In Lesson 1 of our new Sunday school series on church history and the early church, Pastor Dave Capoccia tackles a fundamental question: Why Study Church History? Pastor Dave first considers what we already know about church history and why we often don’t study it. Pastor Dave then offers three main reasons why we should study church history:
1. To Understand Origins
2. To Receive Encouragement
3. To Receive Warning
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part of that is true to be sure but as we get to know a little bit more we’ll realize that that timeline that outline is actually in some ways inaccurate and certainly incomplete what do we really know about church history additionally perhaps you’ve noticed by listening to different sermons or reading different books or reading different blog articles you notice certain names names of people or names of events as being significant in church history but what do you really know about them have you heard of jonathan edwards augustine paulie carp ulrich zwingli elizabeth elliott who really were these people should you listen to what they had to say should you emulate their lives or what about events the council of nicaea the first crusade the marburg colloquy the great awakening what were these events about why did they happen how do they affect us today that we may have picked up bits and pieces here and there when it comes to the people and events of church history i think we can all admit that without focused or purposeful study we simply don’t know about church history we don’t know very much about church history even what we think we know is often inaccurate and incomplete but this is actually a good place to start in any study to realize and to admit what you do not know so that way you can start to learn but unfortunately we often don’t do anything to fill this blank in our brains we don’t choose the study about church history and why do you think that is so i’m gonna have a little bit of interaction now i don’t think our slide’s gonna work today that’s okay you can just listen to my voice interact with me a little bit why is it that we might not think that the study of church history is worthwhile what would you say yeah yeah it could be a little confusing sure that’s right okay yeah so it can be confusing there’s a lot of names you’re wondering who who’s the right person to teach you why else yeah emma okay there’s the question of do we really know and how much can i trust the sources that are telling me what really happened why else yeah skip another one okay are you asking me are you putting that as a as a reason okay i guess you could say church history began with the church so anytime you could see when the church was existent you could look back and see what happened for the church yeah why else though might people avoid studying church history soon ago sure yeah this was a long time ago different people different times how is that relevant now glenna you were going to say something to what is yeah very good yeah along the lines of what sue was saying but a lot of people are just focused on now and perhaps they might think there’s everything that we need is with us right now we’ve got the best we’ve got the most advanced uh when it comes to understanding of the bible or theology so why would we go back to the past one more i think i saw your hand rich that’s right yeah it doesn’t seem very relevant we’re concerned with the now what’s happened in the past is is not important it’s dead and gone yeah i think those are many many reasons and certainly as you’re saying which they apply to the study of history in general but also even of church history as christians we can still say i’m not sure it’s that profitable to study church history i think we can put objections to the study of church history under three main categories three main thoughts or statements and one is that we just think it’s too difficult i mean this was a little bit along the lines of what judy was saying hey this this learning this study it’s going to take work oh i don’t know if i really want to put forth the effort in that especially if we don’t think there’s much benefit to be had we don’t want to put forward the work into the study and we can also excuse ourselves by saying i don’t know where to start or there’s a lot of different opinions a lot of different sources where do i begin i’m not sure what to trust and i get that to a certain extent the good news is that there’s actually a lot of great and trustworthy sources when it comes to getting acquainted with church history some of the trusted teachers or organizations you know today they have church history resources they’ve produced books they’ve produced lessons hopefully you’re getting that right now even in the sunday school class so it’s not as inaccessible as it might seem and yes it will take some work yes any kind of study is going to take work but learning church history is more doable than ever actually and it will prove to be profitable difficulty is not really a good excuse i think another reason though why we might of avoid studying church history is that we’re afraid we are afraid of what we might find if we study church history you say what are you talking about well i think this comes in at least two ways we might be afraid that the past only contains shameful and discouraging episodes that we’d rather not know about and this can happen if you already have a certain concept of what church history consists of if you think church history is mostly dominated by ignorance by bad practices erroneous beliefs in christ well then it makes sense that you wouldn’t want to study it i like an analogy i heard once in a church history dvd talking about in our own personal lives you can think back maybe to your teenage years imagine that somebody finds an old family photo of you as a teenager maybe you’re wearing braces maybe you have this really awkward haircut and they say oh look it’s you when you someone would see a photo like that of the