Looking Back to Look Forward

What is his promise but that he will build his church? Who is this one who made the promise but the Christ, the Son of the living God, the one who has conquered sin and death and all our enemies and sits at the Father's right hand? He is the one who made the promise. When you consider the state of the church, are you encouraged?

What about the state of society in general? Many Christians feel discouraged but we have every reason to be confident and to stand firm for the truth. You're listening to Renewing Your Mind and this week you'll hear messages from Ligonier's 2023 National Conference. Our theme was stand firm and I hope you'll find this week's teaching to be an encouragement. Today Stephen Nichols, Ligonier's chief academic officer and the president of Reformation Bible College, looks back to a promise that Jesus made and shows that he can be trusted to keep his word and that he has throughout all of church history despite the circumstances or opposition.

Here's Dr. Nichols. Well my topic is looking back to look forward. Some would say that's too much for me. Just looking at the now is more than enough. Just what's on the horizon in front of me is overwhelming enough to complicate it by thinking about the past and thinking about what might lie ahead. And then when we say, well let's look back, there's all sorts of responses to that, isn't there? There's the nostalgic response. So we look back all dreamy-eyed about the good old days and we are full of sentiment and we are full of just despair of where we find ourselves as if this foreign country of the past is irretrievable and what a Shangri-La it was. There are others that look back and look at the past as if to enshrine it.

A sort of history as museum. And then there are others summed up in that wonderful short terse statement by Henry Ford, history is bunk. As Henry Ford went on to say, what is history but tradition and who wants tradition? History is in the past, let's leave it there. And then in our moment it's all about progress, isn't it? Newer is better, we say. We used to say that was yesterday's news, now it's that was so five minutes ago. And as the roar of progress surrounds us, it drowns out any wisdom from the voices of the past.

We are a people of progress. There is no reason, in fact, why. It's only dangerous to look back. Well I trust that all of us gathered would not give in to any of those temptations. But that we would know we look back in order to look forward. Not to enshrine the past, not to have some overblown sense of nostalgia and certainly not to be dismissive of it from our perch in history. But to recognize the value of the faithful testimony of those who've gone before us as we seek to be faithful disciples in this moment. This moment that likely when all is said and done and this moment gets characterized, it may very well be called the age of absurdity. And yet this is the moment in which we have been called and it is in this moment that we are to stand firm, to stand fast, to not waver. Well as we look back, let's first look to Scripture. Please turn with me to Matthew chapter 16. Matthew chapter 16 verse 13, as you're turning there, this is a pivotal moment in Matthew's narrative.

Prior to now, the majority of the focus has been on Galilee and the majority of the three years of the public ministry of Christ. And as we move into chapters 18 and 19, we move geographically to Jerusalem and we begin to focus on what becomes the final days. But here in the end of chapter 16 and 17 in the Mount of Transfiguration is this pivotal moment.

If the gospel of Matthew were a song, we might call these sections the bridge as we move from one section to the next. And Jesus is in an interesting place as these verses begin at Matthew chapter 16 verse 13. Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked the disciples, who do people say that the Son of Man is? And they said, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, blessed are you Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. This text has a place Caesarea Philippi, rich in history this place, 35 or so miles north of Galilee. In Old Testament times it was at this place that Jeroboam introduced idolatry into the nation of Israel and celebrated and sacrificed to Baal at that location. As the Greeks came on to the scene, they turned this location into a center of the worship of Pan. Caesarea Philippi is an overwhelming place, a massive rock, towering, monumental, and in the sides of that rock a niche is carved out here and there and here, and in those niches are placed the idolatrous images of the gods of the Greeks. And in Roman times this place, this site of idolatrous worship during theocratic Israel and this place of Greek worship of the false gods, the Romans will celebrate their tyrant, their despot, and celebrate the power that is human government.

And so this city gets named for Caesar, Caesarea Philippi. It's the whole package. Idolatry, false religion, false worldviews, false power structures, false leaders, it's the whole package. And there Jesus is with his faithful twelve and they've seen amazing things. And he takes them to this amazing backdrop with this massive rock as the stage. And there's another geographical and geological feature to this place. In the midst of this rock there's a gaping hole and in Jesus's day water would have come out of that gaping hole and would have been the springs that eventually fed into the Jordan River. There was an earthquake in intervening years and that gaping hole was shut up and the water emerged from springs elsewhere nearby. The ancients, the Greeks, believed that that gaping hole was the gate to Hades.

