Greetings, this is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. Today, I want to ask you, how does your understanding of church history, or perhaps your lack thereof, shape what you believe about God and, in part, shape your eternal destiny? It is an important but neglected area of teaching in the life of the church today. So many of our practices in the church are conditioned upon about what we assume about church history.

That ours is the only true church, for example, because it disappeared soon after the apostles died and has only been restored recently. Or others think that we do not need a liturgy in our worship services, for example, because all that superstitious stuff crept in on to the church over its history. But history does not always bear out our assumptions when history is studied closely. So today, I want to speak to three audiences in particular. That is the Latter-day Saint, the Born-Again Evangelical, and the Roman Catholic.

I, myself, am Presbyterian, and I want to ask you some very pertinent questions about church history. All three groups, all three audiences have much to benefit from an impartial, close study of church history. We at New Geneva are preparing to launch a one-year Bible study into the history of the church using Dr. Bruce Shelley's excellent book, Church History in Plain Language. Now, for most of us out here, for most laymen, it is the only church history book that you will ever need.

It will be the primary text that we will use in conjunction with other material that I will supply to illustrate and expand upon what Dr. Shelley teaches in his book. Now, our study will begin on Wednesday night, October 7th at 7 p.m. in our Church Fellowship Hall at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. This study of church history will continue thereafter on Wednesday night, same time, same place. If you've been curious about who and what we are, too, as a church, this is an excellent time to check us out and meet our people and me. Call us for more information at 3123-0196.

Let me turn now to the necessity for a proper understanding of church history to your soul, to those who love and serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, first, to my friends and neighbors in the Mormon Church. Have you given close, objective scrutiny to your church's teaching concerning what they call the Great Apostasy? Dear LDS friend and neighbor, this is the doctrine, the doctrine of the great apostasy that teaches that soon after the deaths of the apostles, the true church of the New Testament disappeared until restored by Joseph Smith.

It bears great significance for the claims of Mormonism because only if this doctrine is true can Joseph Smith claim to have restored the true church. Very important to keep in mind. Only if this supposed great apostasy of the New Testament church actually occurred, only if this is true can Joseph Smith claim to have restored the true church with its vast and innumerable differences and contradictions with the Bible and with the Christian church of history. I quote Joseph Smith now. He says, my object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join.

I was answered that I must join none of them for they were all wrong and the personages who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight, that those professors were all corrupt, unquote. And then to add, to fill out, to flesh out this LDS understanding of the Great Apostasy, let me also quote from Apostle Orson Pratt and his Journal of Discourses. And I quote Orson Pratt now, this great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now.

A short time after the death of the last of the apostles, the Christian church, what few of them remained, were persecuted from mountain to mountain, from den to den, from one cave of the earth to another, and from nation to nation until they were entirely exterminated and rooted out of the earth. Well, what was left? An apostate Christianity, a Christianity without revelators, without any voice of God, without any prophets to unfold the future, without visions, without any communications from the heavens, unquote, from Apostle Orson Pratt in his Journal of Discourses. Let me ask you, sincere Latter-day Saint, what kind of God would do this?

What kind of God would do this to his people so soon after promising otherwise? What kind of God would abandon the whole world for almost two millennia, abandon it to darkness and paganism without the supposed true church that Joseph Smith restored? This is from Prophet Brigham Young in his Journal of Discourses. He says, the time came when paganism was engrafted into Christianity, and at last, Christianity was converted into paganism rather than converting the pagans, unquote. Oh, I ask you, dear Mormon friend, what kind of God would do this?

This is the God that you have, the kind of God who would abandon his church so soon after promising otherwise. Jesus said in Matthew 28, for example, Jesus came to them and said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the earth. Did you hear that?

Jesus promised that he would be with his church always to the very end of the age. The Bible presents a Savior with the authority and the commission for the church to make disciples of all nations with the guarantee, behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. There's no hint of abandonment and great apostasy here, but rather of a certain and ineluctable growth of that church like that of a mustard seed.

Jesus told this parable of the mustard seed, which when sown on the ground is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade, unquote. Nowhere in the Bible is there a hint of an aborted church, an abandoned church, a completely apostate church. Certainly there has been apostasy and setback in the life of the church over the centuries. Indeed, it was promised.

