R.C. Sproul's Blog, page 4

Which Race Are You Running?

The Tokyo Olympics are only days away. For two weeks, people around the globe will eagerly watch the world’s greatest athletes compete.

Ligonier is taking this opportunity to raise vital questions: What is the most important goal you’re striving for in life? Is it truly worth pursuing?

Dr. R.C. Sproul wrote The Race of Faith to bring clarity to these questions. Download this free ebook today and get to the heart of the most important race of our lives: the race of faith. Dr. Sproul uses the Apostles’ Creed as a framework to present a simple summary of the gospel of Jesus Christ and emphasizes the importance of one goal—focusing on what is true and eternal.

Just in time for the Tokyo Games, The Race of Faith is now available in Japanese. This ebook is also available in English and nine other languages, including Arabic, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Farsi, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish. Combined, these languages are spoken by more than 4.8 billion people.

Download this free ebook today, and share it freely with your family and friends around the world so they may be encouraged by the good news of Jesus Christ and called to focus on the race that matters most. Tell them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to visit Ligonier.org/TheRaceOfFaith.

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Children in the Household

Here’s an excerpt from Children in the Household, Robert W. Carver's contribution to the July issue of Tabletalk:

And it came to pass that she brought forth her firstborn, and they wrapped the baby in a blanket and lovingly placed him in a crib. After this blessed event, things would never be the same. That little one then became the center of attention. God gave a gift that will demand untiring devotion and care. As the child grows, the needs will become more complex and the parental investment more demanding and challenging.

The sacred responsibility given to believing parents is clear: “Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). Godly parents teach their children reverence (for God and His Word), respect (for their parents and all in authority), and responsibility (in the home and in society).

What does it mean for children to obey their parents in the Lord? This article will focus on three chronological divisions: their youngest years, their “growing up” years, and their “grown and gone” years.

Continue reading Children in the Household, or begin receiving Tabletalk magazine by signing up for a free 3-month trial.

 

Does the Holy Spirit fill us at our conversion, or must we invite Him?

Is a person filled with the Holy Spirit when he comes to faith in Christ, or do Christian converts still need to invite the Spirit to fill them? From one of our Ask Ligonier events, W. Robert Godfrey explains the Spirit’s work in the life of a believer.

To ask a biblical or theological question, just visit ask.Ligonier.org or message us on Facebook or Twitter.

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Why Do Christians Worship on Sunday?

From creation onward, the people of God worshiped on the seventh day of the week. This was a "creation ordinance" that the Creator Himself established by His example, with the intent that His creatures would follow it. He worked six days and called His image-bearers to work (Gen. 2:15); He rested on the seventh day (Gen. 2:2; Ex. 20:11; 31:17) and called His image-bearers to rest. He signified this with His benediction, setting apart the seventh day as "holy" (Gen. 2:3).

Later, when the Sabbath command was reiterated, we read: "In six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed" (Ex. 31:17). The word refreshed (Hebrew, naphash) is used only two other times in the Old Testament: once in reference to giving rest to animals, servants, and visitors within Israel (Ex. 23:12), and once in reference to David and his men (2 Sam. 16:14). After God worked to make everything, it was as if His rest refreshed Him. Yet God's rest and refreshment mean so much more; they have to do with His joy and satisfaction. The psalmist writes, "May the LORD rejoice in his works" (Ps. 104:31). God's rest and satisfaction was that of a King; having created the heavens and the earth to be His cosmic palace, He took His place on His throne, so to speak, on the seventh day.

After God brought His people out of Egypt and through the Red Sea, the Sabbath day took on even more significance as a covenant sign that God sanctified His people (Ex. 31:13). On that day, the saints celebrated the reality that God had created them and that their rest was rooted in His rest: "For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day" (Ex. 20:8-11). As well, the Sabbath signified that God had redeemed His people (Deut. 5:12-15). Finally, the annual Day of Atonement fell on a Sabbath (Lev. 16:30-31), so the Sabbath also celebrated God's forgiveness of His people.

Under the old covenant with Israel (Ex. 19; Heb. 8:6, 7, 13), the Sabbath day was extremely strict. Not only was no work to be done by the Israelites and their children, they also were to give rest to all in their households—servants, livestock, even sojourners (Ex. 20:10). God even gave regulatory laws over what could and could not be done. For example, if one even went out to gather sticks on the Sabbath in order to kindle a fire (Num. 15:32-36; Ex. 35:1-3), he was to be put to death (Ex. 31:14-15; 35:2). All this strictness was a part of the tutelage of the law, which was meant to lead Israel by the hand to Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:24), who is the final sacrifice ending the old covenant (Heb. 7:11-12, 18-19; 8:7, 13).

When Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week, things changed. Christ, the second Adam, "finished" (John 19:30) the work that the first Adam failed to do (Rom. 5:12-19). Because of that pivotal event, the church determined that for Christians under the new covenant, the day of worship and celebration of the Lord's grace in Jesus Christ was to be the first day of the week, Sunday: "From the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, [the Sabbath] was the last day of the week; and, from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week, which, in Scripture, is called the Lord's day, and is to be continued to the end of the world, as the Christian Sabbath" (WCF, 21:7). On this day, we are reminded of and participate in the glorious reality that we have already entered God's rest (Matt. 11:28; Heb. 4:10) and that we await the experience of the fullness of this rest in eternity in the new heavens and new earth (Rev. 21-22). We now assemble corporately for worship and enjoy a foretaste of our eternal rest, then go out into the kingdom of this world to work for six days. So why do we worship on Sunday and not Saturday?

The first day of the week was the day on which our Lord rose from the dead (John 20:1; cf. Ps. 118:24).The first day of the week is called "the Lord's day" (Rev. 1:10; cf. 1 Cor. 16:2).The first day was the day on which the Holy Spirit was poured out on the church (Acts 2:1-36).Just as on the first day of creation God made light and separated it from the darkness, we gather on the first day of the week to celebrate the light of the gospel in Jesus Christ, who has separated us from the world of the darkness of sin (John 1:5, 9; 3:19; 8:12; 2 Cor. 4:1-6).

From creation until Christ, the people of God worked six days and then rested on the seventh day. This was a picture of their looking forward to eternal rest; the seventh day of creation was not structured with an "evening and morning" as the previous six days (Gen. 2:1-3), which signified that the seventh day had no end and was thus a foretaste of eternity itself. On the other hand, from the work of Christ until the consummation, the people of God rest on the first day and work the next six, looking back on the finished work of Christ. Yet we too look forward to the full consummation of this rest.

This excerpt is taken from Welcome to a Reformed Church by Daniel Hyde .

Pascal’s Wager

Should we base our belief in God on a blind bet or a hopeful gamble? In this brief clip, R.C. Sproul assesses the idea known as Pascal’s Wager.

Today, watch the entire message for free.

Transcript:

Blaise Pascal mused on this business and came up with what is called now, in the history of theoretical thought, Pascal’s Wager. The wager goes something like this. If a person bets his or her life that there is a God and lives in light of that bet—refrains from unrestricted evil, seeks to live sacrificially, seeks to forego some of the pleasures that are offered by the world—if that person dies and there is no God, in the final analysis, that person really hasn’t lost anything because that person has enjoyed a better life. Whereas the person who bets that there is no God and lives their life accordingly—by a wanton lack of moral restraint, indulging their own pleasures, following after their own lusts, living as a self-centered individual—and then that person dies and finds out that there really is a God, that person’s in big trouble. That person is now facing the consequences of the eternal judgment of God. So, in a sense what Pascal is saying to the agnostic or to the skeptic is that if you don’t know if God exists, if you’re not sure that He really is there and is the One who will judge you at the end of your days, in the midst of your uncertainty, the best bet that you can make—the sensible bet that you can make—is to protect your downside, minimize your risks, and maximize the upside, and the practical and intelligent thing to do would be to bet that God is there and is true. Again, if your bet is wrong and you lose, you haven’t lost anything. If you bet that He isn't there and He is, you’ve lost everything. Now, a lot of attention has been given to this particular wager, and people have sought to poke holes in it. The first thing I want to say in defense of Pascal is, as I said earlier, The Pensées, the book that was published after his death, of his reflections, were just that. They were isolated reflections, not a fully developed systematic study of this sort of thing. And he’s thinking on his feet, as it were, and thinks about this and says, “What if I’m wrong or what if I’m right?” Some people say, “Wait a minute. Is this a sound argument for the existence of God?” Well, if you look at it as an argument for the existence of God in the theoretical sense, I think the answer can only be no, it’s not a sound argument for the existence of God. It’s more existentially oriented in that regard, even though Pascal lived before the advent of existentialism. There were many modern existentialists who looked back to Pascal as one who anticipated the thinking of a man like Kierkegaard, for example, who called human beings to be passionately engaged in the subjective aspects of human existence, walking by faith, living by faith, living on the edge of risk, trusting God in the darkness, as it were. And Pascal, being the same kind of man of passion as Kierkegaard at a later time, is thinking in these categories.

What is conveyed to an infant at baptism?

What is conveyed to an infant at his baptism? From one of our Ask R.C. events, R.C. Sproul expresses what it means—and what it doesn’t mean—when our children receive this sign of the covenant.

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

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What Does the Church Most Need Today?

What does the church most need today? In answering this important but rather general question, Psalm 81 is uniquely important and helpful. This psalm obviously contains beautiful promises and clear directions to help the people of God. But careful study of this psalm will deepen our appreciation of it, increase its value for us, and show us how distinctive it is for helping the church.

