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. And today, what are the seven myths of church history? What are the seven myths of church history? Now, church history is important to study because God has chosen to save a people for himself and bring glory to himself in history, that is, in real time and space.

Other religions of the world, like Buddhism, for example, teach that time and space are an illusion and that history must be transcended for salvation to be achieved. Well, not so the Bible. Jesus came to save us at a particular time in history and will redeem his people in history itself. And consequently, history is crucial to understanding your salvation and how God then works to save us in and through history. Well, knowing this, New Geneva is planning a church history course for the fall.

I'm very excited about this. I think this is really fun. I have fun teaching it. I've done it before. And we are planning a church history course for the fall.

And it will be taking place on Thursdays at 7 p.m. at Leo's Place in Idaho Falls, a great little pizza place, very friendly. We love Leo's Place. And so we will be doing this in one of the rooms that they provide at 7 p.m. on Thursdays at Leo's Place. And we'll be using as our guide, Church History in Plain Language. The book is called Church History in Plain Language, written by Dr. Bruce Shelley.

And so we'll be beginning the second Thursday of this year, second Thursday of 2021. And during the course, we will leave room for some other material to supplement our study. And we'll also field a lot of questions. Bring your questions, bring your thoughts. This course promises to be an eye-opening year of insight into your faith and your long connection with other saints that stretches back to the New Testament.

So plan on joining us. We'd love to have you. Call us for more information, too. And to reserve a place, though you don't necessarily need to do this for the course, I just want to get a feel for how many will be there. So if you'd like to come, please give me a call at area code 208-523-0196.

And we'll reserve a place for you at our Church History course, area code 208-523-0196. And then, as an introduction to the course, let me tackle the seven big myths of church history. There are seven big myths of church history. The first one, what is the first myth of church history? Number one, church history doesn't matter.

Of course, you might think I would say that. That is a first myth of church history, but many people believe it. Number one, church history doesn't matter. All that matters is what I believe today, right? This is perhaps the most prevalent myth for most evangelicals.

Church history is just irrelevant. Most evangelicals say something like this, I'm too busy in my life to bother studying church history. It's all I can do to read my Bible and go to church. If I were to have the time, I'm going to study something more important like the Bible or even doctrine or theology. But church history, that's way down on the list of my priorities.

These are the kinds of thoughts most evangelicals have, though they may not even admit it. But those who think this way fall into the trap so succinctly stated by the philosopher George Santayana, who said, those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it. That's the trap in this thinking. Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it. And it's doubly true for those who fail to remember church history.

And this is a biblical truth. The idea of remembering history is a biblical truth as well. For example, the apostle Paul himself laid out the history of the Red Sea crossing. He did it for the Corinthians. And then he told them, and I quote, Now, these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come.

Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed, lest he fall, unquote. That's from 1 Corinthians chapter 10. So, history, in this case, the history of the Old Testament, was written down for our instruction, lest, presuming that we're all right, we fail to take heed and fall. Now, a good example of this is the history of the church, the history of the church in Germany during the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in the 30s and 40s. Now, most Christians were passive in accepting of that tyranny.

Yes, in the 30s in Germany, most Christians were passive in accepting of the tyranny rising under Adolf Hitler. But they cited biblical passages like Romans 13, which says, And consequently, the German church was instrumental in following this text. They were instrumental in the rise of Nazism and the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust. That church, the German church, at that time, was silent to Hitler's destruction of the German Republic. They were silent to Hitler's grabbing of power.

The church in Germany during this time saw his brutalization of all who came under Hitler's rule, and they passively accepted it. And it is a shameful chapter in the church's history. Oh, Christian, the same thing is happening in America today. And the American church is behaving like the German church did in the 30s and the 40s. Are you a part of it?

Do you say some of the same things? Like, be subject to the governing authorities. There's no authority except that from God and repeat it over and over ad nauseum. Our federal government is behaving every bit as tyrannically as Nazi Germany. And it does it with a medical tyranny.

