Faith Defenders » John MacArthur

The Case Against R-Rated Church

Andy — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 19:24:24 +0000

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Consequences Of Non-Expositional Preaching (3)

Andy — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 03:09:15 +0000

Continuing our series that explores and highlights the consequences of not preaching expositionally.

It hinders the work of the Holy Spirit.

What is the instrument the Spirit uses to do His work? The Word of God. He uses the Word as the instrument of regeneration (1 Pet. 1:23; James 1:18). He also uses it as the means of sanctification (John 17:17). In fact, it is the only tool He uses (Eph. 6:17). So when preachers neglect God’s Word, they undermine the work of the Holy Spirit, producing shallow conversions and spiritually lame Christians–if not utterly spurious ones.

Excerpt from Fifteen Evil Consequences of Plexiglas Preaching

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Hard To Believe (Pt. 5 of 5)

Andy — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 08:00:57 +0000

A series of sermons from John MacArthur that examines what Jesus meant when He said “follow me”.

Today’s message is titled:-

The Starting Principle Of Discipleship

The Necessary Components of Saving Faith

The Gospel: Self Love Or Self Hate?

The Gospel In Perspective

Who’s Ashamed Of Whom?

In this message John MacArthur continues to expound the truths found in Luke 9:23-26.

A quote from today’s sermon:-

And that’s really where it all eventually comes, this matter of who goes to heaven. It’s whether or not you’re ashamed of yourself or ashamed of Jesus and His gospel. That’s the issue. And you have, by the way, plenty of things to be ashamed of, plenty. You have a lifelong record of sin, unmitigated, unrestrained and unmixed with anything that is truly righteous. Every sinner ought to be totally ashamed of himself or herself. But I’ll tell you, there is someone you shouldn’t be ashamed of and that’s Jesus. What is to be ashamed of? Perfect holiness, perfect righteousness, perfect virtue, perfect goodness, perfect knowledge, wisdom, perfect compassion, perfect love, perfect mercy, perfect grace, perfect power, perfect justice…what is to be ashamed of?

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Who’s Ashamed Of Whom?

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Consequences Of Non-Expositional Preaching (2)

Andy — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 15:24:52 +0000

Continuing our series that explores and highlights the consequences of not preaching expositionally.

It removes the lordship of Christ from His church.

Who is the Head of the church? Is Christ really the dominant teaching authority in the church? If so, then why are there so many churches where His Word is not being faithfully proclaimed? When we look at contemporary ministry, we see programs and methods that are the fruit of human invention; the offspring of opinion polls and neighborhood surveys; and other pragmatic artifices. Church-growth experts have in essence wrested control of the church’s agenda from her true Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Puritan forefathers resisted the imposition of government-imposed liturgies for precisely this reason: they saw it as a direct attack on the headship of Christ over His own church. Modern preachers who neglect the Word of God have yielded the ground those men fought and sometimes died for. When Jesus Christ is exalted among His people, His power is manifest in the church. When the church is commandeered by compromisers who want to appease the culture, the gospel is minimized, true power is lost, artificial energy must be manufactured, and superficiality takes the place of truth.

Excerpt from Fifteen Evil Consequences of Plexiglas Preaching

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Hard To Believe (Pt.4 of 5)

Andy — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 08:00:44 +0000

A series of sermons from John MacArthur that examines what Jesus meant when He said “follow me”.

Today’s message is titled:-

The Starting Principle Of Discipleship

The Necessary Components of Saving Faith

The Gospel: Self Love Or Self Hate?

The Gospel In Perspective

Who’s Ashamed Of Whom?

In this message John MacArthur continues to expound the truths found in Luke 9:23-26.

A quote from today’s sermon:-

The gospel according to Jesus Christ given in the New Testament is radically different from the typical modern message that is so often preached. In our contemporary times evangelists often portray Jesus as a somewhat frustrated, would-be Redeemer who stands outside anxiously awaiting an invitation from someone to come into his life…..

But in reality, the New Testament presents Christ as the inviter, the Savior who comes into the world, God in human flesh who invades the realm of humanity, who confronts sinners, challenges them, calls them, commands them to come to Him, to believe in Him, to turn from sin, to embrace Him as Savior and Lord. Rather than waiting for an invitation from sinners, He issues His own invitation to sinners in the form of a command to repent, and to believe, and to submit.

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The Gospel In Perspective

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Hard To Believe (Pt. 3 of 5)

Andy — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 08:00:45 +0000

A series of sermons from John MacArthur that examines what Jesus meant when He said “follow me”.

