R.C. Sproul's Blog, page 596

2011 Ligonier National Conference - Session 12 (John Piper)

[image error]The final session of this year National Conference went to John Piper who was asked to reflect on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his groundbreaking book Desiring God. Much of what he did this morning was summarize what he has been teaching all these years, because in all these years, he has not changed the focus of his ministry. But he sought to address some of the misunderstandings and to fill in some of the gaps that have been raised in the years since he wrote the book.

He said that the book came out of the tension of having to choose between him being happy and God being glorified in his life. The origin of Desiring God is a desire to be happy. Our hearts are desire factories because God made them that way. You can't choose to not want to be happy, so there has to be a solution to your quest to be happy being right and God's desire to be glorified being right. He waded right into this tension twenty-five years ago and has remained there throughout his ministry.

Particularly interesting was the way in which Piper drew lines between Desiring God and some of his other books. He did this as a means of answering a question he has often been asked: How can you believe that God makes much of us? We understand what we are to make much of God, but are we really to believe that God seeks to make much of us? This was the main issue at the heart of his book God Is the Gospel. And so Dr. Piper spent the bulk of his message defending his view that God does make much of us, at least in a certain way.

Because this blog is meant to be just a short summary, and because the message will soon be available online, I will leave it to you to hear his stirring defense and to encourage you that you are precious to God, that it is his joy and to his glory to make much of you.

Let me leave you with just one great quote:

I can lose everything on the planet and gain one thing—Christ—and call it gain.

2011 Ligonier National Conference - Session 12 (Robert Godfrey)

The conference continued today with a message by Ligonier teaching fellow Dr. Robert Godfrey on the topic "Pleasing God." Dr. Godfrey explained that when he saw his message title, his first though was "Can we please God?" He reminded us that Scripture says God is pleased with His people. It's amazing that as powerfully as Scripture speaks about the continuing sinfulness of even the regenerated, it also speaks about how God does delight in His people. How can both be true at the same time? Dr. Godfrey noted that after the Heidelberg Catechism discusses the Ten Commandments, it asks whether we can keep these things perfectly. The answer given is "No." In this life even the holiest Christians have only a small beginning of the obedience to which they are called. The holiest of us not only have small beginnings of the obedience to which we are called, we also have small beginnings to understanding how sinful we really are.

Dr. Godfrey continued by reminding us that Jesus is powerfully at work in His people to lead us to become more holy and that He delights in that. We may often be overwhelmed by a sense of our sinfulness, but Jesus is accomplishing His purpose in us, and when He returns, He will be glorified in us. So how are we to think about what God is doing in us? How are we to think about pleasing God? One of the sad things we see is how frequently people who set out to please God run amuck. They run amuck by really pleasing themselves. King Henry VIII, for example, couldn't distinguish between what he wanted and what is right. We have to remember that God doesn't want us to make up ways to please Him. He wants us to please Him in the way He has revealed.

Dr. Godfrey then turned to Matthew 26:1–13, the story of Jesus anointing at Bethany). According to Jesus, the woman who anointed him with costly oil pleased God. But what did she do that pleased God? Why does Jesus focus on her? Jesus commends her because she has been listening and believing. She has realized that He is shortly going to be crucified. She wants to prepare his body for burial. She is the only one who has understood and believed His word. Mary is a listener to Jesus. That's why she should never be forgotten.

Mary also recognizes Jesus' supreme importance. She recognizes that He is the Messiah, the Son of God, who is giving His life for many. Not only is she anointing Him for burial, she's anointing Him for resurrection. She believes His word and she recognizes His importance. That's something we can do to please God. We can look to His word to point us to Him and His importance.

Not just individuals, but congregations, please God. Christianity is a communal endeavor. We can see this in the letter to the church of Smyrna in Revelation 2. How is this church pleasing to God? In the same way that Mary was pleasing to God. They listened to the word of Christ, believed the word, and lived the word. They also saw and understood the importance of Jesus. We too can please God by listening to His Son, by believing His Son, and by living in light of who He is.

2011 Ligonier National Conference - Session 11 (John Piper)

We have already come to the final day—the final half-day, really—of the 2011 National Conference. We began the day with a session led by John Piper whose topic was "Let the Nations Be Glad." He took as his text Psalm 67.

