What three questions should a believer ask for better life?

Posted on September 11, 2023 by RC

Of course the most important questions are those that help move us, by the power of the Holy Spirit, from being an unbeliever to being a believer. A better life now is just more judgment on the horrific eternity of those outside of Christ. There are, however, three important questions that, if we remember to ask them and if we answer them honestly, will have a profound impact on believers’ lives in the here and now. They’re not complicated questions, though neither Wikipedia nor Google nor ChatGPT will be of any use in answering them.

First, what am I due? An honest answer to that question might seem, at first blush, to be conducive to greater misery than to greater joy. The correct answer to the question, given our sinful nature, is the eternal wrath of the living God. I deserve eternity in a lake of fire, and worse. The depth of the evil of my sin is incalculable. The holiness of the one against Whom I sin is immeasurable. How could an honest, albeit necessarily shallow assessment of this question help me? Because no matter how difficult things might be, whatever sorrows I might bear, no matter how deep the pain from the thorn in my side, it is still well short of what I am due. One thing I need not fret over is that I am getting a bad deal, that God is somehow cheating me.

Second, what have I been given? The second question flows naturally from the first and reinforces the positive merits of the first. That is, not only are things not anywhere near as bad as what I deserve, but I enjoy all manner of blessings that I don’t deserve. I may be hated by the world, but my dear wife loves me. I may be underemployed, but I still enjoy my daily bread. This is not some kind of self-induced mind trick. It is rather coming to embrace the truth. My grumbling and complaining is the mind trick. Going back to the depth of my sin, I’m such a sinner that I tend to believe I deserve better than what I’ve been given. This despite the fact that the best thing I’ve been given is the sure answer to my one problem- what I am due. That is, the only real danger I’ve ever faced is the wrath of the Father. But He has united me with His Son such that all my sins are punished in Him and all His righteousness has been given to me. From that I’ve been given the joy of being adopted into the very family of God.

Third, what have I been promised? Only that every trouble that weighs me down will soon fall by the wayside. Soon I will see Him as He is, and become like Him. Only that the blessings will be so unalloyed, so incomprehensible that eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the mind of man what He has planned for me. In more contemporary parlance, my future’s so bright I gotta wear shades.

The more I enter into the glorious answers of these three questions the more I enter into the fullness of the third answer. That is how I enjoy a better life, through gratitude and faith.

If you’d like me to address any questions you might have, about theology, philosophy, apologetics, Steeler trivia or just about anything, feel free to send your question to hellorcjr@gmail.com . I’d be happy to take a swing at it.

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Legislating Morality

Posted on September 7, 2023 by RC

“You can’t legislate morality” is yet another cultural aphorism that both makes a sound point and makes no sense. The sound point is this. While laws, and attendant criminal penalties for breaking said laws might be something of a restraint on many people, passing a law doesn’t mean the law will never be broken. Laws do not have complete power to ensure compliance. For instance if we made it illegal to think stupid things, it wouldn’t keep us from thinking stupid things.

The nonsensical point is that some people think this means that any law touching on morality is out of bounds, or to put it another way, immoral and should be illegal. My father used to ask this question, “If we don’t legislate morality, what is there left to legislate?” Laws against murder are legislation of morality. Laws against child abuse are laws against morality. Laws against polluting the environment are laws of morality. You can’t get around it.

That said, there’s a third issue. Do we really want to say that EVERYTHING immoral should be illegal? I trust we can agree that feeding our children nothing but ice cream is immoral. But do we want to have food police scanning our groceries? All of which leads us to this easy to understand but difficult to answer question- what moral issues should be legal issues?

The historic battles and ongoing battles in the church over theonomy flow right out of this conundrum. On the one hand, we have in Old Testament Israel the one nation in all history wherein God wrote the law code. Score a point for the theonomists. On the other hand, Israel was a distinct nation with a unique purpose. God has not said of the United States as a nation, “You are My people.” Score a point for the non-theonomists. To which the theonomists reply, “What’s it going to be, God’s law or self-law, theonomy or autonomy?” That makes it 2-1.

Any Christian should agree that the civil law of any nation ought to be the civil law that God commands. The question is, does God want the law He gave to Israel to be that law? If our only other option were legal chaos, man’s law, autonomy, then of course He must want us to adopt Israel’s law. What if though, there were another law of God? What if we can at least begin to discern that law which God intended for all nations everywhere? What if said law were more clear than the quicksilver law we call natural law?

