R.C. Sproul's Blog, page 109

How Does the Holy Spirit Work Distinctly in the Old and New Testament?

Prior to Pentecost, not every regenerate person was specially anointed by the Holy Spirit. From one of our Ask R.C. events, R.C. Sproul discusses how the universal outpouring of the Spirit’s power distinguishes the New Testament from the Old.

Just ask Ligonier to get clear and trustworthy answers to your biblical and theological questions. Visit Ask.Ligonier.org.

Read the Transcript

What Is Thanksgiving Day?

Thanksgiving is an American holiday that stretches all the way back to a time long before America became a nation. The Pilgrims landed in 1620. They faced brutal conditions and were woefully unprepared. Roughly half of them died in that first year. Then they had a successful harvest of corn. In November of 1621 they decided to celebrate a feast of thanksgiving.

Edward Winslow was among those who ate that first thanksgiving meal in 1621. He noted:

"Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we gathered the fruit of our labors. ...And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want."

In addition to the fowl eaten that first Thanksgiving, the Indians also brought along five deer as their contribution to the feast. Presumably they also ate corn.

Over the centuries, Americans continued to celebrate feasts of thanksgiving in the fall. Some presidents issued proclamations. Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation for a perpetual national holiday set aside for thanksgiving. In 1863, with the nation torn apart by the Civil War, he declared:

"I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens."

So we have a holiday of thanksgiving born in and further nurtured during times of great adversity and struggle. We might think that times of adversity and challenge would spawn ingratitude, while times of prosperity would spawn gratitude. Sadly, the reverse is true. A chilling scene from the animated television show The Simpsons demonstrates this. Bart Simpson was called upon to pray for a meal, to which he promptly prayed, "Dear God, We paid for all of this stuff ourselves, so thanks for nothing."

Prosperity breeds ingratitude. The writers of the Heidelberg Catechism knew this. Question 28 asks what it benefits us to know that God creates and sustains all things. The answer is it gives patience in adversity and gratitude in prosperity. Moses also knew this. In Deuteronomy, he looks ahead to times of material prosperity for Israel, then sternly warns, inspired by the Holy Spirit, not to forget God. "Beware lest you say in your heart, 'My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth'" (Deut. 8:17). We did this all ourselves. Thanks for nothing. Human nature trends toward ingratitude.

Another culprit breeding ingratitude is our entitlement culture. Simply put, why should we be grateful for what we deserve and what we have a right to? I was owed this, goes the culture, therefore why would I say thank you?

A third culprit concerns what UC Davis professor of psychology Dr. Robert Emmons calls the "to whom" question. In his scientific study of gratitude, Emmons came to the realization that gratitude raises a singular and significant question: When we say thank you, to whom are we grateful?

The interesting thing here is that if we trace this "to whom" line of questioning back, like pulling on the threads of some tapestry, we find a singular answer at the end of each and every thread. The answer is God. To whom are we grateful? We are grateful in an ultimate sense to God.

Our Benefactor does "good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness" (Acts 14:17). Theologians call this common grace. God as creator cares for all His creation and provides for our needs. He gives us our very lives and our very breath.

Our Benefactor also does good by giving His most precious gift, the gift of His Beloved Son. Theologians call this saving grace. Gifts often cost the giver. What a costly gift the Father has given us in sending the Son. So Paul exclaims, "Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift" (2 Cor. 9:15).

When we consider God as the "to whom" we are thankful, we may well be seeing both the necessity of thanksgiving and the eclipse of thanksgiving. As culture veers more and more towards a secular state it shrinks back from gratitude. So vainly we think we did this all ourselves. So wrongly we think we deserve, or even have a fundamental right to, all of this. We also know what is at the end of the string if we pull on it long enough. We know that we will be confronted with a Creator. We know we will be accountable to a Creator. Saying thank you means we are dependent, not independent. We would rather be ungrateful. Paul says we know God from all the evidence He has left of Himself, but we don't want to "honor him or give thanks to him" (Rom 1:21). Then the downward spiral begins. A culture of ingratitude careens ever downward into decline.

We should not be counted among those who see the fourth Thursday in November as nothing more than a day of football and over-indulgence. We should be thankful for one day set apart to consider all that we have and realize that all that we have has been given to us. Of course, such gratitude should in no wise be limited to one day out of 365.

Having been imprisoned for one year, four months, and eighteen days in a Nazi cell measuring 6 ft. x 9 ft, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote what is certainly a reminder of the meaning of the Thanksgiving holiday:

"You must never doubt that I'm traveling with gratitude and cheerfulness along the road where I'm being led. My past life is brim-full of God's goodness, and my sins are covered by the forgiving love of Christ crucified. I'm so thankful for the people I have met, and I only hope that they never have to grieve about me, but that they, too, will always be certain of and thankful for God's mercy and forgiveness."

Dr. Stephen J. Nichols is president of Reformation Bible College and chief academic officer for Ligonier Ministries, and teaches on the podcasts 5 Minutes in Church History and Open Book.

