to dipseven times in the Jordan.But he does command us to keep the TenCommandments. That's why they're calledcommandments.

And to love one another asChrist has first loved us.And if I believe the same thing aboutthe creative power in God's word as didPeter, Moses, Naaman,then all of God's commands come true inmy life. Not because I make it so, butbecause the word of God has the power tomake it come true in and of itself. Thebook Desire of Ages by my favoriteauthor says this, "The means by which wecan overcome the wicked one is that bywhich Christ overcame the power of theword." Christ overcame by the power ofthe word in the temptations in thewilderness. He claimed the power of theword. And if I want to be a hotChristian, not a cold or lukewarmChristian, the secret is taking in theword of God.

It's relying on the word ofGod for power, not in ourselves forpower to overcome sin ourselves.Externally it may look the same, but thekey difference is in the heart. That iswhere we decide for ourselves eventoday. When you help somebody, is itbecause you are strong? Or are youtrusting that God's word will give youthe power to help that other individual?Christ's object lesson says this, "Inevery command and in every promise ofthe word of God is the power, the verylife of God, by which the command may befulfilled and the promise realized. Hewho by faith receives the word isreceiving the life and character ofGod."Many religions have good teachings, butthey have no power to make it come truein your life.Christianity does because it is theliving word of God that comes into yourheart.

We have lots of good ideas, butwe actually need transformed people whoare transformed by the indwelling ofJesus Christ, the word of God. Every manor woman that is in Christ is indeed anew creation. We are born again by theword of God, according to Peter, andit's the power in God's word that givesus new spiritual growth. Christ ObjectLessons describes it this way, "Thegermination of the seed represents thebeginning of spiritual life, and thedevelopment of the plant is a beautifulfigure of Christian growth. As innature, so in grace, there can be nolife without growth."I say that to my wife when I say I'dlike some bigger trousers, and shedoesn't quite agree with that.The plant must either grow or die.

Asits growth is silent and imperceptible,but continuous, so is the development ofthe Christian life. At every stage ofdevelopment, our life may be perfect,yet if God's purpose for us isfulfilled, there will be continual what?Advancement. Sanctification is the workof alifetime. As our opportunities multiply,our experience will enlarge and ourknowledge will increase. We shall becomestrong to bear responsibility, and ourmaturity will be in proportion to itsprivileges.

So, as Adventists today,I want to challenge you that if we'regoing to live out the ProtestantReformation, our focus needs to be onfeeding daily on the word of God, thatis Jesus Christ as found in the Gospels.And do you know the Gospels?Do you know the teachings of Jesus?Blessed are the peacemakers, for theyshall be calledchildren of God. Blessed are the pure inheart, for they shallsee God. Um pray for those whodespitefully use you. All right, so onceyou know the teachings of Jesus, andthey're in your head, and they're inyour heart, they become part of yourvery being, and that word has power tomake those principles come true in yourlife without you having to physicallymake the effort to do it, God does thatfor you.God transforms you from the inside out.If you accept God's word into your life,you're accepting his power into yourlife. As you receive his word by faith,that is the righteousness of JesusChrist, he will give you the power toovercome sin.And if we think that we can remain insin,let me say this to you.In the final crisis, the mark of thebeast is breaking the fourthcommandment, yes?If you think you can remain in sin andstill be saved, that means logically youcan receive the mark of the beast andstill be saved.Cuz that's breaking the fourthcommandment.Therefore, God does want us to gainvictory over sin.He wants us to gain victory over sin.Now, that may be the work of a lifetime.I understand that.But the goal does not change.He wants us to be transformed so weperfectly represent the character of ourheavenly Father.

