R.C. Sproul's Blog

Does the Book of Revelation Apply to Us Today?

How should we read the book of Revelation? Does the message of this book only apply to some faraway time in the future? In this brief clip, W. Robert Godfrey encourages us to approach the book of Revelation as its first readers did.

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Transcript:

The whole book of Revelation is bookended by this declaration that what is being said here must take place “soon.” How are we to interpret that? How are we to understand that? Because we do live two thousand years after this event. How does “soon” work? Well, part of what “soon” does for us, I think, is to remind us that it applies to us now. It’s not just in a far distant future. You know, when Daniel got his prophecy, the fulfillment was about four hundred years off, so it wasn’t an immediate reality for him. I think John wants us to say these things are an immediate reality for us, and in that sense it’s soon, and the time is drawing near. But beyond that, the whole New Testament approach to time is an approach that says since Jesus finished His work, there’s nothing really that needs to be done until the second coming, except the gathering of the elect. And in that sense, everything is fulfilled, everything is done, everything is accomplished. And in that sense, the end is soon. John in his first letter puts it even more pointedly, where he writes in 1 John 2:18, “Children, it is the last hour, and as you heard that the antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore, we know that it is the last hour.” Now, when John wrote that, he lived many more hours. He didn’t mean “hour” in the most literal sense there; he meant the time is short. There’s nothing yet that has to be fulfilled in prophecy for Christ to come again. We are in the very last era, the last hour, the last age, the last time of this passing-away world. And I think John is highlighting that again here. But the importance for us is to realize everything in this book is not to just be dismissed as something that’s going to happen sometime to someone probably a long time from now. Rather, it’s our world in which we live, and it’s the present reality that should inform our living and our particularly being faithful now.

 

The Significance of the Sinlessness of Jesus

"And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death of the cross" (Phil. 2:8). I have long wished that, in heaven, I might get to see the entire history of Christ's earthly life, from Hi s birth to Hi s ascension—viewing each and every act of obedience. The reason is simple. Jesus lived a representative life. Jesus lived a sinless life, and it was, therefore, a life of representative sinlessness. Our Lord's obedience stands in the place of His people's sin. His law-keeping is counted as the law-keeping of those who have faith in Him.

Christ's sinless life is set against the background of the scriptural testimony to the sinfulness of man. Job declared that man is "abominable and corrupt," one who "drinks injustice like water" (Job 15:16). Solomon acknowledged, "there is no one who does not sin" (1 Kings 8:46). The apostle John warned, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves" and "make Him a liar" (1 John 1:8, 10). The apostle Paul summed it all up when he said, "none is righteous, no, not one" (Rom. 3:10). Yet, when the Son of God took to Himself a human nature, a sinless man entered into time and space.

In a life that spanned three decades, our Lord never entertained a thought, never uttered a word, and never carried out an action that was defiled by impure motives. He always honored His Father in heaven, always honored His earthly father and mother, never lusted, never uttered a word in sinful anger, never gossiped about or slandered His neighbor. He never stole, never lied, and never coveted. In short, He submitted to every commandment of the law of God without wavering. He loved the Lord with all His heart, soul, mind and strength, and He loved His neighbor as Himself. The Scriptures bear manifold witness to this truth, and it is one of the most profitable truths upon which we ought to meditate.

The Bible expressly declares that Jesus was sinless. The writer of Hebrews tells us that He was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners" (Heb. 7:26, NASB). The apostle Paul boldly asserts that He "knew no sin" (2 Cor. 5:21). At the announcement of His birth, an angel called Him "that Holy One who is to be born." Pilate's wife told her husband: "Have nothing to do with that just man." Pilate himself said, "I find no fault in Him." The dying thief acknowledged the innocence of Jesus when he said, "this Man had done nothing wrong." The centurion, at the foot of the cross, said, "Certainly this was a righteous man" (Luke 23:47). Even the demons recognized that Jesus was "the Holy One of God" (4:34).

If external testimony was not enough, Christ bore witness to His sinlessness when He said, "the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood" (John 7:18). Add to this the fact that He had said almost a thousand years earlier (through the psalmist): "Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God, and Your law is within my heart." Jesus' life was a life of perfect conformity to the will of God.