of you what would you want to do with that photo yeah get rid of it take it back from them cover it up burn it throw it away we’re often embarrassed by certain parts of our personal histories we’d rather not remember them we’d rather not anybody else know about them and some people might think that way about christian history church history we can say erroneously oh christian history or at least early church history that belongs to the catholics why would i want to study that that’s just full of error well the beautiful fact is that’s actually not the case that’s not the case with the early church and that’s not the case with church history as a whole there are yes embarrassing and sad moments in our heritage as christians even some of our christian heroes like martin luther orlix wingley they end up saying and doing things that we would be ashamed of they’re not biblical but is it any different with the people that we meet in the bible i mean look at peter denies jesus christ and a moment of great need jesus’s great need david king david commits adultery and murder these are terrible things and they’re admitted in the bible but do we just say oh i don’t have anything to learn from peter i don’t have anything to learn from david not at all rather we learn both from their mistakes where they failed but we also find we learn from their success by their obedience by their perseverance and faith we take courage in how god used them despite their failures how god was gracious to them despite their sin so yes church history has dark episodes but god has always kept his light shining he’s always preserved his truth he’s always preserved his elect even when the world or most the world seems to be going apostate you remember god’s words to elijah when elijah was despairing about the state of his land first kings 19 elijah asks god to take his life because elijah says i’m the only believer left i’m the only true prophet left and they’re trying to kill me so just take my life god remember what god said to him in reply that’s right he said you’re not the only one left elijah he said a number of things but that was one of the things i’ll actually read to you what paul recounts about the event in romans 11 romans 11 2-5 paul says god has not rejected his people whom he foreknew or do you not know that the scripture or what the scripture says in this passage about elijah how he pleads with god against israel lord they have killed your prophets they have torn down your altars and i alone am left and they are seeking my life but what is the divine response to him i have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to baal in the same way then there has also come to be at the present time paul says a remnant according to god’s gracious choice really one of the ways to think about church history is the continued fulfillment of this promise of god i will preserve a faithful remnant until the end of the age god promised that he would do this he would preserve he would uphold he would use a faithful remnant and would it be a weak and failing remnant at times it would but it would also be a persevering and a victorious remnant one that brought glory to god so of course we would find profit in studying about that remnant so we should not feel afraid that church history only has discouragement for us not at all we’ll find great encouragement we might be afraid though for a different reason maybe actually an opposite reason we are afraid to study church history because of how guilty will make us feel we can be afraid of studying the past because we think all those past believers are just going to show us up i mean charles spurgeon was a preacher at 16 william carey that great missionary he taught himself four languages whilst working as a shoemaker and countless christians especially in the early church they were martyred for their faith we can hear about those kinds of things and say and i’m like the worst christian ever what am i doing for the cause of christ in some ways that’s a healthy thought just as we study the bible and we see mighty acts of faith and endurance by god’s saints reading church history should shake us out of a sinful or lazy complacency and redirect us to joyful service to christ that being said we should also recognize that god has given different gifts to different people at different times and these gifts were not necessarily equally distributed in fact we know that they are not remember the parable of the talents this is in matthew 25.
there are several striking aspects that parable but one of them is that the master who represents god he didn’t give the same amount of talents to each slave do you remember what he gave them oh yeah close five two and one eventually it would become ten and four he gave to one five one one two and one slave had one and the scripture says that this was each according to his ability but when the master returned what was the basis for how he assessed each slave it wasn’t how many talents did you get me but what yeah what they did with what they were given or we could say it this way it was about their faithfulness rather than their impact and that’s even what the master says to the righteous slaves right well done good and faithful slave or servant and this is an important concept when it comes to understanding church history faithfulness is more important than impact that’s certainly true for people in the past and it’s true for us now probably some of the most faithful slaves of god whether in christian history or now they are ones that you and i will never hear about they didn’t make a huge impact they weren’t the key characters that the historians took time to record but these christians were true lovers of god devoted to the scriptures glad to share with the lost faithful in prayer and god used them in his own way to silently and secretly change the course of history they played an important part and that’s true for us too we may not have a huge or noticeable impact but we can be faithful just like