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[0:00] If you will keep your place there in Romans chapter 11, we will be returning to it before this message is completed. We began this theme several weeks ago in response to a question that was asked, why is it that people who call themselves Christians have such different doctrinal positions?

[0:23] And where did all of the denominations and different kinds of churches with different kinds of traditions come from? How did all that get started? And why is it that Christianity is unable to present something that we might think of as a united front before the whole world?

[0:42] So, in striving to explain the origins of the many differences in doctrine that surround those who call themselves Christian, we have decided to just develop an entire series of this, and that's exactly what we are doing now.

[0:57] So, I want to emphasize how utterly important this is. I know we are going to be relating a number of historical things, and I know what tremendous potential anything having to do with history has to be boring.

[1:17] But it need not be so. And once you understand that the past is the only reasonable explanation for the present, then you will have a profound and a new respect for history.

[1:33] We are going to present what I have done a number of times in the past. I don't know what else to call these. I'll just call these propositions that I trust are provocative, and something for you to consider as we work our way on through the body of this text.

[1:50] And consequently, we will not be developing or expounding on any particular passage of Scripture, but we will be adding to what Gary read earlier from the balance of Romans chapter 11, because that is key to this whole subject of why it is that believers have different doctrinal positions.

[2:08] So, consider these following propositions, if you will, please, and follow me closely. I will do my best to allow ample time for Q&A at the conclusion.

[2:18] If you want to understand where you are doctrinally, you must understand what it was that brought you here.

[2:30] The only adequate understanding and assessment of what is, is in the understanding of what was. And not knowing why you believe what you believe will put you in a doctrinal fog, which is precisely where many professing Christians are.

[2:55] Deficient doctrine, or confusing doctrine, results in deficient doing, or duty, compounded by a lack of inner peace and tranquility.

[3:11] One cannot know what one is to do unless there is doctrinal and moral clarity behind it.

[3:23] A dearth of doctrinal appreciation and implementation produces a weak and ineffective Christianity.

[3:35] And a weak and ineffective Christianity is precisely what is being presented to the world today. Our doctrinal differences contribute to our weakness.

[3:49] The inability of Christianity to speak with one mind and one word definitely takes a toll upon our impact on the world.

[4:02] Our differences and how we came by them is what we are currently engaging and we have been for the past several sessions together. Where did all of this doctrinal business begin?

[4:23] And how did we arrive at all of our differences? No one seriously disputes the fact that Judaism is the cradle of Christianity.

[4:37] From Genesis chapter 12 and the calling of Abraham, God made it clear that Abraham and his offspring are chosen people and that we believe to be in perpetuity.

[4:55] That is, ongoing and never being subject to cancellation. But not everyone agrees. And here is the origin of our doctrinal differences perhaps more than anything else.

[5:12] Now let me repeat that because this is really critical. If you want to know why it is that Christians are so divided in their beliefs, this statement has more to do with that than anything else.

[5:28] From Genesis 12 and the calling of Abraham, God made it clear that Abraham and his offspring are chosen people.

[5:38] That we believe to be true in perpetuity. Not everyone agrees. This is the origin of, or the greater origin, of our doctrinal differences perhaps more than anything else.

[5:57] This is a doctrinal watershed issue. And in saying that, I am convinced that most Christians don't even know that.

[6:09] Don't even understand that. They just know there are a whole lot of differences and they don't know why Christians can't get along and why Christians can't be more concentrated in their belief and in their projection to the world.

[6:23] But they have little or no idea that this is at the base of it. Now, we have also said in the past that differences arise because people interpret the Bible differently.

[6:39] That's true too. But why do they? Why do they? Mainly, it is because of what I just read. Mainly, it is because of the plan and program of God being visualized by different well-meaning, well-intentioned, sincere, devout believers.

[7:02] But they see it differently. I want to make it very clear up front that Christians differing on these issues is legitimate in that each one thinks, believes that their position is the true one.