In regard to the commands that God gave to the covenant people, we find that Christ began to fulfill them when He was circumcised on the eighth day. He was the only one who did not need what circumcision signified. At the beginning of His public ministry, He underwent a baptism "of repentance," though He needed no repentance. When John tried to stop Him from being baptized, He said, "permit it to be so now, for thus is it fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness" (Matt. 3:15). Jesus was obeying as the representative of His people.

Christ's obedience, however, can sometimes mistakenly be reduced to His obedience only to the moral law. While it is certainly true that He obeyed all those commands that are binding on all men for all time, He also fulfilled the ceremonial laws given to the Jews. There is, however, another dimension of the obedience of Christ. Jonathan Edwards observed that Jesus obeyed the mediatorial commands that the Father specifically gave to Him—commands that were more difficult than any given to us. Besides those moral and ceremonial laws, Jesus was commanded to "lay down His life willingly, and take it again." "This command," He said, "I have received from My Father" (John 10:17).

Our redemption rests upon Christ's sinless life and substitutionary death. When we see the corruption of our minds, hearts, and wills, we must look at the One who knew no sin and yet was made sin for us. When we long to know Christ in a deeper and more intimate way, it is good for us to meditate on Scripture's teaching concerning His representative perfection. Are you laboring under the weight of your sin before the presence of God? We must remember the One who was obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

This post was originally published in Tabletalk magazine.

Theology, Theology, Theology: Why Ligonier?

Ligonier Ministries has continued to grow since our beloved founder, Dr. R.C. Sproul, died in 2017. Many new team members have joined us, adding their expertise and skills. It is encouraging to see the outreach grow through their remarkable efforts. But any enduring enterprise must retain its focus on the original mission and be on guard against drift. Therefore, in many of our team meetings, I will often reiterate the one thing we do at Ligonier: theology, theology, theology. No, I haven’t forgotten how to count. The point is to remember how vital theology is not just to our mission as a ministry but to our very lives as individuals. Let me illustrate this.

Perhaps you’ve been to the British Museum in London. It’s one of my favorite places. To walk past marvelous antiquities from several millennia of world history is awe-inspiring. Each artifact tells a story. But on a recent visit, I learned that not every artifact tells the whole story.

There is an area in the Mesopotamian collection with artifacts from Assyria, including some from Sennacherib, that violent king we read about in the Old Testament. In his day, he was the terror of the Middle East, laying siege to cities and subduing nations. There is a relief in the British Museum of the siege of Lachish, a small, fortified city on the route to Jerusalem. Conquering pagan kings often commissioned such monuments to boast of their victories. The scene depicts Sennacherib’s gruesome slaughter of the Israelites at Lachish.

What’s missing from the British Museum? We know that Sennacherib was on his way to destroy Jerusalem and complete his conquest of Judah (2 Kings 18:13–19:37). When the armies came to besiege the capital, the prophet Isaiah counseled King Hezekiah to trust the Lord for deliverance. There is no artifact telling of Sennacherib’s victory over Jerusalem because it never happened. The Bible says that an angel of the Lord destroyed the foreign king’s army overnight, and he broke off the campaign and returned to Nineveh.

The Lord fights for His people. The might of the Assyrians was no match. Passing down through the generations of Israel was the truth that there is only one God and He is not silent (Ex. 20:1–20; Deut. 6:4; Isa. 44:6–8).

The word theology simply means the study of or about God. Theology is no dry and dusty academic pursuit. Theology is a razor’s edge with life and death on either side. The Israelites had a correct theology and lived. The Assyrians had a corrupt theology and perished. The stakes could not be higher for each soul. Jesus Christ said that to know God and the One whom He has sent is to enter into eternal life (John 17:3).

Adam and Eve at first knew God truly, and then they suppressed that truth in unrighteousness, and so unbelief wrecked the cosmos and ruined us to the very core. Since that tragic moment of exile from Eden, in our natural state we are in an unholy battle pitched against the holy Creator. That there is war among nations and a lack of peace with one another is only a manifestation of our first rebellion. What a mess of sin we have made, with no way to save ourselves. If we are to be saved, it must come from outside us. Without good theology, reality is like a jigsaw puzzle with little pieces strewn about, having no unified picture. Theology, rightly understood, gives us a picture of reality to help us make sense of the puzzle. It guides us in putting the pieces back together, just like that picture on the jigsaw puzzle box, so that we understand the world and ourselves properly. Thus, theology informs every domain of human knowledge and experience.

