R.C. Sproul's Blog, page 573

The Faces of Ministry at Ligonier: Kaki Cobb

Kaki has worked for Ligonier Ministries’ Development Department since graduating from Covenant College in 2002. Her current role as a Donor Relations representative involves contacting and thanking donors for their generous financial support of Ligonier Ministries, as well as being available for any needs they may have. Kaki is also responsible for writing and coordinating grant proposals for Private Foundation fund requests as needed. In addition to fundraising responsibilities, Kaki also manages Ligonier’s chaplain outreach program, which provides Bible study material for more than 150 military and prison chaplains worldwide.

Kaki enjoys working directly with those who are actively involved in the ministry. Kaki says, “It is rewarding to see the impact that Ligonier has had in people’s lives. I am grateful for the unique and fulfilling opportunity I have had to work in a ministry environment for so many years and hope to be involved with Ligonier Ministries in some capacity for many years to come.”

Currently, Kaki serves the ministry part-time as she is a busy mother of two young children, Ella, 4 and Caroline, 1. She and her husband John have been married for eight years and are members of St. Andrew’s. John is Ligonier’s Director of Ministry Outreach. In her free time, Kaki also enjoys photography, traveling, cooking and home decorating projects.

Tough Economic Times

Given tough economics times and Wall Street’s screaming roller coaster ride, what ought Christians to do?

There is certainly a biblical injunction that we discern the times. God calls us to do this, however, not so we will know the right move to make at the right time, but so that we will remember what the right move always was. Circumstances don’t change our calling, though they can wake us up to our calling. Such is the case here.

Christians should do what Christians are always called to do. First, we should be looking to our own sin. Why is it that Christians are up in arms politically during a time of shocking deficits, high unemployment and a moribund real estate market, but have been comparatively content over almost forty years of abortion on demand? What does that say about us and our priorities?

The obvious answer is this- money is an idol to us. We think because money seems to be even more important to Gordon Gekko, or Donald Trump, that we are therefore free from seeing it as an idol. We think that having less than somebody else is proof we’re not greedy. But when what we have, whether large or small, is threatened by hard times we find out what a priority wealth is to us.

Money becomes an idol less when we simply want more, and more when we look to it as God. To the Gordon Gekkos of the world, money is their reason for being, and in that way is a god. To us, however, it is our security, and therefore is a god.

It is a good and wise thing to consume less than you produce, to save and invest. And it hurts when our savings take a hit from inflation, and our investments suddenly drop in value. But in good times and bad we are to remember that Jesus taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” When James warns us against thinking we can simply plan our future profits- "Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow (James 4: 13-14) he is not only talking about travel plans. A perfectly fitting application in our day might be, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will invest in our 401k, buy and sell, and make a profit.’” Sufficient unto the day is the bread thereunto. And He is our provider, not Morgan Stanley.

What we need to do then is to ask God to provide for us, and to trust that He will. His provision may not match our daydreams. It may not match what we think of as normal. But He will provide. What we need to do is to not spend more than we make. What we need to do is pay, joyfully, our tithes, if only as a confession that we do indeed trust Him to provide our daily bread. What we need to do is to love our neighbor, not ask the state to tax him to finance our plans. What we need to do is go to bed confident that we are living a godly life, while praying for the peace of Babylon. What we need to do is what we have always needed to do.

God is, as always, sending judgment to a nation that thinks it can forget Him, that thinks it can borrow its way to prosperity. That judgment will touch and is touching our lives. But we are safe in the palm of the scarred hand of Jesus. His wrath is not aimed at us for that was spent 2000 years ago. Whatever is coming it will not undo His promises to us. Invest in the gold streets of the New Heavens and the New Earth, where neither rust, nor moth nor thieves, not politicians can enter. Not only is it the safest investment you can make, but it will also have the greatest return.

$5 Friday: Grace, Death & Baptism

 It's $5 Friday! Today's resources address grace, death, holiness, baptism, conscience and more. Thanks to Christian Focus Publications for partnering with us this week. Sale runs from 8 a.m. Friday through 8 a.m. Saturday EST.

View today's $5 Friday sale.

