I Am Still

God said, “Be still, and know that I am God.”

Psalms 46:10 (KJV)

Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

Don’t be upset. I know what I am doing. I am simply playing with a word. Allow me to play and, perhaps, as you would watching a child at play, enjoy it.

God said, “Be still, and know that I am God.”

I am still.

Because I know Him to be God, I am still.

I am still a believer in Jesus Christ.

The years of worldly wisdom, exposure to disappointments, and even some disillusionments have not soured my faith in Christ. I came to trust Him as my Saviour at the age of 18. Since that day, I surrendered to preach the gospel, got married, raised my children. My wife and I have forty years of marriage. We’ve seen heartache and hurts. But Jesus has not failed us. I am still a believer in Jesus Christ.

I am still the same kind of Baptist I was when I was baptized.

I was baptized into the membership of an independent fundamental, Bible-believing Baptist Church. I am still a member of the same type of church to this very day. I went off to Bible College. I have served in four churches since then. I am still the same kind of Baptist I was when I was baptized.

I still have the same kind of personal separation.

I still listen to the same type of music. I still wear the same type of clothing. I still read and study a King James Version of the Bible.  I still believe in living soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. And I still believe those things are defined as I was taught when I began my Christian walk. I still have the same kind of personal separation.

I still hold the same doctrinal Baptist distinctions.

The Lord exposed me to enough types of denominational doctrine that I knew all that was taught in the name of Jesus was not of the Lord. By the time I had found my way into an Independent Fundamental Baptist church, I had been exposed to the Presbyterian church, the Christian Church, the Southern Baptist denomination, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Nazarene Church. I didn’t buy into the Baptist doctrine without some investigation, but when I did buy into it, I bought it lock, stock and barrel. I still hold to the preservation of Jesus’ Church through John the Baptist. I still hold that the only authority to baptize is in a Baptist Church. I still hold that the Lord’s Supper is for the local body alone. I still hold to Biblical authority, autonomy of the local church, priesthood of the believers, two ordinances: baptism and the Lord’s Supper, individual soul liberty, saved, baptized church membership, two offices: pastor and deacon and separation of church and state. I still hold the same doctrinal Baptist distinctions.

God said, “Be still, and know that I am God.”

I am still.

Because I know Him to be God, I am still.

Marvin McKenzie

In the fields

Liberty of Conscience

I guess we all prayed and perhaps expected that, by Fall, this COVID crisis would be a thing of the past. Not so, is it? Some of us are attempting to get on with our lives, but it has been challenging. It seems like the longer the thing stretches on, the more potential for division and disagreement. 

Now is a good time to practice grace! One of the strong doctrinal positions of Baptist churches in history has been that of “individual soul liberty.” It has applied primarily to the subject of worship. A person has a right to worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience. The doctrine leans heavily upon another Baptist distinctive, “separation of church and state.” Historically the Catholic, and then the Protestant churches, married with the state to force people to worship according to the dictates of the state-approved church. The doctrine has applications in this current climate. Every one of us must give every other one of us the liberty to find our own path through the fears this virus has stirred. 

Imagine living 500 years ago. Certain denominations were so sure they were right that they turned in people who disagreed or that didn’t comply. Those who were captured were tortured, sometimes to death, just because they owned a Bible, or refused to have their children baptized as babies, or baptized by immersion rather than sprinkling. England went through a period when the Catholics would gain the throne and kill all the Protestants, and then the Protestants would achieve it and try to kill all the Catholics. It was cruel, senseless, and heartless.

Please. Whatever your personal views of how to navigate this pandemic, let’s rise above pointing fingers at others. Let’s love one another, pray for one another, and give one another liberty of conscience.

Marvin McKenzie

In the fields

(Watch this video of the devastation California's dictates are having on just one of the churches in their state.) Dr Jack Trieber appeals for prayer.

 

The Tale of Two Kingdoms

Matthew 22:15-22

John 19:1-15

 

You will notice that the conflict in each of these texts is between two kingdoms.

 

Several years ago, I listened to a series of lectures on World History by an accomplished professor of history from Columbia University. He told of a student he once had who was from South Korea. This young man said that his goal was to become an accomplished historian and then write the first recognized history, from a pro-Korean bias.

The professor told the story to illustrate that history, all history, is an art.

History is true. But since no one living saw it happen, historians take the clues they find in written documentation, archeological digs and anthropological studies to paint their pictures of history. It is their perception of what happened, not actually what happened.

