Our scripture reading this afternoon will take from Romans chapter 10, Paul's letter to the Romans chapter 10. I want to read the first 17 verses, 17 verses. Chapter 10 of Romans. Romans chapter 10, beginning to read at verse one Hear the word of God. Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law, The man who does those things shall live by them. But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way. Do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven, that is, to bring Christ down from above, or who will descend into the abyss, that is, to bring Christ up from the dead. But what does it say? The word is near you in your mouth and in your heart, that is, the word of faith which we preach. that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture says, whoever believes on him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon him. For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things. But they have not all obeyed the gospel, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report? So then, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Would you then also turn with me in the back of your Psalter hymnals to Lord's Day 31? I find that on page 886 in the back of your Psalter hymnal. Lord's Day 31, question and answer 83, 84, and 85. I remind you that this is your confession of faith as it is mine. So question and answer 83 comes congregation. What are the keys of the kingdom? The preaching of the holy gospel and Christian discipline toward repentance. Both of them open the kingdom of heaven to believers and close it to unbelievers. How does preaching the Holy Gospel open and close the Kingdom of Heaven? According to the command of Christ, the Kingdom of Heaven is opened by proclaiming and publicly declaring to all believers, each and every one, that as often as they accept the Gospel promises in true faith, God, because of Christ's merit, truly forgives all their sins. The kingdom of heaven is closed, however, by proclaiming and publicly declaring to unbelievers and hypocrites that as long as they do not repent, the wrath of God and eternal condemnation rests on them. God's judgment, both in this life and in the life to come, is based on this gospel testimony. How is the kingdom of heaven closed and opened by Christian discipline? According to the command of Christ, those who, though called Christians, profess unchristian teachings or live unchristian lives, and who after repeated personal and loving admonitions refuse to abandon their errors and evil ways, and who, after being reported to the Church, that is, to those ordained by the Church for that purpose, fail to respond also to the Church's admonition, such persons the Church excludes from the Christian community by withholding the sacraments from them, and God also excludes them from the Kingdom of Christ. Such persons, when promising and demonstrating genuine reform, are received again as members of Christ and of His Church. Thus far, the reading of God's Holy Word and the summary of the orders we found in the creeds and confessions of the Church, this the Church confesses to believe, and may God once again add His blessing to the hearing, the reading, and the preaching of His Word. Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, quite some time ago I read with great interest the report written by a man in one of the church periodicals, where this man had read the annual reports of the United Church of Canada, the Presbyterian Church of Canada, the Anglican Church of England in Canada, and the Christian Reformed Churches of North America. And it struck me that all of those churches reported a serious declining in membership Most of the churches simply passed it off as a sign of the times. Their response was, we live in a world that is becoming ever more secular, which of course is true, and so we can expect there to be less and less interest in spiritual matters. Not sure that's true. Most churches simply accepted the fact that interest in the Church of Jesus Christ is waning in our culture, and the ones that did care felt that the best response would be to send out questionnaires soliciting input from the congregations as to what must be done to not only attract others, but to even hold the interest of the current membership. The answer thought most of the members of these churches was to be found introducing all sorts of liturgical innovations in order to make the service more interesting. Let's introduce special music. Let's have choirs. Let's have testimonies or other innovations into the worship service to make it more interesting and more entertaining. And if that doesn't work, let's begin to have seeker services, youth services, and all the rest. Whatever it takes should be done in efforts to shore up the declining membership. Some who had the practices suggested that the time had finally come in this secularization of our world, the time had come to focus all of our attention on the first service and cancel the second service since already there was not sufficient interest in it. But is that really the answer? Should we really rely on liturgical innovation to shore up a sagging church? Well, not according to our Bibles. According to scripture, and captured here in the Confession, is that there exists only one remedy for revival of the Church, and it is not to be found in introducing new innovations, but rather in returning to the things already taught us years ago. The things given us in the Confession of this afternoon point us the way to establishing robust congregations and healthy denominations and federations. And so I administer God's word to you this afternoon, just simply following the leading of this Lord's Day, using as my theme, the keys of the kingdom, the keys of the kingdom. We want to examine the two keys. We will consider, first of all, the proclamation of the gospel as the first key. And then we want to see also the need of Christian discipline as the second key. So the keys of the kingdom, preaching of the gospel and Christian discipline. if we were to identify one influence which