In Matthew 16:13-19, Jesus, the Head and King of the church gave to His church "the keys of the kingdom." Keys are symbols of authority (Revelation 1:18). Therefore, in giving the church the keys of the kingdom, He was giving to it the authority and prerogative of self-government. No one else could impose their authority over the church. It could elect its own officers, enforce its own constitution and determine its own membership. That church authority is defined and limited by the Word of God. Therefore, the keys of the kingdom are really the Word of God. That all-sufficient Word is all the church needs to govern itself.

Good to see everybody. If you don't go to sleep, I promise I won't. But if I do, you sort of slip out quietly. So you see the providence of God in that, Doug Phillips' text for last night and Joe Beekie's text for last night, and my text for today is the exact same text. But what's interesting is, none of our lectures are on the same part of that text.

Doug Phillips, you remember, talked about how the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church, and Joel Beekie talked about what Jesus meant when he said, ''On this rock, I'll build my church.'' I'm going to talk about another part of it. So let me remind you what it says. If you brought your Bible with you turn to Matthew chapter 16 and I'm going to read verses 13 through 19 and look at it very carefully. Sometimes the biggest obstacle to our understanding of passage of the scripture is our assumed familiarity with it. And it's very familiar, but I want you to try to see if you can see some things in this text that you've never seen before and ask the Holy Spirit to help you see those things.

Matthew 16 verses 13 through 19. Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he was asking his disciples, who do people say that the Son of Man is? And they said, some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, but still others Jeremiah or one of the other prophets. He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus said to him, blessed are you Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. And the verse that we're going to talk about is the last verse in our text where Jesus said, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. So it is the keys of the kingdom.

That's the subject of our lecture, our message today. And obviously, keys are a symbol. They had the same symbolic meaning back in those days as they do today. Keys are symbols of authority. Keys are symbols of governing authority.

And we see the symbolism of keys used several times in the scriptures. For instance, in Isaiah 22 verses 15 through 25, there was a self-serving bureaucrat in Israel by the name of Shebna. Shebna was irresponsible and corrupt and so he was replaced by an honorable man named Eliakim. Eliakim, it says in Isaiah 22, was given the keys of the kingdom of Israel And he used that governing authority that was assigned him wisely. And as a result, he brought stability to Israel, but he did not govern long.

He died and so Israel fell back into apostasy. And so in giving Eliakim the keys of the kingdom of Israel. He's given governing authority in Israel. Another time we read about keys is in the first chapter of Revelation, where we see that thrilling description of the reigning and exalted and victorious Lord Jesus Christ who is the theme of the last book of the Bible. He says in that text that he holds the keys of death and hell.

John who has fallen at his feet because he is so filled with awe at this magnificent picture of Jesus, he falls at the feet of Jesus as a dead man. And so Jesus says to him not to fear death. You remember he's in exile. Don't fear death because Jesus said he possessed the authority, the governing authority over death and hell. So when Jesus talks about the keys of the kingdom of heaven that he gives the church, he's talking about governing authority that Jesus gives the church.

Now let's talk about this Matthew 16 incident. Jesus called upon the apostles to take a poll. And he said, go out there and find out what people are thinking about me and who people think I am. And then, of course, you know the story. Everybody gave the wrong answers.

And then Jesus looks at this group of apostles, and he said to them, who do you say that I am? Do you agree with all these false notions or what's your opinion of me? And then Peter says you are the Christ the Son of the living God. And then Jesus says to him you're blessed Simon Barjona because you just didn't think that up. Now that's southern.

That's a southern paraphrase of the Greek. Jesus is saying to Peter, you just didn't think that up, Peter, the only reason you recognize who I am as the Messiah, the Son of the living God, is because the Holy Spirit of God taught you those things and enlightened your heart to understand them. And then he said, upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it he was not identifying Peter as the first Pope no matter what anybody tells you And it's very obvious that he wasn't speaking to Peter as the rock upon which he built his church, meaning that he was the first pope for several reasons. Look at your text. First of all, notice in Matthew 16, whenever Peter is spoken to, he's spoken to in the second person pronoun you, but this rock is in the third person.

It's not being spoken of Peter. Second, Jesus uses a second person plural pronoun. When he says, who do you think that I am? He says, and I'll translate it very literally now, and he says, who do you all think that I am? And that's what the word you in Greek meant.

It is a second person plural. Who do you all? Not who do you, Peter, But who do you all, you group of apostles, who do you think I am? So when Jesus, when Peter answers the question, he's not answering it as an individual. He's answering it as the spokesman for the whole group because That was the people to whom Jesus was addressing.

