by R.C. Sproul The Relevance of Edwards's Distinguishing Marks What do these trends signify? Are we in the midst of a major revival? Or are we seeing spurious marks of revival? Here is where the revisiting of Edwards's Distinguishing Marks can be most helpful. For us to discern the presence...

Continue Reading The Spirit of Revival (pt. 2)...

In the eighteenth century, revival swept America as a Great Awakening woke thousands of Americans from spiritual slumber. While many were genuinely converted, discerning Christian leaders such as Jonathan Edwards became convinced of the need to determine how one could distinguish true revival from false. Edwards performed such a study...

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by John H. Gerstner Augustus Hopkins Strong used the analogy of the coupling that joins a train of railroad cars to a locomotive. The coupling has no power in itself; it cannot move a single car one inch. All the power is in the locomotive; but the coupling is the...

Continue Reading Justification by Faith (pt. 3)...

by John H. Gerstner The epistle to the Romans has already shown us that man is guilty before God. Their sins have incurred the wrath of God: "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness" (Romans 1:18)....

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by John H. Gerstner From Romans 1:18 to 3:20, the Apostle Paul seeks to demonstrate the universal sinfulness of men. He shows the wrath of God revealed against the heathen because they would not have God in their thinking. He shows that the nominally religious people of Israel, by their...

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by John H. Gerstner Then the Savior departed from the apostles a second time and prayed again, "O My Father, if this cup may not pass away from Me except I drink it, Thy will be done." The agony of the first prayer was not even over, but a new...

Continue Reading The Atonement (pt. 3)...

by John H. Gerstner The preview of impending doom was so terrifying that the mighty Jesus Himself asked, if it were possible, to escape it. Normally His obedience was instant and without question. Only the extreme severity of the ordeal can explain the plea: "O My Father, if it be...

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by John H. Gerstner Gethsemane was the place of Christ's exquisite torment. It is here we see the Man of Sorrows being acquainted with grief. Matthew tells us that after the last supper with His apostles, He began to be sorrowful. At the supper He had been full of joy....

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Pro Ecclesia: For the Church by Howard Q. Davis In chapter two of Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands, Paul David Tripp relates a story of a church member who called the pastor to get him to help a man. Tripp's comment to the member was, "Isn't God's love amazing? God...

Continue Reading We Don't Need Supermen...

Generation to Generation by Susan Hunt A friend gave me a plaque that proclaims: "Grandmothers are antique little girls." I don't know what the originator had in mind, but my spin is that the longer we live, the more we return to the simplicity of girlhood. I am convinced that...

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Seek Ye First by R.C. Sproul Jr. Trouble comes to the people of God. If it is not here now, it will be here soon. Those who promise that the Christian life is a breezy walk through the meadow not only have not taken up their cross and followed Him,...

Continue Reading I Will Sing an Old Song...

Tolle Lege: Take Up and Read by Keith A. Mathison When Dutch Calvinists and Arminians squared off against one another in the early part of the seventeenth century, the Calvinists won the opening battle. The controversy, however, soon spread beyond the borders of the Netherlands. Now, four hundred years later,...

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Pastor's Perspective by Bill Haynes Martin Luther, in his Table Talk #403, makes the statement that "an upright shepherd and minister must improve his flock by edification, and also resist and defend it; otherwise, if resisting be absent, the wolf devours the sheep." Resisting and defending require that a pastor-shepherd...

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Right Now Counts Forever by R.C. Sproul During the nineteenth-century potato famine in Ireland, my great-grandfather, Charles Sproul, fled his native land to seek refuge in America. He left his thatched roof and mud floor cottage in a northern Ireland village and made his way barefoot to Dublin -- to...

Continue Reading All Truth Is God's Truth ...

Truth and Consequences by Gene Edward Veith On October 10, A.D. 732 , some 80,000 Muslim cavalrymen attacked 30,000 Frankish infantrymen near Tours in present-day France. Those Muslims had already conquered Northern Africa and Spain, and they were poised to sweep over the rest of Europe. Normally, foot soldiers are...

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Coram Deo: Living Before the Face of God by Burk Parsons One could perhaps make the argument that the history of the church consists of one division after another. Nevertheless, while history is replete with ecclesiastical divisions, there is a unity that transcends all the worldly clamor and devilish confusion...

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The July edition of Tabletalk is out. This month's theme is The Eighth Century, the period of history that fell midway between the founding of the church and the time of the Protestant Reformation. The daily devotions continue our study of the book of Matthew.We don't post all of the...

