Sermon Cloud

Reformation Sunday 2007

John Calvin

“Set Aside for Specific Use by God”

Hebrews 6:11-12

Grace Fellowship Church

October 28, 2007

¹¹ And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, ¹² so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Introduction

For those of you that were not with us last year at this time, we began a tradition at Grace Fellowship Church to celebrate together Reformation Sunday.  Typically that will be held on the last Sunday in October.  The reason for that is the Protestant Reformation to which we are heirs was officially started October 31, 1517 by a young Augustinian monk who taught theology at the University in Wittenburg, Germany.  Martin Luther took a hammer, a nail, and a list of 95 debating points to the castle church door and drove the nail into the heart of medieval superstition.  Little did Luther know that passing by the church door with the ability to read Latin, a printer who had recently had his job greatly improved by Gutenberg’s printing press, would copy these 95 Theses down and distribute them all over Europe.  They were translated into various languages and evangelical Protestantism exploded all over Europe.

The Gospel message of salvation by faith through grace in Christ alone was music to the ears of multitudes held captive by Roman Catholic superstition that ruled the day.  And folks we live in a very similar time.  We live in a day that the established protestant church is filled with superstition and not just unbiblical teaching but anti-biblical teaching.  For the most part the Word of God has been tossed aside and tradition and good feelings have taken its place.  There are untold millions of people that will sit in church today and be lied to in the name of God and told things that can never be found in Scripture. 

Before Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenburg the church was being fooled into thinking they could buy a loved one’s way out of purgatory.  These were called indulgences and the mantra rang out across the European landscape, “When a coin in the coffer rings a soul from purgatory springs.”  The only difference between the superstition leading up to 1517 and the superstition of much of the church today is wrapped up in different mantras.  “I have been given a special word from the Lord and he said that if you sow seed into our ministry the Lord will bless that seed a hundred or even a thousand fold.  Bills will mysteriously disappear.  God will pay off your mortgage, your credit cards, your cars.”  This is the equivalent of a spiritual lottery. That would not have worked in the 1500’s because they did not live in the land of opportunity.  But in America today that is the popular message and people are falling for it all the time. 

Or people are falling for a false gospel.  You all have heard this, “If you just repeat this prayer and mean it with your whole heart you will be saved.”

Theology, the wonderful study of our great God, is said to be too divisive and therefore we should avoid it all costs.  But when the cost is returning to the Dark Ages the cost is far too high.  We live in a day where the Gospel is not even understood by many who claim to preach it.  People in the pew have no idea of the great doctrines of Scripture like justification by faith, the dual natures of Christ, election, predestination, and the grace of God. 

There are pastors that waive the Bible around while they are preaching but never teach what it says.  There are men and women peddling a type of snake oil that people will gladly gobble up to their destruction.  Many in the Dark Ages of 15^th century Europe could not read the Word of God.  Either they were illiterate or it was not available to them.  Many in the 21^st Century will not read the Word of God and it is available at the lowest prices of any book.  They are in hotel room drawers, bus stations, doctor’s offices and yet the people who claim to be Christians seldom even know there are 66 books contained within the cover.  They will not read the Scriptures.  At least in the Dark Ages the people had some excuse.  We live in a day where there is no excuse. 

One of the commitments that the elders of Grace Fellowship have made to God, to each other, and to the church is that those that God has so graciously provided for us to care for will constantly come into contact with the Word of God.  We read the Word together, we sing the Word together, we hear the preached Word of God together and then we challenge you to teach your children Word of God and the catechism and for you to become familiar with our confession of faith.  We do these things in worship to God because these are things He has commanded.  We are committed to the Word of God and the God of the Word.  In other words, we are striving to live out the Reformation principles that were handed down to us.  We are the heirs of a great treasure.  A treasure that must be guarded lest it slip away. 

