Suffer or Compromise? The Great Collision — John MacArthur

This is from a sermon John MacArthur preached in 2000. Aside from the dated reference to Michael Jordan, who actually retired for the second time in 1999, this message is always relevant:

We know that God uses that suffering to perfect us and to shape us and to humble us and to help us be more prayerful and more trusting in Him, and to also demonstrate His grace to us. But what it’s really saying, folks, is don’t compromise. Because the way you can mitigate your suffering is by compromising, right? It’s hard to live your Christian life in your family, so you compromise. It’s hard to live your Christian life in your school, so you shut your mouth and you compromise. Hard to live your Christian life with your friends, so you compromise, or at the job or wherever it is, and so you compromise. The will of God is that, if you suffer, you suffer for doing what is right. Just keep doing what is right, believing what is right, proclaiming what is right. And if you have to suffer, you suffer.

It’s a hard message to get across today, because the church has bailed on this. We’re in an avalanche of decline in the evangelical church today. There are three steps in that decline. I was preaching this week, all week, to the students, every day of the week at the college or the seminary. And I was telling the seminary students there are three kinds of preaching that show the disintegration of the church. And we’re…we’re in the process now.

Number one, there is Biblical preaching which is, listen, Biblical doctrine in Biblical dress. What that means is you preach the truth of Scripture by the Scripture. You understand that? That’s Bible exposition. In other words, you give divine truth in its Bible dress. And God gave us divine truth, and He dressed it in the Scripture, didn’t He? He put it in the prophets and in the law and in the holy writings of the Old Testament. He put it in the Gospels, and He put in the history of Acts, and He put it in the epistles, and He put it in the Revelation. But he dressed it in Scripture. So Bible dress covers divine truth. And when the church is strong, and when it’s healthy, you will hear Bible doctrine preached in Bible dress, because that’s how God gave it. You will hear the Bible exposited.

You won’t hear that much today. You’ll look long and hard to hear that. The new wave says, “People don’t like the Bible. They don’t relate to the Bible. They can’t connect to the Bible. It’s an antiquainted paradigm. They can’t think that way.” So we believe in…we’re still evangelical, and we believe in the truth of the Bible, but we gotta get it out of that Bible dress. So we preach on…on the Chicago Bulls, and we infuse into some message on Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, something about divine truth. Or we preach on…on some parable that we have invented, some narrative story that we have invented, or whatever it might be. Or we preach on the theological implications of Harry Potter, or whatever it is. You just grab whatever is coming out of the air in the culture. You say you’re an evangelical. You hold to the evangelical truth. But you strip it of its Bible dress, and you redress it in the culture. And you say, “That’s how we’re gonna win the culture.” Truth is, you have just moved away from the Word of God. God gave us Bible truth in Bible dress, because that’s the way He wanted it taught.

Why Aren’t Christian Leaders More Discerning? — John MacArthur

MacArthur,

I’ve been all over the world, as you know, and have had lots of discussions with lots of Christian leaders and I’ve read lots of things about the church and the history of the church and the theology of the church. I’ve been all over everywhere and I can just tell you this. Right now in this day, and it’s been this way for a long time through this twentieth century, THE biggest problem in the church is its inability and unwillingness to distinguish true Christians from false. It’s…it’s literally killing the church.

You go all over the world, and you see people who claim to be Christians. I’ve been in the eastern Europe and I’ve seen the orthodox church which is by its own definition a Christian church. They believe they’re the only true Christians in eastern Europe. And then you go into western Europe, and earlier this year in France and then in the last couple of weeks in Italy and there is this massive monolithic system called Roman Catholicism which believes itself to be the only true Christian Church on the planet. It’s one thing for them to believe it, it’s something else for Billy Graham to say the Pope is a fine, outstanding Christian. Something else for him to hold an evangelistic meeting and invite all the Catholics to cooperate. It’s something else for Bill Bright to say that the Pope is a fine, outstanding Christian. It’s something else for people in the ECT, the people who are in Christian leadership in America to embrace the Roman Catholics and say we all love the same Christ, we all serve the same God in the same way. And these are all our Christian brothers and sisters. It’s one thing for these institutions to exist, it’s something else for those people who are Christians to embrace them as if they’re all true Christians. This obliterates the line of clarity and invites the enemy into the camp and just devastates the church.

You can turn on your television and watch TBN. Everybody that comes on is embraced as a Christian, even though it’s just…just filled with false teachers and people who obviously haven’t been delivered…It’s the idea that anybody who believes in Jesus is a Christian. And if you want to push the point beyond that, you’re somehow a problem and you’re divisive and schismatic…Liberal Anglicanism in England back in the 60's was in its heyday and there were some evangelicals in the Anglican church and they thought…Well, we need to move in to the Anglican church and get a hold of this thing and partner up with these brothers, they’re our brothers. We can’t let things divide us, we’re all one church.

And it was David Martyn Lloyd-Jones who stood up and said this is wrong. You’ve got to separate. And he was vilified and he was marginalized and he was pushed out, but he was right as time has proven because whatever evangelicalism was there has succumb to the power of liberalism and the pollution of the church.