And the church, the American church, is silent. And it is passive and even complicit in that tyranny. The German pastors would tell their people, Oh, just go to the trains. Go to the camps. You're going to a better place.

After all, right? Be subject to the governing authorities. They're from God, right? The pastors of those German churches would say, just go to the showers. Cleanliness is next to godliness.

Remember, be subject to the governing authorities, right? Oh, dear listener. But of course, Romans 13 and those passages I just cited. Romans 13 is not the last word on how we are to respond to government. No.

Daniel resisted government authorities. And also, the first century church resisted the tyranny of Rome, as the book of Revelation documents for us. The book of Revelation is a text in many respects which documents resistance to governing authorities. Well, if you look at history, if you look at church history, as we'll be doing in our study of it beginning in October, if you look at church history, a few Germans did resist the government tyranny. Germans like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was a German pastor who paid for his resistance with his life.

Others like Reverend Martin Niemöller, he also resisted. But he was arrested for his activities. He managed to live after the war. But his quote is famous for capturing the effect of not learning from the lessons of history, from not learning from the lessons of church history. He said famously, first they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me, unquote. Yes, not standing up to tyranny. This is what happens.

Dear listener, it's a lesson from church history that many of you need to learn in our own day with the tyranny coming upon us, the ignorance of which church history will cause you and millions of others to fall, as Paul says. But by studying church history, you will be aware of and ready to deal with situations that have happened before in the past and will most certainly happen again, perhaps in your lifetime. As Solomon observes in Ecclesiastes, he says, there's nothing new under the sun. What has happened will happen again. So remember Paul's exhortation to you, dear listener, about church history, remembering history.

He said, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed, that is take heed from history, lest he fall, unquote. So dispel with that illusion that church history doesn't matter, that all you need to do is focus on your own salvation right here and now. Your salvation in some sense depends on church history. Well, secondly, the second myth of church history we want to dispel is, number two, I can leap over 2,000 years of church history and do things exactly like the perfect, pristine New Testament church of Peter, Paul, and the apostles in the book of Acts.

I can leap over 2,000 years of church history and do things exactly like the perfect, pristine New Testament church of Peter, Paul, and the apostles in the book of Acts. Oh, it's a favorite myth of those in the contemporary worship movement. For example, Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel, excuse me, of Calvary Chapel, begun in the late 60s in California. Chuck Smith captures this sentiment in what they say on their website. Calvary Chapel website says, Calvary Chapel looks to the New Testament book of Acts as the divine model for the church.

We don't look simply to church history or movements, but rely on the Word of God, unquote. And then Chuck Smith also says this in a sermon on Acts. He says, in Calvary Chapel, we look to the book of Acts as the model for the church. We believe that church history, for the most part, has been a sad and tragic story of failure. You can't look at church history and find a model for the church, unquote.

Oh, dear listener, there are so many errors and fallacies here that it's hard to know where to begin. Well, if you agree with this line of thinking, tell me, dear listener, tell me by way of analogy, whether you still look to the Wright brothers as the full and sufficient model for flight, or whether we might have learned a few things about flying since their first effort at Kitty Hawk in 1903. Well, certainly the foundational principles of flight were there in the primitive flying machine that they constructed, and we continue to incorporate those same primitive principles of flight every time a modern 747 takes off today.

There is a straight line of connection that we can make between us and them. But equally so, you cannot ignore or bypass the hundred plus years of progress and practice that flight has undergone since then. Does anyone suggest that we return to those primitive flying machines of yesteryear? No. It is sheer lunacy and a denial of history to do so.

Well, just so, exactly like the foundational principles of worship and church practice were there in the book of Acts, which we still embody today every Sunday when we begin holy worship at New Geneva. But importantly, you cannot ignore 2,000 years of the history of the church, nor can you somehow separate the growth of that church and its progress since those early days. The church as a whole, and with some exceptions, of course, the church as a whole has learned and grown in its worship and theology without losing the thread of its foundations in the New Testament. We have not lost the thread of the foundations of the New Testament. No.