As we study psalms, we soon learn that the central verse of a psalm is often significant as a key to its interpretation. The central line of Psalm 81 is the heart of that psalm, as the plaintive cry of God is heard: "O Israel, if you would but listen to me!" (v. 8b). The center of Psalm 81—indeed the whole psalm—is a reflection on the Shema.

The centrality of this line and its importance are underscored when we recognize that Psalm 81 is the central psalm of Book 3 of the Psalter. Book 3 (Psalms 73–89) principally concerns the crisis in Israel caused by the destruction of the temple (Ps. 74) and the apparent failure of God's promises that David's sons would forever sit on his throne (Ps. 89). Something of the cause and character of this crisis is contained in this central line of the central psalm.

Since Book 3 is the central book of the five books of the Psalter, Psalm 81:8b actually is the central line of the whole book of Psalms. It stands at the very heart of Israel's songbook. It calls Israel to deep reflection on her relationship to her God.

This psalm also appears to be central to Israel's liturgical calendar. The praise at new moon and full moon can refer only to the seventh month of the year, the Feast of Trumpets (Lev. 23:24; Num. 10:10) and the Feast of Tabernacles (Lev. 23:26–32). Between these two feasts occurred the Day of Atonement (Lev. 23:27). As God called Israel to celebrate His great provisions as Creator and Deliverer, so He called His people to hear Him.

As the Shema was crucial to the Torah, so it is central to the Psalter and to the Christian life. God's people must hear His Word, particularly to reject false gods (v. 9) and to walk in His ways (v. 13). They must not follow their own wisdom (v. 12). How sad to contemplate that God might give us what we think is good for us.

The Lord reminds His people that in history He has been the Deliverer and now promises that when we open our mouths in prayer, He will hear us and meet our needs (v. 10). He is the God who preserves and provides for the needs of His own.

The failure of Israel to hear the Word of God was rectified by God's own Son. Jesus always heard and honored God's Word. His Father delighted in Him for that reason: "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased" (Matt. 17:5). Jesus perfectly listened and followed so that His people would have a complete and perfect salvation. The Father continues to call His people to listen, now directing them to the words of His Son: "listen to him" (Matt. 17:5). The salvation and health of the church depend on it continuing to listen to God's Word.

Psalm 81 seems to reflect the time of exile, when God punished Israel with the loss of the temple, its king, and the land of promise. It also reminds us of an earlier time, when Israel doubted God and grumbled about Him (v. 7). At Meribah (Ex. 17), Israel tested the Lord, doubting that He was with His people, so the Lord tested Israel and found her wanting. Similarly, we can look at the history of the church and see many times and ways in which the church failed to listen to the Word of the Lord.

The time of the Reformation, of course, was one of the greatest times in which the church returned to the Word of God. The Reformation of the church occurred because Christians began again to study the Bible carefully. The Reformers studied Greek and Hebrew, provided the church with new translations of the Bible, used the new technology of the printing press to print Bibles, and prepared some of the finest commentaries and theologies in the history of the church.

Again in our time, the church must be called to listen to the Word of God. The churches of America too often seem interested in following other voices than the voice of God. For decades, some churches have taught that the Bible is not fully and truly the Word of God. Other churches formally recognize the Bible, but seem to have lost confidence that preaching and teaching the Bible is what will convert unbelievers and build the church. Many Christians today seem to practically ignore the Bible, and as a result, they are as worldly as their unbelieving neighbors.

God says to us today, as He said to Israel of old and says to every generation of His people: "O Israel, if you would but listen to me!" Let us pray that the Holy Spirit will open ears in our churches and throughout our land. And let us listen carefully and believingly. Such listening is what the church most needs today.

This post was originally published in Tabletalk magazine. Learn more about the Psalms in Dr. Godfrey's book and teaching series titled Learning to Love the Psalms.

$5 Friday (and More): the Westminster Confession of Faith, Martin Luther, and Richard Sibbes

It’s time for our weekly $5 Friday sale. This week’s resources include such topics as spiritual growth, the Westminster Confession of Faith, Martin Luther, Richard Sibbes, the Apostles' Creed, the Canons 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:

The Legacy of Luther , eBook download $9 $6 Surprised by Suffering by R.C. Sproul, eBook download $9 $6 Saving the Reformation: The Pastoral Theology of the Canons of Dort by W. Robert Godfrey, eBook download $9 $6 Truths We Confess by R.C. Sproul, eBook download $9 $6 What We Believe: Understanding and Confessing the Apostles’ Creed by R.C. Sproul, $17 $10And More

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

VIEW TODAY'S $5 FRIDAY ITEMS

 

The Fifth Commandment and the Household

Here’s an excerpt from The Fifth Commandment and the Household, Iain Duguid's contribution to the July issue of Tabletalk:

According to Leo Tolstoy, “Happy families are all alike; unhappy families are each unhappy in their own way.” There is truth in that observation, inasmuch as there is a God-given design for the family that, when observed, will generally lead to harmony and happiness. Equally, when that design is neglected in any of a thousand different ways, the tendency will be toward disharmony and unhappiness.

