Q&A with R.C. Sproul

so I guess I get to do my best Larry King this morning right and yeah you've seen him a few times yes um the two of you have built a friendship over many decades of ministry collating and fighting some of the same battles the battle for the Bible and I believe it was around the inerrancy struggles in the 70s dr. MacArthur that you first became aware of dr. Sproles ministry recount for us just some of those early impressions of meeting doctors from-- I think the first exposure I had to rc was actually listening to the series on the holiness of God and that's probably true for many many of people here I had none of his name but but that was my first real acquaintance and that's really the entry point I think for many people into the ministry of RCL and then the inerrancy congress came along and there were a hundred people that were involved in that and obviously he was there I don't remember having personal contact at that point with him but I knew he was a co-belligerent on the issue of biblical authority and inerrancy and that is the watershed for absolutely everything I began to listen more often to him and follow his ministry and then out of that absolute blue I received an invitation to come to a Ligonier conference and I was kind of an alien to the reformed world but to be honest I sort of found my way to the right theology on my own I wasn't raised in that environment I was raised as kind of a devotional Baptist guy and just kind of a traditional typical middle-of-the-road Church so I I struggled on my own to find my way into reformed literature Puritan reading and once I I read I began to listen to sprawl and I read vandalism in the sovereignty of God by J I Packer and and and this opened up kind of new world for me but my first recollection of really spending time with him was at a Ligonier conference and I don't remember what year it was dr. Sproul hello do you remember inviting dr. MacArthur to that conference and do you remember meeting him there yes I'm guessing this is on the heels of Gospel according to Jesus years after that I mean look at that face my favorite nickname for John when I first met him was Boris it was it back at the time when Boris Yeltsin got up on a tank yeah remember that John oh yeah yeah because that's what up though I looked at John every time there was a battle that need to be fought John was out front he was the one you wanted in your foxhole with you because he was so valiant for the truth and for the kingdom of God and that's been his signature as long as I've known him and see I remember meeting him at the Congress on the Bible San Diego yes you you introduced me that I think the first time I came to Italy in your conference as Boris yeah both of you have seen abs and flows within the American Christian Church and even in the church as it expands around the world and a question comes from one of our attendees as asking if you could come in on what you see is the largest problem in the American church so geographically located here in America what do you think is one of the biggest problems facing us in the American church well I think it's clearly a lack of biblical knowledge lack of biblical discernment the church basically suffers from spiritual aids you could die of a thousand heresies because it's immune system is so totally deficient that there's an inadequate understanding of the nature of God an inadequate understanding of the nature of Christ you have for example a classic illustration of that one of the politicians standing alongside the clerk in Kentucky and holding her up as a Christian and she's a denier and / denier of the Trinity I I think starting with God starting with Christ starting with the authority of Scripture basically Christianity suffers as I said from the lack of discernment spiritual aids in it can it can die from a thousand heretical diseases so the proclamation of the truth the clarity with which the truth is proclaimed the precision with which the truth is proclaimed and supported at every level this has been the hallmark of this man's ministry to proclaim the truth and to support the truth through squeezing through Scripture and reason this is the greatest need of the church and in you all who are sitting out here most all of you have come out of that sort of bland vanilla kind of undefined Christianity and once you begin to see the truth with precision you just locked onto it and it is it's the most precious thing that you have that that is the great need in the church today that kind of precision and it's not going to come to the church until it comes to the leadership of the church because like people like priests as hosea said they're not going to rise any higher than their leadership the question was to both of you jumps from I don't see how I could had anything significant to what John's already said we live in the same environment and we face the same problems every day I forty some years ago somebody asked me what I thought was the biggest problem in the church today and I said I think that the biggest problem in the church today is that we don't know who God is and that flows over into every other dimension when I used to teach systematic theology in the seminary and I would taught teach the doctrine of God I would always begin by saying to our students that if you look at the various denominations