God gave Moses His law for Israel, His set apart people. God gave His law for all people to those who represented all people, Adam and Noah. The laws God gave them we can rightly call “creation” law. I would argue that civil government itself is established when Noah gets off the ark, when God says that if a man sheds another man’s blood then by man his blood shall be shed. Marriage isn’t something God gave only to believers, but to all mankind in Adam. A case could be made for sabbath keeping and tithing as well. The long and the short of it is we are left with God’s law, not man’s, with that morality which ought to carry criminal penalties, and I’m happy to report, minimal government, minarchism.

My hope is that this admittedly brief framework would allow us to first, be faithful to the will of God and second, forge a path that evades theocracy in its worst sense without denying God’s authority and evades autonomy without destroying liberty in its best sense.

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Sacred Marriage, Sovereignty 2; Power Hunger; Science & Noah

Posted on September 6, 2023 by RC

This week’s Jesus Changes Everything Podcast

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Smile, God Loves You

Posted on September 5, 2023 by RC

In one of his rare less gentle moments with a pen, my father once began an article in Tabletalk magazine this way, “Smile, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Unless your name is Esau.” While it is certainly true that God loves all people it is not true that He loves them all the same. Nor is it true that He hates no one. Romans 9:13 tells us, “Jacob have I loved; Esau have I hated.” Make all the hay you’d like arguing that hate means “love less” or Jacob means Israel and Esau means Gentiles but it doesn’t change the truth that God does not love everyone the same.

That, however, that is the first place we go when hearing that phrase, “Smile, God loves you” shows us just how ungrateful and myopic we can be. Shouldn’t we, believers who have every assurance that our Father loves us infinitely and immutably, not because we are worthy of such love but because we are in union with the One who is worthy, before we get to logic chopping, proof-texting and buffeting our Arminian friends about the head, smile? Shouldn’t we rejoice? Shouldn’t we give thanks? Should we celebrate? Shouldn’t we repent because we are not grateful and joyful as we should be? And shouldn’t we rejoice all the more that even our ingratitude is covered by the blood of Christ?

I have long held that one good hint about the kind of husband a man is is the demeanor of his wife. Chances are that if she is downcast he is struggling in his role. If, however, she beams, he is likely an important part of that. How much more so we who have collectively not just a successful husband, but the perfect husband in Jesus? Has our perfectly loving husband not told us that we are to rejoice in all things?

To embrace our Father’s embrace, however, is not just good for our spirits. It honors Him. Adam and Eve sinned not just because they did what God told them not to, but because they believed that He was unkind, that He was trying to keep them from something good. When we move through our days with a grumbling spirit we act as though He does not care, or as though He is not able we disparage His character, besmirch His honor.

Of course we have hardships, what the Puritans called dark providences. Even these, however, are gifts from His hand. These are the tools He uses to reshape us into the image of His Son. We who are His, through no merit of our own, not only can but must smile, because He loves us. And He does indeed have a wonderful plan for our lives, the best plan imaginable. His plan is to wash us, cleanse us, remake us and then present us to His beloved Son as His bride. Let us beam like the glorious bride He is transforming us into, and give thanks.

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Why is the church full of hypocrites?

Posted on September 4, 2023 by RC

Because the world is full of hypocrites. Now, before you shake your head in disgust at those terrible hypocrites, let me channel my inner Paul Washer and remind you, I’m talking about you. And me. We are all eager to present ourselves as better than we are. And so we project an image that is flattering and inaccurate. Such may be the actual engine that drives the raging success of various social media platforms. We all get to put our best foot forward, using the best moments of our lives to construct an illusion.

Social media, however, has another part to play in our Hypocrisy Follies. Social media discourages thoughtful discourse. We don’t so much think as feel, and our feelings are driven by our echo chambers and our memes rather than careful, deliberate and rational thought. Consider the strange bedfellows of politics. First, how can we miss the hypocrisy of Republicans who thirty years ago vehemently insisted that the President’s private life disqualified him from office and then, when it was their guy vehemently insisted that the President’s private life is of no significance? That’s the obvious part. But wait, there’s more. While the left delights to poke fun at Republican hypocrisy in this matter, such shows that they too are hoisted on their own petard. That is, they insisted that President Clinton’s private life was of no consequence, and now insist that President Trump’s private life is of great consequence. But wait, there’s more. When the right delights to poke fun of the left for being hoisted on their own petard, for insisting first that President Clinton’s private life didn’t matter and now insisting President Trump’s does, the right is then hoisted on its own petard, since they insisted the opposite when it was President Clinton.