You can look at the American denominations…the historic denominations of the Presbyterians, and the Methodists and the Episcopalians and even largely the Lutherans and others and you can see the tremendous slide. And it goes back. They invited people into their schools, in their seminaries to teach. They said they were Christians but they were wrong and they came in and they stole the institutions and sent them right down the drain. This is deadly stuff. And now you even have evangelical churches that are designing their churches to make unbelievers comfortable.

This is frightening stuff. And I guess I feel at this point, I’ve got nothing to lose anyway, I need to…I have to be accountable to the Lord, it’s just time to stand up and say this…this has got to be brought to the test of Scripture. You can have a thing called Amsterdam 2000, you can have 5,000 so-called evangelists and celebrate all this unity, but who’s finding out whether these people are Christians? They come from Catholicism and orthodox groups and fringe groups and all kinds of strange groups and even some cults. I talked to a man even this week who said he thinks there’s going to be many Mormons in heaven. This is continuing to escalate.

And I guess it’s time to just stand up and say there has to be a line drawn. The issue of who is truly a Christian is at the very center of the church’s life and ministry. This has to be protected. There isn’t any fellowship between light and darkness, is there, 2 Corinthians 6? There isn’t any concord between Christ and Satan. Two can’t walk together unless they be…what?…agreed. You have to come out from among them and be ye separate and touch not the unclean thing.

And here is the church absorbing all of this. And now it’s so confusing that the church itself doesn’t even know who’s a Christian and frankly I don’t think they particularly care as long as you say you believe in Jesus. A friend, Iain Murray who is a gifted theologian and a great biographer, [who] wrote the massive two-volume biography of Martyn Lloyd-Jones has also written on Jonathan Edwards and many others. He is a very esteemed Englishman and has been here many times, we’ve spent many hours together, has written a new book called Evangelicalism Divided in which I read it, just devoured it over the last few weeks while I was in Italy in the plane, in the back of the bus, in the room, everywhere because it just consumed me. Murray is tracking the twentieth century decline of evangelicalism and it’s a book of history that is very, very revealing. And Murray says, and I think he’s absolutely right, he says, the inability of the evangelical church to distinguish between a Christian and a non-Christian is quote: “The greatest failure of professing Christianity in the English-speaking world in the twentieth century,” end quote.

He understands the implications. If you redefine non-Christians as Christians you obliterate the distinctiveness of the church and you therefore create an environment in which you have to tolerate error because these people represent error. He further writes, this is very important and insightful, “The health of the church,” and he’s speaking as a historian here, having tracked it very carefully, “the health of the church has always been in proportion to the extent to which the difference between Christian and non-Christian has been kept sharp and clear.” Absolutely right. The starting point for the church is to be absolutely clear about who is saved and who is not. If we’re not clear about that, then we don’t know who’s on our side and we don’t know who we really need to reach.

From the time that God began to form a people for Himself, Satan endeavored to intrude. From the time that the demons cohabitated with the…with the daughters of men in Genesis 6, Satan has been trying to pollute and mix…all the way down to sowing tares among the wheat. And it’s really true. Murray says, “The most insidious opposition to the gospel has come from within worldly churches.”

I’ll say this as simply as I can. The gospel is more often attacked on TBN than it is on NBC. This has been the legacy of liberalism which has been embraced by quote/unquote “evangelicals.” This has been the legacy of Charismaticism where theology and…I’m not speaking about all the people but for the most part where the Movement tolerates anybody’s view. This has been the legacy of the seeker-friendly pragmatic movement. This has been the legacy of evangelical ecumenism which wants to re-embrace orthodoxy and Catholicism and everybody else. And the confusion goes from the grass roots right on up to the top. I’ve talked to the evangelical brain trust, if you will, and they aren’t even willing to commit to who’s a Christian. Even my conversation with J.I. Packer, so capable and gifted a theologian and writer, when I asked him…what is the line by which you determine a true Christian? All he could say was, “That’s a good question.”

For most of the last part of the twentieth century, the last 50 years, there has been a sustained effort to invent and promote a popular definition of Christianity, which is neither biblical nor legitimate and to fill the church with non-Christians. . .

Satan always wants to get the church confused about who’s saved, then he can infiltrate and take over, as he’s done in so many institutions and denominations.

Iain Murray again writes, “When churches have recovered from apostasy, historically, such as at the time of the Reformation and the eighteenth century evangelical revival…it has always been…by a return to such discriminating preaching and practice.” What he means is when there’s ever a recovery from a time of apostasy, it has come when preaching has become discriminating.

What does it mean to discriminate? If you say you discriminate, what does it mean? If you say…you hear people say, be a discriminating buyer, what does that mean? It means that you can choose the best out of the lot, right? You know how to discriminate. It means to discern. The only hope for the church is discriminating, discerning preaching. I don’t think there’s any organizational answer. I don’t think we need more meetings, more seminars. We need preachers who will stand up and preach discriminating messages.

And Murray says, “Given the great decline in the English-speaking churches of the twentieth century, the chief need again was the reassertion of the meaning of being a Christian.” Wow! The chief hope for the church is discriminating preaching primarily directed at the issue of who is a Christian.

I don’t care how widely known you are as an evangelical leader, to say that Roman Catholics and the Pope are wonderful Christians is not discriminating, he questions somebody’s faculties of discernment. And sometimes I wonder if those who can’t discern the true church can’t discern it because they’re not part of it. I know people who aren’t a part of it can’t discern it because the natural man understands not the things of God. I don’t expect non-Christians to be discerning about the church, but I do expect Christians to be discerning about the church. And yet you have people who have risen to prominence in evangelicalism who have defined evangelicalism on a large scale who lack that discernment. And what we need is exactly what Murray says, we have to have some discriminating preaching. It’s time…it’s time to draw the line again and that means to be unpopular, I hate to say.

And people ask me…why do people do this? Why do they compromise? Why aren’t they discriminating? Why don’t they say what needs to be said? Why don’t they say this is not a Christian institution, these people are not Christians? Why don’t they make a clear-cut line? Why don’t do they do that?

And the only answer I can come up with and I think it’s a general one and Murray in his book agrees with me on this, the fear of being alienated. It’s the fear of man, it’s the desire for popularity. It’s the desire for the widest possible acceptance. It’s the desire for a reputation. It’s the desire not to be marginalized and pushed off into a corner. It’s a desire to be tolerable and tolerant because it affords you some level of popularity. Because it lets you move up the social strata in the world of Christianity. And so they seek the approval of man. And it’s amazing how they can seek the approval of man at the expense of the approval of the Lord of the church.

taken from: Deliverance: The Neglected Doctrine, a sermon preached by John MacArthur on October 01, 2000 (emphasis added). Click here to listen to, or read the message in its entirety.

God Chooses the Foolish to Shame the Wise — John MacArthur

“For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.” — 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

Commenting on these verses, MacArthur states,

Three times it says “not many.” Not many, not many, not many. The majority of believers are not impressive, it’s not impressive especially to the world of elite minds.

We’re not the elite intellects of the world. We’re not the mighty in the sense of being powerful influencers, people in great positions of power. And we’re not noble. What does that mean? High born, well born, socially ranking, royal…no.

Well what are we? Well verse 27 says, “We’re foolish, weak” and verse 28 says, “We’re based, despised, and we’re the things that are not.” We are not wise, we are rather foolish, contrasting those two verses. We are not mighty, we are rather weak. We are not noble, we are base. See that word base in verse 28, the base things of the world. The Greek word for base is agenes. Genos is to be born, that’s why we get the word genetics from that root. We are agenes. What does that mean? We haven’t been born, we’re unborn. Another way to say that, we don’t exist. The word came to mean the insignificant…the insignificant. We’re not the movers and shakers. And then he even goes deeper. It would be enough to be agenes, unborn, not even existing, but he goes even lower, despised and then he says, God has chosen the things that are not, or the ones that are not. That’s a present participle of the verb to be ami and it is the most contemptible expression in the entire Greek language. It is this, “You don’t even exist.” If you really wanted to lower somebody, you don’t even exist.

So God has chosen not many wise, according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, God has chosen…please notice, it keeps repeating…God has chosen, God has chosen, God has chosen,…in case you’re still struggling over the doctrine of sovereign election. God has chosen, God has chosen, God has chosen, four times, verse 29, “So that no man may boast before God.”

The bottom line we’re driving at here is we’re unremarkable….I was with Deepak Chopra on one occasion between takes on a television talk program. He is a Hindu mystic who is also a medical doctor. And he’s a bright guy. And he’s figured out how to separate people from their money. So he is a very bright guy, but he believes that he is God. And he’s written a lot of stuff on this. And he’s very spiritual, very esoteric, very Hindu, all of this, and it was very difficult for him to deal with me…very difficult. And one time we were having this conversation and he said, “Well, you wouldn’t know anything about that anyway. You wouldn’t know anything about that.” And I said, “Well as a matter of fact I do understand that. I understand that philosophy. I understand exactly where you’re coming from.” In fact, I wrote a book on that.

And he said…this is a quote, “I wouldn’t read anything you ever wrote.”

Fine. I don’t even exist.

“You’re not even alive in my world. Go away.”

That’s how they look at us, these elite minds. See the unbelieving people are in the condition they’re in because of these constraints. They’re not impressed with us. They’re not impressed with our message. They are impressed with themselves. And the problem is, they want to follow their own reason and you can’t get there that way.

There’s one other thing we might say. And not only are the people unremarkable, but the preachers are unfashionable. Yeah, that’s Paul, chapter 2 verse 1. “When I came to you, brethren, I didn’t come with superiority of speech or wisdom.” When he first came to Corinth to preach and establish the church, he said, “I didn’t come with superiority of speech and of wisdom.” What’s he talking about?

He’s talking about what they were used to hearing from teachers and philosophers. I mean, the Greeks were into oratory. They were in to a sort of intellectual labyrinth. They were into philosophical complexities, layered arguments. They reject the message because it’s just not impressive. Paul says, “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” You just kept saying that same ridiculous moronic foolishness about that man and that cross. Where is the esoteric cleverness? Where is the rational speculation? Where is the philosophical complexity? That’s why in 2 Corinthians 10:10 they said of him, that his personal presence is unimpressive and his speech is contemptible. Who would listen to him? He’s not clever. He has none of that sophia, none of that sophistication, sophisticated wisdom. The message was offensive and the messengers were unimpressive and the preachers who represent the message were unfashionable.

Now not only did he have this narrow-minded simplistic message, he just keep beating it to death, verse 2, but he says that in verse 3, “I was with you in weakness, fear and much trembling.” Come on, where’s the swagger, man? Where’s the swagger? You’ve got to have some swagger. You’ve got to be brash; got to have some self-confidence; got to have some dominance. The brash philosophers and teachers of the world at that time did that. He comes in weakness, fear, trembling and his message and his preaching, verse 4, “is not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power so that your faith wouldn’t rest on the wisdom of men but on the power of God.” He understands.

This is not about apologetics, this is not about evidences. This is not about convincing them. This is not about channeling their intellect. This is not about putting their reason in the right groove. They are fallen people. They are naturally in the dark. They are naturally dead. They are double-blinded by Satan. They are alienated from the life of God and they cannot believe, they will not believe. Non-Christians, bottom line, don’t believe the Bible because they can’t. They can’t. And you can’t make it reasonable. And all your efforts of being fashionable and clever and trying to impress them aren’t going to work. You cannot by human reason find God, find Christ, find the gospel, find salvation and come to love the Scripture. Man’s wisdom can do amazing things in the physical world, temporal world, science, technology, genetics, medicine, industry, arts, culture, academics, all kinds of achievements. But man’s wisdom individually and collectively cannot know God savingly. They can know God exists, Romans 1, right? They can know that God has a moral Law, Romans 2. They can’t know God. The gospel is not available to human wisdom. That’s the problem, men find the path that appeals to them is the path of self-satisfying human reason. Can’t get there that way.

So why do we believe? Let’s turn the corner….You say, “Well, we’re the smartest of all these people.” No we’re not. Why do we believe? Verse 6, “Yet…yet,” now we turn the corner dramatically, “yet, we do speak wisdom.” Wait a minute. They don’t understand, we’re the wisest people on the planet. Do you know right now in this moment gathered in this room is the most pure, true, profound, accurate, all encompassing, sweeping collection of human wisdom in the city of Los Angeles for the state of California. Right here. And the sad part is nobody outside is asking us anything. We’ve got all the answers. We speak wisdom. I keep waiting for somebody to call me from Washington, from anywhere. Just ask me…just ask me.

One guy was trying to mock me on a radio interview one time, and said, “Where did you go to Law school?” I didn’t go to Law school, I just read the Bible. Oh, that just makes them really angry.

We do speak wisdom among those who are mature. There’s the first key. Mature is the word…well it’s actually teleios, complete. I read it that way. Complete, saved, been made complete, for you are complete in Him. That’s regeneration. Why do we know wisdom? Why do we speak wisdom? Because we’ve been made complete. We have come to Christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, Colossians says. This is God’s gracious gift to us in our regeneration. It isn’t because we were smarter than anybody else, it was because the Spirit gave us life, the Spirit gave us light, the Spirit quickened us, made us alive, took off the blinders and helped us to see the truth of the gospel

Remember back in 2 Corinthians 4, “God who said let there be light, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the glory of the gospel in the face of Jesus Christ.” God turned on the light and turned on the life through the work of the Spirit. We love the Bible because of the work of the Spirit. He has given us life, and listen to me, this is life that is sustained by food, like your physical life, and spiritual life is sustained by food and the food is…what?…it’s the Word of God. It’s the Word of God.

Back to verse 6, “The wisdom that we have who have been made complete in Christ is a wisdom, however, not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away.” It’s not the wisdom of the world. It’s not what James calls the wisdom from below. It’s the wisdom from above, James 3:15 to 18, that comes down and is pure and peaceable. We have the true wisdom.

But look at the culture. If they had their way, the power brokers in this society would shut every believing Christian, every Bible Christian, they would shut them out of the public discourse permanently. They don’t want to hear anything from us. The wisdom that we have is contrary to their wisdom. This is the wisdom that is not passing away. Verse 7, “We speak of God’s wisdom.”

Wow! Do you understand how important you are to the world? You might not be fashionable. I might not be fashionable in terms of what the world likes to hear, be entertained by. You might not be remarkable and I’m not remarkable, none of us is really remarkable, we’re just the hoi-polloi here. But you speak God’s wisdom because the Holy Spirit has given you life and you love His truth.

taken from: The Humbling Gospel. A message preached at Truth Matters 2011.

Christianity in a Culture Feeding on Self — John MacArthur

And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. (Luke 9:23)

John MacArthur,

If you ever wanted to know how to give an invitation, there’s one. Do you ever wonder what to say at the end of a service? Do you ever wonder what to say to sinners after you’ve preached the gospel? How about this! “Any of you who would like to follow Christ: Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow. And to further explain what that means:

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. (Luke 9:24-26)

Now let’s get the picture. There are a lot of people following Jesus and His ministry at all points on the spectrum of belief and here Jesus gives an invitation. The issue is “coming after me”, “devoting yourself to me”, “following me”. And the terms are unmistakable: “Let him deny himself.” Doesn’t sound like the “self-esteem gospel” to me. Doesn’t sound like felt-needs to me. Arneomai is the verb and I want you to know what it means. It means to “refuse to associate with”, to “disown”. You want to come to Christ do you? Disown yourself. Refuse any further association with the person you are. It isn’t about adding the whip cream on the top of your already successful life. It isn’t about taking the final step to secure forever the wonder of who you are. It is about disassociating with yourself. The one you want to no longer associate with is you. You’re sick of you. You don’t want anything to do with what you are.  This is hard. This is why it’s hard to believe. A sinner has to come to the place of complete self-denial. Abandoning any hope of self-fulfillment. It’s back to that beatitude-attitude again isn’t it? Blessed are the poor in what? The poor in spirit. The spiritually bankrupt who know they’re destitute. And their spiritual destitution causes them to be also those who mourn, and those that are meek, they’re lowly.

