How can I know if my church is preaching the gospel?

Posted on March 31, 2025 by RC

We who affirm the doctrine of total depravity often don’t believe we are totally depraved. It’s true enough that there are institutions and individuals who flat deny the doctrine. Then there are those who both affirm and deny. There is a yawning gap between these two concepts, “All men in their natural state are at enmity of God and are inclined only away from God, having all parts of their humanity impacted by sin” and “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.” The former is an accurate description of a sound and biblical doctrine. The latter is a needful cry from all of us.

This same disconnect, I fear, infects our understanding of the gospel. Again there are plenty of institutions and individuals who simply deny the gospel. Then there are those who both affirm and deny it. Because there is a yawning gap between these two concepts, “Jesus lived a perfect life and died an atoning death, both of which are imputed to those who, by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, rest in that finished work alone” and “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.” The former is an accurate description of a sound and biblical doctrine. The latter is a needful cry from all of us.

The sad thing is that so many churches make just that mistake. They are careful to be careful, even zealous to be zealous in defense of what the Bible teaches. That’s a good thing. Who could be opposed to that? That mindset, however, absent a heart broken by the reality of our personal sins, absent a joyful response to His victory over our sin and the grave, absent a living confidence that we are the beloved children of our heavenly Father, misses the heart of the gospel.

Without this one may have a church that teaches and defends the gospel, but not have one that preaches the gospel. One may have a church that is training lips to confess the truth but teaching hearts to trust in their superior understanding of His provision rather than in His provision. One may have a church with its guns aimed at the faulty teaching of those not present rather than at the faults and sins resident in the hearts and minds of the congregation.

Your church is preaching the gospel if you walk out the door each Lord’s Day rejoicing to have been redeemed, rescued. Your church is preaching the gospel if you walk out the door each Lord’s Day more eager to tell unbelievers the good news than you are to argue the finer points with other believers. You are in a gospel church when you walk in the door crying out, “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner” and go home justified and joyful.

Never trade secondary distinctives, music styles, preferred programs or demographics for the one thing that matters, the faithful preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.


This is the thirty-eighth 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 April 6 at 10:30 AM at our new location, at our beautiful farm at 112811 Garman Road, Spencerville, IN. Please come join us. Also note that tonight we begin a new Bible study on issues dividing the church, tonight considering sovereignty and free will.

Posted in Ask RC, assurance, Biblical Doctrines, church, Doctrines of Grace, evangelism, grace, justification, kingdom, preaching, RC Sproul JR, repentance, theology | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Kingdoms in Conflict, Enemies in Disguise

Posted on March 28, 2025 by RC

“Theological liberalism no longer announces itself with old men in big steeples but disguises itself in young men in skinny jeans and glasses.”

I tweeted the above some time ago. From all appearances, based on the responses I received, theological liberals were not offended. Old men were not offended. Big steeples were not offended. Young men in skinny jeans and glasses were offended. It was not, of course, my intention to put down either skinny jeans or glasses. The issue I am trying to address isn’t the nature of the disguise, but the existence of the disguise.

I have been blessed to live through the great migration out of the mainline churches. There was a time when millions of professing believers worshiped in local bodies where the pastor did not believe Jesus was raised from the dead. When the majority of seminary students were taught by professors who did not believe that Jesus was born of a virgin. Those seminaries and churches are moribund. In my lifetime the numbers, the vitality, the strength has shifted to evangelical churches. And so I face the temptation to think that the battle is over, to dance as we sing, “Ding, dong, the witch is dead.”

The devil, however, is not only crafty, but persistent. Craftiness and persistence join hands as I am coming to understand that reports of the death of theological liberalism are greatly exaggerated. Theological liberalism has learned how to hide, how to disguise itself. We once knew how to recognize it. Typically we’d find it in old, ornate church buildings. Typically we’d find it in old, established denominations. Typically we’d find it in old, respectable men.

