Living in a World Gone Mad: Lovers of Death

Posted on September 26, 2024 by RC

Sometimes the Bible says things with such simple clarity that it shakes us from our slumbers. Evil’s presence has numbed us, making us miss the obvious. We believe, for instance, that we do not have an established religion in our country. Yet we pay taxes to pay priests to teach our children the religion of the nation. Though we call it property tax for teachers at public schools indoctrinating children in the love of State it is everything that defines a religion.

God does not say that those that hate Him are misguided, needing to be educated, slightly off the mark. He says instead “All those who hate Me love death (Prov. 8:36). This is not poetic rhetoric, a mere metaphor. It’s a cold, hard fact. Anything less than agreeing with God here is head-in-the-sand defiance, a purposeful denial of the wickedness of the wicked. That He has said it is more than enough proof that it is true.

If, however, you still doubt, consider this. Those who hate God, according to Romans 1, are prone to embrace the perversion of homosexuality but also the barrenness of homosexuality. Those who hate God tend to be those who insist that there are too many humans on the planet some of whom plot to reduce the population.

Nothing illustrates such more than the bloodlust God’s enemies have toward the unborn. Being “pro-choice” is no mere policy position. The murder of the unborn is a bloody, unholy sacrifice, no different than ancient sacrifices made to Molech. Given their relative innocence, unborn babies are those of God’s image bearers that bear the closest resemblance to their maker. Which is why His enemies love to kill them.

These lovers of death may behave politely in public. They may work right beside us. They may speak at either political party’s national convention. They may, or may not be self-conscious practitioners of satanic rituals. They may or may not be in conscious communication with the demonic realm. What they are not is just like God’s children, but with a different strategy to reach the same goal.

We prove ourselves to be not as harmless as doves but as useless as pigeons when we lose sight of this biblical reality. Yes, we are to love our enemies. Yes, they too bear the remains of the image of God. But we must remember that they are our enemies and hate the God whose image they bear. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. We enter into battle wielding not the sword of Peter but the sword of the Lord, His Word.

We fail to love our neighbor when we fail to believe what God tells us about him. We likewise diminish the horror of what we once all were. We too were haters of God and lovers of death. Through His grace, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 8:5). They are far worse than we think. As are we. God give us the grace and wisdom to love You, and to love those who hate You.

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Lisa and I on Perseverance; Scandal!; Devil’s Folly & More

Posted on September 25, 2024 by RC

This week’s Jesus Changes Everything Podcast

Posted in 10 Commandments, Biblical Doctrines, Big Eva, church, cyberspace, ethics, Jesus Changes Everything, Lisa Sproul, Month of Sundays, Nostalgia, RC Sproul, RC Sproul JR, Sacred Marriage, scandal, That 70s Kid | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Lisa and I on Perseverance; Scandal!; Devil’s Folly & More

Murdering Miracles- Unraveling What God Is Knitting Together

Posted on September 24, 2024 by RC

It is, in one sense, a simple enough question to answer. When you remember that we are wicked enough to murder our own children it makes sense that we are also wicked enough to not be terribly concerned about the murder of children. Thus the answer to the question- why are Christians so profoundly unmoved by the murder of babies?- is this- sin. We are outside of wombs and therefore safe, and struggle to have compassion on those who are in danger.

I believe, however, that beneath this ultimate reason is an important proximate reason that is all too easy to miss. We have for over 50 years been arguing with the world that the unborn are babies. Of course everyone already knew that. Some just didn’t want to admit it. The trouble now is that both sides agree that the unborn are babies. And both sides agree that babies are the natural result of a man and a woman joining together.

But babies are not the natural result of a man and a woman joining together. Indeed babies are not the natural result of anything. They are profoundly supernatural. While it is true that God is sovereign over all things, He typically works through secondary means. With babies, however, God seems to take a proprietary interest, to insist that this is His call and His work. He is the one who opens and closes the womb. He is the one who blesses with the gift of children (Psalm 127). He is the one who responds to the prayers of Elizabeth and Hannah.

Is it possible that one reason Christians are insufficiently concerned about abortion is precisely because we think babies are merely natural? It is a terrible thing to kill a baby. But how much worse is it to kill a baby that God made? And if God made them all, then each killing is a tragedy of the deepest hue. We are killing miracles.

