In John MacArthurs's book "The gospel according to Jesus" he points out the gospel presentation in a typical church. "You will hear sinners entreated with words like, "accept Christ as your personal Savior"; "ask Jesus into your heart"; "invite Christ into your life"; "make a decision for Christ." You may be so accustomed to hearing those phrases that it will surprise you to learn that none of them is based on biblical terminology. They are products of a diluted gospel. It is not the gospel according to Jesus. Instead the gospel Jesus proclaimed was a call to discipleship, a call to follow Him in submissive obedience, not just a plea to make a decision or pray a prayer. This was in every sense good news, yet it was anything but easy-believism."
Watch this video in order to understand the dangerous doctrine of "decisional regeneration."
Monday, April 14, 2008
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Partners in ministry
Resources we got while at the Conference:
1. John MacArthur Study Bible
2. The Truth War
3. The Gospel according to Jesus
4. The Tale of Two Sons (book, workbook and audio book on CD)
5. The Good Life - Chuck Colson
Q & A with Dr. John MacArthur
During the question and answer session this morning Nancy asks for the microphone. Many people that know us think I am Mr. Microphone but just to let you in on a secret it is Nancy (Mrs. Microphone). So here we go with Nancy B. and her question for Dr. MacArthur.
This has been a great conference on the "Great Joy of Jesus." John MacArthur is exegeting for us Luke 15 and is teaching how much rejoicing goes on by God when one sinner repents. How many of us think of God in this way? There is so much too learn and this is such a wonderful learning format at the Cove.
This has been a great conference on the "Great Joy of Jesus." John MacArthur is exegeting for us Luke 15 and is teaching how much rejoicing goes on by God when one sinner repents. How many of us think of God in this way? There is so much too learn and this is such a wonderful learning format at the Cove.
Friday, April 11, 2008
The Joy of Jesus
Here are some photos of the first day with Dr. John MacArthur speaking at the Cove. There are a couple of photos taken at a distance. One is Franklin Graham that is introducing Dr. MacArthur and the other one is John MacArthur teaching. The room is completely full and tonight was absolutely awesome.
Can man save himself?
Dr. John MacArthur speaks on the doctrine of total inability. If you have not studied or learned this important Biblical principle please listen to this message. If you have then may I invite you to listen again in order to keep this fresh in your heart and mind.
The Doctrine of Total Inability
The Doctrine of Total Inability
Warning! reading this may be hazardous to your pride
I am privileged to meet and teach a small men's Bible study on Tuesday mornings. We are coming to a fuller understanding of the gospel and the dangers of living in our American culture. Occasionally I write emails as these particular thoughts work their way through my heart and mind. This email is devoted to understanding the nature of man's evil heart and mind. Therefore I warn you before you read that this article could be very hazardous to your American pride and arrogance, especially when it comes to "the gospel."
I was studying an aspect of the gospel this morning that I want to share with each of you. It is "bad news" that will lead you to the "good news." Did you know that your heart, mind, and will in its natural state is evil and wicked? The pride and arrogance of man leads him to want to believe that there is some good in him somewhere. But the Bible never speaks this way and so if a person thinks they are a little good then they are deceived.
Read the following verses:
Genesis 6:5 - Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
After the fall God makes this declaration regarding the heart of all men for all time in their natural and unregenerated state.
Jeremiah 17:9 - "The heart is more deceitful than all else
And is desperately sick;
Who can understand it?
Proverbs 20:9 - Who can say, "I have cleansed my heart,
I am pure from my sin"?
What is the answer to that rhetorical question above from Proverbs? The answer is no one has a cleansed heart and is pure from sin.
These are just a few of the verses that deal with the natural state of a man's heart. However some people still unconvinced will gravitate to the mind of man and say he can think around his evil heart. Or they would infer that the mind of man can override the evil when the mind reasons in a rational and good way.
Romans 1:28 - And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,
When man enters this world in his sinful state not only does he not want God, he is rebellious against God. As he continues to rebel then we learn in Romans that God finally will give the man over to a mind that is reprobate.
2 Corinthians 4:4 - in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
This is the case of the mind that is unable to believe due to the fact that it has been blinded by the devil.
1 Corinthians 2:14 - But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.
The mind of man in his natural state can not understand the things of God because this man does not have the Spirit of God to disclose and reveal the things of God to him.
There are literally hundreds of verses to support the heart and mind of man that is evil and wicked in its natural state. But if you need a summary statement that may be the best at diagnosing the universal condition of man's heart, mind and will then go to Romans 3:10-12
Rom. 3:10 as it is written,
"THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE;
Rom. 3:11 THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS,
THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD;
Rom. 3:12 ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS;
THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD,
THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE."
