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0:38All true knowledge of God is born out of obedience. Now, Brother Clyde has a little different version of that. He says, God doesn't call us to be successful. He calls us to be obedient. I like Brother Clyde's version of that as well. Now, you know, in the old days, well, we got two steps up to the pulpit, Brother Tom. Now, you went over there, you saw Calvin's pulpit. That's pretty nice. Don't y'all think we should get Tom a pulpit like this?

1:12Before the days of microphones. Yeah. Yeah, they had to have a pie, and of course, that stone, you know, the voice would really reverberate. And talk about sermons. Oh, my goodness gracious. You got any idea how many total? No, but it's. Thousands of sermons. And, of course, later. Some of those are compiled into his very, very famous commentaries as well. But he had had a little comment about those steps and being a preacher. Are you familiar with it, Brother Tom? All right. Well, who's going to read it for me?

1:46Okay. If a preacher is not first preaching to himself, better that he falls on the steps of the pulpit and breaks his neck than preaches that sermon. Yeah. Calvin actually had a sense of humor. A lot of people don't know that about him. Okay. Who's going to read? We shall never be clothed with the righteousness of Christ except we first know assuredly that we have no righteousness of our own. Yeah. Who's next? While all men seek after happiness, scarcely one in a hundred looks for it from God.

2:35When a certain shameless fellow mockingly asks a pious old man what God has done, what God had done, before the creation of the world, the latter aptly countered that he had been building hell for the curious. A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent. This is his heart right here. Our prayer must not be self-centered. It must be, sorry, it must arise not only because we feel our own need as a burden we must lay upon God, but also because we are so bound up in love for our fellow men that we feel their need as acutely as our own. To make intercession for men is the most powerful and practical way in which we can express our love for them. Boy, if we could just get that one down.

3:46I wish I'd used that one last Sunday before Tom went into his sermon. It would fit real well. Okay. Whoever is not satisfied with Christ alone strives after something beyond absolute perfection. Now, let me just say, before we read this one, this is probably one, you know, one of the ones that are controversial, but then I think you're going to be surprised at the second one. Okay? God preordained for his own glory and the display of his attributes of mercy and justice a part of The human race without any merit of their own to eternal salvation, and another part in just punishment of their sin to eternal damnation.

4:42There is no group or type of people anywhere in the world that is excluded from salvation because God desires that the gospel be proclaimed to all without exception. For no man is damned precisely because God hath not chosen him, because he is not elected. I can't read that. But because he is a sinner. He is a sinner, and doth willfully refuse the means of grace offered. Okay, so that gives you just a little taste of some of his comments.

5:26Before we actually launch into him, let me give you just a little background of the time period. And I'm not going to make it very broad. I'm just going to talk about France itself. You have, at the time of John Calvin, this guy, for the majority of his life, this is the guy that's on the throne. Now, he'll die while Calvin is sore at his height of reputation, and his successor, his son, Henry II, is going to be even more terrible to the Protestants. Than he was.

6:02This is, of course, Francis I, King of France, and he was a very notable king. You have basically, he is to France what Queen Elizabeth was to England in terms of the fact that this was the height of the French Renaissance. He, of course, was a patron of the arts. He attracted top artists, literary figures to France, had a very incredible court, and even snatched Leonardo da Vinci up there. And Leonardo took some of his paintings with him, including the Mona Lisa. And he was at Leonardo's deathbed when he died, in fact. So he's a patron of the arts and all that. He was also a warrior. He became king while he's quite young, I think, his early 20s, and almost immediately he gets sucked into the wars in Italy. You have this big competition between the French monarchy and the Habsburgs. Of course, the Habsburgs at this time are going to almost encircle France. We have the famous Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor that Luther confronts, and Charles V, he owns. Holland, Netherlands, Holy Roman Empire, which is all the Germany's Czech Republic, and of course they're fighting over Italy. Philip and Charles are fighting over Italy, to grossly sum it up. And he also, of course, is king in Spain. So, I mean, France is in the middle, and he feels like he's surrounded. And so he's involved in this struggle with the Bourbons and the Habsburgs. And so he is the very king that we've already previously mentioned who is going to be fighting against the Swiss mercenaries. And that's the Battle of Marignagno, where you have 8,000 to 14,000 Swiss mercenaries are going to be killed in that battle. You know, Zwingli had to give the mass to them right before they go there deaths. And 50% of the Swiss fighting force. And the Swiss, this battle, by the way, is what breaks the back of the Swiss military machine. They were famous mercenaries. They would fight for anybody. They didn't really care about the cause. It was just, you know, pay us money and we'll fight for you. And they were considered to be some of the most fearsome fighters in all of Europe. And until this battle, they'd never been defeated. They almost always would win if you have Swiss mercenaries on your side. Of course, one of the dangerous things is there's a couple occasions where the Swiss arranged against you and you go secretly to their leaders and bribe them twice what The other guys paying them, they would switch sides, you know. But they were really tough, and they would take no prisoners. They were some really tough cutters, the Swiss were. And so, anyways, that's the battle that Philip's the guy leading the French in that battle and won that battle. And yet, at the same time, where you got this violent side to Philip, you got, you know, he's really interested in the arts and culture. And I think one of the things that a little bit moderated him was he had a sister, Marguerite of Navarre, that's a little kingdom down in northern France. She married the prince there, actually, the king there. And she had set up this big court and attracted a lot of these Christian humanistic figures, intellectuals, writers, and especially people like Erasmus, she really would have relations with. And she saw almost like a proto-Protestant figure, and that's his sister. And partly, I think, for that reason, he would allow the Protestants in France initially a lot of leeway. Now, of course, he's a Roman Catholic to remain so.

