Reflections on the Life of RC Sproul

Oh then The Tempest is sound asleep in the back of the bus but they are fearful and they rush the back of boat and they grab him they say geez wake up do something what's the matter what's the matter he sees the storm I say walk so when he says all right peace be still and the sea stops its raging and the winds become calm what's the response of the disciples when Jesus removes the clear and present threat of nature does it say they throw their saw Westers in the air and rejoice and say oh we knew you would do it know the text tells us that at that moment they became very much afraid the biggest problem that the human race has is this God is holy he's righteous he's just [Music] and we're not and it's because God is holy that anytime he withholds justice he is giving grace listen to what the Bible tells us the king of the universe places his indelible mark on the soul of every one of his people I think one of the most important things we do is to try to to deepen our understanding of the character of God because he's only and we're not there's only one characteristic of Almighty God that is communicated in the superlative degree from the mouths of angels where the Bible doesn't simply say that God is holy or even that he's holy holy but that he is holy holy holy that's like saying the best of the best or the worst of the worst the heavenly host above the throne of God singing to each other in antiphonal response a single word repeated over and over and over again holy holy hallway the only reason you exist and that I exist for him we must come to understand but even though we have this built-in antipathy and fear towards the holy one and even though we recognize that we are unholy in Christ ladies and gentlemen we are welcome [Music] and welcome back our first panel discussion at together for the gospel 2018 is a conversation of Thanksgiving to God for our brother RC sprawl and a recognition of the fact that a giant oak has fallen and that when we think of together for the gospel going back to the very first of these gatherings we can't imagine it happening without our cease parole there's so many dimensions of his life that are instructive to us that's what we're praying is that this will be an edifying time not only thanking God for RC sprawl and for his ministry but also thinking about the truths that he taught and the issues that he argued the events of which he was so much a part that are a an essential part of our history and even our identity as a movement and you know the first thing I think of brothers and I think of RC is that expression of a man in full hmm he was a man in full you see that in full display his oratory is conviction his personality his humor his voices smile I miss every bit of him yeah I think it'd be helpful for us to kind of talk about how we came to know him I have my own story of how as a teenager looking for help in an apologetic crisis I found myself in South Florida swimming in an ocean of questions that demanded an answer not having much help I didn't know what apologetics was I certainly didn't know the RC Sproles an apologist I knew I needed help and amongst the help I received as a teenager and then especially as a college student there were these tapes I tell people that it was like what the Russians called samizdat it was the literature that dissidents passed around it was it was like secret contraband information and there were these cassette tapes and went by the time I heard them by the way they're out of sequence because the people I had them from they just say you know you might get tape 9 then you get tape or and by the time I heard him they squeaked so you cassette tapes by the way google it guys it was a form of recording technology that was actually quite popular it was by means a cassette tape I came to know our cease parole it was a lot more sturdy the reel-to-reel yes it was more it was a great were they hire the wire recording is my cassette tapes I first came to know the voice of dr. John MacArthur but it was RC at that time who just threw us all into the deep end of the pool and then dealt with those questions from Biblical Authority and from the wealth of of Christian theology and did so with such an eagerness and so I look back to RC and I see in large part a man who became a dear friend and a mentor and a colleague but who began as a life ring thrown to a teenager in in rough water ligand how in the world did you come to know RC well partly through looter Whitlock at RTS partly through Presbyterian circles because we were going through similar things that were happening in the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention the issue the authority of Scripture was very important and the the Ligonier statement on Scripture came before the International Council on biblical inerrancy RC was a decade ahead of the public declarations when when when everybody was pulled together John McArthur Jim Boyce and others to make that IC bi statement on biblical inerrancy because of that he was he was greatly helpful in my circles the Presbyterians we lost our conservative resurgence and the Presbyterian Church in America is the fruit of that because the the majority mainline Presbyterian denominations did not come back to our confessional roots into our commitment to the biblical Authority and to the the gospel in Christ and so the PCA was formed when we lost that fight and and so into our ordination vows were were woven a commitment to the inerrancy of Scripture largely through the influence of RC sproule who had been battling this issue for a number of years and teaching so many people that were in our circles and I was a teenager but I I was listening to cassette tapes and and hearing my father talk about this man who was speaking to General Assembly meetings and that's that's how he came into my experience I think about folks who are here in this room and they hear about our cease parole they think about Ligonier ministries they think about his bizminer ministry but he really began as something of an upstart dissident in the North in Pittsburgh and