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To me, there is nothing more comforting than knowing that there is a God of providence who is aware not only of every one of my transgressions but of every one of my tears, every one of my aches, and every one of my fears.
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R.C. Sproul |
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5999ac9
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It is important that we understand that God manifests no enmity toward us. He has never broken a promise. He has never violated a covenant. He has never sworn a vow to us that He failed to pay. He has never treated a human being in this world unjustly. He has never violated us as creatures. In short, He has kept His side of the relationship perfectly. But we have violated Him. We are the ones who violate the creature-Creator relationship.
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R.C. Sproul |
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with an analysis of the chaotic situation of modern culture. Even secular writers and thinkers are calling for some sort of basic agreement
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R.C. Sproul |
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a6b29c1
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These "prophets of doom" point out that man's destructive capability increased from 1945 to 1960 by the same ratio as it did from the primitive weapons of the Stone Age to the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The thawing"
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R.C. Sproul |
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5b9abc1
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It taught that the letters that make up the word joy stand for "Jesus," "others," and "yourself," and the lesson was that the secret to joy is to put Jesus first, others second, and yourself third."
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R.C. Sproul |
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what basis should we make these decisions? That's where the "ethical theories" come in. The Christian"
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R.C. Sproul |
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a4b627b
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The English word "ethic" or "ethics" comes from the Greek word ethos. The word "morals" or "morality" comes from the word mores. The difference is that the ethos of a society or culture deals with its foundational philosophy, its concept of values, and its system of understanding how the world fits together. There is a philosophical value system that is the ethos of every culture in the world. On the other hand, mores has to do with the cus..
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R.C. Sproul |
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Ligonier Ministries, an international multimedia ministry based in Lake Mary, Florida. He also serves as senior minister of preaching and teaching
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R.C. Sproul |
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Sometimes we struggle to grasp the biblical view of joy because of the way it is defined and described in Western culture today. In particular, we often confuse joy with happiness. In the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:3-11), according to the traditional translations, Jesus said: "Blessed are the poor in spirit.... Blessed are those who mourn.... Blessed are the meek ..." (vv. 3-5, emphasis added), and so on. Sometimes, however, translators adopt the ..
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R.C. Sproul |
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When human beings failed in obedience to the law of God, God did not just annihilate them. He gave them a promise of future redemption, and He covered their nakedness, which foreshadowed the ultimate covering of our spiritual nakedness that is accomplished by the garments of the righteousness of Christ.
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R.C. Sproul |
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But, someone will say, does God not know, even without being reminded, both in what respect we are troubled and what is expedient for us, so that it may seem in a sense superfluous that he should be stirred up by our prayers-as if he were drowsily blinking or even sleeping until he is aroused by our voice? But they who thus reason do not observe to what end the Lord instructed his people to pray, for he ordained it not so much for his own s..
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R.C. Sproul |
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ministry as a professor at several leading theological seminaries. He is the author of more than sixty
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R.C. Sproul |
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we cannot escape the fact that at the very heart of the Christian faith is the truth that this world is not our home. Our final destination still lies ahead.
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R.C. Sproul |
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Lake Mary, Florida. He also serves as senior minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew's in Sanford, Florida,
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R.C. Sproul |
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Dualism is on a collision course with Christianity. The Christian faith has no stock in dualism. Satan may be opposed to God, but he is by no means equal to God. Satan is a creature; God is the Creator. Satan is potent; God is omnipotent. Satan is knowledgeable and crafty; God is omniscient. Satan is localized in his presence; God is omnipresent. Satan is finite; God is infinite. The list could go on. But it is clear from Scripture that Sat..
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R.C. Sproul |
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So, Nietzsche said, "Life is meaningless, but have courage anyway." Jesus also called His people to be courageous in the face of difficulty, adversity, and hostility, but He did not call them to a groundless courage. As we know, Jesus told His disciples, "Take heart" (John 16:33), or, as some translations put it, "Be of good cheer." However, He did not simply tell them to take heart for the sake of taking heart. He gave them a reason why th..
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R.C. Sproul |
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Only if we believe God can we maintain joy in the midst of hardship.
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R.C. Sproul |
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Where God is not respected, it is inevitable that His image-bearers will also suffer a loss of respect.
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R.C. Sproul |
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What prayer most often changes is the wickedness and the hardness of our own hearts. That alone would be reason enough to pray, even if none of the other reasons were valid or true.
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R.C. Sproul |
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We can take comfort from the fact that God knows our hearts and hears our unspoken petitions as well as the words that emanate from our lips. Whenever we are unable to express the deep feelings and emotions of our souls or when we are
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R.C. Sproul |
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One might pray and not be a Christian, but one cannot be a Christian and not pray.
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R.C. Sproul |
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Our divine vocation is not ultimately to suffering, but to a hope that triumphs over suffering. It is the hope of our future inheritance with Christ. This hope is no mere wish or idle longing of the soul. It is a hope that is rooted in the exceedingly great power of God. It is a hope that cannot fail. For those who embrace it, this hope will never bring shame or disappointment. The hope of eternal joy in the presence of Christ, a hope that ..
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R.C. Sproul |
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Prayer prompts and nurtures obedience, putting the heart into the proper "frame of mind" to desire obedience."
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R.C. Sproul |
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arrived,
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R.C. Sproul |
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We fail in our duty to study God's Word not so much because it is difficult to understand, not so much because it is dull and boring, but because it is work.
