R.C. Sproul's Blog, page 64

$5 Friday (And More): Evangelism, the Psalms, & Grace

It’s time for our weekly $5 Friday sale. This week’s resources include such topics as evangelism, the Psalms, grace, repentance, holiness, forgiveness, 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:

Jesus the Evangelist by Richard Phillips, Hardcover Book $19 $9
The Psalms, ESV , Hardcover Book $20 $10
From God and Before God by Sugel Michelén, Hardcover Book (Spanish) $15 $11
Luther: The Life and Legacy of the German Reformer , Blu-Ray $30 $15
Hymns of Grace , Genuine Leather Book $80 $50
Man Overboard! by Sinclair Ferguson, Paperback Book $12 $8
Let’s Study James by Sinclair Ferguson, Paperback Book $14 $10
The Promises of God by R.C. Sproul, Hardcover Book $20 $12
Dispatches from the Front by Tim Keesee, Paperback Book $18 $10
Knowing Scripture by R.C. Sproul, Paperback Book $16 $10
Maturity: Growing Up and Going on in the Christian Life by Sinclair Ferguson, Paperback Book $17 $11
Growing in Holiness by R.C. Sproul, Paperback Book $18 $9
The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon by Steven Lawson, Audiobook CD $19 $12
He Is Holy: 2019 National Conference , DVD $75 $15
The Pagan Heart of Today’s Culture by Peter Jones, Paperback Book $5 $3
How Should I Live in this World? by R.C. Sproul, Paperback Book (Spanish) $4 $2
What Do Jesus’ Parables Mean? by R.C. Sproul, Paperback Book $2 $1
September 2013 Tabletalk: The Thirteenth Century , Magazine $3 $1
October Tabletalk: The Church and Israel , Magazine $3 $1
December 2013 Tabletalk: The Millennium , Magazine $3 $1

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

View today’s $5 Friday sale items.

The Ligonier Statement on Christology in Arabic

The Ligonier Statement on Christology has been translated and released in many languages to serve the church around the world. This statement was formulated to help Christians articulate the Bible’s teaching on the person and work of Jesus Christ with accuracy and simplicity.

Earlier this week, we released the Arabic version of the Ligonier Statement on Christology video. This new video was recorded and produced in Lebanon and has already reached thousands of Arabic-speaking people around the globe. We have received news that the producer of this video and his brother were injured in the massive explosion that took place in Beirut, Lebanon, on Tuesday and are currently hospitalized.

Please join us in praying for their recovery and for the safety of the many Arabic-speaking Christians in Lebanon and throughout the Middle East.

This Arabic edition of the Ligonier Statement on Christology can be downloaded digitally for free.

To learn more about Ligonier Ministries’ international outreach to the Arabic-speaking church, visit our Arabic outreach page.

Gentle Christian Discourse

Here’s an excerpt from Gentle Christian Discourse, Burk Parsons' contribution to the August issue of Tabletalk:

I have not always spoken to people in the way that I should. In fact, one of my greatest sins and shortcomings as a man, a husband, a father, a friend, and a pastor is my sometimes harsh and ungentle use of my tongue. James writes, “The tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. . . . No human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison” (James 3:6, 8).

Continue reading Gentle Christian Discourse, or begin receiving Tabletalk magazine by signing up for a free 3-month trial.

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

Clarity Amid Confusion

You and I cannot be silent when error rushes in to fill the space left void by truth’s absence.

This month, we’ll send you a remarkably useful new resource to help you answer with confidence when error crosses your path. Our new book A Field Guide on False Teaching is yours for a gift of any amount.

Our unbelieving neighbors are ripe for deception. Even Christians can be misled and confused. In the absence of trust in God and His Word, error reigns. People are looking for answers, and there’s no shortage of “answers” being offered. Everyone’s voice is welcomed in the marketplace of ideas—everyone except Truth incarnate, Jesus Christ.

Yet, only the gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed and defended by His truth-loving servants can bring clarity amid confusion, lasting rest to the soul, and order to this chaotic world. Dr. R.C. Sproul taught us an important lesson: “We not only have to believe the truth, . . . it’s not enough even to defend the truth, but we must also contend for the truth.” Ligonier Ministries stands firm on our bedrock commitment to the truth of God’s holiness and grace, helping to equip people to do the same.

One pundit observed: “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing; they then become capable of believing in anything.” Restlessness and even destruction are inevitable when the knowledge of God is missing. Our only hope is to deal with reality as it is, not as we want it to be. God exists. He is holy and people are not. Men and women are shattered images of the Lord, created for glory but now twisted and turned inward by sin.

But nothing—indeed, no one—can untie the knots of sin and cause us to look outward in true love of God and neighbor to preserve the dignity of others except the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our only hope in life and death, and He is the only hope for the world.

These may be some of the most consequential moments of world history. News from ministry friends around the world tells us that our God is on the move, building His kingdom. Let us never doubt it. And He is working through the resources produced and distributed by Ligonier Ministries to help Christ’s church. We’re engaged in spiritual warfare against principalities and powers, teaching people to take every thought captive to Christ by knowing and defending His truth against all pretenders. For instance, Z.Z. in Tehran, Iran, wrote:

“During the past decade, the government has closed all of the Farsi churches in Tehran. We hear about underground churches, but there is little systematic and true teaching. I am so blessed that, after 11 years, I now have access to your website. I download your teaching and distribute it to those who don’t have internet. Please keep us in your prayers.”

Response to our efforts shows that this work is desperately needed. Ligonier is engaged as it has been since 1971 in a two-front war—battling errant teaching within the church and confronting external threats from the world. You and I must help the church defend truth—against false teaching like the prosperity “gospel,” legalism, and antinomianism; against cults like the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses; and against false religions like Islam, atheism, secularism, New Age spirituality, Buddhism, Hinduism, and more.

By God’s grace, Ligonier is providing frontline support to help believers win hearts and minds. We depend on your prayerful financial support to do this.

As I noted above, we’re eager to send you a new resource that we call A Field Guide on False Teaching. This small book summarizes the history and main beliefs of several major worldviews and religions, explaining how to refute their errors with the truth of Scripture. This resource can help you stand your ground as you contend for the faith and equip you to respond clearly to friends, family, and neighbors with the truth of Christ and the hope of His gospel. We’ll send your copy for a donation of any amount.

Your gift today furthers our outreach tomorrow. Our mission to help believers know and defend the truth relies, in God’s providence, on the generous support of friends like you. We need you to stand with us in proclaiming the truth to the nations.

Thank you for your partnership in the gospel.

The Image of God Restored

The whole story of the Bible reveals the way God has prepared to restore His image-bearers to Himself. From our online event Made in the Image of God, Sinclair Ferguson examines the extent of the sacrifice required for this restoration to take place.

Transcript:

Imagine a father who loves his son and so loves his son, he hires the greatest portrait painter in the world to paint a portrait of his son. And suddenly, one night, he hears a sound in the house, the alarm bells are ringing. He puts on the lights, and he sees a man running out of his house with the great portrait under his arm. And he is desolate. He calls the police. The police come; they take fingerprints. The CSI people come; they do all the things that they do on television. And then, three weeks later, a policeman turns up at his house with a great smile on his face and says, "Sir, we have caught the thief." Now, this father believes in justice, just like you believe in justice. It's good they caught the thief. But you're not so interested in the issue of whether they caught the thief. What do you say to the policeman if you're the father? You say, "Did you get my portrait back?"

And in a way, that's a parable of the gospel, isn't it? God, of course, is wholly committed to justice, to judging sin, to overcoming the serpent, Satan, who has been engaged in the theft of God's image. He just did not have a portrait painted. He Himself created a living portrait. And perhaps we can think about this, that the whole story of the Bible is the way in which God gives expression to the fact that He wants His portrait back. He wants the portrait of His Son that He painted, the living portraits of His Son that He painted. He wants that portrait back.

And the whole story of the Bible is how He prepared the way for that to happen and how it did happen. How did it happen? You know the story well. But the story has tremendous significance in this context, doesn't it? The way in which He restored the portrait was by sending the original, by sending the original in such a way that the original Himself would be defaced.

The Crisis of Not Listening

Psalm 81 is a remarkable and important psalm in the Psalter. This psalm of Asaph is more specific than many psalms about the original occasion for its composition. The formal occasion for writing this psalm was to celebrate a season of important religious festivals in Israel: “Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the full moon, on our feast day” (v. 3). Only in the seventh month of the year do we find holy days at the new moon and the full moon. In the festivals of this month, we see Israel called to reflect on God’s great mercy to and care for her, and we see Israel called to remember and repent of her sins.

The new moon marked the new year in Israel’s ecclesiastical calendar. Leviticus 23:24 calls this day a “day of solemn rest.” Numbers 10:10 speaks of this feast as a time in which the Lord remembers His people: “On the day of your gladness. . ., you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings. They shall be a reminder of you before your God: I am the LORD your God.

