Tag: sproul

Posted in theology

Why aren’t things beautiful anymore?

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

EPrata photo

I saw on Twitter a while ago the question posed: “Why don’t we make things like this any more?”

The tweet author presented photos of ornate and beautiful buildings: cathedrals, skyscrapers like Empire State and Chrysler building, Taj Mahal and the like.

Why don’t we build beautiful buildings any more? I wonder that too. I searched and found this video which I think explains it in a reasonable way. Of course, his is not the only opinion, but he did make sense. It is a 10-minute video with nice graphics.

Why don’t we build beautiful buildings any more?

Others have remarked on this idea, too:

Culture Faith & Beauty @cultrfaith: A beautiful building from an era when we built beautiful places.

But it’s not just buildings. I mean, buildings are important. They are our landscape; the silent, insentient forms populating our visible spaces. I personally believe we need beauty in our lives and that includes buildings plus everything else we see. Anything we see: art, fashion, interior décor, exterior architecture. Beauty. We need it.

RC Sproul thought the same. He was big on “Goodness, Truth, and Beauty.” A while ago when I searched for a teaching on beauty, his was just about the only one I found. It was a course called “Recovering the Beauty of the Arts.”

In that course, Sproul said,

“In the history of the Christian church, goodness, truth, and beauty have remained the three most important concepts. Unfortunately, we have historically overemphasized one at the expense of the others. Some stress ethics, others stress doctrine, and still others stress beauty. But rightly viewed, all three are to be emphasized, since they are all interdependent and interrelated.”

We see that played out in Psalm 27 when David noted the origin of beauty:

One thing I have asked from Yahweh, that I shall seek:
That I may dwell in the house of Yahweh all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of Yahweh
And to inquire in His temple.
Psalm 27:4

In 1 Chronicles 16:8–36, David the king mentions God’s glory often—a word that refers to His majesty, worth, and splendor. He then calls on God’s people to worship the Lord in the beauty of His holiness. We are to worship the Beautiful, said Sproul.

Ascribe to Yahweh, O sons of the mighty,
Ascribe to Yahweh glory and strength.
Ascribe to Yahweh the glory of His name;
Worship Yahweh in the splendor of holiness.
Psalm 29:1-2

Ponder the word “splendor”. It means grandeur, majestic. We don’t really use the word splendor in common conversation much any more. Growing up in the 1960s, there was a song called Love is a Many Splendored Thing. Aside from the Bible, that’s the only time I heard the word in secular life.

Sproul said further of Christians and Art: “While the Christian church has produced some of the finest artists in history, the modern church has tended to marginalize artists by implying that their vocation is somehow more worldly.“

True.

Art can be ugly, you know. Yes, I know that art is subjective, but you know ugly when you see it. Witness the reaction of the populace of my city when the City installed public art that was pretty much universally denounced as ugly. One local Redditor posted, “Can we all commiserate on how terrible this is?” and hundreds of comments ensued. Then, uh-oh, this news story about this same installation: “Controversial downtown artwork vandalized”. Its ugliness prompted someone to take negative action. We need beauty. Ugliness offends us.

Or how about the MLK statue recently installed in Boston’s Common, Slammed as “The Ugliest Thing Ever.” People tend to take beauty for granted…until ugliness comes in and by contrast, and we mourn the ugly in our need for the beautiful.

The tweet that got me started on this personal musing on beauty and the increasing lack of it in the world, is the tweet author’s opinion that the beauty we mourn the loss of is not exclusive to buildings and art forms like songs and 2-dimensional art, but in people, too.

He had noted that it seems that people dislike going outside into the world now because of lack of aesthetics in people. Not their physical looks, but faces, dress, and attitude. There seem to be so many ugly dressed people, ugly character, and ugly speech.

I was surprised when I went to Italy for the first time in 1990. Maybe things are different now, but when I traveled there, I saw that everyone out and about was dressed beautifully. From head to toe, men and women were polished. They took care and pride in their appearance. Not surprising, Italians through the ages have always loved beauty and they have consistently crafted gorgeous buildings, appealing art, and high fashion. They took beauty seriously.

