Just in the last two weeks I have come across a multitude of examples of why we desperately need a Biblical Reformation and a spiritual revival in our time. St George's Cathedral this last Sunday advertised for Reformation Sunday, an interfaith service, complete with readings from the Quran, prayers from an Imam and so on. A prominent church in Cape Town is advertising for this Sunday night, for the evening service, Nightmare, a Halloween party for the evening service at a prominent large Christian church in Cape Town. I use the word Christian very loosely. And they were literally distributing these banners of ghoulish, horrible, literally PG invites to the evening service for the Halloween Sunday. At a major evangelism conference that I and some others here attended just a short while ago, less than two weeks ago, we heard the dean of the cathedral welcome the people in the Muslim greeting of Salaam Alaikum. and then give some mindless diatribes of communist propaganda, all at what was ostensibly for evangelism. Officials in a Christian university in Cape Town declared that they are neutral on the issues of abortion and on issues such as creation and evolution. Yet they have people on their faculty, on their staff, as teachers and professors, who hold to abortion. They're pro-choice, so-called. Not for the baby, of course. They're pro-abortion. And they totally denounced and would not even consider the application of one of the highest qualified scientists in this country because she held to creation science. In their words, we can't have a creation theorist in our university. I remind you, a Christian university, the same scientist who is rejected by the Christian has been employed by universities in this country that are secular for composing textbooks and for training teachers around the country, because she is one of the best qualified scientists in the country. Good enough for the state universities, not good enough for the Christian universities, because she believes in creation. At the end of last year I attended a graduation for the same Christian university where the biggest, longest, most repeated quotes were from Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Voltaire, Gandhi, even from the atheistic Antichrist poem Invictus, where the Chancellor of the College said as his main message to the theological students of this Christian university graduation, you can say, together with Nelson Mandela's character in Invictus, poem, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. That comes from Invictus, a poem written by an atheist who hated God, and the full quote of that stanza is, no matter how straight the gate, or how charged with punishments the scroll, to whatever gods they are I declare, I am the captain of my fate, I am the master of my soul. What is the scroll that is charged with punishments? It is the Bible. The Bible is the scroll that's charged with punishments. What is the gate that's straight? The Lord Jesus is the gate. He is the way, the truth and life. No one comes to Father but by him. And a chancellor of a Christian university can declare to theological graduates, you can say in the words of Nelson Mandela's character in the Victor's film, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. How much more apostate, half-witted, lacking in discernment and the fear of God can one get? The valedictorian quoted Gandhi and Voltaire, for goodness sakes. In three hours of a Christian university graduation service, I did not hear one quote from Jesus Christ, or from any of the apostles, or from any of the church fathers, like Augustine or Tertullian, nor from any of the reformers, like Martin Luther or John Calvin. I didn't hear a single quote from Andrew Murray or any of the revivalists. I didn't hear a quote from any of the missionaries like David Livingstone, whose bicentennial year we are in right now. What is it in our Christian universities that they are becoming not theological seminaries but theological cemeteries? In the words of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who was asked, how is it that Russia, a country with a thousand years of Christian heritage, could have fallen into the hands of godless, atheistic communists? A small handful of them, mind you. His answer? We forgot God. Do you know what the Russian Orthodox Church was doing while Vladimir Lenin was organising the Soviets for the control and seizure of all the key points in Moscow and St Petersburg? They were debating the colours of the vestments that they should wear during the different festivals of the Church. And how often do you not get that? That people are rearranging deck chairs in the Titanic, or hanging up wallpaper in a burning building, or playing some kind of games, or arguing, or doing something really pathetic, like playing a video game while a house is burning down around them, instead of seeing the big picture. We are in a world war of world views. We are in a clash of civilisations. What is at stake here is not our denomination. Not our country, not even our continent. What is at stake is Christian civilization itself. Islam, secular