Well, this morning, I have to tell you, remember when I said I was finished last week, last week? Well, technically it is, but what I have today is sort of an addendum that was going to be the closing of last week. But we're going to be looking at something that I titled, Recapturing the Spirit of the Reformation. and why the church must return to the five solas. And I need to give a shout out to somebody that's diligently waiting to hear this message online today. A dear saint sent sort of a correction to me online, said, shouldn't be looking back before the Reformation back to the apostles and prophets? To which I replied to her, amen and amen, but I want to hijack. the terms, the five solas, from the movement that has totally rejected those and has never followed the five solas in all honesty. So I want to look at that today sort of, as I said, as an addendum, as a closing to our kingdom or disciples' prayer. I hate using the term series, but series. So let's open up to the book of Jude, Jude's epistle. And just because it's such a great epistle, I want to read the whole thing, but we're going to focus in on chapter three. Now if I tell you to turn to Jude, I said chapter 3, that was totally by accident here because there's only one chapter in Jude. So if you hear anybody ever telling you they were reading from Jude 2, chapter 2, better watch out. So the letter of Jude, starting with verse number one. Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ, Anne called. I can stop right there and have a whole message right there. There's a lot right there. Mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there were certain men, corrupt and unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness. and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. I will therefore put you in remembrance, though we once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. and the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved an everlasting chain under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh, are set forth an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise, also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil, be disputed, he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, the Lord rebuke thee. But these speak evil of those things which they know not, but what they know naturally is brute beasts. In those things they corrupt themselves. Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Cor. These are spots in your feasts of charity when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear. Clouds they are without water, carried about of winds, trees whose fruit withereth without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. Raging waves of the sea foaming out their own shame, wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of thee, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds, which they have ungodly committed, and of all their heard speeches, which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts, and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage. But, beloved, Remember ye the words which are spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how they told you there should be markers in the last time who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the spirit. But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost. Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And if some have compassion, making a difference, and others, save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, putting even the garment spotted by the flesh. Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. To the only wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen. And Lord, we just pray that you would add your blessing to your word this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. Let's do this for a second. Go back to verse number three, and then let's go to the very last verse, and everything in the middle, we'll get to it another time, but verse number three says this. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. The key word here is once delivered. The faith of Jesus Christ has never changed. It's always remained the same. It's been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. We'll look at that in Ephesians chapter two in a little bit. It's not been built upon dreams and visions today. It's not been built upon the papal system, nor of any other system before. It was built upon Jesus Christ, the apostles and prophets with Jesus Christ being the cornerstone. The key thing, the true Church of God has never failed. The true Church of God stands because of who she is built upon, the Lord Jesus Christ, the apostles and prophets. Today, if you ever hear somebody saying they're an apostle or prophet, say, no. The apostles and prophets of the Scriptures, they are dead, but their foundation has been kept, and that foundation, no man can lay another foundation. It is based on the apostles and prophets in Christ. Now let's go to the end of this letter here. Now unto him, verse number 24, His closing prayer or benediction in this letter. Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling. Who is it that is able to keep you from falling? Jesus Christ through the gospel. There's no other means, there's no other argument or any other plea. It is enough that Jesus died, and that he died for me, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy." See, Jesus was enough to save, He's also good enough or able to present you faultless because the Father does not look at your sin any longer, but he looks at Christ and his righteousness that was imputed to the believer upon belief. To the only wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen. That's the closing right there of last week. To God be the glory. To God is where the glory of the church, the glory of the believer should be rejected, no other system or anything else. Which brings me to a little history lesson. There's so many people that don't realize that there was any other church besides the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Church. But there was. From the time of the apostles, there was a healthy, vibrant church based upon the Word of God who stood against all the heresies that we see mentioned in in the letter of Jude. These were groups of believers who were all throughout Europe. We have the Waldensies, the Albigensies, the Donatists, and the Huguenots. These were striving communities of believers that were growing up until the Middle Ages, up until the Inquisitions of the Roman Catholic Church. They had their foundation, not on the Pope, not on Calvin, even though they would join in with a Reformation later, and they would take part in Huss's battles against the Roman Catholic Church, a lot of bloodshed throughout Europe. between the Protestants and the Catholics. They would join up with that, they were protected and brought in. However, we go back a little further, we have these thriving churches, right from the foundation of Christianity, who would grow and prosper throughout the world at the time, then enter a gentleman, you may know, you may be familiar with this man's name, Emperor Constantine, he renamed Byzantium, the city of Byzantium, he renamed it Constantinople. It is today Istanbul. You might remember a song from your past, Istanbul not Constantinople, all that. But Constantine did something amazing. Constantine recognized that there is no way to beat the Christians, because as he was beaten, as they were persecuting the Christians, What happened? The Christians began to grow. They thrived. It's a different way of looking at thriving. Today, it's if you're financially prosperous, you're thriving. It's God's way. But they were thriving in light of the persecutions by the Roman emperor. And we see Diocletian in the late 90s, we see when John wrote the book of Revelation, intense persecutions. Then we had Origen. I gotta get back to Constantine in a second. Then you had Origen, a soon-to-be Catholic saint, he introduced the allegorical interpretation of Scripture. So now we have back to Constantine, he decided with the Edict of Milan that he and Licinus of Italy, they would now formalize the church. They would now not persecute the church, they would join the church. So what Constantine did was he basically paganized Christianity. All the things you see in organized religion, all the statues, all the gods and images and relics that you see, especially in Roman Catholicism today, are not really Christian images. They have been renamed with Christian names. This was thanks to Constantine. So then what Constantine did, I've got to find my note here. Constantine was baptized in the year 337 on his deathbed, but I don't believe that Constantine ever really was a Christian. He names his conversion, he had a dream. He had a vision of the Cairo, which is the P and the cross going through it, and he had that emblazoned upon all of his soldiers and everything. So, due to a dream that Constantine had, that is attributed to being the Christianization of Rome. Was he really a believer? Well, if he's trusting in that vision, I would say no. Did Constantine hear the real gospel and believe it? We don't know that, but we know his history. His motto was the same as today. If you can't beat them, join them. This same philosophy is carried on into the modern world today, and is what's been happening today with the corporatization of the church. So they Christianized the pagan worship through Constantine. And then what would happen later on in 325 AD, some 15 or 12 years before Constantine's death, Constantine was the one who oversaw the Council of Nicaea, which many of you probably know of, where the Nicene Creed came out of. This was Constantine's doing, and he codified Christianity as the world religion of the day. Yes, it would not be Christ himself but Constantine would be set up as the Christian Emperor and the unofficial first Pope of the day. We can attribute that to Constantine and we can see the same thing happening today. Then enter Augustine. Saint Augustine of Hippo, around 400, we don't really know exactly what, as he continued Origen's work at allegorizing the scriptures with his monumental book, or treatise, called The City of God, Augustinian philosophy has been something that has run nations, and it has been the motivating influence of a lot of the church. A lot of good came out of Augustine, but one thing that happened, though, along with Origen, He would now say that you don't read the scriptures in a literal fashion, you would read it as allegory. This