Quote of the Day: use your rear-view mirror

Sinclair Ferguson, from the end of a desiringgod panel discussion.

One of the things that just strikes me is how fragile contemporary Christians are because we think that the gospel came somewhere about 10 years ago. I was fascinated in 1999 there was a poll in the UK, as to the two greatest figures of the last millennium. And the Great British public decided the two most significant figures of the whole millennium (AD 1000-2000) - I mean you have some giant human beings there - the result of the poll was that the most significant man was Nelson Mandela, and the most significant woman was Princess Diana. And that really confirmed something that I suspected about the Great British public: that they know almost no history. And there's a parallel in the church. People who purvey an anti-penal substitution doctrine of Christ don't seem to realise that guys did that in the 19th Century, and destroyed the church. They did it in the 18th century and destroyed the church, they did it in the 17th century and destroyed the church, and they did it in the 16th century and destroyed the church. We've really seen it all before, and we know in advance what the fruits will be. It will be the destruction of radical Christianity, it will be the destruction of a radical sense of the forgiveness of sins, it'll be a commensurate destruction of - when you destroy the wrath of God, you destroy the absolute heights of joy and glory that a Christian may experience in this life. And just a little knowledge of the history of the Church would just be such a help to us.