10:21And so, partly, he's kind of letting the Protestants do their thing, so to speak. Without him harassing them too much initially. But part of it was also, he just knew it would tick off Charles V to do that. You know, Charles V is trying to repress the Protestants in the Germanys, and he figured this one way to get at him. And unfortunately, and I don't really have time to put this in the right proper perspective, some of the Protestants in Paris are going to mess this nice situation up with the so-called Affair of the Placards. Anybody ever heard about that?

11:05You had some of the real young, zealous, but lacking wisdom converted Protestant Christians decide they're going to plaster Paris with these little signs saying why you should be a Protestant and leave the Catholic Church, basically. And one of them snuck into the king's bedchambers and plastered it on his wall in the palace. And that did it. I mean, you know, he orders a just vicious repression of the Protestants ever after that. But that's the way in the future when that happens. Okay, he's also the king of France, which is, you know, going to begin the building of the French Empire in America. You know, one time the French owned, good grief, almost half this continent.

12:00You know, French Louisiana, which was really one-third of the United States, you know, it's not just Louisiana, and then all of Canada. You know, and Jacques Cartier is going to be the explorer that he will support. So, very, very influential king and very, very powerful. And so, with that as a backdrop, let's talk a little bit about Calvin. Calvin is from Picardy, France, sort of area there north of Paris. He's born July 10th, 1509, which is Noyon, France. And at the time of his birth, Martin Luther was 25 years old. So, in a way, he's almost like the second generation of reformers, but not quite. He's kind of in between, if you get my drift there. But he's just a, he's, you know, he's just a baby. When you got Martin Luther, he has just entered Wittenberg and is beginning his very famous ministry there. His second son, middle child, Gerard Chauvin, and who was a notary, registerer for the Bishop of Noun. And by the way, that meant he didn't have a lot of power, but he was in the middle of the power of the region. In other words, he was sort of like an administrative assistant to the bishop, and therefore had some pretty good connections. And apparently, The bishop noticed his very bright, precocious son, John Calvin, and we'll just start calling him Anglicize it from now on for simplicity. And Calvin is basically hired by the bishop to be one of his clerks at age 12.

13:49All right, should give you an idea of how bright this kid was. Now, this opens up all sorts of doors for the young John Calvin, and this brings him to the attention of one of the local noble families. And, you know, back then, it was totally who you know. It was good old boy connection, so to speak. And the nobility, you know, they were supposed to patronize the community. And, you know, while they're very wealthy and all this sort of thing, they're supposed to give a little bit back to the community. And one way in which they would do this is to pick out some of the best and the brightest children who are, you know, poor or lower classes, and they would provide for their education. And so the Monthmore family decides to take on John Calvin. And they're going to fund his education. And so, as a result of this, Calvin is sent to the top Latin school in the country. And this is the College de la Marque. And there, He is going to really luck out because I say luck out, this is the Lord's providence here.

15:07After all, I talk about Calvin, right? Okay, but anyway, you got the teacher there was the best Latin teacher, not only of that time period, but probably for centuries. You got Marthurian Cordier. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right or not, but that's what we're going to go with. And Cordier had written the Latin textbook that would be used in Europe for the next two, three centuries. Okay? And he took on Calvin, and Calvin was one of his best students. In fact, a lot of people don't know this about Calvin. I guess it's because he is a Protestant. You normally think great Latin scholars are always going to be Roman Catholic, right? But that's not so. Calvin was recognized even by the Roman Catholics as one of the best Latin writers of his age. He's very sharp, very crisp, just an old killer on the grammar.

16:09He's very, very good at Latin, as he would be with any language he undertakes, by the way, Hebrew and Greek as well. All right, so that's who taught John Calvin. He personally taught John Calvin his Latin. And what's kind of interesting about Cordier is later on he converts to Protestantism. And he follows, the teacher follows the student to Geneva, which is kind of interesting. Of course, he wasn't just in Geneva, but he taught for a while there in Geneva as well. And Calvin really thought a lot of him because later on, when he does his commentaries to the Thessalonians, the preface is, he dedicates the commentary to his beloved teacher, Cordier. So, anyway, he's well educated, in case you're wondering. Now, after he finishes the College de la Mark, he then enrolls, and this is all in Paris, the College des Montagues. And the College de Montagu was a preparatory school for entering into the priesthood. This is where you really get into some biblical studies as well. And so he's there in the College of Montagu. But he's not going to be there very long because his father, back in Picardy, he gets into some kind of a tussle that we're not quite sure the details of which with the local bishop. And he's going to get fired. In fact, the bishop was so mad at him, he excommunicates his father.

17:44And so his father basically had a falling out with the church back home. And he tells John, I don't want you to be a priest now. I want you to be a lawyer. So he pulls him out of the College of Monte. And he enters the University of Orleans, right? And this is a law school, right? So he enters 1525, once again, brilliant student, and he seems to be headed to a scholarly career. And of course, this is where he really gets into Christian humanism, you know, and I mean that humanism in a very positive way here. And he completes his law degree in 1531.

18:35Now, we don't know much about the actual conversion of Calvin. Interestingly enough, one of the most famous Protestant leaders in history, we don't know that much. And it goes to his personality. Calvin was truly, and a lot of people don't understand this. And you notice, I'm not going to get into the theology today. I'm just getting to the history of the guy. I'll let Tom and Jeff, some of these others here handle theology. I will say this: if you want a just basic introduction to the Calvinist system of theology, I would recommend to you Philip Johnson, just go on YouTube. I think he's got a little lecture he gives on the history of Calvinism. And it's one of the fairest, most balanced ones I've seen. It's just a little. Introduction. And by the way, you go on YouTube and punch in John Calvin, you're going to get all kinds of stuff. And I mean, it seems like half the people out there hate his guts, and half of them love him. You know, and you've got everything in between. But that one, you know, it's like a fire hydrant of stuff on the internet. And I would say, let's reduce that down to a little stream there, something you can consume. And Philip Johnson, who, of course, you know, has been with John MacArthur for quite a few years, edited a bunch of his books. He's the one that did that little lecture. But anyway, after Calvin's conversion, especially, the guy is actually, and this is amazing to think, you know, preacher preaching for thousands of people, he is actually a very shy, shy person.

20:20He is very humble. And we're going to find out, like Luther, he never intended to be a famous person. You know, it was, and of course, we're going to see too, his coming to Geneva. The last thing on his mind was to ever stay in Geneva. And of course, you know, we're going to see when he gets there, he's going to initially only be there for a very brief moment, then he's going to get run out of town, literally. And then they change their mind and want him to come back. And he said, I would rather die than go back to Geneva. You know, and yet he does. Because he felt it was the Lord's will, not his will. Okay? And it's very obvious, he's very sincere about that. I think even his worst critics, when they look at the circumstances, will agree that that was his attitude in that respect. And so we don't have a dramatic lightning striking the tree moment like you have with Luther, with Calvin. And even if there was a moment like that, you know, he probably would not tell us that. He does describe very briefly his conversion. Actually, I think there's two places where he does that. But he doesn't give any details at all, hardly. And so putting that story together, we really can't figure out about when it occurred. We know it occurred sometime between 1529 and 1533. Sometime during that time period is apparently when he undergoes conversion. Now, when I got to looking into this, there are some things, though, that we do know occurred that obviously the Lord was using to prepare him. And one of the events that we know about is what some have called, I think, Gore. I can't remember the first name of the guy. He does excellent series on the internet.

