1 00:00:05,230 --> 00:00:09,990 Greetings, this is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church 2 00:00:09,990 --> 00:00:14,669 with a moment of truth where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and 3 00:00:14,669 --> 00:00:21,750 faith, and today, how does your understanding of church history, or perhaps the lack thereof, 4 00:00:22,109 --> 00:00:27,609 shape what you believe about God, and in part, helps to shape your eternal destiny? 5 00:00:28,329 --> 00:00:33,710 This is an important but neglected area of teaching in the life of the church today. So 6 00:00:33,710 --> 00:00:38,850 many of our practices in the church are conditioned upon what we assume about church history. 7 00:00:39,609 --> 00:00:44,969 For example, that ours is the only true church because it disappeared soon after the apostles died 8 00:00:44,969 --> 00:00:51,009 and has only been restored recently. That's a common theme, isn't it? Or that we do not need 9 00:00:51,009 --> 00:00:56,030 a liturgy in our worship services because all that superstitious stuff crept into the church over its 10 00:00:56,030 --> 00:01:04,870 history. But does history always bear out these assumptions when history is studied closely? Well, 11 00:01:05,069 --> 00:01:08,969 today, I want to speak to one audience in particular, and that is the born-again 12 00:01:08,969 --> 00:01:16,569 evangelical Christian. You have much to benefit from an impartial, close study of church history. 13 00:01:16,930 --> 00:01:23,170 We at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church are launching a one-year Bible study. We have done so 14 00:01:23,170 --> 00:01:29,329 already, we're one week into it, into the history of the church, using Dr. Bruce Shelley's excellent book, 15 00:01:29,629 --> 00:01:36,170 Church History in Plain Language. It will be the primary text that we will use in conjunction with 16 00:01:36,170 --> 00:01:41,569 other material that I will supply to illustrate and expand upon what Dr. Shelley teaches in his book. 17 00:01:42,069 --> 00:01:48,189 Now, our study's begun already, 7 p.m. in our church fellowship hall, but you don't have to be 18 00:01:48,189 --> 00:01:53,709 at the previous lesson to enjoy the lesson upcoming. So, I invite you to 101 4th Street 19 00:01:53,709 --> 00:01:59,469 on the corner of 4th and Boulevard on Wednesday evenings at 7 p.m. If you've been curious about 20 00:01:59,469 --> 00:02:04,790 who and what we are as a church, New Geneva, well, this is an excellent time to check us out, 21 00:02:04,909 --> 00:02:11,770 meet our people, and meet Pastor Dave Bass. You can call us for more information at 523-0196. 22 00:02:11,849 --> 00:02:16,650 Now, today, I'd like to take some time to speak to one of the major trends in broad 23 00:02:16,650 --> 00:02:23,069 evangelicalism, and that is the conviction that we can leapfrog over the centuries of corrupt, 24 00:02:23,569 --> 00:02:29,530 error-laden church history and return to the pristine New Testament church and just do it the 25 00:02:29,530 --> 00:02:34,830 way they did it in the book of Acts. Perhaps one of the most self-conscious efforts and one of the most 26 00:02:34,830 --> 00:02:40,669 successful in terms of numbers and church growth is the Calvary Chapel movement, begun by Chuck Smith 27 00:02:40,669 --> 00:02:49,590 in California in the late 1960s. Typical of this perspective is this from Calvary Chapel website, 28 00:02:49,590 --> 00:02:55,610 and I quote from it now, Calvary Chapel looks to the New Testament book of Acts as the divine model 29 00:02:55,610 --> 00:03:02,169 for the church. We don't look simply to church history or movements, but rely rather on the word 30 00:03:02,169 --> 00:03:09,770 of God. Now, Chuck Smith goes on, he fills this out a little bit more in a sermon on Acts, and I quote 31 00:03:09,770 --> 00:03:15,629 Chuck Smith directly now from that sermon. He says, in Calvary Chapel, we look to the book of Acts as the 32 00:03:15,629 --> 00:03:22,050 model for the church. We believe that church history, for the most part, has been a sad and tragic story 33 00:03:22,050 --> 00:03:26,710 of failure. Let me repeat that. That's a constant theme throughout the