But I believe we are becoming increasingly inured to the ugliness around us, accepting it and not even noticing its impact on our soul.

Remember, satan always tries to beautify sin. As sin increases (as the Lord lifts His hand of restraint) people’s sin also rises closer to the surface. In the past, moral pressure from society and also a Christian veneer everywhere kept people’s sin more hidden. Now, it is clearly everywhere, including on people’s faces. The rising sin in individuals and in society as a whole is seen on faces.

I am always reminded of Cain’s face when God accepted Abel’s offering and rejected Cain’s,

And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering; but for Cain and his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his face was gloomy. Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why is your face gloomy? If you do well, will your face not be cheerful? (Genesis 4:4a-7b NASB).

I like the KJV of verse 6: “And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?”

Think about that connection: as sin rises, the face falls. Cain was the Bible’s first angry, depressed man. And it showed on his face.

COUNTENANCE One’s face as an indication of mood, emotion, or character (Gen. 4:5–6; Prov. 15:13; Eccles. 7:3; Mark 10:22). Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary.

How about today’s world? With sin rising, don’t people look more upset/angry/depressed/cranky, etc? I believe they do.

Matthew Henry says of the Genesis 4 verse and Cain’s face:

God puts Cain himself upon enquiring into the cause of his discontent, and considering whether it were indeed a just cause: Why is thy countenance fallen? Observe, 1. That God takes notice of all our sinful passions and discontents. There is not an angry look, an envious look, nor a fretful look, that escapes his observing eye. 2. That most of our sinful heats and disquietudes would soon vanish before a strict and impartial enquiry into the cause of them. “Why am I wroth? Is there a real cause, a just cause, a proportionable cause for it? Why am I so soon angry? Why so very angry, and so implacable?”

Henry, M. (1994). Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible: complete and unabridged in one volume (p. 17). Hendrickson.

Mostly everyone is angry now. It shows.

Absent the Holy Spirit inside us, people will continue to look (and speak and dress) in increasingly ugly ways. One good thing about this, the only thing I think, is that as their faces fall further and ugliness rises, the ONE and ONLY place where beauty reigns is in Jesus. His light is splendorous.

Goodness, Truth, & Beauty Ligonier (Harry Reeder)

In Christian theology, beauty demands to be noticed essay

The Liberated Imagination: Thinking Christianly About the Arts, by Leland Ryken book

Beauty and the Beholder: A Christian View of Aesthetics and Art (outline)

Art and the Bible, Francis Schaeffer (very short book)

Posted in theology

The Fickle Finger of Fate

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

I was listening to Dr. RC Sproul explain the Doctrine of Concurrence in a 2004 sermon. He opened with an explanation of it, and after a short while of preaching, mentioned “The Fickle Finger of Fate”. The audience, ones of a certain age, lol, laughed.

I think he was referencing a famous skit during a 1960s variety comedy show called “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In”. The whole title of the skit was the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate.

“That dubious honor—which became a weekly staple of the series—was awarded to public figures, corporations, and government agencies, for their many questionable achievements” said one website. Laugh-In was a sort of a cross between Saturday Night Live and Monty Python, and was very popular for its time.

Of course, the fickle finger of fate phrase preceded that television show. People who don’t believe in God refer to seemingly random happenings as fate or chance.

There is no chance.

Literally, there is no such thing as chance, or fate, or randomness, in the events happening on earth. God is in control of ALL of it, down to the very last dust mote. As Sproul has famously said, “There is not one maverick molecule in the universe.”

John Murray has said,

1: There is a Providence
“Providence is an old fashioned word and has a strange ring to modern ears. Yet when we break it down into its parts the meaning becomes clear. It comes from the Latin video ‘to see’ and pro ‘before’, meaning ‘to see beforehand’. In our lives we plan beforehand but we do not see what is going to happen. God has planned everything for His creation and because He is the sovereign God everything will come to pass as He purposed. Providence is that marvelous working of God by which all the events and happenings in His universe accomplish the purpose He has in mind.” ~Source: Behind a Frowning Providence

Surely, rolling the dice or casting lots is chance…right?

No.

Proverbs 16:33 says The lot is cast into the lap, But its every judgment is from Yahweh.