The apostle Paul is writing Romans Chapter 1:18-3:21 to convince us that our condition before God in our natural state is totally evil and wicked and that there is not one drop, not one ounce of good in any of us.
Guys, if we are to understand the gospel then one must come to terms with this doctrine that is so very, very clear in Scripture.
I am so sick and tired of liberals, seeker-friendly, post-modern and others who want to soften, gloss over and just plain ignore this critical truth from the Bible. And they do so in order that people can leave church on Sunday feeling comfortable instead of convicted! I was told by someone while pastoring the Shepherd's Church "our family wants to feel good when we leave church." What kind of idiotic statement is that other than from the mouth of an idiot! Yes, that is exactly what I said and I concur with the apostle Paul when he called the Galatians starting in Chapter 3 verse 1 - "stupid idiots!"
Gentlemen you are sitting beside people in church today that are going to hell because they have no thought, clue, idea or proper teaching of these things regarding the gospel.
The mission field is in your own church! How many people have walked down to the front of a church and prayed a prayer with a preacher or elder only to leave thinking they are saved by the prayer? Is there anything, I mean anything that a man can do to save himself? Well according the the word of God the only person that can save a man is Jesus Christ Himself.
Read Ephesians 2:1-2 and answer me this question - how dead is dead?
Then travel over to John 11 and read carefully the account of Jesus calling to Lazarus from the tomb. My question to you is "how dead was Lazarus?"
This is a picture for us of how we come to spiritual life. He must call and from His call we respond. According to 1 John 4:19 - we love Him because He first loved us.
Everywhere in Scripture God is the initiator of salvation and man is dead, rebellious and evil.
Guys, this is part of the gospel but it is not all of the gospel. You don't stay in your depraved state and just wallow in how evil you were and how unworthy you were to be saved. Even though all that is true you continue to work through the reality that Christ came and by His grace and only by His grace, He saved you! Will you not allow that to be part of your daily meditation and prayer? Will you not fall before this holy,righteous, all knowing and all powerful God and submit yourself to Him and say Thank You, Thank You, Thank You, I don't deserve it and can only receive it, oh how much I Thank You Lord!!!
This doctrine is fast losing its appeal in America in lieu of the new marketing of Jesus to be everything for you that He needs to be. How tragic, and blasphemous that we have taken our own methods and practices in order to show people in the church how to convert people and then we advertise the statistics. This is wrong, it's wrong I tell you not to let people know, it is wrong not to preach and teach clearly on these things that God Himself declares in His word about man. Well fellows I am going to declare them by the grace of God until He releases me from this burden. I remain committed to the doctrine that God is holy, holy, holy and man is sinful and evil beyond what we can know or imagine and then only hope, the only hope we have is the Lord Jesus Christ by grace alone and through faith alone can save us to Himself!!! We in the church are so far from understanding these things and is why today so many Christians are still sucking on a bottle of milk and aren't capable of eating the meat of the word. Fellows it is time to grow up, and fess up, and repent up and get prepared one day to go up!!! The wishy washy, milk toast, feel good and stroke our little fragile egos preaching is a lie from the pit of hell that is a man centered and not a God-centered theology.
I was studying an aspect of the gospel this morning that I want to share with each of you. It is "bad news" that will lead you to the "good news." Did you know that your heart, mind, and will in its natural state is evil and wicked? The pride and arrogance of man leads him to want to believe that there is some good in him somewhere. But the Bible never speaks this way and so if a person thinks they are a little good then they are deceived.
Read the following verses:
Genesis 6:5 - Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
After the fall God makes this declaration regarding the heart of all men for all time in their natural and unregenerated state.
Jeremiah 17:9 - "The heart is more deceitful than all else
And is desperately sick;
Who can understand it?
Proverbs 20:9 - Who can say, "I have cleansed my heart,
I am pure from my sin"?
What is the answer to that rhetorical question above from Proverbs? The answer is no one has a cleansed heart and is pure from sin.
These are just a few of the verses that deal with the natural state of a man's heart. However some people still unconvinced will gravitate to the mind of man and say he can think around his evil heart. Or they would infer that the mind of man can override the evil when the mind reasons in a rational and good way.
Romans 1:28 - And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,
When man enters this world in his sinful state not only does he not want God, he is rebellious against God. As he continues to rebel then we learn in Romans that God finally will give the man over to a mind that is reprobate.
2 Corinthians 4:4 - in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
This is the case of the mind that is unable to believe due to the fact that it has been blinded by the devil.