[7:22] I told you, this is the only thing Christians have in common with their differences. Each one believes that their differences are the right ones and that all the other folks are wrong. Well, you might come back and say, well, what do you believe, Mark?

[7:36] Don't you believe that yours are the right ones? Absolutely. Does that make them the right ones? No. It does not. Because nothing is true because you believe it.

[7:48] It is true because it comports with reality. That it lines up with what is. And that it is true to the overall general tenor and teaching of Scripture.

[8:02] Of course I believe that what I teach is true. I wouldn't be teaching it if I didn't. But that's no guarantee that it is true. And you need to understand that. The question is this.

[8:17] And let me understand, let you understand, if you will, please. This is the nub of the matter. I've called it a watershed issue.

[8:29] This is where the critical mass is. This is where believers go one way or the other way. This is where you get your lens.

[8:42] For viewing Scripture colored. One color or another color. This is going to impact the way you view everything in Scripture, particularly anything and everything that has to do with future events.

[8:59] Because the whole subject of prophecy is approached from an entirely different point of view and different methodology than is the rest of the Scripture, depending on which of these two views you take.

[9:13] Now here is the question. Has Israel been displaced by God because of their disobedience, rejection, and crucifixion of their Messiah, and have they been permanently displaced as God's chosen people with the Christian church, which most believe began on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2?

[9:49] This is the majority position. Most in Christendom would say, yes, that is the case.

[9:59] Israel used to be God's chosen people, but they forfeited that position of blessing because of their rejection of the Messiah, His crucifixion.

[10:14] God has completely cast off Israel permanently. He has replaced them with the church. This is also known as replacement theology.

[10:29] In other words, the church replaces Israel. They used to be the covenant people of God. They no longer are. Now, it is the Christian church. And you need to understand this is the majority opinion.

[10:45] How did they arrive at that? We'll tell you in a moment. The flip side of that, of course, is has Israel, because of their disobedience and rejection of their Messiah, been set aside under divine discipline and scattered throughout the world until such time that God restores them to blessing, brings them back to their land, following their repentance and belief in their previously rejected Messiah.

[11:21] this, we believe, to be the case. This is the minority opinion. This is the opinion held by Grace Bible Church. This is the opinion held by many evangelical churches.

[11:36] But it is this issue that greatly colors how you interpret the scripture, what your doctrines are, what your eschatology is, and, for that matter, what your game plan is for fulfilling your responsibility as an individual Christian and as a Christian congregation.

[11:56] That is the nub of the matter. And if you really understand that and get a handle on it, I can promise you you'll have a better understanding than about 90% of the believers who are out there.

[12:07] Let me repeat that. We believe that despite Israel's disobedience and rejection of their Messiah, that Israel as a nation has been set aside under divine discipline and scattered throughout the world until such time that God restores them to blessing and brings them back to their land.

[12:31] This will be following their repentance and belief in their previously rejected Messiah. In other words, another way of putting this is, we believe that the covenant promises that God made to Abraham, that we would label as the Abrahamic covenant.

[12:50] It is outlined in Genesis chapter 12, repeated in chapter 15, and again I think in 17, that when God called Abraham, he made an unconditional promise to Abraham regarding him and his posterity.

[13:08] And that is that you and your seed will be a blessing to the world. and I am going to fulfill my plan and my purpose through you and through your descendants.

[13:23] While God enjoins and demands obedience from Abraham and from Israel, their obedience or disobedience does not figure in to God making good on the covenant promises that he gave to Abraham.

[13:40] In other words, it is an unconditional covenant. What does Abraham or Israel have to do in order for God to make good on his promises?

[13:54] The answer is absolutely nothing. God fulfilling his word and his promises to Abraham and his seed is not contingent upon Israel's obedience obedience or disobedience.

[14:11] It is contingent upon the faithfulness of God. This is where the rubber meets the road. That's the minority opinion. The majority opinion says Abraham and his seed reprobate Israel forfeited their covenanted position and God as a result is punishing them by writing them off permanently just as they wrote Christ off.

