2021 National Conference: Day Three

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[Music] [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] foreign foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] i [Music] [Applause] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is foreign [Music] oh [Music] is foreign [Music] well welcome back for day two i should have cautioned those first time attendees to pace yourself there's quite a bit we try and pack in at a ligonier national conference we are living in the last days in the sense that the kingdom that is to come has already been inaugurated and the next great redemptive event is the second coming you may not fully understand the sovereignty of god and salvation but what you must understand is that you're just a bunch of ordinary people that god has saved by his grace it was god who did it the church will be of no help to any of us in our struggle against sin if the church says that sin is not sin i think that there has been a disregard for the great doctrine that man is ruined by sin he's redeemed by the savior but he is regenerated by the spirit our life as a witness begins in the home our family life should teach and necessarily affect the way we ought to love one another within the church there's hope and there's power and there's strength in the gospel with jesus my savior i'm the child of a king good morning and welcome to day three of our 2021 national conference i'm nathan w bingham and i'm so encouraged to know that thousands of you are joining us online as we consider the eternal significance of our service to the lord today all of the sessions from the past two days are available now in the free ligonier app for you to watch again at your own convenience and remember the seminars that we didn't include in the live stream are also available for you there simply visit ligonier.org app or search for ligonier in your preferred app store well we're crossing now to this morning's first session with dr derek thomas it's titled achieving an eternal glory shortly following that session will also be our final q a of the weekend well good morning trust you had a good night's rest ready for bob godfrey round two but uh i'm i'm gonna ease it in for you with uh a message uh the assigned message is from romans five and verses one through eleven these are wonderful extraordinary moving versus we're on we're on the mountain tops here and there are larger mountaintops romans 8 as you peer out but now you're in you're in the alps let's read together from verses 1 through 11. this is god's infallible inerrant word for you therefore since we have been justified by faith we have peace with god through our lord jesus christ through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope of the glory of god not only that but we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not put us to shame because god's love has been poured into our hearts through the holy spirit who has been given to us but while we were still weak at the right time christ died for the ungodly for one will scarcely die for a righteous person though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die but god shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners christ died for us since therefore we have now been justified by his blood much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of god for if while we were enemies we were reconciled to god by the death of his son much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life more than that we also rejoice in god through our lord jesus christ through whom we have now received reconciliation well so far god's infallible inerrant word i mentioned i think it was yesterday though it might have been the day before can't even remember now but um that extraordinary moment in uh pilgrim's progress part two where mercy and christiana are in the house of the interpreter and they see a bunch of things just as christian and part one had seen a bunch of things they now see things that will help them on their journey and what they see is a man with a muckrake and he's looking down and he's groaning and he has no sense of joy or contentment and above his head if only he would look up is a crown and it's bunyan um telling us that we often live as christians as those who are justified by faith as those who have peace with god as those who entertain uh the fact that we are reconciled to god through the death of his son we forget who we are that we're the child of a king and that's what's happening here in romans 5. paul wants you to understand he's been talking about the universality of sin he's been talking about total depravity jews and gentiles there is none righteous no not one for all have sinned and come short of the glory of god he's talked about justification by faith alone in christ alone he's he's gone to abraham he's gone to david he's drawn text from the old testament to point out that there's only one way of salvation there's only one gospel whether you're in the old testament or the new testament that we are saved by faith alone in the promised christ or in the christ who has already come and we are justified we stand in a right relationship with this holy holy holy god and now in romans 5 the so what what does it mean to be justified by faith alone in christ alone what a blessing what an extraordinary blessing it is to be a christian my dear friend sinclair ferguson and uh if you're watching hey sinclair um i had the enormous privilege of sitting and listening to him preach for two years when i was the evening preacher and he was the senior minister at first press columbia and he would often end the sermon by saying what a wonderful thing it is to be a christian and we don't say that enough we don't feel that enough we get so wrapped up in our responsibilities and our trials and our difficulties and and we have issues that trigger us to complain and see the dark side and the glass is half empty and and we need to look up and see the crown that is above our heads and the arena into which god has placed us as christians no matter no matter where you are in life no matter what's happening in life if you trust in jesus and in jesus alone if you have this precious gospel it's a wonderful wonderful thing to be a christian so paul has articulated the doctrine of justification by faith alone what luther called the article of the standing or falling of the church what calvin called the hinge on which the whole door of the gospel swings he's talked about the great exchange that christ has been made a propitiation for our sins and the dam has burst and and the waters now are gushing forth the floodgates of blessing are coming and paul wants to talk about these blessings that are ours in the gospel he talks about a two-fold blessing here in romans chapter five and he says in verse one therefore since we are justified by faith we have peace with god through our lord jesus christ peace it's the present tense we we have peace we have it now it's not that this is something that's promised that in the future somewhere we we have it we possess it we have shalom some translations have rendered this as a subjunctive letters therefore have peace but all the other conclusions in romans 5 1 to 11 are in the indicative we have peace you think of what he has been saying in the third chapter when he's been exposing the whole nature of sin exposing the human heart as he analyzes as a spiritual cardiologist the state of the human heart and he's drawn that conclusion there in chapter three the way of peace they have not known that's the natural man we're born in sin we have a proclivity to sin the bent of our disposition is towards sin we fall short of the glory of god that for which we were created that for which we were made and we're constantly falling short of it and the way of peace they have not known and the gospel brings this great reversal we have peace who have not known peace we have the peace of god the shalom of god you think of the aaronic benediction the lord bless you and keep you the lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you the lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace the peace of the gospel peace with god peace with this holy righteous god out of the ashes of the human condition a benediction of peace god lifts up your head you may you may gaze at the glory of god that shines in the face of jesus christ and you can be at peace there is no threat of wrath there is no threat of condemnation there is no threat of hell there is no threat of abandonment there is no hostility you've been reconciled you see there at the end of verse 11 we have received reconciliation the war the enmity that exists in the natural heart between ourselves and god that that that wrath of god that is the the the instinct of his holiness to to to push away sin to rid it and all of that is gone and we have we have peace with god peace with god it's actually the same greek construction as the first chapter of john's gospel in the prologue in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god prostan theon the word was with god or perhaps the word was towards god it's a preposition of movement and and what what paul is intending to say here is that we have peace with god in the sense that our souls can move into his presence and his his being his essence moves towards us and we are in fellowship and in communion with each other you can be this close to god and you're getting closer and closer and closer the divine wrath the divine anger cannot touch you anymore what a great thing it is to know that on that day of judgment when the naked holiness of god will be revealed in all of its horror and intimidation and there will be those who will be banished and then for those who are in christ those who know this gospel we are drawn to it in fellowship and in communion we have peace with god but then secondly in verse 2 we have access through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand through him literally through him we have obtained an introduction into this grace in which we have taken our stand this word access is a it's a formal word it's like it's like imagine i know americans are all enamored of the royal family i i don't get it but but you are you're you're watching the crown and victoria and all of all of those shows and uh imagine uh imagine that you're in the palace in buckingham palace and the queen is there and you know the queen queen elizabeth ii has been queen from the day that i was born she became queen the year before her coronation was it was in the year that i was born but she had already been queen for about a year before the coronation carnation was in 1953 so i've never known a single day of my life that she wasn't the queen and that's um that's quite remarkable you know our presidents they come and go this one will go there'll be another day [Applause] imagine how many how many prime ministers the queen has known they came and went and she's still there imagine that you're being introduced to her and there's some some formal gentleman and and and he says your name and he bids you to come into her presence and that's the word that's being used here we have access we we have obtained an introduction we've got the papers we've got the certificates and we stand in a sphere of grace so so ima imagine i've been in all kinds of places i have been in the vatican that was an experience um i've been in the sistine chapel and my feet stood there and i i looked up at the ceiling and it was it was amazing it was just breathtaking and imagine i'm i'm standing actually i wasn't standing because i kept shuffling you along because there were so many people and i wanted just to stand there and gaze at it in all of its glory i've been in the house of representatives in washington and led a prayer and i stood where nancy pelosi stood it was surreal i i felt i felt a tingle through my whole body i remember going into westminster chapel in london and uh uh i i there was no one there and i i sort of slipped into the pulpit and i i looked down and i thought you know ly jones he he stood right here and you have your own stories and paul is saying draw draw a square around you a cube and you're inside it and and what you see grace to turn around what do you see grace look up what do you see grace look down what do you see grace we've we have obtained an introduction we've been we have access into this sphere of grace in which we stand that's that's where we are every day when you wake up in the morning you're in a sphere of grace when enemies surround you you're in a sphere of grace when your conscience for whatever reason begins to condemn you as satan makes his accusations because that's what he does who shall lay any charge against god's elect satan is the one who lays charges against you he'll tell you you're not good enough you haven't done enough you haven't read enough scripture you haven't grown enough in holiness and on and on and on and on and and and you have to remind