These, of course, still do exist. Though the pews tend to be empty, the pulpits, sustained by bequests of the departed faithful, remain full. But more often liberalism in our day tends to be nuanced. Instead of angry denunciations of the unrespectable fundamentals we now have gentle, alternative narratives. Instead of vituperations against our obstinate know-nothingism we receive invitations to join the young, the uncertain and the post-evangelical.

For all the differences, however, what matters is the same- unbelief posing as belief. In both instances the Word of God is something we judge, rather than something we are judged by. In both instances, preaching flows out of the imagination of the preacher, rather than the unshakable, uncouth, unpopular Word. In both instances we are invited to belong to an exclusive club with all its rights and privileges. All we have to do is sell our souls. Gentle accommodation and embracing of the wisdom of the world is more alluring, more dangerous and therefore more wicked than angry accommodation.

The solution to either betrayal is the trustworthiness of our Lord. We must learn to love to tell that old, old story. We need to confess that Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, came to save sinners, that there is no other name under heaven by which a man must be saved. That He came not to abolish the law but to fulfill. That He suffered the wrath of the Father that was due to us, and that all those who will not repent and turn to Him will suffer the wrath of the Father for eternity.

We need, in short, to continue that fight which began in Eden, and which will end when He returns again to judge the quick and the dead. We must fight for, and through the gospel of our Lord.


This Monday evening we begin a new Bible study considering issues currently dividing the church, issues of import. We’ll consider complementarianism vs. egalitarianism, continuationism vs. cessationism, biblical sexual ethics vs. worldly sexual ethics and more. Please join us at our home at 7:00 (or come early, 6:15 and we’ll give you dinner). Or, join us live on Facebook Live, RC-Lisa Sproul. We hope you’ll join us,

Posted in announcements, apologetics, Bible Study, Biblical Doctrines, church, Devil's Arsenal, inerrancy, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, post-modernism, RC Sproul JR, resurrection, worship | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Amazing Grace, Common Grace And What They Have in Common

Posted on March 27, 2025 by RC

It’s such a shame. We allow ourselves, when any blessing goes to eleven, to lose sight of the blessing it was at one. We are rightly amazed by His redeeming grace, that saved a wretch like me. We ought also be amazed by that grace that we dismissively call “common.” It is a good thing to distinguish these two kinds of grace. A bad thing to lose sight of that which they have in common, unmerited favor.

As I type I am chewing a bit of dried mango. I confess that, because it’s been coated with a bit of sugar, that it’s not a kale salad. Neither, however, is it a hot fudge sundae. It brings various nutrients into my body, fueling me for part of the day. But it is also delicious, delightful, divine. No it’s not God. But it is His gift, which I do not deserve. Unmerited favor, available for believers and unbelievers alike.

We not only could, but should, catalogue the innumerable such gifts we and our unbelieving neighbors enjoy. Sunshine, songbirds, and sweaters. Air conditioning, antibiotics and aluminum. Barbequed meats, boiled peanuts and baked brie. And like a jaded and sullen teenager we walk through this cornucopia of pleasures thinking nothing of it. We’re so busy grumbling about what we don’t have we miss out on what we do have.

What is heartbreaking is that we, recipients of His redeeming grace, are nearly as likely to miss His common grace as those who receive His common grace alone. Romans 1 reminds us we in our natural state do not acknowledge Him nor are we thankful (1:21). Despite being indwelt by His Spirit, we carry this sin into our new life in Him.

We are numb, dull of senses. We are dwarves in paradise who think themselves locked in a dark and stinking stable. The God we by nature flee from, hate, refuse to acknowledge, feeds us, cares for us, gives us life that we might heed His call to repent. He gives us snowflakes and raindrops, blue skies and cool breezes, sunrises and sunsets. He gives us sushi and ice cream, sausage and farm fresh eggs.

We who have received His redeeming grace have also received a profoundly potent invitation. He invites us to ask Him to bless us with wisdom, and gives to all liberally without finding fault (James 1:5). So let’s ask Him for the wisdom to see and give thanks for all that He has already blessed us with. For the wisdom to keep ever before us the shame of what we have earned, and the abundance of what we have been given. May our very faces, beaming with joyful gratitude, be the very light that draws in those who were chosen from before time.