To put it more succinctly, we are utterly indifferent to logical consistency but deeply committed to fussing at our enemies while ignoring the beams in our own eyes. All of which reduces down to the hard fact that in our sin we all like to think of ourselves as better than we are, and are more than happy to prop that folly up by insisting that our enemies are worse than they are. We have one standard for ourselves, and another for everyone else. See jet-setting, size 16 carbon shoe wearing climate change heroes or limousine liberals who laugh all the way to the bank trying to shame those who have prospered.

What do we do about it? Confess, rather than cover our sins. Confess our, rather than their sins. Confess our not mistakes, but sins. We own that we are worse than others can see. We judge ourselves by the same standard by which we judge others. We remember, and rejoice, that our standing is not based on how we compare with others but on how He identifies with us. We have nothing to hide, for we have nothing to boast of, and know well that all will be revealed. Let’s put down the masks and lift up the cross.

Posted in 10 Commandments, apologetics, Ask RC, Big Eva, church, communion, ethics, logic, politics, RC Sproul JR, repentance | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Kingdom Now

Posted on September 1, 2023 by RC

I am deeply grateful to my Old Testament professor. Though I was young and foolish while in seminary, I have, by God’s grace, been growing less young and less foolish over time. I used to argue with him about as often as I now look back with thanks in my heart. He not only taught me how to understand the Old Testament, but at the same time how to understand the Bible. He taught me that the Bible is one book.

There are two key elements I learned from him that touch directly on the issue of the relationship of Israel and the church. First, he taught that if we want to understand what a text means to us, we first have to understand what the text must have meant to its original audience. The second element could be understood as a corollary to the first—never assume the Bible practices mortar-shell prophecy. This is the notion that God sends a prophet to a particular people, equipped with a particular message. When that message is given, however, it has no meaning to the original audience, but like a mortar shell crossing high above a battlefield to eventually land on the enemy, the prophecy only takes on meaning hundreds or even thousands of years after it is given.

When Jesus said we should seek first the kingdom of God, for instance, to whom was He speaking? When He zeroed in on the fears and weaknesses of those in His audience, those who worried about what they would wear or what they would eat, was He actually talking to an unnamed group in the future? Is the whole of the Sermon on the Mount a sermon for faithful Jews in attendance, for Christians living in the interim between Jesus’ two advents, for both, or for neither? If it was for both, was it for both together or both separately?

To ask the question in terms of what the original audience must have heard is to answer the question. No one would have thought: “Well, this is all well and good for later. Jesus is talking about the church age, so when it starts, we will start to obey this command.” No one would have thought, “This is for now, but when the church age begins, we will cease from seeking the kingdom and His righteousness.” Certainly no one would have thought: “I will seek first His kingdom as a Jew until the church age begins. I will cease to pursue it during the church age. Then, I will pursue it again.” The kingdom they were called to pursue, the kingdom we are called to pursue, is not now, and never has been, a divided kingdom. It is that kingdom, that one kingdom, where Christ reigns. It is that kingdom, that one kingdom, we enter through His righteousness alone. It is that kingdom, that one kingdom, where all the needs of all God’s people are met by the one King.

When we seek to divide the kingdom, we will inevitably end up seeking to divide the King. He is the King, after all, who so perfectly identifies with His people. Remember that when our King confronted that murderer of God’s people named Saul, He demanded to know not why Saul was persecuting the citizens of the kingdom, but why Saul was persecuting Him. And when Saul was brought into that one kingdom as Paul, it was he who was changed, not the kingdom.

There is not now, nor was there ever, a kingdom on earth and a kingdom in heaven, because there is only one King. We do not wait for His kingdom. We do not wait for His inauguration. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him (Matt. 28:18–20). Now He sits at the right hand of the Father (Rom. 8:34). Now He is bringing all things under subjection. Now He is conquering all His and our enemies (1 Cor. 15:20–28). This is not merely a future hope, but a present reality.

The good news is that our Lord reigns. This means that even when those over whom He rules try to divide themselves, try to draw sundry boundaries in the kingdom, they will always and everywhere fail. We cannot tear asunder what God has brought together. This also means, however, that even those with multiple kingdoms, multiple peoples, multiple epochs are His, just as I am. We are one, because we confess one Lord, because we proclaim one faith, because we enjoy one baptism, because we serve one kingdom, because we love one King (Eph. 4:4–6).

