A Journey Through John Calvin's Geneva

Hello, this is Matt Slick from the Matt Slick Live Podcast, where I defend the Christian faith and lay out our foundations of the truth of God's Word. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Have you ever been to John Calvin's Geneva?

Well, we're going to go there right now on Truth Talk. I'm Stu Everson. I'm in a spot. I'm in an office that's called the Office of Mobilization.

I don't even know what that is. I mean, what is mobilization? Rob Provost, a long-time friend and mentor of mine, just loves Jesus, and he introduced me to a guy named John Glass.

Rob, can you set this up? Who is John Glass, and why is this significant to mobilization? John Glass is a sent Christian worker from Grace Community Church in California. He's been in the French-speaking world all his life, born in Paris, raised by two American expats in Geneva.

French is his first language. He got saved, not in Geneva, even though he was raised in Geneva, never heard the gospel there, and never heard the gospel at all until he was backpacking across India as a university student. Can you imagine from Geneva to India, heard the gospel in India, went back, finished university, became a flight attendant with Pan Am Airlines, met his wife, who was doing the Japanese route. They got married, moved to California, became part of Grace Community, went to seminary, learned to preach, and Grace Community sent him to Paris, planted a church. Ten years there, and then the Lord allowed him to go back to the city of his youth, Geneva, now with the gospel and with an appreciation of John Calvin. So today, John Glass is one of the leading Bible expositors in the Francophone world. There are a few others like him. Being back in Geneva, now he does a lot of tours.

People come through. He's a pastor there, he's planted a church there, but he does a lot of tour, Reformation tours. His passion is not just to show people the old stuff around the city, but to mobilize them in order to understand what happened in Geneva so it might be replicated around the world. So grab this guide and walk down the cobblestone streets of Geneva's old town and gaze upon the multiple historic sites linked to John Calvin. Wait a second, John Glass.

You've written this book, John Calvin's Geneva A Walking Guide Following the Footsteps of a Great Reformer. I thought those guys were sending people out, you know, to us, to the rest of the world, to bring the gospel, but you're there preaching the gospel. What's going on with that?

How in the world is that happening? Yeah, I think you kind of flipped around just a little bit. So, you know, under Calvin, the Reformers, I mean, the gospel just completely spread all around the world. The effects are still felt around the world today. But then, over the last 500 years, a lot of unfortunate things happened, and the gospel became very weak.

And so today, in a way, you know, it's interesting how America was really colonized by these Puritans, in a way, and many of them were French, the French Huguenots coming over here. And in a way, today, I feel we almost have a debt to the French Huguenots, a debt to John Calvin, and we need to bring the gospel back to those who brought the gospel to us, just kind of a weird deal, but that's actually fact. So tell us your passion with all of this, and what is it that really makes you feel alive and come alive as you're writing this book, as you're taking people on these tours, as you're preaching the gospel?

Yeah. Well, I mean, it's a great question. You know, John Calvin, what I think I like the most when I give the tour is when we're sitting under John Calvin's pulpit, and I have everyone sit down right there in the cathedral, and I said, just for you to stare up at that pulpit because for the 25 years John Calvin preached, you know, preached sermon after sermon every day. I mean, he preached every day, every other week. I mean, he was a preaching machine, and what's really cool is that he preached so much. He was such an exposer that, imagine this, just for the book of Isaiah, he preached 353 sermons in Isaiah. I mean, I mean, who's ever preached or listened to that many sermons? So, so that's really what happened. You see, as he preached the word, the gospel completely spread from there around the world, and it's all because of a preacher.

So it's just really exciting just to be able to be there and see that. Okay, and this book is on Amazon, I guess everywhere books are sold, right? As of yesterday, it's been, and we've sold four copies so far. I just know it's four copies.

Congratulations. So if I buy four more copies, I'm going to double your sales just in a minute, right? But why is this book so important? I mean, you know, and Dr. Erwin Lutzer, who by the way endorsed your book, he's very excited. He said, I've had a number of different guides to Geneva, but none like John Glass. John has done extensive research to help us understand the importance of the events that went on during the Reformation, and these are reflected in his guide.

So it's all in your book. My family was there. We were, we happened to be there for the 500 year anniversary of the Reformation. I was there too. Which was, we missed you. We passed each other in traffic or something, but unbelievable. But your name was popped up everywhere, and it was in hindsight, but we tried to get, some mutual friends tried to get us connected with you.

It was too late, but we were, we need to go back and definitely go through Geneva with you, the Geneva Meister himself. But what's fascinating, Lutzer in his book says in the introduction, Rescuing the Gospel, which you're familiar with, he says, which I read on the way over there, which was very helpful, because it's like one book that has everything in it, you know, Calvin and Luther and the whole Zwingli and the whole process, a lot of history without having to read, you know, over read, but powerful. And then of course, I'm excited about reading your book. Lutzer says that most Christians think that Christianity started at the first Billy Graham Crusade, you know. Why is it so important to have a context for this, you know, so firm a foundation for our faith?

