What would future RC say to present RC?

Posted on March 11, 2024 by RC

It is, I confess, a rather convoluted question, but the principle isn’t so hard to grasp. We often try, as a kind of thought experiment, to ask what we would tell the us of twenty-five years ago if we can go back in time. If such is at all helpful, shouldn’t we be thinking of the other half of the equation now? What are five things me at 83 would say to me at 58 by way of warning?

1. Do not grow weary in doing good (Galatians 6:9). It is all too easy to allow long years of frustration to wear us down. When I sense I’m not making much progress in my own sanctification, weariness is at my doorstep. Our lives are marathons. And as we age we look with longing too often at the sidelines. I don’t want to watch the kingdom. I want to serve it.

2. Do not grow either too hard or too soft. I have witnessed other men grow older and most every time one error or the other is abundantly evident- either they become crotchety old men who can’t get along with anyone (“the church is thee and me and I’m beginning to have doubts about thee”) or they exhibit all the backbone of a jellyfish. Both responses, I suspect, flow out of the same frustration/disappointment mentioned in #1 on my list.

3. Do not lose sight of your need for His grace. We can grow comfortable in our faith, especially after years of walking in it. We put our guard down. But the devil and his minions do not grow weary in doing evil. Our own flesh, and the world around us likewise continue to pursue us until we cross the finish line.

4. Remember the true nature of your calling. Here too we can fall off either side of the horse. I don’t want older me to embrace a retirement that neglects my call to work six days. I may not punch a clock when I’m 83, but neither am I to wait, running out the egg timer. On the other hand I hope when I am that age I will still remember that my real work is as a husband, and a father. Of all the things in this world that I labor and pray over, it is my wife and children that mean the most to me. As the saying goes, no one on their deathbed thinks, “I wish I had spent more time at the office.”

5. The kingdom will thrive without you. God didn’t put me on this earth because there is some great truth or skill set the church needs that only I can provide. The gates of hell did not prevail before me. They will not prevail after me. Cemeteries, as my father used to say, are filled with “indispensable men.” Be at peace when you are called to walk gently into that good night. Do not rage against the dying of the light. And remember that you after you are gone will have so much more wisdom that you before you are gone.

Time travel, I suspect, isn’t in our future, else the future would have come back to tell us. Which means, of course, that I must spend the next 25 years learning what future me would tell me now. Lord, give me ears to hear, and a heart to endure.

Posted in Ask RC, RC Sproul JR, repentance, wisdom | 1 Comment

May the Best Man Win

Posted on March 8, 2024 by RC

It begins, I suspect, with a far too small view of the fall. There is plenty we lament about that dark day in history’s most beautiful spot. We know that sin brought division to Adam and Eve. The two were designed to be one flesh, but when God challenged Adam for his sin, Adam threw his bride under the bus: “It was the woman.” We know the fall brought death into the world and the expulsion of our parents from a garden paradise. We know, of course, that it created enmity and estrangement between man and God.

Perhaps we miss the scope of the destruction because we want to subsume it all under God’s judgment against man. That is, the pain in the child-bearing, the presence of sickness and death, the thorns and thistles that infest the ground are not mere angry thunderbolts that God throws at us out of His anger. Instead, they are the natural consequences of the decidedly unnatural choice of the stewards of God’s creation. The earth groans not just because Adam and Eve took an illicit bite of fruit, but because they failed in their calling— to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue, to rule over the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and every creeping thing that creeps upon the ground. The first Adam, in disobeying His Father, did more than earn His disfavor. He plunged the world into a vortex of death and destruction.

But God. Grace began in the garden. There, our Father graciously made animal skins as coverings for Adam and Eve. Better still, in the midst of pronouncing judgment, He called them to continue in their calling of exercising dominion. He promised to call out a people from among the mass of fallen humanity, and He promised that the seed of the woman would one day crush the head of the serpent. This is the proto-gospel, the gospel in its basic form. There is no clear exposition of substitutionary atonement. There is no clear prediction of an incarnation. There is no specific reference to a resurrection. But there is the promise that Jesus wins. That is the gospel—
Jesus wins.

From Genesis 3 to the end of the Old Testament, God is about the business of preparing the way for the coming hero. He graciously provides restraints against the downward spiral our sin has brought upon us. First, He establishes His worship. He rescues Noah and his family while wiping out the rest of humanity. He calls Abram out of Ur of the Chaldees. He promises Abraham that he will be the father of nations, and in turn that all the nations of the world will be blessed through him. God continues to reveal more about Himself, about His law, about His covering of sin. He calls His people out of Egypt, establishing Israel as His bride. He blesses her with judges, and later with King David. He sends His prophets, who bear His Word.