Calvary Chapel movement, that 34 00:03:26,710 --> 00:03:33,110 church history has been a sad and tragic story of failure. You can't look at church history, Smith 35 00:03:33,110 --> 00:03:38,969 says, and find a model for the church, just like you can't look at the history of mankind and find God's 36 00:03:38,969 --> 00:03:45,150 intention for mankind. Man has fallen, and so you can't see the divine ideal. The same is true of the 37 00:03:45,150 --> 00:03:51,849 church. You don't see the divine ideal for the church by looking at church history, unquote. This 38 00:03:51,849 --> 00:03:58,650 attitude towards church history is not unique to Calvary Chapel. It is shared, as well, by countless 39 00:03:58,650 --> 00:04:04,610 other modern evangelicals. Calvary Chapel is only an example. Other evangelicals, especially those 40 00:04:04,610 --> 00:04:10,669 without a denominational history, like independent Bible churches, fundamentalist Baptist churches, 41 00:04:10,669 --> 00:04:18,569 and independent community churches, often share this perspective on church history. Oh, yet there is 42 00:04:18,569 --> 00:04:28,110 a profound irony in all of this, in that if one were to study church history, he would see that many of 43 00:04:28,110 --> 00:04:34,209 the denominations now in existence were founded on this very same premise, that is, that they could 44 00:04:34,209 --> 00:04:39,610 leapfrog the centuries of church history and create the same pristine church of the New Testament. This 45 00:04:39,610 --> 00:04:45,930 includes the churches of Christ, the Seventh-day Adventist, and the Brethren movement. But the thing is, 46 00:04:45,930 --> 00:04:51,750 the very day, think about this, the very day after you decide to do this and begin to do it, you already 47 00:04:51,750 --> 00:04:59,089 have a church history, 24 hours old already, and you thus become liable to the same corruption, and as 48 00:04:59,089 --> 00:05:06,850 Chuck Smith puts it, the sad and tragic failure about others in church history. So pervasive has this 49 00:05:06,850 --> 00:05:12,110 tendency been throughout church history, and it would be there for an available study if we only look at 50 00:05:12,110 --> 00:05:17,449 church history. Well, church historians have given this trend a name. It's called primitivism. 51 00:05:18,810 --> 00:05:25,949 Primitivism, I'm sorry, primitivism. Primitivism is that impulse to bypass the supposed errors and 52 00:05:25,949 --> 00:05:31,670 false practices of the church of the times and return to the pure practice of the original church 53 00:05:31,670 --> 00:05:38,550 as modeled in the book of Acts. Dear listener, as original and creative as you might think yourself 54 00:05:38,550 --> 00:05:44,129 to be in wishing to just go back to the book of Acts and do it like they did without all the baggage of 55 00:05:44,129 --> 00:05:49,069 the churches around you, oh, dear listener, it's all been done before. There is nothing new under the 56 00:05:49,069 --> 00:05:55,670 sun. If one were to take time to study the history of the church so arrogantly dismissed and despised by 57 00:05:55,670 --> 00:06:01,269 most modern evangelicals and Calvary chapels in particular, well, you would be sobered by the 58 00:06:01,269 --> 00:06:07,589 consistent blind spots and pitfalls to which each and every one of these movements falls prey. And 59 00:06:07,589 --> 00:06:13,149 I'm afraid that Calvary chapel movement has fallen prey to as well. Let me list three of them for you 60 00:06:13,149 --> 00:06:21,430 here. First of all, the first of the three pitfalls to which those who follow a primitivist tendency 61 00:06:21,430 --> 00:06:29,350 fall prey. Number one, most evangelicals are blind to their own presuppositions. Most evangelicals are 62 00:06:29,350 --> 00:06:35,129 blind to their own presuppositions. Don't be scared off by that word presupposition. A presupposition 63 00:06:35,129 --> 00:06:40,949 is a thought or set of thoughts that we assume without having to consciously think about them or 64 00:06:40,949 --> 00:06:47,069 test their truths anymore. I presupposed, for example, that my chair would hold me, that my desk 65 00:06:47,069 --> 00:06:51,389 would contain my Bible, and my lamp would click on as I sat down to look at the book of Acts today. 