Elders: Guardians of Orthodoxy | Titus 1:9

Dr. Grant Castleberry preaches "Elders: Guardians of Orthodoxy" from Titus 1:9 at The Lord's Day Service at The King's Chapel, Sunday, May 10, 2026.



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Transcript

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Would you bow with me in prayer? Lord, may this book live. May it live in us. Do your work now in the power of your Holy Spirit. I pray, Lord, that you would speak through me as we open your word in Christ's name. Amen. I invite you to open your Bibles to the book of Ezekiel. Throwing you a curveball right at the beginning. We're going to go to Titus, but I first want to read a portion from Ezekiel 33. I asked one of our deacons this morning, Derek Sammons, the title of the message is Elders, Guardians of Orthodoxy. I said, What comes to your mind with that title? And he looked at me and he said, Guardians of the galaxy. Close. But the biblical picture is that of a watchman. And it's here in Ezekiel. And I'm reading this because this idea is picked up in the New Testament. Ezekiel 33, verse 1. The word of the Lord came to me, Son of Man, speak to your people and say to them, If I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land, take a man from among them and make him their watchman. And if he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people, then if any one who hears the sound of the trumpet does not take warning and the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet and did not take warning, his blood shall be upon himself. But if he had taken warning, he would have saved his life. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any one of them, that person is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman's hand. So you son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, O wicked one, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall not die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, that person shall die in his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul. So the mark that Yahweh is instructing Ezekiel about leadership is that he has a responsibility to speak God's truth to God's people. And when you study the book of Ezekiel, you realize that one of the reasons why God pronounces judgment on Judah. Remember, Ezekiel is already in exile in Babylon, and he is prophesying to the Jews who are in Babylon, and he is pronouncing judgment. And he pronounces judgment. If you go back and you read Ezekiel 22, he says it's because the prophets do not prophesy in the name of the Lord. The princes, the kingly line, does not rule justly, and the priests take bribes and do all sorts of terrible things. And he says, the people are following the example of the leadership, and therefore I am bringing judgment on Judah. And of course, we know what happened in history. The Babylonians came, 586 BC, the walls were torn down, the temple was torn down, and everybody followed Ezekiel eventually into exile in Babylon. So you fast forward to the New Testament, and you have this picture of the watchman, this guardian that is put in place over the church, and that guardian holds the office of overseer, sometimes called an elder. So turn with me to Titus chapter one. We've been studying this section, verses five to nine, and we've looked at the office of elder and overseer, and we've begun studying the requirements of this office, and we noticed that there is one key phrase that defines every aspect of the qualification of this man, and that is that he is above reproach. That phrase defines every aspect of his qualification, that he is not perfect, we need to delineate that, but blameless. In other words, there is no spurious charge that can be made against his life. Now he must be above reproach, we also noticed in three areas. The first is his household, and we studied this. The second is his character. You see that in verses seven and eight. There's five negatives and six positives in which his character is understood. And then verse nine, he must also be above reproach in his doctrine, in his teaching. And it's important, I think, that we understand that he must be above reproach in all three categories. So what happens, for example, if you have a man, his character's pretty good, he knows a lot of theology, but his household is a royal mess. What do you do with that person? Do you put that man in the office of elder? No, you do not. Because he fails that first qualification of having the right household that is above reproach. So what do you do with a man also if you have a godly household? He has good, upright character, but he's not as strong on doctrine so that he can give reproof and teach God's people. Do you install that man into the office of elder? No, you do not. You see, an elder must fulfill the requirements, being above reproach, in all three categories: the household, his character, and sound doctrine and teaching. So this morning we're going to look at verse 9. We're going to study this, and I want to do it the old Puritan way. The old Puritan sermons, they all preached with the same exact outline. Every Puritan sermon. It made it made it very simple. So first, the exegesis. Let's go through, let's study the exegesis of the passage. Secondly, you have the theological deductions or implications that come from the exegesis. And then third, you have the application or what the Puritans would call its uses. All right? So that's what we're going to do this morning. First, let's look at the exegesis. Look at verse 9. I'm just going to make two observations for you. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. Now these are the two observations. The first observation is that an elder must have comprehensive knowledge of apostolic doctrine. Notice that last phrase at the end of the first clause, as taught. Underline that phrase. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught. That's a very important phrase. In the original text, it literally says, according kata to the teaching. And Paul uses the word the, the definitive article in front of the word teaching, according to the teaching, not a teaching. Not a nonspecific teaching, but he says, you must hold firm to the trustworthy word according to the teaching. And what Paul is referring to is the body of teaching that was handed down to Christ and the apostles to the church. So for example, jot this reference down, 2 Timothy 2.2, Paul says, What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. What Paul and his apostolic brothers and the evangelists were doing is they would go to different cities and they would teach a body of doctrine. Remember Paul, he would just teach all the time. It was eat, sleep, preach, and make tents. But wherever he would go, he would be teaching. When he was in Ephesus, every day Luke records he was in this hall of Tyrannus, every single day. So he'd make his tents and he would go teach. What was he teaching? Well, there was an oral tradition from Christ and the apostles that they would go and they would instruct the people in. And I want to show you this because I think it's very important to understand that there was this tradition that they would pass down. Now stay with me here because some people confuse this. Our Roman Catholic friends say that there's a tradition that's on the same level as Scripture. I'm going to argue that the tradition is Scripture. It is what the apostles have given us. But Paul uses this word tradition. Okay? And this word means the content of instruction that has been handed down. So for example, let me give you these references. This is 2 Thessalonians 2.15. He says, so then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or letter. 2 Thessalonians 3.6, he says, Now we command you, brothers, in this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. First Corinthians 11 2, he says, Now I command you, excuse me, now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you. Again, these traditions are an apostolic word that Paul would come and he would say, These are the doctrines, these are the ethics that our Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles are handing down to you. It's a body of spoken truth. When I was at Tex AM, Tech San M is a university of tradition. If you know anything about Texas, you know this. And uh the saying that we have about Texas AM is that from the outside looking in, you can't understand it. And from the inside looking out, you can't explain it. Something that you have to go through. And at Tech SM, we don't have cheerleaders. We have Yell leaders. We don't do cheers. No, no, no. The school was an all-male military college up until the 1960s. So there were no cheerleaders, there were yell leaders, three seniors, two juniors elected by the student body every year, and they would lead the entire student body in Yells every Friday night before a home football game. At midnight, we have what's called midnight yell practice, where the entire student body comes out, fills all three decks of the student section, and practices the yells, and we talk a little trash about the team that we're playing the next day. Always found it funny. People would always ask, what time does midnight yell practice start? Midnight. Well, the the yell leaders, uh, the way this is going too long, but the the way the tradition began is is the uh the the guys would have dates come into town, and they at first they said, look, we want some underclassmen to go down on the field and entertain our dates. And so they found some white janitors ducks in a closet underneath Kyle Field. They put those on and they went out on Kyle Field, and it was a big hit with the ladies. And so the next week when they came back from Baylor and Texas Tech and you know, TCU and all these places, the upperclassmen said, It's gonna be the upperclassmen this week who do it. And so that's really how the tradition began in 1907. But anyway, going where this is going. The Yell leaders in their white uniform have a book, a big white book in the back pocket. And everybody always asks, what's in that book? And nobody knows. Even Kenny the other day, he said, What's in that book? And I said, I can't tell you what's in that book. It's a secret, and I can't tell you either. I ended up being a yellow leader. So I know what's in the book. But I