And then as Brother Beekie pointed out last night, Peter and rock both mean something like a stone, but they're two different genders. One's a masculine and one is a feminine gender. Peter is Petra. Thou art Peter, feminine. And upon this rock, masculine, I'll build my church.

And so it can't be talking about the same person. And then also it says that the keys of the kingdom that were given to Peter and the apostles later on in the 18th chapter of Matthew and the 18th verse were given to not just Peter but specifically to the whole group of apostles, that they all were given the authority to bind and loose, represented in these keys. And then that governing authority was passed down from generation to generation through those men that the apostles would appoint to office the elders in the church. And he says that so what is the rock? Well the rock is what Peter said.

That's the sturdy thing that he said. Upon this rock, upon this apostolic confession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, not only as the Messiah but the Son of the living God, Peter was speaking for all the apostles And the Bible says in Ephesians 2 and verse 20 that the apostles and the prophets were the foundation of the church with Christ being the chief cornerstone. Not as individual persons but as vehicles of revelation. Because these apostles and prophets were inspired by the Holy Spirit, they spoke the Word of God, they focused on the Lord Jesus Christ, summarized in that great testimony they gave that day in Matthew 16, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. So this rock upon which Jesus would build his church is the true confession of faith in Jesus Christ and on that confession of faith in Jesus Christ rendered by his church He will build his church and he will separate that church from a sinful world for his purposes.

He will build a church that he will call out of darkness into his marvelous light to proclaim his glorious perfections. And that's what the word church means, ekklesia. It has a couple of words in it that work their way in the English language. Ekk, it is used four times in this room. In exit, It means out.

And the rest of the word, I'll pronounce the Greek word for you and see if you know any English words that could be transliterations of that Greek word. Now this is going to be hard, so you really got to put your thinking cap on. Call. Callao. Like call, C-A-L-L.

So, ekkaleo means the called out ones, those whom God has separated from the rest of the world to serve his purposes. That is the church. Now one of the most thrilling studies to me that has really changed my life over the past 25 or 30 years is to know just how old the church is. If you ask people when the church started, they'll tell you here, or they'll tell you the day of Pentecost, or they'll say the church is not that important anyway. It's just a parenthetical situation that will be done away with later on in history.

No, do you realize the church of God was in existence in the time of Abraham at least? The church did not begin, the ecclesia did not begin in the New Testament. It was already in existence in the days of Abraham, Genesis 12, 1, 2, and 3. And in Acts 735, Moses is said to be, and I quote, a member of the church in the wilderness. And there underneath the word English Church is the Greek word ekklesia.

So there Moses is said to be a member of the church in the wilderness. So the church is ancient. It's not just 2, 000 years old. It is, I believe, goes all the way back to when Adam and Eve taught their children to worship God only by means of a bloody sacrifice, which Abel did do but which Cain did not do. So the church is about 6, 000 years old and by Jesus' day the church had been apostate for many generations, for hundreds of years.

The word apostasy means to, in a defiant manner, to turn your back on the truth and on the gospel and on Christ. And by Christ's day, the church had greatly degenerated. In fact, it was so fallen that it rejected its own Savior and it rejected its own head. It rejected the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore in Matthew 16, Jesus is telling his disciples that he came to earth to rebuild, restore, renew His church in fulfillment of many Old Testament prophecies like Isaiah 61 and this restored church The gates of hell would not be able to prevail against This church as we learned last night is invincible in its spiritual assault with the gospel, with the evil forces, upon the evil forces of darkness, saving people from slavery to that darkness.

Another important time in my life is when I realized what the phrase meant. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it. For most of my early life I viewed that as a defensive action on the part of the church that we're hiding behind these walls, a mighty fortress is our church. See, I wasn't even paying attention to him. A mighty fortress is our church, we're behind these walls and every now and then we lob a hand grenade over against the gates of hell as they're trying to beat down the walls of the church and get us until I realize this and you'll see how unintellectual I am.

I suddenly realize, wait a minute, gates don't move. Now I'm sure you saw that from the very start. Gates don't assault a castle. Gates are under assault. So the gates of hell shall not prevail against it is not a picture of the church in a defensive position hoping to hold back the assault of the powers of darkness.

The picture is rather the gates of hell and all the powers of darkness will not be able to resist forever the onslaught and the assault of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ against the powers of darkness with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a thrilling promise that is. The powers of hell are not able ultimately to resist the saving mission of the church. Paul said that in other words. He said where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.

