We're going to continue our series this morning on a perspective membership class. And so today I want to look at our doctrinal position as a church. Obviously not something you can comprehensively do in 30 minutes, but perhaps We can differentiate ourselves a little bit and think that through today. So I have here a copy of our affirmations and denials. A lot of that will come into play here. So I'll get that up here on the screen. All right. So let's pray and ask the Lord's blessing on our time. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for our church family, for the place that you have given us set apart from the cares of this world that we may gather for worship. We pray for the purity of this body both in doctrine and practice and we ask that you would help us and give us wisdom and give us courage to stand on conviction and to have a growing knowledge and love and confidence in your word. So bless our study now, bless also the young people in their Sunday school classes. May you be glorified, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. Alright, so like I said, what I want to do is lay out our doctrinal distinctives in the American church scene. How would you describe the doctrinal position of our church? What space do we occupy? on the broad spectrum of North American quote-unquote Christianity. What's our niche, you could say. You know, it's not enough for a church merely to tell prospective members we believe the Bible. because every church says that they believe the Bible. So the question really ought to be, okay, what do you believe that the Bible teaches, right? So all churches claim to believe the Bible. What is our position, our theological position on the teaching of the scriptures? We have to be upfront about that. when we're talking about church membership. So this morning I'm gonna go over our doctrinal distinctives, not so much ministry philosophy, which we'll do in another lesson, but the theological positions of our church. And so I was thinking about how to go about this in a clear and efficient way. And so I was thinking that we would, in our mind's eye, take a drive from the Forest Hill area to here. and think about all the churches that you pass along the way and what makes us different from them. All right, so let's say that you're going to begin your drive somewhere around the Forest Hill Air Park area that there's businesses over there off of Jarrettsville Road. And so as you're coming down to an intersection there to Business Route 1, you see St. Mary's Catholic Church. So what makes ourselves different from that? All right, so that should be an easy question for us, I would imagine, seeing that our name is Reformation Bible Church. There are, of course, a lot of differences between the theological position of our church. The main differences, of course, are on the walls of our sanctuary, the five solas. Sola Scriptura, Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, Sola Christus, and Sola Deo Gloria. And so we have sola scriptura, and that is the fundamental difference between Protestants and Catholics. The Protestant position is that the scriptures alone are breathed out by God, and so therefore the scriptures alone are the rule for faith and practice, whereas the Roman church teaches a combination of the scriptures and also church tradition and the councils of the church and the authority of the papacy. sola gratia, grace alone, not just the necessity of grace, which the Roman Catholic Church would teach the necessity of grace. They believe in human fallenness, but the sufficiency of grace, grace alone is what saves. It's not a combination. of things, it's not a synergism of me and God working together in a cooperative effort, it's grace alone. Faith alone, again, not faith plus works, but faith alone justifies that when a person believes on Christ, his righteousness is credited, and so that is my standing, my standing is Christ. Christ's righteousness. My standing is not my cooperative effort with Christ. My standing is not based on me and righteousness being infused into me and worked into me so it's up to me on some level. My standing is Christ alone, faith alone, Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. You know, there's the first church we passed, St. Margaret's were certainly different from them. And the grand, you know, and if you're gonna split quote unquote Christendom into two parts, Catholic, Protestant, we're obviously in the Protestant side of that split. All right, so you keep going down, you go down Business Route 1, make a left on Business 1, make a left on 1, and you're going down 136, going down Route 1, headed south, or headed north, and on the left, you pass a little church, and it is Mount Tabor United Methodist Church. All right, so that's on the left there, small little building, and what makes us different from them? Mount Tabor United Methodist Church. Well, that's when you come to another branch in quote-unquote Christendom, which we're using very loosely, right? So, you've got Catholic Protestant. Now, when you get the Protestant, heading, now you've got two branches. And the two branches are traditionally talked about as the mainline denominational branch and the evangelical branch, or the liberal branch versus the conservative evangelical branch. And so what makes us different from the United Methodist Church to several things, and we talked about that a little bit last week noted that our church's history in 1952 was a separation from the Methodist churches of Harford County. It goes back again, like with the Roman Catholic distinction, to our view of scripture. So we believe, and this is one of our affirmations and denials here, We affirm that scripture in its entirety is inerrant, it is without error, being free from all falsehood, fraud, or deceit. We deny that biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes. So