22:23Ryan Reeves also does an excellent series on the Internet for Calvin and a whole bunch of other people as well. But those are the two ones that stick out to me. One of those guys mentions this is the old man incident, is how Gore refers to this. Apparently, Calvin, youngster, and remember, Calvin was a shrimp of a guy. He was always sick. I tell you, the Apostle Paul had his thorn in the flesh. And you talk about a lot of writing, people speculating what that thorn was. I personally think it was something physical. In fact, I think it may have had something to do with his eyes, you know, but because it talks about one of his letters where, you know, but that's a long story. Anyway, Calvin had many thorns in the flesh. Maybe next time, part two, we can mention just some of the physical ailments that he struggled with all through his life. But he's always very sickly. And, you know, real small, slight young man. He's walking back to, they didn't really have dorms, but something like a dorm room. And this guy comes out of the shadows of this alleyway, great, big, hulking, you know, old guy, but very strong. And he grabs Calvin and shakes him. And he says, My son, have you heard of the grace of Christ? Or something to that nature. And Calvin is like, you know, just all shook up. And he struggles, he gets away, runs away. All right. Well, that's fine. And shook him up. And by the way, Calvin was the, you know, he's one of these guys that's straight arrow. He was raised a Roman Catholic, and he totally believed everything about Catholicism and the rituals and the whole nine yards. He was a die-hard Roman Catholic at this moment. Now, his mother was a very strong Roman Catholic, but she died while he was a small child. But anyway, several weeks later, he's walking down the street and he sees this huge commotion.

24:44And so, you know, he kind of walks over there to see what's going on. And they're having an execution, which was, you know, always would bring a crowd, particularly the Method here, which is burning at the stake. And so he, you know, wanted to kind of see who it is, and he's really stunned when he recognizes it was that old man. And he was just very moved by the fact that this old man, who is about to be burned, did not seem to fear what was about to happen to him at all. He had just a total visage of, you know, I don't know what you call it, satisfaction at peace. He seemed to be at peace. And as the flames began to rise, the old man began to just strongly sing out a song that Calvin had never heard before.

25:50And it was a new song recently released by a former monk in Germany. Yeah, a mighty fortress is our God. So that apparently, you know, had something of an effect on him. And then you have, of course, and by the way, he was at this point very hostile towards Protestantism. You know, he Gore says one of the sort of derogatory names they had for the French Protestants who later become the Huguenots was gospelers, you know. And so, you know, he did not have a good attitude towards Protestants at this point. But then you got a big problem because you got Robert, well, Pierre Robert, I can't pronounce the last name. All the time, I think. And all the time, Pierre, apparently, Is converting to Protestantism.

27:03And he starts having conversations with Calvin. And Calvin is very upset when he begins to realize this guy's, you know, he's going over to the other side. You know, and it caused apparently a great internal turmoil because some think that Calvin actually considered turning him in to the authorities. He doesn't because this shows Pierre and young Calvin. Of course, Calvin's the little guy there. And they actually had a long history. And when I was doing the research for writing this, I kept seeing this name pop up. And just sort of glancing pop up. And so I decided to go a little bit into who this guy was. And he's very, very underrated. His importance to Protestantism, particularly in France, is just incredible. And it's amazing that he's a cousin, John Calvin. He was a cousin of Calvin, and they're going to be in college together, although he is a couple years ahead of John. And Pierre was two, three years older. He was strong, agile. Muscular, sort of a jock with brains. Okay? Whereas John Calvin's the little shrimpy guy, you know. But they apparently had great affection for one another. They had been playmates back in Noyon. And they were both just brilliant, brimming with intelligence. And because of this, you have Pierre apparently getting a hold of writings by Luther. He also is a student of Jacques Lefebvre, who Jacques Lefebvre is going to begin translating the Bible, or actually not the Bible, but just portions of the New Testament into French. And Pierre was a linguistic genius. He could just pick up a new language like anything.

