All right, so let's get started. Does everyone have one of the handouts for today? Raise your hand if you need a handout. All right, Terry. There we go. All right, there we go. You got one, Samuel? All right, anybody back here? Rachel, too? All right. All right. You want two? We have two. Here we go. We're going to be keeping, Lord willing, if we're successful, we're going to be keeping the notes that Larry and I create along the way. We're going to put one of them at the end of each lesson here and try to create a binder that contains all the notes. Does that sound good? Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you, Lord, that you've brought us here today. And we thank you for the word of God and for how you, in your kindness to this world, have brought forth the truth of heaven. And Lord, we wail and moan, we mourn and weep regarding the clouding of your word and the paucity of scripture that occurs in this world from time to time and even now. And we thank you for the great time that you moved and brought forth your word during the Reformation. And we thank you for your servants like John Calvin and for works like the Institute of Christian Religion that help us to love and cherish your word and to realize more and more what a great treasure we have from your word and from the preaching of your word. In Jesus' name, amen. In fact, I need one of the handouts myself. Does anyone want to spare one for me? Okay, thanks. All right, so as you know we're looking at the prefatory statements Statement to what's the king's name anyone any of the kids want to tell me who's the king? Francis that's right kids young and old And This week we're starting on page XXV, so that's 25. So from now on, I'm just going to say the number, but please bear in mind that's the Roman numeral. OK, that's for here. I'm not going to say Roman numeral. I'm not going to say XXXVVVV. I'm going to try to just say the number, so it'll make it easier for us, OK? So you'll, just by way of review, remember the immediate historical background, 1534, and you'll see that this preface was signed off by Calvin on August 3rd, 1535. So in 1534, here's a quote from one of the placards. So the Protestants went out and they put these placards up all over various places in France. And here's one of the quotes. It's called, The Affair of the Placards in the History Books. A true account of the horrible, great, and unbearable abuses of the papal mass, invented specifically contrary to the Last Supper of Jesus Christ. I invoke heaven and earth in witness of the truth against that pompous and vain papal mass by which the world is and will be, unless God comes to our rescue, totally ruined, despoiled, destroyed, and desolated, since in it our Lord is so outrageously blasphemed and the public misled and blinded. So they were very clear in their attack against this idolatrous practice, and were very wise to connect it to the destruction of the world. When the gospel goes out of the world and biblical worship goes out of the world, the world goes out of its mind, and things fall apart, goes to ruin. And we'll discuss that in today's sermon as we, you know, this Sunday is the Sanctity of Life Sunday, and I'll be preaching about that topic today, and this is connected to that topic as well. This is a review of last week. He gave his initial purpose. He wanted to teach the rudiments of the faith to Frenchmen. That's what his initial purpose was for writing the Institutes of the Christian Religion. But he developed a dual purpose, a second purpose, and it was kind of combined into two subheads. One is as a confession of faith for Francis to know the hated teaching. because there had been certain men who'd stirred up hatred and violence towards wholesome doctrine. And throughout this prefatory letter to Francis, he's describing the things that Christians have been through in France, and it is a terrible time. And as we said last week, it reminds us in some regard of what we Christians are starting to go through and are going through to some extent in this nation, and even worse in other parts of the world. And I noted then for us to consider that God's ministers are to preach the gospel to political rulers and to tenderly help them understand the path of blessing and the path of danger, and that they have a choice to make which path they would go along. Not just danger for the nation, but for their own souls. And we looked at the plot of the persecuted, the motives of the adversaries, and we looked at new teaching or old, because that was one of the claims against their teaching. And then there was also this claim that it would create uncertain or doubtful in the minds of people. He answered that. And then he went through the question of miracles and talked about the true purpose of miracles. So that was from last week. And he answered those initial charges. And now he moves on in this week's section to answer further charges. So we're going to look at the testimony of the church fathers, because that was a charge against them. And that's kind of a long list of things we'll look at. And then we'll look at his response to the idea that