has been most instrumental in causing the church to lose her influence, it is the fact that men and women of the last three or four decades have lost their biblical understanding of preachers and preaching. What has been lost in the concept is that in faithful preaching of the word of God, it is not the preacher who is heard, but the congregation hears Christ himself in faithful preaching. Speaking from the pulpit, the congregation hears Jesus Christ. During a worship service, Christ speaks to the congregation using the lips of the human preacher. It is Christ himself through his spirit who has equipped, qualified, and sent the preacher, and he does so because it is the preacher who is the God-ordained instrument through whom Christ chooses to address the congregation. If that's a new concept for you, think with me of Christ's own words and ministry while dwelling here among us below. While still on this earth, Jesus gathered his disciples around him shortly before he left this earth, and he instructed them, we heard some of that this morning, he instructed them to go into the four corners of the earth to preach the gospel and to make disciples of all nations, the Great Commission. We're all familiar with that, but what is often forgotten is that Christ concludes that commandment by encouraging his disciples in that mission by adding the words, he who hears you hears me. In other words, congregation, if you came here this afternoon to see if perhaps Zoster had something interesting to say, you will be disappointed. For according to our Bibles, those called by God and ordained by the church stand before their congregations as Christ's official ambassador, and they speak the very words of Christ after him in a way that no other unordained man can do. Understand well with me. I'm not suggesting that every man in every pulpit is God's official spokesperson. There are many men who have simply chosen ministry as a personal career choice. And such men have never been called by God. But when a man is truly called by God, then he is equipped by God. He is examined and ordained by the Church of Jesus Christ to confirm that calling. And then Jesus still says, those men, those men, he says to those men, he who hears you hears me. When that is properly understood, then we begin to realize that particular things happen during the worship service that happens nowhere else, and that happen in no other way than through preaching. People of God, every time I move to a different congregation, members of my new flock would ask how they should address me. My answer was always and is still the same. The use of my first name is reserved for my wife and a few chosen personal friends. All others, I ask to address me as Reverend Zoster, or if you prefer, Pastor Zoster. Why? not because I'm better than you, but because I am different from you, because of the authority with which God himself has clothed me, and that distinction between the pulpit and the pew must always be maintained. When the congregation begins to address the minister by his first name, that distinction and that authority tends to disappear, and he is soon simply seen as one who has some natural gift for communicating the gospel. That minister's God-given particular authority distinguishing him from all other members becomes lost, and his speaking then is seen as only his opinion, no more or less valid than anyone else in the congregation. Perhaps some of you can remember the days when ministers were seen and treated as holy men of God. Oh, not because they themselves were holy. No, they too were polluted with the stains of sin. They were sinful human beings with all of their fallen human sins and weaknesses. And yet they were particular men through whom God had chosen to speak to the congregation. And it was the preaching of these holy men of God that God had determined would be the instrument that would give life or death to the hearts of men and women and children of the congregation. We need to think about that. In other words, preachers are a great gift from God to the congregation. And they are given you to rescue your souls and the souls of your children from the flames of hell. how different it would be when men and women again believe that each Lord's Day again, it is not the preacher that is heard, but it is Christ himself speaking, and that through that speaking, through that preaching, God sets before the congregation life or death, heaven or hell. Imagine for a moment that when you came to church this afternoon, to your amazement, you saw not Zylstra, but Christ himself in this pulpit. Would your attitude be different to this service? Would you still tend to nod off into sleep during the service? Would you listen differently? Would you be more attentive? Or if you knew in advance that Christ was going to be here as a preacher, would you then be ever so eager to get here, or would you still consider simply missing the second service today. But my dear, precious people of God, that's precisely the case. Each Lord's Day again, Sunday after Sunday again, through the preaching of the word, Christ himself, through the lips of that human agent, the preacher, encourages, admonishes, invites, warns, blesses, and curses. He speaks his word of blessing and words of warning. In short, through the preaching of the word, Christ opens the gates of heaven for you. But at the same time, it is through the preaching that Christ also says that it will be better for Sodom and Gomorrah in the last days than it will be for you if you harden your heart to the preaching. It is the preaching of the word of God that opens or closes heaven's portals for you. How different would be the world's attitude to preaching if we really believed what is a biblical truth. It's a biblical truth that has been lost by many among us. It is rejected by many, many more, and yet it is the very truth of God. That's now what our confession urges us to consider this afternoon. We heard it already in the question, how is the kingdom of heaven open and shut by the preaching of the gospel? By proclaiming to