The Seat of the Scornful

by RC Sproul Jr.


There may be nothing more soul damaging about the whole postmodern thing than its snarkiness. Sure, post-modern epistemology is immediately and obviously stupid, so much so that not even they believe it. No one believes it true that there is no truth. But this attitude, this mood, this posture, where we’re all too cool to care about anything, where sincerity is the high crime, that’s bad news. It’s corrosive, destructive, and likely lurking in your heart. (One of my favorite titles for something I wrote was a piece for Every Thought Captive touching on this theme called “The Impertinence of Being Earnest.”)

As I write it is snowing outside. Snow is one of my great joys. It is, as I have described before, liquid manna. It is God behaving as a grand Tom Bombadil, whistling and singing as He walks across the globe, tossing snow as fairy dust out of His pockets, for the sheer extravagant delight of it. This is what the scornful miss. This is how our sophistication poisons joy. The modernist sees snow as a problem to be solved. The postmodern can’t even see the snow.

Snow was a prominent part of my childhood, growing up in the mountains of western Pennsylvania . I wrote of its glory first when writing a friend from my childhood a letter. She was, at the time, studying art at a university. As a girl she had been my next door neighbor, and had shared in the joy of being raised in the context of a covenant community, at the old Ligonier Valley Study Center . I waxed eloquent about those blessings, those precious memories of shared life. She wrote back, explaining how utterly embarrassed she had been when, reading my letter, those memories reduced her to tears, right in front of her friends. I wrote her once more, and explained that if she had any hope of being an artist, she must aspire to beauty. And beauty cannot survive scorn. If she had not the courage to enter into beauty, she would never be able to capture it on canvas.

The Psalmist promises that he will not sit in the seat of the scornful. We, however, having drunk deep from the world around us, are ashamed of sincerity, embarrassed by earnestness. We would rather argue over the nature of beauty than to be carried away with it. We would rather complain about shoveling snow than make angels in the snow. We would rather be thought of as worldly than be thought of as uncool. We would, because God is true and every man a liar, rather not be the blessed man who does not sit in the seat of the scornful.

There is, according to God’s Word, blessing for the earnest. There is delight for those brave enough to delight. If we would put away such foolishness, we have the promise, the unassailable promise that we will bring forth fruit in its season, that we shall prosper. If we would no longer heed the counsel of the ungodly, if we would instead delight in the law of God, He will bless us. If not, the way of the ungodly will perish. Go play in the snow, not ironically, but sincerely. Blessing will come.

Idols For Destruction

R.C. Sproul Jr.


I’m confident that many Christians have not slept well these last few nights. I suspect that tonight they won’t do much better. Over the last several days, as I write, the stock market has not performed well. It has reached a five year low, having lost over forty percent of its value since its peak. It is not difficult to muster sympathy in these difficult economic times. Forty percent is rather much to lose, though only slightly more than half of seventy percent.

I lose sleep at night not because Christians have lost forty percent of their investments. I lose sleep at night because Christians are losing seventy percent of their children. They spend their days in institutions where Jesus doesn’t matter. Seven hours a day, 180 days a year, Jesus doesn’t matter. I am not surprised that when they graduate Jesus doesn’t matter to them. The children of professing Christians who are schooled by the government are more likely than not to reject the faith. And we’re worried about our stock portfolios.

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount that where our treasure is, there will our hearts be as well (Matt 6:21). Our treasure is in our treasure, rather than in our children. We lose our children by the millions, but only cry when we lose our millions. The Christian church is a willful band of idolaters. We send our wives off to work because we worship mammon. We send our children off to “free” schools rather than private schools where Jesus is honored because we worship mammon. And we mourn at the death of our mammon, rather than the death of our children’s’ souls.

Every time tragedy hits, Christians fall back on this same chestnut of wisdom- we pray that so and so will learn something important from all the suffering. My prayer is the same. My hope is that as God destroys the idols in His church, as He shows that He is almighty, rather than the almighty dollar, that His people will repent and turn to Him. My prayer is then that He might turn our hearts back to our children, that we might in turn raise them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. God could do this. Or, He could lead us into physical starvation, even as we have starved our own children of His Word.

The more likely scenario is this. Professing Christians will continue to cry out to Washington to be their savior. Washington will continue to fail. And some, a very few, but some will in their financial pain turn and repent. Narrow is the path of life, and wide is the way of destruction. Before you get on your knees, asking God to deliver us from financial calamity, confess your sins. Confess that all of us, even those who homeschool, value too much that which bears Caesar’s image, and to little that which bears His image. Then, do not ask Him to fix your portfolio. Ask Him to help you invest in the only investment that bears dividends into eternity, your children.

by RC Sproul Jr. of
http://www.highlandsstudycenter.org/index.php

What are the Characteristics of True Revival?

What are the characteristics of true revival? by RC Sproul

It seems another so called "revival" has sprung up in Lakeland , Florida .

Over the last semester of our Highlands Hall program, and during the previous semester of the Highlands Academy , the classes we offer to area homeschoolers, we read a great deal on church history. In both instances we noted this strange phenomenon. The people of God grow cold in their fervor for the Lord. A group within the church reacts against this, and comes up with a plan to stoke that fervor. There is, at first, some measure of success. Soon, however, we grow cold again. This is where the monastic movement came from. This is why and how universities were founded, first in Europe and later in America . This is where the camp meeting came from, followed by the establishment of “camp ministries.” This is where the great American evangelical fad machine (WWJD, Jabez’ prayer, Promise Keepers, 40 Days, ad nauseum) comes from. We noted that none of these institutions, plans or programs are called for in God’s Word.

I would argue that our pursuit of “revival” as an event falls into essentially the same category. It is good and right and proper that we should labor for, hope for, pray for both great numbers of conversions to the Christian faith, and for great leaps forward of spiritual growth among those who are already Christians. No one could be opposed to that. But the Bible is rather sparse in looking at this as though it were some kind of definable and measurable category. The Spirit, we are told, blows where it will. Did God move in an unusual way in mid-eighteenth century New England ? To be sure. Did God bless the ministries of John Wesley and George Whitefield? Of course He did. Did God blaze a trail across the prairie in the Second Great Awakening? Maybe. Was God bringing in the elect in Toronto twenty years ago? Probably not. My confidence level goes down as the use of self-conscious techniques and the visibility of sundry “signs” goes up.

The fruit of real revival is lost souls being saved, and found souls becoming more like Jesus. It is found in the decidedly unspectacular phenomenon of people repenting. The source of this blessing is the Holy Spirit. The only patterns I have been able to discern wherein we might expect to see the Spirit at work are these. First, the Spirit tends to move in a context of persecution. Signs and wonders are not signs of wonder. The blood of the martyrs, that’s where you’ll see the Spirit.

Secondly, and perhaps ironically, I believe we can expect to see the Spirit at work where we see Christians striving to live in peace and quietness with all men, as much as is possible. Consider these few statistics. Eighty percent of children of evangelical Christians attend the government’s schools. Eighty percent of them will leave the faith. Over the last twenty years, anywhere from half a million to two million evangelical families have taught their children in their homes. The overwhelming majority of these children walk in the way that they should go when they are grown. If these numbers are accurate, we are witnessing a silent revival right here in America . Taking back the schools is a failed and worldly technique. Taking back His children, that is changing everything. When we no longer render to Caesar the things that are God’s, our children, then we can expect to see revival.