Piper began by speaking of the missionary endeavors of the Protestants in England and showing that this burst out of the soil of a rich, Puritan theology. The Puritans lived 150 years before the modern missionary movement that is typically said to begin with William Carey. When 1793 came and with it the birth of the modern missions movement, you had all of these new missionaries driven by the same motives and believing the same Reformed theology.

[image error]Piper then turned to the modern day and spoke of the global south, showing how at the beginning of the 20th century, Europeans dominated the world church. By the end of the 20th century, the European percentage of world Christianity had shrunk from 70% to 28% of the total while Latin America and Africa combined made 43% of the world's Christians. But this does not mean that western missions should cease. Far from it! Multitudes of unreached people groups remain and we need to reach them. God has blessed us richly and we are to use these blessings to reach the world with the gospel.

Here he turned to the text of Psalm 67 to ask (and answer) 3 questions:

What is the great purpose of God revealed in this Psalm? The purpose of God in this Psalm is to be known, praised, enjoyed and feared. Piper pointed out here that there are three kinds of Christians—goers, senders and disobedient. God calls us all to be involved in mission.

What is it that God aims to make known about himself among the nations? There are four aims: God aims to be known as the one and only true, living God; God aims to be known as a God of justice; God aims to be known as a God of sovereign power; God aims to be known as a gracious God.

Why does God bless his people by making his face shine upon them? So that the Lord's salvation may reach to the end of the earth. This gospel will be preached as a testimony to all the nations and then the Lord will return.

Stay tuned to the blog and in the near future we will have the audio and video of this message available for you.

2011 Ligonier National Conference - Session 10 (R.C. Sproul & John Piper)

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On Friday night, Chris Larson (L), executive vice president of Ligonier Ministries, and Scott Anderson (A), executive director of Desiring God moderated a discussion between Drs. R.C. Sproul (S) and John Piper (P) on their many years of ministry. Here is what they had to say.

 L: Dr. Piper, what about the holiness of God has illumined your ministry?

P: The birth of Christian hedonism, summed up in Desiring God, was the tension that shouldn't have been there between God's passion for his glory and my passion to be happy. My father oozed love for the glory of God. Every prayer of his pressed upon me the glory of God. But inside of me there was this desire to happy, and I felt bad about that. Jonathan Edwards pointed me to the fact that my being happy in God brought the two together, so that the higher our satisfaction in Him the greater the glory He gets. That is the best of both worlds.

A: Dr. Sproul, do you remember the first time you heard the phrase Christian hedonism. What did you think about that, and did you like the phrase at first?

S: I can't tell you where I was when I first heard the phrase. It jolted me because in the history of philosophy, hedonism is a very bad thing. The essence of it historically is maximum pleasure. At first, Christian hedonism sounded like an oxymoron. But when I heard it unpacked and read John's book, it made sense. The first question and answer of the Westminster Shorter Catechism says that we are to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. I thought that was a contradiction the first time I heard it. Until my conversion, that is. What I have found over the years is that the Christian life is not really enjoyable until we love God not only for what He does for us but for who He is. He is altogether lovely. The more we get to know him, the more satisfying and fulfilling it is at the depth of our souls.

The Christian experience for me is a soul kind of thing. It is not purely intellectual and conceptual. It is more about the heart. There is a direct connection between the head and the heart, and a disjunction between them is a bad thing. To know God is not to satisfy curiosity but to enflame the heart. He is glorious — glorious. That is a joyful thing.

P: Knowing what you believe about Him in His majesty and sovereignty and the kind of world we live in, something radical has to happen in you to affirm that truth. He is sovereign over Japan, cancer, and does not dispense with the Devil though He could. Talk about what happened in you not only to begrudgingly admit that He is big, but to find Him beautiful in all that He does.

S: Jonathan Edwards really drove me to submit to the doctrines of grace. I fought the Reformed faith for five years. By nature we are Pelagians, as Roger Nicole used to say. I had a card on my desk that said "You are required to believe and teach what the Bible teaches, not what you want it to teach." Edwards' treatment of Romans 9 convinced me. My response initially was that's true, I have to believe it, but I don't have to like it. But once my eyes opened to the sovereignty of God's grace, I found it on every page of the Bible. And I began to see it in its sweetness. I thought, "Where have I been all my life kicking against the sovereignty of God's grace?"

I read the Psalms the day after returning from being in a horrible train accident in 1993 and David was talking about the tender mercy of God. As men we are not taught to be tender. But in crisis moments, it is a wonderful thing to be treated with tenderness. And it does not get any better than that by God.