Paul said, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them, unquote, from Acts chapter 20. But what Paul said there in his warning is a far cry from the claims of Mormonism that, as Orson Pratt says, there has been no Christian church on the earth for a great many centuries past until the present century, unquote.

This is a far cry from what Jesus said and from what the apostles said. Rather, the truth is much closer to how the Westminster divines put it in the Westminster Confession. And I quote from chapter 25 of that confession, and it says there, the purest churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error, and some have so degenerated as to become no churches of Christ but synagogues of Satan. Nevertheless, oh, and this is so important to bear in mind because the Bible and church history bears this out.

Nevertheless, the Westminster Confession goes on to say, there shall always be a church on earth to worship God according to his will, unquote. To take the Bible's warning about a falling away and periods of declension and apostasy, which all churches and the Bible frankly admit will happen, and then stretch it to mean that there has been no Christian church on earth for a great many centuries past as Orson Pratt says, this is to distort the Bible and the record of church history. Jesus promised his disciples, I will not leave you as orphans.

And he declared that the church would be unstoppable in its mission such that hell itself could not stop it. Jesus said, Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered Peter, blessed are you, Simon Bardona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven, unquote, the words of Jesus.

This is just how the record of church history bears testimony to, and we'll be studying this, of course, in our course on church history. With no army at its disposal, the ancient church conquered the Roman Empire by word and sacrament rather than sword and fire. Persecuted, hounded, killed, and tortured, the church remained steadfast in its witness, such that those who saw them in that cynical, corrupt, and debauched age, much like our own, these came to faith in great numbers. The church father Cyprian put it best when he said of that age, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

Well, the gates of Rome at that time were metaphorically speaking the very gates of hell, and they did not prevail as the church stormed those gates with its best weapons, that is, word and sacrament, powerful in the hands and mouths. Of the church. At the collapse of the Roman Empire, as barbarians swept over it in invasion after invasion, Europe entered into what is called the Dark Ages. Oh, the Dark Ages. In reality, however, it was the time when the church began to build Western civilization as we know it.

They began to build this civilization on the ashes of pagan Rome, and they began to do it on Christian principle. For example, one of my favorite characters of this period is Charlemagne. He lived, of course, during the latter half of the 8th century and the early part of the 9th century, and he fostered education. There was, in fact, an Enlightenment period during his reign, and where he fostered education, he fostered religion, he fostered strength. This is what he said to his degenerate nobles.

He said, and I quote Charlemagne, you nobles, you sons of my chiefs, you superfine dandies, you have trusted in your birth and your possessions, and have set at naught my orders to your own advancement. You have neglected the pursuit of learning. This is what I mean by our Renaissance during the Dark Ages by Charlemagne. He said to his nobles, you have neglected the pursuit of learning, and you have given yourselves over to luxury and sport, to idleness and profitless pastimes. By the King of Heaven.

Indeed, Charlemagne was a very religious man. He said, by the King of Heaven, I take no account of your noble birth and your fine looks, though others may admire you for them. Know this for certain, that unless you make up for your former sloth by vigorous study, you will never get any favor from Charles, unquote. All through this period and the time of the Middle Ages, the church nurtured things like science. All of the early scientists were men of the church.

They nurtured humane principles of civilization, like the just war theory begun by St. Augustine. They nurtured things like property rights, the Magna Carta, for example. They nurtured things like personal liberty, the church did, the English Bill of Rights, for example. The church played a large role in all of these things. The true, vigorous church of those early centuries, slowly, imperceptibly, however, became almost as corrupt and decadent as the empire she had conquered before in Rome.

This time, it was the late 15th and early 16th century, cried out for reform, and God provided a reformer, Martin Luther. And around him and others like him, like John Calvin and John Knox, coalesced a whole series of sweeping, thoroughgoing reforms in the church, that a clear protest was being established against the Roman Catholic Church of the time. And those who espoused that reform, those who espoused that protest, were called derisively Protestants or Protestants. I consider myself still a true Protestant. For our purposes, it is important to note that none of the reformers wished to leave the church either, the church of that day.

They saw elements in that church that it remained as the true church. Instead, they became Protestant churches, Protestant churches, names that we now know, like Lutheran and Reformed and Presbyterian and Baptist, because they were kicked out. They were excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church of the day. So, even during this stressful, desperate time in the church's history, God was faithful in keeping a true church upon the earth, even purifying it through reform. So he has done, since the Reformation too, right up to our own day.