yourself look up and there's a crown you stand in a sphere your your zip code you know now whenever you put your your credit card to buy gas you have to put your zip code in do you know the number of times i've forgotten what it is um and i i get so nervous because if i if i get it wrong a second time it it's going to disappear well the zip code in which you live is spelt g-r-a-c-e grace we stand in it we bathe in it we wallow in it we've we've gained access we've gained this introduction we've walked inside and now we're surrounded by this bubble of grace we're inside now standing in the palace of the king at oxford university i lived in oxford for a year i was a i was a kind of uh intern pastor i hadn't finished my seminary studies and um i was in this little church baptist church in oxford uh where uh the first edition of the banner of truth magazine that was published i think in 1957 or so and the very first edition was edited by uh two people ian murray and and one other and the other was was the had been the minister of this little church in squishy lane uh in oxford and several oxford students would come on a sunday and i was invited at one time to a graduation ceremony and the dean the master of the college would lead his graduates and present them to the dean and he would say these are my children he would lead them by the hand all dressed up in formal gowns and so on and he and he would lead them up to the dean and he would say these are my children and that's what paul is saying here we are god's children we stand in a sphere of grace behold i and the children that you have given to me so the twofold blessing here peace with god and this this introduction into a sphere of grace but then there are there's a three-fold boasting in verse two we rejoice or we boast in hope of the glory of god verse three we rejoice in our sufferings verse 5 we rejoice in god we rejoice in hope of the glory of god you see paul has already defined sin and there are many ways in the scriptures of defining sin and sin can be falling short or missing the mark or breaking the law but here in romans 3 the way he defines sin is is to say that we have fallen short of the glory of god god created us in his image to reflect his glory and and we keep we keep failing to reflect that glory back to him and and grace restores that image look at what he says he says through him we have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope of the glory of god and he's looking forward now we are already justified but on that day on the day of accounting the day of judgment there's an eschatological dimension to justification so what will be true then is actually true right now it's been brought into the now and what we are now is an anticipation of what will happen then and we shall we shall rejoice in hope in certainty of the glory of god it hasn't yet fully dawned on us what god intends to do with us as he grows us as he sanctifies us as he matures us there will be a day when there'll be no more sin there will be a day when there will be no more temptation there will be a day in our resurrected bodies when we will stand in the new heavens and new earth and we shall be glorified that's what paul is talking about isn't it in romans 8 whom he did for know he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren and whom he did predestinate them he also called and whom he called he also justified and whom he justified he glorified what shall we then say to these things if god before us who can be against us he that spared not his own son but freely delivered him up for us all how shall he not also with him freely give us all things now are we the sons of god right now now are we the sons of god look up there's a crown you're standing in a sphere of grace we are the sons of god but it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him even as he is we have been made fit by justification we have been made fit and ready to meet the holiness of god the holy fire of god and we are bulletproof i've been telling folks you know my wife and i we've had both vaccines we're two weeks out hey we're bulletproof i don't mean to tempt providence or anything but if they if we had to trust the science then then we're we're bulletproof we're good to go we're ready to party we have what i see every time every time i read a hymn uh that mentions the the robe of the righteousness of christ i think of our sea i wear the robe of the righteousness of christ i am as holy as jesus is holy that's what justification means i am as spotless in christ as christ himself is i am i am as immune to the the wrath of god as jesus now is because i am in him i will be glorified i shall behold the glory of god in the face of jesus christ and i myself will be glorified changed and transformed and in a sphere of sinlessness and and and beauty father jesus prayed i pray that those whom you have given me may be with me where i am that they may see my glory paul in philippians 3 talks about transforming this vile body to make it like his glorious body the hope of the glory of god and then we boast in our sufferings not only that but we rejoice in our sufferings now the sufferings here yes we have internal sufferings and so on but the word here is a word that is a word that would be used for for the principalities and powers and i think paul is thinking here of especially those sufferings that are brought about by by satan those sufferings that are brought about by as we saw last night in the book of job by the principalities and powers we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers against the rulers of the darkness of this world jesus said in caesarea philippi in matthew 16 i will build my church you know jesus only has one plan and it's called church there's no plan b you can't be a christian and not be part of that plan and he says the gates of hell will not prevail against it where does jesus build his church right next to the walls of mordor lord of the rings right next to the gates of of hell i think of those famous words of calvin in his commentary on first peter in the opening chapter that god has so ordered it so ordered the church that that death is the way to life and the cross is the way to victory and i think that paul isn't saying something here that merely is chronological there's suffering now and there's glory to come that's true there's suffering now but there's glory to come you won't always be in this suffering you won't always be in this trial and as soon as you pass from this world you'll be free from suffering and trial you'll be in a place we call heaven you'll be in the presence of the lord jesus and all the suffering is gone and that's true but i don't think that's what paul intends here he means he means there there's there's no way to glory apart from through a road that's called trial and suffering and tribulation and paul says um you know what's what's the point of suffering why why are we why are we allowed to suffer why does god put us through suffering because as elihu begins to say in job suffering can be educative it can teach you something that you can't learn in any other way it produces first of all endurance stickability those who have been pampered and closeted uh will not be able to endure when pressures come it it produces endurance and and the word suggests uh a notion of squeezing something in order that the the juice of those grapes uh emerge endurance something you don't naturally have but it's um it's inside you because god has put it there and the only way that it's going to manifest itself is that you're put into a sphere of of testing and it's like um it's like a lemon or a lime squeezer and you you squeeze it and out comes that that acidic beautiful lemon juice or or lime juice you're saying i can't cope but you do you learn to trust him you learn to lean upon him sometimes it feels like two steps forward and three steps backwards but you're still standing i thought i would never survive it but you did survive it and you learnt endurance you learned stickability you learned to say to yourself i'm standing in a sphere of grace and there are bombs going off on my left and right and shells are exploding above my head but i'm in a sphere of grace i'm justified by faith alone in christ alone i am as righteous as christ is righteous and i endure and i keep moving forward and and endurance produces character a word that implies to prove something it's the word that's used in philippians 2 22 about timothy you know him you know his proven worth that he served me in the furtherance of the gospel like a child serving his father it's used in james 1 and verse 12 blessed is the man who perseveres under trial for once he has been approved he will receive a crown of life which the lord has promised to those who love him it's used in first peter chapter 1 and verse six in this you greatly rejoice even though now for a little while if necessary you have been um distressed by various trials multi-faceted trials that the proof same word that the proof of your faith being much more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of jesus do you know what a refiner's fire is when raw metal ore is put into a furnace and into a cauldron of some kind and it's and it's it's heated up and the grass rises to the surface and you skim off that grass and what is left is the pure gold or the pure silver gives you character when you're in britain uh there are various products ketchup and other products and uh that apparently the queen has eaten and liked and given her approval to and and and they can print a label and it says by appointment of her majesty the queen try it out she is um two years older than my mother she's 94. still going strong when you see that by appointment of her majesty the queen that's a product you need to get stamped on your soul are the words by appointment of his majesty the king you are a child of the king and this trial this difficulty it's removing the dross it's giving you stamina it's giving you courage it's it's giving you endurance but it's also giving you a character a stamp of approval that more and more and more as you pass through these trials people can see you are different people can see that something has changed you that you're indwelt by the holy spirit of god that you are in union and communion with the lord jesus it produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope to look up to have assurance to be certain the trials make you realize that only one thing and one thing only is important that i was made for glory i was made for glory and this hope doesn't disappoint this hope made strong by the holy spirit that's shed abroad in our hearts the same holy spirit that indwelt the lord jesus the same holy spirit that enabled him to pass through gethsemane and to pass through calvary to pass through that that death in the grave and to raise him up on easter sunday that same holy spirit christ's spirit the spirit of christ is shed abroad in our hearts and when that happens it makes a difference it was said of richard sibs the puritan that heaven was in him before he was in heaven and all that that would be true of every christian and this trial and this difficulty this enmity of satan this hostility of his against you it's all part of god's plan so that you can remind yourself and see that stamp that is on your soul by appointment of his majesty the king that nothing can separate you from the love of god which is in jesus christ our lord now paul goes on of course in the rest of this chapter to talk about uh the way in which that is true and it's true because of what christ has done and that while we were yet sinners christ died for us how much more now that we have been reconciled how much more shall we be saved by his life if he was for you if he if he loved you when you were sinners if he was prepared to go to the cross and be your substitute and sin bearer when you were sinners and rebellious against him how much more now that you are you are standing in a sphere of grace now that you've been reconciled to god how can he possibly abandon you spurgeon once said that when i look at the cross i wonder did he love me more than he loved him i want you to think about that for a second spurgeon is looking at the cross seeing the anathema of god seeing the wrath of god come down upon his son and his son saying my god my god why have you forsaken me and spurgeon says i sometimes wonder does he love me more than he loved him has he shed his blood on my behalf as he bore my sin all of it in all of its foulness and ugliness and he bore it to the full he took the whole of the unmitigated wrath of god upon himself as my substitute god made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be reckoned the righteousness of god in him well there's more in this chapter for sure a great deal more there's a there's a puritan by the name of edmund reynolds and the banner of truth published four or five volumes of the collected writings of edmond reynolds puritan he was a