Dr. R.C. Sproul closed out the conference speaking on the theme A Consuming Fire: Holiness, Wrath and Justice.
INTRODUCTION
Very few believe in the holiness of God. And if they do, few add the concept of justice to holiness. And fewer have a concept of the wrath of God. It is far more common to believe that the love of God trumps the justice and the wrath of God. We generally assume grace. We no longer think grace is amazing. We no longer think God is holy, or a God of justice, or a God who expresses wrath.
I CHRONICLES 13 – THE DEATH OF UZZAH
Dr. Sproul took us to I Chronicles 13:1-12. He noted that when he was in seminary he was taught that passages such as this, where God suddenly kills a person, demonstrate that the God of the Old Testament is incompatible with the New Testament emphasis on the love of God in the teaching of Jesus. But let’s at least look at the story.
Uzzah is driving the cart which is carrying the ark of God, and when the car tips he instictively reached out to keep the arc from falling. Now some say, “Actually, Uzzah just had a heart attack.” Others say, “This just represents the dark side of Yahweh.” But we can get some help from Numbers 4. We see that the Kohathities had an elaborate process of carrying the holy vessels using poles. The details were so that humans could never actually touch them (verse 15). Given that Uzzah had this reponsibility of driving the cart, we can infer that he was probably a Kohathite. His sin, as Jonathan Edwards once preached, was the sin of arrogance.
LEVITICUS 10 – THE DEATH OF NADAB AND ABIHU
We don’t know what was in the strange fire. But it was not offerred according to God’s command. See Gospel Worship, by Jeremiah Burroughs, for a great exposition of this text. In light of our crisis of worship, this is a book that every Christianity today needs to read.
Note that with Uzzah, David got a bit upset. And here we see that Aaron gets upset. Moses is able to calm him down by reminding him of what the Lord had said: “Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.”
But the story goes on. God (through Moses) instructs that the bodies be removed from the camp. The two deceased priests had profaned God’s camp with their false worship. Furthermore, God forbade that public lamenting take place for them (“Do not let the hair of your heads hang loose, and do not tear your clothes, lest you die.”)
SINNERS IN THE HANDS OF AN ANGRY GOD
The imagery employed in Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon Sinners In The Hands of An Angry God. In that sermon, he employed numerous metaphors, all of which had Scriptural origin. One of them is that of a dam breaking. People are storing up wrath against the day of wrath. And another is of a spider’s web, holding sinners up by a single thread. And that single thread is held by the hand of God. We rightly remember the sermon’s topic as the wrath of God. But even moreso it is a sermon about the grace of God–holding people up from the pit, and preventing their immediate destruction.
Sadly, some believe in a “god” of love from whom there is nothing to fear. But this “god” is a figment of imagination. Edwards wisely reasoned with the people of his day: “Give me one good reason you are still alive today and not dead and in hell already.” Apart from the grace of Christ, we cannot.
THAT’S NOT FAIR
Dr. Sproul recounted the story of when he was first teaching at the college level. He had 250 freshmen and he explained that there would be 5 essays to write during the semester and they all needed to be on time barring extraordinary circumstances such as a death in the family. The first deadline came, and 25 weren’t done. They begged for mercy and received it, with the warning that it shouldn’t happen again. The next time, 50 were late. And the time after that, 100 were late. Eventually, when mercy was refused, they retorted “that’s not fair.” They had totally confused mercy and justice. The first time, they were amazed by grace. The second time, they assumed it. By the third time, they demanded it as an entitlement, as an inaliable right.
CONCLUSION
Some in this room may be close to their own deaths, and to the terrors of hell thereafter. I beseech you to be covered with the righteousness of Christ and to escape for the righteous wrath of God. Receive the mercy and grace He offers to you today in Jesus Christ.
Ligonier National Conference – R.C. Sproul Jr.
R.C. Sproul Jr. is the founder of the Highlands Study Center in Mendota, Va., which seeks to help Christians live more simple, separate, and deliberate lives to the glory of God and for the building of His kingdom. Dr. Sproul travels extensively as a conference speaker and has written several books including Tearing Down Strongholds, When You Rise Up, Bound for Glory, and Biblical Economics.
Dr. Sproul Jr. began his message with a celebration of his daughter Molly’s 7th birthday (which is tomorrow). We all sang happy birthday to her. Then Dr. Sproul Jr. took us to Exodus 3, the passage in which Moses observes the burning bush. God tells Moses to go tell Pharaoh that He, God, was the one who lifted up Pharaoh.