L: Link glorifying God and enjoying Him forever.

P: Think of your relationship to your wife. We glorify our wives by enjoying them. "Nothing would make me happier than to spend the evening with you" is the highest compliment you can pay her. We glorify the things we honor by delighting in them.

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A: What does it look like for a believer to treasure the holiness of God?

P: I think R.C. is right to make holiness the central theme of Ligonier Ministries because holiness is ultimate. Glory is when holiness goes public. It is when the radiance of transcendent purity goes public.

S: Glory is the manifestation of His holiness. It is His significance being displayed. It is most clearly manifested in His Shekinah, His outward glory.

P: Behind God's glory is His holiness. That is essential. To delight in the holiness of God, you must know something about it. You must listen to Renewing Your Mind instead of right-wing talk shows. The word G-O-D itself cannot produce delight in anyone. You gotta know Him. That is why we have a book and the revelation of God in history. You go deeper and deeper by going into the work of God in history. If you run far up the beams of glory enough, you end up with an absolute God of absolute holiness. That is a mature response. Baby Christians just see the beams.

S: Edwards said the chief business of the Christian is the seeking of the kingdom of God. What he meant is that the chief business of the Christian is to seek after God. Non-believers only want the benefits of God, not God. Seeking God really begins at conversion. Being on a quest to know God must be a passion, not something we just do in our spare time. That desire takes us every time to the Word of God.

As a philosophy major, my professors emphasized the acquisition of critical reading skills. That is a worthy enterprise. But that does not happen when I read the Scripture. I have to read it carefully, but it criticizes me. I can't argue against it. It is wonderful because it is saving me, putting salve on my wounds. I am meeting God. He is revealing His mind and heart to me in the Word of God. You have to immerse yourself in the Word.

P: I have been thinking about R.C. and Ligonier in the past few days. One of the unique things about Ligonier is that you have a philosopher who is manifestly devoted to the Bible. When R.C. talks, there is a philosophical rigor and awareness. Yet, it is there in service of exegesis, so that you get a series on Romans, John, Acts, 1&2 Peter. I want to celebrate this allegiance to the Bible. This is what has given him that edge for these 40 years.

L: Dr. Piper, you have a love for the academy and thought initially that the academy was your trajectory. Can you and R.C. walk us through the phrase "right thinking leads to right living"?

S: Once I wrote that I believe in the primacy of the mind and primacy of the heart, but you cannot have the primacy at the same time and relationship. There is a primacy of the intellect in one sense and primacy of the heart in another. The primacy of the mind is in order. There is no genuine faith without wisdom, without knowledge. You cannot have a right heart without a right mind. The primacy of the heart is the primacy of importance. It is more important that my heart is on fire for God than it is for my mind to have all the right answers.

As a man thinks in his heart so he is (Prov. 23:7). The biblical writer knew that the heart is not the organ of thinking. What does he mean, then? It is not just what you contemplate casually but what really penetrates into your heart dictates and determines who you are. That is why I chose Renewing Your Mind as the title of our radio program. Your heart gets changed by renewing your mind. It is hard for people to change. Only the Spirit brings change and He brings it through the Word of God in the mind and heart.

P: God is not honored by emotions based on falsehood, but only by emotions based on truth. Lots of people know things and do not get changed. Change happens when we know things as glorious and beautiful. To know something aright is not just to have all the pieces in the right place but to see the things of God as beautiful. Beholding their glory, we are being changed. Pray that God would reveal Himself as beautiful repeatedly throughout your study. That is what changes us. Prayer is key.

S: I am eating that up John. One place I feel so alone is that I find so few people that have a passion for beauty. God is the foundation for the good, true, and beautiful. You can distinguish these, but you cannot separate them. Our worship is supposed to be for beauty and holiness. One great weakness of our tradition is that we think ugliness is virtuous. Everything beautiful bears witness to God as the beautiful One and foundation of beauty. We have to see how beautiful the God of truth is.

A: Let's talk about these aspects as related to sin and temptation. How does seeing sin as ugly help us in our fight against it?

S: The enticement to sin is that it promises pleasure but it never delivers it. We think that we cannot be happy unless we are sinning. Yet sin can never bring joy because it is ugly, though it can be pleasurable for a season. We live a world that has been vandalized by sin. We have to see that sin makes the beautiful ugly.