29:31I just am totally disgusted by people like that. All right, but anyway, he was. He was just, you know, he could pick up anything very quickly. And he becomes just one of the leading authorities on Greek and Hebrew. And I won't give everything away yet, though. So they're playmates as kids. They go to college, and he basically becomes a Christian. And he's very concerned about John. So he'd go over to the College of St. Montague, and they would have these big bull sessions, discussions. And basically, he was trying to convert John Calvin, and John Calvin's trying to convert him back in these discussions. And Pierre, of course, was taking huge risks in doing this. Now, of course, John never turns him in, but could have. And more importantly, there's all sorts of people. If they find out you're a Protestant, they can turn you into the authorities and you can be executed for that, just as we saw with the old man incident. And so, you know, they have these discussions. And you have the church historian Abigny, I don't know if you pronounce it that way. He states, the two youthful Picardins had many long, animated conversations together in which each strove to convert the other.

30:56And I think we pretty well covered this, so we can skip over. And Calvin later says of the experience, My heart, hardened by superstition, remained insensible to all these appeals. Yet, little by little, scripture by scripture, the word of God begins to have its effect upon the heart of Calvin. As we shall see, the Lord is going to cause other situations for Calvin to be converted to true Christian faith. Now, let me talk a little bit more. About Pierre, though, because what a lot of people don't realize is Pierre continues to have an impact on Calvin that a lot of people don't know about. He, after finishing his education, he got probably was considered a temporary job, which is often the case when somebody's freshly graduated, they need an intermediary job. He got a job in Geneva. He goes to Geneva before Calvin does. And he's tutoring the kids of one of the leading town councilmen, very important person there in Geneva. And guess who he meets in Geneva? William Pharrell, who's later I'll go and have such a big confrontation with Calvin. And Pharrell is the guy probably given the most credit for bringing the Reformation to Geneva. And remember, he doesn't fully succeed in convincing the town council to go the Reformation way until about two months before Calvin shows up. Now, the groundwork of bringing that to fruition, however, was partly due to Pierre Olletan. Olitan teams up with Pharrell there in the city. And some think that probably Ollitan is one of the Reasons why Pharrell was successful, Pierre Olivetan. And here's the trouble: as we're going to find out, Pharrell was something of a bull in a china shop. Do you know anything what I mean by that?

33:14He was a very sincere Christian. He knew what he believed. He was passionate and zealous for the faith, but he lacked tact. There's a good friend of mine who I always think of when I think of William Pharrell. And some people here know who I'm talking about. But anyway, apparently, Olivetan could restrain him and he provided the tact he lacked. But the thing is, Pharrell then finds another job for Pierre. We need a Bible in French. And you say, wait a minute, they already have a Bible in Switzerland. You've talked about that. You know, up there in Zurich, Froeschauer, the Froeschauer Bible, which actually the complete German Bible by Froeschauer is actually a little bit ahead of Luther's complete Bible, right? And, well, anybody know what the problem in Geneva, though? They don't speak German in Geneva. They speak French, right? And there wasn't a French Bible as of yet. You see. And so it is Pierre who then sets off, packs his bag, goes into the Piedmont area, that's sort of that almost no man's land between Switzerland and northern Italy in the Alps Mountains. And he goes there because there was a group of people there that had some valuable manuscripts that in previous years I've talked about.

34:58They had broken with the Catholic Church long before the Protestant Reformation. Anyone know who I'm talking about? The Waldensians. Yeah, who later joined the Protestant movement. And it is there that, in fact, it's kind of interesting. Some of the textbooks, if you look up Pierre Robert Olivetaine, they will say Waldensian. And I don't think that's quite accurate, but he definitely was meeting with the Waldensians, and they're going to assist him in this translation of the Bible into French. And so, and now, of course, he had a little bit of, I guess you could say, help there by Jacques Lefebvre's translations that he had already done. He'd been a student, he may have even helped Lefebvre with that. And so he already had that, and then he's going to translate the rest of the Bible into French. And there's Pharrell.

36:00Who, of course, is going to persuade him to do this. Now, when Jacques Lefe, when Pharrell first came to Pierre Oliveton and says, Hey, we really, really need someone to translate the Bible. You're a language genius. Why don't you do this? And he too actually had some humility here. And I just thought it was very interesting how he put this. This is intellectual here. He says, How can I express Hebrew and Greek eloquence in French, which is but a barbarous language?

36:35You know, I don't know about you, but I always, you know, being a little red-necked country hick from North Louisiana, I always thought French is a fancy language, right? But look at what he thought. He said, French, which is but a barbarous language compared to them, you know. And then later on, he made the comment, he says, You know, it is as difficult to teach the horse raven, right, you know, blackbird, to sing the song of a nightingale. All right, that's what Pierre had to say about it. But he undertakes a task, and as a result, Pierre Olitan is to the French Bible what William Tyndall was to the English Bible. You know the King James Bible?

