Reformed Christian Studies

By Bruce Gore - Posted at YouTube: Direct Link:  32. Gustavus Adolphus and the Thirty Years War - YouTube

By Rev. Aaron Dunlop - Posted at Sermon Audio : Details: Since Protestantism took root and spread through Europe and across the western world it is difficult to imagine that it ever was in a worse state than it presently finds itself. In many respects Protestant Christendom is on the road back to Medieval Romanism. The Charismatic Movement has abandoned the protestant principle of Sola Scriptura for the less than satisfactory ‘personal experience.' Modern evangelicalism has forsaken the Protestant principle of Solo Christo for a psychological conversion in place of the sound evangelical conversion called for in the Protestant Reformation. Modern methods of evangelism and the subsequent easy-believism has left the evangelical church with a Christless gospel and the only support available is a glut of pseudo-Christian self-help books. The ecumenical movement has encouraged a unity within Christendom that is a reversal of the Reformation. Liberalism has fostered such a free

By Rev. Aaron Dunlop - Posted at Sermon Audio : Link: https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=42608025290 Description: Since Protestantism took root and spread through Europe and across the western world it is difficult to imagine that it ever was in a worse state than it presently finds itself. In many respects Protestant Christendom is on the road back to Medieval Romanism. The Charismatic Movement has abandoned the protestant principle of Sola Scriptura for the less than satisfactory ‘personal experience.' Modern evangelicalism has forsaken the Protestant principle of Solo Christo for a psychological conversion in place of the sound evangelical conversion called for in the Protestant Reformation. Modern methods of evangelism and the subsequent easy-believism has left the evangelical church with a Christless gospel and the only support available is a glut of pseudo-Christian self-help books. The ecumenical movement has encouraged a unity within Christendom

By Dr. Steven J. Lawson - Preached August, 2014 at the Knox 500 Conference: Link: http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=92914203914

Originally preached Oct. 30, 2011. Link: http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=1030111754430

Posted at This Day in Presbyterian History: Stepping outside of American Presbyterian history for a moment, here is an interesting interpretation as to how persecution worked to the advance of the Church in at least one chapter of church history. This particular passage is also a masterful summary of early Presbyterian history, drawn from the late 19th-century volume, Presbyterians, by George P. Hays (1892), pp. 42-44 : Through the sixteenth century a few adventurers were settling in America, and stable institutions came with the seventeenth to attract the attention of European Protestants as they searched for some refuge from the persecuting power which they could not resist in France, could not fight in Spain, played see-saw with in England, overthrew in Germany, and displaced in Holland and Scotland. France If there had been no persecution in Europe, and the Protestant Church could have had freedom from state interference to fight its own battle before the general reason a

By Dr. R. Scott Clark - Posted at The Heidelblog: Over the years of battling the moralists (Federal Visionists, Norman Shepherd et al) I’ve not always been certain whether the moralists understand the orthodox doctrine of justification and reject it or if they think they are really teaching it. Here’s a post from one of them that gives evidence that they really don’t understand what the Westminster Divines and the Protestant Reformers before them were trying to do. For a 1000 years the medieval church taught that we are justified progressively , gradually through Spirit-wrought sanctity AND our cooperation with the same. The medievals believed in grace, even prevenient grace (i.e., grace comes first), as does the Roman church. What they did not understand, however, was the nature of grace. In the medieval and Roman system grace is a sort of stuff that makes it possible for us to do our part. The focus of the medieval (and Roman) doctrine of justification is the Spirit’s work in

By Dr. Alan Cairns - Posted at Sermon Audio: Scripture: Isaiah 51:9 (KJV) "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?" Link: http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=101500225919

By Dr. Alan Cairns - Sermon Audio Scripture Text: Galatians 5:1 (KJV) Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Link: http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=92400234143

By Michael Reeves - Posted at Ligonier Ministries : Link: http://www.ligonier.org/learn/daily-video/2016/05/23/elizabeth-and-the-rise-of-the-puritans/

By Aaaron Denlinger - Posted at Reformation 21 : The persecution of Protestants in Scotland, at least if measured in martyrdoms, peaked in 1539, shortly after Cardinal David Beaton, a zealous opponent of reform, was appointed primate of the country. Glasgow witnessed the execution of two individuals that year: Jerome Russell, a Dominican friar whose preaching revealed Protestant sympathies, and Alexander Kennedy, a teenager whose talent for writing poetry caused him trouble when he turned it to criticizing the clergy. An anonymous man was executed in the town of Cupar, near St. Andrews, around the same time. And on the First of March, Scotland's capital saw no less than five persons "wirried and brint" -- that is, hanged and burned -- for heresy: William Keillour, John Beveridge, Duncan Simpson, Robert Forster, and Thomas Forret. Of the five "heresiarchs" executed in Edinburgh, none had quite so fascinating a tale as Thomas Forret, an Augustinian monk turne