one and all that whenever they receive the promise of the gospel by a true faith, all their sins are really forgiven them of God for the sake of Christ's merit. And on the contrary, by proclaiming and witnessing to all unbelievers and such as do not sincerely repent that the wrath of God and eternal condemnation abide on them." End quote. Gird up the loins of your mind with me now as we try to fit this together. If we were to summarize then the content of all faithful preaching, the answer would have to be Jesus Christ and him crucified for the ungodly. Properly understood, then, each Lord's Day, Christ is the preacher, and Christ is the content of the sermon preached. All of it centers around His work of redemption. All of it revolves around His manger, His cross, His grave, and His ascension. All preaching is and contains Christ, who has revealed to us the Father and brings us to God. And now the confession identifies for us preaching as one of the two keys of the kingdom. The language is, of course, imagery, but it is an imagery that is easily understood by all, even our young people. Everyone knows the purpose of a key. Keys are necessary to open and to unlock doors. Whoever has a key to our house can open the door and enter in. That is easily understood, but continue to follow the imagery with me now. The Bible often describes the kingdom of heaven as a great city, surrounded by thick walls and heavy doors. Obviously, no one can enter there unless they are in possession of some kind of a key. And through the centuries, men and women have sought for that key. Some thought the key to heaven was by way of self-discipline. They have gone the way of self-denial, disciplining themselves to live a pious life. They sought to find the key to heaven through their own works and pious living. It was initially, you remember, the way of Martin Luther. He too sought to open heaven's gates for himself through his own efforts of good works and penance and yet and yet and yet Despite all of his good works, that key failed to open the kingdom to him. But then, by God's grace, he heard the joyful call of the gospel. Christ himself is heard speaking through the lips of his anointed preacher. And through him, Christ himself called out, here is the key. Here is the key that opens and which no one can close. And here is the key that closes which no man can open. Here is the key. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. Believe not, and the wrath of God remains on you. People of God, through preaching, Christ opens and closes paradise to the congregation. Hear it and believe, and heaven's portals are opened wide to you. Reject Christ's invitation, and the way to heaven is denied you. It's really quite simple. And now, to that simple truth, the catechism points the way. We read earlier, how is the kingdom open and shut by the preaching of the gospel? And the answer given us was clear. According to this witness, or if you will, according to this gospel preaching, God will judge both in this life and in the life to come. We begin to understand, because Jesus is the preacher in preaching, and because Christ is the content of all preaching, he then judges the hearts of men in connection with their response to the preaching. People have got awesome and serious things you're giving us here to know. Christ judges the hearts of men and women in connection with their response or lack of response to the preaching of the gospel. Imagine that, imagine that. Things of time and eternity are determined here each Lord's Day again in the service of the preached word of Christ. It is here, people of God, it is here in church every Sunday again that Jesus speaks to you the words of blessing or words of condemnation. And oh, indeed, you can plug up your ears to the preaching of the gospel. You can ignore it. You can sleep through the sermon if you like. You can receive the information or the sermon just for information. You can walk out the door and shake it off your shoulders. You can turn a deaf ear. You can let it all pass you by. You can sit here and just simply spend an hour if you like. You can even decide to stay home for no valid reason. But unless you repent of that, it is that same preaching which you ignored that will ultimately condemn you eternally. Each and every sermon demands a response on your part. You can believe the gospel and respond to it in repentance, faith, and obedience, or you can ignore it and reject it. But even to simply ignore the preaching, even that lack of response to the preaching is a response, and it is a response through which Christ opens and closes heaven for you. We need to be very clear on that. So what we learn here then is that the promises and the curses spoken to the congregation in the sermon come not from the preacher, not even only from the Bible in that sense. When they preached in accordance with the truth of the Bible, each word, be that promise or threat, comes to you from Christ himself. Any rejection then of the preaching brings death to you unless you convert yourself. But contrary-wise, every believing response to the preaching brings to your soul life, now and forever. People of God, be on your guard. Pulpits across the nation and across the world are indeed losing their holy influence. Millions of people refuse to enter the doors of the church. Millions of others mistakenly clamor for something else, something other than the preacher, the whole counsel of God. Away with those long... dry, boring sermons. Let's shorten the sermon. Let's lengthen the liturgy. Let's bring in alternatives. Let's add some special music and all the rest. And thousands of churches have capitulated in a sincere yet sincerely misguided attempt to hold the interest of the masses. And they have reaped the whirlwind. Not only has the exodus out of the churches continued, in fact, the declining membership has accelerated. The answer as to why that is so, given us here in our confession, the church needs to once again take seriously the actual presence of Christ in all faithful proclamation. Christ said to all