66 00:06:51,730 --> 00:06:57,230 I also came to the text with a prior understanding of many things before I even read it for the umpteenth 67 00:06:57,230 --> 00:07:04,829 time. No one comes to the Bible with a blank slate, in other words. At a very basic level, for example, 68 00:07:05,209 --> 00:07:12,009 I presupposed that in order to understand as God intended, well, I didn't need to read an original 69 00:07:12,009 --> 00:07:18,569 Greek manuscript of Acts, but that a faithful English translation of it was sufficient. And don't laugh at 70 00:07:18,569 --> 00:07:24,209 this because, for example, Muslims believe that the Quran can only be properly understood when read in the 71 00:07:24,209 --> 00:07:31,350 original Arabic. Not so the Bible. I also presupposed that I did not need to wear a tunic like Tabitha used to 72 00:07:31,350 --> 00:07:38,149 make to worship, right? A suit or a slacks or jeans were sufficient to wear to worship services or to 73 00:07:38,149 --> 00:07:42,730 worship in an upper room like the apostles did. A church sanctuary, a worship center, or a rented facility 74 00:07:42,730 --> 00:07:49,970 was fine. Or that I needed to travel by ship like Paul did in Acts on a short-term missions project. I could fly or take a 75 00:07:49,970 --> 00:07:57,589 bus or train or a plane. Well, these examples I use to belabor the point and make clear what I mean by 76 00:07:57,589 --> 00:08:04,629 presupposing a thing. But there are far more subtle ways in which presuppositions work in our hearts and 77 00:08:04,629 --> 00:08:11,189 minds that we are not entirely conscious of when we come to the text. Let me identify a few of these 78 00:08:11,189 --> 00:08:17,110 presuppositions, two of them for you. My first example would be, for example, Pentecostal brothers 79 00:08:17,110 --> 00:08:22,949 presuppose charismatic gifts for the church age, and lo and behold, they find it in the book of Acts. 80 00:08:23,930 --> 00:08:31,189 Oh, how wondrous the power of God was in the early church. He did indeed confirm that a new eon had 81 00:08:31,189 --> 00:08:37,710 dawned in Christ, a new covenant had been cut, and he did so by healing the sick and the lame, bestowing 82 00:08:37,710 --> 00:08:42,929 miraculous insight and knowledge, and giving the gift of the ability to speak in known languages, 83 00:08:43,470 --> 00:08:48,789 the gift of tongues. Now, our Pentecostal and charismatic brethren presuppose this to be true 84 00:08:48,789 --> 00:08:57,389 for our age as well, because they have experienced it. They extrapolate that a one-for-one relationship 85 00:08:57,389 --> 00:09:02,929 exists. That is, that since they experienced it back in the book of Acts, then so should we. 86 00:09:02,929 --> 00:09:09,750 Yet, I would argue that not everything described in narrative is meant to be prescribed in narrative 87 00:09:09,750 --> 00:09:15,149 for all times and places of the church. And this, I submit to you, is true of the charismatic gifts. 88 00:09:15,830 --> 00:09:21,830 Also, we see these kinds of gifts bestowed throughout redemptive history at periods of new revelation 89 00:09:21,830 --> 00:09:28,250 and at the inauguration of new covenants. When the period of covenant inauguration ceases, 90 00:09:28,250 --> 00:09:33,210 so do the charismatic gifts. When the time of new revelation ceases, like the Pentateuch with the 91 00:09:33,210 --> 00:09:39,389 death of Moses or the death is of the prophets, so the charismatic gifts die or cease, if you will. 92 00:09:39,750 --> 00:09:46,090 And no amount of huffing and puffing and attempts to duplicate those charismatic gifts works. They are 93 00:09:46,090 --> 00:09:51,789 of God and only He can bestow them. Such is the case with the charismatic gifts of Acts. They are not 94 00:09:51,789 --> 00:09:59,049 meant to be for the entire church age. That's one example of a presupposition to which many of our 95 00:09:59,049 --> 00:10:04,009 brothers and sisters come to the text to the book of Acts. The second one is, Baptist brothers 96 00:10:04,009 --> 00:10:10,110 presuppose a believer baptism model is held out in Acts. They come to the text with this presupposition. 