Romans 1:16

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith. (Romans 1:16–17)

When a nation calls evil good and good evil, its real need is not a political savior but a Reformation of the heart.

Driving Toward the Epicenter of the Reformation

We had been driving for many hours. It was a late summer Sunday afternoon, the sun shining over rich farmland as far as the eye could see. We were actually driving in a VW van, and as we moved along the motorway, every sight and smell was completely new to me. On either side of the road stood huge trellises with vines twenty feet tall, almost-ready hops. We had just passed a sign bearing names like Dachau, Nuremberg, and Munich, and as we drove east toward Austria, I thought, this is where it all happened.

I'm not talking about what took place on that same ground in the 20th century, the two world wars. I'm talking about another shaking event from the 16th century—what we now call the Protestant Reformation. This was the region from which names like Wycliffe, Huss, Beza, Tyndale, Zwingli, Melanchthon, Knox, Calvin, and Luther sprang forth and shook the world of their day.

October 31st Is More Than Halloween

Tomorrow many people will put on costumes and go door to door trick-or-treating. But it wasn't until I moved to Germany in 2003 that I realized October 31st is more than Halloween. In Germany they celebrate Reformation Day.

I knew the names—Calvin, Wycliffe, Tyndale, Luther—but I didn't grasp what they had done until I stood before the Schlosskirche, the castle church in Wittenberg, before the very door where it happened 499 years ago. On October 31st, 1517, Martin Luther—an Augustinian monk from Eisleben, a Catholic theologian and professor of biblical studies at the University of Wittenberg—began circulating a document of complaint against the Catholic church. He first sent it to the Archbishop of Mainz, then nailed it to the door of the castle church: the 95 Theses, a list of 95 complaints against the doctrines and practices of the church.

You might wonder why he nailed it to a church door, as if it were an eviction notice. But in that day the church door served as the community bulletin board where news was posted. Luther was simply making his argument public—and it shook the world. It became, you might say, the hammer heard around the world.

The Reformation Began Earlier Than We Think

Reformation Day commemorates Wittenberg, but that was not the launch of the Reformation—it was a tipping point. The Reformation actually began not in the 16th century but in the 14th, around 1377.

In that day there was no separation of church and state. Princes, kings, and lords governed regions across Europe, but above them all stood the church. The church dealt with eternal things; if you were excommunicated, you could do little in society. Then in 1377 came the Great Schism—and it was not a theological split but a political one. The church divided in two, with one pope in Rome and another in France, and conflict followed for decades.

That political divide did something significant: it shook society into examining what was going on in the church. At the same time, the Scriptures were beginning to be translated. To that point you would hear the priest speak in Latin, and all Scripture was in Latin. But John Wycliffe translated the first English Bible, and Jan Hus in Prague was translating as well. Now people could read the Scriptures themselves—and as they looked at a church that was politically divided and corrupt, they said, things don't add up. The political divide of 1377 gave rise to a massive theological renewal through Wycliffe and Hus, and 200 years later, when Luther came along, the fruit ripened on the tree.

A Nation in Need of Another Reformation

Why do I bring up this history? I'm not here to give a history lesson. I bring it up because, looking at our world 500 years later, I genuinely believe we are again in need of a serious Reformation.

I'll be honest: I don't like to talk politics from the pulpit. As long as I'm here, this pulpit is going to be biblical, not political. But over the last few weeks I've received many emails, all with a common theme. One says Donald Trump is evil and wicked; another says we must elect him because Hillary Clinton is wicked and evil; another says we can't vote for Trump because he's so bad; another says we shouldn't vote for president at all because neither is good. And all of it from the church. So we're politically divided just a little.

People keep asking when I'm going to tell them how to vote. Never. I'm not even very interested in talking about the top of the ticket. Psalm 2:4 says God beholds the nations and laughs in heaven—and this year we've given Him a lot to laugh about.

