Seen any good movies lately? Nefarious

Posted on June 12, 2023 by RC

I’m so glad you asked. After weeks of trying and failing to see it in the theater my precious wife and I were able to download and watch Nefarious last night. I am both an enjoyer of movies and a critic, having served as a judge for the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival for the length of its roughly ten year existence. Like many humans, including Christian humans, I often have a beef with Christian movies. As a general rule they start with a premise, an idea. It may be a perfectly wonderful idea, “Jesus saves sinners,” or “Moral relativism is absurd.” Those are two ideas I’m deeply committed to. Starting the process with the premise, however, is how you make a sermon, not a movie. It’s tough. If you either hide the premise or do not have one, how is the movie any different from the world’s movie? If you lead with it, how is it not an illustration rather than a story?

Nefarious has a message. The message is worn on its orange sleeve. It is clearly and distinctively Christian. But it’s also a whiz-bang story. An atheist shrink is sent to death row to certify the sanity of a serial killer whose execution is just hours away. Said serial killer claims to be possessed by a demon, Nefarious. The great bulk of the movie is simply these two talking. No sophisticated sets. No car chases. No CGI. No stunts. Just two persons talking. Yet, you can’t take your eyes off the screen. Both men are outstanding actors (another weakness of Christian film is their propensity use actors who are either as hammy as Miss Piggy or as stiff as a carboard cutout of Miss Piggy.) I felt like I was there, listening in. I, from the beginning, was itching to know how the story would end. I wasn’t disappointed.

While the movie wasn’t preachy it did leave me better than it found me. It communicated one biblical truth that Christians too often overlook, the reality of spiritual warfare. We do not wrestle with mere ideologies, temptations, opposing voting blocs, but with principalities and powers. I don’t believe Nefarious is trying to answer that question, “Exactly how are these battles fought” but rather sounding the alarm that they are indeed being fought, whether we acknowledge it or not. It reminds us as well there is no bright shining line between political policy disputes and spiritual battles. To fight the one is to fight the other; to be passive in the one is to be passive in the other.

The movie is a kind of prequel to the book The Nefarious Plot by Steve Deace. Steve is a political commentator on The Blaze, after spending decades in local talk radio in Iowa. Steve is also the co-author Faucian Bargain and author of The Rise of the Fourth Reich: Confronting Covid Fascism among other books. He is the executive producer of the film, and a friend of mine from years back. Check it out, whatever outlet you can find it. We rented it from Amazon. And let me know (and Rotten Tomatoes) what you think.

Posted in 10 Commandments, abortion, apologetics, Ask RC, covid-19, Devil's Arsenal, kingdom, on writing well, philosophy, politics, RC Sproul JR | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Who Is My Brother?

Posted on June 9, 2023 by RC


Conservative Christians seeking a way to encapsulate our most fundamental political commitments came up with “family values.” We vote “family values.” We support “family values” candidates. Even the left has noticed, countering our language with this bit of bumper-sticker wisdom: “Hate is not a family value.”

We are indeed seeing an assault on the family from the left and are rightly troubled. They want to be able to redefine the family at will and by law, forgetting that the family is a gift from God and He retains the right to define it as He wills.

Yet we know what a family is supposed to look like and don’t like it when others twist and distort that image. That said, though I am a conservative Christian, though I do indeed believe in “family values,” my family doesn’t look like most. Our two youngest, boys who are ages 13 and 17, are just the right size. But they do stick out. Their genetic ancestors hail from Africa. Our family includes two genders, multiple ages, multiple eye colors, multiple abilities, multiple skin colors. However, we are, together, Sprouls. We have, by the grace of God, been made into a family, a forever family.

The kingdom we seek is the same. Our familial identity is found not in our skin color, our socio-economic strata, or our genetics. The kingdom we seek is populated not just by citizens or by soldiers, but by family. We are servants of the King, soldiers of the King, but most of all we are children of the King. We become children of the King not based on where we are born but through adoption.

