The cry of many evangelicals today is that the reformation is over. Is it really? Is there really anything left to protest? If it isn’t over, who has God called forth to inherit the “baton” of the reformation?

Hartland Winter Convocation 2017: Restoring the Paths

<p>The cry of many evangelicals today is that the reformation is over. Is it really? Is there really anything left to protest? If it isn’t over, who has God called forth to inherit the “baton” of the reformation?</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Hartland Institute of Health and Education

Chris Holland

The Remnant Responds

Heavenly Father, we have gathered to study Your Word, and as we have gathered to study Your Word, we simply ask that You would open our eyes that we would see.

I pray, Lord, that You would take a coal from the altar and touch my lips, and that I would only speak in accordance with that which You once shared tonight.

Lord, move in a mighty way, we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

He was born in the United Kingdom and moved to South Africa while still a young boy.

Palmer married a woman by the name of Emiliana.

And while Palmer was an Anglican, his wife was a Roman Catholic.

And together they started the ARC community.

And taken from their own website, it was an internet-based, interdenominational, Christian convergent community drawing spirituality from the early church, in particular, Celtic Christian spirituality.

Tony Palmer became an ordained bishop in what is called the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches, a breakaway alliance of charismatic Anglican Episcopal churches, and he became a member of the Roman Catholic Ecumenical Dialogue, excuse me, the Roman Catholic Ecumenical Delegation for Christian Unity and reconciliation.

Bishop Palmer developed a friendship with a man who would eventually become Pope Francis, while Pope Francis was still a Catholic official and cardinal in Argentina.

The cardinal became Palmer's spiritual father.

He became his spiritual father, but discouraged Palmer from becoming a Catholic, arguing that he was called to serve as a bridge builder between Catholics and evangelicals.

In 2014, Pope Francis called Bishop Palmer to invite him to his residence in Vatican City.

And during that meeting, Bishop Palmer suggested that the Pope record a personal greeting on Mr.

Palmer's iPhone, which would be delivered to Kenneth Copeland.

He then sent Bishop Palmer to a charismatic conference hosted by television evangelist Kenneth Copeland, where he unveiled the video message of unity and love that the Pope had suggested he do.

Now, as a side note, Bishop Palmer's first sponsor financially was Kenneth Copeland Ministries.

At the conference, Bishop Palmer emphatically stated, as many of you have likely seen, as he introduced the papal message, Brothers and sisters, Luther's protest is over.

He told the audibly stunned audience that he was speaking to them in the spirit of Elijah, who prepared the way for something greater than himself.

Palmer then read John 17, 20-22, in which Jesus praised that his followers would be won.

And in his short message, the Pope referred to Palmer, who belonged to the Anglican group, as his bishop brother.

Francis then proclaimed that the miracle of unity has begun.

The audience greeted the video with laughter, clapping, and the babble of tongues.

Copeland summoned Palmer back on stage and he recorded a reply on his iPhone.

The video ended with all the ministers, some of whom may have believed the Pope was a false teacher just minutes earlier, raising their hands and addressing Francis in unison with the cry, Be blessed.

Not long after that, Palmer brought all these evangelical heavyweights representing millions of churchgoers to the Vatican to meet Pope Francis.

You see, Pope Francis is convinced and has written that the Reformation is already over.

He believes that the Reformation ended in 1999, the year the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation issued a joint declaration on justification and the doctrine, excuse me, a declaration on justification.

In that declaration, they came to a common understanding of our justification by God's grace through faith in Christ.

In 2006, the World Methodist Council also adopted that declaration.

In reaction to this meeting, Christianity Today records this, and recorded from 1 of the attendees, "...blessed to be a part of perhaps an unprecedented moment between evangelicals and the Catholic Pope.

It was an intimate circle of prayerful discussion and a lunch to discuss not only seeing Jesus' prayer answered, but that every believer would become a bold, joy-filled witness for Christ.

The world is suffering as we as Christians have too much love to share without fighting 1 another.

Late last year, The Pope commemorated and begun a kickoff celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

In an article preceding the Pope's attendance of the celebration of the Reformation, it says this.

