I’m staying with my daughter during this conference, having arrived Thursday evening to babysit while she went to a birthday party for a girlfriend. The boys and I played until bedtime and the next morning Maseo woke me up with “coffee time, Gaga!” Now the conference didn’t start until 2pm, so I spent the morning, much like the evening, playing with the boys. That was the beginning of the first day and you’ve read (or not) my post on the sessions of Day One.
I had very little time to play with babies this morning as I rushed out of the house to the first session, featuring Dr. Peter Jones delivering his talk on “A Gnostic Gospel.” I must need say here, his was the most challenging so far, not so much as what he said, but what he said. Seriously, It was compelling as he described the revival of Gnosticism in the New Age liberalism of today. At least, I think that’s what he said. It made sense, but in order to reiterate it, I’d need to study further, thus I am challenged. I will also be re-listening to this message as well. Oh, by the way… you can listen to the messages online at Ligonier.org and I will link to them as soon as I find them… In the meantime, you can also read a better reiteration of Dr. Jones’ message at the Ligonier.org/blog where Alex Chediak has been posting.
Not that it will stop me from offering my cent and a half…
This session was followed by today’s Q&A and as I did yesterday, I will defer to this post to provide an overview of this portion. I’m just not fast enough to process and type at the same time…
Lunch was again found at the Thai restaurant…sigh… mmm Thai.
Dr. Horton presented the first message of the afternoon, “Moralistic and Therapeutic Deism.” It was another great message and one that I hope to go back to re-hear also. In his talk, he outlined what moralistic and therapeutic deism is, as follows:
- Most agree that God made the world
- God wants us to be fair to each other
- The central goal of life is to be happy
- God doesn’t need to be involved in your life unless you have a problem
- Good people go to heaven when they die.
He told of Marsha Wittman, a non-Christian, who over a period of time listened to mainline as well as conservative sermons on the Prodigal Son parable. Her book, All is Forgiven, The Secular Message in American Protestantism revealed this same message of moralistic and therapeutic deism. This is not something the culture is doing to us; it’s what the church is doing to itself, and affecting the culture in the process.
Dr. Horton finished this message with a call to faithfully proclaim the Gospel for therein is the power unto salvation.
the Master’s Chorale from Master’s College performed after Dr. Horton. They were stunning. Have spent many years in school choirs, I can appreciate the harmonies and structures and they were exceedingly admirable, lush and soaring. The Conversion of Saul was particularly captivating. And so ends my music review.
The last session of the conference belonged to Dr. Sproul whose message was “Back to Basics” and he went back to the basic. What is the Gospel?
He first addressed what the gospel is not… God has a wonderful plan for your life; God can give purpose and meaning to your life; you can have a relationship with Jesus Christ; your testimony. While all of these can be true, none of them are the gospel.
He then laid out what the word gospel” means, first parsing it out and then giving three fundamental usages of the word. First it was just good news. Then it became the arrival of the Kingdom of God. It then took on another meaning from the Kingdom of God to the King.
From there he moved on to the objective elements of the gospel and then the subjective elements. The objective elements delineate the life and death of Christ. He was born of a virgin, lived a perfect life, laid down his life for sinners to satisfy the demands of God, died, was buried and then raised from the dead and ascended into heaven. It doesn’t stop there. Dr. Sproul then moved on to the subjective elements taking us to the Protestant Reformation and its origins. The great battle of the 16th century was about the gospel and how it was appropriated to us. And then Dr. Sproul gave a powerful message about justification by faith alone.
You must listen to this message if you don’t listen to anything else. I cannot do it any justice with what I write. Listen to it. (I’ll post links as soon as they are available.)
And then it was over; the message and the conference. We all began to disperse. I left with much more than I brought and am grateful for that. I will be listening again to and reading more about what I heard this weekend. I am grateful also for the fellowship of these contemporary Reformers.
All Things Elda 