It has been said that Sunday mornings are the most segregated hours of the week. Some in the evangelical church are so troubled by this that they have sought out people of color like trophies. Others, sadder still, prefer the segregation. Were we paying attention, we would be guilty of neither. There was, after all, once a great Man. He gave a famous speech, a sermon if you will, that came to be known all over the world. He suggested to the gathered masses that we ought not to worry about such things. He encouraged us to have such a single-minded passion for one thing that issues of skin color would be moot. He told those who assembled that they should seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

Fraternity is a wonderful thing. It is the theological left, however, that teaches the heresy that proclaims the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. If everyone is my brother, then no one is my brother. If ties of kinship extend to all humanity, then there may as well be no ties at all. Wisdom requires that we learn how to recognize our brothers. I must confess that here I am not colorblind. My brothers are not those with black skin. Neither are they those with white skin. My brothers are those whose skin is red, covered by the blood of Christ. My loyalty is grounded in the kinship that I have in Christ, not the “kinship” that is coded into my genes.

In God’s good providence, I have been blessed to meet many my brothers around the globe. Naing is my brother in Myanmar. Geoffrey is my brother in Kenya. Hiro is my brother in Japan. Oleg is my brother in Russia. Mykola is my brother in Ukraine. Jaime is my brother in Colombia. I have Kiwi brothers, Canuck brothers, Israeli and Palestinian brothers, and Scottish and Irish brothers. In Christ’s kingdom is every tribe and tongue. When we enter, we lay aside every other loyalty, every other tie that binds.

We fail when we are fools enough to believe that there is something of value in our own ethnicity. Paul, a Hebrew of Hebrews, saw his pedigree as something to be cast aside, tossed overboard. Can we do any less? We are by nature children of our father, the Devil. But while we—me, my wife, my children, all the saints of history, and all the saints around the globe—were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He has together seated us, red and yellow, black and white, in the heavenly places. There we rule the nations. There we will judge angels. And there we are, and will forever be, a family.

Posted in "race", 10 Commandments, beauty, Biblical Doctrines, church, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, Lisa Sproul, RC Sproul JR | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Who Is My Brother?

Our Father

Posted on June 8, 2023 by RC

As a father and a grandfather I am, from time to time, faced with challenges. Children and grandchildren have inherited from me a condition that leads to those challenges- sin. For the myriad ways they are and can be blessings there are an equal number of ways they can be a frustration. They don’t do as they are told. They are not grateful for what I do for and give to them. They grumble and complain, and quite often ignore me. All of which reminds me… of me.

One of the ways I try to do better with my frustration is to remember that I’m not only a man with authority, but a man under authority. I try to remember that I am a son to the only perfect Father. I too don’t do as I am told. I too am not grateful for what He has done for and given to me. I too am given to grumbling and complaining. And quite often, I ignore Him.

I’m not suggesting that my frustrations are born out of the outworking of karma. I am suggesting that just as I pray that my Father would show me grace, compassion and forgive me, that I would do the same for those under my charge. I should not be surprised that my imperfect descendants disobey their imperfect father/grandfather when imperfect I disobey my perfect Father.

I’ve long grumbled that we allow the modernism that still shapes our thinking to gut the truth of biblical metaphors. The Bible calls God our heavenly Father and instead of leaning into all that such communicates we reduce it down to something inane. We are willing to affirm that His father-ness means He is loyal to us and an authority over us, but we pretty much stop there. We don’t get that our sins not only deny His authority, but deny His good intentions for us. We think He’s mean and stingy, a killjoy rather than the font and giver of joy.

Jesus Himself emphasized this point in Luke 11, comparing the ordinary kindness of an earthly father with the amazing grace of our heavenly Father. His goodness toward us includes every good gift He gives us, including not only children and grandchildren but including the frustrations they often bring with them. He handles our failures as His children perfectly. And He sends the failure of our children and grandchildren into our lives to perfect us. Contemplating the goodness of my Father inspires me to do better as a Father. I want those under my care to be able to enter fully into metaphor because they are accustomed to receiving grace, love and attention from me. I want the same for all children. Fatherhood wasn’t just a pre-existing reality that God glommed on to to make a point about how He feels about us. Rather it is baked into both relationships. We know about fathers because we know about Him. We know about Him because we know about fathers.

Our Father is in heaven. And He is with us. Let us praise Him and give thanks.

