This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. Matthew sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, April 17, 1977.
About this sermon
Mysticism creeping into the modern church gets a direct rebuke here, answered by recovering the church’s own prophetic mission: a call to repent rather than a call to feeling. John the Baptist, Christ, and Calvin are read together on what repentance actually means, resisting easy sentimentalized versions of the word. A separatist church, in this sense, is simply one still willing to say it.
Sermon transcript
Let’s pray briefly. Father, we again acknowledge the great power of your word. Lord, we know that Jesus has told us that the word is life and spirit. Lord, we ask that in our lives that we have with Jesus Christ that we might be refreshed continually by hearing your word and understanding its intention. Let us not go from this place this morning, our God, without being confronted with the knowledge of Jesus Christ as he is revealed in that word. And may we hold on to him, our God, as that which is dear to us. For Jesus’ sake, amen.
Today we see Occidental civilization tottering. We see intellectual activity declining with unexampled speed over a large part of the globe. We see a sensational revival of such pseudo-sciences as astrology, neo-gnosticism, racial mysticism, We see scientific methods and discoveries judged by Marxist and racist gauges instead of the independent scientific standards. In short, we are in a world which is largely like the Greco-Roman world of the first century B.C. We need reawakening of faith in the God of the majestic Theophany of Mount Sinai, in the God of Elijah’s vision at Horeb, in the God of the Jewish exiles in Babylonia, in the God of the agony at Gethsemane. We no longer know how to live. And that’s the assessment made by William Foxwell Albright, the great scholar of John Hopkins University, thirty years ago. We today see Occidental civilization tottering. We live in an age of disintegration. But what happens when those of us who say we see and understand, those of us who say we have an answer, begin to totter ourselves?
There probably isn’t a more germane question that we can be asking ourselves right now than this. Why do we exist? And I’m talking about the church, this church, in this community. Why is it that we’re here? What are we doing? What are we trying to kill? I mean, we have part of your whole house this morning. And there are churches down the street that are packed to the gills. What are we doing here?
Now the title of this message doesn’t appear in the bulletin, but I’d like to give it to you anyway. The Prophetic Voice and the Separatist Church is the name of this thing. And my concern has been generated by events that have happened in the past month, and what I will call my Philadelphia connection. I spent some time on the telephone, and my wife would stand there pacing, Hang up! Hang up! The bill! Well, I’ve been in contact with my Philadelphia connection.
And the word that’s coming, it seems to me, increasingly, from the Vatican, is this. We don’t know what we’re about anymore. There are no longer those clearly defined lines that we once had in the 30s. And the reasons for our existence seem to diminish by the moment.
Is there actually a reason for the existence of this Church and for the Separatist Church in America and in the world? Is there actually a reason for us to continue to exist? Do we have a mission? Is it legitimate? Or has the time come for us to close up shop, disband the congregation, sell the property, and march in mass down the street and rejoin the mainline churches?
I want to analyze then for you this morning the Separatist Church in terms of what I consider her mission to be in this day, and why she exists and why she must exist if we are to have any direction in this age of disintegration. What is the Separatist Church first of all? Why did you come here? The true Separatist Church has, for Biblical reasons and in what it considers Biblical ways, separated itself from the modern ecclesiastical movement, whether it be Roman Catholic or Protestant.
And by so doing, it has made a statement to the Church, to the world. to those who are called by Christ’s name. It is saying, you see, that the assessment of the Reformers in the 16th and 17th century was correct, that Catholicism has essentially gone bad. Yes, it says that, but it says more. It says, also, that Protestantism itself has also gone bad. and no longer can provide us with the direction that we need in understanding God’s purpose in this day.
It’s important then for us to understand the mission of the Separatist Church in our generation, and her mission is inseparably united to the message of the prophetic word that comes to us out of the scriptures itself. It’s not something that we can invent. It’s not something that we can generate. It’s not something that we can manufacture. If we’re not upon the scriptures taking our place, if we’re not taking our foundation, setting our foundations there, we certainly don’t have any reason to exist. The mission, the ministry, of the Separatist Church in our day is the prophetic voice.