you need to tell that story you're the quintessential southern presbyterian RC did not begin his ministry as a southern presbyterian well it he was under the influence of John Gerstner who was one of the few solid voices in any of the northern Presbyterian seminaries at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary John was was though he taught church history he was really the guy that taught theology to all the conservative men that came through Pittsburgh seminary and RC sproule latched on to John Gerstner and even even our C's deliver absolutely is impacted by what everybody called the Gerson or growls yeah and you can hear it in so many of the guys that John Gerstner trained and the differences is that Gerstner never smiled while a crowd absolutely what you saw in those videos is that RC could growl and smile something at the same time he really could and so you know we're indebted to that legacy and interestingly RC did feature John Gerstner in in his teaching ministry at Ligonier so if any of you have seen the old church history cassettes that that John Gerstner produced in the church history series that was promoted by Ligonier for many years so RC is part of that legacy of northern Bible believing evangelical Presbyterians like Jim Boyce and others and but had a tremendous influence on us in the southern Presbyterian Church John I turned to you I'm thinking of the words you spoke at our seas funeral I'm thinking of the friendship of which you spoke so warmly you had a collegiality with our sea stroll that goes back decades yeah yeah and I I'm not sure other than the Lord how it all happened because I was a West Coast non presbyterian independent or no association with anything I first listened to the tapes cassette tapes on holiness I don't think for years I saw a video I just listened to tapes I had John Gerstner at our church one time and he said about me that because I was a pre millennialist the only reason I didn't end up a heretic was I didn't think so my salvation is that I don't think logically that's a very John Gertz yeah by the way yeah that's my John Gerstner so I was just listening to our see and his animated he was a phenomenal teacher he was the best of the best of the best he exude 'add just in eighth illustrations they just poured out of him he spoke in metaphors spoken similes he he just parabolic speech just rolled out of him everything was like this or like that and he could he could draw a word picture so he was compelling his teacher and I listened to him and he he brought me to a new understanding of look when I was in seminary I knew of one Reformed Church in Southern California it was an OPC Church with 35 hyper-calvinist I think contemplating their five point navel and sorry about that ligand has a lot of OPC students at Eastern Area well that's the only one I knew and it was it was provincial and it was tight and and this guy brought to my understanding that the first I guess you could say fire and reformed teaching and for some reason out of the blue he we had him this is really true he came to our church to speak I wanted him become the church so I invite him to come to church this is true I think he hadn't stopped smoking so he put out a cigarette in the parking lot walked in the back door and asked if we had a Bible he could borrow sounds like a Baptist Deacon he actually would pick up the nearest Bible and preach it would didn't matter where we were he would pick up the nearest bright Bible and preach did you ever see him with notes did you ever see him preach with notes I have never seen a note I was singing next to him once at a conference one of his later conferences we're seeing a mighty fortress he was standing next to me and at one point in the hymn he just looks over slaps the hymnal out of my hand while we're singing and just you don't need that [Laughter] but so he came our people loved him I loved him he is he's just an incredible guy on every front and I guess maybe it was reciprocal he invited me to Ligonier conference and I was really shocked because it was a pretty much a litany of well-known Reformed preachers and I couldn't figure out why me it was my he really pulled me from the periphery of coming to the convictions about reformed theology and feeling like I was now kind of on the inside I always felt like an outlier because I had no heritage no experience with that and it was it was very encouraging to me given Gerstner comment that RC wanted to pull me in and embrace me and the first thing he ever asked me to preach on at a Ligonier conference was the doctrine of election I mean just think of what a high-risk a guy he was I mean he said I want you to preach on the doctrine of election that's your assignment and you know Ligonier they give you a whole paragraphs of things you have to so this this was my Waterloo I knew it really this would this would have massive implications in the future of my life if I botched this up so I don't know that I only work the hardest thing I ever worked that was the second hardest thing I ever worked on in preparation I think in my whole ministry second hardest thing ever worked on was when he said I want to debate you on baptism and I said and I thought about it for a second I thought this this isn't gonna be easy I've I've hadn't grown up in that world so I said okay I only asked one thing I said look I want to go first because I don't want to try to use the Bible to answer an unbiblical argument [Laughter] sorry about that I said I said I want you to use the Bible to answer a biblical argument he said great great and we we had the most loving enjoyable debate on that and the still on the Ligonier website you can still write they'll get my message I think we've all listened to that yeah anything that was RC to a tee so open very so gracious so loving that never ever diminished our relationship not one bit and we we had an unusual bond of love and friendship and even though it was so far apart right down to the very end of his life and that's that's the magnanimity of his heart he was that big-hearted guide that comes across on the stranger mark