member of the westminster assembly and later after the restoration of the monarchy charles ii in 1660 um he was a conformist and he had his portrait made the portrait hangs at merton uh college in oxford and you can google it i have copy i was going to hold it up but it wasn't going to work because it was only this size i guess the camera could have focused in and you could have seen it but you can google it and find it edward edmund reynolds merton college oxford where he studied and you can go there today and you see this painting and the artist asked him how would you like to be portrayed and he said surrounded by books like sinclair ferguson last night surrounded by books uh any book in particular the bible he said any particular passage romans 5 1 with my finger pointing at it and you can see in the painting his finger is pointing at romans 5 and verse 1 being justified by faith we have peace with god we are peace with god through our lord jesus christ my dear friend i don't know where you are right now trials and tribulations you're looking down you perhaps lost some assurance you need to remind yourself of who you are in christ you need to remind yourself of the immutable blessings that are yours in christ you need to remind yourself of this this bubble in which you stand and it's called grace it's called grace and because of that you live in hope and certainty of the glory of god you will behold the glory of god in the face of jesus christ father we thank you thank you for this wonderful passage we have barely skimmed the surface of it how rich your word is what a wonderful thing what a wonderful thing it is to be a christian to be right with god to have this assurance that come what may we can never be separated from you we shall endure to the end and we shall behold that glory bless your word to us we pray we ask it in jesus name amen [Music] um [Music] [Music] [Music] what was is [Music] [Music] [Music] if [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] 10 000. [Music] the secrets [Music] is [Music] sorry foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] good it's morning one of those hymns that's hard to get through to sing all of the words can't you just imagine it on that great day this really has been a delight for us and i hope that you've gotten a glimpse particularly if this is your first time being here with us at a ligonier national conference that you get a taste of what we mean when we say this is a family reunion and like i said the other day it's a family reunion you actually want to go to to be able to meet brothers and sisters in christ from literally every state in these united states and many brothers and sisters in christ who've traveled and somehow been able to penetrate the border to be here with us during this time we've had folks from china from taiwan southeast asia africa the middle east northern africa europe it's just wonderful to be able to gather and to be able to contemplate how we can serve the church together dr godfrey made this point in his interview the other day with nathan bingham talking about the necessity of reforming the church and he pointed out the great need and what is the great need that we would have confidence in the word of god really is what ligander ministries is all about encouraging christians to have confidence in the word of god and the god of the word this conference is just one of those steps and what we try and do in terms of our outreach it really is not what we would hope would be a mountaintop experience for you that's the local church that's the sphere of service that god has placed you in find a healthy gospel preaching faithful local church sit under good solid teaching week in and week out be known by your pastors and elders there's no way that we would be able to know you but your pastors and elders they care for your souls and we love to lift up the work of the local church and we'll do that through conferences god willing in years to come in months to come both in the states but also around the world next january we're hoping to be in belfast northern ireland we had a wonderful conference there a couple of years back and we're looking forward to being back there again next january pray for us as we're contin continuing to plan for a future event that we could have lord willing in september maybe late august of 2022 in singapore there's uh quite a body of believers there and they have been talking with us about bringing a ligonier conference to singapore and so we're continuing to look beyond these shores in ways that ligonier can serve the church globally but we're also at that moment where everybody who's here and i guess those watching on live stream they get to get a little glimpse of what's going to happen here next march lord willing here's the announcement when the serpent came to adam and eve he came with the promise you shall be as gods the origin of the slogan do your own thing is much older than the 1960s it goes back to paradise and its inventor was a serpent there is a tremendous gap that exists between ethics and morality between what we actually do and what we ought to be doing everyone whom god creates is answerable to his law so that god and his law is the universal basis for ethics not just for christian ethics but for human ethics why should i govern my own behavior because somebody says i ought to that's the fundamental question of [Music] ethics so that's next march here in orlando this is an urgent topic it is timely it is necessary to bring courage conviction and to remind christians to stand firm as we are being beset by so much trouble from without the church but frankly also within the church and this is a stake in the ground and so we will be working to prepare that event with wonderful speakers for you you can register for next year's conference today at the best rate possible you can take care of that before you leave today and then for the next week we have a half off price for you you can probably find a little qr code that we have populated there in the bookstore i think we've all kind of gotten used to these qr codes now and you just open your phone and it takes you right to the registration page i would also just comment and say how we've loved hearing children throughout this conference [Applause] this is a practice that began many years ago long before i was ever here at ligonier where children were were welcome to join their families and to learn and what better place for them to be than for them to hear these historic christian truths and to pass down the faith to the next generation and so we welcome children as well we have a just a de minimis uh registration rate for them and uh would encourage as many people as possible to come next year here in orlando well let's go ahead and turn to our q a panel this time with teaching fellows minus sinclair of course sinclair being a few thousand miles away but uh we're looking forward to this time would you join me in welcoming the ligonier teaching fellows good morning gentlemen it's good to have you here uh it has been a refreshing three days uh together uh with these dear folks and everybody who's been able to join us online as well and uh we'll try and can i ask a question do i have to answer what in the world is a qr code [Applause] we don't have enough time i don't think and i wouldn't know where to begin we have a digital outreach booth there in the narthex dr godfrey first question how do you grow or increase in the fear of god and decrease in the fear of man well the more you grow in the fear of god i believe you'll automatically decrease in the fear of man that the greater fear displaces the lesser fear to grow in the fear of god is to grow to know god more deeply and more personally in who he is and that is made known to us in a general way in creation but in a special sanctifying way in his in his word and as we grow to know the attributes of god as we grow to know the names of god as we grow to know the triunity of god as we grow to know the eternal decree of god as we grow to know the acts of god there is a healthy holy reverential awe that swells and grows within our heart it's cultivated through prayer and through worship it's cultivated by being with other believers who take god very seriously it's cultivated by time in the word and to be in time really under the word uh even hearing a sermon like edward's preached centers in the hands of an angry god uh all of that together cultivates a a reverential awe and and a holy fear rightly so of god and that's so important proverbs 1 7 says the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom and ecclesiastes 12 13 says the end of all matters is this to fear god and to obey his commandments and so the first step of entrance into the kingdom of god is to fear god all true saving faith has in it the fear of god and no one giggles through the narrow gate no one skips into the kingdom we all come with a reverential submission to god but we grow in the fear of god throughout the entirety of our christian life we never outgrow fearing god we grow to worship him and adore him and love him more and more in our sanctification and then the end is above all to fear god so our whole christian life is a a progression in the fear of god and if you just took the book of proverbs alone and isolated all the different passages that talk about the fear of god you would see that it is part and parcel of really our spiritual journey with with the lord so the more we fear god the less we will fear man a couple of things i think if we were to be honest the the fear of god is not uppermost in the modern church and i don't think it's uppermost in the modern reformed church if we were to think of attributes of the local church or characteristics of the local church i'm not sure that the fear of god is one of them sadly and and so it's a missing element i think but secondly i was thinking of my dear friend steve's biography of rc and i've read it now a couple i hope you all bought a copy of this biography are there any left i hope so it's it's a very moving moving uh biography but i was familiar with the narrative but was reminded of the details of it how rc read rudolph otto's uh the idea of the holy which which is actually a difficult book to read it's it's meant for scholars rather than lay people but he talks about that mysterium tremendous the holy the holy tremors um and and how that deeply affected rc and and really was a mark the holiness of god i mean it was i think it was a mark of his ministry for the rest of his life um a great big god before whom we walk in fear fear of reverence you know i i was thinking of that line in professor john murray's book uh principles of conduct and he asked the question is it right to be afraid of god and his answer was it is the height of folly not to be afraid of god if there's a reason to be afraid of god but but here i think we're not talking about the fear of of being afraid but it's the holy tremor fear and that sense in a worship service where where where god has come down and and you're no longer simply aware of one another and you're not thinking about a shopping list and what you're going to have a dinner and so on you are consumed by the presence of this majestic god and those i think sinclair spoke about it yesterday in the interview and and that is what uh i look for in in corporate worship but also in my personal life we read in the psalms david's plea to god asking him to deal with his enemies why doesn't the church pray like that today well the church doesn't know the psalms today um and are we clapping because the church doesn't know the songs today um uh i i i think they the the book of psalms is one of the greatest treasures god has given his people and um the the relative ignorance of the book of psalms uh really just in the last generation i think or a little bit more uh in the life of the church is is one of the real tragedies of the life of the church because the psalter it seems to me is inspired in such a way that you need to know it well so you need know which psalm to turn to in which circumstance and if suddenly you're facing a circumstance and you've never read the book of psalms you really don't know where to look and um part of what the book of psalms does indeed do relative to enemies is to constantly remind us that god will conquer his enemies god will overcome his enemies he'll overcome those enemies for us and when the world you know go home and read psalm 2 2. that's part of the great introduction to the psalter when the world conspires against god god laughs it is not good to fight against god if you've never thought about that ponder that truth you cannot fight against god and so the enemies of god and of his purpose and of his people will be surely ultimately destroyed that's something i forgot to say yesterday in my speech so can i finish the speech now the world in its sexual revolution is opposing christian ethics somebody else have to give a sex talk next year at the christian ethics