The casting of the lot is an extraordinary or unusual request made to God that He would reveal His will in an important controversy which cannot be resolved by either wisdom, skill, or strength. It pertains to an issue that must be resolved, as there would otherwise be danger or great disadvantage to the country, church, or individual. By Wilhelmus à Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service

Before I was saved I spent a lot of mental time pondering why things are the way they are…why things happen…the nature of ‘chance’. Far from being totally clueless about these concepts, non-believers do think of them. They know there is a God but they suppress that truth in unrighteousness, and continue on their way thinking it is all chance or fate.

We have will and moral agency. We decide to do things, either aligned with God’s holy standards, or not. Witness Joseph’s brothers, who hated Joseph and put him in a pit, plotted to murder him, and then sold him to the slave traders.

Yet Joseph said at the end of those long decades, they meant it for evil but God meant it for good. God meant it to happen. How do those two things work together to accomplish God’s plan? And what of tornadoes and hurricanes, i.e. ‘natural’ disasters?

Sproul explained that the doctrine of Concurrence (or confluence) can be seen in an analogy of the Three Rivers merging together in Pittsburgh.

The Monongahela River and the Allegheny River flow along in their individual riverbanks for hundreds of miles then merge to form the Ohio River.

The Allegheny River (left) and the Monongahela River (right) join to form the Ohio here.
The West End Bridge crosses the Ohio in the foreground. Source

Though each river does its own thing according to its own nature, they eventually and inexorably flow into the mighty Ohio. What man does, man does, but unknowingly he is being directed, even by use of his own nature, to the flow God wants to direct it. Man’s actions and God’s will create a confluence that is part of God’s perfect plan. This same thing happens with ‘natural disasters’ such as floods, hurricanes, lightning and so on. God is in control of it all.

Even the adversities and disasters come upon a person’s life.

When adversity comes into our lives we tend to react in one of two ways. We may say that it is from a source other than God and He has no power to stop it; or we may say it is an evidence of God’s anger against us. Either way we are guilty of casting aspersions on the character of our Father and consequently of perverting our attitude to Him. John Murray

There is no such thing as a problem-free Christianity. God ordains all that will occur, including all that will occur to me, before I was even born. Before the first person – Adam – was even created.

Sadly such teaching seems far removed from the outlook that prevails in large parts of the Church today. The impression is given that the purpose of the Christian life is enjoyment. Everything that stands in the way of that is to be eliminated. People are looking for a problem-free Christianity. Murray.

We can’t say “God did good to me” or “God did evil to me”. All that God does is good. All that God does is perfect. All that God does is to the good of those who love Him, even and especially, the ‘dark providences’. There is no fickle finger of fate. There is only the steady and assured hand of God, doing all that He sees fit.

The hurricane, the car crash, the Down’s syndrome, the ‘untimely’ death of a young one, a miscarriage, are all part of God’s plan. Also part of His plan is our prospering, our sanctification, the joys of a newborn, the uniting of two into one through marriage, His assurance of salvation and eternity with Him, and all the other blessings He gives.

Our sins and evil doings both pre-and-post salvation are also absorbed into His plan and used for the good of those who love Him. As an Allegheny River flowing along, we don’t know there is an Ohio River ahead into which we eventually flow, banked by His rod and staff, nurtured and cleansed, until we reach the purest fountain of all: Jesus in His heaven.

Posted in books, theology

It’s payday, so that means…buying books!

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

The last day of the month is payday, so the first day of the month I scour the interwebs for good deals on books. They are not only for my consumption, but to have on hand to give away. I love a good book ministry, and I want to be active in offering credible and edifying resources to women, both online and in real life. Part of discernment is choosing good materials from which to study, and I enjoy helping women in this way. It’s a satisfying feeling when I put a good book into the hands of a sister.

I was listening to a clip from John MacArthur about “Dumbing Down the Message“, and in that short clip, he mentioned he was writing a book called “Why One Way?” (2002). I was not familiar with that one from him. Defending the exclusivity of Jesus as the one way to heaven was important in 2002 and even more so now. I became interested in the book, and wandered over to Amazon to browse it. It was $5, so I bit the bait and placed the order.