97 00:10:10,850 --> 00:10:16,149 And for many of these, my brothers, since so many adults were baptized in Acts, and there is 98 00:10:16,149 --> 00:10:21,789 then, ostensibly, no explicit reference to children and infants being baptized, well, then, 99 00:10:22,389 --> 00:10:28,649 baptism must obviously be for adult believers only. But this is a presupposition, not necessarily 100 00:10:28,649 --> 00:10:36,309 warranted by the facts. First, let me, out of three reasons why this is not a warranted presupposition 101 00:10:36,309 --> 00:10:40,490 in the book of Acts, that is, that adult believers and adult believers only are to be baptized, 102 00:10:40,490 --> 00:10:46,850 first. Baptism is a new covenant sacrament that corresponds directly to circumcision in the Old 103 00:10:46,850 --> 00:10:53,029 Testament, where infants were required to be circumcised. Therefore, Paul links them one to 104 00:10:53,029 --> 00:10:58,850 another. In the book of Colossians, for example, he says in Colossians chapter 2, verses 11 and 12, 105 00:10:59,350 --> 00:11:06,090 in him also, that is in Christ, you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting 106 00:11:06,090 --> 00:11:12,230 off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been baptized, buried with him in 107 00:11:12,230 --> 00:11:17,309 baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who 108 00:11:17,309 --> 00:11:24,309 raised him from the dead, unquote. God always has an initiatory sacrament with every covenant in which 109 00:11:24,309 --> 00:11:29,970 the subject of that sacrament does not necessarily give his consent and understanding. With the Old 110 00:11:29,970 --> 00:11:35,789 Covenant, it was circumcision, performed once upon an infant. In the New Covenant, it is baptism, 111 00:11:35,789 --> 00:11:44,850 likewise performed once upon an infant. Secondly, let me note for you, when we regard infants being 112 00:11:44,850 --> 00:11:51,009 baptized in the book of Acts, let me note for you, secondly, that in his excellent study, 113 00:11:51,350 --> 00:11:57,649 Baptism in the New Testament, the scholar Oscar Coleman observes that the word household, which is 114 00:11:57,649 --> 00:12:04,950 oikos in Greek, the word household refers by definition to homes with infants in them. All through the 115 00:12:04,950 --> 00:12:11,929 Greek literature, and Dr. Coleman does an excellent job of tracking this word oikos, all through Greek 116 00:12:11,929 --> 00:12:18,230 literature, not just in the New Testament. When this word oikos appears, it means a household with 117 00:12:18,230 --> 00:12:24,210 infants and children. Therefore, when we read, for example, of Lydia in the book of Acts and her 118 00:12:24,210 --> 00:12:30,509 household being baptized, or the Philippian jailer and all his household being baptized the same night as 119 00:12:30,509 --> 00:12:37,289 as conversion, both found in Acts 16, well, then we can be confident that infants and children were the 120 00:12:37,289 --> 00:12:43,490 subjects of this covenant sacrament. So, not all of the presuppositions of our evangelical brothers 121 00:12:43,490 --> 00:12:51,870 hold up to biblical and historical scrutiny, because thirdly, there is an unbroken link between infant 122 00:12:51,870 --> 00:12:57,570 baptism and the record of church history. Oh, this is where church history is so important, because 123 00:12:57,570 --> 00:13:04,090 infant baptism appears from the beginning in the church fathers and in Eusebius' church history, for 124 00:13:04,090 --> 00:13:10,129 example, a very illuminating volume of the early church history, and there's no dispute or there's 125 00:13:10,129 --> 00:13:17,769 no conflict in the church history record over infant baptism. There's no books or tracts arguing one side 126 00:13:17,769 --> 00:13:23,710 or another. There's no church councils called to decide the question. No. Infant baptism appears 127 00:13:23,710 --> 00:13:30,009 seamlessly in the life of the church very early, as if it had always been there, inherited from Christ 128 00:13:30,009 --> 00:13:34,909 and the apostles. And, of course, my Baptist brethren would merely say, well, the