custom must be adhered to. And he says that the title there is Custom is No Substitute for Truth. And then he responds to the charge that he's going against the true church and creating a false church and has some helpful things there about the nature of the church to consider and the nature of the church in various points in history and how it varies. And then Satan's purposes, which is primarily to discredit the gospel, but then some of the means by which he does that he discusses. And it's wise for us to consider those things as well. And then some concluding statements where he again tries to stir up the king to good thinking and good actions. So let's dive in. Now, if you've got your books, you might want to follow along. You don't have to, but you might want to follow along. And you'll note that as I'm talking it through, it's going to kind of go paragraph by paragraph. I also hope that those of you who have your Bibles would be involved today and kind of glance ahead at the scriptures that are about to come up and get ready. And we'll work together on that like we've done in prior weeks. So, first of all, and by the way, stop me anytime with questions or thoughts, okay, on the floor. You can just jump right in, okay? So we'll make it a, I'm gonna be teaching, but it's definitely a discussion format, okay? So first of all, he says it is unfair to claim the church fathers support the papacy. And he goes so far as to say that the opposite is actually true. He said that the early church fathers wrote wisely, but they erred and made mistakes. It was a combination of things. And he says, the persecutors, their adversaries primarily reference the errors. And then he says, and the truth from the fathers, if they do reference it, first of all, it's ignored, or it's suppressed, or if they do reference it, it's marred. And then I love this quote. He says, by contrast, anything of worth which the fathers wrote goes unremarked by them or else is kept hidden or is corrupted so that their sole concern seems to be to gather dung from among the gold. So that would be a nice book title, wouldn't it? Dung from Among the Gold. Yes. Correct, so the early church fathers, so you'll see some of the names later like Cyprian and Ambrose and Polycarp and all the way up to Augustine. So we're talking about from the earliest ones like Polycarp all the way up to in like fourth century as well. A lot of times it's the church fathers that were involved in the initial ecumenical councils and the heresies associated with them. So a lot of the writing that proliferated from the church fathers was in response to heresy. Anything else about that? Do y'all understand that, who the church fathers are? Okay. So most of what Calvin and others, the Christians who are looking to God's word affirm, he claims actually has the Father's approval. And he makes this point that's so important, and it was such a revolutionary idea. It's really what was the fuel behind the Reformation. Paul said, all things are ours to serve us, not to lord over us, and we all belong to the one Christ who must have our entire and complete obedience. And so the eyes of the church were encouraged to be shifted off of Christ and onto the bishop, or onto the pope, or onto the church councils, or onto the customs. And so he says, to stray from simple obedience to Christ, if we get into this mindset, it leaves us vulnerable to the errant views of others, especially if they are church fathers. Now, you know, in today's world, the same thing can happen in podcasts or, you know, whatever, who your pastor du jour is who really lights your fire. So we can all be vulnerable to this if we're not careful, believing people instead of believing God's word. Catechism with Church Fathers. We still do it with Catechism Church Fathers and also Book of Church Orders. Those are three areas where Reformed people tend to elevate above Scripture. So, yeah, these things that are good and helpful tools for us, we have to keep them in the proper perspective. Just like a good and helpful friend who loves the Lord and works from the word, we always have to be Bereans. Always have to be Bereans. And, you know, I think that we see that progress in history and, you know, I think that we see that progress in the CPC. And, you know, where we have found some spots in the Westminster Confession of Faith where we do have some exceptions or some clarifications that we thought were needful based on God's word. So thank you, Larry, good point. The opponents of the Reformation use Proverbs 22, 28, and they just really go on and on about it. And their claim is that we must not go beyond the bounds established by our fathers. So anyone have Proverbs 22, 28? Terry, thank you. Thank you. So they take that, which is first and foremost primarily about land, about an actual boundary between you and your neighbor, and they over allegorize it and try to apply it to their situation in a way that is a bit stretched. But even the way they apply it, as you're gonna see, they're not staying within the bounds of the fathers themselves. But he says, this cannot apply to the obedience of faith, which