those whom he has called to preach the gospel, he said, I send you out as sheep among the wolves, but do not be afraid. For those who hear you hear me. And still today, those who are convinced of the presence of Christ himself in the preaching of the word can do no better than to cry out with a psalmist. Can do no better than to cry out with a psalmist. How blessed, Lord, are they who know the joyful sound, who, when they hear thy voice, in happiness abound. With steadfast step they walk, their countenances beaming with brightness of the light that from thy face is streaming. But the catechism then gives us a second key to the kingdom and calls it church discipline. Once again, we live in an age that is hostile to any kind of discipline. But a lack of discipline in the home soon wreaks havoc in the family. When each member does what is right in their own eyes, the home soon disintegrates into chaos. The same is true within the family of God. Allow me illustration here. Ask yourself, what respect will your neighbors have for you when in spite of all of your pious Christian talk, You allow your children to virtually do as they please and to live as they like. Your office and your reputation as parent then become suspect to your neighbors. Same is true for the church. She lives and she serves in the midst of a dark and a hostile world. The eyes of the world are, in fact, upon her. The eyes of the enemies are watching her. And it is precisely the enemy who immediately pounces on every misdeed of church members. Oh, how gleefully the unbelieving world is when a believing man of God who has a reputation worldwide falls into sin. What now will the world say of a church which tolerates that her members, in doctrine or in life, live or think as they themselves please? Would that then not make the church a farce in the eyes of the world? Is the entire cause of Christ then not being held up for ridicule in the world? Furthermore, Sin is not a matter of non-consequence. What I mean here is that sin does not lie dormant, nor rather, it eats away as a cancer. You know the biblical account of that lump of leaven in the loaf. In modern language, we would say a rotten apple spoils the whole barrel. It is so in our families and in the family of God. When one child is allowed to live disobediently or sinfully, how will you reign in your other children? The same is true within the body of Christ. When one member is allowed to hold to false doctrine, or when a member's sinful conduct is being tolerated, then all of the congregation becomes susceptible to that cancer. the health of the entire congregation is at stake. And therefore, Christ commanded that the church would all be on guard against errors in doctrine or in life, which are intentionally or even inadvertently introduced into the congregation by sinful or even misguided members. And Christ gives the command to route it out, to route it out, not only out of love for the individual's wandering member, but also for the preservation of the entire congregation. People of God, remember with me that Christ himself gave to his disciples the keys of the kingdom, and he commanded them to exercise them in the churches which they were establishing. Many other things were later instituted or developed by the disciples themselves in the churches, but discipline was not left to the discretion or the preference of the disciples or of the churches. Discipline was not left as an option. It was commanded and instituted by Christ himself three times. Three times he spoke to his disciples and dictated that they would not neglect their holy responsibility in the matter of discipline. We read of it in Christ's discussion with Peter after his confession of faith in Christ as the Son of God. We hear our Lord, blessed are you, Simon Barjona. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and what you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and what you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Then later, after the resurrection, Christ presents the keys to all of the disciples with the words, when you, the disciples, when you forgive men their sin, they will be forgiven. When you retain them, they will be retained. And then again in Matthew chapter 18, we read, What you bind on earth shall be bound or loosed in heaven. But now think carefully with me. These keys are not keys that simply close the door to one church and open it to another. Sometimes we think so. I've even heard it said by URC church members that the discipline of the URC holds no value in another church. And so someone who is disciplined or excommunicated by a consister of a United Reformed Church could still become a member in good standing in a Brethren in Christ church or the Harvest Church or any other church somewhere else? How can that be? How can that be? Could it be that Jesus himself would command the elders of a church to banish one from church fellowship only to have them be received by another church fellowship? Would Christ honor the decision of one consistory to excommunicate a member and also honor the decision of another consistory to accept the same person? Would not then any and all discipline be a sham, a farce? Would the entire exercise of discipline as taught by Christ not become a sham? Would Christ himself then not be speaking out of two sides of his face? And to that question, The last part of the confession draws our attention. We read, those who will not, after repeated brotherly admonitions, renounce their errors or wicked course of life, despising the admonitions of the church, are excluded, hear me well, are excluded from the Christian church, and by God himself, from the kingdom of Christ. My dear precious saints have got hard words, painful words, especially for family members of the heir and sheep. We wish it would be different, but these words are too clear a congregation to be misunderstood or misinterpreted. What we confess to hear the Bible telling us here in all of this is that when the church, through her ordained officers, in accordance to the command of Christ with