Yeah, well I'd say, I guess two things come to my mind. First of all, I think when we go back into history, we understand why Calvin was in Geneva and why his ministry had such an impact is because of the persecutions of the Huguenots in France. And we forget the context is that people were dying for the Gospel, for owning the Bible, for being able to be free, and the Catholic Church was scared about the evangelicals because the Catholic Church were linked to the kings, and so therefore it was a political threat to the kings. And so the only way they could get rid of this growing group of people who were loving Christ was to persecute them. And so people had to flee and they fled all around the world, but the closest free city was Geneva, and that's why Calvin fled there and he became a pastor there.

And so that was the number one spot where people could free to. So I think from that standpoint, it's important to understand history. You know, we live, especially here in America and in Europe in a land where there's little persecution, so we forget that, you know, being a Christian then, I mean, it was your life was at stake. The second thing, and this is really the positive thing I like about Calvin, is just the impact of his preaching around the world. I got a whole section of that in my book, but I'll just give you one example.

It's a great example. So Calvin preached the Ten Commandments, for example, but what he liked to do was to preach the opposite. So for example, if you take the eighth commandment, it says, thou shall not steal.

Well, he said, okay, so that's fine. We know we're not supposed to steal, but what's the opposite of that? Well, if I'm not supposed to steal, that means I'm supposed to have, and I'm able to keep what I have.

How do I get what I have? By working, by working hard. Welcome to the Protestant work ethic. He says, take the fourth commandment, you know, keep the Sabbath, keep the Sabbath. Okay, so I'm supposed to do that one day of the week. What do I do the other six days of the week?

Work and work and work hard and work to the glory of God. And so suddenly, this is really cool. I always carry in my pocket a little item called, what do you see? Swiss army knife. Okay, so why is a Swiss army knife such a cool item? Survival.

You got to have it. Survival, but also quality. It's interesting that this little teeny tiny country called Switzerland just is known for its quality. You got Swiss knives, you got chocolates, you got cheese, everything else. Watches, banks, everything you want.

Just a teeny tiny country. Where did that all come from? The Protestant work ethic.

Where did that come from? I think John Calvin, a preacher. So I say, preacher, keep preaching, we can actually change the world. Wow, and this is where it all started. You go there, you can see it, but it's also tragically an area that you're preaching the gospel now, as Calvin did 500 years ago, or however long ago, but you're also seeing a deadness.

It's very tragic and heartbreaking. Now, we were at the wall, and we got our picture taken by one of our relatives. We're of Huguenot descent. Are you too? Okay, Rob, my mentor is too. Well, listen, no wonder you had such an impact on me.

It just keeps going here, generations, centuries, right? Well, the Epronon is on that wall. Are you familiar with him at all? We took our picture with him, but anyway, I love how your book illustrates these pictures of the reformers. What would you say is for people that are looking at getting your book, and I'm Stu Everson, and I am with John Glass. He and his wife Meg live in France.

They serve in Switzerland under the Commission of Grace Community Church in Southern California. John MacArthur, maybe you're familiar with him, and what a powerful story of your testimony we heard about earlier in this broadcast, but your book, I want to get this book. What's the biggest impact it's going to have on someone?

What's the biggest thing that you want people, when they get it, to take away? Maybe they've never been. Maybe they've been many times, but what would you say about John Calvin's Geneva, a walking guide?

Yeah, that's a really good question. I think that the book, well, first of all, just the tourist who comes who's interested by Calvin will just get a full-fledged understanding of Geneva, of every site linked to John Calvin. So they'll learn about John Calvin, but I think what to me is the most important thing is really what put Calvin on the map. He's a preacher.

He was a preacher. So as pastors come, maybe a little, I've got a small church. My church is 120 people. It's not that big, but it doesn't matter because if we pastors realize the power of the word of God, we in our little context can preach the word and begin to see the impact of the gospel in those people's lives, and they began to emanate the true character of Christ. Well, if all the churches start doing this, we're going to be able to see a new reformation takes place, but it's not going to take one person. It's going to take thousands upon thousands upon thousands of little guys like me who are just doing that faithfully in the churches. So to me, it's a reboot, a re-encouragement. Pastor, keep going, keep preaching.

The Lord's not finished. Okay, that's the voice of John Glass. I'm Stu Everson. This is Truth Talk. Also, we spoke earlier with one of my mentors and longtime friend, Rob Provost. John Glass's website is calventours.com. Now, let's dispel a myth here.

Yes, sir. Yeah, that'll be open in about a week or two. It's actually not even open yet. And the book is just out, and the book is open.

You can go to Amazon and get it. It's called John Calvin's Geneva, a walking guide. Now, let's just dispel a rumor, a myth here. A lot of folks hear the word Calvin, the name Calvin. It can be a lightning rod for, well, these people. Here I am in an office of a church at a big conference we're having, a vision conference, awesome in Cary, North Carolina, that's being hosted by this awesome church. Pastor Davey is the pastor, Colonial Baptist Church, a great expositor of the word, really a modern-day Calvin. And you have all these pastors, 600-some pastors in the quarters behind us, hearing from Erwin Lutzer, hearing from these wonderful speakers.