Posted in assurance, Biblical Doctrines, Biblical theology, grace, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, prayer, RC Sproul JR, theology, wonder, worship | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Sacred Marriage- Ode to Lisa; Testing; Opie Shirts & More

Posted on June 7, 2023 by RC

This week’s Jesus Changes Everything Podcast

Posted in abortion, apologetics, Biblical Doctrines, Big Eva, covid-19, Devil's Arsenal, ethics, Jesus Changes Everything, kingdom, Lisa Sproul, Month of Sundays, Nostalgia, politics, post-modernism, RC Sproul JR, Sacred Marriage, sexual confusion, That 70s Kid | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Sacred Marriage- Ode to Lisa; Testing; Opie Shirts & More

Check out our last study until September

Posted on June 6, 2023 by RC

Posted in assurance, Bible Study, Biblical Doctrines, church, Doctrines of Grace, ethics, grace, RC Sproul JR, repentance, theology | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Check out our last study until September

What Angry Greta Teaches Us

Posted on June 6, 2023 by RC

I will never forget my first published piece. It was a letter to the editor of the Ligonier Echo, the weekly newspaper of the small town wherein I grew up. I was all of 10 years old at the time, but that didn’t keep me from reaching great peaks of moral indignation. I thundered from my mountain top. I vituperated. I fumed and steamed. My crusade was not unlike Greta’s, the face of youth activism, the darling of leftist media, the Swedish scold, nor was the source of my rage so different. In my case it was Miss Maile. She was my 5th grade teacher at the toney private school I attended on a scholarship. She was not the warmest teacher in the world, but she was interesting. And committed. To turning us all into hard leftists just like her. We learned socialism in her classroom through Man: A Course of Study, a curriculum infamous for its political bias. We learned environmentalism as she read to us Watership Down.

We learned journalistic activism as she encouraged the whole class to write letters to the editor opposing a proposed nuclear power plant in our back yard, the Donegal Energy Park. It was, in fact, a class wide project. She, in short, used us, our innocence and our ignorance to score points in a political battle. All this more than forty years ago.

Miss Maile, like Greta’s teachers, understood that education is discipleship. There is no set of morally neutral facts that we can safely ask the state to instruct our children in. Because every education will ever and always induct its students into a worldview. That’s the very goal of education- instilling our deepest convictions in those under our charge. Heck, I’m doing it right now. I’m trying to help you, to instruct you, to inform you that Greta isn’t an anomaly, a glitch in the system. She’s not even a feature of the system. She is the platonic ideal of their goal. She is their omega. She is their success, not because she thinks for herself, not because she is articulate. Not even because she is passionate. She is their success precisely because she doesn’t think for herself, precisely because she spews forth their message, precisely because she has no passion of her own, just their fevered passions.

Greta, in short, is a puppet, Pinocchio telling lies for our entertainment. She is dancing on the stage set up for her at Vanity Fair. Our job isn’t, because we do not share her views, to be aghast and appalled at her views. Our job is not to look down our noses at her. Our job instead is to feel sorry for her, and her parents, and more important still, to look to our own children, to see how much they are being shaped by the cookie cutters on the factory floor. This is not a time to score political points by laughing at the show. It’s time to check our children for strings, and, if we find them, to cut them off mercilessly.

Posted in creation, Devil's Arsenal, Education, ethics, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, politics, RC Sproul JR | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Romans Study Tonight- Last of the Summer

Posted on June 5, 2023 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.

Posted in announcements, Bible Study, Biblical Doctrines, Doctrines of Grace, ethics, grace, RC Sproul JR, Reformation, repentance, theology | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Is fornication a big deal?

Posted on June 5, 2023 by RC

Yes, of course it is. That we don’t treat it that way is a sign of our worldliness, not a lack of clarity in the Bible. It seems that sometimes we like to think that all sins are equally bad. That way when we sin big we can equate our failure with failing to tithe on our herb garden. Other times we’re happy to affirm some sins are worse that others, so that we can claim our own sins are the little ones and those of others the big.

The Bible teaches that sex outside of marriage is wrong. Homosex adds to that sin an assault on nature. It adds perversity. Adultery avoids the perversity charge, but carries with it the betrayal of the spouse. From that perspective, having neither perversity nor betrayal, why should fornication be considered so bad? One could argue in certain circumstances it’s little more than getting things a bit out of order, a cart before the horse failure. And if marriage actually follows, doesn’t that erase the problem?