How in the world can the church lose if that's true? This thrilling statement by Christ concerning his triumphant church based on the Word of God is followed by an equally thrilling promise by Christ to his church in Matthew 16 19. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and Whatever you shall bind on earth Shall be bound in heaven and whatever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven four of the most critically important issues of the 21st century, all of which are interconnected, are these. What is the source of law for the state? Where does the civil government go to get its laws?

Two, What is the authority of the church? Does it have any authority? What is the proper relationship of church and state? What is the proper relationship of church and family? All of these very important questions can be answered correctly with a true understanding of that phrase Jesus used, the keys of the kingdom.

Now remember the people to whom he gave these keys, the apostles, the foundation of the church. And remember what keys symbolize, self-governing authority. So in giving these apostles, which are the foundation as vehicles of revelation upon which the church would be built in giving the keys to them Jesus is saying this great church that I'm building upon the confession of faith in me, I am also giving the authority and prerogative of self-government." I want you to remember that. That's one of the most important things I can tell you. When he gave him the keys of the kingdom, he says, this church, which I will build upon the confession of faith in me, I also give you the authority and the prerogative of self-government.

No man, no institution may impose its governing authority on the church. Christ alone is the head of the church which he purchased with his own blood and he has given his church the authority to govern itself according to his word, to elect its own officers, to enforce its own Constitution, to determine its own organization, doctrine, ethics, worship, discipline, mission. He also gave the church the authority to determine its own membership, both in whom it admits into its membership and whom it excludes or rejects. With the keys of the kingdom, it loosens the lock on the doors of the church as Christ's kingdom and admits all who believe the Word of God into its membership. And with those keys it binds the lock on the door of the kingdom, excluding all those who reject the Word of God.

So then, the phrase, the keys of the kingdom, is one of the most important concepts in the Bible It symbolizes the fact that the church has self-governing authority Now listen, what I'm about to say is going to sound radical, but it's just old-time religion The keys of the kingdom symbolize the fact that the church has self-governing authority and is not, as an organization, under the state or family or any other human authority. The Constitution of the Church is the Bible and therefore as an institution the Church is not under the United States Constitution that has no authority in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. The church is not represented by the American flag. That's why we don't have American flags in our sanctuaries. It is not represented by the American flag since the church transcends all nationalities.

The Church of Christ is not American, it's not Hispanic, it is Catholic with a small c. Now, we had that word first. We had that word before they did. Much blood has been spilt of men and women and children in defense of this following statement that interprets Christ's statement in Matthew 16. It is found in the Westminster Confession of Faith written in England in the 1640s.

And the confession of faith, the Westminster Confession of Faith, represents the views of Protestantism of that day. It represented the views of Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Independents, Baptists, and many Anglicans even that had a similar, though briefer, confession of faith called the 39 Articles. Now this paragraph that I'm going to read, this sentence, was the consensus of opinion among those who were of the Protestant Reformation in England in the 1640s. And this summarizes and applies Jesus' statement. It says this, listen to every word carefully chosen.

Much blood been spilled over this. The Lord Jesus Christ, as King and Head of His Church, has therein, in His Church, appointed a government in the hands of church officers distinct from the civil magistrate. Now that's what Jesus was doing when he gave the keys of the kingdom to the church, representing the apostles. He says, I am the Lord, I am the king of the church, I'm the head of the church, and I have given to my church self-governing authority. That is to be administered by church officers and the authority of the church is distinct from and separate from the authority of the civil magistrate.

And then in another paragraph the Westminster Confession of Faith says this, says this, the civil magistrate may not assume to himself the administration of the word and sacraments or the power of the keys of the kingdom. And in another paragraph it says, to these church officers the keys of the kingdom of heaven are committed by virtue whereof they have power respectively to retain and remit sins to shut the kingdom against the impenitent by the word and by church discipline. Now, the main point of those three confessional statements are these. One, the church has the God-given authority to govern itself distinct from the civil magistrate. Which authority is defined and limited by the word of its king?

Second, the civil magistrate may not usurp the authority or the functions of the church. And third, the church, not the civil magistrate, not the father, not the politician, the church not the politician, the church through its officers has been given the keys of the kingdom to open and shut that kingdom. Now there's one phrase in this confessional statement that I remember I said was the consensus of opinion among Presbyterians, Baptists, Congregationalists, Independents, and it says that these keys, this power of self-government, has been placed in the hands of church officers to use according to the word of the Lord Jesus Christ. So Christ has given these keys to elders. Christ has commanded his churches to elect governing servants of the church called elders, both ruling and preaching elders.