while you were in college had you yet heard of RC yeah his book calling us of God came out win 77 so I came for something something around there so remember I read the book and then I like yourself was listening to tapes those are the tapes for the second thing book was first in the tapes I was down in South Florida summer of 1981 working for a moving company mm-hmm in Fort Lauderdale and in the night and often in the evening I would take my cassette tape player mm-hmm and I would just go out to the beach and I would flip in I was listening to early church Agustin Pelagius RC sprawl it was teaching me early church history and it was just wonderful and then I met him personally years later so that would have been like 81 82 I met him personally when you and I served on the Alliance of confessing evangelii Bulls board and RC was still on there and that's I think when I first would go out to dinner with him with you and maybe one or two others not when the whole board would go which is some of us and his spirit was just so magnanimous and joyful which is funny cuz somebody that's so doctrinally crunchy yeah you know might think like oh he's gonna be arguing all the time but even if he aren't usual enjoy it I mean he's just he's happy with life well you know I tell people that if I lived in the 16th century I would love to have studied with Calvin but lived with Luther yeah and I think of of RC sproule a lot like Luther yeah I mean Luther loved the argument he would he would and he'd love to have dinner with the people he argued with and you know the table talk he would have this con is life was a constant dialogue turning into a debate turning into lifelong friendship I remembered the way when we were organizing together for the gospel for the first time you and I were down speaking at some Ligonier Colorado's the national conference that pastor conference and we were out dinner at one of those restaurants they always like to go to you know he always had his places and it was really I think it was just RC investor and ligand me and one of us just mentioned in passing this conference that we were doing that John MacArthur was gonna be at and John Piper was gonna be at and and RC said I want to come and honestly I knew that we all loved RC but I think I just thought like I know of our students he tends to do his own Ligonier stuff and so but we wasn't right we'd love to have you you know and so okay you remember he sat on the front row when we were all squished together where the bookstore is 3,500 of us in a ball room of a hotel room it was a little closer than men like to sit I guarantee you it was a it was a close fellowship narcy's on the front row and I mentioned angels in my message and I just said that the popular culture has domesticated the Angels is the whole process of domesticating deity and transcendence and I said you know we we become the kind of people who put cute little pictures of angels up in the bathroom wall you know they sell them in the mall whereas in the Bible when an angel showed up you didn't say oh how cute you wet pants and horsey just came out to afterwards and just said that's the best line on angels I've ever heard well that that wasn't even the main point of the message but it was the Angels I've ever heard I appreciate it and and then he had a he just he just he just was a pickup so many interests and so even as I had the opportunity to get to know him as a friend and even in the meetings before we had an alliance confessing evangelicals when I saw him stare down other evangelicals on the issue of justification and you know he just picked up all kinds of interest he would come up to me whenever I was around him and often when there was someone else there and he would say how many and I knew what he meant he meant how many fountain pens do you have with you at the moment because he was keeping score he was he was keeping it was just the kind of thing that he latched on to but I first connected the dots about RC sprawl with the Chicago statement on biblical inerrancy and with his defense of the Chicago statement his defense of biblical inerrancy I was in the midst of a denominational war I was a seminary student trying to figure these things out I was I was raised in a context of biblical inerrancy all the heroes I had going back to that apologetic crisis affirmed biblical inerrancy but it was hard to define biblical inerrancy just in this controversy until the Chicago statement and John you were there and RC played an absolutely pivotal role actually in rescuing that document and in its final written form what was it with going back to 1978 in the Chicago statement did you guys realize how historically important an accomplishment a milestone you were setting you know I I think I was fairly young and fairly new to the reformed movement I was put on a committee with Roger Nicole my brother I was yeah he was a frightening guy Oh cuz he was so austere wasn't he he just looked austere I was his Teaching Fellow so oh yeah it's different for you knowing better and in gym boys and some others so I think for me I I really was just trying to say as little as I could so I didn't look stupid and just absorb it all but the druid Sperling was a driving force by the sheer force of his personality and Jim Boice mm-hmm Jim Boice was a clear thinker yeah I remember when just this is another little anecdote about our see Jim Boyce died 75 days after he discovered cancer he was gone 75 days and I had a conference and I I didn't go to the funeral back at Philadelphia next time RC told me something he said you should have been there you should have been at RC at the that Jim's funeral he said the death of Jim Boice was a judgment on America hmm he had such respect for voice and I think the two of those guys were really the power in the inerrancy document I was in the committee's the committee work after the most intense committee work in Chicago the the last one that I remember I got on an airplane to fly home and sat next to Robert Schuller Oh only you and he turned to me and said god loves you and I'm trying so I went from scrolling