trembling hands, pick up the keys, and obediently exercise those keys to the kingdom, and removes an impenitent sinner from the congregation, hear me well, then God himself honors that action of the elders, and the very kingdom of heaven is closed to such a person." awesome and serious things given us here for our consideration. Now we begin to understand a little more clearly why we confess that outside of the church there is no salvation. It is through the preaching and the discipline of the church that God opens and closes the kingdom of heaven for men and women. People of God, it's not unusual to meet someone who claims to be a Christian, someone who is convinced that they will taste of God's mercy in eternity and will go to heaven in the sweet by and by, but who yet refuse to submit themselves to Christ's authority in church membership. Do you see now the danger in such unbiblical thinking? If, as we confess, that it is the preaching of the church and the discipline of the church that opens up the kingdom of heaven, is it then not extremely dangerous and very presumptuous to decide for yourselves that God will use another way for you because of your own unwillingness to submit yourself to the authority of the church in church membership? How different would be the condition of the churches in the world if her members were to recapture that biblical nature of the power of preaching and the authority of preaching and discipline. How different would be the condition of the church when preachers once again have themselves been convinced that they stand before God's people in the name of Christ, speaking the very words of Christ after Him. How different would be the condition of the church when men and women once again believe God when He tells them that He opens and closes heaven's gates through the church's faithful exercising of those keys. Congregation, go back with me for a minute to my introduction. I told you of the many churches that lamented their declining membership. Most felt they needed to add something new, some new liturgical experimentation to rejuvenate the church. But the problem was that those churches had neglected the use of the keys of the kingdom. And it was that neglect that caused their dwindling membership. And as consequence, the spiritual condition of those churches have only continued to deteriorate. Despite the addition of all kinds of gimmicks, special music, testimonies, all the rest, even puppet shows, membership continued to decline. In fact, in many cases, those churches who neglect using the keys, they've even lost their right to even call themselves church. Preaching and discipline, you will remember, are considered marks by which a true church can be identified and recognized. Without those keys, churches disintegrate into nothing more than social institutions. bringing a social gospel and moralizing homilies. We have seen it in our own history that through neglect of preaching and discipline, entire congregations and denominations have lost their holy influence in the world and they no longer have what it takes to be the salt of the earth. But what now is our posture towards these things? What now is your posture towards the preaching of the church discipline, preaching and church discipline? Let me ask it in another way. Does it bother you when you choose to absent yourself from the preaching of the word on Sunday? Is it your heart and conscience troubled when you, for illegitimate reasons, miss a worship service? Is the preaching of the word immensely precious to you, even when that preaching dispenses discipline to you? Examine your own heart, your own soul, in the context of your relationship to the preached word. You see, how you relate to the preaching will have consequences of eternity for you. If the preaching of the word leaves you cold, unchanged, unaffected, and indifferent, if it is burdensome or wearisome or even offensive to you, if it bothers you not at all to nod off during the sermon, then I plead with you to seek God's great grace as that is dispensed in the preaching even this afternoon. For obviously, you have allowed not so much the preaching to pass you by in your sleeping, but if the preaching but you have, in fact, allowed Jesus Christ to pass you by. Go then to Him yet today in repentance. But if the preaching, even when it is extremely painful for you, meaning even that when the preaching wounds, pains, chastises, and disciplines you, if then that preaching is still oh so precious to you, then God gives me the blessed privilege to declare to you in the name of Christ that God has given to you the blessed privilege of belonging to a church who faithfully exercises the keys of the kingdom, and he has used those keys to open the kingdom of heaven for you. My dear people of God, I'm confident there are not many among us, probably none, who will remember Reverend John Halinga, who at one time was minister of the Trinity Christian Reformed Church, what is now the Trinity United Reformed Church in St. Catharines, but he was the minister of the Trinity Christian Reformed Church in St. Catharines. He solemnized my marriage to Cory in that church over 50 years ago, so you have to be of a certain age to remember him. However, as a young man, I sat under his preaching, and I do not remember all that he said, but I will always remember that on one occasion, he opened this Lord's Day for us, and just before he closed, he stopped. And he looked at us all for just a minute. And then he said, congregation, you will not leave this auditorium today in the same condition as you entered it. You will either be one step closer to heaven or one step closer to hell, depending on how you responded to the word as it came to you today. Shall we pray? How blessed, Lord, are they who know the joyful sound, who when they hear thy voice in joyfulness abound, with steadfast step they walk, their countenances beaming, with brightness of that light from thy face is streaming. Exalted by thy might from depths of desolation, they praise God forever, thy name, thy justice, and thy son.