They have equal authority. There's no hierarchy among church officers. Now here's the preacher and here's the poor little lowly elders and they gotta do whatever the preacher says. There's none of that hierarchy in the organization of the church and the self-governing of the church. There's no senior pastor.

Now, I don't know how many of you call yourself senior pastors, but senior pastor implies hierarchy. There are no senior pastors in the New Testament Church. There are ruling elders and there are preaching elders with different functions, equal authority. And they're called by Christ to administer the authority that he has given them, symbolized in the keys of the kingdom. You remember what the Apostle Paul said to the elders of the church in Ephesus when he was leaving them in Acts 20-28.

He said to the elders, be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, managers, to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. Now notice the point that Paul makes in that one text. One, the elders are given the authority to guard the church from false teachers, to shepherd the church, to oversee, manage, and govern it as a stewardship committed to their charge. Two, only the Holy Spirit can make a man an overseer and a governor in his church. And he does that, says the New Testament, in two ways.

He inwardly calls to office and equips for office those men that he wants to use the keys of the kingdom, the officers in the church. And then those whom God has called to office, He causes the congregation to elect them as their governing shepherds. We see this in Acts 14, 23. Look at that verse with me. It's a very important one.

And it has a lot to do with the keys. And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, having prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed. Now you say, well, Joe, that verse doesn't say anything about electing by the congregation. It simply says that they had appointed elders for them in every church, having prayed with fasting, they commanded them to the Lord in whom they had believed. That English translation is not as accurate as it could have been.

The literal meaning of the Greek words translated appointed in the New American Standard Version and I think ordained in the King James Version, those words literally mean to elect by a show of hands. To elect by a show of hands or to elect with the outstretched hands. So now read Acts 14 23 in that light. And when they had elected by a show of hands these elders for them in every church having prayed with fasting they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed. So that in Acts 14 23 we see Paul and Barnabas presiding over or aiding in the election of elders by the congregation.

They then ordained them by the laying on of hands, of their hands, those whom the Spirit called, and whom the congregation elected to the office of elders." So you see, all three of those elements involved in having a man put into office in the church, and all of them biblical. The Holy Spirit calls him and equips him to serve. The congregation votes for him and elects him. And then the other elders, thirdly, lay their hands upon his head and publicly ordain him and give him the authority to govern as he has been called by God and the congregation. The point is church leaders are not imposed upon a congregation.

There's no bishop, there's no archbishop, there's no anybody that can say to your church, I have a man that I want to be elder in your church and so do it. No sir. Church leaders are not imposed on the congregation, they are elected by the congregation to represent Christ the King and to administer his word in that congregation. That means therefore that the elders do not derive their authority from the congregation, but from the Lord of the church who moved the congregation to vote for them. So who's the elder ultimately accountable to?

The congregation? No. Christ who gave him the keys of the kingdom and he must obey Christ even if he has to stand against every member in the congregation. They exercise rule over the church of God in the name of the head of the church and are accountable only to him. And by the way, the head of the church does not sit in Rome.

By the way, we examine young men for the ministry and we examine them on theology and the content of the Bible and philosophy and apologetics and church history. And one of our teachers, preachers, who examines the church history part has a dry wit. I mean, he's the kind of guy that tells something funny and then 10 minutes later you laugh, you know. And so he always asks them a question. They're always nervous anyway because they don't know church history that well.

And he says, he always does this. He says, now, young man, let's move to the history of the papacy. From the year 1120 A.D. To the year 1375 A.D. Who was the head of the church.

And of course they panicked. He wants us to mention the popes and so they'll say, Pope something. He said, no, the Lord Jesus Christ was the head of the church. And so whenever I talk about the head of the church, understand that that's who I mean. This authority in and over the church is defined and limited by its one only final, inerrant, all-sufficient standard, which is the Bible as the written Word of God.

That divinely revealed standard determines the nature and extent of church's authority. Elders are to obey that word without adding to it or subtracting from it. In Christ's church, Christ's word alone is law. Elders may not decide or order or decree whatever they want. They are bound to the word of God and to use Paul's language, they may not go beyond what is written.

The elders have no discretionary authority with the use of the keys. They just can't use the keys any way they want. They have no discretionary authority with reference to discipline, worship, doctrine, ethics, or the mission of the church. As the Westminster Confession of Faith declares, and I love this sentence, the whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life is either expressly set down in scripture or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture unto which nothing at any time is to be added whether by new revelations the spirit or traditions of men." That says it, don't you think? Christ has given the elders the prerogative to administer church authority not as individual elders.