37:2775% of it's William Tyndall's rendering. You know, from the Greek and Hebrew. All right, and in fact, talking about the beauty of English language. But anyway, so now, so he does this, and June 4th, 1535, you know, it's going to be finished. And the historian of Vigny says that Pierre was preparing the great artillery whose formidable volleys were to break down the walls of Era. And now, now, later on, after Calvin does arrive at Geneva, he's going to take his cousin's work and he's going to re-edit it and revise it. That's what Ottine himself had meant to do. The printer was a recent convert named Wingl. And the Waldenses, who, by the way, are very impoverished, they raise from their meager funds to pay for the publishing of this first run of the first French Bible, which is just going to cause holic in France. I mean, you know, once the French get a hold of the Bible in their own language, the same thing as you have in Germany, you know. And then you have the rise of the French Protestants in France are going to be known as Huguenots. And of course, they're all going to be very heavily influenced by Calvin. All right.

39:00Upon its completion, he says, I have done the best I could. I have labored and searched as deeply as I possibly could into the living mind of pure truth, but I do not pretend to have entirely exhausted it. And with this, you know, what turns out to be his greatest life's work completed, he packs his bags and disappears. And I mean that quite literally. All right, here's what Abigny says about this: Aletan, and he always goes with his last name, was a mysterious personage, a singular reformer. At Paris, he called Calvin to the gospel, gave him to Christianity as the apostle of the new times. At Geneva, he was the forerunner of his illustrious relative. Like a pioneer in the forest, he cut down the secular trees and prepared the soil into which his pious successor so copiously scattered the seed. He gave to the French church its first Bible, a translation which so greatly advanced the kingdom of God, he appears only as a precursor of the reformer, and Calvin had hardly set his foot in this city when Aletan crossed the Alps and went into Italy, and even to the city of the pontiffs. Apparently, Aletan goes to Rome, which is, you know, the last place you think someone who had translated a Bible, which was a crime, would go. As if he desired now to accomplish a new work to come close quarters with the papacy and prepare Rome for the reformation. As he had prepared Geneva, there he suddenly disappears, literally. We don't know what happened to him.

40:37Some say that he was poisoned when he got there, but we just don't know. You know, that's the story. So there's a veil over his death as over his life. So, you know what? When you get to heaven, you can run up to Olive Son and say, What happened to you? You know, all right. So, anyway, now, just what do we think about this? Okay, well, when I read this, what just kind of came to my mind was a story about D.L. Moody.

41:09And I think we got a little lesson here. You know, D.L. Moody is one of the greatest evangelists. He is the Billy Graham of his day. And I think maybe even some of you in here are familiar with D.L. Moody. Of course, Moody Bible Institute is one of his legacies. What most people don't know about, though, is how Moody became a Christian. He didn't start off as a big, famous person at all. In fact, one of his first jobs was a humble shoe salesman. Yeah.

41:43And we all know about D.L. Moody later on, but we don't know about the very faithful little local Sunday school teacher when D.L. Moody showed up for her class not knowing anything. And he decides to go and visit this new person who had showed up in his class, drops by the shoe store where he is working, shared the gospel with him. And that sharing of the gospel was a seed which led Moody to Christ. And, you know, as some of the old-timers in here will know what I mean, as Paul Harvey used to say, now you know the rest of the story, right? Okay, well, Moody, of course, goes on to have this just incredible ministry.

42:39You know, the Lord will use him to harvest, I don't know how many thousands and thousands of souls. But you know, in the Lord's perspective, who's going to have a crown of glory there besides Moody? Yeah. And so I want y'all to reflect upon that. You know, Pierre doesn't get the big kudos I think he probably should in history, but what would have been like had he not been an influence in John Calvin's life? I really wonder about that. And not to mention, you know, his translation of the Bible.

43:21So, you know, we ourselves, a lot of us, consider ourselves just ordinary Christians. And I think we. We often forget that we serve an extraordinary God. And He loves us and He loves to use the most unexpected people, sometimes in the most unexpected places. Remember Gideon hiding in that wine press? Okay. Yeah. And because of that, I think this underestimation that we all too often suffer from, it leads us not to think much of how the Lord can use even our weak faith and still use it to influence those about us. Because unfortunately, we do not see people through the eyes of God. Right?