humanism, communism, interfaith occultism, a one world, new world order, one world religion, is threatening to overtake everything that we know and love. The Church today is more in need of reformation than it even was in the days of Martin Luther. The church of his day had a lot of problems. Praise God for Dr Martin Luther making the bold stand he did in calling people back to the Bible. Sola Scriptura, scripture alone is the ultimate authority. Sola Gratia, salvation is by the grace of God alone, received by faith alone. Christ alone is the head of the church and everything should be done to the glory of God alone. Praise God. for the bold, brave stand of the Reformers, who called us back to the Lordship of Christ in all areas of life, the sovereignty of God, the authority of Scripture, the centrality of Christ. The Reformers put doctrinal backbones of steel into us, that we can stand firm and not be the spineless, even jellyfish, who bow before the pharaohs and the Caesars of this day, who burn incense before the political idols of our day. If you rediscover the faith of the Reformers, you will have doctrinal backbones of steel, and you will stand firm, and you will not bend, you will not bow, you will not burn, you will not break, you will stand, and you will fight the good fight of faith. And you will win and succeed. For greater is He who is in us than him who is in the world. We are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus who loved us. But today we are facing even a greater threat than the Roman Catholic papacy presented to the Church, rotting it from the inside out through corruption and superstition and unbiblical practices. Today we are facing paganism and heathenism to the extent that denominations, major respected denominations in this country, are at the synod discussing, does the devil exist? Is hell real? What constitutes marriage? Is it necessary to believe and trust in Jesus to be saved? Is there even a hell? Can homosexual perverts be ministers? Unrepentant homosexual perverts, what the Bible calls an abomination and perversion, cannot be called a marriage. Should we not be serving performing wedding services for unrepentant homosexual perverts who want to do what the Bible calls an abomination and bring them before the church and ask God's blessings on this? This is being discussed. There are advocates for this. We are talking about some very serious attacks on the family, the basic building block of society. People who don't even believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. In our theological seminaries, you will struggle to find a seminary in South Africa where they hold to creation as the Bible describes it, a young earth, six-day, literal creation. Very few of our theological seminaries believe that. Most believe in the Big Bang Theory. Most of them believe in the Day Age, theistic evolution. They believe in billions of years in a God-used evolution to create. In other words, the second Adam doesn't make sense because the first Adam wasn't the one who brought sin to sin. Sin didn't enter the world through one man. In fact, millions and billions of deaths occurred before Adam and Eve even evolved. Do you see how they make nonsense of the book of Romans and the heart of the faith and the theory of doctrine of justification by faith alone, where we lost our estate through the sin of Adam. Death entered the world through sin and sin through one man. But theistic evolution says Life and man came through billions and billions of deaths until man evolved. And one person who evolved out of slime summer was called Adam. And, well, he didn't fall at all then. Death didn't enter the world through sin and sin through one man, if theistic evolution is correct. And yet most of our seminaries and our Christian universities, so-called in this country, hold to evolution. Hold to billions of years. don't believe in the inerrancy of scripture. In fact, when I sent around to colleges that I know the list of questions compiled by the Coalition on Revival, do you hold to the inerrancy of scripture and these other key things, creation and so on, I had the head of one Christian university say, we can't consider that. I spoke to our department head of theology and he said, there's no way we can subscribe to that. These are things which some of the finest Christian minds of the last century have put together. Men like Dr. James Kennedy, Dr. R.C. Sproul, George Grant, Gary DeMar, E. Calvin Weizmann, top theologians of our time, have put these questions together and these standards. And we've got Sadafkan seminaries, Bible colleges. Just sweep it aside and say, oh we can't hold to inerrancy, and yet we send our children there to be trained. Can you see why we need revival and reformation? Without a back to the Bible reformation, without a Holy Spirit sent revival, our churches are doomed. And it's not just our churches, our civilisation. Think how far we've fallen in a century. Consider where we could be in another century. if present trends continue without the intervention of Almighty God in reformation and revival. Where