Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina.
The school was founded in 1927 by the evangelist Dr. Bob Jones Sr. His intent was to make a school where Christ would be the center of everything, so he established daily chapel services. Today, that tradition continues with fervent biblical preaching from The University Chapel Platform. Just over 500 years ago, in October 1517, Martin Luther wrote his 95 Theses, which is considered to be the beginning of the Reformation. For the next several days on The Daily Platform, we'll be studying some of these doctrines in a series called Truth Triumps. Let's listen now to today's message, where Dr. Sam Horn will walk us through an introduction to the Reformation. What a great day that we have today. I know the weather isn't the greatest, but I think as we turn in our scriptures to John chapter 8, and we begin a celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, that celebration is going to go on our entire semester.
And I don't know about you, but I am excited about the men who are going to come in the weeks ahead and help us not just to understand different aspects of the Reformation, but really to be deeply and personally impacted by what God did at the Protestant Reformation, and not just impacted, but inspired to live out those truths in our daily life. I was sitting around the table a few weeks ago with others on the executive team, and we were talking about something, and one of the men around the table used a word that really resonated with me, and it was the word game changer. How many of you have ever heard that word?
How many of you have used that word? A game changer is a person or an action or an event that radically changes the course or alters the outcome of something. Perhaps you've had the opportunity in your own life to be affected by an event or by a person or by a circumstance that radically changed the course of your life, or that radically redirected the way you think about life.
So I walked away from that table thinking about this message and thinking about that term, game changer. There are a few key moments in human history where the entire course of human civilization has been affected and shaped by the actions, the words, or the influence of a single individual. One such moment occurred 500 years ago on the morning of October 31st, 1517, when a young German monk nailed a document on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany.
Game changer. That monk, as you well know, was Martin Luther, and he changed the course of Western civilization that day with his pen, his mallet, and 95 statements. You know, it's interesting as you sort of read about Luther and you kind of go back to the event that took place that day. One of the surprising things to me was that as you really get into the story of his life, at that moment when Luther nailed up those 95 statements, he really was not truly a born again Christian yet. I don't think he anticipated igniting a movement that would have such a lasting impact on the world. I think all he wanted to do that day was to have an informed theological debate with someone that Luther believed was deceiving his people and peddling error. And that's a story for another day.
We'll actually talk about that throughout our semester. But God had much bigger plans for Luther and for the world. Luther may have launched what you and I know as the Reformation, but God himself was behind it. And almost unwittingly, Luther launched a movement that moved the theological center of much of Western civilization.
And in the process, he recovered some of the most precious truths entrusted by God to his church. Now if you have been reading any sort of theological correspondence or articles or you've been interacting with anything that's going on in the theological world, everybody at this particular period of time in this year who are serious about history, who are serious about theology or even church history, are giving serious attention to the Reformation. And so I think it's fitting, particularly for us, who are the heirs of what the Reformers did to take a semester and to talk about the Reformation. And so this morning, as I introduce the series, I have really three simple things I would like to accomplish.
Let me give them to you very quickly. I would like to start by making an important observation from the Scripture to set the theological focus of our series. So that's one thing I'd like to do this morning. Secondly, I'd like to take some time to answer some important questions about the Reformation to try to give us some historical perspective and to tie in what we're talking about in chapel with what you're learning throughout the course of your entire education here at Bob Jones University.
We want to make some connections through answering these questions. And then finally, at the end of the day, I'd like to make some personal applications in order to help us profit spiritually from our journey through the Reformation this semester. So you have your Bible open this morning to the eighth chapter of John, and I'd like to begin by identifying the theological focus as we look at an important biblical text that John recorded for us. And I'm going to have you look at two verses that are in a paragraph that John records at the end of chapter 8. And I'll read them, you can follow along in your Bible. John chapter 8 verse 31, then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. And then later on in verse 36, if the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. Let me give you a little bit of the context of Jesus' comments here. In chapter 7, Jesus had come to Jerusalem to celebrate one of the most important feasts in ancient Israel, the Feast of Tabernacles.
You might know it better as the Feast of Booths. And in the middle of this seven-day feast, Jesus went up to the temple and began to teach openly about himself. And by the time he was done with his teaching, he left his hearers amazed at his authority, impressed at his ability, and confronted with the uncomfortable reality that they had to make a decision about what he was teaching. And at the heart of the Reformation is this uncomfortable reality, that there are truths that the Reformers recovered that every one of us have to come to, and we have to make a personal decision about. And that's precisely what we have here in this context. Now at the core of what Jesus was teaching in these two chapters were two important issues that every hearer had to decide for himself.
Here's the first. Was what Jesus teaching actually true? In other words, was Jesus telling the truth in his teaching? Was he actually telling the truth about the coming of a Messiah that had been promised in the Old Testament that would deliver his people and bless his nation?
