We will once again be sharing our home Bible study through Facebook Live (RC-Lisa Sproul) this evening, 7 eastern. Those who’d like to meet face to face, you’re also invited for dinner at our home at 6:15. Tonight we consider the promise of God that all things work together for good for those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.
Join us, one way or the other, and we pray your faith will be strengthened.
There are two sliding scales at work here. First, there is the relative importance of a given issue and second the relative clarity of the issue. I have no uncertainty about the orthodox doctrines of the trinity and the incarnation though one would be hard pressed to find something more challenging to understand. On the other hand, the doctrine of election is one that has divided believers for centuries, yet I haven’t the faintest doubt that God, from all eternity, determined who would be gifted with saving faith. Important doctrine, zero uncertainty for me.
Such is not the case with respect to the sign gifts. I have boodles of uncertainty. Some time ago I wrote on the very short journey I’ve taken on the issue. I went from being a leaky cessationist to a careful continuationist. That is, for decades I believed the sign gifts had ended with the apostolic age, but didn’t want to deny that God works in mysterious ways. Now I believe the sign gifts haven’t ended but that not everything that claims to be a sign gift actually is. One can, of course, be not only redeemed but a hero of the faith while embracing either view. In that sense it scores low on the relative importance scale. On the other hand, stifling the Spirit is not a good thing, nor is attributing something to the Spirit something He disavows.
Second, I have precious little confidence on the question of the proper recipients of baptism. That may surprise some as I have been in the past rather a strong proponent of paedobaptism. Now I’m not so sure. I take great comfort, however, in acknowledging that there are great thinkers on both sides of this issue. Not only that, I’ve seen people I respect move in both directions on the issue. I have ex-baptist friends and ex-paedobaptist friends alike.
Third, I am not confident in my views on the kind of church government we are called to have. I still believe in rule by a plurality of elders. What I’m less certain about is the necessity and/or virtue of connectionalism, of church governments beyond that of the local church.
Finally, for decades now I have had a short list of things I’d never want to publicly debate. The first is James White. The second is the Lord’s Day/Sabbath debate. I’ve had friends who were deeply committed to Seventh Day worship (which is embraced well beyond the Adventist church). I’ve spent hours and hours studying the issue. And haven’t reached a confident conclusion.
What these areas of uncertainty have in common is that for each one there is no definitive biblical statement one way or the other. God hasn’t left us, however, alone in the dark. We are commanded to not only believe all that the Bible says, but all that is teaches through good and necessary consequence. The question is, are any of these positions a necessary consequence of what the Bible teaches. They may be, but the journey through the syllogisms doesn’t leave me overpowered with confidence. As noted, there are redeemed and plenty smart people on all sides of all these issues. Some of them are right, and others wrong. I, I suspect, am sometimes right and sometimes wrong. And so are you.
Unity matters. However, so does diversity. Indeed, unity and diversity unite in the very nature of God. God is three persons united in one essence. The world around us fails to see how God’s creation reflects the Trinity, and the world always therefore either veers toward the imposition of the one or the disintegration of the many. It either blurs or destroys distinctives in the first case, or in the second, it fragments because, in the words of T.S. Eliot, the center cannot hold. It either dies the death of a single tone, or death by cacophony.
As such, we ought to celebrate both unity and diversity, the one and the many, three persons and one essence. God, after all, does the same. The God we worship, God in three persons, knits together the church as one body. The God we worship calls out a people where there is no more Jew or Greek. Most importantly of all, He unites us with Himself through the atoning work of His Son. On the other hand, our God is likewise the God of divisions. Even as far back as the garden of Eden we see God at work dividing. He divided day and night, land and water, man and animal. And each day He saw what He had done, both creating and dividing, and called it good.
That division hit its apex also in the garden. There God promised another division when He spoke to the serpent: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring” (Gen. 3:15). This same division comes to its ultimate fruition at the end of all time when Jesus will separate the sheep and the goats for all eternity.
Even as the serpent, from that time forward, has been busy trying to sow division among the people of God in order to destroy the unity we enjoy in the faith, so he has been busy trying to blur the chasm that separates the two seeds. He has encouraged the seed of the serpent to see themselves as God’s children when they are not. He has encouraged the seed of the woman to see themselves as at peace with all men when we are not. He has encouraged us to forget the war and to forget that those who walk among us outside the kingdom are not our kin but our enemies. Unity with them is, according to God’s judgment, an abomination.