P: Jesus argues that the kingdom of God is like a man who found a treasure in a field, and from his joy sold all that he had to buy that field. That is the paradigm for how you get free from bondage. If you see the kingdom as a treasure more valuable than anything else, you are freed. Before then, you are bound by the pleasure of sin. The power of a superior pleasure in God is what breaks this bondage. Escape from corruption comes from a superior promise. The more the beauty of holiness satisfies, the freer you become from pornography, bitterness, fear of man, and so forth.

L: Dr. Piper, later you mentioned moving to a more Christocentric focus in your ministry statement. Tell us more about the person and work of Christ in your ministry.

P: Both of us have theocentric mission statements, and I worry about that.

S: That is a good point, because we have the fullest revelation of God's holiness in the glory of Christ. When I talk about the holiness of God, I am speaking in terms of the entire Trinity.

P: A few factors have pushed me toward a more explicit Christ-centered focus in our mission statement. First is the fact that the whole universe exists for Calvary. Another thing is Islam. There are five or six texts in John that are explicit about receiving God through Christ. The litmus test for all religions is whether they know Christ. None of the other religions know Christ. We cannot today, in this religious milieu talk just about God, for everyone will nod. We must become increasingly Christ-talkers.

S: I think we need to change our mission statement Chris. It is not enough to believe the truth of the gospel but to defend and proclaim the truth of the gospel. We have to be prepared to contend for it. If you are not contending for it at the critical point, you are not contending for it. Right now the critical point is Islam. Islam and other religions do not have a Savior.

P: Many evangelicals are going squishy on whether other religions in their earnestness are all going to the same God.

A: Both of you are known for being contenders for the faith. What are the current battles that are emerging for younger pastors?

S: When I was in seminary, Bultmann was the big enemy. I found refuge in evangelicalism because there was a common thread running through it. One was the doctrine of Scripture and the other was the doctrine of justification by faith alone. When I graduated from seminary, I never imagined that the doctrine of inerrancy would be so divisive among "evangelicals," though I understand that more than the denial of justification. I never thought I would live to see the day when professing evangelicals would deny it.

The doctrine of the person of work and Christ is the greatest challenge today. I think it is going to get worse until it gets better. I never thought that anyone would raise questions about imputation, and yet it is open season on the imputation of Christ's righteousness. The world, the flesh, and the Devil cannot stand the person and work of Christ.

P: The place where Christ's person and work is attacked is at the cross and penal substitution. And that goes to one's very view of God. Wrath, hell, and cross all stand together. All these things are so closely connected. The very people that call the atonement divine child abuse cannot have wrath or hell. There is not anything new. This is so old. We have seen this so many times before. This is old liberalism.

S: There are tens of thousands of mainline pastors who believe what Rob Bell believes. Bell only gets print because he is a professing evangelical.

P: I look at the quality of what younger guys are writing, so I don't need to write anything against Bell. I am encouraged at that level. We do not have to jump into every fight anymore.

A: Both of you men have participated with others who do not share your emphases. Why?

S: I was determined at the outset that though my passion is Reformed theology, you cannot be Reformed without being catholic (universally Christian) and embracing those doctrines that the whole of evangelicalism believes. When I came out of seminary, I was determined to cooperate with anyone who is broadly evangelical and who was defending catholic doctrines on the person and work of Christ. Along the line, unfortunately, we got burned a few times, and some speakers took positions that evangelicals wouldn't take. We do not take the position that people have to be altogether Reformed before they can participate with us. But we do not where people are going to go sometimes, so it is hard to be broad.

P: We do not have a sieve for qualifying other speakers. Some principles are that I do not want to give credence to any doctrine that is outside the evangelical sphere. Methodologically, I am very broad. I also want to influence people. I want to make everyone a Calvinist because it is true. I am hoping that I am talking in such a way that other people see that Calvinism is biblical.

L: What encourages you today?

S: When I go to Together for the Gospel and see thousands of pastors in their twenties and thirties passionate for Reformed thinking. When I see the resurgence of interest in Puritans and Edwards. Though evangelicalism is declining, Reformed theology is rising.

P: I am cautious because history is fickle and movements rise and fall quickly. But globally, the past 50 years have been stunning. The rise of the global South and the growth of Christianity in the third world is amazing. The spread of Christianity means that the spread of biblical truth more deeply has tracks on which to run. Don't complain that it is miles wide and inches deep. Get on your knees and pray. Evidences of Reformed renewal in Europe and North America are great. You cannot draw lines denominationally where this thinking and ministering is happening. There is broad agreement on sovereignty in salvation, biblical complementarianism, and more across denominational lines.

S: The kingdom of God does not stand or fall with North America. This is our Father's world.

A: In our day we are blessed with all these conferences and ministries. Tell us now about your passion for the local church.  We are part of something in our day that we praise God for. We come to events like this and profit, but redirect us to the primacy of the local church in working all these things out.

S: My first call was to be a college professor and then to be a seminary professor and then to be in adult education. I did not think I had what it took to be a pastor. My career has been diverse, but my greatest joy is to be the preaching pastor at Saint Andrew's — to have a flock of people and to be involved in expository preaching week in and week out. The most corrupt institution in the world is the church, but that is because it is the most important one. Satan's arrows are focused on it. The church needs to be focused on godly worship and biblical exposition so that we can make disciples. Preaching the content of God's Word makes disciples, and the church is the chief vehicle for this.

P: The New Testament is crystal clear that Christ died to become the head of a universal body. The Bible is clear that there should be local churches with elders and deacons that are tasked to feed Christ's sheep. The main work of the eldership is to feed the sheep. He has ordained people with the gift of teaching, and that happens in the local church. My church begat a ministry; R.C., your ministry begat a church.

L: Tell us about your marriages (42 years for John; 50 years for Sproul).

P: Life as I have lived it would have been impossible without Noël. No one knows what it costs a wife of a pastor and embattled public figure. To link arms and walk with a ministry is something you cannot quantify. We are 65 and 63. We have been through a lot. There have been hard times. It will be glorious one day to go to a restaurant on Lake Superior when we are really old and look at each other and say, with tears, "We made it." The depth of covenant-keeping strength and love to the end is wonderful. My bride has been so faithful to me through all this. It is more valuable than you can put estimates on.

S: I wasn't able to breathe a few days ago at 4 in the morning. It was all I could do to wake Vesta up to call 911 and get to the hospital. There was a hard leather chair to the side of my bed and Vesta sat there and said, "I'm going to stay here." She had to run home and get some things done, and I watched the clock the whole time. When she got back it was glory. She was a rock. I mention that because it is anecdotal and episodic. Our entire lives are anecdotal and episodic. She has been the quintessential helpmate for me my whole life in everything I do. What a blessing!

2011 National Conference - Session 9 (R.C. Sproul)

[image error]Humans in all cultures have an affinity for clothing and a sense that nakedness is shameful. We see this, for example, in the behavior of Noah's sons (Shem and Japheth) who covered their father's nakedness while not looking upon him.  Adam and Eve, when they sinned, had to be clothed by God himself in this first act of redemption.  One of the indications of our culture's decadence is the lack of shame in nakedness (i.e., the prevalence of fornication, even among some regular church attendees). 

Jesus Christ has clothed us in his righteousness, having perfectly fulfilled the law on our behalf.  We never have to be ashamed in the presence of God. In fact, God's presence, which once rightly evoked fear in us, is now the safest place for us in the world.

2011 Ligonier National Conference - Session 8 (John Piper)

[image error]The 2011 Ligonier Ministries National Conference continued this afternoon with a session led by John Piper. This was a kind of autobiographical address in which Piper explained how he came to see the importance of not wasting his life.

When he was 17 something in him came alive—not a faith, since he was already a Christian, but an awakening of the wonder and the weight of having one life to live and then its outcome for eternity. There would be no second chances, no retakes, no do-overs—just one life and then eternity. There arose this sense of purposefulness, this question of where am I going and what's it for?

In the next 7 years all of the big pieces fell into place and they never changed. All he has been doing since then is keeping his view narrow, fixed on these few things. He affirmed that you don't have to know a lot of things for your life to make a difference, but you do need to know a few great things that really matter and then be willing to live and die for them. The people who make a durable difference in the world are mastered by these few great things. This is what makes a life count.

He mentioned three of those things, three things that became clear to him in those years between 17 and 24, giving them as three statements (which I will relay in bare summary form—you'll want to find the audio or video and listen in for further detail).

First, there is an absolutely sovereign, transcendently pure, self-existing, self-sustaining, all-knowing, all-wise, all-governing, infinitely valuable, all-satisfying God whose purpose in all creation and in all redemption and history and culture is to display his glory for the everlasting enjoyment of his redeemed people. Said in a short sentence, there is a great holy God who means to be known and treasured duly as God.