In Philippians chapter 3 the Apostle Paul spent his life up until the point of his conversion in the pursuit of self-fulfillment. Self-fulfillment for him came through the legalistic system of Judaism–the works-righteousness, self-exalting system of Judaism–and Paul had achieved  as much as could be achieved. Philippians 3 talks about the fact that he was circumcised the eighth day, and that he was of the tribe of Benjamin, he was a Jew, and he was kosher–that is he followed all of the traditions–a Hebrew of the Hebrews, he was zealous for his religion to the degree where he persecuted people that were a threat to it. As far as outwardly concerned there was nothing that could be laid against him as a violation of the law. He was all of that that one could hope would be enough to fulfill one’s self as having achieved religious stature before man and God, and he said when he came across Christ, he looked at it and said it was dung. So much for self-fulfillment. It was once gain to him, but when he saw Christ he counted it as what? Loss. It wasn’t neutral. It was devastating.

This is not about self-fulfillment. The gospel is not about self-fulfillment, it is about self-denial. Out of the carcass of self-denial comes the honey of divine grace. An old puritan prayed this way:

LORD, HIGH AND HOLY, MEEK AND LOWLY,
Let me learn that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the joyful spirit,
that the repentant soul is the triumphant soul
that to have nothing is to have everything
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown
that to give is to receive

Let me find Your light in my darkness
Your joy in my sorrow
Your grace in my sin
Your riches in my poverty
Your glory in my humiliation
and Your life in my death

We need to tell people that if you want to be saved–that if you want to follow Jesus, you want to come after Him–it’s the end of you. All your ambitions, all your desires set aside in utter submission to His Lordship. It’s the attitude of that publican in Luke 18. The Pharisee goes in to the temple: “I thank you that I’m not like other people…”, you know the story. And what is the publican doing? He won’t look up, his head is bowed, he’s pounding his chest, and he’s crying out: “God be merciful to me a sinner.” The Pharisee was happy with himself. The publican didn’t want any further association with himself. That’s where we have to take the sinner. This by the way then becomes a way of life.

When you present some shallow gospel that calls for no self-denial what do you expect people to live like from then on? If they think that Jesus is in the business of giving them what they want does that ever end? Does that ever end? And guess what happens as soon as Jesus doesn’t deliver.

No, we begin  at the point of self-denial and, listen, that’s how you come to salvation at the point of total self-denial and then the Christian life is the struggle to stay that way. And it’s a struggle. I was there when I was saved but it’s a battle to stay there because my flesh rises up and makes it’s demands, doesn’t it? So I have a little set of things written that I keep close by to remind of the fact that I came to Christ in self-denial and I want to live my life that way. This is what it says:

When you are neglected, unforgiven, or when you are purposely set at naught and you sting and you hurt with the insult of that oversight, but your heart is happy, being counted worthy to suffer for Christ, that is dying to self.

When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed and your advice is disregarded and your opinions are ridiculed, and you refuse to let anger rise in your heart or even defend yourself, you take it all patiently in loving silence, you’re dying to self.

And when you lovingly and patiently bear any disgrace, any regularity, any annoyance, when you can stand face to face with folly and extravagance and spiritual insensitivity, and endure it as Jesus did, that is dying to self.

When you are content with any food, any money, any clothing, any climate, any society, any solitude, any interruption by the will of God, that is dying to self.
And when you never care to refer to yourself in conversation or record your own good works, or itch after commendation from others, and when you truly love to be unknown, that is dying to self.

When you see your brother prosper and have his needs wondrously met, and can honestly rejoice with him in spirit and feel no envy and never question God, though your needs are greater and still unmet, that is dying to self.

And when you can receive correction, and reproof from one of less stature than yourself and humbly admit inwardly as well as outwardly that he’s right and find no resentment and no rebellion in your heart, that is dying to self.

That’s how you came, and that’s how you stay. We are selling a kind of evangelicalism that is deadly to this. You can’t build a gospel around people having self-fulfillment, and then not expect them to think that that’s what God has to deliver to them from then on. This is another way to attack the issue of Lordship.

Furthermore, go back to Luke 9. Jesus didn’t just say: “if anyone wishes to come after Me let him deny himself”, but he took us to the level, or to the extent that that self-denial must go when He said this: “…and take up his cross daily”, take up his cross daily. And the daily there is important because the daily means we’re not talking about an event, we’re talking about a way of life. In the fourteenth chapter and the twenty-seventh verse of Luke, Jesus essentially says the same thing. You take up your cross and you keep carrying it. What does this mean? Well, what did a cross mean to them? It didn’t mean to them what it means to a Keswic preacher. It doesn’t mean some psychological self-crucifixion. It simply meant to them what it was: an instrument of execution.