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R.C. Sproul |
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We are debtors who cannot pay, yet we have been released from the threat of debtors' prison. It is an insult to God for us to withhold forgiveness and grace from those who ask us, while claiming to be forgiven and saved by grace ourselves.
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R.C. Sproul |
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All we who are human partake of the earthly nature of Adam. We are children of the dust. Our bodies suffer from all the weaknesses and frailties that belong to the earth. Our resurrected bodies will be tabernacles made in heaven. In the heavenly body, there will be no room for cancer or heart disease. The curse of the fall will be removed. We will be clothed after the image and likeness of the new Adam, the heavenly Man. Yes, there will sti..
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R.C. Sproul |
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The body of Christ is a group of people who live daily in the context of forgiveness.
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R.C. Sproul |
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But Satan comes to believers, just as he came to Joshua the high priest in the book of Zechariah (Zech. 3:1-5), calling attention to our dirty garments and accusing us of our sins. Why does he do that? Why would Satan invest so much time and energy in accusing people who have been forgiven of their sins? As the archenemy of God and His church, Satan wants to paralyze us, to rob us of our freedom, to take away from us our joy and our delight..
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R.C. Sproul |
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When the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, He does so to bring us to repentance and, ultimately, to bring us to reconciliation with God, to forgiveness, to healing, and to cleansing. In other words, when the Spirit of God convicts us of sin, His entire purpose and entire motive is redemptive. When Satan accuses us, perhaps of the same sin, his purpose is to destroy us. That's why Paul says: "Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It ..
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R.C. Sproul |
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In short, no prayer of any human being ever uttered in history ever changed the mind of God in the slightest, because His mind doesn't ever need to be changed.
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R.C. Sproul |
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the neglect of prayer is a major cause of stagnation in the Christian life.
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R.C. Sproul |
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The day of one's birth is a good day for the believer, but the day of death is the greatest day that a Christian can ever experience in this world because that is the day he goes home, the day he walks across the threshold, the day he enters the Father's house. That is the day of ultimate triumph for the Christian in this world, and yet it is a day we fear and a day that we postpone as long as we possibly can because we don't really believe..
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R.C. Sproul |
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None of us saw the birth of Christ. We missed His dazzling display of miracles during His earthly ministry. Likewise, nobody alive today beheld Christ's agony on the cross. None of us was an eyewitness of His glorious resurrection and ascension into heaven. But no Christian will sleep through the second coming of Christ. Though we did not see His first coming, we all will be eyewitnesses of His return. The climax of the exaltation of Jesus ..
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R.C. Sproul |
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The central issue of Christianity is the issue of justification. It faces the dilemma squarely. The only possible way for an unjust person to stand in the presence of a just and holy God is to be justified. If we remain unjustified, we die in our sins. The only way we can be justified is by the righteousness of Christ. He alone has the merit necessary to cover us. That righteousness is received by faith. If we trust in Christ, we are covere..
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R.C. Sproul |
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e1d2987
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Today a frightening lack of fear of God prevails in our world. Martin Luther once remarked that those around him spoke to God "as if He were a shoe clerk's apprentice." If that was true in Luther's day, how much more so today? Yet the top priority that Jesus established is that the name of God should be hallowed, honored, and exalted."
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R.C. Sproul |
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three subsistences, with three distinct persons. They subsist within the being of God. THE SPIRIT'S PERSONAL NATURE The fact that the Holy Spirit is a person is seen in a multitude of ways in Scripture. One of the primary evidences is that the Bible repeatedly and consistently
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R.C. Sproul |
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pan nuestro de cada dia, danoslo hoy Dios provee para su pueblo. Merece la atencion que lo que aqui se pide es el pan diario, no el bistec diario o el costillar de primera calidad diario. Dios suple las necesidades, pero no siempre las exquisiteces. Observemos la experiencia de los israelitas luego de su liberacion de la tierra de Egipto. Dios le proveyo el pan al pueblo milagrosamente en forma de mana. ?Que sucedio entonces? Primero, ellos..
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R.C. Sproul |
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when God ordains all things that come to pass, He ordains not only the ends but also the means to those ends, and He works through all things to bring about His righteous purpose.
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R.C. Sproul |
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we can safely conclude that God ordained that Job's camels be stolen. That was God's providential plan. But God's purpose was to vindicate Job from the unrighteous accusations of Satan, as well as to vindicate His own holiness.
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R.C. Sproul |
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La simple verdad es que si Dios nos perdona, estamos perdonados. Ese es un estado de cosas objetivo. Tal vez nuestros amigos no nos perdonen. Tal vez nuestro conyuge no nos perdone. Tal vez la sociedad no nos perdone. Tal vez el gobierno no nos perdone. Pero si Dios nos perdona, estamos perdonados. Eso no significa que nunca fuimos culpables. No podemos tener perdon si no hay una culpa real. Pero el perdon nos libera del castigo que con jus..
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R.C. Sproul |
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The call to repentance is a call to return, a call to go back home.
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R.C. Sproul |
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against" or "instead of." In language, there is a difference, but in life, it is a distinction without a difference, because"
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R.C. Sproul |
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It is the task of the pastor and of the church to feed the sheep. If someone who is not a sheep comes in, that's fine, but we're not going to change the menu and give the sheep goats' food. Worship is for the sheep.
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R.C. Sproul |