Ferguson, Godfrey, MacArthur, Sproul, and Wilson: Questions and Answers #2

when Sinclair Ferguson quotes Sam's is he talking about first Samuel or second Samuel Sam's is how David said it so that's all you care to say certainly not it's like Isaiah which is how attic little scented okay well I think people have been helped you've asked answered that question very specifically are see first question to you dr. scroll spoke eloquently about the need for the church to return to proclaiming beauty along with truth and goodness as an artist my question is what is the role of the visual artist and the visual arts in the church can we only proclaim beauty through music and preaching in worship the role of the visual arts well if you know every year but the at st. Andrews we have a Sunday that's called Ligonier Sunday it's the Sunday that follows this conference because we have a whole lot of folks who stay afterwards and come out and join us for worship and one of the things that often surprised people is the artwork that adorns st. andrew's church and and there are those from the reformed community that are often shocked by that you know I I won't let the Bob Godfrey near st. Andrews and and I'm theologically very much at home with the Puritans of course but I completely disagree with their view of art as I said yesterday every form is an art form and every art form communicates something and so try to banish art the visual arts from a building or from a sanctuary in the first place is impossible and so the question you want to ask is what kind of message do you want your to communicate and I think historically there's a significant role in a place in the in the church for the visual arts and I'm pointed out yesterday how if a person objects in principle to the use of visual art in the sanctuary then they have to object to what God Himself explicitly commanded for his tabernacle and for his temple in the Old Testament where he not only allowed the visual arts to be adorning his tabernacle but he commanded it could you foresee Church having a visual artist in residence or such as they would have a music director or well our church has a conservatory of music connected with the with the church and yes I see nothing wrong with an artist in residence that sort of thing in fact the artwork that we have and part from the stained glass window but the the paintings that we have at st. Andrews were painted by Richard sarin who has been acclaimed as the the greatest religious art artist of the 20th century he is an American he paints out of Florence in Italy he uses the style of the Italian Renaissance mixes his own paints his own glazes all that sort of thing and he just follows the classical tradition of religious art borrowing scenes from the New Testament which I think are terrific there's an argument that the stained glass is the only visual art form that the Christian Church actually invented or pioneered which is kind of interesting in our history and tradition you know that's one of the things that reformers by the way when they inherited their churches and they often there was kind of an iconic class on in many circles where they would remove a lot of the statuary and icons and all of that out of the churches that had been ruined Catholic and tried to make their sanctuaries plain one of the things that often remained intact were the stained-glass windows one of the most beautiful Rose windows I've ever seen is it st. Giles I don't know if that was there before Knox or not I have to speak to this guy Sam second Sam what do you think Sam it's er um what was it before or after up before us what anybody else want to jump on that at all any other rebuttal or you're raising your eyebrows er and Sam okay it looks like you won the day oh okay Bob I I was going to be polite but well I certainly would agree with RC to the point that we as Protestants have frequently not given much thought to the visual beauty of the church and that there have been some among us who have seemed to imply that sort of the uglier the church was architectural II the more faithful we had been and in that sense we certainly would want to stand for for beauty I think the the focal question is whether the deity ought to be represented either in the incarnate state or the pre-incarnate state in visual arts and I would stand with the Reformed Puritan tradition on that and say no the deity neither incarnate nor pre-incarnate ought to be represented in art which is not to say there is no place for Christian artists and art works in all sorts of circumstances and conditions but that particular issue in terms of the churches where I would think we ought not to go based on the second commandment it's the right right and and I could argue as well based on the the the tradition of the ancient church there was no visual representation of Christ or of the Godhead used in worship for at least the three first three or four centuries of the church assuming they didn't worship ever in the catacombs he replied well the the the characteristic witness of the father's is that there ought not to be any visual representation of Christ except the Eucharist that's what Eusebius of Caesarea said when he was asked for a picture of Christ lichens are something in here when the bishop of marseille tore down some images that were in his church or in a church under his authority Gregory the Great wrote him a letter admonishing him he and he praised him for prohibiting the worship of these images and chided him for having destroyed them and I although I believe that that distinction is a good one and we all know how to make it when we're dealing with the Jesus movie which is objectionable on other grounds we have a problem because we we know that we're not supposed to worship this image but if you see this image over and over and over again you can say oh and that's that's Jesus and if you're especially if you're in a primitive tribe and this is the gospel when you come to worship God through Jesus Christ what comes to mind when you say in Jesus name Amen it's interesting to me that evangelicals have taken over Gregory the Great's argument and said we should have the images but just not worship so what I would like to argue is that I think RC is exactly right that vision imagery is inescapable it's not whether we will have it is worth whether it's going to be good or bad I believe that that includes representation of biblical stories and so forth but we have to be aware of a thousand years of of a bad habit that grew up in the Christian Church that had direct ramifications direct connection to the second commandment it's easy for us to drift into idolatry so as I believe that we should pursue visual rich visually rich environments while being weary in our best Puritan behavior to avoid anything that people might use as they come to God in a devotional way in order to pray or worship so I would side with the Bishop of Marseilles and say you know things that are getting worshiped get them out of the church so that people aren't stumbled and if it's if the person is worshiping something that it's a personal problem and not a stumbling block that the church is set up then you teet then you teach and admonish alright this our pre-conference seminar was on worship and different forms of worship but then you spoke to this directly last night so sure that's what stimulated the question why don't we move ahead we've kind of kind of drawn out the lines of debate there for us on that issue John MacArthur a number of questions how do we hate the world in our daily life how do you live out self suicide on a daily basis what does it look like in an ordinary life well I think if you just follow the verse jesus said let him in deny himself take up his cross daily and follow me the negative side of course is that we abandon all our own agenda our own will our own hopes ambitions we submit everything to Christ and that means we walk in perfect obedience to him and I think that takes us to the Word of God living a life of self-denial living a life that disdains the world is simply living a life of absolute obedience to the Word of God worshiping in spirit and in truth reflected in obedience to what the Word of God reveals as God's will I don't think it's anything particularly mystical and I don't think it's this sort of endless self-abasement or artificial means such as you know monkish practices might indicate I just think it's living a life of complete obedience and submission and living life joyfully within the unfolding Providence's of God so that we count it all joy even we fall into various trials knowing that God's purpose for these things is our spiritual development I think it was the term self suicide that probably that was used in a number of the questions because that's such a jarring term and wondered if you had some particular you know no I used it to try to get people's attention somewhere during the message you have to inject certain things to get their attention and so four or five times to try to say something that would do that but I know it's a jarring statement that's why I used it but I mean it it's a jarring statement in our culture a culture literally fed on self-love to even talk about self-denial but we're so used to self-love self-esteem everything being fulfilment for us that I wanted to go completely in the opposite direction it's really the end of you self suicide I mean I'm done I'm finished I bow my knee completely to the lordship of Jesus Christ I abandoned myself to whatever his purposes are is the value of the salvation he provides for me causes me to be willing to literally abandon everything that's that's essentially what I think Jesus was saying and I think that's what Paul did I mean obviously and that's what he conveyed to others when he said to Timothy don't be ashamed of the Lord you've suffered hardship along with me as a good soldier of Jesus Christ all that live godly in this present age will suffer persecution you were saying to Timothy this is the price this is the cost you knew it from the beginning you know be strong in the Lord so your response is it is more of a positive sense of trying to obey as sure carefully as you possible it's not just endless self abasement it's not it's not that it is submission it's humble humility of course is the key thing in understanding it it's humbling myself in full submission which is a daily commitment in my heart to be obedient to the revealed Word of God and to respond rightly to the unfolding of his Providence's okay good clarification anybody want to jump in on that feel free anybody wants to follow up or or help one of your brothers out yeah I think you know picking up what John said this morning and also what Doug was saying at the end of his message that resurrection lies on the other side of death and you know we so associate the death and resurrection of Christ with the kind of foundation stone of the Christian life but the New Testament sees it not simply as the foundation stone but the ongoing pattern returning to church architecture you know for centuries the church built its buildings in the shape of a cross in order to make precisely that point but not just the foundation of the gospel lies in the death and resurrection of Christ but the shape of the church and the shape of the individual life is an ongoing outworking of union with Christ and his death and action and I think that's the point Jonas is really making that the death is with a view to the resurrection and the kind of thing Paul says in Colossians 3 that because we're United to Christ crucified buried raised exalted reigning coming again the implication of belonging to such a Christ is that since we belong to the crucified one we put to death the things of the flesh because we belong to the resurrected one we positively put on the characteristics of the new life the fruit of the spirit and so on and that is just a that's a perpetual cycle of the Christian life as it is and I think Doug was making this point with with with with Fay with great point this morning that the fruitfulness of the church always lies on the other side of the church of sharing in the death of Christ like Calvin says and commentary on on 1 Peter from the beginning God has shaped the church so that death would be the way to life and crucifixion the way to victory and in both of these messages earlier on today that that is a point that was being hammered home in different ways and it I think it you know reflecting on what I was saying earlier on it is the thing from which the devil most wants to keep us back and that is embracing Christ as he is crucified and risen in such a way that will bear in our bodies the marks of the dying of the Lord Jesus that will glory in the cross by which the world is crucified to us and we are crucified to the world that we are in union with Christ and we yet live yet no longer we who live but Christ living in us so this is this is a holistic pattern in the New Testament for Christian living it's a central thing we're baptized and as a baptized person identify with the death as well as with the resurrection of Christ and the Apostle tells us repeatedly unless we're willing to identify with the humiliation we will not participate in the exultation unless we identify with the suffering of Christ you know those sufferings that that Paul himself says I fill up that which is lacking in the afflictions of Christ not as if there were any and anything lacking and merit of Christ's affection but his church is called to participate in this we identify them the Christian life the throwaway life in a very real way and it gets down to it Luther let Goods and kindred go this mortal life also I mean I don't know how many times I have to say that to myself because I like to hang on to my goods and I certainly want to hold on to my friends and my family and my life but always you know I hear the other side of that that we have to let it go for the sake of the of the Cross just a thought - I think there's two aspects to it the first is my willing submission to that which is revealed in Scripture as the will of God for me my eager submission to live a life by the power of the Spirit of God that submits to the biblical standard and then secondly to take what comes providentially through my life by the good hand of God no matter what it is and respond righteously and godly so that he can do in me the perfecting work that he wants to do and receive the full glory for that we work even though there's pain in that I mean there are some things I know to do in the scripture and I plan to do those and I desire to do those are things that hit me blind that tear up my world and shatter my life and there is another opportunity for a holy response that yields again all that I am all that I have everybody that's dear to me everything that matters to me if need be to his perfecting work which I couldn't have anticipated okay let's move to Bob I think Bob you haven't been one of the speakers but we the early reviews are coming in on the after darkness light book and I just took a quick glance here and I think this is your chapter actually so it's good that you're here it appears that limited atonement has become definite atonement in after darkness light is there is this a distinction or merely a name change to make the point more Universal actually that wasn't my chapter I think it is a name change that tries to communicate in a slightly more gentle manner but also in a slightly more specific manner what the Calvinists point is our chief concern is not to say that the atonement is limited although that's true our chief concern is to say that the atonement is definitive and effective for those for whom it was offered and so I think to to try to prevent a lack of understanding on the part of many that's that that we simply want to say some are in or some are out and hahaha almost the language of definite atonement wants to to focus on as I say the definitiveness and effectiveness of the death of Christ for his own people so I think it's a it is in part a rhetorical change to try to make the truth more understandable and also maybe a little easier to accept on an initial basis I still think it's fine to talk about limited atonement I usually do characteristically when I'm with people who understand what we're talking about but I think there are a lot of people for whom definite sounds initially off-putting why are we putting limits on what Christ did and what we're trying to really do is saying no Christ did something definite something effective and hence the 10/2 tendency to change language as did the design what was God's purpose since and did God send Christ to make salvation possible yeah and yet at the end the idea being that Christ could have gone to the cross to no avail but there's no way in the world that the eternal plan of God was that indefinite but rather he sent his son to save to atone and it's a real atonement and it really saves and it saves all who believe it saves all the elect and so on it definitely does it it's not just a possibility within God steps back like open theism you know and it's a spectator and he's wringing his hand and say gee I hope somebody takes advantage of this everybody but Universalists believe in the limited atonement the question is who put the limit on it and it's it's either man or God and I think the scripture is absolutely explicit that it could only be God just occur to me that this will be the first book over your name that you had absolutely nothing to do with and you'll be answering questions about a book that you have no I'm totally innocent and then I've been signing it until my hands falling off probably the first one you signed that you haven't read do it that's a big assumption Paul I had that book last night oh you had it last night I know that he wrote on an unconditional election not undef anit at though all right well good Doug you has stimulated probably the most questions and with John here that's quite an honor to a I think your opening comments about the desire for some fact checkers in evangelicalism has probably stimulated a number of questions saying would you like to explain the controversy over the new perspective on justification the well there's actually that's part of the the difficulty with this there is there's one theological perspective called the it's called the new perspective on Paul there are liberal adherence of it there are relatively conservative adherence of it men like NT right who to American evangelical eyes reformed eyes looks looks like he's over there with the Liberals but over in England he's a flaming conservative and it's thought of as dangerously right-wing so you've got this vast theological school called the new perspective on Paul which is is one thing and then there was the controversy a number of decades ago Westminster East in involving Norman shepherd whose book the call of grace was just released in last year so by PNR and the charges that were leveled as a result of the Auburn Avenue conference in 2002 in the summer following and then the Auburn Avenue conference in 2003 was sort of stirred the pot even more the the charges that were leveled at me and three other speakers were just simply wildly inaccurate in terms of what we were saying why we were saying it what we were trying to get across and the erroneous and the the crowning error of this is was the pronouncement of error and heresy and so forth it was leveled was didn't just say that we were wrong in these areas but it also pronounced where we had gotten all the errors from which was just simply ludicrous when if you know the backgrounds and the history and all of this I in my book reformed is not enough there's an appendix where I attack the new perspective on Paul and I was accused of having been ended an adherent of the new perspective on Paul and I and I'm critiquing it I don't think it's I don't think it holds water I don't think that everything about it is wrong but the things that are right about it are things that biblical theologians have known outside that camp for some time so I it was just simply erroneous so the the bottom line for people and this is my comment on fact-checking all of this was done without ever contacting me or my office or anybody connected to us to say is this what you hold is this what you believe and if I that had happen it was in no aside I don't believe this I don't believe this I don't believe this in there was one list of charges that the new perspective on Paul was erroneous in 18 different significant ways and I was charged and my friends have having gotten this bad whiskey from anti-riot and these other people and I wrote back and said out of your 18 condom nations of the new perspective on Paul I agreed completely with 15 of them would you please tell me which three I don't agree with well there's there's no answer it was just I think the height of your responsibility to get to that level of the discussion without checking without making sure that you got your facts right now I think that they're important theological issues to be to be debated and discussed and work through and I'm not trying to do the Rodney King thing let's why can't we all just get along we're all saying the same thing I don't think that's necessarily true but I do believe that in particular sectors of the American reformed community we've gotten awfully provincial and we don't understand how broad and deep the reformed tradition actually is and I'm not talking about the Liberals and the people who are watering down the faith I'm simply talking about people who believe the Bible and believe the SOLAS and understand and our confessional Reformed believers so that's the short answer Sinclair if Satan is defeated and also then the kingdom of darkness how do we understand John 14:30 I will not speak much more with you for the ruler of the world is coming and he has nothing in me they're kind of two-bit still that question really let me deal let me deal with the text what Jesus is with the disciples in the upper room as as I execute what happens in in the upper room just at the point where Jesus then says rise let us go he actually uses language that implies something like rise let us go to meet the enemy and my understanding of what he is saying in fourteen thirty and thirty one is that he is now he is stepping outside of the Fellowship of the disciples where he's been teaching them about the Trinity into the context of if I can borrow a CS Lewis ISM the last battle a battle he is going to engage in entirely on his own and the focus of that battle he is saying essentially is not with a Pontius Pilate or with the Anna's and Caiaphas or with Judas Iscariot the focus of that battle is as he says in the Synoptics with the powers of darkness because this is they are and he is he is conscious that in all the dimensions of the cross there is a central dimension of the cross in which he is engaging with the promise of genesis 3:15 in that aspect of that promise that focuses not simply on what will happen between the two seeds of the woman and the serpent but will what will happen in an individual conflict that will take place with Satan himself and what he's focusing his attention on is the work that he's going to do in the cross and the resurrection and as he reflects on that from John 12 about 30 right through to the cry it is complete or it is finished there's a there is a steady stream of reflection on Jesus part on the fact that what he is going to do on the cross is engage in a final battle in which he's going to be victorious and so he's able to speak about the cross as the event in which he is lifted up through which all men and he's presumably they are speaking as it were beyond the limitations of the Jews within the context of John's Gospel and through that event all men are going to be drawn to him now I I personally would relate that to the kind of thing he says that the prince of this world is going to be cast out to the aspect of John's vision in Revelation 20 but this is the event in which Satan is bound to the notion that Jesus uses in the Synoptics of the Synoptics Accord to Jesus that if you're going to set free the prisoners you first of all got to bind the strongman armed and that this is a this is a very important dimension of the cross to which we characteristically do not give the attention that is merited by it in the New Testament itself Colossians 2 you get it in Ephesians 1 I mean really when you start looking for it is all over the New Testament anybody else want to add to or okay that was your specifically to one of your quotes in your message this morning Doug let's back up around this way you referred to America as an empire is this an allegory or metaphor or are you in agreement with those like noam chomsky and his critique of the American industrial military complex please explain I'm in agreement gnome chomps Chomsky on nothing so so I let's put it this way at the height of the British Empire which was an empire in the old-fashioned sense where you had India was part of the British colonies formal colonies and rulers that you established and so forth I'm not saying that we're an empire in that sense but I but I believe that we're accomplishing the same thing by other means with a great deal of more finesse the British Empire at the height of her power had the two powers rule where they wanted to have enough firepower where they could take on any combination of the second-tier powers if if two of the second-tier powers gang you know banded together they would be able to take them the United States firepower currently out guns the next twenty nations combined so the next twenty nations could put all their armies and navies and everything together and we have a formidable enough force to to take them on this military muscle that has continued on after the fall of the Berlin Wall has continued for a reason I believe that economic empires are comparatively more benign than two totalitarian or ideological empires what if when the commies wanted to take over they wanted to you know kill me or take me off to the gulag and take all my stuff in the American Empire they just want to sell me a windows upgrade and the and I'm happy to talk with him and so forth but with my pipe and that economic free trade and that sort of thing is comparatively more benign in that sense but it's not benign in the sense of spiritual warfare it's not necessarily benign when it comes to our souls jesus said what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world which it looks like to me we're on the verge of doing and and yet he says loses his own soul so Christians have to learn how to live in Empire without being revolutionaries we need to be reformation 'el not revolutionaries I think it's right and proper for us to occupy positions of influence within this developing reality but I believe it's a concrete real tangible Empire with economic consequences and Wars result in order to keep the Empire growing and expanding there's the the logic of the American Empire wants to open more and more markets we want to open the market in China we want to open the market in the Middle East and then the Providence of God it may be that American military might removes a problem for American missionaries in the entrenchment of Islam but that doesn't mean the Christians have the right or the authority to encourage that or egg it on what we have to do is be wise a serpent's innocent as doves the Apostle Paul used his Roman citizenship he used the Roman Road roads he was he was functioning within that reality of empire but he didn't he refused to worship he refused to bow down and that's the thing that I think Christians need to fix in their minds in the Providence of God he's brought us to this point I'm very grateful for many aspects of it I'm carrying no I have no sympathy for saddam hussein who deserves everything he's about to get good and hard and i i'm not shedding any tears for him but as we go to to war there's nothing quite so exhilarating nothing quite so adrenaline producing as success in warfare and I would want to tell Christians keep your heads keep your heart worship God only worship God and recognize the more we have this pressure to create a pantheon where all the gods the only reason the Melanesian frog worshipers weren't at the National Cathedral is there weren't enough voters who think that way if if there were if that was a voting group they would have been there and our evangelical leaders would have been there in that Cathedral with them in that joint worship service and that to me is this is the ultimate indicator of the the sickness unto death of the American church and I feel like I'm going crazy because I try to tell people this do you see what they're doing they're worshipping different gods in this church and we helped and it just whistles by people's heads I and I think the only thing reason the the thing that accounts for that is money the thing that accounts for that is the logic of polytheistic empires so polytheistic empires are generally economic pragmatic and we have a name for that polytheism our civil name for polytheism is pluralism so every time someone says pluralism is the way to go they're saying polytheism is the way to go we should recognize that we live in a polytheistic and pluralistic society we do just like Paul recognized that Athens was full of idols but he didn't make his peace with it he didn't he didn't say it's all right for you to worship these idols and that's what the church is in danger of doing and I believe in large respect has already done anybody else want to get in on that I just succumb if and I agree with all that you could have a clear indication of how polytheistic we are for example if George Bush who I think has made it clear to the whole of the country that he is a Christian wherever to get up in a speech and proclaim the exclusivity of the gospel he believes I mean he would be dead meat in this culture I mean there wouldn't be no way that he could survive if ever he got beyond I pray to God my faith is strong and other general sort of vague statement I'm not faulting him for that as president that's for him to determine but I'm saying he wouldn't survive this this empires pluralism if he ever affirmed what it is that he really believes in his exclusivity look at the firestorm that in Franklin Graham when he finished his prayer in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord amen they ready a tar and feather him and which is so outrageous it's so anti pluralistic if I invite a Buddhist to pray I would expect them to pray to Buddha no not the Confucius and that's just so it's just that's why a long long long long time ago I stopped in taking invitations to give the invocation at the local Chamber of Commerce or whatever because it's just kind of productive because if you would say in the name of Christ our Lord you would have a firestorm and and if you didn't then you were betraying Christ you know I mean what do you Saudi and the prayer in the name of the unknown God amen that's where we are Sinclair how does this look to you from your perspective oh well I'm a guest in your wonderful country that's why I am you know I I am as nationalists as Scott as probably most Americans in this room are are nationalists Americans and they're just always the danger that you are for something because you're a Scott or an American rather than because it's godly and right and the two things do not call as and as an outsider and it is very startling as an outsider to come from a place where the church is very marginalized on the idea of a Christian leader having any clout in the political world is is kind of somewhat startling it was very startling to me when I came first of all to United States to see our what Doug calls out evangelical leaders being photographed with a series of different presidents and you know I had this vision in my head of the folks back home seeing the photographs on the front page of the evangelical newspaper for that matter even the daily newspaper and evangelical folks getting the message my our guys are really influencing the corridors of power whereas when I saw those photographs as an outsider I thought well they'll go the evangelicals so much more political fodder and exactly the same photograph could be viewed from two entirely different points of view but the difficulty is if you are if you are an insider to separate the perspective of faith from the perspective of power and triumphant glory and to remember that the way of the church is always the way of the cross not the way of political influence but the vice of the church is always a prophetic vice and that the task of the Christian is to exercise that prophetic voice now that being the case that I think it's important for us to distinguish what is true and right and godly from from from from what is simply national brouhaha I think it's also important to pick up the point that if it was true that Joseph was able to function in Egypt of all places and that Daniel was able to operate in Babylon of all places one of my close friends from university has for years been a cabinet member of the Government of Nigeria and it is just a phenomenal thing to me to think that he has been able to remain faithful to Jesus Christ within that context and so I you know I think we have always got to have this both/and perspective on how we relate to the political one ought to recognize the difference between the secular and the biblical and the one and but also not to be so pessimistic that we would draw from engagement with the culture I'm not able to give leadership in the culture right but it it requires extraordinary courage and bravery I we have had one man in our government who is retired now Lord Makai of clash firm who held for years the highest law appointment in the United Kingdom I was what you might call a card-carrying Calvinist he was a member of the free Presbyterian Church of Scotland more Presbyterian than which it is scarcely possible to get and the the symbolism of that man appearing as he appeared in our political realms was to us as Christians observing the awful spiritual Klein and leadership in our country just like a reminder that it's still possible for God to raise up man of extraordinary ability who are able to stand in the evil day and having done all to stand and we desperately need to pray for more thank you you're a good guest John I think the the line has been so horribly blurred by quote the religious right moving across the borderline between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of man that the world our nation is confused the other night when I was going to be on Larry King I got a call from a producer and this were these were the questions George Bush is an evangelical Christian is this not true yes on the phone is God telling him to attack Iraq is he fulfilling some divine calling I answered that and we discussed it a little bit later on the program is does he personally feel that God is using him to bring to pass the things that are in the book of Revelation or to put it in today's vernacular is he personally responsible to fulfill the hardy boys meet the apocalypse isn't that it this is how people view evangelicals I mean if you're an evangelical Christian you've got some political not only domestic but international and even prophetic mandate the you you might be a minute you might be dangerous to the world because here you are the whole cast of this discussion you're dangerous you could be leading this whole nation into war because God is telling you to do that so I think that there's been so much confusion that and I said at the end of the program on the air I said this isn't the Christian war so then to do with Christianity nothing to do with anything about Christianity I don't know whether the point got across because the the saturation level of all that activity is so deep in our society my political experience secularly anyway is pretty shallow I was a chief of the umpires on little league board for four years which put me in the midst of the community pluralism quite deeply but you know I don't know I'm struggling with this a little bit Doug because I mean I thought the National Cathedral service was a wonderful event and I don't think I am a a polytheist I don't think I have a pantheist or a polytheist bone in my body and I think that when you're the president of the United States and you have a country that has religious freedom and all the historical traditions and all the things that we talk about when you have someone who is in a position you have to make the best of it be wise as a serpent as harmless as a dove speak on the Larry King show I mean Larry King it seems like Larry the thing that gets me is he have John MacArthur on one night and just smile at John and have you know Michael Jackson on the next night and just smile at Michael you know it's just but I'm glad John goes on there and risk his reputation and risk being seriously it is a risk of your reputation to go on and end too and to participate and so I thought that what the president was able to do and what those who plan that service was able to do was by far on the positive encouraging sight rather than the view that you're holding here and I don't like to insert myself into this discussion but I probably representing some people out here so I'll take that risk let me just address two quick things here there's eight of us here one one of them is simply a rhetorical judgment call that be the Larry King sort of situation can I go into a situation like that and speak with enough clarity and grace that by the by the grace of God some people might hear me if it works then god be praised if it doesn't there's there's a danger everybody who's in this position if there are 12 clowns in the circus ring cavorting about and I jump down there and start quoting Shakespeare to the audience I'm just a 13th clown I can't I can't appreciate that I'm not sure that spirited John or the poor Billy Graham but but that's that's the rhetorical thing in the in the public discourse in a polytheistic setting we have to speak we're not we don't we're not given the option of being silent we have to speak but we have to speak with wisdom so that when we speak by the grace of God it may be heard my objection to the National Cathedral service was not that they had all these different people as citizens of America getting together and and and mourning together let's say if it'd been a funeral or some setting like that I would have had no objection but what we had was the National Cathedral it was a church we had religious officials from different denominations offering up prayers it was it was calculated in my mind to create the effect of a scratch-and-sniff religion where we have all the accoutrements of religiosity but none of the substance now the problem is not going there my I believe that a Christian could go to the cathedral and speak but I believe that if he spoke in such a way that he was faithful he would be would have been arrested immediately following because there is no way that Billy Graham could have stood up with clarity and proclaimed the exclusivity of Jesus Christ there's no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved and as Martin Luther said one time if I if if we mute the everything we may say everything that's true everything we affirm may be true and let's assume that with Billy Graham and the others that were there let's assume that they said everything that they said was true I can misrepresent the truth by speaking nothing but the truth if someone said if one of our NSA students wrote home and said mom dad the coursework out here is going very well mr. Wilson came in sober today that that is completely true but it misrepresents everything and i believe that we are in this polytheistic pluralistic moment and the desperate need of the hour is for our Christian leadership to say Jesus is Lord and there is no other and it I would be happy to gather together as citizens of a grieving country and grieve together with Muslims Buddhists ever its citizens in grief meeting but in a Cathedral with prayers and religious leaders I just think it's compromise it's one thing for the president for the president in his office where he's the chief leader of a nation that guarantees religious freedom to every group there is you know to have to be publicly you know kind and acceptable that but Paul to be in a worship service as a minister of the gospel and praying next to Muslims and the rest if that's not syncretism and blasphemy I don't know what is I think it's important for us to remember we don't have a National Cathedral the Episcopalians built a church in Washington and they named it the National Cathedral which they're perfectly free to do but we don't have a National Cathedral we don't have a Cathedral that the nation has built or that the nation endorses we have a denominational Church there that is occasionally used for civic functions and I think it's it's really very unfortunate it would have been much better had the president gone to his church to pray with those who shared his faith and maybe called on the nation to go to their churches but there's this little bit it seems me of the American propensity to the spectacular you know something spectacular happened so we have to do something spectacular in response it's not enough to go to our our little local churches with our you know little local ministers how important are they let's get all the important people together so we can influence maybe God has influenced when a lot of important people get together right I think that's the sort of problematic there I also observed the the service combination service and spectacle at Yankee Stadium that was held Sunday afternoon and there were two interests particularly interesting things there beside Bette Midler singing you're my hero one was the Muslim Imam who stood up and said three times I am here to testify that there is one God and Muhammad is His Prophet I thought to myself there's a man who's desperately wrong but a man of integrity unlike most of the Christian clergy here who carefully avoided using the name of Christ I think there was one Christian clergyman who used the name of Jesus in his prayer the Missouri Synod Lutheran minister and I think within a week that that Missouri Synod Lutheran minister had been deposed by the Missouri Synod for having compromised the gospel thought but for cooperating in that service so it seems to me there were two moments of integrity in that service but that the combination itself is Herrin tlie problematic well since I'm in the minority here let me clarify that I'm not standing up for the Yankee Stadium service I thought that was terrible myself but how is it especially the lady that's saying when we sang Amazing Grace and saying when we've been here ten thousand years unless she was post-millennial of course but we're still not moving at all but I am and in my role as host I won't try to have the last word on the on the other discussion but I but a penultimate word I think if we rewind the tape the exclusivity of the gospel was in the message there and that's one of the things that it was very carefully worded but I I would I think we could find it in the tapes if it was then I praise God but I would say the fact that there wasn't a major stink means that the point was lost well we've used up our time here there is one final question here - RC and - Doug let's see whether and it may have an application here here it is right here what does a post-millennial see occurring at the return of Jesus Christ what's the question what does a post millennialist see occurring at the return of Jesus Christ what are you asking me for well because the questioner said RCR Doug one of my or Doug the answer the answer is lots of cool stuff No oh all all Orthodox Christians post pre-millennial believe at the end of human history there's the resurrection of the Dead and at the resurrection of the Dead there's the final judgement and we enter into the eternal state and that's what happens when Jesus Christ returns bodily once once again there's it's interesting to me that there's only one eschatological position that the historic Christian Church has taken and that is that hyper preterism as it's called is wrong so the Apostles Creed that says Jesus Christ will come to judge the living in the dead this future expectation this future hope this resurrection of the Dead says that all notions that the resurrection happened in the first century and it's all completed and done that's erroneous but the church as the Catholic Church small sea Catholic Church as a whole has yet to work out an eschatological confessional agreement and I think that's one of the important things for us to do in the next few centuries and as a post millennialist I don't mind saying in next few centuries because I think we have a lot of time you

Channel: Ligonier Ministries

Views: 61,128

Rating: 4.8896551 out of 5

Keywords: visual arts in worship, self-denial, limited atonement, definite atonement, Calvinism, eschatology, post-millenialism, ORL03

Id: BGn6O4kdwJw

Length: 58min 53sec (3533 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 26 2013