They knew what crucifixion was. The Romans crucified people. The Persians had sort of launched crucifixion. The Egyptians used crucifixion. There were other barbarians that used crucifixion. It was somewhat common. There had been one occasion of a rebellion in Jerusalem in which 800 Jews were crucified there for a revolt which followed the death of Herod the Great. The Proconsul Varus crucified 2,000 Jews. They knew exactly what a cross meant. A cross was the most heinous form of torture and death. And what Jesus is saying here cannot be mistaken. He’s not talking about something psychological here. He’s not talking about something even spiritual. He’s talking about something very physical: “I want you to deny yourself and be ready to die because that’s what it might require.” In fact you need to be ready to die any day and every day. When Paul said I die daily, he wasn’t saying that I get up spiritually and I execute my ego. He was simply saying every single day I anticipate the possibility of my death so that in my mind  I’m dying everyday. So many plots of the Jews, so many plots of the Gentiles. Paul is talking in his own personal testimony of dying daily, to the Corinthians, the same thing that Jesus is speaking about here. So, Jesus says, you want to follow Me do you? You want to come after Me? It’s the end of you. Even to the degree that every day you put your life on the line should I desire to take it. And then, the literal Greek closes the verse: “And let him be following Me.” Self-denial, cross-bearing, and loyal obedience, those are the life patterns of those who are truly the followers of Jesus Christ…

…It’s hard to believe, but you wouldn’t think that today, in fact, today, it’s easy to believe and in fact it’s getting easier every month…Over the last few months we have been told that you don’t have to even know there was a Jesus. You don’t even have to know there was a Bible! You don’t even have to know the true God! In an article in Christianity Today I read, a couple of editions ago, people are saved by Jesus who don’t even know Jesus is saving them. This is no-Lordship carried to the extreme, this is no Jesus! Some of you may feel I’m a little extreme on this, but I’m just telling you what Scripture says. We have certainly succumbed to the fundamental opposition of sinners in a culture that supports and grows self-love. We’ve literally succumbed to that. Everybody is in to self-love, and fulfillment, personal fulfillment, so that’s the way we’ll put the Gospel — and there are lots of people all around the world who don’t know about Jesus, so let’s get them in the kingdom without having to know about Jesus. If we have to we’ll “trans-dispensationalize” them to get them in.

Martin Luther launched the great Reformation of course with his 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church. The fourth of his protesting assertions, the fourth, was that a penitent heart was characterized by a self-hate…quote: “penance remains, while self-hate remains.” Luther said true penitence is self-hate, and he says that remains in those who enter the kingdom of heaven. This is essential for the Gospel.

“Depart from me O Lord, for I am a sinful man”, “Woe is me, for I am disintegrating” says Isaiah…This is so alien to a culture feeding on self-love and having every whimsical need met insisting on rights, privileges, equal respect, reward, and honor for everything.

taken from: General Session #1 address given by John MacArthur at the 2003 Shepherds’ Conference. (emphasis added)

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Living the Christian Life One Day At a Time — John MacArthur

John MacArthur,

While all Christians are spiritual positionally, they are not always spiritual practically. That is, we do not always act spiritual. That is why Paul wrote about spiritual babies in 1 Corinthians 3:1-3. Paul said that he should have been able to talk to the Corinthians as spiritual men, but they were not acting like spiritual men. They were not receiving the Word, and there was unholiness in their lives. They were behaving carnally, requiring him to deal with them as babes in Christ.

The Corinthians were not unique. All Christians face the same problem. All Christians are “spiritual” because they know Christ as Savior and have the Holy Spirit dwelling within, but all Christians do not always act spiritual. Sometimes we act in very carnal and natural ways.

A good illustration of that is the apostle Peter. In Matthew 16 Peter recognized Christ as the Son of the living God. Jesus immediately responded, “Blessed are you, Simon, and now I am going to change your name to Peter [the word meant "rock"]. You are going to be a new person, solid as a rock” (see 16:17-18). But in the twenty-first chapter of John, Jesus met Peter on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, following Peter’s failure on the night before the crucifixion. There Jesus called him Simon, because Peter had been acting like his old self–like the man he was before he believed in Christ.

What Peter had done–and what all of us do from time to time–was temporarily cease following closely after Christ. Even after Pentecost, Peter continued to struggle occasionally with fleshly behavior. At one time even Paul had to rebuke him face to face (see Gal. 2:11-21)

Paul himself understood firsthand the Christians unrelenting struggle with the flesh, and wrote movingly of it in Romans 6-7. The point is, spirituality is not a permanent state you enter into the moment you get “zapped” with some kind of spiritual experience. Spirituality is simply receiving the living Word daily from God, letting it dwell in you richly, and then living in obedience to it through a moment-by-moment walk in the Spirit. Paul said as much in Galatians 5:16: “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.”