historically even Rome has basically a unanimous view of the nature and character of God we all affirm that he's a mutable eternal and omnipotent and omniscient and all of that and there's very little difference anything nothing particularly unique about the Reformation and reformed doctrine of God and I said and yet at the same time paradoxically if you would say what is most distinctive about reformed theology it's our doctrine of God and they said oh how can that be when we say we agree with everybody else so I said because when you turn the page to of systematic theology we haven't forgotten what we said on page one about the character and nature of God where most other denominations forget whatever they've affirmed about the nature of God as soon as they go under the nature of man a nature of Christ and all the rest it's a Trinitarian gospel and what we are defending was not simply a niche of reformed theology but we're dealing with classical Orthodox Christianity that's what's at stake here question comes why are there so few reformed and evangelical churches for the same reason that there are so few people who understand the truth look Christianity is is divided into segments there is a dominant segment of evangelicalism let's just take evangelicalism as defined there's a dominant segment of evangelicalism that is wrapped up in what we would call the experiential charismatic kind of movement they're they're completely adrift in terms of theology the hermeneutics that are necessary to rightly interpret the Word of God that that movement starts in 1900 and Topeka Kansas and it explodes into what we know is the charismatic movement today there's there's parallel to that there is a sentimental movement the largest the largest volume booksellers in America are sentimental istic preachers is a really interesting dissertation and it turned into a book called homespun gospel you should read it it's an oxford dissertation and it's a study of the writings of Rick Warren Joel Osteen and Max Lucado which are the defining redefining writers in what is a sentimental istic view this is a this is a fast-moving exploding kind of kind of evangelicalism if you can say that that they take up most of the space in the bookstore so but at the same time we have to say we're seeing the greatest I think the greatest explosion of reformed theology in the history of the world because of Technology the it spread over the globe it's it's everywhere on the planet so I'm encouraged on the one hand that this is getting out it's it's everywhere it's all over the world thanks to ministries like Ligon ears and particularly the generous ministry and others so these are great days for reformed theology look when I was in seminary I knew one reformed church in the whole region of Southern California went where I went to seminary and it was a tiny little OPC Church with a budget Calvinists and black suits contemplating their Calvinistic navel they were just this sort of ingrown little tiny group that this wouldn't have happened but that was in the 18th century when you were and so no that was not the 18th century might have been better than the 18th century but I didn't I didn't know anything about that so I think you're seeing hopefully this is going to continue to flourish globally there's an explosion of this but at the same time there are parallel universes in evangelicalism that are trouble so I mean there's obviously the Liberals and and but the sentimentalists and the charismatic have a massive impact and consequently you get a kind of evangelicalism that can be synchronous t'k and mixes a little bit of everything so you get some people who have a little bit of reformed theology and and a little bit of experiential theology and a little bit of sentimentalism kind of all mixed together to clear it all out is going to take a it's going to take the work of God to spread the truth through I think continuing generations of faithful men like RC sprawl by the way Chris while wars up here we're being photographed for the media here John and I just want you to know you're being photographed by the most beautiful photographer I've ever seen in my life right she ought to be on the other end of the picture she's also my granddaughter oh god no I have a face for radio what's the missing ingredient in preaching today substance and I'm really one who's very excited about the renewal and revival of expositional preaching and John has been a model of that for decades of course where we go to the Word of God and we we want to hear what the Bible says want my own professor at the Free University who was honored by scholars in the 20th century by Festschrift and the title of the fest riff was X oughta two letter B from the hearing of the word and what what people miss in the churches today is sound biblical exposition and and until we really begin to hear God's Word and the truth of God we're just just treading water and being involved in entertainment but the strategy that God ordained initially it's God's gospel and it's the power of the gospel is the Word of God and Luther in his last sermon before he died said that the it seems as if God is the poorest teacher that ever was because everybody seems to want to improve upon his message and improve upon his way of salvation but he has invested the power of his gospel into his word and as John spoke last night about being ambassadors for Christ that's the minister's task is to is to set forth the Word of God in clarity and in boldness in an urgency and that's the other thing I'm excited about John is to see a renewal of expository preaching dr. MacArthur you had the inerrancy summit earlier this spring and we were happy to come alongside of you to be able to support your emphasis on that with dr. Sproles contributions with the Chicago statement over the years I CBI and its continuing need to reaffirm that for the next generation in like measure Ligonier is is pivoting to magnificent Christology in 2016 and dr. Crowell maybe you could just outline why you've identified Christology as one of the pressing needs for the church to understand today but the personal work of Christ why is it relevant for the 21st century to emphasize Christology well when somebody asked me earlier what I thought was the most significant present heresy that were the church faces in our time it is the person and work of Christ and in church history historically there were four centuries where there were major crises about the person and work of Christ the 4th century the 5th century 4th century gave us Nicaea 5th century Chalcedon and then of course the 19th and 20th centuries with the rise of liberalism and neoliberalism which denied the deity of Christ and and and so on and that's carried over now into our day and unfortunately if you watch Christian television you won't have to watch for more than two hours to see virtually every historic christological heresy being repeated on the screen in our day there is an uncanny ignorance of Christology and that what that means is that there's an uncanny ignorant of the gospel I remember several years ago some folks did a survey at the Christian booksellers convention 6,000 people they're mostly mom-and-pop bookstore owners and also Christian publishers people who have greater than average interest in education and they were surveyed and asked the question what is the gospel and of those who were examining that the outcome of that survey they came to conclusion that 1 percent of people gave an adequate answer to the gospel and when I used to teach dr. ministry programs we're with our clergy and would be teaching the gospel I would start my classes by asking the question gentlemen that's right on the board your summary of what the gospel is you were ordained to the gospel ministry you call yourself a gospel preacher and all that kind of stuff I said what is the gospel and the answer I would get would be the gospel is the good news that we can live a Purpose Driven Life or the good news is that we can have our sins forgiven those are good and that is goodness a good news is that we can have meaningful existences and that's a good news and also but none of those things of the gospel I said the gospel is basically objectively the person and work of Jesus Christ subjectively it's how the benefits of the person and work of Christ our appropriated by the believer by faith alone if you want to know what the gospel is you would listen last night to the message that we heard from from John on what the gospel is its Christ what he has done who he is and and again as I said earlier people want to improve upon that gospel or say let me simplify the gospel and tell you this is what it is and until we understand what the gospel really is we're not going to make much of an impact on the culture that's the thing that in the book of Acts when you see the Spirit working in power there was the charisma if you read the sermons and messages of the Apostolic community in the book of Acts you will see that outline that's there he was born according to the scriptures and by this from the seat of David and so it lived a sinless life he died in atoning death raised for our justification ascended into heaven and so on you have the central core elements of who Jesus is and what Jesus did that's the good news and you can't in the church is never improved on that that's what was lost in the Middle Ages that was was recovered in the 16th century Reformation that's what was recovered in the 18th century Great Awakening in New England and that's what has to be recovered today I would I would just add to that I was talking to dr. Nichols yesterday a little bit about this that when I came out of seminary even I think I was I think I was equipped to deal with the issue of biblical inspiration I think we had been exposed to liberalism and what it was doing to attack the scripture and attack the deity of Christ and so I knew there would be some battles to fight but I was I was naive on one epic reality that literally I have confronted my entire life and that is that the church doesn't understand the gospel I came out of seminary never thinking I'd spend all the energy that I've spent in my life trying to help people who profess Christ to understand the guy trying to help pastors understand the gospel it sort of reached an apex by the time I became pastor of Grace Community Church when I walked in the door as a 20-something year old at Grace Community Church my first church I was so exercised in my soul by the time I got to that church over this issue that the opening message I gave on February 9th 1969 at Grace Church was how to play Church and I preached on Matthew 7:21 and 22 many will say to me Lord Lord that