Today’s message is titled:-

The Starting Principle Of Discipleship

The Necessary Components of Saving Faith

The Gospel: Self Love Or Self Hate?

The Gospel In Perspective

Who’s Ashamed Of Whom?

In this message John MacArthur expounds on whether the gospel teaches us to love ourselves or hate ourselves..

A quote from today’s sermon:-

When you become a Christian it isn’t that all of a sudden you wake up to what you could offer God. And there are many other examples in the Scriptures of those men and women who when they really saw God were literally crushed under the weight of their own nothingness, their own sinfulness. And frankly, this is absolutely alien to the culture that we live in, it’s alien to the culture based on self-love and having every whimsical desire legitimized. Anything and everything you want you should have. You can be whatever you can be. You can…you can dream your dream and live your dream. The whole goal of life is for you to desire whatever you want to desire and see it all fulfilled insisting on rights, insisting on privileges, insisting on respect, insisting on reward and honor, and affirmation. The people who enter God’s Kingdom don’t insist on any of that. They feel themselves unworthy of any of it. People who enter into God’s Kingdom are literally overwhelmed with hatred for what they are. I hate what I am, I hate what I am, I hate what I…what I am because all that I am is sin.

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The Gospel: Self Love Or Self Hate?

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Hard To Believe (Pt. 2 of 5)

Andy — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 08:00:09 +0000

A series of sermons from John MacArthur that examines what Jesus meant when He said “follow me”.

Today’s message is titled:-

The Starting Principle Of Discipleship

The Necessary Components of Saving Faith

The Gospel: Self Love Or Self Hate?

The Gospel In Perspective

Who’s Ashamed Of Whom?

In this message John MacArthur expounds on the correct way to proclaim the gospel. The way that Jesus did it..

A quote from today’s sermon:-

The gospel that Jesus proclaimed was a call to follow Him as Lord. It was a call to follow Him in submissive obedience. It was far more than fire insurance, it was far more than a plea for a prayer, or a plea for somebody to raise their hand, or walk an aisle, or sign a card, a plea for somebody to do some sort of ceremonial thing in order to be off the hook in terms of God’s eternal wrath. And while the gospel of Jesus was and is the offer of forgiveness for all sin, and the promise of eternal life, it is at the same time a call to self-denial, bearing a cross and following Christ and nothing less is a true invitation. So that when the true gospel is presented, it has inherently in it a rebuke to superficiality, a rebuke to shallowness, a rebuke to outward hypocritical response.

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The Necessary Components Of Saving Faith

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Hard To Believe (Pt. 1 of 5)

Andy — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 08:00:40 +0000

A series of sermons from John MacArthur that examines what Jesus meant when He said “follow me”.

Today’s message is titled:-

The Starting Principle Of Discipleship

The Necessary Components of Saving Faith

The Gospel: Self Love Or Self Hate?

The Gospel In Perspective

Who’s Ashamed Of Whom?

In this message John MacArthur expounds on counting the cost of following Jesus..

A quote from today’s sermon:-

So you want to come after Jesus, do you? So you want to follow Jesus, do you? It will just cost you absolutely everything. Oh the Lord might not take your life, He might not take all your money, He might not take your family or your spouse, He might not take your job, but you need to be willing if that’s what He wants. You need to be desperate enough to embrace Christ no matter what the price.

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The Starting Principle Of Discipleship

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The Gospel According To Jesus (Pt.4 of 4)

Andy — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 08:00:49 +0000

Concluding a series of sermons from John MacArthur that examine the gospel message that Jesus himself delivered.

Today’s message is titled:-

The Lordship of Christ

The Nature of Saving Faith

The Call to Repentance

The Cost of Discipleship

In this message John MacArthur expounds on counting the cost of following Jesus..

A quote from today’s sermon:-

Discipleship…more than just being a learner, being an intimate follower, having an intimate relationship, following to the point where you would go as far as death out of love. There’s no question about the fact that the only message Jesus ever proclaimed was a message of discipleship. The call that Jesus gave was a call to follow Him, a call to submission, a call to obedience. It was never a plea to make some kind of momentary decision to acquire forgiveness and peace and heaven and then go on living anyway you wanted. The invitations of Jesus to the lost were always direct calls to a costly commitment.

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The Call To Repentance

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The Gospel According To Jesus (Pt. 3 of 4)

Andy — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 09:16:15 +0000

Continuing a series of sermons from John MacArthur that examine the gospel message that Jesus himself delivered.