[14:45] God has nothing more to do with the nation of Israel. He is completely finished with them. And he has turned to a new love. This new love is the church which is the body of Christ.

[15:00] So Israel had their chance. They blew it. They're gone. Out of the picture. permanently. And the church has replaced them. One side or the other represents the great chasm that divides Christianity perhaps more than anything else.

[15:24] This view of course says that the Christian church in our view in our minority opinion view we are saying that the Christian church is an entirely separate entity from Israel not piggybacking if you will on Israel and not taking the place of Israel and not becoming the new chosen of God but the church is an entirely distinct separate entity altogether.

[15:58] a brand new thing that in no way shape or form is even revealed in the Old Testament. It just isn't found. It just isn't there.

[16:09] We are known as a mystery. So rather than the church being a replacement of Israel or a continuation of Israel but just in a different form the church is altogether new and distinct from Israel and that is very very important to keep in mind.

[16:35] Another proposition I want you to consider is this. We must not confuse the church having its roots in Judaism as we certainly do.

[16:47] Christianity has its roots in Judaism. I think that is undeniable. But we must not confuse that as being a continuation of Judaism merely with a different form or worship expression because it is not.

[17:02] And yet this is what most have believed from the second century up to and including the present. This majority position that the church replaced Israel as a favored people of God was virtually unanimous from the beginning of early Christianity and seemed to be confirmed with great certainty by God allowing the destruction of Jerusalem and which of course is the very nerve center of Judaism in 70 A.D.

[17:41] Christianity it would seem that if there were any doubt about the Jews being permanently out of favor with God and the church taking their place as God's new chosen people or the new Israel of God the Jerusalem Holocaust removed that doubt.

[18:04] now it is final. The Christian church comprised of non-Jews and Jews who did believe in Jesus is in.

[18:21] The unbelieving Jews who rejected their Messiah are out permanently. behold the new Israel of God.

[18:34] That's us. That's the majority view. That's the view that was developed as early as the second century just a few decades after the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

[18:50] And can you not understand how and why they arrived at that? I must confess had I been living back at that time. I am quite certain that would be the position I would have taken.

[19:05] I would have in no way, shape, or form embraced what I believe now, and probably it would have never occurred to me. Because this seemed to be so obvious.

[19:20] And could anything be more definite that God was really finished with his people. Allowing this Roman horde, the Roman army, all of whom were pagans, not believers, these were not Christians, they were not Jews, they were pagans, they were heathen, and God allowed them to overrun his promised land, and decimate the city of Jerusalem, sack it, reduce it to ruins, and crucify tens of thousands of Jewish people as the crosses line the roads around Jerusalem.

[20:10] God permitted that. Could anything be more obvious that God is really ticked with the Jewish people? And this is God's revenge, God's judgment upon them for having rejected and crucified their Messiah.

[20:29] Can't you see how that looked rather obvious? And if that were not the case, God certainly could have prevented their being overtaken by the Romans.

[20:42] He could have prevented the destruction of Jerusalem. He could have prevented the temple, the most holy place, the ark of the covenant, all the rest of it. He could have prevented all of that, but he didn't.

[20:54] And for them, what could be more compelling evidence that God has written Ichabod across all of Israel? The glory is departed.

[21:06] God is finished. You think you're finished with the Messiah? You think you're finished with Jesus of Nazareth? Well, God is saying to the Jew, well, I'm finished with you.

[21:18] And that's it. I will find another lover. And lo and behold, on the day of Pentecost, a new lover came on the scene.

[21:32] And this new lover is called the church. And God is doing a whole new different thing. He has replaced Israel with the church.

[21:43] And I speak, of course, as if I were adopting this majority point of view. but I want to point out to you, doesn't this seem very logical?