Roger Nikol and Jim Boice - he was three hours were clear on doctrine so I remember one time in a context when we were talking about evangelical identity and I had been a part of a big conversation and he was talking about that conversation and we were he was making very clear as he always was what he believed evangelical identity was and he said but I think we need to just give up the name and we said well what we call ourselves and he said substitution Asst you know what he said to me imputation ax stand I said no they'll think we're surgeons now he was chasing for a word wasn't he he was he but what I appreciated was he went right to where the hottest controversy was like the denial of substitutionary atonement said let's just clear the room let's just say we're substitution estill with it he was that he was a person of such precise theological language and doctrinal formulation and he listened very closely if you were at his conference he would have specific comments I it one time at a conference I made some remark I don't think I'll ever understand that or I may never understand that and after the talk I came down he said like him never is a long time that's right okay I think I might nuance that the next time say well I remember the last QA in which John and RC and I were together at leaners National Conference and I heard you say something and I knew he was going to come back tell him when you said that in Christology it's vital to affirm that Jesus was fully God and fully man and having or having been there before I just backed up knowing was going to come like truly I know yeah confusion yeah so he he just came back because he said that's not wrong it's just not right because fully means that there's a Content that is either full or medium full or empty it's not content its ontology it's truly God and truly man and I'm just thinking you know do you remember what I said I said yeah that's what I meant but you know a part of what made RC and a part of what makes me just miss him so was that whenever he showed up once showed up was a classically-trained confessional theologian who knew the history of just about every theological debate and controversy and understood how the nuances of language had played out over time and he was the living protector of the right language the good language isn't enough better language isn't enough the right language is is something and undergo having a meal with him was was amazing the last nearly the last meal we had together he was on oxygen and he ordered a big steak and a baked potato and a hot fudge sundae about this big and he said like I read somewhere you are what you eat so I'm eating only rich food I remember one time when he was in the DC area doing a Ligonier conferences it's probably about 2000 5 6 7 somewhere right in there and he was already not not in good health and he he was having bad vertigo in that period and I asked him if I could come out and do it one of my 9 marks interviews with him I was I've interviewed all of you brothers I'm not really doing as much anymore because I interviewed everybody I wanted to interview but I would take hours to prepare for these interviews and I member the one I did with you John out in California we went for an hour and then we went for another hour we just kept going and it was it was great well I didn't want that yet with RC I went to his hotel room out in Tyson's Corner up into his room and he didn't look great but he you know such a joyful countenance we talked about a happy soldier I remember the way people talk about Hubert Humphrey at the end of his life you know when he and happy Ward answered the happy warrior that's our see he is he is the happy warrior and you know kind good to see you then you tell he wasn't feeling well so we start the interview and I'm thinking this might be a short one 15 minutes 30 minutes well all that has to happen is he has to start getting in because I start with asking some questions about the past I go chronological order I start with you know birth and I work forward so you know I started and RC just starts telling stories and when he starts telling source he just comes alive you know and then more stories and well before I know an hour is gone and I haven't got the nearly all the stuff I want to talk about especially theologically so I then said look brother do you do you mind if we do another hour no I'd love to let's keep going you know so we just we did another hour and you know I didn't know I was gonna get anything and there he was and uh the friend who was with him was this encouraged said he's just he's just so strengthened remembering all of these truths about God and God's goodness in his life he was that interviews and one on the nine marks website it's two hours he was to either our part of what made him so wonderful on a golf course because you had four hours of that unstructured conversation with him and you guys are great conversationalist you're the best and and he's in that category to spend three or four hours just in a casual in our shoes funnier than any of us are no offense you're very good with stories but I mean them RC was just hilarious he could get away with things that we wouldn't try thus he couldn't be a student at Southern Seminary but that's a nice try he also you knew at these meals at some point he was going to ask you a question and you know no matter how you answered it you were going to be wrong it's you know I want to raise another issue about our seed that I think is really important and I I've told many many people and especially those who are very close to me that that there were four men on the planet and the conditions were that if any of these four men asked me to do anything I do it actually three of the four of them are sitting with me here at the table RC was the fourth and it's out of a sense of friendship and also indebtedness I mean RC had this big-hearted drive to find younger men and to invest in them and I have the honor serving as a teaching fellow Illya near and that that whole structure is because RC invested in all of us and pushed us out and and made us think out loud and and teach and that's an act of generosity and john you you've been that way through the shepherds conference and so many other aspects of your ministry but i think it's good for all of us and there's somebody a pastor is to recognize that a part of what we all need to do and hopefully are doing is finding younger men and putting them out there and encouraging and investing in them well you you just saying that al and looking at the four of us our whole lives our investments in young men mm-hmm i mean we you you have a school you have a school you have a church i have a church but under underneath that we're just pouring our lives into the young man I that's ministry preach the Word of God and raise up men well you have a church and a school well yeah and another school anyway so what one of the fun things about RC just another little memory was I remember me at another steak dinner with our family I don't think you were there that butt is down in Orlando and he we were arguing about baptism not believer baptism but I don't like you guys recognizing Roman Catholic baptisms isvalid infant baptisms you shouldn't ought to do that and some Presbyterians understand that and some don't and so I was just trying to help RC be a better infant Baptist you know if you're going to be an infant Baptist be a reformed evangelical one and so I was pressing him in conversation very gracious but he liked being pressed he didn't mind it at all I was bring it on and so he was pressing that you want the name of the Trinity and if you have the name of the Trinity you have a Christian baptism and I said brother that's not true you have to have the name of the Trinity in connection with the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ that's what makes it a Christian baptism and as we kept talking about it he started agreeing with me and the brother with me I'm forgetting why didn't you just continue pressing the cases I was surprised but so I don't know Chris Larson was there but somebody was there and he said it kind of leaned over to me said mark you've done really well I but knowing me of course I wouldn't do that so you know I like the dog with a bone kept going in and after about three or four more minutes of RC being really you know good hearted about it he just looked at me he said mark you don't know when to stop you one man all right so just you need to take the victory and we'll leave it there a hot fudge sundae so he was he was happy he was funny he was humble and he was like mark come on you know it's like okay thanks brother another aspect of our see that in his ministry and of course through Ligonier ministries that that comes to my mind is the fact that an entire world of evangelical lay people came to know one continue to come to know the Reformed faith and apologetics and historic Christian theology by means of the ministry that he began and as much as we rightly point together for the gospel primarily to pastors one of the things that RC made very clear over and over again is that lay people want the deep stuff they want the whole stuff they're looking for doctrine they're looking for theology they're looking for church history they're looking for apologetics and so I think there's a real sense in which every faithful church should look like lay people being fed exactly the way RC demonstrated fear that was the conference you you guys must have seen that the Ligonier conference wasn't 3,000 reformed people it was a thousand reformed people in two thousand people finding their way into his truth right absolutely and and he was the guy that opened that gate wide for for people to discover the truth on it you know this this strikes me constantly hardly a week goes by somebody says I fought the idea of the sovereignty of God I finally saw it and now it's in every verse on every page in every chapter in every book it just leaps out he brought the doctrines of grace I think to the masses and continued his ministry continues to do that I remembered a look at here a conference seeing it a man and his wife and their seven children on the pew and so I went down to speak to him and said where are you from Zion Illinois what church you from the freewill Methodist Church in Zion Illinois obvious okay Ligonier Conference Calvinism makes sense I want to I'm going to to follow Marc asking you to stand if you had read our serials JC Ryles holiness JC and RC both here today but I want to ask you to stand if you read our Sea Scrolls the holiness of God okay that's a lot more than ready JC Rob I'm just going to go out of the limb and get that that would be maybe the one book that more people in this room have read and common than any other yeah and thank you you maybe see it but it's it's it's representative the fact that our see he didn't say he didn't title that book the deepest issue in theology or the truest a doctrine about God he just passionately went at the scriptural revelation concerning the holiness of God and and I think for most people who read that book it was a reset theologically well he had such a powerful gift of rhetoric yeah you know as a thought that his hand was less polluted was his hand was less polluted than the earth the insanity of Luther oh yeah that's right yeah it's just again and again he just knew a way to put it that you know if I work really hard I might be able to think up something like half his punching but for RC it's just the way the brother thought yeah and it was so pin him so powerfully the teacher that in his Columbo impersonations anyway that's only for a certain generation yeah but unforgettable unforgettable that's right so when we think about missing our friend and we miss him unbelievably we're also as Christians led to reflect upon the fact that we thank God for the life and ministry the writings and the preaching of RC sprawl but it really is a reminder that as the hem tells us time like an ever-rolling stream bears all its sons away this is the year 2018 when we began this the three of us were considerably younger actually everybody was younger but we we thought of ourselves as young then they talked