Partner
  1. 6 min

    Striking a Chord in the Heart of the Believer: An Interview with R.C. Sproul

    to facilitate Sunday school classroom study, so I did a second series in half-hour segments which meant I had to cut a lot out.
    In the original series I was able to get into more detail about Rudolph Otto’s classic work on the idea of the holy and the ambivalence people have toward it—they are both repulsed and attracted. I also had a segment on holy space and holy time based largely on Hendrick Kraemer. Then, too I had some thoughts from Mircea Eliade, the anthropologist, who like Otto had studied the phenomenon of the holy in various cultures and religions.
    Do you ever get tired of the topic?
    I have spoken on that passage from Isaiah 6—when Isaiah sees the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted—probably a couple hundred times. Sometimes before I speak I say to myself, “I can’t do it one more time, and besides, people in the congregation have probably already heard it and they’ll be bored as well.” But I have never experienced boredom while speaking, and I don’t think my listeners have either. I never give the messages exactly the same way twice and I try to keep researching the text to find new things.
    What responses to the series have touched you the most?
    I’ve had countless people use the expression that listening to the series “completely revolutionized their understanding of God.” Comments such as these touch me deeply. Chuck Colson’s testimony certainly meant a lot to me. Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago, told me that he had to pull his car off the road while listening to the series. He was weeping and couldn’t drive. When John MacArthur heard it, he interrupted a preaching series to preach on the holiness of God. These stick in my mind.
    What has been your most recent experience of the holy?
    I recently preached at Three Rivers Baptist Church in Columbia, SC. Prior to the service I met with the elders for prayer. We got down on our knees and I have never heard such prayers from laypersons extolling the majesty of God. They explained to me that their pastor had experienced an awakening to God’s majesty and it had gone through the congregation like wildfire. What an exceedingly moving experience to preach in that environment.
    Later that day I drove to Augusta, GA. and spoke at John Oliver’s church on Revelation 5- Christ as the Lion and the Lamb. There was a terrible storm outside, yet the place was packed out, and a tremendous spirit of worship permeated the sanctuary.
    Do you remember your first experience of the holy?
    I really wasn’t tuned in to things of God as a child, yet I do remember one experience. I lived in Pittsburgh, the steel capital of the world, about a mile and a half from the world’s largest slag dump. From the blast furnaces, molten slag would be transported in huge train cars shaped like giant ladles to a place that looked like a volcano.
    R.C. Sproul
  2. 4 min

    Humiliation to Exaltation

    has been achieved in our stead by our perfect Redeemer.
    In 1990, I wrote a book titled The Glory of Christ. The writing of that book was one of the most thrilling experiences I’ve ever had in writing. My task on that occasion was to demonstrate that while there is a general progression from humiliation to exaltation in the life and ministry of Jesus, this progression does not run in an unbroken line that moves uninterrupted from humiliation to exaltation. Rather, the book explains that even in Jesus’ general progress from humiliation to exaltation, in His worst moments of humiliation, there are interjections by the grace of God, wherein the Son’s glory is also manifest.
    For example, when we consider the nativity of Jesus, it is easy to focus our attention on the sheer impoverishment that went with His being born in a stable and in a place where He was unwelcome in the resident hotel or inn. There was an overwhelming sense of debasement in the lowliness of His birth. Yet, at the very moment that our Lord entered humanity in these debasing circumstances, just a short distance away the heavens broke out with the glory of God shining before the eyes of the shepherds with the announcement of His birth as the King.
    Even when He goes to the cross, in the worst moments of His humiliation, there still remains a hint of His triumph over evil, where His body is not thrown into the garbage dump outside of Jerusalem; rather, following the prophetic prediction of Isaiah, chapter 53, Jesus’ body was tenderly laid to rest in the tomb of a wealthy man. His death was ignominious, but His burial was one that was a great honor in ancient terms. His body was adorned with the sweetest spices and most costly perfumes, and He was given the burial plot of honor. Therefore, God, in the midst of the suffering of His obedient servant, would not allow His holy One to see corruption.
    And throughout the pages of Scripture, we see these glimpses here and there, breaking through the veil and the cloak of Jesus’ humanity, piercing the armor of the humiliation and debasement that was His lot during His earthly sojourn. These moments, or glimpses, of glory should be for the Christian a foretaste of what lies ahead, not only for the ultimate exaltation of Jesus in the consummation of His kingdom, but also a taste for us of heaven itself, as we become the heirs and joint-heirs of Jesus. Jesus’ final lot, His destiny, His legacy, promised and guaranteed by the Father, is glory, and that glory He shares with all who put their trust in Him.
    In common language, the terms exaltation and humiliation stand as polar opposites. One of the most magnificent glories of God’s revealed truth and most poignant ironies is that in the cross of Christ these two polar opposites merge and are reconciled. In His humiliation, we find our exaltation. Our shame is replaced by His glory.
    R.C. Sproul
  3. 7 min

