R.C. Sproul's Blog, page 44

Preach the Word

Every season of reformation and every hour of spiritual awakening has been ushered in by a recovery of biblical preaching. This cause and effect is timeless and inseparable. J.H. Merle D’Aubigné, noted Reformation historian, writes, "The only true reformation is that which emanates from the Word of God." That is to say, as the pulpit goes, so goes the church.

Such was the case in the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other reformers were raised up by God to lead this era. At the forefront, it was their recovery of expository preaching that helped launch this religious movement that turned Europe and, eventually, Western civilization upside down. With sola Scriptura as their battle cry, a new generation of biblical preachers restored the pulpit to its former glory and revived apostolic Christianity.

The same was true in the golden era of the puritans in the seventeenth century. A recovery of biblical preaching spread like wildfire through the dry religion of Scotland and England. A resurgence of authentic Christianity came as an army of biblical expositors—John Owen, Jeremiah Burroughs, Samuel Rutherford, and others—marched upon the British Empire with an open Bible and uplifted voice. In its wake, the monarchy was shaken and history was altered.

The eighteenth century witnessed exactly the same. The Bible-saturated preaching of Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and the Tennents thundered through the early colonies. The Atlantic seaboard was electrified with the proclamation of the gospel, and New England was taken by storm. The Word was preached, souls were saved, and the kingdom expanded.

The fact is, the restoration of biblical preaching has always been the leading factor in any revival of genuine Christianity. Philip Schaff writes, "Every true progress in church history is conditioned by a new and deeper study of the Scriptures." That is to say, every great revival in the church has been ushered in by a return to expository preaching.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, preacher of Westminster Chapel London, stated, "The most urgent need in the Christian Church today is true preaching; and as it is the greatest and the most urgent need in the Church, it is the greatest need of the world also." If the doctor’s diagnosis is correct, and this writer believes it is, then a return to true preaching—biblical preaching, expository preaching—is the greatest need in this critical hour. If a reformation is to come to the church, it must begin in the pulpit.

In his day, the prophet Amos warned of an approaching famine, a deadly drought that would cover the land. But not an absence of mere food or water, for this scarcity would be far more fatal. It would be a famine for hearing God’s Word (Amos 8:11). Surely, the church today finds itself in such similar days of shortage. Tragically, exposition is being replaced with entertainment, doctrine with drama, theology with theatrics, and preaching with performances. What is so desperately needed today is for pastors to return to their highest calling—the divine summons to "preach the word" (2 Tim. 4:1–2).

What is expository preaching? The Genevan reformer John Calvin explained, "Preaching is the public exposition of Scripture by the man sent from God, in which God Himself is present in judgment and in grace." In other words, God is unusually present, by His Spirit, in the preaching of His Word. Such preaching starts in a biblical text, stays in it, and shows its God-intended meaning in a life-changing fashion.

This was the final charge of Paul to young Timothy: "Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching" (2 Tim. 4:2). Such preaching necessitates declaring the full counsel of God in Scripture. The entire written Word must be expounded. No truth should be left untaught, no sin unexposed, no grace unoffered, no promise undelivered.

A heaven-sent revival will only come when Scripture is enthroned once again in the pulpit. There must be the clarion declaration of the Bible, the kind of preaching that gives a clear explanation of a biblical text with compelling application, exhortation, and appeal.

Every preacher must confine himself to the truths of Scripture. When the Bible speaks, God speaks. The man of God has nothing to say apart from the Bible. He must not parade his personal opinions in the pulpit. Nor may he expound worldly philosophies. The preacher is limited to one task—preach the Word.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon said, "I would rather speak five words out of this book than 50,000 words of the philosophers. If we want revivals, we must revive our reverence for the Word of God. If we want conversions, we must put more of God’s Word into our sermons." This remains the crying need of the hour.

May a new generation of strong men step forward and speak up, and may they do so loud and clear. As the pulpit goes, so goes the church.

This post was originally published in Tabletalk magazine.