must make us forget our Father's house if necessary. Psalm 45.10. Does anybody have that? Thanks, Daniel. So we all know this, right? Some of us who didn't come from Christian homes, we have to forget. When it says Father's house, we're talking about the customs and the standards and the unbiblical thinking that was that house. We have to leave those things and we have to come into the house of God. It doesn't mean we dishonor our parents. It's not what it says. But we do honor our parents by not following bad paths that they lay out before us. Why not take the apostles themselves as our fathers? And this kind of goes back to what you were kind of asking there, Emily. He's like, if we're going to point to some fathers, why not point to the apostles like Jerome did, who's one of the fathers. And so he's making some really powerful arguments along the way. He says that they are hypocritical because they audaciously disregard the fathers whenever it suits their needs. And so he sees in all of this, behind their arguments, their real motives. They're dissembling. They're not telling the truth is what he's claiming. So here are some of the father's teachings that are contrary to the papacy of the time. We're just gonna go through the list quickly, okay? And there's a footnote that says that if you research it, you can see that Calvin is drawing on the testimony of 11 ancient authorities, including Cyprian, Ambrose, and Augustine, okay? So he's had access to the fathers, and he doesn't quote his sources. You have to research that, and they did that in the footnote for us. Okay, so one of the church fathers said, God neither drank nor ate, and so God does not need plates and cups. So this is about all of their proliferation of special gear in the Lord's Supper. Christian sacraments, another said, Christian sacraments require neither gold nor silver, and their gold gives God no pleasure. And he describes the proliferation of superabundance of all of this high degree of luxurious wealth in the mass that they say is necessary to do honor to God. The fathers ate meat and lint, but the papacy at that time would excommunicate you for this. So he's just pointing out their discrepancies with the church fathers that they conveniently ignore. He talks about the church fathers taught a monk who won't work as a thief, and it's unlawful for the monk to live off of others' goods, even if the monk is praying and doing good things. And he says, this landmark they have set aside by housing idle-bellied monks in brothels, I mean cloisters, to eat their fill of other people's substance. There goes Calvin again, having some fun. Like, this is to the King of France, okay? This wasn't just like a quick text message, right? This was to the King of France. He thought this through, okay? And we talked about last week as well, Calvin using this humor. in an appropriate fashion in his teaching. Next, it was an awful abomination to see an image of Christ or of some saint in a Christian church. So the church fathers taught that. No, we can't have images of Christ or images of saints within the context of worship. And then he says this, they are far from observing these limits when they leave no tiny corner in all their churches empty of human likenesses. There goes Calvin again, okay. And the church father says, look, bury the dead, but then let them rest, let them rest. And then he says about the papists, they break all bounds. And again, he keeps going back to that Proverbs 22 verse, right? Or is it 29? Yeah. where they break all bounds. He said, okay, here's the standard you're setting up. Well, here's another bound you're breaking. They break all bounds when they demand that the deceased should be our perpetual care. The fathers denied transubstantiation, denied the literal transformation of the bread into the body and the wine into the blood of Jesus Christ. They denied it. The fathers excluded those from the supper who would accept only one of the elements. They said, no, you must accept both or none. Many of the fathers taught that. And yet he says that the papists command the very thing which one father would punish with excommunication. So those who insisted on that in the past would actually be excommunicated by some of the fathers. He says the fathers taught that it was rash to firmly decide anything without proof from scripture. The quote says about the papists, they overlooked this landmark when they sanctioned a host of constitutions, canons, and magisterial decisions without any word from God. The fathers criticized Montanus, one of the heretics, for being the first to impose fasting laws. And yet the enemies of the gospel made fasting a strict legal requirement for those in the church. The father said marriage should not be forbidden to ministers of the church, and that intimacy with a lawful wife was as chastity. And yet, there they are, forbidding their priests to marry at that time. The father said, listen to Christ alone, quoting the heavenly father saying, hear him. Pay no attention to what others have said or done before us, but only to what Christ has commanded, who is first over all. And yet the