Believing God - Chapter 2 Our Heavenly Father Loves Us

R. C. Sproul, Jr. and other prominent godly men like him tend to struggle with a familiar problem. How do we handle the praise of men? We cannot deny the gifts, accomplishments, or works of such people. We are called to do them. God says in Matthew 5:16, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Further in Ephesians 2:10 He says, "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." The people of Sproul's circle are most learned of the Scriptures. As such, they are to use them according to II Timothy 3:16-17, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."

Thus is the beginning of this chapter rightly handled as the author relates the story of a rather difficult introduction. Our praise is not of men, but of God. Not of our good works that we are called to, but to the glory of God. Indeed we are gifted, accomplished, and full of good works. But all is for naught if we exclude God.

And that is precisely what gets us into trouble as this chapter explores the love of God. How quickly we forget it when our eyes are upon anything else, anyone else than God. I was reminded of that this morning by the Holy Spirit. While I was not guilty of shedding praise and worship on another, I was guilty of omission of God over a period of a few days.

Outwardly there was nothing wrong going on. Nothing at least that anyone could point to. But there were two things missing. One external and one internal. Externally missing were the good works. They were missing not because they didn't get on my calendar, but because of the internal situation.

The end of my confession and prayer this morning was to know of God what good works to do today, at the very moment. He gladly answered. Just before that part was a cry for God to show me those internal things, those hidden things that keep me from Him. These are things that in outward expression seem perfectly normal to me, my family, and the world. No one would question them. But God does.

The query went something like this: What internal "television" is in your mind that distracts you from fully paying attention to Me" Just as the TV can distract me from listening to my wife or anyone else for that matter, there are little conversations and live-action pictures going on in my mind that distract me from God. I personally cannot listen to and participate in two conversations at once so one of them has to be ignored (though I give a pretty good outward impression of accomplishing both).

When I turn inward, I listen to my own thoughts, follow my own ways. Yes, God says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9)

So God asked me, "What is your desire?" I said, "I hunger and thirst for righteousness. My desire is to see you." Psalm 27:4 comes to mind, "One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple." "I want to be One with you right now, just as Jesus says we are."

And immediately it was so, upon the name of Jesus and the boldness to enter God's presence through Jesus' blood. And then I knew the love of God.

Here is where the truth of Sproul's words of this chapter ring clearest. He says, "Perhaps the soundest escape route is to affirm the obvious. God’s character is such that He cannot ultimately love that which is unlovely. And we, in ourselves, are decidedly unlovely. Christ, however, is altogether lovely. Thus, what He loves in us, that we might be called His children, is Christ in us. So when the text says He loves us, it really means He loves His Son. Once again, it’s all true. But what is likewise true is that we are in union with His Son. Our union with Him is not a mere legal fiction, but has a reality grounded in reality. It is so real that not only are we allowed to be called His children, but as John tells us in the very next verse, “Beloved, we are God’s children now” (1 John 3:2a, emphasis added). God our Father really loves us because He really loves Him, and we are really in union with Him. Our calling then, for the rest of our lives, and on into eternity, is to seek to get our hearts and our minds around this staggering reality that, if we are in Christ, then the God of all the universe actually, truly, really, emotionally loves us, and loves us as His children."

He goes on to describe a variety of terms to help us understand the essence of God's love. He writes of adoption, covenants, and inheritance. These are all outward evidences of God's love for us. We need to pay attention to them. But we must never let go of the internal reality of the basis of that love as just described above. Should we do so, we end up back at the beginning of the chapter. Our eyes are on the external, the praise of men and the works of men.

God's love for us is hidden in the life of Jesus Christ in us. Jesus prayed to His Father in John 17 that we all may be One with Him and the Father just as the two of them are. God HAS to answer that prayer. As Sproul says in conclusion, ours is simply to believe the reality that "...what will delight us into eternity, is God
Himself. He is His greatest possession, and as His heirs we will inherit Him."

Believing God - Chapter One

I was not disappointed. Chapter one is all about Scripture and thus it is well stocked with Scripture. To the point, it's all about the fact that we really don't believe Scripture. We say we do. We're utterly convinced. Sproul points out a few key reasons that hit right home why we really don't believe.

First and foremost is sin. Our problem is local, right in our very own hearts. Sin is not bounded by time, culture, or environment. It started very nearly in the beginning and has been on the loose ever since. Sin takes its natural course of decay and has no respect for the occasional upticks in this world. Neither the Industrial Revolution, the Enlightenment, or the Reformation will ever make sin or its consequences go away. I hope all readers of the book get this point and go no further until they do. We must become completely convinced of the futility of education and effort to help us become better people or better students of God's Word.

In fact, there is one element of our culture brought on by the rebellion in the Garden and lately fueled by Darwinism. Sadly, even Christians adopt this myth as firm belief and call it sancification. The evolutionists call it survival of the fittest. In the world of business it is called continuous improvement. In the Garden, the devil called it "you shall be as gods."

