The End of Time (in Toledo of all places!)

How Long O' Lord: Three Views on the end of days

March 14-15, 2008

The schedule of speakers is out for the Toledo Reformed Theological Conference and it looks pretty interesting with a focus on examining the three major schools of eschatological thought.

The TRTC rarely has the star power of other conferences. Especially in the last couple of years you are not going to see Sproul or MacArthur here. Steve Camp as always will be there, as will stalwart Don Kistler. The other speakers are not household names.

Dr. Thomas Ice, from Liberty, will be (no surprise since he is from Liberty University!) representing the pre-millennial camp. Dr. Kenneth Gentry will be the advocate for post-millennialism. Dr. Richard Gaffin of Westminster Theological Seminary will speak on behalf of amillennialism. All three are rock solid scholars with great credentials. They may not be as recognizable as the speakers at Together for the Gospel, and the talks likely will not be as rousing, but the teaching should be great. Eschatology is a weak area for me, so I am very much looking forward to the TRTC in March (cleverly scheduled to not coincide with T4G!) Too bad they didn't move the Philadelphia Conference in Grand Rapids so it didn't overlap T4G, a decision which might cost them a lot of attenders.

Toledo Reformed Theological Conference

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Preconference

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Excellent talk from Don Kistler, an excellent speaker, not flashy, with a dry sense of humor that I appreciate. Some thoughts from this morning below...

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You know you are at a Reformed Theology Conference….

When you see an attractive young woman with a T-shirt that says: “Calvinism. This T-shirt chooses me.”

Good times!

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What are you passionate about? Is our passion properly focused on the One who is worthy of our passion, our desire?

Passion is not feelings. Passion is stronger, less fleeting.
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Don Kistler
Pre-conference
A Passion for Christ

- 1 Peter 1:22-2:8

True Christian strives but do not succeed to have God’s esteem for Christ and Christ’s desire to honor the Father. The character, the goal of a Christian.

God is passionate about His Son Jesus Christ.

To you who believe He is precious (He is an honor)
If He is not precious to you, you are not a Christian.
1Pe 2:8 and "A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense." They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

The Bible never offers Christ to sinners as Savior and Lord. He must be Lord to be Savior. He is always referred to as Lord and Savior.

Christ is precious because He is precious to God.

Sanctification
Justification
Glorification

There are a lot of people that are passionate about a Christ that doesn’t exist!
He must be the revealed Son of God that we are passionate about.
You cannot have a Christ of your imagination, of your choosing. You cannot have half a Christ.
He saves His people from their sins, not in their sins.
False religions are passionate about the false gods, and are often more passionate about their false gods than many Christians are about the real God.
“if you have the true religion why have you never been to my door?”

We have to take all of Christ or we can have none of Christ.
If Christ is precious His Word is precious
If Chris is precious His church is precious
If Christ is precious His ordinances are precious.
His law is as precious as His grace (Amen!)

If He is precious, we want to know Him more so we may esteem Him more

We show that Christ is precious to us by hating anything that is displeasing to Him.

That is the question: Is Christ precious to you?

If it is April...

...it must be Reformed Theology Conference time!

I am going to two conferences in April, the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology in Grand Rapids, MI and the Toledo Reformed Theological Conference in (obviously) Toledo. With any luck I can catch a minor league game while I am in one or both locations. The Toledo Conference I attended last year, this year it features Tom Ascol of Founders Ministries, Steve Camp of Camp On This, Don Kistler of Soli Deo Gloria publications and Steve Lawson, author of the new Long Line of Godly Men book series. Should be good stuff, and four of the five speakers are Baptists! The Grand Rapids conference features Don Carson (who I am very excited to hear), Mark Dever and Ligon Duncan. Should be a great couple of weekends and I hope to come out with a greater understanding of Christ and of the Doctrines of Grace.