And the river that flowed out of there was the river sticks and deep in its belly is the underworld, the place of the gods, Hades. This place with its history, this place with its features is the perfect backdrop for this moment of Peter's confession. How we love to criticize Peter. How we love to see him quick to do the wrong thing. Impetuous Peter gives us all hope that if Peter made it we might too.

But not here. Here he gets an A plus for the day. And we have this confession.

Again pivotal. All that Jesus has been doing has been a demonstration of who he is and he is the anointed one come down out of heaven for us. He is the son of the living God exegeting manifesting the father making him known he is God with us.

And he just wants to be with us. And the religious leaders missed it. And the zealous missed it. And they sat around campfires and they debated if he was a prophet of old resurrected or if he was John the Baptist resurrected.

And they debated and they debated and they were as wrong as they could be and Peter says with bullseye accuracy you are the Christ. And after this confession we have a promise. There's a twofold dimension to this promise. There's a positive dimension to this promise.

I will I will build my church. And then there is a negative dimension to this promise. The enemy, the gates of hell, the gaping jaws wide open will not prevail. Now if the disciples were paying attention they would have seen example after example of a witness to the reliability of that promise in the life of Christ.

Can we go back to just one horrific example? Matthew chapter 2. Jesus is born. Herod is afraid and desperate.

And desperate people do desperate things. And Herod raged. And the soldiers were dispatched. And the infants were slaughtered. And Rachel wept. And the hellishness of it all is an unbearable weight.

And it had to seem insurmountable. And yet the promise carried on. And we just drip drop rather a few verses past where we've read of Peter's confession in this promise and we meet another obstacle. Immediately in verse 21 from that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and he must suffer many things.

And Mark adds, and be rejected and die. He will be killed. Now Jesus goes on to say that he will be raised the third day but after suffered and be killed the disciples couldn't hear anything else. And in fact from here forward Jesus is going to continually have to teach them that he will suffer and be killed but on the third day he will rise again.

But they can't hear it because all they can hear is the obstacle. The suffered, the rejected, the killed. And so how will Jesus build his church if he's dead? And how will the gates of hell be held back and not prevail if the the Roman proconsul and Jerusalem cannot be restrained?

And if a batch of Roman soldiers can't be stopped? And yet he goes to Jerusalem and he is arrested. And at night the disciples scatter in helplessness. Had they forgotten the promise? Could they no longer hear the promise over the the roar of the hellish powers? That we're in a full-on assault against the kingdom of God. And darkness comes at midday and Jesus breathes his last and he's laid out in a tomb. And what celebrations were taking place at the gates of hell? What jeering must have arisen when Jesus was laid out in a tomb. But, but the stone is rolled away and Jesus is resurrected and he walks out of the tomb and the promise carries on. And we come to Paul. He's the he's the leader of this church, the default leader.

And it's a marginal group. And their leader gets imprisoned in Rome. And imagine the fear. Again, a tyrant, a despot is in control. And fear overtakes the church. And what does Paul write? But my imprisonment?

Oh no. God has has turned this around. This is for the advancement of the gospel. This isn't the defeat of the gospel. And he gets released and he gets imprisoned again.

Now this time there's no hope of release. He's in this dark, dank, mammertime prison without light. He can hear the the imperial forum stretching for miles with its its markets and its temples, its revelry and its idolatry. But he knows the promise. He holds on to the promise. And he gets to the end of this last will and testament of his, 2 Timothy chapter 4. He gets to verse 17 and he says, but the Lord stood by me. The Lord strengthened me so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. I will build my church. And I was rescued from the lion's mouth. I can picture it in my mind.

The Romans, they loved the image of the lion and they would would capture them and they'd bring them to Rome and they'd walk them on the streets. Paul can hear it roaring from his prison cell. But it's all shadows flickering on the wall. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed. Gates of hell are no match.

He will bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. Not to Nero. Not to that megalomaniac who has set himself up for the whole world to worship.

Not to Nero. But to him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Because the promise carries on and the gates of hell will not prevail.