men and women were in the past so we should not fear the godly conviction that comes from the testimony of god’s recorded faithful nor should we feel guilty for not having the exact same gifts or impact as they did because it’s ultimately about faithfulness with what we’ve been given we can allow them to produce on in that way we don’t have to fear comparing ourselves totally i think there’s one more main reason for why we avoid studying church history and it’s one of the main ones that you mentioned it can be a matter of oh i think it’s just too hard or i’m afraid of what i’ll find but thirdly we just don’t believe there’s much benefit in it not that much benefit in studying church history i mean we might say this is mere trivia i’m not playing bible jeopardy anytime soon so why study this old musty history or these people are so disconnected from me different time period different languages most of them are not even americans what do i have in common with these people of the past or we trust in the advancements of our own time they were more primitive back then they didn’t know what we know how no now why should i look to them for spiritual insights when they were so backward isn’t the present time the time of greatest biblical scholarship and instruction i’ve got so many teachers why go to the past or perhaps we might even say we’ve got the bible this is god’s divinely inspired inerrant sufficient word why would i want to study anything else even church history are you saying god’s word is not enough well it is true that the bible is all we need and thank the lord if somehow all the records and writings of church history were lost we would still have more than a sufficient resource in the scriptures so that we can joyfully and effectively live our christian lives unlike judaism islam or roman catholicism we do not exalt tradition or history as an authority alongside or superior to the scriptures as the skull of scriptura right scripture alone a core doctrine however there is great benefit in understanding and remembering church history this is not mere trivia nor is it the record of a people totally disconnected from us really church history is the record of god’s family our family if we are in christ have you ever found that sometimes even when you meet someone for the first time maybe it’s in church maybe it’s somewhere else you can usually tell whether they’re part of your same spiritual family i say usually sometimes you can tell you see it in the way they act you hear it in the way they talk there’s just this shared affection for the things of god for christ for scriptures for holy living for the greatness of god and so even if it’s your first day with that person when you sense this about someone else what do you feel in your heart towards that person love you feel love you feel kinship you feel even trust because you say we have a bond in christ i don’t know you that well but i know you’re a brother or you’re a sister because i see your love for the savior and it’s no different with the men and women of church history these people are dead many of them but they’re our family even if we don’t speak the same languages or live in the same countries we have strong bonds with them the strongest actually we feel the same love for god as they did and we feel the same struggles with sin in the flesh as they did and we can learn from them not as a source of authority independent from the bible but as affirmation of the truths of what the bible already teaches and isn’t this an experience we see all the time in the present i don’t know if any of you have had the experience of visiting christians in another country often these christians are poor emma and i got to experience that when we got to visit ukraine one time when a christian comes back from visiting another country that’s not as well off as our own what’s usually one of the one of the things that you hear that person report hey those believers there they are so poor yet they are so what a number of different things i hear you guys say but loving kind hospitable happy they are so full of joy certainly that was our experience when we went to ukraine and this shows us something about ourselves doesn’t it we find it remarkable because so often here in our prosperous country what’s the problem we are discontent we have a materialism that makes us discontent we feel like we need to have certain level of income or a certain number of possessions or a certain life situation for us to be happy but when we go somewhere else and we see how joyful believers are without those things we say ah i didn’t even realize how off track i had gotten now discovering this is not a new revelation it’s what the bible had already said but it becomes clearer to us by the testimony and lives of these fellow believers us back to the scriptures and what is the scriptures bankable truth and this is part of the reason why god gave us the church is actually designed us to encourage and confront and instruct one another because we have blind spots without someone else’s perspective on my life without their testimony without their example you and i might fall into debilitating sin joy robbing sin and not even realize it foolish living this is why god gave us the church and church history is just an extension of that kind of beneficial fellowship in church history in studying church history we get to experience with these departed believers many of the same things we experience with believers who are still with us now they encourage us they rebuke us they instruct us but with one powerful and unique difference how is the perspective of a believer from church history different from the perspective of a fellow believer maybe in your church what’s so different about someone from church history versus someone in your same church okay one is dead one is live but i want to point to something else yes steve okay yes i want to say more about that steve mentioned that different kinds and different cultures deal with different