The full moon of the seventh month marked the Feast of Booths or Tabernacles. Israel was to live for a week in tents or huts to remember its wanderings in the wilderness and to remember that the Lord had given it the Land of Promise and its annual harvests (Lev. 23:23–43).

Between these two festivals, on the tenth day of the month, was the solemn Day of Atonement. This day was for repentance and sacrifice. It was for rest and for holy convocation. God commanded His people: “You shall afflict yourselves” (Lev. 23:27).

Even more remarkable than the occasion for writing Psalm 81 is the place of this psalm in the Psalter. In a sense, it is the central psalm in the book of Psalms. Of course, it does not stand at the numerical center of 150 psalms. But it is the central psalm in the central book of the Psalter. And at the center of Psalm 81 are these words: “O Israel, if you would but listen to me!” (v. 8b). For all the mysteries of God’s providence with Israel, here is the central truth: Israel was suffering a crisis of exile because she had not listened to her God.

Israel’s failure to listen was a failure of faith and of obedience. At the heart of the Mosaic covenant, God had commanded His people: “Hear, O Israel” (Deut. 6:4), and that command is echoed in Psalm 81:8. Indeed, throughout Psalm 81, there are echoes from Deuteronomy (see, for example, Deut. 6:6–16; 32:12, 16, 21, 28, 43, 46–47).

Psalm 81 renews God’s call to His people to listen to His proclamation of truth. For what was Israel to listen? First, Israel needed to hear God’s word of deliverance. This psalm calls on Israel in very personal terms and very directly to remember how their God had delivered them in the past: “I relieved your shoulder of the burden; your hands were freed from the basket. In distress you called, and I delivered you. . . I am the LORD your God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt” (vv. 6–7, 10a). God had heard His people’s prayers and saved them in the past.

God also reminds His people that He can deliver them in the future: “I would soon subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes” (v. 14). What God has done for His people in the past, He can do again.

The word of deliverance is accompanied with a word of direction. God reminds His people that they must listen to Him. He has given them His law (v. 4) and they must heed it. In addition to the call to listen in verse 8, God says, “But my people would not listen to my voice; Israel would not submit to me. . . . Oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways!” (vv. 11, 13).

As is often the case in the Old Testament, God focuses on the many ways in which Israel has failed to listen to Him on the central issue of worship (see, for example, Deut. 4). Here, after calling His people to worship Him (vv. 1–3), God warns against false worship: “There shall be no strange god among you; you shall not bow down to a foreign god” (v. 9).

The words of deliverance and of direction lead on to a word of destruction. God warns His people that He can and will judge His enemies: “I would soon subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes. Those who hate the LORD would cringe toward Him, and their fate would last forever” (vv. 14–15). His people are warned implicitly by this word not to be numbered among those who oppose God.

This psalm is clear that despite all the calls to listen, both in this psalm and throughout her history, Israel has not listened. She has not followed the law of God and she has not kept her worship pure. The people have preferred their own wisdom to that of God: “So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels” (v. 12). These words are particularly ironic in the midst of feasts that remembered and celebrated how God had delivered them from Egypt. Time and again, the people made foolish choices in the wilderness—including actually wanting to return to the bondage of Egypt—rather than listening to the wisdom of their God.

The crisis of Book Three of the Psalter is a crisis provoked by the people’s not listening. Because they have not listened, God has taken away their king, their temple, and their land. But God has not utterly abandoned them. He still declares in this psalm that if they will listen, He will bless them. But is this promise really encouraging? If they have not listened in the past, despite all of God’s mercy and goodness to them, will they ever listen? Ultimately, the Psalter and the whole Bible teach that God must provide a king and substitute who will do for the people what they cannot do for themselves.

Psalm 81 begins with the words, “Sing aloud to God our strength.” God must be the strength of His people when they are weak. He will be their strength when He comes in His Messiah-King.

Jesus is the King who always listened and always did the will of God. Hebrews 10:5–7 quotes Psalm 40:6–8 (a psalm of David) and applies it to Jesus: “Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’” At the transfiguration of Jesus, the Father declared, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 17:5b). The Father in this place also said to Jesus’ disciples, “Listen to him”—that is, listen to the good news that He brings for sinners.

As we see in Psalm 78, Jesus rejected the three temptations of the evil one that Israel had failed to resist. Here in Psalm 81, we again find echoes of those temptations and of the blessings God has promised to those who are faithful to Him. First, God promises to give His people the bread they need: “But he would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you” (v. 16). Second, God promises to preserve and protect His people who do not put Him to the test: “In distress you called, and I delivered you; I answered you in the secret place of thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah” (v. 7). Third, God promises abundant blessing to those who worship Him alone: “There shall be no strange god among you; you shall not bow down to a foreign god. I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it” (vv. 9–10).

