by John MacArthur
We have taken a break from our study of the gospel of Luke for the last five weeks, and now this is the sixth week in which I have spoken to you on the subject of deliverance, the neglected doctrine. I have done this because I feel obligated before the Lord to give you an understanding of the current state of the evangelical church. I do it with some reluctance. It doesn’t make me happy to do this, it makes me sad. I don’t like to have to point out many of the things that I’ve pointed out but they are the truth, and that is my responsibility before God.
What I have been saying to you is that evangelicalism is in a desperate situation. And that desperation is made manifest by its inability to distinguish who is a true Christian. We have abandoned any clear understanding of what it means to really be saved…we, in the sense, of broad evangelicalism.
Those of us who teach the Bible, those of us who uphold sound doctrine have to rise up and speak the truth. I’ve tried to show you the breadth of this problem and I want to conclude comments on people and issues with a particular focus this morning.
Through the years we have all become influenced by Billy Graham. One way or another he has, for us, been the spokesman for evangelical Christianity. He has become the symbol of gospel preachers to the world and even to the church. He, more than anyone else, has influenced evangelicalism through his preaching, through his cooperative evangelism, through his influence on Wheaton College, Fuller Seminary, Christianity Today and many other agencies.
There is an article in a journal that comments and reviews his autobiography, Just As I Am. And I think it’s worth giving you some insight into that because I think it points out the breadth of this problem. The editor of the journal says, “While Graham has become the very symbol of gentle, compassionate and loving evangelicalism, he has also become the symbol for evangelicalism that speaks cautiously, politically and non-theologically. He was never able to escape the fuzzy a-theological pragmatism of modern evangelicalism. It is Billy Graham more than any other figure in this century who helped to create by his overwhelming persona the present evangelical crisis which threatens to destroy the very institutions and causes in which Graham invested his life and energy for over 55 years,” end quote.
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thejunglemissionary
Bill
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Chris Hohnholz
I found it….well just common, that many who name the name of Christ are so weak!
Sure, we [as in truly evangelical in it's proper sense] must be mindful not to become “cold and hard” but why on earth are these ‘emergent/cultrally relevant/liberal’ so comprimising?
It is indicative of the LAST DAYS, men will be Lukewarm.
The Bible prophesies it. Remember that “lukewarm is the same temperature as our flesh”. Men gather around themselves teachers having itching ears! They want a license to sin.
Oh, come quickly, Lord Jesus!
MacArthur makes some good points:
“And, first of all, they’ve [Christians] been delivered from error to…what?…to truth. Nobody is a Christian who doesn’t believe the truth about Christ. Muslims don’t believe the truth about Christ, Buddhists don’t, non-believers don’t, Mormons don’t, Jewish people don’t, pagans in tribes don’t. If they have a heart that seeks God, if the Spirit is prompting their heart, believe me, God will deliver that truth about Christ to them so they can believe, but apart from that there’s no salvation.”
So much for the “gospel” of Billy Graham, Robert Schuller, Rick Warren.
“These people come along, Jeremiah 8:11, and they say, “Peace, peace, they have the way of peace, the way of peace, but there is no peace.” They offer you a way of peace with God, a way of reconciliation but it’s a lie, it’s a deception. They are the prophets, Jeremiah 23 says, that God didn’t send. They go but God didn’t send them. They speak but not the Word of God. False teaching brings the church in to impotence, into confusion, into heresy. The great Scottish preacher, Horatious Bonner(???) wrote of Satan and the gospel these words. “He comes as an angel of light to mislead yet pretending to lead, to blind yet professing to open the eye, to obscure and bewilder yet professing to illuminate and guide. He approaches us with fair words upon his lips, liberality, progress, culture, freedom, expansion, elevation, benevolence. He seeks to make his own out of all of these, to give the world as much of these as suits his purpose, as much as will make them content without God and without Christ and without the Holy Ghost. He sets himself against God and the things of God in every way. He can deny the gospel or he can dilute the gospel. Or he can obscure the gospel or he can neutralize the gospel. He rages against the true God, sometimes openly and coarsely and sometimes calmly and politely, making men believe he is the friend of the truth.”
So much for McLaren, Driscoll, Perry Noble, and the other Emergents.
Then he draws a good contrast:
“You can tell a true Christian, a true Christian knows the truth, understands the truth, loves the truth, lives for the truth. Nobody is saved who doesn’t. That’s the truth about who God is…the trinity, holy, the eternal sovereign of the universe, who Christ is, God incarnate in human flesh who lived a sinless life, died a substitutionary death though He was innocent of any sin, rose the third day in a physical resurrection, having conquered death ascended into heaven from where He sent the Holy Spirit, now interceding for us, some day to return and establish HIs eternal glory and Kingdom. And to believe that salvation is by grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ alone, apart from any works. It doesn’t matter that you’re trying to be a little better than the people around you. That’s the truth. And apart from that truth, nobody is saved. And if somebody is a Christian, they know that truth, they understand that truth, they believe that truth, they embrace that truth.
“Secondly, Christians have not only been delivered from error to truth but from sin to righteousness. Remember in Romans 6, go back there for a moment. Romans 6:17 and 18 is a very critical verse because it captures the essence of this deliverance doctrine. Romans 6:17, the middle of the verse, “You became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were delivered,” is what the Greek says. “You became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching, that body of doctrine, that body of truth to which you were delivered.” That was your salvation. You went out of the darkness into the light, out of error into truth. You, from the depth of your heart, obeyed that doctrine, that body of teaching regarding Jesus Christ and the gospel. You believed that. You were delivered into that.”
“The children of God and the children of the devil are obvious by their practice. James says in James 2:14 to 26, “You can say you have faith but faith without…what?…is…what?…is dead.” It doesn’t exist, it’s a non-existing thing if there’s not a pattern of evidence that you have a new life. You were, literally, the old life died, new life came, you died with Christ, you rose to walk in newness of life, you are a new creation and that new creation manifests itself in a practice of righteousness. And if the practice of righteousness isn’t there, you’re the devil’s child, not God’s. And a practice of righteousness simply means you are from the heart not only obedient to the form of doctrine, but from the heart you are obedient to its righteous standards so that true Christians believe the right thing and behave the right way. And when we do sin, it is a grief to us because we love righteousness.”
Thus the error of pragmatism. Thus the error of postmodern subjective truth. Thus the error of behaving like the world in order to “reach the lost for Christ”. And thus the error of so much that is called “missional”.
Great article. Thanks, Lyn, for sharing it!