I was converted in September of 1996 and shortly after enrolling in college where I met my bride, I met a professor named James Bryant.  Dr. Bryant taught church history and historical theology.  When I walked into his class the first day I knew absolutely nothing about people named Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, John Hus, John Wyclif, and the list goes on and on.  But Dr. Bryant lit within me a fire for the Reformation and for the doctrines that were again brought to the world through that Reformation.  My world was changed forever.  When I walked into that class my theology was bad.  My attitude toward church history was wrong.  “Why do we need to study these men of the past when there is a world that needs to be won to Christ?”  The answer to my naïve yet common question is this.  There indeed is a world that needs Christ, but those who will go out into that world must be carrying the true Gospel of Jesus Christ and not some man made watered down version of it. 

The true Gospel of Jesus Christ will cost you your life.  There will be many things and many thoughts that must be forsaken for the cross of Christ.  There are breaks that have to be made, careers that must be sacrificed, lives that must be laid down in order to take this glorious Gospel to the world.  And when we get to the world we must understand that narrow is the way that leads to salvation and few there be that find it.  We must understand that many are called but few are chosen.  We must understand that the Gospel is foolishness, utter folly, to those that are perishing.  But to us who are being saved it is the power of God unto salvation. 

If we are ignorant of Scripture, if we are ignorant of history, then we will fall into the same trap that the church of the Dark Ages and the modern church have fallen into. 

Just look at all the unscriptural tradition of the modern evangelical protestant church.  Sunday school, children’s church, vacation Bible School where the Bible is not taught, youth groups, dramas, the invitation system, the absolute necessity of walking an aisle, the push to raise money constantly to build bigger buildings, the push for more baptisms that will lead to more members that might lead to more money, the seeker sensitive movement, niche churches for bikers or for some other group, the charismatic movement, the prosperity gospel, the denial of the authority of the Word of God, and the list could go on and on. 

The end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century were not unlike what we have experienced in the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty first century.  I want to give you a quote from Alistair McGrath’s book on Calvin.  Listen to this and see if you find any similarities.

“Study after study of the church in Western Europe in the closing period of the Middle Ages confirms its gentle descent into a state of degeneration.”  There was widespread dissatisfaction with the church due to the “questionable morality” of the church leaders, “low standards of education” of the church leaders, and the “apparent absence of spiritual direction in the church.”    There was also an “over involvement in secular affairs.”  McGrath sums this up by stating, “Although proclaiming itself the steward of the values of the City of God, the church demonstrated itself to be firmly enmeshed in the needs, ambitions, desires, pleasures and possessions of the worldly order.” 

We live in a dark day.  So it is of the utmost importance that we know Scripture but it is also important that we know church history.  So this is the second year of celebrating Reformation Sunday at Grace Fellowship Church.  Last year we did a biographical sketch of Martin Luther.  This year I would like to introduce you to a man whom I am sure that you will recognize the name.  He is one of the most maligned and hated of the reformers but a man that God used mightily nonetheless.

I have titled this talk “Set Aside for Specific Use by God.”  This is how John Calvin understood his calling.

The best thing that ever came out of France was John Calvin.  He was born July 10, 1509 in Noyon, France into a committed Catholic family.  His father was employed by the local bishop as an administrator in the cathedral. So much of Calvin’s early days were heavily influenced by the Roman Church.  At age 14 his father sent him to Paris to study.  Like Luther his father wanted him to study law.  Luther did that for a while but turned to theology to be a priest much to the chagrin of his father.  Calvin did study law and finished his degree.  Although he studied law he had an interest in studying the classics and the Greek New Testament.  His father died in 1531 and after this event he began to strictly engage in the studies of the church fathers and the Greek New Testament.  Sometime, in the years 1529 and 1531 John Calvin was converted to Christ and thus to Protestantism. 

Let me give you Calvin’s account of his conversion.  He called himself a “stick in the mud.”  What he meant by that was his utter inability to wade to freedom.  It could have been an utter contentment to simply stay in the mire of Catholic spirituality no matter how contradictory it was to the New Testament.  Calvin said of his own conversion, “At last, God turned my course in a different direction by the hidden bridle of His providence…By a sudden conversion to docility, He tamed a mind too stubborn for its years.” 