Today’s message is titled:-

The Lordship of Christ

The Nature of Saving Faith

The Call to Repentance

The Cost of Discipleship

In this message John MacArthur expounds on how the call of repentance is an essential element of presenting the gospel..

A quote from today’s sermon:-

Of all the statements that I have read on the subject, the strongest one comes from Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Listen to what Spurgeon said. “There must be a true and actual abandonment of sin and a turning unto righteousness in real act and deed in every day life. Repentance, to be sure, must be entire. How many will say, Sir, I will renounce this sin and the other…but there are certain darling lusts which I must keep and hold? Oh, sirs, in God’s name let me tell you, it is not the giving up of one sin, nor 50 sins which is true repentance. It is the solemn renunciation of every sin. If thou dost harbor one of those accursed vipers in thy heart and dost give up every other, that one lust like one leak in a ship will sink thy soul. Think it not sufficient to give up thy outward vices, fancy it not enough to cut off the more corrupt sins of thy life, it is all or none which God demands. Repent, says He, and when He bids you repent, He means repent of all thy sins otherwise He can never accept thy repentance as real and genuine. All sin must be given up or else you will never have Christ. All transgression must be renounced or else the gates of heaven must be barred against you. Let us remember then that for repentance to be sincere, it must be entire repentance. True repentance is a turning of the heart as well as of the life. It is the giving up of the whole soul to God to be His forever and ever. It is the renunciation of the sins of the heart as well as the crimes of the life,” end quote.

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The Call To Repentance

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Is not My word like a fire and like a hammer?

Andy — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 09:49:09 +0000

The church today loves hard hearts.

You say, “How do you know that?”

Oh, they love hard hearts. “How do you know?”

Because of soft preaching. Soft preaching produces hard hearts. It’s just how it is. We would like to think that soft words produce soft hearts, they don’t. Soft words produce hard hearts. And if you preach a soft, easy, popular, soothing message that doesn’t trouble the mind or the heart or anything in-between, if you preach that kind of stuff then you’re content with a hard heart.

Hard preaching makes soft hearts because preaching the authoritative truth of the Word of God breaks down the walls of rebellion. It’s like Jeremiah said, “Your word is a hammer. It’s a fire,” Jeremiah 23:29. It’s like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces. God wants a broken heart, doesn’t he, and a contrite heart. How you gonna break that up? Not with soft, soothing words. You’re gonna come in with the truth and it’s gonna break up the hard heart. So you know that people today are content with hard hearts.

Hard hearts mean disobedient hearts, sinful hearts. They’re content with that because they preach soft messages. Hard preaching makes soft hearts. And I said this, you know, wherever a person is hard is where the Word of God has to be applied. So we don’t make any equivocation. If this is true then we preach it as the truth, not in an unloving way or an ungracious way. Once we determine it’s the truth then it’s God’s truth and God’s truth is always binding, right?

Always binding.

John MacArthur – Why Biblical Christianity Is Intolerant in an Age of Tolerance

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The Gospel According To Jesus (Pt. 2 of 4)

Andy — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 08:41:03 +0000

Continuing a series of sermons from John MacArthur that examine the gospel message that Jesus himself delivered.

Today’s message is titled:-

The Lordship of Christ

The Nature of Saving Faith

The Call to Repentance

The Cost of Discipleship

In this message John MacArthur expounds the nature of true saving faith, contrasting it with the faith that is presented by easy believism.

A quote from today’s sermon:-

Saving faith is like that of the little child, if you don’t come to Me, Jesus said in Matthew 18:4, as a little child, you can’t enter My Kingdom. It’s humble, obedient, permanent and it’s a gift from God. You didn’t stir it up, God gave it to you and He sustains it.

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The Nature Of Saving Faith

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The Gospel According To Jesus (Pt. 1 of 4)

Andy — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 10:32:45 +0000

Over the next few weeks, God willing, the intention is to present a series of sermons from John MacArthur that examine the gospel message that Jesus himself delivered.

The titles of the messages are:-

The Lordship of Christ

The Nature of Saving Faith

The Call to Repentance

The Cost of Discipleship

By way of an introduction the first message focuses on the Lordship of Christ and whether it is necessary to recognise and submit to Christ’s lordship in order to be saved. Topics covered in this sermon include easy believism, carnal christians, liberalism, the doctrine of hell, evangelism and the evangelism of Jesus.

