To be spiritually dead is to be diabolically alive
R. C. SproulRead
Seeking God? We have totally revised corporate worship services to be sensitive to "seekers." If worship were to be tailored for seekers, it would be directed exclusively to believers, for no one except believers ever seeks God (Rom. 3:9-12).
Interpretation
The quote critiques the idea of tailoring worship for non-believers, emphasizing that true seekers of God are believers.
R. C. Sproul's quote reflects on the nature of worship and its purpose, arguing that genuine seekers of God are those who already have faith. He suggests that the concept of adjusting worship services to attract non-believers is misguided, as only believers actively seek a relationship with God, as referenced in Romans 3:9-12. Instead, corporate worship should focus on the edification of believers, rather than attempting to accommodate those who do not yet believe.
In practice
During a sermon about the purpose of worship in church.
To be spiritually dead is to be diabolically alive
Iβve often wondered where Jesus would apply His hastily made whip if He were to visit our culture. My guess is that it would not be money-changing tables in the temple that would feel His wrath, but the display racks in Christian bookstores.
The real crisis of worship today is not that the preaching is paltry or that it's too drafty in church. It is that people have no sense of the presence of God, and if they have no sense of His presence, how can they be moved to express the deepest feelings of their souls to honor, revere, worship, and glorify God?
We talk about predestination because the Bible talks about predestination. If we desire to build our theology on the Bible, we run head on into this concept. We soon discover that John Calvin did not invent it.
Without God man has no reference point to define himself.
I do not want to drive across a bridge designed by an engineer who believed the numbers in structural stress models are relative truths.
The last clear definite function of man β muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need β this is man.
Dipsomaniac and the abstainer are not only both mistaken, but they both make the same mistake. They both regard wine as a drug and not as a drink.
Life doesn't do anything to you. It only reveals your spirit.
The Soviet system of propaganda and censorship existed not so much for the purpose of spreading a particular message as for the purpose of making learning impossible, replacing facts with mush, and handing the faceless state a monopoly on defining an ever-shifting reality.
There is no Final Resting Place of the Mind.
In my youth I regarded the universe as an open book, printed in the language of equations, whereas now it appears to me as a text written in invisible ink, of which in our rare moments of grace we are able to decipher a small segment.
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