    The Certainty of the Resurrection

    The life of Jesus follows a general pattern of movement from humiliation to exaltation. The movement is not strictly linear, however, as it is interspersed with vignettes of contrast. The birth narrative contains both ignominy and majesty. His public ministry attracts praise and scorn, welcome and rejection, cries of “Hosanna!” and “Crucify Him!” Nearing the shadow of death, He exhibited the translucent breakthrough of transfiguration.
    The transition from the pathos of the cross to the grandeur of the resurrection is not abrupt. There is a rising crescendo that swells to the moment of breaking forth from the grave clothes and the shroud of the tomb. Exaltation begins with the descent from the cross immortalized in classical Christian art by the Pieta. With the disposition of the corpse of Jesus, the rules were broken. Under normal judicial circumstances, the body of a crucified criminal was discarded by the state, being thrown without ceremony into gehenna, the city garbage dump outside Jerusalem. There the body was incinerated, being subject to a pagan form of cremation, robbed of the dignity of traditional Jewish burial. The fires of gehenna burned incessantly as a necessary measure of public health to rid the city of its refuse. Gehenna served Jesus as an apt metaphor for hell, a place where the flames are never extinguished and the worm does not die.
    Pilate made an exception in the case of Jesus. Perhaps he was bruised of conscience and was moved by pity to accede to the request for Jesus to be buried. Or perhaps he was moved by a mighty Providence to ensure fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah that Jesus would make His grave with the rich or of God’s promise that He would not let His Holy One see corruption. The body of Christ was anointed with spices and wrapped in fine linen to be laid in the tomb belonging to the patrician, Joseph of Arimathea.
    For three days the world was plunged into darkness. The women of Jesus’ entourage wept bitterly, taking but small consolation in the permission to perform the tender act of anointing His body. The disciples had fled and were huddled together in hiding, their dreams shattered by the cry, “It is finished.”
    For three days God was silent. Then He screamed. With cataclysmic power, God rolled the stone away and unleashed a paroxysm of creative energy of life, infusing it once more into the still body of Christ. Jesus’ heart began to beat, pumping glorified blood through glorified arteries, sending glorified power to muscles atrophied by death. The grave clothes could not bind Him as He rose to His feet and quit the crypt. In an instant, the mortal became immortal and death was swallowed up by victory. In a moment of history, Job’s question was answered once and for all: “If a man die, shall he live again?” Here is the watershed moment of human history, where the misery of the race is transformed into grandeur. Here the kerygma, the proclamation of the early
    R.C. Sproul
  4. 4 min

    Finding the Sheep That Refuses to Be Found

    and warn as the Lord gives us opportunity. It was Nathan's relationship with David that enabled him to deliver the parable that God used to bring the king to repentance.
    Family members of sheep under discipline are often individuals who desperately need the support of their fellow believers. For example, in one situation of which I am aware, a husband deserted his wife and family and was under the discipline of the church. His wife was determined to wait for him to repent and was praying that the Lord would touch his heart. Unfortunately, there were voices from many others who were telling her to "dump the bum" and "get on with your life." She needed the support of others who encouraged her perseverance. The Lord answered her prayers as her husband repented, they were reconciled, and he was restored to the church.
    Third, pray for them. This is the most important thing that you can do for the impenitent. After all, it is the Lord's work to soften the hearts of hard-hearted sinners. There are different kinds of prayers to pray in this situation. Obviously, you want to pray that the Lord will change their hearts to bring them to repentance. There have been occasions where I have also prayed that the Lord would do whatever was necessary circumstantially to bring the impenitent face-to-face with their sin. On one occasion, I told an individual that I was praying "that the Lord would make him miserable until he repented." He brushed off my comments until he suddenly lost his job and his health began to deteriorate. When I saw him later, he asked if I was still praying for him that way. I said that I was. He asked me to stop it, but I said that I couldn't stop until he repented. The good news is that he did repent. Plead with the Lord for the lost sheep, and don't give up.
    Finally, expect the sheep to be "found." In Matthew 18, the shepherd finds the sheep and the shepherd rejoices. In Luke 15, the prodigal returns and the father celebrates. Though there may be temporal consequences of an individual's sin (as with King David), we are instructed to rejoice in the sinner's repentance and to be quick to forgive. The parable of the unforgiving servant that closes Matthew 18 reminds us that we must be ready to forgive much and to forgive often, even as our Chief Shepherd has forgiven us. Ultimately, He is the one who is pursuing stray sheep and, as we have the privilege of being used by Him in the process, we must follow His lead.
    Timothy Z. Witmer
  5. 3 min