Did the Scriptures actually teach this? Was Jesus teaching the truth? And if you believed that he was, there was a second question that you had to deal with, and that was this. If you believed that Jesus was actually teaching the truth, were you prepared to embrace the truth that he was teaching about himself?
Because what he is going to teach in this passage that we just read is that he himself is actually the truth that is going to set men free. And every individual hearing Jesus that day had to decide. And there are going to be things that you hear this semester in the conversations and in the messages that we have about the Reformation that you may have understood conceptually, that you may be familiar with.
But at some point as we go through this semester, every single one of us is going to have to come to a point where we decide whether or not these things are true. And if they are, are we prepared to personally affirm them and to personally embrace them? Jesus looked at those people who believed on him and basically said to them, if you remain in my word, if you remain in my teaching, then are you truly my disciples? In other words, how will we know if you have really believed? And Jesus' answer was, you will know that you have really believed if you remain in my word.
Why? Because through my teaching, you will know, you will experience the truth and the truth will do something. It will set you free. So how will I know that I have really been set free?
And Jesus' answer to that is astonishing in verse 36. You will know that the truth has made you free because I am the one who is making you free. And if the Son makes you free, then you are free indeed. And so this morning, the theological truth that we want to recognize as the focus of this series is this, that when truth triumphs, true freedom flourishes. And when truth is lost or displaced or distorted, then darkness descends spiritually, morally, and socially. In other words, we could say it this way, freedom is directly related to the concept of truth generally and to the person of Jesus Christ specifically. So whatever else you want to say about the Reformation, all of the different ways that we could look at it and examine it at the end of the day, the heart of the Reformation was the establishment of truth and the triumph of truth again in the heart of the true people of God.
That truth shook the world. And that brings us to the second thing we want to do this morning, and that is we want to understand the historical context of the Reformation by answering four basic questions. Why was it needed? What was it really about? What was recovered?
And what were its lasting effects? Let's begin with the first question. Why was the Reformation needed? And the simple answer to that out of the text we just examined is this, the Reformation was needed because truth had been lost and darkness had descended.
I mean think back to what you learned in the courses that you took here over the years that you've been here that explained to you the unfolding of Western civilization over the course of the last two millennia. Many of you sat through courses like History of Civ and you had other courses that began to connect dots for you historically and as that history comes to mind there are theological implications for all of that. So the Reformation does an amazing thing.
It brings history and theology together in our hearts and in our minds and we have an opportunity for a brief moment to see the world in a much different way. Why was the Reformation needed? Well if you think about church history, the very beginning of the Christian church in the days and years that followed the life and ministry and death and resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, certain theological truths were clarified. Certain theological truths were laid forth by inspired writers and given to God's church in an inspired authoritative revelation from God that you know as the Bible. And the writers of scripture, the apostles and the early leaders of the church for the first five centuries of its history continually came back to that set of documents to settle important theological questions that had implications for every part of their life. They didn't do it perfectly but they did come back to the scriptures over and over and over again. And particularly in the western world that scripture became available to the common believer. It was read regularly in the church. It was preached and explained and proclaimed by men who had been called and set apart to do that.
It was carefully evaluated and studied to determine truth from error as important questions began to be raised in the church. But by the sixth century that truth began to be displaced and for the next thousand years a great darkness fell as the scripture gradually moved away from the center place that it occupied when the church started. And that darkness was great and pervasive and it affected almost every aspect of western civilization and it was dark for a very long time. You know that period as the medieval age but another more common way of talking about that period of western civilization is what?
Do you remember? The dark ages and it was dark in every way. It was dark religiously and theologically. Prior to the reformation at least in the western side of the church there was only one basic religious stream that everybody was a part of.
It was the Catholic church and that became the Roman Catholic church and all of life was governed and shaped by one's relationship to that church. And as that darkness began to descend, no personal relationship with God to speak of was emphasized with the common man. And the scriptures were set apart as the unique and proprietary possession of the very few who knew how to read it and could possess it. And so the scriptures gradually began to be removed and that darkness began to grow deeper. Many of the major theological truths contained in the scripture and known in the time of the apostles and celebrated by every member of the church had been displaced, distorted and even lost.
Let me give you some examples. By the time Luther came along there was a very distorted view of God. The average person had no idea that there could be a personal relationship, much less a personal conversation with God. He was distant. He was angry.
He was unapproachable. There was a very distorted view of Jesus. He was dead.
He was still on the cross. He was impotent to really save people and deliver them from their sins. And that's why all of a sudden you have the arrival of a co-redemptrix who does love people and who can influence her son and who can influence his father. And an entire system of worship and dependence on her came into place in those dark days. A displaced view of spiritual authority. All of a sudden authority moved from the inspired revelation of God and was placed in the hands of the leaders of the church along with the tradition, the teaching of the church. So there was religious and theological darkness. There was moral and political darkness. Wickedness of the basis sort was found at the highest levels of the church. Popes, bishops, priests reveled in the very sins that they were supposed to be preaching against.