Continue Reading Columns from Tabletalk Magazine, July 2008...

by John H. Gerstner What has been the influence of Christ on succeeding centuries? Shortly before His death He said, "Believe Me for the very works' sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works...

Continue Reading Jesus Christ: The God-Man (pt. 3)...

By John H. Gerstner The Deity of Christ But now we find ourselves in an extraordinary situation. If we admit, as the world does, that Christ is the perfect man, we must also admit that He is God then! "Why," you ask, "if we acknowledge Christ to be the perfect...

Continue Reading Jesus Christ: The God-Man (pt. 2)...

by John H. Gerstner When I studied at Harvard University in the 1940's, we had a very interesting professor, Dr. H. H. Cadbury, who used to attempt to introduce Christ to his classes. In attendance, he would have, in addition to the divinity school men, a number of the regular...

Continue Reading Jesus Christ: The God-Man (pt. 1)...

by John H. Gerstner Let us now apply this doctrine to ourselves. First, let me apply it to myself. This doctrine means that, though I am a minister of the gospel, I am by nature a child of wrath. Even Paul, the greatest of ministers and apostles, included himself. "We...

Continue Reading Sin Makes No Racial Distinctions (pt. 3)...

by John H. Gerstner Reinhold Niebuhr, America's distinguished neo-orthodox theologian, lectured to the students and faculty of Harvard Divinity School in 1940. He was discussing original sin and gave this domestic illustration. He son, who was then seven, had been in a neighborhood brawl. Niebuhr was inclined to finish what...

Continue Reading Sin Makes No Racial Distinctions (pt. 2)...

by John H. Gerstner Speaking of God's providence we noticed sin incidentally. We now bring it into focus. One cannot think of God's holy ways without thinking of our unholy ones. We cannot think of ourselves without thinking of our sin. Sin is the most important conviction any man can...

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Seek Ye Firstby R.C. Sproul Jr.There is no such thing as the "More Party." They do not run campaigns seeking to unseat sitting officials of the "Less Party." Both "more" and "less" need more context and less ambiguity. We need to know what we are getting more or less...

Continue Reading Kiss the Son...

International Outreachby Timothy A. DickOver the years, Ligonier Ministries has been blessed with many opportunities to provide biblical teaching resources for the church in various countries and languages. Yet, at this moment in time, unlike any other, we are perhaps on the horizon of a new reformation. We believe...

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Pastor's Perspectiveby Terry L. JohnsonDuring the Reformation era, debates raged over what things must be considered crucial to Christian faith and practice, and what could be considered adiaphora (Latin for "things indifferent"). All sides agreed that the doctrines of the Trinity, the atonement, and justification were central. But what...

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Right Now Counts Foreverby R.C. SproulThe nineteenth-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is famous for his declaration that "God is dead." That brief dictum does not give the whole story. According to Nietzsche, the cause of the Deity's demise was compassion. He said, "God is dead; He died of pity." But before...

Continue Reading Twilight of the Idols...

by John H. Gerstner Positive Providence When considering the definition of negative providence, we used Ed Wynn's comic parody of the poet. Now, considering positive providence, we consider the poet himself: There is a destiny which shapes our ends, Rough hew them though we may. The "rough hew" needs explanation....

Continue Reading God's Providence: A Two-edged Sword (pt. 3)...

Generation to Generationby Niel NielsonRecently, an acquaintance of mine gathered these statistics on the choices available today: 200 cable channels; 255 ways to order a Big Mac; 19,000 possible combinations for coffee at Starbucks and 78,998 for ice cream and toppings at Cold Stone Creamery; and more than 500,000 mathematical...

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Truth and Consequencesby Gene Edward VeithToday's postmodernists use cultural pluralism as a pretext for relativism, as if the existence of many cultures implied the existence of many truths. Many Americans embrace multiculturalism as if they had no culture of their own. In religion, pluralism has given rise to a...

Continue Reading A Good Kind of Pluralism...

Pro Ecclesia: For the Churchby Robert M. NorrisI am not used to being considered a heretic. Yet recently, when a colleague and I visited a friend who teaches theology at a famous British university, we found ourselves faced with this charge! In a conversation that had quickly turned to...

Continue Reading Praying for Church Leaders...

Tolle Lege: Take Up and Readby Keith MathisonI face something of a dilemma here that I believe C. J. Mahaney might appreciate. He has written a wonderful book in which he seeks to share insight on the practice of true humility and the conquest of pride. However, as he...