Ligonier has a Friday $5 sale. Several of their shorter, one-topic paperbacks are always inexpensive, but these were on sale today for $1.88. I bought:

Can I Have Joy in My Life? by RC Sproul
Are People Basically Good? by RC Sproul
Can I Lose My Salvation? by RC Sproul

We know that the Bible itself is the best material in the universe to study. But God raised up men to write commentaries and books and to develop teaching series. These things are perfectly OK to use in aiding your understanding of God. If you are reading your Bible and attending a good church, don’t listen to anyone who disparages good and edifying materials by saying “don’t study ‘man’s words'”. God raised up these men to write words that contribute to the body of information available to the saints.

So what do you do to help younger sisters in the faith access good ministries and materials? What materials have proven useful for you in your growth and education?

Posted in discernment, Uncategorized

Weepers and gnashers: the importance of examining ourselves

Posted on by elizabethprata

I saw this clip on Todd Friel’s Wretched Youtube page last night and it was extremely moving to me. It was also convicting. It DID spur me to check myself and examine as to whether I am in the faith.

This is important to do, because as the video title suggests, there will be two types of people in hell. The two types are based on the verse from Matthew 13:50, where at the end of the age, angels will

throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

By the way, when you study angels you notice how active they are in executing all God’s commands, especially in Revelation. Anyway, in the clip, Dr Sproul explains what the weeping and what gnashing of teeth is.

The weepers are weeping because they were self-deceived all along and were not saved when they thought they were. Jesus will declare to them, “Depart from me you workers of iniquity, I never knew you.” (Matthew 7:21-23). Hence the urgency to check one’s self to see if we are in the faith. (2 Corinthians 13:5).

The gnashers are angry. They refuse to acknowledge God for who He is, even while they are justly tormented in the fires of hell. How can this be, one might wonder, when the entire lake of fire has been prepared by God for the devil and his angels, and the unforgiven sinners? The fires are real, they are in them. How can they not acknowledge God?

Revelation gives us a clue as to the depth of sin and the anger at God’s authority. Even while they were alive and under punishment of God’s plagues, they did not repent. Revelation 9:20-21 has the first instance. The Lord sent an angel to open the pit and release hordes and billions of demons, which were so many they clouded the sun upon their release. The demons were given authority to plague mankind with sores and pain. A third of all mankind is killed! Further billions will be laying around writhing at the sting of demons, and yet-

The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, 21 nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.

To make the depth of their depravity even more pointed, the next verse from Revelation shows clearly that they KNOW it is God sending the plagues, and they did not repent. Instead, they cursed his very name!

They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory. (Revelation 16:9).

And again in verse 11 when another plague was sent, they did not repent but instead cursed the name of God again. Instead, they began assembling at Armageddon to fight him!

This all goes to show the power of sin. The power of sin to delude us as to its power. It can blind us. Am I self-deceived? Am I not in the faith? Will I hear those dread words ‘depart from me?’ Will I be weeping?

Please watch the short video and ponder the gravity of it all. The cross of Jesus split history. It split the whole of humankind into two types of people- saved and unsaved. It split the world into Gospel-loving and hell-bound. The cross stands alone as the point of beginning or the point of departure.

There will be two types of people in hell…

 

I thank God that there are and were men to preach the truth, even the unpleasant truths of scripture, such as hell, self-delusion, and false conversion. It’s important. Now, how do we examine one’s self? Further resources are listed below.

Sermon series:

Undoubtedly the sincere claims people make are sometimes far from reality. As chilling as that thought may be, there are countless well-meaning people who believe they’re saved, but they aren’t. Could you or someone you know be one of them? How do you know your faith is built on a solid foundation? Or is that something you can ever know this side of eternity?
Determine for yourself whether you are a Christian. John MacArthur shows you how to assess your spiritual condition in Examine Yourself.

If you don’t want to go through a series of sermons, here is a 15-page free booklet called Is it Real? 11 Biblical Tests of Salvation.

If you don’t want to read a 15 page booklet, here is a 5-page free booklet called Examine Yourself.