conference but the confidence we could have is that the lie will always eventually collapse of its own weight and foolishness the problem is it takes a while sometimes so you know it took nazism 12 years to collapse it took communism 80 years to collapse they collapsed in part because of outside pressure but they collapsed also because of the internal lie that couldn't sustain itself and so the lies that we face in this world will ultimately collapse but we need to have confidence that god will vindicate himself in if not in history on the last day and as i was thinking about how we reduce fear of the world one of the thoughts that came to me was a spiritual discipline that calvin recommended that as far as i know has been largely neglected by reformed people the spiritual discipline calvin said of spending time meditating on the future life and i've been studying first peter recently and in first peter one of the things that really strikes me is that peter is living this life constantly in light of the life of the world to come and he's not really so much worried about what this life is going to do to him because his treasure is laid up for in heaven imperishable undefiled untouchable by the world and the more we have a sense that ultimately we belong not to this world but to the world to come the less we'll fear this world and the more we'll seek to live for god is there a way when we can be considered not sinless but rather more righteous the way job was considered righteous what does that journey look like what does it take to be blameless the way job was blameless you could meditate on psalm 26 where david pleads his blamelessness before god so psalm 26 is one of those psalms you're reading along and you come to psalm 26 you say what does this mean we know that david was not blameless in fact he was pretty bad at points and and then i think you discover i i hope derek agrees with me that that blameless in the old testament and the new that word is used in the new testament as well doesn't mean moral perfection or absolute sinlessness i think what it means is covenantal integrity i plead before you oh lord that i really belong to you i'm not pleading my righteousness but i'm i'm pleading my connection to you um and um in that sense we can plead blamelessness before god you should always right after psalm 26 reads psalm 51 and confess your sins but the people of god connected to god can come boldly to their god and say i'm yours take care of me and i think that's what blameless in a sense really means must a person forsake his sins in order to come to christ we need sinclair here to talk about the octa rodder creed well the the pro i mean it's a it's a catch 22. um the problem with making um repentance um a mark of my acceptability with god is that it can turn into a work and and that was the issue with the marrow controversy that that before you are eligible to believe you have to demonstrate a certain quality of repentance and it's something that some people see in part one of uh bunions pilgrim's progress why did it take christian so long to get rid of his burden and spurgeon has that famous sermon that he preached in the 19th century criticizing bunyan criticizing him unfairly in my opinion because he had spoken to some fish wife on the way to the church which which is i'm not sure if that was true or not but but but she had said to him that if she had written pilgrims progress she would have made sure that christian would have lost his burden a whole lot sooner uh than bunyan did and i think that's to misunderstand pilgrim's progress i think it's an autobiography it was the experience of bunyan that he went through a luther like uh prolonged um prolonged experience of sin before he came to saving faith but um i think that if you if you insist on a certain quality of repentance before you are eligible to believe and and you put you put um repentance before faith uh in the order solutions in the order of salvation i think you're in you're in danger of making that repentance a work it is the mark of your acceptability with god and and i think that puts the notion of grace uh into jeopardy is the doctrine of election a primary doctrine it is of your god um i would have to have clarification for what is primary mean you do not have to believe in the doctrine of election in order to be saved in order to be a christian i was converted when i was 17 years old i did not come to embrace the doctrines of grace and specifically election until i was 28 years old so there's an entire decade there in which it was not primary though i was still saved but i think it is primary as you read the scripture from genesis to revelation it's not a it's not a a doctrine that is just tucked away in the corners of books what's interesting when you read the new testament is where you find the doctrine of election and where you find the doctrines of grace where are they found in the gospel of john where are they in romans where are they in ephesians where are they in first corinthians where are they in first thessalonians where are they in first peter where are they in second peter you'll find them chapter one verse one you'll find them chapter one verse two chapter one verse three presupposes how well the early church was taught in the doctrine of election that that could be the front doorstep to enter into the weight of the either that gospel or of that epistle so it was a primarily it was a primary doctrine in the first century church under the apostolic teaching that it would be positioned in such a prominent place not hidden at the back of a book um and even in romans where the weight of it doesn't come until chapters 8 and 9 nevertheless in chapter 1 uh verse 6 he talks about those who are called and um and and obviously that introduces so who is called and why are they called and the reason they're called is because they've been chosen by god but ephesians 1 verse 4 first first thessalonians 1 verse 4 2nd peter 1 verse 1 2 peter 1 verse 1 and 2. i mean i mean it's just so front loaded first corinthians 1 verse 2 um and throughout the entire opening chapter of first corinthians um and so i i think that it is a primary doctrine in in that sense not necessary to be converted but necessary uh to understand how it is you were saved and to understand really who the god is who saved you so it would depend on how you define primary i find it interesting as you look through church history and as people recall their conversions even those who would not as they proceed in their christian life to identify as confessional calvinists maybe even identify as against calvinism but when they speak of their own testimony and they recall their own conversion they speak of god choosing them they don't speak of them choosing god and so even in their experience they're testifying to the primary notion of the doctrine of election we'll just add this to what has already been stated that i think a lot of it depends on what someone does after having studied the doctrine of election and what they do with it and what they make of it where they land if they study it in some depth biblically and reject it or try to come up with some fanciful contortion of what scripture must otherwise mean i think then they'll either wind up with a very shallow theology and a very shallow understanding of salvation if indeed they're saved at all i think that's part of the difficulty and the complexity of this question and our forefathers have wrestled with us throughout the ages because it's not that simple because you may not need to understand it or grasp it in order to be saved we certainly would agree on that but if one lives his christian life or her christian life for many years and studies this and then rejects it i don't know how someone could truly understand the grace of god in their salvation how would you counsel someone who struggles with unbelief and by that i believe they're referring to themselves their own struggles with unbelief so the question is say that again how would you counsel someone who is struggling with unbelief to look under jesus uh i meant the text that con converted spurgeon look unto me and be saved all the ends of the earth to look away from yourself to look away from church to look away from religion to look away from your own efforts and to look singularly and exclusively to the lord jesus christ who alone can save hebrews 12 verse 2 looking unto jesus the author and perfecter of faith he authors faith in those who look unto him and he off any and he perfects faith in those who have believed in him as they look unto him and so the key is that you that you must look exclusively away from yourself and away from your own efforts and away from even your own mountain of sin and to look to christ who is mighty to save and will save unto the uttermost those who draw near to him so and to understand that he is he he will receive sinners who come to him with a repentant faith um all that the father gives me shall come to me and him who comes unto me i will in no wise cast out he is the friend of sinners and he will receive sinners and he's come not for the the righteous but for the unrighteous he is a physician who has come not for those who are well but for those who are sick and so flee to him go to him and throw yourself upon his mercy and you will find a savior who will receive you and who will embrace you in his arms of of grace and it glorifies the father for the son to receive the sinners that have been given unto him so you know he invites us to come he says come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden and i will give you rest he says if any man thirst let him come unto me and drink and so he is a savior who invites lowly sinners to come into his saving arms and to be rescued from the wrath of god but the key is to look under the savior to look under christ and and he melts away unbelief by his sovereign grace i think there are some people that are dispositional um by disposition are given to doubt they're timid and fearful i'm i'm relieved when i whenever i read the life of peter you know that he he stumbled um disbelieved the words of jesus at caesarea philippi never lord he said um i think that the reformed faith is is peculiarly sensitive to the issue of the struggle of unbelief because the reformed faith has a very high view of the law it has a very high view of what repentance is it has a very high view of what the marks of saving faith actually are in the sense say of first john and all of those lead to struggle and and doubt it it's not um it's not uh passing strange that in the westminster confession for example the most theologically driven chapter in the entire confession i think is the chapter on assurance and when you read that chapter on assurance you see that they have they have thought theologically and calvinistically through the issue of struggle and doubt i think it depends on who the person is and what i know about this person but but you know all doubt springs from uh a sense of i must contribute something before god can possibly love me and not just initially but i must continually do this as i as i go along in the christian faith and that is to miss what what i was pathetically trying to do in the first session saying we stand in this bubble of grace and and we must never forget that but but i do think that some people by disposition uh uh struggle and i believe help thou my unbelief and and i think i would say to them you know you're not alone join the club take a number uh because we're all there i i remind you of the story of gretchen mitchum and when he doubted when he was in germany studying and he read mark's gospel but i don't know the details it was it was a more of an intellectual struggle i think for for matron at that point and i i really appreciate what you say about different dispositions because there may be different causes that manifest itself in that unbelief but for for machine it was it was being confronted with a liberalism right in front of him and and very much around him and it was something that that was a crisis of faith for him his mother was actually very helpful he he writes back to his mother and she sort of reminds him of some of those things that he learns and then his father hops in and sends a letter to him too but yeah i think we might be surprised if we pull back the curtain and he read through mark's gospel in greek from beginning to end which was part of the cure for him to to confront the christ of history again right for those of you struggling with unbelief the first thing to do is to learn greek and then go to germany well i you know i think this is this is really important we we have to listen to the person struggling with unbelief to try to get a sense of where the unbelief where the burden is particularly sometimes people struggle with unbelief because of moral issues they have to address sometimes they struggle with unbelief because of intellectual issues that we can help them with sometimes people struggle with unbelief for