Our perspective on abortion is born not merely of our perspective on the ontology of the unborn but the history of the unborn. It is one thing to say of a baby in the womb, “This child, like all children, bears the image of God.” It is altogether another to say, “This child, like all children, is a direct creation of the true and living God.”

The Bible, of course, tells us that each child is knit together in the womb, not by natural forces, not by the outworking of DNA, but by God (Psalm 139:13). Abortion is the unraveling of what God is knitting together. Which ought to unravel us. We are not merely witnesses to a wrongdoing. We are not merely averting our eyes from a tragedy. Rather we are snuffing out the very life God is about the business of growing, or being indifferent over others doing the same.

Our God is not a distant God. He is at work. May we begin our growth in grace by confessing our wickedness in working against His work. May His miracle of our rebirth make us more zealous to protect the miracle of the birth of all He is knitting together.

Posted in 10 Commandments, abortion, Biblical Doctrines, church, ethics, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, RC Sproul JR, repentance, scandal, sexual confusion, sovereignty | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Live Bible Study Tonight- Philippians Two, Ode to Joy

Posted on September 23, 2024 by RC

Tonight we continue our study, considering chapter two of the book of Philippians. All are welcome to our home at 7 est, or you may join us for dinner at 6:15. We will also stream the study at Facebook, RC-Lisa Sproul. We hope you’ll join us.

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What’s wrong with house churches? Crowning Ourselves

Posted on September 23, 2024 by RC

Not a thing, if we mean by “house church” a church that meets in a house. One can make all manner of arguments about the best architectural forms for public worship, but no one, I suspect, would suggest that this kind of building or that is, in itself, sinful. The issue with house churches then isn’t with the house, but with the church, or lack thereof.

There is a rather great gap between a group of people who are under authority gathering together to worship the living God while meeting in a house, and a home wherein the father, or the parents, decide for themselves that they are a church. The one has biblical precedent and standing. The other is rank rebellion, and a recipe for disaster.

I understand the temptation. It’s not often easy to find a church that does well what it’s called to do. It can get frustrating showing up Sunday after Sunday and being gawked at for keeping your children together during the service. It can be maddening when the pastor keeps preaching against judging others, all because he suspects you of judging him.

Wouldn’t it be so much nicer, so much safer, so much more comfortable, not to mention, so much more convenient, if we did it ourselves? They told us we couldn’t do school at home, and we proved them wrong. Why not just do church at home as well?

Because we all need to be under authority. Because there is no one on the planet to whom God has said, “You just answer to Me. No need to bother with any human authority. They, after all, are all sinners.” No, we all need to be under visible, earthly authority, for our own protection, and for the protection of our families.

That protection needs to be publicly affirmed, and measurably administered. That is, I need to be in a place where a specific group of men, called to this critical role, can confront me on my sin, and command me to repent. Hebrews 13:17 commands that we “Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give an account.”

How often have well-intentioned Christians left the local church because it failed to honor the Bible, and came up with this program and that, or failed to encourage modesty, or had a praise band, and those whose consciences were too tender to stay, end up in churches where there are no elders and deacons as the Scripture clearly and expressly commands?

Friends, this problem is rampant in certain circles. And here is why. The world told us that we should only one or two children. We didn’t listen. Our parents told us we should not homeschool our children. We didn’t listen. The elders told us that our children should be in Sunday School and the youth service. We didn’t listen.

Now remember that I not only believe children are a blessing, that we ought to homeschool them, and that the family ought to be together at church, but believe that actually doing these things is the right decision. But isn’t it just possible that it is also evidence that we have a hard time with authority? Isn’t it possible that we have reached the conclusion that wisdom dies with us? Isn’t it possible that we will have no one to rule over us, despite the plain teaching of the Bible that we must?

What we really need is more humility. We need a deeper understanding of our own sin, more than a deeper knowledge of the sins of the saints at the traditional church down the road. We need a consciousness of our own deceitful hearts, such that we recognize our need to be under authority.

This is the thirteenth installment of an ongoing series of pieces here on the nature and calling of the church. Stay tuned for more. Remember also that we at Sovereign Grace Fellowship meet this Sunday September 29 at 10:30 AM at our new location, at our beautiful farm at 12811 Garman Road, Spencerville, IN. Please come join us.