If you don’t want to read 5 pages, here is a 515 word essay from GotQuestions on What does it mean to examine yourself?

If you don’t want to read 500 words to examine yourself, then I direct you back up to the top to re-watch the clip, where there will be two types of people in hell. I’m not saying that if you don’t follow through in looking at these particular resources you’l go to hell, but I’m emphasizing that the power of sin to delude us is great and must be constantly watched against. There is nothing more important than checking one’s self to make sure we are not one of the two types. It’s the best thing you could do all day or for all eternity. 🙂 If nothing else, you will receive assurance! This illustration by artist Boris Sajtinac is all too vivid!

apostate church by boris sajtinac

Believe me, I checked myself immediately after watching the clip. I know the power of sin to delude me is too great. I’ve seen it happen to others and I know it dwells inside myself. Please, pray and check, and be assured, dear sister.

 

Posted in discernment, Uncategorized

Lucky Dipping

Posted on by elizabethprata

In RC Sproul’s class called Knowing Scripture, in lesson 4, “Literal Interpretation,” Sproul taught against a certain popular method of decision making he calls “lucky dipping.”

In this method, when the believer wants to hear from God or wants to make a decision, they ask God to lead and guide them, and then they open the book and let their finger or their eye fall on a particular passage. They read the passage and then rest on it as their “answer” to their problem. Sproul said that this is a spiritualistic method of interpretation that rips verses from the Bible’s context. He said,

“God did not inspire passages of Scripture many years ago to tell us answers totally unrelated to the literal meaning originally intended. God does use Scripture to speak to us, but the message is always consistent with the literal interpretation.” Sproul, Knowing God

He gave an example of a hypothetical believer who asked God to lead him. He opened his Bible and read Matthew 27:5, ‘And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself.’

The audience laughed. Sproul went on. He said that the person didn’t like the ‘answer’ at all, muttering ‘That can’t be right’. He repeated, ‘Lord, lead me’, and opened the Bible and dipped again, landing on Luke 10:37. “You go and do likewise.”

Sproul’s exaggerated example reveals the ridiculousness of using the Bible like a Magic 8 Ball.

I think we can all agree that dipping is unwise and we should avoid it. Sometimes when pastors preach exclusively in the topical method, they can tend to ‘lucky dip’, too. Not that they use it as a method for finding personally tailored advice, but as a method for coming at the scriptures with a topical agenda in mind.

But if topical preaching is the main method of preaching and teaching, rather than expositional verse-by-verse, then a lazy tendency can creep in. Sometimes the leader can handle the scriptures carelessly, selecting different verses from different Testaments or different literary genres to support their point. With a careful pastor who normally exposits, occasional topical preaching can be fine or even necessary. Sometimes the congregation needs clarity on an issue, especially if there has been a national or local tragedy, or if there has been a particular problem in the membership that is causing confusion or division.

But if a teacher or pastor continually preaches topically, then lucky dipping could become a problem. If the pastor doesn’t take the care that’s necessary, the sermon could simply become a mere listing of of verses disconnected from the overall argument.

And back to the original statement about laymen doing the lucky dip. If a pastor or teacher teaches topically all the time, taking verses from here, there, and everywhere, or worse, from all different translations in order to support the topic, he or she is actually teaching his congregants to lucky dip. With less training than the teacher, the church member might say, ‘Well, he/she goes all over the place with the verses, it must be OK if I do too’. And then you wind up with people who might eventually use the scriptures as a Magic 8 Ball, divining God’s will or manipulating His word to make it say what it doesn’t say.

It’s admittedly easier to open the Bible and find the one verse that will seem to help for the moment, rather than setting down to carefully study a passage in context. That is why a lazy tendency can creep in. Resist that. And resist following teachers who do that all the time. The Bible is God’s own word to humankind, the only supernatural message we have ever received with purity and unimpeachable truth. Handle with care.

I argue that the primary reason we misinterpret the Bible is not because the Holy Spirit has failed to do His work, but because we have failed to do ours. Essential Truths of the Christian Faith by R. C. Sproul

Clipboard
Sing to tune of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, “We don’t need no divination…”
EPrata photo