Dr. R.C. Sproul focused on theology as a discipline, encompassing all that God has revealed generally and specially. Humanity is alienated from God. Like our first parents, we are born truth-suppressors. Yes, everyone knows that God is, but not everyone knows who God is. That is our fundamental problem—we don’t know who God is. And because we do not know who God is, we do not know who we are.

Ligonier Ministries began in the summer of 1971 just as the United States was emerging out of the turbulent decade of the 1960s. Christians faced rampant relativism and social upheaval. Secularism accelerated in the culture, and liberal theology metastasized in many churches and denominations. There in the foothills of Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountains near a small town called Ligonier, a little ministry began to equip Christians to know God in a better, deeper way and to make Him known. This discipleship and training effort was driven by a desire to defend classical Christianity and, hopefully, to help flood the culture with knowledgeable and articulate Christians who sought to be faithful in furthering the Great Commission. By design, this was an end run around the much stronger mainstream media and well-funded mainline churches.

With the overt cultural animosity that the church faces today in increasing measure, those who are Christians in name only are falling away. The syncretistic mainline churches are evaporating. The future of the church belongs to Christians of conviction. All the problems we face are ultimately theological; to repair the ruins, the solutions must be theological.

Thankfully, over the years, God has brought many students of Dr. Sproul’s vision who are committed to spreading the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and seeing theology rooted in the Scriptures grow in churches everywhere. Labor intensive, yes, yet the promise is sure: “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14). We are enlisted in that effort. It is a wonder of the gospel that sinful men and women are used to advance God’s mission in this fallen world, working in and through our battles with the world, our own flesh, and the devil.

In his classic book The Holiness of God, Dr. Sproul comments on Romans 12:2:

The key method Paul underscores as the means to the transformed life is by the “renewal of the mind.” This means nothing more and nothing less than education. Serious education. In-depth education. Disciplined education in the things of God. It calls for a mastery of the Word of God. We need to be people whose lives have changed because our minds have changed.

By God’s grace, Dr. Sproul’s tight focus on teaching theology has changed many lives. He believed everyone is a theologian and that it matters now and forever whether you are a good theologian or a poor one. Merely imparting information to a human mind is insufficient. Through the light of Scripture and the work of the Holy Spirit, we begin to understand God’s holy character and realize our sinfulness. The church must rediscover an unwavering commitment to proclaim, teach, and defend the holiness of God in all its fullness. That is not just a Ligonier Ministries mission statement; it is the calling for every believer. Dilute the character of God and we blunt our ability to reach the unbeliever with the gospel. Well-intentioned mission strategies focused on growth for growth’s sake may deliver temporal benefits, but such strategies will neither grow healthy disciples nor plant healthy churches. Short-sighted ministry busyness is not sustainable. Theological compromise for the sake of mere numbers is fatal.

Although God’s people have often found themselves dismayed at circumstances beyond their control, the progress of God’s mission in this world is certain. We, like Elisha’s servant in another harrowing moment when the Israelites were threatened, are tempted to fret at gathering storm clouds of opposition. Yet we must remember that “those who are with us are more than those who are with them” (2 Kings 6:16).

As Ligonier marks its fiftieth year of ministry, we give thanks for God’s blessing on our past. However, it is evident we have an opportunity to serve God’s people like never before. There is much work to be done among the nations. Would you pray that God would awaken more people to who He really is? May we see a recovery of true theology where men and women, boys and girls have a restored relationship with God the Father through God the Son and through the powerful grace of God the Holy Spirit and live fruitful lives right now and forever.

This article was published in the August 2021 issue of Tabletalk magazine. You can read the entire issue for free this month on TabletalkMagazine.com.

My sister is a homosexual. How do I approach her with the gospel?

Today, many of us have loved ones who embrace a homosexual lifestyle. How should we approach them with the good news of salvation? From our 2021 National Conference, W. Robert Godfrey, Steven Lawson, Joel Kim, and Derek Thomas discuss this matter. To get real-time answers to your biblical and theological questions, just ask Ligonier.