It is simply arrogant and naive to think that it is either possible or right to reject all that other equally sincere and gifted saints have done over the centuries to worship and to preach and to teach. To those of you who think that your brothers and sisters over the centuries got it all wrong and that you are here to fix it, well, we say with Job, who told his judgmental friends, he said, no doubt you are the people and wisdom will die with you. Kind of sarcastic, right? Well, we just say the same things to you who think you are going to tell us that 2,000 years of history do not matter.

A study of church history will reveal that this strain of hubris I've just outlined for you is not new in the church, though. In fact, church historians have a term to describe what many, many others have attempted to do throughout church history as Calvary Chapel tries to do. That is, it is called primitivism, primitive-ism.

Oh, sects like the Disciples of Christ, that is the Church of Christ, the Campbellites, or Seventh-day Adventists, led by William Miller, or Plymouth Brethren, led by John Nelson Darby, all of these, many in modern Pentecostalism too, all of these thought that they could do the same kind of thing, somehow return to those golden days of Easter year and hold on to the coattails of the Wright brothers, if you will, as they pushed off from the sand dune and achieved several minutes of airborne flight, even as the Church of Acts first began holy worship in the power of the Holy Spirit and began New Testament worship.

Well, it is sheer lunacy and a denial of church history to think that we can hold on to the coattails of Peter and Paul in Acts and do things the way that they did them. A sincere study of church history will reveal all of this to us, and I have only sampled a few of the examples of primitivism from American history. In the Middle Ages, groups just like Calvary Chapel thought that they could do the same kinds of things, like the Lollards, or the Brethren of the Common Life, or the Hussites in Germany.

But, as every student of church history will tell you, these movements ended up stumbling over that monolith of reality, that is, that turning back the hands of history's clock is as fruitful as chasing rainbows and unicorns. And in the process, it also rejects all of the goodness and the beauty created by other equally intelligent and gifted and spiritual believers of the past. That's what you do when you go to primitivism and say we could go back 2,000 years of church history and do things the way they did it in the New Testament.

Our history is rich with heritage, dear listener, a history that we will study in our course at New Geneva, and that is a church history course that we will hold then beginning on the second Thursday of October at 7 p.m. at Leo's Place. And we will begin our church history course, and we'll use the textbook, Church History in Plain Language by Bruce Shelley. Call me, Pastor Dave Bass, for more information at area code 208-523-0196 on this church history course. Well, finally, the third myth I wish to dispel is the true church of Christ disappeared.

The true church of Christ disappeared in apostasy at some point in history and has only been restored by me. Yes, the true church has only been restored by me. And the me here varies throughout church history because there have been many countless numbers of such prophets. But for our purposes, let us take the obvious example prevalent in our region, and that's Joseph Smith. This doctrine of the LDS Church is called the Great Apostasy, and it asserts that soon after the close of the New Testament and the deaths of the apostles, the church fell into complete apostasy and was not seen again until it was restored by the prophet Joseph Smith.

So this teaching is crucial to Mormonism because only if the church completely fell away can Joseph Smith's restoration and all that it implies be true. Otherwise, if there were no great apostasy, well, that means that there is still some remnant of the true church for the last 1900 years, and Joseph Smith's restoration is superfluous. Now, to the point, Smith says, and I quote, 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, and that those professors were all corrupt. Unquote. Dear listener, especially my LDS friends and neighbors who I do not wish to offend, and I'm not attacking you, but I'm merely asking the question, what kind of God would do this? So soon, after promising otherwise to his church, what kind of God would abandon the whole world for some two millennia for darkness and paganism without the supposed true church that Joseph Smith would restore?

Oh, in fact, Brigham Young says, and I quote Brigham Young, he said, the time came when paganism was engrafted into Christianity, and at last Christianity was converted into paganism rather than converting the pagans. Unquote. Oh, this is what Brigham Young says about my church. But in reality, rather than promising apostasy to the church, our Lord himself promised the true church otherwise. Our Lord said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in 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 age. Unquote. I am with you always, Jesus promised, to the end of the age. Nowhere in the Bible is there evidence of an aborted church, an abandoned church, a completely apostate church.