homosexuality is the norm, where perversion is the norm, where God-fearing, Bible-believing, homeschooling families could be illegal and persecuted and prosecuted, and fleeing like the Huguenots had to flee in the past to find religious freedom because there was no way for them to live a godly life in their home country anymore. That's where it can go if we do not get serious. To think of what is going on, you get some people's hearts failing. And you start to get two extremes. And one of the extremes that we find time and time again is the Christians are saying, there's no problem. They've got their head in the sand. They say, everything's fine. Don't worry. Be happy. Kuna Matata. And this, ya well, no fine. Everything is going to work out okay. And don't worry. It's not a problem. They deny the problems. These people are ignoring the depravity of man, the reality of the fall of man into sin, the fact that everything has consequences, that what a man sows, that shall he reap. It is not possible for someone to mock God. If somebody denies God and violates His laws, we do not break God's laws as much as break ourselves on them. We destroy our economies, our families and our future if we break God's laws. It's not that God's law is going to be broken. We are going to be broken on. It's like gravity. Gravity isn't just a good idea. It's the law. You step off Table Mountain, you will fall to your death. It is a long way down. And it doesn't matter how much you say, well I don't believe in gravity. I've jumped out of a plane before. Praise God with a parachute. But let me tell you, gravity works very definitely every time. Forget Harry Potter and the movies, you cannot reverse the effects of gravity. And God's law is just as much a law as gravity is. No country can violate the laws of God and expect to continue to succeed. If we study history, which is not a popular subject today, But if we study history, we see every civilisation that practised irresponsible economics and living in debt collapsed. Every society that practised sexual immorality collapsed. No society can live in debt indefinitely. No society can live beyond their means indefinitely. No society can tolerate perversion and immorality indefinitely. There are consequences. What you sow is what you reap. And those who sow in sin will reap in death. The wages of sin is death, and even with inflation, the wages of sin is still death. And it's the one guaranteed income. that Satan pays out. Do you realize that this is all the heaven, earth is all the heaven that an unbeliever is ever going to experience? And this is all the hell that a believer is ever going to experience. Some people say, oh heaven, hell is right here on earth. Well, for the believer, this is all the hell they'll experience. For the unbeliever, this is all the heaven they'll experience. But heaven is very real and hell is very real and Jesus Christ is our authority. The greatest man I ever lived told us. And these are serious consequences. And our Lord warned us. These things are so serious that if your right eye causes you to sin, it's better to pluck it out and go to heaven without that eye than to go to hell with both. Our Lord Jesus used the most shocking terminology to help us realize how real is heaven, how real is hell. And we should make our decisions on earth in the light of eternity. Live every moment in the light of eternity. And that's what the reformers did. Our father of the faith, Dr Martin Luther, was seeking peace with God. And as he sought first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all these things were added onto him. He wasn't planning to start a movement. He didn't think that when he made his stand against indulgence of the church that it would spark a reformation that we'd be talking about 500 years later. He was just seeking peace with God and he was seeking God's righteousness and he was trying to be true to his doctoral oath to teach and to defend the scriptures. But as he was faithful in small matters, God entrusted him with greater matters. And the consequences are huge for good. But now think of the negative consequences of seeds that will be sown in our time. We have got people who are sowing disastrous seeds, catastrophic seeds. You cannot legalise homosexual perversion and expect it not to destroy society. You cannot live in debt and have debased currencies and not expect it to collapse. You cannot teach immorality and perversion in the schools and optimism and expect it not to affect the next generation. You can't take the Bible and prayer out of our schools and expect it not to have an impact. When I went to school, the Department of Education curriculum stated to quote from the Transvaal Education Department's stated purpose, this curriculum is designed to bring every student to a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. That was the outcome that they hoped for from their values and content-based education in the 1970s. And many of us bore some of the good fruit of some of those good principles that were taught in that curriculum. I was brought up in a non-Christian family. I was