Read the Transcript

The Fullness of Joy

“Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” (John 15:2)

I do not have a green thumb and my knowledge of horticulture is very rudimentary. However, I have experimented with growing roses, and I have learned that after the blossoms begin to decay, they have to be cut off at a certain point on the stem. If I am diligent in pruning away the dead aspects of the bush, the blossoms become even more brilliant in time. This process seems counterintuitive to me; I would assume that by cutting off part of a bush I would be harming it or even destroying it. But the pruning process focuses the nutrients in the bush, causing it to bear fruit more consistently. This process is especially important in the tending of grapevines, which is the vine that is in view in Jesus’ metaphor.

Going on, Jesus said, “Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you” (v. 3). Here He addressed Himself to His disciples, to believers, to those who already enjoyed fellowship with Him and had a saving relationship with Him. They were already “clean,” He said. Then He added: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me” (v. 4).

What happens to the branches that are pruned from a tree or bush? After they are cut off, they wither and die. They are cut off from their life supply. Obviously, such dead branches will not produce any fruit. They are impotent.

One day, during a cookout at the home of one of his members, a minister wandered over to the grill to speak to the host, who had stopped attending the weekly worship services. The minister was hoping to encourage him to begin attending once more. When the minister asked the man why he had stopped coming, the man replied: “I’m a Christian, but I don’t feel that I need the church. I can do very well on my own. I’m an independent type of person. I don’t need the fellowship of other people to boost me in my walk with the Lord.

While the minister listened to the man’s explanations, he noticed that the charcoal on the grill was glowing white hot. Without saying anything, the minister picked up a set of tongs and moved one of the glowing coals apart from the others. He then continued his conversation with the parishioner. However, after a few minutes, he reached into the grill and picked up the coal with his bare hand. He then looked at the man and said: “Did you see what just happened here? Only a few minutes ago, I wouldn’t have dared to touch this coal because it was so hot. But once I separated it from the rest of the coals, it stopped burning and became cold. It no longer could help cook the steaks on the grill. That is what is going to happen to you. You need the body of Christ. You need the church of Christ. You need the fellowship of the saints and the assembly of the people of God. We are not rugged individualists who are called to live in isolation from others.

That minister was right. The company of other believers keeps our faith lively and active. But if we cool off when we are removed from connection with other Christians, how much more will we wither if we remove ourselves from the real source of power, which is Christ Himself?

That is the point Jesus was making here. We will be fruitless and will wither spiritually if we do not abide in Christ, the true vine. The Greek word translated as “abide” here is meno. It also can be translated as “remain” or “stay.” If we want to be productive, we cannot simply visit Jesus every now and then. We need to abide in Him.

Let me stress that Jesus was not speaking here about losing one’s salvation. That is another matter. But He was reminding us that we are prone to wander, to cease to tap into the source of our power and our spiritual vitality, which is Christ Himself. So, His lesson for us is to stay close: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.” Simply put, all of the efforts that we make to be joyful, to be productive, or to achieve anything worthwhile in the kingdom of God are exercises in futility if we try to do them by our own power. Christians need to understand that without a strong connection to Christ, who is the power supply, we will be completely fruitless.

Jesus continued, saying:

“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” (vv. 5–11)

It was only in the final verse of this passage that Jesus explained why He had taught the disciples these things: “that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.” Notice three things in this important teaching.

First, the joy that Jesus wants to see in us is His joy. Earlier, Jesus spoke to His disciples about peace, saying, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you” (John 14:27). Where does the Christian’s peace come from? It comes from Him; in fact, it is His peace. In like manner, His own joy is available to us, and He wants to see it abiding in us.

Second, He wants His joy to remain in us. He wants us to have a permanent joy, not a roller-coaster ride of moods shifting between joy and misery. If we want to be consistently joyful, we need to abide in Him.

Third, He distinguishes between His joy and our joy, and expresses the desire that our joy should be full: “And that your joy may be full.” Isn’t that what we want? We do not want a partial cup of the fruit of the Spirit. We do not want just a little bit of joy. We want all of the joy that the Father has stored up for His people. That fullness of joy comes from Christ. It is first His joy that He gives to us, and as we are plugged into Him, this joy that comes from Him grows, increases, and becomes full.