Even as God continues to reveal more and more, even as He beats back some of the destruction of sin, every hero He provides turns out to have feet of clay. Sin, time and again, intrudes into the narrative, reminding us that the Seed of the woman is still somewhere in the future. God’s people sink deeper and deeper into their unbelief. The nations of the world grow more powerful, more brazen. And then, four hundred years of silence.

But God. The incarnation is the very picture of wonder, as we consider God dwelling among us, born of a woman, lying in a manger. His perfect life, His atoning death, the resurrection that vindicated Him, and our union with Him are not just good news but great news. But the incarnation is part of a bigger picture— Jesus wins. Jesus, the final Adam, has come not only to undo what the first Adam did, but to do what the first Adam failed to do. He is bringing all things under subjection. He, the firstborn of the new creation, is overseeing the birth of the new heavens and the new earth, even as the old groans in the travail of labor. He has received all authority in heaven and on earth, and He is using that authority to see to it that every principality and power will kiss Him, that every knee will bow and every tongue confess He is Lord.

The gospel is that Jesus wins. He wins our hearts. He wins our souls. He wins our bodies. He wins His bride. He wins victory. He wins newness of life. He wins over sin, over the devil, over everything that exalts itself against Him. He wins over entropy. He wins over disease. He wins over strife. He wins over discord. He wins over death. In the end, what He wins is the beginning, only better. Because of Him, we will walk with our Father in the cool of the evening, through streets of gold in a garden- city, the New Jerusalem, Eden glorified. In the end, the best man does indeed win. For He is the groom, and we His bride. And we will dance.

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Adam’s Hope

Posted on March 7, 2024 by RC

Ere the dawn broke all was right
Beholding gleaming perfect light
But reaching up I fell down
Bitter fruit, forfeit crown.

He came and I the bitter fool
Hiding, lying, rebel ghoul.
Turned and blamed my precious gift
Widening our growing deadly rift.

He cursed the land and all my labor
But before He placed that blocking saber
He made a promise certain and sure
To be for our deaths the potent cure.

Though I am but rebellion and dust
In that promise I place my trust.

Posted in assurance, Biblical Doctrines, eschatology, grace, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, poetry, RC Sproul JR, wonder, worship | Tagged , | 2 Comments

This week’s study on Romans 11. Don’t be left behind.

Posted on March 6, 2024 by RC

This week’s study

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Chris Beat Cancer; The $55 Billion Dollar Man; Forgiveness

Posted on March 6, 2024 by RC

This week’s Jesus Changes Everything Podcast

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Putting Bitterness and Envy to Death

Posted on March 5, 2024 by RC

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field (Genesis 3:1). Part of his craftiness is encouraging us to see sin as something that we do rather than the outworking of what we are. If we can avoid this bad behavior, steer clear of that temptation, we seem to think, we’re doing ok. Yes, we do face temptations. But it is our hearts that are desperately wicked. Sin is not just what we do, but is also what we feel. One may be easy to see, the other less so. Which would a crafty serpent tend to encourage?

We often joke about how churches split over issues like the color of the carpet. It’s a sad joke to be sure, but it is also misleading. Churches don’t split over the color of the carpet. They may split over who gets to decide the color of the carpet. That is, our struggles, disputes, tensions, fights, more often than not have nothing to do with the issue and everything to do with standing, who is the top dog, who has the juice.

In like manner, bitterness typically has less to do with the wrong that we believe was done to us, more to do with the fact that it was done to us. When we are treated badly it is a sure sign that we are being judged as less than, that we aren’t being valued as we think we ought to be. This is why we fight for seats of honor. We think too highly of ourselves, and rain bitterness down on those who don’t agree.

Envy is much the same, the other side of the coin. It isn’t an unfair hardship we go through because we are undervalued, but an unfair blessing another goes through because they are overvalued. It isn’t the blessing that gets stuck in our craw, but that we weren’t valued as we think we ought to be.

Are you sensing a pattern here? The way to fight both bitterness and envy is simple enough- we have to cultivate a genuine, heartfelt understanding of our utter unworthiness of any blessing. We are not owed blessings. We are owed judgment. Every blessing we have ever received has been of grace, not works, lest we should boast. Everything we have, not just accolades and blessings but abilities and opportunities, we have because He determined to give them to us, for our good and His glory, not because of the glory of our good.

What we are all called to is gratitude. When we recognize that everything good in our life is a gift from our Lord we are able to recognize that everything good in the lives of others is a gift from our Lord. When we recognize that every sin against us is just a reflection of our sins against others we are able to recognize that our bitterness is at best misdirected.