Even during the period of Joseph Smith's revelations, there remained a true church on the earth, that Smith must join none of them, as he said, for they were all wrong. And with the personages who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight, that those professors were all corrupt. Oh, this is just flat wrong. It flies in the face of Jesus' promises, I will not leave you as orphans. Behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age.

I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Dear LDS friend and neighbor, if your church is correct, then Jesus did leave us as orphans for two millennia. If your church is correct, then Jesus was not with us always, much less to the end of the age. If your church is correct, then the gates of hell did prevail against the church, and Satan won a grand victory. So, note here the differences between the Christian God of the Bible and that of Mormonism.

That is, one church has a God who promises to be with his church always, but abandons it for two millennia and lets it slide into apostasy. The other church has a God who promises faithfulness throughout the generations of the church and is with her always, even to the end of the age. As the church can say with the psalmist David, David said, all his work is done in faithfulness. Oh, Lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me, and your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me. Oh, that he has done with his church, dear listener.

Before we proceed, though, let me remind you that we at New Geneva are preparing to launch a one-year Bible study into the history of the church. We're going to use the book Church History in Plain Language. Our study will begin on Wednesday night, October 7 at 7 p.m. in our church fellowship hall at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard, and it will continue thereafter on Wednesday night. You don't need to be at the previous lesson to understand the lesson of that night, and if you've been curious about who and what we are as a church, this is an excellent time to check us out. Call us at 523-0196 for more information.

Also, let me say a word about potential criticism of this message as perhaps being somehow anti-Mormon. I'm not anti-Mormon. I'm responding in a calm, rational manner to an assertion by Mormons that could easily be construed by traditional Christians as anti-Christian. How do you think we feel when you say that our rich and powerful heritage of the growth of the church by a faithful God is false, apostate, and pagan? Yet I refuse to be offended.

Instead, I will respond in a friendly, rational manner to these arguments with arguments of my own. That second argument must be number two. My second argument concerning the supposed great apostasy is that apostasy has always been the cry of heretics and schismatics. Apostasy throughout the history of the church has always been the cry of heretics and schismatics. Every new prophet that comes along throughout church history, it's part of the value of studying church history as you begin to see this pattern, has been to create some historical distance and some separation from that traditional church.

Oftentimes, the more radical that distance and separation, the better this is done by condemning the church in its present state and then offering the prophet and his pure, unique gospel as the alternative. Montanus did this in the third century by condemning the church and anointing himself as the embodiment of the Holy Spirit. Thomas Munzer cried apostate over the reformers in the 16th century, and he led a rebellion of peasants in Germany, setting himself up as virtual prophetic dictator.

And then in our own era, John Nelson Darby, the inventor of dispensationalism, John Nelson Darby taught that there were no true churches on the earth, so corrupt had they become, and that believers should hereafter gather together as brethren rather than as church members. On and on we could go. Seventh-day Adventists, the Moonies, the Children of God, Jehovah's Witnesses, every sect and cult wishing to establish its own authenticity, its own authority, must first do so by isolating the church in its present condition as apostate, so that people will flock to them and embrace their purified gospel. Joseph Smith is no more than one of these.

Thirdly, my third argument for my LDS friends and neighbors, that is number three, if your God first made promises of faithfulness, but later abandoned his church to apostasy, how can you be sure the same has not happened to you? Many of my LDS friends are fond of quoting from their scriptures, for example, that the same thing that happened to the church of the first century won't happen to them. For example, I quote from the book of Mosiah of the LDS scriptures. He says, Alma, arise and stand forth, for why persecute thou the church of God?

For the Lord hath said, this is my church, and I will establish it, and nothing shall overthrow it, save it as the transgression of my people, unquote. So, while God apparently promised through Jesus that he would not leave his church as orphans, and that he would be with them always, even to the end of the age, but then promptly abandoned them to a great apostasy for 2,000 years, we are now expected to believe that he really means the promises given to Joseph Smith and the Mormon church, that this is my church, and I will establish it, and nothing shall overthrow it. Dear LDS friend, how can you be so sure?

After all, he made the same promises to the apostle in the first century. Did he not? Might he not break them again with you? The believers all through the 2,000-year history of the Christian church that you say as apostate, they were just like you. They believed sincerely in their hearts that this church was the true church, and they bet their souls, so to speak, that this was true.