In other words, if you have six raid elders in your church, they can't run around as petty little dictators, and each one of them give you orders. You go to them for advice, and I trust you're going to use your elders for advice and counsel and you have one particular elder maybe you like other than the rest you go to him and you ask him for counsel and Hopefully he'll give you counsel from the Word of God But he also may give you some advice from his own experience and he may say well now in my life Here's how I applied that principle and you may you will agree with the principle, but you may disagree with the elders application of that principle. And so when he tells you how he applied it, you disagree with it, you smile very submissively, you thank him and you forget it. Because elders do not have individual dictatorial authority. That's not what the Bible means.

It's elders as officially associated together that has the keys of the kingdom. It's not a bunch of individual petty dictators who go around telling everybody what to do. It's only when the elders officially meet together and make decisions as the shepherd of the church based upon the word of God that they're properly using the keys. Now, you remember what the word elder is in Greek. I remember when I was a young boy raised in a Baptist church, my daddy got transferred so we moved to another community out in the country and there was only a Presbyterian church in the community.

And I thought, well, where in the world did they get that weird name? I mean, I know where they got the word Baptist. I mean, John the Baptist, everybody knows that, but Presbyterian. And then I realized the word Presbyterian occurs throughout the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, time after time after time. Anybody ever seen the word Presbyterian in the Bible?

If you have a Greek Bible, The word presbyter, now I'm not trying to make presbyteens out of you. But they couldn't see that on a DVD. So anyway, the word presbyter is the Greek word for elder. And we read of elders all the way back in the book of Genesis and we read elders in the book of Psalms all throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament onto the very last book of the Bible. And here's the sentence I want you to remember.

The church is governed not by presbyters but by presbyteries. Now the word presbytery is found in Paul's epistle of Timothy and it simply means the official association of elders to govern the church. So it's not that a group of individuals have this power, the keys to use them whatever they want. It's whenever the elders as a body of men that God called and the election congregate of the congregation elected and the other elders laid hands upon their head. It's when that body acts in accordance with the Word of God that they're properly governing the church.

Throughout the New Testament, we read of a plurality of elders. Churches in the New Testament didn't have just one elder. Over and over again, it talks about more than one elder appointing a plurality of elders in one church, making one man rule absolutely impossible. As Philippians 1 says, Paul and Timothy, bond servants of Christ Jesus to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers, plural, another word for elders, and deacons, plural. Therefore the church is governed by Christ through elders, called by him, elected by the congregation, and ordained by fellow elders to govern according to the word of God.

That's what the keys of the kingdom denote. The church is not to be ruled by one man like a pope. The church is not to be governed by a majority vote of the congregation. I've been in churches where people I've asked, well who's the ultimate authority in your church for governing your church? And they would say the majority rules in our church.

And I thought, uh-oh, something's wrong if the majority rules. I thought Christ ruled in your church. And you see, the church is not a democracy. Christ's church is to be governed and served by elders to represent the rule of Christ and His Word. Christ's church is a Christocracy governed by the living Christ, by his Spirit and Word through his representatives, elders officially sitting together who are elected by the church.

These elders and servants of the church are of two kinds in the New Testament, But they are equal in governing authority. Both may use the keys, be a part of that body that uses the keys. You have in the New Testament ruling elders and preaching elders, equal in authority. And you see this distinction in 1 Timothy 5 verse 17. Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching.

Now notice what that says. That says that all elders are to rule, while some rule and preach, which others do not. The Greek word for preaching here is never in the New Testament applied to elders as elders, but to those elders set apart by Christ to be official heralds of the gospel. My point is that both ruling and preaching elders have been given the keys of the kingdom when they officially associate together to act as the governors and servants of the church. While they have different functions, they have equal governing authority.

These keys of the kingdom that Christ gave the elders are to be used in three areas in the church. In matters of doctrine, matters of worship, and matters of discipline. Now let's see how the keys of the kingdom are to be used and that self-governing authority based upon the Word of God, defined by the Word of God, limited by the Word of God. Let's see how the keys of the kingdom of heaven are used in each one of these areas. First of all, the authority of the church in matters of doctrine.