church fell into error 129 00:13:34,909 --> 00:13:41,809 very early. But the burden of proof is upon you, dear Baptist brother. The burden of proof is upon you 130 00:13:41,809 --> 00:13:49,750 to show where and when it happened, and also to demonstrate the circumstances and the supposed false 131 00:13:49,750 --> 00:13:55,070 teachers who introduced infant baptism, because it isn't there. No one has been able to do this. 132 00:13:55,909 --> 00:14:03,409 So, just in this one question of baptism, for example, we discover the importance of the study 133 00:14:03,409 --> 00:14:10,870 of church history and the role played by our presuppositions when we think of the church and the church in 134 00:14:10,870 --> 00:14:17,289 history, to think that we can simply leapfrog over 2,000 years of church history and look at the way the 135 00:14:17,289 --> 00:14:21,830 New Testament did it and then copy it and be faithful and right in doing so, is simply naive. 136 00:14:22,710 --> 00:14:28,370 We bring a pre-understanding to the book of Acts. We bring presuppositions to our reading of the book 137 00:14:28,370 --> 00:14:34,549 of Acts. And one way to help minimize those presuppositions from leading us into error is to 138 00:14:34,549 --> 00:14:41,509 examine our presuppositions closely, be aware of our presuppositions, and then compare how other saints 139 00:14:41,509 --> 00:14:45,990 throughout church history have handled those same presuppositions. This is a necessity, 140 00:14:45,990 --> 00:14:51,830 dear brother. You have much to benefit from an impartial, close study of church history, 141 00:14:51,950 --> 00:14:57,870 dear listener. We at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church, we're doing a one-year Bible study into 142 00:14:57,870 --> 00:15:02,710 church history using Dr. Bruce Shelley's excellent book, Church History in Plain Language. 143 00:15:03,309 --> 00:15:10,070 Now, our study began on October 7th at 7 p.m. in our church fellowship hall. We invite you to join us 144 00:15:10,070 --> 00:15:15,389 every Wednesday night at 7 p.m., and you can pick up and continue with us. If you've been curious about who 145 00:15:15,389 --> 00:15:19,730 and what we are as a church, it's an excellent time to check us out and meet our people and me, 146 00:15:19,850 --> 00:15:25,970 Pastor Dave Bass, 7 p.m. on Wednesday nights. Call us at 523-0196 for further information. 147 00:15:25,970 --> 00:15:35,070 Well, for the second pitfall into which our modern evangelical brothers fall when it comes to church 148 00:15:35,070 --> 00:15:42,850 history is indeed the modern evangelical demonstrates a lack of humility towards and appreciation for the 149 00:15:42,850 --> 00:15:48,269 experience of saints who preceded us in church history. Yes, the modern evangelical demonstrates a 150 00:15:48,269 --> 00:15:53,730 lack of humility towards and appreciation for the experience of saints who preceded us in church 151 00:15:53,730 --> 00:16:00,009 history. There is a we-are-the-people attitude implicit in the one who thinks that he can do what other 152 00:16:00,009 --> 00:16:04,509 saints perhaps more gifted than himself have not been able to do in church history, and historians call 153 00:16:04,509 --> 00:16:10,350 this phenomenon cultural arrogance. That Chuck Smith was able to preach on the beaches of California 154 00:16:10,350 --> 00:16:15,210 to assemble believers, to meet and worship as a church, and to learn freely from other Christian 155 00:16:15,210 --> 00:16:20,529 teachers and books and recordings is due in no small part to hard-won religious freedom, but 156 00:16:20,529 --> 00:16:28,669 at a dear price by Christians that he so blithely dismisses as sad and tragic failures. Oh, cultural 157 00:16:28,669 --> 00:16:35,190 arrogance. Church history is nothing but a record of sad and tragic failure. Oh, dear listener was 158 00:16:35,190 --> 00:16:44,850 dear Athanasius. Dear Athanasius, who was bishop of Alexandria, and Athanasius lived from AD 296 to 373. 