Jesus, the righteous King, keeps the law perfectly for His people and becomes their substitute and sacrifice. He fulfills the Day of Atonement by offering Himself as the full and final sacrifice for His people. Jesus is the solution to the crisis of Book Three. He is the One who listened, obeyed, died, and now ever lives for us.

This excerpt is adapted from Learning to Love the Psalms by W. Robert Godfrey.

Columns from Tabletalk Magazine, August 2020

The August issue of Tabletalk explores the Bible’s teaching on Christian discourse. As creatures made in the image of God, human beings reflect His speaking nature by communicating with one another. We use words to explain ourselves, make arguments, ask questions, express our opinions, and communicate our love and well wishes. Like every other area of life, however, human discourse has been corrupted by the fall into sin. Thankfully, part of our redemption and conformity to Christ involves the renewal of our discourse, as the Lord empowers us by His Spirit to follow the principles He has revealed for how we should speak to one another. Through exegesis and application of some of the most important biblical passages on human discourse, this issue seeks to help Christians communicate in a God-honoring manner in a number of different areas.

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.

Gentle Christian Discourse by Burk Parsons
Truth in Discourse by David Camera
Life-Giving Discourse by David P. Murray
Discourse with the Foolish by Harry L. Reeder III
Truly Loving Discourse by Jason K. Allen
Discourse with Enemies by Lee Gatiss
Congregational Discourse by Mark E. Ross
Gracious, Seasoned Discourse by David F. Coffin Jr.
Encouraging Discourse by David Mathis
Model Discourse by Jay Bauman
Controlled Discourse by Nathan Busenitz
Apologetic Discourse by Thor Madsen
Contending Discourse by Barry J. York
Desperately Wicked Hearts by D. Blair Smith
When Your Brother Sins against You by Timothy Z. Witmer
When Our Witness Falters by Jonathan Landry Cruse
Resurrection Life in the Spirit by Gabriel N.E. Fluhrer

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.

Is There a Prayer That God Cannot Hear or Answer?

Can we bring prayers before the Lord that He cannot answer? From one of our Ask Ligonier events, John MacArthur encourages us to pray according to God’s revealed will in Scripture.

Message us for clear, concise, and trustworthy answers to your biblical and theological questions at ask.Ligonier.org.

Read the Transcript

Save 50% on 60+ Teaching Series

Video teaching series from R.C. Sproul and other gifted teachers help you grow in your faith and apply the truth of God’s Word to every aspect of life. For a limited time, you can save 50% on more than 60 teaching series.

As our resource library continues to expand, so can yours. Each series is carefully prepared to help you understand and apply important truths from the Bible, theology, church history, the Christian life, or worldview and culture. Save 50% on trusted teaching during this week’s sale so you can keep it forever.

Sale ends on Saturday, August 8. While supplies last.

View our sale items.

Did you know that all of our digital study guides can be downloaded for free through August 31? Download a study guide as an individual PDF today to take your learning even further.

Don’t Adjust Your Conscience to Fit the Culture

Most of us are familiar with Martin Luther's heroic statement at the Diet of Worms when he was called upon to recant. "Unless I am convinced by sacred Scripture, or by evident reason, I cannot recant, for my conscience is held captive by the Word of God, and to act against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me."

Today, we rarely hear any reference to the conscience. Yet throughout church history, the best Christian thinkers spoke about the conscience regularly. Thomas Aquinas said the conscience is the God-given inner voice that either accuses or excuses us in terms of what we do. John Calvin spoke of the "divine sense" that God puts into every person, and part of that divine sense is the conscience. And when we turn to Scripture, we find that our consciences are an aspect of God's revelation to us.

When we talk about God's revelation, we make a distinction between general revelation and special revelation. Special revelation refers to that information given to us in the Word of God. Not everyone in the world possesses this information. Those who have heard it have had the benefit of hearing specific information about God and His plan of redemption.

General revelation refers to the revelation that God gives to every human being on earth. It's general in the sense that it's not limited to any specific group of people. It's global, and it extends to every human being. The audience is general, and the information given is general as well. It doesn't have the same level of detail that sacred Scripture does.