was the foundation of amillennialism as we know it today. Amillennialism believes that we are right now in the kingdom. This kingdom is here for the taking, and it is growing even today. Constantine, after his death, the Roman Catholic would split in two. There would now be the Roman Catholic Church with its seat in Rome, and there would be the Eastern Orthodox Church with its seat in Constantinople. So two arms of the Catholic Church, and then They were battling for territory. Each of them thought they were the king of the world. They were bringing along the kingdom of the world. Enter the Reformation. The Reformation came, we celebrate the birth of the revelation, the Reformation of October 31st, 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses. I almost said reeses because I saw a picture a few weeks back of the 95 reeses on the wall. which was kind of funny actually, he would see, he would bring on that. Now mind you, the reformers, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Hus, Bisa, all these reformers, they left the Roman Catholic Church, but unfortunately, the Roman Catholic Church never left them. They brought with them in the Reformation many of the same teachings, though dressed up in different words. Today we have five solas of the Reformation which weren't really codified until 1934. That sounds like a pretty new basis on theology to me, but that wasn't official until then. Many of the Reformers, along with Martin Luther and Calvin, saw the unbiblical expansion of the papacy, so that that's when Luther would nail up those theses, and they kept some of those beliefs from the papal system, and some of those practices. Some kept, even today, a lot of the Reform movement still baptizes infants. still does a lot of things that the old Roman Catholic Church did, and still does, because they tied themselves into Augustine. Yes, Augustine was the glue. that keeps the Reformation and the Roman Catholic Church together. And sadly that same way of interpreting the scriptures is still growing. We tend to look at there must be a deeper meaning of the scriptures rather than the plain literal interpretation. Rather than all believers, see we have something called, we won't have time to go through it too much, we have something that we would call the priesthood of all believers. All of us, as Christians, we have access to God. 1 Timothy 2.5 says there's no other mediator between God and man but the man. Jesus Christ. He is our only mediator. No longer would you have to go to, I always like to use a guy in a black box behind a curtain, no longer would you have to go to the authorities to have your sins forgiven, etc., etc. 1 Peter chapter 2 says, this was to the early church primarily of Jews, that were scattered, ye are a royal priesthood. We are a priesthood. The original intention of even the people of Israel in the promised land, God told them that they would be priests and kings unto him. Yes, had they only believed God even before the law, they would have ministered one-on-one with God, which only we have access to through Christ Jesus. Hebrews 4.16 tells us that we have access to the throne of grace. You can go boldly to that. The Reformers. still believed in a priesthood. They still believed that you needed to go to others to have your sins forgiven, et cetera. They filtered their arguments through the scripture and redefined certain things. An example I have here, I have a chart here. It's Martin Luther, a quote by Luther. and they kept the sacramental view of salvation. You needed to keep the sacraments to be saved. Ask a Lutheran, they'll say they're saved by grace, but that grace is redefined. Here's what happens, grace is redefined by a lot of groups. You can ask a Mormon, if they're saved by grace, they'll say yes. You can ask a Roman Catholic, are you saved by grace? They'll say yes. But in order to have that salvation, I know we have nurses and stuff and studying nurses that have put IVs into people. You need to have that grace infused into you by the sacraments. And Luther and the Reformers kept those sacraments. Luther said in the small catechism, there really is only one sacrament. Pay attention, this is a tough one. His name is Jesus. Sounds good so far, one sacrament. His name is Jesus and he exists under so many sacramental signs. In other words, they kept baptism and the Lord's Supper as sacraments. They're called means of grace that would carry on through the Protestant Reformation. You need, oh, you're saved by grace, but you need to do these things in order to have them available to you. You need to be infused with this grace. So much of the Reform movement kept these things. They kept these, and yet they would still later on claim to be sola scriptura, by scripture alone, sola gratia, by grace alone, sola fidelis, by faith in God alone, and sola deo gloria, to glory to God alone. So we had the competing kingdoms on this earth. They were competing over the same thing. But they took the allegorical view of scripture and they began taking land in Europe during the Inquisition and the time following. We had the Protestant countries and the Catholic countries who held dominion over the people and actually kept their people in slavery to their system. I had a great talk with somebody just