we're saying that inerrancy is not just the gist of it. That inerrancy is in the very words, the very grammar, the very syntax, the paragraphs, all of it is without error. And we say, we deny that science can overthrow inerrancy. So we believe that's our position on a high view of inerrancy of scripture, which the mainline denominations have surrendered over a century ago. And since they surrendered that, then a lot of things have followed. So another difference between us and the mainline denominations like the United Methodist Church is on the issues of sexual ethics. If you have surrendered biblical inerrancy, then when the culture pressures you regarding sexual ethics, you end up caving because you don't have a foundation to stand on. And so we have another affirmation and denial regarding regarding this in Article 5. We affirm the scriptural position that adultery, heterosexual fornication, homosexuality, incest, bestiality, pedophilia are violations of God's will as expressions of human sexuality and that all sexual activity outside of biblical marriage is sin. And we further affirm that as homosexual acts are sinful, so homosexual attraction and homosexual orientation are against nature and sinful. And so that's a position that the mainline denominations are at best struggling with and at worst have completely surrendered on with homosexual clergy and the like. So that's another difference between us and the mainline denominations. Another place where if you deny scriptural inerrancy in a high view of scripture, one of the dominoes that falls is your concept of gender roles. You begin to look at Paul's three commands in the New Testament that forbid women to preach, or women to teach, or women to exercise authority in the church. You begin to look at that as well culturally conditioned, and Paul really didn't know any better, and he's a man of his times, and that sort of thing. He's kind of bigoted when it comes to this, and back in those days, obviously women weren't educated, so it's changed now. You start going into those kinds of arguments when you surrender a high view of scripture. And so all of these mainline denominations have often also surrendered and have female clergy. the ordination of women, and so we have a position about that as well in our affirmations and denials. We affirm that the scripture reveals a pattern of complementary order between men and women, and that this order is itself a testimony to the gospel, even as it is the gift of our creator and redeemer. We also affirm that all Christians are called to service within the body of Christ, and that God has given both men and women important and strategic roles in the home church and society. We further affirm that the teaching office of the church is assigned to men only. and only to those men who are called of God in fulfillment of the biblical teachings, and that men are to lead in their homes as husbands and fathers who fear and love God. Their leadership within the assembly will be manifest in teaching and preaching in accordance with the biblical instruction that men are to teach and exercise spiritual stewardship over the assembly. And so, you know, it's just, you know, half of what we've written about gender roles. And so that's another place where there's a surrender that makes us different from the mainline denominations. And then, of course, there is just differences regarding the definition of the gospel. The mainline denominations having surrendered a high view of scripture over a century ago have drifted into all kinds of false theories about the gospel, denying substitutionary atonement, making the life of Christ be about a moral example or a demonstration of the love of God rather than a penal substitution. They often go into what's called a social gospel. So the church is really just a center of do-goodism and involved in all sorts of charity work in the community, but just completely devoid of any evangelism and any gospel-centric efforts. And so we make a very, We try very hard that in all of our giving and ministry endeavors and outreach in the community, it's going to be gospel-centered and not just doing good. So you noticed that back when there were several hurricanes in the fall, It's not like we got together as a church and we're sending aid to Western North Carolina. You know, that's a fine thing to do for an individual to do, for a family to do, but a church has a higher calling than to just fill up a truck and send to Western North Carolina. It needs to be a gospel-centered kind of a ministry. And so we have focused our efforts on helping our own missionaries that we have a long-term relationship with rebuilding their ministry after that hurricane in the Caribbean. That's just, you know, just one of those practical differences. So, several things make us different from that United Methodist Church that you see on your left as you come in from the Bel Air area. All right, so you keep driving, and the next church you come to on the left is Bel Air Church of the Nazarene. They have kind of a school there, or at least a daycare there, primary center there, it's a larger campus, they've got some land there, nice big parking lot there, you can see that. So what makes us different from that church? What's the distinctive there? Well, the distinctive here comes down to our positions as reformed and of loving the doctrines of grace. The Nazarene, the Church of the Nazarene is Wesleyan Arminian. And so a Wesleyan from John Wesley and from the early days of Methodism would be those who would deny that salvation is permanent. They would allow for the losing of your salvation. And they would teach a doctrine of perfectionism, that there is a way for believers on this side of glory to arrive at perfectionism in their struggle against sin. The struggle no longer exists. You can arrive at that. And if you're