John Calvin is probably the most hated of all the reformers by Catholics, heathens, and Protestants alike.  He has been painted over the last centuries with a brush that shows him as this cold, unfeeling, arrogant, and at times evil man who was simply insane or enamored with the love of his own self.  The doctrine of predestination that is so often associated with him, but flowed more freely from the pen of Luther and others, has caused people to call this man insane.  He has been called the “dictator of Geneva.”  Like he was some 16^th century “butcher of Baghdad.”   But I want you to hear what Calvin was really saying about his own calling.  He felt that God had indeed set him apart for a special work.  He did not know what that was but simply made himself available for God’s use no matter what that was.  Those that have ever felt that way are often accused of megalomania or thinking too much of themselves.  But Calvin had no thoughts of fame or wealth.  He said to be called by God, by human standards, is almost a mark of total failure.  God calls the unrighteous, the outcasts and the downcasts, those who are foolish and weak in the eyes of the world. 

Calvin was a success in the eyes of history.  He is remembered by those who admire him as well as those who hate him.  But his life was not without trouble.  He did not glide into Geneva and become an overnight success.  His life was a life that was marked by trouble, much like ours.  He was tested over and over again.  His faith wavered.   In 1533 his friend Nicolas Cop gave an address in France supporting the new reformed views of Christianity.  Many believed that Calvin actually wrote this address and as a result of the address the situation grew so dangerous that in 1535 Calvin had to flee France to save his own life.  The would be reformer was now a refugee in the city of Basel, Switzerland.  It was there in 1536 that he would publish a small volume known as The Institutes of the Christian Religion.  At the time this was a small six chapter book that outlined his reformed views of the Christian faith and to defend the French Protestants who were undergoing intense persecution because of their faith in Christ.  In the last edition that was published in 1559, The Institutes had grown to 79 full chapters.  Calvin viewed this work as a guide book to the Scriptures. 

John Calvin was on his way to Strasbourg when he met with a Genevan named Farel.  Geneva had just voted to and I quote, “live henceforth according to the Law of the gospel and the Word of God, and to abolish all papal abuses.”  What seems like a great vote, without proper structure would devolve into chaos.  Farel knew this and thought that Calvin was just the man to help Geneva establish a true Protestant city.  Even though Farel was convinced of this, Calvin was not.  Calvin wanted to live in Strasbourg and study.  He wanted an ivory tower lifestyle.  He desired to spend his days with his books, his Bible, and pen and paper.  But God had other plans for Calvin.  Farel pleaded with Calvin to come with him to Geneva.  Calvin would not budge.  Finally in a moment of desperation Farel prayed out loud, “May it please God to curse your leisure and the peace for study that you desire if you go away and refuse to help them in a time of great need.” Calvin was so shocked and frightened by this that he decided to accompany Farel back to Geneva.  He refused to be obligated to any duty but said he would be a teacher of the Bible only and not a pastor.  But only a short time passed before he was taken by force into the pastorate. 

I told you that Calvin struggled just as we struggle.  It was not all victory parades and confetti every where he went.  It did not take very long before Calvin and Farel were expelled from Geneva.  This was so upsetting to Calvin that he questioned his own calling. He had time to mull over all the occurrences of Geneva and came to the conclusion that he did nothing wrong but definitely could have done things differently.  Reformers often are so passionate for the truth that they can be unsympathetic to those who might still be struggling.  So while in Strasbourg Calvin wrote, read, studied and even though he struggled financially he married a local widow, Idellete de Bure. 