We really do believe that we are getting better. We really do believe that if we could just get back to the good old days prior to the 60's, or during the height of the Reformation, or some other imagined glorious day, that things would be better. And so we strive to get there by any means and we justify it by saying it is God's will. But God says we are not to wrestle against flesh and blood. God says that the wages of sin is death. Period. We will get no better in this life. Our bodies will die. Our old man of sin and death will be just as wicked and deceitful and stinking rotten until the day we die. There is not one bit of us that will improve or get better.

We are only as good as the One Who indwells us. And that work is finished. I won't go into what sanctification really is here. It is not self-improvement however. We don't get more spiritual and less sinful as we go on with Jesus. Do we learn more? Yes. Do we get to know Him better? Yes. Do we sin less and less? Hopefully. As students of the Word, we do increase in something. Sproul calls it "competence" or "completeness" according to II Timothy 3:16. Completeness for the purpose of doing the good works that God calls us to do.

We simply make the mistake of thinking that these works are on an inclining set of stairs. Each level marks a higher plane of maturity, spirituality, or again, sanctification. Yet the honest Christian you can imagine at the highest elevation will fall just as hard as the newborn Christian with the onset of just one sin. It is sin that makes us all equal. Likewise, it is Jesus who makes us all equal as well. Among and within are selves, there is to be no comparison (see II Corinthians 10:12).

Sproul does a great job of pointing out this reality in many other different ways in this chapter. I added my two cents. Readers would do well to allow the Holy Spirit to plumb their depths to shed light on what things hinder them in this area. Be prepared to experience some pain. But allow God to incise these bits of deceit and then forsake them all for the excellency of knowing Jesus.

At this point, we should take the advice of another godly man, Oswald Chambers. Here are his words in today's meditation from My Utmost for His Highest, "Are you prepared to let God take you into union with Himself, and pay no more attention to what you call the great things? Are you prepared to abandon entirely and let go? The test of abandonment is in refusing to say - "Well, what about this?" Beware of suppositions. Immediately you allow - What about this? - it means you have not abandoned, you do not really trust God. Immediately you do abandon, you think no more about what God is going to do. Abandon means to refuse yourself the luxury of asking any questions. If you abandon entirely to God, He says at once, "Thy life will I give thee for a prey." The reason people are tired of life is because God has not given them anything, they have not got their life as a prey. The way to get out of that state is to abandon to God. When you do get through to abandonment to God, you will be the most surprised and delighted creature on earth; God has got you absolutely and has given you your life. If you are not there, it is either because of disobedience or a refusal to be simple enough."

And that is R. C. Sproul, Jrs. point. We must be simple. So simple that we believe the simple truth of God's Word. But we will never get that way until we obey and allow His Holy Spirit to shed the myths, unbeliefs, assumptions, and suppositions from our minds and hearts. Sometimes we're just too smart for our own good because we think we're getting better at this Christian life. But Jesus simply said, "Abide in me."

Believing God

I have entered into an agreement with the publishers at Reformation Trust. My part of the agreement states that I will publish on my blog an review of one of their current book listings. In this case, I chose R. C. Sproul, Jr's. latest, Believing God. There are twelve chapters along with a Foreword and Preface. Here then is a review of that first portion, with twelve posts remaining.

Both the Foreword and Preface were written from personal experience. Ray Comfort shared the former and R. C. Jr. the latter. I sense that these two experiences in and of themselves are not the key to the real depth of this book. R. C. states, "I knew I needed to learn better to believe God, not because my life was moving from comfort to ease, but because God—for His own good purposes, and for my good as well—was putting me through a time of significant challenge. In other words, I do not find it easy to believe God’s promises because He’s given me an easy life. Instead, I know I need to believe God’s promises because He has, wisely, sent me some hard providences."

On the contrary, I have heard many times over the years that a Christian with a life of ease sometimes has a harder time believing God. I think both positions are valid as Agur said in Proverbs 30:7-9, "Two things have I required of thee; deny me them not before I die: Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain."

However, experience is not the key to belief regardless of the difficulty or ease thereof. God is sovereign and He will use whatever means He desires to conform us to His image. That's the point R. C. makes as he ties his life experience to the discussion surrounding one of his former books, Almighty Over All.

That point may be difficult to capture even with R. C.'s explanation of the term "Bulverism". That little clue leads me to believe that Jr. writes in the same vein as Sr.. Readers are likely to encounter a lot of big terms and fortunately they come with explanations. Gentlemen, the laity thanks you.

Despite the big words and the experiential ticklers, I know I will enjoy this book. Sproul is a student of the Word and my little peek forward shows me I will not be disappointed with the Word in abundance to encourage me to believe God with my whole heart.