$5 Friday: Salvation, Sovereignty, & Forgiveness

It’s time for our weekly $5 Friday sale. This week’s resources include such topics as salvation, sovereignty, forgiveness, sacrifice, Jonah, expository preaching, and more.

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

View today’s $5 Friday sale items.

Covetousness and Gratitude

Here’s an excerpt from Covetousness and Gratitude, Robert M. Godfrey's contribution to the November issue of Tabletalk:

If gratitude should be our automatic response to grace in the Christian life, then why are we so often ungrateful? What is the root cause of ingratitude? In part, the answer to that question is in the last of the Ten Commandments, where God says, “You shall not covet.” When we first pause to think about this command, we may wonder if it’s too much to say that covetousness is the root of ingratitude. We first may be tempted to think this commandment is one-tenth of the law or that it is the least of the commandments because it comes last. However, we should rather acknowledge that it is the concluding and summative decree of God’s law. When we do, the commandment’s comprehensive character is unveiled.

THE COMPREHENSIVE CHARACTER OF COVETOUSNESS

The comprehensive character of this commandment shows the way covetousness is often involved when any one of the Ten Commandments is broken. This is clearly seen in several key passages of Scripture. When Paul reflects on the whole law, he uses covetousness to sum it all up (Rom. 7:7). When he warns the Galatians to guard themselves from sin, he speaks of sin as the flesh’s coveting against the Spirit (Gal. 5:17). And when James is giving warnings against the sins of murder, fighting, and quarreling, he shows how coveting is truly at the root of them all (James 4:2)

The Heidelberg Catechism also spells out the comprehensive character of covetousness (Q&A 113). We are told “that not even the slightest desire or thought contrary to any one of God’s commandments should ever arise in our hearts.” This answer clearly is pointing to the fact that when we show ungrateful defiance of any one of the Ten Commandments, the root is covetousness, our desire to place the self above God.

Continue reading Covetousness and Gratitude, or begin receiving Tabletalk magazine by signing up for a free 3-month trial.

For a limited time, the new TabletalkMagazine.com allows everyone to browse and read the growing library of back issues, including this month’s issue.

Luther Enslaved by Works Righteousness

In this brief clip from his teaching series Reformation Truths, Michael Reeves examines how works righteousness affected Luther's perception of God.

Transcript

Now in Luther's day, it was the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle who summed it up, and whose message was so widespread. Aristotle said, "We become righteous by doing righteous deeds." We become righteous by doing righteous deeds, or we become just by doing just acts. It was a self-help "fake it till you make it" message. So, if you work at outward righteous acts and keep doing them, it claimed, you will actually become a righteous person. And for years Luther lived by the maxim "We become righteous by doing righteous deeds." As a monk, he desperately did all the righteous deeds he could imagine -- fasting, praying, pilgriming, monkery, and what he slowly came to realize was the dream of becoming truly righteous by some simple change of behavior was just that, an elusive dream holding its reward ever just out of reach. It consistently promised righteousness without delivering it, all the time exacting a heavier and heavier behavioral demand. In other words, by dangling the hope of becoming righteous before him, while repeatedly giving more deeds to do, that idea gradually enslaved him. Worse, while doing all those outward acts of righteousness he found it wasn't making him upright in heart, full of love for the Lord. Quite the opposite, as he's doing all these apparently he thinks righteous acts, he found resentment snowballing inside him for the God who demands so many deeds. Trying to sort himself out and become righteous by his own efforts was driving him deep into slavery, despair, and hatred of God.

 

Don’t Confuse Spirituality with Righteousness

When I first became a Christian I was introduced to the priorities of the Christian community. I learned quickly that it was expected of me that I have a daily devotion time, a time reserved for Bible reading and prayer. I was expected to go to church. I was expected to have a kind of piety that was evident by not cursing, not drinking, not smoking, and the like. I had no idea that biblical righteousness went far beyond these things. However, like most new Christians, I learned to emphasize such things. My personal letters took on a new pattern of language. They began to sound like pages from New Testament epistles. I soon learned to use Christian jargon in my everyday speech. I didn't "tell" anybody anything, I "shared" it with them. Every good fortune was a "blessing," and I found I could hardly speak without sprinkling my sentences with spiritual platitudes.

Soon, however, I found that there was more to the Christian life than daily devotions and sanctified words. I realized that God wanted more. He wanted me to grow in my faith and obedience, to go beyond milk to the meat. I also discovered that Christian jargon was an almost meaningless form of communication, both to non-Christians and Christians alike. I found myself more interested in echoing a subculture's lingo than in finding true godliness.

My error was this: I was confusing spirituality with righteousness. I also discovered that I was not alone in this. I was caught up with a crowd who confused the means with the end. Spirituality can be a cheap substitute for righteousness.

Over the years I've had many young Christians ask me how to be more spiritual or more pious. Rare has been the earnest student who said, "Teach me how to be righteous." Why, I wondered, does anybody want to be spiritual? What is the purpose of spirituality? What use is there in piety?