By 1539 the tide was turning in Geneva and the pro-Farel party had regained power.  Farel now sought Calvin out to come back to Geneva.  As you can imagine Calvin had no great desire to return to the people of Geneva who had just recently booted him out.  That is like being fired from a job and then being rehired only to live with the notion that you may be refired at any time.  But a very reluctant Calvin went back to Geneva.  He was not welcomed with open arms.  Calvin never received citizenship in Geneva.  He was never allowed to vote.  Even though he wielded much influence in his later years he was not propelled to authority right away.  It was not until 1555 that Calvin held much sway with the rulers of Geneva.  The city was originally populated with about 13,000 people but in the years before 1555 that population doubled largely because they had a lot of homeschoolers with lots of children.  Okay that is not true.  The reason for the rise in population was because many French were being exiled to Geneva because of its reformed status.  Many had to flee for their life and they heard that Geneva was the place to go.  To avert an economic crisis the wealthy and educated that were now in Geneva as non-citizens were given the right to vote.  Thus the pro-Calvin party was elected to power. 

So what did Calvin do with this power?  Did he use it for self interest and to build wealth and to be the dictator of Geneva?  Absolutely not.  What is the main accusation from Christians who are not Calvinists against those of us who are?  We are not evangelistic.  Calvin did what any true Calvinist will do when given the opportunity.  He mobilized for a mass invasion of France… with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Contrary to popular belief the biblical understanding of predestination and election does not lead away from evangelism, it drives evangelism.  The complaint that most non-Calvinists have with Calvinists is not really that we don’t evangelize.  What it really is, is that we refuse to employ their methodology.  We find it very offensive as Calvinists to see the decisionalism that plagues modern evangelism so we shun it.  We deplore the false doctrine of the autonomy and freedom of the human will to choose Christ anytime they so desire.  God forbid that they accuse us of never evangelizing in our day.  Understanding the biblical doctrine of predestination and election should ignite within us a fire and determination to herald the Gospel to the ends of the earth.  May God raise up from among this congregation men and women aflame with the passion of glorifying God in the propagation of the Gospel even to the uttermost.  What the Calvinist understands is that God has a people that He has handpicked from the foundation of the world from every tribe, tongue, and nation and that God has also ordained the method by which these will be brought to the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Which leads us to a very important question about John Calvin.  What did Calvin understand and believe that God used as the medium for the proclamation of the Gospel?  This is very important for us to soak up this morning.  Calvin believed that the medium that God employed in calling dead, lifeless corpses to repentance and faith in Christ was the persuasive Word of God.  Calvin’s life was altered by this and he knew that in order for sinners to come to repentance they must come into contact with the Word of God.  In other words, God has chosen to communicate with human beings by the medium of human words.  Those human words are found in the 66 books of the Bible. 

This is the place where Calvin gave us the greatest gift of his mind.  He answered the questions that have been often raised.  “How can words ever do justice to the majesty of God?  How can words span the massive gulf between God and sinful humanity?”  Calvin gave us the “Principle of Accommodation.”   Calvin argued that in revelation God adjusts Himself to the capacity of the human heart and mind.  “He paints a portrait of Himself that we are capable of understanding.”  The analogy that Calvin used was that of a great orator trained in rhetoric speaking in such a way that even the uneducated among the audience could understand.  God lowered Himself; he condescended in order to communicate Himself to us.  He used the term baby talk.    

Which by the way puts more value on Scripture.  The opponents of Calvin will accuse him of making a god out of the Bible.  But this is not true.  Calvin simply understood that God had revealed Himself to us in language and that language was in Scripture.  Any thing else that paraded itself as revelation was inadequate and untrustworthy because of the sinfulness of our minds.  This is why Calvin wrote so much.  He wanted the faith that God had shown him available to others.  He preached and he published.  The Institutes was written as a guidebook for understanding the Scriptures.  It became the single most influential work in the Reformation.  Even though Calvin wrote commentaries on almost every book of the Bible his Institutes were the most influential of his works. 

Scripture and the publishing of that Scripture was the medium through which Calvin would communicate his message.  But what was Calvin’s message?  And when we discover this message will it ring true with us as heirs of the Protestant Reformation?  Normally when someone attacks Calvinism they seldom bring Scripture into the debate.  They simply attack Calvin or they talk about the “obvious conclusions” of Calvinism.  The obvious conclusions are a prideful Christianity and a lack of evangelistic zeal.  Neither of which are historically true. 