Spread Trusted Teaching on Giving Tuesday

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Columns from Tabletalk Magazine, December 2020

The December issue of Tabletalk features an expositional study of the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus. The Bible reveals Jesus as our Prophet, Priest, and King, with His atoning death being an integral part of His work as our High Priest. The New Testament also reveals that our Lord’s intercession in behalf of His people is essential to His high priestly work, and John 17, commonly called the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus, is one place where we see Him interceding for His people. This prayer, one of the longest recorded prayers in the Bible, gives us vital teaching on the person, people, and petitions of Christ. Understanding this prayer is vital for understanding what Jesus has done for us and how we are to live in light of His ministry. This issue of Tabletalk takes readers through this prayer, explaining and applying its central concerns.

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. You can also purchase the issue or subscribe to get the print issue every month.

Jesus’ Prayer for Us by Burk Parsons
The Context of Jesus’ Prayer by Andreas J. Köstenberger
The Person of Christ by Robert J. Cara
The People of Christ by Brandon D. Crowe
The Petition of Christ by Robert M. Godfrey
Purifying Ourselves as Christ Is Pure by Matthew A. Dudreck
Kingdom of Priests by Quentin B. Falkena
He Is Enough by Nathan White

Read the Entire Issue

Subscribe to Tabletalk today for only $23 a year, and $20 to renew. You save even more if you get a 2- or 3-year subscription (as little as $1.36 per issue). Get your subscription to Tabletalk today by calling one of Ligonier Ministries’ resource consultants at 800-435-4343 or by subscribing online.

What Is the Fruit of Repentance?

Genuine repentance leaves true and lasting effects on the life of a Christian. From one of our Ask Ligonier events, Steven Lawson describes the fruit of lifelong repentance.

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

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Special Three-Day Sale

For a limited time, you can save up to 92% on more than one hundred and seventy trustworthy resources for yourself or when you shop for family and friends. This special three-day sale collection features teaching series, books, conference collections, study guides, music, and more—including our popular new book, A Field Guide on False Teaching. Receive this new title for as little as $4 when you purchase ten or twenty-five copies for your family, friends, and church.

Don’t miss this special three-day sale. This offer ends at 11:59 p.m. ET on Wednesday, December 2.

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What Does the Word “Gospel” Mean in the New Testament?

The gospel is the possession of Jesus, but, even more, Jesus is the heart of the content of the gospel.

We use it so glibly in the church today. Preachers say they preach the gospel, but if we listen to them preach Sunday after Sunday, we hear very little gospel in what they are preaching. The term gospel has become a nickname for preaching anything rather than something with definitive content. The word for "gospel" is the word euangelion. It has that prefix eu-, which comes into English in a variety of words. We talk about euphonics or euphonious music, which refers to something that sounds good. We talk about a eulogy, which is a good word pronounced about someone at his funeral service. The prefix eu- refers to something good or pleasant. The word angelos or angelion is the word for "message." Angels are messengers, and an angelos is one who delivers a message.

This word euangelion, which means "good message" or "good news," has a rich background in the Old Testament. There, the basic meaning of the term gospel was simply an announcement of a good message. If a doctor came to examine a sick person and afterward declared that the problem was nothing serious, that was gospel or good news. In ancient days when soldiers went out to battle, people waited breathlessly for a report from the battlefield about the outcome. Once the outcome was known, marathon runners dashed back to give the report. That is why Isaiah wrote, "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news" (Isa. 52:7). The watchman in the watchtower would look as far as the eye could see into the distance. Finally, he would see the dust moving as the runner sped back to the city to give the report of the battle. The watchmen were trained to tell by the way the runner's legs were churning whether the news was good or bad. If the runner was doing the survival shuffle, it indicated a grim report, but if his legs were flying and the dust was kicking up, that meant good news. That is the concept of gospel in its most rudimentary sense.

When we come to the New Testament, we find three distinct ways in which the term gospel is used. First, we have four books in the New Testament that we call Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These books are biographical portraits of Jesus. Gospel in this sense describes a particular form of literature. During the earthly ministry of Jesus, the term gospel was linked not particularly with the person of Jesus but with the kingdom of God. John the Baptist is introduced as one who comes preaching the gospel, and his message is "repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" (Matt. 3:2).

Jesus did the same in His parables, proclaiming, "the kingdom of God is like . . ." On the lips of Jesus, the gospel was about the dramatic moment in history when, through the long-awaited Messiah, the kingdom of God had broken through in time and space. The good news was the good news of the kingdom. By the time the epistles were written, particularly the Pauline epistles, the term gospel had taken on a new shade of understanding. It had become the gospel of Jesus Christ. Gospel had a clear content to it. At the heart of this gospel was the announcement of who Jesus was and what He had accomplished in His lifetime.