A key feature of that God-given design for the family is parental authority and filial submission. Just as there is an order in marriage, in which husbands are servant-leaders while wives are submissive-helpers, so too there is an order in the family. It is laid out in the fifth commandment: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you” (Ex. 20:12). This is the first of the commandments that deal with human-human relationships rather than human-divine relationships, preceding even the commandments against murder and adultery. That demonstrates just how important this commandment was in its ancient context, where people were much less individually oriented than they are in the modern West.

Continue reading The Fifth Commandment and the Household, or begin receiving Tabletalk magazine by signing up for a free 3-month trial.

 

Husbands, 8 Admonitions to Love Your Wife

"Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them." (Col. 3:19, NKJV)

When God says, "Husbands, love your wives," he speaks of the woman as a complex being. He calls every man to love his whole wife just as every man loves his whole self (Eph. 5:29). This means that a husband must do all he can to understand his wife's world. What follows are eight admonitions to love our wives with respect to their various facets.

1. Love Her Heart—Emotional Love

The Bible uses the word "love" over 350 times. Almost 10% of these times are in the Song of Solomon (which comprises less than 0.5 percent of Scripture). One thing we learn from this is that a husband should use words to express his love for his wife. "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away! O my dove…let me see your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely" (Song 2:10). I know of no woman who wouldn't love to hear her husband speak to her like that.

2. Love Her Mind—Intellectual Love

A loving husband graciously convinces his wife that, to him, she is the most important person in the world. By this I don't mean that he persuades her that he will never leave her. That's not good enough, of course. Does your wife know that you value her above all else? Intellectual love also means engaging your wife's mind. Many men win the hand of their future wife by thoughtful, engaging, conversation. Too many men fail to take this habit into marriage.

3. Love Her Body—Physical Love

At the most basic level, by physical love a husband strives to meet his wife's physical needs. An able man who consistently chooses not to provide for the physical needs of his wife does not love her. At the same time, men must help their wives steward God's provisions in order to maximize their earnings.

Physical love is also complimentary. Your wife needn't be a supermodel to receive regular, sincere, compliments. Physical love must be exclusive. Taking second looks at other women or carrying on about their beauty is destructive. Each man must strive to please his own wife (1 Cor. 7:3,33)

4. Love Her Soul—Spiritual Love

Men tend to be task-oriented. But often we neglect one of our greatest responsibilities; the cultivation of godliness in our wives. We need to become comfortable with the phrase, "as for me and my house" (Josh. 24:14-15). Joshua understood that as a covenant head, his choices had a profound impact of those under his care. He must always think of the spiritual good of his dependents.

This means making thoughtful, prayerful, decisions, even if they are unpopular. "We are going to church today even though that woman verbally hurt you last week. We must have family worship even with our busy schedule." These are expressions of love.

5. Love Her Relationships—Relational Love

For couples with children, relational love may require a husband to protect his wife from her "closest relatives." Be swift and firm to discipline children for disrespecting mom. Resist contradicting her in front of the children. Give her "time off" when necessary. Outside of the home, develop an interest in her friends. Help her to focus on friends that are best for her.

6. Love Her Humanity—Realistic Love

Be tender in your wife's failures. She needs to know that you love her even if you are saddened by her sin. Be grateful that she is different than you. A loving husband sees his wife as God's gift to him even if she is not perfect.

7. Love Her Calling—Supportive Love

If a wife's greatest calling is to be submissive to her husband (Col. 3:18), a loving husband helps his wife to be submissive. Some wives never learn biblical submission because their husbands rarely set a positive example. They fight against the council of the church. They speak blasphemously of civil authorities. They complain about their employer's policies. Yet they demand full submission from their wives. God says, all men must submit to proper authority (Rom. 13:1). You can hardly help your wife do this if you aren't doing it yourself.

8. Love Her Maker—Theological Love

Ultimately, we are loveless because we love ourselves more than we love God and are dissatisfied with God's provision. This means that the more you love God the better equipped you will be to truly love your wife.

By his matchless grace, God draws us to love him and empowers us to love others. Matthew Henry notes that the epistles which focus most on the glory of divine grace, and the majesty of the Lord Jesus, "are the most particular…in pressing the duties of the several relations." The gospel is the good news that the Son of God "loved me and gave Himself for me" (Gal. 2:20). Christ loves the whole Christian–heart, mind, body, soul–and every other part. Only as we come to terms with what that means will we be able to obey God's word. "Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them."