No, it doesn’t. Fornication is common among unbelievers. It is not supposed to be among believers. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, citizens of a city drenched in sexual immorality,

I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person (I Cor. 5:9-11).

How serious does the Bible take this sin? Believers are not to so much as share a meal with someone professing to be a Christian who is practicing this sin. How seriously do we, even those not practicing fornication, take this sin? Not very. What would happen to those fornicating believers if the rest of us believers refused to keep company with them? Our sin in failing to obey God in how we respond to professing believers who openly practice fornication includes us in our own guilt.

It, however, gets worse. In the very next chapter Paul writes,

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God (I Cor. 6:9-11).

It’s bad enough not being invited to dinner. But Paul tells us those who practice such things will miss out on the marriage feast of the Lamb, that they will be on the outside of paradise looking in. The list, of course, includes more than mere fornicators. But it does not exclude them. The list, happily, is not about those who have ever committed any of these sins. Such is true of every one of us. It is the “practice” of these sins that serves as evidence of a lack of saving faith. To “practice” these sins is to embrace them without repentance. It isn’t to fall in a battle of temptation, but to plan and plot, to establish a pattern, to grow comfortable with the sin.

Whole swaths of the formerly evangelical church are now openly embracing the culture’s embrace of sexual perversity. Many that have stood firm, however, have already given up addressing the sin of fornication for fear of losing audience. Paul not only knew such fear, but commands of all of us that we press on, that we, for the sake of practicing fornicators who profess to believe, tell them the hard but loving truth that it can’t be both. Relationships will be broken, to be sure. But God and His Word will be honored. He is right, always, while we, in not agreeing with Him, are wrong.

Posted in 10 Commandments, abortion, Ask RC, Biblical Doctrines, Big Eva, church, communion, ethics, kingdom, RC Sproul JR, repentance, scandal, sexual confusion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Rest of the Story

Posted on June 2, 2023 by RC

Obedience is a rather narrow road. Disobedience, on the other hand, has a great, sweeping plain of options. Because we are like the Pharisees, we find it easy to convert the law of God into sundry sins of omission. We’re much better at not doing what we’re not supposed to do than we are at doing what we’re supposed to do. Thus, we reduce the Sabbath to all the things we’re not allowed to do. We work at fine-tuning the definition of “work” so we can make sure we don’t do it on the Sabbath. In so doing, as is our wont, we miss the point. Were we to divide the Ten Commandments not according to duties toward God and duties toward man, as many do, but instead on the basis of prohibitions and commands, the Sabbath commandment would end up with the commands. It is less about what we are forbidden to do and more about what we are commanded to do.

First, believe it or not, the Sabbath commandment commands us to work. “Six days shalt thou labor” isn’t an interesting prelude designed merely to set the context for the command to come. It is a command in itself. We’re supposed to be busy with the work set before us. We are to be passionately pursuing the kingdom of God. We are to recognize that we live in the not-yet of the kingdom. Not all enemies have yet been made a footstool. We have not yet fully exercised dominion over the creation. The reign of Jesus is not yet universally recognized. The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “How does Christ execute the office of a king?” Its answer: “Christ executes the office of a king in subduing us to Himself, in ruling and defending us and in restraining and conquering all His and our enemies.” As we rule with and under Him, this is the work we are called to — seeking His kingdom, making manifest His reign.

Second, as the Sabbath commandment moves to the day of observance, it does not command that we refrain from work — it’s far more profound: we are to rest. We think we are keeping the commandment if we refuse gallantly to do any of the work that is piling up and causing us to lose sleep at night. Instead, we are sinning. Rest isn’t just ceasing from working; it is also ceasing from worrying. It’s not easy. Indeed, in a manner of speaking, rest, especially ceasing from worry, is hard work. It takes discipline and fortitude to let go of all that has us worried.

We have not succeeded if our worries are more pious, either. That is, we aren’t failing to keep the Sabbath when we worry about the big meeting at work on Monday, but successfully keeping it when we are worried about our persistent failure to mortify that particular sin that so troubles us. Worry is worry, and it has no place in our Sabbath celebration. The Lord’s Day is a feast day and should be treated as such.

