Revoice won

New Warhorn Media post by Tim Bayly:

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If the Missouri Presbytery weren’t prepared to discipline Greg Johnson, but instead waited for him to leave - shades of one Pontius V Pilate (Matt 27:24), methinks - then this strikes me as even more dishonest, partly because it’s not obvious that the Presbytery were going to do anything anyway.

It’s hard to call their—what is it, 300,000 words of verbiage?—in defense of him “nothing.”

I apologize for linking to this godless news outlet, but I haven’t seen another outlet covering it yet:
Religion News Service | Scott Sauls, author and Nashville pastor, placed on indefinite leave of absence.

Long after the damage has been done by his false teaching, his instrumental promotion of Revoice, and his badgering of anyone who might criticize Revoice or her promoters, Scott Sauls (author of A Gentle Answer) has “confessed” to being a bully in his church. Notice the preciousness of Sauls’ “confession,” describing his sin without naming it:

I verbalized insensitive and verbal criticism of others’ work. I’ve used social media and the pulpit to quiet dissenting viewpoints. I’ve manipulated facts to support paths that I desire.

This will be dealt with as a “Case without Process” (according to PCA BCO 38-1).

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Christ Pres and Covenant Pres have long been train wrecks. Exceedingly rich and proud congregations both long served by glad handing pastors. Family and friends have been in both. I understand why Ray Ortlund and Scott Sauls would have wanted to scratch these exceedingly wealthy ears, but they should have known the cost they would pay extracted by our Lord (if they turned out to be good at it) or their exceedingly rich members (if they turned out to be bad at it).

Couple lessons. If one hankers after wealth and power and takes a call to a filthy rich church, one better have enough humility to take orders from your wealthy superiors. That’s the routine and if you didn’t know it, you’re stupid. My guess is that both Ray and Scott thought they were smarter than the rich men who hired them, and they could keep ahead of them in church power struggles. But Ray lasted a few years and Scott only a few years more.

Second, this is the way it always goes in the PCA: no one ever is disciplined for the serious things. It’s never doctrine and never even lying. No one is ever a feminist or federal visionista or in violation of Scripture, the Standards, and the BCO (Tim Keller on multiple issues). If the presbytery decides they have to deal with him, it will be for emotional abuse or impursuability or nonbeseechingness or antiappealingness or some such thing. “He’s a bully.”

Finally, preached on 2Timothy 4:1-8 yesterday and want to insert these comments by Calvin from his commentaries and sermons on the text:

From the very depravity of men he shews how careful pastors ought to be; for soon shall the gospel be extinguished, and perish from the remembrance of men, if godly teachers do not labor with all their might to defend it. But he means that we must avail ourselves of the opportunity, while there is any reverence for Christ; as if one should say that, when a storm is at hand, we must not labor remissly, but must hasten with all diligence, because there will not afterwards be an equally fit season.

When they will not endure sound doctrine This means that they will not only dislike and despise, but will even hate, sound doctrine; and he calls it “sound (or healthful) doctrine"…

First, let us learn from it, that the more extraordinary the eagerness of wicked men to despise the doctrine of Christ, the more zealous should godly ministers be to defend it, and the more strenuous should be their efforts to preserve it entire; and not only so, but also by their diligence to ward off the attacks of Satan. And if ever this ought to have been done, the great ingratitude of men has now rendered it more than necessary; for they who at first receive the gospel warmly, and make a show of some kind of uncommon zeal, afterwards contract dislike, which is by and by followed by loathing; others, from the very outset, either reject it furiously, or, contemptuously lending an ear, treat it with mockery; while others, not suffering the yoke to be laid on their neck, kick at it, and, through hatred of holy discipline, are altogether estranged from Christ and, what is worse, from being friends become open enemies. So far from this being a good reason why we should be discouraged and give way, we ought to fight against such monstrous ingratitude, and even to strive with greater earnestness than if all were gladly embracing Christ offered to them.