We are the children of the King. He loves us. We make known His reign as we walk in joy and contentment.

Posted in 10 Commandments, Biblical Doctrines, Devil's Arsenal, ethics, grace, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, RC Sproul JR, repentance | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Romans Study Tonight- Chapter 11, Part 1

Posted on March 4, 2024 by RC

Tonight we continue our look at the monumental, towering book of Romans. 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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Is it immoral to fluctuate prices based on temporal demand?

Posted on March 4, 2024 by RC

Of course not. Wendy’s, the hamburger chain, recently caught flak when they announced plans to introduce “dynamic pricing.” This simply means that you’d pay more for a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger, for instance, at 12:30 PM than you would at 3:30 PM. More people are eager for lunch at 12:30 and more people don’t want to spoil their dinner at 3:30. Price here changes based on changing demand. Why the flack? Because people don’t understand basic economics.

Prices, most people think, are determined this way- you add up all your costs to bring product x to the market, add a “reasonable” profit, and that sets your price. This is why people insist that when gas prices go up it’s because of greedy oil companies, but when they go down, well, no one gives credit to the giving oil companies. The truth is that prices are determined by supply and demand. If the supply of product x goes up and the demand stays the same, the price goes down. If the supply of product x goes down and demand stays the same, the price goes up. When the price goes down, demand goes up. When the price goes up, demand goes down.

The truth is, we all want it to work that way. When Uber or Lyft institutes “surge” pricing, raising rates when the ballgame lets out or all the bars close, they allow those who have the highest desire for a rideshare to get one, while those on the bubble take a pass. When you go to Old Navy during their 50% off sale you’re doing so because you want what they have on sale that you didn’t want when it was at full price.

Remember that every trade, entered into freely, is of necessity fair, and ensures both sides profit. If Wendy’s charges more for a burger than I am willing to pay, I don’t buy one. If I buy one, such is proof that I valued the burger more than the money spent. Wendy’s would rather have my $2 than their hamburger. I’d rather have their hamburger than my $2. Once the trade has taken place, we each have given up what we value less for what we value more, thus we both profit.

Fluctuating prices don’t change a thing. Prices for hotel rooms in the city hosting the Super Bowl skyrocket the Sunday of the game. Two weeks later they will plummet. That’s because there’s many more people more eager to be there Super Bowl Sunday than there are people eager to be there Super Bowl Week +2 Sunday. Go visit the Outer Banks any September. You’ll find there large numbers of large families. Why? Because homeschooling families (which tend to be large) are a smaller market than public schooled families. The former can set their own schedules, and thus can flock to the coast at a lower cost while the latter are all in school.

Remember also that we do the same thing when we are selling. Programmers who could code in obsolete computer languages in 1999 were raking in the big bucks dealing with the y2k bug. No one doing that work would insist, “Don’t pay me more than you will after the new year.” We want to sell our homes when demand is high, to buy when demand is low. Buy low, sell high isn’t a bad thing, even when we’re selling or selling the same thing at different times in the day.

None of this is wrong. What is wrong is impugning the motives of others, accusing them of wrongdoing for simply responding to market realities. Freedom is a good thing. Let’s not grumble when someone else’s freedom means shifting prices.

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The Quick and the Dead

Posted on March 1, 2024 by RC

There’s a reason why after we are introduced to someone new that we most often ask, “What do you do?” The truth of the matter is that our identity is, to a degree, rightly tied up in our labors. What we do not only reveals, but is part of, what we are. I don’t begrudge people who want to separate their work from their being, but I hope they understand why it’s natural to keep the two together.

In our systematic theologies, we make all sorts of divisions, and that carries with it a danger. That we are able to distinguish regeneration and faith does not mean that we can separate them. That we can have a chapter on justification followed by a chapter on sanctification doesn’t mean that you have one without the other.
In like manner, while we use the language of “the person and work of Christ,” while there might be some benefit of dividing our discussion of His person from our discussion of His work, we would be wise to remember that the two are intimately tied together. Jesus does what He does because He is what He is, and He is what He is because He does what He does.

The great medieval theologian Anselm of Canterbury, in writing his classic Cur Deus Homo, made just that point. Translated, the title asks this question: “Why the God-man?” The incarnation, Anselm demonstrated, isn’t an afterthought, an interesting bit of trivia. Instead, God’s atoning work required that He should take on flesh, take on humanity, in order to suffer for our sins. Indeed, for our sins to become His, He had to be one of us. For His righteousness to become ours, He had to be one of us.