    Where Is Your Hope?

    The story is told that a financially comfortable North American went to visit a mission church that was located in the village dump in a city in Africa. Wondering, he shadowed the pastor for much of the day until he finally burst out and said, “Where is your hope?” He could find no tools with which the pastor could work, no materials with which he could build, no food that he could pass on to the poverty-stricken people. “Where is your hope?”
    To the man’s utter astonishment, the local pastor responded with an enormous smile and brilliantly bright eyes. “My hope is Jesus Christ,” he confidently asserted, and he went on the rest of the day showing how that could be the case.
    Like the visitor, most of us living in North America can’t imagine how the African pastor could find hope in the terrible situation in which he worked. In fact, his location seems dangerous to the extreme. All sorts of diseases are rampant in a dump. People can get cut by the glass shards lying hidden there. Infections follow soon after. How can anyone find hope in such a situation?
    That is why we have to pay careful attention to the pastor’s language. He didn’t say that he found hope in that situation. Rather, he lived so joyfully because his hope was Jesus Christ.
    I’ve been writing and thinking about the nature of hope these days because at the moment there are so many disasters all over the United States. Monstrous tornadoes, torrential floods throughout the Mississippi basin, and now, starting in Montana because of the historic amounts of melted snow, severe droughts in other parts of the country — all these make for an enormous number of people displaced and homeless.
    Our natural tendency in the United States is to turn first to our human abilities to fix things. We begin planning how to solve the problems, assembling the materials we need, calling in the builders that the jobs require, and organizing the kinds of projects that can take care of the gargantuan needs.
    The only problem is that the mess is too massive. A collection of little jobs will not restore the thousands of homes, cars, and fields that have been devastated. The ruination in many sections of the country will necessitate a complete overhaul.
    One of the really good things that has come out of this multiplication of crises is that more and more people are winding up thankful to have their lives. They are discovering, in the losses of their homes and all their possessions, that what matters most is to still be alive.
    Oh, how I wish we could take them one step further. Over the last few decades, so many people in the United States have be come Christians in name only. How I pray that more of those who lose everything and are grateful for their lives will also recognize from whom their lives came and seek a relationship with God. Could we get to the heart of the
    Marva Dawn

  11. Responding to God’s Call

    We live in daily submission to a host of authorities who circumscribe our freedom: from parents to traffic police officers to dog catchers. All authorities are to be respected and, as the Bible declares, honored. But only one authority has the intrinsic right to bind the conscience. God alone imposes absolute obligation, and He does it by the power of His holy voice.
    He calls the world into existence by divine imperative, by holy fiat. He calls the dead and rotting Lazarus to life again. He calls people who were no people “My people.” He calls us out of darkness and into light. He effectually calls us to redemption. He calls us to service.
    Our vocation is so named because of its Latin root vocatio, “a calling.” The term vocational choice is a contradiction in terms to the Christian. To be sure, we do choose it and can, in fact, choose to disobey it. But prior to the choice and hovering with absolute power over it is the divine summons, the imposition to duty from which we dare not flee.
    It was vocation that drove Jonah on his flight to Tarshish and caused his terrified shipmates to dump him in the sea to still the vengeful tempest. It was vocation that elicited the anguished cry from Paul, “Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:16). It was vocation that put a heinous cup of bitterness in the hands of Jesus.
    The call of God is not always to a glamorous vocation, and its fruit in this world is often bittersweet. Yet God calls us according to our gifts and talents, and directs us to paths of the most useful service to His kingdom. How impoverished we would be if Jonah had made it to Tarshish, if Paul had refused to preach, if Jeremiah really had turned in his prophet’s card, or if Jesus had politely declined the cup.
    R.C. Sproul

  12. The Unquenchable Fire of Hell

    Hell—eternal conscious punishment of those who do not repent of their sins and trust in Christ—is a subject that too many preachers and teachers in our day seek to avoid. In a drive to reach unbelievers who might find the doctrine of hell off-putting, many preachers never mention it at all. Some go further and say that unbelievers will simply cease to exist at death and will not suffer for eternity (annihilationism). Still others go even further and affrm that there is no punishment of any kind, not even annihilation. They advocate universalism, the belief that everyone will go to heaven no matter what they believe.
    The neglect or denial of hell may be presented under the name "Christian" at times, but no one can be faithful to our Lord's teaching without affirming the eternal conscious punishment of the impenitent. That is because no one in all of Scripture talks about the reality of hell more often than Christ Jesus Himself. Today's passage includes some of His most noteworthy teaching on the subject.
    Jesus draws attention to the utter horror of hell with a series of contrasts that all involve bodily crippling and mutilation (vv. 43–47). He teaches that it is better to lose a body part that entices you to sin than it is to go to hell. This would have been a particularly striking saying for His original Jewish hearers—the disciples—for bodily mutilation in Judaism was strictly forbidden, and it disqualified one from entering the worshiping congregation (Deut. 14:1; 23:1). To say it would be better to mutilate your body than to go to hell, then, shows the seriousness with which we must take sin. Hell is so awful that losing a body part is a better fate.
    The word "hell" in verse 47 translates the term gehenna, which was another name for the "valley of the son of Hinnom," the place near Jerusalem where many ancient Jews sacrificed children to the pagan god Molech (2 Kings 23:10). By the first century A.D., the place was seen as accursed because of that, and it was used as a figure for the eternal place of punishment after death, or hell. Jesus' use of the unquenchable fire in reference to this place (v. 48) borrows from the fact that in his day, the physical gehenna was a garbage dump where garbage never stopped burning. Jesus uses the physical reality to point to something much worse—unending pain in the afterlife for those who go to hell.
    mark 9:43–50

  13. Boasting in His Shame

    Jesus.  Be comfortable with Him.  Kick back with Him. He is anti—institutional.  He is anti—authority.  Living with Him is a cool ride.”
    Dear reader, if we would recapture the gospel we must return to the ignominious cross.  The writer of Hebrews is preaching to us: 
    “For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.  Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.”  Hebrews 13:11-13
    Even though the animals were sacrificed in the temple, their bodies were burned in the wilderness outside the camp.  If you lived outside the camp you were considered an outcast.  It was a reproach to dwell outside the camp.  The writer used that analogy to say, “Jesus was crucified outside of Jerusalem.  He was crucified on the city’s garbage dump--a place of refuse.  It was a place where criminals were executed.  Just so, let’s go outside the camp, “and bear the reproach he endured.”
    Let us consider two questions:  
    Have you ever individually gone to the cross… the place of reproach…the place of ridicule…the place where the world laughs and scoffs?  Have you ever gone to the cross as a sinner even while the world mocks? Have you gone to the cross before the laughing world, bowed down and prayed,  “Jesus, Lamb of God, Savior, I am a sinner. Have mercy on me.  I now trust in you and you alone to save me from God’s just judgment through your atoning death.”?      
    As a follower of Jesus do you pitch your tent every morning and every evening outside the camp at the Cross?  Do you do this in your home, at the university, in the office, on the golf course, at the bar and coffee shop?   
    If you answered the first question “yes”, then you know what Paul meant when he said, “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  
    Paul was so proud of Jesus and His cross, that He counted it an honor to suffer in the world for the cause of the cross.  A couple of sentences after he wrote of boasting in the cross, he closed the paragraph by saying,  “From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.”  Be sure, if you pitch your tent under His cross in this world, your life in some way will bear the marks of His ignominy.
    John Sartelle
  14. Tabletalk
    Daily Study

    Boasting in His Shame

    and hang out with Jesus.  Be comfortable with Him.  Kick back with Him. He is anti—institutional.  He is anti—authority.  Living with Him is a cool ride.” Dear reader, if we would recapture the gospel we must return to the ignominious cross.  The writer of Hebrews is preaching to us: “For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.  Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.”  Hebrews 13:11-13 Even though the animals were sacrificed in the temple, their bodies were burned in the wilderness outside the camp.  If you lived outside the camp you were considered an outcast.  It was a reproach to dwell outside the camp.  The writer used that analogy to say, “Jesus was crucified outside of Jerusalem.  He was crucified on the city’s garbage dump--a place of refuse.  It was a place where criminals were executed.  Just so, let’s go outside the camp, “and bear the reproach he endured.” Let us consider two questions: Have you ever individually gone to the cross… the place of reproach…the place of ridicule…the place where the world laughs and scoffs?  Have you ever gone to the cross as a sinner even while the world mocks? Have you gone to the cross before the laughing world, bowed down and prayed,  “Jesus, Lamb of God, Savior, I am a sinner. Have mercy on me.  I now trust in you and you alone to save me from God’s just judgment through your atoning death.”? As a follower of Jesus do you pitch your tent every morning and every evening outside the camp at the Cross?  Do you do this in your home, at the university, in the office, on the golf course, at the bar and coffee shop? If you answered the first question “yes”, then you know what Paul meant when he said, “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul was so proud of Jesus and His cross, that He counted it an honor to suffer in the world for the cause of the cross.  A couple of sentences after he wrote of boasting in the cross, he closed the paragraph by saying,  “From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.”  Be sure, if you pitch your tent under His cross in this world, your life in some way will bear the marks of His ignominy.
    Tabletalk
  16. 3 min

    Divorce

    And sinners have no power within themselves to repair that which is broken. The broken home seems to suffer a fate similar to Humpty Dumpty. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men were not able to repair the fracture that this poor mythical egg experienced.
    The number of people seeking to survive within the context of brokenness has now reached multiple millions. The comforting factor is that if we are involved in such brokenness, our experience is not unique, anomalous, or something that takes place in solitary confinement. Rather, those of us who are involved in broken homes are surrounded by multitudes experiencing the same pain due to the dissolution of family stability. This is an area, of course, that not only asks for but screams for the church’s ministry.
    The New Testament puts a priority on the church’s concern for widows and orphans. Widows and orphans are human beings who have suffered broken families not through divorce but through death. Obviously, the church’s concern must extend beyond those whose brokenness has been caused by death. Anyone who is involved in a broken family relationship needs the ministry and care of the church. One good thing that has come out of this destruction of the American family is the church’s awakening to the need to minister to single mothers and fathers, to recovering substance abusers, and to all who are trying to repair their lives after going through difficult divorces. Divorce can no longer be seen simply as an extreme case of marital failure. Since it has reached not only epidemic but pandemic proportions, it cries out for the application of the means of grace to those who suffer as a result of it.
    A church that closes its doors and its hearts to those who are in broken situations cannot be considered a church at all. The church exists, principally, to minister to those who are broken. It was said of our Lord Himself that He would not break the bruised reed (Isa. 42:3). Victims of broken homes are bruised people; the bruises will not go away without help. This is a wound that time does not have the capacity to heal. It requires the healing of God Himself, which He often ministers through His church. This is our concern as Christians, and one we dare not neglect. How we handle these situations will have an eternal impact, not only for the individuals involved, but for cultures and nations whose structure is marred by brokenness.
    R.C. Sproul
  17. 4 min

    Should Christians Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day?

    When it comes to Saint Patrick, the true story is even more exciting than the legend and the myth. The facts are far better than the fable. This day that belongs to St. Patrick has become about leprechauns, shamrocks, pots of gold, and green—green everywhere. Famously, the City of Chicago dumps forty pounds of its top-secret dye into the river. A green racing stripe courses through the city. But long before there was the St. Patrick of myth, there was the Patrick of history. Who was Patrick?
    Patrick was born in 385 in Roman Britannia in the modern-day town of Dumbarton, Scotland. Patrick opens his autobiographical St. Patrick’s Confession with these opening lines: My name is Patrick. I am a sinner, a simple country person, and the least of all believers. I am looked down upon by many. My father was Calpornius. He was a deacon; his father was Potitus, a priest, who lived at Bannavem Taburniae. His home was near there, and that is where I was taken prisoner. I was about sixteen at the time.
    Patrick skips over much of his first sixteen years. But who can blame him? At sixteen and being captured by barbarian Irish pirates is a pretty exciting place to begin a story. When the pirates landed on the Irish coast, they took Patrick about 200 miles inland where he was a shepherd and farm laborer. Six years passed and Patrick had either a vivid dream or a vision in which he was shown an escape route. Emboldened, Patrick made his break from his captors, traveling back over the 200 miles to the shoreline. As he approached the docks, a British ship stood waiting. The sails unfurled and Patrick was home. But he didn’t stay long.
    Before he was a prisoner, Patrick’s Christian faith meant little to him. That changed during his captivity. His previously ambivalent faith galvanized and served to buoy him through those long, dark days. Now that he was back in his homeland he committed to his faith in earnest. He became a priest and soon felt a tremendous burden for the people that had kidnapped him. So he returned to Ireland with a mission.
    Patrick had no less of a goal than seeing pagan Ireland converted. These efforts did not set well with Loegaire (or Leoghaire), the pagan king of pagan Ireland. Patrick faced danger and even threats on his life. He took to carrying a dagger. Yet, despite these setbacks, Patrick persisted. Eventually the king converted and was baptized by Patrick and much of the people of Ireland followed suit. A later legend would have it that Patrick rid all of Ireland of snakes. Snakes were not native to Ireland at the time. Instead, Patrick rid Ireland of marauding ways and a cultural and civil barbarianism by bringing not only Christianity to Ireland, but by bringing a whole new ethic. It was not too long ago that a New York Times’ bestselling book argued that St. Patrick and his Ireland saved civilization.
    Patrick would
    Stephen Nichols
  18. 6 min

    The Disappearance of Hell

    According to recent polls, some 81 percent of adult Americans believe in heaven, and fully 80 percent expect to go there when they die. By comparison, about 61 percent believe in hell, but less than 1 percent think it's likely they will go there. In other words, a slight majority of Americans still believe hell exists, but genuine fear of hell is almost nonexistent.
    Even the most conservative evangelicals don't seem to take hell very seriously anymore. For decades, many evangelicals have downplayed inconvenient biblical truths, neglecting any theme that seems to require somber reflection. Doctrines such as human depravity, divine wrath, the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and the reality of eternal judgment have disappeared from the evangelical message.
    The trend has not escaped everyone's attention. Thirty years ago, for example, Martin Marty, religious historian, professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, and critic of all things evangelical, delivered the Ingersoll Lecture on Immortality at Harvard Divinity School. The title of his message was "Hell Disappeared. No One Noticed." Marty's research had failed to turn up a single scholarly article dealing with the subject of hell in any significant theological journal over the previous century. Citing the dearth of attention being given to so large a topic, Marty suggested that if evangelicals really took seriously what Scripture says about eternal punishment, someone with a voice should notice.
    Almost no one did. Eighteen years later, The Los Angeles Times featured a front-page article titled "Hold the Fire and Brimstone," pointing out that many style-conscious evangelical church leaders were purposely omitting the theme of divine retribution: In churches across America, hell is being frozen out as clergy find themselves increasingly hesitant to sermonize on . . . a story line that no longer resonates with churchgoers. [According to] Harvey Cox Jr., an eminent author, religious historian and professor at the Harvard Divinity School, "You can go to a whole lot of churches week after week, and you'd be startled even to hear a mention of hell."
    Hell's fall from fashion indicates how key portions of Christian theology have been influenced by a secular society that stresses individualism over authority and the human psyche over moral absolutes. The rise of psychology, the philosophy of existentialism, and the consumer culture have all dumped buckets of water on hell.
    The article profiled an evangelical pastor who said he believes in hell, but (according to the Times) "you'd never know it listening to him preach. . . . He never mentions the topic; his flock shows little interest in it." Asked why the doctrine of hell has gone missing, this pastor replied, "It isn't sexy enough anymore."
    The article also quoted a well-known seminary professor who more or less agreed. Hell, he said, is "just too negative. . . . Churches are under enormous pressure to be consumer-oriented. Churches today feel the need to be appealing rather than demanding."
    The article closed with a quote from Martin Marty, almost two decades after his famous lecture on the subject. He agreed that market-driven
    John MacArthur
  19. 3 min