[21:54] Doesn't it seem very reasonable? I can easily understand how I could have embraced such an idea had I lived back then. I think I would have been one leading the parade.

[22:06] It seemed so apparent. What could have been more powerful? This, of course, now follow me, because this is all connected.

[22:22] You realize everything that has happened in the past is connected to everything that's happened in the past and that it is responsible for producing the present. All of the bits and pieces out there, they all connect.

[22:38] They all come together. And one other thing that this did is it precipitated a serious and growing anti-Semitism that will accelerate throughout the following centuries, reaching a new apex in the 1940s with the indescribable horrors of the Holocaust.

[23:07] You would be sadly mistaken if you think that the persecution of the Jews was limited to the Holocaust than Adolf Hitler. The Jewish people have undergone persecution one way or another from, well, how far back do we go?

[23:26] Why? Back to Egypt. When they were in Egypt, enslaved and bondage for 400 years, that was certainly persecution, domination, oppression.

[23:38] And then when they came out from that and got into the promised land and settled in there, a few centuries roll by and the next thing you know, they are under the gun of Haman, the Agagite, and Queen Esther was raised up to deliver her people.

[23:58] They were threatened with extinction at that time, and throughout their history they have been a people on the run, on the move, pogroms, after pogroms.

[24:11] most of us are familiar with 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, but not too many Christians are aware of the fact that in 1492 there was a tremendous wave of persecution that the Jewish people had to undergo in Spain, and Spain, the throne passed an edict that said, all Jews will become Christians and will be baptized into the Christian faith by such and such a date, or you will be forced to leave the country.

[24:59] And by the way, whatever your position of assets or wealth might be, you will not be taking it with you. You will leave with the clothes on your back, and that's it.

[25:14] And multitudes of Jews lined up to be baptized into the Christian faith. Of course, their heart wasn't in it, but apparently that didn't matter to the throne as long as they made the official declaration.

[25:29] And this is all part and parcel of the Spanish Inquisition. This was 1492. And there were Jews who just went along with it and agreed with it because they had enormous interests, they had investments, many of them had wealth and possessions that they didn't want to leave, so they said, well, okay, we'll play your silly game, where do I sign?

[25:50] And they became, if you will, external Christians, but they remained internal Jews because someone has said a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still, so it didn't take that way.

[26:03] But many Jews were forced to leave because they would not convert to Christianity and they had to leave all their possessions and every family and everything behind and get out of the country.

[26:15] That was 1492 when Columbus was discovering America across the ocean blue. So the pogroms and things in connection with Jewish persecution continued largely because the Jew internationally was rebuffed and regarded as the Christ killer.

[26:42] These are the people that put Jesus Christ on the cross. And frankly, the common opinion was they deserve whatever hell we can bring to them by way of deprivation, by way of physical punishment or whatever.

[27:00] They deserve it. And they have been on the receiving end of that for centuries. And may I just inject right here that even though it escapes most of the world, there are two basic motivations that loom very large behind the persecution of the Jew.

[27:27] And the first is an incredible ignorance, arrogance, compounded by an incredible arrogance. And if man could have his ignorance and his arrogance corrected, we would be able to value the Jewish people the way they ought to be valued.

[27:48] There is no group or race of people that has contributed so much to humanity. By way of science and medicine and several other areas, the arts, no group of people has contributed so much to humanity as that tiny minority.

[28:16] And no one has paid such an incredible price as that same tiny minority. And it is all perpetuated by ignorance and arrogance.

[28:35] And both of these are difficult to overcome. As a result of many of the Christians of that day, and I'm talking about late first century and early second century, as a result of them thinking, being persuaded, looking at the obvious, that the church has been completely replaced by, or that Israel has been completely replaced by the church.

[29:06] Now, how are we going to fashion this new entity, this new church? How is it to be decided what this new church is to be like?

[29:18] And guess where they went for their inspiration? they went to Judaism. Can you believe it?