Why "Let Go and Let God" Is a Bad Idea

What is “let-go-and-let-God” theology? It’s called Keswick theology, and it’s one of the most significant strands of second-blessing theology. It assumes that Christians experience two “blessings.” The first is getting “saved,” and the second is getting serious. The change is dramatic: from a defeated life to a victorious life; from a lower life to a higher life; from a shallow life to a deeper life; from a fruitless life to a more abundant life; from being “carnal” to being “spiritual”; and from merely having Jesus as your Savior to making Jesus your Master. People experience this second blessing through surrender and faith: “Let go and let God.”

Keswick theology comes from the early Keswick movement. Keswick (pronounced KE H-zick) is a small town in the scenic Lake District of northwest England. Since 1875, it has hosted a weeklong meeting in July for the Keswick Convention. The movement’s first generation (about 1875– 1920) epitomized what we still call “Keswick theology” today.

Keep Reading "Why 'Let Go and Let God' Is a Bad Idea."

Video: Burk Parsons on Serving with R.C. Sproul

Burk Parsons is editor of Tabletalk magazine and associate minister at Saint Andrew's in Sanford, Florida, where he serves alongside Dr. R.C. Sproul. Recently, he sat down with Dustin Neeley, church planter, pastor, and founder of the ministry Church Planting for the Rest of Us, to discuss what it is like to pastor with Dr. Sproul and the lessons we can learn from those who have gone before us.

Watch the video or read the transcript below:

 

Dustin:  Hi, my name is Dustin Neeley, and I’m here with Burk Parsons, who is the associate pastor of the church where R.C. Sproul is also a pastor. And he’s also the lead editor of Tabletalk magazine. So I want to talk to you about both of those things. Let’s start, first, with: What is it like pastoring alongside of Dr. Sproul, and what are some lessons that young guys like us can learn from these older brothers that have gone before us?

Burk:  It’s an honor to serve with R.C. I’m 35 now, and I started serving with R.C. about 12 years ago as I was working my way through seminary—finishing Bible college. It’s, quite frankly, an honor just to serve alongside him and learn from him and grow from him. As we grow, and as we learn, and as we study, we’re learning from everybody—as you are. We’re learning from everyone that God places over us and around us and beside us—older men, younger men. But when God places a man like R.C. in your life—a man who’s been in ministry for almost 5 decades—someone who’s lived through so much and who has lived through so many battles theologically, ecclesiastically, biblically—a man who’s stood the test of time—and he’s done it winsomely with a smile on his face. He’s done so graciously 

I learn from him things that I don’t think I could learn from anyone else. I learn from him what it means to love people and to love God and serve people. I learn from him what it means to love the Word and study the Word—proclaim the Word and be faithful to the Word. R.C. is 72 now, and like I said, he’s been doing it for decades. But what we need to do, I think, more so—as younger men and as younger pastors—whatever age and whatever experience level—we need to spend time just listening at their feet. We need to spend time studying them, learning from them—and we’re going to disagree at times—we’re going to disagree with the way in which something is said, or how it is said, or whether something should be said or isn’t said 

But the truth of the matter is we have a lot to learn, and our forefathers understood that. They understood what it was to sit and to listen to learn and to study. They knew what it was to simply shut up and listen. And we need to do more of that. We need to be careful not to say too much when we’re young, especially. I think we need to allow the fathers to speak. We need to listen to them. We need to listen to their tone, because, so often, young guys just quickly say too much. They lose their audience; they lose their voice—because, too often, I think they are speaking when they should be listening. Being with R.C. has really helped me to really just do that and shut up and listen. And God tells us in his Word, constantly, to listen to the wise—to gain wisdom from multiple counselors—to listen to the experience of the aged.

There is something that is lost in our generation where we have almost put aside the older generation, beside our fathers, and said, “We know better than they do. We know beyond what they do. They’re not as missionally minded as we are. They don’t understand church planting. They don’t understand contextualization. There’s so much they don’t understand.” So people stop listening altogether, and what they never to stop to realize is that these guys have been thinking along these lines and thinking through these things and trying to wrestle with them and understand them all their lives.

Dustin:  And longer than we’ve been alive, quite frankly.

Burk:  Absolutely. So, being with R.C. and serving there with him at Saint Andrew’s as a pastor has been an incredible honor, and most days I just wake up saying, “Lord, thank you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve anywhere,” quite frankly. That God puts us in ministry and gives us a stewardship that’s not ours—it doesn’t belong to us—it’s something that belongs to him and that he says, “Now, this is my gift to you. Use it well and use it faithfully and be a good steward of it.” To me, I’m just amazed. I’m amazed that I get to serve people, and I get to work in people’s lives and help them and counsel them and help train them and disciple them—and working with R.C. is amazing because he’s actually extremely gracious. He’s very encouraging. He wants to allow someone to mess up. He wants to allow someone to do their work and do it well and do it as God has called them. Interestingly, R.C. is not interested in trying to make you like him, because he doesn’t think that he’s that great of a guy.