Isaiah's Woe Over a Corrupt Nation

A passage came to mind this week from Isaiah 5. About 2,800 years ago Isaiah spoke to a nation in chaos, its political sphere corrupt. The king at that time was Uzziah, who began his reign wonderfully and reigned over fifty years. But near the end he decided that as king he should be able to do whatever he wanted, even enter the temple where only priests could minister. Seventy priests came out to stop him; he pushed past them anyway. As he forced his way in, leprosy broke out on his forehead, and he lived the rest of his days in isolation because of his sin. You talk about scandals—it was the scandal of Jerusalem.

Isaiah looked at the king and the whole nation that had departed from God, and he wrote:

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness... Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes... Woe to those who justify the wicked for a bribe, and take away justice from the righteous man. (Isaiah 5:20–23)

Reading the Ballot

This past Tuesday I sat in my office and broke open the voter information guide—bigger than I remember, requiring two stamps to mail back. I started flipping through the state propositions and was honestly shocked.

Prop 57 has to do with reducing criminal sentences for juvenile felons. We can argue the pros and cons all day, but at the very least it tells us we have a problem with justice in our nation—just as Isaiah did. They "justify the wicked... and take away justice from a righteous man." Righteous people are convicted when they shouldn't be; unrighteous people are released when they shouldn't be. I'd suggest a root cause is that we've rejected the concept of actual moral truth. Morality has become relative—someone says this is right and that is wrong, and another asks, "How can you say that?" We can't even call evil evil anymore.

I kept going. Prop 60 is about adult film performers. Really? It's hard to research, but I found a 2003 article in The Guardian noting that the U.S. then led the world in pornography, with about 211 new films produced every week, centered in the Los Angeles area, many made by "otherwise respectable citizens"—apparently respectable enough that now we need to regulate the industry.

Prop 62 would repeal the death penalty. I know there are differing opinions in this very room, and I respect that. But let me point out one thing from Genesis 9:6: "Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed." Why? "For in the image of God He made man." God created humanity uniquely in His image, placing His own value and dignity upon us, so He values life very highly. There are restrictions and standards in the Levitical law concerning premeditated murder versus manslaughter. Our conflict over the death penalty again comes back to the question of a moral law and a moral lawgiver—and the recognition that even a fairly good justice system doesn't always bring justice.

Prop 63 would limit individuals' ability to buy ammunition, requiring a license first. Notice the pattern: felons, good; adult film stars, good; death penalty, bad; ammo, bad.

But that's not even my favorite. Prop 64 would legalize recreational marijuana—giving a whole new meaning to higher education and high school. This isn't just California; it's already passed in Colorado, Washington, and Oregon, and is now on the ballot in California and eight other states. If it passes in all of them, more than 30% of Americans will live in states with recreational access, likely forcing the U.S. Supreme Court to take it up at the federal level. Then Props 65 and 67—two of them—about plastic bags being really bad. Felons, good; adult film stars, good; death penalty, bad; ammo, bad; pot, great; plastic bags, bad.

I'm sorry to be crass, but this is insane. I felt like I was reading fiction. So I go back to Isaiah 5, in another translation:

Doom to you who use lies to sell evil, who haul sin to market by the truckload... Doom to you who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness in place of light and light in place of darkness... while you violate the rights of the innocent. (Isaiah 5:18–23, paraphrase)

A Thermometer, Not a Thermostat

The typical Christian response is, "We can't let these things pass, or it will be the end of the nation." But I'm here to tell you that the very fact these are on the ballot is the indication that something is wrong with us as a people. It takes more than 400,000 signatures to get an initiative on the California ballot, and more than 600,000 for a constitutional amendment. Every one of these came about because people signed petitions—often the same petitions we breeze past outside the grocery store without even asking what they're for.

So these propositions are the thermometer, not the thermostat. They tell us the temperature; they don't change anything. They're the symptom, not the cause. Every four years, with higher turnout at a presidential election, we get a peek at the pulse of our society.

It's like a medical test. This past Friday I got my first cholesterol test—glad to hear it's low. I don't know internally what's going on until the results come back. Or you sense something off with your heart, so they run an EKG and can finally see what's wrong. These ballots do that for us; they reveal the mindset and the state of our state. As they say, "So goes California, so goes the nation." Whatever passes on November 8th, and whoever is elected when we wake on November 9th, will simply be an indication of where we already are as a people.