can't tell you fully, but let me say this. Let me say, I'm gonna give you some inside baseball. It's the traditions, it's the traditions of Texan M. Now, I'm not gonna trust me. I didn't give away the secret. But the traditions are there. They are words that are handed down. So let me keep going here. Paul doesn't just call it the traditions, he calls it in 1 Timothy 4, 6, the words of the faith and the good doctrine. He says, if you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. He also calls them sound words. Hygienolagos. It's where uh I use that Greek word because that's where we get our word hygiene, which means uh healthy, healthy words. He says in 1 Timothy 6 3, if anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness. He uses the same expression in 2 Timothy 1.13. He says, follow the pattern of the sound words, these sound words that you've heard from me. He calls it sound doctrine in Titus 2.1. If you look over at verse 1 of Titus 2, he says, But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. 2 Timothy 4.3, he says, For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching. Now, the point that I am making is that Paul in his mind had a body of truth that he was passing down to the evangelist, Timothy and Titus, and the expectation is that they would hand it also to the churches, not changing it, not altering it, not adding to it, not taking away, and then that the elders are to know and understand that teaching. Jude calls it the faith that's once for all delivered to the saints. Now, our Roman Catholic friends argue that this teaching is separate from scripture. That there's this, you have scripture, and then you have a tradition. And the tradition is handed down from various popes to various priests and cardinals throughout history, and that functions alongside scripture. Here's the problem with that you can't prove that. And traditions have been known. This is what Martin Luther was saying in the Reformation, is you have various traditions that contradict one another. So, how do we know what the traditions and the teachings are? Answer the apostles wrote it down for us. The 27 books of the New Testament. So John says at the end of Revelation, do not add a word to this, otherwise, a curse be upon you. When John dies, canon is closed. So we know what the traditions are, what the sound teaching is, because it is recorded for us in Scripture. So Paul's point in verse 9 is that the elder must understand this teaching that has been handed down from the apostles. Are we clear so far? But is that enough? Is it just that he must understand what has been taught? No, second observation. There must be a conviction regarding apostolic doctrine. Notice this phrase. It's a long phrase, but it's important. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught. In other words, it's not just that he knows this intellectually. Remember, James says, even the demons believe the truths of Christianity and shudder. It's not enough to know the truth intellectually and be a coffee house debater. What Paul says is that he must hold firm to the truth. I used the illustration a few weeks ago in the Marine Corps and the obstacle course. It's over a hundred yards long, different things that you you uh poles that you flip over and logs that you run down and all these things. And at the very end, what's waiting for you as your upper body has gotten tired is a 20 to 22 foot rope. And you go climb that rope. And your time stops when you hit the log at the very top with your hand. And my point with this is that when you begin climbing the rope, especially when you get high up on that rope, you do not let go. Bad things happen when you let go of the rope. So you hold firm to the rope. And what Paul's saying is that the elder is to be a man who holds firm to the truth. Now, how do you hold firm to the truth? Because we're talking about something that's unseen. We're talking about the elder's soul. And what we're talking about is what's called conviction. Conviction. A conviction is when the truth becomes part of your soul, part of your DNA, right? And we all have various convictions about the truth. We might believe the same things, but we all might not be willing to die for the same things. A conviction is a truth that you're willing to stake your life on. No, no, no. I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. I will not recant that. You can take my life. I'm taking that to the bank. That's a conviction. A conviction is when the truth becomes embedded into your very soul and spirit. Listen to this quote from Calvin. This is an amazing quote. He says, the apostle affirms that no one is fit to direct God's church unless he is competent to teach. But to that he also adds the quality of steadfastness. He calls conviction steadfastness. That's important. That's a great adjective, isn't it? Steadfastness. A man must not be fickle, and however much the winds and hurricanes may blow from all directions, he must persevere. In what he knows is from God. Isn't that a great picture? Steadfastness in the midst of prevailing winds, hurricanes, and forced gales. Satan wants to blow over the church. He wants to