159 00:16:44,850 --> 00:16:51,950 Was dear Athanasius a sad and tragic failure for standing for language in the Nicene Creed that 160 00:16:51,950 --> 00:16:58,450 expressed the divine nature of Christ? Oh, most moderate evangelicals are ignorant of the fact that early in the 161 00:16:58,450 --> 00:17:04,890 life of the church, pagan notions of Christ almost swept the Christian faith into obscurity. A man named 162 00:17:04,890 --> 00:17:10,869 Arius taught that Christ was not the eternal son of God, but rather a subordinate being created by 163 00:17:10,869 --> 00:17:16,529 the Father. If this view had prevailed, Christianity would have become just another of the pagan religions 164 00:17:16,529 --> 00:17:21,849 of gods and goddesses that proliferated in the world at that time. But Athanasius, in his writings, his 165 00:17:21,849 --> 00:17:29,630 sermons, and his defense at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, Athanasius fought for the full divinity of 166 00:17:29,630 --> 00:17:35,029 Christ with the Father, expressed in scriptures like this found in John chapter 1, in the beginning was 167 00:17:35,029 --> 00:17:42,390 the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Now, Athanasius was persecuted severely by 168 00:17:42,390 --> 00:17:51,269 Arian princes and bishops who flourished in the decades after the Council of Nicaea. Athanasius was exiled 169 00:17:51,269 --> 00:17:57,650 several times, deposed from his office as bishop, scorned and beaten for his refusal to recant from his views. 170 00:17:57,650 --> 00:18:03,970 Yet, he held firm, and his views eventually held sway and formed the doctrinal structure for our 171 00:18:03,970 --> 00:18:09,009 understanding of the Trinity, dear listener. One historian puts it this way, almost single-handedly, 172 00:18:09,150 --> 00:18:15,930 Athanasius saved the church from pagan intellectualism. By Athanasius' tenacity and vision in preaching 173 00:18:15,930 --> 00:18:21,589 one God and Savior, he had preserved from dissolution the unity and integrity of the Christian faith, 174 00:18:21,589 --> 00:18:26,349 unquote. Now, Calvary Chapel has a doctrinal statement that says, 175 00:18:26,809 --> 00:18:32,670 we believe that there is one living and true God eternally existing in three persons, the Father, 176 00:18:32,910 --> 00:18:39,210 the Son, and the Holy Spirit, equal in power and glory, and this triune God created all, upholds all, 177 00:18:39,329 --> 00:18:47,049 and governs all things, unquote, from the Calvary Chapel website. But Chuck Smith and most Calvary 178 00:18:47,049 --> 00:18:54,210 pastors and believers are clueless as to the dear price paid by forbearers like Bishop Athanasius 179 00:18:54,210 --> 00:18:59,730 for language that they themselves use in their own doctrinal statement to articulate the Trinity. 180 00:19:00,589 --> 00:19:05,930 Instead, they dismiss the man who succeeded in preserving from dissolution the unity and integrity 181 00:19:05,930 --> 00:19:11,930 of the Christian faith. They dismiss him as a sad and tragic failure. We could cite numerous other 182 00:19:11,930 --> 00:19:17,789 examples, dear listener. Was Martin Luther a sad and tragic failure for reforming what was in his day 183 00:19:17,789 --> 00:19:23,289 a corrupt and dissolute Roman Catholic Church? In teaching the Book of Romans as a professor at 184 00:19:23,289 --> 00:19:30,269 Wittenberg, Luther rediscovered that, as Paul says, a man is justified by faith and not by works of the 185 00:19:30,269 --> 00:19:36,329 law. And for this, Luther paid a tremendous price. The Roman Catholic Church had an intricate, 186 00:19:36,329 --> 00:19:42,630 extensive network of works-based righteousness in order to be saved. And Luther's rediscovery of 187 00:19:42,630 --> 00:19:48,509 and stubborn insistence upon salvation by grace through faith transformed the church as we know it. 188 00:19:49,130 --> 00:19:53,210 And once more, Calvary Chapel has in its doctrinal statement, and I quote from it, 189 00:19:53,690 --> 00:19:59,829 God saves and gives new life to all who come to him in repentance and faith, trusting in the person 190 00:19:59,829 --> 00:20:05,890 and work of Jesus Christ. Dear listener, this is a Protestant language of faith and Christian 191 00:20:05,890 --> 00:20:13,150 soteriology, and it was bought at a dear price by reformers like Luther and Calvin and Knox. Those 