 

I had not been a Christian very long when I was invited to attend a prayer breakfast where the keynote speaker was a noted Christian anchorman from a Portland News Channel. He made a statement I never forgot but took decades to understand. He said that there is more proof that Jesus rose from the dead than that Alexander the Great ever lived. 

Wow.

Yet the majority of the world would not question the history of Alexander the Great but doubt the resurrection of Christ.

His statement is accurate because, comparatively speaking, there is very little reliable documentation of the life of Alexander the Great and thousands of pieces of documentation on the resurrection. We have written records of Jesus’ resurrection that date back to as close as 100 years after the fact. But all of the documentation concerning Alexander the Great rely on just a hand full of sources

Herodotus

Livy

Thucydides and

Tacitus

There are only a handful of their works surviving, they are all copies of copies hundreds of years after the originals, and even they were not eyewitnesses to the histories they wrote.

In one case the historian was a teacher in a school. Nearing his death, and not wishing his predecessor to have the library of his works, he willed them to family, who simply stored them in a basement. Centuries later someone discovered them and. Realizing their value, set out to publish them again. However, being stored in a negligent way for so long they were severely degraded. Rather than allowing them to remain as they were, this person “filled in the blanks” and unfortunately did not leave indications of what was original and what was his work. When historians study this work today they can only guess at what was the original author’s and what was added.

 

Some years ago, I heard a series of lectures of retired history professor from the University of Oklahoma, Rufus Fears. He said in one of his lectures that historians today debate the actual date of the Declaration of Independence, this despite the fact that both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the 50^th anniversary of the 4^th of July, and acknowledged it as such. If historians can’t agree on something some near to us, and so well documented as that, I suggest that we ought to accept any written history as simply a work of art.

 

The point

Church history happened. But the histories you read are all just works of art the historian's perception of what actually happened. Most Baptist history extant was written by those who hated them. 

A few months ago I was speaking to a well known Baptist pastor about the Anabaptists. He asked me, “Wouldn’t we disagree with most of what the Anabaptists believed?”  My answer, “They were just men and therefore fallible. But I am confident that they were consistently faithful to

The preservation of the Scriptures

The preservation of the soul and

The preservation of the sanctuary

 

Outside of that, the thing that separated the Anabaptists from the rest, and what got them in trouble the most, was the doctrine of separation of church and state.

 

I. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

Was a marriage of church and state. With the Roman state as the head.

Constantine declared that there was but one universal (catholic) church and he was the head of it.

 

II. WHEN ROME FELL

The Roman Catholic Church did not. The Roman Empire fragmented into the many European kingdoms. It was a marriage of church and state with the church as the head.

Consider the history and you will see that this marriage always resulted in the persecution of those who disagreed.

 

III. WHEN THE MARRIAGE OF CHURCH AND STATE BORE CHILDREN

In the form of the Protestant Churches, they naturally followed suit.

Luther married his church to Germany

Calvin married his church to Geneva

Zwingli married his church to Switzerland

The result in every case was the persecution of those who disagreed.

 

Luther was helped out of Catholicism by the Anabaptists in Germany. He would not unite with them because he believed their premise to be untenable. He did not believe people would 

Attend services

Observe the ordinances and

Support the ministry

If the government did not force them to do it.

 

When King Henry VIII defied the Pope, he called his new church, The Church of England. It was a marriage of church and state.

 

IV. THE PILGRIMS AND PURITANS

Came to the new continent to escape the persecution of the Church of England. But they each married their church with their new state. Early continental history is filled with the persecution of Baptists (and others) by the Pilgrims and the Puritans.

 

When the War for Independence was won, the greatest contribution of the Baptists was to press for no state-sponsored church.

 

Protestants are quick to point out that there is no separation of church and state in the Constitution. Jefferson used the term in a letter to a group of Baptist pastors from Danbury Connecticut.

 

Baptists were the catalyst for the first amendment.

 

The Baptist doctrine that counters universal church is the separation of church and state.

This election season the most Baptist thing we can do is to get on our knees and pray for revival. The answer for America is not the re-election of Donald Trump.[1]

The answer for Washington State is not the election of Loren Culp.[2]

 

The answer for America is revival. And I believe revival is the rebooting of the Baptist doctrine of separation of church and state, “We have no head but Christ.”

 

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[1] Although he is who I will vote for.

[2] That’s who I voted for.

Why Aren’t Our Churches Remaining Baptist Long Term?

I have spent a number of days running down old Baptist churches in the northern part of Kentucky. Think about it! One of these churches was established while George Washington was still alive. Another one, while John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were living. They are in different circles than I am, but they are still active, and they are still Baptist in name. Why aren’t more of the Independent Fundamental Baptist Churches remaining Baptist long term?