not saved or regenerated when I went to school, but I picked up a biblical worldview at school, even though I wasn't regenerated at that stage. Every day, every morning at school in Rhodesia, we sang a hymn, we prayed a prayer, and we had the scripture read every day. Now, I must admit, it didn't make the slightest impact on me. I spiritually did. I spiritually did, deaf, dumb and blind. It made no impact on me. I didn't understand what had been sown in my life for all those years. The 3rd of April, 1977, I walked into a cinema in Cape Town, expecting to see a film, not realising that the local Baptist church had hired out the cinema for an evangelistic rally. And I heard the gospel proclaimed so clearly, and Rex Matthew laid out a very clear message of what Jesus Christ had done for me. And then he said, what have you ever done for Christ? And I realised I'd done nothing for Christ. All of my agnosticism and funny little atheistic arguments that I've picked up from my father and from around me in society just fell away. I realized I was a sinful, selfish, guilty, worthy of hell sinner sitting before a holy God. And I went forward and I don't know who else went forward that night, but I went forward and I surrendered my life to Christ and I was called into missions that night, the 3rd of April 1977. And the last 35 years I have not doubted for a second. God's call on my life, 36 years now. And right from the beginning, evangelism dripped me. I was handing out gospel tracts at the railway stations. I was ordering boxes of them. I was getting into the old age homes every Sunday, sometimes having five or six services before a Sunday morning service and Sunday school at Pioneers Baptist Church. I was just converted two months and I was already preaching my first message in Somerset West Presbyterian Church and running a Scripture Union holiday mission in the Methodist Church in Somerset West. And I was so involved in everything, getting book tables started in the church and I was a youth leader before the end of that same year and I was teaching Sunday school before the end of that year and wasn't even a Christian for a year and God was really putting a lot in my mind and heart but I picked up as a new Christian An anti-reformed perspective. I was evangelistic, I was born again, I was on fire for Christ, but I didn't understand Reformation doctrine. I made some shocking statements that I'm ashamed of now, because that's what I picked up from other Christians. I picked up dumb comments like, it's better to be an evangelist than a Calvinist. And Calvin knew nothing about evangelism, which obviously, considering He sent out thousands of missionaries and planted thousands of churches with over a quarter of a million baptised member converts within his lifetime. That was a pretty foolish thing for me to say. But I just picked these things up from other people. And as a new Christian, for the first five years of my Christian life, I was day sitting, We in the last days, we in the last hours, we, you know, the Lord's going to come before the end of this year, late, late planet earth, and hell lindseys, Satan's alive and well in planet earth, and I was an evangelomaniac, and I did a lot of evangelism, but I didn't have time for discipleship. I couldn't consider Bible course because the Lord's coming back soon. I couldn't consider marriage, because why waste your time on worldly things, because the Lord's coming back to you. I couldn't consider children, goodness me, who could waste this time on children, that's worldly. The Lord's coming in a moment, I must snatch those few souls from the fire. I had a short term vision, I couldn't think long term. I didn't take pictures, I didn't keep pictures, I didn't keep documents. All my books that I'd accumulated through my childhood, Banks and banks of hardcover books, it didn't cost that much in those days, you could buy a book for 50 cents, you could buy a hardcover for 2 Rand, and all those books I just donated them to Red Cross Hospital and gave it away, and I had just what I could keep in a backpack, and a lot of things I'd like to have given to my children, grandchildren, but I wasn't thinking of children or grandchildren, because I didn't have a reformed perspective, I was just having a very short term vision, I was definitely saved, I was definitely bringing people to the Lord, but there wasn't much depth or breadth to my vision or my mission. And I was racing in and out of Mozambique, smuggling Bibles. I was winning people to the Lord in the army. I had a Bible study and prayer fellowship every night in the army. We went through the whole Bible and it was great. But you know, I was astounded. I remember at the end of my time in the army, I got to the end and I was going to be cleared out and I was wondering, What now? I hadn't made a plan because I was sure the Lord would come back before my two years in the military had finished. I mean, geez, a long time. And there I was. The Lord hadn't come back yet. And I was still on earth. And I was still alive. What now? And I had foot infection. I had chickenpox and flu and I was