If we give our testimony to our neighbors, saying, "I became a Christian last year. I gave my heart to Jesus," we are bearing witness about Jesus, but we are not telling them the gospel, because the gospel is not about us. The gospel is about Jesus—what He did, His life of perfect obedience, His atoning death on the cross, His resurrection from the dead, His ascension into heaven, and His outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the church. We call those crucial elements the objective aspects of the New Testament gospel of Christ.

In addition to the person and work of Jesus, there is also in the New Testament use of the term gospel the question of how the benefits accomplished by the objective work of Jesus are subjectively appropriated to the believer. First, there is the question of who Jesus was and what He did. Second is the question of how that benefits you and me. That is why Paul conjoins the objective account of the person and work of Jesus (particularly to the Galatians) with the doctrine of justification by faith alone, which is essential to the gospel. In preaching the gospel we preach about Jesus, and we preach about how we are brought into a saving relationship with him.

The gospel is under attack in the church today. I cannot stress enough how important it is to get the gospel right and to understand both the objective aspect of the person and work of Jesus and the subjective dimension of how we benefit from that by faith alone.

Recently, a Protestant seminary professor, supposedly evangelical, was quoted to me as having said that the doctrine of imputation—by which our sins are transferred to Christ on the cross and His righteousness is transferred to us by faith—is of human invention and has nothing to do with the gospel. I wanted to weep when I heard that. It just underscored how delicate the preservation of the gospel is in our day and how careful the church has to be in every age to guard that precious good news that comes to us from God.

This excerpt is adapted from Romans: An Expositional Commentary by R.C. Sproul.

Will You Pray for Awakening? Download Your Free Prayer Guide

We live in a world that needs awakening. Millions of people do not know Jesus Christ. The church itself needs renewed zeal for the truth, for spiritual growth, and for missions. Scripture reveals how this awakening comes about: by a powerful movement of the Spirit of God. It also tells us that when just two men—Paul and Silas—prayed, the earth itself shook (Acts 16:25–26). So we are dedicating the entire year of 2020 to pray for awakening, and we hope you will, too.

To help as many people as possible, we produced this free prayer guide. Download it today at PrayForAwakening.com, find it in the PrayerMate app, or order the prayer booklet in packs of ten to share with your loved ones.

To use the guide, find the prayer that corresponds to the current week. Each week of the month focuses on a different group to pray for, starting with you and your family and expanding to the world and the global church. You can also share your desire to #PrayForAwakening on social media.

DECEMBER PRAYER FOCUS:

Week 1: Pray that you and your family will diligently put sin to death. “If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” (Rom. 8:13)
Week 2: Pray that your church will faithfully guard the deposit of God’s truth and not compromise it. “By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.” (2 Tim. 1:14)
Week 3: Pray that your nation and city will honor God and not despise Him. “Those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed.” (1 Sam. 2:30)
Week 4: Pray that people around the world will find the hope of salvation in Christ. “In his name the Gentiles will hope.” (Matt. 12:21)
Week 5: Pray that God will remove satanically imposed blindness to His truth and open the eyes of people around the world to the gospel. “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Cor. 4:4)

We hope this prayer guide encourages you this year and in future years. Join us in praying fervently for a mighty movement of God’s Spirit today, thankful that He has graciously promised to hear us, and confident that He will answer our prayers according to His will.

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Your King Comes, Lowly and Riding on a Donkey

Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem on a humble donkey may have seemed unremarkable at a glance, but in reality, His arrival fulfilled a prophecy of the long-promised King. In this brief clip, R.C. Sproul recounts the triumphal entry of Christ.

Transcript:

Chapter 19, verse 28 of Luke’s gospel reads that “When He had said this, He went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. And it came to pass, when He drew near to Bethpage and Bethany, at the mountain called Olivet, that He sent two of His disciples, saying, ‘Go into the village opposite you, where as you enter you will find a colt tied on which no one has ever sat. Loose it and bring it here. And if anyone asks you, “Why are you loosing it?” Thus you shall say to him, “Because the Lord has need of it.”’” Now, there’s a little bit more information given on this text in Matthew’s gospel. We recall that Matthew’s gospel was written for a Jewish audience. And there are more references or allusions to Old Testament text found in Matthew’s gospel than in any of the other gospels, because he was constantly reminding his Jewish readers of the connection between the Old Testament prophesies and the New Testament person and work of Jesus. So, we’ll look at Matthew’s significant details in a moment.