Second, there is a massive obstacle between God's purpose and my participation in it. I hate God; I want to be God; I don't want to live for anybody else. Self-denial is not in my bones. I don't want anyone telling me what I must love, what I must do. And God is against me because of this. So how will God's purpose ever be achieved if all people are children of wrath? Here is the second discovery: Jesus Christ, the Son of God, not only becomes the means of my seeing and savoring the glory of God, but in the very act of overcoming these obstacles, becomes himself the apex of the glory I couldn't see. Jesus enters the world as a God-man and does something that covers and conquers my depravity and absorbs the wrath of God so I can now see and savor what I was meant to see and savor. And in this Christ becomes the apex of the glory of what I was designed to see.

Third, the life that most clearly displays the infinite value of the glory of God manifested supremely in Christ crucified for sinners, is a life of joyful suffering in the service of love.

2011 Ligonier National Conference - Session 7 (Steven Lawson)

[image error]This address from Pastor Steve Lawson was entitled Worshiping the Triune God. Worship in heaven is worship at its best. Pleasing God, not others, is what matters in worship.  But there is a new way in worship in our day – one that seeks to please the unconverted person, to be cool, not transcendent and reverent.  The preacher, likewise, is be trendy, not weighty, and more therapeutic than theological

Worship, however, should be a foretaste of heaven.  Let's take a look at the worship of heaven in Revelation 4. 

I.  A high view of God

John immediately noticed a throne: "and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne" (Rev. 4:2).   God is ruling, and His rule is permanent.  The throne is central.  Everything is measured in terms of its proximity to the throne.

When people step into worship services, they should sense that heaven has stepped down.  There must be a sense that we've left the realm where Satan reigns and we're coming into the realm where God reigns supreme.  And it is the depth of our study in the word of God that will determine how high we rise in worship.

II. A Deep Fear of God

A high view of God produces a deep fear of God.  "From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder…" (Rev. 4:5).  These command John's attention. There is nobody casual in this setting.  There is a healthy, reverential fear of God.  So much of what we see in today's worship is intended to reduce or eliminate the fear of God.   But we should be growing in the fear of God.

III. A Distinct Separation from God

God remains God, we remain but glorified creatures. There remains a vast difference between us and God. God is holy and separate from all of his creation.  He is unchangeable.  Our God is in the heavens and he does whatever he pleases (Psalm 115:3).  

IV. A Constant Focus on God

Notice the constant emphasis on God.  The elders are worshiping Him, falling down before Him, casting crowns before Him.  There is a pervasive Godward orientation.  They cast their crowns before him, because God is the one who called us and saved us, who worked within us to will and to do for his good pleasure.

V.  The Adoration of God

We hear the chorus: "Worthy are you, to receive glory" (Rev. 4:11). There is God's intrinsic glory (that which he naturally possesses in and of Himself) and his ascribed glory (that which His creation, in recognition of His majesty and transcendence, ascribe to Him).

CONCLUSION

"I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind."  (Rom. 12:1-2)

May we be sold out for this transcendent, majestic God, and may our life be a living and holy sacrifice to this God. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2011 Ligonier National Conference - Session 6 (R.C. Sproul Jr.)

Ligonier Ministries' 2011 National Conference continued Friday morning with R.C. Sproul, Jr. speaking on the sovereignty of God. In a lecture titled "Almighty Over All," Dr. Sproul focused on the question of God's sovereignty and the reality of suffering. Dr. Sproul began by reading Isaiah 45:1–8. He introduced his message by reminding us that no one really objects to sovereignty over creation or over history. Rather, we object in two other [image error]places. First, we object to God's sovereignty in our salvation. We do this for two reasons – to protect man's dignity and to protect God's honor.  But we need to remember that God didn't construct the world in order to protect our dignity. We also want to protect God's honor. We ask ourselves: If the difference between those who are saved and those who are not depends on God, then isn't God unfair? We should, however, never be embarrassed by who God is or what God does.  

We also object to God's sovereignty in suffering. We have those, who in the face of suffering suggest blithely, "God had nothing to do with this." So why would God allow, or even bring to pass, as our text suggests, suffering or calamity? We doubt this because we don't understand the purpose for it. We don't understand why. Some suggest what Dr. Sproul calls the Dr. Pangloss theory. They suggest that this is the best of all possible worlds. This is not a good explanation. 

