Sermon recommendation: John MacArthur on “A True Knowledge of the True God”

I made a quick trip to Rapid City this evening to pick up some materials for a basement finish job that we’re doing (as Sundberg Builders), and took the opportunity to listen to a 2-part sermon by John MacArthur that I received in the mail this past week.  He started in Acts 17 with Paul in Athens addressing the Athenians about their worship of “the unknown god,” and he drew some excellent parallels with the world and the Church today, which makes sense since we as human beings are and always have been the same in our depravity, our desires, our capacity for good and evil, and our religious tendencies to need to worship something or someone.

Anyway, I highly recommend giving these sermons a listen, and they are available on the Grace to You website at these links (to watch, listen, read, download, etc.):

A True Knowledge of the True God, Part 1

A True Knowledge of the True God, Part 2

By the way, MacArthur, being the “theological watchdog” that he is, names names of modern preachers who knowingly or unknowingly align themselves with the pantheistic Athenians of the first century, and pass themselves off as “Christian” preachers and teachers.  Hey, someone has to have the courage to call a spade a spade!

The value of knowing God compared to everything else

The events of this day eventually brought the following paragraphs to my mind.  Knowing God by J. I. Packer was the first “serious” Christian book I read after my conversion to Christianity, and I’ve turned back to it for help, advice, and inspiration time and again through the past couple decades.  These paragraphs are from chapter 2, “The People who Know their God.”

I walked in the sunshine with a scholar who had effectively forfeited his prospects of academic advancement by clashing with church dignitaries over the gospel of grace.  ‘But it doesn’t matter,’ he said at length, ‘for I’ve known God and they haven’t.’  The remark was a mere parenthesis, a passing comment on something I had said, but it has stuck with me, and set me thinking.

Who needs theology? According to J. I. Packer in his book “Knowing God,” we all do.

In the first chapter of J. I. Packer’s book Knowing God he proposes the question, “Who needs theology?” and then offers this response:

A fair question! — but there is, I think, a convincing answer to it.  The questioner clearly assumes that a study of the nature and character of God will be impractical and irrelevant for life.  In fact, however, it is the most practical project anyone can engage in.  Knowing about God is crucially important for the living of our lives.  As it would be cruel to an Amazonian tribesman to fly him to London, put him down without explanation in Trafalgar Square and leave him, as one who knew nothing of English or England, to fend for himself, so we are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it.  The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place, and life in it a disappointing and unpleasant business, for those who do not know about God.  Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you.  This way you can waste your life and lose your soul. [emphasis mine]

That paragraph helps to explain why I have not once regretted spending four years of my life earning a bachelor’s degree in Bible from a Bible college that took God and his Word seriously.  I have been asked from time to time what possible value that could have in today’s world, and my answer is, “Every possible value.”  Like Packer said in the above quote, this is God’s world, and it, and our life in it, does not make sense to us if we do not know him first and most of all.

In the preface to the 1973 edition of Knowing God Packer explains that “the conviction behind the book is that ignorance of God — ignorance both of his ways and of the practice of communion with him — lies at the root of much of the church’s weakness today.”  He then identifies two trends that have produced this result.  Here’s one:

Sobering and yet encouraging words from Mark Noll in “The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind”

First, a caveat: I am not an intellectual per se.  I aspired in that direction earlier in life, but eventually came to realize that I am more of a hybrid of sorts, and have often been used in the past as a “bridge” between the minority who think, and the majority who don’t.

Mark Noll begins his book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, with this paragraph:

The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.  An extraordinary range of virtues is found among the sprawling throngs of evangelical Protestants in North America, including great sacrifice in spreading the message of salvation in Jesus Christ, open-hearted generosity to the needy, heroic personal exertion on behalf of troubled individuals, and the unheralded sustenance of countless church and parachurch communities.  Notwithstanding all their other virtues, however, American evangelicals are not exemplary for their thinking, and they have not been so for several generations.

I love that first sentence.  It’s sad and humorous at the same time.  As Noll works his way through this book he paints the historical picture of how modern, and especially American, evangelicals have moved away from using their minds and thinking biblically about God, the world around them, and themselves.  Especially about the world around them.  He traces the history of America, the growth of fundamentalism and the holiness movement (both of which tend to be anti-intellectual), and the connection between religion and politics in America.

He concludes the book with these paragraphs:

Knowing God

John 17:3  “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

In the words of Jesus, eternal life is knowing God, and Jesus Christ – who is God.

Hebrews 11:6  “And without faith it is impossible to please [God], for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

God rewards those who seek him.  With what?  Himself. 

Knowing God.