1 Corinthians 2:14 - But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.
The mind of man in his natural state can not understand the things of God because this man does not have the Spirit of God to disclose and reveal the things of God to him.
There are literally hundreds of verses to support the heart and mind of man that is evil and wicked in its natural state. But if you need a summary statement that may be the best at diagnosing the universal condition of man's heart, mind and will then go to Romans 3:10-12
Rom. 3:10 as it is written,
"THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE;
Rom. 3:11 THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS,
THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD;
Rom. 3:12 ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS;
THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD,
THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE."
The apostle Paul is writing Romans Chapter 1:18-3:21 to convince us that our condition before God in our natural state is totally evil and wicked and that there is not one drop, not one ounce of good in any of us.
Guys, if we are to understand the gospel then one must come to terms with this doctrine that is so very, very clear in Scripture.
I am so sick and tired of liberals, seeker-friendly, post-modern and others who want to soften, gloss over and just plain ignore this critical truth from the Bible. And they do so in order that people can leave church on Sunday feeling comfortable instead of convicted! I was told by someone while pastoring the Shepherd's Church "our family wants to feel good when we leave church." What kind of idiotic statement is that other than from the mouth of an idiot! Yes, that is exactly what I said and I concur with the apostle Paul when he called the Galatians starting in Chapter 3 verse 1 - "stupid idiots!"
Gentlemen you are sitting beside people in church today that are going to hell because they have no thought, clue, idea or proper teaching of these things regarding the gospel.
The mission field is in your own church! How many people have walked down to the front of a church and prayed a prayer with a preacher or elder only to leave thinking they are saved by the prayer? Is there anything, I mean anything that a man can do to save himself? Well according the the word of God the only person that can save a man is Jesus Christ Himself.
Read Ephesians 2:1-2 and answer me this question - how dead is dead?
Then travel over to John 11 and read carefully the account of Jesus calling to Lazarus from the tomb. My question to you is "how dead was Lazarus?"
This is a picture for us of how we come to spiritual life. He must call and from His call we respond. According to 1 John 4:19 - we love Him because He first loved us.
Everywhere in Scripture God is the initiator of salvation and man is dead, rebellious and evil.
Guys, this is part of the gospel but it is not all of the gospel. You don't stay in your depraved state and just wallow in how evil you were and how unworthy you were to be saved. Even though all that is true you continue to work through the reality that Christ came and by His grace and only by His grace, He saved you! Will you not allow that to be part of your daily meditation and prayer? Will you not fall before this holy,righteous, all knowing and all powerful God and submit yourself to Him and say Thank You, Thank You, Thank You, I don't deserve it and can only receive it, oh how much I Thank You Lord!!!
This doctrine is fast losing its appeal in America in lieu of the new marketing of Jesus to be everything for you that He needs to be. How tragic, and blasphemous that we have taken our own methods and practices in order to show people in the church how to convert people and then we advertise the statistics. This is wrong, it's wrong I tell you not to let people know, it is wrong not to preach and teach clearly on these things that God Himself declares in His word about man. Well fellows I am going to declare them by the grace of God until He releases me from this burden. I remain committed to the doctrine that God is holy, holy, holy and man is sinful and evil beyond what we can know or imagine and then only hope, the only hope we have is the Lord Jesus Christ by grace alone and through faith alone can save us to Himself!!! We in the church are so far from understanding these things and is why today so many Christians are still sucking on a bottle of milk and aren't capable of eating the meat of the word. Fellows it is time to grow up, and fess up, and repent up and get prepared one day to go up!!! The wishy washy, milk toast, feel good and stroke our little fragile egos preaching is a lie from the pit of hell that is a man centered and not a God-centered theology.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Servants not Spectators
(By Dr. John MacArthur)
I have often spoken out against all the pragmatic and “seeker-sensitive” approaches to contemporary worship because they tend to diminish the proper place of preaching and replace it with quasi-spiritual forms of sheer entertainment (music, comedy, drama, and whatnot). Any trend that threatens the centrality of God’s Word in our corporate worship is a dangerous trend.
But one of the most disturbing side effects of the seeker-sensitive fad is something I haven’t said as much about: When one of the main aims of a ministry philosophy is to keep people entertained, church members inevitably become mere spectators. The architects of the modern megachurches admit that they have deliberately redesigned the worship service in order to make as few demands as possible on the person in the pew. After all, they don’t want the “unchurched” to be intimidated by appeals for personal involvement in ministry. That’s the very opposite of “seeker sensitivity.”