papists have not kept to these limits and have prevented others keeping to them by setting above them teachers other than Christ. So he's just kind of laying out this long list for the king to see how these persecutors, remember these persecutors, these adversaries, these opponents, they had the king's ear and they were bringing all these accusations. So he's trying to soften the king. All the fathers with one mind hated the polluting of God's word with clever tricks and of wrapping it up in squabbles and disputes. But all the time the papists are busy covering and cloaking the simplicity of scripture with endless wrangling and quibbles. Calvin ends this section by saying it would be months and years before his tale would be done about all the ways that they reject the father. So this pretty exhaustive list of important failures on their part, and again, he didn't claim with each of these discrepancies that the fathers were definitely correct. He was just pointing out that they were not listening to the fathers whom they had so reverently used to debase the gospel teaching of Calvin and the other reformers in France. And remember, they had been run out of France. Calvin's writing this, not in France. I'm pretty sure he was in Geneva. Maybe he was in one of the towns over there. He may have been in Geneva by then, but he wasn't in France. Somebody can help me with that. Next section. Custom is no substitute for the truth. It's very similar. They argued for the fathers and then now they argue from custom. And this is a couple of good quotes from this section. Naturally, if men's judgments were just custom, would be based on those that were sound. No, no, if their judgments were just, then custom would be based on those that were sound. The reverse, however, has often been the case because whatever the majority was seen to do acquired the force of customary law. So custom he's equating here with what the majority do. Now men's lives have never been so well ordered that most men like the best things. Thus the individual faults of the many have produced collective error or rather a common conspiracy and evil, which these worthies would now pass off as law. So the simple idea is just because the majority do it doesn't mean that it's correct. And in fact, the opposite should be our approach in terms of wise biblical thinking. If the majority is doing it, we really need to ask ourselves, wait a minute, especially if they're accepting it and there's not any tumult, which we'll see when we get to the devil's schemes. Because falsehood spreads without resistance from the world in general. Next, he says, everything is going to rack and ruin, so that we must either despair of all things human, or else set wrongs to right, however rough the remedies. Yet men have no time for remedies, simply because calamity is something we have long got used to. I found that quote to really hit home for our day, and in my contemplations for today's sermon as well. He says only God's word is to be heeded and obeyed and against it nothing can prevail. The same answer he gave regarding the fathers. He goes to Isaiah 8 now to help us understand this concept of false custom a little bit better. I wouldn't have connected this scripture, and it's verse 12 and 13. He says, the scriptures say, do not say a conspiracy concerning all that this people call a conspiracy, nor be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled. The Lord of hosts, him you shall hallow. Let him be your fear and let him be your dread. So his point here is do not get caught up in popular intrigue, nor get caught up in the fear and the dread as others do. That's a message for our day, isn't it? Instead, we are to hallow the Lord of hosts, not interfere, and to fear him only. I was talking to my computer, and I guess I missed that one. So it's the same answer he gave before, but we see here from Isaiah 8, the connection there of how these customs, in a sense, are kind of an unspoken conspiracy amongst sinners to just walk in a way that's pleasing to them. Another good quote, however many are the ages which have sanctioned impiety, the Lord is mighty enough to exact retribution to the third and fourth generation, and although the whole world conspires to practice the same evil, he has shown us from experience the fate of those who sin with the multitude. So this is helpful for the king to consider, and you can imagine if you actually read this as the king, and you actually thought about it, you'd think, hmm, I wonder where I'm at. Am I one about to perish with the multitude? Genesis 7, 1. Someone have that one? Thanks, Larry. Then the Lord said to Noah, come into the ark, you and all your household, because I've seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. So God can save his elect. Hebrews 11, 7. Thanks, Samuel. By faith, Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, So Calvin points to Noah as his primary example that he uses to support his claim that though the whole world conspires to practice the same evil, God has shown us from experience the fate of those who sin with the multitude, but that the Lord is mighty enough