But here we have Jesus approaching the holy city. And the secret that He has been carefully guarding during His earthly ministry is about to be disclosed, as Jesus is going to make a public display, identifying Himself to some degree with the Old Testament prophesies concerning the coming of the Messiah. Now, we may miss some of the imagery here and its significance. Because we would think, well, if Jesus really wants to announce His vocation as Messiah, why doesn’t He ride into Jerusalem on a golden chariot? Well, the reason is that in the Old Testament, the prophesy of Zachariah, for example, talked about the coming of Jerusalem’s King, who would be riding on the foal of a donkey: “For lo, your King comes, lowly and riding upon a donkey,” and is a cause for the celebration of the daughters of Jerusalem.

So Jesus makes careful preparations for this entry. He doesn’t just casually walk into the city. He said, “Now I want you to go to this certain place and get this donkey that no one has ever ridden before, and bring it here. And if they ask you what you’re doing making this request, you just tell them, “The Lord has need of it,” and they’ll give it to you. And so, this is part of the preparation, the setting of the stage for the entry into Jerusalem itself. “All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying: ‘Tell the daughter of Zion, “Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.”’”

Is There Anything Wrong with Using the "Sinner's Prayer"?

Should Christians avoid using the so-called “sinner’s prayer”? From one of our Ask Ligonier events, Stephen Nichols directs us to be intentional with the words we use in prayer.

When you have biblical and theological questions, just ask Ligonier.

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Asking the Right Questions

Sometimes it is less important to have the right answers than to have the right questions. A man named Saul thought he did not need to ask any questions. He had all the answers. The most important question, according to Saul, was "How can I be good enough for God?" He thought he had that answer down cold.

The only problem was, he was wrong. American humorist Will Rogers could have told Saul, "It's not what you don't know that will get you in trouble, but what you know for certain that just ain't so." Saul's problem lay in the question "How can I be good enough?"

The answer, of course, is that he couldn't. But he didn't understand the holiness of God. No one who is separated from God understands his holiness. To tell you the truth, not many Christians do either.

Saul had never asked the right questions. I think non-Christians often don't ask religious questions because down deep inside they have a sneaking suspicion of what the answers might be, and they don't like them. But Christians also are afraid of questions for the same reason, so they get into trouble. Or they are afraid other Christians will call them "doubters" if they are overhead asking the wrong question. They don't want to seem unspiritual or stupid. They also may be afraid God will lose patience with them.

But God loves to answer questions—the "stupider" the better—because he loves for us to have the ultimate truth we need to complete the sentence "I believe …" He never loses patience with a question, and neither do people who are serving him. If you take a question to more mature Christians, those who really are men or women of God, you likely will find they don't think it is so dumb. Maybe they used to struggle with the same thing. Maybe they still do.

God tells us in James 1:5-8 that if anyone lacks wisdom "he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault." James adds that what God doesn't want is for someone to ask with a wavering heart. The purpose of God's answer is to build a faith that is strong, single-minded, and founded on truth.

Saul's faith was strong and single-minded, but it was not founded on truth. He believed that he would please God most by persecuting the followers of that trouble-making rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth. It never occurred to him to ask a rather obvious question: "Who are you, Lord, and who is Jesus of Nazareth?"

So God had a question to ask this pompous religious leader. In order to ask Saul, God had to get the man's attention, so he tapped him on the shoulder (see Acts 9:1-9).

What he did was strike him blind. God knows how to get a person's undivided attention. Then he asked the question:

"Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"

Saul, with all the answers, didn't have a clue as to what God was talking about. Persecuting God? Wasn't he doing his best to serve God by ridding the world of the followers of a crucified criminal?

But now Saul did know what question to ask. He asked the most important of all questions: "Lord, who are you?"

That is when Saul started to become Paul the apostle—when he was confronted head-on by the holy God. When it comes to evaluating a religion and choosing ultimate truth, "Who are you?" is the question God most wants to answer. Only after you see him for who he is can you have an intelligent belief.

Excerpt from Choosing My Religion by R.C. Sproul.