in the hospital and everyone else had cleared out and I was still in the army because I was contagious and I couldn't be released. And as I was in bed seeking the Lord, as Francis Grimm says, when you're in hospital, you're facing in the right direction. God's got your attention in the hospital bed." And there I was, and God gave me the vision to start this Frontline Fellowship, this mission of people who would focus on the persecuted church, who'd go behind the lines, who'd help the persecuted church, who'd smuggle in Bibles. Good, well that's something to keep me going for the next few months until the Lord comes. I went out and I never thought Frontline Fellowship would celebrate its 30th anniversary. I was surprised to be around three months later. But I was going. And as I started to report back on what was going on in the persecuted church, people said to me, what about Romans 13? What do you mean? Romans 13, obey the government. You're breaking the law, smuggling Bibles into communist Mozambique. How can you justify that? I had no idea. Instinctively I knew it was right, but I could not biblically, theologically, logically argue how it was that I had the right to break the laws, some laws, of some governments, relating to Great Commission in this case, because I had no deeper understanding of the script. I was an evangelist, but I had no depth of discipleship. I did not have a biblical worldview. And my pastor insisted I go to theological college, and I resisted with all the fibre in my being, because I wanted to be a missionary and evangelist. I didn't have time to waste and go to college. That'll take years. The Lord will come back before then. And my pastor, Reverend Doc Watson, insisted, you must go to theological college. And I went, only because I'd made a commitment to obey my pastor. And I went very unhappy because the Lord's going to come back and find me just studying. I'd rather be out in the field winning souls. But at college, they did a good thing. The lecturers regularly ridiculed John Calvin. They'd make comments like, well, on the one extreme you have the Arminians, and on the other extreme you have the Calvinists, but you're in the middle, we Baptists are in the middle, you know. And I remember sitting and thinking, well, where's the middle position? Salvation is either all of God, or it's partly of God and partly of men. Where's the middle position? And Calvin believed that when Jesus Christ was in the manger, he was everywhere else running the universe as well. So I thought I must read something about this John Calvin. Sounds quite an on-target man. And as the lecturers kept ridiculing John Calvin, I sought out some of the Calvinist books. I thought, you know, there's more truth to square inch in John Calvin's writings than I've seen anywhere else. This makes sense. Boy, he puts a lot of scripture in here. He doesn't just give a principle, he gives you 50 scriptures to back it up. John Calvin's writings were just remarkable. And so, without them meaning it, they actually moved me more towards a reformed position. And I remember in 1982, I was handing out 10,000 leaflets on why Jesus was coming back before the end of 1982. I hope nobody's still got any. But it was about the planets lining up and the end times and signs of the end. And you know, when we got into 1983 and the Lord still hadn't come back, I was so depressed. So disillusioned, and I thought, that's it, no more date setting, no more crying wolf. This is ridiculous. How can anyone take me seriously on the gospel if I'm wrong on my end times perspective? And at that point, I got hold of a book called The Puritan Hope. And in this book, The Puritan Hope, by Ian Murray, published by Banner of Truth, I read that the Mishmis, William Carey and David Livingston, were Calvinists and post-millennialists. What on earth is a post-millennium? I had no idea. But I was going to find out, because if great missionaries like the father of modern missions, William Carey, and the greatest friend Africa ever had, David Livingston, if they believed in this, then I'd better find out what it was, because there's got to be something important here. And as I re-evaluated all my thinking, I said, Theology College was good for me. Not in what they taught me, but in how they challenged me to think and to study and to go back to the scriptures. And then I came out one of the two Calvinists of the college. There weren't many of us there. But by the time I finished, I'd completely changed my view of end times. I'd completely changed my view of... I saw God at foot. doctrinal steel into my backbone, Holy Spirit fire into my belly, and when I came out I no longer had the arguments against marriage or the family, because suddenly I had a multi-generational vision. I had a concept of the sovereignty of God. I had a concept of the Kingdom of God. I had an understanding that God is a God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, multi-generations. We've got to think to the third and fourth generation. Paul says to Timothy, take these teachings that I've entrusted you and entrust them to other reliable