The evidence is abundant throughout church history, an advantage of studying it, as we shall see as we study church history this fall in our Wednesday night Bible study. But yet now, Joseph Smith comes along, and he tells this church that, no, you were believing a lie. What you call a church is really apostasy. You've been deceived and deluded. I have the real thing.

Well, let me ask you, dear Mormon friend and neighbor, is it not possible that the same thing has happened to you, if it happened once already in church history? Is it not possible that despite all of the sincerity you can muster, that you believe in your heart of hearts that Joseph Smith is a prophet, and that the LDS church is the only true church, is it not possible that, even if it were the real deal at first, and we'll grant this just for the sake of argument, even if the Mormon church was the real deal at first, that now it has fallen away into apostasy, no matter how strongly you may feel to the contrary?

Oh, is it not just within the realm of possibility? On your premises, you have no assurance that your church is the only true church. On your own premises, you have no assurance that the LDS church has not fallen into apostasy over the course of its history. It may well have fallen into apostasy, and you do not even know it. In fact, there's good evidence that this might indeed be so.

There are other sects of Mormonism that practice perhaps a purer form of Mormonism than the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Latter-day Church of Christ, the Apostolic Brethren, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, all practice the essential doctrine of plural marriage, for example. They believe with Orson Pratt, and I quote him now from his Journal of Discourses. He said, it will be seen that the Messiah, who was the founder of the Christian religion, was a polygamist.

The Messiah chose by marrying many honorable wives himself to show all future generations that he approved of the plurality of wives under the Christian dispensation in which his polygamist ancestors lived, unquote. These various sects are faithful to this doctrine. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not. Dear listener, you may well belong to an apostate church on your own historical premises and not even know it. There are also many sects, these same sects of Latter-day Saints, who still hold to the doctrine of the curse of black skin, for example.

Originally, a universally accepted teaching of the LDS Church, this idea of the curse of black skin was politically embarrassing, was it not, during the civil rights movement. Owing to this curse, blacks were an inherently inferior class of member who could not hold the priesthood. Thus, in 1978, LDS President Spencer Kimball announced that God had removed the curse, despite the weight of LDS teaching to the contrary. The curse will not be removed in this life, said Brigham Young. Bruce McConkie said Negroes in this life are denied the priesthood.

Under no circumstances can they hold this delegation of authority from the Almighty, unquote. Dear LDS friend and neighbor, in many ways, there is enough evidence to question whether Joseph Smith or Brigham Young would recognize the church that they founded. Any honest Mormon has to question whether, indeed, his church has remained faithful to its founding principles or whether it is, dare I say it, apostate.

If, on LDS premises, if, on LDS premises, the church once lapped into a great apostasy so swiftly after being promised, I will not leave you as orphans, behold, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age, well, then it can happen again. And all promises given to the church of Jesus Christ, of Latter-day Saints, to the contrary. All of these conditions are warranted given the church's view of church history. This is why a close study of church history is so important to our faith.

In addition to that of the Bible, church history, while not infallible scripture, does show us the panorama of God's faithfulness over the period of redemptive history. God redeems in real history, and the study of history will reveal that faithfulness. For this reason, we at New Geneva are preparing to launch a one-year Bible study into the history of the church using Dr. Bruce Shelley's excellent book, Church History in Plain Language. Now, for most of us, it's the only church history book that we'll ever need. So buy it and read it.

Come with us and study. You can question me on my understanding of the great apostasy as well. Our study will begin on Wednesday night, October 7, at 7 p.m. in our Church Fellowship Hall at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. It will continue every Wednesday night thereafter. If you've been curious about who and what we are as a church, too, it's an excellent time to check us out, meet our people, meet me, Pastor Dave Bass.

Call us for more information at 523-0196. In future weeks, we hope to show why the study of church history is also crucial for our evangelical as well as our Roman Catholic friends. Our understanding of church history, or lack of it, helps to shape our understanding of the Bible and worship, even the particular church that we attend. Join us for this study. New Geneva also meets for holy worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard.

Call us at 523-0196. Once again, if you've been wondering who and what we are as a church, perhaps you've been reluctant to check us out, well, this is the time to cross our threshold and visit us as a church. We'd love to see you. You'll find a warm welcome. You'll also find a very traditional worship service, fidelity to the Bible in our preaching, and also fidelity to the basic principles of the church.

Once again, this is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. We meet for holy worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. Our telephone number is 523-0196.