Four Points for a New Reformation

Point one: There is a theological reason for our political divide. In 1377 the political divide within the church exposed a bad-theology problem. The people didn't know who God was or what He had said, so they did what was right in their own hearts—just as in the time of the judges, when there was no king and everyone did what was right in his own eyes. All that's going on in our nation goes back to our misunderstanding, or no understanding, of who God is and what He says.

Point two: Our political divide must drive a theological renewal. What we need today is another Wycliffe, another Hus, another Luther. Since the moral majority and Christian coalition days of the 1980s, the church's reflex has been to jump up and become politically active. I think most Christians now realize political activism hasn't done much—look at what's happened since. We need more theological engagement.

Point three: Only a theological renewal will bring about the reformation we need. Remember that Paul, who wrote Romans, lived in a time of off-the-charts political corruption. He was writing to Christians in the capital of the empire, where Nero was rising to power—a man who out-corrupted every politician of our day. Yet Paul, along with Peter, James, John, and the rest, lived in that world, and in Romans 13 he writes, "Submit yourself to the government."

So what did Paul do? In Romans 1:14 he says, "I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians... so, as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also." He didn't gear up for political activism; he geared up for biblical proclamation. Why? "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation." And the words "the just shall live by faith" were the very words that transformed an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther.

Point Four: An Unashamed Gospel Focus

We must maintain an unashamed gospel focus. That's what Paul did: "I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God." And what happened? Over the next 200 to 300 years, the proclamation of the gospel completely revolutionized the world of that day—even crumbling the very structure of Rome.

Return with me to Isaiah. After pronouncing woe over the corruption of his day, after King Uzziah's downfall left the nation grieved and deflated, Isaiah 6 opens, "In the year that King Uzziah died." The throne is empty; the corrupt power is gone. And then: "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up."

We need to remember that Jesus is on the throne. Our focus belongs there, not on the offices of Washington. Ultimately we are accountable to a much higher authority in heaven. What this nation needs is not another political savior; politicians cannot save. This nation needs Jesus and the power of God through the gospel.

Sin is real, and hell is an actual place of judgment that every one of us deserves, because inwardly we are just as corrupt as every politician we see on television. The difference is that when you promote yourself, your corruption eventually comes out—and then we point fingers and say, "Look how bad they are." No, it's just us on display.

What does our world need? It needs Jesus. We all deserve the judgment of hell, but Jesus came, lived a perfect life, and died a brutal death—for me, for you—and rose from the dead that He might forgive and save us. When I look at these things it grieves me, but it reminds me that Sacramento, Washington, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and all the legislators in Congress need the gospel of Jesus Christ, the power of God. We may be increasingly called nuts for believing in the actual resurrection—and I get to be the leader of the nuts, which is awesome—but we must not be ashamed of the gospel, for one day God's judgment will be revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness. I don't want anyone I know to be under the wrath of God; I want them to know His forgiving grace.

Closing Prayer

Father God, we need You. Sometimes it feels like we need You more than ever, but we always need You more than ever. Jesus, remind us of Your supremacy—that You are King of kings and Lord of lords, seated upon a throne in heaven—and let that truth set our hearts and minds at peace. Though we find ourselves in a nation and a world that is lost, unmoored, drifting toward the rocks, help us to be lights shining in the darkness, mouths speaking forth the grace and truth You've given us, for many of us standing here have experienced Your saving grace by the gospel. Help us not to be ashamed, but to speak with boldness and clarity to anyone we have opportunity to reach. Drive in us a new theological renewal—first a passion to know You and Your word.

And maybe you have never put your faith in Christ, never asked Him for His grace and forgiveness. Jesus died in your place to take the punishment for your sin upon Himself, and He rose from the dead, declaring that the price is fully paid. If you want to receive His grace today, simply lift your hand wherever you are. Praise the Lord.

Father, we thank You for Your grace. Help us to go from this place to share it with all we come in contact with. We praise You, Jesus. Amen.