the other night talking about baptism, the issue of infant baptism, and how most of the Reformers kept infant baptism as a sacrament, including Luther, as we just saw, that you need to have that one sacrament, but that sacrament of Jesus is made known through baptism and the Lord's Supper. Remember, communion, they don't take a memorial view of communion, they look at it as a means of grace. You need to eat the spiritual Jesus rather than the physical Jesus. That was the only difference between the Roman Catholic Church. What was I just saying? Oh yeah, about baptism. I'm trying to remember where I was going with it. I was having a discussion about baptism, and if you look at the history the Reformation, you had competing kingdoms. The Pope, remember, they rejected the literal view of the kingdom of God, and Calvin rejected the literal view of the future kingdom of God. They both believed that the kingdom of God was on this earth, which is, just look at the minor prophets, look at the prophets and take them literally, and you can see there is a difference. Well, these groups that I mentioned earlier, the Waldensies, the Albigensies, and the Donatists, and the Huguenots, all through Europe, they were called Anabaptists. They had grown up in their early life, and they were converted and believed that baptism was something that you do upon believing the gospel, which is a good place to be. So you know what? Zwingli, the follower of Calvin who ran Geneva, after Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli would take those people who believed in baptism, in the Anabaptists, and he administered something called the Third Baptism. And this will be a shock, but that Third Baptism was you were drowned to death. by going against Calvin's principles. These are sad moments in the history of the church, but nonetheless it happened. Calvin ran Geneva and Zwingli would as well in the same way as the Pope ran Rome. They were meant to be world dominionists and take over the world. It's pretty ugly when you have two competing religious groups fighting against each other for power, when the real answer would be to get back to the scriptures. So rather than the memorial view, as we have that the Lord's Supper and baptism are symbolic of conversion, they took the view that these were means of grace. Yes, the Lutherans will tell you that, yes, salvation is free. Not so much the newer liberal Lutherans. Salvation is a free gift of God, but baptism is a gift of God as well, because you have it performed unto you. But the reality is that salvation is free. The ordinances we have are not sacramental. They do not buy or purchase any kind of salvation or sanctification. They're memorial or symbolic of something that's already taking place. Sadly, From the beginning, there have been other authorities that have been added unto the Bible. Sola Scriptura, that's what I'll look at quickly today. Sola Scriptura, I believe wholeheartedly. I believe the Bible because it says, Paul says, I've given you everything you need pertaining to life and godliness. The scriptures are what you need to grow in and learn from. But sadly, throughout the ages, there have been additions to the scriptures. As I said, the Mormons believe the Bible. but their doctrines and covenants and a pearl of great price have taken over and those are the authorities. The early Catholic Church believed the Bible. Yes, they did. They believed the Bible. They believed that they were the keepers of the Bible and that their interpretation in the catechism and in the codes of canon law were equal or greater than what the Bible said. I can't remember which Pope said it, because many of them said it, said traditions, sola scriptura, is heresy. Traditions must be added to the scriptures. Now Paul talks about to Timothy that we have traditions. Learn of the traditions that you've learned of me. There are good traditions, but when they go against what the Bible says, they are not good. So we had the other writings, we have Luther's catechism and small catechism became authoritative over the Bible. Calvin's Institutes, see that's a volume about this big, have actually taken precedence over the plain teachings of scriptures. The Westminster Confession, or otherwise known as the 1689 Confession of Faith, or Baptist Confession of Faith, has taken over and that is the guiding line. of many a church today even. Today, the influence of Rick Warren as purpose-driven church and life have greatly changed the way church is done. No longer do you look at what scripture says, you're looking at it through your eyes of what your purpose is. Again, let's go full circle back to what the purpose of the church is. It is the glory of God. It has influenced so many churches differently, and the church has vacated the word and taken on to its own self-serving interests. I say, let's go back to Sola Scriptura. Let's go back to knowing that the Bible is enough. The Bible is sufficient for our lives. Now, of course, if you wanna go figure out how to work on a car and do that, you're not gonna find that in the Bible. Maybe you can. You can allegorize something. But when it comes to faith, When it comes to doctrine, there is no other place to go than the scriptures. The people that were against the notion of sola