to exact retribution and to save his people. So bad custom is nothing but a public pestilence, is what he says. Those who die among the many perish as surely as those who die alone. So, you know, we know from Romans 3.19 that every mouth will be stopped. And all this clamoring about the fathers and the church customs, they won't even think to say it. at that moment. And they won't clamor on about how everybody in the church and the popes told them to do this. They'll just see Christ's glory. And we can do the same thing. You know, we have similar types. Our sin is the same as theirs. Our sin flesh is the same as theirs. And we'll make similar types of justifications for our failures if we're not careful. Now he gets into the true, any thoughts about that? The fathers and the customs. Before we move on to true church and false church. Okay. We'd say traditions. That's a good point. So the idea of customs, you may have heard the word traditions. And traditions are not necessarily bad, right? Traditions can be good things or they can be bad things. But we're supposed to test all things and to hold on to that which is good and reject that which is evil. And we need to teach that to every generation so that in truth, each generation is receiving the good, rejecting the evil, and building on the good and not building on the evil, right? So that's what we want. Yeah, Daniel. Damn. By God's Spirit, Paul calls the church the pillar and ground of truth. So there is a place of authority and authoritative declaration of truth that the church holds. Church councils called in a lawful fashion, they have meaning. And that goes down as far as session level as well. It doesn't mean they can't air. No one claims that. But it's different than some guy in the woods with his Bible. who may be right, and maybe he's a prophet we need to listen to, but that's a different kind of thing than when the church speaks. Okay? And so it's important for us to see that we don't want to throw, like you said, swing over to the other side where the only authority is what you think the Bible says. Okay, this is good stuff. True and false church. He says, we wage no war against the true church. So he immediately, like before, goes right at their argument and says, it's just false. He says, the church of Christ was and is alive and will continue while Christ reigns at the Father's right hand. He connects the existence of the church with the reign of Jesus Christ. And as long as Christ reigns, the church will always exist. And he says, this church will always exist because it's upheld by Christ, it is armed by his protection, and it is made strong by his power. And that he is faithful to help his people to the very end. Matthew 28 20. Has anyone got that one? Go ahead. Christ is always with his church. Worship and honor one God. So he says, look, we worship and honor one God and one Lord Jesus Christ, just like the church has always done, Colossians 8, 6. Colossians has four chapters. Oh, hmm. Maybe that's 4, 6. I've typed the wrong number. Let your speech always be with grace, peace, and the salt, that you may know how you are talking to each one. I think I got that one wrong. That's not it. So 19. It's what it is in the book. Oh, I'm sorry. It says First Corinthians 86, not Colossians. I got to get better glasses. So I got First Corinthians 86. He goes on to say that the adversaries are incorrect when they say the church must be visibly present to the eye. And then when they try to also confine or limit the church improperly. So this is interesting because he does now get into the concept of the church that's not so organized, but it's still there. It's still the church, but you can't see it. See, he says they require the church always to have a visible, observable form. And they go on to identify this form only with the papacy. and the prelacy. And what is a prelacy? It's P-R-E-L-A-C-Y. New word for everybody, prelacy. It's based on prelates, P-R-E-L-A-T-S. And basically, this is church government led by bishops and priests who are the authority in their given jurisdiction. An appeal via hierarchy supposedly exists, and it usually does in a system that's actually where these people are good Christian people. And the highest bishop is the pope, okay? Now Calvin maintains that the church can exist without visible appearance, and the appearance cannot be determined by external splendor. Okay, so just because it's glorious and lots of gold and silver doesn't mean the church is necessarily there. He says, here's the true church. Here's the true church. It is marked by the pure preaching of God's word and the properly ordered administration of the sacraments. There you go. That's when you can see the church. That's when you know that you've found the visible church. And 1 Kings 19 verse 10, someone's got that one. Thanks, Larry. So he said, I've been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts. For the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they seek to take my life. And Calvin asked the question about this section of scripture, what form of the church was visible when Elijah thought he was alone? Now, God