 

I am sure I don’t have all of the answers but here are some thoughts: 

Most of these churches are either Southern Baptist or Missionary Baptists. 

They might likely say that their longevity is attributed to their organizations. I would not agree with this because their organizations are moving toward being non-Baptist.

 

I would argue that many if not most independent Baptists are not, in fact, Baptists. 

I think they are more immersing old-fashioned Methodists. 

 

I think Independent Baptists have, for many decades, been more pragmatic and growth-oriented rather than doctrinal oriented. 

Almost anything goes in these days so long as we can claim souls being saved and churches growing. 

 

Doctrine is not preached as much as “help” messages. 

Too many preachers try to answer the questions people ask rather than informing people of the questions they should be asking.

 

Marvin McKenzie

In the fields

Baptist History Debunked?

James White has done it again.

Dr. White likes to speak about being gracious and charitable but he only means to Catholics, Mormons and Muslims. To fellow Christians, and especially to fellow Baptists, he can be mean spirited, harsh and sometimes even hateful.

In a recent Dividing Line[1] program entitled “Dogmatic Secularism Rises; the Politics of the Southern Baptist Convention”[2] at about minute 39, White takes off on a message by Dr. Paige Patterson given at a college Chapel service. Patterson was addressing the issue of Calvinism within the Southern Baptist Convention and remarks that it belongs in Presbyterian churches, not Baptist. In his statements, Patterson links Baptists to Anabaptists, the Apostles and John the Baptist. It was at this point that White mockingly says, “You ain’t been reading the Trail of Blood again have you?”[3] From there he says there are many books that debunk the Anabaptist connection to modern Baptists.

Yes, Dr. White, and there are many that affirm it too.

Here’s the thing, on almost any given subject a person can find material to either support or deny any given position. Which material we tend to gravitate to depends largely upon one’s leaning. White confesses his own training was in schools where he was the “token Fundamentalist.” It is obvious that before he finished his education there was very little of Fundamentalism left. The influences in his life, together with his desire to be seen as an academic, has pulled him toward those positions that are the most widely accepted among his chosen group of peers, the Reformed.

Nothing concerning the Anabaptist lineage has been debunked. Writers, who lean toward Protestantism, reference books that keep church history in the Catholic line. Writers who see the error of Catholicism (and thus, Protestantism) reference works (generally much older ones) that maintain the gates of hell never prevailed against God’s churches as they did in Catholicism and then Protestantism.

Marvin McKenzie

In the fields

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[1] A part of his Alpha and Omega Ministries, http://www.aomin.org/

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBghEEHPHBM

[3] At about 46 minutes

The Preservation of the Sanctuary

Matthew 16:13-19 (KJV)

When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? 

And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.

He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? 

And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. 

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 

And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 

I said last Sunday morning that I had a two week “break” in my preaching schedule that I decided to use up with a couple of messages having to do with church history and heritage.

I began last week by giving you – really – four doctrines that are essential to what are historically true churches.

It doesn’t take much study to see that there are two very distinct kinds of churches in history:

·   Those that are related somehow to Catholicism/Protestantism and

·   Those that are not

When the Catholic Church came into existence in the very early fourth century, there were a substantial number of Christian churches already scattered around the world that refused to join it. They were called by the Catholics Anabaptists.

Those churches were very different.

Frankly, most of us would not have been very comfortable in a lot of them.

They did loosely hold to the basic doctrinal principles of churches like ours:

·   Bible as the rule of faith

·   Autonomy of the local church

·   Priesthood of the believers

·   Two offices: Pastor and deacons

·   Individual soul liberty

·   Saved baptized church membership

·   Two ordinances: baptism and the Lord’s Supper

·   Separation of Church and State

But they were a diverse bunch and that diversity can take a person back a bit when you first become aware of it.

Over the course of thirty years of study and reflection on the heritage of Baptists, I have come to believe that the four doctrines I presented last week are the key ones for true churches:

·   The preservation of the soul – saved by grace through faith alone

·   The preservation of the Scriptures – we have a Bible that is perfect, infallible, and profitable and

·   The preservation of the Sanctuary – the church that Christ built hasn’t been prevailed upon by the gates of hell

Represented those three doctrines as the legs of a three legged stool and the fourth as its seat, the doctrine they hold up – that being, individual soul liberty, the responsibility of every man to worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience.

That’s the doctrine that makes me comfortable with the Anabaptists.