We must make a further distinction within the context of general revelation between mediate general revelation and immediate general revelation. Mediate general revelation refers to the revelation that God gives through an external medium. The medium is creation, wherein God reveals something about who He is. Paul labors the point particularly in Romans 1 that the general revelation mediated through creation is so clear that every single person knows God exists and, therefore, is without excuse.

Immediate general revelation is revelation that is transmitted to every human being without an external medium. It's internal, not external. It's the revelation God plants in the soul of every person. God reveals His law in the mind of every human being by planting a conscience within each of us.

However, we face a problem: the conscience is fluid. It's not fixed. Almost all people adjust their consciences between childhood and adulthood, and the adjustment is almost always downward. That is, we learn how to turn the volume of our conscience down, and we make the necessary adjustments so that our ethics align with how we want to live and not how God tells us we should live.

This is not to suggest that children are sinless. Even little babies have sinful minds, but the Bible recognizes that the degree of evil found in small children is characteristically different from the degree of evil manifested in adults. Thus, Paul says, "Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature" (1 Cor. 14:20). He recognized that a baby's sins are not as heinous as those of people who are mature in age. Somewhere in our development, the gravity of our sins increases. Our consciences are seared as we begin to accept those things that as children we thought were unacceptable.

Almost fifty years ago, a bestselling book with a strange title was published—The Happy Hooker, written by Xaviera Hollander, a prostitute. Hollander sought to silence the people who believe that no prostitute in America could find joy in what she was doing. In her book, Hollander celebrates the joy that she experienced in her profession, saying that she never felt guilty about what she was doing. To be sure, Hollander said, the first time she involved herself in prostitution, she felt pangs of guilt. But over time, she got to the point where she felt guilty only when she heard the ringing of church bells. Suddenly, her conscience was disturbed because she was reminded that what she was doing was under the condemnation of Almighty God. Even this hardened professional prostitute could not totally destroy the conscience God had placed within her.

Here is the supreme irony and tragedy of sin: the more we repeat our sins, the greater the guilt we incur, but the less sensitive we become to the pangs of guilt in our consciences. Paul says that people store up wrath for themselves on the day of wrath (Rom. 2:5). That's objective guilt—they are guilty because they have broken God's law. But some people have so destroyed their consciences that they believe it really doesn't matter what they do as long as it is consensual and causes no harm. Their subjective guilt—the sense of guilt that accompanies wrongdoing—diminishes.

We find new ways to view sinful behavior as acceptable, both as individuals and as a culture. We have now killed sixty million babies, tearing them limb from limb. People use social media to boast of this reality, saying how proud they are that they have maintained the freedom of a woman to abort her child. We now boast about marriage between a man and a man, and a woman and a woman, without shame. There is not much of a collective conscience left in this country.

Paul tells us in Romans 1 that people know the righteous judgment of God, and this knowledge of judgment comes through immediate general revelation. What is the nadir of the list of sins in Romans 1? Paul says, "Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them" (v. 32). The worst part of Paul's indictment is not that people practice such things despite knowing the righteous judgment of God, but that they approve of those who practice them as well. When people destroy their own consciences, they do everything in their power to destroy the consciences of their neighbors. To quiet their consciences, people will seek allies and will make proclamations such as, "We're only crusading for liberty here, for the freedom of choice." What a strategy. "I'm not pro-murder; I'm pro-choice." That's what the Godfather would say. "I'm pro-choice. I choose to murder my enemies."

However, our purpose in discussing these things is not to lament how bad the world is, but rather how bad we are in that we Christians do the same thing. We, too, adjust our consciences to fit the culture. We try everything in our power to excuse our sin. That's why developing a conscience sensitive to the Word of God is so important. At the Diet of Worms, Luther did not say, "My conscience is held captive by my contemporary culture, by the latest Gallup poll, and by the latest survey that describes what everybody else is doing." He did not say, "My conscience is influenced by the Word of God." In essence, he said, "I am in captivity to the Word of God. That is why I cannot recant." Had his conscience not been captive to God's Word, he would have recanted immediately. So, he said, "To act against conscience is neither right nor safe."

We don't want to hear the judgment of conscience; we want to destroy the judgment of conscience. That's our nature. The only antidote is knowing the mind of Christ. We need men and women whose consciences have been captured by the Word of God. Thank God for His Word. It exposes the lies we tell ourselves to make us feel better. We aren't going to be judged on the last day on whether we feel guilty, but on whether we are guilty. Still, if you feel guilty, thank God for that. The feeling of guilt is the signal that there's probably something wrong. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, and with that conviction comes a certain tender mercy that leads us to repentance and forgiveness so that we might walk in His presence.

This post was originally published on DesiringGod.org.