Dustin:  [laughing] That’s great.

Burk:  He wants people and anyone he’s working with or anyone who works for him—and wants them to be who they are and who God has created them to be. He’s not interested in making anyone like him. And so, when we understand the grace of God, and we understand the Gospel of God, and we understand the Word of God—the truth of the matter is that it frees people up to be themselves, and it frees leaders, pastors, and mentors and disciplers—it frees them up also to allow their students to be whoever God has made them to be—however he’s gifted them to be. And I think we need more of that.

Dustin:  Yeah, that’s a good word.

Burk:  We’re not trying to replicate anybody. We’re not trying to mimic anyone. And so, it’s fascinating, because R.C. has been there and done it. He’s been around for a long time. The truth is, he hates the celebrity. He is amazed still—to this day—that people give him credit for things that he doesn’t think he has any business getting credit for. I really do believe in his heart he wants to just reflect God’s glory and give it back to him.

Dustin:  Wow—and that makes sense in the cosmic scope of sovereignty why God has raised him up to do just that. Brother, thanks for sharing your story.

Great Quotes from Choosing My Religion

I recently had the opportunity to read through almost all of the books of R.C. Sproul. Along the way I built a collection of some of the best quotes from each one of them. Here are 5 of the best from Choosing My Religion.

I do not want to drive across a bridge designed by an engineer who believed the numbers in structural stress models are relative truths.

The real issue for most of us is not whether there is a God. We know there is. The issue is: Who is God? Above all, our search to finish the sentence, “I believe in …” must be framed around another question: What is God really like?

If God really is good, he has no option but wrath. A just, holy judge who winks at evil and refuses to punish it is not a just, holy judge. That sort of judge wouldn’t be worth respecting. He wouldn’t be consistent to the law or what he believed to be right. A judge without judgment would not be a real judge. That wouldn’t be truth. Truth demands consistent holiness from a holy God.

God will never stop being holy just to save us.

There are only two ways that God’s justice can be satisfied with respect to your sin. Either you satisfy it or Christ satisfies it. You can satisfy it by being banished from God’s presence forever. Or you can accept the satisfaction that Jesus Christ has made.

We want to be saved from our misery, but not from our sin. We want to sin without misery, just as the prodigal son wanted inheritance without the father. The foremost spiritual law of the physical universe is that this hope can never be realized. Sin always accompanies misery. There is no victimless crime, and all creation is subject to decay because of humanity’s rebellion from God.

If you don’t delight in the fact that your Father is holy, holy, holy, then you are spiritually dead. You may be in a church. You may go to a Christian school. But if there is no delight in your soul for the holiness of God, you don’t know God. You don’t love God. You’re out of touch with God. You’re asleep to his character.

Get the 2011 National Conference Set for a Donation of Any Amount

Celebrating the faithfulness of God to the work of Ligonier Ministries and Desiring God, Ligonier Ministries’ 2011 National Conference looked at the holiness of God and the way it is to inform Christian living. Featuring conference lectures by Sinclair Ferguson, Robert Godfrey, Steven Lawson, John Piper, R.C. Sproul, and R.C. Sproul Jr., this collection also includes Drs. Piper and Sproul’s reflections on what they have learned in their many decades of ministry.

This week you can get this DVD series for a donation of any amount. Some of the messages include:

War on the Word
Defending the Faith
Almighty Over All
Worshiping the Triune God
Don't Waste Your Life
Clothed in Righteousness
Evangelism and Missions
Pleasing God

Offer valid through August 18th. Donate Now .

He Loves Me, He Really Loves Me

"I have had the privilege of attending a series of Ligonier Ministries National Conferences, and along the way I have noticed a little phenomenon or tradition that takes place at the beginning of these events. For many of the people who attend, these conferences mark an annual opportunity to connect with friends. Many people have attended the conference year after year, and along the way they have met new friends or have reconnected with old friends. The conference offers a once-per-year opportunity to spend a little time together and to catch up on the year that has gone by."