Such thinking is spiritually deadly. Christianity is not a spectator sport. Practically the worst thing any churchgoer can do is be a hearer but not a doer (James 1:22-25). Christ himself pronounced doom on religious people who want to be mere bystanders (Matthew 7:26-27).
Something is seriously wrong in a church where the staff does all the “ministry” and people are made to feel comfortable as mere observers. One of the pastor’s main duties is to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry (Eph. 4:12). Every believer is called to be a minister of some sort, with each of us using the unique gifts given us by God for the edification of the whole church (Rom. 12:6-8).
That’s why Scripture portrays the church as a body—an organism with many organs (1 Corinthians 12:14), where each member has a unique role (vv. 15-25), and all contribute something important to the life of the body. “And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it” (v. 26).
I can’t read that verse without thinking of Dizzy Dean. He was a Hall-of-Fame baseball pitcher, whose career peaked in the 1930s. His 1934 season has never been excelled by any pitcher in history. Dean won thirty games that year, a feat that hasn’t been repeated since (though Dizzy himself came close, winning 28 games the following year). But in the 1937 All-Star game, he took a hard line drive off his toe, and the toe was broken. It should not have been a career-ending injury, but Dean was rushed back into the lineup before the fracture was completely healed, and he pitched several games favoring the sore toe. That led to an unnatural delivery that seriously injured his pitching arm. The arm never fully recovered. Dizzy Dean’s major-league career was essentially over in four years.
Something similar happens in any church where there are non-functioning members. The active members of the body become overextended, and the effectiveness of the whole body suffers greatly. Even the most insignificant member, like a toe, is designed to play a vital role.
That truth has been one of the main foundations of my approach to ministry for many years. When I first became pastor of Grace Community Church in 1969, I taught a series on Ephesians, and we spent a great deal of time studying the principle of Ephesians 4:11—that the pastor’s duty is to equip the saints, and it is their duty to shoulder the work of the ministry.
Servants Not SpectatorsOur people quickly embraced that simple idea, and it transformed our church in a remarkable way. For one thing, we began to see dramatic growth. Within a matter of months, attendance on Sundays had ballooned to almost 1,000. About that same time, a well-known evangelical magazine asked a reporter to write an article about the growth of our church. He visited our services for several weeks, carefully observed how the ministry functioned, interviewed scores of people, and then wrote an article titled “The Church with 900 Ministers.”
That title perfectly summarized what has made Grace Church unique for all these years. Nowadays we have several thousand ministers, but the principle is still the same. Everyone is expected and encouraged to be involved in active ministry. Almost no one in our church would ever view ministry as the exclusive domain of professional clergy. If you want to be comfortable as a mere spectator, Grace Church is not the church for you.
I am not making a case for egalitarianism. Much less would I argue against the need for full-time vocational pastors who devote their whole lives to prayer, the study of the Word of God, and the training and equipping of the saints (cf. Acts 6:4; 1 Timothy 4:14-15; 5:17). The church needs leaders, and God has specifically called men to leadership and set them in places of authority in the church (cf. Hebrews 13:7, 17).
But the New Testament pattern is clear and inescapable: Every Christian is gifted and called to ministry. The spiritual gifts we are given are not for our own sake, but for the benefit of the whole body (1 Corinthians 12:4-7). “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them” (Romans 12:6, emphasis added).
In my experience, it is not difficult to motivate gifted people to minister. The gift of mercy, for example, might practically be defined as the desire combined with the ability to show mercy. A person truly gifted to teach wants to teach. All the average person needs is encouragement and opportunities to employ his or her gifts. If faithful leaders properly train, equip, and guide people to the right ministry opportunities, the church will flourish.
If you are a church leader, I hope you have embraced your duty to equip people for ministry. It is, after all, one of your main duties—if not the single most important task for leaders in today’s church.
If you’re a lay person, I hope you’ll find a place where you can use your gift in the work of the ministry. Maybe you’ll be used by the Lord to start an epidemic of lay ministry in your congregation.
I have often spoken out against all the pragmatic and “seeker-sensitive” approaches to contemporary worship because they tend to diminish the proper place of preaching and replace it with quasi-spiritual forms of sheer entertainment (music, comedy, drama, and whatnot). Any trend that threatens the centrality of God’s Word in our corporate worship is a dangerous trend.
But one of the most disturbing side effects of the seeker-sensitive fad is something I haven’t said as much about: When one of the main aims of a ministry philosophy is to keep people entertained, church members inevitably become mere spectators. The architects of the modern megachurches admit that they have deliberately redesigned the worship service in order to make as few demands as possible on the person in the pew. After all, they don’t want the “unchurched” to be intimidated by appeals for personal involvement in ministry. That’s the very opposite of “seeker sensitivity.”