[29:31] Well, the reasoning was this. The thinking was this. Now, I'm not assigning it to anyone particular. I'm just trying to look at this the way I would have reasoned had I lived back then and knowing what I thought they knew.

[29:44] Even though, and follow me, and if you think that this is logical, accommodate me, even though God has rejected his original people, the Jew, permanently, that doesn't mean that there is anything particularly wrong with the Jewish religion.

[30:12] It's not the practices and the doctrines of Judaism that are so wrong as it is the Jewish people themselves.

[30:24] Because, after all, the law of Moses, the old covenant, all that God required and expected of the Jew as an obedient people, that was from God.

[30:36] There was nothing wrong with that. What was wrong was their noncompliance with it. So, it only seems logical that certain aspects of Judaism ought to be maintained and perpetuated only under a different format, which will now be Christian as opposed to Jewish.

[31:00] So, certain Jewish practices and rituals were modified and brought into the newly developing mostly Gentile church.

[31:12] And this was understandable. You know what we would call this? We would call this baggage. Baggage. They brought certain elements and aspects of Judaism into this new entity that has replaced Judaism because it only seemed logical to maintain these aspects of it.

[31:35] Judaism had, in fact, become corrupt and rejected of God. So, he destroyed their temple, scattered them throughout the world, and wrote them off.

[31:51] But, much of what they practiced and much of their doctrines and everything were fine. So, we need to keep those. And we need to marry those into this new faith so that we have maintained the best of Judaism and added to it some new things from Christianity.

[32:13] For instance, the priesthood and the orders of priests. Where do you think the Roman Catholic priesthood came from?

[32:26] How do you think it originated? It wasn't an altogether new thing. There was a precedent for it. What was the precedent? It was the Jewish priesthood.

[32:38] priesthood. The Jewish priesthood had a high priest. The first one was Aaron, and then his sons after him fulfilled the role of the high priest.

[32:51] So, the early church has a priesthood. Who is their high priest? Well, we don't have a high priest. Oh, of course.

[33:03] Well, we know who the new high priest is. Well, sure. Well, it's only logical. Of course. Why didn't we see that? The new high priest. You know who it is.

[33:16] It's Peter. Peter was the one to whom Christ gave the keys of the kingdom. When Christ was there in Caesarea, he said, who do men say that I, the son of man, am?

[33:28] Some said, well, some say that you're John the Baptist, come back to life. Some say that you are Elias or one of the prophets. And Jesus said, well, that's interesting. Whom say ye that I am?

[33:39] And it was Peter. Matthew 16, it was Peter who stood up and said, thou art the Christ. You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.

[33:54] And Jesus said, blessed art thou, Simon Barjonas, for flesh and blood has not revealed this unto thee. And I say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

[34:12] Well, what could be more obvious? Peter is the new high priest. But we won't call him a priest after that fashion because we don't want him to be confused exactly.

[34:28] He's not identical with Aaron or the Aaronic priesthood. but he is the first one. He is the papa. He is the pope.

[34:41] And Peter is installed in Roman Catholic theology as the first pope. Now, never mind, Peter obviously was not aware of that, but that's what Roman Catholic history records.

[34:58] And by the way, Peter is the first, as the first pope, you realize that he was married. At least, we may assume that he was married because nobody has ever managed to have a mother-in-law without having a wife.

[35:14] And Peter had one of those, we know, so the starting is a little bit shaky at the beginning. The rituals, the ceremonies, the garments, the incense, the formal prayers, all of these things that are part and parcel of the Roman Catholic tradition are rooted in Judaism.

[35:38] That's where they got them. It is only logical that they should. It is only reasonable that they should. It is only normal that they should. Not at all extraordinary.

[35:50] A new ecclesiastical body was being formed, and a new priesthood was developing. It is going to be called the Catholic Church.

[36:04] And the word Catholic simply means universal or general. If you look at the epistles in the New Testament, at Hebrews, and the Petrines, and the Johannines, they may be called in your Bible the general epistles.