His kingdom is not extending its boundaries. Wherever there is a there, there He reigns. It is, however, becoming more visible, more manifest. The elect are being brought in. Knees in every nation are bowing. Tongues in every language are confessing. The Rock that was uncut by human hands, that destroyed the kingdoms of this world, is even now covering the earth as the waters cover the sea. This is the kingdom that we serve, the kingdom that has come, the kingdom that is forever. This is the one kingdom we all seek.

Posted in "race", 10 Commandments, abortion, Apostles' Creed, Biblical Doctrines, Biblical theology, church, communion, creation, eschatology, grace, hermeneutics, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, RC Sproul JR, sovereignty | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Holes in Our Sermons

Posted on August 31, 2023 by RC

It is easy enough to grumble about what goes on at the giant church down by the interstate. It could be that there you’ll find the prosperity gospel at its most crass. Maybe the pastor has a fleet of exotic cars and one message with a thousand variations- give money to me and God will give money to you. Or, maybe it’s the more subtle version, the church of the clean, happy people. Maybe the pastor has a closet full of exotic sneakers and one message with a thousand variations- be like me and God will like you. Ear tickling prevails not only because pastors like to tickle ears but because congregants like having their ears tickled.

Escaping ear tickling, however, doesn’t equal giving a faithful sermon. Some pulpits, usually in the tiny church down by the fairgrounds, provide not ear tickling but ear burning. Maybe the pastor has a fleet of K-Mart ties and one message with a thousand variations- you all are terrible, awful people and you better change before it’s too late. The only people who like to hear that kind of preaching are those who see themselves as standing right beside the pastor delivering the same message. They feed on the thin gruel of imagining what it would be like for those other, awful people to hear this message.

For a sermon to be complete, whatever text it might be coming from, it must affirm that we, that is, humans across the globe and across time, believers, across the globe and across time, and church members, across town and across the pew, are indeed sinners. Our thinking, our feeling, or doing, all need to change. We must repent. Now this might sound something like the above. But, there are two distinctives. First, it includes us, not just them. Second, it is only one part of the complete sermon.

The second part is that, while we are called to change, we are already covered. Because of all that Jesus has done for us, suffering the wrath due us in our place, living a life of total obedience in our place, we are safe, secure, redeemed. Jesus has saved us to the uttermost. This is good news, though it is not ear tickling. He didn’t die because we’re so valuable. Rather, we are valuable because He died. He didn’t die because we’re so good. He died because we’re so evil. Every bit of joy from this truth comes from Him. All we bring to the table is the need.

The third part is the fruit of the second. Because of all that He has done, we are not only forgiven by our Father in heaven, but adopted as His children. We have His infinite, immutable love, each of us by name.

Without the first part it’s just ear tickling. Without the second part it’s just a scolding. Without the third part we don’t know what we have in Christ and walk away in our doubts. It’s as easy to see the holes in the other guy’s sermons as it is to see the speck in his eye. May the Lord give us eyes to see our own holes, and voices to faithfully preach not just holy sermons, but hole-less sermons.

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Sacred Marriage, Sovereignty; Dangerous Days, Old QBs & More

Posted on August 30, 2023 by RC

This week’s Jesus Changes Everything Podcast

Posted in abortion, Biblical Doctrines, Biblical theology, Jesus Changes Everything, Lisa Sproul, Month of Sundays, Nostalgia, politics, RC Sproul JR, Sacred Marriage, sovereignty, sport, That 70s Kid | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Sacred Marriage, Sovereignty; Dangerous Days, Old QBs & More

Seeing Beyond The Shadowlands

Posted on August 29, 2023 by RC

It has long been my contention that the Reformed church never quite got over the Enlightenment. While we rightly reject this premise and that conclusion at the heart of the Enlightenment experiment, we still drink deep of its spirit. We deny that this world is all there is, but we live as though this world is all there is. We are willing to admit that the spiritual realm, the unseen, is real, but in turn we insist that the natural realm, the seen, is more real. We live as though all there is is this. In short, we lack faith.