Posted in RC Sproul JR | Comments Off on Amazing Grace, Common Grace And What They Have in Common

Final Great Commandment Study, Who Is My Neighbor?

Posted on March 26, 2025 by RC

Posted in "race", 10 Commandments, Bible Study, Biblical Doctrines, church, grace, parables, RC Sproul JR, theology | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Final Great Commandment Study, Who Is My Neighbor?

Power of the Tongue; Renewing Our Minds and More

Posted on March 26, 2025 by RC

From our home on the range, where seldom is heard a discouraging word. Saddle up and listen up. It might do you some good.

This week’s Jesus Changes Everything Podcast

Posted in "race", church, Devil's Arsenal, In the Beginning, Jesus Changes Everything, Lisa Sproul, Month of Sundays, RC Sproul JR, Sacred Marriage | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Power of the Tongue; Renewing Our Minds and More

Rebels Without a Cause: Fighting the World With Its Weapons

Posted on March 25, 2025 by RC

It was Marx who argued that, rather than man shaping economic realities, it was the economic realities that shape man. Despite his manifold and manifest follies, he had something of a point here. Setting aside for a moment the chicken and the egg issue, wouldn’t hard times, for instance, give rise to strong willed and stiff backed men? Wouldn’t economic blessing tempt us to softness?

Might this be why Agur cries out in Proverbs 30 “Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, ‘Who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God” (verses 8-9). Doesn’t it make sense that the greatest generation, the one that made so many sacrifices during World War II, was likewise the generation raised in the heat of the Great Depression? Doesn’t it make sense that the post-war prosperity of the next generation would give rise to whining hippies?

Elbow Room

The nature of colonization and westward expansion in our early history would create or attract, a peculiar mindset. People content to collect a paycheck by pushing papers or stamping out widgets need not apply. American individualism didn’t arrive out of the American experience de nova. Nor from the writings of Horatio Alger. Rather it sprung from the hard scrabble of the frontier and the prairie. It was forged in the cold tundra of winters. Uncharted territory never opens wide before the effete, but challenges the hearts of men.

That economic reality in turn shaped the artistic reality, America as a nation of lone wolves. James Fennimore Cooper brought us the Leatherstocking Tales, a collection of novels about a frontier hero. Natty Bumpo was Daniel Boone before Daniel Boone. He lived off the land, did right by his neighbors, but aspired mostly to be left alone. That Daniel Boone was real enough doesn’t explain our country’s abiding interest in him. He was a hero to us because he went out on his own and built a life for himself.

Mark Twain continued the same pattern as Huck Finn only begins his adventures as he heads west, on his own, to make his mark. That Holden Caufield inhabits the city and spends his sophomoric days whining doesn’t change that he too is the lone wolf, alone, with no body to catch the body falling through the rye.

Whaddya Got?

Of course, truth be told, we have by now virtually run out of frontiers. In turn we aren’t exactly overrun with opportunities for vision quest, for soul-shaping heroism. But that doesn’t mean we have run out of rebels. Marlon Brando at one point virtually owned the franchise. Stanley Kowalski, of the torn t-shirt, may have been torn between two women in A Streetcar Named Desire, but he was yet a man on his own.

In The Wild Ones Brando played the leader of a motorcycle gang. They blow into a small town, where a waitress asks Brando’s character, “Johnny, what are you rebelling against?” With his trademark sneer Brando replies, “Whaddya got?” James Dean would later be but a pale imitation.

To Be is To Be on TV

The pattern is only now beginning to fade, but for all the wrong reasons. The modern world is regimented, a well-oiled machine. Naturally the hero longs to escape such a prison, to rebel not against nothing, but against everything. But in the postmodern world, the only answer we can give Johnny is, “Nothing.” The only prison the would-be rebel must escape is the inescapable reality that there are no prisons. There are no laws to break in a lawless culture, no taboos to transcend when the only taboo is to hold on to taboos. All we have left is the aching desire to be seen, to get on camera.