The word “walk” is a very important word in the New Testament. To walk speaks of moment-by-moment conduct. Paul taught the church to walk in accord with the Holy Spirit: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25). Walking speaks of a measured pace, taking one step at time. That is, after all, how true spirituality functions: one step, one moment at a time.

taken from: Charismatic Chaos. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992. pp. 250-251. (emphasis added)

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The Difference Between Judas Iscariot and Peter — John MacArthur

“How you feel about Christ, how you view Him will determine your heaven or your hell. Peter was a betrayer. And we could see how it happened. He boasted too much. He prayed too little. He acted too fast–drew out a sword and wanted to make a war. He followed too far; he stayed off in the shadows. So you can say, ‘Yeah, there were some factors in overconfidence and lack of prayer and impulsiveness and cowardice. But Peter was no final disaster.’ He was no final disaster. Grace was operating in Peter’s life. Grace was not operating in Judas’ life. Grace was operating in Peter’s life because Peter loved Jesus Christ. And John tells us in 1 John 4, ‘We love Him because He first loved us.’ Jesus had set His love on Peter and Peter loved Him in return. They had a relationship of love. That is the deep and compelling attitude of the true believer. It comes down to this: the true believer’s love for Christ is the evidence of salvation. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 16:22 Paul says, ‘If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be damned.’ It comes to that.

You look at Christianity, you look at the church, and you can get very complicated about what it means to be a Christian. It’s this simple. Look at your heart. Do you love Christ? Do you seek His honor? Seek His glory? Does your heart go out in affection toward Him? Do you desire to please Him, exalt Him, love Him, worship Him, commune with Him, hear Him? I’ll sum it up: ‘If you love Me,’ John 14, ‘you keep My’…What?… ‘commandments’–you love His Word. You love Him. That’s how love acts.”

Listen to the entire message below as John MacArthur explains from Matthew 26-27 the difference between Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Christ and subsequent regret and that of the Apostle Peter. Two betrayals and two sorrows — producing true repentance in Peter alone — leading to two different eternal destinations.

The Decline in Spiritual Maturity and How to Recover Discernment — John MacArthur

[One] factor in the abysmal lack of discernment today is a growing deterioration of the overall level of spiritual maturity in today’s church. As knowledge of God’s truth ebbs, people follow more popular views, seeking feelings and experiences. They are hungry for miracles, healings, and spectacular wonders. They grope for easy and instant solutions to the routine trials of life. They turn quickly from the plain truth of God’s Word to embrace doctrines fit only for the credulous and naive. They chase personal comfort and success. Christianity today may be shallower than at any time in history. . .

Spiritual ignorance and biblical illiteracy are commonplace. That kind of spiritual shallowness is a direct result of shallow teaching. Solid preaching with deep substance and sound doctrine is essential for Christians to grow. But churches today often teach only the barest basics—and sometimes less than that.

Churches are therefore filled with baby Christians—people who are spiritual infants. That is a fitting description, because the characteristic that is most descriptive of an infant is selfishness. Babies are completely self-centered. They scream if they don’t get what they want when they want it. They are aware of only their own needs and desires. They never say thanks for anything. They can’t help others; they can’t give anything. They can only receive. And certainly there is nothing wrong with that when it occurs in the natural stage of infancy. But to see a child whose development is arrested so he never gets beyond the stage of helpless selfishness—that is a tragedy.

And that is exactly the spiritual state of multitudes in the church today. They are utterly preoccupied with self. They want their own problems solved and their own comfort elevated. Their spiritual development is arrested, and they remain in a perpetual state of selfish helplessness. It is evidence of a tragic abnormality.

Arrested infancy means people do not discern. Just as a baby crawls along the floor, putting anything it finds in its mouth, spiritual babies don’t know what is good for them and what isn’t. Immaturity and lack of discernment go together; they are virtually the same thing.

The tendency to stall in a state of immaturity also existed in New Testament times. Paul repeatedly appealed to Christians to grow up spiritually. In Ephesians 4:14-15, he wrote, “We are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ” (emphasis added).

How do we grow spiritually? By “speaking the truth in love” to one another. We grow under the truth. It is the same truth by which we are sanctified, conformed to the image of Christ, made to be mature spiritually (John 17:17, 19). As we absorb the truth of God’s Word, we grow up and are built up. We might say accurately that the process of spiritual growth is a process of training for discernment.

Hebrews 5:12-6:1 underscores all this:

Though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity.

The writer of Hebrews told his readers, “You’re babies. You’ve been around long enough to be teachers, but instead I have to feed you milk. I have to keep giving you elementary things. You can’t take solid food. You’re not accustomed to the rich things of the Word—and that is tragic.”

Notice in verse fourteen he states that discernment and maturity go hand in hand: “solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.” Knowing and understanding the Word of righteousness—taking in solid food—trains your senses to discern good and evil.

The word “senses” is not a reference to the feelings, emotions, or other subjective sensory mechanisms. The writer of this epistle is explicitly encouraging his readers to exercise their minds. Those who “because of practice have their senses trained to discern” are the wise, the understanding, people who thrive on the solid food of the Word of God. As we have seen from the beginning, discernment results fr m a carefully disciplined mind. Discernment is not a matter of feelings, nor is it a mystical gift. Notice from the wisdom literature of the Old Testament how closely discernment is linked with a seasoned, developed, biblically informed mind.

• Psalm 119:66: “Teach me good discernment and knowledge, for I believe in Thy commandments.”

• Proverbs 2:2-5: “Make your ear attentive to wisdom, incline your heart to understanding; for if you cry for discernment, lift your voice for understanding; if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures; then you will discern the fear of the Lord, and discover the knowledge of God.”

• Proverbs 10:13: “On the lips of the discerning, wisdom is found.”

• Proverbs 16:21: “The wise in heart will be called discerning.”