44:23And so, to bring this locally, that person at work, that odd or strange fellow college student, that weird neighbor, that kid in PGM, or pioneers, that new guest over at the lighthouse, on and on we can go. You just never know the Lord's purpose is for that person, and you might be the person to tap them on the shoulder and share Christ with them. And who knows what the possibilities are. So remember that. As we say in pioneers, God's word never returns void. You know?

45:14And where it's preached to thousands are spoken to just one, it's important. And in this case, the words of truth spoken to a cousin, a fellow student, in the solitude of something like a college dorm room, is going to influence the world eternally for good. Okay? So, we're not through with his influences. He goes to law school. Now, you know, you would think the college that Montagu, which is going to prepare you for being a priest and, you know, get you into first biblical studies in detail, you think that's where he would really have a strong biblical influence.

46:08But it wasn't there, it was at law school. Now, how many of y'all would want to go be converted to Christianity in law school today? Would that be the place you choose? Right? Yeah. And the reason is, one of the teachers there, and of course, you know, this is the Renaissance. You know, their attitude is totally different from today's specialization. Within specialization, within specialization, you know, and so we got people that know a whole lot about a whole little, but they think they know a whole lot about everything and they don't know it. I think that's one reason we have so many problems today.

46:47But back then, if you get a law degree, you're supposed to have very broad background education. And one of the things that they would want you to know about are the classics, you know, classical education. And so you would read, in addition to the law, you would read the, you know, you read about the ancient Greek classical figures, Homer, Demosthenes, Sophocles, on and on we can go. And you would read about them in Greek, in the Greek language. And there was a teacher there, Melichor Volmar. And Volmar actually has some connections back to Germany and Wittenberg, even. But anyway, Vollmar is teaching the classics there.

47:38That's not always teaching. The really bright students, he would let them know after class, oh, I teach another class. It's Greek. Real famous book. New Testament Greek. And so you got Calvin starting. Going to his classes, and of course, he starts reading the Bible, you know, in the original Greek language. Volmar, of course, was very much a part of that same Christian humanistic movement as Lefebvre and Erasmus, you know, helped prepare the way for the coming of the reformers. And he himself had already come to a commitment to Christianity. You know, he was basically a Protestant in disguise. And he is a very accomplished linguist. And there are some incredible classmates in this class that Luther is going to, one of which will later become a famous disciple of Luther, and indeed would succeed Luther. You got Theodore Beza is in one of these groups that Volmar, and he is in the same group Calvin was. And of course, he will later become a lifelong friend of Calvin. So he's getting the gospel straight from the Bible, straight from the original language is composed in. And he immerses himself in the scriptures, particularly the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul, which is always going to get you. And, you know, and he comes to the view that salvation was entirely by the free sovereign grace of God conveyed through faith, faith. Alone and Christ alone. Right?

49:34So, like Luther, he also conducted a very intensive study of the early church fathers, and this convinces him that they are on the side of the Reformation, not the side of current Roman Catholicism. So, he's obviously being pulled now towards Protestantism and Christianity. This, of course, however, is very difficult for Luther. If you know something about Luther's mind, if he's going to switch over to something, he wants a complete whole picture, so to speak. And so it's difficult for him to eject Romanism, Roman Catholicism, before he had in his own mind developed a complete doctrinal system one to replace the other. And this, perhaps, I'm just speculating here, explains why it's so difficult to nail down just when his conversion takes place. But we know by 1533, as we're about to see, it's definitely in place. And then shortly thereafter, he comes out with his systemized system, which is going to be just very, just a huge impact, is his famous Institutes of the Christian Religion. I mean, complete systematize Protestant thought.

51:00But he's not dilly-dallying around. He's quite busy during this time period. Around 1529, he and a few of his friends spent about 18th months. I was having fun with the college guys, apparently young Mr. Baber back there, Josiah, went to Bruges, and you really liked it? Okay. And he's very underrated. You're talking more about that. I said, well, we're going to mention that in class today. And that's because Calvin goes to Bruges. He goes there because one guy, a famous, famous law professor, had taken a professorship there. The guy that's teaching at Paris at the time, Calvin didn't think he was up to snuff, so to speak. And so he goes with a couple of his friends to Bruges for this Alciate guy, professor, to take classes there. And what happens there, we will find out next time in part two. Okay, because we are out of time. Brother Tom, would you close this out?