You remember what the New Testament in Paul's writings, the church is called, is the pillar, the guardian, the custodian of the revealed truth of God. And in that capacity, the church is to be the witness, the interpreter, the proclaimer, the defender of biblical truth to the consciences and minds, hearts, lives, and societies of people inside and outside the church. The head of the church has commissioned elders to guard his word from supplementation, perversion, alteration, and abridgment. The church is also commissioned by Christ to be the authoritative witness of the word of God to the world. In that role, the church is to confess its faith to the uttermost parts of the earth, boldly, clearly, plainly, soundly throughout the world.

This responsibility of confessing revealed truth has been discharged by the church in both the Old Testament and the New Testament and throughout history by the framing of summaries of the truth of God in creeds and confessions and catechisms. God's church has always been a confessional church. Now I know we have some churches today in this world who don't believe in confessions of faith. They don't believe in putting anything up there equal with the Bible. Well, guess what neither do I?

I don't believe in putting anything up on par with the Bible itself But these people who don't believe in other confessions and creeds say well, I have no creed but Christ and no law but love Guess what? That's a creed That's And a very poor creed at that, I might say. So you have things like the Apostles' Creed in the early church, the Nicene Creed, the great confessions and catechisms that came out of the Protestant Reformation, the Westminster Confession of Faith and larger Catechism and shorter Catechism, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Catechism, all these various things. Whenever the Holy Spirit brought a great period of revival to the church, what came out of that revival was creeds, confessions and catechisms and a boldness on the part of the church in wanting the world to know, here's what we believe. You see it in the Old Testament.

You see confessions of faith in the Old Testament. You see it in the New Testament. Romans 10, 9, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth that Jesus is Lord." Very short confession, but there you got a confession of faith. And so the church in the Old Testament, the New Testament throughout history, has always taken its role as witness and defender, interpreter, proclaimer of the truth seriously as it's given testimony to the world in creating for itself and for the world creeds, confessions, and catechisms that say here's what we believe, here's what we stand for, here's how we believe the Bible is to be interpreted, Here's what we want you to use as the basis of the education of your children in your home. This is going to be the standard, the test by which we evaluate preachers, by which we evaluate the soundness of elders and deacons and teachers in our church.

That the keys of the kingdom have been used throughout the church in the formation of confessions of faith, declaring to the world, here's what we believe. Now understand that these confessions of faith and creeds do not displace the Word of God, Nor are they on par with that Word. These creeds and confessions and catechisms are subordinate to the Word of God as helpful and accurate aids in understanding and confessing our faith in Christ and his word to the world. Second, the authority of the church in matters of worship. Elders have the authority to put into effect the institutions, ordinances, and laws appointed by Christ in the Bible.

The authority in matters of worship is concerned with three areas. When the keys are used in the area of worship, they're used in these three areas. One, the preservation of the public worship of God according to God's biblical commands from generation to generation. That is that the elders have, again, no discretionary authority in determining how God is to be worshiped. Oh, there's a lot of side issues that have nothing to do with the worship of God, but just surround the worship of God.

Are we going to have air condition or we're not going to have air condition? Are we going to sit in pews or chairs or we're going to stand or we'll lie on the floor? What language you're going to speak in what time of the day? I mean all these things that have absolutely nothing with to do with worship But which in some sense those decisions have to be made But when it comes to what takes place in a worship service, the only authority that elders has is to do what they're told in the Bible, period. You remember what Deuteronomy 12 32 says?

I'll pull it in Southern for you again. Don't add to, don't take away from, just do what I tell you. Thus says the Lord. And when it comes to the authority of elders in the area of worship, we may only do, in the worship of God, what God has commanded, period. Somebody may say, yeah, but let's do this because it makes me feel close to God.

If God hadn't commanded it, it may make you feel close to God, but it won't make you close to God. That in the worship of God we may only do what God has commanded. Now, you go to your church and you put your preacher on the hot seat and you ask him, now, here's the things we do in the worship service. Could you tell me where God commands each of these things in the worship service? Hopefully you'll know.

Hopefully there will be a biblical basis, honest biblical basis for everything that you do. But in some churches today, I mean it is a circus. In some churches today everybody stands up at one point and salutes the Christian flag. I don't know who made the Christian flag but it doesn't represent me. And nowhere in the Bible does God say thou shalt salute the Christian flag.

Then there's other times where people come to church and they cross themselves and genuflect when they come into the room because it makes them feel a little more reverent. And they say, well, God didn't say I couldn't. Nowhere in the Bible does it say thou shalt not genuflect when you come to church. Yeah, but you can't add to either. And nowhere in the Bible does God command you to do these things.