about young guys starting this nobody says that anymore at some point we realize we really is a vapor life and ministry it's a sobering thought isn't it John do you feel very vapor like I mean you know forty nine years of the same church yeah you know I think these are the best years ever I everything you said in your message this morning I would I would echo I mean everything you said I would echo and I've for 50 years that's been that's been the pattern for our church and to be in that congregation this long and see that the maturation of all of that in the life of a coming you know our church you know our congregation the pastor's could hope and dream if they if they thought about it wisely to stay in the same place their whole life and in their ministry in full joy to see the fruit of that generational kind of commitment to those biblical things no I I'm not ready to vaporize yet I really I love I love my wife and family and I love my church I love the people there it is fulfilling in every sense but I'm happy to go to heaven whenever the Lord wants to take me there but this this is something that I could never have hoped for and something that's rare obviously you know you had to give me my own books well I think we may have given you every commentary written by every Minister in the English language is written a commentary on every book in the New Testament in the last century but I think you're the only one who's done that well I'm trying to process this yeah these are wonderful years it's like a death sentence can imagine coming to church some people haven't listened to the same guy every Sunday for 40-some years it's like please mercy it's a free country man they can go someplace else today what they can't because their members were you of all people we freely let our members go to other churches just a couple go ahead what one of the things I thought of sitting there at the funeral with all of you brothers and I mentioned this last night and we were together his it was just brought home keenly to me what a temporary stewardship each person is you know when you know mission Roger Nicole who was a dear mentor of mine and incredibly kind and brilliant and funny and generous and and you know by God's grace I can point to so many people like that who are with the Lord and you know when I think of doing together for the gospel you know what we can't do it now like we didn't notice takes our C's not here but we can have all the rest of us yeah but you know before we know it it'll be one more of us me you you you John to be somebody another person and then it'll be another it one one Sunday evening before the evening service at First Presbyterian Church in Columbia when Sinkler Ferguson was still pastoring there he his preparatory remarks before the call to worship went like this do not underestimate what you are about to hear and participate tonight because what happens tonight in this service will never happen again the same people will not be here the same preacher will not preach the word and I think valuing ministries realizing they're not going to go on forever yeah however meaningful and useful they are in our lives realize it is not always going to be this way there are sea scroll is not always going to be in the world Jim Boyce is not always going to be in the world valuing what the Lord has given us while he has given it and then just sucking the marrow and just to add one thing don't substitute the recorded message for the life of the church and the full experience of worship but Sinclair Fergus you said you can't well you know I was on livestream or I got the tape that whole experience in a church the living church worshipping and sitting under the Word of God and touching lives is the richest experience Christians have you know on the Vapor comment one more thing I remember that also in this year coming up somebody else has a 25th anniversary and someone else a 50th anniversary and I think we might have a picture that might be of some yeah okay am I so that's albert Mohler 25 years ago speaking with Billy Graham and Carl FHN ray now and there's John MacArthur 50 years ago at high rates Community Church yeah by God's grace well it has been an incredible honor for us to reflect upon our cease life the gift he was to us a couple of closing thoughts when is this I think we ought not to finish a conversation about RC without mentioning that when you saw RC at just about any event you saw Vesta and they were inseparable I'm so thankful I can't imagine my ministry without Mary I can't imagine our C's ministry without the stuff and I I think that's a good good reflection for us as well Ligonier ministries did not ask me to do this but I'm gonna do it anyway you need to know that a wealth and immense wealth of resources not only by RC but for the sake of this conversation you can find our C's messages videos books writings articles you should subscribe to Table Talk and the ongoing ministry and just like the last time we were together we talked about that incredible repository of messages by Martyn lloyd-jones with the Martyn lloyd-jones trust you if you never had the opportunity to hear our C's parole you still have the opportunity to hear his voice and to receive his teachings john Gerstner was mentioned RC Sproles teacher not one of us stands on our own feet we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us RC was not only a teacher he was taught and in a fetch drift honoring John Gerstner back in 1976 RC stated this in an era of church history when theology is in chaos the church is being shaken at its foundations and Christian ethics shift and slide with every novel theology we are grateful for the vivid example of one who stands in the midst of confusion as a bright and burning light end quote and so we are thankful for our seaspar all thankful for every single gospel believing Bible preaching pastor may we do so till Jesus comes amen [Applause]

Channel: Together for the Gospel (T4G)

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Length: 45min 32sec (2732 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 21 2018