They all believed that every man, woman and child had both the right and the responsibility to search out the truth of God and worship Him as they understood pleased Him.

I want to go back this morning to the third of those three legs – The Preservation of the Sanctuary – and preach a bit more on the doctrine of the church.

I have four questions I want to ask and try to answer today concerning the doctrine of the church.

First,

I. IS IT IMPORTANT TO GOD?

Baptists like myself have very strong convictions about the church and especially about a particular kind of church.

·   It is always local and

·   It is very Baptist

Modern Christendom sees church life as a sort of buffet – there are all these different sorts of churches and they are there for you to freely choose the one that most suits you.

I did not grow up going to church so I didn’t have any family connection to a particular denomination.

I got saved watching a TV program so I wasn’t hooked to any particular church.

What I did know about church was from an outside observer.

Before I ever attended a church as an adult, I already was certain that not everything that claimed to be a church could possibly have been started by God.

Two months after I got baptized I began trying to figure out which one of all of these churches was the one God started.

At that moment I was pretty much a blank slate.

I would have become: 

·   a Jehovah’s Witness 

·   a Mormon, a Presbyterian, 

·   a Nazarene 

·   a Southern Baptist 

or any other denomination if I could have proven that God started it.

It was three years later (and three different churches later) when I first began to put the pieces together that led me to the convictions I have today concerning the Baptist church.

During those years I visited:

·   A Nazarene Church

·   A Presbyterian Church

·   Several different Independent Baptist churches

·   I had Bible studies in my home with Jehovah’s Witnesses

·   I did some personal study of Native American Animism

·   I had met several Southern Baptists and observed their faith

·   I had met a Mormon who had given me a book of Mormon

I had met some Pentecostals and

Anita and I lived on the campus of a Christian group called “The Pillar of Fire.”

I came to the convictions I now hold after many years of 

·   study, 

·   prayer 

·   reflection and 

·   conversations with people of a broad range of other convictions.

It isn’t just a little important to me.

I frankly would never consider going to a different kind of church than a Baptist church – and then I am very selective about them.

It is important to me.

But is it important to God?

Ephesians 5:25 (KJV)

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

Can you agree with me that the thing for which you would die is important to you?

Christ gave Himself for His church.

Question two,

II. IS IT SUPPORTED IN THE BIBLE?

I take the position that God isn’t the author of all the confusion that is caused by dozens and dozens of church denominations that exist today.

I take the position that God has protected and preserved His work so that:

·   What Jesus taught His apostles

·   What the early Christians believed 

·   What God wanted churches to be

Still exists today.

I believe it exists only in the Baptist churches.[2]

Is the concept of the preservation of the sanctuary – the church - supported in the Bible?

Matthew 16:13-19 (KJV)

When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? 

And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.

He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? 

And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. 

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 

And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 

Let me begin by answering the question about the keys in verse 19.

It’s not critical to the message I am preaching but I am afraid someone might get stuck there and not hear me out if I don’t address it.

The keys of the kingdom that Christ gave to Peter is the Gospel.

It’s the plan of salvation.

We have in the plan of salvation the means to unlock heaven for anyone who will hear us.

·   If they accept the Gospel and trust Christ as Saviour, their home in heaven is assured.

·   If they reject that Gospel, and refuse Jesus Christ, the door to heaven is locked shut for them.

1 John 5:12 (KJV)

He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.

Jesus said He would build His church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it.

His church would not be built upon Peter but upon a doctrinal truth that Peter had just proclaimed, that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”

The promise of Jesus Christ is that the gates of hell would not prevail against His church.

Did He keep the promise or not?

I submit to you: 

·   That the first great challenge to that promise was when Constantine forced everyone within his realm to profess themselves to be Christians.

·   That the resultant catholic church over which he was head was the first time the gates of hell had prevailed against a church and

·   That the churches that refused to unite with his catholic church was the first proof that there was such a thing as a church the gates of hell had not prevailed against.

Question three, 

III. IS IT POSSIBLE GIVEN CHURCH HISTORY?

Here is the academic question. 

A bright person will stop me here and challenge that there is no way to prove that all of those churches that existed through the centuries outside of Catholicism and later Protestantism, were solid, doctrinally sound churches.

My answer is that I do not have to prove that every one of those churches were sound churches.

All I have to do is demonstrate that there have always been churches that have existed outside of Catholicism and outside of Protestantism and that there are churches still today that have existed outside of the same.

That’s not difficult to do.

Nobody denies it.

Most Christians ignore the significance of them, but those who have studied history know they have always existed.