So elders responsibility, and in many ways the most important use of the keys, is making sure that in the worship that takes place in your church and in the homes of your church, that the only thing that's in those worship services is what God has commanded for us to do in worship. I know of a book on that subject. It's not very well written, poorly written, nowhere near worth the price. You've got to pay for it. But it's called How God Wants Us to Worship Him, and it's for sale down there on the Kousildon book table.

Then there's another area concerning worship that elders have a great responsibility to exercise biblical authority in and that is the preservation of the observance of the Christian Sabbath as God has commanded from generation to generation. I think one of the most important reasons why the church is in such shape today is because we're Sabbath breakers. We don't even like to call the Lord's Day the Sabbath. Does that sound bad to you? Does that sound legalistic to you?

15 minutes? I hate those signs. But without the preservation of the Lord's Day, you're not going to have a church for long. And well, we got to go on. Then you have the authority of the church with reference to matters of discipline.

Elders have the authority to apply church discipline to admit and exclude from the fellowship of the church and to govern the conduct of members while they continue members. This is not a physical discipline, nor any application of physical pressure or punishment. It is a discipline that is addressed to the understanding and to the conscience. Another aspect of the Bible's teaching on the keys of the kingdom is the proper relationship of church and state. This is one of the most crucial issues of the 21st century.

Before we look at this issue, we must first distinguish two questions that are often viewed as one. Should we mix religion and politics? And should we separate church and state? Regarding the first question, should we separate religion and politics, such separation is absolutely impossible. Everyone has religious commitments and convictions that determine his worldview and behavior.

A religionless act or thought is absolutely impossible. There is a variety of religions, and one may change religions, but religious commitments and convictions inform everything everybody thinks and does. Therefore it's impossible not to mix religion and politics. The question is not whether, but which. Not whether the two will be mixed, but which religion is to be mixed with politics.

And we have two live options today besides Christianity. One is humanistic law that allows for the murder of unborn babies. The other is Sharia and the invasion of Islamic law into the jurisprudence of the United States. Not whether, but which. Now regarding the second question, what's the proper relationship of church and state?

We can find several different answers that are offered. First, there are the Erastians. The Erastians are named for a guy named Thomas Erastus that lived in the 17th century and he thought that the church should be a department of the state. He thought the church should be under the state's authority and the state control and that the head of the state should be the head of the church. And that's the situation we have in the Church of England to this very day.

We hear echoes of Erastianism today that the church should be under the state, although they're not fully aware of what they're doing, in the demands of some Christians for a 501c3 status for their church or with the demands that their church should be incorporated by the state. That's Erastianism. The church as an organization is not tax-exempt It is tax-immuned. We are not under the federal or state governments. Furthermore, a corporation is a creature of the state, and the church is not a creature of the state.

Do I hear an amen? Christ, not the state nor the family, determines the existence, definition and character of his church. Others call for the separation of church and state but for different reasons than we would give. Martin Luther is one of my heroes. I believe humanly speaking without a Martin Luther we would not have had a Protestant Reformation.

We needed a sledge hammer like Martin Luther. We needed an Elijah like Martin Luther. And his doctrines are great. The greatest Calvinistic book on free will I know of was written by Martin Luther, the Lutheran so to speak. But he had a flawed view of the separation of church and state as very popular today among evangelicals and it's called the two-kingdom theory.

And that view holds that the church and state should be separated because the source of law for the church is the Bible and the source of law for the state is reason. That view in Germany eventually led to the church's refusal to oppose the rise of Hitler in the Third Reich. And then third, we have the historical and biblical view of the relationship of church and state and that is that there must be an institutional and functional separation of church and state. Both church and state are of divine origin. Jesus Christ is the head of the church and the ruler of the kings of the earth, Revelation 1.5.

Both church and state are to govern in their different spheres in terms of God's law in the Bible. Both church and state, along with the family, are equally accountable to the same divine king and the same biblical revelation. However, church and state are two different institutions with two different sets of officers and members and two different functions. The state is a ministry of justice which has as its divinely given function the terrorizing of evildoers for the protection of law-abiding citizens, according to Romans 13. The church is a ministry of grace in the preaching and teaching of the Bible's gospel.

Both are to obey, administer, and enforce God's law, but in two different ways. Christ has given the church self-governing authority distinct from that authority which he has given the civil magistrate. And we get this institutional and functional separation of church and state from not the U.S. Constitution but from the Bible. In the Hebrew Republic of the Old Testament, Moses was the civil leader and Aaron the worship leader.