A quote from today’s sermon:-

Nowhere in Scripture does it ever say a Christian is to make Christ Lord. If you’re a Christian, He is Lord. And it does say, very explicitly in Scripture, that unless you acknowledge that fact that He is Lord, you could never be saved in the first place.

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The Lordship of Christ

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Consequences Of Non-Expositional Preaching (13)

Andy — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 08:52:36 +0000

Continuing our series that explores and highlights the consequences of not preaching expositionally.

It lies to people about what they really need.

In Jeremiah 8:11, God condemns the prophets who treated people’s wounds superficially. That verse applies powerfully to the plastic preachers that populate so many prominent evangelical pulpits today. They omit the hard truths about sin and judgment. They tone down the offensive parts of Christ’s message. They lie to people about what they really need, promising them “fulfillment” and earthly well-being–when what people really need is an exalted vision of Christ and a true understanding of the splendor of God’s holiness.

Excerpt from Fifteen Evil Consequences of Plexiglas Preaching

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Consequences Of Non-Expositional Preaching (9)

Andy — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 13:49:22 +0000

Continuing our series that explores and highlights the consequences of not preaching expositionally.

It prevents the preacher from being the voice of God on every issue of his time.

Jeremiah 8:9 says, “The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken. Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord; so what wisdom do they have?” When I speak, I want to be God’s messenger. I’m not interested in exegeting what some psychologist, or business guru, or college professor has to say about an issue. My people don’t need my opinion; they need to hear what God has to say. If we preach as Scripture commands us, there should be no ambiguity about whose message is coming from the pulpit.

Excerpt from Fifteen Evil Consequences of Plexiglas Preaching

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Quote (8) – John MacArthur

Andy — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 01:12:19 +0000

As a Christian you know who you need? Jesus Christ, you know what else you need, Nothing! He is all in all, isn’t He? Christ plus nothing. You don’t need special visions. You don’t need conversations with angels. You don’t need some kind of self-imposed piosity. You don’t need to keep a bunch of rules. You just hold fast to the head, from whom all the body by its joints and ligaments is nourished and knit together and increases with the increase of God. You just hold to the one who holds the whole church together.

Source

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Assurance of salvation comes from God alone

Christless Christianity: 2010 West Coast Conference

Andy — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 21:18:15 +0000

A hard hitting seminar/sermon in which John MacArthur doesn’t mince his words in taking to task the messages of The Secret, The Shack, TBN and Joel Osteen along with a few other name checks along the way. After spending the first 30 minutes detailing some of the many errors of these books and ministries he uses the last 30 minutes to preach a true gospel message from 1 Peter 1:3-5.

Becoming A Better You

This video is hosted by Ligonier Ministries.

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Consequences Of Non-Expositional Preaching (6)

Andy — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 03:13:29 +0000

Revisiting our series that explores and highlights the consequences of not preaching expositionally.

It clouds the true depth and transcendence of our message and therefore cripples both corporate and personal worship.

What passes for preaching in some churches today is literally no more profound than what preachers in our fathers’ generation were teaching in the five-minute children’s sermon they gave before dismissing the kids. That’s no exaggeration. It is often that simplistic, if not utterly inane. There is nothing deep about it. Such an approach makes it impossible for true worship to take place, because worship is a transcendent experience. Worship should take us above the mundane and simplistic. So the only way true worship can occur is if we first come to grips with the depth of spiritual truth. Our people can only rise high in worship in the same proportion to which we have taken them deep into the profound truths of the Word. There is no way they can have lofty thoughts of God unless we have plunged them into the depths of God’s self-revelation. But preaching today is neither profound nor transcendent. It doesn’t go down and it doesn’t go up. It merely aims to entertain.

By the way, true worship is not something that can be stimulated artificially. A bigger, louder band and more sentimental music might do more to stir people’s emotions. But that is not genuine worship. True worship is a response from the heart to God’s truth (John 4:23). You can actually worship without music if you have seen the glories and the depth of what the Bible teaches.

This article originally appeared here at Grace to You.

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Consequences Of Non-Expositional Preaching (11)

How to live in a pagan society.

John — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:06:46 +0000

Here is a link at an article over at Sola Dei Gloria, which contains the transcript of an excellent message spoken by John MacArthur that really is challenging, and is a message we as Christians need to take note of.

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The Emerging Church – John MacArthur

Andy — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:21:20 +0000

John MacArthur discusses the critical issues involving the Emergent church movement.

Part 1

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH1yOmij7Q4

Part 2

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG3VNrfJsLI

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Beware: Signs You May Have Just Entered… The Emergent Church Zone