Breaking Free

In the Matrix movies, Neo, the new man, had to discover that he wasn’t in a postmodern world, but still just a cog in a machine, so that he could in turn set himself, and others free. He had to discover that there actually was a reality before he could break free of it. And once free, they would be right back where we’re starting from.

Fish Swimming Upstream

Which is why we must be careful. How easy it is to feed ourselves on these images from the world around us, as an inspiration to rebel against the world around us. We are rebels with a cause, but sadly we are more excited about being rebels than we are about the cause. We are Jesus Freaks who are more interested in being freaks than we are in Jesus.

How worldly we are when we boldly, like any hero from Bumpo to Neo, stand against the tide of the world, so that we can be heroes. When we do such we are not only not swimming upstream, but are being tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. When we boldly bring forth a new paradigm, or when we boldly fight for the old paradigm, I’m afraid we too often are looking at ourselves in the mirror to see how bold we look.

Our Hero

To be counter-cultural it isn’t enough to fight the culture with the culture’s tools. We must instead fight the culture as Jesus would have us do. We are called, though one can hardly expect to receive garlands and have folk songs written about those who do such, to live in peace and quietness with all men, as much as is possible. To be counter-cultural is to stop worrying about how we look, and to start worrying about Whom we obey. Our hero must be He who obeyed His Father, even to death on the cross.

Posted in abortion, Biblical Doctrines, Devil's Arsenal, ethics, Heroes, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, persecution, philosophy, post-modernism, RC Sproul JR, wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Study Concludes Tonight- The Greatest Commandment

Posted on March 24, 2025 by RC

Tonight we conclude exploring the greatest commandment, asking, “who is my neighbor.” All are welcome in our home at 6:15 eastern for dinner, and for the study itself at 7:00. The study will be live-streamed on Facebook Live, RC-Lisa Sproul. We hope you’ll join us.

Posted in "race", announcements, Bible Study, Biblical Doctrines, church, ethics, kingdom, parables, RC Sproul JR, theology | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Study Concludes Tonight- The Greatest Commandment

Is the church getting worse? Dreaming Dreams

Posted on March 24, 2025 by RC

Because we are given to complaining, we need to be reminded to give thanks. Complaining comes naturally to us. Giving thanks is a supernatural activity. Consider, for a moment, our propensity to complain about the state of the church. In Reformed circles we have far too many “whispering Calvinists,” men in the pulpits of Reformed churches who affirm the system of doctrine found in the Westminster Confession, but whose preaching seems unaffected by that system.

On the other side of the spectrum we have the cranky Reformed. These are men who preside over bitty little congregations of bitty little hearts. They spend their time and energy sifting through the subtle theological nuances of their enemies, other Reformed pastors. It’s not a pretty picture.

We would be wise, however, to remember that once, not too long ago, there was no Reformed world to complain about. Outside of Grand Rapids, the mecca of the Dutch Reformed, and the greater Philadelphia area, where a then very young Westminster Seminary sent its grads, seventy-five years ago the only Bible believing Presbyterians you could find were fundamentalists given to dispensational eschatology. And even they were hard to find. That we have big troubles in the Reformed world is the result of now having a big Reformed world. And that is something to give thanks for.

The same principle applies to the church at large. How hard is it to find something to complain about in the evangelical church? Turn on Christian television. Turn on Christian radio. Pick up your average evangelical magazine. Attend a conference. Chances are you will find a hodge-podge of squishy, feel-good goo-gah. You will find men in pulpits who not only don’t teach the Reformed faith, but won’t teach the plain teaching of the Bible. You are more likely to find the spirit of Madison Avenue at work than the Holy Spirit.