It may well be that the worst fruit of this confusion is simply a blurring of our calling. Because we fail to see the great divide between sheep and goats, we look at the world as a neutral place. Worse still, we look at our own telos, or purpose, in neutral terms. We measure success in our lives by the same standards as those outside the kingdom, seeing our faith as something we add to our lives rather than seeing our faith as our lives. We are, in a word, worldly. We who are called to walk by the Spirit too often are one flesh with the world. We deny that we have been called out, set apart — that we are to be separate from the world, to be holy. We refuse to follow the command of the Captain of our army who told us to set aside the petty concerns of the world and to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
We will not seek first the kingdom of God until we come to realize that this kingdom is at war with the kingdom of men. God declared war in the garden in response to the attack of the serpent. At Calvary our Lord won the definitive victory, having His heel bruised even as He crushed the serpent’s head. Since Jesus walked out of His tomb victorious, our calling has been to be about the mop-up operation. He has already overcome the world, and so we, being of good cheer, go and make the victory known. We bring heaven down to earth by doing His will here as our spiritual fathers do His will there.
Of course, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. Of course, we are called to love our enemies. Of course, we are to seek, as much as is possible, to live in peace and quietness before all men. Such does not mean, of course, that we are not called to wage war. Such does not mean that we have no enemies. Such does not mean that all men are content to live in peace and quietness with us. We love our enemies by waging war. Our very peace and quietness rattles them like so much artillery bombardment. Indeed, we lose the war precisely when we lose our peace. And in turn, we fail to enjoy peace when we cease to wage war.
We who have been called out are different from the world. Our loyalty is toward another King, and our citizenship is in another kingdom. We, His body, are united together. But we are divided from the rest of the world by a chasm as wide as the east is from the west and as thin as a scarlet thread. We are one, and we are promised this victory parade:
From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast, through gates of pearl streams in the countless host, singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Alleluia! Alleluia!
It’s a question that has been asked for millenia, even making multiple appearances in the Bible itself. What if, or in statement form, I wish, I had never been born? Capra’s account of the life and impact of the fictional George Bailey is a masterpiece, the greatest Christmas movie ever and one of the greatest movies of any kind whatsoever. Clarence demonstrated a brilliance beyond his simplicity in showing George the fruit of a life unlived.
Except, of course, that it was a rather biased and inaccurate portrait. George Bailey is a fictional character with a fictional life, one devoid the all too real ravages of his own sin. The central message, that life would have been worse for the people of Bedford Falls had George Bailey never been born, is false.
The fundamental faith of those outside of the Christ is this- they have no judgment to fear because their good outweighs their bad. It doesn’t. Even if God were to weigh our filthy rags against our blots and blemishes, the blots and blemishes will always win. Even for Mother Theresa, RC Sproul Jr., RC Sproul and George Bailey. Every mother’s son of us. To look back at one’s life and sigh with contentment that one is leaving the world better than one found it is foolish pride.
Some well-meaning pro-lifers make the same mistake with one their common arguments. They will look out over the more than 60 million dead and say “Maybe we have the problems we have because we killed the ones who would have solved them. Perhaps the person who would have cured cancer was aborted, or the one who would have negotiated peace in the Middle East.” That is certainly possible. It is also possible that among the 60 million dead are a passel of Hitlers, Stalins, Maos and Neros. What is not possible, given our condition in Adam, is that any one of them, or any one of us would be a net gain for the world as the world. The world would be better off without each one of us, and every one of us.
Why then should we cherish life? Why should we give thanks for each new day? Because our lives are not about ourselves. Our lives are not about others. Our reason for being isn’t to make the world a better place. Our reason for being is to bring glory to God. While that certainly includes our giving Him worship and praise, it is far more than that. God’s worthiness to be praised is revealed in His judgment against the wicked. God’s worthiness to be praised is revealed in His grace toward the wicked. It is precisely so that He can make all things new again that we are here, we being chief of the things that need to be made new.
Clarence, for all his wisdom in choosing to show George a world without him, erred again with his last word, the inscription he left George in his copy of Tom Sawyer, “No man is a failure who has friends.” Every man, save One, is a failure. And He, praise God, is my friend.
We’ve been away for a bit. But that hasn’t kept us from meeting your podcast needs. Lisa was a guest of Women in Christian Leadership and their podcast, It’s Her Story. Give a listen as she recounts not just her faith in the Lord, but the Lord’s faithfulness to her.
It’s a bit of a tired joke, but it makes quite a good point. One man finds another on his hands and knees under a streetlight. “What are you doing down there?” he asks. “Looking for my keys” the man responds. “Did you drop them around here?” “No,” the man replies, I dropped them about fifty yards farther on, but the light is so much better here.” How easy it is to mistake that which we can know with that which we need to know.