1 of the greatest rifts in Christianity between Catholics and Lutherans isn't what it used to be.

As a sign of those much improved relations, Pope Francis is traveling Monday to Sweden, an overwhelmingly Lutheran country, to kick off a year-long commemoration of the Protestant Reformation that split the churches 500 years ago.

Gerard O'Connell, Vatican correspondent for the Jesuit magazine America, says the Pope's participation in commemorating the Reformation is proof of the extraordinary change in Catholic-Lutheran relations.

A recognition perhaps that both sides missed something at the time of the Protestant Reformation, says O'Connell.

The Catholic Church missed ways of reforming itself.

Luther and those around him pressed in a way that just couldn't be taken on board.

Noted theologian and pastor and author R.C.

There are some heavy things in this quote I'm going to invite you to, I'm going to try, because I get excited with these things, I'm going to try to go slow.

These are heavy things that I would ask for you to contemplate.

He observes, There have been several observations rendered on this subject.

The title of the article is, Is the Reformation Dead?

There have been several observations rendered on this subject by those I would call erstwhile evangelicals.

1 of them wrote, Luther was right in the 16th century, but the question of justification is not an issue now.

A second self-confessed evangelical made a comment in a press conference I attended that the 16th century Reformation debate over justification by faith alone was a tempest in a teapot.

Still another noted European theologian has argued in print that the doctrine of justification by faith alone is no longer a significant issue in the church.

We are faced with a host of people who are defined as Protestants, but who have evidently forgotten altogether what it is They are protesting.

Now I need to tell you that these quotations from this article are from a man who is not a Seventh-day Adventist.

Because Jesus says he has children and other folds.

The question we have to face in light of these discussions is, what has changed since the 16th century?

Well, there is good news and there is bad news.

The good news is that people have become much more civil and tolerant in theological disputes.

We don't see people being burned at the stake or tortured on the rack over doctrinal differences.

You read that and you've got to read it a couple of times because you say, wow, that's good news.

It is good news, but we've set a pretty low threshold, haven't we?

In the 19th century at Vatican Council I, Rome referred to Protestants as heretics and schismatics.

In the 20th century at Vatican II, Protestants were referred to as separated brethren.

We see a marked contrast in the tone of the different councils.

The bad news, however, is that many doctrines that divided Orthodox Protestants from Roman Catholics centuries ago have been declared dogma since the 16th century.

Virtually all of the significant Mariology decrees have been declared in the last 150 years.

The doctrine of papal infallibility, though it de facto functioned long before its formal definition, was nevertheless formally defined and declared de fide, necessary to believe for salvation, in 1870 at Vatican Council I.

We also see that in recent years, the Roman Communion has published a new Catholic catechism which unequivocally reaffirms the doctrines of the Council of Trent, including Trent's definition of the doctrine of justification and thus affirms the Council's anathemas against the Reformation doctrine of justification by faith alone.

Along with the reaffirmations of Trent have come a clear reaffirmation of the Roman doctrine of purgatory, indulgences, and the treasury of merits.

In the final analysis, the Roman Catholic Church affirmed at Trent and continues to affirm now that the basis by which God will declare a person just or unjust is found in one's inherent righteousness.

If righteousness does not inhere in the person, that person at worst goes to hell and at best, if any impurities remain in his life, goes to purgatory for a time that may extend to millions of years.

At the moment the Roman Catholic Church condemned the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone, she denied the gospel and ceased to be a legitimate church.

Regardless of all the rest of her affirmations of Christian orthodoxy, to embrace her as an authentic church while she continues to repudiate the biblical doctrine of salvation is a fatal attribution.

We're living in a time where theological conflict is considered politically incorrect.

But to declare peace when there is no peace is to betray the heart and soul of the gospel." These are strong comments by the way.

These are strong comments that I'm sharing in the midst of a people who are looking to be awakened to the times.

I am not sharing these quotes with my mom and my stepfather who still find fellowship in the Roman Catholic Church.

I don't know of any set of Bible studies that begins with the identification of the Antichrist and the mark of the beast.

We must build faith in God's Word and God's Word alone.

But as God's people in this time, we are asking the question, have we forgotten?

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