And what does that prophetic voice say? First of all, I want to speak a word of encouragement to you in terms of that prophetic voice, and I see here that this is the heart of the epistles that Paul wrote to the churches. His intention was to edify, to build up those congregations to which he wrote, because he essentially saw those people as living in a way that was responsive to the Word of God. And if they were called into account, they would repent, turn around, and do what was commanded and asked of them by the Apostle. First of all, the prophetic voice says this, as you have received Christ Jesus for Lord, so walk in him. It is a word of encouragement then to the saints who are open to the word of God. and who desire to live in obedience to what God is saying.
But that’s not all. There’s a second part, and this is the part that I want to deal with principally this morning. The prophetic voice is a definite call to repentance to the saints to those who are called by Christ’s name, who are not themselves submitting to the word and living in obedience to him.” Now, it’s very unfortunate that we do not understand what repentance means, for the And the reason we don’t understand it generally in the ecclesiastical scene today is because we allow ourselves to understand things generally in a Greek fashion. There’s a Greek word used in the New Testament for repentance. It’s the word metanoia. And if you literally translate that word, it comes out to something like this, change of mind.
I used to like oranges, but now I like apples. I didn’t like spinach, but now I do. I’ve changed my mind about that. The inane quality of the illustrations that I have just given you gives you the flavor of what repentance has become today, simply a change of mind with regard to taste. I used to be a liberal Democrat, now I’m a raving, raving conservative Republican. I used to be Socratic in my philosophy, but now I’ve become an Aristotelian. I’ve changed my mind.
And that’s the transition that goes in us, on in us, and we think by these transitions we understand what repentance is, but that’s basically a Greek concept of what repentance is. And we don’t really, seriously, think that we can apply those kind of general conceptions to the thought of repentance in the Bible, do we? The background of the scriptures is not Greek philosophy or even Greek vocabulary. The background of the scriptures is a Hebrew mindset. And if we’re going to understand what repentance is, we have to begin to conceive of it in terms of the Hebrew mind.
We will get an idea of what it means to repent when we look at the ministry of John the Baptist. Here’s the prophetic voice speaking with regard to repentance. And what does he mean? Simply a change of mind? You used to think this about the Kingdom of God, now I want you to think this. You used to think this about your sins, now I want you to think this.
No. John is in the wilderness for a reason. John is at the Jordan for a purpose. He is there because the Jordan and the wilderness are important in the history of mankind. And when John calls Israel to repent, he says to them, return, go back, go back to the place from which you came and start again all over again.
That’s what repentance is. It’s a forsaking. It’s a forsaking of that world that has become so important to you. It’s going back to the wilderness where you’re stripped bare, and there’s nothing left to lean on anymore, and you’re cast completely upon God. Here he is, clothed in a garment of camel’s hair.
Here he is, surviving on a diet of wild honey and locusts. What’s the meaning of all of that? It’s an eloquent sermon to all of Israel that true repentance means the forsaking of all of those things upon which you have become dependent, and a returning. to the origin of your faith, and starting all over again with God, completely dependent upon him, Jesus Christ is going to go out into the wilderness, and there he is going to be tempted by Satan. And he will respond to the temptations of Satan by saying, Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
Now there’s some characteristics, you see, of this repentance. It’s a forsaking. Forsaking of sin. A forsaking of that world that has become so important to you. Here is Israel living within the shelter of the Roman Empire. Oh, there was dissension. No one likes to be oppressed by political superiors. But for the most part, it was a period of tranquility and even prosperity for the people. The temple had been rebuilt. What else could you ask for? Even the religious order of things was in gear and in proper perspective in life.
And here’s John the Baptist in all his audacity, standing out there on the periphery of the culture and the cult and calling the people to forsake it all, to leave it behind and to go out to him in the wilderness and to start all over again. lifestyle won’t save you. Why is John saying this?
He’s saying this because you see, God through him is telling all of Israel, the temple ain’t going to save you. And neither is the tranquility and prosperity that you have come to depend on so much. There is an unquenchable fire. And this temple which you trust in so much, Jesus Christ himself will say, they will not be left one stone standing upon the other.
