Saturday March 29th, 2025
Full review soon to follow. Excellent read, this is a must read for anyone and everyone. You cannot be saved in Jesus Christ if you do not know what you are being saved from.
The book is excellent, it is so good that I also have the the audiobook version on Audible that is narrated by Paul Mitchell. I would also strongly encourage acquiring it both in physical and audio media. My experience is notable when both listening to and reading a book. It is hard to do with all books, but this is one that is that good and worth it.
For anyone interested, you can the ebook along with three other gems from R.C Sproul free here at Ligonier Ministries https://gift.ligonier.org/2871/reformed-ebook-bundle
R.C. had a very captivating way of writing and capturing the reader's attention. God blessed him with such writing abilities that you will remember what he writes, his writing will stick to you. I can confirm this firsthand.
This starts off with a bang, he begins with a personal account of when he was a philosophy professor on the campus of Temple University in Philadelphia during the days of the Vietnam war and how an evangelist stoped R.C. on his way back to class and tried to share what he thought was the Gospel with R.C. The first words out of this man's mouth is "are you saved?" with R.C.'s response as "saved from what?"
Anyone that has done any sort of evangelism, this will stick with and is exactly what happend to me. This sort of zeal is telling of the state of the faith - it is of simplying go and telling and not of knowing. R.C.'s response baffled the man and he then spued something along the lines of "you know, do you know Jesus?"
It should be evident here what the problem is here. The problem is talking of such things that one does not know themselves so how are they going to tell others? There is a major underlying theme here with a lack of understanding and saving faith but a mere cultural view of Christ. I will not get into that matter now, but will save for a later work.
As I have wrote in other works, we can not have Jesus as Lord and Savior if we do not first understand why we need a savior and what do we need to be saved from? This is the fundemental problem at play here.
The experience with that guy got R.C. thinking of the lack of understanding what salvation means. He then talks of how he only preached on Zephaniah a single time in his entire career as a pastor which is notable. This was another point that stayed with me.
The base text for this book is Zephaniah 1:14–18 which tells of the great and horrible Day of the Lord.
As he states this can be either bad news or good news depending on where you are standing.
Summary is that as R.C. states "the grand paradox or supreme irony of the Christian faith is that we are saved both by God and from God."
And also "But if people understood two things - if they understood that God is holy and that sin is an offense against His holiness - then they would be breaking down the doors of churches, pleading, What must I do to be saved?"
To conclude one last point is brought to attention.
"How then shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation (Hebrews 2:3)? It is salvation that is by God, from God and for God, to whom belongs all glory."
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