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Jesus Christ Superstar: The Folly Of Pop Icon-ography

Posted on September 20, 2024 by RC

The biggest oxymoron in Hollywood may well be this one: Bad publicity. In our age, what they say about you no longer matters, as long as they are talking about you. Face time is what it’s all about. In the church, of course, we have drunk deeply of the same wisdom. We too bow before the god of visibility, and so believe that it is the ticket to power.

We seem to think our job as Christians is to push our way into the limelight, and then light a candle for Jesus. Thus our football heroes “evangelize” the lost by bowing in the end zone, and our home run hitters point heavenward, each giving their “props” to the man upstairs. We’ve descended a long way in marketing Jesus. We began by contextualizing Him on Broadway. When that was deemed too highbrow, we packaged Him in pop songs. When that didn’t change the world, we got more desperate and decided to try tattoos and bracelets.

We might want to consider the distinction between the biblical doctrine of exaltation, and its pop-culture counterpart, or should I say, counterfeit. Were we able to bring Jesus into his Andy Warhol “fifteen minutes of fame” it not only would not be the good news, but would be bad news. In the paradoxical realm of the kingdom of God, the smaller you are, the bigger you are. In the paradoxical realm of pop culture, the bigger you are, the smaller you are. The fastest track to obscurity and pitiful insignificance is fame. Soon Jesus will be so ten minutes ago.

Pop culture icons are both pop, and icons. That is, they, in order to become popular, must leave behind all their rough edges. Jesus, to be the next big thing, is reduced down to an image on a t-shirt. Left behind is the very meaning of the cross. But that t-shirt in turn becomes an icon, not because we would worship it, but because, like an icon, it serves some other purpose. Jesus-as-decoration may get Him some press, but it, in turn, turns Him into not just a means rather than an end, but the most petty of means. He becomes a fashion accessory. In a bizarre conflation of the second and third commandments, we take His image in vain.

Jesus’ exaltation, on the other hand, wasn’t front page news. As He stepped forth from the grave, there was no TMZ crew there to meet Him. No one interrupted regularly scheduled programming to give us an update. People didn’t put out a special double issue to give adequate coverage of the event. In the forty days that separated His resurrection from His ascension, He did appear to hundreds of people, but never to thousands. Though there were plenty to attest to the reality of the resurrection, it never sold out the Jerusalem Amphitheater.

He didn’t move from obscurity to fame, but from humiliation to exaltation. What changed wasn’t His standing in the ratings, but His standing before His Father. He sought, and received honor in the one right place, the one place that it couldn’t be seen.

There will come a day, of course, when these two will converge. At the end of His exaltation, He will be front page news. At that great day, people will either cry out for Jesus Himself, and not His image, to cover them, or people will cry out for the mountains to cover them. And when the judgment has ceased from the King, the people will judge for themselves. Each of them will cry out, begrudgingly or in great joy: “Jesus Christ is Lord.” The point isn’t that He will be universally recognized, something pop culture can get us close to, but that He will be universally honored, something that only comes from on high.

For now we must learn to tell the difference between letting His light shine before men, and casting our Pearl of Great Price before swine. When we seek to live our lives in quiet obedience, then we will be exalted. That exaltation won’t come as a spot on Oprah’s couch, but as a mansion in heaven, something far more glorious, but far more out of sight.

Our path is the same as His — the simple path of humiliation. There is no way around it. If we would be lifted up, we must be brought low. If we would live, we must die. The only way to gain abundant life is to pick up our cross.

Pop culture, like a cathouse, isn’t something to be redeemed, but something to be destroyed. It isn’t something to be won, but something to be defeated. Christ will be exalted fully when all pretenders to His throne are brought low. And He will share His glory with none other.

Posted in 10 Commandments, Big Eva, cyberspace, Devil's Arsenal, evangelism, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, RC Sproul JR | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Joy in All Times, All Places, All Circumstances

Posted on September 19, 2024 by RC

Just because someone says you’re guilty of something doesn’t mean you are. The world is swift to lay a charge that we are “judgmental.” They do so any time we seek to remind them of what God says about this behavior or that. Sometimes, however, an accusation sticks.

