“Then the LORD said unto me, Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and do them. For I earnestly protested unto your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, even unto this day, rising early and protesting, saying, Obey my voice,” Jeremiah 11:6-7.
I wish to start by pointing out that the title of this series of meetings reminds us that there are DISTINCTIVES which should be resting upon the Free Presbyterian Church which have ever marked the people of God and sets them apart from the world!
What was said of Israel may also be said of God’s people of all generations!
“For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth,” Deuteronomy 14:2.
“Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine,” Exodus 19:5.
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God,” Romans 12:1-2.
Peter applied these distinctives to New Testament believers.
“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul,” 1 Peter 2:9-11.
Sadly, it is an indisputable fact that God’s people, by their disobedience and backsliding, lose these marks of holiness.
Perhaps that is why it is necessary to highlight and emphasise afresh that which should mark the people of God.
I feel that which marked the Free Presbyterian Church in 1951 has more than faded a little and there is a need for a return to that which differentiates us from the world of ecumenism, modernism and the immorality prevailing today!
Let me begin by highlighting :—
I. THE HONOURABLE ORIGINS OF THE TERM PROTESTANT.
The term ‘PROTESTANT’ has become an increasingly repugnant and odious word in the view of the vast majority of mankind!
In the mind and heart of those who joyfully embrace it, it is a term that equates with ‘CHRISTIANITY’! Indeed, the abhorrence that the term ‘PROTESTANT’ is greeted with is one and the same as the reception of old given to ‘CHRISTIANITY’, the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Days of the apostles
In Acts 11:26 we are told: “The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.” The date for this event is given by the Archbishop of Armagh, James Ussher (1581 – 1656, yesterday was the 370th anniversary of this death) as the year AD 43, ten years after the ascension of the Saviour to Heaven.
Godly Ussher interestingly says that the name ‘Christian’ was formed from the Latin and not the Greek form of the name ‘Christ’. He suggests that the name was coined by Romans who were in Antioch, the then capital of Syria.
Since the religion of Christ was very much an enigma amongst the Romans, I can well believe this to be true!
Just what was first implied by this name is not clear, but if it was bestowed by Romans, it undoubtedly was NOT meant as a title of honour!
At the time that the dsciples of Christ were called ‘Christians’, they were also called “those of that way”, Acts 9:2; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:22 and “this sect”, Acts 28:22.
The term “sect” is elsewhere translated “heresy”, Acts 24:14, 1 Corinthians 11:19, Galatians 5:20, 2 Peter 2:1.
It may therefore be seen that the term was not being used in a favourable or approving manner!
Labels
We do know from subsequent history that the opponents of the Gospel placed such nicknames as ‘Puritan’, ‘Methodist’, ‘Baptist’, ‘Calvinist’, and many other ‘epithets’ upon the followers of Christ.
These titles were not bestowed in order to honour those so named, but were intended to be derogatory! I would be of a mind that the name ‘Christian’ would have been bestowed upon those early believers by their opponents also to that same end, even though it became a name bestowing the highest honour upon the one so called!
Origins
It would be true to say that the name ‘Protestant’ came about in the same manner. It was bestowed upon those who recognised that the Roman Catholic system was very far removed from that system of truth revealed in Holy Scripture. Upon realising that, they ‘protested’ against Roman Catholicism.
The word “protesting” in our text means ‘to witness, to testify’! That is exactly what our Protestant forefathers were doing when they were given this title. They were witnessing against the errors and falsehoods of Rome!
The exposing of Rome’s deceptions was the result of the labours of a number of men, the best known of whom is Martin Luther, a German monk!
We must ever remember and never overlook the labours of men such as:—
John Wycliffe, the English reformer, (1328 – 1384).
John Huss, (1369 – 1415) a Czech priest from Prague.
Ulrich Zwingli, (1484 – 1531) the Swiss reformer.
John Calvin, (1509 – 1564) the French reformer.
John Knox of Scotland (1514 –1572).
Of course, we must add the English reformers, who are too many to name.
Ninety-five Theses
However, it was the act by Martin Luther of nailing up his Ninety-five Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg on October 1517, as a protest against the sinful sale of ‘indulgences’ in Germany by Johann Tetzel, a Dominican friar, that is counted the ‘spark’ which ignited the Protestant Reformation.
Luther was protesting against the blasphemous sale of the ‘indulgences’, which purported to offer pardon for sin to their purchasers. This act sowed the seed of a spirit of reformation in Germany and neighbouring nations, including the British Isles.
Speyer
Some 12 years after the nailing up of Luther’s Theses in 1529, the term ‘Protestant’ was linked to all associated with Martin Luther’s rejection of Popery when, at the German city of Speyer, German nobles protested against the enforcement of the Edict of Worms which subjected advocates of Lutheranism to the forfeiture all of their property.
The name is thus linked to a most honourable and proper protest against a most cruel and shameful act of persecution against those who rejected the false teachings of Romanism and simply embraced the doctrines of the Bible!
It is, and rightly so, considered a term synonymous with ‘CHRISTIANITY’!
II. PLEASE NOTE FROM OUR TEXT THAT THE LORD WAS ENGAGED IN PROTESTING LONG BEFORE MARTIN LUTHER!
“For I earnestly protested unto your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, even unto this day, rising early and protesting, saying, Obey my voice,” Jeremiah 11:7.
Observe from these words:
1. This text indicates that the whole Word of God is in essence, a PROTEST against man’s sin! I have often pointed out that the first words out of the Saviour’s mouth were directed at sinners! “From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” Matthew 4:17.
It was to a WORLD of sinners He came to protest against their sinful ways and call them to repentance!