men who may be able to trust others also. And so, Paul to Timothy, Timothy to reliable men, those reliable men to other reliable disciples. That's four generations. And this is how we've got to think and work. The people who built this church in the 1800s were building to last. The people who built the cathedrals in Europe Built them over a thousand years ago in many cases. It took three generations to build a cathedral. The people who designed and laid the foundations did not see the finalization of the cathedral. It was the grandchildren's generation that finished it. They built to last, they built for the future. Martin Luther was asked, what would you do if you knew that Jesus Christ was coming back tomorrow? He said, I'd plant an apple tree today. Occupy till I come. And this is the teaching, this is the principles of the reformers, that we must be productive, we must be fulfilling the Great Commission, we must be applying the Lordship of Christ to all areas of life. And you know what's happened? It's not that Frontline Fellowship stopped doing evangelism. Actually we do more evangelism now than we ever did. But we do more discipleship and more leadership training. And how was the Reformation mobilised? The Reformation was mobilised, first of all, by leadership training. Professor John Wickliffe of Oxford University, Professor Jan Hus of Prague University, Professor Martin Luther of Wittenberg University, Professor John Calvin of the Academy in Geneva. These men of God trained leaders and they wrote books. And pamphlets, and their slogans. You see, 5% of people think, 15% of people think they think, and 80% of people never think. For the 5% that think, you need books, conferences, seminars. For the 15% that think they think, video documentaries and some leaflets are fine. For the 80% that never think, you're down to bumper stickers, soundbites and t-shirts with slogans on them. And that's actually true. That's the way it works. 5% of people make things happen, 15% of people watch things happen, 80% of people have no clue what happened. And it overlaps with the ones who think. Now the reformers ministered to all three. Because what the reformers did was they wrote books. Martin Luther wrote 400 titles, 60,000 pages of published works. Martin Luther wrote books, and he wrote pamphlets, and he wrote small tracts as well. And he went from lecturing and training leaders all the way through to soundbites, the solos. Sola Scriptura, Sola Fili, Sola Gratia, Sola Christus, Sola Deo Gloria. He went to slogans to mobilize the masses. From leadership training, through literature, to itinerant evangelists, field workers of the Reformation. Wycliffe of Oxford sent out the Law Lords, who were the field workers of the Reformation, distributing Gospel literature, preaching in the marketplaces. They sowed the seed. Followed up by the William Tyndales, providing the Bible, printed in English language. Followed up by all the other great workers of the Reformation, who made the sacrifices and paid the price, and won whole nations to Christ. And the great fiery evangelist, William Farrell, and so many others. But I saw, from the Reformers, I learned theology. depth of theology, doctrinal meat and built on, not the theological popcorn that's so popular today. And not only the sovereignty of God and the Lord's Christ in all areas of life, knowing God and loving God, but by the examples and by their strategy, I saw leadership training, literature, and artillery intervangelists, field workers. These are the strategies that God used to bring about the previous Reformation. These are the strategies our mission must work on for the modern Reformation. And so from their theology, from their examples, and from their strategies, our mission was reformed. Our mission was transformed and continues to be reformed. Ecclesia reformata reformanda est. The Church, having been reformed, is still to be reformed. It's an ongoing job. Every generation needs to be reformed. We can all too easily slip into the formalism of what was our parents' fervour, and our grandchildren can slip into the apathy of what was their grandparents' faith. But there is no grandchildren, so to speak, in God's church. It must be each generation's faith. It must be my faith. It can't just be my parents' or my grandparents' faith. It's got to be my faith. So every generation. Martin Luther was the first generation of reformers. John Calvin was of the second generation of reformers. We are a long way along. But each generation needs to rediscover the faith and make it our own, and apply it, and win our generation afresh. Because Christianity is one generation away from extinction. unless we win every generation. And it mustn't just be a formal ascent to creed. You've seen where that leads us. The formalism of a previous generation has led to the backsliding apostasy, absolute treachery of this present generation, where you can even see churches allowing interfaith services in a cathedral in Cape Town. Oh, I'm sure the demons were rejoicing over that. Can you imagine the excitement of these other religions being able to