After Joshua led Israel to conquest and to the occupation of Canaan, worship and education were assigned to the Levitical priests and civil concerns were in the hands of the civil magistrate and the local elders. In the last years of the Old Testament you have Nehemiah the governor and Ezra the scribe. In the New Testament we read of Christ giving the church the keys of the kingdom in Matthew 16 and we see him giving the state the power of the sword in Romans 13. Neither institution is to hold both keys and sword. The church may not use the sword and the state may not use the keys.

The Bible also teaches that there must be a friendly and cooperative connection between church and state because they have a common origin, a common standard, a common head, a common goal, which is the glory and honor of God. What are some of the ways church and state cooperate with each other without blending the institutions? First, Now you're not going to get this from the Republican Democratic Party. First, the state is assigned the duty by God to be the civil protector of the Church of Christ, all truly Christian denominations, and not to be the protector of idolatrous religions. The state according to the Bible may not with impunity remain secular or neutral with reference to the church and Christianity.

We see in Isaiah 49 23 which addresses the church under the Messiah, quote, and kings will be your guardians, and their princesses, your nurses, they will bow down to you with their faces to the earth and lick the dust of your feet, and you will know that I am the Lord. And there you have a distinct passage that says it is the purpose of the civil magistrate to protect the church and to respect that church. Here's an interesting Psalm, 122 verse 9, where King David wrote, For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good. I love that verse. Don't forget that the psalmist who wrote that was a civil magistrate.

Don't forget it was King David who wrote, for the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I as the chief magistrate of Israel will seek your good. David was the head of the state and as such he says that everything he does in seeking the good of the people is for the sake of the house of the Lord our God. The state is to protect the church not only from those who would injure her but also from those who would hinder her from world mission of preaching the gospel to every creature. The civil government must guard the full and free and unrestricted power of the church to take possession of the world in the name of Christ to the exclusion of any other form of faith and worship. Second, what should the church do as a friend of the state?

It can pray for civil magistrates. That's what Paul says in 1 Timothy 2, 1 and 2, pray for all those in authority. Whenever the state rebels against the church or rebels against God and His law, the church must call the state to repentance, as did Elijah and Isaiah and Jeremiah and John the Baptist and Jesus. And the church has the duty to provide the state with a Christian creed, that the state has the duty to establish and protect as the national religion. God has not given the state the authority to compose creeds, but the church most certainly has that authority and the state most definitely has the authority as a minister of God to uphold the religion and ethics of its origin.

The powers that be are ordained of God. Isaiah 2 prophesies of a day when the nations of the world will flood into the church and ask it for a creed and a law for those nations. Isaiah 2. And all nations will stream into it the church. And many people will come and say, come, let us go up to the mouth of the Lord, that he may teach us concerning his ways and that we may walk in his paths.

A time will come when this will really happen, When a Christian United States will come to the Christian church for a Christian creed and Christian law, pray, work, and hope for the day for it to come in the life of your descendants and prepare them to be ready when that day comes. So what's the practical point of this lecture? Why spend an hour on this subject when we have so many personal and family struggles every day that require our attention? Several levels of answers can come to mind. First, the focus in the Bible is not on solitary individuals but on the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Second, thousands of men, women, and children have been tortured, driven into poverty, and martyred in defense of these truths we've been talking about today. They saw in these doctrines about the keys of the kingdom and importance our age cannot see. They would rather die than give up the honor of Christ and the liberty of the church from the tyranny of men. Third, the bottom line of our whole discussion is the honor of Christ and the freedom of Christ's Church, neither of which can be maintained without these doctrines. Beloved, it is your duty and privilege to defend this biblical relation of church and state, the freedom of the church, the membership of the family in the church, and the crown rights of Christ the King over church, state, family, and every other aspect of human society in all of its institutions.

It is your duty and your privilege to teach and train your children to love and defend these truths about Christ and his church to the death. Children the age of your children died for the crown rights of Christ, the king, and for the liberty of his church, from tyranny in Scotland from 1660 to 1688. Your children know a great deal about computers, iPods and the like. What do they know about the keys of the kingdom? The true relationship of church and state, the true relationship of family and church, the authority and freedom of the church, and the honor of Christ the King.

If your children are ever called upon to stand for these things, would they stand? Or would they be swept into the arms of the world like many other children from Christian homes because of their ignorance and their naivety and their less than biblical worldview. So then love the Church of Christ. Defend that church. Get yourself and your family into her membership immediately because your family has no future outside the visible church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

God bless you. For more messages, articles, and videos on the subject of conforming the church and the family to the word of God and for more information about the National Center for Family Integrated Churches where you