is not exactly how you start your your ministry but I I this this would this was a serious issue and it was an eruption on that opening Sunday that really has kind of defined our ministry years later the Gospel according to Jesus and then I came back the Gospel according to the Apostles now I'm in the process of the third in that trilogy a book that will come out maybe a year the Gospel according to Paul then throw in ashamed of the gospel the truth war what and you know the Jesus you can't ignore and I mean I'm not writing to this guy on the street I'm trying to help people who profess to be Christians to understand the gospel which obviously embraces the nature of God and the true nature of Christ and his work and that this to me is just the playing out of Matthew 13 of all that Jesus said about the kingdom being wheat and tares being a great big dragnet with all kinds of debris as well as fish in it that this is this is the reality of the kingdom that our Lord laid out that I think we I think our Lord addressed it I mean you go to the Gospel of John you see false faith in chapter 2 he doesn't commit himself to them you see fall false faith in chapter 6 many of his disciples walked no more with him you see false faith in chapter 8 you know if you continue in my word you my real disciple you see false faith in Chapter 12 and many of the rulers or leaders believed on him and he didn't commit himself to them you see false faith in chapter 15 a branch that doesn't abide and Judas is a prototype of that I I think getting down to the core of the gospel is always going to be the issue and that means we're always defining the realities of the gospel the nature of God the nature of Christ the nature of salvation and making that clear and of course the Word of God yields that up relentlessly and if you're an expository cz's all the time throughout your preaching ministry because it's so it's so widely embedded in the glories of Scripture amen it's faith a gift or a response if it is a gift why are we responsible for exercising it yes it is a response that we have to make and necessary condition for our justification and yet we were told in the New Testament that the response that we make is because that it's a gift that has been given to us sovereignly by the Holy Spirit who when we were dead in sin and trespasses quickened us together with Christ the defining doctrinal statement about reformed theology that separates us from all other schools of thought is this regeneration precedes faith that in order to exercise faith in order to respond according to the way we were called to respond in order to be saved we have to first be born again of the Holy Spirit the vast majority of professing evangelicals reverse the order of that and they believe that if you want to be justified and if you want to be saved and and you you first have to have faith and then you're born again but spiritually dead people can't exercise faith Jesus tells us that in John 6 you know that we're not able we're not capable in our fallenness in our death spiritual death to quicken ourselves it's only after the spirit of God changes the disposition of our souls and our hearts that we hear and respond to Christ so the necessary condition for faith is rebirth not the other way around and of course the sinner is held responsible for his unbelief and is condemned on the basis of that unbelief and it's just because that unbelief has produced sin against holy God you know it this question comes up always no matter how long you've been in reformed theology putting those two together and I'm so very content with the mystery of it the part that I can't understand with the secret things belonging to the Lord with knowing that God has a mind that is infinite I have a mind that is finite and it's hard to harmonize and I often think about it this way if I if I ask somebody who wrote Romans who wrote Romans you ask a person who wrote Romans and if it's a Christian person there's a sort of sort of hesitation because you don't really know that you can just say Paul because you're afraid to come back to that or if you say the Holy Spirit does another come back it's all of Paul and it's all of the Holy Spirit if I ask you who lives your Christian life you're not eager to say it's me it's me I'm the one who's doing it no it's not me it's the Holy Spirit but I don't want to blame the Holy Spirit for my life so I mean we're caught in that vast realization was John Murray who said in every major doctrine in the Bible there is a divine paradox and trying to unscramble that is unnecessary to believe those realities is necessary a lot of the praise music sung in our churches now asks the Holy Spirit to come our pastors sometimes ask him to fall on us is this biblical no the Holy Spirit takes up residence in the life of the believer by divine purpose and sovereign work at the time of salvation every believer Romans 8:9 you know every believer possesses the fullness of the Holy Spirit not part of the Holy Spirit but the fullness of the Holy Spirit we are called in Scripture to walk in the spirit again that that's just part of sort of traditional sentimental kind of theology but we would not we would not believe if it were not for the Holy Spirit who regenerates us we would not obey if it were not for the Holy Spirit who enables us we would not understand if it were