problems and one way that’s true and another way it’s the same problems but because it comes in a different context there’s a perspective on it that we don’t normally see that becomes really valuable for us when we have a perspective from a different time and place it shows us because we know that the bible is true the constancy of certain truth irrespective of culture or place or time but it also exposes the unique biases or blind spots that a particular time culture or place might have sometimes we see this about people in church history we’re like man they were so into this thing when clearly it’s wrong well that’s because it was due to their culture at that time we need to realize that the same thing is often true of us when we hear a perspective from somebody who’s in a totally different time in culture we say oh i didn’t even really realize this about my own time i mean imagine imagine if we would use a time machine to bring one of the first century christians who’s about to be martyred into america in the present day now besides marveling at our scientific technology and our prosperity what do you think he would have to say about the american church what’s one thing okay what do you mean yeah i think there would be a little bit of reproof right wow we didn’t even have the scriptures so available to us like you guys do yet for some reason you guys don’t value it very much like you’re not even memorizing it you’re not even like thinking about it why is that that’d be a powerful rebuke what else yeah again the materialism wow you guys are really prosperous but i notice you guys seem to love it too much i mean don’t you remember what jesus taught us that if you really want to find your life you will lose it and that he’s more valuable than any treasure why are you holding on to things so much we weren’t willing to die for jesus why are you afraid to lose some of your possessions what else i think something else he might say he or she might say he’s like wow your culture is very immoral kind of like ours was we dealt with the same problems it was slightly different but in many ways the same the way that homosexuality and transgenderism and immorality exists today that’s just like it back in our time and you know what you’re going to have to fight against it the same way that we did we’re going to have to obey the commands of scripture we’re going to have to cut off the sources of temptation that are bringing us down and we’re going to have to realize we’re going to live very differently from our culture and i’m sure there could be other things but this time traveling christian would show us that some things are the same and some things due to our culture are different when they shouldn’t be this essentially is what church history does for us it’s a kind of time travel we hear the voices of brethren from the past giving us the perspective on our own time that we could not get from another source so and along with that we should not adopt the naive what is ultimately evolutionary thinking that presumes that societies just get better and better over time people get wiser and wiser the church gets more and more righteous our technology advances to be sure but sin the brokenness of the world the deceitfulness of sin these are constants since the time of adam and there’s even one scripture that says that men actually proceed from bad to worse so don’t think that things are going to get better in mankind over time they’re going to be the same or get even worse no society and no christians in any society will ever be perfect christians throughout every time including our own they have succumbed to foolish and dangerous ideas without even realizing it i mean we see that in the church today don’t we where people are adopting ideas because they say oh this is biblical this is christian this is going to help the church when a lot of people are saying no no no that is not people don’t even realize it we should not think that we have arrived spiritually and don’t need any help and so just as we hope to receive benefit from believers teachers from our own time period we ought to realize we can get great benefit from people in the past they also had particularly faithful men and women particularly astute thinkers particularly helpful teachers we are not automatically superior to them and actually we should realize this god uniquely gifts men and women at different points in history we do not have a monopoly on the best gifts there actually might be more gifted people in times past god puts different people in different times we don’t want to miss out on the gift that god gave previously to the church that can still be reaped for our benefit today so we should dispense with this excuse that there’s no relevance or no benefit in studying church history quite the contrary church history is part of our fellowship and encouragement in the saints it never replaces the bible but it points us to the bible and helps us understand and apply the bible in a way that helps us be less blinded by our culture so these common but misguided excuses for not investigating church history it’s too difficult it’s too scary it’s not beneficial we should not be sucked in by them they should not prevent us from enriching ourselves in such a steady so i focus mostly on the negative now but let me turn over to the positive this is the third question i said i wanted to investigate with you today to get to our biggest question why study church history i say there’s great benefit in studying church history but how exactly do you receive that benefit what are the specific reasons that you should study church history even the history of the early church well i’m going to give you three main reasons and i think we can see these reasons pretty easily if we just consider a parallel that we have in the bible consider the first two books of the bible old testament right genesis and exodus who wrote them moses did what genre are these books mostly they are historical narrative i heard some