The call, you see, is to the covenant people of God. It isn’t a matter simply of just isolated automatons coming down to the waters of the Jordan separately to experience John’s baptism. It’s a call to all of Israel, all of those who are called by God’s name to come out The context and the scope of it all is the covenant perspective, the dimensions of the entire people of God called upon to respond to this prophetic voice. And what have we done to repentance today? What has repentance become in our culture, in our church, in the religious life of this generation?
There is no catharsis. There is no crisis. There is no return to the historical roots acknowledging sinfulness. There is no going back and forsaking. There is no call to the people that you must leave behind all the things that you’ve come to lean on so dependently. There’s no call to a new lifestyle, a transformation entirely.
What do we do to them? We get them coming down one by one in our crusades. We get them coming down in all of our evangelistic services. And then we tell them, after they’ve made their profession and signed their names on the dotted line, go back into your churches.
Doesn’t matter. that your church is part of the problem. It doesn’t matter that when you go back there, you’re going to have to sit on your ministry when you talk, that there are errors in God’s Word, and that Jesus Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross is appealing. that the resurrection is not a fact of history, but an experience in the mind. And the most important role that the Church can play in our generation is the role of priests of the culture. giving the establishment the religious sanction that they need to do what they need to do. That’s what repentance has become.
And repentance, you see, because of this has no covenantal dimensions. It’s not thought of in terms of the whole people of God anymore. It is an atomistic experience. And something that basically happens individually and internally, something inside your mind between you and God alone, when you begin to reassess your attitudes towards the woman who happens to live next door, when you begin to reassess your attitudes towards your income tax upon which you just budged, And that becomes the scope of it. And that’s all it ever does. It’s not a comprehensive call to the people of God to forsake the world and the life to which they’ve become accustomed, the things that they take for granted, and to return and to begin all over again, forsaking sin, turning to God. The Father of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is not that anymore. And things continue to go on as they have been going on. And nothing does seem to be any different.
But you have repented! And how do I know? Because you’re sitting here this morning. You’ve taken your stand. And you have gone back to start again. Now, we can compare the calls to repentance throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament. The prophets of the Old Testament were calling upon Israel to return, to go back to the God of Sinai, to meet him once more and to proceed from that point. living in righteousness and not in unrighteousness anymore. And we have the call of Jesus Christ himself declared to us through John, who writes the book of the Revelation, the second chapter. You have it recorded for you there.
Jesus is speaking to the church at Ephesus, that church in Asia Minor. He says to them, I have something against you because you have forsaken, you have left your first love. Therefore repent. What does he mean? He means go back to your first love and start again. That’s the essence of the call to repentance of Christ himself as he speaks to the Church at Ephesus. Go back and start again. And is that not the essence of the reformational call to repentance to the entire people of God?
They spoke to the Church that they loved. They didn’t want to leave. Calvin wrote his Institutes to Francis I, the King, the Catholic King of France. begging him, entreating him to listen to him. The overture was simply this, return, return to the church of the apostles and prophets with Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. Forsake the traditions that have become so important, the incredible structure of civilization that is decaying around your ear. The fact that people have placed so much in so little that is of any consequence at all.
Now that reformational call, you see, was a decision on the part of the reformers with regard to the state of the Church in its day. And the prophetic call was the call of repentance to all the people of God, the Israel of God, if you were, to return to their origin. acknowledging Jesus Christ and the Word of God as being sole authority.
And that’s precisely what’s happening in our own generation. In this century, the century in which you live now, that precise thing has taken place. It’s happened all over again. But our eyes now are not directed towards the medieval church. Our eyes are directed towards the 20th century Protestant establishment. And our declaration is this. Repent. Come out from among them. Be separate. Go back, return, start again. For only this is life.
Our call is a call to return to all of God’s people. Our call is a call that they might renounce the cult and the culture upon which they themselves have become so dependent Their budgets have grown, and the adorning of their churches and sanctuaries, the structures have increased and expanded. They are part of the world. Our mission then, our mission in the Separatist Church is this prophetic voice and call to repentance and a return on the part of all of those called by God’s name in our generation.
We can’t return to embrace the medieval church Why is it that we cannot return to Rome as some are encouraging us to do? Why is it? We can’t do that, you see, because there hasn’t been any repentance. They haven’t returned. Our call to repentance in our own generation cannot be stilled, and we cannot walk back that road. We can’t go down Beaver Road here and rejoin the main churches until there is repentance.