Consider the accusation made against Reformed people that we are arrogant. That one sticks. Some believe it’s because we believe in election, that we think we’re special because God chose us. The truth is we are arrogant because we begin as totally depraved. And we don’t have victory over our pride until we die.

The Reformed are also considered to be among the most joyless in the kingdom, which I can’t make heads or tails of. We, after all, if our ideology has anything to distinguish it, affirm with vigor that God is sovereign. Over all things. How then could we be anything but joyful?

God in His sovereignty does ordain in our lives various and sundry challenges, what the Puritans called “hard providences.” We do not deny that they are hard, that sorrow is not real, that mourning is out of bounds. What we affirm, on the other hand, is that every bit of hardship is under His sovereign control. We affirm it exists for our good and His glory. The very things that we allow to diminish our joy are the engines that drive the two greatest things we ought to seek, our good and His glory.

Paul wrote his epistle to the church at Philippi while he was in prison. He expressed how much he longed to be with them. This is not the epistle written after winning the Super Bowl or after receiving a clean bill of health. Yet, in its four short chapters Paul used 16 times some variation of the word translated in our Bibles, joy. Our call to joy is not some unnamed tributary on the way to the bay of our sanctification. It is instead the Mississippi.

Some Christians measure their spiritual maturity by how many of the really bad sins they don’t do. Others measure by the size and erudition of their own theological library. Still others measure by the sacrifices they made for others. Not committing bad sins, learning theology, serving others, of course, are all good things. But wouldn’t we avoid the sin of bitterness, learn the lesson of His sovereignty and serve others if we walked in the joy of the Lord?

Joy is not something we need to wait on. It is not the fruit of our circumstances, but the fruit of His Spirit, who guides us, directs us and indwells us. As long as we walk out the gospel we can be assured that unbelievers will be offended. The gospel itself is an offense, the aroma of death to those who do not believe. Joy, however, is an invitation, the light that shines before men. If we believed, from head to toe, that He is able, and that He is for us, we might not only change ourselves into His image, but change the world.

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Ode to Joy- Our Bible Study on Philippians 1

Posted on September 18, 2024 by RC

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Home Beautiful; Pants on Fire; Ye Shall Be As Gods; and More

Posted on September 18, 2024 by RC

This week’s Jesus Changes Everything Podcast

Posted in 10 Commandments, abortion, apologetics, Biblical Doctrines, covid-19, In the Beginning, Jesus Changes Everything, Lisa Sproul, Month of Sundays, philosophy, politics, post-modernism, RC Sproul JR, Sacred Marriage | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Home Beautiful; Pants on Fire; Ye Shall Be As Gods; and More

Putting On the Full Armor of God, A Defense

Posted on September 17, 2024 by RC

The devil, we are told, is more crafty than any of the beasts of the field. It is likely the zenith of craftiness, when you are at war, to persuade your enemy that there is no war. We remember that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, and the devil leads us to this deadly conclusion- therefore the war isn’t real. There has been a fierce war going on from Eden between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.

The Bible, which has every true answer to answer every lie of the devil, reminds us time and again that the war is real. Paul tells us:

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; (Ephesians 6: 10-17).

His wiles have led us to believe that only people given to fits of holy laughter, people knocked down by Benny Hinn’s jacket are engaged in what they think is spiritual warfare. The rest of us, while willing to acknowledge that demons exist, think they left the planet in the first century. He wants us to disregard Paul’s warning, suggesting that if we do so we won’t look like kooks to our neighbors. Paul, on the other hand, wants us to stand, and knows just what it takes.

We need truth. Not my truth or your truth. We need true truth, God’s truth to free up our legs for battle. We need the righteousness of Christ to repel the accusations of the slanderer. Our hearts are protected by the righteousness we did not earn. We need our feet beautified by the gospel of peace, making us immovable on the one hand, and unstoppable on the other. We need faith, to believe Him and every one of His precious promises, for such puts out the discouragement of the devil. We protect our minds with the helmet of salvation and attack the gates of hell with God’s Word unsheathed.

Reformation is nothing more or less than waging the war for the kingdom. We do so by faith, and with good cheer, knowing He has already overcome the world. We make manifest, by His grace and in His power, the glory, the beauty and the wonder of His eternal reign.

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