Truth is ancient; it's grey hairs may make it venerable;
it comes from Him who is the ancient of days. --Thomas Watson

 

30 October, 2006   comments: (0) Church History   A Challenge To Innovators: Look Back & Remember A few decades ago, the young visionaries Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple Computers in a family garage launching a new revolution in technology. Today's young church innovators share that same spirit; they are inventing something new, hoping for a revolution of their own. There's just one problem with that comparison; Christianity isn't new, in fact - it's centuries old. To behave as though that were not the case, to forget the past, is ignorant and dangerous. Such would not be 'vision', but tunnel vision. So with Tuesday being Reformation Day 2006, here's a reminder that Christianity didn't just start in a garage a few decades ago; there really is a history behind it, and almost 500 years back in the pages of Church history we find an earthquake of an event called the Reformation. From the 19th century Scottish preacher Horatius Bonar: The world's history has been like that of the globe itself--one of night and day, ebb and flow. Life's sky has never been long blue nor long clouded; its river has not long run either smooth or rough. The church's history has been similar,--one of alternate night and day. You see this among the patriarchs; in Israel; in the Pentecostal church of Jerusalem; in the seven churches of Asia. Since then it has been the same in all regions where God has raised up a church for himself. All church history presents to us these mornings and evenings: sometimes longer, sometimes shorter; sometimes with less of light and darkness, sometimes with more. The age of Augustine was one notable example of this; the age of Wickliff and Huss was another; the age of the Reformation was another,--the brightest morning, preceded by the darkest night of any that the church had seen from the first century. ... Just before the Reformation, was one of the darkest of the many dark hours that have filled up the long night of time. Thick clouds covered the whole arch of heaven. Not a streak of its blue was visible, and not one ray from its many orbs could reach the earth. It was hopeless and impenetrable night. The ruler of the darkness of this world seemed to triumph. All was ignorance, superstition, priestcraft, immorality, bondage, degradation. Any solitary believing man, living in that midnight, might have said with the historian of Paul's shipwreck: 'When neither sun nor stars for many days appeared, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.' One would have said that the world's doom was sealed; deliverance hopeless, for there was none to deliver; darkness fixed, for every ray was blotted out; liberty impossible, for the chain was universal; truth for ever banished, for the word of God was sealed and set aside as poison; error and ignorance and sin the only inheritance to be bequeathed to posterity, as being the only birthrights in possession of the fathers. All of a sudden a breeze swept across the sky of Europe, and the clouds began to disappear. Fragments of the blue arch became visible. Star after star shone out; and the full moon rose to shed its blessed light on that gloom of continental midnight. In a few years the change was glorious; and there was not a kingdom of Europe which did not, more or less, share for a time the blessed light. In many of these that light was quenched. It was quenched in blood. Enraged priestcraft, linked with alarmed kingcraft, set on foot every appliance to banish the light. They succeeded in too many places, as Spain and Italy, and France and Bohemia, can to this day too sadly tell. Reformation Preaching Listen to a short audio clip By John MacArthur: The Preaching of the Reformers What did they preach about in the 16th century, and how? 6 minutes, 750k MP3 But upon us God had mercy. No weapon formed against the truth among us seemed to prosper; and every cloud, as it rose and threatened the restoration of the darkness, was brushed from our Scottish skies. The light thus flung over our land was in truth 'marvelous light;' and coming after such a time of oppressive darkness, was more marvelous still. It was doubly blessed. The land felt it. The people felt it. The very soil and air seemed impregnated with new fertility and health. The woods waved greener, and the mountains lifted up their heads in nobler liberty. The breath of God,--the breath of the living Spirit had gone over Scotland from sea to sea; and life spread itself everywhere,--the life of heaven; irrepressible and glorious life,--like that of the new spring, when the frost-fetters of winter have been dissolved, and the warm air calls up the happy verdure from a thousand plains. The Bible opened its pages to the nation, and bid each inhabitant draw near and read. No longer confined to a few learned shelves, nor locked up in an unknown tongue, it went abroad in majesty, calling on great and humble to listen to its heavenly doctrine. Like a descended angel, it moved through the land, with its silent light, making ages of darkness flee, and with its unseen torch overthrowing altars and idols and images; shaking down the buttresses of a brutal superstition; scourging out of their dens the immoralities of a sensual priesthood; shivering to atoms the chains of a degraded nation; and teaching men to worship Him who is a Spirit, in spirit and in truth. The gospel of the grace of God took its free course over the land. Its free pardon and free salvation sounded gladly upon the ears of a people to whom every spiritual blessing had hitherto been mere merchandise,-- goods or toys to be bought and sold for the purpose of furnishing a livelihood to a favored caste called priests, who for ages had made their fortunes by this horrible monopoly. An unbought, undeserved salvation; a free and unconditional forgiveness;--these were things unheard of. Eternal life, as God's immediate gift, to be had for the taking; peace with God, and the certain possession of his favor, upon the simple reception of his testimony concerning His Son;--these were the things of which the glad tidings rushed in power and swiftness through the land,--entering the peasant's hut, and the peer's hall, and the prince's palace,--till it seemed as if a new kingdom had been set up and a new race had risen. ... Bright as was the Reformation, there are brighter days to come. Much as that mighty movement did for earth, there is a movement at hand which is to do far more,--a movement more perfect, more glorious, more universal, and more abiding. That is our hope, and there is none like it. 'The night is far spent, the day is at hand.' 'Even so come, Lord Jesus.' --1866, The Christian Tressury, Horatius Bonar Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.513   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism