LARSON: It's good to be with you all again
and I want to reflect back to Dr. Godfrey's earlier remarks in the first message of the
day with the first question. But this is a question to all of you: "In
Athanasius' day the deity of Christ was under attack. In your view what is the strongest enemy the
Church faces today?" And each of you if you would like to be able
to take a run at that feel free. SPROUL JR.: Since I'm to your left I'll start,
and it'll just get better. I was thinking as I was listening to Dr. Godfrey,
honestly, about my father's ministry, and it struck me that with his work with the international
counsel on biblical inerrancy. And then later with his work in dealing with
the 'Stealth Bible' translation. You could argue that he devoted a significant
part of his life to defending the authority of Scripture. And then, of course with first 'Evangelicals
and Catholics Together,' and later 'The Manhattan Declaration,' his passion has been the defensive
justification by faith alone. And of course, it dawned on me there is another
hero of mine who had that same focus. Which then led me to the question is that
always going to be where the battle is at? You go back to the garden before there was
a need for a gospel, the assault was on the Word of God. What Dr. Ferguson was talking about, Satan
assaulting the Bride of the Adam made me think, "This is always going to be the case; it's
always going to be the Word of God, it's always going to be the gospel." And I would say based on what Dr. Ferguson
said it's always going to be the Church. And the thing that strikes me more than anything
else in our age right now personally, is the profoundly low ecclesiology that we have inside
the best part of the evangelical church. The people who do know the authority of Scripture,
people who do know justification by faith alone have no idea the significance, the importance
and the authority of the church here on earth. THOMAS: Ask the question again. LARSON: "Athanasius confronted the issue of
the deity of Christ. What is the strongest enemy facing the Church
today?" THOMAS: You know, I typically answer that
question by saying that pluralism, in some form or another, is one of the issues that
we're always facing. An inability to say the Christian faith is
right, and everything else is wrong, in order to appear nice to other thought forms and
worldviews. The slippery slide to a form of pluralism
within the church. That all forms, all roads eventually lead
to some form of salvation. I still think that that is endemic within
our society, and I find it sometimes in the Church. NICHOLS: I think inerrancy is definitely a
place to focus. The way in which many who are self-professed
evangelicals who then express a desire to move away from any concept of inerrancy is
not a good sign for the next generation of the Church. And then I think if we think of justification
by faith, but also in terms of what Athanasius was dealing with in his day, then we are talking
about basic issues of Christology—the person of Christ and the work of Christ. And probably on the person of Christ part,
as American evangelicals, we've done a very good job talking about Jesus as my friend,
and we've made Him very personal. But sometimes we're a little lacking on the
Nicene/Chalcedonian two nature of Christology and those are things that we need to make
a part of the church's vocabulary. And in addition to that then the work of Christ. Just as these movements away from inerrancy—the
ways in which justification by faith through the new perspective is being challenged—and
then also these issues related to an uncomfortableness with substitutionary atonement. That, again, self-professing evangelicals
are distancing themselves from that doctrine. Those to me are very two crucial issues; the
doctrine of Scripture and the doctrine of Christ. BAUCHAM: I would say and I agree completely
with what has been said, but I think it's idolatry in the form of man-centeredness. I think this dethroning of God and this pragmatic
utilitarianism that sees man and his desires at the center of all things both inside the
church and outside the church. And I'm reminded of Paul's words in II Timothy
4, about you know, people wandering off in the myths, and no longer being willing to
abide sound doctrine. And accumulating for themselves teachers in
accordance with their own desires. And so, you see this kind of, you know, pragmatic
utilitarian what do the people want, what will draw a crowd, which goes to our low ecclesiology,
and you know, which goes to our syncretism and which goes to, you know all these other
things. I think at the root of it there is, you know,
this endemic plague in our culture of man-centeredness. This desire to put man and his wants, his
desires, his needs. When you look at the practical issues, when
you look at, you know, same-sex marriage and things of this nature. What's the argument for that? You know, "if two people love each other." It's this man-centered, you know? It goes back to, well, it's what we want. So, for me that's what I see kind of as the
epicenter of it all. SPROUL: I think everybody's really mentioned
critical issues that we face; it's really hard to select from all of them. We look at—you started this with Dr. Godfrey's
reference to Athanasius and Arius. In church history the four centuries where
the person and work of Christ have been most severely under attack by heresy were the fourth
century, which culminated in Nicaea, the fifth century which culminated at Chalcedon, the
nineteenth century with the advent of nineteenth century liberalism, and the twentieth century
which carried that on, and we're still there. And I still see Christology—which is connected
to justification, it was connected to sola Scriptura, and all the rest—is going to
be the battlefield for the next thirty, forty years and perhaps longer. As Steve Lawson pointed out yesterday, it's
the cross that's under attack, and within evangelicalism it's the evangel, and understanding
the person of Christ. Right now, the perfect act of obedience of
Christ is challenged within evangelicalism. The doctrine of imputation of the merit of
Christ was the sole grounds of our justification has been negotiated again and again and again
within so-called evangelicalism. These are co-doctrines of the Bible, and at
the center of it is what we call the gospel. And I think the biggest thing that is—well,
I'd say the biggest problem in evangelicalism is don't know who God is. And the second biggest one is don't know what
the gospel is. We've lost an understanding of what the gospel
is, so these are critical issues, and we're going to have to deal with all of them. LARSON: This one's from Jessie, age eight:
"If God wants us to spend all eternity with Him why didn't He just put us with Him from
the start?" From Jessie, age eight. Thank you, Jessie. SPROUL: If we would ask my grandchildren that,
R.C.'s children particularly, not my daughter's children, but my son's children. Before they were age eight, when they were
age three, they would have answered that question very simply: for His glory. That's why, that's why He does everything. And so, God's plan for the universe and for
our ultimate salvation is a plan based on His glory. And for some reason He didn't think that it
would satisfy His glory to create us already eternally fixed. SPROUL JR.: Yeah, it—the question is something
eighty-year-old people can ask as well, and I think it grows out of a fundamental misunderstanding
about the nature of history. We know something about where it is we're
supposed to be going, but we sort of think that God kind of found us where we are, and
He routed this map how to get from here to here. But the reality is that because God is sovereign,
because once there was God, and nothing else, He didn't find anything. There was Him and everything else was not. So, He started us here not because this was
the first step to get us to there, but because the whole point was to tell the whole story. So, you got to almost take one step further
back from history and see that history as a whole has the goal of telling the story
of God's glory. And so that's why we are where we are. Not because somehow we got off track—somehow
we just we're here—but God is telling this story. If He wanted things to be the way they are
at the end at the beginning, that's how they would have been. But He is manifesting His glory in telling
the story. LARSON: "I am new to Reformed theology, I
come from an Arminian background where free will was emphatically drilled into us day
in, day out. I'm still struggling with predestination. How can I deal with the fact that some of
my loved ones could be potentially headed to perdition?" BAUCHAM: One of the things I want to say first
to that question is, that whether you've come to Reformed theology or not, the second part
of that question everybody has to deal with. The Arminian and the Calvinist has to look
at the fact that there are people whom we love dearly who may not come to faith in Christ. So, I think the first thing to acknowledge
is, that that's not a product of Reformed theology. It's not a product of coming to this side,
you know, of the debate. Coming to the Luther versus Erasmus side of
the debate on free will. So, with that said I think one of the things
that we have to do—that does two things for me. And if I could just take a few seconds; I
didn't grow up in church. I didn't grow up around Christians or Christianity. The first time I ever heard the gospel was
my first year in university. I was raised by mother who was a single teenage
mother, and a practicing Buddhist. So, when I came to faith my whole life was
filled with people who didn't know Jesus, and the day that I was born again; Friday
November 13th, 1987, I wept like a baby. And the guy who had been sharing with me for
three weeks came into the locker room where I had prayed to receive Christ, and asked
me what had happened and why I was weeping so bitterly. And I told him it was because of my cousin,
my cousin named Jamal. And I realized that I was saved, and I realized
that Jamal wasn't, and for—it just crushed me, and he said, "Well, let's—you can tell
him about Jesus." No, he was gunned down six months earlier
in a drug deal that went bad in Oakland, California. He was gone, and that still affects me, but
it does two things; one it causes me to rely on the sovereignty of God and the goodness
of God; two, it makes me passionate about the gospel. Because it's the gospel, it's the gospel,
it's the gospel. And so, we need to be, we must be passionate
about the gospel. The fact that we believe in the sovereignty
of God doesn't eliminate the fact that we've been commanded and commended to this work
of proclaiming the gospel to the lost, and believing that God is their only hope. SPROUL: If we face that problem of concern
working with the pagan, Arminian understanding of free will, because that's what it is. It's a pagan understanding of fallen humanity,
I would have no hope for the conversion of anybody. Our only hope is in a sovereign God who will
redeem my will and rescue it from its bondage to sin, and its death in sin, and only He
can do that. I cannot do it because I will not do it. If I'm ever left to my fallen will which is
held captive to sin, I never ever will choose Jesus Christ. That's the sad and bad news of Arminianism. BAUCHAM: Nor will you stay. SPROUL: Yeah, you're done. LARSON: "If we are chosen before the foundation
of the world, how does God view us before we are born again; are you viewed the same
as those who were not chosen?" SPROUL: Could I ask a favor for whoever wrote
that question to change one word in it? Not 'If' we were chosen from the foundation
of the world, but how about 'Since' we were chosen from the foundation of the world, then
we can address the question. THOMAS: Paul in Ephesians says we were children
of wroth/wrath even as others. So, even though there is a sovereign eternal
predetermination, existentially until we are born again, we are also subjects of His ongoing
wrath. LARSON: OK. Question for Dr. Baucham. "I'm finishing up 'Family Driven Faith,' and
you wrote something there that intrigued me greatly. You said you had to overcome numerous struggles
as a married adult man, due to not having your father around. I can relate; today God has made me a Reformed
Christian disciple, gave me a godly wife and beautiful son, Christ be praised. Nonetheless, I struggle and had to overcome
much. Can you talk about this a bit? I'm sure there are some other men in the audience
with similar stories. It'd be encouraging." BAUCHAM: This really came crashing in on me
the day my father died. It was eight years ago next month, and I hadn't
grown up with him but, but God had restored a relationship between the two of us. And just providentially and gloriously, I
got to disciple my father at the end of his life. But when he died, it just dawned on me my
need for him, you know, even as a man. And when I looked at my own children, and
the role that God had called me to play, and all these things that I was beginning to understand,
which kind of birthed, you know, that book. It made me realize that all these things were
not present in my life, and that I had to on the one hand acknowledge the providence
of God, and acknowledge that God is absolutely all-sufficient, and He is enough. But on the other hand, I had to acknowledge
the fact that I couldn't have such an important piece missing without there being consequences. And so, I think, you know, we're caught between
those two things. And the fact of the matter is no one has a
perfect father. Everyone has deficits that we must overcome,
but that is what causes us to look to God as our perfect Father, as our example, and
as our help and hope. Again, that doesn't negate the need to find
men in our lives who can play the significant roles that we need, you know, men, to play
in our lives. But again, God is sufficient, He didn't make
a mistake. What you didn't have was significant and we
shouldn't act like it wasn't significant. But at the same time, we can't use it as an
excuse to not pursue godly manhood, because it's available to us even if we didn't have
a father. And let me—let's not—can we, like, not
do another question about my past, and all that sort of stuff? I feel like I'm on Oprah. I'm going to be crying in a minute. LARSON: And we have a book recommendation
for you this afternoon. This person writes in, tragic: "I am trying
to reconcile the death of my adult son, whom I believe not to be saved, with my Christian
faith. How do I deal with my anger toward God in
this long dark night of the soul?" SPROUL: Repent, and repent in dust and ashes,
crawl over glass in your repentance if you're angry at God. There has never been anything that's happened
to you in your whole life including this great tragedy, and most painful experience that
could ever possibly justify being angry at God. There are ten million reasons why He should
be angry at you, God does not owe us a life without pain and tragedy. He has given a life—us a life of grace and
a promise of eternal felicity. And any being who does that for us 100% graciously,
can never righteously be the object of our anger, only of our gratitude. We understand humanly speaking, the anger,
because if you've experienced anger it's always caused by some kind of pain. Behind the anger is pain, and you've allowed
that pain to produce an anger that will destroy you, and it has greater consequences than
even the loss of the one that you loved so well. So really, you've got to deal with this and
understand that God does all things well. And if we were listening carefully to Derek's
sermon where he talked about Genesis 18, and the plea for the sparing of Sodom. You know the comment that Abraham made, "Far
be it from Thee, oh God, to do that which is not right." And even Abraham, our father, I don't think
had a clue of how far it is from God to do anything wrong. And when we accuse Him of it and are mad at
Him for it, then we don't understand who He is or who we are. So, I'm—I couldn't be more, I just—it's
devastatingly harmful for anybody to be angry with God, no matter what. LARSON: "If God is slow to anger and patient—"
SPROUL JR.: Since God is slow to anger and patient. LARSON: Excuse me, "Since God is slow to anger"—we're
always learning. "Since God is slow to anger and patient, then
why when man first sinned was His wrath and punishment so severe and long lasting?" SPROUL: Time out. Didn't we just have that question a second
ago? LARSON: We did. SPROUL: Yeah, I think we did. LARSON: It's a little nuance. SPROUL: That God's punishment for Adam was
so severe—this creature from the dirt defied the everlasting holy God. After that, God had said, "The day that you
shall eat of it you shall surely die," and instead of dying (thanatos) that day, he lived
another day and was clothed in his nakedness by pure grace, and had the consequences of
a curse applied for quite some time. But the worst curse would come upon the one
who seduced him, whose head would be crushed by the seed of the woman. And the punishment was too severe? What's wrong with you people? I'm serious. I mean this is what's wrong with the Christian
church today. We don't know who God is, and we don't know
who we are. The question is why wasn't it infinitely more
severe, if we have any understanding of our sin, and any understanding of who God is,
that's the question, isn't it? I wanted to make sure this one was lively,
and not boring like the last time we had the Q&A. LARSON: "What is the minimum amount of gospel
truth that must be known and believed in order to be saved?" NICHOLS: I'm going to jump in here before
Dr. Sproul unleashes His 'wroth.' SPROUL: I might not make it through this one. NICHOLS: On the question askers. I think this—one of my little hobbies is
studying American evangelicalism, and I think this is one of the Achilles' heels of American
evangelism; reductionism. And I think it's why we can't talk about active
and passive obedience of Christ, and imputation and justification. The gospel is clear, I think that's true. The gospel is clear. But this idea of how simple can we make it,
how much can we boil it down, this reductionism, I think is ultimately our Achilles' heel. We don't need to make something obscure, we
need to present it as clearly as it is, but we're talking about thinking about Christ
properly, the person of Christ and the work of Christ, and those are crucial doctrines. So, I'm a little concerned about that reductionism,
that I see, especially in American evangelicalism. SPROUL JR.: I rise to speak in defense of
reductionism, and I bring as my first witness our Lord Jesus, who said, "That the man who
said 'Lord be merciful to me a sinner,' went home justified." I think it's vitally important that we not
be simplistic, I think it's also profoundly important that we understand that the core
and the essence, and the meaning of the gospel is our throwing ourselves upon the mercy of
God. We know that that mercy is provided in Christ,
and we should proclaim it as provided in Christ, and we should teach how it's provided in Christ
through double imputation, and substitutionary atonement. And because He was the God-man taking on flesh,
in accordance with the confessions and the creeds. But Jesus said; "Lord be merciful to me a
sinner." SPROUL: However. SPROUL JR.: Dr. Sproul rises in objection
to the witness. SPROUL: Your honor, if it pleases the court,
the man did not go home justified because he said, "Have mercy upon me a sinner." He went home justified because he made a profession,
a repentance that was authentic, he didn't just say it. And I say that because that's the other critical
problem in evangelicalism today, people are really relying upon having made a profession
of faith or having said something. BAUCHAM: Prayed the prayer. SPROUL: Prayed the prayer, and they confuse
profession of faith with possession of it. Now, if we possess it, we're supposed to profess
it. SPROUL JR.: So stipulated. SPROUL: But you can't profess it—but you
may and do profess it without having it, and you certainly would agree with me, would you
not, your honor, that the man had to believe that he was saying that sincerely, "Have mercy
upon me a sinner." SPROUL JR.: Most assuredly. SPROUL: Thank you. LARSON: I'm worried to ask this question. Dr. Sproul, take a sip of diet coke. "How can we overcome the view that the Old
Testament portrays an angry, unloving, non-gracious God?" BAUCHAM: Can I just—we're finishing the
book of Revelation at our church this Lord's Day, and anyone who believes that the God
on the left side of the book is the angry guy, and the God on the right side of the
book is, you know; meek and— SPROUL: Gracious. BAUCHAM: —gracious, and—just read all
the way to the right side of the book. Yeah, and the key, of course, is—and I think
this goes back to the other question as well, about, you know, if He just wants us to be
with Him for eternity. Because the fact of the matter is, God is
glorified when He pours out His wrath on sin and on righteousness, and He is no less glorified
by that in the New Testament. I would argue more so, than He is in the Old
Testament, and so that has to do with His 'wroth' against sin. THOMAS: You can say it. If you—Voddie, you need to practice it a
little more. BAUCHAM: OK. THOMAS: Wroth. BAUCHAM: Wroth. THOMAS: Wroth. BAUCHAM: Wroth. THOMAS: Everyone has heard Dr. Sproul's sermon
on Uzzah and the ark. I mean, some of us have heard it many times,
and it gets better every time we hear it. It's one of his most wonderful, extraordinary,
sermons. You know, and you could react to Uzzah, you
know, he puts out his hand, stable the ark, you know it's Florida roads. I-4, pot holes, holes in the concrete. This is—
SPROUL JR.: If it were I-4, it wouldn't be moving. THOMAS: Well, that's true, that's true. He touches the ark—now, everything about
the story is wrong. Ark should never have been there, Kohathites
were supposed to be dealing with the ark then, not touching it with the poles, and so on
and so on. But God strikes him dead. And you could respond and say, well that's
Old Testament. And then, OK, let's go into the church of
the New Testament, post-Pentecost, and you've got Ananias and Sapphira, about the price
of a piece of real estate that the church may or may not have had any business knowing
anyway, and He strikes both of them dead, and that's the New Testament. That's post-Pentecost, still in the flash
of Pentecost. Let's get back to the early church. Yeah, let's get back to the early church. You could, it's way too simplistic to divide
the God of the Old Testament, and the God of the New Testament. SPROUL JR.: There is a difference though. One of the ways that I answer that question
is to remind people that only once in all of the Bible did God kill an innocent man,
and that was in the New Testament. SPROUL: Innocent in Himself, but guilty by
imputation. SPROUL JR.: Absolutely. LARSON: "Could you discuss the relationship
between God's sovereignty and salvation, and man's responsibility?" SPROUL: What's to talk about? I mean, God's sovereign and His sovereignty
makes me responsible for everything I do. LARSON: Moving on. "What is the balance between standing for
truth and maintaining the unity of the Spirit?" SPROUL: That reminds me of a story. Many years ago, in Ligonier, we were visited
by a group of about thirty Pentecostal Christians from France. And they visited our house, and they were
so excited about their unity in the Spirit. And their favorite song is 'We Are One in
the Spirit' and so on. And they were telling me in their zeal and
excitement about their experience how their unity in the Spirit had overcome any disunity. There were Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans,
Methodists… you know all the different groups. And I said, "That's an amazing thing it's
a great thing." I said, "But, you both—you, the Roman Catholic,
you the Methodist, and the Lutheran, you're one in the Spirit. Let me just ask you are justified by faith
and faith alone or is it by faith and something else," and within five minutes they were at
each other's throat. Because what they did was they tried to camouflage
their differences and dismiss them as insignificant. I don't think that is blasphemy against the
Holy Spirit, but it's very close, because the Spirit is the author of truth and it is
the Spirit who gives us the Word of truth. And the grounds of our sanctification is that
Word of truth, and so you can't put the unity of the Spirit against the truth of the Spirit
without dire consequences. THOMAS: And then, I think we need to distinguish
things that are first of all; "I delivered unto you that which I also received," but—and
Paul says there are things that are first of all that Christ died for our sins according
to the Scriptures and, and so on. And then there are things that are of secondary
importance and there are things of tertiary importance. You know, I'm not willing to experience pain
for my interpretation of women's head covering in I Corinthians. I'm not sure what Paul is talking about. I've read extensively I have my opinion, but
I'm not going to suffer torture for my view on women's head covering. I do not regard that as something that's of
first importance or second importance. It's important—everything in the Bible is
important, but there are gradations, there are levels. And over gospel issues, things for me that
are summarized in, yeah, the Westminster Confession I would go that far. There are things of first importance and secondary
importance in the Westminster Confession, for good order. There are things that are necessary for me
to understand the gospel and my relationship with Jesus Christ. And there are things that are important on
a different level for good order in church, in government. And I need to distinguish those two things,
and, but on those first things, it's a no surrender policy. "Here I stand so help me God I can do no other." BAUCHAM: I would agree, except, second London
instead of Westminster, so. LARSON: Question about Luther, question about
Luther's anti-Semitism. "Luther's anti-Semitism in his writings, his
support of persecution and expulsion of Jews from Europe is deeply disturbing and perplexing. How would these attitudes and actions of the
father of the Reformation be justified?" SPROUL: Well, I'll just take a shot at it
briefly. It is a tough issue, but there a couple of
things you have to understand; one, earlier than the later diatribes against the Jews,
Luther wrote a significant essay against anti-Semitism. Saying that every Gentile has to understand
that ultimately salvation is of the Jews, and that the Lord Himself was a Jew. And Luther strongly criticized anybody who
would hate somebody simply because they were of Jewish ethnicity. Later on, one of the great issues that disturbed
him was the exploitation of the people by the major banking houses of Europe that were
involved in shameful levels of usury. That is, extortive levels of interest rates,
and that particular industry was controlled by basically the Jewish families of Germany,
and that was one great point of contention. The other one was contemporary forms of Judaism
as religion were in such opposition to Christianity and to the central affirmation of the identity
of Jesus as the Messiah. That provoked Luther's wrath. Luther understood that post first century
Judaism was not an extension of Old Testament Judaism but a patent rejection of Old Testament
Judaism, as we saw the great crisis between Jesus and the Jewish leaders who rejected
His Messianic office. So, that all subsequent forms of Judaism;
conservative, orthodox, Reformed, were all—though they differed among themselves—shared that
common rejection of Christ as the Messiah. And so, Luther wasn't hating Jews because
they were Jews, but Luther was profoundly opposed to Judaism as a hostile religious
faith towards Christianity. BAUCHAM: I think there's another issue as
well, you know people bringing up that, and Edwards and slavery, and Calvin, and you know
issues that he had. And I think one of the dangers in all of that
is that we are assuming that, number one, there are some Christian writers, leaders,
historical figures out there that weren't sinners, right? Because whatever Luther wrote, here's a news
flash: what he thought was worse, and I'm not talking about this issue, I just mean
in general. He was a sinful man, he said sinful things,
he thought sinful things, he did sinful things, but so are you. And it's always ironic to me that people want
to dismiss Luther or Calvin or Edwards or whomever, because of some issue that they
find about in their lives, but they don't disqualify themselves for things that they
think and say and do. And the fact of the matter is, you know, God's
never used a sinless man to write things for us. All of them are sinners. So, unless you're getting ready to dismiss
everything that's ever been written, be real careful about, you know, whether or not somebody
who writes things that are true and helpful should be dismissed because there are areas
in their life where they were inconsistent and hypocritical because that's all of us. LARSON: "Several months ago a prayer walk
was held on my college campus and several people begun to speak in tongues, this happened
several weeks in a row and sparked a huge debate over this gift. Some people said speaking in tongues no longer
existed, and others said it did. What is the Reformed view of speaking in tongues?" THOMAS: [foreign language]
SPROUL JR.: My brother here says… THOMAS: I think my point—I was reciting
a poem in Welsh, but—which I learnt when I was eight or nine or something, and it's
a very famous poem. It's about, let me interpret it according
to the principle of I Corinthians 14, that—it's about a stream, it's a bit like Mablast, Metna's
Mablast, about a stream that begins up in the mountain and ends up as an estuary and
exits into the sea. I think the first thing I'd want to ask is,
you know, what do you understand by a New Testament phenomenon of tongues-speaking. And for me the New Testament phenomenon of
tongues-speaking, whether it's in Acts at Pentecost, or whether it's in Corinth, is
foreign languages, known foreign languages. So, it's Spanish or Portuguese or Welsh or
Hindustani, or something, and it's a gift. I understand it as a gift of speaking rather
than a gift of hearing. What this seems to be implying may well be
something different. This is ecstatic utterances, angelic language,
or some—[gibberish]—involuntary sounds that come out that are attributed to the Holy
Spirit. And whatever that is—and I'm not denying
the phenomenon but it's not unique to Christianity. All the world religions have that phenomenon
of involuntary sounds that sound like a language. Now, whatever the psychological or sociological
or psychological explanation that has absolutely nothing to do with tongues in the New Testament. LARSON: "Given that we are not of the world
but sent into the world, what should our political involvement be particularly on moral issues,
for example: homosexuality, same-sex marriage, etc.?" SPROUL JR.: The one place that jumps to my
mind where the concept of our relationship to the world touches on the kinds of issues
that you've listed here, is in the book of James. Where James tells us that true and undefiled
religion is this; that we visit widows and orphans in their trouble and remain unspotted
by the world. I don't see how you can claim that we're going
to be spotted by the world when for instance in the abortion issue, we speak out for those
orphans whose parents may be alive, but who have—who are actively seeking the death
of the child. So, I would argue that it is in fact the calling
of not only Christians but the Church of Jesus Christ to fulfill its prophetic role to speak
for the least of these, to speak for God's Word, to speak for what God has revealed on,
even on the issue of marriage. We would need to remember—and a lot of the
conversations you hear about this, the arguments made—we have this Christian view of marriage
and they have their view of marriage. Well, the Christian view of marriage is that
marriage is a gift of God for all men everywhere, this is what we call in theology a creation
ordinance. It's given in the garden for men as men. And so, when we are speaking in defense of
it, we're not being dogmatic or narrow-minded, just trying to protect—parochial is the
word I'm looking for. We're not being parochial trying to defend
our own peculiar Christian interests. We're trying to speak for that which the God
of heaven and earth who is the God of the Bible has revealed for all men everywhere. And so again, this is not to be worldly to
get involved with these things, it's to be worldly to fail to be involved with these
things. LARSON: "I have a friend who says she was
saved at eighteen, loves Christ, but doesn't need to go to church to be a Christian anymore. She used to go. She has two daughters. How can I help her return to church?" SPROUL: A couple of things. We don't have the ability to read people's
hearts, and there are all kinds of people who say they are Christians who aren't. But there are all kinds of sins that true
Christians commit. But it's hard to imagine how anybody could
be a Christian for any length of time and have even the slightest understanding of the
teaching of the New Testament and come to the conclusion they don't need to go to church. I would start by showing them that the Bible
teaches us that we ought not to neglect the gathering together, the assembling together
of the saints. And all that we are taught in the epistles
as well as in the gospels about the church as Christ's body. The very word church which is different in
different languages, it's 'the kirk' in Scotland, 'kerk' in Holland, it's the 'kirche' in German. They all have those same basic linguistic
sounds a hard 'C' or 'K' at the beginning and at the end, with an 'R' in the middle
and some kind of a vowel. Those words etymologically all derive from
the Greek word 'kuriake,' which being translated means—the Greek word for church is 'ekklesia,'
but the word from which the English word church derived is 'kuriake' which means, those who
belong to the 'kurios.' And if you belong to the kurios, then you
have to be a part of the body of the kurios—the Lord. You can't say, "I accept the Lord and reject
His bride." You can't do that. And it should be a short conversation with
that person. But beginning with a question, a serious question:
Are you really a Christian? Why do you think you are a Christian if you
have this utter lack of interest in the body of Christ? In other words what I'm saying is, it's possible
that that person is a Christian and just misinformed. But for this length of time to remain that
misinformed would suggest the probability that the person is not converted at all, and
I would discuss that with them. LARSON: Final question here: "How do you recommend
pastors lead their flocks to engage the world in the most effective way in the public square?" BAUCHAM: I think that's going to depend on
where the flock is, because the public square is not uniform, the public square looks differently
in different places. And I think what we do is we encourage people
to use what they have. Whatever that may be. For some people that may be, you know, public
witnessing. For some people it may be, you know, visiting
abortion clinics. For some people it may be the legislature. For some people it may be, you know, some
other form. But I think we keep those two things in mind:
number one what does the public square look like for us? What are the opportunities that are presented
because of what the public square looks like for us; and what are the gifts that God has
given to make an impact in that regard? I think we get into dangerous waters when,
you know, we have this hierarchical list of things that you need to be involved in, and
if you check these off then you're really, you know, then you are really an active Christian
and making a difference. And, but if you're not involved in these,
you know, areas, and you know, somehow, you're lagging behind. I would argue that there are hundreds if not
thousands of issues and areas wherein we need to be involved. And if we're all going after the same five
then something's being neglected. LARSON: Last question: "Is repentance more
than just a change of mind how can I know I've repented enough?" SPROUL JR.: Yeah. If you think you have repented enough, that's
a sure sign that you have not. The best advice that I would give and that
I seek to follow is that when I have entered most fully into my own sin and wept and cried
out for God's mercy in Christ, the next thing for me to do is to weep and cry out for God's
mercy in Christ for my failure to grasp the depth and the scope of my sin. From time to time I have occasion to do some
personal counseling, and generally the first thing on my list to encourage people to do
is to have what I call a race to the bottom. What you need to do is you need to explore
the depth and the scope of your sin as fearlessly—you need to be diving and diving and diving, and
as painful as it is, as difficult as it is, you need to do so knowing that you can never
dive beyond the grace of God. That however deeply you look in your sin,
however dark it may be His light is stronger. Jesus always wins, but He always wins when
we confess that we always lose. So, don't ever get it in your head that while
it's absolutely true that we're called to repent and believe the gospel. Don't ever get it in your head that when you
die and stand before the throne of God, and He says, "Why should I let you into my kingdom;"
if you say, "Have you ever met anybody as repentant as me?" That's not what you want to be saying, you
want to be beating your breasts saying, "Lord be merciful to me a sinner." NICHOLS: Something you said reminded me of
a letter that Jonathan Edwards wrote. There was a—it sort of comes to us in history
called letter to a young convert. Her name was Deborah Hatheway, and the church
she was at was without a pastor. Edwards preached there. We sort of think that maybe she came to Christ
through Edwards' preaching. And so, she wrote him a letter asking him
for his advice on how to live the Christian life. This is a very busy man at the time of the
Great Awakening, and he writes her a seventeen-paragraph letter. And in that letter one of the things he says
to her is, you can never think highly enough of your sins. You can never have this high enough view of
yourself as a sinner. But then he immediately says, "But you can
also never think enough of the mercy of Christ." And he says to her (and it's a beautiful image)
that no matter how high the mountain of our sin is the mountain of Christ's mercy infinitely
overtops the mountain of our sin. And so there was a powerful pastoral image
to leave this young convert with. THOMAS: A couple of things. Come to the session on Pilgrim's Progress,
because that's what Pilgrim's Progress is about. And secondly, we are all hard-wired to self-justification. That gene is in us all and evangelicals can
do a very subtle thing. We can say we are justified by the depth of
our repentance, and we are not justified by the depth of our repentance. We are not justified by the depth or degree
of our faith, it is in Christ that we are justified. And we can turn repentance and we can turn
faith into something that we can do and measure and quantify and base our salvation on that,
and it's just another form of justification by works. LARSON: Thank you gentlemen, would you thank
our panelists this afternoon. Thank you.