Consider for a moment the biblical qualifications for an elder. Paul, on more than one occasion, gives us a list. An elder should, for instance, not be quarrelsome, not greedy for money. In one of his lists Paul puts down thirteen qualifications. Twelve of them are issues of character. One of them, not so much. Elders are to be “apt to teach.” Like the man looking for his keys under the streetlight, we have come to measure the qualifications of a pastor by the one quality that has some semblance of an objective measurable standard- a GPA.
Please don’t misunderstand me. Of course it is a good thing for a pastor to be able to handle the text well. The capacity to interact with the original languages can be quite helpful. A familiarity with the historical creeds and the issues the church has wrestled with over the centuries is valuable. Grasping the fundamental principles of logic can help keep a pastor on the doctrinal straight and narrow. I’ve not only been a student but a professor at the college and seminary levels, and am not ashamed for having been so.
That said, what does it say about us, and our commitment to the sufficiency of Scripture, about our capacity to see past our cultural blinders, that we see a seminary education as essential, while the Bible says not a word about seminaries at all? How well are our seminaries training us when we don’t even know to ask this fundamental question? I suspect it is because we are still caught in the grip of modernism whose sacrament has always been education. We think education is good for what ails us.
For some of us I’m sure that’s true. For most of us, however, our failures are not grounded in knowing too little, but caring too little about what we know. Ignorance is low down on the list of destructive influences in our lives, well below stubbornness, pride, and, no surprise here- quarrelsomeness and greed for money. I get that these more pressing weaknesses are often easily hidden or disguised. They must, however, be in some sense knowable or Paul would not have given us such a list.
I am certainly not suggesting that pastors must have no sin struggles. Mercy no. What I am saying is that by and large in the evangelical church those qualities we value most are not the ones the Holy Spirit tells us to value most. We have what we have because we want what we want, because we don’t submit to the Word of God. Which is why we can’t seem to find our keys.
I have two neighbors. On the east side is Mr. Jones. He’s a decent man, a loving husband, and an attentive father. He serves at the local soup kitchen at least once a month. He loves to talk to people about Jesus, and all that Jesus means to him. Indeed Jesus is Mr. Jones’ hero- he aspires to be just like him. Mr. Jones is at peace with his life. He’s content with where he is, and has every confidence about where he will spend eternity.
Mr. Smith, on the other hand, only spends time with his children every other weekend. They spend the rest of the time with their mother, his ex-wife. She divorced Smith after catching him in his affair. Mr. Smith wonders if he might soon end up visiting the local soup kitchen as well. With the child support, the cigarettes and work being so unsteady, there’s often month left after the money is gone. Mr. Smith doesn’t often like talking about Jesus. In fact, most of the time when others do he feels acutely embarrassed. He is anxious, uncertain about both the near term future, and his eternity.
Of course things could change, and I don’t pretend to have any magic glasses that can see into men’s souls. But if I had to make a guess, even a judgment, it would be this- Mr. Jones will suffer eternally the wrath of the Father. Mr. Smith will be welcomed with open arms into heaven. You see I’ve listened to Mr. Jones talk about Jesus. He’s expressed to me many a time how grateful he is for all that Jesus has done for him. Jesus has blessed his business such that it prospers. He’s blessed the man’s family, keeping it not only intact, but headed for a bright future. His boys are leaders in the local Fellowship of Christian Athletes, his daughter a peer counselor in the youth group. Mr. Jones thinks Jesus is terrific. His life wouldn’t be the same without Him.
Mr. Smith, on the other hand, is weighed down by his sins. He knows how badly he failed his wife, and in turn their children. His struggles with depression, as well as anger, he suspects, impact his lack of job security. And then there’s those accursed cigarettes. They have such a hold on him. He feels like a complete failure. Which, in turn, is why he is so often embarrassed when the conversation turns to Jesus. Mr. Smith wishes he could be more together like the people at church. He wants to be a faithful soldier of the Lord. But each Sunday he shows up feeling slovenly, his uniform besmirched with the week’s failures, stained with nicotine and regret.
Sunday, however, is where the difference shows. While Jones is confidently singing “Onward Christian Soldiers” Smith whispers with desperate hope another tune, about an amazing grace that saved a wretch like him. And, according to the Jesus Jones loves to talk about but does not know, Smith goes home justified. May we put away the folly of keeping up with the Joneses, and instead enter into the wisdom of breaking down with the Smiths.
Be sure to check back regularly. Bronchitis still have me in its grip.