not pursuing that, and if you fall short of that, well, you may not be saved at all. So, that's the Wesleyan position, the Arminian position of emphasizing the decisional aspect of becoming a Christian. We are self-consciously, and in our confessional statements, reformed. And so it's difficult to get into all of that in the time restraints that we have. This is not the place for proving it from scripture. But one of the classic ways of explaining what it is to be reformed is that five letter acronym called TULIP. So the T being total depravity. And so the teaching that man is unable and unwilling to be reconciled to God. Total depravity, every part of my being affected negatively by the fall. And then there is you, unconditional election. And so that God's sovereign grace is given irrespective of me. And it's not even based on him looking ahead in time and seeing that I'll do something. It's unconditional. It is sovereign grace, free grace. The L is for limited atonement, which we would rather say as particular redemption. And that goes back to the idea of is the work of Christ a work of potentiality or a work of actuality? Does he potentially, does he save all men potentially or some men actually? So we believe in particular redemption, that Christ died for his people. Right, so that's the L. I is irresistible grace. So like sola gratia, that grace is not only necessary for salvation, but that it is sufficient for salvation. Grace alone. And that grace of God is irresistible. It is a powerful, effectual call. that raises from the dead. Like Lazarus could not resist the voice of the Lord Jesus at his tomb. He had to come forth. and so we believe in irresistible grace. And then the P is the perseverance of the saints, that those who have been given faith by God will persevere in that faith, that they will be preserved by God all the way on out into eternity, like we are memorizing from Jude 24, he's able to keep us from falling and to present us faultless before his throne with exceeding joy. And so, that's the five parts of what it is to be reformed. In our doctrinal statement, the 1689 London Baptist Confession sets forward that reformed position. And so we're very different from our brothers and sisters over at the Church of the Nazarene. We don't deny that there are Christians there. This is not damnable heresy or anything to be a Wesleyan, to be an Arminian, certainly not. They're our brothers and sisters, but we have a different understanding of scripture from them. All right, so you keep going down Route 1, and not too long after the Nazarene Church, there's a little church on the left called New Covenant Church. It's the New Covenant Church of God, and they always have a marquee out front. They always have something cute on the marquee that catches your attention. I forget what it is this week. I've driven by it a couple times. Anyway, there's a church called New Covenant Church of God, and that brings us to another distinction in the American church scene. So, when you're talking about, you know, going backwards, okay, you've got, you know, Catholic, Protestant, okay, Protestant side, Protestant side, mainline denominations versus the evangelicals. Okay, so when you got the evangelicals now, now you got several different forks in the road. Okay, so one of the forks in the road is Reformed versus Arminian. Okay, we just talked about that. Another fork in the road is whether you are a cessationist or a continuationist. And so that has to do with the gifts of the Holy Spirit that are the charismatic gifts, the sign gifts. like prophecy, speaking in tongues, interpreting of tongues, and healing. Those gifts, our position is as cessationists that they have ceased. And so we have a statement in our affirmations and denials on this. We affirm that the working of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church begins with conviction of sin and regeneration and continues through sanctification and the outworking of personal gifts for the edifying the local church. So we do affirm that the Holy Spirit is very active in the church and is working in the church and that there are such a thing as spiritual gifts. We affirm that the supernatural gifts of the apostolic church, however, okay, the supernatural gifts of the apostolic church, prophecy, tongues, healing, miracles, ceased. in the days of the apostles. And we deny that modern day claims of these revelatory gifts are valid. And we further deny the continuation of objective revelation in any form. We deny apostolic miraculous sign gifts are either normative or necessary for the ongoing life of the church. So this is a statement that that new covenant church of God on route one would not be able to ascribe to. They'd be opposite of this. Where we say deny, they would say affirm. Where we say affirm, they would say deny. They believe in the continuation of the apostolic gifts, speaking in tongues, et cetera. So that would be the difference between us and that assembly. It makes us distinctive from them. All right, so we've pretty much done our journey. There's not too many. There's another United Methodist Church, as you turn up, 136. We already talked about that. So that's kind of the journey. How about some other churches in the area? What makes us different from them? So, for instance, how about a Calvary Chapel Church? What makes us different from a Calvary Chapel Church? A very popular one where many of our friends and brothers and sisters go up here in Delta. There's another one in Joppa where they have, their pastor has his kids in our school and you know, a brother in Christ that we have good fellowship with. But what makes us different from a Calvary Chapel church? Well, it goes back to what we just said with the last two points. Calvary Chapel churches tend to be non-reformed, and in some cases, even anti-reformed. The beginnings of the Calvary