Continue Reading In All Humility...

by Roger NicoleIn modern English the words apology and apologize indicate regret because some statement or action was offensive and wrong. This is not the case for "apologetics" in theology, for that discipline is intended to manifest "a point of view is right." It is intended for those who differ...

Continue Reading God in the Dock: The Apologetics of C.S. Lewis...

by Sinclair B. FergusonNovember 22, 1963, the date of President Kennedy's assassination, was also the day C.S. Lewis died. Seven years earlier he had thus described death: "The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning." The metaphor inherent in these words is...

Continue Reading Surprised by Joy: The Life of C.S. Lewis...

For sixty years, successive generations have been helped by what C.S. Lewis wrote on the subject of pain and suffering. The sustained benefit is due in large measure to the fact that he brought to the "problem" a solid dose of Christian realism. This medicine may be more important now...

Continue Reading Pain: God's Megaphone...

Truth and Consequences by Gene Edward Veith Dante ranks right up there with Shakespeare and Homer as the greatest writers of our civilization. Though the Italian poet, who lived from 1265 to 1321, embodies the High Middle Ages, he is sometimes called a proto-reformer for his bold condemnation of the...

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Thabiti Anyabwile asks "Do You Know the One NT Figure Mentioned in the Book of Hebrews?" That was how Sinclair Ferguson started chapter 45 of his wonderful meditation on the Christian life, In Christ Alone. Do you know? I didn't either. But Sinclair gave 5 clues, by the third I...

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Generation to Generation by Ron Gleason Being a pastor has been the most humbling, challenging, fulfilling, and wonderful calling of my life. It was in the pastoral ministry that I learned -- and still am learning -- that true success is not measured by the size of your salary or...

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Seek Ye First by R.C. Sproul Jr. Every culture and subculture has its own taboos. Not all of them are the same, however. Given that we are all human, how can we explain the divergence of cultural standards? Why is it that one culture will find adultery to be a...

Continue Reading At Least I'm Honest...

Tolle Lege: Take Up and Read by Keith A. Mathison It should come as little surprise to learn that the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement of Christ has come under renewed criticism in recent decades. The Reformers dealt with such criticisms and attacks from the Socinians. Our more recent forefathers...

Continue Reading The Great Exchange...

Pastor's Perspective by Robert S. Rayburn Pride is the idolatry of the self. It is the nature of pride as competition with God -- the displacing of God by the self at the center -- that has led many Christian thinkers through the ages to regard pride (superbia) as the...

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by John H. Gerstner Negative Providence What do we mean by negative providence? Suppose we begin with the late comedian Ed Wynn's definition based on a slight alteration of some famous lines: There is a destiny that shapes our ends rough; Hew them how we may. This is negative enough,...

Continue Reading God's Providence: A Two-edged Sword (pt. 2)...

by John H. Gerstner According to the Westminster Shorter Catechism, "God's works of providence are His most holy, wise, powerful preserving and governing all His creatures and all their actions." This comprehensive statement says that God's providence encompasses all, and not merely some, of the acts of His creatures. Such...

Continue Reading God's Providence: A Two-edged Sword (pt. 1)...

Pro Ecclesia: For the Church by George Grant The heroine of My Fair Lady, Eliza Doolittle, captured the sentiment of most of us when she complained, "Words, words, words -- I am so sick of words. I get words all day through, first from him, now from you. Is that...

Continue Reading The High Call of Service...

Coram Deo: Living Before the Face of God by Burk Parsons We all certainly agree that all virtues are heavenly and that all sins are deadly. Nevertheless, certain virtues are more heavenly than others, and certain sins lead to death more quickly than other sins. While some sins are private...

Continue Reading War and Peace...

The May edition of Tabletalk is now distributed to subscribers. This month's theme is "The Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven Heavenly Virtues" and the issue includes articles written by R.C. Sproul, Thabiti Anyabwile, Robert W. Carver, Chris Donato, Ron Gleason, George Grant, Ken Jones, Jonathan Leeman, Robert S. Rayburn,...

Continue Reading Columns from Tabletalk Magazine, May 2008...

by John H. GerstnerNo One Can Be Saved Without Being a Theologian. If the above is enough to indicate that persons may have divine knowledge without being saved, then let us go on to indicate the still more pertinent truth, that no one can be saved without the knowledge...

Continue Reading Everyone Must Be a Theologian (pt. 3)...

by John H. GerstnerEveryone May Be a Theologian Without Being Saved!"But," the layman exclaims, "do you mean to tell me that if I do not have the knowledge of God I shall perish, and that if I do have the knowledge of God I will live forever? Do you mean...

Continue Reading Everyone Must Be a Theologian (pt. 2)...

Here are some notes I took on Dr. Sproul's session this afternoon at the Together for the Gospel Conference.Dr. Sproul discussed what it means that Jesus was cursed by God. Though he has studied the subject for over fifty years, he still feels like he is barely scratching the surface...

Continue Reading R.C. Sproul on the Curse Motif...

Generation to Generationby Joshua Harris When I turned twenty-one, my dad gave me this simple advice: “Find men that you want to be like and then sit at their feet.” As I launched into manhood, he was reminding me that the lessons I needed most wouldn’t be found in a...

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Pastor's Perspective by Kim Riddlebarger Of all the Reformation-era catechisms, perhaps none is as well-loved as the Heidelberg Catechism. In the opening question and answer, the personal and distinctive tone of the catechism becomes evident. “What is your only comfort in life and in death?” This is not a theoretical...

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Today is April 1--a day known also as April Fool's Day. It's as good an occasion as any to ask R.C. Sproul a question about humor. Did Jesus ever laugh? What do the Scriptures tell us about his character and sense of humor? I’ve heard some people answer this question...

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At his blog "Christians in Context" Damian Romano has posted his top ten R.C. Sproul quotes. And he has rounded up some good ones. Here is a sampling:10. Every sin is an act of cosmic treason, a futile attempt to dethrone God in His sovereign authority.9. Most Christian's salute the...

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As we look back on the weekend in which we have remembered Jesus death and rejoiced in his resurrection, this portion of R.C. Sproul's book Following Christ seemed particularly poignant.For three days God was silent. Then he screamed. With cataclysmic power God rolled the stone away and unleashed a paroxysm...

Continue Reading If a Man Die, Shall He Live Again?...

What is the significance of the shedding of blood in the atonement?by R.C. Sproul The idea that there's some intrinsic or inherent power in the blood of Jesus is a popular concept in the Christian world. It even crops up from time to time in various hymns and praise songs....

Continue Reading The Shedding of Blood...

The conference has come to an end, but we are just getting started with adding the videos to the web site. If you were not able to watch the webcasts of the sessions, you can watch them online for the rest of this week. Here are the links: Preconference Messages...

Continue Reading Ligonier National Conference - More Video...

As we approach the end of the second day of this conference, I would like to remind you that you can participate in the weekend's proceedings from wherever you are, even if you happen to be on the other side of the world. We are continually updating the conference photo...

Continue Reading Ligonier National Conference - Audio & Video...

This afternoon we finally got to hear from R.C. Sproul. He chose to speak from a few verses in Galatians 1 and 2 and said that he has probably preached this message 100 times in the past. He provided a brief defense of the importance of the doctrine of justification...

Continue Reading Ligonier National Conference - R.C. Sproul (I)...

Yesterday, in a preconference message, Joni Eareckson Tada shared "Good News in a Fallen World." She spoke again this morning and as she so often does, she prefaced her speech with a video and a song and concluded it with another song (in which she was joined by the...

Continue Reading Ligonier National Conference - Joni Eareckson Tada (II)...

The second day of the conference began with John MacArthur's second and final sermon. His topic was "Simultaneously Righteous and a Sinner" (or, to use the Latin theological term, simul iustus et peccator). He turned first to the well-known story of the raising of Lazarus and on that basis titled...

Continue Reading Ligoner National Conference - John MacArthur - We Have Been Raised But We Stink...

This year we are pleased to have Lukas VanDyke, photographer extrordinaire, serving at the conference. He has been wandering all over the campus with his cameras and we have just posted the first of many galleries of his work.You can view them here....

Continue Reading Ligonier National Conference Photo Galleries...

The Ligonier Ministries 2008 National Conference is now underway. Please consult this post if you would like to enjoy the plenary sessions via free, live webcast. Also, be sure to check back over the course of the conference for daily photo galleries. And stay tuned here for live-blog updates from...

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What is a Christian's responsibility to government?by R.C. SproulThe New Testament gives us some broad principles on how we are supposed to respond to government. For example, Romans 13 elaborates on the origin and institution of government as something that God ordains. The great theologian Augustine said that government is a...

Continue Reading Christians and Government...