of you saying that that’s very good they do contain some law in exodus but it’s mostly historical narrative in other words a history account which means that we have history in the bible god loves history too but what kind of history is presented especially in these first two books history of what the creation of the world what else what okay we have creation there’s a there’s a fair amount about creation in the first chapters of genesis ancestry of whom israel we get the history of the beginning of israel so we get the beginning of the world we get the beginning of israel and also another very important foundational event okay the flood certainly and we can connect that with the creation narrative how the world came to be we have how the world came to be how israel came to be and along the lines of how israel came to be how did israel come to be um outside of where they were for a long time the second book is called exodus right it’s the history of the exodus of the people out of egypt and when did moses write these two books what was the event that israel was facing when they received these books from moses well it’s part of their receiving the law that is true but there’s even a more specific event where they actually received the books from moses he didn’t finish writing the books until what events until they’re about to go into canaan so yes he does receive the law moses receives specific commandments from sinai but the torah that we call them five different books but it’s originally one book the torah it wasn’t finished until they were right about to go into the promised land and that’s when moses says i need to give this to you because i can’t go with you and god gave him that book so they’re about to go into canaan they’re about to fight to take possession in the land and god says oh i want you to remember these histories so think of me for a moment why would god want moses to give the people of israel the history of creation the history of israel’s origin the history of the exodus right before they go in what would be the benefit from that okay to be prepared and how they’re going so come in you know encounter in the there so if they have the law they will be able to know how to obey god and not go into that idolatrous nations so that’s where they have to compare with god’s law and the adult translation okay yes i think you’re saying something really valuable glenda they’re about to go into a situation that’s only going to be challenging because they’re going to have to fight and face these very difficult situations but they’re gonna be tempted to go away from god and even follow the gods of the land and it’s not just the law where god says don’t do that and here’s the penalty if you do that but the histories are gonna show why that’s not a good idea dwayne i see you want to say something right so a big part of these histories would be to remind them of the past faithfulness of god so that they can continue to hold to god and not depart and go the way that some of their forefathers did and what were the consequences they were judged i think we could summarize the benefit of the history components of the torah as it was it would help the people understand origins why things are the way that they are it would give them encouragement they could look to what god did in the past and trust him to provide for the future and it would give them warning they would also see what god did in the past when his people strayed so they would learn not to do the same things and not to embrace the same kind of wrong thinking and it’s the same for church history by studying church history we receive three specific benefits we understand origins why things are the way that they are we receive encouragement look at god’s faithfulness in the past we see how god will be faithful in the future and then we also receive warning we say oh i don’t want to go that way because this is what this is how people were led astray and these were the consequences i want to hold fast to the lord and let me explore each of those with you a little bit more the book of genesis this is on the category of understanding origins the book of genesis is all about this right from the book of origins consider what was clarified for the israelites about why the world is the way that it is why are we here why does this world exist why do people speak different languages why do people do evil things against one another all these questions are being answered by the book of genesis understanding origins even more specific things like why can’t we take the land of edom moab or ammon we’re going in to take the canaanites land why can’t we take these guys land you guys remember why they were who’s family they were by connection to abraham via lots they were connected in such a way to abraham that god said i’ve given the land over to them you’re not allowed to take it even if they oppose you you can’t go and take their land that’s not for you it was a question of origins and the same thing is true conversely about taking the canaanites land why are we allowed to take the canaanites land well you see explanation also given in genesis partly through the curse on ham’s descendant it’s given in the beginning part of genesis but also the explanation of god gave them a certain amount of time to repent of their evil and they wouldn’t so he said when the iniquity of the amorites has been complete i’m going to judge them and you’re going to be my agent of judgment so these explanations come via understanding origins it helped israel understand what was going on and also be able to act more wisely and with confidence in the situation in which they found themselves and the same thing is true for us when we study church history we can gain a better understanding and we can act more confidently as we understand where things came from why things are the way that they are consider some of these questions related to origins that maybe you’ve heard maybe you’ve had about church history how did the catholic