    Biblical Personal Finance: Spending for God’s Glory

    According to the authors of one Reformed Catechism Christian piety includes “the lawful procuring and furthering the wealth and outwards estate of ourselves and others” (WSC, Q?A 74). But what we take in, a subject we considered in an earlier post, is only half of the personal finance equation. We also need to spend wisely.
    Here are four principles for faithful spending:
    1. Christians Are Stewards
    Christians must manage money for the sake of God’s kingdom, making their resources work for his glory (Luke 16:1-13). This is true because, “The earth is the Lord’s and all it contains” (Ps. 24:1). We are his managers.
    Handling money wisely is all about choices. Often these choices are guided by two important principles. First, we need to prioritize our spending. Stewards evaluate what is good, better, and best. Most people find it beneficial to prioritize spending with a budget. Good managers know how to cut the budget in one area to fund more important causes elsewhere. In most Christian families budgetary fat can be cut to fund needs. For example, typical entertainment expenses can go a long way toward paying Christian school expenses. Those who hold the biblical office of deacon can be a huge help in evaluating the budgets of their parishioners and offering suggestions for more prudent stewardship.
    Second, we must delay our gratification. Because saving money takes time we have to make sacrifices in how we spend now. Most of us cannot live the way we want AND live the way God calls us to. Dave Ramsey’s well known encouragement toward financial wellness is, “Live like no one else so that later you can live like no one else.”
    2. Christians Tithe and Give
    A tithe is a tenth; in this case a tenth of one’s income. It is the baseline standard for fiscal gratitude among God’s people (Prov. 3:9; Mal. 3:8). Although the tithe is rooted in the Old Testament, it is unreasonable for us to suspect that this standard has been done away with in the period of greater grace in which we live today. Giving refers to charitable donations beyond the tithe. In both testaments believers gave through the God-ordained institution of the local church (Acts 6:1-4; 2 Cor. 9:5).
    3. Debt Is Debilitating
    Put simply, debt is the result of spending someone else’s money as if it was your own. Such spending is never free. For those in debt, unexpected expenditures become crises and the walls of debt’s pit become increasingly more difficult to scale.
    The Bible warns of the dangers of debt. “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender” (Prov. 22:7; ESV). This being the case, we are a nation of slaves. Americans carry an average of $44,000 in mortgages, credit cards, auto loans and other consumer debt. Half of American families have installment loans on purchased goods. Almost half carry a credit card balance averaging around $4,000. Over 73% of new cars are purchased on debt.
    Dumping debt may not be easy. But the
    William Boekestein
  20. 6 min

    Enduring Love

    gospel grace in action. We must cherish God’s unmerited love to us in Christ. We should be awestruck by God’s love to us through the love of others. Perhaps most amazing is the humbling realization that God’s love f lows through us to others, leveraging our past hurts to encourage them in their present struggles (2 Cor. 1:3–4). Each touch of love leaves an eschatological fingerprint on the hard surfaces of life, evidence that the gospel is true no matter how things may appear.
    A church that claims to preach and teach the truth but does not love well will inevitably be off-putting and judgmental. But one that loves well (consistent with the truth) will be irresistibly attractive to a broken world. Truth expresses the gracious logic of the gospel, but love is its pulse. Love never ends, for God’s own heart beats that pulse, the not yet of the next world throbbing already in the arteries and veins of this one.
    LOVE AS DUTY
    In the gospel, however, love is also a duty, its presence crucial to a healthy church and its absence deadly. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul describes God’s gifts: grand ones, mysterious ones, others sometimes virtually invisible. None, he says, should be overlooked; none allow for boasting. Yet unless love marks our communal life, the church will be an empty shell, gifted but never quite what it is supposed to be.
    Thus, we who are in Christ should live in love — indeed, we must live in love. And that love can and must endure. The saints will persevere in love, for God will empower and enable that love. We may not walk away from love’s obligations when circumstances change, including when a spouse becomes harder to love because of bipolar disorder or Parkinson’s disease. Love may not hate the boss who fired you or the boyfriend who dumped you, for love “bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:7). It can do this because love trusts and believes the gospel in every trial.
    Paul concludes, “So now, faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (v. 13). Those are striking words considering what he says about faith and hope elsewhere. Faith is a wondrous gift that believes what it cannot yet see. Hope inspires within us what the circumstances of a harsh world so often crush. Yet love is greater, for faith will give way to sight, and then faith will not be needed. And hope will one day possess what it longed for, so it will not be required any more.
    But love will not give way to something better. Love is already God’s best: the eternal made temporal, the proof of the gospel’s validity, the presence of the future, and the astonishing evidence of God’s new creation on display in this old world. Love truly never ends, for love is of God, and God is love (1 John 4:7–8).
    John R. Sittema