Such thinking is spiritually deadly. Christianity is not a spectator sport. Practically the worst thing any churchgoer can do is be a hearer but not a doer (James 1:22-25). Christ himself pronounced doom on religious people who want to be mere bystanders (Matthew 7:26-27).
Something is seriously wrong in a church where the staff does all the “ministry” and people are made to feel comfortable as mere observers. One of the pastor’s main duties is to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry (Eph. 4:12). Every believer is called to be a minister of some sort, with each of us using the unique gifts given us by God for the edification of the whole church (Rom. 12:6-8).
That’s why Scripture portrays the church as a body—an organism with many organs (1 Corinthians 12:14), where each member has a unique role (vv. 15-25), and all contribute something important to the life of the body. “And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it” (v. 26).
I can’t read that verse without thinking of Dizzy Dean. He was a Hall-of-Fame baseball pitcher, whose career peaked in the 1930s. His 1934 season has never been excelled by any pitcher in history. Dean won thirty games that year, a feat that hasn’t been repeated since (though Dizzy himself came close, winning 28 games the following year). But in the 1937 All-Star game, he took a hard line drive off his toe, and the toe was broken. It should not have been a career-ending injury, but Dean was rushed back into the lineup before the fracture was completely healed, and he pitched several games favoring the sore toe. That led to an unnatural delivery that seriously injured his pitching arm. The arm never fully recovered. Dizzy Dean’s major-league career was essentially over in four years.
Something similar happens in any church where there are non-functioning members. The active members of the body become overextended, and the effectiveness of the whole body suffers greatly. Even the most insignificant member, like a toe, is designed to play a vital role.
That truth has been one of the main foundations of my approach to ministry for many years. When I first became pastor of Grace Community Church in 1969, I taught a series on Ephesians, and we spent a great deal of time studying the principle of Ephesians 4:11—that the pastor’s duty is to equip the saints, and it is their duty to shoulder the work of the ministry.
Servants Not SpectatorsOur people quickly embraced that simple idea, and it transformed our church in a remarkable way. For one thing, we began to see dramatic growth. Within a matter of months, attendance on Sundays had ballooned to almost 1,000. About that same time, a well-known evangelical magazine asked a reporter to write an article about the growth of our church. He visited our services for several weeks, carefully observed how the ministry functioned, interviewed scores of people, and then wrote an article titled “The Church with 900 Ministers.”
That title perfectly summarized what has made Grace Church unique for all these years. Nowadays we have several thousand ministers, but the principle is still the same. Everyone is expected and encouraged to be involved in active ministry. Almost no one in our church would ever view ministry as the exclusive domain of professional clergy. If you want to be comfortable as a mere spectator, Grace Church is not the church for you.
I am not making a case for egalitarianism. Much less would I argue against the need for full-time vocational pastors who devote their whole lives to prayer, the study of the Word of God, and the training and equipping of the saints (cf. Acts 6:4; 1 Timothy 4:14-15; 5:17). The church needs leaders, and God has specifically called men to leadership and set them in places of authority in the church (cf. Hebrews 13:7, 17).
But the New Testament pattern is clear and inescapable: Every Christian is gifted and called to ministry. The spiritual gifts we are given are not for our own sake, but for the benefit of the whole body (1 Corinthians 12:4-7). “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them” (Romans 12:6, emphasis added).
In my experience, it is not difficult to motivate gifted people to minister. The gift of mercy, for example, might practically be defined as the desire combined with the ability to show mercy. A person truly gifted to teach wants to teach. All the average person needs is encouragement and opportunities to employ his or her gifts. If faithful leaders properly train, equip, and guide people to the right ministry opportunities, the church will flourish.
If you are a church leader, I hope you have embraced your duty to equip people for ministry. It is, after all, one of your main duties—if not the single most important task for leaders in today’s church.
If you’re a lay person, I hope you’ll find a place where you can use your gift in the work of the ministry. Maybe you’ll be used by the Lord to start an epidemic of lay ministry in your congregation.
Doctrine matters
"A religion without doctrine or dogma is a thing which many are fond of talking of in the present day. It sounds very fine at first. It looks very pretty at a distance. But the moment we sit down to examine and consider it, we shall find it a simple impossibility. We might as well talk of a body without bones and tendons. No man will ever be anything or do anything in religion, unless he believes something. No one ever fights earnestly against the world, the flesh and the devil, unless he has engraven on his heart certain great principles which he believes." - J.C. Ryle
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