All right, turn in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 2,
Hebrews chapter 2.
As they're turning there, I'm going to read from Psalm 22,
verse 22.
And I'll go to verse 12.
The Bible says in Psalm 22, verse 22,
I will declare thy name unto my brethren.
In the midst of the congregation
will I praise thee.
And then in Hebrews 2, verse 12, the Bible says,
saying I will declare thy name unto my brethren.
In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee.
So notice how Hebrews chapter 2, verse 12
is a quote from Psalm 22.
And the title of my sermon tonight
is The Universal Church is a False Doctrine.
This is a church which comes from the Roman Catholic
Church.
Catholic literally means universal.
And the Bible tells us that church means congregation.
And Brother Nick talked about it as well.
36 times in the Bible, the Bible
uses the word church as, plural,
because a church is not just every believer in the world,
but rather the church is a congregation of believers
together.
So the Bible never teaches this doctrine of a universal church,
but this has even crept in amongst Baptists
today through the lens of dispensationalism.
You might have heard phrases like,
from dispensationalists from old IAP churches
where they say things such as, the rapture of the church,
when they're talking about the rapture.
Or they talk about the church age is another thing
that I've heard a lot.
Or another thing is that when
we talk about replacement theology,
about how all believers in the New Testament
are God's chosen people, whether Jew or Gentile,
they say the church has not replaced Israel.
But really, they're basing this on the assumption
that there is such thing as the church,
meaning that every single believer in the world
is the church.
Now, the Bible says in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4,
verse 15, for if we believe that Jesus Christ died
and rose again, them also which sleep in Jesus
will God bring with him.
So it's not just people who are part of the church, which
again, is believers that are congregated together
in assembly, but it's everybody who is a believer.
You see, if you go out someone and get somebody saved,
you preach the gospel to them,
they believe in Jesus Christ,
they are one of God's children, they are God's people,
they're saved, they're going to heaven,
but if they never actually come to a physical congregation,
then they're not part of the church, okay?
Yes, they're saved, but they're not part of the church
because church does not equal saved.
Not only that, but the doctrine of this church age thing,
which really comes from Protestantism
because the dispensationalism doctrine
that comes from Protestants, C.I. Scofield,
who was the guy that wrote the Scofield reference Bible,
which has really corrupted the mind of many Baptists today.
He was, I believe, an ordained Presbyterian, right?
And so he believed in this doctrine, the universal church,
and Baptists, they'll get up and they'll say,
we believe that in the autonomy of the local church,
and they'll use this word,
the local church, pretty often,
but then all of a sudden,
when they're talking about the end times
and they're talking about dispensationalism,
now all of a sudden they believe
that the church is just every believer, right?
But the Bible says in Ephesians 3, verse 21,
unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus
throughout all ages, world without end, amen.
Also in Acts 7, verse 38,
this is he that was in the church in the wilderness
with the angel which spake to him in the Mount Sinai,
and with our fathers who received
the lively oracles to give unto us.
So the Bible even talks about
the church in the wilderness,
which is in the Old Testament,
the congregation of the children of Israel
who were gathered together around the tabernacle.
So this idea of a church has existed in all ages,
the Bible says, it's not just in the New Testament.
Now, the last point I want to make
is that we should not get sucked into this idea
of saying the church, the church,
the church in the sense of all believers,
which many Baptists have been deceived on today.
And one way that we should not be deceived on this
is concerning, which I mentioned earlier,
the doctrine of replacement theology,
because we believe that every single person
who believes in Jesus Christ in the New Testament
is God's chosen people, that they are spiritual Israel.
The Bible talks about the Israel of God.
The Bible says we are the circumcision
which rejoice in Christ Jesus and worship God,
the spirit have no confidence in the flesh.
But the Bible does not teach that this is the church.
So the church in Israel are two different things.
The church is a congregation, the church is not Israel,
the church has not replaced Israel in that sense,
but rather it's believers who have replaced
the physical nation of Israel, right?
So some people kind of get their wording confused
on this, but it says in Ephesians 2, verse 12,
the Bible says that at the time you were without Christ,
being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel
and strangers from the covenants of promise,
having no hope and without God in the world,
verse 19 says, now therefore ye are no more strangers
and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints
and of the household of God.
The Bible says in time past we were strangers,
we were foreigners, but now we are fellow citizens
with the saints.
So let's bow our heads and have our word of prayer.
Father in heaven, please fill the next preacher
with your spirit and please help him
to be able to preach the word faithfully.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.