  21. Precious in the Sight of the Lord

    During the Easter season, we meditate on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Without question, both events are vitally important and deserving of our attention and praise.
    But another event can be lost between the death and resurrection of Jesus—namely, our Lord’s burial. This is an event that also holds spiritual significance for God’s people. His burial is an article of the faith that we confess in the Apostles’ Creed and is worthy of our meditation. I am indebted to Dr. Hywel Jones, whose teaching on Christ’s burial helped me to see anew the significance of this event.
    Christ’s burial is significant because it was so seemingly unfit for a crucified man. Normally, when crucified men were buried, they were piled together in a common grave. Even if a family member claimed the body of one who had been crucified, the family would not bury him in the family plot. This was because a crucified man was cursed by God (Deut. 21:23), and a cursed man would not even be buried with the bodies of the righteous. And so, Jesus’ body might have been unceremoniously dumped with the bodies of the two thieves in a common grave.
    But that is not what happened. In fact, John 19:31–42 tells us that Jesus experienced a burial fit for the righteous King of Israel. Christ’s body was claimed and attended to by two very important figures in the Jewish religious leadership. First was Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man, good and righteous, and a respected member of the Sanhedrin who was looking for the kingdom of God. Joseph had not consented in the Sanhedrin’s condemnation of Jesus (Mark 15:43; Luke 23:50–51). He was a disciple of Jesus, but in secret for fear of the Jews (John 19:38). The second man was Nicodemus, the Pharisee who had come to Jesus by night (ch. 3). He had spoken up cautiously for Jesus, asking the Pharisees, “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” (7:51).
    Notice how the death of Jesus drew these Jewish leaders out of the shadows and into the light. By claiming and caring for the body of Jesus, they made a courageous public declaration of their faith in Jesus as their Lord and King. They buried Jesus as believing Jewish leaders, with all the honors befitting a righteous Israelite. They testified by this burial that all Israel ought to regard Jesus not as an accursed criminal but as the Messiah, their King.
    They buried Jesus in haste because the Sabbath was coming. This, too, is significant. The last Old Testament Sabbath began with Jesus’ body at rest. Just as the first Sabbath was inaugurated by God when He rested from all His work in creation, so the last Old Testament Sabbath began with Jesus’ body at rest, after He had accomplished all His work in redemption. Between Christ’s death and resurrection was His holy rest, provided for by His Father through faithful Jewish leaders who believed and
    William C. Godfrey
  24. 1 min

    Martin Luther’s Evangelical Breakthrough

    In this brief clip from his teaching series A Survey of Church History, W. Robert Godfrey examines the event that changed Martin Luther's life. Watch the entire message for free today.
    Transcript
    Martin Luther later in his life would look back and say, “I came to this evangelical breakthrough.” And now the psychologist love it that he says, “I came to the evangelical breakthrough while sitting on the toilet.” Freudians have had a ball with that. What serious historians have noted is that actually there was no toilet where he said he was sitting and that in the idiom of that day, “Sitting on the toilet” meant being depressed, being melancholy, being down, down in the dumps. It's not about a location. It's about a spiritual state and Luther says, “I was really depressed about the state of my soul,” not depressed in a technical, psychological way. “I was sad. I was distressed about the state of my soul and in that state I began to think. If God is alive, I am dead.” He said, “I came to hate God because all I saw was a God of judgment.” He said especially the phrase “The righteousness of God filled me with fear and hatred. How could I ever measure up to a righteous God?” But now, his mind filled with Scripture. It suddenly all fell into place. He said, “It was like the gates of Paradise had open to me and I realized that what God’s talking about in the Bible is not the righteousness He demands of me but the righteousness He gives to me in Jesus Christ” and that's what changed Luther’s whole world. That's what made him a Protestant and I think that happened probably early in 1518 and turned Luther's whole life around.
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