Now, certainly we are warned that there would be times when the church would be tested and may seem small and maybe almost gone from the face of the earth. Paul warns the elders of Ephesus. He says, from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them. Unquote. But that is a far cry from what the leaders of the LDS church have asserted.

As Orson Pratt puts it, he said, there has been no Christian church on the earth for a great many centuries past until the present century. Unquote. That's Orson Pratt. But we assert, and once again, I do this in a brotherly fashion. I'm not attacking the LDS people.

I'm not attacking LDS. I love LDS people, my friends and my neighbors, but rather I merely assert, indeed, a contrary opinion. And our Westminster Confession of Faith, for example, in chapter 25, says this, and I quote, 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, this is a very important qualification. That makes our point.

Our standards of faith say this, nevertheless, there shall always be a church on earth to worship God according to his will. Unquote. Jesus himself promised us, he said, I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Christ assures that the church is unstoppable as well.

He says, 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. Oh, dear listener, the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church, and the record of church history has borne out this truth.

Dear listener, there's a rich treasure trove, if you will, of knowledge from the past of God's faithfulness in the lives of his saints, men and women just like you, just like me, who were weak and fallible sinners, but who the Lord nevertheless bore up on his wings of faithfulness such that there has always been a church on earth to worship God according to his will. He has not left us as orphans. He has been with us always from the death of the last apostle to you, dear listener, today, to you today, and the promise is that he will be with us always with our children and our children's children to the end of the age.

So, dear LDS friend and neighbor, if your church is correct, then Jesus promised not to leave us as orphans, but turned around and treated us like an absentee father for two millennia. If, as your church asserts, then Jesus promised to be with us always, even to the end of the age, but quickly abandoned us to a great apostasy. If, then, as your church teaches that he promised us that the very gates of hell would not prevail against the church, but instead hell did overcome the church and Satan won a great victory. Oh, choose your God.

One God promises to be with his church always to the end of the age, but then promptly abandons it to the great apostasy for 1900 years. The other church has a God who demonstrates throughout redemptive history that he is with us always to the end of the age and has not left us as orphans in some great apostasy. Instead, the church can say with the psalmist David, all his work is done in faithfulness. Your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me. Oh, lastly, let me pose this question to my LDS friends and neighbors.

If your God first made promises of faithfulness to his early church, but later abandoned it to apostasy, how can you be sure the same thing has not already happened to you and to your church? Now, LDS teachers reassure you from the Book of Mormon that this can't happen. And I quote from the Book of Mosiah, which says, Alma, arise and stand forth, for why persecuteth thou the church of God? And for the Lord has said, this is my church and I will establish it, and nothing shall overthrow it, save it is the transgression of my people, unquote.

Oh, dear listener, you are expected to believe that though Jesus once promised to be with his church always to the end of the age, but now abandoned it to apostasy, that now he really means it, that now, this time, nothing will overthrow the restored church. My dear LDS friend, think through what is implied on your own historical premises. How can you be so sure? The believers all through the 2,000-year history of the Christian church that you call apostates were just like you. They all believed those promises that Jesus would not leave them as orphans and that their church was a true church.

They bet their souls on it, on your own historical premises. Is it not possible that the same thing has happened to you? Oh, this is the dilemma of those who teach that there is or was no true church on the earth until I came along. Of course, the I, you can fill in with the name of every heretic and schismatic who tried to claim this. Oh, dear listener, we will be teaching on the history of the church and these things and these principles, and we will be doing this in our church history course.

New Geneva will be teaching on the history of the church, of the Christian church, and we'll begin doing this then on the second Thursday of October at 7 p.m. at Leo's Place. And you can call us for more information on the course at area code 208-523-0196. 208-523-0196.