come in and desecrate the Christian house of worship, St. George's Cathedral, the premier house of worship in the sense of Cape Town. That's the sort of strategic thing they love to do. Just like I've enjoyed preaching the gospel in some mosques, in some Mormon temples. I've gone into terrorist camps and I've set up the Jesus film, 16mm projects, and showed them the Jesus film in the heart of a terrorist training camp. To me, I love to do that. behind enemy lines, sabotage their own unbelief with our faith. But they like to do it to us too. And they are coming into our schools and our colleges and universities. And our goal must not be simply to set up alternative structures. Of course we must start there. We must start with homeschooling and Christian schools. But our goal must be to get Stellenbosch back to being a Christian university. to get the University of Cape Town to become a thoroughly Christian university. It's not impossible. Oxford and Cambridge were once hotbeds of reformation. The Academy of Geneva, the University of Wittenberg, these were powerhouses of reformation. Why can't our universities again become that? We mustn't be satisfied with just saving a few souls. We need a greater vision than that of just Evangelising. Because the Great Commission is more than evangelism. It's not just preach the gospel. It's not just to preach the message of repentance and forgiveness of sins. It is not only to be sent as Jesus was sent, as my father sent me, so send I you. It was to make disciples. Not just decisions, disciples. And not just disciples of individuals, but disciples of nations, all nations. And so we should not be satisfied with anything less than the Lordship of Christ in all areas of life. There is not a square millimetre of this earth that should not be under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is Lord. And one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. That includes Mohammed and Karl Marx. The whole bunch of them. They'll all be bowing. They can bow today in the day of grace. Those who still aren't. They can bow today on the day of grace while salvation is freely available and the door to heaven is wide open, whosoever will may come. Or they will bow on the day of judgment, on the day of condemnation, when it is too late for salvation or grace. But the question we can put before people is not, will you bow to Christ? But when will you bow to Christ? Will you bow to Christ today on the day of grace or will you bow to Christ on the day of judgment? You will bow. Jesus is either your saviour or he will be your judge. There is no other alternative. Whoever is not for me is against me. If you're not helping me gather, you're scattering. Choose you this day whom you will serve. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. And that is what the reformers stood for and that is what they did. They called the people back to this powerful Life transforming, doctrinal steel, Holy Spirit fire in their hearts and minds, with crystal clarity, vision for the future, a total world and life view to transform all of life. And what a magnificent civilization they built, and what great fruit flowed from it. And you think of the great revivals like the 1860 revival, under the blessed ministry of Andrew Murray that expanded even churches like this, that had to suddenly build up the wings to expand all the new people who come in, and they had to build up the galleries to accommodate them more. And as the families and the churches kept growing and they're sending out missionaries throughout the world, what a great work has been achieved through generations of people who took the Reformation message seriously. And what a catastrophe in this last century. as generations have fallen away from this rock-solid certainty of the scriptures and from the Great Commission vision to a very superficial, shallow, materialistic, complacent, apathetic, entertaining, willow creak, prayer of Jabez, shallow, wimpy, weedy, wet, pseudo-Christianity. semi-saved, unsaved, living worldly lives where they are almost indistinguishable from the world. That is not good enough. That is not worthy of a Lord and Saviour. We need to commit ourselves to serious Reformation. I found when I got in touch with Reformation teachings and I went back to the Bible, I saw, well praise God for my initial years, the first five years that I was a Christian. And by God's grace some work was done through it. But I'm embarrassed of some of the things I did, and some of the things I taught, and some of the things I wrote. I hope no copies exist and that nobody will read them in those early years. But I found getting into the Reformation teachings took me deeper, further, higher for the Lord. Put a much higher standard of Christianity. Made me far more overwhelmingly committed to the next generation, to having children, to being a loving father and husband, providing for and raising up the next generation of warriors, with the prayer and the absolute certainty that my children will be more faithful than me. to the Word of God. That they will hate sin more than I have hated