Chapel movement was very anti-Doctrines of Grace, anti-reformed. And every congregation is a little bit of a different flavor, and it's possible to have a Calvary Chapel church that leans reformed, but most of them are not going to be reformed. They're going to be Arminian on the side of things. and also the Calvary Chapel Church are continuationists, they're not cessationists like we just described. They're not as far as the Pentecostals, Charismatics, Church of God scene, but they do allow for the apostolic gifts to be continuing in the present age and there is a large emphasis on the gifts of the Holy Spirit in a Calvary Chapel church. So, whereas there are many things good about them, they're very much known for expository teaching and preaching, and a lot of good people and good friends and brothers and sisters that attend there, there are differences. And not just ministry philosophy differences, we'll do that another time, right? We're talking doctrinal differences today. Obviously, there's a lot of things we've left unsaid when it comes to music and that sort of stuff, but that's another question. So doctrinally, there are differences. All right, how about a PCA or an OPC church? What makes us different from that? So, like the New Covenant OPC church in Bel Air, where our friend Dr. Barker is the pastor, or the church in Darlington, the New Harmony PCA church in Darlington, or, you know, what about those churches? They would be, you know, they believe in scriptural inerrancy. They would be thoroughly reformed and confessional. So what makes us different from them? One difference would be our view of baptism. The Presbyterian Church of America, the PCA, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, they believe in infant baptism. And whereas we do not, we have an open policy on baptism and we allow people to become members of our church if they were baptized in that context and don't make them be re-baptized, we don't practice infant baptism, we don't teach infant baptism in our church. And so that would be a difference there. And then the other difference would be when you get to another one of those divides in Protestantism. So, okay, so Protestantism. Mainline versus evangelical. Okay, several evangelical divides. One of the ways you can divide it is between fundamentalists and new evangelicals. And the fundamentalists are more careful about their associations and about what those associations speak to. And they have more of an antenna up regarding false teaching and less of a tolerance for breadth in a denomination. And so we have this affirmation denial on ecclesiastical separation, that we affirm that to be faithful to Christ, it is the duty of particular churches to maintain the highest possible standards of purity and doctrine. And we affirm that true gospel ministers and congregations must not grant Christian recognition or assistance to those who have denied the faith or have adopted the moral relativity of the world in defiance of the ethical standards of scripture. And we further affirm the biblical responsibility of elders and congregations to be vigilant, to guard Christ's flock from those who promote false doctrine and to repudiate all false ecumenism by not cooperating with brethren. who maintain Christian fellowship with those who deny the faith. You know, they have language like that in our Book of Church Order. And, you know, unfortunately, the breadth of the PCA has become tolerant of, you know, views of creation other than six-day creationism. So we have a affirmation denial on that, on young earth creationism, that the days in Genesis are six consecutive literal 24-hour days. We deny that they're symbolic. We deny a day-age theory of Genesis. And we feel that that's an important doctrine to maintain, that you're going to get breadth. You're going to get different congregations in the PCA and OPC believing different things. when it comes to that issue. There have been struggles with sexual ethics in the PCA in the last decade, unfortunately. Hopefully they'll right the ship there, but they've struggled with the same sex attraction issues in the PCA. And so, you know, we have differences, you know, along those lines as well. So again, good brothers and sisters and friends in those congregations, but a difference. And then lastly, maybe I'll ask the question, what makes us different from just a Baptist church? So whether it be Cornerstone Missionary Baptist around the corner or Franklin, or what makes us different from a Baptist church? And obviously, one of the differences is on baptism. So while we don't practice infant baptism, we do have an open policy allowing people who have been baptized as infants to be members. No Baptist church would do that. And we allow a, we have an openness on the mode of baptism, sprinkling versus immersion. And a Baptist church is going to be immersion only. So that makes us not Baptist for that reason. And then most Baptist churches in the area are not going to be reformed. They're going to be Arminian and Wesleyan, and they're going to be pretty particular about their eschatology and dispensationalism. And we have an open policy on eschatology and dispensationalism is not our favorite system of theology. And so that would be a difference from a lot of, not all Baptist churches, but a lot of Baptist churches. Those would be some differences too. All right, so I hope that wasn't too quick. Here's 1031 already. But just to kind of give you a lay of the land on the church scene, the church scene in Hartford County, what makes us different from these congregations, and to orient ourselves to not only the fact that we believe the Bible, but what do we believe about the Bible. That's a whirlwind tour of our theological distinctives in the American church scene. All right, so let's prepare now for our time of prayer, followed by our worship service.