blow it over. There was a nursery rhyme about that, right? The big bad wolf comes and blows. Well, what keeps the house standing is not just believing the truth. We can all sign a paper doctrinal statement. What will keep the house standing are people who believe the truth in their heart. And elders who believe the truth in their heart. Conviction. So there's the exegesis. That is the qualification, the doctrinal qualification that the elders believe, know the truth, but then it becomes a conviction in their heart. So much so then he adds, so that they can teach sound doctrine and refute those who contradict it. So now let's move to our theological deductions. What deductions can we make from this? I'm going to give you four. First, the qualification and therefore the role of an elder is theological. It's theological. It is not just that he has upstanding character and a godly family. He must also hold fast in his convictions to apostolic doctrine to the degree that he can teach the faith and he can also defend the faith. And if necessary, refute those who contradict it. In our day and age, apologetics is more important than it ever has been because our world has become so secular and so godless. And we're seeing today the rise of Islam and people making all sorts of attacks against the deity of Christ. We're seeing Mormonism advance, people attacking the deity of Christ. So we must more than ever, as uh Dr. Bill Roach talked about a few weeks ago, know our faith and also be able to defend the faith. So important. Listen, uh one of the great reform commentators in the New Testament is uh a man, he's with the Lord now named William Hendrickson. He said this. This is a great quote. He says, Every overseer must be able, by means of his sound teaching, to incline will and heart to the joyful service of God and to expose the errors of those who rebel. That is, to withstand these opponents, if at all possible, bringing them to an acknowledgement of their error and to repentance, and at least convincing believers that these adversaries are wrong. What he's saying is sometimes you're debating a doctrine and you're refuting somebody, and you say, Well, what's the point? You know you're not going to be able to convince that person. That might be true, but I'm also trying to convince everybody else who's watching and listening. So sometimes you need to give a rebuke to the atheist and the agnostic or the Muslim or the Mormon or whoever because they are poisoning the well with immature Christians. And we need to be able to protect them. Second deduction. So the first, the qualification role of an elder is theological. Second. And this is just obvious, isn't it? The church has a responsibility, then, to teach sound doctrine. This is obvious. This is what Paul's talking about. That the elder has theological wherewithal to teach correct doctrine and protect the flock. The church has a responsibility to teach what's called the whole counsel of God. Now we begin with the precious truth of the gospel, the good news. And if you're uh visiting here this morning, we want you to know and understand the gospel. And it's the good news that God in his mercy worked in history to save sinners and sent his only son, Jesus Christ, into the world to live a perfect, righteous life, die on the cross in your place for your sins, and because he was perfect, he was raised from the dead that all who believe in his name might have the forgiveness of sins. Then he ascended to the right hand of the Father, where he rules and reigns, and he waits the day where he will return. He will judge the living and the dead, make all things new, and usher all of his church into his glorious kingdom. So that's the general outline of the gospel message. And of course, it builds on that and expands on that. But the church has a responsibility to teach these things. And sadly, what has happened in the evangelical church is what some have called the juvenilization of Christianity. There was a fellow named Berger who wrote a book by that title, and it just caught me. And he wasn't a theologian, he was a sociologist of sorts who went and studied churches across America. And he noticed something that was happening in churches across America. And he noticed what was happening is over the period of the 90s to the 2010s, the churches were beginning to look more and more like youth groups. In other words, what the youth groups were doing in the 90s, fast forward 25 years, and that's what the quote unquote big church was doing. That's what we used to call it when I was a kid. You know, what do we do in big church? Anybody, any what with anybody with me on that? What do you do in the main worship service? And and over time they said, well, this is working with the youth. You know, just let's let's just have a praise team, a simple 30-minute message, make it very light. Uh let's not take them deep into expository preaching. After all, that's not what students can understand. By the way, high school students can understand way more than American evangelicalism has given them credit for. But churches begin over time to adopt youth culture. And what happened with that is they