You know it's also beautiful that it's not just the platform people that we see this promise manifested in. It's also in the unknown countless saints. In 1 Peter chapter 4 at verse 12 Peter tells us, Beloved, do not be surprised the fiery trials when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. Fiery trials, tests, suffering, strange things.

It's that gaping mouth of hell spewing suffering, spewing the stench of death, attempting to swallow up hope. But the promise carries on. Carries on in Paul. Carries on in these unknown brothers and sisters of Christ who suffered in the first century. Promise carries on through church history. We see it in the pages of the New Testament but we see it in the pages of church history.

It carries on in Polycarp. That aged bishop, 86 years old, declared the enemy of the state and they track them down. They find them behind a farm and they bring them into the trial and they put them before the arena and they say turn to your fellow Christians and say to them away with the atheists and you will be released. It's probably the biggest irony in the early church that the early Christians were accused of atheism because they denied the gods of the state. So distance yourself from your atheists, fellow atheists, and you'll be free.

Oh how could I do that? How could I turn my back on my Savior who has been faithful to me for 86 years building His church. You know what he does? He looks out at the crowd of the Romans. I won't I won't do this to you because I don't I don't want you to be the Romans in this story. He looks out at the crowd of the Romans and he says away with the atheists.

That's standing firm. The end of the martyrdom of Polycarp, the author of that early Christian text says that all this happened while Philip was the high priest, false religion, and Statius Quadratus was the proconsul, a fiendish tyrannical oppressive government. But when Jesus Christ was reigning as king forever and ever, Amen. That is a belief in the promise of Matthew 16.

And we move to 303. Diocletian is the emperor. He wants to get rid of the Christians and he seeks an oracle. And this time the gates of hell speak through an oracle of a false God, of a false temple.

And the oracle says wipe out the Christians. In a decade of intense persecution ensues. Eusebius, the early church historian, tells us that the jails were so full of Christians that it was a crime spree in the Roman Empire.

Criminals were getting away scot-free because all attention was on persecuting the Christians. And then Constantine. And then the edict of Milan.

And the reversal of the persecution. And then the calling of the Council of Nicaea on Lake Iznik, Constantine's summer palace. And the theologians and the bishops get invited to Constantine's summer palace, the Caesars summer palace. And they eat lobster and they write the Nicene Creed.

Because I will build my church. And we go to Prague and a priest. And he's seeing what's happening in the church and he's seeing what is in the Word of God. And he raises his prophetic voice and he's summoned to Constance to a church council and there Jan Hus is condemned to death. He's put in a prison, deprived of nutrition, deprived of sunlight. After a year he's brought out pale shadow of his former self. And he's led a kilometer outside of the city gates and there he is burned at the stake as a heretic.

Again the irony. And he says, you can kill the goose. I don't know the Czech language but I'm told Hus is Czech for goose. You can kill the goose but a hundred years from now will come the Swan and you will not be able to kill the Swan. Now I would think he was a true prophet because a hundred years later Luther came on the scene.

Almost to the day but I'm not sure anyone ever accused Luther of being a Swan. If Hus had said the raging bull in a china shop he'd be a true prophet. And we'd have to rethink our view of ongoing revelation. And in the darkness they covered every corner of the church.

A flicker of light began to shine. Because the gates of hell will not prevail. The darkness will not eclipse the light of the gospel.

And lies will assault the truth but they will never kill it. Because Jesus is building his church. Pope and church. Emperor and state. And Luther stood on the promise.

It's not always the full-on assault. Sometimes the gates of hell function through indifference and convenience. 1730s. You'd think this would be a great time to be alive. Especially you nostalgia church history people out there. The good old days. The Puritan commitments had waned. Second generation, third generation no longer was concerned with those convictions and beliefs and commitments. And nominalism had overtaken much of these New England Puritan congregations. In fact many of the ministers weren't even converted. And in 1735 in rural Pennsylvania William Tennant built a rustic log cabin to train ministers for the gospel.

It's the first Presbyterian ministerial training Academy in these United States. It's the first college in the state of colony then state of Pennsylvania and he called it the log college. And he was ridiculed and he was mocked and he was disdained by the establishment. Because indifference and comfort and convenience were gushing forth from the gaping jaws of the gates of hell. And Tennant trained these ministers and sent them out believing in the promise of the gospel and the great awakening ensued.

