Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:01]
A
You can build a life on a sort of simplistic Christian discussion group mentality, and that would be great if life were simple. But when your life becomes complex, you won't know what to do. God doesn't write retractions, he doesn't change. His truth is stable, it abides. It's to be applied in every generation. But it's easier to sort of float along with our collective ignorance, exchanging ideas among ourselves, hoping that somehow, in the midst of all of the confusion, we'll be able to find out what the truth is and live according to it. Jesus says, you live like that when the storm comes, great will be your fall, because you have nothing solid, nothing stable, nothing rooted, nothing grounded, nothing secure to stand on. It really scares me. I really think this is the most sensuous age in the history of the church. Christians are living on the basis of how they feel, and I think it's enormously important. And when a person becomes a Christian, he gets grounded in God's word, rooted in the scriptures, that he builds good habits, good from the beginning. Elsie's gonna have to be tearing him down later, having to learn the scales all over again. Biggest problem I had with that piano business was fingering. I would get myself in a position where, you know, I was practically a contortionist in order to get to the next octave. And half the time I couldn't get there because I was all out of sync and numerical sequence with my fingers. And she says, you know, why are you doing it that way? I says, it's more comfortable. She says, sure. She says, and a couple of the fingers on your left hand you never use because you've never worked to strengthen them and change them. She says, and here's how you have to do it. Well, that really did a lot for me. That's exciting, isn't it? Is there anything more boring than all the world? The first time, I wanted to learn Chopin, and Chopin almost gives you an ostentatious display of all of the decorative devices of the musician, the musical turns and the crescendos and all of that kind of stuff that's sort of like icing on the cake. Not just straight, solid music. Chopin gets fancy on you. So she sat down and played one of these Chopin pieces for me. And there was one of these big runs, you know, She's. I said, I'll never be able to do that. She says, oh, yes, you will. I said, oh, no, I won't. She says, try it. And I went bow. Sounded like, you know, Venusian music. I couldn't do it. My hands were tripping all over the. She says, all right, you want to see how you learned that? And I said, yes. She just ran her fingers up the keyboard and all the way back down. Never missed a beat. She said, now here's how you learn how to do that. She says, the first note here, you hit it with your thumb, and the second note, you hit it with your third finger and then with the fourth finger, and then turn over with the third, and you know. And she says, now you try it. Bum, bum, bum. And she says, you do it ten times like that, at that speed. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. 10 times. And if you do it wrong, you have to start all over again. Bum, bum. See? Terrible. But it was amazing to me what the human body could learn to do in terms of coordination. After about a week of that, doing that every day, you were going, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom. After about six weeks of that, you were going just like she was. But nobody sits down at the piano and goes. They have to go through the painful process of training you yourself to do it right. But the average human being, if he's confronted with the choice between the easy way and the hard way, is going to do it the easy way, which is invariably the wrong way. That's what Jesus is talking about. You can build a house the wrong way. The only problem is it won't stand. It'll only take you so far. But when the crunch comes, it falls. You can build a life on secular values with a cultural ethic. You can build it on a sort of simplistic Christian discussion group mentality. And that would be great if life were simple. But when your life becomes complex, you won't know what to do. And if you've trained yourself to always react in the comfortable manner, you will continue to react in a comfortable manner, and it will be your ruin. The man who survives the onslaught of the devil and of the world is the man who is rooted and grounded. The word of Christ. You've been listening to Ultimately with RC Sproul. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe or leave a review in your favorite podcast app. For more information, visit ultimatelypodcast.com. Sa.