By Dr. R. Scott Clark - Posted at The Heidelblog : Like a growing number of people in the Reformed churches I did not begin my Christian life there. I began my Christian life in an evangelical (Southern) Baptist setting. As part of my initiation into that culture I was given an explanation for why there are other approaches to reading Scripture, beyond those I saw and experienced in my evangelical Baptist circle. E.g., I was told that Roman Catholics baptized infants but that was purely out of tradition. Ours, I was told, was the biblical practice. When I learned that there were Protestants. however, who did not baptize infants that was more difficult. They too professed to follow Scripture as their principal authority. In those cases I was given a twofold explanation. Some of them, e.g., the mainline Presbyterians (PCUSA), I was told, are liberal and thus, like the Romanists, do not really adhere to Scripture. They baptize infants out of sentiment more than conviction. The others

Posted at The Anne Boleyn Files : The Lady Elizabeth in about 1546, by an unknown artist Wikipedia On 25th February 1570, Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, was excommunicated by Pope Pius V. Here is the text of the Regnans in Excelsis, the papal bull, which was then published and copied in the months following: “The Damnation and Excommunication of Elizabeth Queen of England and her Adherents, with an Addition of other punishments  Pius Bishop, Servant to God’s Servants, for a perpetual memorial of the matter. Read more...

Posted at Pilgrim’s Progress revisited – a former Catholic on the narrow way : Galatians 4 8 Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. 9 But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? 10 Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. 11 I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain. 1 Corinthians 11 23 For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: 24 and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. 25 After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink

Lady Jane Grey Posted at The Anne Boleyn Files : "...Leanda de Lisle4 writes of how Michel Angelo Florio recorded that Jane remained cool and calm during the proceedings and it seems that she did not react at all to the sentence, perhaps her faith sustained her. Ives goes on to describe of how she used her months of imprisonment in the Tower studying the Bible and writing letters and prayers. ..." On this day in history, 13th November 1553, Lady Jane Grey, her husband Guildford Dudley, his brothers Ambrose and Henry, and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer were tried for treason at a public trial at London’s Guildhall. They were led from the Tower of London, through the streets on foot, in a procession led by a man carrying an axe turned away from the prisoners, to show that they had not yet been found guilty of a capital crime: treason. The Chronicle of Queen Jane describes the procession, although some of the wording is missing:- “Next followed the lorde Gilforde Dudle

By Diane Bucknell - Posted at Out of the Ordinary : “To be useful in all I do.” Queen Katherine Parr The year was 1512. Michelangelo’s magnificent Sistine Chapel frescos were unveiled. Twenty-nine year old Martin Luther earned his Doctorate in Theology at Wittenberg U, but didn’t understand justification by faith. And a precocious three year old named Jehan Cauvin was busy exploring his world in northern France. God was setting the stage for a Reformation that would soon rock the world. Sir Thomas Parr and his wife Maud Greene, a prominent couple from Westmoreland, welcomed their baby daughter into the world that year. Katherine, named after King Henry VIII’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, received a fine education learning several languages fluently. But by the age of twenty-one, she had lost both parents and her first husband. The Parr family was acquainted with some of the early Reformers and Katherine zealously embraced this “New Rel

Éléonore Desmier d’Olbreuse – 1680 Posted at Continuing Reformation : Éléonore Desmier d’Olbreuse, French Huguenot (French Reformed) and member of the gentry of France provided a haven for other French Reformed Christians during the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. When the notable French reformers like Calvin and Farel fled Paris, they left many people behind them who furthered the cause of the Reformation. Éléonore Desmier d’Olbreuese stands as a testament to the children of those who were left behind and one who did all they could to further the Protestant cause. Born to a Protestant Huguenot family on January 3rd 1639 near Poitou, France, Éléonore Desmier d’Olbreuse had a privileged life. She frequented the royal court at Paris as a lady in waiting and grew up surrounded by not only the intrigue of French politics and courtship, but also a vibrant reforming community. (Mckee and Vigne) The Edict of Nantes of 1598 gave reformed Protestants in France fr