The path to discernment is the way of spiritual maturity. And the only means to spiritual maturity is mastery of the Word of God.

Most people are discerning about things that are important to them. People who regard a healthy diet as crucial watch carefully what they eat. They read the fine print on the package to see how many grams of fat it has and what percentages of the daily required nutrients are offered. People who work with pesticides or dangerous chemicals must be very discerning. They study the procedures and the precautions very carefully to avoid any potentially lethal exposure. People who make investments in the stock market usually practice discernment. They study the cryptic newspaper listings on the stock market and watch the ticker tape. Lawyers are very discerning with contracts. They have to figure out the legal jargon and make sure they understand what they are signing. People who undergo delicate surgery are usually very discerning. They try to find the doctor with the finest skills—or at least verify that he or she has plenty of experience in whatever procedure is to be done. I know many people who are very discerning sports enthusiasts. They watch a football game and can assess any offense, any defense, any play. They often feel they are more discerning than whoever is calling the actual plays. They study statistics and averages and take it all very seriously.

Do you realize those are essentially the same skills that are required in spiritual discernment? Careful thought, keen interest, thorough analysis, close observation—together with alertness, attentiveness, thoughtfulness, and above all, a love of truth. All of us have those skills to some degree, and we use them in whatever field of endeavor is important to us.

Yet what could be more important than spiritual discernment? There is no valid explanation for why contemporary Christians are so undiscerning—but it reveals a spiritual apathy that is deadly evil.

Can the church regain her ability to be discerning? Only by growing up spiritually. That means confronting the spirit of a relativistic age and diligently applying ourselves to the unfailing Word of God. We cannot gain discernment overnight, or through a mystical experience. Understanding the problem is not the answer. Discernment will come only as we train our minds to be understanding in the truth of God’s Word and learn to apply that truth skillfully to our lives.

“Settle Down: Don’t Lose Your Passion and Energy; Take Charge of It” by John MacArthur (instruction for the Young, Restless, and Reformed)

John MacArthur,

The “restless” aspect of the Young, Restless, Reformed movement is something of a mixed blessing. Restlessness per se is is of course no great virtue. But the energy, intensity, drive, and passion that underlie the restless tendencies of our young adult years are wonderful assets that hold great potential for good. They can be—and should be—harnessed and put to work for Christ’s kingdom.

As a matter of fact, a lively enthusiasm for spiritual things is one of the best features of the YRR movement, and it is precisely what the church of Christ needs after a few generations of increasing indifference about sound biblical doctrine.

Apathy is malignant. It breeds lukewarmness, which is more despised by our Lord than either complete coldness or fiery fanaticism (Revelation 3:16).

So I’m grateful for the keen interest the YRR movement has shown in gospel-centered doctrine and preaching. I understand the value of the energy and enthusiasm young adults seem to bring to every conference and each conversation I have with them.

My encouragement to them is this: Don’t squander your youthful vigor on mere restlessness. Apply yourself to humble service for the cause of Christ within the context of the church. Remember that “whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all” (Mark 10:43-44).

Meanwhile here are three crucial biblical virtues to cultivate. These will keep us from becoming unsettled and restless:

Steadfastness

One mark of spiritual health and stamina that gets far too little notice these days….[Click here to continue reading at Grace To You]

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The Fitting End to Mark’s Gospel — John MacArthur [VIDEO] (with a personal appreciation from me)

“Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct.” — Hebrews 13:7

Iain Murray on the ministry of John MacArthur,

“Commitment to hard work marks his life. To the casual observer, the role he has been given in serving a large and supportive church might be an enviable one. Behind that role, however, there is a weight of responsibility which few would sustain. If his burden was known, it is not one which others would readily take up. To remain joyful through forty years in the care of one congregation, and fresh in the constant preaching of the Word of God, is a demand human nature cannot sustain. It is grace that has kept his input from diminishing with the years. ‘Our pastor gets better and better’, can be heard at Sun Valley, as it was heard in Spurgeon’s church when his youth was past.” (John MacArthur: Servant of the Word and Flock, pp. 229,230)

Sunday, June 5th of this year, John MacArthur preached what can only be described as historic, a sermon on Mark 16:9-20. It marked not only the completion of over two years preaching verse by verse through the Gospel of Mark (preceded by over 10 years preaching through Luke!), but also the end of a an over forty year goal of preaching through the entire New Testament. I am so thankful for the ministry of John MacArthur, and his sermons truly do “get better and better.” And by the way, this is not exaltation of a man. God forbid. (1 Cor. 3:3-8). My boasting is in Christ alone (Philippians 3:3; Gal. 6:14) I do not exalt John MacArthur, but I do honor him. His preaching and writing have drawn me closer to Christ, and for that I am forever thankful. As Iain Murray states in the aforementioned biography of MacArthur,

“An evangelical leader inspires the affection of followers because they learn Christ through him, and see something of Christ in him. They follow him because he follows Christ. And they love him because he loves them in Christ’s name. ‘The apostle Paul summarized the spirit of the true leader when he wrote, ‘Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.’” (ibid. pp. 2,3)

This sermon will build your confidence in the authority, inerrancy, and inspiration of Scripture. And, may it serve as a “fitting beginning” of many more years of ministry for Pastor MacArthur.

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