What Calvin believed came from Scripture.  He viewed Scripture as the ultimate authority even though he lived in a day where believing that could cost you your life.  Calvin divided his Institutes into four parts.  Book I deals with the doctrine of God, II with the doctrine of redemption focusing on the Son of God, book III with the application of redemption on and in the people of God, and book IV deals with the life of the church. 

In the biography that I have, Alistair McGrath states plainly that to understand Calvin you must read Calvin.  So I want to introduce you to a few difficulties that Calvin covers in the Institutes. 

The first is the question of whether or not God is the author of sin.  Some have made this suggestion because of the passages that deal with Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, and Sanacharib.  Listen as I read Calvin’s response to this.

See Page 46 and top of 47.

How does Calvin explain justification by faith?  See page 34 paragraph 32.

What about sinless perfection?  See page 33.

What did Calvin believe was the mark of a true church?  See page 191.

What did Calvin believe about election, predestination, and perseverance?  Se page 59 paragraph 23. 

Would we believe everything Calvin taught?  No.  He taught infant baptism which we in the Baptist tradition do not hold to.  But if you take the time to read men like Calvin what you will discover is the Biblical consistency with which he addresses topics and theology. 

These once a year looks at the reformers are meant to do two things.  First my intention is to burn in you a knowledge that we indeed have a great cloud of witnesses that have gone before us and that if we take the time to get to know these witnesses we will not be so quickly deceived by the errors that plague the church today.  Second, I want you to understand the spiritual heritage that we are passing on to our children so that they will understand and their children will understand, and their children’s children will understand.  An ignorance of the faith leads to apostasy.  Many of the problems of the modern church stem from an outright avoidance of the history of the church. 

I have made it a point to study the characters of church history.  What I have discovered in these important figures of church and human history is the steadiness that they possessed.  God had clearly intervened in their lives and given them a course.  That course was clear.  It was the publishing and proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ found in the Bible, the Word of God.  That was their mission and they refused to waiver from it.  No matter if the character was Martin Luther, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, Martin Lloyd Jones, or anyone else this commitment to the Word of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ was monumental in their lives.  It marked them out over and above their peers.  While many were tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine and new scheme or new way of doing things these men were captured by the Word of God and they were faithful to it no matter if they preached to five or five thousand.  The audience never dictated the message.  It did not matter if they stood before emperors, kings, queens, or paupers.  The message was the same and the message was the Word of God. 

It was like Paul standing before Felix and Drusilla his wife.  They wanted to hear something from Paul because they had heard of all the magnificent things he had done.  Paul has something to say and that something is the Gospel.  Acts 24:25 says this about Paul’s message.

²⁵ But as he was discussing righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix became frightened and said, "Go away for the present, and when I find time I will summon you."

Here is you chance Paul to water down the message of the cross and make it palatable to Felix and Drusilla and maybe they would accept it and let you go free.  If you don’t do this you are going to Rome and you will be killed.  Just a little compromise.  It can be forgiven and you will be free to preach wherever and whenever you want.  Paul stands before Felix and Drusilla and says I have a three point sermon for you.  I want to talk about righteousness, self control, and the coming judgment.  In essence he was looking at Felix and saying, “You may be judging me now, but God will judge you very soon.  He would have said the same thing to us if he were here today.

God may change messengers, but the message of God never changes and that is why we study these men and women of history.  We can look at their lives and see the similarities between us and them and also be challenged to remain steadfast in our pursuit of faithfulness in a world hostile to true faith.  We can see that they struggled with the flesh as we struggle with the flesh and they at times were tempted to turn back.  But when we look back, when we know church history and the struggles that brought the faith to us we understand the struggles that we may have to face and then we can say with the Apostle Paul;

 ¹⁰ that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; ¹¹ in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
¹² Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. ¹³ Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.