·   They have existed in every century

·   They have existed all over the known world of the time

Mostly we know about them because of the records the Catholics kept of trying to exterminate them, but we know they existed.

At one time in history, during the days of the Reformation, the King of the Holland underwent some of the same questions I did.

The Catholic Church was no longer going to be their official state church but he didn’t want just any new church to be his country’s official church. 

He wanted to approve the church that Jesus started as his country’s official church.

So he hired the greatest historians of his day to search out the matter.

They determined that the Baptists had the best claim to trace themselves back to Jesus Christ.[3]

He tried to make the Baptist church the state sponsored church of the Netherlands but he ran into a conflict with one of the Baptist distinctives – separation of church and state.

We stand opposed to any government controlled church or church controlled government.[4]

Yes, it is very possible to demonstrate that the doctrinal treasures of the Baptists have existed outside of Catholicism all the way back to Jesus Christ.

I anticipate a final question might be,

IV. IS IT RELEVANT TO MODERN CHRISTIANS?

I can see someone asking the question, “What difference does it make whether a person goes to a Baptist church or any one of the whole host of other churches that are all around us, so long as they get saved and get their lives turned around?”

Does it matter whether these churches really traces themselves outside of Protestantism and Catholicism all the way back to Christ?

Matthew 28:18-20 (KJV)

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Jesus gave the church He said He would build a three-fold job:

·   They were to evangelize

·   They were to baptize

·   They were to teach

A. They were to evangelize – win people to Jesus

This question assumes that only this part of the three-fold commission matters.

As long as a person gets saved, the other two parts are just technicalities, right?

The argument of the bulk of Christianity today is that the only thing that matter is that people get saved.

As long as they go the heaven, Jesus can straighten out all or doctrinal differences there.

But what about the other two?

B. They were to baptize those they won

There is an interesting passage in, 

Luke 7:29-30 (KJV)

And all the people that heard him, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John.

But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him.

The Bible says, 

·   They glorified God when they were baptized with the baptism of John and 

·   They rejected the counsel of God when they refused His baptism

Do you know that nobody except Baptists – and only some of them - believe that Christian baptism is the “baptism of John” today?

Is all of this stuff about the church Jesus built relevant to modern Christians?

Only if you want to glorify God.

If you are fine rejecting the counsel of God, go ahead and ignore the messages this week and last.

C. They were to teach all things whatsoever Jesus Commanded

Notice the words, “all things whatsoever.”

The church is supposed to teach and therefore Christians are supposed to learn to observe “all things whatsoever” Jesus commanded.

That means I had better find a church teaching all those things Jesus commanded.

Conclusion

Does it matter?

Yes – the doctrine of the preservation of the sanctuary matters because:

·   It preserves the purity of the Gospel

·   It is the only means to fulfilling the Great Commission

·   It is the best hope of passing your faith to your children's children

·   It is the only way you will hear from Jesus, "Well done thou good and faithful servant."

[2] And not all of them.

[3] “a committee appointed by the King of Holland to write a history of the Dutch Reformed Church.  In this history there is a chapter devoted to the Baptists.  This history was published at Breda, 1819, by Dr. Ypeig Professor of Theeology at Gronigen, and Rev. I. J. Dermout, Chaplain to the King, learned Pedobaptists.  These men had access to all of the libraries and archives of Germany and Holland.  After a careful study of the Baptists they made this statement: "We have now seen that the Baptists who were formerly called Anabaptist, and, in latter times, Mennonites, were the original Waldenses; and have long, in the history of the church receive the honor of that origin.  On this account Baptists may be considered the only Christian community which has stood since the days of the Apostles, and as a Christian society, which has preserved the pure doctrines of the gospel through all ages."

They further state that the Reformation was unnecessary, because the Baptists, then known as Anabaptists, Waldenses and other names, were preaching the Gospel in its simplicity, long before Luther; yea, even from the days of the Apostles.”

 http://atcalvarybaptist.net/a_brief_history_of_the_baptists.htm, accessed 11-12-16

[4] This is another area where misunderstanding of the doctrine of the local church leads to misunderstanding of other doctrines. Baptists do not oppose Christian involvement and influence in government. Baptists oppose church involvement in government. The Catholic church view, whether Roman Visible Catholic or Protestant Invisible Universal church, equates Christianity with church. Baptists see Christians and individual thinkers and churches as local independent organizations. Christians, as individuals, should be involved and influential in their governments. However governments should stay out of the business of the churches and churches should remain un-entangled with governments.