Once again, however, we need to remember that not long ago the evangelical church was a tiny backwater institution, dwarfed to insignificance by big churches overcrowded with parishioners who did not know or did not care that their pastor did not believe Jesus was raised from the dead. While there is great room for growth in the evangelical church, praise God we live in an age where it is the mainline churches that are insignificant shells.

Might we be still more grateful if we were to look back to that church which has so radically departed from the faith. We were once a part of the one true church known as Israel, the people of God. While our fathers may have worshipped in mainline mausoleums, our spiritual great-great grandfathers gave over the worship of the living God for the worship of the Baals- over and over again.

Read through our family story and we will find there repeated ad nauseum, “And King So and So did not fear God but established high places throughout the land… Then King So and So II, like his father before him, did not humble himself before the Lord, but welcomed the priests of Baal to his table.”

Apostasy wasn’t a surprise to the children of Israel; it was a way of life. Over and over God sent foreign lands to oppress His people, that they might turn to Him in repentance. Time and again God sent His prophets to call His bride back to fidelity. And then something amazing happened. God sent the prophet Joel. He too spoke against the sins of Israel. He too lamented the judgment of God. Famine would come. The Day of the Lord was at hand, a day of darkness and gloom. A nation would come in conquest like none that had come before:

“The earth quakes before them; the heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. The Lord utters his voice before his army, for his camp is exceedingly great; he who executes his word is powerful. For the day of the Lord is great and very awesome; who can endure it?” (Joel 2:10-11).

God calls His people to repentance, promising to forgive them, and to restore them. But then He makes this astonishing promise:

“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophecy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit” (2:28-29).

This is a promise of a whole new world. For all our failures and weaknesses as the modern church, we are the church indwelt by the Holy Spirit. For all our infidelities, and flirtations with the world, we will remain as the bride. Institutions will come and go, but the bride of Christ will never turn away. She will be spotted and wrinkled, but she will have within her the living Spirit of God.

This promise was inaugurated at Pentecost, and is still coming to pass in our own day. We are the people of God, but with this difference. We are His people, indwelt and empowered by His Spirit. We dream dreams and we see visions.

The Spirit that indwells us is at work driving far from us the spirit of grumbling and complaining. He is teaching us to give thanks, and we would be wise to begin by giving thanks that He is teaching us. We should be dreaming this, a dream that, for all her weaknesses and failures, the church will grow ever more faithful. Our vision should be forward looking, driven by gratitude and hope. This is why the Father spoke these words through Joel. This is why the Son told us that it was better for us that He should ascend. This is why He sent His Spirit, that we would rejoice and give thanks.

We live in the new and improved. Our calling is to make the new newer still, and the improved still more improved. We march from victory to victory. And in the end we will dance, bride and Groom together, forever and ever.

This is the thirty-seventh 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 March 30 at 10:30 AM at our new location, at our beautiful farm at 112811 Garman Road, Spencerville, IN. Please come join us.

Posted in RC Sproul JR | 2 Comments

Mourning, Dancing and the Hope in Between

Posted on March 21, 2025 by RC

Paul tells us that it is right and appropriate, in times of hardship, that we should mourn. Hardship, though it be for our good and His glory, is still hardship. It is hard. And so we mourn. But, Paul tells us, we do not mourn like the world. They mourn without hope, while we mourn with hope. The two dance together.

There is an immediate and sound deduction we can reach here. Why would our mourning differ from the world around us? We know where we are going. We know what end is in store for us. Any sadness or hardship that we experience is, on any appropriate scale, brief and mild. Our suffering, after all, cannot be compared with the eternal weight of glory (Romans 8:18). The suffering of those outside the kingdom is but a prelude, a small taste of an eternity of agony. Our suffering, on the other hand, is but a speed bump on the way to Glory Road.

What we must not miss, however, is the reason for our different ends. Our grief is infused with hope not merely because we have a bright future. Instead our grief is infused with hope because of our past. We look forward, in the midst of our grief, in hope, because we look backward, in the midst of our grief, with joyful gratitude.