Sinning was more common in the church than sermonizing. The loss of spiritual vitality as a consequence of this led to a focus on temporal authority and the bishops of Rome ruled over the temporal affairs of men and that's when true darkness and oppression began to spread throughout the western world. There was social and intellectual darkness. Think about the dark ages. There was the loss of the value of human beings as an image bearer. There was the devaluation of human dignity. I mean all of society was divided into two classes and how you got into those classes depended on your birth. And if you happen to be born in the common side of that equation, there was really not much value to your life. Think about the loss of the value or the devaluation of human vocation.
What you're preparing for. In the dark ages, you sitting in this room preparing to use your life to answer the call of God, to take the light to people in all kinds of arena of life. You would have been viewed as just putting in your time because the real vocation was the vocation of the church. There was personal and eternal darkness. There was the loss of the pure gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. There was the loss of a merciful savior.
When you have an angry father and a distant son and a mystic spirit, who do you turn to for salvation? And in the dark ages, unfortunately, men and women turned to the one person they felt could relate and might have influence and her name was Mary. There was the loss of the comfort and assurance of eternal salvation and the spiritual rest that comes by trusting in someone else's work that was finished. So why was the Reformation needed?
Because of the darkness. Secondly, what was the Reformation exactly? Let me give you quickly some things to think about. The Reformation was a personal response to error. It was a protest. In fact, arguably it's been identified as the greatest protest in church history. It was a genuine attempt to reform the church.
Not just to reform it, but to actually form it anew. It was the passionate pursuit of the supreme authority of truth. It was a return to scripture. And then it was a recovery of doctrine, life-giving doctrine that had been lost for over a thousand years to the church and all of this resulted in the Reformation being a national and a global and a personal revitalization of the true church. It was a revival in many senses.
And that brings us to the third question, what exactly was recovered? What was recovered by Luther and the army of reformers that followed in his steps? We could say it this way, what was recovered was the heart of scripture that was the recovery of a proper view of God and his purposes for his glory. Sola Deo, Gloria, to God be glory alone.
That was lost and it had been recovered. Another thing that was recovered was a proper view of Jesus and the gospel. We have things like Sola Gradia, by grace alone. Sola Fide, through faith alone. Solus Christus, in Christ alone.
All of this was recovered. We take it for granted. We know it. We embrace it. It has changed our life.
But if you lived in the dark ages, this was totally foreign to you. And then the proper view and sole authority of scripture was recovered. Sola Scriptura, who has the words of life? And the answer to that is Jesus and he has placed them in his word. And then the fourth question, what are the lasting consequences of the Reformation?
Well, we could say it this way. The Reformation restored the word of God to the people of God. The fact that you are sitting here this morning with a Bible in your hand or a Bible on your device and you can read that word in your language and you can read that word regularly for yourself is a result of the Reformation. There was a recovery of true biblical Christianity.
Not a perfect church, but the idea that the church needed to be comprised of genuine believers. There was a recovery of biblical worship. We sang this morning. If you lived in the ancient church, you would have sung. If you lived in the medieval church, you wouldn't have sung. Think of the way that church music and that Christian music stirs you to the very deepest part of your soul.
And when you think that, thank the Reformers. There was a recovery of biblical preaching. A move away from mass as the centerpiece to a pulpit where God's word could be proclaimed. A sacred desk where the teaching of God's word could be exposited. And the recovery as a result of all of this of human dignity and the value of vocation. So as we close and as we leave this morning, what are some takeaways?
What are some applications that we should be thinking about this semester? Well, one for me is that truth mattered to the Reformers more than their lives. There are some truths worth dying for. Truth matters enough to spend our life proclaiming and advancing that truth. These Reformers expended an immense amount.
They poured out their life for this. There are truths that are worth spending your life. The last one for me is this, God uses weak and ordinary people to do great things for the truth and for His glory.
You know, as you read the life of Martin Luther, and as you think about interacting with all of the sources, when you actually get into his life, you are going to find that there are places where you are going to wonder now, how could God do this great thing with a man that had those kind of great flaws? And you know what the Reformation encourages me about? That God does amazing things through ordinary people who have been set free by the truth. And when truth triumphs, freedom rules. And when freedom rules, truth matters. Father, as we close our time this morning, how we thank you for breaking into our world 500 years ago and bringing your truth and setting it free so that we, the inheritors of all of this, might be free indeed. So may we live in that freedom. May we live for that freedom. And we'll thank you for it in Jesus' name. Amen. You've been listening to a sermon preached at Bob Jones University by Dr. Sam Horn. Thanks for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue this series about the Reformation here on The Daily Platform.