theological reasons sort of as you were saying with the confession some people have a theology that has made them so passive they think all i can do is wait and sort of wait for the comet of grace to hit me from outer space and we may have to help them re theologize their understanding of what it means to come to christ so we we have to be good listeners we have to be carefully prepared theologically to to sense where the problem is but then we have to press the the call of the savior uh the the savior never says doubt the savior never says wait the savior always says come and so i i went through a a somewhat puritan conversion experience in high school and um i wanted to believe but i wasn't sure i really did believe and what really helped me because i was a very strange high school kid was reading calvin and his great stress on faith looking to the promises of god trusting the promises of god will god keep his promise there's no virtue in saying to god i'm not sure you'll keep your promise so sinclair in his high school days was reading aquinas in latin and and you you were reading calvin in french it's little known that that calvin's mother was dutch and uh he actually said that once i think that his mother was belgian but uh no i'm you know i'm an american i'm far behind sinclair i was reading calvin in english can can we just pull this back i think to something that you said about behind the unbelief is somehow this notion that in order for god to love me i must be lovable and when you bring up machin what really threw machine was he sort of he sort of had this picture painted for him by the princetonian professors that liberals had horns and a tail and they were just evil people and he finds them to be so pious and and that was really at the at the beginnings of his struggle and so now he's thrown is it piety is it just my my action my behavior before god that merits my acceptance before god and he has to look to christ to see what is the truth here that that we are unrighteous we are clothed in filthy rags and we just plead the the righteousness of christ in his merit and it's it's hard for us to get past that notion that there must be something i contribute to this chris can i just add one more thing before we move on all right okay well no burke were you going to get into this all right um thank you steve there's there's a whole lot to say on this because this is a very real and very serious matter for most christians uh unbelief and doubt and not full doubt but even partial doubt and right now no one's i think feeling that sort of unbelief or doubt we're all feeling relatively good and happy and generally our dispositions are friendly this morning but doubt comes and unbelief comes when life hurts and when trials come and when we can't stop seeming to sin in the way we just sin the day before and i worry about those christians who never doubt because i wonder if they actually take their sins seriously enough but what we have to do as has been stated here plainly is that we must not believe our feelings our feelings are the greatest liars on on that point um zechariah ursinus in his commentary in the heidelberg catechism when he comes to a section he writes on the evidences of faith he said the first evidence of true faith is doubt so he's really very pastorally addressing immediately this issue and he goes on to say by and large it's true that unbelievers don't doubt they don't wrestle with this question they don't have this problem and and i think he means it to be very encouraging and i think it is encouraging in the right context well we have an entire book in the bible that addresses this and it's first john and first john 5 verse 13 says and this that we may know that we have eternal life and god wants you to know that you have eternal life and the same holy spirit who convicts you of sin the same holy spirit who calls you and draws you to christ the same holy spirit who regenerates you the same holy spirit who gives you the gifts of repentance and faith is the same holy spirit who convinces you that you are a child of god and that you are a believer and the holy spirit is greater than your than your fears and the holy spirit is greater than your own heart and so it's the it's the office work of the holy spirit to bring assurance of salvation and the holy spirit does bring assurance a salvation and i i have found as a pastor that a lot of people who have doubt one reason is because they've never been converted they've never come to a true saving knowledge of jesus christ and so i'm not trying i can't convince you that you're saved only the holy spirit can convict can convince you and persuade you with the inner witness of the spirit uh romans 8 and verse 16 as many as are led by the spirit of god these are the sons of god and the holy spirit brings the anchor of assurance to the heart and i've i've also found as a pastor for almost 40 years and just dealing with people and talking with people um as as they search their own heart that one reason some people equivocate in where they stand with the lord is because they have sat under such anemic preaching that they have no basis really to sort through where i who i am and where i am if they set under strong doctrinal heart-searching preaching i believe the holy spirit solidifies and confirms and seals to the heart the the the assurance of of salvation and so i i think we need to remember that assurance is an inside job that god himself does by his holy spirit who continues to reside in the heart of the one who has truly believed even with the faith that the holy spirit has given to that person so the book of first john clearly in fact the most repeated word in the book of first john is that you might know that you might know that you might know that you might know um and the the the proof that first john sets forth is wherever there is the root of regeneration there will by necessity be the fruit of sanctification that as as you see god at work in your life where there is an increasing desire to obey god's word where there is a decreasing love for the world where there is an increasing practice of righteousness as you have an increasing as you see prayers being answered these are evidences that god is at work in your life and it is the result of being born again and being birthed from above that there will be the necessary evidence of a changed life and so that too first john says is a strong affirmation that brings assurance of salvation you cannot fake uh in a decreasing love for the world an increasing desire to obey god um seeing prayers answered uh having confidence before god that's what god produces in the life of one who has been born again so i i would commend the book of first john the gospel of john tells us how to be saved first john tells us how to know that we've been saved these things i've written unto you who believe in the name of the son of god that you may know that you have eternal life god wants you to know that you have eternal life when moses spoke to the lord face to face as a friend speaks to each other exodus 33 11 was that really the fullness of god's person or merely a representation of him well just a quick answer in exodus 33 that is a real manifestation of god i mean moses says in verse 18 show me your glory and god has moses hide behind the rock and there are four layers between god and moses as god descends in a cloud and god himself preaches to moses and god himself preaches his own name and preaches his own attributes uh to to moses that was a a a real theophany and an appearance of god to moses now i may not be understanding the question and the intent of that but that wasn't some secondary manifestation of god that was the glory of the intrinsic glory of god revealed as blinding light that was overpowering to moses i i think we just need to add that well we're not all entirely certain exactly what the representation was whether it was the angel of the lord we do understand that though he spoke with the lord as a friend does face to face he actually did not see the face of god so we need to understand that there is a bit of mystery there of how moses communicated with the lord two questions that we'll take together and this will finish out our time and uh we've got a few minutes to work through them but a question pertaining to the future of reformed theology in america what do you think it looks like especially in light of increasing secularism in mainstream churches um and what the church is facing uh in the coming years uh dr ferguson even touched on this yesterday in the q a uh that we had with him where he talked about the rise of the new totalitarianism a new face of totalitarianism um so what are we facing as a church uh what are we facing as the evangelical church in light of secularism in light of the way certain mainstream churches are going what are we facing uh in the future of the reformed faith reform theology do you have a sense of what is meant by mainstream my questions come with no footnotes to expand on that it's certainly not represented in the dutch reform churches though bob i i emphasize the word mainstream because i think they might have used the word mainline um if they met mainline but i think i think this is just the broad the broader church i mean the way this immediately strikes what came into my mind when i heard the question was it's an interesting way of putting the question because normally talk about mainline as you said what we think of as the more liberal churches even if they have a conservative contingent in them it strikes me looking kind of as a historian that the main line seems to be disappearing nobody talks about them nobody talks to them nobody pays much attention to them i mean back in the 50s and 60s there always seem to be some liberal protestant minister being interviewed about this and that going on in the country that seems to have ceased almost all together and so i'm wondering if mainstream now refers to kind of what we what we would have thought of as the center of the evangelical world and i think it's in a mess i think it's collapsing um and i think it's really going to separate those who are going to stand firm for the word of god are eager to learn the word of god are serious about the faith and those who go to church to be entertained now i don't want to overstate that i know they're going to be you know stages along the way but i i really feel that evangelicalism in this country is an endangered species and it's killing itself by triviality and um i think it's crucial to return to the word of god can i just add on that real quickly derek that i think you're exactly right bob we're seeing sort of the disappearance of the main line we talked about the mushy middle sort of evaporating you have to be a christian and you have you have to be known as a christian in our day i think one of the things that's been interesting to me and it'll be interesting to continue to see this over the next years and decades it seems to me that in many ways some of those mainline churches have been enveloped and subsumed within the once separated denominations and churches and the once separated nominations and churches are now becoming the new mainline churches um you know my fear is that the church is constantly being swayed by this that or the other you know whatever it happens to be and and this is the issue today and tomorrow that's going to be the issue and you know next year that's going to be the issue and i i think that that 2020 has separated the wheat from the chaff i i think there are members of our churches the best of churches that have disappeared off the face of the earth there are the clucking hens i call them and this is a perfect excuse not to go to church and and i think that you know what 2021 or 22 is going to look like i'm you know i'm not a prophet or a son of a prophet but i i think i think that we need to keep preaching the word of god i think we need to keep preaching the reformed faith i think we need to have a robust doctrine of the local church and keep moving on i want to go back pick up the first part of that question future of the reformed faith reformed theology as we're talking about this collapse of cultural christianity in one sense that's a good thing there's a there's a sharp clarity now between truth and error and when there was this sort of sense of american christendom or cultural christianity there's a lot of gray the mushy metal was in there reformed faith is confessional and it's convictional and as that stands in sharp contrast to culture which is just a wash in the middle of an ocean of relativism i believe the future of the reformed faith is strong we actually have something to offer we we have a place for people to stand in the reform phase 20 20 30 years ago you could have said to a friend or a neighbor a relative hey you can go to that church and generally speaking you would have heard the word of god preached not anymore and just because there's a church on every corner doesn't mean the gospel's church is preached on every corner and i i'll speak frankly that there are many churches i drive by and i pray that they'll shut down i pray that god will just shut them down because people are being led astray in those churches and i completely agree with you steve i think that what we're going to see is the true church rise because of persecution because of martyrdom because of imprisonment the true church in our united states and throughout europe and uk will become stronger though smaller but more genuine i'll take a moment of personal privilege and thank you men because when we set out to think about the future of legendary ministries we recognize that we we couldn't be any wiser than the holy spirit uh when paul instructed timothy ii timothy 2 2. telling timothy to find faithful and trustworthy men who were able to teach others as well and recognizing that dr sprole as he would say was going to eventually have a change of address and recognizing though that he wanted this ministry to to move on and to move on with strength though we have many other teachers involved in this fellowship there's only these teaching fellows that stand behind this ministry and serve in giving me counsel our leadership team council our board council we thank god for you would you join me in thanking our teaching fellows [Applause] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] right so [Music] so [Music] oh [Music] yes foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] my [Music] is [Music] he calls his friends [Music] is is [Music] shoes is [Music] is [Music] sweet [Music] is oh is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] so [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] so [Music] hmm [Music] us is [Music] foreign [Music] we're here at ligonier's 2021 national conference and i'm joined by one of ligonier's teaching fellows dr stephen lawson to the laws and this weekend one of the themes you spoke about was work and the importance of work uh many christians struggle with knowing what their calling or vocation is what advice do you give to a christian wrestling with that question sure um a number of different factors would come into mind uh first of all what are your abilities and capabilities what training what experience what passion do you have what doors are opening up i mean there's a blend of all these things and i would also say how old are you because when you're in your 20s you just kind of want a job and get into the workforce and then you become more particular in your 30s and generally by your 40s you have determined what it is you're supposed to do so you don't always start out in your 20s at what will be your lifelong career and so uh i think some people are are looking for this perfect paradise of a job and it just doesn't exist um so what do you want to do what do you love to do what are you gifted to do what training or experience have you had what doors open up for you all of those come together to help you discern the path you should take if you're in uh the vocation that the lord's calling you to do or you think you're in the will of the lord does that mean that your work is always going to be easy no because in genesis 3 17 it says that you will till the soil by the sweat of your brow and that and thorns and thistles will grow and it shows god's curse on this world and so work as i said uh in my message is not intended to be a vacation it's it's an occupation and you're gonna have to work hard you're gonna put your shoulder to the plow wake up early it may involve staying up late there will be many challenges and difficulties but that comes with the job whatever your job is so it's not going to be easy and god did not design it to be easy what are some of the ways that serving faithfully in your your vocation brings glory to god and maybe even helps extend the kingdom of god certainly nathan i think it begins with your attitude quite frankly that you are there with a servant's attitude to do what's asked of you and that you do it with sincerity as unto the lord that you do it with fear and trembling the bible says and that there is an element of joy about you as you as you go to work so it begins there and i i think it develops further in glorifying god with the quality of the work that you do that you do it with excellence mediocrity would dishonor god and i think it would harm your testimony but for you to perform your task with excellence brings i think glory to god and on the last day the lord is going to evaluate your work and he will reward you on the last day and that will be far more significant than whatever your annual review is with an employer or whatever promotion or raise you would receive for the lord to validate your efforts on the last day will be everything now some men are called to preach the word yeah why is preaching so important well preaching is so important because it is the primary means of grace uh in other words the number one means that god has for his gospel to go forward is through the preaching of the word of god the entire old testament is just wave after wave of prophets who said thus says the lord god had only one son he made him a preacher he was preceded by a preacher john the baptist he spent three years training preachers the great commission was to go out and preach the the gospel to all nations the book of acts one out of every four verses is a sermon there's an entire book in the new testament that's just a sermon the book of hebrews uh first and second timothy and titus are pastoral epistles the heavy emphasis is upon preach the word so you could not pick up a bible and not see the predominance of preaching in the bible so why is it important because god has made it important and it needs to be important in the church and no church will rise any higher than its pulpit it may not measure up to the preaching of the word but it is not going to rise any higher than the excellence of exposition that is coming from that pulpit this weekend we're also celebrating 50 years of ligand ministries yes so this is a final question do you have any thoughts or reflections when you you think about this ministry that dr sproul founded 50 years ago yeah i think rc sproul is the number one instrument that has been used in the hand of god to bring about the reformed resurgence i don't think it necessarily began with him i think it probably began with martin lloyd jones and then came across the atlantic to america but here in the states r.c sproul was the primary instrument in the hand of god to take reformed theology out of the ivory tower and bring it down into the pew where the average layman the average person would be introduced to profound truth and sound doctrine that is taught in the scripture so as we celebrate 50 years here at ligonier i think ligonier has been really the tip of the spear in bringing about this reformed resurgence well dr lawson thank you for being with us this weekend thank you nathan as always oh [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] feed thy happiness [Music] for thy price she [Music] jesus [Music] jesus [Music] is [Music] jesus [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] jesus [Music] jesus [Music] our souls [Music] [Applause] jesus jesus [Music] [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is foreign [Music] uh foreign is see so [Music] we're back and only moments away from closing our 2021 national conference with the final message delivered by w robert godfrey ligonier's chairman and one of our teaching fellows i just want to thank you again for joining us live this weekend to receive edifying and encouraging teaching and don't forget the registration is also now open for next year's conference you can visit ligonier.org 2022 to learn more and also secure the lowest rate we'll offer for that conference now we cross over to dr godfrey well here i am no one would introduce me after yesterday they said you're just on your own and they don't want to admit they know me and but again i'm so thankful you're here and i think we've had a great conference together and i i think of rc and vesta and what they started 50 years ago and how with the blessing of the lord and the dedicated faithfulness of the sprawls and of the staff that supported them and of of chris larson who uh even though he wouldn't introduce me and did you notice that he said definitively i was not the hottest teaching fellow you know he might have said it was debatable you know that would that would have been all right uh but anyway um i have ways of getting even but it's been a wonderful time of blessing i think for all of us a wonderful time of inspiration and instruction and i think of peter on the mountain of transfiguration i think that story is often uh misinterpreted i think when it says that peter didn't know what he was saying when he said let's build tents and stay here i i don't think the point is that peter was confused as he often was i think the point was peter had bad theology that peter thought he could have the glory and continue the glory without the suffering and uh i think we've had a glorious time and it's time to go um i i don't usually quote movies but did any of you ever see ferris bueller's day off and if you watch the credits at the end at the end of the credits no one stays to watch the credits to the end but at the end of the credits ferris bueller reappears and says why are you here go go and that's what i'm supposed to talk about today why are you here go and so our text is the great commission um matthew 28 verses 16 through 20. this is god's own word now the 11 disciples went to galilee to the mountain to which jesus had directed them and when they saw him they worshiped but some doubted and jesus came and said to them all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit teaching them to observe all that i have commanded you and behold i am with you always to the end of the age you know i've i've heard many sermons on the great commission you've probably heard many sermons on great commission i hope you're not thinking to yourself secretly i'd rather have heard something else today but i'm always struck and i don't know that i've ever heard anybody really preach on it that they worshipped him but some doubt it here are the 11 who've been with him all these years they've been purified judas is gone and some not just one not just two maybe just two that would be some out of 11 i guess but i keep thinking back to that question how do you counsel someone struggling with unbelief maybe that's a verse to turn to and say look a couple at least a couple of the disciples themselves standing in the presence of the risen lord probably on the mount the mountain where he'd preached the sermon on the mount to them doubt it so we all need encouragement we all need direction we all need help why are you still here why don't you go go therefore jesus said and i want to think with you about that and then it'll be time to go jesus said go make disciples and we've spent some time in this conference talking about the difficult circumstances the increasingly difficult circumstances it seems in which we find ourselves as american christians so the question how do you make disciples is perhaps more pressing more crucial than ever how do we make disciples and i have you'll be amazed to hear three points that emerge from what jesus says here he says go make disciples go as the church i think sometimes we miss that in or at least don't emphasize this enough in this uh great commission that jesus gives us i think we have often in the past very much stressed the responsibility of individual christians to be witnesses for christ and that's true and that's important that's vital i don't want anything i say to seem to undermine that but i think jesus here is primarily thinking more communally he sends disciples to make disciples and when he sends disciples out he usually sends them more than one at a time he wants disciples to go make disciples in luke we read about sheep making sheep go to the lost sheep of the house of israel as sheep jesus is sending not angels but fallible human disciples to make more disciples and we go as the church at the center of jesus thinking we've heard more than once quite correctly this conference is the church uh the church has it is at the center of what jesus is doing he's building a church he's building a people he's building his new israel he's building that new humanity that will be his forever in glory and he's sending us out together to call people into a new community that's crucial for us to bear in mind we are never called as christians well never we are hardly ever most of us never called us christians to be christians alone if you are utterly alone as a christian read psalm 88 there are times when christians feel entirely alone but god wants us to feel and experience and be part of a community of faith and we're to go together we're to go as disciples as those leaked together in a common faith to pursue a common goal of building the church of jesus christ around the world discipling the nations it's a a community confronting a community to build a bigger community and so this is crucial that we see that that we're called to be serving christ's great commission as the church and so it's important for all of us as we're about to leave this wonderful conference to ask ourselves what is our relationship with our church if you don't have a church you need to find one that's the calling of christ and don't be a floater i'm well past that age where you begin to have floaters in your eyes little black spots that float by there are christians who relate to the church that way they're little spots that float by and there are christians who are constantly saying oh this church isn't quite good enough i'm going to move on to the next and then the next and then the next and then the next we are not called to be floaters we are called to be constituent parts active participants in the building of a church not primarily a physical building but a spiritual building a family a community that cares for one another people can't care for you if you float in and out they won't know you you can't care for others if you float in and out you won't know them so this is a wonderful time to take a bit of personal inventory and ask am i as connected with my church as i ought to be the fun thing in these conferences to talk about what's wrong with all those other people so since i can leave soon i can be more annoying and ask us what's wrong with us are we really connected to a church are we part of a church do we have a sense that we're part of a community do we have a sense that if we left this community they would be sorry to see us go they would feel impoverished this is why the reformed have always said discipline is part of the true church elders should have watch over your souls if you're an elder you ought to be watching over the souls of your people you ought to know who's there and who's not there you know the dutch reform do all things perfectly and they had an institution that was called heist bazook house visiting the elders would come to every family at least once a year in geneva was four times a year so the dutch are a little you know slacking off but think of that coming to your house once a year to ask how goes it spiritually are you growing in grace are you connected to the church can we hear what you think about how things are going in the church no we're not here to hear endless complaints about the minister we're here to see how we can all grow closer together how we can all grow closer to christ and i really believe as we live increasingly in a world in america where families are falling apart where neighborhoods have fallen apart where we don't know people anymore where all sorts of people are are isolated the church as community of love and faith and discipline is going to shine ever more brightly in this world to people who are lonely some years ago we had friends whose grandson little boy was killed in an automobile accident and the highway patrolmen came to visit them a day later and he said to them you must be christians and they said yes why and he said because there are so many people coming to visit you he said you can't imagine the homes i visit where tragedy has hit and they're alone no one is there no one is coming and what a light to the world that the church is the place of love and care and compassion and so ask yourself am i doing what i ought to be doing to be part of christ church because the commission is to go as the church and then to go according to the commission we're not to go just whether our own bright ideas i hate to be the bearer of bad news i really you know i'm easygoing bob i'm optimistic everything is good i'm the bearer of bad news you're not that bright you're not that clever you need to go with the commission that christ has given us can you still be surprised by the great commission do you know it so well that there's nothing in it that surprises you isn't it surprising that when jesus says go make disciples he sums up disciple making in two very brief points if somebody said what would it take to make a disciple of jesus christ how long would you go on for how many points would you have jesus only has two and one of them is about baptism now that's surprising i think for a lot of us if we were asked how do you make disciples of jesus christ we might eventually get to baptism but we probably wouldn't start with it the way jesus does you know it's very important to let the bible surprise you sometimes and when the bible surprises you shocks you now we're too pious to say this but or annoys you that's the time to pause and meditate and reflect and ask what am i missing here that it surprises me i think jesus is giving us a summary of what it takes to make disciples partly to say it's not that hard it is hard but it's not that hard two two things to make disciples bring them in and build them up how about that bring them in and build them up that's what jesus did for us didn't he he brought us in and he built us up how is baptism being used here to describe the bringing them in well i think it encourages us to reflect on the fact that we shouldn't think of baptism narrowly i don't think jesus is just referring to the moment of water now that's clearly in his mind it's the sort of culmination of the bringing them in but i think he he's encouraging us to think sort of all that we were taught about baptism and particularly maybe to go back in our minds to john the baptist in some versions john the presbyterian all right all right all right what do we read about john we don't read about john that he just came with water right he didn't come with a a fire hose sprinkling everybody he could get with water and that was all he did no we're told he came preaching good news he came preaching good news and what was the good news the kingdom of god is at hand the king is coming so baptism in the broad sense of what john was doing was first of all preaching preaching good news about jesus and salvation in him preaching the call to repentance you need a new life you need to be a new person you need a new identity you need to change that's what john came preaching and he said pretending won't do going through the motions won't do just having the water won't do you have to hear the good news believe the good news repent and bring forth a fruit of repentance so bringing them in isn't having them signed a decision card bringing them in is a big deal it involves a lot a lot of telling a lot of helping a lot of instructing and then bringing them to the new identity that the waters of baptism represent and so this bringing them in is really crucial and the waters of baptism and the preaching that surrounds baptism it's a new covenant it's a new covenant and all of those of you who as who hasn't have spent time meditating on the 16th century dutch reform baptismal liturgy haven't you taken the thanos into your heart okay you've never heard of the things have you shame on you shame shame shame the 16th century dutch reform baptismal liturgy is a marvel and it has these arresting phrases and one of them is all covenants have two parts that's an important thing to remember about covenants they have two parts and the first part of a covenant the new covenant that john has preached that jesus will inaugurate fully this new covenant first of all has promises and baptism speaks of the promises of god and bringing people in to be disciples requires a knowledge and an embracing of the promises of god and this form takes note of the fact that jesus has baptized him in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit and if you stop and think about that for a minute in terms of promises you can begin to see the father has promises and the son has promises and the spirit has promises to us when the gospel is coming to us and calling us to come in and share in the new identity and the new covenant that christ is establishing what are the promises of the father that he'll adopt us as children and heirs is that good or what that we'll be adopted as children and heirs that's the new family that's the reunion people look forward to children and heirs and what does the son promise us he promises that he'll wash us in his blood from all our sins and incorporate us into the fellowship of his death and resurrection so that we freed from all our sins are accounted righteous before god what a promise what are promises held out to us in baptism and the holy spirit what does the holy spirit promise us that he will dwell in us and sanctify us till we shall finally be presented without spot amongst the assembly of the elect in life eternal adopted washed sanctified glorified what a promise now i want to be clear this is not what baptism does this is what baptism means some christians have gotten confused and think the water of baptism does something apart from the word and the spirit no baptism means something baptism promises something baptism declares as a visible word the promises of god to those who need a new identity who need to be adopted and washed and sanctified and that's how we bring them in hold out those promises but in coven all covenants there are two parts and therefore am i by baptism obligated unto new obedience a new life a new lifestyle so that i have to be committed to what baptism promises me and that means faith and it means repentance and it means a new life and that's what it means to bring them in are you excited about that isn't that a wonderful thing that we are a new people and that newness is marked in baptism and the great thing is that that newness is ours when we embrace it by faith and follow christ in new life and and we ought to pause and think more often of ourselves as a baptized people the problem is too much when we talk about baptism if we talk about it at all we only talk about who ought to be baptized and i've said before there are some people right about that some people wrong but more important really than who ought to be baptized is the question what does god say to me as a baptized person not only at the moment of baptism but through my whole life whether i can remember my baptism or not the reality of my baptism says constantly to me god has made promises to you do you believe them do you follow them has god brought you in if you're brought in you live out your life in thankfulness for the promises he has made and that he is fulfilling in you that's what it means to make disciples according to the great commission that's why jesus surprises us with baptism and reminds us we shouldn't be surprised because it has been revealed to us in the scriptures as so full so meaningful so important and baptism of course points us back to the church because what is the essential one well the essential one of the essential characters of baptism is that we are baptized we don't baptize ourselves now there have been because every crazy idea has some representative in the history of the church there are a tiny number of people who believed in what they called say baptism say from latin meaning yourself that you could baptize yourself those people are crazy that's a technical theological argument against them they're crazy but we all know that we don't baptize ourselves do we whether we see a baby presented for baptism and see the helplessness of the baby or whether we watch a believer's baptism and see the helplessness of the person being baptized i was with a group of baptist ministers once and they were telling adult baptism stories i had no clue as a pedo baptist how many things could go wrong you know for us by and large the only thing that could go wrong is you take the lid off the font look in and there's no water my favorite story that i heard that night was the man who baptized a woman with really long hair and when he leaned her back he stepped on the hair and he couldn't get her up now if that's not an argument for pedo baptism i don't know what it is [Applause] but baptism is always at least a two-person operation it's a it's the church at work it's it's communal it's part of the community and that's part of the blessing it's it's such a blessing not only to be baptized but to watch others be baptized and to be renewed every time in the meaning of our baptism when luther was asked how do you know you're a christian he said i've been baptized now he didn't mean by that that the water did anything magical he meant by that i've had promises of god that touched me and i cling to those promises even more than any subjective experience because there the promise of god is unchanging and secure for me and i think we ought to be able to say that more often it's not the only thing we want to say but we want to be able to say my baptism tells me i belong to god so bring him in bring him into the church and then build them up if we bring them in what do we do with them we build them up we build us up how by the teaching of the church to observe all things that christ has commanded us now we had