it. That they will serve God more effectively. That they will be more of a pain in the neck to the enemy than I have been. That they will be more deadly to the cause of Satan and the cause of the new world order than I have been. I started to learn the Bible only really when I was 17. I didn't have the benefit of Sunday school and church until I was converted in my matric year. My children have been having the faith from the time they were in the womb. We've been praying for them before they were born. They've been prayed with and sung with from the earliest days. God expects more of this next generation. To whom much has been given, much is required. To whom much more is given, much more is required. And those of you who have children in Christian families, who have the privilege of being homeschooled, what a privilege you have. You are to be the soldiers of the Joshua Federation who will go and take the land. Not like that unbelieving generation who wandered in the wilderness. But like those Caleb's and Joshua's who believe God and will go in and face the giants, will take down those giants, conquer in the promised land, and build God's work and God's kingdom far more effectively than we have done in this last generation. In this last generation we've lost so much ground. We've got a lot more to do. The church has grown in numbers, but it has not grown in depth. We are shallow. Our churches are so shallow that if you doubt that, read the sermons of Spurgeon, read the sermons of John Bunyan, read the sermons of George Whitfield and of these saints of previous generations. People could understand more of the scriptures deeper. The people are more intelligent than previous generations. Just one example. A few generations ago, people were learning Latin and Greek in high school. Now they're teaching remedial English in university. And the people think we're getting more intelligent. We're not getting more intelligent. All the computers around us don't mean there's more intelligence. In fact, there's less intelligence. People are reading less. They're debating less. They're thinking less. They are so much into the apps. a senior pilot of SIA explaining how this new generation thinks on computer and can't think outside of the apps. And I've got a real problem training them to be good pilots because they are completely on the computer generation. If you don't know how to think on paper and think with a pen and think with books and understand linguistic concepts, you have a serious handicap. And the computer generation has some advantages, but there's a lot of disadvantages. We've got to be good people. And so, yes, the one extreme is the people who say there is no problem, but they ignore the depravity of man and the consequences of sin. But the other problem we've got is the people who say there's no hope. How can any Christian say there's no hope? We believe in the sovereignty of God. He has not freed us from defeat for His people. The earth will be as full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the seas are full of water. Greater is He who is in me than him who is in the world. We are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus who saved us. Submit to God. Resist the devil. He will flee from you. We as Christians should be saying, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. How can we say there is no hope? There are prophecies in the Bible that are sufficient for all the problems that face us. And so we need to challenge those people who say there's no problem and wake them up, shock them awake with how serious and urgent and desperate is the problem. But to those who have given up all hope, we need to give them a vision of victory. To understand the Church has faced disasters and apostasies like this before and we can overcome this in our generation as they have done in the past. Let us learn from the theology. Let us learn from the examples. Let us learn from the strategies of the Reformers. We need a new Bible-based, back to the Bible Reformation, we need a new Holy Spirit empowered revival in our time. May God be gracious and merciful to revive us again, just as we have on the front of this order of service. Will you not revive us again that your people may rejoice in you? Let us pray. Lord God, we want to thank and praise you for your love and mercy. We want to thank you, Lord God, for Dr. Martin Luther. We want to thank you for Your grace that saves us, for the faith that you put in us by the power of the Holy Spirit, for the scriptures which are the truth. We want to thank you Lord God that you, our Lord Jesus Christ, are the head of the church. And you're the only mediator between God and man. You're the way, the truth and the life. You're the door to heaven. And we pray Lord God that you may find us faithful to your word. and effective in His service. Make us brave and bold for You, Lord, as we work to fulfil the Great Commission, as we work to challenge others back. Make us faithful and effective in our families, in our communities, in our congregation and in our country. We pray this in Jesus' precious and holy name. Amen.