said, well, if we teach the whole council of God and we ask our people to know and understand doctrine, the pews are going to be empty. That's not what we want. And so they begin to dumb everything down. And and sadly, this was uh a phenomenon that Berger noticed all across America. American Christianity was juvenilized, where theology became very minimalistic. And so what we're trying to do here at the King's Chapel in an age of doctrinal minimalism is we are trying to be doctrinally maximist, right? Like we want to up this to the highest degree, and that's why we're doing the catechism on Sunday morning, is we're trying to get to the doctrines with the with Adventure Club on Wednesday night. We're trying to teach the kids doctrine where they begin to understand this. You know, in the early church, before you could be baptized, you would go through a process called catechesis, and they would teach you this apostolic doctrine before you would even be baptized. So this is very important that the church teach doctrine. And let me say a word here about creeds and confessions. Now, creeds and confessions, we believe, are not as the same level as scripture, right? Solo scriptura. Scripture alone is our highest authority. But that doesn't mean that creeds and confessions are unimportant. Martin Luther and Philip McLanchthan, they taught Scripture alone, but then what did they do? They put together the Augsburg Confession. They said, but this is what we teach. And somewhere along the way, Baptists begin to say, we have no creed but the Bible. And that was what a lot of moderate and liberal Baptists said in order to find wiggle room for their squishy doctrine. So it's important, even though we hold the solar scriptura, to not abandon the orthodox creeds and confessions of the faith. Now we hold those as subordinate authorities underneath Scripture. So it's not that they don't have any authority. My goodness, does anybody here want to depart from the Nicene Creed? I mean, I'm not trying to reinvent the doctrine of Christ. Are we trying to revisit Chalcedon and discuss again the two natures of Christ? No, no, no, no. We we stand on the Orthodox creeds and confessions of the faith, the apostles' creed. Amen and amen. Because we believe that's what Scripture teaches. So it's important that we understand these things. And then the elders obviously should know the church's creeds and confessions and be able to defend them doctrinally. Third deduction. And again, these are just obvious if you begin to think about what Paul's saying. Sound doctrine is fundamental to living the Christian life. You say, why is this so important? Why is Paul making such a big deal about this, about these requirements for elders? Why is it so important? It's because sound doctrine is foundational to the Christian life. Hear that. Because listen, sound doctrine, truth is not just abstract. Truth comes from the character of God. Jesus is, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus is the essence of truth. God is the essence of truth. The truth that is revealed in Scripture gives us insight into who God is. And so when you depart from the truth, you are departing from God. So the ethics of the Christian life are wedded together to the truth like bark on a tree. And what modern liberalism has done in the 1910s all the way up to today, and I'm talking about liberal theology, is they said we can just take the teachings of Christ, divorced from the atonement of Christ. And what happened with liberal theology? They said, well, you know, we can have the ethics. Well, what did they do on the ethics? Go drive by. They all have rainbow flags out in front now. They departed from the ethics. You can't hold to the ethics without the doctrine. Let me show you this. This is uh 1 Timothy. Turn over to 1 Timothy chapter 1. You got to see this. Uh and there's numerous verses where this is taught. I'm just going to show you this one. So this is this is the way that the apostles think. This is 1 Timothy 1.10. And he's Paul's talking about various sins. He says the sexually immoral, okay, fornication, adultery, all of that. He says, men who practice homosexuality, we know all about that. He talks about enslavers, those who capture people in order to enslave them, liars, perjurers, and then notice this last prepositional phrase, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine. In other words, the immorality and the breaking of God's law is contrary to the truth. And so when you depart from the truth, when the church departs from the truth, you're inevitably going to compromise the ethics of Christianity, the ethics of God. And by the way, the same is true of spiritual experience. The right experience of God always follows the right doctrine of God. Now, just because you have the right doctrine of God doesn't mean you have the right experience. You can also have what's called dead orthodoxy, where you dot all the I's and cross all the T's, but it's callous and cold. But the truth is necessary for the right experience. Jesus said, Father, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is the truth. Sanctification comes from truth. That's why it's so