192 00:20:13,150 --> 00:20:20,549 who followed the reformers in subsequent generations, they also suffered and bled and died to seal the 193 00:20:20,549 --> 00:20:25,549 gains of the Reformation. And evangelicals like Chuck Smith and Calvary Chapel pastors and believers 194 00:20:25,549 --> 00:20:31,970 are living off of the capital invested by saints like the reformers. And yet they dismiss them as 195 00:20:31,970 --> 00:20:39,470 sad and tragic failures. Oh, dear listener, ignorance breeds arrogance since it fails to see 196 00:20:39,470 --> 00:20:46,309 and appreciate what has come before. Ignorance of church history breeds arrogance. Modern evangelicals 197 00:20:46,309 --> 00:20:52,029 in America are generally ignorant of their history, and they enjoy their religious freedom to look to the 198 00:20:52,029 --> 00:20:56,789 book of Acts for the model of the church, as Chuck Smith says, while at the same time despising the 199 00:20:56,789 --> 00:21:03,089 price paid by pilgrims, Puritans, and Presbyterians, for example, to give them that freedom. They wouldn't 200 00:21:03,089 --> 00:21:09,109 enjoy that freedom in China or Saudi Arabia or Iran, yet these pilgrims, Puritans, and Presbyterians 201 00:21:09,109 --> 00:21:14,990 are, in their eyes, a sad and tragic failure and are in no wise to be consulted, as Chuck Smith says, 202 00:21:14,990 --> 00:21:22,750 for the divine ideal for the church. Well, third blind spot to which many modern evangelicals 203 00:21:22,750 --> 00:21:31,910 fall prey is indeed the modern evangelical manifests an inability to learn from the mistakes of others 204 00:21:31,910 --> 00:21:39,369 and then will be doomed to repeat those mistakes. Yes, the modern evangelical manifests an inability 205 00:21:39,369 --> 00:21:45,089 to learn from the mistakes of others in church history and will thus be doomed to repeat those 206 00:21:45,089 --> 00:21:52,230 mistakes. As Chuck Smith is fond of pointing out, that church history is indeed filled with atrocities, 207 00:21:52,369 --> 00:21:58,690 error, and heresy, as he says. Atrocities, error, and heresy. Oh, that the church history is filled 208 00:21:58,690 --> 00:22:04,650 with these things is so obvious as to be painful and embarrassing. Please, Pastor Smith, Pastor Chuck 209 00:22:04,650 --> 00:22:10,490 Smith and Calvary Chapel, tell us something we don't know. Atrocity, error, and heresy flourished 210 00:22:10,490 --> 00:22:16,049 not only in church history, but in Jesus' own company of apostles. Peter no more than confessed 211 00:22:16,049 --> 00:22:21,289 true doctrine, for example, when Jesus had asked him, who do you say that I am? Peter answered by 212 00:22:21,289 --> 00:22:28,089 responding, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. Indeed, true doctrine, wasn't it? But moments 213 00:22:28,089 --> 00:22:34,349 later, Jesus turned around and rebuked him by exclaiming, get behind me, Satan, because Peter denied that 214 00:22:34,349 --> 00:22:40,569 Jesus must soon suffer and die. So error was in the very company of the apostles. Atrocity, error, 215 00:22:40,650 --> 00:22:45,269 and heresy have characterized the history of the church ever since, precisely as Jesus and the 216 00:22:45,269 --> 00:22:51,849 apostles predicted. They predicted these things. And these things also, Peter tells us, test, prune, 217 00:22:51,950 --> 00:22:59,690 and prove the church. We see the church come shining out of this history as the true church, and to 218 00:22:59,690 --> 00:23:05,069 ignore her model in church history is to invite repeating the errors of the past. Ignoring the 219 00:23:05,069 --> 00:23:11,490 history of that church and the model of her emerges, that emerges from it, is to invite repeating the 220 00:23:11,490 --> 00:23:18,970 very atrocities, error, and heresy experienced by the church of history. For example, many evangelicals, 221 00:23:18,990 --> 00:23:25,589 many evangelicals, excuse me, risk repeating the errors of the past in regards to worship, for example. 