And we're in an office that is the office of mobilization. Now, some people have this misguided notion that if you're a Calvinist, or if you have any affinity to Calvin, that you don't mobilize, you don't evangelize. But tell us how the antithesis is true. Can you take on that argument from someone that says, well, if you wrote a book about Calvin's Geneva, surely you don't want to share the gospel. Well, will you talk about the importance of sharing the gospel and how that was a priority to Calvin, or was it not? Help us with that. That's a great question. I mean, yeah, so we believe in the sovereignty of God in an election.

True. Does that mean that we don't evangelize? Well, let's just take Calvin's example, okay? Calvin himself started the academy, a school, 1559, that he funded to be able to train, first of all, children, because that was the first city in the entire world where education was made compulsory for children, but then to train pastors. Now, what's interesting is that pastors came in, or students came in from around Europe to be trained in the school, and they came from France. Well, what happened is that not only did they come and get trained from France, but then they would be sent right back to France, and many of them ended up being persecuted and dying.

And so it ended up being called the School of Deaths. So what I don't understand is, or what I do understand, is that Calvin absolutely was an evangelist. Yes, God is sovereign in salvation, but we do have a responsibility to preach the gospel so that those who are called can be saved.

And that's the dilemma here, right? So yes, he was an evangelist, and he sent them out as fast as he could once he trained them. So whether you're a, whether, and most folks don't even know what Calvinism truly is, we can get into that, but whether you're a fan of Calvinism or you even know who he is, it was some of these folks, these great reformers, these great guys, Tindale and these other guys, John Knox, that gave their life for the gospel, that were burned at the stake, were executed, were killed, and their families for the crime of proclaiming the gospel in the language.

Luther got all kinds of heat because he can't, you know, because he nailed those theses. You know, we just saw, you know, a couple years ago was the 500-year anniversary of Reformation. Your challenge for folks listening in terms of the importance of preaching the gospel and the greatest kind of lesson, the take away from this book, John Glass, this is a lifetime of work, really. John Calvin, your book, John Calvin's Geneva, a walking guide, following the footsteps of the great reformer. What's your kind of challenge to people out there in terms of being vigilant to God's word and in terms of taking the gospel?

There's 2.5 billion people on planet earth that have never heard the gospel. We have a lot of problems in the west. Just ask me how I'm doing. I can just give you a laundry list of my problems, my pains, my aches.

I can't even hardly walk. You know, I've got these basketball injuries, you know, but one of my problems is not that I'm on my way to hell to burn forever in pitch black darkness where the worm dieth not. That's not one of my problems, but that happens to be the problem of billions on our planet who western Christians are soft and we don't even realize. I hear, I heard that over 90% of Christians have never led someone to Christ.

What are we doing? So, take us away with your passion for that and how that ties in with this book. Yeah, well, I mean, I think that that's the whole lesson with the Reformation, right? I mean, there was a corrupt church.

People were buying indulgences, thinking that buying an indulgence, a piece of paper, would allow them to have a shorter time in purgatory or be able to pop right into heaven. And as Calvin and many others read the word of God, Luther, of course, said, no, there is just no way. That is not what the gospel is. The gospel is you are saved by grace through faith alone, and that becomes the saving gospel that we must proclaim around the world.

And the Reformers did that at the cost of their lives. I mean, one of the things I do on my tour is someone gave me a 1608 Geneva Bible. It's in perfect condition. So, I take it on my tours, and at the wow moment of the tour, we're standing on the Reformation wall right in front of the America Mayflower arriving over there in the States, and there's a guy holding the Geneva Bible, and I pull it out. I said, I want to show you an incredible thing. So, I pull this ancient Bible out right in front of everyone. So, they're all, like, wowed.

And I go, I want you to take this, touch it, open the pages, look at it, look at the spots in it, the wax in there that people read this by candle. And I say, remember that if you live 500 years ago and you had this Bible, you were dead. So, that's the issue. And the issue today is, do we have that stamina, the desire to preach the gospel no matter what they did? That's the history lesson to me. So, come to Geneva and get pumped for the gospel. Yeah, you want to know where it all came from.

Take a field trip over there. The Word of God, quick and powerful. And this is the culture. These are the really the Reformers, you know, Calvin Zwingli, these great guys.

Love them, like them, hate them, lose them, whatever. But these guys shed blood, tears, and sweat to give us the Word of God. So, you have a Bible. There's people in the world, by the way, that don't have Bibles. There's Bibles.

You can't even get them on the black market in some countries. In Russia, you go to parts of China where people would literally give a year's wages just to have a Bible or a chapter of the Bible. And so, we have such a great faith and we have this because of godly men. So, thank you, John Glass, for this book.

Everyone get it. John Calvin's Geneva, a walking guide, following the footsteps of the great Reformer. And thank you, Rob Provost, for introducing me to this man of God. And next time I talk to you, I want to be in Geneva on the cobblestone streets. It's beautiful. We got to do it. I can't, no, I can't wait. God bless you. And we're praying for this book to do well, to touch a lot of people, and to take a lot of people to the one who gives us life, the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. This is the Truth Network.