a question at the question and answer period is is election a primary doctrine and i showed i thought admirable restraint not saying anything and it's not that it isn't legitimate to talk about primary secondary tertiary doctrines there is some value to that there's some usefulness to that but let's listen to what our lord says namely that the church is not to be picking and choosing what things he taught us that we want to talk about we have gospels four of them and we have a bible and everything in there is what our god has taught us and everything in there we're to be believing and following and teaching now as a professor of mine at seminary said the bible's a big book it's amazing what you have to pay tuition for the bible's a big book we can't keep most of us the whole bible and everything in it in our minds at the same time but our commitment our our desire our our purpose should be to learn more and more about what jesus has taught us so that we can live more and more according to his holy will that's what we're called to that's what making disciples is and that's why it is so important that we be a people ever desiring to know more of what christ would have us know and be you know the new testament itself talks about the the dangers of being satisfied as what we might call milk christians christians who have had a taste of the word of god and are contented to be bottle fed for the rest of their lives baby bottle fed and therefore remain immature um paul talks about this in first corinthians three the letter to the hebrews talks about it hebrews 5 11 through 14. and it's a a matter of distress for the apostles that some christians are content to remain immature untaught and unable to teach if you haven't matured in the faith if you haven't grown in the faith if you haven't grown in the word of god how will you be a disciple maker how will you fulfill the great commission because you're still being fed with a baby bottle and the apostles say to all of us grow up it's time to grow up it's past time to grow up and we want to long for the pure teaching of the word remember jesus in john 8 said to us talking about being a disciple if you abide in my word you are my disciple you know this isn't something we just make up the importance of the word this is the testimony of the savior this is the declaration of the king whose kingdom is coming that we are to abide in his word we're to remain in his word we're to grow in his word and it's that word that is constantly refining us and shaping us and directing us and i think in the kind of world in which we live a great responsibility is ours if we're not ministers and pastors is to be encouraging ministers and pastors to preach the word to preach the whole word ministers in our culture are under tremendous pressure the pressure to accommodate because accommodation brings in more people i had a pastor friend who said it's very discouraging to listen what a lot of ministers talk about when they get together they talk about buildings bodies and budgets what new buildings have you built to show that your church is flourishing how many bodies attend there to show that you've been a success what is your budget like to show that you're better than the minister down the block but ministers are sometimes pushed into that ungodliness because of the expectation of the people they want new buildings they want more bodies they want to see a big budget you need to go home to your minister and say i want to hear the word from you i want the fullness of the word i so love the word i want you to preach it to me morning and evening on sunday one of the tragedies of our time is so many churches have abandoned the evening service and therefore people are getting at best half as much word as they used to get so it's so important that the church encourage the ministers to be faithful in the work that they're called to do because ministers you've probably not noticed this but ministers are only human and they get discouraged they get distracted they get worn down you know my time is fairly i think it's close enough to the end that i dare say this because i can get out of here fast where's david theriault to provide bodyguards if in this past year you've asked your minister to preach on politics you should go home and apologize to him your minister is not a politician although maybe a little bit to survive in the ministry your minister is not given by god any particular insight into whether we'd rather have derek thomas in the podium of the house or nancy pelosi uh i have a friend who came to our church and she said um she's a lifelong devout christian she said i'm a democrat and it's very difficult for me to worship in my church because there's so much politics and i love coming to your church because you don't talk about politics from the pulpit i said i'm really glad to hear that because probably my church has more republicans than your church but we're not in church to be republicans or democrats we should as christian citizens talk about the implications of our faith for politics and for political decisions but that's not the work of the pulpit the minister has no special competence in that area but the minister ought to have confident competence in the making of disciples bringing them in and building them up that's what the word teaches him and through him should teach us that's we need to be pursuing that's what we need to be encouraging and again i think we'll shine brightly as a light in a dark place when we stick to the word in the church so go as the church to fulfill a great commission go according to the great commission to fulfill that commission and then go with confidence go with confidence jesus begins and ends the great commission with words to build up our confidence as we go i believe we're living in an age that will make first corinthians a second corinthians 12 an especially attractive passage for us about the weakness of the church in many ways we're going to see the weakness of the church culturally we may see persecution of the church um but weakness and suffering do not necessarily translate to a loss of confidence jesus was weak and jesus suffered but he never failed in confidence in what god was doing and so jesus speaks to us and calls us to a confidence as we go all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me imagine yourself standing on a hillside on the edge of the sea of galilee and there are only 12 of you there jesus is one and you're standing with 11 other disciples who along with you all fled away when jesus was arrested and now we see the resurrected lord but some of us are doubting and then he makes this declaration all authority has been given to me jesus says the most amazing things john 16 33 i have conquered the world now i think the translators tone that down a little unnecessarily and say i've overcome the world i have conquered the world i have conquered the world by my willingness to embrace weakness and suffering on the cross and now in resurrection glory he says all authority in heaven on earth has been given to me do we believe that do we need to fret about what authority functions in washington as citizens we need to think about that as christians we don't have to give it a moment's thought christ is not building his church out of washington he's building the church out of the church and and i hear echoes of psalm 2 here i have set my king on zion my holy hill ask of me and i will give you the nations for your inheritance here's the moment jesus is commissioning us to go gather the nations that god has given to him as his inheritance to himself what a moment what a moment kiss the son lest he be angry and you perish in the way blessed are all who take refuge in him that's what jesus is saying here all authority is given to me i think he's also saying you know what as you go out and do your work even if you're fearful even if you're frightened even if you don't speak when you should speak i'm going to build my church and not one will be lost what an encouragement that is for us it's not our cleverness that'll build the church it's not even our faithfulness that are built the church as important as faithfulness is it's christ who will build his church and and what an encouragement to know as he promised in john 6 39 and this is the will of him who sent me that i should lose nothing of all that he has given me what authority what a sovereign what a king what a glory that our christ has and under which we can operate and then he closes with this wonderful promise and behold i am with you always to the end of the age there are three alls in this uh great commission all authority all nations all that i have commanded and then it's a little harder to translate the the fourth all effectively into english i think the best way would maybe be and lo i am with you all days to the end of the age you know always is kind of abstract or general it's not general in the greek it's every day i am with you what an encouragement jesus is with us every day of the life we live serving him making disciples bringing them in and building them up what an encouragement and here i hear an echo of psalm 23. see you need to know your psalter to hear the echoes all through the new testament psalm 23 yea though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death i will fear no evil for you are with me you are with me david knew the lord was with him david in the worst struggles of life knew the lord was with him and jesus reminds us all i'll be with you you don't go to work for me by yourself you don't go on your own you don't go without me i will be with you i will be with you every day as you do my work so what's left to say go go why are you still here all right you can stay for a little longer with the music but then go go as the church go according to the great commission go with confidence that god will use you to accomplish his purpose and whether we see great things happening or see relatively little happening jesus says i'm with you i'm accomplishing my purpose don't worry don't fret not one will be lost and i when i return in glory all the elect will have been gathered and then forever will be with the lord comfort one another with those words and let us rejoice together let's pray father we thank you for a savior who has all authority who is already king of kings and lord of lords who is accomplishing his purpose and will never at any point be thwarted but will build his church and establish a new humanity in his blood and in his name fill us with confidence in serving him encourage us in the truth of his word build up our churches that they might truly be lights shining in a dark place and help us to look beyond this world to the life of the world that you have promised an inheritance undefiled imperishable that fades not away fill us with that great hope we pray a hope that can only be fulfilled by our savior in whose name we pray amen and that's our 2021 national conference from all of us at ligonier ministries thank you so much for joining us online and for sharing this conference with your family friends and church all of our conference sessions will soon be available in the free ligonier app which you can download when you search for ligonier in your favorite app store from the early days of the ligonier valley study center ligonie ministries has been gathering christians together to learn from god's word so that we may better know what we believe why we believe it how to live it and how to share it don't forget that registration is now open for next year's conference our 2022 theme is upholding christian ethics and we'd love to see you here in orlando and when you register now you'll save 50 and secure the lowest rate that we'll offer thank you again for being with us this weekend as we've heard teaching from god's word celebrated the 50th anniversary of ligonier ministries and looked ahead to the glorious future that god has prepared for us in christ i'm nathan w bingham and i look forward to seeing you again at an upcoming ligonier event when the serpent came to adam and eve he came with the promise you shall be as gods the origin of the slogan do your own thing is much older than the 1960s it goes back to paradise and its inventor was a serpent there is a tremendous gap that exists between ethics and morality between what we actually do and what we ought to be doing everyone whom god creates is answerable to his law so that god and his law is the universal basis for ethics not just for christian ethics but for human ethics why should i govern my own behavior because somebody says i ought to that's the fundamental question of ethics [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Ligonier Ministries

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Keywords: Ligonier, Ligonier Ministries, Reformed Theology, Reformation Theology, Theology, Educational

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Length: 210min 25sec (12625 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 20 2021