[36:22] In some they're called the universal epistles. In some they're called the Catholic epistles. Catholic simply means universal. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you are a member of the Catholic Church.

[36:40] It may come as a revelation to you, but you are. However, as time went on, the Catholic Church became particularized in that the congregation and the ruling ecclesiastic in Rome became very dominant, very key, and very important.

[37:08] So, the headquarters of this whole new thing called the church is moved from where the Jewish headquarters were located in Jerusalem to where non-Jewish headquarters are located in Rome.

[37:30] And the Catholic Church morphed into the Roman Catholic Church, given that name because the head of the church resides in Rome and is the bishop of Rome, which means he, as the head bishop, is over all of the other bishops throughout the world.

[37:56] That is traditionally the role of the pope. To this day, there have been some 200 and some popes, and the present one is Pope Benedict.

[38:10] And by the way, I'm sure that the present pontiff is really agonizing over the latest developments that have surfaced regarding priest pedophilia in Germany, from which he originated, and this is his homeland, and he's got a new mess to have to deal with now, because what was the Roman Catholic nightmare here in the United States, with all the pedophilia being revealed, and the Catholic Church coughing up hundreds of millions of dollars to settle these claims, some of them going back 40 years, now the same thing is surfacing in Germany, and they say they are now dealing with just the tip of the iceberg.

[38:52] So that's something you're going to be hearing a whole lot more about. Peter had no successor, we will elect one, and he became the Pope or the Holy Father.

[39:08] What about the Old Testament and Israel? Well, they are continuing in a new vein with the Church and the Pope, which is the head of it.

[39:20] And it ought to be understood, and it ought to be acknowledged by Protestants in general, that organizationally and ecclesiastically, the Roman Catholic Church is the first organized ecclesiastical body that we have any record of.

[39:37] It is true, there were obviously small pockets and band of believers located in different areas that were not under the authority of the Roman Catholic Church.

[39:49] We would just call these individual Christians that didn't really belong to anything except to the Lord. But insofar as organization and recognition is concerned, this was the very earliest beginning of the Church, and it was Catholic, then Roman Catholic.

[40:09] And this continued on for approximately 1500 years. Well, it continues on to this present day, but there was a great disruption, and we'll talk about the East-West schism that took place in the 11th century a little bit later, but that too was key.

[40:23] But in the 1500s, when Martin Luther came on the scene, following the morning star of the Reformation, John Wycliffe in the 1380s, and William Tyndale, and men like that who are referred to as the Reformers, they really sought to make radical changes in the Roman Catholic Church, and the Roman Catholic Church was not about to be radically changed, was not open to that.

[40:51] So what became the Reformation was actually the seedbed of what became Protestantism. But you must understand that in the same way that the earliest Christians were all Jews, the earliest Protestants were all Catholics.

[41:12] Martin Luther was a Catholic priest. John Wycliffe was a Catholic priest. William Tyndale was a Catholic priest. And they loved their church, desperately, and wanted to reform it.

[41:26] But the church was not open to that. And the reason it wasn't is because the Roman Catholic Church had fallen into a terrible pit of corruption.

[41:39] And what they had done was they had in many respects repeated the corruption of Judaism. When Jesus Christ arrived on the scene and John the Baptist before him, the nation of Israel, religiously, doctrinally, was in a state of terrible corruption and rebellion against Jehovah.

[42:03] This was before Christ ever came on the scene. And the reason they did not receive John and they did not receive Jesus was because the religious establishment and the position of leadership were already on the outs with God before they ever came on the scene.

[42:20] They were living and perpetuating corruption in Judaism among the priesthood and the followers, the practices and everything else had become thoroughly corrupt. And this is one of the things that Christ denounced that cost him his life.

[42:35] Actually, it began hundreds of years earlier and the prophets in the Old Testament denounced it. And then, when Romanism, the Roman Catholic Church took over, guess what?