That said, Jesus also had to be God. To speak with the authority with which He spoke, to in turn judge the whole world, He had to be God. Which is precisely why the contemporary Jesus is so badly off both in terms of His person and work. That is, the unbelieving world, while happy to honor Jesus as at best a great prophet and at least a great moral teacher, still leaves Him in His humanity, precisely to leave off His judgment. The world denatures Him so that it can remake Him. Then it remakes Him in its own image. Professing to be wise, they become fools, worshiping the creature rather than the Creator.

The reason, then, that so many are reluctant to admit Christ’s deity, the reason no one likes the options of liar, lunatic, or lord, is not a philosophical, disinterested skepticism about persons and natures, but because of a practical, biased need to avoid the truth of the coming judgment of God. This is why, when people speak well of Jesus, we ought not to conclude that they are halfway home. It’s not as though they are just missing a piece of the puzzle, and if we can add it they will get the picture. Indeed, they would rather burn the puzzle to ashes than add the terrifying truth of His coming judgment.

Which explains why we are doing such a disservice to our unbelieving neighbors when we seek to hide from them the truth of His judgment. We are keeping from them the one needful thing. We are hiding from them the very glory of God. When John the Baptist preached and the Pharisees came to hear his message, he asked, “Who told you to flee from the wrath to come?” In our day, many churches are filled with so-called seekers who will never be told to flee from the wrath to come, for wrath, we are told, drives people away. Win them with Jesus who is merely meek and mild, and we make them twice the children of hell as we are.

It was Jesus who, when asked about those killed when the tower of Siloam fell, warned, “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” It was Jesus who told us that the one who beat his breast and cried out, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner” went home justified. It was Jesus who spoke more of hell than He spoke of heaven.

Jesus speaks with authority because He has authority. He has authority because He and the Father are one. In His authority, He speaks law, which law we ever fail to obey. And so He calls us to repent, to confess our failure, to cling to His work. He promises— because in His deity He is all-powerful— that nothing will ever be able to take us from His hand, that He who has begun a good work in us will carry it through to the end. Separate His deity from His person, or separate His work from His person, and His glorious gospel collapses in a heap.

Our calling, then, is to preach Christ, in season and out of season, to be clear, honest, and forthright— and to leave the results in His sovereign hand. We are called to give over our clever strategies, our nuanced subtleties, and to speak forth boldly to the watching world that our Lord reigns, and that He is coming again to judge the quick and the dead.

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No Middle Ground

Posted on February 29, 2024 by RC

There is in the broader world a constant search for some safe, middle ground on the issue of abortion. Pro-lifers and pro-choicers desperately seek a via media between an outright ban and the heartless destruction of fully grown babies moments from birth. Pro-choicers offer up social solutions, hoping sundry welfare programs will make abortion “safe, legal and rare.” Pro-lifers offer up various exceptions, rape, incest and the health of the mother. Former President Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee gave us the Supreme Court justices that overturned Roe v. Wade. He is now suggesting a line in the sand at first trimester as his great solution. He wants Roe-Light.

It will never happen. Never. Ironically, both sides, in offering their compromises, demonstrate that they do not understand the root of the disagreement. If the unborn are alive, and they are, human, and they are, then they are due the full protection of the law. Anyone intentionally killing any baby at any stage is committing murder and should be treated as such. If, however, they are not human, then there is no more reason for them to have any legal protections than a worm. And those who kill them should have no more guilt before the law than someone stepping on a worm.

Can you imagine a law that suggests you can kill an eight year old in the first third of his ninth year without legal consequences? But if you kill the same child in months 4-12 of the child’s ninth year, you’ll be charged with murder? Can you imagine a law that says if you are sexually assaulted you can kill your child the day before it turns 9 without legal consequence but not the day after?

Or imagine a law that says you can kill your neighbor unless your neighbor provides for all your needs? This is the reasoning of those who insist that absent cradle-to-grave welfare for mother and child, murdering babies should be legal.

There is no rationality on either side of those seeking to walk a razor’s edge. Pro-lifers are pro-choicers with exceptions. Pro-choicers are pro-death. The only rational, coherent, and biblical position is to recognize that all humans, whatever their backstory, their stage of development, their IQ, are owed the full protection of the law. All who would seek to do them harm, both the assassin and whoever hires the assassin are guilty of premeditated murder.

This is not a fevered, emotional take, but simple logic. And any other view, fevered and emotional or not, is simply incoherent. All humans are cosmic accidents, meaningless flotsam bounding through a hostilely indifferent universe. Or we are, all of us, from a just conceived baby to a severely handicapped child at 7 weeks gestation to the newborn to the mother and the abortion provider, bearers of God’s image. As such all deserve the full protection of the law. Anything in between is a sign of foolishness, obtuseness, and stubborn ignorance. There is no middle ground, no scalpel’s edge on which to stand.

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