Our standard ofcharacter is not our pastor, is not ourparents, is not the general conferencepresident, it is Jesus Christ himself.That is the benchmark, that is thegolden standard against which we measureourselves. The number one gospel we havean number one obstacle we have inadvancing the gospel is the lack oftransformation among Christians, andthat can also be the greatest advantage.What the world needs now more than everbefore is a revelation of the characterof Jesus Christ. Loving Christians whomanifest God Christ's character in theirlives, who have gained victory over sin,who do keep the commandments of God, andwho sacrificially love their neighborsas themselves. As Christ's object lessongoes on to say, Christ is seeking toreproduce himself in the hearts of men.The object of the Christian life iswhat?Fruit bearing. There are two kinds offruit, the reproduction of Christ'scharacter in the believer that it may bereproduced in others.

When the characterof Christ will be perfectly reproducedin his people, then he will to come toclaim them as his own. And so, the endof time there are within the churchthere are two groups of people, thewheat and the tares.And the wheat are sold out forrighteousness. The tares look like wheatuntil the harvest. And when the harvestcomes, the tares are revealed to berotten and poisonous.And it's very hard to determine who iswho growing in the churchsimultaneously.But you can make a choice today whichgroup you want to be in.And the Protestant Reformation doesn'tneed to stop with your parents orwhoever brought you the gospel. It canlive through you today and bringblessings to other people as well.God is looking for a people who willreproduce the character of Jesus Christtodaythrough a personal transformation.This comes when I stop looking to selfand looking to Jesus day by day byfaith.I lose myself in his character and inhis love.

I find my character changing.As that old slaverwho wrote Amazing Grace. What was hisname again?The guy who wrote Amazing Grace.Yeah, John Newton. Sorry. I've had asenior moment. My hair is gray.He said,"I'm not the man I want to be,but by God's grace neither am I the manI used to be."And each one of us can look back at ourlives and realize how God has changed usstep by step, day by day.

Our part inthis is to cooperate with God on a dailybasis.So, what are we saying in conclusionhere today? The church of God is not abuilding. It's not a legal corporation.It's not a 501c3 under the IRS code.But, the church of God are thecommandment keeping, covenant faithfuldisciples of Jesus Christ who gather forworship, the study of the word, forprayer, to ministry one among another,and to share their faith with others.Together they are marching to Zion. Asthe Protestant Reformation advanced fromthe 1300s to today, it's our privilegeto continue that Protestant Reformationtoday until Jesus comes again.There are three components of that. WithWycliffe,you have the written word.That should say written, not printed.Wycliffe and his Lollards were handingout portions of scriptureand they transformed England because theplowboy was more learned in scripturethan the Archbishop of Canterbury.People diedthat might have this in our hands today.I spoke today about the country ofGeorgia, the Republic of Georgia in theCaucuses, where you simply cannot getBibles.You can't buy them.You have old-fashioned Bibles in alanguage that's 700 years old, but forour missionaries with underground Biblestudy groups, they can't get Bibles cuznobody prints them in the country.And we need Bibles.The Bible, the word of God, is the seed.For there to be a harvest, the seed mustbe planted.

There have to be Bibles inthat language.People died that we might have this. So,I want to encourage you today, read thisfor yourself, treasure it, study it,know it, and live it.When you come to Luther,you move on to the question of theliving word.That is the the incarnate Christ. In thefullness of time, we read in thescripture, God sent His Son.God did not send His Son into the worldto condemn the world, but that the worldmight be saved through Him.The living word died that whosoeverbelieveth in Him should not perish, buthave everlasting life.I want to challenge you todaywith the principles of Luther. Learnfrom the teachings of Jesus, base yourlife on His teachings, love Him, andtrust Him for your salvation.And today, from the Advent movement on,we talk about the indwelling Christ.If anybody is in Christ, he is a what?A new creation. Everything old haspassed away.