No one who is reading this has ever experienced the highest level of joy that is available to the people of God. However much joy you have at this moment, there is more joy to be had. There is a fullness that awaits us as the fruit of the Spirit is nurtured by the true vine.

This excerpt is taken from the free ebook Can I Have Joy in My Life? by R.C. Sproul. You can download all of R.C. Sproul's Crucial Questions booklets for free here.

In the Eye of the Beholder

Have you ever heard the adage “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”? In this brief clip, R.C. Sproul explains how John Locke’s ideas of primary and secondary qualities continue to influence the way many people view the world.

Today, watch the entire message for free.

Transcript:

Now, following John Locke's work as a pioneer here there came a very strange philosopher (strange in the sense of the ideas that he represented) who was very much concerned about the growing view of people in the 17th and 18th century towards materialism and consequently towards atheism. And, the man I am talking about is a man who was a bishop of the Anglican Church. And, his name was George Berkeley. I never spell it right. But, if you look at it, you think it reads: Berkeley because it's spelled like the university campus that we have in California that we pronounce Berkeley. But the pronunciation of his name is Berkeley. And, he was born in 1685 and he died in 1753. So, his work really takes us into the middle of the 18th century. There are those, for example who believe that Bishop Berkeley's philosophy had a profound influence on America's greatest philosopher, who of course, was Jonathan Edwards. But in any case, Berkeley's concern, remember we said that if we are going to understand a philosopher, we have to ask what problem is he trying to solve? What concern is he wrestling with? Well, being a Bishop of the church, Berkeley was concerned that science was moving more and more away from God, and more and more towards a metaphysical view that said, that what is ultimately real is not God, but matter itself. And, that the universe is nothing more and nothing less than a sum experience of material things. And, this became the bridge in Berkeley's day for the whole kind of revival of atheism. And, the atheists said that they don't need to postulate some kind of supernatural spiritual being to explain the universe and to explain our significance. The only thing that is real is matter. There is no spirit. And if there is no spirit realm, then there is no room for God. So, Berkeley is concerned, not only as a philosopher, but chiefly as a theologian, to rescue modern civilization from this rushing tide of materialism, which brings in its wake, atheism. And, he wants to see a scientific paradigm or model that has a real place for God.

What advice do you have for interpreting Scripture correctly?

What is one step we can take to help us interpret the Bible correctly? From one of our Ask Ligonier events, W. Robert Godfrey advises Christians to be mindful of the context that surrounds a passage of Scripture. Get answers to your biblical and theological questions online as they arise at ask.Ligonier.org.

Read the Transcript

 

Helping People Know God

In 1971, God used R.C. and Vesta Sproul to establish the Ligonier Valley Study Center. What began as a small study center in the countryside of western Pennsylvania fifty years ago has become, by God’s amazing grace, a discipleship teaching ministry reaching millions of people around the world. When I first encountered Ligonier Ministries more than twenty-five years ago, what amazed me most was that Ligonier was unlike any other ministry that I knew of. I immediately recognized that Dr. Sproul not only was concerned with reaching unbelievers with the gospel but that he was also passionate about reaching professing Christians with the gospel. But he didn’t stop there. His concern was to help believers be thoughtful and articulate Christians who know not only the gospel but also the whole counsel of God, the theology of God’s Word, the history of that theology, and how to defend the entirety of their faith. Dr. Sproul’s driving passion was to help the world know God and to help the church know God—not the God of our own making but the one and only sovereign, gracious, loving, and holy God of Scripture.

Early in his ministry, Dr. Sproul observed that many people in the world are living their entire lives focused merely on temporal matters, on the here and now, with little attention on eternal matters. His concern fed his passion to help people know God so that in knowing God they might know what really matters in life. Moreover, knowing God helps us understand that our lives matter, that what we do matters, and that knowing, loving, and glorifying God give meaning and purpose to our lives. This is one reason that Dr. Sproul taught with such passion. It is the reason many of us were drawn to him, because we believed that he cared about us enough that he was willing to teach us the difficult truths about God. Dr. Sproul didn’t want us to have a superficial view of God. He wanted us to grow up in our understanding of God so that we would know just how gracious and holy our God really is.