scriptura, especially the papal system, said sola scriptura is the most dangerous thing you can have. Why, if people had the Bible in their own hands, they'd interpret it any way they want. That's why the New Testament has given teachers, have given evangelists, and then has given the congregation to look at the things that are said. Are they true? See, if we keep everything in context, here I go again, context, context, context, everything does work together. When we take that literal view of the scriptures, we can do no wrong. So sadly, just as it was, the word of God is not taken today as the authoritative source for faith and practice. Lip service in the past was made to it, but they still kept their old ways of doing things with a different language. I'm thankful for the Reformation. in the sense that it brought to light so much of the problems inherent in the religious system of its day, but they still brought many problems with it. Some of you might remember we had our good friend Richard Bennett here several years ago, back in 2012. Those of you that don't know Richard Bennett, you can look him up. He is a former Roman Catholic Church who does some great work on, at the time, did great work about the, not the Jesus move, but what was the thing with Mel Gibson, the passion of the Christ. And he's been an advocate about, of course, being against the Roman Catholic Church. That's his specialty. I love people with specialties, but they don't always work out. Well, he also is a diehard reformed guy who loves the Puritans. I read some Puritan writings, but you have to spit out a lot of things. But, I remember him his first time here. This is just an example. He was here for a week. And his first message, great exhortation to get away from that system and the things that happened to him in seminary where the Bible was never picked up. They were to beat each other up in order to get right with God, et cetera, et cetera. But he, I'll never forget this, his exhortation was that we need to get back and read the Reformists, read John Owen, read all these different writers. And I get up here just like the beloved saint that told me we should go back to the foundation of the apostles and prophets. I came up and this is fun, we had a blast, nobody else knew it, but him and I were just sparring the whole time that he was here because we're good friends, but we don't see eye to eye on things. And he was encouraging people to go back and read some of the Puritan writing and Reformists. And I came up and I said, well, I'm thankful we can go back further. We can go back to the apostles and prophets. What they have put in my Kindle here, my Bible here, what they have been revealed by God is adequate today. And also another addendum on his flight from Washington State to here, he didn't pack his Bible. And I let him use this one. He says, do you have a Bible I can use? I says, yeah. He says, I forgot to pack my Bible. I don't know how he could do that, but I said, yeah, you can use this one. He opened it up and says, oh, it's a Schofield Bible. This is futurist." I said, well, it's what I got. You can take it or leave it. And he used it and he said, boy, this is a great Bible. Too bad it's futurist. See, because he was a reformist, he believed that everything happened in the book of Revelation already happened in 70 A.D. So the Antichrist, so still that he wasn't defeated, was the Pope. So that was how they had a real aversion to the Pope, but in the next sense, they put a Pope in duty, or a Pope on the throne in Geneva named Calvin. He was the Pope of the Protestant Reformation, and he was a tyrant. So we had fun with that for that whole week, and he got to use the Schofield Bible, which he hated. I think some of us were at a conference, we talked about the hate of Schofield by so many. Oh, he's got new, this is all new. Well, they said Sola Scriptura wasn't really codified until like 1934, that's pretty new. But I'd like to take those back. The five solas, listen to these here, and I think you'll agree, we need to look to these, even though people in the past did not abide by them. Sola fide, it's by faith alone. Sola gratia, it's by grace alone. Sola deo gloria, glory to God alone. And solus Christus, Through Christ alone, I would agree, those are admirable. I wanna take them back and reclaim them for the church to get back to those. They're not all encompassing because every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God is what we should live by, but they are all encompassing enough. Now we'll go over to Ephesians chapter two in closing. Ephesians chapter two. I think on, I'm gonna start keeping track of it, I think on, it might have been Wednesday evening, I said, I think I refer to Ephesians more than any other book. in the New Testament or the Bible. And it's important, even after the Gospels, I always suggest that people read the book of Ephesians before anything else. Read the Gospel of John, and then read the book of Ephesians. You'll find all the scope of salvation through justification, sanctification, and glorification are found in the book of Ephesians. I wanna go down to Ephesians chapter two, you know what I'm gonna do, don't you? I heard verses 20 through 22 was my focus, but verse number one, and you, addressed to the