Behold, everything hasbecome new. Why?Because we have now received therighteousness of Jesus Christ, whichtransforms us from the inside out andfits us for heaven above.Today, we are to die to self in order tobe born again.Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I say toyou, unless a man be born again, hecannot see the kingdom of God." Ifanyone wants to be my followers, went onto say, "Let them deny themselves, takeup their cross, and follow me." Thisleads to Christ in you, the hope ofglory. Colossians 1:27.The Protestant Reformation has come along way.And the proclamation of the threeangels' messages, God's last offer ofmercy to our dying world, presupposesthat everybody on planet Earth can hearthe gospel and they can respond in faithto God.Does that make sense? Fear God and giveglory to him for the hour of hisjudgment has come.It assumes everybody can actually fearGod and give glory to him.That is why as Adventists we shouldalways stand for liberty of conscience,no matter how politically it may be nomatterhow politically incorrect it may be atany given time in human history. We muststand for liberty of conscience becausethe world needs it in order to respondthe final message of love and mercy fromGod to our dying world.So, I want to challenge you todayto accept the gift of salvation freelyoffered you by a loving heavenly Father.You have the religious liberty inAmerica today to accept Jesus as yourLord and Savior.Make use of that freedom.People around the world would yearn tohave the freedom to sit in a hall likethis,to hear presentations, to have the Biblein their hands, and to give their livesto Jesus Christ without being arrestedor executed for apostasy.We have such incredible freedoms inAmerica today.

Don't take them forgranted.And if you're already a disciple ofJesus Christ, I want to challenge youtodayto affirm afresh your covenant walk withJesus.That you're going to live seeking thelost, you're going to live lovinglyamong your brothers and sisters, andyou're going to live humbly andfaithfully before our heavenly Father.May the Protestant Reformation not justbe something on the shelves.May be a reformation in our lives today.In our relationship with our heavenlyFather, in our relationship with thosearound us, and our relationship withgenerations to come.When the gospel flows through us toother people, it cleans us out on theinside.The reason God calls us into ministryis not because he can't reach peoplehimself.He calls us into ministry because that'show he saves us.When we're laboring for others, we cometo know the scriptures for ourselves.When we're laboring for others, we cometo appreciate the value of a soul toGod. When we labor for others, we we putGod's concerns ahead of our concerns.When we labor for others, we start tosee the crowds as did Jesus who neverfailed to look upon a crowd withcompassion, for he knew they were likesheep without a shepherd. When we laborfor others, we participate in God's lovefor a dying world.So, use the liberty you have here in theCarolinasand shine for Jesus.Use your liberty to share the gospel inwhichever which way you can.Be a force for good in the Carolinasuntil Jesus comes again. And when Jesuscomes againand we all get to heaven, I'm not surewhat kind of histories we're going toget in heaven,but it would be nice if in the annals ofeternity, they were talking about JohnDoe who went to this camp meeting andwas a force for good until Jesus cameagain, or a Jane Doe.I want to be in those annals of historyfor eternity.I want to have stars in my crown.I want the gospel not to stop with me,but to flow through me to a world aroundme.That is our privilege as born-againChristians today. May God shine throughyou, may he equip you, may he lead you.And when Jesus comes again,will there be an army of people is myprayer on that sea of glass because wehere today in North Carolina took up thegospel challenge, said we will shine forJesus in the midst of growing darkness.May God bless us as we shine for him.Amen.Why don't we close oureyes and we'll we'll close this sessionwith a word of prayer.Heavenly Father,heavenly Father,we live in a world that says in the wordof that parable in Luke 19,"We will not have this man to rule overus."And Father, you've given us talentsand the smart option is just to burythat talentbecause we don't know if the master willreturn with kingly authority or not.But Lord, you've given us some onetalent, some five, some twoin order that we might take a publicrisk and trade for youin a world that is hostileand a world that mocks the idea of thatreturning king.So Father, I pray that we will not burythe talents we have.But I pray that we will take a risk inthe marketplace of eternity.That we will shine for you with thegifts you've given us.That we'll be unashamed of our soonreturning Lord and Savior.That people will know in our communitythat we are servants of Jesus Christ.And Jesus, when you come again in theclouds of gloryour prayer today is that we will notonly receive a heavenly rewardbut we'll hear those beautiful words,"Well done, good and faithful servant.Enter into the joy that has beenprepared for you."Until that day, Father may we faithfullyuse the talents even entrusted to us.May they multiply and grow for yourname's sake.

This we ask in Jesus' name.Amen. Amen.