Because of Dr. Sproul’s passion and commitment to God’s Word, Ligonier Ministries has always been a home for Christians who aren’t afraid to think deeply about what matters most in life and in eternity. For R.C., saying that right now counts forever wasn’t just a tagline or a clever name for his Tabletalk column. He really believed it, and he lived his life to help us believe it. At Ligonier, we believe it too, and we exist simply to serve God by helping people know God and glorify Him forever.

This article was published in the August 2021 issue of Tabletalk magazine. You can read the entire issue for free this month on TabletalkMagazine.com.

$5 Friday (and More): Faith, Reformed Theology, and Scripture

It’s time for our weekly $5 Friday sale. This week’s resources include such topics as faith, reformed theology, scripture, John Calvin, the Synod of Dort, and more.

Plus, several bonus resources are also available for more than $5. These have been significantly discounted from their original price. This week’s bonus resources include:

Faith Alone by R.C. Sproul, $18 $10 What Is Reformed Theology? by R.C. Sproul, $17 $11 Maturity: Growing Up and Going on in the Christian Life by Sinclair Ferguson, $17 $11 Getting the Gospel Right by R.C. Sproul, $18 $9 Unseen Realities: Heaven, Hell, Angels and Demons by R.C. Sproul, $15 $10And More

Sale runs through 12:01 a.m.–11:59 p.m. Friday ET.

VIEW TODAY'S $5 FRIDAY ITEMS

 

Who Is Lord: Christ or Caesar?

Someday, we will be like Him. That's our hope. But it's not a hope that we put on the shelf, and it's not a hope that sends us into a cave. It's a hope that sends us into the world with confidence. We can be confident in God, confident in His Word, confident in Christ, confident in the gospel, and confident in hope. In the AD 90s, Domitian ruled as emperor over Rome. His cruelty rivaled that of Nero. He insisted that he be worshiped as a god. Christians, of course, could not participate in the rituals of this emperor cult. That left them vulnerable, and that vulnerability led to persecution. It is likely that John's exile to the island of Patmos directly resulted from Domitian's edicts. John refused to bow.

John wrote Revelation during this time, many scholars believe. Also around this time, an early church figure named Clement, serving as bishop at Rome, sent a letter to the church at Corinth. Clement opens his letter by referring to "the sudden and successive calamitous events." Persecution rolled over the church like wave after relentless wave. Clement wrote to comfort them and to exhort them to stand firm. Near the middle of his letter, he simply reminds the believers at Corinth that Christ is our leader and we are His soldiers.

Domitian's edict and the persecution that followed served to press an urgent question to the church. This question was there at the very beginning. It was there at the events surrounding the incarnation when Herod ruled. It was there when the soldier drew his sword in the garden of Gethsemane, and it was there all along the excruciating and agonizing road to the cross. The question never left the early decades of the church or even the early centuries of the church. The question was this: Caesar or Christ?

Domitian's edict made that question palpable, even visceral. Statues of him were sent all over the empire. On appointed days, feasts were held, and all of the populace had to pass before the cast image of Domitian and bow before him as god. It was very clear: Caesar or Christ?

The truth is that question is always there. It is always before us, before the church in every age of the past. The question is before us in our time today, and it will be in front of the church in the ages to come. Who is Lord? When the Apostles and the believers in the pages of the New Testament answered that Christ is Lord and Caesar is not, ramifications followed. That decision had consequences. They did not let the temporal consequences overshadow the eternal ones. The author of Hebrews reminds the believers that they had "endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated" (Heb. 10:32–33).

Then he declares in 10:35: "Do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward."

When the question is put to us, Caesar or Christ, may we be among those who don't shrink back. May we take our stand alongside the first-century church and the church through the centuries. May we not throw away our confidence.

From this singular point of the lordship of Christ came the church's confidence. And also from this point came the church's convictions. Chris Larson, my colleague at Ligonier Ministries, recently made the statement, "The future belongs to Christians of conviction."

This is a time for conviction. This is a time for confidence.

This excerpt is taken from A Time for Confidence by Stephen Nichols.