not for the Holy Spirit who instructs us there is no possible way that we could could fulfill any of those responsibilities as believers apart from the Holy Spirit so people sometimes will say what about when when an Old Testament person says take not your spirit from me there there was in the Old Testament I think the Holy Spirit there was there were believers in the Old Testament who were regenerate in the Old Testament who were people of faith in the Old Testament that was all the work of the Holy Spirit all the work of the Holy Spirit but there were also unique anointings of the Holy Spirit that came on individuals for royal service or for prophetic ministry of things like that in the Old Testament and in that kind of situation you might have the coming and that the moving and coming and going of the Holy Spirit for those particular ministries or usages but in in the New Testament it is the it is the believers privilege to become the Temple of the Spirit of God and that's a permanent reality that there's no more of him or less of him he's there's all of him available taking up residence in the Trinity I think he'd been going beyond that if you go through that all of it I don't mean that go through the Upper Room discourse you will find that our Lord Himself says that the father takes up residence in you I take up residence in you the Spirit takes up residence in you for a believer the triune God dwells in that believer all the time all the time that that never changes so it isn't any more of God or more of the Holy Spirit we need it is to submit to and be obedient to the will of the Spirit as revealed in Scripture question about the fear of the Lord we are told again and again to fear the Lord in the Old Testament especially in the Psalms but in the New Testament it is hardly ever mentioned in Luke 174 Zechariah predicts we will serve him without fear should I fear the Lord now in light of all the mercy he has showed Luther made the distinction in answering that same question centuries ago that when the Bible speaks of the fear of the Lord it speaks not of the fear that a prisoner as who's being tortured by his tormentor or what Luther called a servile fear but rather he speaks of a filial fear the fear we have of failing to honor and glorify God that it's not that that dreadful concept but rather it's the sense of reverence and awe that you have to have which is the beginning of wisdom and that doesn't change from the Old Testament to the New Testament the all fear of God is that although it's not without trembling and the New Testament does tell us that we as we grow we grow in fear and trembling as we're working out our salvation so that there's always that sense of awe and trembling before the Magnificent glory and majesty of God and a and a fear of dishonouring him and failing to respect and adoring him which is at the heart of the spiritual pilgrimage of every true believer yet Paul says knowing the fear of the Lord we persuade men that's fearing God in that in that sense we fear on the one hand his wrath on the unbeliever we fear in the other sense his is his holy expectation of our faithfulness in the dispersion of the gospel I don't know John did you notice coming up I for the sign that was by that's his church that has put up prominently that says God is not angry have you seen that now only in Orlando can you have that you know as I mean that this huge big sign that this church has put up called Grace Church God is not a it's really helpful yeah really I said except for those who put up signs like this along the road yeah imagine what what kind of a gospel do you teach the people to say there's no anger left in God what are we saved from of course we're safe from the wrath that is to come God is angry with the wicked every day exact try that sign in front of your church yeah how do you evangelize someone who thinks they are saved but does not show any of the outward marks of salvation further complicating it what if they are family I think one of the biggest needs we have in the church today is the confusion between profession of faith and the possession of it I preach about this almost every Sunday to ad nauseam that our people get tired of it because in order to become a Christian a member of the church at least in our church you have to make a profession of faith this is what John started his ministry there in 1969 when he preached on Matthew 7 these were the very people that came there saying Lord Lord didn't we do this did we do that and he said please leave I never knew you and again no one has ever been justified simply by a profession of faith we're all called to make professions of faith but jesus warned that the people can honor him with their lips but their hearts are far from them and so what we have to do is with those that we love and with those that care about even though they've made a profession of faith and they make this the idea that they show no evidence from it whatsoever this is what James is writing about there that these people claim to be having faith and claim to be justified but they had it was empty it was deadly there was no evidence whatsoever no manifestation of godly obedience and and that's what you have to deal with with people particularly if you're loving them one of the things that's dangerous is in our great zeal to win people to Christ we have a tendency to want to help them along to prime the pump and do everything we can to persuade men we have our techniques and our methods we have altar calls or we tell them post just read this prayer say the sinner's prayer and all of that kind of stuff but it's easy to get somebody to make a profession of faith and the danger is to present a false security by using those techniques rather than trusting the power of the Word of God that it alone can bring true faith and saving faith when the Holy Spirit takes it to the heart of that believer I'm not opposed to preaching for decision and preaching for response don't get me wrong for the fact that Sunday morning on Monday I saw one of our parishioners here at st. Andrews and he came to me and he said I think that's the closest you will ever come yesterday to giving an altar call three times you asked the question as salvation come to your house he says I was just waiting for you to make the call well actually you may have been surprised to know that I have given all of our calls in the past but and I'm not opposed to that but it's dangerous where you present a false sense of security where people say hey you know I raised my hand I went forward I saw I was presented for sinners prayer doesn't that all I need to do I said no what you need to do is possess the faith that you profess if you have that faith it's going to manifest itself yeah it's pretty simple the only the only legitimate evidence of real salvation is a transformed life it's it it's the only evidence if it's not there then there's no salvation and to look at it on a backside you would expect an unregenerate unredeemed unbelieving sinner to behave that way right you'd expect him to behave that way and that's because it's consistent with his nature but if you have a new nature if you've been begotten by the Spirit of God you you are a new creation it that is manifestly evidenced because of your new creation and transformation is the only test of true salvation evidence it's not perfect I sometimes say it's not perfection but it is direction it's the way your life goes toward obedience I mean that's what Jesus said in John eight whoever continues in my word is my true disciple my Mott they taste a like those the real thing if you continue in my word continue in it and living it and believing it and applying it that's the evidence if that's not there then whatever moment you had whatever prayer you prayed whatever event you went to is meaningless in terms of salvation last question each of you by God's grace has had a long and fruitful ministry and it continues to grow and it's fruit for God's people if you were to wind the clock back and with the wisdom that the Lord has given you over your years of ministry and speak to your younger selves who are just getting started and pastoral ministry just in one one sentence one idea what would you have said to yourself and by way of encouragement to the next generation of preachers who are coming up today don't worry so much time that's what I would have said to myself then waste more time and ten people and there's no substitute for immersing yourself in the word and preaching the Word of God and and instead of growing cold listen to Steve Lawson the other day about Jesus speaking to the Ephesians and and I think about the first year I was a Christian I was on fire I wanted to win every person I met and I grew more mature but I also wasn't as zealous I would say keep pouring the gasoline on that fire that's what I would say to myself um I think we all look back and say we wasted time but but some of those some of those times that we may have thought we wasted because we weren't intensely studying something we're invested in the lives of people for good in the long term I think for me it was I worried do differently I would I would try to be more patient I mean that's the instruction preach the word in season out of season instruct with all patience I think as a pastor young knowing what I knew believing what I believe I mean literally to erupt into a church with Matthew chapter 7 on the first Sunday yeah there was just this passion that needed patience and developing that patience with people to allow the work of God to go on in their lives what it would have been more what would have been more effective and endearing for me in those early years of so much zeal be patient it's the work of the Lord that's going to be done in the hearts and it's done over a long period of time it's amazing how long I've been at Grace Church over 45 years and I can look back and realize now how it's almost imperceptible to see the transitions and the transformations as people grow and develop over a period of time you have to you have to see many years to really see that happen so I think patients would be probably something I really could have used a lot of in the early years like you I've been impacted by these men that the Lord has raised up to serve his church in our day could we give him the glory and express our thanks to these gentlemen for being so used over the is you

Channel: Grace to You

Views: 141,346

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Keywords: John MacArthur, Bible, Preaching, Christianity, Expository, Exposition, Sermon, Jesus, Christ

Id: kGkupsKsqjA

Length: 40min 59sec (2459 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 26 2016