James in his epistle gives us this command, “So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (1:19). Perhaps we struggle with this command because we are too swift to move past the test. We don’t slow down enough to work out what we’re commanded to here.
We know, for instance, that there are plenty of places and contexts wherein we should be eager to speak. We’re commanded to be ready to give an answer for the hope that is in us (I Peter 3:!5). We are to boldly proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. The “slow to speak” is likely best understood in the context of the rest of the verse, which focuses on anger. The speech we’re to be slow to seems to be speech that might flow out of a position of anger. Which is often when we are most eager to speak. Anger, whether just or unjust, is not conducive to deliberation. Like steam building in a pressure cooker, it wants out, now.
The first step of being slow to speak is to step back from those emotions. A wise man recognizes his own anger, and remembers that there have been times in his past where a. his anger was unjust b. or his just anger wasn’t best served by angry words. He stops, sets aside his anger and assesses the situation carefully, dispassionately. “Have I misunderstood?” “Am I being over-sensitive?” “Could there be an alternate explanation for the data that is making me angry?” “Did I wake up on the wrong side of the bed?”
If our anger remains intact after these questions, next we need to take the time to assess our goals. “What am I seeking to accomplish with my words right now?” “Are my words conducive to building up the saints?” “Is now the time for the soft answer that turns away wrath?” (Proverbs 15:1).
Honest answers to these questions are powerful tools to helping guard our relationships. If my goal is to punish with my words the one whom I believe is responsible for my anger, that’s a good sign I need to slow down. If my anger flows out of the perspective that I am of great importance and those who fail to recognize this are fools who should feel my wrath, then I need not only to slow down but to repent. The experience of anger should be a potent goad to examining my own heart and motives.
Once I am calm I’m in a better position to make my words helpful for a better relationship. I can be a peacemaker, de-escalating rather than pouring gas on the fire. I can be a herald for God’s Word rather than competition against it.
That said, it may be that after careful thought it might be fitting and necessary to express anger. David, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit writes, “Do I not hate them, O Lord, who hate You? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies (Psalm 139:21-22). When my dignity is under attack, it may be, as David said of Shimei, that it is the very voice of God (II Samuel 16). When His dignity is under attack, however, we are called to arms, and to voices. Even then, however, we must slow down at least long enough to make sure we aren’t confusing our own dignity with His.
It was an astonishing conclusion, though I don’t remember exactly when it came to me. For many years as I grew up I looked forward to the day when I’d be grown up. My assumption was that I’d cross some clear, luminescent line when I’d turn into a grown up. For some years I worried that I was behind. Eventually the eureka moment came. Not when I became a grown up, but when I realized that moment would never come. I’m a grandparent nearly a dozen times over yet I’m still the same kid who believed all was right with the world if I had a pocketful of bubblegum.
While we are called to mature, the wisdom of experience tells us that much of us stays with us all our days. Consider fencing. No, not sword play, but safe play. We have been taught that little children crave the security that comes from limitations. Put a passel of tikes in a sandbox and their imaginations will take them around the world. Put those same wee ones in an open field and they become fearful. Even from birth babies are more at ease bound burrito-like in a blanket than let loose.
What if we never outgrow that? What if there will always be something comforting to us in limitations imposed on us? What if, from birth to death we flourish best when confined? What if the reason we never leave childhood and enter adulthood is because we are now and always will be His children? And what if our security is bound up in being bound up inside the fence of His good law?
The truth is that outside the fence is destruction and death. What looks to us, in moments of temptation, as greener grass is the poison that drove our first parents, when they were still new, east of Eden. Outside the fence we are outside the protection of our Father. Inside the fence we are ever under His protective watch.
As this year draws to a close we enter another season of resolutions. Some of us will resolve to lose the pounds that found us during our feasting. Some will resolve to shed this vice, and others to cultivate that virtue. There’s not a thing in the world wrong with that. The only trouble is when we spend our energy so focused on shoring up the south fence that we fail to see the fence has toppled to the north, east and west. That is, what we need is not merely to improve in this area or that. What we need is to resolve to love and obey His law. All of it. We need to understand that God’s law isn’t Him capriciously spoiling all our fun, but is Him tenderly leading us in the safe paths of righteousness. His law is good, a gift, a blessing, a reflection of His glory.
Whether you are young or old, whether you, like me, have the aches and grey hairs of the aged with the uncertainty of childhood all in one package, as we enter together into a new year we get one year closer to home, one year closer to both the fullness of maturity and sitting in our heavenly Father’s lap. Give thanks.