[42:48] It became corrupt. And by corrupt, I mean, they went astray doctrinally and morally.

[43:01] That's what corruption is. Doctrinal, moral, sometimes financial. The Jews did it. The Roman Catholic Church did it.

[43:13] And right now, the Protestants are doing it. And it all has to do with a rejection of the authority of Scripture and disassociating oneself from the authority of the Bible.

[43:26] Corruption is inevitable. It always follows. I talked to you last week about the law of entropy and how that nothing goes uphill. It's always downhill.

[43:37] Whether it's the tone of your skin that wants to go south or whatever, it always goes down. That's the way corruption is. it happened to the Jews, it happened to the Catholics, and it is happening to the Protestants.

[43:53] Could it happen to Grace Bible Church? Absolutely! And it will! It is inevitable unless you take deliberate definite steps to prevent it.

[44:08] Decay is the way. That's the way everything goes. You can go to an automobile showroom and see that beautiful, shiny thing sitting in that showroom that's got the $42,000 price tag on it, and man, is it a beauty.

[44:29] And where will you see it 10, 15, 20 years from now? It will be out at Walt's Wrecking Yard. And it will be taking on a new layer of rust.

[44:41] And it will be decaying. And it will be falling apart. That's what happens to everything. That's also what happens to our belief system if we do not continually prop it up with the truth of God.

[44:55] You will fall into air. Now, you're not going to see one of the cars at Walt's Wrecking Yard lying there, sitting there, whatever these cars do, jacked up on blocks with the tires off of it, and half cannibalized and half gone.

[45:12] You're not going to see it 15 or 20 years later in that showroom that we were talking about because it doesn't work that way. Everything tends downward.

[45:24] Human depravity downward. It was so before the flood, and it reached this critical mass, and God brought an end to it. We are doing the very same thing now as humanity.

[45:36] We're just taking longer to get there. But we are going down. Anybody who thinks human society is on an improvement track, I've got news for you. It is not.

[45:48] Our technology may be improving, but the caliber of our people is not. We still wantonly murder millions of babies every year, and we call ourselves civilized.

[46:04] We call ourselves advanced. We call ourselves sophisticated. complicated. We are just cut from the same old bolt of cloth. Judaism was corrupt.

[46:17] Roman Catholicism was corrupt. The Reformers and what they started is corrupt. Protestantism is corrupt. Evangelicalism will be corrupt if it does not take the preventive steps.

[46:29] That's the natural progression of things. I hate to leave you on a negative note like that, and I hate to leave you. Once again, I did not leave time for Q&A. So what I would like for you to do is this.

[46:43] Write down any questions you may have, and next week we will open with Q&A. I'll just make a couple of remarks, and we will let you have plenty of time for your questions or comments, and if you want to write any out, put them in the offering box, and I'll do my best to deal with.

[46:58] But next week we will open with Q&A, and I'll try to make up for having cheated you out of it this morning. Okay, let's pray. Father, we are stricken once again with the absolute necessity, importance, of staying so close to Scripture.

[47:18] We are so prone to lay aside the authority of the Word of God and replace it with our ideas, and our philosophy, and our insights.

[47:32] all of which lead to nothing but utter ruination, as we've seen it happen in generations past, and this one is no different. We are so grateful that you've given us this revelation.

[47:46] The very least we can do is be faithful to you in setting it forth, and in guiding and directing our lives and our doctrine and our church with it.

[48:00] And this is what we want to do more than anything else. Thank you for men and women who have gone in the past.

[48:13] Some have given their lives for what they believed, for the reformations that they thought were essential, and they paid dearly for them because they valued truth and honesty.

[48:25] we want to be people after that bold. Thank you for this time to share together this morning. Thank you for the beauty of the day and the season of the year, and for a loving Savior in his name.

[48:39]  Amen. Could I meet with the folks in connection with the Grand Villa Court for just a couple of minutes in the back? Thank you.