church. Chapter 1, first he was addressing the saved Jewish congregants, then he was addressing the Gentiles. Now they're together as one, no difference between Jew and Gentile. And you, hath he quickened. Yes, he reminds the people that it's Christ that gave them life. They were dead in their sins. Christ is now the one who gives them life, life eternal. Who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world. If anybody else is guilty of that, please say aye. Aye. We're all guilty of that. None of us was born a Christian. There's not a single person, even as an infant going back to baptism, were made a Christian. We all had to come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ and his death, burial, and resurrection and believe that. You walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now, and I'll add to that, and still does. worketh in the children of disobedience." Yes, the prince of the power of the air influences. He is the prince of this world. He is the god of this world. He is the one, the driving force of our culture today. And the whole world walks after him. Why not? He makes all kinds of promises. Yes, he'll promise you health, he'll promise you wealth, he'll promise you a chicken in every pot. These were lame. He'll even promise you free health care and free college tuition. and we still love to hear it in spite of his lies. He even promises that he'll make the world a better place if we just get in league with him. He makes all these promises, but he's a liar. He is a thief. He is the father of lies. And sadly, so many, even inside what's called the church today, believe his lies. But he is defeated. Let's go on here. Among whom also, we all had our conversation. We walked in, that was our life before. Before Christ, we were sinners, hell bent on destruction. Our motto was, live. Whoever dies with the most toys wins. We even like to go to New Hampshire, live free or die. Sad news is we all will die. We'd our conversation and time pass in the lusts of our flesh. Yes, we all tuned up. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. That was the song we sang. But now, it's Christ. Now, as believers, we have the glory of God to look to and his righteousness. I'm never gonna get to verse 20, am I? I think I'll just read until we get to verse 20 and let the scripture speak for itself. among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature your natural-born citizens of this ungodly earth. You didn't even need a visa to get in, but praise the Lord, we have a visa in the shed blood of Jesus Christ that gives us entrance into his kingdom. I said I was gonna read, didn't I? Whereby nature, the children of wrath, even as others, I have to pause for the next three-letter word, but. But. God, who is rich in mercy for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ by grace. Ye are saved. Sola gratia. Hallelujah. There's nothing else you need. but by grace, and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. You know, several years ago, I had tickets to a Super Bowl. I really did. And I had that ticket. And it was just weeks away, and you could count down the times when I was going to the Super Bowl. I ended up selling the tickets because I got a lot more for those tickets than you could absolutely believe. But it was set in stone when that would happen. That was one of my greatest moments in my old life. But today, we have our tickets stamped. For heaven, we have a place to go. We're already seated there, it's on the schedule. Yes, your place is seated in heaven with Christ. It's already there. We are two, we are living in two different worlds at the same time. Two different places, in heavenly with Christ, but also on this earth. Okay, I'll read. that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus, for by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. I have to stop again. What is the gift of God? Is it being saved or is it faith? I say the context here, it's salvation is a gift of God. See, we all have faith. Every single person in the world has faith. Every man, according to Romans chapter three, has a measure of faith. We all exercise faith or confidence in something. Greg, you had confidence your coffee pot was working this morning. Amen, without that, look out. We all exercise faith in an object. We exercise faith when we turn the key in our car, and most of the time it starts. How good is that faith? It's only as good as the object. So faith has the object of Christ, and believing upon Christ is salvation, believing the gospel. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Well, I was baptized when I was two. I was circumcised when I was 18, or whatever. It was all about grace through faith. I just added that word in there because it's such a prominent thing in the New Testament because the Jews were still practicing that. You had to do that to show that you were covenant people. Verse number 10, for we are his workmanship. I hate it, the message and stuff says we are his masterpieces. You know, get off your high horse. We're His workmanship. He saved us, now He sanctifies us for His own good use. Created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Not unto your purpose, but unto good works, whatever they may be. Our works, I will agree with Luther in this. Our works that we have are not for us. Our works are for our neighbor. Our works are for the benefit of people knowing Christ. Just think if you dealt with the person that gives you your coffee in the morning, or whatever, your Big Mac or whatever, and you didn't exhibit grace to them as a child of God, what kind of testimony would that be? Let's go on here so we can finish. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. God ordained the believer to do good works. He didn't ordain them to salvation, but believing in the gospel brings salvation. And now, once you're saved, God says, I'm gonna do good works through you and in you for the benefit of others. Wherefore, verse 11, remember that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands, that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, who sometimes were far off, you were made nigh by the blood of Christ. That sometimes just doesn't mean occasionally, it means in the past. You know, just once in a while I was far off from Christ. No, you were way off from Christ before salvation. For he is our peace. Aren't you glad the United Nations isn't our peace? Aren't you glad we don't have to worry, lean on those things? He is our peace. And there will be one day, there will be a peace treaty that is going to promise to bring peace to the world, but it's going to bring the wrath of God to this world. For he is our peace who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us. having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances for the making himself of twain one new man, so making peace, and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. All of the 10 commandments that you and I break on a daily basis. Even if you break one commandment, you've sinned against God. God has taken that away and he sent his son Jesus Christ to the cross in our place. Yes, how many sins does it take to be, to go to hell? Just one. And you were born that way. There's no way that we can do any work at all, but through the grace of God, Jesus has taken our place on that cross for us. Verse number 17, And came and preached peace to you which were far off and to them that were nigh. For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore, now because of all I've said previously, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints of the household of God. Yes, you have your papers. You can now fellowship with those saints that went before, with the Old Testament saints, I believe this is saying, who first heard the gospel. Now you are together. Verse number 20, we'll get to where I wanted to go originally. And because you are fellow citizens, because you are no longer strangers, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself, the chief cornerstone. I found this amazing when the first time we bought our house, I remember taking house insurance out for it. I said, boy, we paid this much and this is how much it's worth? He said, yeah, but I'm not going to insure it for that much. It was like $20,000 less at the time. He says, why? He says, because if you have a fire or something, that foundation's going nowhere. That foundation is going to stay for fire insurance. That fire will come upon a house and that firm foundation that's made of stone or cement at the time, that's going nowhere. That's true in Christianity. Things may come, things may go, but the foundation will stay. Jesus Christ, it's the true context of Hebrews 13, 11. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. He will not change. The foundation of the scriptures will not change until Christ comes and fulfills it all. Verse number 22, in whom, here's a good picture of Christians together. In whom ye also are builded together for habitation of God through the Spirit. See, we build up one another through the work of God, through the will of God, a habitation of the Spirit. Now no longer in the New Testament do you have to wait for the Holy Spirit to swoop down and do miraculous things, but the Holy Spirit dwells in each believer, and that Holy Spirit will testify of Christ, will make him the key component to give glory to. So those five solas, I think we can claim them for ourselves. I'm going to name it and claim it. Name the five solas and we can get back to those. They're a good guidance. But we have the authority of all the Scripture to be built upon this and what these prophets and apostles have laid down for us. Amen. Boy, I made it through. I thought maybe I might go another couple of weeks. So Christ and his word are enough. Faith is enough. His blood is enough. Bottom line, Jesus Christ is enough. What he did at the cross of Calvary, we can't add to. It's totally sufficient to purchase our salvation. And not only did it purchase our salvation, it provides a way of sanctification as well. We love books. I love books. But when it comes down to it, the Bible, the Word of God is sufficient. I have my Kindle here. where I have a lot of electronic books. But you know the reason that a Kindle, Amazon called a Kindle a Kindle? Because it's like firewood. They can make those books that you have immediately disappear, just like being cast into a fire, as in the Middle Ages. So think of that for a second. But we have this. We have the Word of God. that testifies of the work of God.