had preserved, we're told in verse 18 of that same chapter, that there had been 7,000 true believers and worshipers who had not bowed the knee to Baal whom he had preserved. He had preserved a remnant. You might not have been able to find them because they were probably in caves or hiding in a valley and they probably wouldn't have been very well dressed because their shoes and clothes were probably pretty tattered from running from the false prophets who wanted to kill them. So he's making the point here that God's church has different appearances throughout the course of history. He goes on to say, we must not doubt that Jesus Christ has not ceased to reign on earth since his ascension to heaven. So Christ has never stopped reigning, so his church has never stopped existing. It just has different appearances at different times based on God's plan for that age. Now Hillary, who wrote against the Aryans in the 4th century, he was a church father who wrote against the Aryan here. So he says, I urge you beware of Antichrist. You look no further than the walls, seeking God's church in beautiful buildings, thinking that they enclose within them the fellowship of believers. Can we doubt that this is where Antichrist has his seat? I consider mountains, woods, lakes, dungeons, and deserts to be safer and more trustworthy for the prophets who hid in them prophesied. So he's talking about the kind of church that equates itself with all of those external trappings. He says, I'd rather be in the woods and the mountains than in that place. So we can see why folks would say, look, I'm not going back to a church. Because there's a lot of unfaithfulness. There's a lot of disappointment there. And so you can understand this push for true Christians. I'm not talking about those who just want to be autonomous. But for true Christians to say, look, this is not good for me and my family. So there is that tension that we have to make peace with in the world that can occur in the world. And Hillary points this out even going on in the fourth century. And this was obviously very important to Calvin to mention at that time because, you know, he's usually just referencing in quick phrases. This time he quotes that extensive quote from Hillary in the 4th century. He goes on to say, it should be no surprise that the Lord would bring vengeance upon an unfaithful people by making the church invisible to all outward recognition like he has done in the past. So what Calvin now brings up is it doesn't appear to just be kind of an unpredictable thing about why the church might be invisible. But it tends to go along with God's judgment on the church and on the surrounding culture. And when the church and the culture rise to that level of unfaithfulness, because of various chaos and disorder and wickedness that flames up in the earth, you've got 7,000 hiding in caves. Or you've got the catacombs, right? Or you've got the underground church in China. And so he makes this really good point for us to consider. But he says, he always preserves his people in the midst of this judgment. And this is not surprising since he learned to protect them amid the turmoil of Babylon and in the flame of the fiery furnace. Right. So what did the church look like in Babylon? Well, They were kind of having to pray through their window and hope that nobody came and threw them to the lions. So sometimes that's what the church looks like. It's this whole point. It's like you can't make this claim that you've got the only appearance of the church or that the church has to always have this appearance. He says, he goes on to say, it's dangerous for the church to demand that the church's form should be judged by a particular display of what it looks like at that particular point in time. They claim their popes and bishops cannot err. And he says, what about Aaron and his sons? He gives a long list of examples, and we'll read these scriptures. I'm going to give each example, then we'll read the scripture, OK? He says, what about Aaron and his sons? who clearly aired as priests in the golden, not the golden cabin, okay, there's no golden cabin, it was a golden calf, okay, ignore those notes, in the golden calf episode. So, I thought they couldn't air, but they built a golden calf. All right, Exodus 32, four. And he received the gold from their hand that he fashioned it with an engraving tool and made a mold of calf. Then they said, this is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt. He talks about the unfaithful 400 prophets of Ahab in 1 Kings 22, 12 through 14. Samuel. And all the prophets prophesied so, saying, go up to Ramaphilia and prosper, for the Lord will deliver it into the king's hand. Then the messenger who had gone to call Micaiah spoke to him, saying, now listen, So Micaiah, he's a good example for us, like Micaiah and Calvin are kind of dealing with the same thing. There's all these false prophets telling him he's wrong. There's also the false prophets that Jeremiah had to deal with in Jeremiah 18-18. Anybody got that one? And he's like, I thought you said the bishops and the priests and the Pope can't err. And he's pointing to all these supposed prophets. And of course the worst of all is the Sanhedrin, the major church council of that day that condemned Jesus, John 11, 47. Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees, a council. There we go. So he's making a pretty strong argument that this whole popes and bishops can't air thing is off base. And he ends by saying this, this particular section. Let our enemies now go and trumpet their attachment to these outward marks, making Christ and all the prophets of the living God schismatics and Satan's servants, by contrast, agents of the Holy Spirit. So if we use their argument properly, then we're seeing that these prophets who were unfaithful are actually the heroes of the story, according to the argument of the papacy. Instead of being servants of Satan, they're actually servants of the Holy Spirit. That's a strong argument. Now this is a great argument from history that I've never heard before reading this section, and it's something that you could use if you ever had an opportunity to have a conversation with a Roman Catholic. So Eugene was deposed as Pope by a formal, he called it a double bull. I don't know what that means. I mean, I could put it into the South, what I think it means in the South, but I'm not gonna do that. But it was the super formal, they had crossed and done all their paperwork just right. It was the Real Deal Council. And he was deposed by this formal church decree of the Council of Basel. And he was replaced by Amadeus, the Duke of Savoy. So it was all done according to their infallible decree as a council. And he says, for the life of them, they cannot deny that the council, as to outward solemnity, was legitimate and valid, appointed not by one pope, only but by two, and then Eugene was condemned as a schismatic, along with the whole company of cardinals and bishops who had contrived with him to dissolve the council. Okay, so that's what happened. But, because Eugene enjoyed the support of the political leaders, He held on to being Pope and Amadeus' papacy just went up in smoke. And he says like a dog with a bone that gave him a cardinal position for Amadeus. And so he says, from these, now I don't know, I think he's speaking tongue-in-cheek here, from these rebellious and willful heretics, so he's talking about Eugene, right, okay, from the, and the cardinals who were with him, and I guess the political leaders who supported him, from these rebellious and willful heretics came all the subsequent popes, cardinals, bishops, abbots, and priests. He says, now at this point, my opponents must find themselves trapped. It is a really strong argument. He says, they must therefore define the church's form differently or however many they be, we will judge them on their own terms to be schismatics because knowingly and willingly they allowed heretics to ordain them. So it's a pretty strong argument. He says, they lay arrogant claim to the title church, whereas in truth they are a deadly plague upon it. I say nothing about their morals or the appalling acts which fill every aspect of their lives. For they call themselves Pharisees who must be heard but not imitated. And he hasn't really gotten into that aspect of what's going on in the church very much. I mean, he says brothel, I mean, cloisters, he touched on it. He says, their very doctrine, which they think earns them the right to be regarded as the church, is a cruel torment and slaughter of souls, a flaming torch, a ruin, the destruction of the church. So, you know, there's a time to ring the alarm bells like this, right? There's a time to ring the alarm bells like this. All right, then he goes on to Satan's purposes. And he does this to point out, again, some of the responses to some of the arguments that they were making, right? They were making various arguments like, look, your teaching can't be true because look at all these things that are happening. Right? So, first of all, the two malts associated with the reemergence of truth should be blamed on Satan, not on the gospel. He says Satan always does this when God's word goes forth in clarity. Now this should kind of be encouraging to us. Because haven't we seen some serious crackdowns? I mean, in England, they're claiming they're going to come arrest me for saying negative things about their woke policies. Right? I mean, that's what's going on. They're trying to stamp out the proclamation of the truth all over the world. These tumults that we see, they rise up when the truth goes forth. So it could be an encouragement to us that perhaps God's word is going forth mightily in the earth. This usually distinguishes truth from falsehood. So he makes the point that false teaching usually goes forth without tumult or attack from the world. It tickles their ears. It's pleasing. And Satan doesn't want to get in the way of it. And the sinful flesh of those who hear it doesn't want to get in the way of it. So it just goes. He says, until a few years ago, when I was buried in darkness, this Lord of the world made sport of men as he willed, and rested and took his ears. And so, that's just an example of how the devil doesn't