Executive Bible Summary?
Dr. Sproul Jr. proceeded to confess that he loves to read–anything. The back of the cereal box, the Sky Mall on an airplane, anything. He mentioned a service whereby business leaders have executive summaries written for them (for various books) as they do not have much time to read. That made Dr. Sproul Jr. wonder: “Is there a market for this? I could publish executive summaries about the Bible for Christians who are too busy to read it.”
Just look at the first commandment in the Bible: “Be fruitful and multiply.” Sounds like a good executive summary. Or look at Moses; he received the Ten Commandments. Sounds like a good executive summary. Or how about Micah? He got a good executive summary: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)
But we’re New Testament Christians. Jesus told us to “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” Or Peter got one, “Feed my sheep.” So what should we do, as we have all these different executive summaries. Well, as Presbyterians, we can look to the Westminster Confession: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.”
Christians of old glorified God, but not as much in their life as after they died. You see, after we die, we see God as He is, and we can truly glorify Him. We understand that glorifying God and enjoying God is one and the same thing. (As John Piper has written, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”) And we are most satisfied in Him when we are more like Him, when we revel in His glory, when we fully become what we were made to be.
Adam and Eve glorified God prior to the Fall. What was lost in the Fall? The pinnacle of Eden became the valley of the curse. In that garden we walked with God.
Two Names For God
There are two names of God given in Exodus 3. God gives as His name I AM. But He also gives this as His name: The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. You see, God is both transcendent and near. He is mighty and awesome, but He also calls us each by name.
In my family, says Sproul Jr., we don’t do “family devotions.” Doing “family devotions” smacks of formality and duty. Instead, says Sproul Jr., when we gather before God, we do so to worship Him. The great I AM invites us to be with Him, that He might be our God, and that He might be the God of our children. And that He might lead us into great joy.
But as moderns, we tend to refuse this. It’s not practical–or so we think. Oh, but it is. One of the blessings of family worship is that it quiets our souls. It encourages our children to be still and to participate in corporate worship. This is why our children should be with us on the Lord’s Day. Meeting on the Lord’s Day reminds us of our identity as a family of faith. Meeting together for corporate worship as a family reminds us of our identity.
Marva Dawn tells us that worship is a “royal waste of time.” What does she mean? Worship, unlike our other goals, is an end in and of itself. We don’t do worship for the sake of something else. Everything else we do, we do for the sake of worship. We do it to “bring down high heaven onto our heads.”
So, how do we do this?
Doing Family Worship
Sproul Jr. wants to take us through how his family does family worship, but he doesn’t want to impose upon us his practice as the only way to do it. His family practices family worship right after the evening meal (they used to do it right before the children went to bed). After supper, he will ask the children, “Please gather the things for worship.” A child will gather the books and present them to their father.
They begin with their catechism verse. A catechism consists of a series of questions and answers. They start with a short one (50 questions and very brief answers). When they all learned it, they all went out to ice cream. Then, they moved onto the Westminster Shorter Chatecism. When everyone learned that, they all went skiing.
They are currently working through a particular Psalm. Then they read a Scripture and Dr. Sproul Jr. gives a 20-30 second sermon. And the emphasis of the sermon is that whoever the sinner (or foolish one) was in the story, that person is like us. And then Dr. Sproul Jr. prays for his family, after which they sing some of the songs that are regularly a part of their corporate worship at church. Only one child-recommended song per night.
Not very time consuming. Not a duty–a delight.
What to do if you’ve not been doing this?
Fathers, gather your family and apologize for failing them in this way. Tell them that Jesus came to suffer the wrath of God for failures such as this. Pray and sing in thanksgiving for God’s forgiveness for that sin.
But what if you’re too busy? Then stop being too busy. What is it that could possibly be more important? The transcendent God is inviting you to walk with Him in the cool of the evening. Will you say to Him: Thanks for the invitation, but I’ve got an important meeting? Nobody is too busy to draw near to the living God. Nobody is too busy to give up that which is less rewarding for the Source of all joy. Our problem is, as C.S. Lewis said, that we’re too easily pleased. We don’t properly esteem the value and the joy of what God sets before us.
God is delighted when we delight in Him. Suffer the children to come to Him. We can do this with joy now, because we will be doing it forever.