2. The Lord’s ‘protest’, as is also ours, was a call to obey His voice. That immediately tells us that there are many throughout the world who may be classified as ‘Protestants’ but who are anything but!
To a very great degree indeed, those ecclesiastical bodies which in decades past would have been correctly assigned the name ‘Protestant’, are today the main opponents of all that the Lord has revealed in His Word!
Modernism and liberalism are two most misleading terms used to designate the theological trends adopted by those denominations which have allied themselves with false ecumenism today. There is nothing ‘modern’ or ‘liberal’ about those following the heresies that these misnomers disguise!
That which is proclaimed in most pulpits across the world are doctrines which are as old as the devil’s rebellion and which, when embraced, are marked by a spirt which is anything but liberal. Rather, it produces suppression of truth and all that is of God! In essence, it was the rationale behind the crucifixion of Christ, the stoning of Stephen and the burning of the multitudes of martyrs over the years. The spirit behind the atrocities and savagery, catalogued by Paul in Hebrews 11:32-40, is that which denies the deity of Christ, the virgin birth of Christ, the inspiration of the Bible, the atoning virtue of the shed blood of the Saviour — these and the other doctrines of the Bible, cast aside as ‘out of date’ and having no place in ‘modern’ Christendom, are what today’s ‘modernism and liberalism’ is comprised of!
Abolished
Having abolished the Word of God, the three main churches here in this part of the world, have embraced the satanic notions such as ordaining female ministers and elders, equivocating over sodomy, lesbianism, transgenderism and the ever enlarging list of other ‘isms’ that the perverted and depraved mind of society today is embracing as legitimate lifestyles!
We are seeing a repeat of the events of long ago, recorded in Romans chapter 1, emerging again.
Fools
“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools . . . ,” Romans 1:22-32.
Political pundits and commentators struggle alongside the religious ‘big-wigs’ of the ‘churches’ to explain the spirit of lawlessness, civil unrest, criminality and general lunacy within the ranks of government.
But society, having thrown away the Bible at the behest of the churches, is utterly unable to understand, never mind rectify, the ills of today!
What they did, under the guidance of the ‘modernists and liberals’, has brought about this social darkness and a return to times like those before the ‘rediscovery’ of the Word of God at the Reformation.
I am reminded of the state of Jerusalem, as reported to Nehemiah by those who had returned to Babylon from a visit to the holy City.
“The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah . . .,” Nehemiah 1:1-11.
Today
That is the state of the Church of Christ today in most lands and it is the prayerful spirit of Nehemiah that earnest believers need to adopt and exercise!
3. It must be noted how earnestly the Lord has voiced His protest! “For I earnestly protested unto your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, even unto this day, rising early and protesting, saying, Obey my voice,” Jeremiah 11:7.
No ‘protester’ in the past or in modern times could ever match the zeal, persistence and faithfulness, shown by the Lord, in His efforts to warn the foolish, to turn the wayward and to set forth the true path a people should follow!
He had done this from the days of the Exodus to the days of Jeremiah, some 880 years.
How incredibly patient, longsuffering and merciful is that? And yet this land, blessed repeatedly with the Gospel in a mighty way since the days of Patrick, back in the fifth century, and despite the most evil corrupting of this message by benighted charlatans, the light of the Gospel is still shining today, though lacking the lustre of former times of blessing!.
1951
We are marking the efforts made in 1951 by our Free Presbyterian forefathers, to heed the call of God and ‘obey His voice’. Sadly, we do so with the tragic truth, all too evident, that there are amongst our forefather’s descendants, those who are acting most contrary to the call of God, that in 1951, was heeded and by God’s grace obeyed!
This generation of Free Presbyterians has within its ranks, those who are no better than those rebuked by Jeremiah!
Remember the words of the Saviour the church in Ephesus: “Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent,”Revelation 2:5.
Note to points:
1. They were to remember they had FALLEN. Backsliders soon lose any consciousness of their backsliding. That has happened within the Free Presbyterian Church!
2. They were to remember from WHENCE they had fallen! Leaflets have been circulated setting out the DISTINCTIVEs and the STANDARDS. However, while these do set forth our doctrinal position, they are no longer the practice of every Free Presbyterian! There is a distinct ‘MINGLING’ with the fringes of ecumenism and apostasy by some! This is because our pulpits and largely silent on the issues that face God’s people today!
When the lines of separation are not constantly defined, people stray!
* There are Free Presbyterians who support the DUP and are in membership of it, despite its alliance with Sinn Fein/IRA and its pro-sodomite etc, stance.
* There are ministers and sessions who turn blind eye to this sin and support those in breach of God’s Word on this matter.
* Presbytery has shown a reluctance to deal with breaches of our standards, though ready to act against Rev David DiCanio when he in obedience to the Lord, opposed those who embrace ungodly so-called hymns!
4. Let us notice the simple command that the Lord would have us heed.
“Obey my voice”.
* How hard can it be to obey the voice that told us of God’s love for us?
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” John 3:16.
* How hard can it be to obey the voice that tenderly called us again and again when we went astray like lost sheep?
“For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness,” Psalm 95:7-8.
* How hard can it be to obey the voice that punished His only begotten Son in our place?
“But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken,” Isaiah 53:5-8.
The Voice of the One Who has manifested such love and mercy toward undeserving and guilty, hell-deserving sinners, can ONLY utter that which is for our eternal good and joy!
His Word is the ONLY Word of joy and peace and blessing in this world.
The angels said it all when they told the shepherds: “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people,” Luke 2:10.
The GOSPEL is the GOOD NEWS of GREAT JOY to poor sinners travelling the road of damnation!
Please heed it today.