important. Fourth deduction. A plurality of elders is necessary to watch as guardians over the people. Again, this gets back to where we started, doesn't it? That the role of an elder is to be a watchman on the wall, so to speak. You know, uh, if you turn back to Titus, Paul immediately goes into why he's saying this, and he talks about those who are attacking the truth. Verse 10, he says, for there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers, and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. Now we're not really dealing with the circumcision party Judaizers today. That's not a big deal in our church, but there are many deceivers and many empty talkers, and many who are insubordinate to the apostles in the American church. And so the elders must be watchmen on the wall, not just guardians of the galaxy, guardians of orthodoxy. Remember what we read earlier. You son of man, I've made a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning for me. Alright, that's the theological deductions. Finally, what are the uses? What are we to do with this? What's the application? I'm gonna give you four, excuse me, three applications. First, elders must be chosen who are men who convictionally believe the truth. Men who convictionally believe the truth. That's who is to serve in the office of elder. If the man doesn't convictionally believe the truth, Paul would not lay hands on that man. In our Shepherd Society group, we were we've been reading Albert Martin. And Albert Martin was making comments on this, and he said, better for pulpits to be empty than for pulpits to be disqualified. Better for the pulpit to be empty. Hey, there's nobody qualified, and we're we're out there praying that God would raise up a qualified man than to put up an unqualified man to teach the word of God. We have to have that mindset. It doesn't matter if we if if if we don't elect another elder for 10 years, if no one's qualified. That's the mindset we have to have. Second, we must all press into deepening our knowledge of sound doctrine. It's one thing to study what the Bible says, but you need to begin asking, what does the Bible mean? And there's a difference there. We must come to the point of doctrine where you understand truth. And one of the ways to do that is to study the confessions of the faith, to study the early creeds and to look at how doctrine is articulated. By the way, our new website's up. The church's doctrinal statement is on the new website. Go read through the doctrinal statement. Say, what do we believe? And there's lots of scripture references there, and you can look them up. It's good and healthy, and and and and maybe this might seem a little seminarian, but to study theology. I remember uh I went and visited the master's seminary and I met with uh a fellow named Ray Meringer, who was the head of admissions. This is when I was in college, and and I told him I that I felt called to ministry, and we talked about a number of things, but I asked him, I said, What should I be doing to prepare for ministry? He said, Well, begin studying your Bible, just reading through your Bible all the time. And then he said, you need to begin reading systematic theology. You need to begin to understand theological words, categories, and how they're defined. And that's important. And I would give give you the same suggestion. Look, don't just like reading the Bible, yes and amen. Also begin to ask, what does it mean and what has the historic Protestant church taught about what it means? Let's not just be inventors of theology. That's what what that's not what I'm trying to do. I have nothing new to give you. I am simply a purveyor of the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. What Spurgeon was preaching at the MetTab, that's what we're doing here, right? So, third, so we're we're prayerfully choosing elders who are convictionally about the truth. We're all pressing into sound doctrine. And third, we're praying that the doctrine becomes part of our souls. We don't just want convictional elders, we want convictional church members. That we're all to be convictional about doctrine. If a heretic comes in here, I want everybody in here to say, over my dead body are we buying into that. Everybody. That this church is a doctrinal alamo. You Texans get that. Or maybe you that saw the movie, right? Remember Billy Bob Thornton? Davy Crockett. Listen to what Paul says. 1 Thessalonians 5.21. Hold fast to what is good. So it's not just the elders who hold fast. You hold fast to what is good. 2 Timothy 1.13, follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Listen to what Jesus says to the churches. Only hold fast what you have until I come. Revelation 2.25. I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. Hold fast, Christian, to your confession. And then Paul uses the example of Christ as one who held fast. He says to Timothy, this is how he closes 1 Timothy. He says, I charge you, Timothy, in the presence of God who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession. And he says this to Timothy, keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the peering of Jesus Christ. Ladies and gentlemen, that's what we are called to do. To keep the commandment unstained and from reproach until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen? A few years ago, I visited Oxford. And if you've ever been to Oxford, you uh you know you go around, you see the the different colleges, and there's a street right before right, it's between all this the shopping area and the school called Broad Street. And you walk down Broad Street and right in the middle of Broad Street, there is a it's a cobblestone brick street, there's a black X. Just cars are going driving over it, people walking past it, black X right in the middle of Broad Street in Oxford. And that X is there is bec the reason for that X being there is because that is where um Hugh Latimer and Ridley and Thomas Cranmer were burned at the stake. Where they sealed their belief in blood. Why were they burned at the stake? Well, you go through the whole history. I'm not going to walk you through the whole history of the English Reformation. But you remember Henry VIII, big, big fella, wanted to divorce his wife, Catherine of Aragorn, and Thomas Cramer was his bishop. And so he had Thomas Cramer, maybe not the most noble thing he did, basically write up a divorce. And the Pope said, You can't get divorced. And Henry VIII said, No, I'm getting divorced, and I'm forming my own church. And so he had Thomas Cranmer essentially forge the doctrine of this new church, the Church of England, what we call today. Now, Cranmer convictionally here's the thing with Cranmer, he was convictionally a Protestant. He was not a Roman Catholic. God, in his grace and his mercy, saved him. And the theology of Cranmer became the theology of the Reformed 39 articles that J.C. Rile and Packer and these great Anglicans extolled. Cramer wrote the first two books of common prayer, just theological titan and was an advocate for the Reformation. So Henry VIII dies. His son, Edward VI, the boy king, becomes king, and Cramer, he unleashes Cramer, and Cramer is bringing reformation to all the churches of England. Well, then something tragic happens. Edward VI dies suddenly. And his half-sister Mary, who was the daughter of Catherine of Aragorn, became the queen. And her right to the throne was dependent on the Catholic Church, Roman Catholicism. And so she announced that England was no longer Protestant, but was Catholic. And we know her today as bloody Mary, because she inaugurated a reign of terror in which she killed Protestant pastors all over the country. Two of which, at the very beginning of this reign of terror, were Latimer and Ridley in Oxford, had him burned at the stake. Now, what did she do with Cranmer? She made him watch his friends be burned at the stake, threw him in prison, and then engaged in psychological warfare against him, depriving him of food and all sorts of things, till he would recant his Protestant beliefs. And sadly, he got to the point mentally, this happens, and even our heroes have feet of clay. He signed a document renouncing his Protestant beliefs. Well, Bloody Mary wanted him to publicly come and recant. And so at St. Mary's Church at Oxford, they had him come, get up in the pulpit, where he was to give an official recantation. And he gets up in the pulpit and he says, I do not recant. In fact, because he says, I know I'm going to be executed for this, the very hand that I signed my recantation will be the first that is published. And he holds up his right hand. And then he says, I renounce the authority of the Pope. I uphold the true gospel of Jesus Christ, that salvation is by faith alone and Christ alone, by grace alone, all of that. And literally they go and they grab him from the pulpit, they march him to where that cross is at the stake, and they begin to burn the fire. And true to his word, he held out his hand into the fire and let it be burned first. I recall that story for you because I think that's the picture of conviction. I think that's the picture that Calvin is talking about of steadfastness. Yes, he didn't do it perfectly. He stumbled. We all stumble in many ways. But in the end, the Holy Spirit did something in his soul. The Holy Spirit convicted him of those convictions that he held. And he said, I cannot recant. I cannot before God do that. And friends, that's what we're praying for for us at the King's Chapel. We don't want to just be coffeehouse debaters. We want to believe the truth of Jesus Christ for all that we are. Amen. Heavenly Father, Lord, may this be true. May this be true of us. We want to be people of the truth. And not just know the truth intellectually, but have the truth tattooed on our eyeballs, in our souls, in our consciences, that we would stand with Christ, come hell or high water. Lord, do this work in the power of your Holy Spirit. Lord, if there's going to be a reformation and revival, do it here. And do it in our hearts. Fan the truth into flame so that it becomes a strong conviction. Lord, may we be a doctrinal people. And most importantly, may that doctrine be fanned into flame, into love, that we would love the truth and that we would love Christ with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.