222 00:23:25,589 --> 00:23:30,849 One of the dangers of parachuting into the book of Acts, that is flying over all of church history 223 00:23:30,849 --> 00:23:36,829 to derive one's model for worship, is that there's no particular liturgy or complete model 224 00:23:36,829 --> 00:23:42,289 for a worship service in the book of Acts. This is because the church would already find a model 225 00:23:42,289 --> 00:23:47,450 ready to hand, and what she found in the temple liturgy, and the model already practiced in the 226 00:23:47,450 --> 00:23:53,130 synagogue, when the early church asked, what is worship that pleases God? That early church found 227 00:23:53,130 --> 00:23:59,609 not only that the heart of the worshiper must be right, but that all of the elements of that worship 228 00:23:59,609 --> 00:24:05,950 must be acceptable to God, and that they be done decently and in order, as the Apostle Paul directs. 229 00:24:06,710 --> 00:24:11,029 But many of my contemporary worship brothers and sisters seize on the very fact that there is no 230 00:24:11,029 --> 00:24:16,589 specific model or liturgy for worship laid out in Acts as proof that they can include, for example, 231 00:24:16,589 --> 00:24:22,990 drama skits or video individual soloists, and it will please God, or that they can exclude embarrassing, 232 00:24:22,990 --> 00:24:27,490 elements for them, like confession of sin or liturgical prayers recited by the congregation, 233 00:24:27,690 --> 00:24:32,829 or long sermons with complicated ideas like propitiation and justification, the wrath and 234 00:24:32,829 --> 00:24:38,690 justice of God, for example, and that excluding these will please God in his worship. And on the 235 00:24:38,690 --> 00:24:44,529 surface, in a simplistic fashion, such a reading of Acts might justify so much of what we see in 236 00:24:44,529 --> 00:24:50,809 contemporary worship services. But a deeper look, and I invite you to do this, a deeper look at the 237 00:24:50,809 --> 00:24:56,230 Bible, and how the church has practiced worship and liturgy over the centuries that is church history 238 00:24:56,230 --> 00:25:02,210 paints a different picture. The early church, for example, took worship very seriously. I have an 239 00:25:02,210 --> 00:25:08,490 entire volume in my 32-volume Apostolic Church Fathers set that is dedicated to designing the 240 00:25:08,490 --> 00:25:13,950 early church worship service. It's called the Apostolic Constitutions. Many of the prayers that we 241 00:25:13,950 --> 00:25:20,769 incorporate in our own worship service go back that far, dear listener. Well, my concern is that 242 00:25:20,769 --> 00:25:27,190 the contemporary church is indeed in danger of repeating the mistakes of the past in many other 243 00:25:27,190 --> 00:25:31,970 areas of the church, not only in worship, but they do so by ignoring the lessons of history 244 00:25:31,970 --> 00:25:37,630 in worship, but areas like the Trinity. Many are so ill-informed about the history of the Trinity 245 00:25:37,630 --> 00:25:42,789 that they fall prey to making the same errors, or church discipline as well. If there's no church 246 00:25:42,789 --> 00:25:49,990 membership, for example, there can be no church discipline, a woefully lacking thing in the life of the 247 00:25:49,990 --> 00:25:55,670 church today. Well, you have much to benefit from an impartial, close study of church history, 248 00:25:55,769 --> 00:26:01,230 dear listener. We have launched a one-year Bible study. We've just begun into the history of the 249 00:26:01,230 --> 00:26:06,890 church using Dr. Bruce Shelley's excellent book, Church History in Plain Language. Now, our study 250 00:26:06,890 --> 00:26:12,910 will continue at 7 p.m. on Wednesday evenings throughout the year, and we invite you to join us 251 00:26:12,910 --> 00:26:18,269 to drop in and begin with us wherever we are. We meet in our fellowship hall for this study 252 00:26:18,269 --> 00:26:24,730 at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. Now, New Geneva also meets for holy worship on Sunday 253 00:26:24,730 --> 00:26:30,190 at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. We invite you to join us for 254 00:26:30,190 --> 00:26:36,549 our worship service as well on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m., and you can call us for further information 255 00:26:36,549 --> 00:26:39,609 at 523-0196.