church become so powerful and widespread why do we do church services the way that we do them today why do catholics and greek orthodox pray to saints and to marry why does the term fundamentalists carry such a negative connotation why did europe become so atheistic in the 20th and 21st centuries why is the ah millennialist view of eschatology so popular and why did the great reformers believe in it if it’s not biblical as we claim here at our church why are there so many different sects in protestant christianity why do some christians cling so tightly to the king james version of the bible why do some christians sprinkle water in baptism and baptize infants the answer these questions can be found in origins or in other words they can be found in the records of church history and i hope eventually as we go through the different modules of these of this course to show you the answer to these questions they do have a strong historical component not that these things have nothing to do with the bible but a lot of the answer has to do with history so using church history to understand origins why the world spiritual landscape is the way that it is it will help us act more skillfully and confidently as we seek to obey the scriptures and follow christ today so that’s first specific encouragement understanding origins a second is receiving encouragement this is a constant theme in the old testament and new testament we are to remember how god did things for our forebears for our fathers and mothers in the faith so that we would be encouraged and emboldened to pursue god in righteousness think of specifically of israel’s situation they’re about to go into the promised land to initiate this conquest what deliverances what specific deliverances could they look back to in history to encourage them in this work what are some of them exactly the exodus the mighty plagues and the way that god brought israel out from egypt not only preserving their lives but with abundant wealth they plundered the egyptians the bible says that was a mighty deliverance god says remember this remember this so that you’ll be encouraged to follow after me what else that’s certainly true and we’ll talk about that more in the warning section but yeah the sins of the canaanites and their judgment would also come on israel but in terms of deliverances were there other mighty deliverances in the torah cheryl yeah crossing the red the red sea or crossing the jordan also well i guess that’s in joshua but yeah these times where god splits open the sea and also destroyed the egyptian army that was pursuing that was another mighty deliverance and god says don’t forget that and you see lots of efforts to remember those histories in the psalms and other places of the bible that say we remember lord when you did this that was to encourage them we could say the same about noah and the flood god preserved his this chosen family even when the rest of the world was judged the provision of food and water when israel was traveling through the desert wilderness in and around sinai military victory against og and saihon on the eastern side of the jordan each of these were deliverances that could be his that were historically recorded and they were not meant to be just interesting stories or facts they were critical for the daily lives of the israelites as they remembered god’s faithfulness how he displayed his faithfulness or i’m sorry his faithfulness how he displayed his goodness and beauty to them it would move them it was supposed to move them to look to god as they went about this new and uncertain task of taking over the land of canaan we might not be going conquering a land in canaan but our lives likewise are following difficult paths to an unseen future how are we going to have the faith the encouragement to hold fast to the lord partly it is by remembering god’s faithfulness in the past certainly those in the scriptures but also even in church history and move us to cling more confidently to god and his bible let me give you one example piece of encouragement from church history the fact that justification by faith alone for salvation this is a doctrine that has never been fully squelched from the beginning of the church until now there have always there has always been a remnant that has believed in justification by faith like i said we might assume that once the apostles disappeared well nobody knew salvation after that they’re just the dark ages but listen to this listen to this statement from a guy named clement of rome this is the oldest surviving document that we have of the church outside of the bible this was from a.d 90 to 100 somewhere in that last decade of the first century clement of rome was a pastor ironically claimed by the catholics as their fourth pope listen to what he writes in one of his letters to the corinthians this is clement and so we having been called through his will in christ jesus are not justified through ourselves or through our own wisdom or understanding or piety or works which we rot in holiness of heart but through faith whereby the almighty god justified all men that have been from the beginning to whom be the glory forever and ever amen isn’t that awesome clement was not an apostle he was not writing by the inspired spirit of god but he was one like timothy to whom the baton of faith had been passed by the apostles who in turn passed the baton faithfully on to others he faithfully passed on the truth of god’s word and his gospel to the next generation he did that and the ones to whom he passed it did that and it just kept on happening not in every place but in the places that god chose so that a remnant would be preserved even in the high medieval period this is more than a thousand years after clement when there seems like a total darkness in christianity we have corrupt popes who are claiming infallibility man-made tradition has so corrupted the gospel in the official church by adding explicitly works to salvation even in that time there