What then are the reasons God has to allow human suffering? First, we need to consider Genesis 3. Humans suffer as punishment from God. We disobey God, and the just thing is that we should suffer for it. This ought to set the stage for all our understanding about suffering and God's sovereignty. No matter what we are suffering, we are living in the lap of God's grace. None of us ever gets worse than we deserve. What God owes us is death and destruction. Why do bad things happen to good people? Well, that only happened once, and He volunteered. 

We see a second reason for suffering in Job 1:6–8. Satan comes before God. And we know the rest of the story. Job loses everything, and his friends offer less than helpful counsel. We are told that Job suffered what he suffered because God had a bet with the devil, but he did not get worse that he deserved. We learn that God is interested in manifesting His glory through this test. But we need to remember, that Satan had to get God's permission. Suffering is not under Satan's control. The devil is God's devil and he is on God's leash. 

John 9 shows us still another reason – the manifestation of God's glory. There are two miracles here – the healing of the blind man, and the fact that Jesus kept His cool with the disciples. The lesson of Job is that you cannot create a ratio of suffering to sin. Jesus said the man was born blind that the glory of God might be made known. Sometimes God sends suffering so that God can alleviate suffering. 

The fourth reason can be seen in Paul's thorn in the flesh. It was given to Paul so that he would remember his dependence on God. Suffering can be a means of sanctification. So we have these reasons – punishment, a wager with the devil, the manifestation of God's glory, and our sanctification. The problem with that long of a list is that we want to know exactly. We want to know what God is doing with us right now. We have to be careful, however, that we don't think we can always know what God is doing all the time. 

Here is what we can know about our own suffering. First, if you are in Christ, the first item on the list doesn't apply to you. Your suffering is not a punishment. If you are in Christ, Jesus was already punished for you. Regarding the second possible reason, namely a wager with the devil, we can't know whether that is the case. However, whatever suffering we are called to, it always happens for God's glory and for our good – specifically for our sanctification.  This why we need to rejoice in all things. 

We Reformed people treat the sovereignty of God as a "theological toy." The world is full of Reformed people who have got a hold of the sovereignty of God. What the world needs is for the sovereignty of God to grab us. 

Dr. Sproul concluded his message by telling of his daughter Shannon's condition and how she has been used to sanctify his family. He then told of his wife's battle with breast cancer, bone cancer, and now leukemia. He also told of his own battle with cancer. He shared how he and his wife have preached the truth of God's sovereignty to each other throughout all of this because they both know that God is doing these things to make them both more like Jesus. 

So wow do we respond in the light of our suffering? Job response should be our response: "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord."

2011 Ligonier National Conference - Session 5 (R.C. Sproul)

[image error]R.C. Sproul began the second day of the Ligonier Ministries National Conference with a talk titled "Defending the Faith." This was a talk on apologetics, reminding us that every Christian is responsible to be able to defend the faith. Dr. Sproul spoke at length about Augustine and Augustine's attempts to defend the symbiotic relationship between faith and reason. Augustine wanted to reach an assurance of our faith that is at the level of certainty. Today most apologists believe that philosophical certainty about issues like the existence of God is a fool's errand doomed to failure. Augustine did not share that view and neither does Sproul.

Augustine went straight to the central issue of the existence of God. Augustine wanted to get beyond the probable to the certain and here Sproul pointed out that if we can affirm with certainty the existence of God, all the other questions of theology become simple. If we get the existence of God and the inspiration of the Bible right, everything else is just exegesis. Augustine did not want to begin with a place of uncertainty and work toward certainty from that point. Instead he wanted to begin with something that was absolutely certain, something that could not be doubted without being utterly absurd. And so the starting point for our apologetics and all apologetics has to be with self-consciousness.

You cannot get philosophical certainty at the empirical realm. The only place to find certainty is not in the senses but in the mind. There is a close connection between the mind and the brain, but they cannot be identical. And this is where so many apologists and philosophers go wrong.

Augustine realized that if he exists, there are only three possible explanations: Either he is eternal, he is self-created, or he is created by someone who is eternal. Most of the remaining time was spent teasing out these three, showing, of course, that only the final option can withstand the rigors of examination.

$5 Friday: The Character of God

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In light of our 2011 National Conference this weekend, we are offering a selection of $5 Friday downloads on the holiness and character of God. Sale ends Saturday at 8 a.m. EST.

View today's $5 Friday sales.