We rejoice and we get over our worries when we come to understand that the Lord’s Day is that time when we leave the “not yet” of the kingdom, and enter into the “already.” Is it not the case that the defining quality of eternity is the blessing of drawing near to the living God? When we feast at His Table, is He not declaring His blessing upon us? Is He not blessing and keeping, lifting up His countenance, making His face shine, being gracious unto us? Is He not lifting up His countenance on us? Is He not giving us peace?

When we worry about the more mundane things, we are failing to heed the call of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount to set aside those worries, to not be like the Gentiles. We are called instead to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. When we worry about more spiritual matters, especially our own sins, we are missing the very heart of all Lord’s Day preaching — we, the repentant, are forgiven in Christ. We have, by His sovereign grace, succeeded in our quest — we have received His righteousness.

Sabbath, then, is shalom, and shalom is Sabbath. We have rest because we have peace. We have peace because we have rest. We have both because Jesus is not just Lord of the Sabbath and the Prince of Peace but is also our Sabbath, our Peace.

There is a right way to keep the Sabbath in our context. There is a right answer to this question that divides us. In the end, however, whatever position we take with respect to the Sabbath, whether we believe this law to have been abrogated in the new covenant, or whether we believe it to have been altered in the new covenant, or whether we maintain the passionate commitment of our Puritan fathers, the key question is ultimately the gospel question: Are we resting in the finished work of Christ? The most faithful Sabbath keeper will in the end be the most joyful Sabbath keeper. Sabbath, in the end, isn’t something to be observed but something to be celebrated. And we celebrate not merely a day off from work. We celebrate the victory of our King. We are of good cheer, for He has overcome the world. And we reign with Him.

* I recognize that there is also disagreement about which day we should be observing the Sabbath on. It is an important issue, but not what this particular piece is about. If you want to debate which day, give it a rest. 😉

Posted in 10 Commandments, assurance, Biblical Doctrines, church, communion, grace, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, RC Sproul JR | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Rest of the Story

Dueling Verses

Posted on June 1, 2023 by RC

The Bible is God’s Word. God’s Word tells us that God is one, “Hear O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 6:4). Since God is one, of a piece, not divided against Himself, then we know that God’s Word is one, of a piece, not divided against itself. Despite this we often find ourselves in disputes with other believers about what the Bible truly teaches. There is actually something quite beautiful when two people share a conviction that whatever the Bible teaches must be true, even when they disagree about what it teaches. That said, there is something wildly off when two believers play “dueling verses.” This is what happens when each person in the debate seeks to clobber their opponent with Bible verses, while bravely, like Rocky taking a beating, being clobbered by Bible verses from their opponent. It is great when both sides recognize the Bible is the one effective weapon for the battle. It’s not so great when they both think the best way to answer one verse is quoting a different verse.

Paul’s teaching on justification, faith and works doesn’t trump James’ teaching on justification, faith and works. Nor the other way around. To discern what God’s Word says we must at least come to the place where our understanding of both texts are compatible. There may be more work yet to do. One thing we know, however, is that if our understanding of one text contradicts our understanding of another text, then we don’t rightly understand at least one of the texts. It is as certain as the Bible is true.

There are, beyond James and Paul, old and ancient battles we can study to see the futility of dueling verses. Those who believe God is sovereign over our salvation have their favorite proof texts. Those who believe men determine their own end, on the other hand, have their favorite proof texts. If my understanding of my text contradicts your understanding of your text, that doesn’t mean we cry “MYSTERY!” and move on. Instead we check our differing understanding of the differing texts and seek to both understand them in their own context and in the broader context of the other text. That God calls all men everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30), for instance, needs to be understood in a way that is consistent with the truth that no one comes to Jesus unless the Father draws him (John 6:44). The notion that Acts 17:30 teaches that men, in themselves have the capacity to come to repentance is a. not in the text b. unwarranted and c. not true, says the believer in God’s sovereignty. The Arminian, on the other hand, argues that God draws everyone.

Which solution is superior? The first one. First, it is grounded in simple grammar. It doesn’t alter the text but merely stops an unspoken assumption from sneaking past us. Second, if the Father draws all men, why bother mentioning it? “No one comes to Me unless the Father draws him. That said, He draws everyone” makes no sense in context.

My goal, however, is not to, in this brief piece, settle this old intramural debate. Rather it is to remind us of the rules of engagement. You don’t defeat one text with another. We instead integrate all texts together.

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