still remained true believers who passed on the revealed word of god and the gospel of justification by faith people like peter waldow and the waldensians in the late 1100s or john wycliffe and the lollards in the beginning of the 1300s and john huss and the hussites in the late 1300s there is a tradition of corruption and apostasy in christian history we have to acknowledge that there’s also a heritage of truth that has never died out after all christ promised in matthew 24 35 heaven and earth will pass away but my words will what never pass away in matthew 18 16 on this rock of the apostolic confession i will build my church and the gates of hades will what it will not prevail against it they will not overpower it church history reminds us that god and his gospel are truly great and we have a part to play also in faithfully passing on god’s truth to the next generation i can only give you one example for the sake of time this morning but there are many other instances and people from church history that i hope to share with you for your joy for your encouragement for your emboldening in christ we want to learn from those that came before us want to be spurred on by them so that we also might be faithful as they were to god so by studying church history we come to understand origins we receive encouragement under righteousness but finally we also receive warning we receive warning and we do need to receive warning from church history and this is another noticeable feature of the torah isn’t it i think you even share that with me when i ask you questions about it what were some of the great failures of israel’s beginning history or the world’s beginning history that god did not want israel to forget so that they would be warned what’s one what were some of the spectacular failures in trusting god or obeying god in the beginning of israel’s history of the world’s history that god didn’t want israel to forget yeah straying away yeah danny golden calf such a huge event so terrible they just received the law they’re seeing the mountain smoking and burning moses disappears for longer than they anticipated and they say aaron make us gods we want to just do what all the other nations are doing we don’t know what happened to moses god was ready to destroy them it was only moses intervention merciful intervention that saved them god says don’t forget that you departed so easily don’t forget don’t do that again what else yeah judy they’re talking about the serpent’s temptation right yeah so just going right back to the garden not believing the word of the lord but believing hey there’s something good that you can get outside of obedience to god this was something else the god said look look what happened based on that don’t go that way again we could point to many other experiences israel had in the wilderness complaining about water and food at various times and how that brought judgment even though god said i i was going to provide for you not going into the promised land when they were first told to and what was the result that whole generation was not allowed in they died in the wilderness intermarriage with the people of the land of baal peor and what that resulted in nadab and abihu offering strange fire before god all these were recorded so that israel would be warned and it wasn’t just the specific acts of rebellion or disobedience it was the thinking it was the principles behind that for example from nadab and abihu it wasn’t simply that oh we need to learn the lesson god only likes a certain kind of incense guys let’s get that right no it’s that god only accepts a certain kind of worship that is you approach him on his terms not cavalierly not carelessly but reverently israel saw in that instance in that instance of judgment a picture of the radical holiness of god even displayed in the instant deadly wrath on careless indifference and hypocritical worship that historical episode was to stick out in the people of israel’s minds that they would not similarly drift into that kind of thinking and acting and of course the same is true for us biblical history would prod them back to true careful joyful pursuit of god history does the same thing church history will warn us from acting naively or rebelliously in our christian lives consider this point in quotations kind of long you may have heard it before might shock you a little bit this is from a certain pastor who was preaching about how christians should treat the holy spirit and this is one of the things that he says i’ll tell you who this is later reverence the august guest who has been pleased to make your body his sacred abode love him obey him worship him take care not to impute or take care never to impute the vain imaginings of your fancy to him i have seen the spirit of god shamefully dishonored by persons i hope they were insane who have said that they have had this and that revealed to them there is not for some years pass over my head a single week in which i have not been pestered with the revelations of hypocrites or maniacs semi-lunatics are very fond of coming with messages from the lord to me and it may spare them some trouble if i tell them once for all that they that i will have none of their stupid messages never dream that events are revealed to you by heaven or you may come to be like those idiots who dare impute these blatant follies to the holy ghost if you feel your tongue itched to talk nonsense trace it to the devil not to the spirit of god whatever is to be revealed by the spirit to any of us is in the word of god already he adds nothing to the bible and never will let persons who have revelations of this that and the other go to bed and wake up in their senses i only wish they would follow the advice and no longer insult the holy ghost by laying their nonsense at his door now wow that’s pretty bold right some might say that was too bold but the person who said these words didn’t think so you might expect from that description that this is a pastor responding to the practice of the charismatics pentecostals in our present day but maybe some of you know where does this quotation actually come from this is from charles spurgeon spoken in 1872 this was way before the charismatic of pentecostal movements but isn’t that interesting this british preacher from the 1800s he had people in his own time making the same claims that we see around us all the time today and his warning then to people at his own time is also relevant for us he says god has not promised to speak through a new revelation vision voice or impression rather he speaks to us only through his word while god did supernaturally speak to prophets in the old testament and prophets and apostles in the new testament they were given miraculous signs to validate their claims their prophecies always agreed with scripture they were never wrong when anything they foretold they were laying a foundation as ephesians 2 19 to 20 says which has now been laid and doesn’t need to be laid again so if you feel like god is speaking to you outside of the bible then as virgin says it’s still true be sure that that revelation doesn’t come from god it either comes from yourself or from the devil but you know what this error of imputing false words and works to god the holy spirit is not a modern problem it didn’t even originate in spurgeon’s day you can trace this heresy this error and all the christian cults also in the medieval period popes claim new revelation from god even in the early church believers in sound doctrine had to combat the behavior of a group called the montanists who claimed prophecies visions speaking in tongues yet whose religious services were totally out of control and whose prophecies often did not come to pass does that sound familiar even in the first 100 years after the death of john the apostle false claims of new revelation were a problem in the church that had to be rebuked and warned against but you know what it didn’t even originate at that time where did the problem of false prophecy false words actually originate yeah yeah go back to the garden and the serpent saying god said this no here’s the truth this is why you have provisions in the old testament law saying you’re going to have false prophets but you’ll know a true prophet from a false prophet in this way or in the new testament writings like when john writes in first john 4 1 beloved do not believe every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they are from god because many false prophets have gone out into the world this is not a new problem and this is true for many things in church history as we look or yeah as we consider many of the problems that the church faces either from the world or the culture or just wrong doctrine and heresy we see them around us today but as we study church history we will find that actually they it’s always been there in some ways we should be comforted by this because it says ecclesiastes 1 9 says that which has been is that which will be and that which has been done is that which will be done there is nothing new under the sun we will never arrive to say oh no here’s a problem that the church has never seen before what do we do no the bible’s sufficient and church history proves that we’ve been seeing the same things again and again there will be no experience in our own time that hasn’t also appeared somewhere in the history of the bible and of the church no error no temptation no attack they’ve all come before they’ve just been repackaged therefore if we can learn from those in the past how they stood up against these kinds of attacks and temptations if we heed their warnings as they pointed back to scripture and as they clung to christ that means we can also stand against these heresies and sins we’ll become that much more equipped to deal with the wicked and foolish thinking of our own age all right well in summary church history will benefit us specifically by explaining the origins of different aspects of our present spiritual landscape by giving encouragement through god’s demonstrated fulfillment of biblical promises and by providing warning against the timeless weapons of the evil one and the world well i’m really excited to go through this material with you i have to tell you our course is only going to be an overview i know i wish i could tell you everything that i know and i’ve learned about church history but i have to be selective for time considerations and i also have to tell you like any one who wants to be a good historian will tell you that i and my sources are not free from bias all of us have a certain bias i’ve tried to mitigate that bias i’ve tried to check myself and i’ve assembled a number of sources varied sources and books magazines and videos to give you a varied and hopefully quality historical perspective but i am coming from a certain viewpoint nevertheless i do believe that even providing a basic understanding of church history to you it will prove edifying and it will help you and help us all as we continue as a church the victory march toward jesus and his coming kingdom tell you more about my sources next time and what additional resources you can pursue if interested especially about the early church but that’s it for today next sunday we will travel to the first century for a closer look at the expanding and persecuted church both under and after the apostles let’s close in prayer lord we thank you for your promise being fulfilled the reason we are here today is because you have preserved your gospel you have preserved your church through all the centuries of history and lord you were interested in continuing to do that through us through our own faithfulness so may lord the testimony of the church in times past indeed spur us on indeed warn us indeed clarify for us why things the way they are lord i pray that you would grant us that help by your spirit as we continue to study these things together please bless the rest of the service today in jesus name amen all right thank you thank you you