And they moved that college across the Delaware River and it became Princeton. And then a few centuries later Machen had to move it back because now the gates of hell were academic credibility and respectability. And the leading universities of Europe had all told us that Moses didn't write the Pentateuch and Matthew didn't write Matthew and Mark didn't write Mark and Luke did not write Luke and of course John did not write John.

These are much later documents written by the impressions that were left of those who thought they were encountering God. And Jesus didn't do miracles and Jesus didn't rise from the dead and Jesus was not born of a virgin and there is no future kingdom it's simply here's the word of the early 20th century progress on earth. And academic credibility and progressivism were the new gates of hell marching orders. And Machen goes back across the Delaware River and starts a little seminary because I will build my church.

But I want to end with someone you've never heard of. Post-war China, post World War II China, government cracks down on all things Christian. Intense time of persecution.

Bibles are confiscated, churches are leveled, Christians are imprisoned and persecuted. And the Chinese Christians remembered that the previous generations of missionaries were buried with their Bibles and they exhumed the bodies and they recovered the Bibles. And there would be a precious Bible for a Christian community and they would hand this Bible off and you would take that Bible and you would hand write copies of those biblical books and then you would hand the Bible off to someone else and they would hand write copies of biblical books.

We have a rear book room in our library at the college. We have an Erasmus Greek text to King James with multiple Geneva Bibles worth significant amounts of money. This manuscript is priceless. This is a copy in Chinese of the book of Revelation hand copied from one of those Bibles taken from the exhumed body of a missionary. Because in the face of the gaping jaws of hell, Jesus is building his church. And the book of Revelation, the book of Revelation, I don't know Czech, I don't know Chinese either. This is from Revelation chapter 1. And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth, and the ruler of the chairman of the communist regime of China. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom. Priests to the God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and forever. Amen. Can you imagine being the man writing this verse, huddled in the back room of your house, believing in the promise.

Pages of New Testament and the pages of church history are witness to the promise, to the reliability of the promise that Jesus will build his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. So what do we do in our moment? What do we say in our moment? These challenges that we've seen historically, false religions, fiendish false religions, oppressive governments, tyrants, death spots, indifference, convenience, comfort, progress.

Are they not all present in our moment and do they not all seem intensified? And so we say, oh we of little faith. Who is this one who made the promise? But the Christ, the living one, the Son of the living God, the one who has conquered sin and death and all our enemies and sits at the Father's right hand. That is the one who has made the promise.

Our Lord, our Savior, full of authority and power and might and full of mercy and compassion and love. He made, he is the one who made the promise. And what is his promise? But that he will build his church. And from the moment he made that declaration there were obstacles.

And every single obstacle has been overcome. Can his word be broken? Can Jesus's promise fail? Let us not be like so many in the pages of the Gospels who get rebuked for our little faith.

May we not think that this moment is insurmountable. Evil eclipses beauty and lies assault the truth and the gates of hell roar and death swallows up hope. And yet in the midst of it all the promise carries on. And the song carries on in the church.

From one generation to the next. Because Jesus is faithful. And because Jesus is faithful we can stand firm. Pray with me. Father in our God, you gave us the gift of your son. You sent him to us to conquer sin, to conquer death, to conquer hell, to build his church. May we trust and rest in Jesus Christ and with boldness may we enter into the fray for he has secured for us the victory. And in the name of Jesus, King of Kings, we pray.

Amen. May we remember that truth. Because Jesus is faithful you and I can stand firm.

That was Stephen Nichols on this Monday edition of Renewing Your Mind. So what is it that we believe as Christians? What are the truths that we must stand firm for and the truths that we must confess? The Westminster Confession of Faith is one of the most precise and comprehensive statements of biblical Christianity. Dr. Sproul said it was one of the most important confessions of faith ever penned and today for your donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org we'll send you the hardcover edition of Truths We Confess which is R.C. Sproul's introduction to this summary of the faith and his exposition of each line of the confession.

Request your copy today at renewingyourmind.org or by calling us at 800-435-4343. The Word of God is filled with truth that encourages us to stand firm. We heard one promise today and next time Derek Thomas will join us to point us to another. That'll be Tuesday here on Renewing Your Mind. you