Secondly, having been told that men will thus despise and even reject the word of God, we ought not to stand amazed as if it were a new spectacle, when we see actually accomplished that which the Holy Spirit tells us will happen. And indeed, being by nature prone to vanity, it is no new or uncommon timing, if we lend an ear more willingly to fables than to truth.

Lastly, the doctrine of the gospel, being plain and mean in its aspect, is unsatisfactory partly to our pride, and partly to our curiosity. And how few are there who are endued with spiritual taste, so as to relish newness of life and all that relates to it!

Shall heap up to themselves teachers It is proper to observe the expression, heap up, by which he means that the madness of men will be so great, that they will not be satisfied with a few deceivers, but will desire to have a vast multitude; for, as there is an insatiable longing for those things which are unprofitable and destructive, so the world seeks, on all sides and without end, all the methods that it can contrive and imagine for destroying itself; and the devil has always at hand a sufficiently large number of such teachers as the world desires to have.

There has always been a plentiful harvest of wicked men, as there is in the present day; and therefore Satan never has any lack of ministers to deceive men, as he never has any lack of the means of deceiving.

Indeed, this monstrous depravity, which almost constantly prevails among men, deserves that God, and his healthful doctrine, should be either rejected or despised by them, and that they should more gladly embrace falsehood.

Accordingly, that false teachers frequently abound, and that they sometimes multiply like a nest of hornets, should be ascribed by us to the righteous vengeance of God. We deserve to be covered and choked by that kind of filth, seeing that the truth of God finds no place in us, or, if it has found entrance, is immediately driven from its possession; and since we are so much addicted to fabulous notions, that we never think that we have too great a multitude of deceivers. Thus what all abomination of Monks is there in Popery! If once godly pastor were to be supported, instead of ten Monks and as many priests, we should presently hear nothing else than complaints about the great expense.

The disposition of the world is therefore such that, by “heaping up” with insatiable desire innumerable deceivers, it desires to banish all that belongs to God. Nor is there any other cause of so many errors than that men, of their own accord, choose to be deceived rather than to be properly instructed. And that is the reason why Paul adds the expression, itching ears. When he wishes to assign a cause for so great an evil, he makes use of an elegant metaphor, by which he means, that the world will have ears so refined, and so excessively desirous of novelty, that it will collect for itself various instructors, and will be incessantly carried away by new inventions. The only remedy for this vice is, that believers be instructed to adhere closely to the pure doctrine of the gospel.

The greater part cannot endure corrections, or threatenings, or even simple doctrine. When we denounce vices, though we do not employ violent language, they think that all is lost. Never was the world so obstinately wicked as it now is, and those who have made a profession of the gospel appear to endeavor, as far as they can, to destroy the grace of God. For we are not speaking about Papists only, who fight furiously against us, but of those who adhere to the Protestant Reformation of the Gospel. We see that they would wish to be like unbridled calves. (They care not about a yoke, or government, or anything of that sort.) Let them be allowed to do what they please, let blasphemies and all licentious conduct be permitted; it is all one, provided that they have no form of ceremony, and that they despise the Pope and idolaters. This is the way in which many who make a profession of the gospel would wish to be governed, but the reason is, that they have ‘itching ears.’” (from Calvin’s sermon on text)

When the devil has raised his standard, and when scandals and disturbances abound everywhere, we cannot be sufficiently attentive to guard against them, unless we are fortified by patience, and are not discouraged by the adversity which we must endure. If this warning ever was advantageous, how exceedingly necessary is it at the present day! Has not the world arrived at the highest pitch of iniquity? We see that the majority furiously reject the gospel. As to others who pretend to welcome the gospel, what sort of obedience do they render to it? There is so much contempt and so much pride, that, as soon as vices are reproved, or more sharpness is used than suits the taste of those who would wish to have full permission to act wickedly, and whose sole aim is to destroy everything, they are filled with spite.

All the above to show we do not often enough acknowledge that false shepherds are God’s judgment on God’s people repudiating God’s truth. In other words, the people of Christ Presbyterian Church were themselves responsible for hiring Scott Sauls and deserved him. Love,

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