That’s our might. If we forsake it, we’re dead. There’s no reason left for our existence at all until They hear the voice, and respond, and repent themselves, and return to the God they claim to worship. I’m not overstating the case, and I know that there are even many within my own denomination that would say to you this morning that I am overstating the case. But the day is gone.
The thirties are over. Now the opportunity has come for us to walk down the roads and to join hands once more with those people who have not acknowledged the error of their communions. They threw a man out of their church unjustly, his name was Machen, and they’ve never to this day, not a one of them repented of that. They threw Calvin and Luther out of their church, and to this day, even though they might sing Luther’s hymns in their church services, they have not repented and returned themselves that medieval church.
As long as there’s no repentance, we cannot go back, and you might think that that’s hard-hearted. That’s not hard-hearted. That’s an act of concrete love. If you believe that repentance is unto life, apart from that repentance there awaits only unquenchable fire for those who do not. We, with love in our hearts, must go begging and constraining these people whom we love ourselves, and we know it’s true because they’re members of our own families, to come out and to repent because they are entrenched in a system that is under God’s judgment.
And if we forsake this prophetic voice in our day, what prophetic voice is left? And what opportunity for life remains for those who are going down with the ship? None. No. How do I know the inevitable result of the unwillingness to repent? The Ephesian church was a strong church when Paul wrote to it his letter. By the time John addressed to them his word in the book of Revelation, that church was in decline. Go to Asia Minor today. Do you think you can find a church at Ephesus? It’s not there. It’s not there. And that is a lesson to every one of us. of the sureness of God’s judgment.
1536. John Calvin is a young scholar. He stayed at Geneva because of the pleadings of Pharrell. Words come from Lausanne. that a group of Roman Catholic monks want to debate the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, the doctrine of the Mass. Pharrell responds, and he takes young Calvin with him, and the debate continues for days, and Calvin sits and says nothing. Occasionally he writes a word here and there, takes a note, But he’s silent, he says nothing.
And after many days, one of the monks arrives and he makes an impassioned plea, claiming Augustine as his authority for the doctrine of the Mass and the doctrine of transubstantiation in the Mass, but that was actually Augustine’s position. It was an impassioned plea to be sure, a great sermon. But when it was done, Calvin arose. And it appeared that all of those nights without sleep and all of that time that he spent passing by his meals in order to study and cram his mind with the facts of the early Church fathers was certainly beneficial. He was a mastermind, to be sure, but he was certainly interested in the truth, and he stood in the midst of that assembly and began to speak quotation after quotation, not just alluding to quotations, but actually giving the quotations in their entirety, one after another, right out of Augustine, piled on top of one another, a true avalanche, and the monk was buried underneath of it all. because he could not stand that it was evident at the conclusion that Calvin had demonstrated that Augustine had never held to the doctrine of transubstantiation in the mass. The effect of it all, you see, was not upon that monk himself, but one Roman Catholic preacher who was standing on the periphery of it all, a man respected among them, who had strongly supported the Church against the Reformers.
He arose with tears in his eyes. He was drained by what he had heard. He walked into the midst of the assembly, and there, casting his eyes to the ground, not even able to look up, he said to those people, I repent.
I thought that my church was right. And what it told me was right. It’s wrong. And I know it. For such days as that, we all can pray. When people we love so dearly, themselves will stand in front of us, or even among us, and say, I repent. I was wrong. And you were right. God help us.
Our Father in Heaven, we would not ever claim to stand because we are some sort of special people who have a corner on the truth. But only our God, as we have accepted the prophetic word ourselves and repented, and gone back to begin again, building upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. Forgive us, our Father, in not allowing that clear voice of repentance to be heard today. Father, encourage us when we have contact with those who as yet do not see the issue. May we have patience and love, but may we be unbending with regard to the truth. This is our message and our mission. We are calling all of the people of God, all the Israel of God, everyone called by the name of Jesus Christ, to return, to begin again, this time solidly based upon the foundation of the word of God. Will you help us so that we will not compromise?
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.