This is how Tim Challies begins his contribution to this month's issue of Tabletalk. He goes on to talk about watching people who have not seen one another since the conference the year before, catching up. "So often, when I see people meet after the passing of yet another year, I see them embracing and then immediately digging out their phones or their iPods to show off the pictures of their children or grandchildren. And it is interesting to hear them talk, to hear them share proudly about the children they’ve already begun to miss even after only one or two days apart."

Keep reading "He Loves Me, He Really Loves Me" to be encouraged the lesson he learns from this.

From Brokenness to Mission is the Human Pattern

Dr. Sproul conveys a powerful gospel dynamic here from Isaiah 6:

There is a pattern here, a pattern repeated in history. God appears, people quake in terror, God forgives and heals, God sends. From brokenness to mission is the human pattern. When God asked, “Whom shall I send?” Isaiah understood the force of the word. To be “sent” meant to function as an emissary for God, to be a spokesman for the deity. In the New Testament the word apostle meant “one who is sent.” The Old Testament counterpart to the New Testament apostle was the prophet. God was looking for a volunteer to enter the lonely, grueling office of prophet. “Whom shall I send?”

Notice Isaiah’s answer: “Here am I, send me.” There is a crucial difference between saying, “Here am I” and saying, “Here I am.” Had he said, “Here I am,” that would have merely indicated his location. But he was interested in more than giving God his location. He said, “Here am I.” With these words Isaiah was stepping forward to volunteer. His answer was simply, “I will go. Look no further. Send me.”

From The Holiness of God

Satan the Proud and Powerful (Part 2)

Continued from Part 1

In our day there has been a renewal of interest in the work of Satan. Hollywood has given us The Exorcist and The Omen and a host of other films to whet our appetite for the occult. Within Christian circles there has arisen a new concern for ministries of deliverance. Some of these deliverance ministries have developed a bizarre and radically unbiblical view of demon possession and deliverance.

For example, we hear that we can recognize the departure of a demon from a human soul by a manifest sign that is linked to the particular point of bondage. We have people saying that particular demons cause particular sins. There is, they say, a demon of alcohol, a demon of depression, a demon of tobacco, and so on. I have listened to tapes from well-known deliverance ministers (whose names I will not mention, to protect the guilty) in which they teach the signs of departure of the demon. A sigh, for example, indicates the departure of the demon of tobacco. Since the tobacco demon enters with the inhaling of smoke, he leaves us with an audible exhale. Likewise vomiting may be the sign of the departure of the demon of alcohol. There are demons for every conceivable sin. Not only must each one of these demons he exorcized, but there are necessary procedures to keep them from returning on a daily basis.

I know of no polite way to respond to this kind of teaching. It is unmitigated nonsense. Nowhere in sacred Scripture is there to he found the slightest hint of this kind of demonic diagnosis. These teachings cross the line into the sphere of magic and result in serious harm to believers who are duped by them. Sadly, too much concern with Satan and demons means that we focus less of our attention on Christ. That must please Satan, though it certainly is not pleasing to God.

The Scriptures indicate that Satan can oppress us, assault us, tempt us, slander us, and accuse us. But a Christian who is indwelt by the Holy Spirit cannot be possessed by a demon. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. If a person indwelt by the Holy Spirit can at the same time be sovereignly controlled by an evil spirit, then our redemption is defeated.

All this emphasis on Satan and demons tends to distract us from another very real menace, our own sin. Yes, there is a Devil. There are real demons. But there is also the reality of sin. Satan may be our accomplice in our ongoing sin, but we cannot pass the blame and responsibility for our sin to a controlling demon. We do not have to he possessed by a Devil to get drunk. There is enough abiding wickedness in us to do it all by ourselves. We can never say, "The Devil made me do it." We can say that we are tempted or incited or seduced by Satan, but not that we are controlled or coerced by him.

There are two serious problems with the view that our sins are the result of controlling demons. The first is that we yield to the temptation to take no personal responsibility for our sin. How can we be responsible if in fact we are not able to resist? Second, we are lured into thinking that we are powerless without the aid of the deliverance minister. We are encouraged to think that we are not really guilty and that we are actually helpless without a minister with special powers of deliverance. This negates the entire biblical concept of sanctification. It is surely unbiblical to teach that we cannot lead lives pleasing to God unless some so-called expert on deliverance enters into the battle. Therefore, I say with all urgency that believers must turn away from those who teach such things. Indeed run, for your very spiritual lives.

Excerpted from Pleasing God.