My future is bright because the wrath that I am owed has already been spent. The difference is in the cross of Christ. Whatever sorrow God calls me to go through, He calls me to go through for the express purpose of remolding me into the image of His Son. Judgment lies behind me. Glory lies before me. Because of Jesus.

Stephen, while he was being martyred, saw heaven open up. He beheld the glory of Christ, as He stood, a witness for this witness. The joy was not merely that Stephen would be found innocent, not simply that Stephen would be with Jesus. The greatest joy was that Stephen knew that what he saw, that he would become. John, remembering that we ought not to mourn as those who are without hope, gives us this greatest hope, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears, we will be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

He knows the plans He has for us, plans to give us hope and a future, a future so grand that eye hath not seen or ear heard, nor has it entered into the mind of man. May we be blessed with the courage to believe His promises, even in the midst of hardship. May the world witness us, the witnesses of Christ, as we attest to His goodness, through mourning with hope. May they behold His glory, as we move from mourning to dancing.

Posted in RC Sproul JR | 3 Comments

Fool Me Once: None So Blind as Those Who Won’t See

Posted on March 20, 2025 by RC

Americans are not so much a forgiving people as we are a forgetting people. Great evils are not so much atoned for as they are moved on from, especially in the political sphere. The news cycle is a rinse cycle. My hope, however, is that I might serve as a remind-er, one who reminds. That some of you, for reading this, might better remember. And just maybe, we won’t get fooled again.

Here is a list of people and institutions who were caught in the most egregious lies imaginable, prevarications so destructive that it’s hard to fathom that such people would ever open their mouths again.

1. The Covid Karens

Francis Collins, Anthony Fauci, the CDC, NIH and WHO didn’t merely make a mistake in their assessment of COVID, its origins and the safety and efficacy of the vaccine but a. knew they were lying and b. nearly destroyed the world. How far down the chain of command this goes I couldn’t say. My family doctor encouraging the jab didn’t do wonders for his credibility, but I still basically trust him. The higher ups are bald-faced liars.

2. The Jack’s a Jills

It seems every day there’s a new study coming out from the Institute for the Obvious telling us that the sexually confused are a few queens shy of a full deck. Ya think? Yet we have government school bureaucrats telling us that a. this is normal b. this must be accommodated in the bathroom and the sports field c. it’s nothing some experimental drugs and a scalpel can’t cure and d. they should get to decide what to do rather than parents. The kids may be confused. Those pushing the confusion are not. They are evil.

3. The Climate Chicken Littles

It is an inconvenient truth that every single prediction of impending doom solemnly announced just a few decades ago is drowning not in rising sea levels but rising barnyard substance levels. They made a critical mistake in their strategy. As long as their models and science was over our head, they could fool us a bit. But it couldn’t make us care. So they switched to doomsday scenarios we could understand, and deadlines we would soon face, only to have the calamity go back in its hole like Punxsutawny Phil after seeing his shadow. They haven’t delivered the bads. Because they are lying and they know it.

4. The Maxwell Smart Brigade

When 51 current and former high ranking intelligence officials assured us, days before the 2020 election, that the Hunter Biden laptop looked like a Russian disinformation op, they missed it by this much. If by “this much” we mean all the way from here to Russia. Some of those same men had already demonstrated their credibility when they treated the Steele dossier as Holy Writ rather than what it was, fan fiction emailed from Hillary’s private server.

5. The Sharp as a Tack Confederacy of Dunces

In the run up to his walking away from the 2024 presidential race, dozens of Dems parroted their talking point that President Biden was as sharp as a tack. While they knew he was as dumb as a box of nails. They asked the entire country, “Are you going to believe us, or your lying eyes?” And the media played right along.

Lying as a strategy only “works” if either the lie has enough credibility to be believed, or if the audience forgets when its been lied to. Don’t believe the hype. Never, ever again.

Posted in 10 Commandments, covid-19, cyberspace, Devil's Arsenal, Education, ethics, Health, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, persecution, politics, post-modernism, RC Sproul JR, scandal, sexual confusion | 3 Comments