feel the need to get involved, isn't going to go out and try to stir things up as much if the kingdom of darkness is kind of chugging along undisturbed. What are the tactics that the devil used? First of all, he enlists human powers to stop the gospel by force. Has anyone seen or heard of anything like that in today's world? Call our friend Paul Vaughn and ask him about it. What about this? if not by force, then by laying traps and deception. And he goes on to talk about that in more detail by raising up many sects, SCCTS, to obscure the truth and snuff it out. He calls them catabaptists, which is kind of a combination of a lot of kind of very autonomous and individualistic churchmen of that time who created like the Anabaptist movement, for example, where it was wrong to be involved in civil affairs at all, that kind of movement. And so he points out that's a work of the devil. That's not because of our gospel teaching. For by violence in men's hands, he endeavors to root out this true seed and as far as he is able to replace it with weeds so as to stop it growing and producing fruit. But he cannot succeed if we heed the Lord's warnings of his devices and take up the ample defenses against his stratagems. So he wants the king to understand why this is happening and that there's hope. I'm going to move a little faster now. Elijah was accused of stirring up Israel. So we see the devil's scheme there. Christ was considered a troublemaker by the Jews. We see the devil's scheme there. The apostles that we've seen in Acts were charged with inciting to riots. And then Elijah's answer is Calvin's answer. It's not we who promote error and stir up trouble, trouble, trouble. It is the devil who deliberately resists the power of God. And I don't know why day is there. Just strike that out. All right. I want to read the paragraph here at the bottom of 34. So this is the idea of remedying the frailty of the distressed. You should be encouraged by hearing this, okay? Now just as this reason alone is sufficient to shame their reckless folly, so too it should remedy the frailty of those who become distressed by such scandals and to waver in their distress. So all this tumult's happening, and even the people who believe the gospel are being pushed away from it. Lest they have cause to despair and lose heart, they should reflect that the things which we now witness happened also to the apostles in their own day. Then, too, there were ignorant and unstable men who, as Peter says, perverted the divinely inspired words of Paul and so brought destruction on themselves. There were those who despised God and who, hearing that where sin abounded, grace abounded even more, at once exclaimed, We will continue then in sin that grace may abound. On learning that believers were no longer under the law, they declared, we will go on sinning since we are no longer under the law, but under grace. Paul was therefore called by some an insider to evil. False prophets, too, crept in to destroy the churches he had built. Some preached the gospel insincerely out of hatred and strife, and even out of spite, meaning to add to his pain in prison. In some places, the gospel made little headway. Each sought his own advantage and no thought of serving Jesus Christ." So I'll stop there. So he's saying, look, this is what the devil does, and it happened in the Bible to the church at the time when the gospel was going forth. I'm going to move on to the conclusion now for the sake of time. You can look at those other details there from your notes when you get an opportunity. I think the most important part here is from this last paragraph to the king. But if, on the contrary, the slanders of malicious men so stop up your ears that the accused are denied the chance to plead their case, and if, furthermore, you fail to put an end to the mad frenzy of those who mete out cruel punishments with prison, flogging, torture, cutting, and burning, we most certainly, like sheep destined for slaughter, will be reduced to the direst extremity, yet so as to possess our souls and patience, and to await the Lord's strong hand. It will surely reveal itself in due time and will appeal, appear armed, both to deliver the poor from their affliction and to punish all despisers. May the Lord, the King of kings, establish your throne in justice and your seat in equity, most mighty and most illustrious king. So Calvin's warning the king of what may come if he doesn't repent and It helps us to see, I think, the importance of thinking properly about the Word of God, watching out for the devil's designs, watching out for getting caught up in tradition or in custom ourselves, and being spiritual people, walking in the ways of the Lord. And also, the importance of proper engagement with the political sphere as God's people. There's a time to sound the alarm. So let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you, Lord, for this teaching, and we ask that you would bless it to the fruit and the joy and the peace of your people, and that we would, in faith, go forth in this day to worship you and to praise you with gladness of heart. In Jesus' name, amen.