Our eyes see a church that is corrupt, compromised and inconsequential. His Word tells us that we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places. We sit with Him who has already overcome the world. Our hearts see our own individual sins, our failures, our infidelities. His Word tells us we are being remade, that He who began a good work in us will see it through to the day of Christ Jesus. Our minds see our strategies, our alliances, as we seek change. His Word tells us it is through the foolishness of preaching that the souls are won and the world remade.

The truth is we live, as CS Lewis pointed out, in the Shadowlands. This world is being remade. We will spend eternity here, in the new heavens and the new earth. This is the world our Savior came to rescue, and we ought never to diminish it. In waging war against Gnosticism, however, we need to be careful not to wage war against heaven. In his great work The Great Divorce Lewis recounts a sort of field trip some sinners take from hell to if not heaven, at least its foothills. As the souls disembark their bus they squeal in pain. As they walk across the grass it feels to them like blades of diamonds. Why? The grass is dense to the point of pain precisely because it is so real. It carries the unbearable weight, the sublime beauty of being.

As we grow older, indeed as we suffer the pangs of this side of the veil, it seems by His grace the veil grows more thin, more gauzy. We move from hungering to get as much done in this life as we can, from squeezing life dry, to anticipating the freshness of eternity. As we grow older we come to understand that we’ve been looking at reality inside out. We no longer ponder what the other side must be like, and come to understand that we are on the other side. Here are the Shadowlands, and there is the Light who casts His shadow.

As we grow older we come to understand that the haunting melodies of Pachelbel, the soaring descants of Palestrina, these are just the orchestra getting in tune before the curtain goes up. As we grow older we come to understand that every dram of laughter, every scent of joy, these are but the echoes of eternity. As we grow older we come to understand that our Master Carpenter is indeed preparing a place for us, even as He prepares us for a place. If it were not so, would He have not told us?

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Should we be expecting plandemic, phase II?

Posted on August 28, 2023 by RC

While I haven’t the least trouble imagining that those in power are wicked enough to conspire against those over whom they rule, I do struggle to imagine they are smart enough to pull off many true conspiracies. Last night I saw a documentary on a con-man who pretended to be Saudi royalty, and while dining with a table full of deep pocketed investors he ordered and ate prosciutto. Think about that for a moment.

Today the number of people who believe lockdowns, masks and jabs are effective is roughly equal to the number of people who were actually helped by any of the above. For the math challenged, that’s zero. Potential plandemic conspirators are deep in the “fool me twice” weeds. The uni-party government cries of “WOLF!” can’t be heard because its voice is too hoarse from all the other “WOLF!” shoutings. There was a time when heads of state undoubtedly Snoopy danced over their discovery of just how much we were willing to put up with. But they pushed too far. And, as they say, we won’t get fooled again.

What then are we to make of all the rumblings? New strains too varied to be stopped. Airlines are pushing masks once again. People are getting sick, ad nauseum. First, it could be unexpected fallout from phase I. One doesn’t create a weaponizable illness, leak it and expect to cleanly pick up all the pieces. Conspiracies will always run into unintended consequences because conspirators don’t know the future as well as they’d like to think.

Second, there is no real reason to do phase II. It was a common theory, and I think not at all a bad one, that phase I was a trial run. Not on the virus or the health consequences, but on how we would respond. The goal of COVID was less to make people sick or dead, more to see what kind of draconian, fascist rules we’d be willing to accept. If there is going to be a phase II, it will likely simply be phase II of draconian, fascist rules, without the now worthless disease theater. There may be lockdowns. There may be shuttering of businesses. There will certainly be more monitoring of the citizenry. These may come, however, without a cardboard boogeyman, or with a different one. Climate change might do the trick. As one wise wag put it, “Is it COVID season again? I haven’t even taken down my Climate Change decorations.”

Third, what do they really want to control? One of the reasons we won’t get fooled again is because of unregulated speech. They could slander, fire, and dox the docs and other medical professionals that told the truth, but they couldn’t shut down the internet. We learned there was a simple, vainglorious man behind the curtain. Maybe this time, just in time for another election, they can suppress speech they don’t want us to hear. Control the press, jail the opposition, spy on your own people, control the means of production. Sound familiar?

That said, here’s one theory I can make sense of. Plandemic Phase II would be quite effective as a screening mechanism, flushing out all of us who won’t play ball.

What are they going to do today? The same thing they do every day. Plan to take over the world.

Posted in Ask RC, church, covid-19, creation, Devil's Arsenal, kingdom, logic, persecution, politics, post-modernism, RC Sproul JR | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments