Our speaker tonight is Dr. Hughes Aldefent old. He is the Dean of the Erskin Institute for Reformed Worship. And before we came out this evening, one of them in on the rostrum, I asked him that they had ever had the privilege of meeting a Scotty old. And he said, no, but I think I know him by reading his books. And then he said, can you know a person through his books? And indeed you can. Dr. Old has been used in our lifetime to write probably more about Reformed Worship and Prayer and the leadership of Worship from the pulpit than any other man in the Reformed and evangelical camp of the church. And he is well qualified to do that. He has been in school that appears most of his life. Either learning or teaching, he studied at the center of college in Kentucky where he took his bachelor's degree and then studied at Princeton Theological Seminary, at the Theological University of Newcastle, Switzerland. In addition, he's done studies at Tubergen, Germany, the Protestant Theological Faculty of Paris, the Institute Catholic, in Paris, France, and University of Basel and Basel, Switzerland. And all of these studies have been centered around the Reformation and the Reformed of Worship and how it is the very heart of the evangelical church as we studied both this morning in Sunday school and through the Ministry of Dr. Mark Rost this morning. Would you welcome Dr. Old to our church once again, please. If you take your Bibles, please, and turn to John, the Gospel of John, chapter 2. That is our text for this evening. Dr. Old will be preaching from this passage of Scripture that Dr. Ross mentioned this morning as he mentioned Jesus Christ being a Reformed of Worship and purging the temple both in the beginning and at the end of his ministry. And here is the evangelist John's account of how Jesus Christ, as he went into public ministry, reminded us of the essence of the church and worship. John, chapter 2, beginning in verse 12 through verse 19, this is the word of the Lord. After this, he went down to Capernaum with his mother and his brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there for a few days. The Passover of the Jews was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem in the temple. And he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, take these things away, do not make my father's house a house of trade. His disciples remembered that it was written zeal for your house will consume me. So the Jews said to him, what sign do you show us for doing these things? Jesus, answer them, destroy this temple. And in three days I will raise it up. This is the word of the Lord may it be a blessing to us, to our hearts and minds as we attend to it this evening. I have one thing to say, I will take a half an hour to say it, but the one thing is this, that Jesus Christ is the ultimate reformer. The scripture lesson, which was just read, tells us of how Jesus himself reformed the worship of his day when he went into the temple and cleared out the money changers and those who were dealing in making money out of worship and selling sacrifices at the exorbitant prices, changing money at unbelievable rates. It's rather interesting that this we find already in the second chapter of the gospel of John, we have the story of Jesus going to the wedding feast at Canaan, there Jesus reveals himself as being the bridegroom, wonderful, loving, radiant, positive, but then while that was the first sign which Jesus performed, there is the image of Jesus as a reformer who chased the money changers out of the temple. Jesus was the ultimate reformer. This morning, my colleague Mark Ross preached about the reform of Hezekiah all the way through the Bible we read of prophets and priests and kings who were reformers. One could go on to speak of Josiah or one could quote that marvelous text in regard to the cleansing of the temple. He shall purify the sons of Levi. I guess I have to admit to it, I don't like to be called clergy, I've never liked it, but I guess I am. I'm part of that whole institutional church and I affirm it with great hope and with continued prayer, I believe in the church, but I believe that there must always be reform in the church. Reform churches have often used the motto, reformed and continuously reforming. It's a good motto. Beginning of the reformation, people were very critical of Luther and Zwingli and Calvin and Bootser and Thomas Krammer. Why were they so negative about the church? They seemed to be more enemies of the church. They seemed to be very critical and that was sort of harsh. It was not long. Therefore, before the reformers themselves began to realize that Jesus had set their example, whether it was Luther or Zwingli or Calvin or Krammer or John Knox, there was this example of Jesus that they embraced. They knew it would cause tears, they knew it would cause confusion and resentment, and yet they took the leadership of Jesus in affirming constantly that there must be reform in the church. When I was telephoned by someone here at Christ Covenant this last week, watch your sermon titles. Those who know my preaching know that what I'm out to do is Gospel of John, chapter 1, number 2. Gospel of John, chapter 2, number 3. Gospel of John, chapter 4. I figure that I preached through the Bible, Lectio, Continua, one book after another, chapter by chapter, verse by verse, and anyone who has read any of my seven volumes on the history of preaching will know that that's the way I think it ought to be done. So I don't come up with sermon titles. However, I did take homolytics in seminary, and I know that proper preachers, proper clergy come up with sermon titles. Well, the second reformer. Knowing that everyone else, when Reformation Sunday was going to preach on Martin Luther, who was, well, the first reformer? That's what I'm trying to say. No, he wasn't the first reformer, but, well, I guess you could look at that. Reformation Sunday, it's all right to speak of Martin Luther as the first reformer. And I've noticed in reading the Protestant reformers, they all held Martin Luther in the highest esteem. And Calvin himself would never say a word arguing with Luther. He may have disagreed with him on some things, but that was never part of his program. That was never what he had to say, just would skip over the subject, because he had great respect for Martin Luther. Two of the happiest years of my life were spent in two begins. And I love the stiff-skiff of there. And for those two years, I was a good Lutheran. I mean, if people ask me, I was a well-backed home, I'm a Scotch Presbyterian, which didn't explain anything to them. I said, well, it's sort of like Luther. I suppose one could think of Malangpham as the second reformer, because he was Luther's successor. One successor who realized it's very important for a successor to realize he's never going to fill the place of the guy who went before. But I suppose in a Presbyterian church in Charlotte, North Carolina, particularly in Charlotte, North Carolina, one could talk about John Calvin being the second reformer. I mean, with Davidson College just up the road, I should think that message would have gotten through by this time. Good Scots, of course, would think of John Knox immediately. The Englanders could talk about Thomas Kranmer, and Americans could talk about John as an Edward's. But historically, it was just about a year and two or three months. That Swingley, Ulrich Swingley, started preaching the Reformation in the city of Turek, Switzerland. 1517, October 31st, the 95 Theses were nailed on the church door of Wittenberg, and that history teachers sort of give you as the date to hang the Reformation on. First of January, 1519, a little bit more than a year later, Swingley started his ministry in Turek and became the second reformer. A little bit different than Luther, but he too was a reformer who would follow in the footsteps of Jesus himself. Now Swingley is sort of a hard name to remember. Swingley, I mean, it starts with the Z and any encyclopedia, it's the last one of the reformers mentioned. But I think about Swingley that's really interesting to me is that he was one of the fathers of the reform who understood what democracy was all about. Swiss democracy goes back long before 1776. Swiss democracy is really amazing and it had a tremendous effect on Protestantism. Swingley was called to this very important preaching post. We have often gotten the impression that no one did any preaching during the Middle Ages. That's not true at all. There was a lot of preaching in the Middle Ages. There was the Dominican order of preachers. There was the Franciscan order which gave great importance to preaching. There were lots of preachers. And as a matter of fact, there was sort of a hierarchy of preachers. There were the simple preachers in Paris churches and their congregations would expect sermons from them. But then there were these preaching orders, different orders of monks and brothers, friars. They did a lot of preaching. They might not have done it on Sunday morning at Mass, but it was the standard thing that at about five o'clock in the afternoon, Sunday afternoon, there would be a sermon. And it wasn't a Mass, it was just a sermon by itself. And these different preachers vied with each other professionally. And they were often in heavily endowed pulpits. And it was quite common for a pious person who had plenty of money to endow a pulpit for years to come. The different guilds would do this in any particular city. And there might be a normal size city that doesn't endowed pulpits. And some of them paid quite a bit per year, but there were others that paid a lot. And you could tell how different preachers ranked by the pulpits they held. And one hates to see this sort of thing, but preachers are only human. And Zwingli had gotten quite a reputation as a preacher. And so he was called to a very important pulpit. Today, of course, Zurich is a major city. It's one of the hubs of Europe. And those of you who have done much flying know how to get in and out of the Zurich airport, just like getting in and out of the Atlanta airport. Which I went through yesterday, and I guess I'll be going through again tomorrow. But there's something of a trick to it. But the Zurich airport is one of those places, and Zurich is a major city. And right in the center of Zurich is the mooster and the cathedral. And it had a very well endowed pulpit, and Zwingli was called to be pastor of that pulpit, to be preacher in that pulpit. And when he started, he said, I'm not going to do the usual thing. So we're accustomed to following the lectionary, which during the Sundays of land has a gospel and a pistle for every Sunday in land, and for every Sunday in advent, and for the Sundays in between, and for the feast days of the ascension, and for the feast days of Christmas and Easter. It was all planned out, and everybody knew what was supposed to be preached on any given Sunday. So, as Wankley said, I'm not going to do that. He was one of these smart kids out of Princeton. And he was going to do something revolutionary and different. He was going to take the gospel of Matthew, and he was going to start out with the first chapter and preach through it, chapter by chapter, verse by verse. Well, that was fine for a while. As a matter of fact, he began to fill up the church, and it got to the place where any person who could walk, got to church whenever Zwingli was going to preach, and that was at least five times a week. And he did preach through the gospel of Matthew, and it took him a year. The church had never been so full. People were fascinating. The next year, he said, all right, this year I'm going to preach through the gospel of John. So, he did and got the same result. And then he said, well, now I'll try first Peter, and then he went on to Romans, and to the epistles of Paul, and people sort of liked this preaching, technically called the Lectio Continua, systematic expository preaching. Well, you know, anything that works, if it gets a crowd, there are always going to be those people back in the corner going to say, you haven't you didn't do that. Did you notice? Did you notice? And there are always going to be people who are going to be critical, if something is a success, they must be doing it wrong. Because everybody knows that true Christianity is going to dry up, and true Christianity is going to produce empty churches and all that sort of thing. The power of negative thinking, it's a very real thing when it comes to Protestant preaching, and we all know about that. So, we got called before the city council, what are you doing? Leaving the election area behind. I said, well, actually I'm doing something very traditional. And he said, when St. John Chrysostom, who was patriarch of Constantinople about the year 400, was preacher in that famous capital of the empire. He was the greatest preacher that Christianity has ever produced. He's commonly recognized as the great preacher beyond all others. And this is the system that he used. And look at the sermons of St. Augusta. He did the same thing with the gospel of John, and we have his sermons for the gospel of John. Well, now I'm going to tell you about my brilliant doctoral thesis.
I mean, this is the way old preachers make themselves arcane, talking about how they prove their doctoral thesis. Well, I was able to get a hold of the sermons of John Chrysostom that's wingly actually produced. They're in the Zurich Library. And there were five volumes. The first volume was John Chrysostom on the gospel of Matthew. The second volume was John Chrysostom on the gospel of John. The third volume was first Peter and Romans. And the fifth volume was 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, 1st and 2nd Timothy, Philemon and Hebrews. It was just as clear as can be that swingley wasn't original at all. He was following the greatest of all Christian preachers. And I noticed in the last few years, this is something which is beginning to recover. Having done a lot on the history of preaching back in the last century, the 20th century, 19th century. Very little systematic expository preaching was being done. But it's beginning to reappear on the person from whom we got that was the second reformer, Ulrich Swingley. Ulrich Swingley had this sort of interesting life. He was born in the Turgau. The Turgau is where the Swiss Alps are the most beautiful. There are these valleys way up in the Alps, fed by mountain streams and Swiss cows that eat Swiss grass that produce Swiss cheese. There's nothing more Presbyterian than Swiss cheese. It comes from the most purest, the most Protestant part of Switzerland, unless it's broke for cheese, which is produced in the caves in which the French Huguenots used to hide out to have their forbidden services of worship. So if you really want to be a Presbyterian by cheese, broke for cheese and Swiss cheese, well they help. To be born in the Turgau is sort of like being born in West Virginia. Or maybe it's sort of like coming from Parkville, Kentucky. I went to center college. And that's one of the most remote parts of Kentucky. Cole Minor's daughter, you know, was brought up in one of these towns. But anyhow, Swingley was born in the Turgau. And as he began to get six, seven, eight years old, in that valley there wasn't a school. On the other side of the valley, however, Swingley's uncle was the priest. And so Young's Swingley was sent to be an apprentice to his uncle. Now, particularly in German-speaking countries, a lot of wisdom is passed on through being an apprentice. And that meant that Young's Swingley shoveled the snow, went down to the bakery, brought home loaf of bread, scrubbed up the coffee cups, made himself useful. Maybe he helped his uncle as an older boy, we don't know, but all of a sudden his life changed. His uncle was appointed to a church in Basel. Basel was in those days the center of the new learning. That was where Christian humanism was rediscovering biblical Hebrew and biblical Greek. It was in Basel that they were beginning to learn how to read the New Testament again in the original language. It was in Basel that arasmas the prince of Christian humanism, the greatest of great scholars in Europe at the time. It was beginning to use the newly invented printing press to produce this great vast wealth of Christian literature. It was in such a place that Swingley was slowly learning to become a reformer. He was there for his uncle, he was his uncle's apprentice, and he sat there and listened until late at night when the Philogens of Basel at his uncle's house would come over for a pale brew after meetings or something of that sort. He soaked up a lot of that, he was a real bright kid. We have his first New Testament. It's handwritten. He wrote it out before there were printed versions of the Greek New Testament. He wrote it out in his own hand in Greek. He was that kind of a thorough scholar. Swingley went on to have an enormous influence in the Reformation because he was a real stickler on careful systematic study of scripture. Well, his time came along to be ordained, and he was sent off to Galaros, a Swiss Canton again way up in the Alps. I happened to have been there one time because one of my classmates at the University of Basel was going to be ordained to be Protestant pastor in Galaros, so I went up for the ordination. One of the things is, however, that unfortunately, during the winter, when the snow has come, you can't get in or out of the town of Galaros from the first of November to the end of April, but life goes on just the same. And in those ten years as pastor of Galaros, Swingley read volume after volume after volume of the theological works which were being published for the first time in the city of Basel. Swingley absorbed all of this when he was called to Zurich to be the principal preacher there. He had all of this in his head, and he was a great inspiration to the young scholars who were learning to read the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek. But now I have this to say, this was one of the reforms of worship which Swingley came up with that has remained in the reformed churches, and I would hope would be increased. I've taken that system of preaching through one book of the Bible after another chapter by chapter, verse by verse, in my 18 years as pastor of one or another country church, I did this, and I've seen it fill churches. People are amazed when they hear the scriptures interpreted by people who know something about it. Swingley was a great reformer of worship, and that is the most important reform that he came up with. I am glad to see in America today that more and more preachers are beginning to do this kind of systematic expository preaching. Well, that's what I had to say. The Old Testament reformer was Jesus. He was a teacher. He taught what was in the law. As we find again and again, he taught what was in the scriptures. Luther was that kind of a reformer. Swingley was that kind of a reformer. Calvin was that kind of a reformer, and today on this Reformation Sunday in 2010 is a good time to remember what the second reformer had to say.