Spirituality and piety are not ends in themselves. In fact they are worthless unless they are means to a higher goal. The goal must go beyond spirituality to righteousness.

Spiritual disciplines are vitally necessary to achieve righteousness. Bible study, prayer, church attendance, evangelism, are necessary for Christian growth, but they cannot be the final goal. I cannot achieve righteousness without spirituality. But it is possible to be "spiritual," at least on the surface, without attaining righteousness.

Jesus was a man of prayer. His prayer life was intense and powerful. He was a man of vast knowledge of the Scriptures. He obviously mastered the Word of God. He was spiritual. But His spirituality was not merely a surface thing. His inner life displayed itself in outward obedience, obedience even unto death.

What is righteousness? The simplest answer to that question is this: Righteousness is doing what is right in the sight of God. This is a simple definition that is far more complex under the surface. To be righteous is to do everything that God calls us to do. The demands of true righteousness are so great and so many that none of us ever in this world achieves it perfectly. It involves following the whole counsel of God.

Save Up to 50% on Gift Subscriptions to Tabletalk

Take care of your whole Christmas list and make 2020 a year of engaging Bible study when you send Tabletalk magazine to your family and friends. For a limited time, give one twelve-month subscription and get the rest 50% off.

THEY'LL RECEIVE

A gift notification email sent to the recipient
Twelve issues of Tabletalk with digital access to current and past months
An effective plan for reading through the Bible in one year
Daily Bible studies to help bring structure to their Scripture reading in 2020
Monthly articles and columns from gifted Bible teachers and pastors

When you send Tabletalk magazine to your friends and family, you give them an affordable gift that lasts all year. In 2020, monthly themes will provide Scriptural wisdom on significant topics such as fear, misunderstood doctrines, and Jesus’ parables.

Give a gift subscription now for $23 and save more than $10 on each additional subscription. This special offer ends January 31​, 2020. Limited to ten gift subscriptions.

Give Tabletalk

Gratefulness and God’s Sovereign Goodness

Here’s an excerpt from Gratefulness and God’s Sovereign Goodness, Eric J. Alexander's contribution to the November issue of Tabletalk:

One of my still-vivid memories of early childhood is the way my parents worked hard to teach my brother and me the importance of gratitude.

When visitors came, often with gifts for us, we were always prompted, “What do you say?” We would immediately respond, “Thank you very much,” the measure of our appreciation being the emphasis on the word very. When the guests had gone, my mother especially would impress upon us how kind and generous they had been.

When salvation in Christ came to our home, it was not surprising for us to learn that Scripture urged us to “give thanks to the Lord” in all circumstances (1 Thess. 5:18). Of course, the basic cause for gratitude was that God the Father had not spared His own Son but gave Him up to die on the cross for our salvation. But more than that, God’s nature and practice was to lavish His goodness on His creatures, so that His people sang, “Surely God is good to Israel,” and urged others, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”

It made such an impression on me that I remember the first time the eighth chapter of Romans was explained to me as a teenager. Romans 8:28 says that “for those who love God all things work together for good.” Paul is not merely saying that God gives good gifts to His people. He is actually assuring every believer that a sovereign God is at work in every circumstance (including the “suffering” of verse 17 and the “groaning” of verse 23) for the lasting good of His people. John Stott comments, “Nothing is beyond the over-ruling, over-riding scope of His providence.”

Continue reading Gratefulness and God’s Sovereign Goodness, or begin receiving Tabletalk magazine by signing up for a free 3-month trial.

For a limited time, the new TabletalkMagazine.com allows everyone to browse and read the growing library of back issues, including this month’s issue.

How Do Creeds and Confessions Help Us?

The historic creeds and confessions help to guard us from basing our faith on changing moods and whims. From one of our Ask Ligonier events, Burk Parsons appeals to the usefulness of these time-tested statements of orthodoxy.

Ask your biblical and theological questions live online at Ask.Ligonier.org.

Read the Transcript

Kingsburg Conference in CA: Last Day to Save

Today is the final day to register for our 2020 Kingsburg Conference with the early-bird discount. Don’t miss this special offer. Register today and save.

Join us on April 24-25, 2020, for Unashamed, a two-day conference in Kingsburg, CA. W. Robert Godfrey, Steven Lawson, and John MacArthur will remind us of the power of the good news, paint a picture of gospel-shaped ministry, and help us to say along with the Apostle Paul, “I am not ashamed of the gospel” (Rom. 1:16). Register by 11:59 p.m. ET and save.

Sessions

The Gospel of God Regarding His Son by Steven Lawson
The Mark of Faith by W. Robert Godfrey
Encouraged by Faith by John MacArthur
Q&A with Godfrey, Lawson, and MacArthur
Gospel Obligation by Steven Lawson
The Power of God by W. Robert Godfrey
Faith from First to Last by John MacArthur

Register Now